#discussing me as if I’m a subject instead of a human being that would be great thank you!

[vtoriacore]

✧ the flirtiest one of all! [2]

note: part two of this, fun fact it was actually 6.9k words on the original doc and i’m not telling you this for any particular reason haha i am the epitome of maturity i promise <3 (lying)

characters: azul, jade, floyd, kalim, jamil, vil, rook, epel

synopsis: pretty simple, you confess by out-flirting just about every human being, merman, beastman and fae on planet earth. because you’re suave babe, go for it!

heartslabyul & savanaclaw | ignihyde & diasomnia

♡ OCTAVINELLE

✯; azul ashengrotto

azul quirked an eyebrow when you entered mostro longue with that mischievous smile of yours but what caught his attention next is the purple rectangular box you were carrying, addressed as 'Ashengrotto'

"My, my. Got something for me, prefect?" 

"Depending on the answer you'll give me, maybe."

the little spark of excitement in his azure blue eyes which perfectly reflected the light definitely confirmed your suspicions on whether he knew or not

"Hm~ Well then it seems I'm inclined to ask for the question."

"That was a statement."

"Is that relevant?"

"No I just wanted a reason to talk to you longer~" 

the slightest surprise on his face quickly vanished as he tried to control his rapidly increasing heartbeat

"Well, don't keep me waiting [Name]. I'm a very busy merman after all. "

"Haha, okay I'll spare you the embarrassment."

"So, will you accept my feelings or are you just going to continue blushing?"

"Me, blushing? N-never."

"I have eyes, Ashengrotto. You'll have to do better than that!"  

"There is no winning against you . . . Regarding your first question though, it would seem a waste if I said no."

"Yeah, a waste of the countless affection I'd be willing to give~" 

"Affection doesn't produce a profit dear."

"No, it produces mutual feelings instead. And happiness, with the right person!" 

as always, your witty remarks never failed to make him gain those adorable red hues across his cheeks 

"If I ever die of exhaustion, it will be because of your antics."

"Correction, my cute antics :)"

"Well my dear angelfish, the exit is that way if you're done tormenting me."

"But the entrance to your heart is this way."

"Whatever will I do with you?"

"Dunno, but you got time to figure it out cause I'm not leaving." 

.

✯; jade leech

his cryptic smile stayed on the minute he saw you at mostro lounge, discussing something with azul as the merman gave this huge sigh of exasperation and nodded his head at whatever you had asked

he (naturally) came up to you once azul decided to walk away from you 

"Oya, oya~ What are you doing here my pearl?"

"Good question~ I'm sure you're smart enough to figure it out."

and figure it out he does once he catches a glimpse of the heart shaped turquoise box in your hand addressed to him in beautiful handwriting

"Hm, it would appear I'm totally clueless. If only you would be so kind as to explain the meaning of this." 

"Oh what a true shame, Leech."

"Yes, very unfortunate indeed."

"Need I make it more obvious?"

"I might have to request a verbal explanation, fufu~"

"How about I give you the physical one instead~?"

undoubtedly, the wink and statement you gave him managed to make even the jade leech's heart itself skip a beat as he gulped slightly

"I wouldn't be entirely opposed to that."

"I'll take that as a yes for the feelings I'm confessing to you, then."

"And who am I to decline such proposal?"

"Just about the most charming man in existence~"

"Ah, you never do fail with coming up with pick-up lines it seems."

"Of course not, deem yourself lucky for being my test subject in that aspect Leech."

oh jade would definitely consider himself a winner if this is what he gets to hear after today

"Well I cannot say they're not entertaining~" 

"And completely genuine, by the way."

if there was a world record for the most times someone manages to make the merman even slightly flustered, you'd definitely take the title with ease

"At this rate, I'll have to start coming up with my own quips. I can't be the only one getting swept of my feet like this."

"Hmph, that was smooth I'll give you that one!"

.

✯; floyd leech

has this stupid grin the second you step foot into his dorm room when jade is out, and it only widens once he realises what you're carrying with you 

"Heya Koebi-chan~"

"In high spirits are we?"

"Hmmmm? Have I ever not been?" 

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that. And are you not going to ask why I'm here Leech?"

"No, why would I~ You're obviously here for me!"

"What if I was here for Jade?"

"Then I would make you stay here for me instead!"

even with his playful response, you could definitely tell that if you brought jade into this once more, floyd wouldn't spare you any mercy and have you be a victim of his infamous squeeze

"No need~ I actually did come here for you."

"Ehehe~ Of course you did!"

"Tsk, confident one aren't you?"

"Mhm~ Confident enough to say that the chocolates you're carrying are for me Koebi-chan!"

"Won't you look at that~ You guessed it right!"

the beat that floyd's heart skipped amplified the excitement he felt when you handed him the box of goods

"They smell really good! Are you sure you don't wanna work as a chef for the lounge"

"I'm good. And they look good too, I spent around an hour making them for you." 

"No fair! I was going to confess first on white day. Spoiling my plans like this, the nerve~"

"I didn't confess yet Leech! But now that you reminded me, you better accept my feelings." 

"Threatened with a confession? Didn't think that was your style haha!" 

the merman definitely felt nothing but pure joy as he unwrapped the first chocolate and popped it into his mouth 

"Hm~ So what if I did? As far as I know, the law doesn't prevent me from wanting to be with my crush." 

"Ah, ah~! One more word and I'll give you a lil' squeeze." 

"Did I ever say I would mind that?"

"Then I guess you won't Koebi-chan! But just so you know, I don't plan on letting go!"

___

♡ SCARABIA

✯; kalim al-asim

pleasantly surprised to find out that you're visiting scarabia and is immediately beaming at you when you enter with a cute looking box of what appeared to be spice laced chocolates (the smell made his mouth water!)

"Good morning [Name]! What a nice sight to see so early on!"

"Morning Asim, you're in a good mood~"

"That's because Jamil let me host a banquet for Valentine's day! Isn't he the best?"

"Let me guess, he made you promise to not cook with him after you insisted you wanted to help, right?"

"Woah are you sure you don't have magic yourself? That was so accurate!"

"You're too sweet sunshine, unfortunately that's still a no."

kalim grinned at the nickname as his heart palpitations grew, amplifying when he looked at the crimson box of chocolates with golden trimmings again

"So, is there a reason as to why you're visiting Scarabia?"

"Yeah, you're actually the whole reason." 

"Ahhhh that's cute! Would you like to stay for the night?"

"Depending on your answer, maybe~" 

"My answer to what?"

"To whether you'll accept my feelings or not."

the pearly white haired boy swears he felt his heart leap out his chest as his ruby red eyes widened 

"Oh my- I'm so happy you feel the same way! I absolutely do accept yes!"

"You should also be happy about the fact I spent an hour making these!"

when you handed him the chocolates his perpetual grin only became bigger if that's even possible

"Awe thank you so much [Name]! You're the best!"

"Mhm no problem~ I made it a point to ask Viper for your favourite kind of chocolate."

"You're so sweet, how about we go on a magic carpet ride?? Like the one of that very old tale where princess Jasmin and-"

"Ah spare the details Asim, I know exactly which one you're talking about."

"Great! I heard it's very romantic. Ooh! Maybe we can do a cute duet too!"

"Whatever you want, just make sure you'll focus on the steering."

"But how would I focus on anything but you?"

"You asking me this so genuinely is actually surreal."

.

✯; jamil viper

the moment his smoky grey eyes landed on your form and the maroon heart shaped box you were carrying with you, he immediately knew what was up, or hoped he knew what it was

"Oh prefect. Good morning."

"As formal as always I see?"

"Were you expecting anything but?"

"I don't set unrealistic expectations, Viper."

"Was that an insult?"

"Are you taking it as one?"

"Do you ever give straight answers?"

"No but I will be needing a very straight answer from you though."

the teasing smile you gave jamil never ceased to make his heart skip a beat, no matter how much denial he was in at the present moment

"Depends on the question you ask, [Last name]."

"Hm rude~ I should be asking Kalim if he would accept my feelings instead . . . Too bad I'm already super invested in you, no?"

just the mention of kalim alone made a scowl appear on jamil's face as he gazed straight in your eyes

"Yes, and too bad I'm already accepting your feelings so you can't back out. What a shame."

"Woah Viper~ Possessive much! Not that I don't like it, ehe." 

"Tsk, you're really irritating when you want to be."

"But it's only because I love your reactions. They simply get cuter as they go."

jamil looked at the ground as a red hue crept over his face, he feared that if you said anything else he might just lose every bit of self restraint he has

"And . . . you're sure you want to be with me? You know what it means . . ."

"Absolutely, 100% positive that you're the one and I am not budging on this no matter what you say."

"Tsk, you're not making this easy for me at all."

"Easy wouldn't be fun, just accept that we're totally fated already."

"Because you're madly in love with me ;)"

"Why do I even bother. . ." 

"There you go, being delusional again."

♡ POMEFIORE

"Wouldn't have to be delusional if you didn't make me darlin'!"

___

✯; vil schoenheit

notices when you walk in right away, and is very quick to spot the velvety box you're carrying, definitely surprised when the tag reads 'Schoenheit'

"Afternoon prefect, do you need anything from me specifically?"

"Yeah your attention on me for a second or two."

"Well in that case, make it quick."

"Wow being this rude should be illegal~" 

"So should taking up someone's time. Someone who has a scheduled shoot in approximately 4 hours."

"Are you saying I'm wasting your time?"

"Did you take my statement as such?"

"Guess I'll go confess to LeBlanche then~ I'm sure he'll like what I made." 

vil's eyes narrowed in the slightest as a light scoff left his lips, he didn't expect such a reply but your fiery nature was one of the things as to why he fell for you in the first place so he didn't have a place to complain

"You're really something else entirely."

"Always have been, love~" 

the nickname itself made the blonde shiver, but combined with your killer smile, he couldn't help but avert his eyes for a few seconds

"So I'm guessing you're here to confess after all?"

"Yeah, so if you would be as kind as to accept my feelings please~" 

"You were already aware of what my answer would be, weren't you?"

"Oh definitely~ Now before you deny the gift, it's dark chocolate. And won't affect your daily calorie intake too much."

"Good, I do admire the thought behind that."

vil couldn't help but smile at the notion of you caring enough as to take care of the small details, but may have become even more smitten with you when he opened the box to see the beautiful designs which were clearly inspired by him

"You better appreciate them, took over an hour to make~"

"Would you really spend that much time and effort into making something so superficial?"

"Duh~ Only for you though!"

"In that case, thank you dear. Please do expect something in return on white day." 

"Positively can't wait. Anything you do is bound to turn out great!"

.

✯; rook hunt

chances are he already knew you were making something, but didn't know for who so when you came into the pomefiore dorm and requested to see him, boy was he mildly amused (not to mentioned excited)

"Bonjour mon amour~ I've heard from Roi du Poison that you inquired about my whereabouts?"

"Well then your hearing must be excellent because that's exactly what I needed!"

"My, my you seem to be in a bonne humeur~"

"That's because my hard efforts to make the greatest chocolates ever paid off!"

"Oh? Tu as fait du chocolat? How intriguing, for who~?"

"For the person who stole my heart~"

rook glanced at the velvety red box in your hand yet to his dismay, couldn't see what was on the tag. however, that didn't stop him from wishing it was reserved for him

"As always, tu es très énigmatique, my dear."

"Hehe~ I saw you glancing at the tag. You must be curious~"

"Naturally, anyone would be, non?"

"Well, you better appreciate the effort I put into this because it's for you~"

the blonde haired hunter couldn't help but smile at the sweet gesture as he anticipated the confession which was sure to follow with a hitched breath

"Well I'd love to accept them." 

"Since you're accepting the chocolates, you have to accept my feelings too Hunt~"

"With pleasure, [Name]. Or mon cœur. Whichever you prefer!"

"Are you trying to woo me with the way you say my name? Because it's working."

"That wasn't my intention, but I'm glad to hear this."

despite the cool facade rook maintained, he would definitely be lying if he said he didn't feel his heart drum faster throughout his chest at your endearing words

"If that's the case, then I should politely ask for you to stop charming me like that, it just isn't fair~"

"You're as equally charming mon amour, does that not equal out?"

"Unfair! You're doing it again."

"Je n'ai rien fait, je promets~" 

.

✯; epel felmier

the way you came into his dorm with an apple pie laced with cinnamon, he definitely tried to suppress a smile that was threatening to break out on his face

" Hey prefect, what brings you here?"

"Oh you know, my legs."

"Hey- you know what I meant!"

"Okay, okay~ I'm here for a very important reason."

"That would be?"

"You're very impatient, read what's on the tag~"

"Uh, 'Felmier'. My last name?"

by this point, the lilac haired boy began to suspect what was up but nonetheless waited for what you'd say next with a hitched breath

"Congrats, you can read~ Now guess why I'm here."

"W-wait . . . Don't tell me you're . . . confessing?"

"That's exactly what I was about to do but I guess I won't tell you."

"Ah- wait that's not what I was sayin'- uh saying!"

"You should stop hiding your accent around me, it's so adorable~"

"Gh- whatever ya say just spill it!"

"Okay, okay~ Well I'm here to ask if you'd be willing to accept my feelings?"

"I- yeah . . . Yeah I do-"

"You're making it sound like we're getting married~ You should ask for my hand first!"

the red hues decorating epel's face along with the loud beating of his heart did not make it easier for him to look you straight in the eyes

"Oh just hand over the pie . . . I'm puttin' your efforts to the test."

"Hehe~ Okay, okay but you better appreciate it or else."

"I do . . .. And don't make a comment on that!"

"Okay I won't haha! For now."

"Hah- tsk I'll never carve apples for you again . . ."

"Hey Felmier! You take that back this instant!"

"Maybe if you beg for forgiveness."

"Is this how you treat your future spouse?"

"[N-name]!"

#twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twisted wonderland #azul ashengrotto x reader #jade leech x reader #floyd leech x reader #kalim al asim x reader #jamil viper x reader #vil schoenheit x reader #rook hunt x reader #epel felmier x reader #azul ashengrotto #jade leech #floyd leech #kalim al asim #jamil viper #vil schoenheit #rook hunt #epel felmier #twst x yuu

[secondhandsorrows]

3 Quick Tips on Writing Dialogue

Okay… so one of the biggest writing hurdles I often face is writing dialogue. Good dialogue. I know such a statement can be pretty subjective, but there’s something to dialogue that demands attention. There’s things involved like subtext, purpose, characterization, and sense of realism. On the other hand, there’s also character voice, expression, body language, and dialogue tags (sparingly, if you can)… all of which can be important, too. Sometimes it’s tricky for me to get a handle on writing dialogue that sounds natural, less stilted, and more as though the characters are real and conversing like we humans would (not to say dialogue should include unnecessary filler-words and repetitions we tend to overuse in our day-to-day conversations). 

