#if the op of that post wants me to remove it I'm all for it- say the word and I'll take it down- it just didn't feel right deleting it ;-;

[galvanizedfriend]

hii Yokan! i miss you!😭

how are you? how is work?? I hope everything is going well<3

rn there's a little Comic Con in my city, and it really did help my mood!! (even tho I throwed up 6 times and fainted during the morning of the first day due to the heat and lack of iron🥲) 2 days down, 2 more to go 🙏

ANYWAYS! I know you've been going through a writer's block lately, and I read a post that said something about asking/commenting about the fictions to help the "stucked" autor, SO!

I've been re-reading TW III (shocking, I know) and those little hints about married!kc are just 😭😭 my heart melts, really, although... I was never really sure you'd get them married, mostly due to Care's speech to Cami about how Klaus supposedly sees weddings, and because I remember you saying that you weren't planning on giving them an actual marriage, but rather the closest thing next to it. I checked to comments to see other thoughts, and I saw one of you reply saying that you were completely against married!kc at the start, but then you were slowing changing your mind about it...

so, what was it that made you say "fuck it, I'm gonna ring the bells"?? is it because many people asked you to do it, so you are throwing us a bone, or is it something else?? I'm really interest on hearing the process of your change of heart <3

have a good one, friend <3 love you xoxo

I don't know if I am eloquent enough or if my train of thought makes much sense, but I will try 😂

Also grab a chair because this will be a long one. Be careful what you ask me, I do not know how to shut the fuck up 🙃

Objectively, I still think Klaus is not the marrying kind (in canon context, at least). That man has been alive for a thousand years. He's the vampire of vampires, one who sees humans as a lower species. He's used to getting what he wants by conquering and subjugating because he can. Why would he ever submit himself to an inherently human institution that, throughout history, has served as a tool for various types of social, political and religious control? The ceremony itself doesn't mean anything to him. He probably thinks it's ridiculous and performative, not to mention extremely frail. You can just change your mind and get a divorce, or the good old spouse murder, and then what? What's even the point?

(Just to be clear: I'm not personally preaching against weddings and marriages here btw, it's just how I think Klaus might have seen it.)

If you look at it from the sentimental side, Klaus spent almost a thousand years saying that love is a sign of weakness, a character flaw. He carried his siblings, the only people he genuinely cared about, inside coffins because he didn't trust them enough not to leave him, betray him or end up captured and killed by one of his enemies. Now, why would he want to marry someone, thus exposing yet another vulnerability to be exploited?

Having said that 😂

When we first see Klaus in TVD he's trying to surround himself with a whole new OP supernatural species that will have no choice but to stand with him. They will protect him, they will go to war for him, do whatever he asks them to and they will never leave (or that's what he thought, anyway) because they don't have a choice. That is the only way Klaus knows how to trust people: by completely removing their capacity to challenge him. That's how paranoid he is.

But as the story progresses, and especially with The Wolf in particular because it takes their relationship much further than the show, Klaus realizes there is more than one way to earn people's trust. I feel like that's one of the pillars of his relationship with Caroline. He could've just compelled her (in TVD, not TW because she's a witch), but he never did because he wanted more from her than obedience. All of the things he liked about her - her personality, her honesty, her fire, her loyalty - would've been essentially erased or made meaningless if he'd compelled her. Which puts her in direct opposition to how he related to his hybrids, right? He pretends to be fine with people who have no choice but to follow him, but what he really craves is more real than that. He surrounds himself with people who will worship the ground he walks on after some forged "gratitude" for releasing them of their curse, but he is fascinated by how gutsy Caroline is to look him in the eye and tell him the things that no one else will dare to. What he really seeks but doesn't have the courage to admit is that he wants someone who will choose to be with him. And that's the difficult part, because it can't be conquered or taken, it has to be earned.

Klaus comes from a place of paranoia and extreme distrust of everything and everyone around him, especially after Mikael in New Orleans, and he feels very isolated and alone. He tells Stefan about that, right? The loneliness of immortality. When The Wolf starts, in spite of how he and Caroline were having a bit of a thing before it, he's not sure she would want to stay with him. Actually, he thinks the first chance she gets, she's gonna bail. It's why he's mad when he thinks she wants to terminate the pregnancy. It's not about the baby (it's never about the baby), he couldn't care less about the damn baby at that point, it's the fact that he thinks she's trying to get rid of him, as if that pregnancy is the one thing that is holding them together at that point and so if she's no longer pregnant, she doesn't have to be with him. What I'm very inarticulately trying to say is that his initial approach to Caroline being pregnant is the same he had with his hybrids, as if the baby is a version of a sire bond. It's crazy and dysfunctional, yes, but it's how Klaus rationalizes it, how he thinks he gets to keep people around him - either through daggering them or giving them no choice.

Slowly, Klaus internalizes the fact that Caroline is choosing him. She tells him that a few times throughout the story, and even when he's hallucinating her at the beginning of TW4, because that's something that she has said before and that has stuck with him for reason. She could've left him at any point, but she didn't because she wants to be with him. It's a choice that she has made not because he forced her to, but because she's in love with him. She protects him, she fights for him, she walks through hellfire for him because she wants to, not because she must. He has earned her trust and her love and her loyalty. And that is something that is new for Klaus in his one thousand years of life, at least at this magnitude and with this much clarity and certitude.

So I think when I started writing TW3, which was them in their domestic era, it started to feel like something Klaus might actually do. Not just because it obviously does mean something to Caroline and he would basically do anything for her (even though she never asks for it, which in itself is something, because Caroline comes from relationships that made her feel so insecure and unsafe that she would've held on to a ring like a lifeline, but with Klaus she simply does not need hard evidence to feel safe and reassured, she knows how Klaus feels about her, she's very comfortable in their relationship, she knows that what offers her means a lot more than a thousand weddings to other people ever would - even though she does still love a good wedding lol), but because it suddenly makes sense to him. Not the big party, or the tradition of it, or making it official or anything of the sort, but as a way to externalize what he feels. There is a symbolism to it that while not ideal, it might be the closest to thing to expressing just how devoted he is to her and how she is, pure and simple, eternity for him. When that comes from someone who has lived for as long he has, and who has been as cynical as he was for as long as he was, it does mean something, even if nothing else does.

There is a territorial factor to it as well, of course. 😌 He's a very possessive man and so he wants everyone to know Caroline is his, and it's why it first came to him during the thing with Jackson, but it's more than just that. If it was just about that, he wouldn't do it. He is at a point where he no longer has any doubts about how Caroline feels for him (although there will be a little something something on that front at the beginning of TW4, just because they've been apart for so long, but it will be quickly dispelled).

The most sacred thing for Klaus was the vow he took with his siblings when they fled Viking Falls. They stuck together through everything because of that. He knows the value of a vow and a promise. And he wants a version of that with Caroline. It's the first time in his life when he contemplates genuinely offering that to someone other than his family. There are a million ways he could go about it, probably, but he knows asking her to marry him is the one that will be most representative to her, because of the age where she was born and how she grew up, etc.

And so that is why I decided that Klaus was going to buy a ring even though I crossed my heart and hoped to die a million times for years when people asked me about that. 😂 I just think it's the natural course this story has taken. It's long enough that it eventually made sense to me that he might do it.

Does any of that make sense???? I don't know! I just typed my stream of thought and hoped for the best and now I'm afraid to read it again, so apologies if it's just crazy words.

Now if only I can get back to writing and actually get to that part. 🥲 Pray for me 🙏

THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK! 🙃 Here have a pretty married Klaroline gif.

#yokan answers #rosedforbes #BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK ME #klaroline #the wolf universe #if only i could actually write SIGH

[craykaycee]

idk how I did that---- whelp----- puss in boots: the last wish meme be upon ye

#cray kay scream #it was sitting in my drafts for forever--- then op made it un-reblog-able--- but I didn't want to just-- delete it---- so there it is ig xD #I can't edit the tags of it--- tragedy ;-; #if the op of that post wants me to remove it I'm all for it- say the word and I'll take it down- it just didn't feel right deleting it ;-; #I didn't think it'd actually let me post it-- OOP--

[jewishvitya]

[This post was originally written in response to someone tagging me and claiming that a free Palestine would mean all Israeli Jews will be kicked out and where will I go, and how they can't understand why I'm so against Israel being our ethnostate. OP blocked me, so I'm reposting with a few edits, because I already wrote this and I might as well.]

Look. I understand your mentality. We're traumatized by a history of violence against us. We were shown that so many in the world want us dead, and so many others won't stop them. I get it. But I refuse to let myself silently become the face of similar oppression for other people.

Israel benefits from antisemitism and maintains myths that got Jewish people killed in the past, like double loyalty. It weaponizes it for propaganda reasons. It's supported by antisemitic Christian zionist organizations with terrifying motivations. It started out with violence not only against Palestinians but against Jews too. Israel isn't motivated by our safety, it abuses that idea. It manipulates and weaponizes our trauma to make us feel justified in causing so much suffering to innocent people.

You're right that I'll have nowhere to go if I'm kicked out of here. This is where I was born. My parents come from other countries that I won't feel safe in. But all of this is hypothetical. The ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians is not hypothetical, it's REALITY. It's happening RIGHT NOW. And I don't understand how, as a Jewish person who knows what this kind of suffering and loss of life means, you seem unable to prioritize that. I tell you I'm witnessing a genocide happening right next to me and you keep telling me "but what if they hurt you instead."

The assumption that Palestinians will pull some sort of reverse ethnic cleansing against us is racist. This assumption is the reason Israel feels comfortable calling the carpet bombing of a civilian population "self defense." Killing them based on a this is not self defense, it's a racially motivated crime against humanity.

And I'm calling it an assumption because I'm not willing to pull from the Hamas charter that they've since replaced. Hamas isn't Palestinians. The only reason they became this powerful is Israeli funding, and Israeli violence giving Hamas free PR as the only ones who will stand up to the state that will keep them trapped and dying.

We control every aspect of their lives. Israel created a place that breeds radicalization. No group of people, living under the conditions forced on Palestinians, would be peaceful. They would fight back. Because peaceful attempts to have the human rights that Israel denies them got nothing. We stomped on every single one. We blocked all other routes and left them with only violence, which Israeli politicians have been using as an excuse for over 15 years to make a show of force with military campaigns whenever they wanted a boost in popularity. We created living conditions with such low life expectancy that half of the population is children because so few adults survive. They don't deserve this. No one deserves this.

Palestine was a land with people living in it. One plot of land can create multiple groups of people, especially when we've been separated for 2000 years. Our connection to this land does not cancel out theirs. Removing them to create our own country could never be right. It's not an argument saying that our connection to Israel gives us the right to move here to live ALONGSIDE Palestinians. That's not what we wanted. We wanted a country that enforces Jewish majority and legally prioritizes Jews. You're justifying this when I repeatedly state that the only way for it to exist is through ethnic cleansing and genocide. There's no way to make this concept into a reality without killing, displacing, and oppressing whoever's left in various different ways, from apartheid to other kinds of discrimination.

I'm not against safety for us. I want to be safe. I want my children to grow in a safe world where we can be openly and joyfully Jewish. I'm not willing to pay for that with the lives and freedoms of other people.

So I will be loud about this: Palestinians deserve to be free in every part of their homeland, even if it's our ancestral homeland too.

If safety for us means we're the ones committing the genocide, maybe we should rethink what safety looks like.

