#a long and arduous process in my experience

[mugwot]

sometimes you sound bit too mean, it happens

it was Supposed to be in colour, and them the bw version Just Looked better

this is mostly based on this meme

#biggest thanks to the person in the discord who just i guess had this screenshot On Hands?? i would not be able to find it #kinda feel like im burning out with art #should take a rest probably #isat #in stars and time #is this spoilers??? probably not??? maybe??? will tag in case #isat spoilers #isat siffrin #isat isabeau #is mostly there as eye candy #any one of the party members could be there #the attitudes would be different tho #i like having at least a vague sense of blackstory for things like this so isa has just finished shopping for fabricks #a long and arduous process in my experience #i feel so bad that i cant draw stylish clothes isa deserves better but i am supremely unfashionable #my art #comic

[mercuriians]

do you feel like a young god?

synopsis ☆ blade wishes that his path had never collided with yours.

content info — NSFW (minors stay away 😡 i'm warning you), angst angst angst, fem! reader, regular fic but with a twist on the format. violence at the very end so be aware of that.

word count — 2.1k words.

author's note — this has been in my drafts forever. normally i don't write angst but i was listening to halsey's badlands album & it instantly gave birth to this fic. the entire album is so blade coded that it hurts. anyways this is just 100% pain and smut, there is no comfort. nonetheless i hope you enjoy this drabble and its unplanned christmas theme (i apologize in advance 😓) ALSO i'm working on reqs as we speak i swear

BLADE has never had time to entertain romantic affairs, or even indulge in spontaneous sexual encounters. such matters reeked of the kind of superficial sentimentality that he's long discarded due to its blatant, disgusting lack of appeal. since he’s remembered, all he’s ever really wanted is to taste death, to be enrobed within its earnest invitation and to finally relieve himself of his all-consuming burden. there was no room for anything else—especially something as trivial as fulfilling the human heart’s wishes.

YOU didn't plan to get involved with the agenda of the stellaron hunters, but perhaps your hopes were ultimately futile when your older sister was their very leader. really, what's funny was the fact that even though you two were related by blood, and were raised together, you only shared two traits: a sharp gaze tinted with magenta and the useful gift of perception. otherwise, you might as well have been nameless strangers. you were kind, forgiving, and preferred to heal rather than harm; kafka was the complete opposite, her manicured fingers gleefully stained with scarlet.

BLADE remembers finding himself in an unusual state of confusion when he had first met you. your appearance in itself contrasted against your team members; whereas they wore dark shades of black, purple, and red, you were clad in smooth clothes of pure silver, which didn’t make sense since they would end up dirtied and tainted either way. he remembers disapproving of your very presence because you seemed entirely unfit to fulfill your job—to kill mercilessly and to follow elio's script without an ounce of remorse or hesitation. "you don't belong here," he'd sneered, his vexation only increasing when he saw the docile smile you'd given him in response.

YOU weren't ever truly angered by the blatant acts of disrespect that blade displayed during the earliest stages of your connection. some would argue that you possessed the patience of a saint, and though you wouldn't exactly disprove such a claim, you'd say that it extended far beyond that. there was something you saw behind the scarlet hue of blade's gaze, something that lain dormant behind all the hostility. for a reason unknown, you soon grew the desire to discover it, and to maybe in turn help the man in some way. it didn't matter if a part of your soul had to be sacrificed—you would do it.

BLADE found it all too easy to decline your attempts. it was a continuous, repetitive process, where you’d seek him out and offer a few questions that seemed unassuming at first, and he’d respond by pointing out the obvious holes ruining your facade. he didn’t know why you were suddenly so eager to uncover information about him—or, to “properly acquaint yourself” as you’d innocently described it—but he didn’t care either way because it wasn’t worth trying to. at least those were the words he told himself for the first four months.

YOU managed to break down the weakest parts of blade’s walls by the fifth month. it was slow, and arduous, and yes, a bit frustrating—hearing him curse you out wasn’t really a motivating experience—but ultimately your efforts prevailed in the end. finally, if only a little bit, he opened up to you, and he began giving short but actual responses instead of a mere grunt or a simple click of the tongue. and so he started filling in small snippets about himself. how he found pleasure in the familiarity of a sword. how he despised the way your sister called him ‘bladie.’ how kuding tea was one of his preferred drinks. how he couldn’t remember the last time he dreamt in his slumber.

BLADE was rather astounded by the change in behavior you seemed to have withdrawn from him. at first he denied the reality and brushed off the occurrence as him simply taking the easier route, so that he didn’t continue to waste unnecessary effort on dodging your pesky questions. but here was the truth—he wasn’t lazy, ever. he always did things for a reason, always justified his actions with some kind of logic, no matter how immoral. something strange was happening, and he wasn’t entirely sure why, but he still tried to maintain a form of apathetic distance. blade convinced himself that things were remaining strictly professional. even as his pale hands somehow found themselves entangled within your soft hair during one stormy night, and even as his chapped lips pressed against yours.

YOU were surprised but not at all unwelcoming of the unorthodox suggestion that blade gave you one day. in a tone that betrayed no emotion, he asked—well, perhaps demanded—that you two enter a sort of arrangement that he called “being each other’s respective stress relief.” in a more straightforward, explicit manner, you two would use each other for physical pleasure whenever needed. that was where the intimacy started, and it was where it ended. with your heart beating a bit more than it should have, you agreed. blade smiled—a small, predatory kind of smile—before engulfing you in a harsh kiss, backing you into the wall as his hand squeezed around your neck.

BLADE relished the sounds that he was able to elicit from you—sweet, pretty little moans, desperate, high-pitched whines, and of course, the breathless mantra of his own name. every ounce of it made him swell with smug pride, and made his cock harden even more. your eyes would shut tightly whenever you felt particularly overwhelmed with pleasure, and of course he’d always force you to open them. after all he needed you to see just how much of a slut you were for him, just how much he’d ruin you with the marks he’d leave all over your skin and the countless orgasms he’d trigger within you. somewhere in the very back of his mind, there was a faint voice that warned him of the territory he was threatening to cross, just barely short of touching the edge. but he ignored it in favor of savoring the depraved sense of exhilaration that electrified his veins, knowing that he was the one corrupting his colleague’s sweet, innocent, naive little sister.

YOU found your heart beating impossibly faster every time your lips met his, every time he quietly snuck into your quarters and whispered things that were only for you to hear. of course it was only inevitable that you fell in love with the man himself. long forgotten was your goal to solely fix him because in a strange, almost twisted way, it was like you were healing yourself with every scorching touch of his fingers, every relentless thrust of his hips. and for better or for worse, it felt like he was starting to care for you against all odds, and you saw it through the littlest of things. how his dull scarlet eyes seemed to brighten just for a second when he saw you, how he started to stay the night after he ravished you, how his fingers traced your beautifully bruised skin with an uncharacteristic gentleness when he thought you were asleep. you loved it, and soon his embrace was the only thing you learned to crave.

BLADE seemed like he was caught in a peculiar trance ever since you two had agreed to the "stress relief" arrangement. it was unimaginable, really—or at least it should have been. not once had he felt such unbridled emotion for a woman, or for any person in general. he detested the sensation at first. hated how vulnerable it made him feel. so, whenever he felt particularly exposed, whenever you smiled at him for too long, he used your body as a distraction. he'd mark your skin as if he was nothing more than a mindless animal, would pin both your wrists above your head as he snarled, hips smacking against yours. the strategy would work for some time, but the moment he saw you fall into a peaceful slumber—exhausted from all the rigorous activity—the emotions would come rushing at him again, full force. soon there was a voice at the back of his mind, whispering of how he was falling into a trap. one that he had arrogantly, unknowingly set for himself.

YOU started to feel a shift in blade's behavior, noticing how he became more distant as the days passed. your conversations shortened and shortened until they became almost reminiscent of the ones you'd have at the beginning of your relationship. your nightly sessions dwindled in frequency, eventually reaching the point where he barely even knocked on your door at all. all of it drove you to the brink of insanity, worry consuming every ounce of your being until you couldn't handle it anymore. "what the hell?" you had hissed, pulling the man aside once silver wolf and your sister had retreated to their quarters for the night. "why won't you talk to me, blade? what did i do?" but even that didn't work. all he did was scoff and push past your figure, shaking off your grip when you reached out for him. the next day, you were so distraught that, in a fit of desperation, you asked your sister for help. but the only thing you received was a look of warped pity and an obscure comment. "once the candle burns out, the room grows dark again." kafka murmured.

BLADE couldn't handle any of it anymore, his seemingly endless endurance having reached past its limit. he hated the way you looked at him in confusion and anger, and most of all, betrayal, as if he had stabbed you in the back. he might as well have. but above that, he hated the way you reminded him of his curse's weight. in another life, he had thought of immortality as a gift—a gleaming trophy awarded only to those who had gone above and beyond to prove their superiority. how foolish he had been. immortality was a burden, its pressure so insurmountable that it felt heavier than holding up the sky itself. from the very beginning, he'd known that being immortal meant that he'd have to watch the people around him fall prey to death's embrace, but somehow that simple fact evaded his mind when he—it still pains him to admit this—developed feelings for you. he wasn't quite sure if what he felt was love in its raw form, but he was pretty damn certain that it was the closest he was going to ever get. because as selfishly and disgustingly sentimental as it was, the last thing he wanted was to see you wither with age, until you were nothing more than another corpse. and so with a shaky breath, and an unstable heart, he decided to handle the situation in the only way he knew how to.

the truth was that YOU truly were one of the most perceptive people out there, even as heartbreak dulled your senses. so you heard the muted footsteps and saw the swiftly approaching shadow. you knew who it was, even without sparing a glance. still, you remained motionless, your movements almost painfully frozen as your eyes slid shut. tears silently rolled down your face, staining your skin even before the sword pierced through your chest. crimson seeped through your silver blouse like ink on a blank canvas. you fell to the ground, exhaling unshakily, unrivaled pain blooming within every inch of your body. you felt the strength being drained from your spirit, but you mustered the will to meet blade's scarlet gaze. "guess i should have expected this, huh?" you murmur, fingers moving to feel where he'd stabbed you. silently, blade crouched down to your level, his expression unreadable. you reached for his hand, neither of you flinching when his skin became stained with your blood.

