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every major structural social problem right now is basically "we don't have enough skilled workers on the ground" and the reason is always "well we've been intentionally underpaying and understaffng them for decades to increase corporate profits" and somehow the news always just mentions the "shortage" without digging into the cause

air travel is a mess? shortage of air traffic controllers - for some mysterious reason

logistics a mess? shortage of truck drivers - for some mysterious reason

public transit can't meet demand? shortage of bus drivers - for some mysterious reason

We even mysteriously have shortages of doctors, nurses, teachers... FOR SOME MYSTERIOUS REASON

FUCKING PAY PEOPLE AND HIRE ENOUGH STAFF

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her: she must be thinking about other women

what i’m thinking about: louis! what? WHAT? it’s morning. i lost time. things got a little heated- with a boy! things got heated with a boy. i was at home picking lint off the sofa- i said to join us! the night’s gone, the room’s soiled, and once again i’m sat here with mop and mindlessness to clean it up. so the room got dirty, so what? i’ll clean it up. no, i clean it up! you make the mess, and i clean it up! mark it on the calendar, align it with ursa major, louis’ tri-annual FUCK OFF AND FIND ME with apologies to follow. i’m sorry. to seek comfort in the arms of lowlifes, and unfortunates, and broken children? fine. oh fine? fine. it doesn’t sound like fine. BUT REVEALING OUR NATURE TO A REPORTER YOU MET IN A BAR TEN HOURS AGO? what if it was published? I WAS HAVING SOME FUN! like we don’t have enough to fear after paris- i was in the middle of ending things when YOU- no, you nearly passed out on the floor next to him, louis! out on your feet from the drugs you stuffed him with- oh this is boring! you’re boring! YOU ARE SO BORING! and here come the drugs. COLORLESS. up the fangs. FLAVORLESS. down the throat. DULL. into the heart and off the fingers, feet, and wallowing brain. DULL NIGHTS, DULL WEEKS, DULL MONTHS, DULL AS FUCK! suffocation by the world’s softest, beige-est pillow. the ten hours i spent with that boy were more exciting, more fascinating than DECADES with you. oh there it is, the half-blank, half-apocalyptic look. but what does it mean tonight, huh? does he wanna lick my boots, or chop my hands off? is it the gremlin or the good nurse tonight, huh? okay, okay, perhaps. but am i as boring as the blather committed onto the ferric tapes of your FASCINATING boy? oh, oh it’s so hard to be me! picking lint off the sofa? it’s so hard to kill humans! i can feel their feelings as i drain them! louis de pointe du lac, it’s so hard to be me! everyone i know wronged me! okay, okay, let’s wake the boy up and let’s try you. i’m the vampire armand and my daddy vampire groomed me into a little BITCH! my brother, he tossed himself off a roof- but the vampires have heard of my daddy- my sister, she buried me alive! so he made me pretend i didn’t have a dick for 240 years. my daughter was my sister was my throw pillow. well he wouldn’t look at me kindly, lestat, lestat, lestat, lestat, lestat, lestat, lestat, lestat, lestat, lestat, lestat- I TALKED SHIT ABOUT HIM THE WHOLE TIME-THE NAME! THE NAME, UNUTTERED IN OUR HOME FOR 23 YEARS SAID OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNTIL IT WAS POUNDING IN MY BRAIN LIKE A HAMMER! our problems aren’t about HIM! and you threw HER name around just for cover, but it always circled back to him. i loved her. BUT SHE DIDN’T LOVE YOU! not like he did, not like i have. i know. I KNOW!

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Yeah?😏 Yeah!😁

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em dash = AI is so crazy to me. the em dash is my best friend. i couldn’t stop using her if i tried — and i would never try because i love her.

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Okay so I've seen the posts about the talamasca website file entries, and people are having all kinds of reactions to it. What I am thinking about though is: What the fuck is the "spell gift"?

I'm still stuck at reading Blackwood farm so I don't know if it's something that is in the later books, but otherwise I've never heard of that term. Mind gift, fire gift, cloud gift are all clear to me. Maybe spell gift = subcategory of the mind gift? Or is it the weird "let's stop time' thing?

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Writing characters getting together romantically as someone who's autistic and demi-grayromantic sometimes feels like studying psychology lol because my almost only references are what I read in (fan)fiction and in the body language books I use to understand the world lol

Flirting by the book gets a whole new meaning xD

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Okay, look, only because I've got that profile picture —

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Only one person died. Only one singular person. In a superhero movie! The type that love to throw around casualty counts like it’s all a big game, waving off 70 people being killed in a handful of days like it’s no big deal, yet only ONE PERSON died.

And he was mourned. Superman cried for him—this stranger who gave him free falafel and, while facing death, told him that he still believed in him. Metamorpho, this cold-seeming man who is being actively blackmailed to do this, breaking down and taking the risk to believe in Superman, too, because seeing someone murdered right in front of him is devastating enough to take the risk. The newspapers run a front page article talking about how they’re going to memorialize him.

