#Okay I can definitely see a pattern here lol; anyone know who wrote each of these sketches?

[thesuetyouforgot]

Top 3 Python sketches and why you love them, go!

A very, very hard question honestly... They had so many amazing sketches and I sadly tend to forget about the ones that I'm not currently obsessed with so it was hard to choose but here's my choice now (in no particular order):

the whole Blancmange story; I can't really say what I love about it so much but it has stayed with me for years of not touching anything Python and that tennis playing Blancmange has lived rent free in the back of my mind all the time so that must mean sth. The sketch is so delightfully random and I love that it really is a complete story

Secret Service Dentists; it's just comedy gold: the timing, the dialogues, the absurdity of the whole situation and how every villain is interrupted by another worse villain. But let's be real here: "Poor Flopsy's dead and never called me mother" and the Lemming ditty are the real reasons why I love it

Archeology Today; this is a relatively new favourite of mine but I just love the atmosphere of this little story so damn much. And what is there not to love: the host's size kink, his determination to get revenge, Kastner's 'little 5-foot-10-inch body', Eversley's "Today" song, his reaction to Kastner's remark of having had more women, the dynamics between the characters in general and of course that epic showdown... Perfect really!

(But Confuse-a-cat was also very close to be put in this list, a very underrated sketch imo + as honorable mention I'd like to name the Happy Valley Tale from their German episodes which I really love, too)

Thank you so much for your ask!

[stickynotestoletters]

Yandere BNHA Boys pt 2

Okay, this is a continuation of the first yandere ones I did because I wrote that in basically a night and was too tired to do more, I'm probably gonna post some after for the pro heroes and villains if I have time, I might finish those on the weekend then post it.

This is just a bunch of headcanons I have about the boys in BNHA and what they’d be like as yanderes. Only the really fluffy or good things about them listed here. Neither of these works are a good depictions of a real yandere and make sure to be careful to identify yandere traits in real people around you. It’s a very dangerous world and stay safe!

sorry if you were waiting for me to come out with these and I literally took forever lol, link to the first one is here. It's basically just me comforting myself with the sweet things that I think they would do as yanderes.

Warnings: Brainwashing, blood, gore, death, trans headcanons, body dysmorphia, nonbinary they/he Sero, they/them pronouns + nonbinary headcanons for Tokoyami, he/they nonbinary headcanons with Shinsou, a little NSFW because if I don't specify then they are aged up (around 20-25 is where I imagine the timeline that they actually captured you and have a hero carrier going for them already), manipulation, regular yandere things, kinda just turns into dumbass horknee headcanons at some point after Shinsou (sorry lmfao), objectification

Sero Hanata

so basically the first time they saw you they immediately wanted to come up to you

they love to give you back hugs because once you stop trying to fight them he's gonna be so honored you finally trust him

Big time slut [non-derogetory] for you

Likes to have an apartment that's high up, probably a secured penthouse with lots of windows

If you're afraid of heights they will get a ground bed for you two, they would also vibe with a low hanging hammock if you allow it

they really really like just putting you on a custom made leash, not inherently in a sexual way just in general likes to have it look like that with their tape on you at all times

they really really like it when you come to them for hugs and comfort

If you're a trans reader, if you want a binder he will get you one as soon as you ask, cried when you told him about it.

they cried way more than you though...

Was very accepting as an nb person as well

they custom made you a tape binder of his

Kinda as a joke but high key felt like they were gonna combust at the thought of you wearing that for them

Takes you to pride but you cannot speak

only takes you to pride after they are 1000% sure that you're not gonna speak to anyone but them

Takes you to it as a part of their float because they'd been invited onto the Hero Float

You are in a costume that's exactly like his, helmet and everything, you aren't allowed to be looked at

After that though, it's gonna be your choice to go or not to go

they trust you a little more after you run away from some assholes though and after that sometimes lets you take your helmet off during pride, you have to give them a lot of kisses though

When/if you ever consider any type of surgery he is 110% on board

they demand that you have to have it performed by someone who has done this a million times before, trusts no one else

If there's a way for you to go through it without the surgery they're excited but he's more excited if there is surgery because they love the idea of you being so cuddly and clinging to them for their comfort

Tokoyami Fumikage

haha they're in love with you

like, intensely in love with you the moment they first meet you

Dark shadow thinks you're adorable but says nothing more about their obsession with you

when you met them before UA they absolutely cannot handle being around you in a 10-foot radius

Eventually, though they do try and become a friend of yours

After that, it's a hop on the manipulation train, my dude

they basically make you see them as your savior from a mean uncaring world

they love talking to you about things that make you happy and loving you in little ways

hugs, hand holding, a lot of time it's just a little peck (haha) on the cheek

they love living with you though, like really love it

they like baking and making dinner for you

but especially baking

like really, baking

the manipulation they use makes it seem like everything is okay when you only talk to them so that's what you do and to you, it seems so much better than anything you could do

they haven't come out to you by the time you come out to them so your trans journey really helps them figure things like that out as well

The first time you explain that gender is a made-up construct they're like "yeah......isn't that how everyone feels? Like, not a gender????" we love this for them

you both kind of heal each other through this process

they like seeing you when you're most comfortable so they get you as many binders as you need

also gets you a custom binder like Sero but with feather designs, not like stupid printable patterns but something that is soft and the softness isn't feathers it's regular fluffy cloth

idk I'm not a designer that's why I gave up and became a writer lmao

they also get you a compression corset because they're emo

if there is surgery it takes a lot of time to convince them

they don't ever want you to regret anything they helped you with so it takes a lot of long-winded conversations about it

there was a lot of nervousness on their part because (this is just my headcanon) they were almost convinced to get surgery to construct their face to look human-like

they had a lot of their family tell them that, because of the way they looked, they had less of a chance to become a hero, they were immensely traumatized by this and thus wants to make absolutely sure you were okay with this

but when they finally find themself comforted by you about it it happens quickly and in the safest way you could possibly imagine

Shinso Hitoshi

Shinsou didn't want to approach you at all, he was so scared you'd run away or tell him he's a villain

they always thought that they weren't good enough for you

he loved you but you needed to say hi first

and you did

so he whisked you away

they like to just brainwash you into tasting certain types of food when you're craving them instead of just getting you food

he likes to talk to you in a voice like he would talk to a kitten, not like husky or anything sexy, but something cute and adorable

especially when you're brainwashed and can't say anything to him

He likes to give you lots of soft stuff like I'm talking pillows upon pillows and squishmallows

once he gets his own house they get it in a place that's more comforting in the dark than in the light

they really like the dark and outdoorsy vibe anyway so if they choose a place somewhere in the forest to keep you what's the added bonus if no one can hear you scream?

a little bit of spice; he has this whole a/b/o fantasy (idk it's his vibes that he'd read that fanfic and stuff lmao) and kinda treats you like you were an omega

sometimes if you guys do have sex they'll brainwash you to act like an omega or once he's more experienced with bodily manipulation involving their quirk they'll make you do all of the......omega things

when you come out to them, if you're trans, they're definitely gonna not care

like if you need comfort and stuff about it they will not make a big deal about it

he legit is like "okay .....can I still fuck you or?????"

HE JUST GIVES OFF REALLY HORKNEE VIBES OKAY?????

definitely brainwashes you into not feeling dysphoric anymore though

like loves it when you come up all sad to him and uncomfy just to ask them to brainwash you

he melts over you cuddling them after those times though

if you want surgery they're gonna make sure that it's between him and the doctors that y'all are there

like no one knows you're there, completely off radius, in and out like nothing (he's basically a cryptid in the woods by the time you guys have the surgery, so they wanna make sure no one questions it)

Monoma Neito

bold of you to assume that man can express literally anything when he wants to just sit you on his lap and look at your pretty face

love at first sight taken literally but not in a shallow way

he loves just having you around him

kinda treats you as an accessory at times, talks like you're a purse or something and people don't really comment but it's really freaking them out sometimes when you don't speak up on it

likes to say he's the only one to understand you cause he's afraid you'd leave him

a hardcore fan of collars though

definitely has lots of jewelry that represents him even though you don't go out he still loves the idea of it

big time cook

loves providing for you, never lets you do a damn thing other than watching pre-approved cartoons and hobbies

absolute fucking disaster about hugging you

always has to be touching you

he thinks you're so fucking gorgeous and body worships you even out of the bedroom

if you're trans he will definitely be weird about it at first

he's just diet transphobic

he's not denying it but sometimes he's like "Are you sure???" and stuff

he clears this up with the help of you being pissed enough to not eat or talk to him until he apologizes

he then educates himself on it and comes to the conclusion that he was in fact being an asshole

talks to you about binders and stuff like that

doesn't really believe in surgery, he would never allow you to do that just because it would be too painful for him to see you go through

he instead literally searches the whole fucking globe for a person with a body-altering quirk to make sure you don't get hurt

he seeks out homophobes, transphobes, and other dumbasses on the regular just to kill them like literally it just started out for your approval but now it's just for fun

Anyway, the villain one (if I do it) will probably become just horknee brain rot cause I am a slut. Request some stuff and I'll try to put up some works if y'all want ig.

[jimmymcgools]

Kim and Jimmy going to Jimmy's place after the disasterous Christmas party to Jimmy asking Kim what they are in chapt 15 for the ask meme we are refusing to let die.

♥️♥️♥️ i saved this one for last so that they’d be in chronological order!! 

fic commentary meme and my answers

if anyone else still has any scenes or moments from my fic they’d like commentary on, let me know! ❤️i love answering these so much. 

Kim’s music sounds discordant tonight, the lyrics inaudible and the guitars harsh and jangled.

jimmy voice: some sorta dang shoegaze yet again!!!

He can feel the white hot anger beneath his skin, and he wonders if Kim can feel it too, burning through his shirt.

a little angry subversion of the wording at the end of chapter 7 when he thinks about kim feeling his heartbeat through his skin outside the dog house. 

He thinks he can sense her breath on his shoulder, thinks he can sense the presence of her behind him like a weight in the space. 

“weight in the space” is an odd turn of phrase, but it’s another tonally-different return of something jimmy’s thought before. here it’s the “He can feel Kim beside him even though he’s not touching her, a weight and a warmth to his right.” from beginning and end of chapter 10. 