"all of this was a mistake," BLADE muttered, tone betraying not even an ounce of emotion. still, he kept his fingers intertwined with yours, and that action alone was enough. "my fate is already determined, but you sealed your own the second you approached me." the wind was cold and unforgiving around the two of you, its invisible talons recklessly combing through the man's ebony strands of hair. but blade paid it no mind, not even when a particularly harsh gust threatened to overwhelm your last words. and as time would tell, those were the very words that would haunt him in the future.

"i'd seal my fate over and over if it meant that i'd see you happy again." you whispered, and for once you failed to notice one crucial detail.

for the first and last time, blade's vision grew blurry from his tears.

#honkai star rail #hsr fanfic #hsr x reader #hsr blade #blade honkai #blade x reader #blade smut #hsr smut #honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail fanfic #hsr angst #blade angst #hsr kafka #kafka honkai star rail #hsr silver wolf #silver wolf hsr #✎— ❝devon writes❞

[junggunz]

blood on me ft. gun park | 🔞

summary: your former mentor cuts you from training under him without any reason. when he finally speaks to you after weeks of radio silence, you're shocked by the confession he makes. cw: fembodied!reader, smut, long ass build up tbh sorry, established relationship, power imbalances - reader was a candidate for becoming gun's successor, oral (f and m receiving), p in v, gun is lowkey a creep ngl, wc: 3k an: omg i can finally cross ONE thing off my to do list after this long smh. as usual, im killing two birds with one stone. someone asked for gun + sixty nining ages ago and i have an entire playlist of song fics to do. if you've seen the playlist, ignore the fact i skipped a few songs lmao.

temporary shame, I know you like the taste.

Rejected Prodigy. It’s your contact name in Gun’s phone. But he would never let you know that he even bothered to go through the hassle of finding your phone number number. Or the fact that he’s been secretly tracking your location just to see what you’re up to without needing to actually speak to you. Fascination borderlining on obsession was the best way to describe how Gun felt toward you. 

It would be a lie to say that he wasn’t impressed by your fighting prowess. Goo had once made a comment that didn’t sit well with your soul, provoking you to knock him out was just a small display of just how much strength you held in such an unassuming body. 

Alongside god tier level fighting skills, you had impeccable leadership. A natural talent for making money. And your gorgeous face that was more than enough to get others to bend to your will was the cherry on top. Despite the way you subtly reminded Gun of Samuel in his earlier days with the way you desperately craved his approval, you were the perfect candidate to be his replacement for when he wanted to retire. 

However, Gun eventually cuts you off. He has no problem announcing it in front of all the other candidates that there are multiple reasons why you’re eliminated. As much as you pressed and tried to pry to get Gun to divulge his thought process to you, he wouldn’t relent or explain what those reasons were. In his mind, Gun is aware that the reasons he decided to sever ties with you are petty but that doesn’t mean much to him; the idea of having to utter the exact reasons to your face about your disqualification is what keeps him tight lipped and fills him with shame. 

If getting his arm broken by Daniel was better than any night Gun had with a woman, having you give him a concussion sent him straight to Nirvana. During a one on one training session against him, sparring with you had left Gun with an uncomfortable tightness in his pants. You made it impossible for him to focus on anything besides how your body feels against him when you put him into a chokehold. With how intoxicating your fragrance is, it was almost like he found comfort in you crushing his windpipe. He was more than willing to pass out in your embrace. Most— if not all— of the sweat he shed had come from a place of his body burning up with lust rather than physical exertion. Seeing that you had the physical strength to overwhelm him, the last thing he wanted was to give you an emotional upperhand by making you aware of how he felt toward you. 

Meanwhile, Gun rejecting you after all his arduous training you endured was enough to push you to resent him. Having him break your spirit this way felt akin to a romantic heartbreak and it was the most revolting experience you’ve had. You couldn’t stand how much time you wasted trying to get his approval. How much effort you put toward attempting to impress a cold blooded killer. What pissed you off even more was the slight chance that he was just fucking with you for the hell of it. Faced with the task of trying to figure out how to best serve the cold platter of revenge to him, the infamous Shiro Oni occupied way more space in your mind than you would like to admit. 

You don’t keep track of how long you’ve gone without seeing your former mentor, but Gun sure does. It’s exactly 4 weeks. 1 day. 1 hour. And approximately 24 minutes since the two of you cross paths. With how tenacious you seemed about being accepted by him, Gun assumed that you would be the one to reach out to him first. Preferably groveling and begging for another chance, but you showing off your talents to sway him was something he wouldn’t pass up either. Your pride doesn’t allow you to seek him out and instead, he is the one who has to make the sacrifice; showing up to where you were hanging out for the day. 

Gun expected you to be delighted to see him again, perhaps elated by thoughts of him giving you a second chance. You’re not. He expected you to lash out at him once he noticed the look of annoyance cross your face upon locking eyes with him. You don’t. Your lack of reaction shouldn’t make him want you even more; but it does anyway. And with how much distance that’s been put between the two of you, his heart has grown quite fond of you. Even if he wouldn’t use that exact verbiage.

When you try to leave the area, Gun closes the distance between the two of you with just a few strides of his long legs and catches you by the wrist, holding you in an ironclad grip that frustrates you as much as it renders you stuck. With how weakly you try to escape his grasp, Gun begins to ponder why you hadn’t pulled one of your various tricks to shake him. Wishful thinking wants to believe that you secretly like his touch. However, he could admit that his thoughts tend to get deluded when it comes to you.

“Come with me, I think we should have a little chat.” Gun tells you, not really giving you any other option besides following him peacefully or making a scene in public. Quite honestly, you don’t care about causing a disturbance but you find yourself going along with Gun anyway solely because you’re curious about what he was to say. 

The nearest private space happens to be his car and he doesn’t think twice before opening the door for you and not so gently ushering you into the passenger seat before he gets into the driver’s side. He’s quick to lock the doors from his seat and when you hear the locks click, you groan loudly.

“You reject me and now you’re holding me hostage. What the hell is your issue?” You snap, looking at him with your brows furrowed. 

“You’re my issue.” Gun responds without missing a beat, dark eyes holding your gaze; the expression he wears is one you haven’t seen before and it makes you freeze up. “You wanna know why I eliminated you?”

You brace yourself, expecting him to tear you down and go into excruciating detail about every single one of your shortcomings. Having experienced it first hand when he humiliated you in front of the other candidates, you know Gun isn’t one to spare anyone’s feelings. If you were terrible at something, he had no problem picking you apart and if you did well…sometimes he’d give you a compliment. It was all a matter of how nice he was feeling in the moment. 

You waited for him to spit his venom at you and eat away at the last shred of respect you had for him. But it never comes. Instead, you get his scarred hand grabbing your face and staring you down with narrowed eyes that resemble the icy and collected yet predatory stare of a snake. 

“I can’t have a successor that makes me lose focus while training.” Gun says to you through gritted teeth almost as if it pains him to tell you this. 

Hearing this from him doesn’t give you the closure you sought out and only prompts more questions to arise in your mind. Keeping your eyes locked on his, he doesn’t see your hand reaching for his wrist and going for the pressure point. Inhaling sharply at the sudden shock, he releases your jaw from his hold with an anguished laugh.

“Are you fucking serious? That’s it?” You practically snarl, your gaze being fiery enough to cause him to feel suffocated with the intense atmosphere the two of you sit in. 

“What were you expecting to hear?” He questions as a lopsided smirk graces his lips. “If it were simply a matter of you being unskilled, I'd have no problem announcing that to everyone else. It’d be embarrassing if I had to admit out loud that you were rejected just because you evoke more…primal emotions within me.”

Upon hearing Gun’s admission, you need to stay quiet for a bit. You knew if you said something immediately, all that would come from your mouth is a series of curses and swears that would make a sailor blush. Jaw tensing up, your anger steadily bubbling within you, your emotional control is really being tested. The petty reason for your disqualification makes you want to rip his head off, yet you’re filled with a sense of pride knowing that you now know one of Gun’s weak spots. 

All the days you spent toiling over ideas of getting back at him weren’t in vain because now you were being rewarded with him telling you verbatim that it’s you who’s his Achilles heel. Expression softening as you fall into the role of a temptress, you call out to him like a Siren; your hand boldly settling on his inner thigh. 

“Don’t waste anymore time telling me how you feel and just show me.” You taunt him, eyes glossed over with a dangerous lust that challenges him to cross the threshold and forever alter the relationship dynamic the two of you had. “I would have never guessed that all those times I caught you staring at me, you were looking at me with lust and not just criticism.” You muse, mostly to yourself. Even if you were using sex as a means of messing with his mind, there was no denying that you would no longer see him as a former mentor who bruised your ego and he wouldn’t view you as the star pupil he had to drop due to conflicts of interest. 

There’s nothing at stake for the two of you and it’s exactly why you let Gun take you back to his place. As soon as the door closes behind you, you have a moment where you almost want to back out; knowing that making Gun think you wanted him back only to leave him high and dry would be enough of a mindfuck for him. But when you feel his lips collide with yours, the unmistakable sense of carnality he kisses you with is infectious. You find yourself genuinely craving him and needing to feel more of him even if you had never thought of him that way prior. 

Barely getting your shoes off, Gun embraces you in an almost possessive manner, trapping your frame in his arms and forcing you to feel just how hot he got for you. 

“Don’t think I’m gonna let you get off so easily.” He murmurs against your lips when he finally breaks the kiss. 

You should have known better to think for even for a second that he would permit you to leave once he’s finally gotten you back. It took a lot of effort for him to set aside his pride and be vulnerable with you about how he felt. But Gun swore to himself that he would make sure he dragged you down with him into the pit of maddening lust he was wading through. 

Clothes fly off in a frenzy, tarnishing the once immaculate space of his penthouse and leave a trail of garments that lead down the hall to his bedroom. It’s a fight to get you into the position he wants; however, that only made the experience more exhilarating for him. 

Despite you being the one on top, you’re rendered into a state of vulnerability due to how exposed you are. Your pussy in his face, his rough hands anchored on your ass to keep you in place to prevent you from wriggling out of his hold.  Any semblance of power slips out of your hands when you start moaning along his cock while Gun’s tongue starts to lap at your clit. Not wanting to be outdone by him, the one hand you keep on his shaft tightens its hold; jerking him faster while you continue to suckle on the head of his length and tease the tip with your tongue. You’re pleased by how easily it causes him to buck his hips into your mouth, but you hate how his size makes you gag and drool around him. Sputtering and gasping as you pull your mouth off of him, a choked out moan escapes you while Gun eats you out so voraciously. 