Today, I’m going to share three quick tips I’ve accumulated from research and from my own experiences in creative fiction workshops on improving your dialogue. 

1. Avoid needless filler-words and phrases.

Let’s just get this one out of the way. I know this was already mentioned a few sentences ago, but it needs to be further cemented. This is the kind of fluff that we use in day-to-day chatter, like misused grammar, useless small talk, and talking in circles that, more often than not, comes across as boring and trivial. We may think this is a good way to create realistic dialogue, but alas, there is such thing as too-realistic dialogue. Focus instead on crafting dialogue that sounds as natural as possible. At least, try to get rid of the fluff, or use it with caution, as it may bog down your pacing and slow down your readers. 

This doesn’t mean you can’t utilize some small talk, repetitions, filler words, or speech patterns like stammering. Rules are sometimes meant to be bent, just a little. It can be used to create distinctions between unique character voices, lighten the mood, express an emotion that is being felt, if you know where to put them. Dialogue can — and should — be personalized to each character. 

This brings me to the next point:

2. Refrain from revealing too much information at once. 

Not only is this considered info-dumping, but giving away a ton of detail in a piece of dialogue can come across as stiff and out-of-place.  Though it may seem convenient to utilize dialogue as a way to pass information to the reader without getting all repetitive or boring within the narrative, it tends to break away from what the character (or a real person) might actually say. Especially when it’s given to a character that has no reason or incentive to recite drawn-out exposition to give the reader some background. This can be attributed to being uncharacteristic. 

Try tweaking it as to fit your character’s voice: their mood, how they communicate their values, which aspects they find more important to discuss, which topics they actively avoid or tend to overlook. Also keep in mind who they’re speaking to, and whether or not they need to hear the information, as well. 

3. Think about what is being left un-said.

Now, I’ve mentioned subtext quite a bit, already. Subtext, as the definition goes from Literaryterms.net, is “the unspoken or less obvious meaning or message in a literary composition, drama, speech, or conversation.” Knowing this, we can implicitly communicate to the reader covertly a truer meaning or mood within a conversation or interaction between characters: that a character is smiling through a grimace trying to look as if he’s enjoying what his friend had cooked for him when in reality he’s forcing it to spare their feelings. Or, when a woman says “she’s fine” when actually she’s not fine (real). Her answer is forced, her tone clipped, her arms are firmly crossed and she’s angling herself away. How about when a character is pining for another? They might stammer over their words and are prone to blushing whenever they’re around. 

There’s a lot of different ways you can go about using subtext. I probably could’ve added a lot more, but all I want to say for now is that the beauty of subtext allows to stir interest and to further character examination, especially in dialogue. There is more that can be said, but the characters may choose not to. It could also be used to hint at the reader, to foreshadow, facilitate themes, make contradictions, to build tension and emotion… there’s internal conflict that can be explored here. Let your characters tell their own stories in their own, unique ways.  

That’s all, for now. Hope this helped!

#writer tips #writing process #creative writing #writing advice #fiction #character dialogue #writing #writing dialogue #dialogue tips #writing tips #character #on writing #story tips #subtext #writeblr #books #bookblr

[etz-ashashiyot]

About Me/FAQs

This is a new blog for a new chapter of my life. Starting over is both a little bittersweet and very freeing.

You can call me Avital. I am a non-binary traditional egalitarian Jew living in the US. Any pronouns except they/them are fine. (!היא/את בעברית, בבקשה. תודה)

I really appreciate human interaction. That being the case, if you follow me and I don't already follow you, please send me a DM with the following:

What you want me to call you (internet name, username, nickname, whatever)

What brought you here and made you want to follow me

Something random about you that you feel comfortable sharing (pet pics are always welcome too <3)

I had a whole lot of other rules on my previous blog to weed out the faint of heart, but I genuinely don't know how well that worked, so instead I will simply put roughly the same information below as resources and recommended reading. Fair warning: I will operate from a baseline assumption that you've done the reading and therefore will not be explaining anything in them.

I also had a listing of my firm opinions and other miscellaneous information. That got long and unwieldy, but a lot of people seemed to appreciate it, so I will post roughly the same list under the cut.

The current username refers to my current symbol of a tree of lanterns in the starlight. This is related to my desire to create self-symbolism, old school style (like I really want to create a family crest, a flag, a seal, and other heraldic nonsense. Why? Because it delights me, of course.)

This page is under construction and subject to change at any time.

B'vracha,

Avital

Recommend Reading

For followers who are Christian, were Christian, are non-Jews who grew up in a Christian culture and/or have only learned about Judaism through Christianity, these links are very helpful in unpacking some of the antisemitism you were taught:

Better Parables (specifically the article about Pharisees, but read the rest of the site too, it's great)

Antisemitic readings of the Temple table-flipping incident in the New Testament

The current Israel-Hamas war and just המצב discourse in general require a lot of background knowledge to discuss intelligently, and not just propaganda. There is a LOT of antisemitism in the public around this topic and it is having serious real-world consequences for Jews all over the world. The mis- and disinformation is causing problems for everyone involved. Islamophobia in the West has increased as well. If you're going to engage in this discussion, I am respectfully but forcefully asking you to read the following sources. They are useful regardless of where you fall on that political scale.

There Is No Magic Peace Fairy

Ways to help: [1], [2], [3]

Is your pro-Palestine activism hurting innocent people? Here's how to avoid that

A non-exhaustive list of antisemitic incidents, attacks, and pogroms during [OP's] lifetime

An exceptionally long and thorough explanation of antisemitism and antisemitic violence throughout history

Why The Most Educated People in America Fall for Antisemitic Lies by Dara Horn (tumblr link in case the article link gets broken)

An excellent overview of the basics

This is nowhere near complete information, but it's an important start. I will very likely continue to add resources as they become available and would love to create a primer on this topic more generally.

About the blog:

I’m going to try my best to keep this blog to primarily Judaism, comparative religion and theology, with the occasional side sprinkling of queer & trans stuff, BUT it is absolutely a personal blog at the end of the day.

I talked about Israel and המצב stuff a lot on my previous blog and will likely continue a bit over here too. I welcome a broad swath of opinions, so long as they objectively treat all parties involved as human and deserving of safety, stability, freedom, dignity, and peace. That is apparently a large ask these days, and a not-small part of why I keep talking about this issue. Please be part of the voices that give me hope for the future, okay?

Minors can follow and interact but please keep in mind that I’m probably closer to your parents' age than yours if you do want to interact with me directly.

Interactions:

Rude asks will be deleted. Harassing blogs will be blocked and probably reported.

I consider anything even remotely in the vicinity of trying to proselytize to me to be “harassing,” or at a minimum, rude. Just FYI.

Otherwise, nice interactions are welcomed.

Banter is encouraged; trolling will be ignored

If I don't respond to your interaction, there's a strong chance that I (a) have no idea what to say and am thinking about it, (2) totally meant to respond and just forgot after the notif disappeared, and/or (3) got incredibly busy. It's not personal! Please don't be shy about following up with me if you like. I promise that if we have a problem that is fixable, you'll know. If we have a problem that is not fixable, you'll be blocked.

I am currently learning Ivrit and am delighted to have interactions in Hebrew. Please feel free to message me, reply to posts or reblog, submit asks, etc. in Hebrew and I will do my best to read and respond to it. (Responses will be slower, but not for lack of appreciation of your thoughts!)

Anything else, just ask.

Hard stances:

You're not going to change my mind on these things; I've looked at the evidence, my personal experiences, and thought about them long and hard, and I am not going to be swayed by an internet rando. I can (often, but not always) co-exist just fine with people who I disagree with, but if seeing my posts about this is going to upset you, just do us both a favor and block me now please.

I am deeply distressed at how many people are choosing to live in a "post-factual society" where the truth is based on truthiness vibes and the politics are based on the quippiest of slogans. I don't care who's doing it, misinfo, disinfo, propaganda, atrocity denial, and gaslighting are BAD. There is no nuance here; these are bad things. They are bad if they go against your cause and they are bad if they "support" your cause. No cause is better than the truth.

If we cannot have a discussion where we are operating from the same baseline reality of verifiable facts, we cannot have a productive conversation and I will not engage with you. We can agree or disagree on a lot and that is fine, but facts matter.

If you cannot be reasoned with in accepting verifiable facts as reality, you need help. I'm serious. That is cult behavior. Get off tumblr and get help.

I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people. If you don't see the inherent worth in other human beings' lives, I can't fix that. Go take that struggle to G-d and heal your soul.

Queer might be a slur in the mouths of some people, but my identity isn't. Don't reblog my posts if you're going to tag it with "q slur" or "q word" or censored in some way. I'm not Gay as in "I prioritize cis men over the entire rest of the community" but Queer as in "my personal labels are none of your business but my political stance on queer liberation sure as fuck will be."

I support the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in our ancestral homeland of Israel, the same way that I support other indigenous groups' right to self-determination in their ancestral homelands. If you don't, I'm going to need you to examine why Jews should be singled out of every other group to be denied this right or denied support in seeking it. That said, I definitely do not agree with many of the decisions made by the Israeli government, especially (but far from exclusively) regarding their treatment of Palestinians. I think both Jews and Palestinians deserve to live in peace, safety, freedom, dignity, and self-determination for both. No one is going anywhere; any real solution must recognize that.

I waver between calling myself a liberal Zionist and rejecting the Zionist/anti-Zionist dichotomy altogether because it inherently puts the validity of an existing state up for debate rather than looking at real solutions for the future. Bottom line: I'm a humanitarian and a pragmatist, and I care about all the people who call that part of the world home.

Abortion is a human right and should be safe, legal, available on demand, and shameless. It's a necessary medical procedure and it's completely barbaric that we're still talking about it as anything else.

🌻 I stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦

Free Iran from the Islamic Republic // Women Life Freedom

Birth control, abortion, and no-fault divorce are actively positive parts of society and building healthy families.

Transition care is healthcare and also a human right. Allowing people to transition prevents self-harm and suicide, and has an extremely high efficacy rate with an exceptionally low level of risk or regret. We now have well over a century of data on this.

That said, detransitioners who are still supportive of trans people/aren't transphobic are more than welcome here, as any exploratory process deserves the right to say, "Interesting! But nope!"

Transunity, ace/aro positivity, and just inclusionism in general, 100%. Fuck off with anything else.

If you don't vaccinate yourself and your kids for any reason other than medical necessity, and especially if you promote anti-vaxxer views and the associated pseudoscience, you are actively harming the most vulnerable members of society for entirely selfish reasons and that makes you a bad person. I hope your kids bypass you to get vaccinated.

Wear a mask 😷

[mamirhodessxox]

Wreak Havoc

Death Island!Leon S Kennedy x Umbrella!Reader one shot

Desc: When Leon & His team Rebecca, Chris, Jill & Claire run into an incident at Alcatraz Reader unexpectedly shows up to grab one of the secret antidotes for her personal studying on the new virus being sprung on humanity & in the process gets into a fight with Leon that makes it clear to everyone about the twos old love history.

Content: Violence, Mentions of heartbreak, Death Island!Leon x Umbrella!Reader, small Implication of sex, Angst, Fluff??, Happy ending :)

{~I'm very serious with you guys interacting with my writing!!!! it would make me so happy & excited, the more comments & reposts the more inspiration i have to write :) Votes and comments are strongly appreciated so please COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT COMMEENNTTT the more comments the more content <3!!!~}

Word Count: 1913 Words used

Leon’s plans were far from what was currently happening, The poor guy was just trying to go on a tour around San Francisco but instead he was stuck in alcatraz fighting off the undead becoming infected & even uninfected and when he was told to grab the antidote to stop all of this mess he ran into you which was an even bigger pain in his ass.

You see, when you were In the technological area of the prison so was Leon & when you were standing across from him in the room his heart was already preparing to jump out of his chest, You two had multiple encounters on past missions that it even had a small fling between you guys but you couldn’t let him too close as you felt the fear of being heartbroken by the man who was your first love, first fuck & first everything so you cut ties with Leon before things got too ‘serious’ and clearly there was still that little spark between you both as you felt a small twang in your chest making direct eye contact with his blue eyes.

You couldn’t handle the tension or distraction that was stopping you from getting what you needed for Umbrella since they wanted to test this virus on multiple people like experiment subjects, the silence was loud & all the two of you heard were technical wires sparking and faint noises from some freakish monster fighting Jill so you cut the memories short & finally spoke up “You done reminiscing on the past yet” “As done as you are, what the hell are you doing here?” Your eyebrow perked up a bit as he held the gun attached to the belt of his jeans “I think you already know why i’m here Leon so let’s make those easy and start handing me the goddamn antidote” “Not happening doll, You know what happened last time you pulled one of these stunts.” You scoffed before stretching your arms “Fine you want to make this difficult and hurt your fragile ego we can play that game.”

Immediately as you started sprinting towards Leon he picked you up and practically body slammed you onto the floor but that still didn’t stop you from anything, you tugged on his hair and lifted both your legs and quickly wrapping them around his head putting his face in an area he was VERY familiar with & very much so missed but that’s for a later discussion, You flipped him over to where you were not on top and quickly got up but much to your demise he didn’t give up, he stood up and tried slamming you against a wall but you acted fast and held on multiple wires hanging from the ceiling and started swinging back & forth enough that you kicked him in the face “Son of a bitch!” You Snickered at his pain as he landed on a technical board while you jumped onto the ground and grabbed a random pole about to hit him with it but he held up his wrists against the pole causing it to bend “Why do you choose to make my life more- fuck!- more difficult than it already is sweetheart!”