I'm terrified for the lives of millions of people in Gaza. Right now, all I can think about is this, and it baffles me to see people so willing to transfer the horrors of our history to other people.

I had a lovely conversation in DMs in response to the first post, about how zionism encourages us to isolate rather than build bridges in the places where we live all over the world. We can't ignore the way antisemitism saturates culture, but we should also remember the places where Jewish communities thrived for centuries, the places where our neighbors protected us. We're hated, and we're loved. Each form of oppression is unique, so no other group experiences what Jewish people do exactly, but we're not alone. We have a long and rich history of solidarity with other marginalized communities and involvement in liberation movements. We're actively working to make the world safer, and we have people fighting with us. I'm just participating in this fight where I am. The struggle for liberation is a human struggle. You can't use the trauma of antisemitism to silence me about other kinds of bigotry.

Never again. To ANYONE.

#riki babbles

[kimdokjas]

wait wait, what’s the change tumblr did to the reblog chains ? 🥲🥲🥲 I’m so lost

okay so basically, let's say you see a post on your dash

before the update, if you clicked on a url, you could do 3 things:

view that specific reblog on the blog you follow (A)

view the previous reblog on the blog A reblogged it from (B)

view the original post on op's blog (C)

however, staff recently implemented an update where clicking on a url no longer takes you to that specific post. now, clicking on a url just takes you to the blog itself.

this means that you now get 5 things:

view ONLY that specific reblog on the blog you follow (A) -> changed location near header. also, you will now ONLY see that post and nothing else

view ONLY the original post on op's blog (C) -> changed location near header. you will only see that post and nothing else. and ONLY if the op hasn't deleted it, otherwise it just shows an error

view the blog of the person you follow (D)

view the blog of the person D reblogged it from (F) -> option B no longer exists

view the blog of the op (E)

you might be thinking: "cool! i get more options so that's good, right?" well, no.

there are SEVERAL things wrong with this and it goes beyond the prev tags issue

1) first of all, it's counterintuitive that A and C changed locations to the area near the header, especially if your userbase was already used to the previous functions. it just seems like horrible UX design to me but let's put that aside for now.

2) as you can see, option B which allowed you to see the previous reblog of a post no longer exists.

now, if you click on the previous url, you will just be taken to their entire blog. you can no longer view the post itself.

someone asked staff about this, and they replied in this post that the change was INTENTIONAL and if you want to view the previous reblog you would have to "go through the notes view".

to borrow what someone else said:

basically, this update just killed the prev tags culture in one fell swoop.

(sure, you can still use it to reply directly to the person you're reblogging from, but it's now literally useless to use "prev tags" for everyone else involved. sure, you can choose to copy tags or peer review them, but again, if people will have to copy them then the less people are likely to use them, and not every prev lends itself to peer-reviewing imo)

now, listen. i know not everyone likes the prev tags culture, but it just seems like such a poorly-thought decision to kill a culture that like... half of your entire userbase uses (see this poll as a quick reference) and that's UNIQUE to your site and sets you apart from other social media.

but it's also not even just prev tags. let's say you want to remove an annoying addition on a post's reblog chain? you can no longer do that.

however, i feel like this is the most important point:

regardless of how you may feel about the prev tags culture, the pure UI aspect of it should remain

what i mean by this is: even if you don't like prev tags, simply 1) being able to access the reblog chain, and 2) clicking on a post and actually have it take you to their BLOG (and not just a page with that one single post) is literally essential navigation.

this update threatens to drive down user engagement (which is already critically low) by making it harder to navigate. which is actually another point:

3) even if you click on A and C now to view those specific posts, it's NOT the same as it used to be.

before, you could view the reblog directly on the blog. so you could just scroll down and see the other posts leading up to it. now, you will be taken to a page where you will ONLY see that post and nothing else.

but also, you can no longer easily navigate other people's blogs.

you know how sometimes you would see like 50 notifications of someone going through an entire tag on your blog? that's going to happen a lot less, i'm afraid.

let's suppose you want to go to op's blog because they're an artist and you want to see more of their art. so you click on C and see that the tag they use for posts with their art is "#my art"

cool! before, you could just click on that tag and immediately view ALL of their art as long as the posts have that tag.

but now, if you click on that tag, it will take you to the ENTIRE tumblr tag with literally all the posts that everyone in the history of time has tagged with that specific tag.

now, to do the same thing that just took 2 clicks before, you would have to: click on C to view the post -> look for the tag you want to navigate -> click E to view their whole blog -> scroll and look for a post that just so happens to have that tag (the search function is literally useless) and hope to god that there's a recent one or you'll have to scroll for ages or simply give up -> if you happen to find it, click on that tag to navigate their posts.

you see how this is counterproductive, right? you see how this can literally drive down engagement with content creators, right?

if you make people's blogs harder to navigate, you will literally drive down the number of likes and reblogs on their posts, which have already been steadily declining for years now.

4) options D and E to view the blogs and not the posts are literally useless because you could already access other people's blogs before. you just had to click on their url to view their blogs starting from that specific post AND you could choose to just refresh it to view their newest posts.

either way, the change just seems completely unnecessary. and again, it's not just about the prev tags culture but about basic UI.

so what can we do about it?

i normally don't advocate for flooding staff with messages but i do feel like this is one of the worst updates staff has ever done (and that's saying something) and something needs to change.

even if they don't retcon the entire update, that's fine, but staff could at least add the option to view the reblog chain as a different feature (maybe even opt-in) for example. there are better ways to go about this than just axing an entire existing feature.

also, this same issue that makes it harder to navigate blogs needs to change. i feel like content creators will be especially affected by this unless this changes because you can no longer easily navigate their tags, so it will inevitably drive down engagement.

so please, contact staff and let them know we want a change.

you can contact support here!

here's a template for a possible message you could send, but feel free to edit it. (under category you can choose "Feedback")

Hi, I would like to politely request a change to the recent update that affects the reblog chain of posts. Regardless of the "prev tags" culture itself, the UI aspect of being able to view the reblog chain of a post is essential for navigation on this website. Even adding it as a separate, opt-in feature would be a huge help. Additionally, clicking on a post and then on one of the tags now takes you to the entire tumblr tag instead of the tag on that blog, which makes it harder to navigate blogs. Both of these issues have the potential to drive down user engagement by actively making it harder to navigate Tumblr, but especially for content creators. I hope you can do something to address these issues as soon as possible. Thanks in advance and have a nice day.

also, if you can and/or want, reblogs are appreciated to help spread the word!

that's pretty much the gist of the issue from what i've seen, but if anyone else has anything to add or a different way we could contact staff to make ourselves heard, please feel free to let me know!

TLDR: it's not just about prev tags, this update affects basic functionality and content creators as well

#pls reblog if u can to help spread the word!! #@anon this turned out a lot longer than i expected omg #i hope u don't mind me hijacking this ask to make a general informative post about this issue!! #ask #anonymous #tumblr #tumblr update #prev tags #signal boost #supportcontentcreators #evansyhelp #staff #long post for ts #196

[spockandawe]

Double edit: actually, that's enough of that.

Edit: I was expecting maybe thirty notes tops. This is a surprise, and one that doesn't delight me. If I hear about any harassment stemming from this post, I'll be more pissed at the harasser than the person this is about.

God. Dammit.

I hate this, let's just out that out there! I'm unhappy that I'm talking about any of this, I'm unhappy there's an issue that's come up at the intersection of media preservation, respecting authors, and one of my favorite book series. And I'm unhappy that I've censored the names in the screenshots I'm about ti post! I'm not happy that I'm helping to slide consequences away from someone who thought this was an acceptable thing to do to a modern working author. But I'm even less happy this is something that happened in the first place, and I'm VERY unhappy the original post has been deleted without a whisper of accountability or apology.

And here's a partial screenshot of the IA page, which has since been removed. I get the excitement to share something you love with a new audience. This isn't the right way to go about it.

First, if Martha Wells' patreon is still in place, I encourage everyone in the strongest possible terms to go sign up for it. It'll charge you one dollar. I've been a member since probably 2018, and I mistakenly believed it was locked to new members (it's labeled 'Currently Closed To New Patrons') until I had reason to look it up last night, when I tripped across this reddit post from earlier this year.

Now. I was looking it up because of this sudden patreon message:

Even if the patreon goes away, I still recommend that people sign up. Explore the stories! They're very fun! Even though the patreon has been dormant for years, I've loved having that repository in place.

In fact, in the interest of full disclosure, what kept me from immediately reblogging last night is that I've felt the same archival urges! I bound a hard copy of these stories earlier this year, and let me quote my own words from that post:

I live in a state of perpetual low key stress over the impermanence of digital media and that goes extra for sites that aren’t designed to work well as archives. I hope, desperately, that someday Martha Wells publishes more raksura, maybe even including these stories! I will buy it immediately. No thoughts, wallet empty. I own all her other raksura books in literally three formats, fingers crossed that by printing this, I can actualize a formal official printing of these stories by the author 😂

So. Archiving, yes. But especially with a living, working author, I would never DREAM of posting a public free-for-all with IA and mediafire links. My most charitable interpretation is that OP thought it was fine since the stories were "free," even though the writeups acknowledge that access costs a dollar. Ao3 is also free. Reposting someone else's fic is still understood to be a dick move.

Last night i was left kind of stunned, and I was hoping to see some kind of response from op this morning taking responsibility, and was... disappointed to see that the post was just deleted. The IA listing was deleted too, and I hadn't actually looked up the mediafire post yet but I'm guessing it's also been nuked. Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if there was anything more in the comments, so I found a surviving reblog. And there was!

So I'm writing this post because I'm... frustrated. Taking down the files is a good step. Posting them publicly was a worse step, but hey. I still more than understand if Martha Wells still deletes her patreon. I don't understand what sending her files of her own stories is meant to accomplish, but whatever. Ascribing a profit-driven motive is driving me up a wall, though. She's financially stable. I read her email, and what i see is frustration that even though it only cost a dollar to access 62k of her work through her own chosen location, control of her writing is being forcibly removed from her. I'm sure that seeing copies sold by third parties wouldn't help, but I don't think that's the root issue.

This is a fandom-heavy website, I'm sure most of us have seen posts about not reposting art when you can share directly from the artist's blog. I've seen posts about stop copying your ao3 faves over to wattpad just because you like reading there better. At a fundamental level, I read the message from Martha Wells as a deep frustration at having no way to share her creative work without someone removing control of it from her hands. And I don't know if there's any way to really take back that damage.

#long post #the books of the raksura #archiving

[faye-writes-stuff]

welp here we go again

INCORRECT QUOTES TIMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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

Y/n: petition to remove the 'd' from Wednesday Dream: Wednesay Y/n: Not what I had in mind, but I'm flexible

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

Y/n: Dream, stop! This isn't you, you've gone mad with power! Dream: Well of course I have. Dream: Have you ever tried going mad without power? Dream: It's boring.

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

Y/n: Today is a day of running through hurdles. Ranboo: Aren’t you supposed to jump OVER hurdles? Y/n: Whatever. Fear is only something to be afraid of if you let it scare you.