“You’re just good at everything, aren’t you?” Gun chuckles softly into your flesh, trying to mask the moan that tickles his throat when he feels your tongue swirling around the tip of his cock and digging into the slit. It’s an involuntary response when his hips buck into your mouth, forcing you to take more of him into your mouth. The uncomfortable stretch of your jaw grounds you in the moment, letting you know that this wasn’t some fucked up dream portraying the deepest secrets of your subconscious. You were seriously topping off Gun. Drooling all over his perfect cock like some brain dead slut. In his bed—while his tongue worked your soaked folds and gifted you a pleasure you didn’t think was humanly possible.  

When your need for oxygen finally outweighs your desire to make him cum, you pull away from his cock; panting heavily while one hand continues to pump him sloppily and the other almost lovingly caresses his balls.

“I fucking hate you.” You mutter in that breathy voice that Gun had become oh so enamored with whenever you spoke to him after the two of you would finish sparring. Senses clouded by each flick of his sinful tongue against your private parts, you can’t even string together the words to mock him when you feel his cock twitching in your palm.  

“If you hate me so much, why are you so wet?” He coos in a sickeningly sweet tone, one his hands relinquishing the tight hold on your ass before he dips one of his long fingers into your pussy; a pleased hum rumbling in his throat as he feels how your walls slurp up the lone digit. “Why are you working so hard to make me cum if you hate me?” 

Thankful that he couldn’t currently see the look of embarrassment that washes over your face, your grip on his cock tightens at the sound of him patronizing you. Your hold is so rigid, it almost hurts but Gun was keen on the pain. In retaliation, two more fingers join the one he had inside of you and you whine at the stretch. Your hips lurch buck incessantly; unsure whether you wanted more of him or if you were trying to escape. Alas, he had made it clear early on that any attempts of getting away from him were futile. 

“So wet but still so fucking tight like a virgin. I hope you don’t bleed on my sheets.” He laughs darkly, both of you knowing that his fingers couldn’t compare to the girthy length you currently held in your hand. Fully giving into the demons of lust, your body slackens on top of Gun’s as you lean in to take his cock into your mouth again now that your breathing has evened out.  

There’s an obvious switch that’s been triggered in your brain. You definitely feel the change—and so can Gun as your tongue drags along the veins of his cock with even more precision and care. All efforts to make him cum first are in vain and you end up with quivering thighs and ragged breathing while you're overcome with a bliss you've never known until now. Your obscene moans are mostly muffled due to your mouth being filled by Gun’s length, your lips are poutier than usual when he gently pulls you away and you have no other choice but to admit your defeat. 

Limbs oh so malleable and your mind vacant as a result of the intensity of your orgasm, your resistance is the least of Gun’s worries when he rearranges your body on top of his. There’s no time to fuss or fret about how much you secretly enjoy the feeling of laying back against his broad, muscular chest before he’s grabbing you by the back of the knees to keep your legs apart while the tip of his cock breaches your entrance. Writhing in his hold, you take in each inch with little whimpers trying to get past your lips; the stretch blurring the lines between pain and pleasure. Not even giving you a moment to gather yourself, Gun is rutting his hips up into you, his veiny cock gliding in and out of your hole with his feet firmly planted on to his bed to aid him in keeping his consistently quick pace.                                                                                                                                      

Squeezing your eyes shut, you endure being split open by him. You felt like you were being carried off into cloud nine as the sting of his cock stretching you out had now blossomed into a mind numbing pleasure. Being rendered into this state of submissiveness by your former mentor caused you to give up on thinking about anything else but the sensation of his heavy cock filling you up and hitting all the right spots with minimal effort. The low groans and growls you could hear him emitting from behind you had been the cherry on top, making you even more excited. 

“We could make this a regular thing if you like it this much, you know?” Gun mumbles in your ear as if he was able to sift through the simple thoughts drifting in your mind. 

Whether or not you wanted to fall back into the routine of seeing Gun on a weekly basis and doing a different type of cardio would linger in your head. But for now, all you wanted was to test both your limits and see how much elation he could bring you in one night.

#lookism smut #lookism x reader #lookism gun x reader #gun x reader #gun park scenarios #gun park smut #junggunz.txt

[prettysweetprettysweet]

So I was thinking further about the issue at the heart of this post regarding how a lot of the audience is put off or puzzled by Achi's way of conducting himself in relation to Karan, how he seems too reserved, low-energy, or minimally invested in their relationship. I've been thinking on another circumstance that I think influences it beyond the issues I had talked about in my post.

At the beginning of our story, Achi seems to be completely adjusted to a life without romantic love or sexual relationships. When reminded of cultural expectations about all the necessary milestones for men his age, he does feel insecure and unhappy about falling short, but beyond that he probably doesn't spend an awful lot of time in a headspace where he would contemplate romance and sex at a deeper more emotion-based level. I think support for this idea is that he only made an attempt at instigating a romantic relationship (bringing coffee to a colleague) when he was feeling insecure about turning 30. When he overheard her saying essentially that he was undateable, his sadness came more from what he saw as confirmation that he was too boring to be loved rather than the loss of a potential relationship.

Achi's baseline seems to be that he doesn't spend significant time thinking about romance in relation to himself, not with good emotions - he thinks about romance mostly in terms of being a measure of failure and a gauge of character (no person has wanted to even kiss me, so I must really be an unappealing and unremarkable person) - completely detached from what makes love what it is, an incredible feeling of adoration, comfort, safety, etc. At the beginning of the story, Karan's role in his life is solely as a model of what he should be and a daily reminder that, from Achi's point of view, he is not talented, smart, unique, driven, handsome, or likable enough to reach the milestones that Karan has.

Because Achi doesn't invest much in romance, and because the idea of being in a relationship with someone as perfect as Karan is so ludicrous as to be inconceivable to him, there is absolutely zero connection in his mind between the idea of Karan and the idea of romance at the point in time when he discovers that Karan thinks about him in romantic terms near constantly. At the heart of the struggle is Achi needing to transform his view of his worth as a human being, so that he can truly give credence to the concept of he and Karan genuinely being in love with each other.

But something that I think is being overlooked is that Achi has a huge mental and emotional task in transforming how he views Karan. He needs to dismantle the idea of Karan being an idol - a model to aspire to, envy, and resent for his effortless perfection - and reposition this new, real Karan into a romantic and sexual context. That is a very layered, intricate task that can only be worked on by spending more and more time with Karan.

It is funny, though, how often idol worship bleeds into romantic yearning. We've heard Achi say some spin on Karan being the most perfect, most handsome, most prized, most kind and considerate man in the world over a dozen times. The root feelings are there - he just needs to weed out the negative thoughts and emotions that he's associated with Karan for seven long years, and try to view him as a real person with love and desire for him instead of some abstract ideological concept of male perfection.

That would be an arduous process for anyone, but especially for Achi, who thinks he has no instinct for love and desire, and zero experience to draw from. This fact coupled with his abysmal view of himself means that Achi is receiving and synthesizing Karan's overtures at a glacial pace, slow to react and completely unsure about what's right and wrong or what's normal and strange. And, really, he's just getting used to being a person who talks to another person with no masks or airs. He's realizing that he actually can offer words and thoughts from his inner self, out loud -- and that he has an avid, invested, passionate listener in Karan.

Randomly - one of my favorite illustrations of this whole thing is Achi sitting audience to Karan as he's soaking himself in water, and Achi is just...completely silent, hypnotized, deeply studious but also smiling unconsciously from some good feeling he's getting from seeing Karan like this. I was so proud of him for that moment, like yesssss the flames of physical desire are being fanned! You gawk at that boy, Achi!

Anyways I sort of think of it like one of those pictures that changes depending on the angle and distance you're viewing it from. From far away and a profoundly unhappy angle, Karan is the perfect man that Achi will never be. when he moves in close and tilts his head back upright, Karan is now a beautiful, complex, flawed man that is deeply in love with him and inspires those same feelings in return. Achi just has to get himself to that place.

#cherry magic #cherry magic thailand #cherry magic th #karanachi #yo mismo #thai bl #tay tawan #taynew #new thitipoom #ไทย

[kechiwrites]

YOU SAID YOU WANT CAPTAIN PRICE STUFF?? welll sheeeit idk, price giving you a ‘goodbye’ before the mission the best way he knows???? 😩😩😩🥺

Oh Captain, My Captain.

captain john price x reader

synopsis: your husband gets deployed, you get some dick. it's the natural order of things.

cw: afab!reader, no pronouns + gendered language, anal, like a lot of it, married people being freak nasty as they should, cunnilingus, established relationship, fingering, my blatant disregard for spellcheck or grammar, no use of y/n ever, mdni (seriously...stop.)

an: gotta get my yayas out somehow, i can't believe i havent written about him or soap yet. quick someone bring me a soap idea too. thank u so much my angel Val, this sparked joy in me fr. also price is 40, no i dont take criticism, the cod team told me, my uncle works at nintendo.

I'm obsessed with the facial hair, unfortunately. And I just know he's loud. Like really loud. Like, no, never in public, because you're getting found out, loud.

Him saying goodbye goes much like it always does. It's customary at this point; he gets deployed, you're worried about your husband dying in some secret op in the middle of nowhere, you ask him to leave you a creampie to remember him by. As if he won't be back to fuck you into unconscious when he returns. You promise him a night of his favourites. Pussy and ass.

Between the mustache and the way that man groans into the lips of your pussy, getting eaten out by Price is literally a heavenly experience, a brush with God, feels more like a treat for you, but by god does the Captain get into it. He likes it best when you lay back, lower half hanging off the bed, with him on his knees between your thighs, your legs over his shoulders and his slicked up thumb rubbing so insistently, ardently at the furl of muscle below your cunt.

You know what, in fact, you're hard pressed to remember a time you and John fucked where his hands haven't drifted down your back to grip at your ass, pulling the cheeks apart to toy with you, dragging the roughened pads of his fingertips over where he's split your pussy open on his dick, up, over your taint before playing with your rim.

