#also i love the asks system too much. more sites need that honestly

[fedoraspooky]

I haven’t been here long. What irritating changes have been made?

Credit where it's due, some changes have been good, like polls and stuff! But the big recent changes thus far that I would classify as irritating are:

- The UI change. This one may be less irritating for newcomers because it's basically the same layout as twitter and instagram, but for a lot of folks who've been here a long time, it feels cramped and like a loss of identity for the site. For many, the appeal of tumblr is that it ISN'T an algorithm hell like twitter or insta. Also, there's the annoyance of having to relearn where everything is, because it all got moved around.

- The users being lab rats for various tests the devs wanna pull out of nowhere without consenting to beta testing new site features- like the one that took away user icons on the dash for like half the site. They finally put them back after getting enough feedback that said NO, but users were so used to their feedback being disregarded that they were half expecting the change to be pushed through anyway.

- The Netflix tie-in advertising being pushed even to people who had PAID tumblr for a no-ads experience. Complete with them somehow thinking it would be a good idea to put an unescapable-by-scrolling spooky clown on peoples' dashboards that u had to use ublock to get rid of. While I'm not scared of clowns and often find them quite charming, it sucks that staff didn't take coulrophobia being a common fear into account.

- A wave of fully sfw trans posts being wrongfully marked Mature and staff doing little to nothing about it. Not sure if this is still ongoing, but it destroyed a lot of trust and good will. (LGBT+ users have been having to fight a constant war against censorship ever since the adult content ban on tumblr, so yeah... Nevar 4get the list of banned search words that would bring back no results, like 'girl')

- The site gradually moving away from customization. Tumblr is a BLOGGING site. But it seems to have lost sight of that fact, because most new users don't even know you can fully customize your blogs with css and stuff (an option that is now off by default for new accounts!), because of the in-dash viewer giving you only how blogs look on mobile, which is a lot more uniform. There, it's more like every other site- you get a banner and icon. Oh, but you can change colors and fonts from a drop-down list too, that's cool I guess. Though they recently took away custom color schemes on Message windows, just another little bit of personalization taken away.

- TUMBLR. LIVE. Basically tumblr teamed up with a skeevy dating app partner to allow for livestreams- but not the cool kinda livestreams like on twitch where you can draw or play games, no- to a site full of people who value anonymity, they decided to push phone cam only livestreams. Not only that but by agreeing to the terms, you're giving out tons of personal data including your location to said skeevy dating app partner and all of THEIR third-party ad partners. Needless to say, most people didn't wanna use it, so instead of users it's flooded by p*rn bots (which is ANOTHER issue we've been dealing with for a long time and have been getting an even bigger influx of FROM tumblr live) and scammers. And thus, since tumblr likes to put a carousel of current streams on people's dashes, you often get softcore p*rn thumbnails from the bot streams with no way to avoid it except for toggling off tumblr live entirely.

- Oh wait. That's right. You CAN'T toggle it off. Because you can only snooze it for a while until BAM, you're jumpscared by a carousel of ladies licking your screen again! But hey, at least they made the snooze 30 days instead of the 7 it used to be, right? Yeah, except for the fact that you can't get rid of the tumblr live button itself on the app anymore, and now it's front and center with a NEW notification tag on it, overlapping your dash and cramming useful stuff like the search button out of the way.

NOW- A lot of this stuff CAN be at least mostly fixed on desktop by installing ublock and xkit and tampermonkey + dashboard unfucker... But that's a lot of stuff just to make the site usable, you know?

[theladyregret]

I posted 1,105 times in 2022

That's 159 more posts than 2021!

117 posts created (11%)

988 posts reblogged (89%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@rukafais

@elytrians

@merfilly

@dragonmasque

@bumble-b-goode

I tagged 394 of my posts in 2022

#the legend of drizzt - 62 posts

#lol - 42 posts

#dungeons and dragons - 37 posts

#fanfiction - 34 posts

#ao3 - 26 posts

#drizzt - 13 posts

#legend of drizzt - 11 posts

#jander sunstar - 11 posts

#asks - 10 posts

#drizzt do'urden - 9 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#i can accept everything about the rewrite except the idea that he murdered a bunch of innocent folk just because a woman wouldn't love him

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Just a little something for Drowcember...and the first time I’ve ever actually drawn this character even though I honestly like him as much as I do Drizzt.

Kimmuriel Oblodra

It also amuses me that despite a lack of official art or significant description most of us have decided he has a ponytail hah

But seriously what are we going to do if we get official art and he doesn’t have one? lol

69 notes - Posted December 1, 2022

#4

Humans as deathworlder space orcs story idea: Humanity makes contact with a highly advanced alien race before we ever even come close to figuring out FTL technology. Instead of trying to kill or enslave us they decide to uplift us. In exchange for access to their advanced technologies humanity agrees to help the aliens in their exploration of other hostile worlds which they have found too dangerous to explore. And also serve as shock troops against other more aggressive aliens. The friend aliens are basically space bees. So many...very intimidating...but ultimately very delicate and peaceful.

81 notes - Posted July 13, 2022

#3

Me trying to convince friends who like farming/crafting games to play Project Zomboid with me: It’s fine. I made it so the zombies are scarce and super easy to kill. If you find one just tell me and I’ll kill them for you. It’ll be fine.

The Zombies two houses down about to ruin everything:

219 notes - Posted July 21, 2022

#2

Wow, I...vastly underestimated how much you guys would vibe with the whole The Walking Dead in Space thing lol ok well...now that I have a day off from work here's some of the ideas I've been thinking about while bored this week.

----------

Human Diplomat: Hey, is there a reason all the water access areas don't allow humans anymore? Don't you guys know we have high water requirements?

Alien Space Station technician: Oh! No one told you?

Human: Told us what?

Alien: Sorry, they were supposed to tell you. Our apologizes, this must look terrible.

Human: Tell. Us. What?

Alien: Our bio filters detected the disease you all carry in the stations water supply after you visited last. Our scientists ran some tests and found that it can survive almost indefinitely in water and is highly resistant to our water treatments. We had to purge and decontaminate the entire system. We created a separate system for your use that is more isolated. You can use those....I....uh...are you ok? Is this sufficient?

Human, frantically writing in a log book: Oh? Yes, fine...that's fine!

Second human: I think you guys just solved a centuries old mystery for us.

Alien, looking confused: What mystery?

Second human: How our species all became infected so quickly.

Alien: You never found out?

Human: It wiped out 99% of our population during the initial outbreak...the how and why of it kind of stopped mattering after a bit, you know?

---------

Galactic News Reporter: Tragedy today after the recent excavation of the lost human mining crew in sector 92. Against human recommendations, rescuers continued their efforts throughout the week. The human deceased, commonly referred to as Walkers, attacked and killed several rescue parties before the site had to be bombed by air support military. Diplomats from several species met once again today to discuss the risks of open contact with the Humans and whether stricter protocols need to be put in place.

Video feed cuts to a human diplomat standing in a room full of multiple different aliens: We told you what to do! You didn't listen! You never listen to us! If you had, none of this would have happened!

Alien Politician: You recommended that the tunnels be collapsed before any excavation be conducted prior to the time frame denoted by safety regulations which would have condemned any potential survivors-

Human, hitting the table in front of him with his fists: YOU'RE STILL NOT LISTENING!

--------

Transport ship pilot over PA system: Our ship is currently on approach to the Human home planet of Terra. Be aware that we will be passing through the debris field left over from the Human Colony Wars which will require us to drop out of FTL. Our ship is specially equipped for this journey so rest assured we are in no danger from the debris. It is recommended that any windows be shielded for the duration of this time, thank you.

Human passenger pulls the shade down for their window with a sigh.

The alien next to them looks curious: Why do the windows need to be covered?

Human: Some people find the...debris...disturbing. *the way they said debris sounded sarcastic*

Alien: ...humans find broken ships disturbing?

Human: You didn't do very much research before coming here did you?

Alien just looks confused.

Human reaches over and opens the window cover. They pass close by one of the wrecked ships and at first it looks like any other debris field...then something moves and they realize it's a body. A human body floating in space. It jerks and twists as they pass by. Mouth opening and closing. The alien jerks back in surprise.

Human: The vacuum of space means they don't decompose so...all those people who didn't die properly...they're just out there...like that. Thousands of soldiers. Ships just full of Walkers.

They pass by another ship. This one looks intact and newer.

See the full post

466 notes - Posted October 5, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Sometimes when I’m at work and bored I like to think of how weird/interesting the entire idea of humanity from The Walking Dead universe progressing past the apocalyptic phase and just existing like normal with this infection. Like could you imagine humans from this universe used in a sci-fi setting where they meet aliens?

Just everything about humanity already and OH YEAH if we die for any reason that doesn’t destroy our brains enough our corpses will just keep going and immediately try to eat anything else alive around it because we all carry an inactive form of prion disease that activates upon death.

Aliens: Why are your bunks inside locked cages?

Humans: Oh, one of the early space missions a guy died in his sleep because of an oxygen leak near his bunk and ate everyone before they could wake up so...ya know, tradition.

Aliens: ...o-oh

On the other hand there would likely be common war tactics of kamakazi fighters who could easily weaponize themselves by dying on enemy ships.

I see peaceful relations with aliens being very difficult to maintain honestly lol

Even if we’re not trying to do anything hostile, who wants to risk exposure to something like that?

841 notes - Posted October 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[artsinus]

AI Review #2: Miku.gg

Hello peeps, it's been some time since I've done this, but I'm back with a lot more ammunition and knowledge. Let's just get straight to the point. Miku.gg is a bit of a special case, and tbh I've been using it a lot because of how cool, calming and good it is. Basically, it's a chatbot service that adopts itself in a way known as the "Visual Novel Style". It'll be better to just show it visually. Also, there's no filter, so you can have all the fantasies you want hehehhehe.

This is the homepage, pretty simple, right? I think that's fine for the most part, it gets the job done after all.

Anyways, this site is still in beta, that's why there's not much publicity on this. Still much of a WIP, and things will be subject to change.

Here's one of, if not, the biggest con with this site. The variety of the characters. These aren't your traditional bots, and require a lot more effort to create. With how obscure this site, there's not much people willing to put that effort. You'll see how much you have to do once we get to the main thing. Chatting.

Character variety: 3.5/10

Here it is, the chatting interface. Since this isn't your traditional UI design, I would say this is like a 8/10. It does it's job well.

What I love about this site is its incredibly chill to use, because there's background music playing over and it's a nice melody to hear tbh. Of course you can turn it off if you want.

Here are the settings, which consists of your name, basic text configurations, and narration.

If you were to click the listen button, you could hear the ai speak out the dialogue. It's a nice addition, but I don't really find myself using it very often anyways. Of course there's the mandatory edit button as well.

This is just the beginning of what you can do with miku.gg.

There are emotions that show in the sprite of the character.

Here's her being angry...

And then she's happy again. The emotion engine on this ai is very accurate and great. It really feels like i'm playing a visual novel. Of course, the creator has to manually either draw these sprites or ai generate them.

Oh, lets say you want to go back to an option and start again? Well, this site revolutionizes the history system you'd see in any other AI (I think).

Here's the history tree, you can go back to any instance and start again from there.

Let's say I want to be more nicer to her, so let's go back to the beginning.

Yes... If you ever want to go back or create another scenario... It's very easy and streamlined with Miku.gg. It's a great system that was added recently, so who knows how buggy it is.

Let's say you want a change of scenery that doesn't just change the background, but the entire scenario in general. Well it's pretty easy. It's the camera button at the top.

These scenes are created by the creator of the novel(bot basically). If you don't want any of these, you can create your own if you want.

This site is packed with cool features that really immerses you not just into the character, but the whole scenes as well. It's revolutionary, really. I recommend using the good bots, however they tend to be NSFW, so do with that as you will.

The chatting is long, makes sense, and the memory is a lot more impressive than I thought. Overall it's honestly the best AI site for me personally. The NSFW functionality works well too... Don't ask why, just know it's been experimented on.

I love this site, and I want to spread more awareness about this site. There needs to be more Novels. (also it's a crime no one has made a hatsune miku Novel yet)

Overall rating: 9/10 UI design: 8/10 Character variety: 3/5/10

General features: 10/10

NSFW Filter: No

Cohesiveness: 9/10

Fun factor: 10/10

Of course, your experiences will always be different, so always try it to get a feel for the whole thing! Don't take my word for things.

Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments

[sokkagatekeeper]

@kyoshialone asked: this ask is asking u to make the post about ur thoughts on how the characters ppl stan affect how they view all of atla ? :)

ok so this is in reference to me saying that i've realized that i have a categorization system for atla fans in my head that is based on which character they stan because oh god have i spent too much time reading bad atla takes out of morbid fascination (and yes i have seen every single one of these takes at least once with my own two eyes). this isn't necessarily gonna line up with who someone's favorite character actually is (if the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it), and it definitely doesn't line up with how much i love each character, but these are sets of beliefs that i associate with people who describe themselves as “stans” of certain characters.

disclaimer that this is (obviously) gonna be reductive and prescriptive. there are many common bad atla takes that i'm leaving out, but. god. i don't hate myself enough to be fully comprehensive with this. & i'm limiting it to atla tumblr, not other places where fandom exists; fortunately i have not observed enough fandom on other sites to have a good sense of how they differ from tumblr (i have blocked the few months i spent on atla tiktok out of my mind. also no one uses tumblr lmfao it's easier to do this with a site that has a small userbase). under the cut because it's time to offend every single atla fan in one post let's do it.

wait one more thing: don't rb this pls and thank u <3 i am genuinely not trying to be mean or start drama; i'm just complaining about bad interpretations to my followers who i assume already at least mostly agree with me. if i were to make a genuine effort to change atla fandom culture i wouldn't go about it like this lmao

sokka stans: the best atla fans no notes 👍 (like i said, this whole thing is kinda prescriptive. the idea of a “sokka stan” in this sense is somewhat defined by having good takes. but still, almost everyone whose atla opinions i fully agree with considers themself a sokka stan, so.)

katara stans: people who (incorrectly) believe that claiming that katara was always responsible, rational, and considerate is a good way of engaging with her character. momtara truthers. zutara shippers who believe that shipping katara with zuko is somehow liberatory for her. also probably think that katara is bi (which isn't inherently bad like the other things, but it is annoying 2 me, and sometimes people talk about katara being bi in ways that set of sirens in my brain.)

zuko stans: “aang critical” people. do i even need to say more. actually i will say more. some of these people's stellar (/s) takes include that: katara should've ended up with zuko because zuko is better than aang; aang was weak/selfish/immature for not wanting to kill ozai; aang was given a deus ex machina solution (because the writers loved him too much to have him grow as a character); in the southern raiders, aang was being immature and trying to force his beliefs onto katara. and more!

suki stans: ok there are two subcategories here. first is people (who usually ship zukka) who “stan” suki by reducing her to a badass amazing bi girl with very little depth, who has a girlfriend with similar amounts of depth. the second is people who are actually interested in exploring and expanding upon suki's character, who usually are actually invested in sukka (as opposed to how everyone else recognizes that sukka is a good ship but don't really care about it). that second group is cool. i am not one of them but they're great.

toph stans: do toph stans....... exist??

aang stans: ok aang stans are honestly the most fascinating group of people in all of atla fandom because they often have very interesting and insightful takes on aang (if i see a good aang take on my dash that wasn't written by someone i follow, 9 times out of 10 it was written by an aang stan) and they generally understand most of the characters (except for sokka they don't understand sokka at all, which makes sense because these people are so invested in aang as the thematic lead of the show that they think that the fact that sokka's philosophy on... basically everything contradicts aang's philosophy means that sokka is wrong, which. in reality, sokka and aang are both correct in different ways. anyway.), but then they'll also say absolutely batshit things like that the more people you ship aang with, even if these people are far too old for him or entirely romantically incompatible with him, the more you love aang. it just baffles me how people say with their whole chests that the 12-year-old and the 16-year-old should kiss. also they (from what i've seen, and also i think this is mostly a reaction to the aforementioned zuko stans) will defend every single writing choice made in atla. i mean, i think atla is a very well-written show but... it does have flaws..... which brings me to:

jet stans: ok like. jet stans have their hearts in the right place. they often have very good ideas. they're rarely, if ever, overtly racist or misogynistic (which is unfortunately more than can be said for most of atla fandom). they care a lot about being critical of atla, which of course is good, except that these (mostly teenagers, not adults tbf) often seem to think that “be critical of the media you consume” means “nitpick and try to find flaws that don't exist, largely for the sake of woke points,” when it really means “critically engage with the text,” something that many of them don't really do. i tend to see well-intentioned but ultimately pretty myopic takes coming from jet stans.

azula stans: where to start.... azula stans usually misunderstand azula's character (in that like... they idealize her in a way that is so contradictory to the themes of her arc. for example, when they say that she's a more powerful firebender than zuko, they're sort of right, but the way that they act as if being a better firebender has moral value is. pretty much exactly the reason why azula had a breakdown lol), minimize her contributions to the fire nation's imperialism (we all remember the pacifist azula essay, and also the way that they often act as if being abused excuses her from responsibility as if ozai turning his daughter into a weapon wasn't itself a form of abuse), misunderstand ty lee's character (by which i mean. the entirety of “tyzula”), act like the concept of “deserving a redemption arc” is a coherent analytical framework (it isn't), refuse to see nuance in ursa, start sentences with “unpopular opinion” (even if the opinion isn't unpopular... like it gets on my nerves more than it should when i see posts like “unpopular opinion: azula wasn't a heartless monster” or “unpopular opinion: zuko was a shitty brother” like... yeah... most people agree with you there....), and misunderstand zuko and azula's relationship (i've literally seen takes about how azula kept trying to mend their relationship and was kind to zuko in ways that he never was to her.... lol. i mean not that zuko was a good brother but. they were both shitty.)

ty lee stans: uhh i don't really see many ty lee stans but if you actually understand ty lee's character i am very likely to trust your opinions on atla in general.

mai stans: people who would make maiko amvs set to mitski's “me and my husband,” because they ship maiko. unfortunately. yes i have in fact seen at least one m&mh maiko edit made in support of maiko. tiktok is a dark place. to be clear, mai stans do actually care about mai, and, unlike most atla fans, understand that mai is an extremely nice & kind person but... they do not show their love for her in good ways. imo.

and again, don't reblog this. as always, good faith criticism is welcome. love and light to you all <3

[mggssocks]

Followed

Not My Gif!

Pairing: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid

Content Warnings: None just fluff :)

Summary: Spencer makes an Instagram and stumbles across reader’s page.

Word Count: 1,899 words

A/N: This is Season 10 Spencer with Season 13 looks. Also, instead of it being Kate on the team, i put Emily instead because who doesn’t love the season 3-7 team? Also I might make a part 2 depending on how much this blows up. Honestly i’d be happy if i got one like. Anyways.. hope you enjoy!!!

masterlist // part 2 // part 3

It was 8:00 in the morning. Spencer walked in the doors of the bullpen to the bau. He sat his satchel down and began to settle in for a long day of work. It was pretty early so the team wasn’t in yet. Except for Aaron Hotchner who had gotten in an hour prior to Spencer and been in his office ever since. Apparently others had the same ‘get to work early’ mindset as Spencer. Spencer opened a case file but his attention was quickly whipped away due to the sound of the door opening. He sees Penelope Garcia with all her attention focused on her phone. Spencer quirked his eyebrows when she bumped into a fellow coworker and her attention remained on her phone while quickly mumbling a quick “sorry”. As she passed his desk, Spencer decided it would be the great time to speak. 

“Hey, Garcia.” Her feet came to a stop and her head snapped up at him. 

“Boy wonder! I’m so glad you’re here. I really need someone to talk to because if I don’t I’m going to explode!” She sits in the chair across from his desk. 

“Is everything alright?” He leaned back in his chair. 

“No… no everything is not alright. If anything.. everything is all wrong. Very very wrong. I-“ she takes in a deep breath “I was stalking Kevin’s page because the other day I seen him at the mall with another girl. And while I was 56 weeks down in his page, I accidentally liked a picture.” She explained, in a huff. 

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.” Spencer was even more confused now than before she started. 

“I liked a picture that he posted 56 weeks ago!” Her eyes were wide.

“How is that a bad thing?” His lips pouted as he’d never understand social media. 

“Ugh! Reid, you really need to get with the program and get you an Instagram. That means his picture was old and now he knows that I was looking at his page. You understand now?” She asked. 

“Oh. Yeah I understand. It’s bad that he knows you were looking at his page.” He asked as Prentiss, JJ, and Morgan had walked in. 

“Yes. And now I must go into the bat cave and wait for him to call or text me and ask what me lurking on his page was about.” She whined as she stomped her way to her office. 

“What was that about?” Prentiss asked, setting her bags down on her desk. 

“Uhh- rough morning” Spencer shrugged, still not really understanding the whole social media thing. 

“Hey do you guys have an Instagram?” He asked the three. 

“Yeah but I’m barely on it.” Prentiss answered.

“Same here” says Morgan as he takes a seat at his desk. 

“Yeah but I only get on to post the boys and myself sometimes” answers JJ. 

“What about Hotch and Rossi?” He asked.

“Yup! Rossi likes to post about his expensive wine and cigars. Hotch posts Jack every once in a while and a throwback Thursday.” JJ says. 

Spencer’s eyebrows furrowed for what seems to be the 100th time that day. 

“He doesn’t know what that is” Prentiss looks over to JJ.

“It’s something you post like an old picture of yourself every Thursday.” Morgan explains.

“Do you guys do that?” Spencer asked.

“I did last Thursday.” JJ pulls out her phone and opened the app. “This was right after Emily, Penelope, and I caught a guy who was trying to pick up Prentiss by pretending to be an FBI agent a few years ago.” She chuckled showing him a picture. 

Spencer takes her phone in his hand and examines the post. 142 likes. 57 comments. He clicks on her name which takes it to her page. 302 followers. As he scrolls, he sees a picture the team took a while ago and sees a little person profile thing the corner and clicks on it causing other names tagged to each individual team member. Except him. After he examined all of their profiles, he gives JJ back her phone and gets to work like the rest of them. He felt a little left out but he knew it was because of his own decisions and not his team. He liked that they didn’t press him about having a social media because they new he was more old school than anything. And it was ironic because he wastage youngest member of the team with the more old school habits. 

When Spencer got home he decided he wanted the social media app. The idea of being able to share with his friends and only his friends excited him. Being able to post about his favorite things for his friends to see without talking their ears off.

He opened his phone and went to the app store, typing “instagram” into the search bar. He followed the sites instructions as he made his account. Using a snapshot he took of his bookshelf as his profile picture. He sees the option to add the people in his contact list which was only his team, mom, and his mother’s caretaker. But everyone’s profile popped up and he quickly followed each and every one of them. Except for his mom and her caretaker of course. 

Soon enough, he got a follow back from Garcia, Hotch, Rossi, and JJ in that order. Morgan and Prentiss weren’t lying when they said they weren’t on often.

After two weeks, Spencer hasn’t posted anything yet, not knowing what should go on his profile. Morgan and Prentiss ended up following him back and the app ended up adjusting to his interests. Nothing but accounts about interesting facts, books, and doctor who. 

It was Friday night and the team had just got back from a case in Chicago. Spencer opened the door to his apartment and set his satchel down on the couch, exhausted. His mind wonders to get something to eat being that he wonders to get something to eat being that he hasn’t ate since before they caught the unsub. Which was about 5 hours and 7 minutes ago but he still needed to get something into his system. Spencer opened his fridge and sees 3 day old Chinese takeout. He shrugs and pops it into the microwave while looking for a book of his to reread while he eats. After he finishes dinner, he gets on his phone and subconsciously pulls up the app. He clicks onto his explore page to discover something else he likes. While scrolling, he sees a picture of someone reading and clicks on it.

765 likes

Yourfriend’sig whenever people ask me what to give you for your birthday or Christmas, I always tell them to get you a book or something green and it works every single time. Happy Birthday to my best buddy, @yourinstagram !

View all 84 comments

Spencer smiles and clicks the heart button and bookmarks it to look at later.  He liked the picture. Both the picture and caption reminded him a lot of his own love for books and the color green (hence his apartment). 