Kim strokes her thumb back and forth again, up and down over the curve of his lower back, the movement making a soft noises on the fabric.

and we’re back at our old kim-using-sex-instead-of-talking thing here. 

i mentioned it in an earlier answer but i had a few reasons for why kim does this here -- the first is just that part of her has always been attracted to that darkness in jimmy, and right now she’s gonna let that part have what it wants. and there’s the other selfish layer to it, which is the idea of her almost using him here, just to prove to herself and the imaginary ghosts of those HHM associates that she’s not like them. 

but i also didn’t want this scene to be completely devoid of the love/care they both feel, so it is also her trying to offer jimmy what she thinks he needs. what she thinks he needs.

they’re both angry, mostly at the world and at other people, though certainly part of jimmy’s anger is directed at kim. i don’t think he’s consciously taking it out on her in this scene, but there’s a definite lack of warmth and connection here, a kind of resentment that after all this time and waiting THIS is how and when she decides to cross the line in the sand. fuck if he isn’t going to take what she’s offering, but there’s a kind of gross entitlement there in his thoughts that kim somehow owes him sex. 

Kim stares up at him intensely, eyes boring into his. She’s so close he can see the flecks of white in the blue of her irises again—the streaked, paintbrush clouds.

our old friends the abq paintbrush clouds. i always picture this look as the one she gives him in 4x09 after their argument. 

“You okay?” Kim asks, moving to kneel beside him, her brows folded with concern.

again wanting to make sure this scene didn’t become so cold and angry that there was no care or concern between them.

He opens his eyes and stares at her and he thinks—you never met this guy, Kim. You wouldn’t like this guy.

She trails a hand lazily over his stomach, back and forth, stoking him, studying him right back. After a while, she pulls her hand away, and just kneels there, staring at him. 

kim does this a couple of times in the scene, where she just waits, offering herself to jimmy. well, offering herself to him physically, at least. 

Kim lifts her palm to his cheek and holds him like that for a moment, scrutinizing him. He thinks she must be looking for something. He doesn’t know what to show her. He breathes out harshly through his nose.  “Fuck them,” she says, crisp and precise

i always thought of this as kim looking for her own feelings in jimmy again, looking for that rage. i dont think she’s looking to see care/love in his eyes in this moment. she’s looking for an affirmation of her own anger, her own choice of side here. 

and then her dialogue -- there was no “them” involved in the dynamic when these two slept together previously. they’re each in some way using this sex to express how they feel about everyone else at the christmas party, not how they feel about each other. so that’s the fundamental lack of connection, i think. and they’re certainly less connected afterwards, especially if you think about how they were in the phone call or the playful flirting in the parking garage. 

He rubs his palms up the side of her thighs and over her waist, pausing to dig his thumbs into the little dips of her bone for a moment.  Kim hisses into his mouth and he laughs, pressing his thumbs down tighter.

they both know from last chapter this is where kim had bruises last time. but it’s kind of cruel here. i think this is the only time either of them laugh in the scene, and it didn’t feel like a very nice laugh when i wrote it. 

“Shh,” Kim says against his mouth

again denying connection -- she shushes him a few times. very different from white sands.

The water makes a steady hiss, and he can see the shape of her moving behind the frosted glass.

jimmy looking at obscured shapes/patterns yet again. here it’s kim who’s the world-on-high he wants to belong in but he can’t understand. it’s also (“the shape of her”) dehumanising her a bit, leading into: 

“Listen, I’m okay with it,” he says sharply, and the figure in the shower stills again. Something simmers in him, pushing the next words to the surface: “But what are we doing here, Kim?” More silence, and he can't stop himself now. “You just wanna fuck every now and then and otherwise forget about it?”

and he’s the entitlement again. this is just so horrible from jimmy. kim at her most vulnerable, basically cornered. has anything good ever followed someone saying “Listen,”? i dont think so. jimmy’s here is obviously a blatant lie, and kind of manipulative, too. 

It sounds like static. Like a dead channel. 

“dead channel” i took from neuromancer: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” 

that simultaneous nothingness/everythingness of a dead channel seemed the perfect accidental answer to jimmy’s question. 

and also @the-parallax-of-rain​ killed me with her comment on this chapter, so let’s add it here too, for posterity. 1-800 emotional terrorism. 

I just love the thought of static so much, like how it's always there in the background and you never know it's there until you really pay attention. Like as I'm typing this, I just realized there's a static sound coming from the humidifier (it's super dry here lol), and also the background humming of my laptop...and the idea that this is the way that Kim might perceive - or might have to perceive - their relationship as kind of on the backburner, either because she doesn't know what she wants yet or because she's too busy with school

When she does, he drapes an arm over her, and she pushes her back against him and reaches for his thigh, pulling his legs up to fold closely behind hers. Jimmy stares into the curve of her shoulders and watches her breathe. 

and they’re finally connected again physically, but emotionally distant. felt very “something stupid” to me. i didn’t want this to feel warm at all.

i was so happy and relieved at the reception this chapter got when i published it ♥️♥️♥️ and it’s been awesome to work my way through it again with this commentary. 

again, if anyone still has scenes they’d like to hear thoughts on, drop me an ask! i live for it 🙏

[katieskarlette]

Shadows Rising: A Reaction Post

Short, mostly non-spoilery version:  I liked it overall.  I give it a solid B, maybe a B+.

I was disappointed in how little Nathanos and/or Sylvanas content there was, but I think proclamations of the ship’s doom are premature.  

I’m intrigued by the first rumblings of new character development for certain characters, especially Anduin, Alleria and Turalyon.

I was rooting for Talanji so much.  She’s great. Zekhan is a cinnamon roll too pure for this world.  Sira was kind of boring. Fairshaw is so darn heartwarming I can’t stand it. I like Bwonsamdi more now. The lack of Wrathion is unsurprising but unfortunate. Nothing new with Tyrande but she’s already poised for major development in Shadowlands.

Much longer, spoilery version below.

This ended up being more of a ramble than an essay, but there’s a lot of disjointed thoughts pinging around in my head, so let’s dive in.

Overall, I enjoyed Shadows Rising.  Was it the best book ever?  No.  Not even the best Warcraft book ever.  But it was an enjoyable read.  It’s always a treat to get into the heads of characters we mostly know in passing from in-game events.  There are internal, emotional beats that cannot easily be explored in the game, and the books are a way to build the world and the characters in a more introspective, slow-paced manner.  I like that.  (That’s not to say there are no action scenes, because there definitely are.)

Talanji, Jaina, Zekhan, and Anduin were all written well and sympathetically.  Maiev’s only in a couple scenes, but she felt off to me.  Nathanos was very in-character, in all his snide, sour glory.   Flynn and Mathias are great together.

The pacing was fine.  The descriptions were good, and it all felt grounded in the game world (i.e. landmarks, ambiance, the ridiculous amount of stairs in Daz’alor...)  Each of the Horde leaders got a moment or two in the spotlight.  Despite a fair amount of chapters about Anduin, Alleria, Turalyon, and Jaina, it still felt like a Horde-centric book to me.  Not that that’s a bad thing.

Prologue:  Gayness detected on page 8!  And it’s even something I kind of inadvertently predicted.  In my reaction post for Before the Storm I wrote, “ In this book alone, it would have been so easy to have that blacksmith bringing a helmet as a gift to his long-lost Forsaken husband instead of friend.”  That’s basically what we have here.  I don’t know if they were married, and neither were blacksmiths, but the Westfall moonshiner describes one of the Forsaken slain in Arathi as “the best man I ever knew and loved.”  Tada!  See how easy it was?  Add Jago x Wilmer to the growing list of LGBT rep in Azeroth.  (Even if they’re super minor characters in the long run, it’s still great to see.)

There might be some kind of parallel to be drawn between Alleria failing Anduin (by not finding/killing Sylvanas) and Nathanos failing Sylvanas (by not killing Bwonsamdi) but my brain is too overloaded from binge-reading to articulate it right now.  Both failed their king or queen, but both were also given nearly impossible tasks. 

Alleria and Turalyon are definitely being set up as antagonists.  We are clearly supposed to side with Jaina on this, and be uncomfortable (if not outright horrified) at their torture methods.  It’s especially disturbing how they use their respective void and light powers to accomplish their goals.  I mean, on one hand it’s great that both sides of the great cosmic divide can work together, and their marriage seems stronger than it was for awhile there, but yeesh...can you not torture people?  I know, ends justify the means, slippery slope, greater evil, blah blah, but still...that’s not okay.  It’s yet another sign that the Light is not necessarily good (or the void necessarily evil).

I welcome conflict within the Alliance, though.  That’s been the Horde’s thing for long enough.  Time to see how the blue side deals with its rifts.

In chapter 2 Nathanos is annoyed when a dreadtick flies by his head.  What, was it too similar to a bird for his liking?  Heh. 

All that time in Nazmir, and we didn’t get to see a single crawg!  Harumph.

It took three chapters and 39 pages to finally get something from Nathanos' perspective, and he was much more scarce going forward than I had hoped.  The bits we did get from his perspective were great and in-character, but I wanted to get into his head more.  Most of his scenes were from the POV of Sira or the troll villain instead, and while Apari was a good character I find Sira to be pretty one-dimensional. 

I kind of got paternal vibes from Nathanos toward Sira, though.  He was like, “I’ve been undead a lot longer than you; I know how to handle the bloodlust and such.  Get it out of your system at appropriate times but learn to control yourself.  There’s more to (un)life than slaughtering people.”  She herself, though, was just “Rawr, I hate everything and want to kill anything that moves.”  I mean, I get that she’s been through some traumatic stuff, but I didn’t find myself invested in her at all.

Page 42, as a bunch of trolls are about to be slaughtered:  "Hungry birds circled, expectant of a big meal, and Nathanos so hated to disappoint."  WHAT?  Nathanos wanted to do something nice for BIRDS?  I know, the phrasing fits with his dry, sarcastic sense of humor, but considering the running joke about him hating birds, it still made me go, “Huh?”

Chapter 5 (and later on, as it turns out):  Zekhan having a soft spot for kids is too precious for this world.

Page 51:  Thalyssra's eyes were "sparkling as she gazed across the room at Lor'themar."  Awwwwwww.   There was a surprising amount of ship fodder in this book overall, with Lor’themar x Thalyssra, Turalyon x Alleria, Fairshaw, and Zehkhan x Talanji all getting a moment or two (or more.) 

Chapter 6:  Anduin says, "Turalyon, take Alleria Windrunner and investigate these deaths."  You know, Alleria...YOUR WIFE?  I don't think you need to say her last name there, genius. 

While I’m being snarky about the editing, there were at least two times where the word “grieves” was used instead of “greaves.”  I spotted a couple other little things that a better editor (or one with more time, maybe it was rushed, I don’t know) would have caught.