You can, however, remember the first time he'd sank the red, leaking tip of his dick into said ass. He'd been patient, kind, generous with loosening you up, continues to be so. Letting him in where he likes it best is an arduous process. That night, after a short, gruff talk about boundaries and limits, and a kiss on your wedding ring, he spent the two hours before the act, sucking at your clit with military precision, sliding his fingers in and out of your messy cunt, until you came. And then he did it again. And again. Until you were soft and pliant and fucking delirious. When the time came, it'd been pressure and pain that with time and so much effort, eventually devolved into sin soaked pleasure. His cock is thick, blunt tipped and brutal, so the Captain had to work you open in long, languid strokes, while he pawed at your midsection, keeping you in place, hands steady and sure. You're just getting used to push and pull of him thrusting into your ass when he comes, huffing and moaning into your shoulder, while he blankets your back, his facial hair tickling at your neck and shoulders. Even with his voice muffled against your skin, he's noisy, groan tapering off into a whimper and a sigh as he grinds against you, filling you in the most unfamiliar way.

I figure goodbyes with Price go a little something like that.

i write "mrs. captain john price" on my lisa frank notebook in pink gel pen. also i think his dick is like thick in a scary way, like average length maybe less, but obscenely thick. :)

support city girls, reblog what u like.

#look kechi wrote a healthy relationship with boundaries and communication! #not in any detail but still... #price x reader #captain price #john price #captain john price #price x black!reader #price x you #john price x reader #price x gn reader #kechiwrites #asks #requests #precious moots 💖 #lemmetreatya #captain john price x reader #captain price x reader #cod x reader #cod fic #cod imagine

[demontobee]

Autism and Invalidation

I just can’t believe how QUICK people are to invalidate your experience. Which is why it is so important to learn to love and validate yourself.

I was diagnosed with autism earlier last year, because I had done tons of research on the topic and I had gone through the arduous process of finding a place to get the assessment done. During this process, I constantly doubted myself, and I went through loops and loops of feeling like an impostor but also the need to get answers. The assessment process itself was hard on my self-confidence as well, since I felt weird and out-of-place as an afab person assessed by the white male boy standards of autism research. Nevertheless, I got my diagnosis after weeks of filling out questionnaires and feeling uncomfortable in interviews. Having a formal diagnosis relieved me to some extent, but it has not yet cured me from self-doubt and the feeling of shame that washes over me at the thought of feigning it just to get attention, to belong somewhere, to have answers. Since I got the diagnosis, I have made huge changes in my life, which has been wonderful and terrifying at once, and I’ve had more meltdowns than I can count. And I should be proud. I have managed to overcome hurdles like my life-long comfort zone, I am trying to set boundaries and I want to find out what really makes me happy, what I was made for.

And it is exactly this achievement that makes other people doubt the validity of my experience as an autistic person.

My current therapist, who has no specific expertise in autism (especially not in afab queer autistic beans), told me last week that she thinks I was misdiagnosed. Why? Because I am able to handle change so well, because I am a very reflected person who knows exactly what their problems are and how I am harming myself, because I am able to think critically about my parents and the way they raised and treated me. An autistic person, it seems, would not be able to so that.

Bullshit.

You know how I am able to do all these things that she apparently thinks are reserved for neurotypical people? I have been teaching myself, in an ongoing and nerve-wrecking process, how to handle change. I have been working on loving myself and respecting myself enough to want to make changes that benefit me and my well-being. Setting boundaries is a hard and heart-breaking process for me. It doesn’t come naturally to me and I often feel lonely or guilty. For as long as I can remember, my mind has been going round and round reflecting on my actions, other people’s reactions, normal behavior and so on. Reflecting for me is not a skill that proves how “normal” I am, it is a survival strategy. And it is about time I put it to good use instead of fueling my anxiety and my self-criticism with it.

Just because you are developing skills that help you learn to love and validate yourself does not mean your experience as an autistic person is not valid. Formally diagnose or not. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

#autism #actually autistic #autistic afab #self love #self reflection #self respect #queer #neurodivergent #neurodiversity #neurodiverse stuff #neurospicy #self validation #therapy #psychology #autism awareness #autistic #autistic community #autism community #self diagnosis #autism diagnosis #i am valid

[hell-drabbles]

Ahhh a sadist reader my beloved 💞💞💞

Now I'm curious how would the devils react or do when the reader abandoned them for their home (aka the earth and minyheok)

Isn't that a little thought experiment? Well, it entirely depends on when and where such an event happens. You didn't say if it was a request or not, so I'm just going to assume you want my thoughts. And my thoughts you will get. It will be rambly and messy.

If it happens early on, where somehow the Reader was able to cast off this mark that was given to them Gabriel and just, left, it would be mayhem to say the least. Would certainly feel like a betrayal since the Reader abandoned them in their time of need and it would likely hit all the 72 devils that their Solomon is well and truly dead and that his good will towards them died in his body rather than passed down. Bonus points if the Reader lied and said they will help all of Hell out of a need for survival. They said what others wanted to hear them say so that the devils don't get even a hint of what they truly want to do and how much they hated being here. Some of the devils will likely understand your state of being, that you really can't be fault for the fact that you're related to Solomon, and that you had to shoulder all his left-over burdens that really shouldn't have belong to you in the first place.

Suddenly being hunted down, dragged into Hell and forced to help out the devils or die at the hands of the angels. And they expected you to just, have good will and kindness in your heart and understand that you will help because you care? They really are idiots in that case. Humans are humans. Very fleshy creatures that can easily and suddenly perish. Kindness should not be expected when it's at the expense of your safety and peace of mind.

It'll be a time of low morale and mourning. The victory of the angels is now assured.

Now if this were to happen after everything, after the war is won, the angels captured and after a king of hell has been chosen, it will still be a betrayal but of the lovesick kind. We all know that the devils can get stuck in their own delusions and interpretations and the kings over here really thought that you wanted to be with them romantically. They really thought themselves as worthy of being your husband and partner. They placed themselves in a position above Minhyeok and never once looked at him as a threat, because they assumed that they had better things to offer than this human ever could.

Basically, because they subconsciously look down on humans that aren't connected to Solomon, they never had a chance to begin with. The devil kings thought they did because you tolerated their presence and were willing to stick it out for the long run. Sure sure, they highly favor you, but you were not about to take the time and change these views that have been in them for hundred and hundreds of years. You have patience, but it is a human patience. And it doesn't help that if you want these views to be completely changed and have no chance of reseeding itself, you have to repeat this arduous process with every devil. It is... not worth it.

So when you leave, none of the devils understand why. The only thing they can chalk it up to is that you miss your home and you want to go back. And so they wait, because this place is surely your home too, so you must want to visit.

And so they wait. They wait. And they wait.

You don't come back.

Hell is thriving, of course it is, you chose a well suited king that won't let a kingdom fall just because they were abandoned by you.

Some might come after you, some might stay behind. Either way, none of them can ever attempt to bring you back.

(I know that canonically once you leave Hell, you're made to forget everything that there is about Hell, but let's be honest, that is not what's going to happen. The devils will pull some bullshit, or say that Solomon's blood somehow kept your memories or whatever. Either way, the devs cannot afford that downer ending because they do not have the writing skills to handle it well. Nor can they afford to disappoint their audience.)

#admin #whb #what in hell is bad #what in “hell” is bad #admin rambles

[shakecup]

I need sincere advice on jobs i could get, that would not require very much social interaction and i could be left alone for at least some of the time (at least 1/3 of a given shift i would be left alone), involving either repetitive and/or mental rather than physical tasks (either something like breaking down boxes / building displays / doing accounting or other data processes) that are easy to get. I have work experience at this point, I’m highly intelligent and efficient at things that I do, and I’m capable of navigating the normie world. The kicker is I can only successfully socially navigate the normie world at great expense to myself and can only fully mask long enough for the initial interviewing and onboarding and then I will become so exhausted that it would be best if I have seamlessly integrated into the daily repetitive or mental tasks and do not have to continue doing arduous people-facing types of things like service/retail. if I have to continue doing the people-facing kind of things I will start drafting my last will and testament.

I feel like there has to at least hypothetically be a place where I could basically thrive professionally but my current situation with the movie theater has had me in an ongoing crisis where I’m on a nightly basis seriously contemplating ending my life. In a serious, pragmatic type of way and not out of momentary emotional overwhelm. Like in a stressful moment I may involuntarily and intrusively fantasize about shooting myself in the head just to get it over with, but that’s less worrisome than the other thing that’s going on where I’m laying in bed each night trying to weigh my options between life and death and considering A Plan. I have to do something to get myself out of this crisis

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hi MBTI-notes. INFJ here. Many thanks for your tremendous insights. Your analysis of unhealthy INFJ’s has been absolutely spot on for me. I can see that I can be incredibly, sometimes laughably, unrealistic, have great difficulty being present, and alternate between too cynical and too trusting.

However, despite knowing about the INFJ weaknesses for several years now thanks to your blog, I keep making these mistakes. Some feel harder to change than others - like the difficulty focusing that, in my case, seems similar to ADHD.

I am trying a variety of things including finding the right mentors to bring me back to reality and hold me accountable, DBT, and improvements to basic physical self-care like sleep. I might also consider getting on medications for bipolar I (a diagnosis I have received due to two manic episodes, although they’re not sure if I need to be on meds) or ADHD.

In your experience, what is necessary to successfully close the gap between simply knowing about my problematic patterns and actually changing them? I am really hoping that improvements in emotional intelligence via DBT will close the gap, and also am trying to be more systematic about maintaining and improving my interpersonal relationships. Maybe it will be a combination of many small things like mastering physical health and routines, realistic goals, the right mentors, discipline, etc.

(From the INFJ who mentioned bipolar I). As an addendum, I just wanted to mention that the two episodes definitely involved some psychotic thoughts and behavior, but it's unclear if they fit a traditional manic episode, as I've not experienced periods of little sleep but high energy. It’s quite possible that BPD is a better explanation due to a connection in both cases with a romantic interest. I just wanted to mention this in case it impacted your response at all.

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

"Knowing" about problems means being in possession of the facts, so it comes mainly through observation and gathering information. A lot of people go through life not knowing how problematic their thinking/behavior really is until they get critical feedback or generate very negative consequences. Even then, perhaps they still can't admit to having a problem and they use defense mechanisms such as denial to avoid confronting the truth. Getting through these defenses can be an arduous process. Even though knowing is really only the first step, it can already be quite a difficult step.

If knowing is only the first step, it means it's not enough. More is required. Knowing is not the same as "understanding". Understanding comes mainly through developing self-awareness, which involves the capacity to perceive and evaluate oneself accurately and objectively. Self-awareness can be described as low/high or shallow/deep. To improve self-awareness usually involves going inward, through reflection and introspection, to discover the roots and mechanisms behind psychological issues.