You glared at him as he used one of his pet-names for you as a verbal weapon, he knew exactly what he did with that name and he knew it would hurt you in a place of your heart that you locked up & shoved away, “why do you choose to get in the way of MY job leon?” He smirked as he pushed you back as you attempted to hit him one more time “Because you’re so in love with me beautiful” You hated the way he spoke to you with sarcasm sometimes but you knew it was true, You were unexceptionally in love with him despite your split up & you hated it with your entire soul, “Just give up the act sweetheart you know your not gonna get what you want.” He warned as you kept trying to get swings at him but would fail miserably because of his dodges that he learned from training many years ago

After 30 more minutes of endless fighting you eventually gave up, both of you sat across from each other in two separate corners breathing heavily & sweat running down your guys’ face eventually leon broke the silence with a heavy sigh “Why do you do this to me Angel? You know how much you make my heart hurt when I see you so why do you do it?” You refused to acknowledge what he was saying to you so eventually he got annoyed and crawled his way towards you & almost placed a hand on your knee but you quickly pressed your high heel boot against his forehead & lightly pushed him back to where he sat on his stomach sighing “Sweetheart why did you leave? was it something I did back then I just don’t get it? What did I do?” You became irritated with his nagging for answers so eventually you fessed up. “It wasn’t You Leon. I think you know that by now. I was scared of you breaking my heart at some point so I prevented it from happening by dumping you before you could do it to me.”

Leon looked at you with sympathetic eyes while sitting up and moved your leg out of the way to cup your face into his hands while he hummed softly “You know that I would have never left you right? No matter how fucked up your little mind is I find it extremely fucking attractive to the point where I even bought you an engagement ring doll.” You rolled your eyes trying to move your head out of his grasp but he didn’t budge, “Yeah right, I highly doubt tha-“ “It’s true sweetness, I even have it in my wallet to this day after all of those years.” You watched him move one of his hands off of your face and digging into the pocket of his pants and pulling out a wallet he still somehow had on him & fishing out a ting that was slowly starting to show off how old it was getting & placed it into the palm of your hand “You know I never lie Doll face.”

You felt your breath hitch slightly but you gave the ring back to him and just around that time a guy as buff as leon but with short brown hair busted through the doors “Goddamnit Leon where the fuck have you been! And who the hell are you?!” You glared as Leon stood up & pulled you up along with him “Don’t worry about it Chris, let’s go before that weird fucking monster eats up rebecca.” Rebecca? Who the fuck is Rebecca? You didn’t have time to blurt out this question since Leon was dragging you along, Once your eyes settled on that big creature that was swinging it’s weird large fucking tentacles at what seemed to be Jill & Claire you felt pure fear run through your veins

“Rebecca!” You snapped your head as you heard Leon shout out this woman’s name once again but then you saw her run towards Leon with a box of what seemed to be the antidotes of the virus and even samples of said virus. You watched as she hugged around him in relief while blood ran down her face and it made the blood inside of your own body start boiling that you snatched the box she held & quickly held out your gun at Leon, Chris & Rebecca “we’re going to kill whatever the fuck that thing is back there & we’re all going to go our merry separate ways and i’m going to be taking this” “Who the hell do you think you ar-“ you quickly aimed back at Rebecca with an anger expression plastered on your face in which Cho Leon took note of “Watch it Bill Nye I will easily shoot whatever is in that fucking large cranium of yours.” Chris glared you down but you didn’t care, you put your gun away set the box down and started loading up some sort of large machine gun that could possibly take down whatever creature you saw Jill & Claire fight with, Chris was busy making sure Rebecca wasn’t wounded or infected while Leon practically hovered over you trying to help but you would shove him away “What the hell was that about huh? You’re not taking shit from us got it?”

You kept ignoring him, just as you got to make the machinery work the creature had slammed of its tentacles on the area you & leon were currently located causing you to fall down & hang onto a piece of metal while Leon was slammed against a wall “SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP ME?” You saw Leon quickly spring up and run directly towards you while Chris got ahold of a large rocket launcher & continuously blow up the creature wreaking havoc on everybody, You hear Claire shout something out towards Jill & Rebecca run towards You & Leon to help him grab you as he was slowly sliding off of the platform, Leon quickly grabbed onto your hand dragging you back up causing him & Rebecca To fall backwards while you rolled onto the side as you groaned loudly after just now realizing there was a deep gash in your side & due to you quickly loosing blood you passed out.

Eventually you woke up but it was outside of the prison on the ground patched up in stitches & gauze wrapped around the stitched up gash, You sit up quickly and wince causing Leon to move away from his group & kneel towards you “Good-morning sunshine, Thought I lost you for a second.” He chuckled out lightly while your eyebrows furrowed “Is it dead?? What are we doing out he-“ “it’s more than dead don’t worry.” Jill reassured with a smile on her dirtied face “We haven’t seen you in a while, It’s good to finally see you.” Claire spoke out walking towards you “Thanks..It’s nice seeing you guy’s too..” Leon cleared his throat indicating he wanted to speak with you so Claire & Jill walked off towards chris & Rebecca ass he grabbed ahold of your hands “Sweetheart I think you know we will never be able to avoid each other so that’s why I’m going to ask- not even ask TELL you to Marry me, give us an actual chance & be with me. I’ll handle all of your Umbrella bullshit an-“

You smiled up at him and leaned up as much as you could to grab his face and kiss him “Fine. I’ll marry you.” He grinned and just as he was about to kiss you deeply Rebecca stepped towards you “Y/N right..? I’ve heard a lot about you & I just wanted to address that..Leon & I? Have nothing between us an-“ You smile reassuringly “It’s fine rebecca, Don’t worry about it.” Rebecca smiled in relief & congratulated the both of you & eventually a helicopter came around and picked you all up & brought you all to a facility.

2 years later since then Leon & You got Married & Even had a child recently! A sweet little girl who had the both of you wrapped around her finger. Life was doing great you would say, Until You had gotten a call from a very very old friend of yours Albert Wesker, Alerting you that your work is needed immediately for yet, another outbreak.

xtripleiiix’s masterlist

🏷️a list: @ginswife @coolpastelartshoe @greatkoalawizard @cokolin044 @kotoriarlert

#oh my fucking goooood #leon s kennedy fanfiction #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x you #leon kennedy angst #leon kennedy fluff #resident evil x reader #jill valentine #chris redfield #claire redfield #death island leon #Spotify

[dreamweaversfavsandthoughs]

Rick and Morty S7 Ep. 4: That’s Amorte

(There is no ethical consumption under capitalism)

Don’t read any further if you don’t want to spoiler your appetite…

My Favs

We got Morty back!

When the world was about to send out an Amber Alert on a missing kid, Morty decided to return to us! I’ve enjoyed the season so far but having Rick and Morty together is a stark reminder that the strength of this show is found in the dynamic between grandfather and grandson. Also, I love seeing Rick getting healthy and bettering himself, but I also love to see a Rick that’s amoral and a bit unhinged.

Facial animation:

I don’t know if this is due to the Irish animation studio they’re working with now, but I’ve noticed there’s a bit more diversity in the facial expressions compared to the last two or three seasons. Has anyone else noticed this?

They did a Soylent Green!

I predicted that this might have been a red herring seeing the initial clips and they might instead do something akin to the Universal Paperclip game, but a Soylent Green is what we got. Well, the idea behind the paperclip game is still on the table for next season…

Euthanasia, Cannibalism, and Suicide

Quite the trifecta of “subjects we don’t discuss in polite society,” but I admire them for taking the risk and weaving everything together well. Kinda surprised S&P let them get away with it.

“His dying wish is to see deader people so he can feel superior.”

Morty-O’s Suicide Spaghetti

“ Is this people or not people? I just need to know how much I should pretend to be upset.”

Oh, Jerry…

“They dyed their sun institutional gray.”

“Ooo gray areas. My specialty.”

Classic Rick

Kotomi’s cover of “Live Forever”

“Life itself is wrong and that means death is right. But you can’t side with that. So you live, even when it means eating.”

Not My Fav:

They could have gotten nastier.

This is my one small gripe in an episode that I think is fantastic. I’m confident there is an earlier draft out there that got so much grosser before S&P made their cuts and I demand to see that draft!

Release that nasty cut!!!

My Thoughts:

First my less serious thought, how in the hell did Rick find out that those people turned in spaghetti when they unalived themselves? My headcanon is that he has made a regular habit of impersonating a doctor on that planet because he sees doctors as nothing more than glorified mechanics, but for people. Rick knows he’s the smartest man in the universe and a proper scientist so practicing medicine would not be that much of a challenge and along the way he discovered this delicious trait about the Keplar people.

On a more serious note, there are two moments that really stood out to me. First, was when Morty broke the news of the spaghetti’s origin to the family and their reaction. They were angry and disappointed—in Morty for delivering the message rather than Rick for feeding them people-spaghetti. That spaghetti was amazing and brought everyone joy and they were more angry about losing their joy than the moral implications of consuming human flesh. Morty destroyed the illusion that they were “good” people and instead of actually being good people and refusing to eat the spaghetti, Morty created a work-around so that he and the family could still maintain the illusion.

That felt very realistic to how, dare I say, all of us have acted at some point, whether it’s the food we eat or that store that sells the jeans that fit perfectly or the online retailer that delivers anything we could possibly want the next day. Maybe, we find out someday that it’s not created in the most ethical manner and we rationalize it. We think, “ Oh, it’s not that bad.” or “ I can’t afford the more ethical option,” or "I have such few joys in my life I don't want to lose this as well.” It’s easier to uphold the illusion of being morally upright under a system that makes it exceedingly difficult to do so. But even if the capitalistic system is destroyed can we ever really be absolved? This leads to the second moment that stood out, Rick’s monologue.

“Life itself is wrong and that means death is right. But you can’t side with that. So you live, even when it means eating.”

My interpretation is that Rick is saying, “Life, by it’s very nature, is inherently unethical and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Even if the meat you eat comes from an animal that is well taken care of, killed as quickly and painlessly as possibly, and processed in a facility that treats its workers well and obeys all regulations—that animal still had to die in order to produce that meat. You’re a vegan. Plants are still living things and for many plants the process of getting food from them destroys them in the process. Millions of bacteria are destroyed every time you wash your hands. Life needs other kinds of life to end for it to keep going, but humans are the only creatures that are aware of this fact so we create arbitrary categories around which types of life are okay to destroy (categories we can’t all agree on) in order to maintain the illusion of morality.

This episode does not have a feel-good message among the jokes and absurd characters and I appreciate that. This one got my brain a-churnin’ and I’m sure I read way too much into this episode but I couldn’t help myself.

#rick and morty #rick and morty season 7 #rnm #rnm spoilers #rick and morty spoilers #rick sanchez #morty smith #that’s amorte

[yurizonofanfics]

Hello :D can you do movie Donkey Kong x a reader that is kinda shy but has a crush on him and think they are good hiding it?

A fellow Donkey Kong lover…. I’m sorry but he was just so cute in this movie, even if he was voiced by Seth Rogan. Lots of shenanigans from all the characters in this piece, hope that’s ok!

Timid. Anxious. Cautious. Shy. Introverted. These were all words that could describe you. You weren’t unfriendly, but you did tend to keep your distance from people, with the exception of the people you were closest to. In fact, you were the opposite of the person you had a crush on. Maybe that was what had attracted you to him in the first place.

You were a little embarrassed to admit that you had feelings for Donkey Kong, the prince of the Kong Kingdom. At first you hadn’t liked him; he had been boisterous and beat up your good friend Mario. But as you got to know him, he grew on you. During the final battle against Bowser, he had protected you, Peach, and Toad, and perhaps that was when you first started falling for him. He was strong, outgoing, and funny, but he was also Donkey Kong, and you were…well, you. A human who had decided to stay in a magical world.

The two of you were incompatible, you thought, but that didn’t stop you from admiring him from afar. You were friends, but you kept him at arm’s length, which was somewhat difficult to do as he wanted to spend time with his friends a lot. You thought you did a good job at hiding how you felt, but that delusion was quickly shattered when you were having dinner at Mario and Luigi’s place in the Mushroom Kingdom one night.

Peach and you were sitting at the dinner table, waiting as Mario, Luigi, and Toad prepped some Italian food Peach had never had before, and the princess was giving you a sly look from across the table.

“What?” you asked, tugging at the collar of your shirt nervously.

“So,” she started. “How are things at the Kong Kingdom?”

“Um…I think you would know more about that than me.”

“You’re the one who’s over there all the time.”

“I’m not there that often…”

Peach grinned. “When you’re not here, you’re there.”

“What are you getting at?” you asked crankily.

“I’m just wondering how things are going with a certain prince,” Peach sang.

“Oh my god.” You felt your face heat up. “There is nothing going on.”

“Uh-huh. Right.”

 Toad popped his head out of the kitchen. “Are you guys talking about what I think you’re talking about?”

“What?” you asked at the same time Peach replied “Yes.”

“What are they talking about?” You heard Mario ask in the background.

“[Name] has a crush on Donkey Kong!” Toad shouted back into the kitchen.

“They WHAT?!”

You buried your face in your hands and wished the floor would swallow you up.

“I think it’s sweet,” Luigi said as he set the table.

“I do too,” Toad agreed.

“Me too!” Peach giggled at your embarrassment.

“Well, I think they could do way better,” Mario said angrily as he entered the dining room, balancing a large plate of pasta.

“Can we please change the subject?” you groaned.

“I dunno, can you please do something about your feelings instead of pining all day, every day?” Peach asked.

“I do not -,” you started, but then realized that yes, you do, indeed, pine. “I don’t do it all day, every day.”

After a humiliating dinner discussing your potential love life, you reflected on whether or not your feelings for Donkey Kong were that obvious. You tried really hard to seem cool, calm, and collected when with him but apparently everybody except Mario saw through you. It made you wonder if DK was aware as well… If he was, he never said anything, and that meant he didn’t return your feelings. The thought hurt, but you were used to being sidelined.  You decided you wouldn’t act on your feelings if that was the case.

So imagine your surprise when the prince of Kong Kingdom, who almost never left unless someone fetched him first, showed up the next day at your home in the Mushroom Kingdom. He loomed over the doorway, leaning against the frame and looking very suave. You fought the heat threatening to creep into your cheeks.

“Hey,” DK said as you stared up at him with wide eyes.

“Um, hey.” You snapped yourself out of your stupor and stepped forward. The ape moved out of the way so you could step outside, as there was no way he would fit through your door. “What’s up?”

“The princess said you wanted to see me.”

You were going to kill Peach. Later.

A strained smile spread across your lips. “I think she must’ve been mistaken.” DK’s face fell and you scrambled to correct yourself. “I mean, if I needed something I would’ve just come over, like usual.”

DK shrugged. “I dunno, it might be fun to do something just by ourselves, without Mario, or Diddy, or anybody else tagging along.”

You tilted your head. “I always thought the more the merrier. But I suppose…it’s alright.”

“Great, but you’ll have to tell me what humans usually do for dates.”