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

Y/n: Ranboo... Why did you draw a pentagram on the floor? Ranboo: Your text told me to satanize the house before you returned. Y/n: Y/n: I wrote sanitize, Ranboo

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Y/n: Sorry it took me so long to bail you out of jail Sapnap: No it’s my fault, I shouldn’t’ve used my one phone call to prank call the police

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Y/n: Is letting someone win at chess sapiosexual bottoming Sapnap: Does anyone in this godforsaken group ever think before they speak

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George: Welcome, fellow idiots Y/n: Hello, George George: No, no, not you, you're not an idiot Y/n: You underestimate me

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George: *Gets down on one knee* Y/n: Oh my god, it’s finally happening. George: *Falls over* Y/n: The poison is kicking in.

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Tommy: Change is inedible. Y/n: Don't you mean inevitable? Tommy, spitting out coins: No, I did not.

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Tommy: Ok, maybe playing ‘whose family is most dysfunctional’ wasn’t the best idea we’ve had. Y/n's been crying in the bathroom for an hour. We can’t get them out...

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Tubbo: Man, I only ever see you awake, do you ever shut down or stop running? Y/n: Oh, I’m always running Y/n: The question is from what

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Tubbo: I know you’re deflecting by making jokes about how hot you are. Y/n: It’s not a joke. Y/n: *sniffles* Y/n: I’m a legit snack.

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

Foolish: Lol heads up if you try to make a candle with food coloring, the food coloring will just sink to the bottom of the glass, and when the flame eventually reaches the bottom all the food coloring will catch fire and become one giant tall flame that you cannot possibly blow out and the glass will start to crack and then you'll throw your tea on it in a panic and then the extremely hot food coloring will boil and sizzle horribly and then the glass will shatter. Please take my word on this lmfao Y/n: What did you do op? Foolish: A MISTAKE

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Y/n: Foolish... Foolish: Oh no, 'Foolish' in b-flat. Foolish: You're disappointed.

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Technoblade: WHAT’S YOUR TYPE Y/n: Anything, honestly, but nerds especially Technoblade, desperately, as Y/n bleeds out: YOUR BLOOD TYPE Y/n: Oh! B positive. Technoblade: DONT TRY TO CHEER ME UP JUST TELL ME YOUR BLOOD TYPE Y/n:

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Technoblade, in a meeting: My policy is if you see something, say something. Y/n: I saw a squirrel in a tree today! Technoblade, with the tone of someone who is used to Y/n: Outstanding. Technoblade: This is what I’m talking about people.

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Technoblade: You're the love of my life and my best friend, I would do anything for you. Y/n: I want you to eat three meals a day and have a decent sleep schedule. Technoblade: Absolutely not.

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

i accidentally hit post on this too early so if you saw this b4 it was finished- no you didn't

ANYWAYS enjoy, because the last one got over 300 likes so

ic master list :)

#techno x reader #technoblade x reader #platonic technoblade x reader #ranboo x reader #platonic ranboo x reader #tommyinnit x y/n #tommyinnit x reader #platonic tommy x reader #platonic!sapnap x reader #platonic tubbo x reader #platonic bench trio x reader #dreamwastaken x reader #dream x reader #dsmp incorrect quotes #sapnap x reader #georgenotfound x reader #georgenotfound x y/n #Faye writes #Faye's incorrect quotes

[pretty-weird-ideas]

This is so egregious that I can’t let it stand, the large IWTV blog Nalyra-dreaming is liking posts about hating critical race theory and the post she liked states that affirmative action is the only systemically racist system still around while calling fans who are upset that they were called ableist slurs, anti-white and intellectually disabled. When people noticed this last night she attempted to block people who she knew saw the racist posts and remove her likes to hide this. But I saw them several times over, and so did many others.

Also here's proof that Nalyra actively interacts with this user and on THEIR OWN BLOG and has at least allowed cosmicjoke to stand on the idea that anti-whiteness is real on her own blog.

I'm pretty sure Nalyra blocked me because I told CosmicJoke to not call people slurs and a reblog of the “antiwhite” meltdown they had with a bad-quality Walter White image. At least proving that she was looking at the post she liked.

No way on black history month did you think we wouldn’t check to see who liked and defended posts with “Affirmative action is the only current form of systemic racism”.

I saw her do this on several occasions over this week and simply asked others to check on people liking racist posts and reblogging my disdain for OP’s usage of slurs and antiblack dog whistles. I never implied that I was talking about her but these posts scared her enough to block me.

This is about the 3rd time I found them secretly liking genuinely racist treatment of fans she dislikes. This is a political stance, affirmative action, the belief in antiwhiteness, and critical race theory are not IWTV topics, this isn’t a whimsical like and scroll, these posts are all political stances that have nearly nothing to do with IWTV outside of what people were being targeted by the slurs in the first place. And the “what people” seem to be black fans that at some point in time she believes deserved to be attacked.

Targeting fans you don’t like doesn’t mean the speech should be endorsed. Anyone with half a pint of morals wouldn't be endorsing an actively hostile person slinging around altright talking points. And I will question why these posts are liked. Call us names all you like, but the second you start using the words of a reactionary racist who calls people disabled… maybe that should give you pause. Yeah?

A large IWTV blog believes in or at least is rubbing shoulders with an antiAffirmative action, slur slinging, reverse racism reactionary so that she can weaponize them against people she disagrees with.

At best Nalyra is okay with commenting, liking, and comforting racists in asks who she wields as weapons against people she disagrees with. At worst, Nalyra genuinely believes in antiwhiteness, antiAffirmative Action, and actively is okay with calling fans she dislikes slurs.

The racism on display here makes me sick. And it’s really telling how this blog feels comfortable patting these people on the back in comment sections.

Say it with your chest, but don’t mislead people who might disagree into following someone who believes this shit.

As respectfully as possible, you make my skin crawl and I’m tired of not stepping to what I really wanted to say. When I make posts about “check who likes what” never in my entire life did I expect to catch an account this large flagrantly using a racist reactionary in such a sad manner.

This is the last straw for me, you can’t keep liking explicitly racist posts and then answering their asks in private and hope fans you strategically discredit and already dislike don’t say anything.

1+1 is 2, liking and a post saying “I will call people I dislike slurs over fictional characters” can only be read so many ways.

I dislike a lot of people, I still wouldn’t defend and like a random fan’s ability to use SLURS and racist tactics on them. I wouldn’t do the same to you as you do to us.

Also some way to hide your attack dog… by having them flash in your own comment section and saying THIS

Racism is a slur… you guys… and this person is not at all a danger to fandom spaces.

#iwtv #black fandom #interview with the vampire #vampire chronicles #iwtv fandom #fandom racism

[rongzhi]

what did you mean by reblogging that post about the uyghur genocide in china? can you elaborate?

Means I agree with what op said

If you want some elaboration with points to jump off, you can read the direct follow up to their post. Check out the notes as well. I think this post (yes, it's a reddit post. There are links within) also has a good summary of some things. I don't really keep a bookmark of better sources but again, you can use the discussions for jumping off points if you like—there's a number of links from both "sides". I highly encourage you to do your own research as there is much back and forth on the issue, but I think you will find that there is a certain... spottiness... a sort of general Lack of substance but a lot Spin when it comes to the mainstream reports/sources you will generally find on the topic.

I think as you read, it can all very shocking to read the reports by the Guardian or the BBC or whoever, and that points to something that I agree with in the post that I reblogged initially: "Of course, any decent person would rather believe a claim of genocide than deny it out of basic morals, and that's part of what makes it so sickening."

I think with what's happening in Palestine, there has been some renewed discussion about various genocides happening globally. I have seen more than one well-meaning post on this site that has included Uyghur genocide on the list of genocides to stand up against. Now I'm not a particularly politically vocal person—have not really ever said much about anything on this blog until more recently—and I've never really posted on "Uyghur genocide", not even when I started this blog during COVID lockdowns and was getting anons harassing me/demanding I answer for such things (something that has died down a lot, either as I have never responded or I blocked all the anons who were doing that), but the charge of "Uyghur genocide" has always weighed very heavily on my mind; first, a couple years ago when I first learned about it, due to the sheer horror at the idea; then as I started to periodically look into it, due to a sense of guilt over the possibility that my increasing suspicion of its falsity was a sign that I was falling complicit to covering something up. But frankly I don't think that's the case. But, it really is fucked up and vile and I thought OP of the post in question summed up exactly the root of that particular emotional facet.

My own two cents (what little that it's worth) is that in the harshest light possible, you could say that there's a likelihood that human rights abuses have been committed in some cases in the broader deradicalisation effort the government has implemented. I do think that that there is likely a level of prejudice or at least an othering of especially those who live in rural Xinjiang or in bordertowns far removed from the cities (regular rural alienation in other words). Obviously none of this is "good" and should be ignored or deemed necessarily acceptable, but none of it is genocide, either. And by overshadowing any police mistreatment or such with a charge as serious as genocide, it also does a real disservice in terms of rectifying anything short of it (including the claim of "cultural genocide").

That's all I have to say about it really.

Edit: fixed typos

#text #answered ask

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for using my status as an agender person to get a surgery I want although I do not want it for gender-related issues ?

TW : talk of uterus, menstrual cycles and menstrual blood

I'll start by saying this is not the US so please don't make your judgement based on that. I'll describe how things are in my country.

So I (X24) want my uterus removed. The main reason is that I want to be sterilised to stop having so much anxiety about becoming pregnant, which would be a nightmare for me, and I never ever want this to happen again.

But I can't get any other form of sterilisation as then I would keep my uterus, so I would keep my period, and without hormonal treatment it's just not liveable. To give you an idea, my natural cycles are 21 days instead of 28, I get my period for 7 days instead of 5 and it can be hemorrhagic for up to 4 days of these 7. (I used to get post-op medication because of the hemorrhagia before I was under contraception.) And of course I get through excruciating pain every time, beside having iron deficiency among other things. I'm currently trying another hormonal contraception, it's still not going well. There is always something wrong. My first pill just stopped working, the next ones made me gain 20kg, I'm currently trying hormonal IUD and although I don't bleed as much, I bleed for so long and there is so much pain that no available painkillers can block. I'm so tired. I can't imagine going through that for another 15 to 25 years.

In my country, it is written in law that you are allowed to be sterilised using various methods, all of which keep the uterus. Nothing is said for hysterectomy as a sterilisation method. And although many refuse to sterilise you at all, if you find the right surgeon you can be no matter your age. The procedure is also fully reimbursed. Nothing is said in law about hysterectomy.

This means that the vast majority of surgeons won't remove your uterus. Except if you have a pathology related to it or if you're trans (coming back to that later).

So what I described above does look like a uterus with a pathology, right? It certainly looks like endometriosis at least. I went to a surgeon known for doing the other kinds of sterilisation and tried to convince him to just remove my uterus. He refused, not without an asserted pathology. To his credit, he looked for it. He had me take an MRI. Well, they found nothing.

Which means that, although I have a pretty dysfunctional uterus that I never want to use and just keeps causing me problems, he won't remove it. Because they can't find the cause. Even though I feel completely alienated from my body because of that damn organ that keeps trying to make me bear children and will have me bleed out and in pain when I won't allow it.

Then there is the other solution. I said above you could get surgery if you are trans. It's actually a bit more complicated that that. In order to get HRT and gender affirming surgery, you first need to get diagnosed with body dysphoria by a psychiatrist. And then you get a special status in our health system that allows you to get free access to all kinds of things in the medical field (like surgery and HRT) and beyond (like laser depilation).