Once he got out of the shower, he brushed his teeth. He found himself subconsciously scrolling through his instagram bookmarks to find her post. He doesn’t know what it was but something about the picture brought comfort to him. As he brushed his teeth, he clicked on the post once again.This time, he actually clicked on your account. It was a private account with 186 followers. The bio read:

Y/N... bookworm.

Her profile picture consisted of a black cat surrounded by either a bunch of well taken care of plants or artificial ones. His finger hovered over the blue “follow” button. As he bent down to spit his toothpaste out, his thumb accidentally clicked the follow button. But he didn't realize so until he looked down again to see the “follow” button replaced with “requested”. His heart basically drops out of his ass. He quickly clicks the button again, taking back his follow. 

It was now one in the morning, Spencer laid in bed awake staring at his ceiling. Once again, he clicks onto the app. He scrolled down his timeline and saw a picture Penelope posted of one of her new desk animals with the caption “Got her at a thrift shop! Isn’t she cute??”. He saw that Hotch and JJ liked 45 other people. JJ also commented with two red hearts. Spencer likes the post and keeps scrolling. His thoughts wander to the post about the girl again. He’s never thought about a social media post this much since he’s created an account. He wonders what sparked his interest so much about this one. As he makes his way to the post, clicking on her account. Debating if he should follow her. She’s a total stranger. Do the others follow strangers? There’s no way JJ knows 302 people in real life. He mentally shrugs and presses the follow button. Requested. Again.

He swipes out of her account back onto the post now seeing that she commented on it.

yourinstagram thank you, bubs! ily to the moon n back <3333

It was commented thirty six seconds ago. Meaning she’s currently active. Again, Spencer’s heart sinks and he immediately regrets his decision. Going back and unfollowing her. He doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s a mess. Over a stranger. But he feels like an idiot. Reacting the way that he did just because he saw that she was online. So he goes and follows her.... again.

After clearing out all of his apps, he turns off his phone and lays down trying to get some sleep before work in a few hours. His thoughts wander to her. What she was like. if she was nice or mean. If she was socially awkward or very outgoing. Before his thoughts could get too far into what she was like, he receives a notification from instagram. He opens his phone and clicks on the notification. His heart began to pound when he saw it.

yourinstagram would like to send you a message! 

He clicks on it.

yourinstagram You’ve followed and unfollowed me about 5 times in the past 3 hours. Is there something I can help you with?

Spencer completely forgot that other people got notifications and now he felt like some kind of creep.

spencerreid I’m sorry. I came across your friend’s Instagram post wishing you a happy birthday and i guess i got curious and wanted to follow you if that makes any sense. 

He felt so dumb. 

yourinstagram and following me once wasn’t enough for some reason???

spencerreid Sorry about that. I’m new to this whole social media thing and don’t follow any strangers. You are the first person I’m following that I don’t know in real life. Again, my apologies for the disturbance. I’ll unfollow you’re account If you’re uncomfortable with me. 

yourinstagram i just hope that you’re not one of my raging exes, someone trying to catfish me, or a psychopath lol.

Spencer smiled.

spencerreid Nope. Just me.

She leaves him one read. Spencer’s smile fades when he doesn’t see any three loading dots. She wasn’t texting him back. As he’s about to exit the app, he sees two notifications. 

yourinstagram has accepted your follow request!

yourinstagram has requested to follow you.

********

I hoped you like this!!! If this blows up,i will do another chapter!

[anarcho-smarmyism]

How would prison abolition deal with murderers, serial killers, paedophiles, torturers,kkk members,neo-Nazis and terrorists? Some people are a legit danger and cannot be allowed to roam society.

So I didn’t answer this at the time, because the anon who sent it is almost definitely the racist troll sending me shit I’m not going to publish (so like uhhh bear that in mind lmao), but I’ve blocked them now and it’s been a few days, so hopefully they’ve fucked off by now. Plus, I’ve been thinking about this question a LOT since before I received it. It’s a question that I think most people have about the concept of prison abolition and reparative justice, and not everyone with these concerns is asking in bad faith. Besides which, with the recent attempted coup and the way it looks like people who participated are actually going to face legal consequences for it (which alone was somewhat surprising to me tbh), I’ve been seeing a lot of leftists discoursing over whether it’s morally okay and intellectually consistent to be happy about cops beating up, killing, and arresting KKK members and Neo-Nazis, so it is now actually topical! Under the cut due to long response~

So the first thing I want to point out, is that literally every single one of the groups of “legit dangers who cannot be allowed to roam society”, are already out there right now. In our current “justice” system, it’s common knowledge that monsters often get off on a technicality, or because they just have the money to throw lawyer after lawyer at the charges, or because they outright bribe someone, or countless other ways to get around the law. You can look on my own literal tumblr blog and watch me argue with grown ass adults who will bold faced admit to consuming child porn with half-assed excuses, and you’ll find more open pedophiles on sites like twitter, reddit, or 4chan, or porn sites where “teen” is usually one of the most popular categories. Besides which, have you ever looked at the average sentences for convicted rapists, wife beaters, or pedophiles, as compared with the sentences for getting caught selling drugs? In middle school I had to walk a mile or two to get to school through a neighborhood we’d been warned had a convicted pedophile in it, who had just been released after less than 15 years. In that same city, I heard a story about a woman shooting and killing her rapist, and prosecutors were discussing giving her the death penalty for it (she was bragging and laughing about it on video, it was definitely premeditated, but still). Have you ever looked at the statistics of how many rapists and abusers aren’t reported, or if they are reported aren’t prosecuted, or if they are are prosecuted with a slap on the wrist (remember Brock Turner????) Also I notice how you didn’t even mention domestic abusers or rapists in your list of people who need to be locked up lolololol shows where your priorities vis a vis “public safety are I’m sorry, but the system just does not work the way you think it does, the we are taught it does.

People who make this argument always act like the systems we have now are efficient and nigh on flawless when it comes to “not letting dangerous people roam society”, but it isn’t and it can’t be and it never will be. That very fact ought to be enough to shake your faith in the idea that society will become a nonstop Purge of indiscriminate violence if everyone who’s committed a sufficiently despicable act of violence isn’t locked up for the rest of their lives -but you might say, “okay, but those are flukes, the system still works because most of the people who are “a danger to society” are usually locked up.” I’m not completely sold that that’s even true (have you ever heard of the opportunities cops had to bring in serial killers and murderers, who just didn’t care enough to try? Jeffrey Dahmer is a good example of this), but I’ll assume it is to move on to my next point.

Even if we assumed that the system as we have it, worked flawlessly as designed, that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of the categories mentioned here are people that are actively running the very systems that this rhetoric is defending. It’s well-documented that American white supremacists of various stripes have infiltrated law enforcement and the military for the express purpose of not just “roaming free”, but getting to exert the power of the State over people of color. Cops and soldiers kill people all the time, and not only are they not penalized, they’re celebrated for it. Agents of the State fucking torture people all the time, and I don’t just mean Guantanamo Bay or war crimes by soldiers; cops have been caught on camera spraying protesters with pepper spray and beating them once they’ve already been handcuffed or while they’re chained to trees or whatever -not because they think they “need” to, because they want to, and they know they’ll get away with it. Cops also systematically torture people in prison with solitary confinement. Heads of state drop bombs on civilians for “politically motivated reasons”, they do all kinds of shit that would be called “terrorism” if anybody but a State did it; and people might disapprove, but they don’t (generally) claim that the politicians and generals who made that call are “a danger to society” that need to get life in prison. If you genuinely believe that whether these acts of violence are “legal” or not changes whether they’re okay, or that a person who engages in illegal violence is “dangerous” but people who engage in legal violence aren’t... I’m honestly not even going to try to refute that here lol, prison abolition is level 5 shit and you’re at level -1, study how authoritarianism in general works before trying to understand prison abolition (not trying to be a dick here, it’s what i would tell my younger self when I believed the same thing). 

It simply does not hold up to rational scrutiny to believe that society will collapse into an orgy of violence and mayhem if we abolish prison (or that we’ll have to resort to medieval punishments instead??? lol funny take i remember from some racist troll or other over the years), when those dangers are already present (and in some cases widely celebrated as “heroes” and given the power to indiscriminately brutalize “acceptable targets” with the State’s monopoly on violence) under the current system.

The next thing people need to understand is that contrary to popular belief and despite how counterintuitive it sounds, even the brutality of our current prison system is not an effective deterrent to crime (linked a Guardian article that looks like it has some good info on this, but I recommend a book called Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice by Adam Benforado for more information). Let me say that again: the threat of prison has been empirically shown to be INEFFECTIVE as a deterrent to crime. Do you really think that a serial killer or someone who wants to blow up a building full of people is going to be more likely to follow the law for fear of prison, than regular people doing regular people crimes like selling drugs or getting into drunk fights that go too far? 

I don’t think anyone is actually willing to argue that prison “rehabilitates” anyone, or does anything besides make regular criminals into angrier, more antisocial, more desperate criminals with more criminal connections and less options for any kind of a legitimate living, so I’m just going to point out that having such a large prison population arguably creates more people who have shitty lives of poverty and are surrounded by people who are in and out of prison. It’s not like that “makes” anybody into a serial killer, but I feel like you’d have to willfully ignorant to act like it’s not a factor in increasing violent crime in affected community.

So, I’ve so far argued that prison is an ineffective solution to the problems it claims to exist in order to solve, and that in many cases, it actually makes the problems that lead to these sorts of dangerous people (”regular” murderers and the radicalization of Neo-Nazis and KKK members in particular, I think) becoming dangerous, or at least more dangerous, in the first place. What I haven’t done, is talk about what I believe is the real core of the issue when it comes to prison abolition: nobody wants to fucking peacefully rehabilitate these people. I am arguing for a system that would handle these people basically as gently as possible, with the goal of releasing them back into society eventually, and I still believe these things mostly intellectually, not emotionally. I don’t want the men who sexually assaulted me and/or my loved ones to get off scot free (they did, of course, but that’s beside the point), much less serial killers or Nazis, and I’m not about to get on my high horse about wanting revenge on people who’ve committed these kinds of atrocities. The reason I’m a prison abolitionist in spite of these feelings is that I do not believe the desire for revenge, for punishment for punishment’s own sake, is an impulse we should indulge when creating social and political infrastructures that have ultimate power over millions of lives. In the words of someone talking about abolishing the death penalty, the question isn’t “do they deserve to die”, the question is “do we deserve to kill”; and here, the question is not “does anyone deserve to be imprisoned in this system”, the question is “do we deserve to brutalize people in this way for virtually zero practical benefits to our society”. What any person “deserves” is a subjective moral and philosophical question, one that no conceivable human justice system could ever actually answer. We as a society need to build alternatives to prison (and police!) that can actually address these problems, actually prevent the conditions that create and enable monsters, and actually rehabilitate (to whatever extent that is possible) criminals -even the ones we, personally, despise. Any long-term incarceration that may end up being 100% required should be designed to reduce the suffering of the person in it, no matter how despicable of a person they are. Trying to solve “the problem of evil” instead of trying to create a more functional and just society is a fool’s errand that can only lead to more evil existing, in the end.

At the end of the day, the “irredeemable” people you listed off as justifications for the continuing existence of prison, are only a tiny fraction of the people in prison, even the ones with life sentences. A full understanding of the horror and oppression the prison industrial complex enacts on the people in it and their communities (and how the system is designed to make a profit off of human suffering and death) is something you’ll have to read some actual books about in order to acquire. However, I don’t think it’s controversial to say that any horror we as a society deem “acceptable” to do to the worst of the worst, will also be done to regular criminals, as well as to innocent people who are wrongly imprisoned. Any brutality you design with a serial killer in mind WILL eventually be a punishment for a petty thief or drug dealer or sex worker, or a person who didn’t commit the crime they were incarcerated for. Is it really worth it? Is it really, really worth all the misery and oppression prison causes, to satiate our sense of justice? I don’t believe that it is. I believe that we have a responsibility both to the incarcerated and to their communities to base our policies and institutions on actually solving these societal problems however we can, and leaving our “eye for an eye” mentality in the dark ages where it belongs.