“I’m sorry?” You froze.

DK smirked. “Date. We’re going on a date.”

You stuttered, absolutely flustered, and found nothing coherent was coming out of your mouth.

“Aww, your cheeks are so dark.” He stroked your face with his huge thumb and you nearly had a stroke.

“Wait, wait, wait, did you say a date? A date? Wh-what gave you that idea –“ “Look,” he sighed. “I know you have feelings for me, it’s obvious. You’re always blushing so hard. But you’re also always avoiding being alone with me. I was hoping that you would eventually just tell me you like me but…” He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “Princess Peach said you might never and if I didn’t do something I would miss out. And I didn’t want to miss out on you.”

“You mean…you like me too?” you asked, voice cracking.

“Yes. I’m sorry, I should’ve said something sooner.” Your knees felt weak and buckled. DK caught you, positioning his arm behind you to support your smaller frame.  

“I-I don’t know what –“

“Just say you love me and give me a kiss,” he grinned and leaned down, but you threw your hands up in front of your face.

“I can’t!! It’s too soon!! My heart just can’t handle much more today!”

#super mario #donkey kong x reader #donkey kong imagine #this is so bad but i tried so hard #bear writings #i was trying to be cute and funny lol did i succeed

[emotionallychargedtowel]

The Eighth Sense e5 & e6: portraying trauma with nuance

Episodes 5 and 6 of The Eighth Sense have really blown up a discourse bomb in tumblr’s BL scene. I had been putting off watching these episodes because I had gathered that episode 6 ended with something pretty distressing, and stuff like that sometimes hits me pretty hard, especially when it’s left as a cliffhanger. But I was already tempted to rip off the band-aid and watch it anyway, and then everyone has been debating aspects of these episodes. So I just had to see what all the discussion was about and figure out my own take on it.

In case it’s not obvious, the following will have spoilers for the series up to and including episode 6. I have a lot to say about this, because it touches on subjects that have been a major focus for me in my personal life, in my previous work as a trainee therapist, and in my research and writing. But I want this to be a manageable read, so I’m going to put things in bullet form when I can to keep them brief and organized and I’m going to make some section headings to help with skimming or skipping around. But before I launch into the rest, there’s one thing I should get out of the way: I don’t think any part of episodes 5 or 6 are a hallucination, a dream, or otherwise did not occur. I do think that there are aspects of the way the show portrays certain things that indicate dissociation and/or an acute trauma response. I’ll talk more about that below. (Hey, @waitmyturtles, this is the epic TES post I’ve been writing off and on for two days! I hope it’s of interest.)

Here are the section headings I’ll use below, to give a sense of what I’m going to talk about:

Conceptualizing Jae Won: Or, what I think is happening with him

Jae Won’s therapist - comments and interpretations

Jae Won’s therapist - medication management

Human beings’ amazing capacity for self-blame

Interpreting show production choices psychologically

Are the creators of The Eighth Sense going to pull a “who shot JR?” move?

Conceptualizing Jae Won: Or, what I think is happening with him

We don’t know how his younger brother died, but we know that he died in front of Jae Won when they were together, and it’s clear that he blames himself. I would be shocked if he was actually at fault even a little bit. But it does appear to have happened “on his watch” in a sense that lends itself to blaming himself. This is a huge issue, one that I’ll discuss in more detail later on.

Even before his brother’s death, Jae Won was clearly under a ton of pressure from his parents. And his father appears to be emotionally and, almost certainly, physically abusive. This is also far more likely to have pre-dated his brother’s death than to have only developed afterward.

In addition to pressure and abuse, I think it’s pretty clear that Jae Won was a parentified child. This means that he was put in a position of having to take care of his parents’ emotional needs as a child. This kind of role reversal has profound effects throughout the parentified person’s life. 

Jae Won’s self-blame about his brother’s death means he was always going to be predisposed to stay stuck in the chronic version of the acute trauma response instead of moving through the natural healing process. In other words, he was almost certain to develop PTSD.

This is less clearly shown in the show, but my impression is that Jae Won has a deep-seated depressive tendency that existed before the loss of his brother. This would make sense for someone who faced the family-of-origin difficulties that he did. 

When he did develop PTSD, as I have no doubt he did, Jae Won’s existing challenges were going to make him even more likely to develop the depressive symptoms of PTSD than others. We’ve seen some of these in the show already:

feeling alienated from others, unable to form meaningful connections with them,

anhedonia (an inability to feel positive emotions), and

negative beliefs about himself, other people, and the world.

All of this is happening at once. He’s dealing with PTSD, but he also still has all the same habits and beliefs he had before due to the parentification and training in people-pleasing, so he’s supposed to bottle up all of this pain. And if it’s his fault (in his mind) that his brother died, how much more does he owe his parents than he ever did before? This is a distorted, unhealthy way of thinking about all of it, but these kinds of maladaptive thoughts and expectations happen all the time with trauma survivors.

Jae Won’s therapist really sums all of this up very well when she says, “All your worries, not doing what you want to do because you do not want to let your parents down, and trying hard to be a good person to everyone because you do not want to disappoint others. Don’t you think it might be all because of your younger brother? Your younger brother, who got into an accident while with you. Your younger brother, who you couldn’t protect. And you are struggling to live your life for him as well.” 

Jae Won’s therapist - comments and interpretations

I went into this series feeling nervous about its portrayal of therapy. I was very excited that therapy was being portrayed at all, mind you! It’s horrifying how seldom we see therapy mentioned as an option, much less shown, either in BLs or kdramas, and I’ve hoped for this to change for a long time now. But therapy  is shown in an inaccurate way so often in media. And often, we see therapists and other mental health professionals breaking ethical rules. So I was on my guard, big time.

There’s one thing I really take issue with about Jae Won’s therapist, and it’s somewhat of a small thing: her office is way, way too dark! I just don’t think that kind of low lighting, with a lot of the illumination coming from her aquarium and other tinted light sources, is professional or conducive to therapy work. Of course, it’s obvious that her office is lit in this way because it looks cool and sets a certain mood for the show. And that’s fine. It’s a very stylized show in a lot of ways. But it makes me a little tweaky to watch it. 

Some of the things she does in the therapy space with Jae Won are a bit open to interpretation, and could be debated. But I view her in a fairly charitable light, and I found that a favorable interpretation wasn’t difficult to justify at all. I ended up viewing her (so far, at least) as a very skillful and effective therapist.

I loved it when she joked, in the first scene after the credits for episode 1, “For God’s sake! Just tell me what your worries are!” Jae Won isn’t great at sharing. He’s been trained from early childhood not to show his messy, vulnerable emotions around authority figures. Jae Won is not an easy client by any stretch, so she may have been showing a mild version of some real frustration with him when she began that comment with mock-hostility. But he seems really sensitive to criticism, real or perceived. Coming at him directly about this could be risky. Using humor is a good way to get around this sensitivity pretty effectively. It’s worth noting, though, that I wouldn’t endorse this kind of move by a therapist unless they knew a client very well and had built a solid rapport with them.

The comment I quoted above (”Don’t you think it might be all because of your younger brother?”) connects so many of Jae Won’s interpersonal difficulties to the loss of his brother in a skillful way. It was very astute and well-put. But there are some things I would quibble with about it.

First, I’m kind of surprised that she is only saying this explicitly this far into therapy with Jae Won. It seems rather late to make such an observation considering this constellation of issues has, without a doubt, been in place the entire time they’ve been working together. This could definitely have been done sooner.

At the same time, paradoxically, it’s delivered abruptly, as if she blurted it out too soon. Actually, the abruptness comes from the fact that there’s not sufficient lead-up to the comment in their discussion beforehand.

Though the show’s treatment of mental health is strong overall, I think this part of this scene suffered from flawed writing. If I had written this scene, I would have made a change that I think would have resolved both of these issues. Instead of introducing this insight as if the therapist has just voiced it for the first time, I would have presented it as something she and Jae Won have touched on together more than once during their work together. Anyone who’s been to therapy knows that the same ideas, which appear as shocking revelations at first, often have to be returned to many times and worked through before we can benefit from them. She could have said something like, “This is that issue we’ve talked about before, right? It seems like another case of your beliefs about your brother’s death causing trouble in other areas of your life.”

Even better, she could have been shown quoting some kind of metaphor or shorthand Jae Won came up with himself when they’d spoken about this previously. For example, I had a client once who used to talk about metaphorically carrying around a giant, heavy book where he wrote down all of his failures. He described it in a similar way to “the catalog of mistakes” (I’m not going to share his actual wording, of course). Whenever I would use his wording, saying “the catalog of mistakes” or even “the catalog,” all of our prior discussion of that issue came into both our minds immediately. It also served as a reminder of our rapport and the importance I placed on his perspective.

Jae Won’s therapist - medication management

There’s one other area of Jae Won’s interactions with his therapist that is a bit hard to interpret. The exchange he has with his therapist about the amount of medication she’ll prescribe to him certainly seems important, but it’s hard to tell what exactly it means.

One thing that complicates this is the fact that he is receiving therapy and medication management services from the same provider. In other words, she seems to be a psychiatrist who provides therapy services. In most parts of the United States, this is rare (though that wasn’t always the case). I haven’t been able to tell whether this is more commonplace in South Korea.

Because she’s a prescriber and a therapist, asking for three weeks’ worth of medication instead of two also means waiting longer before having another therapy session. Maybe Jae Won really is just busy and trying to cut down on demands on his time, but this doesn’t seem too likely. It’s also possible that he’s seeking a greater quantity of his medication for some purpose, such as abusing it or using it for self-harm or to end his life. But he also could just be trying to put off his next therapy session to a later date because of his difficulty talking about vulnerable topics, something he demonstrates at multiple points in his therapy session. Similarly, when his therapist says she can extend his prescription to three weeks but not a month, because, as she puts it, “I need to do my job,” this could be in reference to the medication or her therapy work. Part of her job is keeping him from having access to too large an amount of medication at once, while another part is having therapy sessions with him (that are frequent enough to be useful). It’s hard to tell which of the two she was referring to, or whether it could be something else entirely. So I don’t think there’s one clearly correct interpretation here. But I do think we should be attentive to the possibility that he might be medication-seeking, possibly with the aim of using the medication for self-harm.

Human beings’ amazing capacity for self-blame

Even if you have experienced trauma or have been close to someone who has, unless you’ve spent time with a sizable sample of trauma survivors, it’s hard to understand just how readily people blame themselves for traumatic experiences. I had had personal experience with this as a survivor of intimate partner violence before I ever did any training in trauma therapy, but I was still totally floored when I observed firsthand just how often this happens and how unjustifiable every single instance of self-blame I encountered in clients turned out to be.

This is actually a big area for me as a researcher so I’m going to try not to go off on a massive tangent, but I think this is important. When we experience trauma, one of the most frequent responses people have is to blame themselves. I used to describe this to clients as a “deal with the devil.” Blaming ourselves allows us to feel like we have control over whether such things will happen to us (and/or those we care about) in the future. If we tell ourselves, “the trauma only happened to me because I did something bad, or something wrong,” then we can also tell ourselves, “but I’ll never do the bad or wrong thing again so from now on I’ll be safe.”

It’s very tempting to make this bargain, but it is an extremely bad deal. Self-blame is one of the biggest reasons some people get stuck in their acute trauma response instead of completing the healing process, resulting in PTSD. That feeling of control isn’t worth that. But human beings are so tempted to make this trade. When I was doing trauma therapy as a trainee, I saw example after example of folks who did seriously remarkable amounts of mental gymnastics in order to justify blaming themselves for their trauma.  I’m going to talk briefly now about a client I had many years ago, without giving any details that could be remotely identifying. This person had witnessed the death of a close friend when they were in combat together. I did prolonged exposure therapy with this person, meaning he had to tell me the story of his friend’s death again and again and again. When we do this type of work, it usually seems at first like the client is telling the exact same story again and again without any real change. But little changes crop up gradually and accumulate and after a while, you find the story has made big shifts. And occasionally, a big change happens.

This client started out telling his story in a way that looked for every possible reason his friend’s death could have been his fault. And wow, was he ever grasping at straws. It was almost as if he had said something as nonsensical as “I had oatmeal for breakfast that day and maybe that’s why my friend died.” Every miniscule decision he had made that day could, in his eyes, potentially have caused his friend’s death in some mysterious and imperceptible way. It would have been absurd had it not been so sad. But thankfully, as we continued the exposure work, his story gradually changed and these justifications for self-blame started to fall away a little at a time.

Then, one day, a crucial detail was added to the story that blew me away. After weeks of telling the story in the usual way, my client mentioned for the first time that just before his friend was hit, he had called out a warning to him, which the friend had ignored. He’d mentioned countless ways he might be to blame--none of them remotely justified--but had never told me about the one very clear way in which he had tried to prevent his friend’s death. When I pointed this out, my client was shocked that he had never mentioned that detail before. We spent a lot of time unpacking what all of this meant. It was the single biggest turning point in his therapy. So, yeah. People have an amazing capacity for figuring out even the slimmest of pretexts for self-blame, and it’s abundantly clear that Jae Won is exercising that capacity big time. I’m pretty certain we’ll find out that he has been blaming himself a lot for what happened while having no real justification for doing so.

(Side note: I have tons more thoughts about trauma, self-blame, victim-blaming more generally, and other related psychological constructs--these are all longstanding research interests of mine--but I’m going to stop here because this thing is already ridiculously long. But if anyone reading this ever wants to discuss any of this further, please feel free to hit me up! I love talking about these things.)

Interpreting show production choices psychologically

Let’s review where we find Jae Won toward the beginning of the show. I’ve talked about how Jae Won had a lot of psychological difficulties before the story started. His family of origin situation was damaging even before he lost his brother, and then he had to contend with trauma and complicated grief. After that, he went through a breakup (possibly due to his partner cheating on him), completed his military service, and then had to make the transition back to civilian life, which isn’t easy under the best of circumstances.

And then he meets Ji Hyun, and his feelings for him unsettle the precarious set of strategies that he’s been using to get by. Ji Hyun makes Jae Won feel tempted to let his guard down and be himself. He places a degree of trust in Jae Won that challenges his cynicism and makes him feel tempted to trust Ji Hyun in return--to trust him to an extent that would normally be out of the question for him. Ji Hyun shakes things up, and while this is mostly a very positive thing--there are a lot of things in Jae Won’s life that urgently need to change--it’s also rather destabilizing in the short term. 