As I said, I'm agender. They give this status to nonbinary people so my specific flavour of gender (or lack thereof) is not the issue. But I don't have body dysphoria, only social dysphoria. People misgendering me to my face will make me feel horrible but I don't see my body as gendered. My breasts and specifically my uterus are not something that I see as gendered, so they're not something that causes me distress in terms of gender-related issues. Which means as psychiatrist is never going to diagnose me with gender dysphoria as is, and I won't have access to hysterectomy through trans care.

Except if I fake it.

Now, I have no idea if it could even work. If I could even fool someone. But I've been considering trying because I really, really want to get rid of that damn uterus. And technically, I wouldn't be faking my gender identity. Just expanding on my dysphoria. Still, it feels wrong. I wouldn't transition in any other way except removing the uterus. This path doesn't feel like it's mine to take. I feel it would be disrespectful towards actual, dysphoric trans people.

So, what do you say Tumblr ? WIBTA if I tried it anyway ?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[spaghettificationandpretzels]

A Hero's Welcome

I am super duper unhappy with this. I just can't get it right, but if I don't post it, I'll get stuck in a rut. As always, please drop a comment below, they are loved and cherished.

This can be read as a The Way the Stars Love the Heavens one-shot or as a standalone, so you don't need to read my series to read this!!

Contains: Fluff, smut (oral sex M and F receiving, fingering, p in v).

2.2K words of pure smut.

Simon comes back after an op and you're happy to welcome him back to base.

It was the soft sound of his tac boots on the hard floors that gave Simon away. Despite how quietly he would always move, the long days of waiting for him to return to base had left you on edge and listening out for every sound that came by your door.

You didn't want to wait any longer, ladylike behaviour be damned, so when the footsteps got close enough to let you know he was right by your dorm, you yanked him into the room. He was still wearing all his tac gear, and he was already grinning when he laid eyes on you, ever the observant soldier, he must have been ready for your reaching arms the second he heard the creaking of your door. "Well hello lovely, did you miss me?"

You all but ripped his mask off his face and pressed your lips to his as your reply, and Simon smiled against your lips as you started to pull his vest off. Your fingers moved haphazardly, and he grabbed one shoulder strap as it fell from his chest. With the vest discarded, you started on the various weapons strapped to his body, finally needing to break away from his lips and look as the task grew.

"You need a hand?" He watched you remove the knife from his hip, your fingers unfocused and rushed, and you nodded as he unbuckled the holster from his other hip and placed it and the gun it held on the ever-growing pile. You reached towards the small of his back, gripping the wad of metal pressed against his skin and pulled it free from the tiny pouch protecting his body.

You laughed when it came into view, and Simon's easy grin had your heart fluttering. "What the hell do you need a trench knife for? The world wars ended a long time ago, dearest."

"The knuckles detach, you know, in case the knife gets stuck." He took it from you and separated the pieces. "See?"

You shook your head and sighed. "Alright then."

You dropped down to your knees to remove his shoes, and he smiled down at you, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "I'm really getting to gold star treatment, aren't I love?"

"Of course." The knife on his left ankle went first, then the gun on his right and you made your way back up his body to take off his belt. He stopped you, wrapping his hand gently around your wrists before placing your hand on his shoulders and leaning down to kiss you. You felt him grip the edge of your shirt and you lifted your arms as he pulled it over your head.

"Fuck you're so fucking beautiful. I'm the luckiest man on Earth." His lips found your neck, and the added roughness of his beard from being in the field for a week without shaving had you taking in a sharp breath as the texture sent shivers down your spine.

His shirt went next, and he took two steps back to accommodate the height you didn't have so you could pull it off his body. You fought back a giggle, and he brushed his fingers over the apple of your cheek as he looked at you fondly. "What it is love."

"I was hoping I'd find a razor blade taped somewhere." The look on his face told you all you needed to know, and your suspicions were confirmed when he started to undo his belt with a smile. You helped him, pushing his camo pants off his hips and down to a pile on the floor. He had something long and impossibly thing strapped to his thigh, and your eyebrows wrinkled in confusion as you went to undo the strap.

"It's a KGB concealed blade, you know, in case of a pat down." Nevertheless, it joined its brothers and sisters on the pile on your table, and Simon thanked you for all your hard work with another kiss as he removed your bra.

You nipped his lower lip, and one hand went from your hip to your breast so he could play with your nipple. He wasn't as gentle as he usually was, and it had you gasping through the kiss as the roughness of his battle-hardened fingers danced across your sensitive skin. You slid your hand down his body and palmed his cock, and he grunted when you rubbed him through the fabric.

You pulled away from his lips and pressed yours to his cheek, then his chin, then you dipped your head to kiss his neck, stopping briefly from sucking a mark on his throat. "I think I should show you how much I missed you."

His tongue darted out to lick his lips as he used his fingertips to draw circles on your breast. "And how are you going to do that, lovely?"

You smiled and slowly dropped to your knees, pressing kisses to his chest and abs as you went. "I have some ideas."

One of his massive hands found the back of your head as you pulled his boxers down. You used the precum beading at the head to slick your way down as you stroked him, and he groaned when you tightened your hand on the upstroke. You smiled up at him before leaning in and licking him from base to tip like an ice cream, and you felt his fingers tense as he stopped himself from digging them into your hair.

You sucked the tip into your mouth, and he took in a breath as the heat of your mouth made his toes tingle. His head fell back, and his breath quickened as you took him further in, one of your hands moving from his hip to play with his balls. He moaned, his chest rumbling as his hand squeezed your shoulder rhythmically.

He started to rock his hips, a slow and steady back and forth that still let you set the pace, and you could tell by the force of the hand on your shoulder that he was holding back. You took your hand off his balls and moved it to the part of his cock that your mouth couldn't reach, and Simon grunted and a breath left his chest. "Fuckin' ell love, you're gonna kill me."

You hummed an affirmative and pulled back, using both your hands to take the place of your mouth. "Death by blow job, what a way to go."

He shook his head and huffed. "You're asking for it now." He pulled your hands off of him and lifted you up by your upper arms, manhandling you to the bed. "What makes you think it's ok to give me so much lip."

You pressed your lips together to stop yourself from laughing, and he took in your expression before ripping your trousers off, the buttons flying everywhere as you protested. "Hey, those were my favourite."

"I'll repair them for you, don't worry love." He knew he would and the vision of him sitting on the bed with a tiny sewing needle in his hand made you giggle. The sound of ripping pulled you away from your thoughts, and you looked towards his hands, there was no way he could fix your panties, he had torn them in two.

He dropped down and knelt on the floor before manhandling you again, throwing your legs over his shoulders and diving in, licking you from entrance to clit as he moaned. He went in like a man eating his last meal, and you knew you would have bruises in the morning with how hard his hand were squeezing your thighs.

With your ass off the edge, Simon had to support the weight of your legs and he took full advantage, using his massive arms to maneuver you so you couldn't move away from growing pleasure as he increased his efforts with his mouth. He dropped one of your legs but shifted to maintain control as his hand slid up your inner thigh and to your core and moved his mouth to focus solely on your clit.

"Fuck, oh fuck." The feeling of his fingers sliding inside you was wonderful, and the slow pace juxtaposed to the enthusiastic one he had taken with his mouth meant that you felt every ridge of his digits. He crooked his fingers to rub your G-spot and you arched toward his mouth as you grew closer to the edge.

You pressed a hand to your mouth to muffle your growing moans, aware that the walls could only keep so much away, and you didn't want your friends to hear how desperate you must have sounded as Simon touched you. Suddenly, everything stopped and the hand he was using to pleasure you was wrapping around your wrist to pull your hand away from your mouth. "None of that Love, I want to hear you."

"But…" You couldn't really think of a response, not when he was looking at you like he wanted to swallow you whole.

"No buts, be good for me Love and let me hear how good I make you feel." He dove right back in, and your fingers gripped the sheets as the sensations picked up exactly where they left off. You tried to muffle the whimpers, but you were rushing towards the peak like a runaway train.

Your hands found his head, and you scratched his scalp and pushed his head into you, and with one more stroke to your G-spot, your vision went white as the pleasure overtook you. The vibrations of his moans only made the feeling stronger, and he didn't seem to mind the way you were yanking his hair as the orgasm slowly faded.

He didn't stop, and you pushed his head away softly as he chuckled. "Simon, enough."

He pulled away and wiped his face with his hand before standing up with a grin. "You right there love?"

You blinked in indignation. "Am I right? What kind of question is that?"

He was smug, his handsome face twinkling with ego. "I'm just making sure."

You yanked him downwards and used the momentum to flip yourself on top of him, his hands moving to your hips as you settled on top of him. "The bed's too small to flip again, so what are you going to do now?"

He ran one hand up and down your leg while the other moved to your cheek to pull you down for a kiss, and he nipped your lower lip as the kiss deepened. He pulled back, only far enough to speak through his smirk. "Absolutely nothing."

You nodded and brought your hand from where it was resting on his chest to wrap around his cock, jacking it a few times before holding it still so you could slide down slowly. He was always just a little too much, but like this, he was overwhelming, hitting every single space you had until it felt like you were going to burst.

You took in a breath and started to rock slowly, moving your hips back and forth while Simon rubbed gentle circles on your thighs with his thumbs. "You're doing so good for me, Love." You bent at the waist and kissed him, and he ran his hands up and down your back as he started to match your pace.

The kiss turned rough, and he bent one knee to gain more leverage as he overtook the pace. You found yourself unable to straighten back up as he angled his hips to hit your G-spot, and then he was taking your hand off his heaving chest and placing it between your legs. "Touch yourself for me, Love."

You did as he asked, rubbing small circles on your clit as he gripped your hips so tight you knew you'd have bruises by the time the night was up. Simon was grunting like an animal as thrusts increased in force, and your body rocked with each one as your skin started to tingle with release once again. Your head fell into the crook of his neck, and his hands moved to the backs of your thighs for more leverage as you started to clench around him.

"Come on Love, I know you're close, I can feel it, just let go for me." You could tell by the glint in his voice that he was close behind you, and your fingers sped up on your clit as he pressed his lips to yours, swallowing your moans like a man starved as you fell over the edge. His hips stuttered and he held you to him as he pulsed inside you.

With his hips still, you rested on top of his chest to catch your breath while he ran his hands over any skin he could reach. "You need anything from me Love?"

You sighed and turned your head so you could rest your ear against his chest as a steady thumb filled your ear. "No dearest." You smiled softly and rubbed his nose with yours. "Welcome back."

He grinned and kissed you, it was full of love and affection, and your heart swelled as he held your face while his lips moved against yours. He pulled back with one last peck and put his forehead on yours with a sigh. "It's good to be back. I love you y/n."

You mirrored his sigh, enjoying the intimate contact as you grew sleepy. "I love you too Simon."

Fin

@chaos-4baby @shuttlelauncher81 @carma-fanficaddict

#simon riley/you #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #cod mw2 #simon riley x you #simon riley #simon ghost riley x female reader #simon riley/reader #call of duty #simon riley smut #simon ghost riley smut #call of duty smut #the way the stars love the heavens

[a-little-revolution]

hey elliot! this is a surgery question, so please take all the time you need to reply. you've mentioned you had top surgery before, and i was wondering what it was like accessing that kind of care as a little person? was it challenging finding a surgeon willing to work with you? what sort of considerations were needed for your surgery and recovery, if any? i was also curious if you had used a binder before surgery, and how you found it? i have a hard enough time donning and doffing mine with long arms, so i'd imagine it could be quite challenging for you, but maybe you found ways around it! thank you for all your hard work and patience in educating folks. wishing you bountiful spoons and lots of restful, easy days 💚

Hello! Thank you so much for your patience, I did indeed take some time to process this - I'm more than happy to answer questions related to surgery on here, as it's such a large part of my experience as a little person, but I may indeed take some time to respond as I have medical CPTSD.