If you are interested in prison abolition as a concept, I can recommend some good books on it. You also need to understand that concept of “reparative justice”, which I’ve alluded to here but not really explained because OH MY GOD THIS POST IS TOO LONG ALREADY. Short explanation of it is that it aims to repair the harm done by the crime and rehabilitate the criminal through through therapy and trying to get them to actually understand what they’ve done and empathize with who they’ve hurt, while also providing therapy and resources to the victim of the crime (when it’s something violent and the reparation can’t just be “give them their money back plus extra for damages” or something). The point is not to satiate anybody’s sense of justice or revenge, but to proactively try to solve the problem the crime has caused and prevent the offender from doing it again. It would need to work in conjunction with the abolition of police (and replacement with better infrastructure for the few things cops do that we actually need done) and various other social programs and measures to prevent the circumstances that lead to crime. This sounds like a long shot because it is, but just because it hasn’t been done on a wide scale before doesn’t mean it can’t be, and just because it will be difficult doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.

[animationadventures]

Yesterday’s Lie was everything we hoped it would be!

Luz found her way back to the human realm, but not completely. She was able to see into it and talk to people, but she could not touch anything. To be fair, it was her and the house’s first attempt at building a portal door. I noticed that she tore off the thumb of Amity’s glove, so maybe that means they have four more chances to perfect the door and let her clear things up with her mom?

Once again, the show managed to surprise me. I thought that Creepy Luz was going to be some horrifying creature that Luz and Camila would have to confront together while clearing the air of where Luz has been the whole time and what she has been doing instead of attending camp. Creepy Luz is actually a greater basilisk- love the continuity reaching so far back to The First Day by the way- and she is a scared child looking for a safe haven from the Emperor’s Coven. I’ll admit that I did not recognize Michaela Dietz’s voice, my first impression was that they got the voice of Applejack and Rainbow Dash from MLP, Ashleigh Ball, to the voice instead, but I have since been corrected.

Through Luz and Vee’s, the greater basilisk’s name is Vee, trip around town to find magic for Vee to consume so she can continue masquerading as Luz, we got a greater glimpse at Luz’s home life. Her hometown is Gravesfield- how appropriate for a show exploring the demon realm and the horror genre- and Phillip Wittebane appears to have had a brother based on the town history, which raises a whole bunch of new questions regarding Belos and Hunter. Vee made friends at camp, and they seem to still enjoy their oddball hobbies like fortune telling, so maybe the camp would not have been so bad for Luz after all.

As it turns out, Camila is a veterinarian instead of a doctor or a nurse, which honestly makes a lot of sense since Luz probably brought a lot of wild animals like those snakes from the first episode home. She also came back and drove Vee, who had switched with Luz, to camp instead of having her wait for the bus.

Eda has made her mark in the human realm as a local legend, such as getting banned from a coffee shop for trying to buy stuff with a raccoon, and she made an impression on the villain of the episode, a local historian turned conspiracy theorist. I can’t believe they made a nod to the fan theory she was Stan from Gravity Falls’ ex-wife Marilyn, like they keep teasing us. She probably has a bunch of magic stuff scattered around that Vee and Camila will have to find to maintain Vee’s transformation.

Then we have the ending of the episode, which is a bittersweet note to finish the first half of the season on. Camila came to Vee’s rescue from the conspiracy nut and accepted her into her home, learned where Luz has been, and made Luz promise to stay in the human realm when she finally gets back. Luz is so happy and thriving in the demon realm, so for her to make that promise is a twist to the gut. Hopefully in time, Camila will see the support network Luz has now and release her from the promise like Amity did in Covention upon learning Luz could do magic in her own way.

Owl House is an amazing story. It has a cast of memorable, distinct characters; it has a creatively designed world with an equally inspired magic system. The show does everything exactly it’s supposed to- make you laugh, cry, and experience the whole spectrum of emotions. Not a lot of animated shows do that anymore, it’s all about cheap laughs from toilet humor and dumbing down the script so toddlers can understand what is going on.

Danny Phantom ended before it could reach its natural conclusion, and finished in a rushed mess. DuckTales ended before it could reach its natural conclusion, and finished with a sloppy finale and lots of hanging plot threads. Just two days ago, it came out that there were plans for a season 4 despite previous claims of intentions to finish with season 3. Infinity Train is currently in an unknown limbo, and could potentially end with Book 4 before reaching its natural conclusion with so many mysteries about how the train works still unanswered.

I refuse to let The Owl House suffer the same fate. You can help by sending letters, not emails, to Disney asking them for a full season four! It’s too late to extend season three, but there’s still a chance for more after that! Here’s the address:

DisneyTVA

811 Sonora Avenue

Glendale, CA

91201, USA

The USA part is only for international fans, so if you live in the States, you don’t need that part for the address. When writing your letter, remember to be polite and not accusatory or rude, because they will perceive anything sounding accusatory or rude as hate mail and throw it out without consideration. Also make sure to watch The Owl House on Disney + if you have it because they are watching the viewership numbers on there too.

Additionally, Rebecca Rose on Youtube has found some more specific addresses that might help make the push. These might be executives that have power over what gets renewed and what doesn’t. Write to them, tell them how much The Owl House means to you and what you like about it, but DO NOT accuse them of canceling the show and DO NOT be rude. Here’s the addresses she included in a video description about an The Owl House trend party:

Gary Marsh

811 Sonora Ave

Glendale, CA

91201

OR

Peter Rice

ABC Riverside Building, 2300 W Riverside Dr

Burbank, CA

91506

On Twitter and other sites, make sure to use #MoreTheOwlHouse in your tweets and other posts. There’s a trend party going on today to bring The Owl House to people’s attention and that we want more of it.

Looking forward to the second half of the season after the hiatus. Hopefully, it will not be as long as the wait between season one and season two was. Until next time!

Go Hexside!

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

OC-tober Day 2: Glass

OC-tober prompts put together by @oc-growth-and-development​! I have to ramble in meta instead of write, because my brain is Mush lately. (I know I’m behind but I have a lot pre-written, I just need to put it into coherent words!)

This one especially can be rambled about at length, because the most important “glass” object in my stories is one I greatly enjoy exploring: Dove’s mindscape mirror!

^ I drew it forever ago; here’s the deviantArt link if you’d like to see the big version! 

https://www.deviantart.com/ravenshiddensoul/art/Dove-s-Keepsakes-Mirror-and-Box-284227087

It’s largely modeled after a bird stretching its wings upwards, with a handle like a tail and certain details are inlaid with Azarathean gold to better channel its magics.

Now, this is where the rambling begins: The mirror’s backstory, and I’ll be exploring one of my favorite things to develop in all of my stories: Dove’s mindscape!

Dove's mirror isn't one of her most prized possessions, nor super incredibly sentimental, but it IS an object touched with her mother's magic, it has flourishes of Azarathean gold (some of the last pieces to exist), and it's useful for introspection and self-soothing, so it does have some value and importance.

Dove struggled with meditating quite a lot as a child, and there was only so much her mother could do to help. Meditation was pretty important to them as both a means of helping Dove control her powers, and as a staple of Azarathean spirituality. As she so often did, Alerina poked around and asked enough questions around the temple that she was told about Raven's mirror, and she decided to replicate it for Dove. She custom ordered a gold-lined wooden hand mirror, and then cast the spells to connect it to Dove's inner world herself. It took a few tries (it's much harder to connect something to someone else's mind than your own, after all), but she was nothing if not determined to help her daughter, and eventually figured it out.

As for its main purpose: Self-reflection! (If you'll pardon the pun.) Dove uses it to meditate, but where Raven uses hers for centering and compartmentalization, Dove uses it more as a blend of escapism and a focusing aid.

Much like Raven's, Dove's mirror acts as a portal to the depths of her mind, and this is where it gets fun!

The vortex that transports the users is usually white and gold, imbued with the same energies that give Dove her powers, at least on her mother's side. It's noticeably touched with black and red in DDD. (Dove's evil side starts taking over her mind, and thus its energies manifest through the mindscape, and Dove's portal into it, hence: black and red energies instead.) It tends to open up like a light tunnel and almost opens the mental world around the user, rather than dragging them in.

Once inside, one can't expect to navigate the same way as Beast Boy and Cyborg did in "Nevermore". Every mind is different, after all! We saw Raven's mindscape divided nearly into emotional sections with a neutral space between them, and the way through each area was preset and linear. While different parts of Dove's internal world manifest in different "areas", they're not so totally divided and separate, and there's no real "neutral" zone except at the very "center". The scenery changes, but it's more of a gradual transition, and though Dove employs thresholds to mark key areas, they're very much just visual aids.

Dove's mindscape is laid out more like a series of rooms and courtyards in a very (very, very, very) large mansion. The ground is generally of crystal, spires and columns decorate the scenery, and the thresholds are modeled after birds with their wings outspread. (While this seems like a play on Dove's namesake, it's actually based on Azarath's architecture, particularly that of George Perez's Azarath in the 1980's New Teen Titans comics.)

Dove's sky shows various stars and often casts moonlight from an uncertain source, particularly when she's introspecting. The ambient temperature varies amongst the locations, chilly in the regions ruled by fear and sadness, uncomfortably warm near her demon's domain, and comfortable and breezy where her peace and contentment reside.

One could easily get lost in her mindscape if they don't know where they're going. The place can shift and change on a whim.

Where Dove spends her time building that peace and contentment, it's very closely modeled after her mother's memories of Azarath (which is where she learned how to find peace, after all): there's marble and gold everywhere, and the stars twinkle with dozens of colors in the sky.

Where Dove retreats when there are feelings of timidity, her excruciating shyness, her grief and doubt, the world becomes shrouded in thick fog. Broken buildings and pale light litter the grounds.

Where she built her love for reading, for history, for creativity and study and learning, it's arranged as rooms with dark marbled tile and a carpeted path, the floor for dozens of feet on either side littered with piles of books.

Dove's inner happy place is an open field on gently rolling hills, where thoughts take the form of birds and somehow the sky holds both the stars and suns. One might find trees, flowers, abstract forms of cottages, and forts loaded with mugs and cozy cushions. If you wander far enough you'll find very tall stone walls surrounding it, because Dove's mind is such that her happiness is one of the few things she really truly believes she needs to protect from the rest of herself.

And then there are the aspects of herself that she shoves the deepest down, secreted far away from the surface: the anger, the hunger for power, the mean streak. (Yes, believe it or not, Dove does have a mean streak! You just have to work especially hard to bring it out. Or trigger her in just the right ways around sadism, violence, war, or death. It's very much Not Recommended; bringing too much of that mean streak out could mean Dove loses control of her powers, or worse: her demonic aspects.)

Those secret forces aren't so much located in one particular space of her mind as they're hidden in every dark corner, coursing through the underside of all the ground, a tantalizing power running through every part of her, only ever set free enough to use the dangerous powers to her own ends.

Her places for Fear and Curiosity in particular will be explored in the upcoming Missing: Raven rewrite. (As they're the strongest things Dove is feeling in that story, that's going to be what Beast Boy and Cyborg encounter.) I also explored the way these things manifest in DDD, and in that same story Dove will focus on rebuilding Peace in the final chapter.

I can't talk about Dove's mindscape without mentioning the "emoticlones". These fun little guys are called by the fanon term given to Raven's "emotion clones", the separate parts of her that express a specific set of traits based on particular aspects of her personality. I had so much fun playing with their voices and thoughts in Dove's head during DDD, you have no freaking idea! I also copied the concept of them having Colored Cloaks from Teen Titans canon, because honestly it's a quick and easy way to identify them, and the fandom's familiar with this system through Raven.

Which colors mean what was more inspired by details from a really old, now-defunct website called Cartoon Orbit that had separate "online trading cards" for each of Raven's emoticlones! On that site, Raven's were labeled as such, and this is what I based Dove's system on, loosely: - Pink: "Raven Happy" - Red: "Raven Rage" - Orange: "Raven Rude" - Yellow: "Raven Smart" - Green: "Raven Brave" - Brown: "Raven Fear" (I'm pretty sure there was a purple one, but I don't recall what it was called. "Love" maybe? That might be from fanon; this site was running like 15 years ago, and I was like 10 years old, so I hardly thought to pay Super Special Attention to it...)