Then the shit starts to hit the fan when Jae Won wakes up after staying out late drinking to hear his father pounding on his door. And the makers of the show start to play around with cinematography, editing, sound design, and other aspects of the show’s production to evoke Jae Won’s inner experience. After his dad pounds on his door, the way the show is shot and edited changes.

This disjointed editing and other distortions of typical filmmaking at this point in episode 5 have reminded some folks on here of a dissociative state, and I can see why. I would agree that it has a dissociative flavor. There are two prominent types of dissociation (which can happen simultaneously):

derealization, a feeling that the world around us isn’t real--it may feel empty, strange, or just plain wrong; and

depersonalization, in which we feel like we’re seeing ourselves from the outside, as if the person we’re observing isn’t us.

It’s tricky to talk about either of these in the context of tv/film because as viewers watching a fictional story unfold in a TV show, we are by definition:

perceiving that the world the characters inhabit doesn’t seem real, because it isn’t

looking at the characters from the outside, because they aren’t us (and they aren’t real)

But there are conventions of film and tv production that give us a sense of realism and of seeing things from characters’ points of view, and when Jae Won is dissociating we see those conventions get suspended or distorted. For example:

Conventional editing creates a flow of time that feels realistic (partly because we learn the “language” of film from a young age and interpret it that way). At important moments in The Eighth Sense, the editing breaks the rules of conventional editing, often messing with the viewers’ sense of time. Contexts change abruptly, as when Jae Won suddenly goes from being at home to being in his car. At other points, dialogue also goes out of sync.

Shot-reverse shot techniques help to approximate seeing things from the characters’ perspectives, situating us in the story so that we don’t feel like we’re observing from a distance. The most notable moment when this rule is broken happens when Jae Won is upset about his camera being damaged. We see him telling someone between sobs that the camera was a gift from his younger brother, but that person (assumably his dad) isn’t shown at all--not even a shoulder or the back of a head.

There’s also a lot of use of shallow depth of field (something the show uses in other ways as well), putting Jae Won in focus while his surroundings become a blur, making the world around him look hazy and unreal.

The sequence where Ji Hyun and Jae Won kiss in the ocean puts their dialogue way out of sync. On my first viewing, this just seemed like an interesting choice, one that gave the scene a sort of dreamlike quality. I’ve seen this strategy used before, as well, without any reference to mental illness, usually in art films. The first example that came to mind for me was from a Godard movie. It would be a valid option regardless of mental health-related content in a show. But after what immediately follows, I think that scene is portraying a trauma memory. Sometimes benign events that happened just before something traumatic become encoded with trauma memories rather than our usual type. (To put it briefly, trauma memories are encoded and stored in a different part of the brain from our everyday memories, and this is why they “behave” differently and have a different sensory quality from typical memories. Trauma recovery often involves some degree of re-encoding these memories in a more normal manner.)

Basically, the show sometimes puts the viewer into an approximation of a derealized and depersonalized state, particularly relative to what we’re used to as TV watchers. At other points, it shows characters’ experiences as if they were traumatic memories.

Are the creators of The Eighth Sense going to pull a “who shot JR?” move?

All this being said, I think that Jae Won’s dissociative moments, while very concerning and doubtless extremely distressing for him, do not point toward any sort of severe dissociative disorder like Dissociative Identity Disorder, nor do they make me concerned that his reality-testing (his ability to effectively distinguish what is and isn’t real) is impaired. I also don’t see any signs of cognitive impairment that would create a similar degree of confusion about reality. As a result, I don’t think the show’s use of signs of dissociation suggests that entire sections of the story will later be shown not to have happened.

Here’s the thing about dissociation. On paper, it sounds like an extreme symptom that approaches the kind of severe mental illness that includes symptoms like hallucinations and delusions. But the vast majority of the time, it’s very different from psychosis. And it’s also, in my opinion, more of a spectrum than we care to acknowledge most of the time. When we look at it that way, we can see that in a sense, Jae Won is at least a tiny bit dissociated a whole lot of the time. But frankly, so am I. It’s not uncommon for trauma survivors. It’s very different from something that would result in impaired reality-testing.

It’s possible that the show will end up revealing that Jae Won’s mental illness has resulted in him imagining entire segments of the show. These types of symptoms are often portrayed in media, for a couple of reasons: 1) people just find psychosis fascinating, and 2) these types of symptoms are very handy for creating plot twists and other interesting narrative devices. It’s not hard to think of examples of this. Fight Club, Black Swan, Shutter Island...the list goes on and on. But these portrayals are almost always inaccurate and exploitative. So far, the folks who make The Eighth Sense have shown a great deal of nuanced awareness of and sensitivity toward mental health matters, so I don’t think they would use this kind of cheap plot device. But they might. If so, I’ll find that pretty disappointing.

There is one thing the showrunners are doing that is somewhat sneaky in a way that’s could look analogous to that. Others have pointed out that Jae Won and his therapist are wearing the same clothes in every therapy scene, suggesting that we’re seeing the same therapy session interspersed with the other events of the series. In other words, the therapy session operates on a very different timeline from the rest of the story. We don’t know where to situate it relative to the rest of the plot. But I don’t see that as tied to the show’s portrayal of Jae Won’s mental health, nor does it seem exploitative or out of left field.

To sum up:

So far, The Eighth Sense has been remarkably accurate regarding psychological matters and has portrayed therapy and the use of psychotropic medication in a mostly positive and realistic light. I get the feeling the writers/directors/etc. have had some experience receiving mental health treatment. I really hope they maintain this level of quality throughout the remainder of the series.

I don’t think Jae Won’s PTSD (or his depression/anxiety) are sufficient for him to experience psychosis. I don’t expect entire segments of the show will be revealed to be an elaborate lie or hallucination, and if they are, I would consider that to be an example of poor writing and an unrealistic and potentially harmful representation of mental illness.

#The Eighth Sense #psychology of BL #trauma #self-blame #dissociation #media portrayals of mental illness #media portrayals of psychotherapy #media portrayals of trauma #jae won x ji hyun

[delimeful]

to taste your beating heart (8)

warnings: implied abuse, mild blood and injury, non-graphic blood drinking, vamp thralls, assumptions/miscommunication, lmk if i missed any

-

Anx hadn’t really believed the hunters about the whole ‘protecting the innocents’ thing.

Sure, he believed they believed it, but that didn’t necessarily make it true. There were all sorts of ways to ‘save’ someone, and there were all sorts of reasons to deem someone guilty instead of innocent. Especially if that someone happened to be a monster.

Hunters were hunters. They could try and use pretty words to conceal the truth of their occupation all they wanted, but it wouldn’t fool Anx.

They’d realize he couldn’t give them what they wanted soon enough, and then he’d be fair game; subject to however they actually treated the other vamps they ran into.

That’s what he’d thought, anyhow.

After having a coven head waltz into their house like he owned the place, convene for a private meeting with them, and then walk back out without a single threat issued or drop of blood spilled, though, he was beginning to re-evaluate his initial impression.

The entire situation had been so jarring and strange that he’d almost doubted its authenticity for a second, but there was no faking the scent of a coven head. Especially not one as well-established as... Janus.

(Something about the name scraped at him, like sandpaper against skin. It wasn’t the same sharp, piercing pain of ‘Virgil’, but it was disorienting nonetheless.)

He wouldn’t have thought a coven head was even capable of getting through an entire meeting without any blood spilled, especially a meeting with humans. Especially one where the humans in question seemed to spend half the time blatantly bickering with him.

If it had been his coven head that had been treated with such disrespect from beings as reviled and lowly as hunters…

He didn’t even like these humans, but the thought made him shudder.

Things were different around here, clearly. Everyone else already knew the rules, and he’d been left scrambling to catch up before it cost him.

“Fangtastic Four, are you even listening?” One of the insane humans in question prodded him in the side, eliciting an automatic low hiss.

Instead of looking even remotely threatened, Roman moved his finger up to point at Anx’s face instead.

“I’m over here putting my sweat, blood, and tears— mostly the blood, actually— into making sure you don’t wither away into a particularly pointy-toothed husk, and you aren’t even paying attention!” he accused, frowning theatrically at him.

What was this guy even talking about?

“Nope,” Anx replied, popping the 'P' with a casual air that would have gotten him cuffed at best by any older vamps in the coven. “I checked the kidnapee contract and ‘listen to my captor’s ramblings’ wasn’t on there. Add more fine print next time.”

Roman gaped at him for a moment, before pulling back slightly, his lips twisting with something Anx couldn’t read. In the next moment, he had returned to ranting, dramatic flourishes included. “I cannot believe you’re trying to pull the ‘poor, abducted victim’ card when you literally tried to take a bite out of Patton.”

Anx’s shoulders hunched slightly against his will, still waiting for the other shoe to drop even as he opened his mouth to snipe back. “Hey, I just call them how I see them. I was brought to a basement while unconscious, I can’t leave, and I’m wearing handcuffs. Facts are facts.”

Roman sighed exaggeratedly, a flicker of discomfort crossing his face. “Yes, well, don’t try to mind-control and-slash-or murder me during this whole bloodsucking thing, and we can discuss alternatives to the cuffs.”

As though the cuffs were the main problem.

“I feel like maybe you’re missing the bigger picture here,” Anx said, before the rest of the sentence registered. “Wait, you’re serious?”

Midway through the process of rolling his sleeve up to expose his vein, Roman raised a deeply judgmental eyebrow at him. “Have you been paying attention at all since my brother left?”

No, not really. Between the lingering haziness of his forced metal retreat and the bizarre fuzzy-feeling instincts that Remus had somehow activated, he’d been just disoriented enough for the conversation going on around him to go in one ear and out the other, leaving little to no actual impact on his brain. Something about research?

Somehow, he got the feeling that the others didn’t actually know Roman had decided to do this now. Letting a moderately untrustworthy vampire feed from him for the first time didn’t seem like the sort of thing they’d let him do alone.

This did explain why they’d returned to the room with the containment circle, though. His nose crinkled at the cloying smell of the runes, and he eyed the inactive circle with distaste.

He could already see the way things would go. He’d get to feed for precisely as long as they deemed necessary, probably the bare minimum required to keep him alive, and the moment he overstepped, all Roman would have to do was yank his arm back over that line and let the burn of the ward do the punishing for him.

What was the point of pretending this was an extension of trust, then? From within the circle, even if he did try to thrall Roman, he wouldn’t be able to escape.

“Hello? Tall, Dark, and Stormy, can we get on with it?” Roman cut into his thoughts, waving a hand in front of his face. Anx barely resisted the urge to bite it. “If you keep spacing out, you’re going to give me performance anxiety.”

“Performing? For what audience?” Anx snorted, and then watched with bemusement as Roman planted himself on one of the halloween-themed beanbag chairs.

“For an actor like me, all the world’s a stage,” he retorted, flapping his bared arm at Anx expectantly. “Now hurry up before I start developing stage fright.”

“What, you want to do it there?” he asked, brow furrowing as his gaze briefly slid over to the convenient, risk-free containment spell that was only a meter away. He was kidding, right?

“Remus said I would faint, and I’m fairly sure he was bullshitting me, but not sure enough to risk cracking my head open,” Roman replied dryly. “I’ve never actually done this bit before, you know.”

That wasn’t really what he’d been talking about, but whatever. It wasn’t like he was going to be the one to insist he be trapped, even if it was the obvious smart decision.

Anx tentatively sank into the matching purple beanbag chair next to the hunter, and wrapped his hand around the wrist of Roman’s arm, which had been helpfully (read: obnoxiously) shoved into his space.

Despite Roman’s faux-casual words, his heart was thumping a little too fast for him to be anywhere near relaxed. An actor, indeed.

Anx checked the doorway again, searching for shadows under the crack or the subtle turning of the knob. Any signs that the other two were waiting to pounce. Anything at all that indicated he was currently walking into the world’s most obvious set-up, other than his own panicked mind.

Nothing.

He frowned, eyes darting back down to the free meal he was being offered, and then sighed. Whatever the catch was, he might as well take advantage of the offer while he could.

Roman shifted antsily, darting glances at Anx from the corner of his vision. “Do you always take this long to— ow!”

—

Roman barely resisted the urge to twitch away as Anx sunk his teeth in, both from pain and indignation alike.

The pain faded only a second or two later, his lower arm going pleasantly numb, but he still felt like Anx could have been a little gentler about it. He would have appreciated a warning, at least!

He opened his mouth to say as much, and found that the part of his brain dedicated to coherent words seemed to have scuttled out of reach while he wasn’t looking.

Everything was a bit distant, now that he thought about it, like all his senses had been wrapped in a hazy layer of gauze. The realization caused a strange swoop in his stomach, but he couldn’t figure out what to do about it.

It was hard, thinking like this. All the important thoughts seemed to slip between his fingers and get lodged in hard to reach places like grains of sand. He blinked several times in rapid succession.

That seemed a little bit not good. Maybe he should have gotten one of the others to chaperone after all.

Anx was lifting his head now, gaze bouncing around the room like a hunted deer before finally settling on Roman.

Roman could feel the vamp’s nervousness, his gut-clenching anticipation, as though it was his own. He could feel the expectation of pain that hovered over his head like a guillotine, ever-present and automatic.

(Had Patton been able to tell just how wrung-out Anx was during his own stint under thrall? It explained the sympathy, at least.)

He also felt the moment that Anx realized that the thrall bond had snapped thoroughly into place between them. That for all his posturing, Roman wasn’t anywhere near experienced enough to throw it off or even resist it.

Anx could strip away his free will with the simplest of commands, and he wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.

He knew this was bad, logically. There was a part of him that was freaking out, but it had been confined to a small corner of his brain and cut off from the rest of him.

Physically, though, he’d never been more relaxed. His heart thumped along a steady metronome, his breaths coming deep and easy. According to his body, there was nothing to worry about.

His body was a dirty traitor, and there would not be any replenishing spa days for it in his near future.

Assuming he still had a future.

His fingers twitched again, and Anx followed the motion, still holding onto his arm with those icy fingers.

He stared at Roman’s sluggishly-bleeding bite mark for a long moment, worrying at his lip with a conflicted expression. Roman tried very hard to feel concerned about the likelihood that he was about to be drained by a vampire, and mostly failed.

“This is so stupid,” Anx muttered, and moved Roman’s arm back over to his side, releasing it.

In the same moment, Roman felt a mental tug, like an intangible line had been pulled taut, and then with a snap, the bond was severed.