Anyhoo lol Yes! I have had top surgery, and my dwarfism did effect how I accessed that care:

Because I'm at risk for spinal injury, my surgery was done at a hospital rather than an outpatient centre where most top surgery is conducted (I needed to be kept overnight for monitoring while most top surgery patients leave day-of)

Like for all my surgeries, my sleep apnea and oxygen levels needed to be monitored

But unlike my many other surgeries, this particular hospital (which will remain nameless for my own security) was incredibly inaccessible despite it being obviously well funded. No stools to be found, the wheelchairs were so high and designed with an almost bike-like frame that I needed to be liften in and out of them, and the staff was unfriendly and ableist.

My surgeon was picked for her experience with little people rather than her experience with top surgery. (I ended up unhappy with my results because my surgeon was more familiar with breast reductions and didn't follow through with my wishes. My top surgery was actually the worst surgery experience I've had - I was repeatedly dead-named by members of the hospital, overdosed on anaesthesia, and my surgeon had a terrible bedside manner)

But my touch up surgeon was my first choice! Dr. Armstrong at McLean Clinic did a fantastic job straightening my scars and removing my nipples (which I had hesitated on for the first surgery but firmed up for the second. I love having no nipples!)

Image description: a photo of my torso and lower face, displaying my healed top surgery results. Two wavy pink scars line the bottom of my pecks, and I have no nipples. With one hand on my hip and the other on my upper chest, you can see my tarot "the fool" tattoo, my kissing crows, and my sailor mercury star. On my right hand I wear a red glass ring to honor my deity Hestia. I have pail skin, a short brown beard, green curly hair and a gold vertical medusa piercing.

Post-op care was understandably different for me. Since my arms are already short and locked, the limit to my range of arm motion affected me even more. I needed even more help with care tasks than that of an average height/able bodied patient. I was lucky to several loved ones around to help :) Though compared to other surgeries, I was happy that I was able to walk and be more independent for the most part.

I also just want to add: something I see a lot on social media is trans and nonbinary folks seemingly bouncing back from surgery effortlessly. We see them at the beach, posting photos, and it gives the illusion that top/gender affirming surgery isn't the painful, emotional, difficult thing that it is. IT'S OKAY IF YOU DON'T FEEL QUEER JOY IMMEDIATELY AFTER SURGERY!! It takes a while to heal and bounce back because it is a lot on your body! Take your time, and give your body the love and care it needs!

Anyway I hope this all was helpful/educational - and I wish all my queer, trans, and otherwise gender diverse followers a lovely day!!

#asks #dwarfism #medical #top surgery #disability and queerness #disabled queer #crip queer #nonbinary #they them

[catboybiologist]

Oh hey, if I'm taking a breather from grading rn anyways. Need some NSFW idea airing about transition stuff, so uh. NSFW medical talks here. Don't be weird about it.

So... I do have a decent amount of bottom dysphoria. I also have difficulty tucking that I hate (also a lot of personal shit with bulge and all my stuff down there so.... yeah).

Vaginoplasty is probably something I want someday, but.... with the cost, and the time of recovery, and me being a grad student, and the potential of complication.... yeah, its not happening anytime soon. Its just not realistic in the next 5 years, and I hate that.

Also, I joke about not wanting to sacrifice the utility of standing to pee, but that's only half a joke- its really goddamn convenient while hiking and camping.

So I'm kinda considering orchi. Problem is, I don't need the main effect of orchi, which is removing T production entirely. At least, I don't think I do- my T suppressed easily when I started HRT, but my E has struggled to stay up since then. I have some concern about whether its sufficient to suppress T long term, especially at the end of my injection cycle, but its not enough to warrant orchi on its own.

But I do think it'll reduce bottom dysphoria. Its certainly something to consider. I recently read this an article that pretty much confirmed a lot of my feelings on the matter, and idk, I think I might wanna explore the possibility a bit further.

Idk. Any perspective here? Suggestions?

[suffersinfandom]

Heyo, @nidmightcookies! This is my response to your reply on Atticus' post over here -- I didn't want to take away from the message of that post or the additions from other POC.

Sidenote: I'm extremely white and have no credentials that make me qualified to talk about race (I'm just a person who reads and tries to listen), and my takes are probably going to show that. That's another reason I didn't want to clutter up the original post with my reply.

In response to this

“Why is it racist to depict Ed as uncontrollably violent?  Because he's not actually depicted that way in the show.”

you talk about Ed baiting the crew to murder him and committing other violent acts. The original point is stating that Ed is not depicted as uncontrollably violent in the show, not claiming that he perpetrated no violence full stop. Yes, Ed does violence. No, he is not uncontrollably violent.

What Ed does is purposeful, not uncontrollable. He doesn’t push Lucius off the ship after he gives up all hope because he’s a violent guy who just does stuff like that, and the mutiny situation in S2E2… as allthinky said in a response, “that’s Ed at the end of his rope,” not him being uncontrollably violent. He’d been working towards suicide ever since he started baiting Low. As a backup plan, he’s been working the crew hard, disregarding their well-being, and being an overall awful boss in an attempt to incite a mutiny. 

Yes, he was “a serious, immediate threat to his crew” by the time he was out of other ideas to make someone take him out. Ed commits acts of violence -- I don’t think I’ve seen anyone claim he doesn’t -- but he always does so with some amount of reason (not necessarily good reasons) and control. 

“Upon reflection, my biggest issue may be with the people who argue that Ed's never been shown to be violent, or that any time he has resorted to violence, he's absolved of blame by the fact that someone was mean to him first. Which... I don't think I've seen you make either of those arguments at any point in the past.”

I’m really glad that you mentioned that OP hadn’t made either of those arguments (that you know of), that was genuinely very cool. As for the rest of it, I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone say that Ed is “never shown to be violent” or that he can always be “absolved of the blame” unless you want to remove all of the nuance from common talking points. 

He is never shown to be more violent than the average pirate and, due to his deep-seated trauma relating to his own capacity for violence, he’s actually on the less violent end of the pirate spectrum. He can’t be absolved of all blame for his actions because he’s a grown man who makes his own choices (and saying otherwise robs him of his agency). What I’ve seen said is that Ed’s actions are informed by things like trauma, abuse, and racism. His actions make sense. They’re not spontaneous violence committed because Ed flies into rages and homicidal spirals out of the blue.

“Not saying we shouldn't consider it [that is, are we “assigning more weight to Ed's violent actions than those of other characters or assuming he's worse than he actually is”], but I mean. If a white character on the show had cut off his employee's toes and fed them to him, shot him in the leg, ordered his death, held a gun on his other subordinates, marooned some/tossed one overboard, threatened to drown the ones that remained... because he was pushed into it, with the same combination of abusive childhood/hostile work environment... would he be equally deserving of that consideration? Would it be an overreaction to call him dangerous?”

Probably, but if everything was the same except Ed Is White Now, his baggage and his relationship with Izzy wouldn’t be exactly the same. Ed's race isn’t inconsequential. We can't really remove race from the story and end up with the same character, y'know?

Also: I do think it’s inappropriate to turn this question back on POC. I don’t think that POC are obligated to reconsider biases against a white character.

“Izzy is crew”

Ed’s relationship to Izzy is not comparable to his relationship with the crew. The crew have done nothing wrong and haven’t behaved antagonistically towards Ed. Izzy and Ed have a complicated, toxic, and difficult relationship (regardless of where you stand on whether or not Izzy’s abusive), therefore any harm caused to Izzy has to be considered differently than harm caused to the rest of the crew.

“Even if we say that he doesn't count, Ed still pushed Lucius off the ship.”

Yes, Ed did do that, but I think that Atticus is talking about Ed’s S2 actions in that point, not what happened in S1. Most (I think all?) meta I’ve read does consider Ed pushing Lucius off the ship an act of violence that Lucius himself did nothing to provoke. 

This might be controversial, but I’d put Ed pushing Lucius overboard on par with, like, a particularly unjust firing in a workplace that isn’t a pirate vessel. When we watch OFMD, we have to adjust our physical violence meters to account for the fact that we’re dealing with an environment that’s full of physical violence.

“Also, emotional abuse directed at the rest of the crew is still abuse”

I don't consider Ed emotionally abusive. He works the crew hard. He’s a terrible boss who doesn’t give his employees vacation days or paid time off and then throws them a sad pizza party. That sucks, it’s not okay, and his final death spiral in S2E2 is terrible and he never should have involved the crew in that. 

Abuse is a pattern of behavior that’s meant to control people. Not all harm is abuse. When I say that Ed isn't abusive, I'm not saying that he didn't hurt people.

“So... I was raised by a physically and psychologically abusive parent. I get that Ed's been hurt, is still hurting, and why. The "why" doesn't matter for the question of "did he or didn't he", though. It may or may not be his fault, he may or may not have done it because he felt unsafe. The point is, his actions did hurt people.”

Same, friend, and I'm sorry you went through that. (That’s actually one of the reasons I’ve always been wary of Izzy. What he says and does in S1 is too familiar to me, sometimes to a point where I can’t watch certain scenes.) I don’t think anyone’s saying that Ed isn’t hurting anyone, or that all of his actions can be attributed to abuse. If that’s not what you’re getting at here, apologies for misunderstanding.

“His boss that he was trying to control was brown.  Was that a factor in his power play though, or was it because Taika wound up being cast as Blackbeard? Any other (white) actor in the role, would Izzy be as bad for trying to control him? Would the scripts have gone a different way?”

Here’s the thing. In the show we have, Blackbeard is played by a Maori/Jewish man, and this fundamentally alters the character. There are things in the show -- whole episodes, if you want to look at S1E5 and the fancy party guests who treat Ed like exotic entertainment and not a peer -- that wouldn’t be the same if Ed was white. 

And yeah, Ed being brown changes the dynamic between Ed and Izzy. It would still be bad if a white guy was trying to control another white guy, but it wouldn’t be bad on the same level. Same goes if they were both brown. A white man trying to control the behavior of an indigenous man is worse.

“Izzy got permanently disfigured, crippled, and dead, while Ed came out largely unscathed in a physical sense, due to Muppet logic. Not to say one is more deserving than the other, but for a bunch of fans, there's probably a sense of Izzy getting the short end of the stick, to consider.”

That’s fine if some people feel like Izzy got the short end of the stick. It’s fine that some people feel like Izzy’s arc was kinder to him than it should have been. It’s okay to feel whatever! We connect emotionally to different characters and that biases our opinions and meta. That’s not a crime. We just need to be aware of our biases and why they exist.

The thing with OFMD is that Ed is a main character with more background and a story that, at every turn, asks you to sympathize with him. We’re given a look into Ed’s psyche. We understand at least some of his trauma and hurt and why he acts the way he does. Izzy has virtually no backstory and we’re never offered a glimpse into his mind; we don’t know why he’s like that. You can totally like a secondary character (or even an antagonist!) with no real canonical background or mental groundwork. It’s fun to ask why characters do what they do when canon doesn’t offer us any answers, and who doesn’t love a mystery box? 