But I digress. The point is, I adapted that system for the key aspects of Dove's unique personality, and came to understand them as follows:

- Pink: Joy, relief, coziness - Red: Cruelty, impulsivity, anger - Orange: Apathy, indifference, disregard - Yellow: Curiosity, study, intrigue - Green: Courage, determination, activity - Blue: Contentedness, pacifism, spirituality - Purple: Compassion, friendship, romanticism - Gray: Sadness, grief, longing. - Brown: Fear, fear, fear!

But for Dove's mind in particular, it's not only HER experiences and personality that form the world! She's a telepath, and though she holds others' privacy in very, very high regard and tries never to read someone's mind without their permission, her sense of receptive telepathy is ever-present. Echoes, lights, shadows, reflections of others' memories and thoughts might affect the very edges of her mind. It's a constant sense, but it only ever causes very ephemeral changes unless something deeply affects her.

Her mindscape also grows and changes as Dove grows and changes, experiences life, learns to cope, and changes how she handles her own emotions.

Most notably, the internal struggle in DDD tore her mind apart. Initially it was due to a breakdown of certainty and confidence, hastened by guilt and grief, but it soon became a deliberate tactic to wage war on the parts of Dove's mind that were trying to resist the evil; eventually her inner demon began intentionally breaking/corrupting everything it could touch.

By chapter 20, that evil is the only strong and stable thing in Dove's mind. Raven's attack to remove the evil in her took away that stability, and strength, and thus took away what was essentially the last support holding Dove's mind together. As it says in the story: "everything collapsed". Dove's mindscape was utterly destroyed, and only the most basic aspects of her remained.

For awhile, that left Dove unable to remember things clearly, or feel emotions without great pain. Rebuilding it to the point where she was able to talk and feel Mostly Normally again took months of meditation.

When Dove is kidnapped and Leyla has distressing dreams about her mother, she, Srentha, and Raven use the mirror to check on Dove by accessing her mindscape. With her powers stripped away, surrounded by people who mock her, and certain Fauni rituals sickening Dove to her soul, naturally her mind is very different: shadowy forms flitted at the edges of vision, the ground wavered, her discomfort was thick in the air and the constant fear made everything so, so cold. "Shadows" of others' thoughts flashed in and out of existence, and Dove's desperation manifests as fleeting voices on the wind. It's uncomfortable to be in her mind while she's so distressed.

It's also worth mentioning that her mindscape changes again, essentially "growing" the part of her that belongs to Love when she finally lets herself love Srentha, and it expands again when Leyla's born and Dove once more finds depths of love she didn't know she could carry.

[queenlua]

hey, i started following you recently and ur bio says ur a hacker? any tips on where to start? hacking seems like a v cool/fun way to learn more abt coding and cybersecurity/infrastructure and i'd like to explore it but there's so much on the internet and like, i'm not trying to get into anything illegal. thanks!

huh, an interesting question, ty!

i can give more tailored advice if you hit me up on chat with more specifics on your background/interests.

given what you've written here, though, i'll just assume you don't have any immediate professional aspirations (e.g. you just want to learn some things, and you aren't necessarily trying to get A Cyber Security Job TM within the next three months or w/e), and that you don't know much about any specific programming/computering domain yet.

(stuff under cut because long)

first i'd probably just try to pick some interesting problem that you think you can solve with tech. this doesn't need to be a "hacking" project at first; i was just messing around with computers for ages before i did anything involving security/exploitation.

if you don't already know how to program, you should ideally pick a problem you can solve via programming. for instance: i learned a lot back in the 2000s, when play-by-post forum RPGs were in vogue.  see, i'd already been messing around, building my own personal sites, first just with HTML & CSS, and later on with Javascript and PHP.   and i knew the forum software everyone used (InvisionPowerBoard) was written in PHP.  so when one of the admins at my RPG complained that they'd like the ability to set multiple profile pictures, i was like, "hey i'm good at programming, want me to create a mod to do that," and then i just... did. so then they asked me to program more features, and i got all the sexy nerd cred for being Forum Mod Queen, and it was a good time, i learned a lot.

(i also got to be the person who was frantically IMed at 2am because wtf the forum is down and there's an inscrutable error, what do??? basically sysadmining! also, much less sexy! still, i learned a lot!)

the key thing is that it's gotta be a problem that's interesting to you: as much as i love making dorky sites in PHP, half the fun was seeing other people using my stuff, and i think the era of forum-based RPGs has passed. but maybe you can apply some programming talents to something that you are interested in—maybe you want to make a silly Chrome extension to make people laugh, a la Cloud to Butt, or maybe you'd like to make a program that converts pixel art into cross-stitching patterns, maybe you want to just make a cool adventure game on those annoying graphing calculators they make you use in class, or make a script for some online game you play, or make something silly with Arduino (i once made a trash can that rolled toward me when i clapped my hands; it was fun, and way easier than you'd think!), whatever.

i know a lot of hacker-types who got their start doing ROM hacking for video games—replacing the character art or animations or whatever in old NES games. that's probably more relevant than the PHP websites, at least, and is probably a solid place to get started; in my experience those communities tend to be reasonably friendly to questions. pick a small thing you want to do & ask how to do it.

also, a somewhat unconventional path, but—once i knew how to program a bit of Python, i started doing goofy junk, like, "hey can i implemented NamedTuple from scratch,” which tends to lead to Python metaprogramming, which leads to surprising shit like "oh, stack frames are literally just Python objects and you can manually edit them in the interpreter to do deliberately horrendous/silly things, my god this language allows too much reflection and i'm having too much fun"... since Python is a lot of folks' first language these days, i thought i'd point that out, since i think this is a pretty accessible start to thinking about How Programs Actually Work under the hood. allison kaptur has some specific recommendations on how to poke around, if you wanna go that route.

it's reasonably likely you'll end up doing something "hackery" in the natural course of just working on stuff. for instance, while i was working on the IPB forum software mods, i became distressed to learn that everyone was using an INSECURE version of the software! no one was patching their shit!! i yelled at the admins about it, and they were like "well we haven't been hacked yet so it's not a problem," so i uh, decided to demonstrate a proof of concept? i downloaded some sketchy perl script, kicked it until it worked, logged in as the admins, and shitposted a bit before i logged out, y'know, to prove my point.

(they responded by banning me for two weeks, and did not patch their software. which, y'know, rip to them; they got hacked by an unrelated Turkish group two months later, and those dudes just straight-up deleted the whole website. i was a merciful god by comparison!)

anyway, even though downloading a perl script and just pointing it at a website isn't really "hacking" (it's the literal definition of script kiddie, heh)—the point is i was just experimenting a lot and trying a lot of stuff, which meant i was getting comfortable with thinking of software as not just some immutable relic, but something you can touch and prod in unexpected ways.

this dovetails into the next thing, which is like, just learn a lot of stuff. a boring conventional computer science degree will teach you a lot (provided you take it seriously and actually try to learn shit); alternatively, just taking the same classes as a boring conventional computer science degree, via edX or whatever free online thingy, will also teach you a lot. ("contributing to open source" also teaches you a lot but... hngh... is a whole can of worms; send a follow-up ask if you want that rant.)

here's where i should note that "hacking" is an impossibly broad category: the kind of person who knows how to fuck with website authentication tokens is very different than someone who writes a fuzzer, who is often quite different than someone who looks at the bug a fuzzer produces and actually writes a program that can exploit that bug... so what you focus on depends on what you're interested in. i imagine classes with names like "compilers," "operating systems," and "networking" will teach you a lot. but, like, idk, all knowledge is god-breathed and good for teaching. hell, i hear some universities these days have actual computer security classes? that's probably a good thing to look at, just to get a sense of what's out there, if you already know how to program.

also be comfortable with not knowing everything, but also, learn as you go. the bulk of my security knowledge came when i got kinda airdropped into a work team that basically hired me entirely on "potential" (lmao), and uh, prior to joining i only had the faintest idea what a hypervisor was? or the whole protection ring concept? or ioctls or sandboxing or threat models or, fuck, anything? i mostly just pestered people with like 800 questions and slowly built up a knowledge base, and remember being surprised & delighted when i went to a security conference a year later and could follow most of the talks, and when i wound up at a bar with a guy on the xbox security team and we compared our security models a bunch, and so on.  there wasn't a magic moment when i "got it", i was just like, "okay huh this dude says he found a ring-0 exploit... what does that mean... okay i think i got that... why is that a big deal though... better ask somebody.." (also: reading an occasional dead tree book is a good idea. i owe my firstborn to Robert Love's Linux Kernel Development, as outdated as it is, and also O'Reilly's kookaburra book gave me a great overview of web programming back in the day, etc.  you can learn a lot by just clicking around random blogs, but you’ll often end up with a lot of random little facts and no good mental scaffolding for holding it together; often, a decent book will give you that scaffolding.)

(also, it's pretty useful if you can find a knowledgable someone to pepper with random questions as you go. finding someone who will actively mentor you is tricky, but most working computery folks are happy to tell you things like "what you're doing is actually impossible, here's why," or "here's a tutorial someone told me was good for learning how to write a linux kernel module," or "here's my vague understanding of this concept you know nothing about," or "here's how you automate something to click on a link on a webpage," which tends to be handier than just google on its own.)

if you're reading this and you're like "ok cool but where's the part where i'm handed a computer and i gotta break in while going all hacker typer”—that's not the bulk of the work, alas! like, for sure, we do have fun pranking each other by trying dumb ways of stealing each other's passwords or whatever (once i stuck a keylogger in a dude's keyboard, fun times). but a lot of my security jobs have involved stuff like, "stare at this disassembly a long fuckin' time to figure out how the program pointer got all fucked up," or, "write a fuzzer that feeds a lot of randomized input to some C++ program, watch the program crash because C++ is a horrible language for writing software, go fix all the bugs," or "think Really Hard TM about all the settings and doohickeys this OS/GPU/whatever has, think about all the awful things someone could do with it, threat model and sandbox accordingly." occasionally i have done cool proof-of-concept hacks but honestly writing exploits can kinda be tedious, lol, so like, i'm only doing that if it's the only way i can get people to believe that Yes This Is Actually A Problem, Fix Your Code

"lua that's cool and all but i wanted, like, actual links and recommendations and stuff" okay, fair. here's some ideas:

microcorruption: very fun embedded security CTF; teaches you everything you need to know as you're doing it.

cryptopals crypto challenges: very fun little programming exercises that teach you a lot of fundamental cryptography concepts as you're going along! you can do these even as a bit of a n00b; i did them in Python for the lulz

the binary bomb lab is hilariously copied by, like, so many CS programs, lol, but for good reason. it's accessible and fun and is the first time most people get to feel like a real hacker! (requires you know a bit of C beforehand)

ctftime is a good way to see when new CTFs ("capture the flag"s; security-focused competitions) are coming up. or, sometimes CTFs post their source code, so you can continue trying them after the CTF is over. i liked Stripe's CTFs when they were going, because they focused on "web stuff", and "web stuff" was all i really knew at the time. if you're more interested in staring at disassembly, there's CTFs focused on that sort of thing too.

azeria has good ARM assembly & exploitation tutorials

also, like, lots of good talks out there; just watching defcon/cansecwest/etc talks until something piques your interest is very fun. i'd die on a battlefield for any of Christopher Domas's talks, but he assumes a lot of specific x86/OS knowledge, lol, so maybe don’t start with that. oh, Julia Evans's blog is honestly probably pretty good for just learning a lot of stuff and really beginner-friendly?

oh and wrt legality... idk, i haven't addressed it here since it hasn't come up in my own work much, tbh. if you're just getting started you're kind of unlikely to Break The Law without, y'know, realizing maybe you're doing something a bit gray-area? and you can cross that bridge when you come to it? Real Hacking TM is way more of a pain-in-the-ass than doing CTFs and such, and you'll learn way more with the latter, so who cares lol just do the fun thing

[idk-my-aesthetic]

Ok the whole thing w/ clogging up ao3 tags is stupid for multiple reasons, like how it fucks with screen readers for one, but the MAJOR issue is that having too many tags isn’t actually a problem w/ ao3