For a few long seconds, he sat there, stunned by the sudden wave of sadness he felt at the rejection.

In the next moment, his survival instincts snapped back into place like a lock clicking, and he sucked in a sharp gasp of air, his heart rate kicking up belatedly as adrenaline surged through him. He fumbled for the dishtowel he’d brought and quickly wrapped it over the bite, just as an extra precaution.

“There. I played nice,” snapped Anx, his posture defensive as he watched Roman take big, gasping breaths. “Are you satisfied? Do I get to go home now?”

Roman held up a finger in a silent request for him to wait, still trying to shake the lingering effects of the bond. His whole body had gone from relaxed putty to rigid plastic in less than a second, and it was more than a little disorienting.

It had the added bonus of letting him actually think about his answer for a few moments, instead of letting the knee jerk response he wanted to give tumble out of his mouth. (This is your home.)

“We brought you here because we thought you were V– our friend,” he corrected hastily. “And because we thought you were in danger, and needed a safe place.”

“I’m not him.” Virgil’s glares had always been scathing, but the unnatural purple irises added a whole new layer of eerie.

“Yeah, we picked up on that much,” Roman said curtly, ignoring– for now– the way he’d noticed a hundred little mannerisms that Anx and Virgil shared. “But the rest of it, I’m not so sure we were wrong about.”

Anx blinked, his defensiveness stopped in its tracks by Roman’s easy agreement. “What?”

“Anx,” Roman said, the name strange in his mouth. “Were you in danger? If you went… went home, would it be a safe place?”

For a brief, telling moment, Anx hesitated.

“Of course it’s safe,” he snapped, a beat late. “Safer than I am in a den of hunters.”

Roman worked his jaw, trying not to dwell on all the signs he’d seen that the opposite was true. If Anx had retained even half of Virgil’s stubbornness, there was no point in arguing in circles to try to force him to change his mind.

A different tactic, then.

“If you stay with us for a while, we could at least help you recover some of your memories. You can’t tell me you’re not curious about your life before turning at all.”

Anx’s lip curled up in a half-snarl. “I can tell you that, actually. What came before doesn’t matter, anyways. That’s the whole reason why vamps lose memories after turning.”

“Uh,” Roman blinked, genuinely thrown off. “Not to be contrarian, but that’s not true? Remus was turned, and he probably remembers more stories about our childhood than I do.”

Mostly so he could embarrass Roman at every opportunity, but still.

“I’ve actually never heard of memory loss as a symptom of being turned,” he added, trying not to let his concern crease his brow too obviously.

Anx had gone statue-still, and Roman bit his lip for a second before reaching out to set a tentative hand on his arm. “Are you–?”

“Don’t touch me,” Anx snarled, and in the next moment, he was on his feet and then bolting out the door.

Roman sat upright with some half-formed intention of going after him, or at least letting the others know that their resident vampire was upset, and then promptly flopped back against the beanbag as the world spun nauseatingly around him.

Right. Blood loss. He’d just text them then.

Letting his head fall back, he stared at the deep purple walls of the room and tried very hard to not think about how much he missed Virgil, and mostly failed.

#sanders sides fic #vampire au #to taste your beating heart #ttybh #ts virgil #ts roman #my writing #writing #queue

[phatcatphergus]

yes!!! i love the little discussion/analysis you have going on! it always annoys me when people brush off tubbo saying stuff like ‘cooking is like create’ as him being weird or needing to touch grass. it’s not really about his minecraft obsession (ok it is a little) it’s about how his brain works and it’s a really interesting idea if you stop and think about it. people are too quick to dismiss his crazier statements sometimes but a lot of the time he’s totally right if you can look at it from a different perspective or understand that sometimes his wording is odd but the concept is solid.

(also lmao at pulling up your blog to see the last reblog being about asks. i've been seeing more anons/asks on this side of tumblr recently and i think it's neat!)

I think that a lot of the brushing off comes from the tubo moment/bee boy mentality. The fact that people see him as some quirky 3 year old and treat him as such leads so many people to brush him off, including himself. I think this is perpetuated by a few people, including his friends, who don’t see him as a ND adult and instead see him as some quirky teenager who’s too chronically online and privileged. (The topic of him being privileged is another rant for another time but people saying that to him makes me cringe a bit).

I think that when he first made the create/cooking comment, it was a genuine realization that he made about his comprehension of the subject. Afterwards, he repeated it because of how outlandish it sounds and how chat reacts to him saying it. But I think he has a few things that he does or says that he means genuinely because it makes sense in his mind and he doesn’t think about how it sounds to others. This leads to controversies of course, but i digress. I think that people don’t take him seriously for and he gets self conscious about it and doubts his own comment or understanding. Part of this may be because his friends poke fun at some of his ND behaviors in a joking way and don’t realize how serious he is about it.

The one example I can recall is the drunk MCC that Tubbo did with Tom, Jack, and Becky. Tubbo talked about how his dad did his dishes because the feeling of wet dishes/leftover food made him extremely uncomfortable. Of course, this sounds lazy and entitled to a lot of people and he was made fun of for it, but in a ND context *cough*autism*cough* it makes sense. His aversion to car seatbelts is the same thing. He has a lot of sensory issues and speaks about it often enough, he spoke about it a lot when making his og merch an how he wanted it to not “feel bad” and have good fabric because some fabrics bother him.

He never takes himself seriously because other people don’t and don’t allow him to. His brain works in very relative things (I know how i understand create mod and i can apply that to how i understand cooking) and if people allowed him to actually work out the true intention behind it, then more people would realize exactly how interesting his mind is. I fucking love psychoanalyzing him because of it.

Also, I’m so happy that people are talking about this stuff because its so interesting to me. I could talk about what II think of him on any topic for hours, there is literally so much to unpack about him. I think there’s an aversion to talking about creators themselves because they’re real people, which I get, but i think having open discussions and critical analysis of people keeps them human and isn’t a bad thing. So long as its not blatant hatred, talking about mentality, likes an dislikes, and behavior of creators is valid and needed in a space so people don’t become untouchable gods that are adverse to problems.

#feel free to drop an ask about this shit anytime bc i will go OFF about it #cc or character #they kinda bleed together sometimes too #his relationship with streaming and real life #the way that people perpetuate he’s stupid #his relationships with his friends and his they view him and his he acts with them #i love this shit #tubbo #tubbo analysis #anon ask

[roseangel19]

More wild Helluva Boss Hot Takes!!!!!!!! (I still have my protective gear on 👍🏻)

[Before I get into this, I just want to say thank you all for your notes, reblogs etc. I was hesitant about making the first hot take post because of this reputation of the fan base being so up in arms when it comes to criticism; but we should normalize having civil discussions on the Internet without the fear of backlash from die hard fans. It’s ok to love something and still acknowledge that it isn’t perfect, that doesn’t automatically make you a hater as well as the opposite side of the spectrum. If you are blindly ignoring the blatant flaws and swearing up and down that the show is perfect, imo you’re deceiving yourself. But hey, if you believe the show is a 10/10 good on you 👍🏻👍🏻😊].

Now on to the hot takes! Woo!

{This might be the last hot take post I make because I honestly can’t think of any more. If anyone has any hot takes they would love to share, please feel free to reply, reblog or message me, thanks in advance ☺️}.

The Goetia Family drama side plot+ divorce side plots are pointless time wasters. The amount of time that’s spent in these storylines is time that SHOULD be put into developing our main cast.

While on the subject of the Goetia, I feel like they’re not being used as a means of getting to know Stolas and his family on a deeper level. Instead, they’re being portrayed as stereotypical jerk rich people. Side rant, how is it that we are two seasons into this show and still don’t know what role the Goetia plays in the overall story? Same with Stolas’ royal duties, we’ve never seen him do his job other than what he did in “Harvest Moon Festival”.

Blitz should’ve slept with Asmodeus instead of Stolas.

The pilot should’ve been the real episode one of season one instead of “Murder Family”.

Nothing in the show would change if Stella didn’t exist. Her character adds/ removes absolutely nothing to the show outside of this family drama storyline; all she does is scream, screech and squawk about how she hates Stolas and wants him killed. Then has the nerve to call him an embarrassment, SHE’S the embarrassment.

The overall cast of characters should be of a more manageable size.

The songs are hit/miss sometimes.

Bee’s design is alright.

“Western Energy” should’ve been the real premiere episode for season two and it should’ve been a 3-4 part special.

Personality wise, Loona has got to be the most inconsistent character on the show (Blitz and Stolas are tied).

Speaking of which, having the show revolve around Stolitz is so detrimental it’s not even funny. HB isn’t a romance series about star crossed lovers from two sides of a societal hierarchy, it’s about an assassination business run by a group of demons in Hell that go to Earth to kill humans on the request of their clients!

“The Circus” should’ve been more focused on Blitz, Fizz and Barbie Wire as well as fleshing out the relationship between Blitz, his mom and Barbie.

This one is more of a concern. I’m concerned about Octavia’s character being solely defined by her being a victim of her parents failing marriage and subsequent divorce. I like her and I would love to see her have stand alone moments outside of her dealing with her parents.

Stella is a horrible antagonist.

“Unhappy Campers” shouldn’t have happened.

All of the sexual jokes and cussing characters do should be used sparingly.

It would be great if the songs were pulled from different genres of music.

#helluva boss #helluva boss critical #hot take #helluva boss critique

[rifki16]

At 25:00, in Akasaka Pilot Episode

Photo credit: At 25:00, in Akasaka Twitter Promotional Account | https://twitter.com/25ji_akasakade/status/1781276637855883719?s=12

A very sweet vanilla cake with strawberries

Okay, so, the long anticipated live-action adaptation of the manga is finally here. And I’m absolutely here for it. I was very pissed off that when GagaOOLala said that the episode would air on April 18, they didn’t say that it would air on that date in Japan. Hence, now every Fridays, we will have a grand feast of TWO Japanese BL LA shows, instead of only one.

I have A LOT of thoughts about the Pilot Episode, so let’s get right to it !

Of course, SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!

Make it for Vanilla Audience

As I have said in the last section of the manga review, I do not expect anything at all from the live-action show, in terms of how the hot scenes can be adapted. My beloved Tokyo in April is… is so far from being hot and sexy from which they originated, yet I still love them dearly. This pilot episode really set the tone, as to what I will expect from the series.

They did not have the scene where Asamiya and Shirasaki went out with the whole cast and had a Japanese-style afterwork hang after which one of the coworkers became black out drunk and needed to be escorted by one of the attendees. After which, Asamiya had a non-penetrative sex with Shirasaki at Shirasaki-san house, with no consent from Shirasaki. I think by not having this scene it’s very funny to me. Based on A Man Who Defies the World of BL, it’s a very common trope in BL that this black out drunk afterwork hang is used, hence kudos to the LA screenwriter and showrunners to have avoided that trope. This is also what’s bugging me. I think the LA show really wants to avoid a lot of unnecessary discussions about their work. In Living with Him, Kazuhito’s life altering, and according to the manga, disability-affecting injury was a cause of a sore subject and Kazuhito was not seen playing baseball at all afterwards. It seems like the production team doesn’t want to talk at all about disability in their main character. In this show, it was all dandy. Nothing of taboo happened. It was just Asami offering to be Shirasaki’s sex partner, and that’s it. I’m not advocating for a sexual assault scene, but what happened in Shirasaki’s apartment was quintessentially a way for us to know how “wild” Asami is and knowing his boundaries. Asami’s portrayal in the show was almost like an aloof cool guy. He seemed not to be involved at all with the cast or the production crew. The afterwork hang established that, how sociable Asami is. Asami seemed to play it cool with Shirasaki, despite the supposed burning ember that he has with Shirasaki. I’m not trying to tell people how to act with their love. My understanding of the plot logic from the manga is, Shirasaki found out that Asami liked him  Shirasaki needed a pointer on how to be a gay lover  Asami offered to be his lover, but Shirasaki refused because, one of the reasons is, he knew how Asami felt about him. I guess making it more vanilla gave them more options as to how to approach the Shirasaki asking Asami to be his sex partner.

When I watched Milk, after many attempts, and finally could watch the film fully. There was a scene where Harvey Milk was confronting the No campaigners for the Briggs’ initiative about the pamphlet that the campaigners were sending out to the voters. The pamphlet overly emphasized how the Briggs’ initiative intruded the privacy and human rights of the voters. Milk was, rightly imo, angry that the pamphlet did not mention at all whom the initiative was impacting most severely, the homosexuals. That’s what I felt the second most in the pilot episode. The reason why Shirasaki went to a gay bar, specifically, was because he did not know how gay men fall in love, have sex. The pilot episode really did not mention at all about gay love or gay sex. When Shirasaki eventually went to the gay bar, it was about how he doesn’t know how falling in love is in general. Asami never really teased Shirasaki about Shirasaki-san’s sex history with women, a scene which in my opinion really affirmed Shirasaki-san’s very apparent queerness and his internalized homophobia which made him unable to admit his joy in having sex with a man, with Asami. The omittance of the scene in the show really made me felt like the show was just about an actor really trying to method-act, whereas the manga is about an actor method-act while figuring himself out sexual-orientation wise.

They made the bar a popular gay bar, compared it to the quiet and almost very intimate one in the manga. I’ve never been to a gay bar, not even the one in Singapore, but I really thought that an intimate and quite gay bar would be a better venue for you to find an NSA sex partner, no? Knowing that the popular gay bar is filled with mostly popular cliques and usual customers. Wouldn’t a quiet gay bar be a more suited place for two celebrities to be undercover and method-act? Again, I’ve never been to a gay bar, but I just don’t think making Shota’s bar a popular gay bar is the right choice. It seems like the show just wanted some stereotypical image of a gay bar and plastered it in the show. Side note: Shota is not that androgynous in the show, not that I’m saying that I’m entitled to Shota’s androgyny, I just had hoped to see a gender nonconforming character in a Japanese BL show, besides the one in The End of the World with You. Also, Shota is nice in the show, compared to the one in the manga.

Shirasaki’s dignity.

I really love that the show actually has a class-struggle perspective. Shirasaki needed to be a server, because he had never got a gig in acting. This made it easier for the TV show to make Shirasaki to go to the gay bar because Shirasaki really doesn’t want to mess up his first ever TV gig, a big budget one, nonetheless. However, the problem with this characterization is that Shirasaki made really vulnerable to Asami. It seemed like Asami is high up in the clouds and Shirasaki is just some dirt particles that the clouds never bother to notice. I understand that the show wanted to make it vanilla, hence, why Asami actually asked first before their first sexual encounter. Hence, why Asami and Shirasaki were seen in the teaser for the second episode to go ON DATES? GO ON DATES? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This show is about a TV show production, probably very crunched on time and budget. WHERE ON GODS GREEN EARTH DID THEY FIND THE TIME TO GO ON DATES? You know what, sure, they become lovey-dovey lovers, go on dates and fall in love first even before they share a bed together, but it really shifts the dignity of Shirasaki.