Chapter 7:  More matter-of-fact LGBT inclusion for minor characters, this time a lesbian troll couple who want to marry.  Yes, thank you Blizzard, keep it up.

Chapter 8:  If you’re going to make the “Zappy Boy” nickname for Zekhan canon, having Bwonsamdi be the one to wink at the camera and use it was a great decision.  I can totally imagine him saying it.

We learn the name of Varok’s wife/Dranosh’s mother:  Remda.  Although I read elsewhere that the vision Zekhan saw of the Saurfang family in the afterlife was just Bwonsamdi’s B.S., it was still cool.

Chapter 13:  Nathanos wearing cologne?  Love it.  And it’s not even to cover up the rotting smell, because apparently his new body doesn’t stink like some undead; it just doesn’t smell like a living person, either, and some find it unnerving.  So he wears cologne.  That’s such a delightful little detail, and surprisingly considerate of him.

Sira complaining about bugs:  "We'll be eaten alive."  Uh no, you'd have to BE ALIVE for that to happen. Tsk.

Nathanos being called "the pale rider" makes me think of old cowboy movies.  Like, “You greenhorns better clear out; the Pale Rider is comin’ to town and there’s gonna be trouble.  Go wake up the sheriff.”  

Sira says that while on the voyage to Zandalar the dark rangers liked to tell the tale of how Nathanos was promoted to Ranger Lord by Sylvanas.  I'm surprised he lets them gossip like that!  His quests in vanilla made it seem he wanted to keep those parts of his past on the down-low, at least from the player.

Chapter 14:  Thrall's second kid is Rehze.  *blink*  Reh-zee?  Rez?  Ruh-zay?  I guess she’s not named after anyone.  After he named his son Durak (sort of after Durotan) I assumed he’d continue the pattern with kid #2.  Maybe she’s named after one of Aggra’s relatives.  (Later I read on Wowpedia that the author actually said she dislikes the “fan service” trend of naming children after other characters so she just picked a random orcish name.  I don’t think it’s fan service, because lots of real-life people do it, but okay.  Fair enough.)

Speaking of orcish names, there’s an orc page helping out the council named Gunk.  Like, what you clean out from under your fingernails after gardening.  Gunk.  LOL

Aww, that’s no fun...Maiev's wearing a cape trimmed in white fur, not daggers.  What happened to her impeccable/deadly fashion sense?

Chapter 16:  Zekhan starting to clap at Talanji's speech and then stopping and shrinking back when he realized no one else was applauding was so freaking adorable.

Chapter 17:  Fairshaw, full steam ahead!!!  Their chemistry is everything I hoped it would be.  Learning a little about Flynn’s tragic past was both fascinating and heartbreaking.  (We learned his mom’s name: Lyra Fairwind.  R.I.P.)

Chapter 18:  Proodmoore keep has a gallery with floor to ceiling oil paintings of the Proudmoore family, extended family, and beloved friends.  It now includes Anduin.  I can’t help thinking that, in a different timeline, Arthas’ portrait would have been there.

Will wonders never case?  Ji Firepaw actually gets to do stuff!!!  GASP!

"Thrall understood that to other humans Wrynn was said to be pleasing-looking, but to the orc, Anduin simply looked like a small, pink boy swallowed by clunky armor."  So it’s canon that Anduin is good-looking in-universe.  But LMAO at Thrall’s description.

Chapter 22:  From Shaw’s POV, "These odds ranked pretty low...  Maybe just above the time he had relied completely on a shoddy network of spies embedded in a cheese business."  OMG leave Elling Trias alone!  He did his best!  LOL

Shaw wanting to hang out in a mountain meadow and whittle bird calls (perhaps even with a special someone) was so touchingly normal.  That’s the kind of characterization that the books are so much better at than the game.

I actually like Bwonsamdi more after reading this.  Not that I disliked him before, but I didn’t have a strong sense of him due to not playing Horde as much in BFA.  He’s a well-done gray character:  not good, not evil, insightful but a smartass, part of the great cycle, out for himself but also taking his duties seriously (saving troll souls from the Maw.) 

I’m not entirely sure that we needed as much from Thrall’s POV as we got.  I mean, sure, he’s a familiar character with ties to a lot of others, so it was easy to drop him into situations, and his ties to Jaina made cross-faction communication easier, but he didn’t seem as relevant to the lore of Zandalar and the Shadowlands as some other characters.

Maiev seemed OOC, especially in the Stockades scene.  I know one of the themes of the book was “people change,” and I suppose I should be happy that she has a more moderate viewpoint nowadays, dialing back the Lust For Vengeance Meter from eleven to maybe a five or a six, but it didn’t feel like Maiev.  Especially because her message of “maybe don’t go overboard with this vengeance thing” was aimed at Tyrande, of all people, someone who Maiev has had quite legitimate reasons to dislike for a very, very long time.  I could see her maybe mellowing out a little in front of fellow Wardens, but Tyrande?  Eh, it didn’t feel right to me.

No surprises from Tyrande in this.  She’s still steely cold, vengeance-obsessed, consumed by anger.  Not that I blame her, but it’s not healthy.  I know we’ll be exploring her situation more in Shadowlands, so this was more of a reminder/reinforcement of where she is right now.  It was kind of funny how Thrall, Baine and Calia tried to talk to her and she just gave them the stink eye and the silent treatment, though.

I’m fine with Anduin exploring his dark side a bit more, as long as they don’t go overboard with it.  I like him as an earnest, good-hearted character.  It’s only natural to test your limits, though, especially in times of crisis.  Power corrupts, and he’s got plenty of it, both politically and magically, so I can understand Jaina and Mathias being a bit uneasy.  Add to that the increasing themes about the Light not being as benevolent as we originally assumed, and there’s potential for interesting plot there.  In the end I want Anduin to stay firmly on the side of good, empathy, compassion, etc., but a deviation into the shadows along the way isn’t a bad thing for the story.

I imagine every single person who read about Anduin sneaking off to the Lion’s Pride Inn in Goldshire smirked about that place’s reputation on certain RP realms.  I was surprised he didn’t find scantily-clad elves and draenei dancing on the furniture.  And then it turns out Jaina was there, too.  Awkward!

Why, oh why couldn’t we have had a scene with Anduin and Wrathion hanging out (incognito, of course) in a tavern?  That was their thing in MoP, and now with Anduin desperately wanting to get away from his duties for awhile and soak up some tavern ambiance it would have been perfect.  Let Anduin show off the best taverns Stormwind has to offer.  Even though Wrathion was as much a guest at the Tavern in the Mists as Anduin was, he acted like he owned the place and Anduin was his guest, so let them turn the tables and have Anduin play host.  There could be jokes about how he better not punch Wrathion again or they’ll get kicked out for starting a bar fight.  They could have still seen the young recruits, ran into Jaina, etc.  But Anduin really needs a buddy to hang out with right now.  

And you can’t tell me after Nya’lotha fell Wrathion just disappeared again and never at least visited Stormwind to tell grandiose tales about how he stabbed an Old God, it was so heroic, and he wasn’t scared at all, and those mean adventurers were so quick to believe he’d been corrupted, but he hadn’t, and did you know Azshara was there?  And then N’Zoth almost won but KERPOW LAZERS and oh Anduin you should have seen it, etc. etc. etc.

I should be used to being disappointed about Wrathion’s absence by now, but there are SO MANY MISSED OPPORTUNITIES!

Sigh.  Moving on.

Being exposed to spoilers meant I wasn’t fooled by it, but it was still a deft bit of writing to have the dark rangers drink poison when cornered by Horde soldiers, then mention Nathanos having a vial in his coat, which he drinks when defeated--making the unspoiled reader assume he’s killing himself--only for it to be a kind of liquid hearthstone attuned to Sylvanas.  Had I not known that he survived the book I would have freaked out there.

So, like, was Bolvar just sitting there on the ground awkwardly eavesdropping while Sylvanas and Nathanos talked/argued?  Or did he use that time to sneak away unnoticed?  LOL

Which brings us to the epilogue that’s caused so much hand wringing and wailing from my fellow Blightrunner shippers.  It wasn’t the openly sentimental interaction between them that I had hoped for, but I honestly didn’t read it as the doom of the ship.  A bump, at worst.

[If you’re not interested in the relationship between Nathanos and Sylvanas, or if you’re one of those people who simply hate his character, you can skip the rest of this post.]

First of all, Sylvanas had just broken the Helm of Domination.  That was a hugely significant thing to do, both for her personally and in the cosmic scheme of things.  Her state of mind at that moment had to have been in a turmoil.  So if she was a little distracted and tense, I think that’s quite understandable.

Second, I saw other fans being upset that she threatened/wanted to strike him.  That’s not how I read it at all.  “Sylvanas could strike him, scream and hollow out his soul, but it would not correct the failing.”  She’s not saying she wants to do that, just that she could.  The instinct to lash out in violence is ingrained in all the undead; death knights have to do it or they go mad.  So for her mind to go there in a moment of high emotion seems natural to me.  She doesn’t actually attack him or verbally/physically threaten him.�� People say things like “I could have killed my brother for eating the last slice of cake” or “I could’ve strangled my co-worker when she spoiled the ending of the movie” and it’s not literal.

Third, she doesn’t say “go away, I never want to see you again.”  She says “Go where you will, Nathanos, but do not be idle” and “I expect you will return to me with means to prevent [Bwonsamdi’s] meddling.”  So essentially she’s saying, “Fine, go home, regroup, come up with Plan B, and if it’s not possible to destroy Bwonsamdi at least concentrate on countering him.”  Also note that she still considers the operation to be theirs, not just hers:  “This was a blow, but one she felt sure they could overcome.”  That tells me she expects to work with him in the future.

Fourth, and granted this is before she learns of his failure, but she’s clearly happy to have him there when he first arrives.  “’My champion,’ Sylvanas purred.  ‘Your timing could not be better.  Tell me of your victory as we take these first steps together.’”  She wanted to cross into the Shadowlands with him at her side.  Hell, that’s bridal imagery...crossing the threshold together, and all that.  The only reason she tells him to go is because his work isn’t done and she still needs him on Azeroth.  But she explicitly says “I expect you will return to me.” 

Fifth, in the line from her POV about how “the unjust ladder of their lives must be dismantled,” the “they” she’s referring to is all of the denizens of Azeroth, true, but I think there’s also a tinge of bitterness there as she looks back on her own life, and her life with Nathanos.  Destiny has not been kind to either of them.