Like seriously guys? There is a lot to criticize. And I say this as someone who heavily relied on fandom spaces to get me through some really really hard times and still loves ao3. I can say I love what it does for fandom while also acknowledging there’s some seriously fucked up shit going on both behind the scenes and with ppl who use the site. It’s literally like saying “I love tumblr but I acknowledge there are literal nazis on here and as a Jew/human with a working brain I hate them and that they’ve been here so long”

Like. I get u think ur sticking it to the man or whatever. And idk I partially agree bc. There’s so much nasty shit and some technically illegal shit that I don’t want to even mention! But ur not even wasting the moderators time or anything ur just being obnoxious and then everyone starts discoursing on tumblr and I’m legitimately tired of it. I don’t wanna see ppl defending gross stuff and I’m tired of talking about the ppl who do defend gross stuff bc I don’t wanna remember that they exist bc I have shit to do irl and not enough space in my brain for them

So. Idk ima propose at least a temporary solution before I have to hear one more argument for or against censorship bc y’all seriously don’t understand how to have a nuanced conversation

How about instead of asking AO3 to take down gross fics (which may or may not be morally correct but will 100% reopen a very over done conversation) instead we ask for some specific plausible things

1) when you use ao3 explicit and unrated fics are automatically filtered out. They do this on ff.net. Yes it may be like 2 extra clicks for ppl who wanna read explicit stuff but ppl who don’t are going to do that anyway, and it protects the people who don’t know to do that and don’t want to read graphic tags. Most importantly it requires consent to browse explicit fics. Yeah you need to give consent to read explicit stuff, but you can look through the incredibly graphic tags/summaries without consenting to anything. It’s literally the default. Which is both upsetting to ppl who don’t wanna see that and also maybe a bit of a legal loophole they should close up

2) a “suggest tags” feature. This would be moderated by authors not ao3 staff. Basically ppl can like..... idk entire a series of tags and you can choose if you want to add them or not. The person submitting them has an option to be anonymous or not. Obviously the author doesn’t have to add every random tag and it might be annoying but it would help with making sure triggers got tagged. It would be helpful if it didn’t let you suggest tags that were already suggested/on the fic but I’m not too picky. Like I said the point of this is to make sure ppl can block stuff properly, and it honestly might also help authors with visibility bc like. Obviously you know the tags you use but you don’t know what tags other ppl look for. Again maybe it may be obnoxious with ppl having a lot of tags but people already have a lot of tags

3) a dispute rating button. Now before someone bitches at me that the ao3 moderators don’t have time to go through disputes- I know I already took that into consideration. Basically the idea is when you dispute the rating the site will ask you what rating you think it should be and anonymously log it. So if someone rated something M but you think it should be an E the site will log that and send a message to the author. The author has a choice if they actually want to listen to ppl and change the rating or not. They don’t actually have to listen to the ppl disputing the rating. Unless they get a certain amount of disputes. I was thinking maybe like 50 or so?* So if 50 ppl say “hey this really needs to have a different rating” then and only then would the moderators take a look at the fic. And the moderators would then figure out what the rating should be.

(*idk if 50 is the right #. I was thinking it should maybe work on like a percentage of your hits in the fic?)

3.5) have a sexual content marker. This is marked as 3.5 bc i feel like this idea if implemented would be misused. But yeah in theory you could just have a sexual content marker that could be clicked by the OP and then automatically filtered. Again you could use the system from #3 but again I feel like ppl would missuse it.

Anyway yeah. I wanted to give some viable solutions ppl on both sides might actually agree with. Like I get not wanting to make concessions with gross ppl, but it’s a lot faster so I’m ok with doing it for now while the rest of y’all continue to debate or w/e

Final note- please for the love of g-d learn how ratings work. Ask someone else’s opinion if you have too. I have seen so many explicit fics marked as mature or teen it’s a legitimate problem. I’ll give a quick rundown of what each rating means but pls guys

General- g- basically go by what you’d see in a Disney cartoon

Teen- pg/pg 13 - there are swears there’s violence, sex may be mentioned, you might call someone sexy or smthn idc, but no one is shown having sex or or discussing/thinking about it in detail

Mature- R - injuries/gore may be described with more detail. Uhh there could be some heavy making out and the characters might talk about sex or feeling sexually attracted to someone. But actual sex is not shown!! If you have to mention or refer to someone’s genetalia in any sexual way you should probably move it up to an E. Even if ur characters are fully clothed the entire time. Also If you’re talking about kinks outside of a quick joke or reference you should probably move it up to an E.

Explicit- NC 17- sexually explicit content. (You can put non-sexual violent stuff under here but most ppl leave it under mature)

TLDR/oversimplification(for the ratings) -

General: nothing sexual

Teen: implied sex

Mature: refrenced sex

Explicit: shown sex

General tldr:

Some criticisms of Ao3 are valid and needed, and some are just stupid and infuriating (specifically talking about the tag thing stop it’s annoying and ableist). There is constant arguments and drama surrounding those criticisms, and I decided to offer some solutions that actually have a chance at getting implemented, even if I would prefer a different option.

[ofmermaidstories]

Spoilers for the latest chapter of Something!

I'm gonna go ahead and apologize now because this is long; please feel free to ignore my wordy ass, I just have a lot of feelings about a certain someone that showed up in the new chapter lol.

I am still trying to get my shit together enough to write a proper review, but I did want to come yell at you for making the grape boy somewhat likeable, like...

Firstly, how??? Secondly, why?????!?!

Lmao, in all seriousness tho, it's nice to see him have a personality that isn't just "Mmmm, tits" *drools* I like to think that everyone in the series grows up and (mostly) out of the worst of their habits, and while Mineta is still a bit of a lecher here he isn't nearly as offensive/creepy as he comes off in show. In fact he's actually sympathetic in a lot way. The bit about seeing his first dead body before "getting laid" hit different like... He tries to play it off like a joke, but dude has to have just as much PTSD as the rest of them, maybe even more given that he wasn't able to fight back in the same way as someone like Bkg or Deku would be able to with their super powerful offensive quirks. They were all just kids, but they had to face hell full on from jump, and let me stop before I get too in my feelings lol.

In a lot of ways, he reminds of you the boys from school — crude. Taking for granted the safety from being in a pack, unchallenged. Leering at posters, saying off-colour things because no one corrects them.

That's exactly the way I view him, just a crude little thing that refuses to be put in his place for long lol. Still, with his being a hero I would hope that he keeps a cap on it while he's on the job--in fact I'm sure he does; if he didn't I'm sure that Aizawa would've yanked his licence by now, the likes of Deku and Kiri wouldn't continue to associate with him, and that's saying nothing of the shit that would get posted to social mead and such. I feel like the only reason he says what he says to the Reader is b/c she's a little gremlin herself and he knows he's got a bit more leeway, yanno?

The little hangout session that they had at the end of the chapter was weirdly heartwarming?? I want a friend(???) that I can be a surly little shit with and draw on and that will call my bf that's not really my bf but should be my bf because he's (that is Mineta) got more emotional intelligence than me lmao. Never thought I'd see the day when the grape would make for such an excellent wingman--tho I gotta wonder what that text he sent to Deku said. Probably something along the lines of "come get yo girl, she must be bored/lonely af because she asked to hang out with me" followed by "are you ever gonna close the deal or not? or have you already hit it??? >:)" just to give the guy an extra push (or maybe he's got a better sense of self-preservation than what I give him credit for, idk lmfaooo...)

Okay, this is WAY too long, I just had to get it out of my system lol. I loved the new chapter lots and I cannot wait to see how things play out in the next one!!

LOL, oh Puck, i adore you sdlkfjsdlkfjsdlkfj

me being a shit-stirrer/asking myself questions i don’t have answers for under the cut

Cat asked me this question earlier today, actually — why Mineta. And honestly? Part of it is the challenge he represents — like, how do you write him into a fic and mature him up so that he’s at the very least, tolerable, but also keep the backbone of his character (which is being a little degenerate). Like, is it possible? One of the most popular tags on ao3 for mineta minoru is something along the lines of “mineta minoru is replaced with shinsou hitoshi” LOL so…….. why didn’t I just use Shinsou? Or Aoyama or Iida, as Cat suggested? And beyond the part of me that delights in giving myself perceived challenges, there were two stark reasons that stuck out to me, when i was first mulling over his inclusion.

1) the fact that he can draw. it’s literally as simple as that. ever since the BNHA exhibition opened up in Japan and it was revealed that there was a scene in there with a class blackboard and the kids having their little drawing competition — and that Mineta was objectively the most skilled — i was like, “i have to include that”. LOL. it’s like you say, Puck, our Reader is a little gremlin herself — i thought if I was going to write a Reader that could handle interacting with him (ie, be in a position to pay him out) it was going to be this one. I think being in the manga industry and starting out on this journey of creating and drawing a Shonen manga sort of put Reader in this unique position of… being in what seems like a boys’ club? So she’d be used to the male gaze within her field. I follow Horikoshi’s assistant (former assistant?) on twitter and let me tell you, that man is not shy about the things that he likes to draw LOL.

the 2) thing was the philosophy i’ve sort of accidentally given myself LOL and that’s the fact that — as a Bakugou stan, if i’m giving grace to a character who was a literal violent bully then………. i can use my magic powers and hand it around to the other characters, too, LOL. and like, i would argue that with Bakugou it’s different, like we’re currently seeing in the manga how he has grown and learnt and is actively changing, which is the key to any kind of redemption. do i think Mineta will ever undergo that in cannon? absolutely not lmao, i see him as being being Hori’s idea of comedic relief, he’s always going to be a horrible little degen. but i want it for him…… if only to justify why the boys of Class-A collectively ignore his bullshit, for the most part? Like, none of them actively call him out on it?? i think of the time he tried to climb the wall to spy on the girls in the onsen — and how it was literally only Iida scolding him and how it took a child to stop him. Or the one when he found the stupid hole into the girl’s changing room and while the boys all looked grossed out….. Jirou’s the one that point an end to that?????? I saw a TikTok (derogatory) suggesting how like, none of the girls of Class-A would trust Aizawa, as adults, because he didn’t do anything to put an end to Mineta’s bullshit, and it was a devastating suggesting. None of us want to believe that our favourites would be passively okay with this kind of behaviour, right?? Which means……. Mineta’s gotta change LMAO. And if Hori isn’t going to do it then imma borrow him and do it myself. Does it work? I have no idea LMAO i can’t judge anymore, my meter is broken. but i’m gonna work with what i’ve given myself and it either will, or it won’t LMAOOOO kldsfjlksdjflkdj fic is about having fun at the end of the day. :’)

But it’s like you point out, Puck — Mineta is also a child, when these kids get trotted out to their first War. And he’s also not as offensively built as the hard-hitters like Deku and Bakugou and Shouto are. Even if it’s not explored in the manga, that War is going to change them all somehow.

So, my gameplan for Mineta was to grab ahold of the tiny things about him — the talent for drawing, the like one [1] observation he has about the wreckage of the war/pro heroes during the war arc, his tears for Bakugou when B wakes up afterwards and how he tells Deku how cool he was and how much he admires him, in the current Bring Deku Home chapters — and try to envision a sleaze bag who learns that the bullshit he pulls won’t be tolerated, even if he’s still ultimately a skeeze LOL. i mean, he’s never going to drop that er…. appreciation for the female form. and i mean, hey, live your best life King, i’ve distinctly noticed a hand-fetish floating around on this site lately so i’m not gonna be like “NO men can’t like ANYTHING”. But the thing with him being a sleaze and open with his leering is like, he’s actively made the girls of his class uncomfortable with that in the past — how do you write it so that he’s not doing that in a position of power with the women he works with (and saves!), as an adult?? Maturity only goes so far. How much can I bank on the war and the subsequent bullshit they’re gonna face from it on…. transforming him??? It shouldn’t be up to the girls he’s learning with to police him, they’re just children. I have a vague gameplan for it — whether or not it works will be one thing; whether i can naturally shove it into the fic is another, LOL. Guess we’ll see. 🧐

SAYING ALL THAT,,,,, i’m actually really glad you liked (???) the ending scene with him because it’s my favourite LMAO lkdjflkdsjflkdjfkldsjf. 😭😭 Reader is by no means perfect, and she and Mineta both need to start treating each other with more respect, but her bullying of him was fun to write and I like imagining a Mineta who considers himself to be close with Deku (whether or not Deku thinks the same is up for debate) going along with it. i could see this version of Mineta being enough of a shit-stirrer to say something like, “gotta lock that shit down” to Deku LMAO kdfjlkdsjflkdsfjdklsfj and then getting left on a skyscraper somewhere…. RIP short King.