If knowing is about grasping the facts, understanding is about being able to provide a proper explanation of the facts. For example, a lot of people feel low self-confidence very acutely but they have no idea about how it came to pass or why they suffer. When you don't understand your thinking/behavior, it means you don't know the causes of it, the motivations behind it, or the factors that contributed to its manifestation.

That said, when people know but don't understand their problem, they are still capable of some small self-improvement. Generally speaking, they'll seek out advice from those in the know and try to discover some common rules, methods, or procedures for dealing with the problem, which allows them to become more functional in daily life. However, while they can improve a bit, their growth tends to be limited because it remains unclear whether the solution they've found is the correct one. Perhaps they feel some relief or progress, but it doesn't really seem long-lasting. Why? Knowing without understanding means every "fix" you try is basically blind and random experimentation. If something works for awhile, you don't understand why. If something doesn't work, you don't understand what went wrong. This is one reason why self-help methods have a high rate of failure; they simply don't get deep enough into the problem, so self-awareness remains too low.

Using the example of low self-confidence to illustrate, different people suffer for different reasons. For Person A, perhaps it's because of fear of failure that creates too much anxiety to feel confident. For Person B, perhaps it's because they lack knowledge and skill, so they feel too incompetent to approach tasks confidently. Person B needs to improve their knowledge and skill through learning and practice in order to feel more confident. But this remedy isn't going to work for Person A. Regardless of how knowledgeable or skilled Person A is, they will continue to fear failure, because it is an entirely separate issue that remains unaddressed by Person B's remedy. If you were looking to the above two cases for inspiration, you wouldn't get very far without knowing YOUR individual reasons for suffering low self-confidence.

It sounds like you are still in the stage of knowing - gathering the facts about your issues in order to name/label them correctly. It's good you've gotten some practical advice for managing your issues. Using the INFJ functional stack to frame the issues also seems to have been helpful for improving your self-awareness. However, what I'm still not seeing is true understanding. You haven't yet discovered the underlying causes/mechanisms and aren't able to provide an accurate and objective explanation of why you suffer from these issues. In short, it's just harder to solve a problem when you don't know the cause or how it arose.

This is probably one reason why you're running into difficulty with getting clear official diagnoses. People often view an official diagnosis as "the answer", but oftentimes the label is just a way to describe a particular set of symptoms. It doesn't reveal enough about what's really going on underneath the surface. The process of talk therapy ought to be aimed at making better sense of the symptoms, so it's important to pair any pharmaceutical interventions with talk therapy.

I never want to discourage people from self-improvement. I appreciate your willingness to seek out answers. You asked me what might be lacking in your approach and I've given you my best guess. You've focused a lot on "doing" and "following", implementing some commonsense strategies like physical self-care and learning from good mentors. This is certainly a step in the right direction. But from the perspective of analytical psychology, you haven't done enough to go within to understand your own individual psyche. It is likely that working on your emotional intelligence through DBT will deepen your self-awareness. But, at this early stage, there is no way for me to predict if it will "close the gap". If you care about understanding yourself better, be willing to take your therapist's reflections and inquiries as deep as you can go with them.

#infj #knowing #understanding #development #growth #mental health #self awareness #self help #therapy #psychology #ask

[speculativism]

You looked at the world, went “I had to struggle so everyone else must also struggle” instead of “I had to struggle so I must try to make sure no one else does”, and then you didn’t even have the self awareness to keep your vindictive bitterness to yourself. Surely someone with such a high IQ can see how awful that makes you.

So you think struggling is a bad thing? Why? I always thoroughly enjoyed the struggle. I still do. It's what life is all about. Also tends to be what stories are all about. Every country in the world has its own creation myth: the European countries decolonising from the yoke of the Roman Empire, the Americas and Africa and India decolonising from the European empires etc. Ancient empires had their own creation myths and 21st Century people have their own stories of "How I Came to Be". Everyone talks about their creation story. People either had good parents and a bad school or the other way around. Or an illness, or bullies in the school lunch room, or poverty, or fighting in a war. It's the stuff of all stories. How we all came to be. The struggles which made us who we are. Personally I always got a tremendous enjoyment out of braving the elements, defying expectations, beating the odds, getting things done under arduous conditions. Several people on here, yourself included, have decided or assumed that a hard life is a bad life or something to be avoided. But, au contraire, It's the struggle which makes character and the character which ends up with the joy of self discovery. If you don't have struggle and difficulty your stories will lack authenticity. If you've never carried a weight which too heavy for you and hurt yourself in process you will not be able to write convincingly of the feelings and physical sensations of some post-modern Sisyphus. If you have never lived for weeks on wild blackberries or beans on toast or leftovers then your description of that in a novel or short story will not ring true.

What are you going to do? Hope the actor or director has had a hard life and knows how to play the role in spite of the unrealistic script?

You've got to live life to write about life. You can't make a career out of writing about characters to whom nothing difficult ever happened.

I respect my long time friend Alby Stone who lives in South London who is retired and writes novels. He wrote a great book called "A Deeper Darkness" which takes place mostly in Siberia. I enjoyed that book and I respect him especially because I know that he went to Siberia and is describing a place he knows. He also travelled on the Orient Express.

When I write I write about experiences I have had. Things I know. Things which were hard and needed to be worked through. Grasping the bull, taking the nettle by the horns, mixing the what he metaphor.

The "vindictive bitterness" you mention doesn't live anywhere within me. That's probably "projection" as Carl Jung called it.

[aleprouswitch]

In October 2011, my mental health was deteriorating for a multitude of reasons and I was actively thinking about killing myself. I told my therapist after a bad episode on my college campus and he suggested a mental health facility that would provide care without insurance. The idea seemed a bit terrifying, but I decided to do it because I was afraid of what I was capable of doing in terms of harming myself.

My mom refused to take me to the facility, so I had to ask a then-friend if he could drive me to the facility to check in on Friday night. He agreed to. Friday night comes, and I try calling him, and I'm getting no answer. Finally he calls me back, and he's hammered. Shitfaced. Three sheets to the fucking wind. Obviously, he can't drive. I am beyond angry and also worried.

I had no other choice but to post on Facebook that yes, I was having a mental health crisis and I needed somebody to drive me to the facility to be admitted. A guy on the local music scene that I barely knew agreed to drive me. He was actually really nice and stayed with me in the lobby until I got called back for admittance. I was asked a big string of questions and signed some paperwork, and that was it.

My phone was taken away from me and I was thrust into Grippy Sock Land. Food was scarce and daily activities were heavily regulated. We had an "art hour" where we were given colored pencils and markers and encouraged to draw. Apparently my drawing was disturbing to the caretakers because of the religious imagery used in it. In truth, the art piece didn't really mean much of anything. We were shown old movies and made to watch infomercials about medications.

I was placed on multiple medications that made me extremely drowsy and I spent hours upon hours sleeping in a room with two beds. The other bed was at first occupied by a woman who appeared to be in her 40s. All she did was cry hysterically and say she needed help over and over. She was eventually removed and sent to another facility. My second roommate was a convicted felon facing another robbery charge. I saw her mugshot not long after release.

The only thing that helped me retain my sanity during those three days was that surprisingly, a friend of mine at the time was admitted during the same weekend, also for suicidal thoughts. My friend was trans but not out yet, and at the time they were married to a man I had known since high school. We found little ways to make each other laugh despite our bleak surroundings, and that gave me hope.

After release, I got my phone back and found that my now ex-friend who was too drunk to take me to be admitted three days earlier had send multiple text messages apologizing for "failing" me. I just rolled my eyes. Another ex-friend messaged me on Facebook about my stay, saying she was "jealous" because I got a "vacation" for a few days. I was so disgusted by her words. Nothing about that experience resembled a "vacation" at all. It was miserable. It was hell.

My co-workers acted scared to talk to me when I returned to work afterward, as if I was volatile and should be approached with caution. My mom never really talked to me about my stay, which I expected. I did get some really nice messages from people I knew, including some musicians I networked with, that made me feel better about my experience and like I did the right thing to help myself.

Twelve years have passed since that ordeal. Almost nobody I was friends with then are still in my life now. Two of the people mentioned in this post sexually assaulted me. Another did something horrible to hurt me in 2013 and I have had them blocked on all social media since. I have never gone back to that mental health facility and I never want to be there again. The lead doctor there was pretty nice, but everyone else made me feel like a circus animal.

I am in the long, arduous process of making sense of my traumatic experiences and maybe that's why I'm writing all of this out. The more removed I am from these experiences, the more fucked up I'm realizing that they were. I deserved kindness and rarely received it during those years. Of course I wasn't perfect and I had problems, but sometimes it really does hit me how everyone in my life was treating me like a burden or something in the way back then.

#personal #life #mental health #suicide tw #suicidal thoughts tw

[musingsofanaroace]

Realizing I Had Autism

When did I suspect I had autism? In 2008, I had an interest in reading memoirs. One day, I came across Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison at my local library. While reading it, I noticed that many of his autistic traits matched with my unexplained and unusual behaviors.

My interest in memoirs quickly morphed into an interest in autism or Asperger’s as it was known then. I related heavily with people who had this neurodevelopmental condition but not completely, for alas, the term AuDHD didn’t exist yet. 

At the time, I came to the erroneous conclusion that I didn’t have autism. It wasn’t until SciGuys did an episode on it that I realized I definitely had it. No doubt about it! Not long after that revelation, I went through the arduous process of getting an ASD assessment.

What traits of autism do I have?

Note: In this post, I will cover some but not all of the autistic traits I have. If I mentioned all of them, this post would be too long!

I’ve always had problems with oral communication. I take things literally and don’t know when someone is joshing with me. I also have a hard time figuring out facial expressions and how those translate into emotions. If you don’t tell me explicitly how you’re feeling, I won’t intuit it on my own. I also find that people often misunderstand me or find me rude, which I don’t get at all. I always try to be polite and friendly. People have also told me to smile or cheer up even when I’m happy.

I’ve always had an aversion to the phone even when talking to family and friends. I always have to script what I’ll say, and I’ll procrastinate making a phone call (even an important one) for hours or days. Once I’ve made the phone call and am speaking with someone, I have a hard time understanding what they’re saying. I definitely need subtitles or the ability to read their lips. I even social script before meeting someone in person for the first time. And job interviews are an absolute nightmare!