It was such fun seeing Shirasaki demanding sex from Asami to make sure that Shirasaki-san’s acting prowess is bettered, the reason why the scene made sense in the manga is because Shirasaki had played in plays, smaller roles in TV shows, he knew what appreciation from the director meant. He had a standing in asking for sex because he’s not some amateur actor, he had done the job before, and having sex with Asami was the only way he knew that he can better his acting. Now that Shirasaki’s motivation became only not to be poor, his actions in asking sex from Asami from this point on becomes nothing more but desperation, however it’s just my opinion.

I really like it when Shirasaki acts not out of desperation but to actually horn his craft. The way the show portrayed Shirasaki really made me angry. He’s a proud man, with high dignity, hence why having sex with Asami really felt and seen really out of place for him. Maybe, I’m just down bad for Shirasaki so much.

Despite it all, I really enjoyed the pilot episode. The show was really easy to follow with their vanilla shift. It didn’t really have plot holes, despite making it vanilla. I’m glad that the managers of both Shirasaki and Asami were really present, unlike in the manga where they only emerge after the joint show of the two has become popular. If the show really wants to slow walk the pace, despite making the third volume a part of the show, they better make it right. I swear to Ra, I will metaphorically burn something if they don’t make the show a proper 12-episode-run show.

#gay #japan bl #bl live action #25 ji akasaka de #at 25:00 in akasaka #shirasaki and Asami #Shirasaki selfworth #being an actor lol

[autolenaphilia]

The ideas of misandry/antimasculism is a subject that annoys me enough to write two long blog posts (here and here). A major part of it is claiming that "trans women suffer from misandry". But another part of the problem I realize is that it ends up equating the basic feminist concern with male violence as some kind of man-hating prejudice, as some essentialist stereotyping of men as violent and predatory. And usually the argument goes in transmisogynist ways to argue that the oppression trans women experience are “actually caused by misandry, as the predatory man stereotype is applied to transfems as they are misgendered as men”.

And equating a genuine feminist discussion with some kind of prejudice is kinda fucked up, because cis men being violent is a problem. Violence against women, cis or trans, including rape, are overwhelmingly committed by cis men, as the statistics show. This is not because men are inherently violent due to testosterone or the Y chromosome. But because our patriarchal society men as a class are given power. Above all the power to commit violence against women, cis or trans, men who are not masculine and degendered “others” in order to control them and “keep them in line”. Access to this power is only given to men who correctly perform hegemonic masculinity, and a major part of performing that form of masculinity is committing that violence. The patriarchy gives men the role of enforcing the system with violence. It’s not an expression of biology or even “male socialization” brainwashing, but the product of a society that on a systemic level gives men privilege and power, on the basis that they violently exercise that power to keep the system going.

Of course, not all men and not all masculinity. I don’t think to be a man you are by a definition someone who commits (trans)misogynist violence. The men who do are not determined by their biology or their gendered socialization brainwashing to do so. In fact I think all men have the free will to choose not to do that violence, because they are human and capable of understanding morality. Of course, this also means I strongly condemn the men who do, because they choose to do such evil. And while I’m opposed to the concept of toxic masculinity, you can still do whatever things you deem masculine, competitive beard combing or whatever it is men do, as long as you don’t hurt or bully anyone else in doing so.

This is just basic feminist analysis, and calling someone a radfem or man-hater for having such an analysis is bad. It’s not man-hating to be aware of violence from cis men, and therefore wary of cis men. Especially calling a transfem that is fucked up, because a major part of transmisogyny is violence from cis men, and the threat of it. By calling that man-hating we are unable to describe our oppression. And accusing a transfem of being a “radfem but trans woman inclusive” for having such an analysis is even more fucked up.

Because the major problem with “terfs” is that they actually work to further that violence. They hide this by falsely claiming transfems are the perpetrators of that violence, instead of the truth that we are its victims, often from childhood.

Part of the idea behind excluding us from the female bathrooms is that transfems would be forced to use the men’s bathrooms, where we are at strong risk of violence from cis men. And that this will either kill us or at least hurt us. And the threat of it will force us to detransition or just never leave our homes, and preferably kill ourselves.

This is not a genuine concern with keeping violent “men” from accessing “female spaces”. Transmisogyny is always aimed at transfems, not men. The method of enforcing that exclusion from “female spaces” is literally violent cis men coming into these spaces and removing the offending transfem using (perhaps lethal) violence. As one prominent “gender critical” woman, Posie Parker made very explicit. But that basic idea is usually implicit behind every idea of trans-exclusion from female spaces: such exclusion will be enforced by violent cis men (such as the heavily male professions of cops or security guards). Radfems hate transfems, not men.

Of course such violence to ostensibly keep (white) cis women “safe in female spaces” is aimed towards gnc and queer cis women as well. That proves that any of the concern about protecting cis women from male violence is false. Butch women have been violently thrown out of bathrooms because of the trans panic. The “trans bathroom panic” is just a re-run of the “gay bathroom panic” of not that many years ago. The spectre of the predatory trans woman is a development of the predatory lesbian stereotype. And it’s lesbophobia in transmisogynistic form, make no mistake, because it’s usually sapphic trans women who are seen as dangerous. The term “AGP” so beloved by radfems, usually to describe the bad kind of trans woman who is a threat to women, is a stereotype aimed at sapphic trans women specifically. This shows another problem with arguing that the “predatory trans woman” comes from a stereotype of “predatory men”, when the more immediate origin is the character of the predatory lesbian. And that has its origins in misogyny and lesbophobia, not some “prejudice against masculinity” or whatever misandry believers are into.

The idea of “the problems with terfs is actually their misandry” misstates the problem. The problem is that they hate trans women, not men, even if they tend to call transfems “men”. The problem is not that they talk about cis men’s violence, but actually that they further it by providing a “feminist” alibi for such violence.

The idea of the “terf” is often used in functionally anti-feminist ways to label basic feminist analysis as “terfy”. That’s because people’s ideas of “the terf” is more based in old anti-feminist stereotypes of “rabid unshaven man-hating lesbians” rather than any meaningful analysis of the problems with radical feminism and how it actually hinders actual feminism.

I’m not a “tirf” for doing feminism, thank you very much. In fact I dislike the term “terf” precisely because it whitewashes radical feminism of the transmisogyny which I think lies at its very source.

And the idea of “radical feminsm, but for trans women” as a thing that can exist ignores the power dynamics of why radical feminism exists. Radfems have as cis women (despite misogyny) the ability to leverage their status as cis and white women into alliances with male and state violence to “protect” them from the figure of the predatory transfem. It provides a “feminist” justification for that violence. And no one with power is interested in protecting the innocence of trans womanhood.

#my writings #feminism

[quietly-by-myself]

A Wicked Work of Art - Chapter 8

Masterlist

CW: medical whump, trans whumpee, test subject whumpee, experiment whumpee, fantasy racism, dehumanization, fantasy whump, doctor carewhumper, carewhumper, suicidal whumpee, suicide attempt aftermath, overdose mention, suicidal ideation mention, discussion of noncon (not whump), violent/abusive relationships, brief mention of familial rejection around being trans

===

Akakios found himself very tired after the doctor left. He didn’t know what to make of the doctor anymore. The medicine wasn’t going to work. Who was the doctor kidding? Nothing would ever change his life. He would never be allowed to attempt suicide again. He would never be free, seen as human again. So, what would medication change? 

Those were the thoughts plaguing him as he sunk into the sleeping world.

There was Asimi, waiting for him, tears in their eyes.

Guilt overwhelmed Akakios. He couldn’t meet Asimi’s eyes. He expected them to berate him, to tell him how awful and selfish and abhorrent he was. Instead, Asimi just ran to him and hugged him tightly.

“I thought I was going to lose you.” Asimi’s voice was shaking, afraid. “I’m so glad that I didn’t.”

After a long period of silence, Akakios finally found his words. “Why, Asimi? Why did you possess me?”

Asimi pushed Akakios back a bit and put their hands on his shoulders. “I knew you couldn’t take that first experiment, Aka. I just, I panicked. I wanted to save you from that. I forget how much weaker your body is than mine, even with my influence.”

Akakios looked away. “He really hurt me.”

“I never expected him to.”

“Why not?”

Asimi went quiet. “When you’ve been around long enough, Aka, people rarely catch you off guard, but that doesn’t mean that it never happens.”

Akakios considered Asimi for a while. “I really do love you, Asimi. You know… the way that we do.”

Asimi nodded. “I didn’t know that one could love a friend without romance before you, my dear Aka.”

Akakios felt something in his heart that was part longing and part guilt. What was wrong with him? How could he have forgotten how much Asimi meant to him? How much he meant to them?

They shared a dream - a world where the two of them could live in peace together, as something more than friends, but not as lovers or romantic partners. It felt like a pipe dream. That world could never be. However, did that mean that he had to give up hope? Give up on himself?

It all felt so small, his reasons for dying, now that he thought about them with Asimi there. After all, times could be hard, but he knew that they could get better. After all, he’d lived all those years pretending to be a woman. He’d put on a good show for his mother and father, who, though he loved dearly, would never accept this new him. They would never accept the man who never wanted to wed. 

And he’d survived Constantine. He’d actually survived. The worst, everything he’d feared - losing total control over his body - had happened and he’d fucking survived. He still didn’t have control, but he was still alive, wasn’t he? Even when he’d tried to take back control by ending his life.

Asimi smiled a little. “You’re so strong, my love. We can make it through this. The world we want will be ours, one way or another. But it will not be achieved through death. I am here forever. If you die, we will be apart forever.”

He’d hurt Asimi and they still had the strength to love him.

“I’m so sorry, Asimi.”

“You have nothing to be forgiven for, Aka, my love.”

Akakios found tears in his eyes and embraced Asimi again. Asimi held him, long in fast in their arms as Akakios cried all the tears he couldn’t in the world of the living.

—

Vasiliki didn’t sleep when he returned home. Instead, he found himself at the phone, carefully considering the phone call he was about to make.

Did he really want to do what he was about to do?

Vasiliki picked up the phone and dialed the all-too familiar phone number. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually wanted to call someone for something that wasn’t directly work-related.

Was this technically work related? Maybe. But, he felt like a ship in the middle of a hurricane and found himself longing, for the first time ever, to speak to someone.

It was early enough that his friend would be awake, but not early enough that he would be at work.

“Hello, this is Stergios speaking?”

“Stergios, it’s Vasiliki.”

“Vasiliki?” The surprise in Stergios’ voice was painfully obvious. “What are you doing calling me?”

“Do you have to go to work soon? It’s kind of a long story.”

“No, I don’t work. It’s a Saturday.” The concern came next. It almost made Vasiliki flinch. “What’s up?”

“Well, something came up at work.” Vasiliki took a seat next to the receiver and pressed his nose bridge. “I got a new patient and I decided to keep him.”

The silence on the other end of the receiver was painful. “I don’t want to hear about your work unless it’s important. You know I don’t like the way you guys operate at the Facility.”

“I know, I know. That’s why I’m coming to you for advice.” Vasiliki groaned. “He attempted suicide last night. I had to stay up with him doing an observation. Kid cried himself to sleep. I just, I can’t deal with this shit anymore.”

“It reminds you of your early days, right?” Suddenly, the voice that had been hostile was caring and soft.

“Yeah, twenty fucking patients and no time to properly care for any of them. I just started having them all restrained after I lost those three that week. And again, this only happened because he was left unrestrained. I’d forgotten to give him his testosterone shot, ‘cause he’s trans, and found him OD’ing on a bottle of pills I’d forgotten about.”

“Well, then, why call me? I’m always happy to listen to you, Vasil. You know that. But you never call.”

“I know I’m doing something wrong by doing what I’m doing. I’m ashamed that it’s taken me a hundred fucking years and four suicides, only one of which I was able to save, to make me realize it, but fuck. I feel like shit.”

The other line was silent for a long time. Vasiliki knew his admission could easily get him fired, but he didn’t care. Stergios wouldn’t tell anyone. He was sure of it. After all, they’d known each other since they were kids. If Stergios was going to betray him, it would’ve been a long time ago.

“What… what changed?”

“Fucking Constantine. And,” Vasiliki found tears in his eyes as he continued speaking. It was the first time that the words he was about to utter had ever left his lips. “You know that boyfriend I had ten years ago? The one named Giannis?”

“Yeah, I remember him. He was a real shit head.”

“Yeah,” Vasiliki broke down crying, unable to hold back the sobs. “He raped me. It was only once and he broke up with me the next day. But, fuck.”

Vasiliki found himself unable to talk.

“It’s okay, Vasil. I believe you. That must’ve been awful.”

“It was. After that, well, I’m naive as shit, but I could only work with Constantine because he didn’t do that to his subjects. But he did that to this kid and then he attempted suicide and I tried to be the doctor, the scientist, but I just can’t anymore.”

Again, Vasiliki found himself unable to talk over the tears. The guilt - both of his own experience and of Aka’s experiences - overwhelmed him.

“How about I come over, Vasil? I want to be there for you. I don’t want you to be alone going through this.”

Vasiliki nodded, but realized that Stergios couldn’t see that through the phone, so he whimpered that he would be happy to have Stergios over, but that all his food was rotten. Stergios simply said he would bring something fresh for them to eat and hung up.

And so, Vasiliki sat in wait for his friend to arrive, bawling his eyes out like he never had before. At least, at least, someone was coming to see him. Somehow, for the first time, that thought made him feel better.