[wickedsingularity]

Can’t Sleep Without You [One-shot]

Fandom: Star Trek Pairings/characters: Jim Kirk x reader (but not really), Leonard McCoy, mention of Spock Words: 2359 Warnings: Use of medication, use of possible addictive medication, insomnia, nightmares, almost graphic description of a disturbing dream

Note: A somewhat self-indulgent story that I posted a little while ago, but had panic about after a few hours and then deleted. It felt too personal, too self-indulgent, amongst other things. I planned on giving it some time, and then rewrite it so it was less personal. I did give it time, but I haven't rewritten it, just edited. And now I'm giving it another go, hoping that I don't panic this time around and telling myself so fucking what if it's self-indulgent. And hopefully people enjoy it because I do like this story.

Summary: Having suffered from insomnia for a long time, Jim is the only thing that manages to calm me enough to function when it gets bad. But Jim is off on a mission...

"You look like something the cat dragged in, Commander."

"Thanks a lot, Doctor." I glared up at Leonard McCoy as he towered over me. Even if I couldn't stand the stuff, I was now on my third cup of coffee of the day. But I was also on my fourth day of barely any sleep, and I was desperate for something to keep me alert.

"Have you had trouble sleeping again?"

I downed the last of the coffee, cringing as the bitter liquid made its way down and sat the cup down on my empty lunch tray. I closed my eyes for a moment and grit my teeth, trying not to snap at the obvious question. "Looks that way."

The doctor sat down at the other side of the table and looked at me with worry, not even phased by my annoyance. "I've seen you getting worse the last few days, Commander. Why haven't you come to see me?"

"What you gave me three days ago made me wake up after four hours with a nightmare from hell. I'm still seeing ghosts in broad daylight."

He pursed his lips. "Please stop by the medbay at 2200 hours. We'll try something else."

I sighed, knowing that there was only one thing that would help, and it was not something our Chief Medical Officer could provide no matter how good he was. But I nodded. "Yes, doc." Then I pulled myself to my feet, grabbed the tray and went to put it back in the replicator for recycling.

For as long as I could remember, I'd had some form of insomnia. It hadn't been a problem when I was younger, I had been more energetic, more durable, not to mention more careless. But as I got older it got worse. Most of the time I managed to keep it under control, but sometimes it took on a life of its own. And when it did that, there was no medication, meditation or treatment that worked better than the captain of the ship, my boyfriend.

There was just something about Jim that calmed my mind like nothing else.

Funnily enough, insomnia was what brought us together. I had been wandering around the ship one night, after several nights of little sleep. Finding myself in the briefing room, I had sat down in the chair reserved for the captain, put my feet up on the table and gazed out at the streaking stars. After a few minutes of silence, the door had slid open and Captain Kirk had walked in. We were already on friendly terms, so I hadn't bothered taking my feet off the table or giving him the chair, even when he made a joke about it being his.

He'd been having trouble sleeping too, claiming his mind was running at warp 5 after an exhausting meeting in that very briefing room earlier in the day. He'd chosen to go back there in the hopes that it would clear his head.

We sat next to each other, him in the First Officer's chair and I kept occupying his, and chatted for a while. All the while we both seemed to gravitate more and more towards each other and I got sleepier at the same time, until I fell asleep with my head on his shoulder. He had gathered me up in his arms and ordered a site to site transport, dropped me off on my bed and pulled a blanket over me, before going back to his quarters, falling asleep as well. After that, our friendship had shifted and things escalated quickly from there.

Now though, he and Spock and several admirals were trying to work out a peace treaty between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. We had dropped them off on a colony near the Neutral Zone and had then gone off to survey a newborn nebula a couple of systems over. We weren't scheduled to go back for them for another two or three days, the trip itself took a whole day. And my body was kind enough to refuse to sleep properly without Jim now, no matter how much in control of the insomnia I was.

I made it through the day somehow, with at least two more disgusting cups of coffee. Thankfully, there was more than enough to do in Engineering that I decided to not leave once my shift was over, it was better to keep working than sitting in my quarters and feeling like I had been in the middle of a warp core breach. As soon as Jim and Spock came back, Starfleet wanted us to check out an uninhabited planet that a passing cargo ship had detected held large deposits of deuterium and our long-range sensors had detected too much atmospheric disturbance for transporting, so we had to adjust the shielding on several shuttlepods. I was barely conscious when I stumbled into the medbay at 2200 hours.

"Not looking any better, I see." Bones appeared out of nowhere and would have scared the daylights out of me if I hadn't been so sluggish.

"Your bedside manners are always so lovely."

He ushered me over to a biobed and pulled a tricorder from one of his pockets.

"There's no need to scan me. We both know what's wrong. Just give me what you think I need and I'll be off." I looked at the tricorder with annoyance.

He didn't answer but started scanning me anyway, so I sat there patiently, closing my tired eyes and listening to the whirring of the device. "It's a wonder they haven't found a cure for this yet, after 200 years of research," he muttered to himself.

I looked up at him and saw him analysing the results. "You've found a cure for some pretty serious viruses on your career, why don't you find the cure for this?" I argued.

"This isn't a virus, sweetheart."

"Still, I'm sure you're brilliant enough to find a solution." Bones always said that flattery would get you nowhere with him, but I found that more often than not, he enjoyed having his ego stroked. He was that good too.

He just huffed and went over to a cabinet. I saw him pull out a vial and fill up a hypospray. "I know you have tried this before and it didn't work so well. But that was a few years ago, it might work better for you now." I nodded and obediently bared my neck to him. One touch of the cold metal to my skin and it was done. "I want you to go straight to bed now. It should work quickly and you have to be in bed when it does."

"Yes, sir."

It did not work. Or, I did sleep through the night, but the dreams had me waking up more exhausted than if I hadn't slept at all. It had been worse than last time, the irrational, weird and disgusting dreams had just come at me, one after the other. I would honestly prefer good old-fashioned nightmares over this. I called Bones as soon as I had showered away the night and he was at my door by the time I had dressed.

"Sit down," he barked, the tricorder out and a deep furrow between his brows. "What happened?"

I told him all about the night, even gave him some snippets of the nasty dreams for emphasis, each one of them still crystal clear and disturbing in my mind. The way he cringed at some of it, told me just how disturbing they had been. It wasn't normal to dream that you're pooping out severed arms, after all. *

"This is very strange," he said after he was done scanning. "Barely any light or deep sleep at all. Dream sleep almost all night. I've heard about a few phenomena that cause a person to not have any dream sleep at all, but not nothing but dream sleep. You're not getting any more of this medication, and I'm making a note in your medical file."

I sighed, trying to think about what I could do to help myself that night. But Bones had suddenly gone very quiet. I looked up at him and there was a deep furrow between his brows, his eyes gazing down at the tricorder, but it looked like he was mentally lightyears away. "What's wrong, doc?"

He didn't react right away, but then he blinked and looked down at me. "There is something we can try, but it can be highly addictive if the dosage is off by even a fraction. Call Scotty and tell him you'll be a bit late. I need to take some blood for analysing."

All through that day, I felt a bit apprehensive about what Bones was planning on giving me later. And I missed Jim so much it ached. This was the worst it had been without him and it was also the longest we had gone without each other since we got together. I missed him because of his absence, of course. But in my sleep-deprived state, it felt a million times worse. It felt like there was a gaping, bleeding hole inside me where he should be. I needed him to calm my mind, to kiss me and tell me it's okay if I can't sleep, that I'll sleep when I'm ready and he would be there with me all the while. I needed him to breathe with me. I needed to feel him. He was able to relax me enough that I could function.

After working well past my shift again and forcing down too many cups of coffee, I forced back tears of exhaustion and desperation and went to the medbay, got the mysterious hypospray and went straight to bed.

Apart from the fact that I woke up every ten to fifteen minutes, this one worked a lot better. In the morning, I felt less like I had been hit with a meteor shower and more like I had just tumbled through a thick atmosphere without a spacesuit. Bones came to check up on me in engineering after lunch and I asked if I could get a higher dosage, hoping that maybe that would finally be what helped me sleep through the night. But he refused, he had given me as much as my body could handle without becoming addicted or suffering other nasty side effects. In defeat, I told him if I couldn't have a higher dosage, I didn't want it at all. Then I started counting the hours until Jim came home, and drank all the coffee I could stomach so I wouldn't feel like a zombie.

I was just starting to doze off. It was probably just an hour or so until my alarm, but I let sleep take me. I would take anything I could get. What felt like just a minute later though, the computer spoke to me.

"The time is 0630 hours. The time is 0630 hours."

"No no no," I moaned in annoyance, screwing my eyes shut to the illumination in the room becoming stronger. But then a pair of lips landed on my cheek.

"Forgot to turn that off," someone said.

I didn't process this right away, but in the back of my head I knew that voice and knew it was important, so I forced myself to open my eyes to the way too bright room. Jim was there next to me and judging by his one barely open eye, he had just woken up too. "Hi..."

My heart was beating wildly in my chest, the room seemed to be spinning a little, my vision getting blurry, but then he smiled with his eyes closed and started to clumsily kiss my cheek and jaw and everything cleared up.

"When did you come home?" I whispered.

Jim didn't answer but kept trying to kiss me, but he was struggling, he too seemed exhausted, not able to aim. "A while. Laid down minutes ago. Tired. Want lips."

I made a happy sound and rolled around to face him. He opened his eyes a fraction, revealing the brilliant blue I loved so much. His lips landed on my nose, then my cheek before finally finding my lips. The gaping aching hole inside me seemed to vanish. I moved closer, pressing my lips and my body to his and everything inside me seemed to settle down, mind was quiet, all tension washed away. When I needed air, I pulled back just enough so I could stare into his eyes and see every little shade of blue in them. "You're home."

"The time is 0635 hours. The time is 0635 hours."

"Home and tired." His breath washed over me when he spoke and I wanted to breathe nothing but him for the rest of my life.

"Ditto. Haven't slept since you left."

"I know, Bones told me. I'm so sorry, Supernova."

"'s okay. Just missed you." My voice broke, and all the frustrations from the past week made a few tears fall. Jim snuck one of his arms around my waist and I moved even closer, burying my face into his neck, breathing in the smell of stars and nebulas and galaxies. "How were the peace talks?" I asked between lazy kisses to the soft skin on the side of his neck.

Jim didn't reply right away. Instead, he kissed my hair, breathing it in for a moment. "Exhausting. I'll tell you all about it later."

"The time is 0640 hours. The time is 0640 hours."

"Have to get up," I mumbled against his skin, but my entire body felt like lead in Jim's arms.

"Computer, turn off the alarm." A gentle beep confirmed it was now turned off. Then Jim pulled back just enough to look into my eyes. "Bones told me to tell you that he has declared you not fit for duty today and that he has ordered bed rest, and if you disobey his orders, he will not hesitate to have you strapped to a biobed with a force field."

I blinked. "But..."

"And your Captain concurs. He recommends you spend the day with him in bed and sleep." He was grinning at me. "He's been flying fancy admirals in a shuttle all night and is in need of some tender loving care from the love of his life."

I knew there were things I had to do in Engineering. It would take time and almost all the Engineering staff to get the shuttlepods ready in time for exploring the deuterium planet. But as I looked into Jim's eyes, I felt exhaustion all the way to my bone marrow, and there was no point arguing with that, or the Captain and the Chief Medical Officer. I teared up with relief and buried my face in Jim's neck again.

Jim settled down on his back and pulled me halfway on top of him. I swallowed down my emotions and rested my head on his shoulder, tangled my legs with his, and laid my arm across his stomach. Peace filled me and I barely had time to mumble love you before I was fast asleep.

Note: * Yes, I have actually dreamed that as a side effect of taking melatonin.

[secretlywritingstories]

It’s a funny thing really. I usually never consider myself addicted to social media if you’d just ask me. But then my tumblr suddenly disappeared (third time it has happened to me) – terminated by some glitch and I have to face the fact that I am dependent on this silly site in a way. 