The stakes didn’t have to involve real actual loss of life. The threat of it was enough to convey the severity of the situation. Because human life is that important. All life is that important, at least to Superman who goes out of his way to save dogs and squirrels.

(Hawkgirl does kill SHEIN Netanyahu but genocidal dictators don’t count as human beings lol.)

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how it feels to be a fan of every single actor in iwtv, to be obsessed with every single character and be down with any ship because the show is basically a masterpiece and you have nothingto worry about:

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One of the most healing things I’ve strove (striven?) to do in my life is viewing sex as just another thing people do, among a host of other things like eating and pooping and playing with cats.

Our entire society, feminists and puritans alike, pushes the idea that sex is uniquely powerful and dangerous, capable of inflicting The Worst Trauma or the Highest Fulfillment, and that’s…just flat out untrue. Other experiences can cause similar trauma: violence, disasters, war, instability. Other experiences can result in transcendent pleasure: trance states, live music, non-sexual intimacy, tattoos.

I think this is where the disconnect in perception about sex positivity comes from, because the phrase itself makes people who already view sex as being uniquely powerful think sex positivity means viewing sex as uniquely good, when actually…it’s mostly about taking sex off that pedestal. Normalizing sex. Making it into just another thing people do. Because that’s the first step in making sure people can engage with sex on their own terms in a healthy way.

Taking sex off its cultural pedestal was the thing that allowed me to overcome the deeply-instilled shame I developed from being raised within Christian purity culture, and from being queer, and from existing as a woman. I think a failure to do that, in feminist circles, often leads to an overblowing of the (very real) harm that sex has the potential to do at the exclusion of other problems facing women and other marginalized groups, which often leads to more shaming rhetoric - just rhetoric that shames different people for different reasons.

Sex is not the enemy and it’s not our savior. It’s just one more thing people can do with their bodies.

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Ah yes, the autistic experience of being more mature than your peers as a child/teen, and then less mature as an adult. The window of opportunity to relate is... not there

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“Hey, Sleep Dude, don’t be so presumptuous."

inspired by this post :) 1150 words

On Ao3 here

For a while, after working his powers to inspire that young playwright William Shakespeare, Dream paid him visits, observing his creative process, mostly from afar. Today, he was once again at the Globe, leaning stiffly against a wall, not visible to mortal eyes, while he patiently listened to the tragedy of Hamlet – although he was not sure what the real tragedy here was. The play, or the lack of people interested in attending even the rehearsals. 

His eyes had remained fixed on the stage, just occasionally drifting to William himself, so he didn’t pay too much attention to individuals standing around and talking in the auditorium. 

That was, until he caught some movement – a slanky, red-haired man in dark clothes and dark glasses circling another, dressed in white. Their conversation was hushed, but as the Lord of Dreams, Morpheus would be damned if he weren't able to listen to people’s whispers. For often in them lay the substance of what their dreams might become. 

“What do you want?” the one with the blonde curls asked, and Dream stepped a little closer, listening in with interest. He could feel that something about them was different. “Why ever would you insinuate that I might possibly want something?”

“You are up to no good.”

“Obviously.” The red-haired one answered, bouncing on his toes. “You’re up to good, I take it?”

“Lots of good deeds?” 

“No rest for the – well. Good.” The blonde one said. “I have to be in Edinburgh at the end of the week… couple of blessings to do.”

Now, Dream’s attention fully shifted from the play to those two. Blessings? He took a moment to mentally reach out, to feel for their souls, and he blinked in confusion when he found that they were not human. Who were they? Or, what?

Shouldn’t he know every creature that dreamed, human or not? Were they not all visitors in the Dreaming? The red-haired one, he thought to recognise slightly. But the blonde one had never set foot in his realm.

Dream approached, not paying much attention to their further conversation at first. Were they not sensing him? Were they ignoring him? He, Morpheus, Ruler of the Dreaming, Oneiros, King of Nightmares, Lord Shaper… He would not be ignored by any being, immortal or not. 

By the time he stood near them, they had finished their conversation, and the taller one was about to leave. 

“Greetings to you.” Dream spoke, his voice low and measured. 

Two pairs of eyes landed on him – one he couldn’t see through the glasses, but he assumed – and while the red-haired one furrowed his brows, the blonde one smiled excitedly. 

“Oh – hello! You are not human, are you? Who—” He broke off, taking a step back and shooting the other one an almost panicked gaze before returning it to Dream. “You are not from Heaven – what do you want?” “He’s not from Hell either.” The red-haired one said. “You speak the truth. I am Morpheus, King of Dreams, Lord Shaper, Oneiros –” 

“Yeah, yeah, got it. You’re the Sandman.” The dark-clothed one interrupted rudely. 