And even though it’s not true for all autistics, I’m the type of autistic who hates eye contact. It makes me feel extremely uncomfortable like the sensation of bugs crawling under your skin. I also feel this way about hugs. When I know that someone expects or wants a hug from me, I have to mentally prepare myself. And this includes hugging family and friends.

I also struggle with emotional dysregulation. In this post, I’ll only focus on alexithymia. I have a really hard time describing or identifying my feelings. When I feel “not right”, I can’t immediately tell if its something like hunger or the start of an illness. And this lack of awareness makes it difficult to communicate my needs to family, friends, and medical professionals. 

I also hate it when people ask me, “How are you?” or “How are you feeling?” Because nearly all of the time, I simply want to respond, “I don’t know. Give me an hour, and I’ll get back to you.” And its this lack of emotional awareness that leads to many of my shutdowns and meltdowns. 

I also experience autistic inertia. It takes me forever to start a task, but once I do, I am that task until I complete it, or my timer goes off. And once one of those two inevitable events occur, I find it extremely difficult switching to the next task. And it’s very easy to get derailed. For example, as a kid, I would stay in the bathtub until my skin became wrinkled, or the water got too cold.

Another trait, I require routines to function and love making schedules even though my ADHD makes it difficult to stick to them. I’m also highly resistant to change, and even the slightest disruption in my daily routine or schedule will ruin me and disrupt my internal equilibrium. Every item I own has its place, and I become distressed when it’s moved or missing. Note: In nine out of ten cases, I can blame my ADHD. This is especially true for stores. When they move an item to a different location, I feel disorientated, which increases my anxiety. Shopping is already stressful enough without having the entire bloody store rearranged to make it even more so!

Now, I’ll discuss stimming. When concentrating (ie. Writing a novel.) I rock from side to side, which loosens the screws on my desk chair. (Sigh.) I always have to retighten them after every writing session. I will also play with the tags on my shirts or rub the cotton fabric with my pointer finger and thumb. When excited, I flap my hands and make a wee sound. I may also twist and clap my hands. And when at the ultimate level of excitement, foot stomping may commence. When frustrated, I used to pound the surface of my metal desk with my fists, but now I simply walk in circles flapping my hands and talking through the frustration. It may look bizarre, but at least I don’t injure my hands or risk broken bones. 

I only stim when at home, and only really close family and friends have seen me stim. I’d feel too embarrassed doing it anywhere else.

Next trait, I have special interests that I will hyper fixate on to an extreme degree. Some of the long term special interests I have include the following: dinosaurs, bronze age civilizations, PC puzzle games, psychology, gender and sexuality studies, biology, and natural history. When engaged in an enjoyable hobby or special interest, I’ll hyper focus to the point that my surroundings became irrelevant including my bodily needs. That’s why I have to set a timer beforehand.

Before addressing the final trait, I would like to discuss a few of the autistic traits I displayed as a child.

When I was a toddler, I liked watching the clothes as they tumbled in the dryer and the rain as it slid down the windowpane. I didn’t like dishes that combined too many different food types and would spend several minutes deconstructing it into its individual parts before taking a single bite. I also hated spoons and would only eat with a fork. If I had to eat soup or cereal, I would simply drink it.

I also had delayed speech and didn’t start speaking until I was three. At first, I would simply repeat what other said. And only after several sessions of speech therapy did I finally form my own words and sentences.

In Kindergarden, I enjoyed playing by myself. I would spend playtime color coding these cardboard bricks before lining and stacking them up. Each row a different color. I also liked to line up my toy cars and plastic dinosaurs. When a bit older, I would display my toys rather than play with them. When my sister touched them, I would become agitated and annoyed. For each toy had a specific place on my self, and it belonged nowhere else.

In primary school, I had unusual interests. I hated cartoons and would only watch game shows or documentaries. The only animated films I watched were those produced by Disney or those related to my special interests.

And now, I'll address the final autistic trait I have: sensory issues. In regards to sight, I find everything too bright. The world contains too many headlights, fluorescent lights, streetlights, parking lights, and traffic lights. The two worse offenders are headlights mixed with rain, and the sun reflecting off of snow.

In regards to sound, I can’t stand sudden, high pitched noises such as sirens, alarms, or fireworks. The Fourth of July is the worst holiday in my opinion. I also have difficulty in crowded spaces where there are too many people conversing simultaneously, or when I’m assaulted by multiple environmental and manmade noises at once.

In regards to smell, I can’t stand the scent of tar, coffee, body odor, or certain perfumes/colognes. And contrary to popular belief, I don’t become accustomed to these offending odors over time. Instead of decreasing in intensity the longer I’m exposed to them, the opposite happens. I become even more aware of them, and thus they become even more offensive to me.

In regards to taste, I can’t stand when my food contains too many spices or condiments. I therefore eat and enjoy pretty bland dishes.

In regards to texture, I can’t stand the feel of Brussel sprouts, peaches, or meat in my mouth. I also need to wash my clothes in fabric softener before I wear them for the first time. This makes trying on clothes before I buy them difficult.

In regards to proprioception, I’m always bumping into things and getting bruises with no known origin. As a kid, I really struggled learning how to ride a bike without the training wheels and didn’t accomplish this feat until I was ten. I also struggle with writing neatly, tying my shoes, roller skating, bowling, miniature golfing, skipping rope, and playing ball sports. I also don’t seem to have a sense of effort or heaviness. As a kid, I unintentionally broke many pens and pencils. And I’m constantly surprised by how heavy or light something is.

In regards to interoception, I have a high pain tolerance and an unawareness of my internal needs such as hunger or thirst. 

And lastly, in regards to vestibular, my balance is atrocious. Don’t ask me to walk a straight line, cut on the line, or color within the lines because I will not be able to complete these simple tasks.

And this concludes how I realized I had autism. If you have anything to add, please leave it in the comments. Until next time, take care and stay curious. 

#autism #autism spectrum disorder #personal essay #audhd #sci guys #neurodivergent #Youtube

[babygirlbdubs]

ooooh what part would ethubs play in the au?? 🍯

i’m so glad u asked

etho and bdubs were roommates (oh my god and they were roommates) during their academy days. etho was training to become a science officer, studying horticulture specifically. bdubs was training to become a stellar cartographer-- he didn’t really have much interest in the bridge or anything like that at first. they both wanted to explore and research together... change the world-- the universe.

etho had a training mission on a science vessel. it was just meant to be a small cruise to get some hands on experience being on a starship. they got attacked. engineering was in need of assistance, and etho had enough experience with engineering as well to help, but... the warp core destabilized and caused an explosion. etho was the only survivor of those in engineering. and even that was just barely. he lost an eye for it and got pretty bad radiation poisoning.

scar happened to be on the ship as security officer at the time and managed to rescue etho from the wreckage. bdubs was on planet when this happened, and heard about the ship’s attack. was, understandably, panicking when hearing that there were very few survivors.

luckily, though, etho was given a cybernetic eye which he is fully able to see with. his hair grew back white when it started growing back, due to the radiation. his healing was a very long and arduous process, so he had to remain on planet while bdubs was assigned to a crew. bdubs climbed the ranks pretty quickly, and ended up being picked as ren’s second officer after bdubs wrote a stellar (hah) recommendation for ren to become a captain.

when assigned to the orpheus, etho was finally ready to join a crew, and bdubs pulled some strings to get him assigned. though, at this point, etho had decided to change his career and focus on tactical. so, bdubs made him their tactical officer! :D

some extra information, bdubs is actually a human clone, designation B-00-100. he broke into individuality incredibly quickly, and was dismissed from the cloning program to live his own life. having pretty much nowhere else to go, he joined up with starfleet!

etho is a vulcan, so he functions solely on logic, having rejected his emotions as vulcans do. he has emotions, but he chooses not to feel them, instead focusing on logic and fact. it is very confusing to him when he starts getting a little upset at bdubs spending more and more of his time with the captain.

#spooky.asks #ashsoka #stau #ethubs

[i-was-raised-by-a-polyglot]

I was raised by a polyglot. This gives me a imprimatur from the universe to shit-talk anyone in a language they don't understand. This habit of mine is often juxtaposed by my peers, who figured out my trick quite quickly, with my overall friendly personality. For this, they have always considered me a simulacrum of a good person. Hard as I try, all look askance at me when I pass them by. Never deeming me worthy of their care.So hoary this treatment, it has ceased to have an effect on me. To still give them much thought after all this time would be a waste, as the effort is much better spent tending to my minions.

Since my childhood, I have been fascinated with the cerebral task of creating life from the ether. My first experiment was putting salt junk, blood, hair and baking powder in the oven. I was flummoxed when it not only didn't work, but I almost burned my house. My parents misjudged my actions as both intentional and nefarious, and disowned me. This mistake weighs heavy on my conscience, an emotional leviathan I fear I will never conquer.

In the streets, I piggybacked off of a homeless shelter while I perfected my formula for minions. I schmoozed a grocery store clerk to get the ingredients. After I mixed the mushrooms, pineapple and beef in a blender, chanted some magical-sounding words at it, nothing happened, though I did wait a few hours, in case the new life was just in abeyance.

The solution to the fractious subject of life creation continued to alude me until last year. I was able to mollify my concerns that I would never get it right with the help of The Book of Alzoreth. Written by the sagacious Abraham Lincoln, this book tells many great secrets about the universe.

My first minion, my horrific darling was a creature half frog, half fog. I gave him 10,000 newspapers so that he could orientate himself on how the world works, and even allowed him to choose his own name. He chose the name "Cave" and I hated it so much I had a conclave with my colleagues to decide what to do with my creation.

I argued that he clearly had a ramshackle brain, but the others didn't couldn't understand my point of view at all. One of them, Mark, even bloviated about the "deep meaning" and "stunning poetic nature" of the name for ten hours straight. The moral turpitude of them to expect me to allow my legacy to be tarnished by some half-wit's idea to name himself after a type of hole. I had to picture the verdant fields of New Zealand just to not immediately banish them from my home.

I couldn't stand to hear about how "the simple beauty of it is unmatched" and "it harks barks to humanity's humble beginnings as cave-dwellers". I called all of my "friends" every epithet in the book, and promptly left the room.

My rage was nonpareil as I went to Cave and slapped him in the face. That was the start of the long and arduous process of indoctrinating my minion into my way of thinking, as to prevent further errors in his judgement. I eventually put the kibosh on his original personality when I made him do nothing but read my autobiography repeatedly for a month.

My ad hoc thinking truly payed off, and the time to ask the question once more had finally come. When I asked about his new name, he told me, his voice trembling a bit, he wanted to be called "Paradox".