But with OFMD, it can raise eyebrows when people say their main concern is the suffering of a white man who behaves antagonistically towards a brown man, especially when that brown character is a well-developed lead who also suffers (and suffers at the hands of aforementioned white character). It’s not inherently racist for someone to care more about Izzy than Ed, but it’s also not unreasonable to ask that someone to think about the possibility that subconscious racism could be factoring into their point of view.

“I don't think it's fair discussion to have a rule saying ‘even though you didn't directly call out the brown man, your argument is still racist’... even if it's true in many cases, it effectively means that no criticism of the character can ever be considered valid. If someone wants to argue ‘removing your employee's toes and feeding them to him is abusive behavior’, they can't, because of the unspoken skin colors involved? I don't know what the solution to this is.”

No one is saying that all criticism of a character of color is racist or invalid. As allthinky said in response, we’re saying that “those critiques have to be based on real evidence, and placed in a careful context, so that their actions can be understood as human, and not just the brutality of some brute.”

Criticize, but criticize with evidence and with awareness of the context of the criticized behavior. 

With the Izzy example, you have to consider the context of their relationship and Izzy’s actions throughout S1. Izzy isn’t just an employee: he’s a trusted second-in-command who has been insulting, controlling, and disloyal; he endangered not just Stede but also Ed and the rest of the crew; he told Ed that he was better off dead than acting as he was, and that Izzy's loyalty belongs to the violent worksona that Ed wants to shed. Is Ed being abusive when he’s reacting in response to abuse from his abuser? 

“[T]he show has layers (like an onion). Sometimes the meaning is not entirely surface-level, and everyone has a different level of comprehension. Sometimes obvious things to us aren't obvious to other fans/vice-versa. There's a whole 'nother discussion of media literacy to be had.”

I think that Atticus said it best here: “This is not a subtle show. That's not to say it's a simple one [...]. It's amazingly layered and emotional responses by characters are often extremely complex. However, when the show is trying to tell you something, it's not subtle and it never tries to hide it.”

There are a lot of things in OFMD that are subjective and open to interpretation, and those things are fun to discuss even when we have different takes. There are also a lot of things that are very clear. When people try to subvert the messages and ideas that OFMD is conveying loudly and openly, other fans get suspicious and wonder if the folks doing the subverting have an agenda, a bias, or just misunderstand what the show is saying.

I hope that reply was sufficient!

#ofmd #edward teach #the izzy problem #hey what tags do people have blocked if they don't want to see stuff like this? #ofmd discourse #fandom racism

[actual-changeling]

@thegirlwhowatchedtv

Alright, I do not want to derail OPs original post, so I will make my own!

Disclaimer: If anyone tries to argue that something Aziraphale does "isn't that bad" or tries to blame Crowley for it, you will be blocked. I'm an abuse survivor and that kind of denial is not just disrespectful but also triggering to me personally, and I do not want it anywhere near me; I hope you can respect that.

Discussions and arguments are fine, abuse denial is not.

Disclaimer 2: I don't hate Aziraphale, none of this is hate, I understand he is acting based on his own trauma. However, none of that excuses his behaviour, and I will delete any and all responses that say something along the lines of 'his trauma means he gets a free pass to treat Crowley like shit'.

--

With that out of the way, let's get into it, shall we?

Yes, you’re right that he’s not fully listening to Crowley

This is the first point that is also the most important one. If we do not properly look at this, every other interpretation of what comes after will be (partly) incorrect. I have already written several metas about this, and I will do it again.

Aziraphale isn't not just "not fully listening", he is not listening period. He has not been listening to Crowley the entire season, and he sure as fuck doesn't start now.

but a large part of it is that he doesn’t even understand what Crowley is saying to him or why he’s saying it.

The fault lies by Aziraphale and Aziraphale alone.

"It's probably best if I start off doing all the talking and you do all the listening."

Crowley is telling him hey, I have something very important to say, and I really want you to just listen to me for a moment. Every single time Aziraphale wanted to tell him something, Crowley listened. All he is asking for is the same. But Aziraphale does not care about what Crowley wants to say and never has. From the second he enters the shop, he is not listening or giving a single fuck about what Crowley wants.

Aziraphale wants everything to be about himself; he is the most important being ever so Crowley needs to "hold his thought" aka shut the fuck up. Following so far?

From his perspective, he comes to Crowley with this huge offer that will solve all their problems, Crowley shuts it down, and then abruptly changes the subject.

Yes, that is indeed his perspective, and his perspective is 'valid'. However, it is so far removed from reality it borders on delusional and thus CANNOT be considered as an 'alternative' to what is actually happening here. Aziraphale thinking this is a problem, not an excuse.

Aziraphale looks baffled and isn’t fully listening in this scene because he doesn’t understand what any of this has to do with the Metatron’s offer.

Again, Aziraphale not listening is a problem, Crowley does not need to do anything different because the issue here is Aziraphale not listening. Aziraphale has NEVER listened.

The Metatron's offer, yes. The one he presented to Crowley not as an offer but as a decision he made for the both of them without asking Crowley if that's what he wants. He shows up and tells Crowley "I have decided that you will lose everything about yourself and go back to the place that cast you out because I want to try and change a system that cannot be changed. Your thoughts on this don't matter because this is what I want and I have decided you also want what I want."

Healthy much, huh? Fucking disrespectful is what it is, and Crowley would have had every right to punch him for this alone.

He’s anxious to get back to the subject of heaven because from his perspective, Crowley is ignoring what he said and refusing to engage in a discussion about it.

Aziraphale is a gigantic hypocrite and again, yes, this is his perspective, but it is NOT based on reality or in the least bit proportional to what is going on. It is NOT an excuse for any of his behaviour, it doesn't matter if that's how he sees things because the way he handles it is horrible and hurtful.

When Crowley puts his sunglasses back on and walks away, he tries to follow him and practically begs him to come with him, because at that point he, too, is panicked and desperate, and thinks that Crowley is giving up and rejecting him.

Aziraphale is not begging. Crowley was begging. Aziraphale is doing what he always does - he is trying to manipulate him. I'm tired of people not seeing that, so I will pull out a fucking checklist.

First point: He is making decisions for Crowley without allowing him freedom of thought or speech. Quite obvious, I believe.

"To heaven! Work with me."

Aziraphale is trying to use Crowley's attachment to him to make him forego his own boundaries and do what he wants instead. This is something he has been doing for centuries.

"We can be together!"

Here he is repeating what Crowley actively said he wants - he wants them to be together. Aziraphale is "offering" that without understanding the difference between their expressions of it. Another attempt at emotionally manipulating Crowley by pretending that he and Crowley want the same thing and that Crowley is being unreasonable.

"Angels, doing good!"

Same thing, trying to bait him with something that Aziraphale thinks of as the ultimate reward for Crowley, ignoring that a) Crowley does not want it and b) this is the climax of millennia of Aziraphale telling him he does not love him as a demon. So it obviously does not fucking work.

"I need you!"

Ahhh, classic guilt tripping tactic. Aziraphale is trying to make Crowley feel bad and guilty for not wanting to follow him to heaven, actively pushing the buttons he knows exist because he put them there. 'Rescuing me makes him so happy.' Aziraphale knows that and he is using that knowledge to get Crowley to ignore his boundaries and thoughts to come and 'rescue' him instead.

By now, Crowley is looking away and not responding to any of his manipulation tactics.

"I don't think you understand what I'm offering you."

I can't even begin to describe how horrible that sentence is. Not only is he completely ignoring Crowley's history of pain and trauma (that he never cared about and often doing the opposite by implying he deserved it), he is telling him that he is stupid and neglecting all the rightful concerns Crowley has had over the centuries.

His intention is to get Crowley to submit to him by making him feel as if he is incapable of making decisions for himself in this regard so that Aziraphale can make them for him instead.

If you can read this and not be physically and emotionally repulsed by it then I honestly don't know.

Crowley, who stopped when Aziraphale called and hates himself for it, finally responds.

"I understand. I think I understand a whole lot better than you do."

I'm my own person who understands this situation and can make decisions for myself.

It's the truth. Aziraphale is spinning lies, and he is trying to cut through them with the truth, but Aziraphale doesn't care.

"Well, then there's nothing more to say."

Besides wanting to have the last word, Aziraphale once again does what he did in episode one: my way or the highway. I will leave you or force you to leave me if you don't do what I say.

Just that this time it does not work because Crowley knows he will lose him no matter what.

They both also stubbornly refuse to understand that the other person would never in a million years go with them.

Crowley KNOWS that Aziraphale does not want to run away. He wants to keep Aziraphale safe, and in his mind, the only way of doing that is to get as far away from the danger as possible.

And I want you to actually look at Crowley's speeches.

EVERY SINGLE TIME he ASKS. He ASKS Aziraphale to run away with him, he says please come with me, he says I want this, do you want it to? He says I love you, I love us, I want to keep us safe, will you come with me?

When Aziraphale says no, he respects that. He doesn't try to manipulate Aziraphale the way Aziraphale is manipulating him - who also NEVER FUCKING ASKS HIM. He just assumes he knows what Crowley wants and decides for the two of them.

So why would he leave now that he’s being presented with an opportunity to fix things in heaven and protect the earth? Of course he wouldn’t.

He wouldn't. And that's the point. The only choice for Aziraphale is to go to heaven, and the only choice for Crowley is not to go.

There is NO version of this where they do not separate over this. Any version in which Crowley tries to follow him ends with Crowley dead and wiped from existence. This is the only way this argument could have gone because Aziraphale is currently incapable of making rational decisions.

but Aziraphale has no idea that’s why that happened to Gabriel because Crowley didn’t tell him

Even if he had Aziraphale would not have listened. Aziraphale has treated Crowley like fucking GARBAGE for centuries, never shown compassion, never offered a safe space to talk about all the horrible things that have happened to him. The problem is not Crowley not telling him, the problem is Aziraphale being so unreceptive and full of himself that Crowley COULDN'T tell him.

They’re both well-intentioned and terrified of losing each other, and as a result, they both handle this argument badly and lose each other anyway.

Handle this badly - there is no other option. Crowley is handling this as well as he can but Aziraphale is stuck where he is and needs to choose to break out of it. There is no version where this works out well. I am not misinterpreting Aziraphale, I am simply not excusing or ignoring all his unhealthy and maladaptive coping mechanisms and manipulation attempts like so many people seem bound to do.

I am so fucking tired of trying to excuse Aziraphale's actions as if this hasn't been his behaviour since Eden. Six bloody thousand years and he has not learned a single thing and still treats Crowley like shit.

Crowley chooses himself over Aziraphale for the very first time and I am so, so proud of him for that. I know how hard it is, and he is in so much pain because he loves Aziraphale, he doesn't want to lose him, but he loves himself more.