“Oh? You are – Oh, Crowley, he’s the Sandman!” The blonde one exclaimed with fervour, clapping his hands lightly together, his fingers wiggling about. 

“That's what I said, Aziraphale.”

Crowley and Aziraphale … Heaven and Hell weren’t Dream’s domains, but something rang in his mind. He looked at the angel and raised his brows.

“Are you not supposed to hold a flaming sword in your possession?”

Azirahale blushed and looked away, while Crowley rolled his eyes.

“What do you want, Sandman?”

“Stop calling me – Well, it is one of my names. It is your right to call me so. And you – you had many names too, is that not so? I could see it when you dreamed of Heaven in my realm –”

“Fucking arsehole,” Crowley mumbled and turned away, pulling Aziraphale along with him.

Dream watched them go a few steps before he shook off his reluctance and followed them.

“It seems I have hit a nerve, demon?”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale said, scolding him.

“Give him another chance, won’t you?”

“And why would I do that?”

What Aziraphale said next was hushed again but still perfectly audible to Morpheus. 

“Well, because first of all, it is ni-”

“Don’t you dare say that to me.”

“Right. But, second, he might tell someone about the new a-r-r-a-n-g-e-m-e-n-t.”

“Why are you spelling it out like that? Don’t you think the Lord of Dreams can decipher that?”

Dream reconsidered his stance, trying to be disarming, although it wasn’t his strong suit to socialise. He preferred to be in his realm, only dabbling in mortal affairs when it was necessary for diplomacy or his tasks demanded it. Although, of course, that was before meeting Hob … 

He held a certain interest now in people; might that extend to beings of other realms as well? There was surely the business with the faerie folk, the whole reason he had sought out Will in the first place, as soon as he heard about him in that tavern. 

Which reminded him …

“What are your intentions towards William Shakespeare? I will not allow him to be brought down for any schemes. He is under my protection – “

“Hey, Sleep Dude, don’t be so presumptuous. We – “ Crowley stopped himself, starting to pace around then. “Aziraphale wants to help him as well. He doesn’t belong to you, does he? Or do the Endless now go around, claiming humans for their personal little experiments? Well, Desire certainly does-”

“What do you know of Desire?” Dream asked, his tone cold – he had no nerve to talk about his sibling, but he needed to know what the demon had in mind.

“Oh, don’t play dumb – they are Desire, I am a demon … We have quite similar jobs.”

Dream’s eyes wandered to Aziraphale, who smiled apologetically. 

“Very well, Crowley. You may leave now.”

“I may – fucking shit, the audacity – Aziraphale, have you heard this –”

With a flick of his fingers, Dream caused Crowley to dissolve into sand, making him reappear on the outside of the theatre. 

Aziraphale watched, his eyes shifting from wonder to panic to anger – before he seemed to feel Crowley’s presence not too far away, and he let out a relieved breath, eyes softening back to politeness.

“Aziraphale –  I want to talk with you about William Shakespeare … Do you think you could help me to keep up that playwright's spirits?”

Aziraphale hesitated for a moment before he nodded.

“Yes – although Crowley has already –”

“This most irritating Crowley is not here anymore. Will you assist me now, or not?”

Dream stared Aziraphale down, his gaze hardening, which the angel either seemed to miss or chose to ignore. 

“... What did you have in mind?”

Dream’s mouth twitched, satisfaction creeping into his stoic expression.

“Well, it all started when Titania and Oberon started to deem me unworthy of being kept in good graces …”

You know there could be crossovers happening here, folks. With 1600s Dream and the Ineffable Husbands at the Globe, no?

I can't write this, no time, no bandwidth, but I'd love forever anyone who did.

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My relationship with multi fandoms is polyamorous - but I am not one for one night stands. Either it's an on/off kind of deal, or we'll go steady <3 only a few proposed to me and I can say we're happily married, with some crossovers as offspring

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DEVIL'S MINION WE WINNING SO HARD!

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The autistic experience of not understanding the "steps of friendship" or whatever so I have many acquaintances but how the fuck do I make friends out of them if instant special interest infodumping fails to create the shared bond?

Can we go back to childhood friendships where you are like "hey can we be friends" on the playground and the other person says yes or no so you either get a new friend or get to move on and stop wasting your time trying? What's friendship anyway?

And I have close friends, I got lucky it seems - but acquaintances are straaaange

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Today's fanfiction writing process involved: - searching reference images for coffee foam art and researching which trees grow in the area of the story's setting, so I could make one character hand someone else a cup of coffee with a leaf "painted" on top - giving a character a role in a Hamilton production - writing a little story about a duck named Jeremy from the perspective of a 9-year-old so I can use it in-universe for plot reasons

And yes, it's all for the same fic

Writing is peculiar sometimes :D

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Armand in S2: things got heated with a boy! 🤬

Armand is S3: things got heated with a boy (lights post coital cigarette) 🥰