I galumphed backwards into my couch. My feelings were mercurial even to me. However, soon my emotions crystalized and I became sure that this new name had only dandered me up more.

I couldn't believe this, and after how benevolent I was.

I immediately banished "Paradox" to the dungeon, shackling his legs with fetters. But then, the most uncanny thing happened, he fought back. He sneezed inside my mouth and germs began propagating within my body. They went on a junket inside me.

Paradox commemorated by doing forty back-flips, fully utilizing the incredible genetics I had given him. His joy turned out ephemeral when I stabbed him with a pocketknife.

At the behest of his tiny mind, he stabbed me back with a knife of his own. Anger and despair melded in my brain as the fight went on. The feeling was so overwhelming that I felt as though I was outside myself and the act of blinding Paradox in self-defense seemed almost perfunctory. He decried my actions, cursing my name and biting my arm.

Now, what I am about to describe may not have a lot of fidelity to the real event, but I believe in this account whole heartily. Paradox reached into my pocket and pulled out my sumptuous, diamond-encrusted phone. He called someone and talked extensively about his vocations.

He dreamed to of becoming a government official who would have the opportunity to arrogate the power to enact Martial Law. His biggest aspiration was to acquire the scientific knowledge to create a pill that would make all feelings evanescent.

I felt like a lout listening to him. I fully understood how headlong my efforts to discipline Paradox had been. The way to do it wasn't to wound his body, but to burglarize his mind.

My panacea was now within my grasp. The walls of my Mind Palace were festooned with daydreams of the brighter days ahead. Credulous about their plausibility, I set out to make them a reality.

I started out with fake adulation. I told Paradox how obliged I felt to tell him how magnificent his knifes skills were. I spoke extensively about the way his redolent body filled my heart with joy. I promised to emancipate him from my control as soon as he turned 47. I was being quite garrulous, and was certain Paradox could tell, so I stopped abruptly.

My prescience told me Paradox was falling right into my trap. However, as soon as it became his turn to talk, he immediately started quibbling about everything in my speech. I expected him to be ingenuous towards my affection, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

He returned to chatting with his confidant on the phone. I felt as though my very soul was noisome.

All my efforts to create life, and this was what they had all culminated into? I would have been better off if I had just gotten into jingoism like my grandfather wanted me to.

My fulsome behavior haunted me for months. My spirit was in constant duress. I thought of making amends to Paradox by scintillating him with jokes about boats and canoes, but I saw the man little during these times. He had gotten a job at NASA, and so was too busy debunking moon landing conspiracies. Apposite fate for both of us, I suppose.

One day, I spotted Paradox at the dinner hall teeming his belly with pasta. He was truly a Yankee at heart. He seemed happy until he saw me standing across the room, he was still a cantankerous fella when it came to me.

My recidivism started to act up again, and I felt the urge to stab him with one of my 17 pocket-knifes. He must have thought me inscrutable, because he asked me: "What are you doing?".

I panicked and postulated that I was simply imagining ways in which humanity could harness the power of the Sun to create a defense system against alien threats again. "That sky behemoth is such a layabout, it's about time we made it earn its keep around here!".

Paradox changed the subject to that night's gibbous Moon. He carped about how the fact that our perception of the Moon's shape was under constant change made a lot of people think it was a hologram. What an eccentric mind he had.

Our back-and-fourth complaints about celestial bodies evolved from a duology to a trilogy, and then a saga. We validated each other's grievances with the cosmos for hours.

#compilation

[agentsquirrelsgotrobots]

Final part! Thanks for coming along for the ride. More of the mafia au will likely be posted today, I really want to write some death scenes in between some irl craft projects.

Meanwhile, aboard the Nemesis, Megatron was scheming. Due to the war, they were running into a bit of a gene pool problem. Namely, throwing an entire city state's worth of genetic diversity into a blender and creating a mass produced army out of whatever gene sequence it spits out had worked to preserve diversity and allow the lower ranks to continue adding to the population without ruining evolution for the future, but it also meant that the genetic makeup of any offspring born was a crapshoot. Unfortunately, being a grounder was a very, very dominant trait.

But, the human converts were special in that they had a completely new set of genetic traits. Sure, Dani would likely be a helicopter, but compared to archived gene sequences, she would be comparable to a bot that came from a long lost and isolated colony, perfect for putting some variety back into the gene pool. But first, the obvious problem was that she hadn't been converted yet.

The discoveries were made on Miko and Raf's genetic testing results, not hers.

And, of course, she was far too small to be a good carrier or even a Sire, not without heavy medical intervention, and Megatron already knew that even encouraging her and Blades to bond would be an arduous task.

Luckily, Shockwave had done plenty of growth tank experiments in his time during the war, and had the science down to an easily repeatable procedure, one, when tested, that can be bundled with the conversion process, as long as there is enough access to the subjects bloodstream at time of submersion, particularly in the extremities.

In other words, Megatron has to cut Dani's arms and legs to get the liquid cyber metal to her feet and hands.

This is going to be fun.

Megatron had never before been able to use a blade on a human before, preferring to either shoot or squish them on the battlefield.

Megatron walked into the two autobot turncoats' berth room, Dani glaring at him from her little pile of blankets, shivering in her oversized garment that had replaced her flight suit. He had read from Knockout's report that during a run to get supplies to treat her monthly… affliction, she had been spotted and tracked down by a store associate who had seen her missing poster, and tried to get her away from Breakdown. In the confusion, Breakdown had run him over, splattering her with blood. The damage done has been fully healed, and now they could move on to the next stage of the process.

Megatron took out the clear box of stickers that Shockwave had loaded up with nanotechnology in. To Dani's horror, they were skimpy and gold, getting the reference immediately.

Blades, bless his sweet spark, did not.

_____

(My beta told me no to making Dani naked twice in one one-shot, so we compromised by making her censor bars a Rocky Horror reference. Yes, Dani and Blades are supposed to be Janet and Brad coded. Unfortunately, there is no Rocky, because, well, there's child characters here. Tarn is already pushing a lot here. So, instead of learning all about kink and throwing away the last of their innocence, Dani and Blades are learning about the war and throwing away their black and white view of it.)

____

"Have Dani apply these to the skin. Shockwave tells me that there is a diagram of where they need to go included. If you don't get them all applied before Knockout comes to retrieve you, Shockwave will do them himself. Blades, after Dani leaves, you will be moved to a new room." Megatron left, leaving them alone. Blades took out the stickers, realizing that this would have to be a two person job. He found the ones meant to go on her chest.

"How about you start with these? I mean, we did swap bodies, so nothing I haven't seen before, but…"

Dani nodded, a whirlwind of embarrassment and horror going through her head as she took off her dress and bra, Blades setting a mirror in front of her and looking away respectfully as she put the two circles over her breasts, trying not to think about the huge, hulking, one eyed monster of a bot that would soon be touching her for some likely sick purpose.

She looked through the other sheets and found another set meant for her crotch, resembling those adhesive edged fabric thongs some actors used in movie shoots. Luckily, it was large enough that the razor included could stay sealed in its flowery pink packaging.

She added a few to her sunken belly and skeletal ribcage. Her time at the Nemesis had her losing every scrap of fat on her body, leaving her feeling freezing and hollow all the time. She quickly put the stickers meant for her legs and feet on, not feeling safe until she slipped her pants on. It was weird. Being topless made her feel less exposed than having her legs out.

"Blades? A little help here?" Dani said, picking up the stickers meant for her neck and back. Blades oh so delicately placed the last two stickers, ruffling her hair after he was done.

"This might be a bit inappropriate due to circumstances outside of our control, but you will always be the prettiest human I have ever gotten the pleasure of knowing, no matter what happens. Charlie, your brothers, Chase, and Boulder would all be so proud of us for making it this far together. I am so proud of you for making it this far. I promise, if the worst comes to worst, I will bury you the way we couldn't bury your family. I love you, Dani."

Dani wiped away a tear. "Aw, I love you too Blades."

The door to the room opened, and Knockout stepped in. Dani took off her pants and climbed onto his outstretched hand without a word.

"Primus, fleshy, it is far too cold on the ship to be walking around without a blanket." Knockout picked up a thin, stained one that usually ended up between her and the rest of her blankets when she was on her period. He threw it over her shoulders and walked down to Shockwave's lab, leaving Blades to quickly clean up the trash and store anything of use in his subspace.

Shockwave took her from Knockout and laid her on her belly, setting the blanket aside. Dani didn't dare breathe as he took a pair of tweezers and readjusted the sticker on her back. "Everything is satisfactory. Knockout, administer the priming injection."

"Dani, sit up, cross your legs, put your elbows on your knees, and face away from me." Knockout said while he uncapped the syringe and Shockwave scooped out a glob of the cleaning gel that Dani had been subjected to more then once after she had begun to stink due to not being able to shower regularly.

Dani scrambled to follow directions, hissing as her shoulders were wiped with the freezing cold gel. She willed herself to stay still as Knockout plunged the needle into her shoulder and emptied the syringe into the muscle there. They had given her vaccinations in that shoulder, too, but drew blood from her head.

Knockout removed the syringe and moved in front of Dani. "Lie back, and relax your face as much as possible. I need a blood sample." Knockout took plenty of blood from her before looking at Shockwave.

Shockwave picked her up and set her on a new tray. He pressed a button on the side of it, and Dani yelped as the sticker on her spine magnetized to the tray, keeping it straight. "Testing successful. Begin energon injections to the thighs, along with shallow lacerations to improve cyber metal distribution and speed up the process."

"This is my specialty." Megatron said, stepping away from the wall where he had been watching the proceedings. He took a scalpel from Knockout and carefully cut symmetrical lines into Dani's thighs and forearms. Knockout injected energon inside each cut, Dani shivering as he wiped the blood from them onto her belly.

Dani cried out and scratched at Knockout's hands as he lowered her into the growth vat.

Her red blood turned the clear yellow liquid a light pink, and once the tank was full, Shockwave introduced the cyber metal, the stuff settling in the tank in bubbles and streaks. Shockwave pressed another button, and Dani felt nauseous, her eyes closing for the last time.

"Oh, she's beautiful." Knockout said as the tank emptied and the top swung open. He had a towel open to wrap around her as soon as Megatron and Shockwave pulled her out of the tube.