Sixth, she says “My path lies ahead” as she prepares to cross into the Shadowlands.  It’s a reminder of the scale of the forces she is trying to manipulate.  When faced with the potential fates of all the souls in the universe, her own regrets are insignificant.  She can’t stay on Azeroth any longer, even if some part of her does want to just chill out on a beach somewhere with Nathanos and watch his blighthounds chase seagulls.  She thinks “It would not be easy, but then, her mission required great sacrifice.”  Like leaving him behind.

Even this part can be interpreted different ways:  “She heard the note of hope in his voice, fragile as a fledgling dropped from the next.”  Putting aside the humor of comparing bird-hating Nathanos to a fledgling, we don’t get a value judgment about the comparison.  Sylvanas doesn’t think about him sympathetically, wanting to protect him in a vulnerable moment, but she also doesn’t think, “Geez, what a pathetic weakling.”  It goes back to that bit in Warbringers about how she can’t kill hope.  And she can’t.  Here, again, no matter how bleak things are, no matter how displeased she is at his failure, he still has hope.  And she needs that, whether she believes it or not.

When she “flicked her fingers, as if ridding herself of a speck of muck” that can be interpreted as her thinking of him in a derogatory way, but she was also talking about Bwonsamdi in the same breath so I can choose to believe that’s who she was being dismissive of.

I don’t know.  I get that some of the language is discouraging.  She describes him as having “blubbering lips” and she’s definitely not happy with him.  But these two have been through a lot, and their bond has remained strong.  I’m sure this isn’t their first fight, or the first time he’s disappointed her.  This isn’t the end for them.  Just another bump on a very long highway they’ve traveled together.

...

OMG this has turned into a monster of a post, rambling all over the place.  I hope it’s coherent enough to follow.  I’m just in lore overload at the moment (and enjoying every second.)  I know I’m forgetting things I wanted to talk about, too, but I’m going to go ahead and post it as it is.

[clarkgriffon]

(wrong opinion anon 😁) Don't worry I'm not offended, I would've responded in the same way if I felt the way you do. I guess the hug was just too short for me idk. I'm used to the clinging hugs from Bellarke lol

You’re definitely not the only person feeling that way, there were some replies on the ask you sent agreeing with you. And I don’t know that I can convince you or anyone else otherwise, because I know once people have an opinion, they tend to be firmly set in it, but I can still at least share with y’all why I am loving Bellarke this season.

It could get lengthy, so I’m going to throw it under a cut.

I figure this is a good place to start. “They’ll come around.” This was the first thing that hooked me with Bellarke this season. Because not even ten minutes into the first episode, we get confirmation that Bellamy himself has already come around. And there are clearly still hurt feelings there (on both ends), but he’s the one person who doesn’t need convincing to forgive Clarke. He does it like it’s second nature. Forgiveness is their thing. (Which is implied further by the BE scene later in 6x01.)

This next. We’ve never gotten to see Bellarke smile at each other like this. E V E R. And don’t get me wrong, I love Bellarke smiles, but they’re usually muted, understated things that make light of a dark situation. Like, “Some medicine would be nice.” or “You distract him, I’ll shoot him.” or “Mama bears don’t think.” They know they’re fucked, so they joke about it. The closest one to how big and wide these smiles are is We Will Rise, when Clarke and Bellamy almost crash the rover, but that’s a smile of pure relief. They aren’t smiling just for the heck of it.

These smiles are special because they don’t need an instigator from an outside source. It’s not relief, or fear that’s causing them to smile at each other. It’s just the two of them. And just to paint the broader picture, they talk about the radio calls here. You know, what we were waiting for all of Season 5 and didn’t get a semblance of anything close to it until 5x13? Yeah, that was addressed in the first episode. And we know that after four episodes, it’s still not done being talked about. It keeps coming up because it’s imperative to Bellarke’s relationship.

This is a little more subtle, but the keys were a detail I loved. Clarke kept Bellamy’s key. Clarke. Why not Echo, arguably the person he should trust the most on the planetary exploring mission? She’s his girlfriend and he lived with her six years. Same goes for Emori, minus the girlfriend part, but he should explicitly trust her. Okay, but they weren’t in the same room and we’re going to ignore the implications entirely of why Bellamy and Clarke had to be stuck in the same room even though that’s even more proof of the writers feeding us. But what about Murphy? Again, six years in space. Bellamy is the one to continually tell him he isn’t useless, to have faith in Murphy. But when it boils down to it, he gives Clarke his key. Clarke, who left him in the pits. He still, after everything, trusts her more than anyone.

Now, I’ve gone over this more in depth before, but Red Sun Rising including the line “I don’t need you anymore” from Bellamy to Clarke was extremely telling. I don’t want to rehash the whole thing here, but you can read that meta if you want at this link. The synopsis is that the eclipse-induced psychosis prays on fears, like Clarke’s fear of losing Madi or Emori’s fear of being heartbroken by Murphy. Bellamy says he doesn’t need Clarke because he’s afraid that he does, and she left him in the pits. If he needs her again, he’s afraid she’ll break his heart again. And just look at her face, she’s terrified, even before the toxin hits her, that he’ll break her heart. She wants to be able to be there for him.

“We’ll bring Madi back. I promise.” Now, we’ve gotten a lot of focus on Clarke leaving Bellamy in the pits, but weirdly none on Bellamy chipping Clarke’s daughter. This was the rectification for that. They threw in an exact parallel to 5x08/9, except this time, Bellamy keeps his promise. And it means the world to Clarke. She can finally trust him fully again.

The separated Bellarke for just one episode. Not a longer separation like it usually is when one of them leaves. Suspiciously, Clarke gets a big dress reveal while Bellamy is not there to react. ‘Nuff said.

Now, before we even get into the hug, let’s dissect this conversation. Bellamy has - from episode 1 of S6 - already made it clear he’s willing to move past Clarke’s S5 mistakes. But Clarke still feels the need to atone because she’s that distraught about leaving Bellamy behind. She wrote it on her lantern. Yes, a girl who has committed/helped commit multiple mass murders to protect her people regrets nothing more than leaving behind a boy who didn’t even die. And Bellamy, bless his soul, wants to avoid this conversation like the plague. This whole episode has a focus on Bellamy being confused about how he feels and it starts with this conversation. We haven’t seen Bellamy express any confusion about his feelings this season until after Clarke tries to apologize and hugs him. A catalyst for Bellamy to have deeper thoughts? Maybe.

And Clarke says “You’re too important to me.” She admits it. She calls him family, something he actively excluded her from last season. This triggers something in Bellamy, because he’s gotten used to keeping Clarke at a distance and protecting himself because he thought she didn’t care. And, of course, the radio calls proved that she did, but that was before he came back. It doesn’t have to mean anything. But now, she’s admitted he means something to her in the present, the current moment. And he’s confused as fuck about it.

Now, let’s actually analyze that hug shall we? You’re on the money, it’s shorter than usual, but I don’t think that’s necessarily bad in context. Because this hug, as beautiful as it is, is unnecessary. They’re hugging just because they can. Think about it. Other Bellarke hugs have a catalyst. A reunion: 2x05 - the running hug, 5x04 - the “And now you’re home hug.” A comfort: 4x13 - Clarke doesn’t get the chance to say goodbye to Abby. A forgiveness: 3x13 - Bellamy agrees to move on, to grant himself and Clarke forgiveness. 

But isn’t this a forgiveness hug, too? No! As I’ve mentioned, Bellamy already forgave Clarke. This entire conversation is initiated on Clarke’s end to give her peace of mind about what she did, it just so happens to stir up confusing emotions in Bellamy. But it’s not the monumental forgiveness of 3x13 because Bellamy hasn’t been angry with her since they got to Sanctum. He forgave her in 5x13.

And just the body language- Clarke does her signature smile of relief while hugging Bellamy. Bellamy looks confused then relaxes into it, relieved, furthering the narrative he doesn’t quite know how to feel when it comes to Clarke. 

Now, this is the one I’m going to give a point to you for not being sure it’s romantic. I can see how this one, more than the others, is confusing. This isn’t seething-with-rage jealousy. I’ve discussed with with some other and it’s miserable jealousy. I think it’s mixed with Bellamy’s confusion, he doesn’t want to see Clarke dancing with another man and he doesn’t know why, he just knows it makes him sad. 

Right after this, we get the B/E fight and Bellamy snapping at E/cho. His reasons are Monty, Harper, and Octavia. But none of those situations are immediately relevant. What is relevant? What is the ONLY other thing we’ve seen in this scene? Clarke dancing. Bellamy admits that he has no clue how he feels and he says it’s about Monty, Harper and Octavia, but why now? Why in the club only after he’s seen Clarke dancing with someone else?

And I’d be wary about this too, because when I first watched, I wasn’t even sure his line of vision matched up with her. How could we know he was watching her? Upon rewatching multiple times and the flashing between Clarke dancing and Bellamy watching, plus the way the camera pans, it’s clear he’s watching her dance.

All of this and more is why I’m loving Bellarke this season. And I understand frustration that it’s not like the early days because it isn’t. It can’t be. Season 5 wrecked them to a point I thought it could even be beyond repair, but Season 6 is showing that it can still be repaired. They’re not going to immediately fall back into pre-Praimfaya patterns because they’re not those people anymore. But the feelings, the care is still there and THAT is what Season 6 is showing.

Yes, there’s an emphasis on reconciliation and forgiveness, and addressing feelings because it’s necessary. Without it, they’re back where they were in Season 5, not understanding who the other person is after such a long time. They’re falling back into sync this season, not just with their feelings, but also as coleaders, which we see in Clarke being a representative for their people and in the way they lead in 6x02, giving each other their keys.

And what am I most excited about now? Bellamy’s gonna lose her again. I know that sounds bleak. But Bellamy’s focus on confused feelings in 6x04 are setting this up. He’s gonna know exactly how he feels when he loses Clarke again. He doesn’t want to accept the feelings he has for her (proven in 6x02), he wants to be in denial (6x04). But when he loses her again, he’ll know. Josephine!Clarke is going to bring out that Season 1 Bellamy, where a switch will flip and he’ll do whatever it takes to get Clarke back, consequences be damned, the same as he’d do it for Octavia in Season 1. I’m thrilled about the direction this season is going.

To anyone who’s not: that’s okay! You don’t have to be. I hope you can enjoy the show for what it is. I think this - all of it - is relationship setup and romantic setup, but hey, that’s just me.

[not-poignant]

The chemistry between Gwyn and the Raven Prince though! Those two talking back and forth, it even started to rhyme. It felt like the beginning of flyting or sth similar. Does the Raven Prince even like Gwyn? I feel like he does! But I never know what to think.