#alex talks good omens #good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #good omens season 2 #go2 #aziracrow #crowley x aziraphale #ineffable divorce #good omens meta

[franki-lew-yo]

An 'A-ha!' fandom moment, ft. The Owl House

These comments I screencapped from a user I watch elsewhere really hit like a brick in the face to me. I'm blotting out OP's name, mostly cuz this was just a shower thought they had rather than any meaningful open discussion with people, but it ended up making me realize something (also NO they're not some contrarian AntiSJW type or even hate TOH; they're a very gay+trans writer themselves. Sorry if youknowwhoyouare sees this and recognizes ur posts but you don't allow reblogs or comments and I wanted to present it on my own):

The Owl House was always hampered by being killed halfway through, writing wise and that will always be it's greatest 'sin'. However, OP's comment made me realize how much the show kind of tells you it's characters are flawed rather than actually give them arcs to suggest it, especially in season 1. When I say flawed I don't mean lacking quirks that are relatable but human: Eda is a recluse criminal; King thought he could kill people and acted like it; Luz is a genki girl; Amity starts off as a bully; Hunter...is unfortunately Hunter, ect. Those ARE flaws, character wise, but in the presence of the complete story (as complete as the show will ever be) they really aren't actually flawed, bad people in anyway.

Before I go further, two things: 1, IN ALL FAIRNESS, this is why myself and others particularly LOVE the characters and why TOH was a comfort show for me rather than a 'high-tension narrative'. The characters are a lot of what you want and hope to be like and I think that's really sweet and enjoyable, especially for horror and especially for kids.

2, NO! I DON'T think any particular bad faith cartoon reviewer opinions about coddling certain characters and punishing others IS WHAT DANA and co did at all here! Steven Universe and certain crap-reviewer's takes ON Steven Universe and how it's characters were flawed but overly forgiven by the fandom the show itself are NOT the b-all end-all of this discussion, nor are they the reason The Owl House is the way it is!

The context op was talking about was how in the upcoming hate crime The Last Airbender live-action show the showrunners are going to tone down Sokka's sexism because they think it's 'unlikable'. Even though, we all knew as children that this was an arc for him and it was WRONG, so axing it because we the audience lack nuance to recognize characters we love doing problamtic-sisms is BEYOND annoying.

Op's point is how The Owl House in particular doesn't actually expect much or want much out of it's characters. Or audience. For any infighting early on about how much Amity should 'die' because of reasons, that's really just fandom infighting when you get right down to it. There's nothing on par with the disagreement people have over, say, the Diamonds from Steven Universe and how Steven 'totally forgave them or 'should have murdered them in cold blood' about The Owl House. And like...from a fandom point of view that's good, but otherwise the show is pretty concrete the way you're supposed to see certain characters vs other shows which allow you to make up your own mind.

Avatar, Star vs the Forces of Evil (pre finale), Centaurworld and Amphibia all showcase your protagonists being genuinely, intensely flawed. Sure, maybe some neckbreather crap-pseudocritic complains that they 'made the unlikable' or whatever (i.e. me with Friendship is Magic) but overall the actual point is HOW the characters actually have grown and have ended up with the ending and morality they need. The villains, no not Zukos or 'redeemed' villains who joined the protagonist squad, VILLAIN-villains, will always be at least one serious step behind the protagonists and that's what give the protagonists the cautionary wherewithal to end them like they should and not 'be like them'. It's such a fufilling narrative, there's a reason people like it so much because it's really good when it's delivered well.

Removed from my fandom gaze; the Owl House feels like it's saying it has that ultimate messaging and character arc when it actually doesn't. Your protagonists have the endearing aspirational-part totally covered, but as far as the actual 'edge' and nuance? Well...

Eda is, at most, naughty. She really isn't any kind of morally sidetracked character. She's an outlaw because literally her society is awful to her and she's in the right to be against it. She's cursed but she's not addicted to her potions or hiding it or not really taking care of herself or her loved ones because of it. Her actual biggest flaw is that she's been 'running away' from problems rather than dealing with them, but I'd be lying if that wasn't suggested more than it's actually portrayed; or at least, dealt with fast enough in "Eda's Requiem". A bigger issue I see, even if it's what's also endearing about her, is that she REALLY isn't a flawed caregiver at all. It's portrayed as her most redeeming feature that she's otherwise a good mom and mentor, but Eda having virtually no problems in raising Luz and King just, again, makes her feel ONLY aspirational. All of the angst about 'failing' to parent and making up for it is moved all onto Camilla and sadly all of that angst for her is mostly within an already bloated episode. Eda, while an absolute mood, lacks any real kind of edge. Does she need it or not? I don't know. Discuss, kids.

Luz, like OP says, is treated like this high-energy super-optimist. She's like Star Butterfly in that her fangirlism and impulsivness are supposed to get her in trouble. But, she absolutely just isn't one when you break it down. Besides episode 2, Luz really is never that inconsiderate or lost in her fantasies ever again throughout the show. She never has anything like what Steven goes through where he hops into Larz' body and makes things worse for people by trying to fix things- which is not only good filler but it calls forward to the ultimate ending of Steven's arc for the series - Luz is just sort of adorable. Luz has blindsided by hype moments of weakness, like when she accidentally hurts Owlbert or messes with Amity's secret room, but still always level headed and down-to-earth. Her impulses are always kind of treated like...excusable? Because, again, they usually are. This is a large part about what makes her self-hatred at the end of the show about accidentally helping Belos' feel 'forced'. Even MOREso than what Hunter and Daddy Titan explain about Belos using her, we the audience never see Luz's choice to go back in time and try and get answers from Philip as being anything other than just, you know, logical. Because it is. The show acts like what Luz did was reckless and bad and that she was SOOO overtaken by her fangirlism about Philip and now just how much she has to live with the guilt and regret of helping being duped by him...it just doesn't come off that way at all. She was only so much excited about meeting him and her interest was getting home to her mother. In terms of comparing her to Philip, that's all fine and good, but again it's not 'flawed'. Not really, anyway.

Lilith absolutely has it the worst...but I kinda think people know that. She arguably does have the most morally-gray turning point in the show given what she did to her own sister. But neither the characters nor her nor the show really hold her accountable in any lasting way for cursing Eda. Lilith is the closest we get to that 'Diamond'-dilemma. She does 'make things right way too quickly and it's obvious to even her biggest fans that her character is really rushed in this area. They lampshade what Lilith did and that she was their villain in season 2 and 2B, but lampshading isn't the same thing as progress. As a result, as a Lilith fan you kind of never really forgive her for what she did. None of that's her fault, cause' you know...she doesn't exist, but it makes it frustrating that you the fan watching the show is doing the heavy-lifting in your mind in this area.What you come away from is this feeling of loving the characters for being able to work everything out. They're engaging and nuanced in theory, but you also feel robbed, w or w/o the Disney interference, of them being fully rounded or WHOLE. It kinda feels like 'and suddenly, he wasn't racist, anymore' all the time with every character ever with except Amity's mom, the Titan Trappers and Belos.

The reason everyone dunks on Star vs the Forces of Evil's finale, (besides being salty over ship wars and declaring THAT'S the reason for the drop in quality) is that 'Cleaved' could have not only worked but REALLY worked. It just needed to be better written and processed as an ending. Instead people reviled Star, the protagonist we're supposed to be rooting for, for what feels like impulsive apathy and cruelty towards everyone else by destroying magic, as opposed to it being an actually selfless sacrifice that makes her different than Toffee. Ultimatley, I do prefer The Owl House, unfinished as it is, to any of that. But yeah... I can now never unsee the characters as being what they are: fun but indulgent when they're supposedly complex. Indulgent is never bad u guys, but the problem is when you only have that to go on while insisting you have fully developed characters, there's a lot of the show telling you how to feel and how to come away from it rather than letting you, the audience, make of that yourself. As annoying as fan-wars can be over this stuff and when people are either WAAAY to forgiving of their villain blorbo or form hate-campaigns over Glub Shitto for ruining their life, it is ultimately a good thing that shows give you that chance to really see the characters that way at all.

The Owl House is, as OP calls it, "tumblr feels" not for being gay and magical and fun and wholesome and indulgent like that stuff is GREAT. It feels 'tumblr oriented' in that it all kind of feels too easy even when it's not for your protagonists. It's never actually "challenging". I guess, in as far as 'good' indulgence is concerned, it's as warm and fuzzy and a happy AU fanfic you found but not so much the Pacifist Ending of Undertale where you really do feel bad if you rectify the good ending in anyway. It's fun and it's comfort food, but not entirely lasting as you want it to be???

Amphibia, I think, was also way better than Owl House in this respect. It wasn't perfect cause nothing is but you really got a feeling for HOW flawed Marcy, Sasha, the townsfolk and even Hop Pop throughout their arcs-- which made it so SO rewarding to see them get their happy endings and come together to defeat the core and be the better people they needed to become.

The Owl House is my favorite where I think Amphibia is the better of the two.

#ramble #the owl house #toh critical #good lord did any of this make any sense Idk #franki's features #I guess technically King had the most fufilled arc #considering he thought he was a dictator-realized he wasn't-and then w he found out his true past was horrified by it but coped #discuss

[britswriting]

Quadrupled | Quadruple The Love H.S

Quadruple the love masterlist

read on wattpad

Unedited  - I'm tired 

"I'm bigger than the house we first bought together" I huffed, Harry helping me get into the hospital.

Today we were meeting our babies and I was scared out of my mind.

Normal pregnancies have forty weeks to worry. Forty weeks to figure out names, nursery, how you want to parent, what diapers you want you use, are you breast feeding or bottle feeding, cloth diapers or disposable diapers, co-sleeping, or strict crib rules.

I lost ten weeks of worrying.

Ten precious weeks that might've given me more answers than I knew now.

Not only have I been "in hiding" for months, keeping out of the limelight with my big ole belly — Harry and I agreeing for the safety of me and the kids; it was best for me to keep close with our families. We didn't want to tell the world that we're having quadruplets until they were already born, home and safe. 

The good lord knows that last thing we want to do is explain about some sort of horrific event we had to go through when we only announce we have one, or two, or three. 

I'm terrified.

"You look so beautiful, love" Harry smiled over at me; a nurse waiting at the door with a wheelchair. "We're about to be parents" 

"To four babies. We're doomed, Styles" I sighed, wishing I could focus more on the highs than the lows, but I couldn't help it.

Four babies is a lot. Even with help.

"Y/N Styles?" The nurse asked, my head nodding. "Take a seat, I'm sure your feet are killing you" She smiled, and I nodded, agreeing.

I carefully sat down and we were brought to the front desk for paperwork before being brought to our pre-op room.

"How does it feel to know this is the last time they're going to be inside of you?" Harry questioned, grabbing the hospital gown to help me change into.

"Strange" I answered honestly, my voice soft as I started to strip. I was covered in red stretch marks on my stomach, my back, my hips, my thighs, even my ass and boobs. These babies took a toll on my body in more ways than just physically. "I'm looking forward to the relief on my boobs and back" 

"I can't wait to meet them all" He sighed, a cute smile dancing on his lips.

I couldn't help but smile back up at him, "I know, me too. It's crazy to think what all can happen in just 30 weeks. They're going to be so tiny. You think they'll be okay, right? I mean, they're supposed to be in there for ten more weeks" I began to panic a little; something Harry was all too familiar with through this pregnancy.

"The Styles name lives on" He grinned, doing a little shimmy with his body, my eyes rolling as I giggled, turning around so he could tie the back.  "You ass look cute" he squeezed, my head shaking as I smiled.

We haven't had sex in months. I've given him more handjobs in the past few months then I did our entire dating relationship. I've been too tired, sore, or just downright uninterested. My sex drive has diminished completely.

Thankfully he still finds me attractive enough to get hard; I don't think I could mentally survive if I was trying to get him off and he simply couldn't do it. 