She was truly a stunning femme, even in just the new protoform silver and gray. Once she chose a paint job, she would likely have half the seeker armada tripping over themselves for a shot with her. She was going to be a helicopter, at least. The bump on her back where new rotors would sprout and unfurl once she scanned an alt mode stuck out like a sore thumb. Her plating had an organic curve to it, with virtually no harsh edges at all.

Shockwave had to stop her from getting out of the tube on her own, taking her arms and helping to lift her out of the tank. Knockout wrapped her in the towel, and they bundled her into a wheelchair. Her eyes were still offline, the growth cycle finishing earlier than expected. They wheeled her to Blades' new room, him being informed of the true intentions of the experiment only minutes ago. Still, he had a shift to finish, and Knockout assured him that she would be in stasis until he could help her.

The minute he could finish up his training to be a nurse with Breakdown for the day, he raced back to his suite. As promised, a stasis machine was hooked up to her, and he carefully unhooked her from it and held her hand until she woke up.

He happily helped Dani, who passed almost all the memory recall checks, out of the wheelchair and into their seated shower, where Blades assisted her in cleaning off the clear yellow goo that clung to her plating. The temporarily blind bot kept feeling his face over and over again, as if she expected him to be gone the next time she checked.

That morning, she woke up to him squeezing one of her hands while they slept in their bed, Blades having to plug her into the recharge dock with little awkward touches against her head.

This was her new reality now.

A menial job on this dark, oppressive ship, with this orange mech sleeping alongside her, all without her consent or a measure of control.

At least she won't starve.

At least she doesn't have to be alone.

_______

There was just one last test to be done.

Cody walked through the ground bridge, his confident posture and wicked grin strange on his young face.

In the panic of the omega lock pointed at earth, no one was paying attention to the drugged up, half mad Rescue Bot.

Cody walked into the cell block and walked right through the bars. The man he believed to have led his family to their deaths, tripping over himself to pick him up.

"Heatwave, I have a secret for you. Do you want to know?"

The grief addled bot nodded like an over excited little kid, and Cody smiled.

All Cody had to do to prove himself was whisper a single word.

"Die."

The bot's spark imploded with a soft pop, not a single drop of energon split. He reached into his ear and tapped his com link. "Nickel, I'm done here."

A ground bridge opened, and he ran back through to his Sire, failing to wipe the excited grin off his face. Tarn kneeled down and picked up the tiny minicon, his holoform flickering off as he hugged his Sire's finger. The Peaceful Tyranny was hiding behind the Nemesis, being secretly space bridged in to help Megatron hunt down any loose ends, the perfect initiation test for the newest member of the DJD.

"Good work, Darkmount." Tarn said, placing him back into his chest cavity.

Before long, the theme song to some human cartoon Raf downloaded off the internet and passed to him on one of their informal play dates while Tarn talked to high command played obnoxiously from the vid screen, Tarn long since abandoning the hopes of hearing anything but squeaky voices and bubbly background music after a hunt.

Tarn could feel Darkmount stretch inside him. He sent a feeling of pride into their still new parental spark bond.

Darkmount sent it back, a feeling of sleepiness accidentally slipping alongside it.

Darkmount was getting better at that, but still made silly little mistakes with the bond at times. However, he was flawless in the field, burrowing into the plating of much bigger mechs and killing them from the inside, removing any witnesses while Tarn and the rest of the DJD took care of the main victim.

And, of course, he was a glutton for attention at times. If he wanted it, that is. If he got it into his head that he didn't want to be picked up or held, Tarn would walk away with bite marks and a very grumpy microcon cuddled into the crook of his elbow or clinging to his tank treads. He did, in fact, scan an alt mode.

He had fought a small swarm of a savage pointer, a smaller subspecies of the common bulbous scraplet, and with some help from Vos, scanned a live one for his alt mode.

If he focused, he could hover in the air. The Pet was terrified of him, and he could now wander the ship as he pleased.

A few months later, Darkmount woke up to a message from Raf saying that he now had two nephews. Apparently, Dani and Blades got busy fast after Dani recovered from the conversion. There was also a warning to Nickel that Dani experienced phantom contractions after the twins were born, and the only things that worked was a very high dose of pain meds and plenty of heat packs and cuddles from the helicopter that she chose to be with. He was a skittish thing, not a single bark and completely devoid of bite. It was fine, though. Dani had enough for the two of them.

Darkmount winced as he imagined his sister in excruciating pain for no other reason besides a coding error leftover from being human.

He wouldn't lift a hand to help her if it was inconvenient for him, but he still didn't want to see her dead.

He cuddled into Tarn's spark chamber and drifted off to sleep.

Another day, and a new hunt will begin.

#The Gods have found us (Megatron help us all) #tfrb cody #transformers rescue bots #maccadam #rescue bots #transformers #transformers djd #transformers prime #dani burns #dani x blades #tf tarn #Darkmount au

[actualbird]

Hi zak! I've been a longtime reader of your original works. Do you have any tips on what pieces to put in your writing folio?

hi anon !!! im very sorry it took me forever to get back to this ask, and doubly sorry if you are no longer in need of tips OTL. still, thank u for reading my original works, thats a pleasant surprise to know!! i havent posted my original writing website here in......a long while, since im the (very slow) process revamping the site HAHA,

but yeah, tips on what put in a writing portfolio!! if ever you still need em or if ever anybody out there can make use of this. all of these based completely on my personal experience of applying to writing workshops and writing jobs, so feel free to take what you think applies to you/would help you, and leave the rest behind

-

1 ) in general, put your Best Works. but take into consideration that You are usually your own worst critic, so you definitely could benefit from a second opinion (or many)

so, obviously, you wanna be putting in your best stuff. and thats still the general method that i'd choose, but with the added reminder that a lot of the time, writers can be blind to certain works that they themselves made that other people really liked or found immensely compelling.

this for lots of reasons: writerly self-esteem problems, that odd experience of mostly remembering the arduous Process of writing the thing and less the actual finished product, general blindness to stuff in your own work since you Wrote That (and probably revised it 76439754985 times) so it's just hard now for you to realize the level of skill thats apparent to many others

the opposite effect is also very possible, where you can be Incredibly attached to a work (maybe for sentimental reasons, maybe because the you learned a lot along the way, etc) but other people kinda found the whole work meh.

bottom line: by this point, you know youve got skill in writing. but the skill OF seeing and evaluating your own skill is a whole different animal

reach out to your friends, writing peers, or reading peers and ask them what they think some of your best works are. personally, i think it's good both to ask people who are Also in the practice/study/career of writing, and people who arent, simply because a more diverse set of information is always better than a lesser diverse one. if you want, you can ask follow up questions like "why?", or you can just stick to getting a general pulse check of what is resonating to the people who read your work. because [tv commercial voice] The Answer May Surprise You!

and once you know what resonates with others, you can start chopping down the list with armed with that new knowledge

-

2 ) "Best" should not be a catch-all term, cut it up into specific categories and showcase your Best in top categories you want to focus on. this way, you get a folio that's showing a wide range of your capabilities

if i were picking between two applicants, both of which submitted portfolios of their Best fiction works (and theyre both Very good), i would ultimately choose the applicant who gave a portfolio that showed a wider range of what Bests theyre capable of rather than the applicant who submitted 5 really great stories but they all still employed the same techniques/concepts/themes

......if that makes sense?

like, okay, let's assume the portfolio is a fiction portfolio. no specific lit genre limitations or whatever, just, fiction in general.

"fiction in general" is a ridiculously huge field! theres the genres of course, so many damn genres. but what im more focused on is Technique. there are so many ways to structure your plot and pacing, there are so many ways to create your cadence and tone, there are so many kinds of characters and so many ways you can make them clash, so many dang ways to make your story's themes come to light. theres a Lot

so take a portfolio as a chance to show the widest possible range of what you can do, and what you can do Well

let's say you did Tip 1 and coming from that, youve got a list of 15 stories you think would be good for a portfolio. your next step then is to identify which stories are doing the same Thing (whether that be in its genre, structure, themes, etc) and then decide which of those stories showcases your ability to Do that Thing best.

if ive got 3 different stories that are all magical realism pieces using a very subdued tone to communicate the plot's conflict and emotion, then im gonna need to pick just one to put in my folio, the one that did it Best. and then you can go back to Tip 1 and get a second opinion on that if you want, and THEN i repeat with the other stories, this time picking a different Thing-Technique-Structure-Theme-Etc to focus on

basically my point is that a portfolio, ideally, should show different Kinds of Bests. because that is much much more appealing than only seeing One kind of Best

-

3 ) you can make as many portfolios as you want, tailor-made specifically for what youre using that portfolio for

this is something i learned after college and when i was applying for various writing jobs. for context, i dual wielded fiction and nonfiction in college. though my degree ultimately/officially went into the nonfiction track, i still wrote a whole lotta original fiction, and when i was applying for jobs, my personal list of Bests included a lot of fiction pieces, as well as nonfiction pieces

but i was applying to all different kinds of jobs, and it would be slightly off-course to submit a fiction piece to a job like Feature Writer For Magazine. additionally, it would be slightly off-course to submit a nonfiction piece to a job like Romance Game Writer

(.....both of those real jobs i applied for and man, sidenote, can you believe i almost became a romance game writer? like, how ironic that is now that im into the fandom i am Currently into. guys. guys i got to the second interview stage of that job. Guys. jdhvfhvfkshd)

anyway, remember how Tip 2 is about showing off a diverse array of what youre capable of? well, dont get Too diverse. always remember the people/organization/etc that you will be submitting this portfolio to, and keep in mind what They are looking for

if youre applying for a sci-fi fiction workshop, submit your Best pieces that do different techniques or things BUT are still within the parameters sci-fi fiction, so they are relevant. if youre applying for a feature writing job, maybe fiction might work, but read the works that the magazine puts out, maybe. get a feel for their style, what they like. like idk , if theyre super into that Anthony Bourdain-esque kinda description of gritty details, then maybe a fiction piece that shows off that kind of descriptive skill can still be relevant.

make a new portfolio whenever the need arises to best adapt to whatever it is youre gunning for

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in summary :

tip 1: Best works but cast a wider net and ask other people because us writers can get tunnel vision sometimes

tip 2: whittle down your list to show different kinds of Bests that you can do, avoid redundancy

tip 3: keep your Bests relevant to whatever the task at hand may be

well....thats all i can think of. i hope some part of this can be helpful to anybody out there. hope youre doing well, anon :")

#asks #anon #inbox still closed but let me get to some asks that have been here for a while anyway