Omg the flyting reference dslkafjsda okay well they weren’t exactly insulting each other, but man, so, okay, Gwyn has this habit of like...falling into really oldschool patterns of speech with certain fae. You see him do this in book 1 of The Ice Plague with Gille Dubh, where their talking becomes ritualistic, and Gwyn begins to talk in verse:

(Actually I’m going to put this under a Read More because this is a long-ish excerpt sorry!)

‘Your loch is beautiful as always,’ Gwyn said. ‘I see you are in something of a quandary. You want to welcome me, but you cannot think of how to welcome such a traitor, can you?’

‘So it is,’ Gille Dubh said.

‘I do not wish to sour your relations to your Market, and it is not rudeness for you to forego the usual greetings in these circumstances, is it? I ask for only a couple of hours, and then we shall be on our way. It is, at least on my part, good to see you again.’ Gwyn turned to Luridan and nodded. ‘And you.’

‘Aye! My old battle companion of days gone by.’ Luridan pressed a fist to his chest and shook his head slowly. ‘And then, evil like, you turned out to be an Unseelie galoot now! It’s enough to break a brownie’s heart.’

‘The trows speak finely of you,’ Gille Dubh said. ‘On both sides.’

‘Yet I keep them in silver, and they’d speak finely of anyone who did such a thing.’

‘The stars still shine on you,’ Gille Dubh said, a strange intonation in his voice, as though it was a ritual that Eran wasn’t familiar with. ‘In all skies.’

‘Yet they shine on everyone, equally, and in that – everyone is of the stars, Gille Dubh. Even you.’

Eran was mesmerised. He’d never heard Gwyn speak softly like that. He couldn’t feel any increased dra’ocht in the air, so Gwyn wasn’t working his glamour to create a moment. But this held something in it that he wasn’t familiar with, and he couldn’t look away.

‘The beating of my heart tells me that you betrayed us, Gwyn ap Nudd, and yet I betray myself, for I still wish you were our King.’

A pause then, Gwyn looked down at the ground. When he looked up, Eran couldn’t see his expression, but he could see Gille Dubh’s, earnest and wistful at once.

‘Yet beneath that, deeper still, is the beating of a heart that tells you that you’ve never needed a King, and never will.’

‘So it is,’ Gille Dubh said, nodding once.

***

So Gwyn rhymes Gille Dubh / you, and still / will, and is basically gracefully engaging in Gille Dubh’s grief and sense of betrayal, re: Gwyn himself. Gwyn takes pains to offer a kind of...peace to Gille Dubh, reminding him of his own inner royalty, his own connection to the earth and the stars.

The Raven Prince is another figure that Gwyn is often inspired to do this with. Gwyn doesn’t think of himself as a wordsmith, he would never call himself an orator, but he is one and he can speak very finely - in his own way - when he wants to. He is far more formal a speaker than Augus, Ash, Gulvi or Fenwrel, and he’s had a lifetime of giving speeches on the battleground, working to negotiate, or in the field of diplomacy.

So in book 2 you have him beginning to enter into a similar ritualistic exchange, which the Raven Prince is frankly delighted to be a part of. Gwyn, too, I really think is enjoying himself here. It’s less obvious, because Gwyn doesn’t really trust the Raven Prince at all, and he doesn’t want to like him. But I don’t think Gwyn would do this so easily or stay as long, or be as willing to engage in this kind of conversation, if he didn’t feel something around the Raven Prince:

‘You are something of an orator too, aren’t you?’ the Raven Prince said, as Gwyn brushed away the Raven Prince’s arm. ‘How did you end up the way that you are, raised by those worms?’

‘You have grown so used to valuing only the things that look like you, act like you, that you have forgotten there is value in the rest of it too,’ Gwyn said, and Mosk caught a hint of the Raven Prince’s smile.

‘That, I allow, is true. But, Gwyn ap Nudd, even poisonous birds have value.’

‘And so you’re here at my will, not imprisoned nor dead,’ Gwyn said. ‘Keep yourself safe during the storm.’

***

You have a rhyming scheme set up here via simple words like: too / you / value / true. They engage in it three lines in a row, in a give and take, and it ends with the Raven Prince beginning to smile because of it.

I think the Raven Prince is really curious about Gwyn. The Raven Prince certainly finds him more intelligent and more fascinating than he’d been led to expect, and of course Gwyn is Unseelie, on the throne, and well-respected by the fae around him, and this is perplexing to him. It’s not often the Raven Prince can’t understand exactly why something has gone the way it’s gone, but Gwyn confounds him, and the Raven Prince wants to understand him better.

There’s also...Gwyn sort of represents the way things should have been, in a way. The Raven Prince feels like he’s constantly gazing upon someone who should have been his apprentice, who should have even loved him the way an apprentice can love their mentor. Additionally, Gwyn ‘landed’ Augus as a consort. The Raven Prince tried to do this himself and failed in A Broken Feather Straightened:

Augus came back to himself slowly, for a moment wondering if he’d forgotten his own name again, relieved he hadn’t. He looked up when he realised what had happened. He felt no hand on his chest, but one in his hair now, instead. The Raven Prince was looking down at him, considering.

‘You would never be a consort, would you?’ he said.

‘No,’ Augus said, a bitter flavour moving through his mouth.

So there’s also an element ‘what does Gwyn have that I don’t?’ Because the Raven Prince is still definitely attached enough to Augus in his own complex way that he found the Mantissa, flew across the ocean, and hasn’t yet left the ship. So that’s...a whole complicated thing too. They share Augus in common, but Gwyn is in the present and the Raven Prince in many respects is still stuck in the past.

I think the Raven Prince finds Gwyn very entertaining, as well as surprisingly accommodating and obliging. Gwyn is both exactly like, and completely the opposite of, what he expected from a martial King. The Raven Prince enjoys cognitive dissonance, and so he likes the conundrum that Gwyn represents, but he wants to solve it too.

Also true story, but when I finished writing that scene between them I went to my beta and just wrote ‘holy shit the Raven Prince’s and Gwyn’s chemistry though????’ and left it at that lmao. I don’t mean like, sexual chemistry. Just...they spark off each other really well. Every time they start talking to each other I want to just sit there and listen to them for ages, lol, but sadly they are just a little too antagonistic for that to work right now.

Oh god. Longest reply post ever, I’m sorry! I got very excited that you mentioned flyting, even though I’m not nearly clever enough to do something like that.

[understandingthevoices]

~ wrote a thing about identifying narcissistic abuse in the brown girl group i’m a part of since so many brown boys are narcs lmao and it was so well-received that I thought i would share here too ~ 

Recently a few people asked me how I became aware of my ex's personality disorder and how I started my healing process w/o a therapist (though if I had seen someone, perhaps this would have been faster)...

It's a LONG one but hopefully informative!!

So we had been on and off for years since college - with me realizing flaws he had and him making it up to me until the next one hit and so on and so forth (and I thought, yay! change! this can work***) - but then it came to a point where I told him enough was enough and we deserved to find people who made us happy and maybe we could revisit "us" in the future. But he cried and told me he couldn't lose me and wanted to actually try the "love" thing out... So, I allowed myself to believe he was for real -- and (somewhat) let down my emotional guards that I had held for self-preservation. Things seemed to be going okay - we would send each other hearts, talk about our future house, kids, etc and everything was fine and dandy, and I thought I was "happy" or "happy enough" - after all, I had the guy right? What more could I want?

But then, let me take you to a Friday afternoon at Trader Joes's, where I was grabbing my groceries and suddenly noticed something: along with her groceries, every woman was walking out with flowers, which I imagined was because of a scheduled date night. it seems so silly now, but at that moment, I broke down into tears because I realized I wanted that too - and if I continued in my old patterns only because it (he) was familiar and all I had known, I would never get that.

He would tell me about our beautiful future life together but wouldn't even take a 4 hour train to visit me.

Basically, He could talk a big talk, he could weave stories about anything to make me believe in us (and he was a MASTER storyteller and had a vivid imagination), but he couldn't walk the walk. Or rather, he didn't care to walk the walk. And if I brought these things up, he would belittle me or say he was busy, essentially reframing my needs as unimportant and not worthy of consideration. But then he would cover it up by saying our kids would be beautiful and smart, he would leave NYC to be in Boston for me, etc - and it was so easy to get sucked in, so tempting to believe this was only temporary.....

But then I would have insomniac nights, where I was filled with anxiety/sadness because I knew I wasn't happy - and the breakdown in Trader Joe's confirmed that

And he had already conditioned me into understanding that if I talked to him about these feelings, he would invalidate, ignore, and eventually bring them up later as ammunition (a favorite of his was “did you forget, we’re not a couple”, which was so hurtful and confusing af lmao)

Up until that point, I had maintained he was just "emotionally unavailable" or "commitmentphobic" and if he saw I wasn't going to nag him or push him into marriage, etc - he would realize it wasn't so scary and we could finally build a life together! It felt like we were moving in that direction, finally. But then every so often, I would have moments where the reality became a little too clear and there was little I could do to stop myself from breaking down.

And it was at my wit's end during these nights that I googled things like "why is he so emotionally distant" and stumbled upon a trove of gold Quora questions/answers - and once I discovered Quora, I went HAM.

Questions like...

"why does he try to make me jealous"

"why does he get mad when he sees me with other guys"

"why won't he commit"

"why won't he let me meet his friends"

"why does he not let me go" / "why does he keep holding on to me"

"why does he say he cares but not visit"

... And throughout all of this searching, one of the answers inevitably mentioned emotional abuse (and often narcissistic abuse) - and while I didn't initially think my situation was abusive, because it seemed like such a strong term, I was so desperate for answers and it came up so often that I said fcuk it, let's see what this is about.

So I googled "emotional abuse" and "narcissistic abuse" and read the stories of survivors, many of which echoed mine. I was shocked that these people had dated what seemed to be clones of my own ex. Many of them mentioned kids/divorce/etc and how they wish they had realized the signs sooner instead of wasting so many years with an emotional vampire, who would initially seem like your soulmate, ingratiate himself to you, praise you and put you on a pedestal, only to suck the life out of you through devaluing mechanisms and never listening to your needs, and discard you later (or stay until you stop giving them chances) - and then play the same game with the next victim, leaving a trail of broken people. They posted about the fake personalities, the emotional highs and lows, how he would leave and come back months/years later as if nothing had changed, etc - and things finally started making sense.