Your body changes a lot when you're pregnant, I knew that going in. However, I wasn't prepared for all the changes that would couple with having quadruplets. The size alone of my stomach was enough to make me already start planning a tummy tuck and an extra skin removal just to feel better about myself in the shower, or the mirror.

I knew I wasn't going to be skinny after having kids, and I was okay with that. I was prepared for that, yet the idea of so much extra skin once my stomach started losing it's after birth bump... mentally, I was dreading.

I'd be lying if I said it had nothing to do with being married to the Harry Styles.

It wasn't all of it, but it was a lot of it. 

I couldn't help but think about the pap pics, or the interviews, or the social media posts. People were mean even if you were the most beautiful person on the planet. Now I've got four babies and a thrown our figure. 

Harry and I had planned to do interviews after we announced their birth and that alone kept me up at night. How many pairs of spanks do I need to buy? Do I wear black? It hides you best.

"Alright love, look at you" Harry smiled, telling me to do a spin for him; chuckling when I carefully toddled on my feet in a circle. "Stunning! The most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I love you so much, gorgeous. The babies have the prettiest, sweetest, most caring mumma ever" Harry wrapped his arms around me as best as he could, ending in me huffing, trying to push him away before he hugged me from the side, kissing me.  "We'll always make it work" He mumbled against my lips, kissing me again.

A knock at the door pulled us away, a few nurses coming in with charts, an IV and a blood bag.

Great.

With a urine sample off to the lab, I was settled in the hospital bed before they started my blood draw and IV drip, going over a few chart questions until the anesthesiologist and obgyn surgeon came in with consent forms.

"How are you feeling?" She asked, already dressed in scrubs.

"Nervous" I admitted, my leg uncontrollably shaking.

"Well, although it is my first time getting out four babies, it isn't not my first c-section, or my first time with multiples. My team and I are as prepared as we can be; all hands on deck, I promise" She smiled and I just nodded, wishing her reassurance eased me more than it actually did.

Getting shaved by someone other than yourself was an awkward experience I thoroughly wished to forget by the time I looked back at this moment ten years time. 

"Look babe, our babies are going to be in these" he pointed at the hospital bassinets, a smile on my lips as I watched him fawn over  it, "We're going to need three more" he chuckled, looking around at all of the baby things. "What's this?" he pointed at a station with a lamp above it.

"I think it's too keep the babies warm, I don't know for sure though" I hummed, eyeing the clock, awaiting for our surgical time.

Twenty minutes passed, Harry gloating about how he got to pee, instantly regretting it when he saw my face before we got rolled into the operating room.

Harry was held back to put on scrubs and do his antibacterial scrub whilst I got monitors placed on me, a catheter inserted, yay me, and my stomach cleaned before Harry showed up at my side, a grin on his face, "Here we go baby" he said, looking adorable as I stared up at him; the room crowded in all sorts of different people; four different baby stations set up, ready to start clearing their airways, cleaning them off and keeping them warm.

"Please let everything go away" I softly prayed, my eyes falling shut as the nerves begun to take over.

Please let my four babies all be okay. All be perfect, and healthy. 

Please let them all have good breathing, and hearts, and movements. 

Please keep my babies safe.

"We're going to be okay, Y/N. We've got the best medical staff. All these people are here, ready to help" He eased and I nodded, calling out, "None of you better post this on TikTok", knowing we had everyone sign legal forms even worse than just patient confidentiality 

Chuckles were heard around the room, I just hoped they knew I was serious.

I don't want my birth story our there before I get to tell it. 

With the drape up and the anesthesia administrated, the surgery begun.

I stared at the hospital ceiling, my heart knowingly racing — I could hear the nurses talking about it; Harry's hand finding mine as he crouched down next to me, his mouth brushing against my ear.

"Hi baby" He murmured, "You're doing so well. You're the strongest woman I've ever met, and I'm so thankful to call you mine. I'm so grateful you're our babies mother. That you're the person I get to do this with. You're going to be the best mum ever. The babies are going to love you so much. I just know it. I love you so much, you're doing so so so good. It's going so well, hear them? Hear them talk about how well it's going? We're going to meet our babies, Y/N. They're going to be the most perfect little humans we've ever seen. Our families are going to be enthralled with them. My mom's already on her way" he chuckled, kissing my cheek, my brain focusing on his voice, and let of the talk around me. "Little did we know when we first met, that you'd be in an operating room waiting to meet four of our children at once. Can you imagine telling our younger selves that? When the doctor said you couldn't have kids, that you'd be meeting four of your flesh and blood in just a few minutes? Just one easy peasy lemon squeezy producer later? I hope they have your beautiful smile, and colorful personality. I can't wait to watch you mother the hell out of them" he laughs softly, his thumb stroking my knuckles, "Watch them grow up with us. their first breath, their first bath, their first night home, their first laugh. Their first food and first time crawling or walking. Our entire life is starting all over again once we leave this hospital, baby; and I'm so lucky I get to do it all with you" 

"First baby's out!" I heard, my breath hitching, Harry's smile brightening as a sob escaped my lips.

"We're parents, Y/N. It's official" He kissed me, my chest shaking as I cried with pride, joy and fear.

"It's a boy! Time, 7:16pm" We heard, followed by a rush of people talking, movement heard; Harry and I holding our breath's until we heard the cry, a collective sigh of relief was heard around the room.

"I love you so much" Harry confessed, my brain too fried to reply as it was panicking with fear and excitement.

We're parents.

We have a baby.

Harry and I have a son.

A soft voice was heard behind Harry, Harry straightening up, our son coming into view.

"Oh my god" I exhaled, Harry being handed the baby, his eyes glistening under the bright white lights before they fell down his cheeks as he stared down at him, carefully holding our son to show me. 

"Look at his cheeks" Harry exhaled, both of our breaths taken away by the sight of our son.

"Second baby's out! It's a boy! Time 7:21pm" Was heard again, my body on the ultimate adrenaline high.

"He looks just like your newborn baby photos, your mom is going to be thrilled" I cried, smiling at my sun, wishing I could hold him; but he was taken away right when we heard the second cry.

Another breath of relief was heard, the team of doctors and nurses doing their tasks before the second baby was brought over, followed by a third  "Baby's out! It's a boy! Time, 7:24pm"

Everything was happening so quickly, I felt like I couldn't fully process the fact that three of my babies are now in the world.

I have triplets.

"You're a dad" I stated, it finally hitting that our dreams were coming true as Harry held our second son, his tiny little body not processing yet.

They were so small.

Three high pitched screams were heard around the room, my eyes falling shut as the noises flooded my brain, each wail, beep, and murmur being etched into my memories. 

"They're cleaning up the babies and getting them under heat lamps" Harry informed me, apparently he could see around us; whereas I'm stuck seeing the ceiling. "One has a getting checked with a stethoscope" 

"Please let them all be okay" I repeated quietly, awaiting the arrival of our baby girl.

"I'm so proud of you Y/N" Harry repeated, his hand brushing away my tears, "You're incredible, love"

The longer it took to hear the arrival of my daughter, the more concerned I got. 

I hated this. Lying here. Helpless. Just waiting. I can't do anything. I'm numbed, trapped on this table.

I can't reposition, I can't push, I can't pull.

I just have to lay here and wait; it was agonizing.

"Baby girl is out, time 7:32pm" 

I held my brain waiting for her cry, my hands shaky, Harry grabbing my left hand and squeezing.

With the quiet cry being drowned out over the boys wails, I felt uneasy.

"Why is she so quiet?" I asked, wanting to scoop them all up and protect them from anything that could be causing them torment.

"The boys could be louder?" Harry said, worry evident in his tone.

Upon further exam, we were informed that she was having difficulty breathing and would be given oxygen, supposedly from being crushed by her brothers.

My heart cracked at the idea of her being squished so much that she was struggling to breath.

Harry didn't even get to hold her before they were all whisked away to the NICU and my stitched up stomach was eventually rolled to the post op room.

I was so tired, my body shaking, but all I wanted was my kids.

I didn't get to have them laid on my chest, or to see them the very second they were born. As silly as it sounds, I felt robbed.

I didn't get to have the dream labor and delivery; and I know it sounds silly and life is unpredictable; but there was no skin to skin. No cut the umbilical cord. No immediate bonding.

Everything was extremely different than I dreamed of. It was to be expected due to having quadruplets, but that didn't change the fact that it felt disappointing.

I wanted the best for them, and they're already hooked up to god knows what sitting alone in a room without me. 

I'm already useless to them.

I sat in the recovery room alone, shaky, tired and sobbing as Harry left to go see the babies in the NICU; my body still numb as I just laid there, tears strolling down my face.

Harry and I were parents, which was a dream come true within itself, and I was incredibly thankful to have my four kids, but laying here, alone.. it just felt dehumanizing.

I was their mother. I was supposed to care, and protect them, to love them. Yet I'm stuck here, alone, just waiting for whenever I'm allowed to see them.

My boobs hurt, aching to feed my babies, and I already knew they'd be on formula due to their being four of them.

I hated feeling defeated.

Like I was already failing and they were just born.

Harry gets to parade around the hospital seeing his children whilst I just lay here, alone, without them.

All I got was a glimpse of my sons before all four were taken away and I was abandoned in this room.

My eyes burned from crying and tiredness, the exhaustion eventually taking over and my body lulling into a sleep.

I woke up to Harry sitting next to me in fresh clothes, cheeks red as he stared down at his phone, his thumb scrolling from right to left.

I just stared for a moment, his head lifting, our eyes meeting.

He looked tired.

"Hi" I whispered, my body still feeling like dried cement.

"Hi" He replied just as softly, shifting closer on his chair, taking my hand and kissing my knuckles.

"How are they?" I questioned, chewing my lower lip as my body ached.

"They're small. I have pictures; I just.. want to warn you, they're um.. they're.."

"They're what, Harry?" I rushed, ready to hop out of this bed no matter how much it hurt, to go find my children.

"They're hooked up to all kinds of stuff. They're so tiny, Y/N. They've got monitors.. and breathing tubes..; their diapers barely fit" He was starting to get choked up as he looked away, swallowing the lump in his throat before sniffling.

"They were born ten weeks early, Harry" I quietly reminded him, knowing I was brave enough to do all kinds of research of what to expect, but Harry wasn't.

He wanted to live in naive land, and just be excepted about their birth.

Harry showed me all the photos and videos he took; Harry's finger bigger than their palm.

Each photo you could see his anchor tattoo, and I swear his hand was bigger than their body.

I broke my heart to see my babies suffering, both of us sat here crying over pictures and videos when asked when I could see them, Harry telling me we had to wait for a nurse to bring me in a wheelchair.

I just wanted to hold them, but I knew from my researching I needed to be prepared for that not to happen.

All I could do was hope that one day all of this hurt, and pain, and worry, would just be a blimp of a memory as I watched them all laugh and play together; snuggling each one into their cozy beds and sending them off to school the next morning.

I knew to take one day a time, one hour even; but if I didn't think about the future, and just stayed in the present, I'd go crazy.

I had to cling onto hope. It was the only way I'd survive however long they were in the NICU for.

* * * * 

Their birth - part one :)

Next parts and Harry + Y/N in the NICU + bringing them home, meeting family etc and then announcing them to the world! 

I'm ngl, I still don't have names.. so we gotta figure that out too lol.

Written on: October 9th and 10th 2023

Published on: October 10th 2023

Word Count: 2997

tags: @ashleighsss @theekyliepage

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