===

Tags(always open): @i-can-even-burn-salad, @whumpsday, @pigeonwhumps, @oddsconvert, @pumpkin-spice-whump, @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi, @writereleaserepeat, @just-a-silly-little-whumper, @sparrowsage, @inscrutable-shadow, @whumplr-reader, @whumpycries, @demondamage, @whumpshaped

#medical whump #trans whumpee #test subject whumpee #experiment whumpee #fantasy racism #dehumanization #fantasy whump #doctor carewhumper #carewhumper #suicidal whumpee #suicide attempt aftermath #overdose mention #suicidal ideation mention #discussion of noncon #violent/abusive relationships #whump #whump writing #whumpblr #whump fic #whump community #a wicked work of art

[lockandkeyhyena]

(this is gonna start off sounding negative, but i promise it goes somewhere good! tw for grooming and similar topics regarding your story… also sorry for how long this is! i had a lot of thoughts)

i just recently went through the realization that i was most likely groomed; when i went to your blog and read about your story idea, it felt like a punch in the face. why would you want to do something like that? don’t we have enough stories where victims are sidelined for their abusers? it upset me that someone who i thought was cool would think to write a story where the abuser was meant to be “forgiven” and “redeemed.” i was on the verge of blocking you. but instead, i closed the page and let myself think about it. it made me think about a character i had while i was groomed. he was also meant to be a sexual abuser like your character, because at the time that was normalized to me. when i realized that it wasn’t normal, i hid the character away in shame and never wanted to touch him again. but hearing about the story idea you had, like i said, it made me think a whole lot. and how, ultimately, you’re right; no matter what a person does, they are still a human being and they still have the capacity to better themselves. this made me start to think about if i could rework my old character’s story and tackle it in the same vein you are doing (and how it could even be a form of reclamation for me). so, i want to say thank you for trying to tackle this subject. I think a lot of people’s reactions are going to be negative at first (like mine), but it’s still a subject worth tackling and discussing. i might not follow the story super closely since it’s still a tough topic for me, but i really hope everything goes well with it and i’m excited to read more about it when i’m able to! :)

(also, side note, one of the names you picked out from that other anon’s list of A names is actually the name of my character… i thought that was pretty ironic!)

anon, you have no idea how much this means to me as someone truly trying to do this topic justice, i’m so so happy i could make you think about your past characters and i would love it if you explored your characters’ story as a sort of reclamation for you.

it genuinely means alot that you trust me to do this topic justice and i hope that when you’re in a good headspace to consume it you feel seen by it!

(and ha! thats a funny coincidence)

#yeen rambles #ask #csa ment #rape ment #abuse ment #alvin's infurno

[sorvete-de-pacoca]

leave me or watch me die in your arms

This is the prototype of Good People, I'm quite proud of it so I will post it here.

//nsfw, pseudo incest (bc they 're not rly father/son)

Luciano drinks alone tonight. A regular thing since Martin had kicked him out, threw his clothes at his feet and slammed the door in his face. The blond had gotten tired of trying to save anything between them when Luciano wasn’t putting any work on it. It had been a month already and just yesterday he saw that he posted a photo of him with Manuel. The blond still ignores him. Oh well, at least he’s happy. It was his fourth glass and he was already tipsy. While not human, it didn’t mean the alcohol had no effect on beings like them. He wanted to get his mind empty for a moment and not struggle with all the confused feelings he had been dealing with.

“Easy there, you’re gonna drink the whole bar at this rate” Luciano is startled by a sudden hand gripping his shoulder, and goes wide-eyed when the culprit of his mental turmoil smiles at him. Afonso sits at his side and orders a drink, plus a glass of water that he slides at him “here, we don’t want you puking all over the place do we?” 

“I’m not gonna-” he slurs but the hiccup in his throat says otherwise. He’s embarrassed that he’s getting babied by his father in the worst moment ever. What the hell was he doing in Rio de Janeiro anyway?

“We have a meeting this week you airhead” Afonso's answer makes him realize he had said that out loud.

“Oh” He knew there was something to do with sugar exportation! 

“What happened? You don’t look like yourself”

“I’m fine…” now get out

“Okay…” Afonso doesn't push for an answer and takes a swing of his drink. Luciano knew this was another one of his tricks, pretending to be uninterested until he felt comfortable enough to start spilling the beans. He did that since Luciano was a kid and it was working again, damn it.

“Martin kicked me out…”

“Oh? When?” Afonso questions.

"Last month, I think."

“You guys looked fine! What happened?”

“I..don’t wanna talk about it right now.”

Afonso nods and doesn’t push. Luciano catches him pursing his lips.

C’mon, ask. I know you wanna ask if he knows.

But he doesn’t. Instead he changes the subject. Luciano sighs and just goes with it. The real subject they should be discussing is getting ignored. But after a few more shots he can let loose. They laugh together about some dumb thing that happened when Afonso went grocery shopping. And about Francis' new lover.

“Looks like he won’t stop until he has dicked down the whole Europe!” Luciano’s comment makes Afonso burst into laughter. After recovered Afonso curses

“Foda-se. Guess not everyone is lucky with love huh?”

Luciano agrees with half of a smile. Afonso realizes his mistake “Oh shoot! I’m sorry I didn't mean to…”

“It’s fine, it's fine.” Luciano snorts, with his elbow over the counter, his cheek rested on his hand,“Things were not working out anyway. It wasn’t…fun anymore.”

“Relationships aren’t always fiery and passionate, you kids gotta remember that. Hope you two can still make amends.”

“Maybe I want someone else” Luciano let it escape. Once again Afonso presses his lips together. All of Luciano’s mental brakes were gone thanks to the alcohol, He slid his hand closer to him, nudging his’.

“Luciano..”

“I guess… it would be easier if we were strangers to each other” Their eyes meet, and he wants to drown in the dark green of those eyes. "Don't you agree?"

Afonso’s fidgets with his glass. “You’re…” the older man begins “a good son for me Luciano. I wouldn’t want to forget about that”

Luciano 's expression turns sour. 

I’ve never agreed to that 

Luciano bumps into the counter when he gets up, wanting to get out of there as fast as he could. He places money for the barman, not caring for the change. Afonso, startled, doesn’t try to call for him. 

It’s your fault. Afonso 's brain accuses. It always was. His ugly heart caused him pain again. Stop moping, get up and go help him like a decent father would do! His mind ordered. It should have surprised him to find Luciano still outside struggling to open the car’s door, but it didn’t. Just like it didn’t surprise him to see the young man turn around and stare at him, his cheeks flushed by the alcohol.

“What are you doing here?” Luciano asked in the same panic as someone that was found embarrassing himself.

Afonso walked up to him, they were so close their chests were touching, he could feel Luciano’s breath on his neck. Damn kid was taller than him now. Afonso grabbed the keys pendant between his fingers and unlocked the car’s door. Luciano stayed behind him, immovable, his eyes scanning him. He goes and opens the back door for him.

“Give me your address-” Afonso was going to say he would drive him home. But is cut by Luciano, who pushes him into the back seat.

“Wha–!?”

“Not now. Not tonight. Let me…” the young man clumsily manages to sit on his lap, his legs spread and his hands resting on the older man’s chest. “You owe me this…”

Luciano pins him, burying a hand under his shirt and lifting it, exposing the man’s stomach. Like a hungry man he leans and tastes the skin. Afonso had all the strength necessary to push him away. But his own body betrays him, he doesn’t move. Why can’t he move?

You know why

“Mine” Luciano groans as he nips the flesh. Causing Afonso to shiver. His breath hitches when the younger man applies more pressure into the bite. Luciano pushes up his shirt and Afonso catches himself helping him by lifting his body just enough so he could take it off. Luciano leans closer, he can see the drunk desire in his eyes. A reflection of his own. Luciano's kiss is messy, one he was holding up for a long time. Afonso can taste the alcohol in his breath but he couldn’t care less. He also doesn’t care for the weak voice of his conscience telling him to stop and how he was once again taking advantage of Luciano’s moment of weakness. The dragon inside his heart once again desired to take, the beast claws his son’s back, bringing him closer.  

In his desperation Luciano moves his hips against him. His guts burning in need. Afonso groans into his mouth when he feels the younger man’s erection against him. There was a sick pleasure watching the younger nation so desperate, enough to rut him like an animal. His hands travel downwards and he grabs his ass, pressing him closer.

“Ah fuck” Luciano gasps and speeds his thrusts. A wet spot already forming in the fabric of his shorts. He would love to fuck Afonso properly but in his state he would rather die than stop right now. The image of it fueling his fire. He imagines him pinning the older nation and fucking him while he sobbed his name. Luciano lifts him by his waist and positions him so both cocks are rubbing together. Afonso moans, his hands now are over his torso. He grabs his shirt and pulls.

“Faster…” He demands. And Luciano obeys. And when his thrusts lose rhythm he assumes he's already close. And without a warning Luciano abruptly stops. He moans while cumming under his shorts. Wanting his turn, Afonso keeps him in place while grinding against him, chasing his own release. But when Luciano leans abruptly he freezes. He can’t see what he’s looking at with the man towering over him, but Luciano bites his lips, shutting himself up and hiding after spotting a couple standing a few meters from the car they're in.

Damnit, he forgot they’re in public. 

By the shadows moving inside the car, the couple had left, with a good story to tell their friends, that was sure. Under him, Afonso groans annoyed. Already guessing what had happened. 

“Are they gone?” he asks.

“Yeah..”

Afonso tries to push him and Luciano promptly moves out of the way. He moves to the front seat, the other man stays on the back. Right, he was going to drive his drunk ass back home. When he stops at a red light the light of a pole illuminates inside. Afonso grimaces at his own pants, a wet spot painted his left side. From the rearview mirror he notices Luciano staring outside. Probably the high of his orgasm had runned out and now embarrassment was hitting. Afonso decides to keep quiet during the ride. Luciano only breaks the silence occasionally to give him directions to his house, one of the many the nation had, little particular museums some of their kind kept along their respectives territories. Afonso had a faint memory of this one, but it seems it was reformed recently. He opens the door for Luciano but it ends up not being necessary, he could walk just fine.

Luciano crashes on the couch. Afonso needs water so he makes himself at home and goes to his kitchen. He had forgotten to do the dishes, denounced by the pile of dirty plates and cups in the sink. Also forgot to buy groceries based on what he saw in his fridge. God, how did he survived during all these centuries? Afonso drinks his water in one go from a tea cup. He then splashes water in his face to calm down his own nerves. He hoped Luciano had already fallen asleep to avoid the awkwardness. When he goes to check he’s satisfied he was conceived at least one blessing today. Luciano had only time to take off his shoes before snoozing. Afonso smiles, his son looks so calm and serene. 

You ruined him. 

----------

Luciano wakes up next morning with a faint memory of last night, a headache and a clean sink.

#hetalia #lh brazil #hws portugal #hws brazil #portbra #wfsn

[queencolondarkwing]

“The Sound of Her Wings” and The Death Positive Movement (Spoilers)

Since a lot of tumblr “Sandman” fans are only focusing on HobxDream shipping (tumblr simplifying complex media to obsessive shipping - shocker), I figured it would be nice for someone to talk about Death as presented in the comics and show.  How changing the order to Hob sharing an episode with Death was one of the smartest ways to do a TV adaptation.

This part in the comics didn’t get followed by the Hob story.  In fact - the part with Franklin specifically had a bit more to it if I remember right. I love that Neil took the show a different route which left us with a really overall nuanced view on dying. While the story of Hob starts with Death - her personification doesn’t keep playing an active role.  However death (lowercase) does.  Death as a concept always underlies immortality tales.  To die is a fact of life - so to defy it creates an alternate state of life.  An absence of death almost brings more focus to death than death itself does. So this show made an EXCELLENT parallel in these two stories. Especially when Death’s message was how Dream should connect more with the humans that they are to serve.  Which is what he is doing with his little Hob experiment and with Shakespeare.

Now onto the Death part of the episode.  She brings up that when life was new that nobody really feared death.  One may argue that this is contrary to our innate biological programming.  After all, one classification of living things is drive to stay alive.  It is a common misconception to assign that to individuals of a species, but many species have individuals knowingly die in order to reproduce (octopi) or for the good of the many (ants).  Individualism doesn’t exist naturally in nature or even in most of human civilization.  The West largely pushed for individualism instead of collectivism or tribalism. However, a large part of human experience in history is being willing to sacrifice or die for an ethnic group, religion, region, or familial unit. Women willing to die in childbirth.  Men willing to die in wars.  Death was still tragic (cultural expectations around grief and widows is fascinating) but at several points in history was viewed more casually than it was today.  Even in the West - focus was on having lots of kids in case a few die.  Many didn’t receive names right away which is why so many graves for babies and toddler just say “Baby” on them.

I’m still terrified of death.  Most of us are.  The thought of just...ending. Of life existing outside of ourselves.  I’ve been extremely suicidal in the past and have to watch myself for ideation rearing its ugly head and I STILL fear death most of the time when I really think deeply about it.

This episode is important.  So was the comic character.  Death being positive and comforting.  Death itself being compared to birth.  Something that can happen to any person on any day.  On your honeymoon, at birth, to violence, or at home in our old age. Few people choose how or when they go.

It reminds me of something I’ll occasionally read about called the Death Positive Movement.  Don’t worry - it isn’t a murder cult.  It is a movement around appreciating life, but also accepting that all truly living things must die.  They fight to end the stigma around discussing death.  What death means.  What it looks like.  For a fact of life - death is treated as a taboo subject, which only makes it scarier for people who know it is happening to them.  Death wasn’t wrong for saying most people need a friendly face.  Viewing Death as a gentle voice instead of a scythe wielding cloaked asshole makes the process less scary.  I suggest people read more at orderofthegooddeath.com/death-positive-movement for a good intro to these concepts.

Now for someone with suicide ideation like me - I was grateful that Hob’s story followed the Death story.  Because while Death is inevitable and something to be accepted - we shouldn’t seek it out.  Humans can change.  Society and circumstances can change.  Hob himself went from curious to rich asshole to miserable drunk to slaver to savvy business dude. He improved. He grew and learned.  And the world around him did as well. There is a lesson I found in the order of these two stories.  Death is inevitable and an inevitable part of life (since I highly doubt a real Hob is out there lol), but life itself is equally valuable.  We should treasure every second that we get of it.  As someone with deep traumas and pain, it helped me to see Hob say he “has so much to live for” at his worst moments. We can destigmatize death without hating on life.  Death is a part of life.  John Dee said in episode 5 that all stories going on long enough end with death, but this episode proves that the stories are still worth living out til that last moment.  Our stories all ending in death doesn’t mean everything before that point doesn’t matter. Our purpose is our function and our function is to live til our bodies give out on us in one way or another.

#queencolondarkwing #dream of the endless #death of the endless #hob gadling #the sound of her wings #sandman #spoilers #death positive #death positivity #death acceptance #fear of death #neil gaiman #niel gaiman #the sandman #the sandman netflix #netflix the sandman #suicide #tw suicide #tw death