I had noticed many of these things - but without the awareness of narcissism - didn't know what to make of it. For example, when we were on our off-periods and he was out chasing Muslim girls, he (someone I had known as a frat fcukboy who would crush 20 beers in a night) became the sober, praying virtue-driven man. When he was out chasing someone else, he pretended to love Rupi Kaur poetry - even though we made fun of it together (no offense). I often felt like he seemed so ~different~ during these periods - and would call him out on it, but he would always deny it. But, looking back, I realize it wasn't just in my head as he wanted me to believe.

Luckily for me, he had grown to like one of these girls and we decided to take a break (later, I would realize he was trying to 'triangulate' me with her, but even back then I wouldn't succumb to his dumb games) -- which gave me much needed time to continue my Quora obsessiveness... and I went down the rabbit hole. Quora led me to narcissistic abuse recovery youtube channels and instagram accounts - which further opened my eyes to the lies I had been fed. It was heartbreaking but I began to realize his version of "love" (if you can even call his self-serving love that) was so different from mine - for him, it was latching onto someone who would validate him, give him the emotional supply he needed, and be there at his beck and call -- which I was happy to do if it was reciprocal, but of course it wasn't lol. It was completely one-sided and I let it happen because for me, the love I felt was genuine - not fabricated - and I thought that's what you do when you're in love (and it's what I saw growing up in my parent's relationship). I didn't want to believe it but the answer was clear as day - I had been conned into a fake relationship by someone who didn't have the capacity to love someone, and could only use them.

At this point, I realized ~5 years of on-and-off narcissistic abuse (and more than 2 decades of observing my parents' toxic marriage) would take a long time for me to heal from, but if I wanted to have any chance at a truly happy, healthy relationship (which I so earnestly did), I had to let him go. So I dived headfirst - watched at least 1-2 hours worth of videos every day, cried about the disrespect I had put up with, wrote pages and pages of text, etc - and became entrenched in this mode of self-improvement and inner child-finding. And I put them on my tumblr, so he would see them (I knew he was still checking up on me).

So when he inevitably came back because the girl he was chasing "was not who I thought she was" and wanted to be with me because I was so "perfect, knew him better than he knew himself, and so smart", I had the emotional wherewithal to tell him I didn't want this anymore -- and the little bits of changes he would make to attempt to gratify me - I could see through them and they were no longer enough. I think it was a last ditch attempt on his side - my tumblr posts made it obvious I was leveling up and wanted nothing more to do with him.

He was upset and told me he was talking to this girl on a dating app - but she was boring and a downgrade from me - and I just said, "cool". He then told me if I didn't want to try again, he would have no choice but to date her and see where it goes. And at that point, I just wanted him to leave me alone, as I knew anything with him would be a dead end. And I was TIRED. So to his surprise, I said go for it - and blocked him from everything and everywhere. I felt an immediate sense of relief, as I knew the nightmare was finally over and he was someone else's problem now. Of course, just like anyone else, I have my ups and downs too - but I'm definitely much better off.

Now? I haven't heard from him in over 2 years. I don't think I will - I told our mutual friends all about his deceit, post about it on my twitter, and make sure everyone knows how phony he is - and I think he realizes the ruse is over. I have found him out, and he knows he should stay away unless he wants me to expose him even more. I can hit him where it hurts and he is terrified - exactly where I like boys to be ;)

Anyways, last I heard, he's engaged to that girl he said was a downgrade (which isn't that surprising - since I gave him a narcissistic injury by leaving he knew he had to lock down the next one or she would leave too) - which is quite sad. I pray she sees the light before he takes too much away from her.

Hope it clears up things -- as always, feel free to PM me. More than happy to help anyone, especially if it means saving one of you from a toxic monster <3

***This is one of the subtle points that makes narcissists so difficult to identify: usually, when someone changes for you, it's because they like you and don't want to hurt you - compromise! that's what you do when you're in love, right? However, for a narcissist, it's not "love" - it's him realizing that if he wants to keep you trapped in his web of deceit, he needs to change - and this is true for both the beginning of the relationships and the whole duration. They don't have any integrity so they will change into whoever you want them to be, if it means you'll be attracted to them -- they are so good at reading you, figuring you out, and identifying your deepest desires/wants that they can transform into your idea of a perfect partner -- and they DO, but it's only a set up to manipulate you later. It's addicting to meet who you easily consider your "soulmate"... but in the end, you realize it was too good to be true.

[serena-waldorf]

🏳️‍🌈 pride q&a snagged from @veroniquemagique

❤sexuality: Bisexual baby 

🧡pronouns: she/her

💛gender: female

💚relationship status: Single AF sadly lol 

💙celebrity crush: Just one? LOL. Jane Fonda, Hillary Clinton, and Nicki Minaj are like the top 3 right now lol. And I guess Drake and Mahershala Ali for men lol. Felicity Huffman used to be in this category but yeah, having mixed feelings about her currently obviously (but she did really turn me on in a horny angry way in the 2 episodes of When They See Us that I’ve watched so far 🙈 Even though the character she is portraying is despicable,  lawyer + villain = hot I guess lol 🙈) 

💜best friend: Well my BFF forever and ever from high school Lizz, is straight sadly lol but I have another really close friend from high school, K, who is bi as well and so is her sister and her super soon-to-be husband. But K and I and her sister and fiance don’t really talk about bi/queer issues or topics too much. 

In terms of a close friendship where we talk about Bi/Queer stuff all the time, then @zestycactus is an amazing friend! She is always there if you need to talk through problems/issues but overall she is just a really nice person, a kind friend, and a fun person to chill with 😊 Gotta give her a lot of credit for helping me to be able to accept my bisexuality a lot more over the past year and a bit, just from our talks and by always being able to come along to queer events or programs with me when able to and for bringing me along to my first one ever over a year ago 😁 

Side note: If you’re LGBTQ+ and struggling with your sexuality or even if you’re not and you just want to be around other queer people or make new queer friends, and you have an (LGBTQ) community centre around you with support groups or networks that hold regular meetings and events, I would highly recommend just from personal experience! And if you don’t have access to something like that because I know not everybody does and you ever want to talk, about LGBTQ issues or not and you just want to chat, my ask box and inbox is always open! 

💙when did you come out: I must have figured it out for myself when I was 12/13/14, no later than 14 for sure, I was probably 12/13 ish. Then I randomly came out to a few classmates around then on an overnight school trip that year (7th grade). And then came out to a lot of (if not most) friends over the course of high school and kept coming out to friends throughout university. And I have been coming out ever since lol. As any queer person knows,  it never ends. I think I only told my mom a few months ago, like almost a year ago now? It was last August/September ish, I’m gonna say? And yeah, still have a lot of coming out to do to a lot of family still but its a “cross that bridge when I get to it” situation, if I ever got into a serious enough relationship with a girl and wanted to introduce her to family but right now, its a long shot of that happening any time soon lololol. 

💚first person you came out to: It was over 10 years ago so the memories of that time period are fuzzy but I’m gonna say it was random classmates I was sharing a room with on an overnight school leadership camping trip thing, one of them was a close friend but an on and off again friend (it was a super complicated friendship/situation throughout high school and middle school actually lololol) and thinking back on it, I have no idea what made me come out to them, then and there because I wasn’t really friends with the other 2 girls and one of them was a huge bitch lol. Maybe I just needed to say it out loud to somebody while I was coming to terms with it? 

💛first gf/bf: My high school BF from near the end of high school and into most of our first year of university before we called it quits. Meh, it wasn’t the best relationship for a first relationship, it was sweet and nice but it shortly became more of a friendship than a romantic relationship. I won’t go into details here because I’ve been rambling enough in this questionnaire lol (feel free to message me tho for more info if you’re really  that intrigued lol) but at least it taught us that we do make better friends than we did BF/GF, I don’t even know if either of us was TRULY interested in the other one or if we were just dating each other for the sake of having somebody while almost everyone else around us in our friends group at the time was coupled up and we didn’t want to feel left out *shrug* I think the latter is true for me tbh as bad as that sounds. But even though me and him have our differences in more ways than one, he is a really nice and funny guy and his mom taught him to treat girls well, even just friends lol and we do still meet up every few months for a dinner or a movie or whatever and its nice to catch up every once in a while with him. (LOL, I still wrote a book in this answer when I said I wouldn’t). 

🧡ever had a crush on a straight person: Like all my crushes lol. Even with straight men I’m usually rejected or they are already taken and I had a bad experience with a crush in my last year of university so since then, I’ve just tried not to develop hardcore crushes on people besides little crushes that I know won’t go anywhere. And even though there is one straight friend I will always crush on, I know she is straight and nothing will ever happen lol so I respect that and would never tell her my feelings because it would probably ruin the friendship and I cherish the friendship aspect too much to do that. 

❤fallen for a friend: I think I answered this in the last question. YES lol. It’s never ended well for me except for my first BF. I definitely don’t make moves anymore or let feelings be known. But then again, I haven’t had a serious crush on anyone since my disasterous experience in 4th year of university lol. And I talked about my crush on my straight friend in the answer to the previous question as well. 

💛best LGBTQ+ friend: @zestycactus , reasons why are listed in the best friend question above. And my best friend K from high school as mentioned in the best friend answer above also, but both being LGBTQ isn’t really a factor in our friendship, its just a coincidence lol. 

💚person that made you doubt your sexuality: I don’t think any one specific person ever has but those “How do you know you’re bi?” “How can you be in love with both?” kinds of questions do get tiresome. I don’t really get them aimed at me specifically by any one person luckily but just hearing and seeing those sentiments in general in everyday life or hearing stories from other people is tiresome and annoying. And not so much doubt but I have one straight friend who I love and I know she is just trying to be a supportive friend and ally but she seems really INSISTENT on me dating women, creating dating profiles on dating apps to meet women specifically, she’s always getting on my case about getting on dating apps etc and while I appreciate the support lol and I am more attracted to women than men (and I did express that I would prefer dating girls right now) but like I’m bi, I’m not ruling out men completely yet if I do decide to make dating profiles and I end up clicking with men or one specific guy. I honestly will probably end up with a girl, or I want to see what dating girls is like, but like I said, men aren’t completely out of the equation for me either because anything can happen lol. Life is unpredictable. I feel like if I date men or meet a guy somehow this friend is gonna say something about me dating women and ask why I’m not with a woman and that she thought I wanted to date women etc. So that does worry me about dating men if it ever happens but this friend is very inadvertently pushy in general (in her own weird supportive way lol) so I just gotta roll with it and appreciate the support, and if I end up dating a guy in the future who makes me happy, and she is “upset” or confused or something, I just gotta remind her that its my life, my happiness and my choices at the end of the day. 

💙proud of your sexuality: Hell yeah 10/10, I’m so happy to be bi, even though I still have bad days, doubts, insecurities, worries, my questioning periods etc, but the pride outweighs those feelings for the most part most days. And like I said, going to bi support groups and queer events really helped the past year and a half. 

💜comfortable with your sexuality: Getting there. A lot better than I was a year and a half ago. I’m getting more and more comfortable and proud every day. I’ve definitely been on a journey for the past year and a half of self-love, mindfulness, weight loss, and just building better habits and patterns in general. Not just in terms of my sexuality but I took a lot of risks this past year and a half and not all of them have paid off yet but even though I have the odd bad day still like we all do,  I am in a much better state of mind in general than I was a year ago, 2 years ago, especially 3 years ago. And as I’ve talked about in this questionnaire, support groups for bi people really helped with becoming more comfortable with my sexuality, and helping me to embrace it more over the past year or so. 

💙describe yourself: Coffee addict, foodie, pop culture lover (especially movies and TV shows lol), fun-loving, kind, caring, hardworking, creative, silly, great friend 

💚LGBTQ+ hero: Idk, Sarah Paulson and Lily Tomlin? I’m sure I could answer this better after giving it more thought but its late. 

💛favorite part of being LGBTQ+: The friendships/connections I’ve made in the queer community, both online on social media and in real life through the support groups, queer events etc. Feeling like I don’t have to fit into the neat little heteronormative box. And this is shallow but thank god I was born with the ability to appreciate and love women both physically and intellectually because hey, women are hot af, let’s be real lol. 

🧡advice to younger you: It’s okay to like girls, there is nothing wrong with it, being bi and loving women is beautiful. Love yourself some more. You deserve credit for everything you’ve gone through and overcome. You’re amazing and you’re going to do great things with your life, meet and befriend amazing people one day, and accomplish things you never imagined. 

❤️do you ever wish you weren’t LGBTQ+: No? Why would I? As Lady Gaga would say, I was born this way lol. I mean yeah there’s hard times, difficult moments, hard things about being queer but being bi specifically carries its own hardships. And like I said, the good outweighs the bad. There’s hard days, moments, questioning periods etc but I wouldn’t change things for the world. Thank God I’m not straight lol. If only for the fact that I love women too much lmao. NGL, I often wonder what its like for my straight female friends who don’t see women the same way I do lol and who don’t see them in a romantic sense if that makes sense. It’s probably a whole lot easier to be straight but I really wouldn’t change things if I could. 

[gotgifsandmusings]

Unnecessarily Dramatic (maybe? Is it?) SM Update

Oh hi. I have no idea how to start this, lol.

So...it’s not exactly subtle that I’ve had a downturn in content and posts lately. And this was something that I was really debating whether to even explicitly talk about, because a lot of times posts or videos about dialing back from social media always feel very dramatic to me? Or self-serving in some way. Like, “Oh yes, I must be that important to necessitate this.”

But idk, the more I thought about it, I really really do appreciate anyone who’s read/commented on my writing, or followed me, or sent me thoughtful asks, and whatnot. I think it’s cool that we’ve been able to engage with each other over media, and that platform has allowed us to really delve into a ton of issues. Remember when I wrote a sourced series of essays on tropes in GoT Season 5 through the framework of ambivalent sexism just ‘cause?

And even though sometimes that engagement is me you know, being snotty to a rude anon, for the most part my writing analysis online, then fanfic, then podcasting, then building up a website and a community for thoughtful analysis, and even a youtube video here and there has been something really meaningful and rewarding to me. The fact that it’s maybe touched others? At least enough to the point where I’m getting anons saying, “hope you’re okay”? That’s very humbling.

So yeah, I do feel like I want to loop you in on what’s been going on, which I will do below the cut. (Apologies those on mobile.)

I’m starting to feel like a dishonest cars salesman here. “Oh yeah, I’ll totally write about that! I’m definitely going to have this piece then!” Even just the number of answered asks, most of which are incredibly good and insightful, you know, pains me that I can’t get to them. Hell, my drafts folder has about 40 partially answered asks. One is even about Sondheim! Why can’t I finish it??

Here’s the deal. For the past...6 months (maybe? A year?), I’ve kept saying, “when life calms down.” Or “Life has been a bear lately”...whatever that means. And I’m only now at a point where I’m realizing, my life isn’t going to calm down. In fact, my life—that being my primary career, my situation where I am, and my relationships to friends and family—sort of needs to be a priority for me.

Full confession: the reason I’ve been so prolific up until this point was due to the fact that my previous “day jobs” as I called them, while in line with what I studied and cared about, were something I could do in about 15 hours a week, if that. There was a finite amount of work, I was decent at it, and I really didn’t have an ambitious drive at these jobs because they really weren’t as focused or meaningful as I would have liked and the environments were not conducive to my personal professional growth.

So what did I do? I mailed it in. I found more personal fulfillment with what I was writing about online. It began with the Legend of Korra finale, which had excited me so much that I actually wrote my first rambling thoughts about it during work hours. At the time, it was on a Friday going into the “Christmas Break” where I’d be working from home, so it seemed okay to push work off. But I got a taste for that, got in a pattern of doing the bare minimum, and then focused my efforts on the stuff I actually wanted to be doing—chatting about media.  

And part of that was also due to the fact that I was in a major social rut. I was pretty isolated since I tend to have a smaller group of close friends rather than a large bunch of friends, and our career paths just kind of scattered us. I’d maybe get together with people once a month? I also loathed the dating game. I was, for the most part, working at a small startup with two middle-aged ladies and no options there, which left me with tinder and cupid. I laugh because I’ve gotten asks like, “wow you must have been a busy bisexual bee.” Yeah...3 or 5 months would pass and I’d realize I hadn’t gotten laid, so I’d worry that was a sign I was depressed, and I’d go on some random cupid date to have tangible evidence that that wasn’t the case.

My point being, writing about media and engaging with tons of people online was really appealing, and became an outlet for me in a way I never could have anticipated.

But that entire situation changed. For one, I began dating my now-fiance (as much as I hate that word) over a year ago. It was long-distance, so not a huge change at first. Then my sister moved home and in with me last fall, and my family commitments dialed up (3 cats and a baby!). Which was fantastic, it really was. But I think you probably noticed I produced less and less as this went on.

And then, finally, I moved my ass halfway across the country because long-distance wasn’t making any sense anymore. I wasn’t willing to move without a job lined up, so job hunting began to focus me again on my professional career. While I love writing and analyzing, I’ve never seriously considered this as a career path for myself. Which is no knock on anyone who does—it’s just pursuing that life formally is not for me. I have an engineering degree and a Masters in environmental policy, and the latter is truly what I’ve always wanted as my focus. I was finally able to hone in on a job that made sense for me with my background, not just a job that was around when I needed one.

I found it, I moved mid-April, and I absolutely love what I’m doing. The job, the workplace, everything has so exceeded my expectations in every way, and for once I have like, career aspirations where I am. This doesn’t mean I’m any less passionate about analyzing media, but it does mean that professionally, I won’t mail it in anymore to make time for that. My job has to be my focus, and in fact I’m likely going to be working 50 hour weeks to do accomplish what I want here. And don’t worry—there’s amazing work from home policies and PTO, so it’s not a “work you to your grave” kind of deal. I legitimately want to be doing this, because I care about what I’m doing and feel like it matters.

What does that mean though? Well, it means I have to take a step back from the amount I’ve been doing. I can’t be copyediting every night for The Fandomentals, I can’t be writing a weekly piece, and the GoT rewatch, and two podcasts, and longer retrospectives, and other planned co-analysis, and fanfic, and answering all the asks I want to, and checking my site email to organize and manage our team of contributors. Certainly not if I want to sleep, work out, keep up with the news, be around family and friends, and have some semblance of downtime. That I was able to do all this stuff this long is actually probably not the best sign, you know?

So I’m trying to really focus my efforts. I plan to keep both podcasts going, because I really love doing that. The GoT rewatch is going to keep on keepin’ on as well, as planned. Julia and I will still finish out our retrospectives for S7, and I’ve even already rewatched the Dragonstone scenes. But my weekly pieces in addition to all this are going to stop, unless I’m super excited by something. I have no idea about my fanfic, to be honest, and I think that’s going to have to be a situational mood-based judgement call. With regards to the asks and social media interaction...I will do what I can, but as you’ve been seeing, it’s just not something I have a ton of time for. I haven’t even gotten back into my gifcapping funky flow!

For my LoK blog, god, I don’t even know how the definitive rankings are going to end up. I want to try, but really who knows. Because the other thing is that I come home from work and am actually like...intellectually tired. I need a break. I feel like such a boring drudge now, but it’s true. (Also BOTW is a great destresser.)

So yeah, there’s really no good way to end this. I’m just letting you know why I’m going to be sparse. But that also I’m doing well, so no worries there, and thank you so much for anyone who’s sent something caring about this.

And I’m still me, of course. If some GoT spoiler comes out or promo pictures or something, you can bet I’m going to be memeing like normal, and probably having stupid back-and-forths with some bellicose anon. If I feel like ranting about some movie or comic for 15 minutes in a video, I’ll likely do that. But I just can’t keep placing expectations on myself to do more next month, and it’s not fair to you to keep saying “when life calms down.” Life isn’t supposed to calm down. It’s not an inconvenience that gets in the way of me talking about my feelings on a piece of media. And moving forward, I’m going to do what I can to have a more balanced approach to all of that.

[flippinoptimist]

> Vel : Meet a nerdlord

Today at 2:45 AM

deputyheadmistress Alright, someone talking to you on my behalf about a lack of privacy got to me a bit. But I'm not upset with you for how the internet behaves.

flippinoptimist thats lurky, theyre a little closer to omniscient than is average for most beings, and like kind of giving advice, and they mean well i think they meant it mostly to make me stop chargin around in like, manic mode, though, even if stuff relatin to you was the causal start of the chain sorry you got dragged into it miss granger, and that i wasn't doin the tact thing

deputyheadmistress I didn't mean them, I meant the thread about different faux book titles. But a close to omniscient being is, I suppose, something I'll also have to get used to. I'm at least a bit used to manic teens, though it's not the best way to get shocking information.

flippinoptimist i think my earth age would technically start with a two, but thats sorta recent after you spend enough time around here you get used to the like, multiverse

deputyheadmistress Can we, perhaps, stop talking about the multiverse for a few moments? And talk about something a bit more grounding, like your particular brand of magic. I'm very curious.

flippinoptimist sure its sorta a fusion of everything ive run across, since the inherent stuff that my ~destiny~ tried to put on me isnt the same kind of stuff as the place where im learnin the inherent is more of a "woo, heres a big abstract concept, you are an incarnation / channeler of a shard of it, neato"

deputyheadmistress That sounds like a lot to dig into, but alright.

flippinoptimist the school part is about how you can structure thought and energy flow into symbols and runes and things i'm focusin on artificing ..and the inherent part has given me a knack for illusions i cant figure out how to actually cast spells but im good at making things!

deputyheadmistress Oh! I was very good at ancient runes during my time at Hogwarts, and while I haven't managed to do much with it since graduation, other than an enchanted bag, I'd be really curious to see what similarities there might be. I wonder if you can cast spells. Logic seems like it'd point to yes, but if you're from somewhere else...

flippinoptimist id be curious about them!  i know the words to a few spells but ive never seen  them and do naut have a wand of the kind you are thinking of the wands i know about / make each have a specific spell in them, and are locked to create a specific effect that triggers when a gesture or word or w/e happens

deputyheadmistress That's terribly inefficient.

flippinoptimist sure, its Terrible

deputyheadmistress ... Is that referencing those historical people of note who end up being so infamous people associate them with the word 'Terrible' as well?

flippinoptimist naut much different than having a necklace that makes you invisible though yes! it also enables a billion terrible puns

deputyheadmistress I was curious. It's a bit strange to add it yourself, don't you think?

flippinoptimist (ba dum tsh)

deputyheadmistress Oh.

flippinoptimist it is

deputyheadmistress Well, that explains that, doesn't it?

flippinoptimist but my species has this thing, where on adulthood we each replace our kid name with an adult Title

deputyheadmistress Oh, it's a cultural thing.

flippinoptimist yeah, and i chose a human one

deputyheadmistress Alright. I read a little bit on that.

flippinoptimist because humans are neat and i like them

deputyheadmistress Oh! Well, I'm glad you like humans, then.

flippinoptimist and i respect a lot of the cultural things i see in most of the human places i have found

deputyheadmistress Good, I was about to ask that.

flippinoptimist also everything that comes out of japan is amazing

deputyheadmistress I don't know how I could let you use a wand from here, but I want to try.

flippinoptimist id love to try if you can think of a way! i am pretty good at establishing first contact with new universes, and i could get you alien tech and magic to check out if you wanted for various definitions of alien

deputyheadmistress ... Alien tech won't work so well on Hogwart's grounds. I had to heavily modify this computer so it'd function here.

flippinoptimist i am curious about how

flippinoptimist alllsooo....  ill have to find a copy of the magic version of getting around from place to place

deputyheadmistress Oh! I wrote a whole thesis on how to make magic more compatable with muggle text over the summer, let me...

flippinoptimist but i know where to find it!  couple of steps and itll work out okay

deputyheadmistress I'll send it to you later. It's a bit lengthy, and I have to type it up here. Alright, I'll hold.

flippinoptimist okay i hate to say this because i am definitely interested in exchangin data and showin things, but it feels rude not to remind you before we get much further that a step of getting this to work is probably going to involve me (random internet stranger) havin to figure out what your coordinates are, so i can write them in the format needed for the circley part i can get you the circle rune pattern either way, but if you want a way to actually use it, id need to basically track your IP but, like, fancy and involving you running a thing on a computer let me know if you want to do that part, but heres the circle diagram

flippinoptimist -- flippinoptimist began sending file : transportationcircle.pdf --

deputyheadmistress I have been warned about random internet strangers.... I may have to work on protection wards for a moment, for the sake of safety.

flippinoptimist sure thing i highly advise not using that w/o fillin in coordinates the way it says, and also not without knowin your home coordinates if you step through that thing, the only way back is to know how to write your home address, you know?

deputyheadmistress Alright

flippinoptimist to find home coordinates, install one a these chat programs, and send me a private message, i can use a couple a tools to trace the connection from there and get your code

deputyheadmistress This is certainly the sort of decision I want to be making at five in the morning. Alright, I've got everything set up. What is life without adventure, and the chance to make the headmistress mad at me.

flippinoptimist lol the decision will still be here at not five in the morning, but you wont be able to blame it on the time then shit i should give you the programs shouldnt i -- Discord, Trollian! --

deputyheadmistress Thank you.

flippinoptimist i have a set of coords i can give you that are explicitely for being a neutral place to meet people, but the sky isnt done yet so its janky lookin but!  the building is finished

deputyheadmistress I've chosen a fairly neutral place for the moment, don't worry.

flippinoptimist ok!

deputyheadmistress > Message him on Discord. This will be absolutely fine. Totally.

flippinoptimist > He messages her back!  About two minutes later, he gives her the number version of her coordinates, which she can use to get back home from anywhere.  He also gives her the coordinates to the convenience store, which he mentions is "a pocket dimension under construction"

deputyheadmistress > She'll... Write that down and probably not do anything with it for a while. > If he tries to look at her coordinates directly, it will really really not work, as if his machine were glitching, but he can probably go a few miles out for a nice view of a scottish country side.

flippinoptimist > Neat!  He ..does poke that far, but then sets his machine to go back to looking somewhere else.  The coordinates are saved, but he promises to himself to not use them. if somebody gives you coordinates, you can go places, or people w/ yours can send you stuff or come visit

deputyheadmistress Alright. This is going to take a bit of getting used to, but if you want to come over you can.

flippinoptimist > ..man, he was supposed to be in time out, but lately he'd been doing so well ..until today.. and he'd been leaning into choosing the Chaotic choices more and more often... > What good was putting yourself in time out if you didn't stick to it?

flippinoptimist crazy o clock in the mornin probably aint the best time for first impressions, though its temptin as hell.  i could send across some small magic gunk and weird alien snacks as a proof of concept, and meet you like, tomorrow or another day soon?

deputyheadmistress That sounds good! I'll send you some magic things too, then.

flippinoptimist sweet!  we can compare notes

deputyheadmistress > Time to gather some of George's jokes and some magical candy.

flippinoptimist > He would send an invisibility ring, a few novelty disguises, a small opal that made anyone within line of sight experience a slightly sweet taste (in a well-shielded bag), and a variety of alternian mass-produced snackfoods labled in a clearly alien language.  Ones he thought might not creep out humans too bad.

deputyheadmistress > Bertie botts every flavor beans are a necessity, though she does make sure to include a carefully penned note about what flavors he may come across that are less pleasant. Chocolate frogs are included as well, of course. Things that turn skin different interesting colors, fireworks that make flame animals bound through the air.

flippinoptimist > He is going to admire the hell out of and carefully store these for later perusal.

deputyheadmistress > He also gets a somewhat large coinpurse that he can shove his whole arm in and still seem to not run out of room.

flippinoptimist okay this is a pretty neat bag stupid question and no i am not going ot try, what happens when you turn it inside out

deputyheadmistress You could turn it out for a really long time. I think it'd be annoying to stuff it back in though

flippinoptimist okay, what if i went for a swim in the ocean with it is there a limit?

deputyheadmistress Of course there's a limit. But it can hold a tent or two, several thin blankets, changes of clothing, general everyday use things, and of course money. Thin things work better, obviously. You could probably fit thick blankets, but it'd be way more annoying both to put them in and pull them out.

flippinoptimist that makes a lotta sense and is pretty interestin i have a tech way of carrying lots of stuff, but you mentioned tech was sad

deputyheadmistress Oh! I have a print version of the paper I was going to type up.

flippinoptimist ive got an amulet thats basically like a mr potato head that disguises you all the runework lines up so you can unclip parts and clip in different parts

deputyheadmistress > Send that along, also. There's moving pictures involved, with her pictured. Oh wow.

flippinoptimist modular!

deputyheadmistress I don't think describing it as 'Mr Potato Head' is reassuring, for a disguise, but a modular disguise is interesting.

flippinoptimist it only works when everything is seated in firmly and shut, but its also sort of like legos > He .. sends a modular disguise amulet over too, with a couple of bits and pieces it only does disguises for my species, but hey, maybe thatll be handy

deputyheadmistress Maybe.

flippinoptimist pro tip if you are ever going to go to a place with my species, ask them which color of person is best for you to be can of worms subject really

deputyheadmistress That sounds racist as hell.

flippinoptimist oh yeah

deputyheadmistress Joy.

flippinoptimist p much sometides people call the usual empress "fish hitler" most of the dudes i know are huge rebels

deputyheadmistress The magical world just recently got done with a war similar to Hitler's.

flippinoptimist but!  there are placeswhere things are fine its just good to check if a place is one of them first

deputyheadmistress So I'm a little sick of that.

flippinoptimist i hang out in like three different places where she got deposed differentamounts of time ago yeah thats aight

deputyheadmistress At least there's that.

flippinoptimist speaking of humans, its great how often its naut like that like, sometimes, but anyway people can be pretty cool when teyre given teh chance

deputyheadmistress I do like to believe in the inherent goodness of people, despite how much bad has happened.

flippinoptimist i think people can choose how theyre gonna be theresa lotta nice reasons to choose not to be a dick

deputyheadmistress I should hope you wouldn't need reasons, but yes there are reasons to be nice.

flippinoptimist sometimes bein mean is tempting, otherwise people wouldnt do it you get all wrapped up in somethin, dont see all of it, then suddenly you get a reality check an gotta go "hey is this where i wanna be" and then people ignore the question because they dont wanna think about it and then its sealed, theyre dicks and theyll stay that way

flippinoptimist till they look around again

deputyheadmistress I suppose.

flippinoptimist i spend a lotta time thinkin about it i was a jerk when i was younger, and i decided to be nice instead so i spend a lot of time talkin to dudes who are or were also jerks and we all get better! cause i can help them find the reasons they need to start

flippinoptimist also jerks are sometimes kinda hilarious, and theyre often pretty good at shit.  otherwise theyd have learned better when they ran into a problem they couldnt solve w/o help.

deputyheadmistress It's getting a bit late. I think I should probably turn in for the night, before all of the teenagers wake up and need scowling at.

flippinoptimist that is probably a thing i hope you have a good night miss granger it was nice meetin you

deputyheadmistress It was really interesting talking to you, Vel.

flippinoptimist i try for interestin

deputyheadmistress Do you really need to try?

flippinoptimist not really

deputyheadmistress Have a good night. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

flippinoptimist bye!