It’s honestly the only out of any of my social media accounts that hurts to lose. Every other account I feel like I could rebuild very quickly. Instagram and Twitter, I hardly follow anyone anyway and never look at my feed, and only ever look at the accounts that I have notifications on. My Facebook is my oldest and full of very many people I’ve met through my life and it’s neat to have a connection to them all in one place but it could go without hurting me. TikTok and Snapchat too, on the former I follow so many random accounts but usually use the fyp anyway and I have less than ten people I talk to on the latter. (I am not counting AO3 as a social media because that account might be as or more painful to lose as my tumblr). 

I always jokingly but lovingly refer to my tumblr as my little corner of the internet. Over 6 years, I’ve stuffed it full of things I like. Things that fascinate me, things that make me smile, things I find cool, things that I deem important, things that just tickle me in some way. I have a meticulous tagging system that I adore most of the time. I spent so much time building the blog for me – and the people who follow coming along is an added bonus. 

I’ve also got internet friends there, a whole bunch of them collected through the years. Thankfully, I have other ways of contacting most of them by now, but there are still people I talk to only through tumblr. I feel cut off from all of them right now. New videos from my fave people dropped and the itch to go check tumblr for edits from the fandoms was so strong. It’s my little treasured ritual and I love it. 

I am writing this entry right now with the hope that I’ll be back into my account soon and can publish this on my writing tumblr like I always do with these spilled thoughts posts. I’ll come finish it off when I know more. I am making myself wait at least 48 hours before daring to think it could be lost forever and crossing my fingers that support can help me out like they’ve done before. Please. 

Update: It took almost exactly 48 hours to get it back and I may have filled out four contact forms and messaged tumblr support on Twitter as well. It worked though! First, my main blog came back and then my two side blogs (and a handful of saved urls) appeared half a day later. It felt like my little house suddenly reappeared in front of me and the joy of being able to just open the app for a quick scroll or type tumblr to the search bar and be met by the familiar dashboard I’ve spent so many hours on. I do still think that I need to reflect on being perhaps too mentally affected by the loss of a social media account but for now, I will revel in the joy of having it back where it belongs. I am cradling it carefully in my arms for now.

[autismisaokay]

As a fair warning this post is a time where I break my NSFW rule because it has to do about my body and health. So as a warning I will be talking about some heavy stuff.

I wasn’t sure when there was going to be a good time to really bring this up. A while back I brought up that I was doing research on trans man. Lately I’ve also been reblogging some trans support and resources. I just got a question asking if I was trans and the answer is, yes I’m a man. More specifically I’m a trans man.

Honestly this whole process has been just that a process and it’s no where near from being done. I’ve been terrified to bring this up for multiple reasons that I can’t even list all here. I was going to wait until I was on T before I started to really choose. However my insurance won’t pay for my HRT until I have a psych eval and I’ve been living as a man (again without T) for 12 months. An people have really started to pick it up irl and it was only a matter of time until people started to figure it out here.

This hasn’t been fun for me and I had to come out twice in the span of three days to my mother. Who says she will not respect my pronouns or my name until I’ve gotten them legally changed and gotten the psych eval. (The fact I also need to do a psych eval in the first place is really degrading to me) She also told me that since I never played with trucks as a kid or didn’t show signs to her that I can’t be trans. She would have accepted me if I had shown the signs early on and she knows trans people and I can’t be one. I tried telling her I was scared and I hid it. She also told me that my grandmother knows and my grandmother asks that I, “Please wait until she dies.” To transition or else this will be the thing that kills her and she doesn’t have long left anyway. My grandmother was my first best friend in the world and I thought would be until the day she died and the family member I was closest to. I’ve also been told by my mother that I’m being selfish and that the rest of my family wouldn’t accept this. Which I told her I understood.

My mom thinks I’m doing this for attention, I got caught up in one of my “phases”, and because it’s a “internet trend.” When I told her this is who I am she said that, “this is who I am” is the buzzword for the trans internet right now and to try again and give her another reason other than that. She also believes being trans is a trend right now. Which is another reason why I was scared to come out here. I know a lot of people are transitioning here and I was horrified of looking like I was doing this for attention or trying to take attention away.

She wants me to go to my endo appointment and an eval and she says she’ll only accept this unless they do because “she has to” at that point. She doesn’t want to do any of this and in order for me to get any respect I have to hold her hand. I understand she’s grieving a child but I feel like my whole family just died and she kinda confirmed they did, metaphorically.

This is my coming out letter I wrote that I got to read the second time I came out that I couldn’t read to her the first time. I think it will help explain what I’ve been going through.

“I’ve been receiving a variety of questions on my appearance and mental health from multiple people. “Why did you change things up?” Or, “What’s been going on with me?” Lately I have had a lot of time to consider seriously what I’ve wanted out of life as well as my identity as a whole. What could make and, in many ways, would make me the happiest. To put it bluntly, I figured out I’m a man. I ask that you please save all questions or comments until the end of what I have said, thank you.

There was this over looming anxiety I couldn’t quite put together throughout the process of figuring this out. There was this “entity” we will call it, I had always put to the side or hid for years. Because in the end I didn’t even really have a discernible answer for it. And if I could keep pushing this to the side, it must not be that big of a deal or even affect me that badly. I would always find, or was, in some sort of distraction to keep from digging any deeper into my identity then I was ready for.

When I discovered I’m autistic for the first time for a while it seemed to solve many of my questions, and I was able to put things to bed for a while. Until those self-reflective questions, feelings, and thoughts on who I am woke up in a panicked scream again a couple of years later. Yet I still tried metaphorically placing a pillow over its head to try and force it all “back to bed.” I repeated this cycle again and again, and each time events in my life would cause those questions and feelings to resurface. Becoming worse and worse each time, until I finally had to sit down and face this.

What are these questions though you are probably asking yourself at this point? They are as follows in no order that I’ve asked myself throughout my life, and yes some even in childhood. Why have I always been so self-conscious about my image? Why did my body feel so disgusting and wrong other than inability to love myself? Why did I feel like I had too much of some parts and too little of others? Why was I angry that my voice would not get any deeper? Why did I imagine myself wearing suits but was too scared to do and say so and pushed it aside? Why did the way I pee not feel right? Why when I drew myself as a boy growing up did it feel so good but so bad enough to hide it? Why did I secretly go on boy’s puberty sites as a teenager and feel like it was a game of connecting the dots when anything matched with the boys? Why were the dreams I had as a boy feel so natural?

It all came to one answer, I am a man.

To be honest, I didn’t understand any of this fully or was able to come to terms with this up until the end of March of this year. I had always been trying to do the best with what I was given, in fact I wanted to. Somethings that are perceived as “girly” by certain people I even enjoy which made things doubly confusing.  I thought I was just over blowing things and that for a while being autistic seemed to explain many things, but not everything. Or that I had penis envy, or I didn’t think highly enough of girls and that made me bad. More than anything I was afraid to come to these realizations in fear of what people would think or what would happen. Or that it would be dismissed away, which really scared me. To figure out something as immense as this and not be able to maybe finally be more comfortable and know myself better. That terrified me.

Due to the misunderstandings of trans individuals I feared I would be thought of as a pervert. I even came to think that I was one for being this way. I feared being thought of as incompetent to decide this for myself due to being autistic. A pulsating fiery raging scream stayed buried deep in the pit of my stomach from these thoughts.I started to experiment, to be more certain of coming to terms with this.

I did research and made things like a starter packer. Which are socks bunched together to make a bulge shape like a penis and testes to wear. This gave me enough euphoria to know I wanted more. So, I bought myself a packer (a silicone prosthetic) and something called a STP (Stand To Pee device).  Which gave me so much euphoria I cried the first time I used my STP because it felt so right. At that time, I was speaking with Julia (therapist) to help sort me through this journey since around late March early April. I went on to buy men’s pants and undergarments and cut off all my hair and bought a binder. (Safely compresses my breasts) In addition, I also chose my name and came out to some friends who accepted me and used my correct pronouns. With Julia’s aid she also advised me the biggest thing I could do right now is speak with the community. So, I did and since then I’ve found an online support group and a local support group that I’ve been going to meetings for. It’s helped me place myself and instead of feeling like I didn’t belong I felt like things made more sense in many regards.

I still have many other fears and adversities I will continue to face while living as my true self. One of the things that has really challenged me is that I feel like my words do not have any bearing anymore advocating for autistic people who identify as girls. Now that I’m coming out as a man. As much as I know I’m a man I feel like I’m a bad person for identifying this way since there’s so much stuff out there saying that men are toxic, trash, and unfeeling. And I’m trying to learn how to best be a good and responsible man in this world.

The real me has always been out there and I’d like to be able to live my life the way I was meant to. As a man and on my way to medically transitioning. I am saying all of this because I care, and I want to be able to finally get this out of my system and help elevate this confusion to the best of my ability.

My name is Ren Jason P***, I’m your son, big brother, grandson, friend, colleague, classmate, autistic advocate, and fellow human being. Please don’t turn away the little boy and man, who shouldn’t be dictated by a body he didn’t ask for. 

As Princess BubbleGum says:

“People get built different.”

“We don’t need to figure it out. We just need to respect it.” “

[aotsimmer]

When She Leaves

Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Reader/OC

Genre: Fluff. Romance.

Word Count: 2.1k? (I will be double checking)

Warning: Mentions of breakdowns. Mentions of abandonment. Possessive Levi. Nothing major really. Probably not even worth a warning but I still put them on here just in case. I don't want anyone to have a bad experience reading.

A/N: Hi. I'm new to writing for AOT. I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. This is basically a snippet of the relationship between my OC, Eden Beckwith, and our favorite husbando Levi. Honestly, Eden is meant to be like a build-your-own-character kind of character if you know what I mean. Her physical description are meant to be vague and be imagined by the reader however they wish to imagine her to look like. Like the Y/N system I guess. I have my own vision of Eden in my head. Sometimes, a notice in advance, I will mention her height but that's just about it. *She's a lot taller than Levi by the way.*

Most of my work will revolve around them and their relationship. The ups and downs. So if anybody has any ideas, or just want to know more about Eden in general, I will love to answer questions. Eden is one of my favorite OCs and the love child of all the fanfic ideas I've had for AOT.

Lastly I will like to apologise for my grammar. I try my best to edit these but I'm not really good at it. As I go along I will most likely improve and get better at writing. For now please bare with me until I get a beta reader and/or I get better.

I will like to also apologize for maybe writing Levi a little to ooc. In this case he's already in an established relationship and therefore I headcannon that he's just a romantic at heart. Just needs the right person to let it all loose.

I think that's about it. I hope you all enjoy.

.

“Levi! Good morning!”

He was writing down requests for a shipment of earl grey tea. His attention suddenly successfully snatched by his lover walking through the door. Eden greeted him enthusiastically before she closed the door with her foot. His favorite tea set laid out nicely on the tray she was holding with both her gloved hands.

He noted her dress wear. The casual day dress Eden was wearing grabbing his attention. The beautiful light blue color of her dress contrasting with her skin. Her hair halfway pined up and flowing over her shoulder. Making her look younger than she looked. She gave him a beautiful smile as she approached his desk; setting down his tea set carefully onto the wooden surface.

‘Good morning. Are you going somewhere?” He questioned her. She never dressed like this unless it was for an important event. Like balls and visiting her grandparents.

Levi leaned back onto his chair and looked her over. She looked beautiful. It made him jealous of all the gazes she must have gotten while making her way to his office. It made him want to lock her up somewhere safe and secure. Where he knew she will be safe and no eyes but his will lay upon her.

He knew he would never do that to her, even if he desired it. After all, she was completely his and she had proven that so many ties. The possessiveness in him only pacified by her. Only completely quieted down with the things she does and has done for him. Like bringing him tea.

She ignored his staring. Eden placed the items in front of him. Side eyeing him with a pointed look, as if knowing what he was thinking. He raised his hands as if surrendering and crossed is arms across his chest. She smiled, satisfied, before answering his question.

“Actually, yes. Nana had sent a letter and asked me to meet her at Trost. You know, the bi-annual visits to the estate. I will be leaving before the bell rings at noon and will return before the week ends. Just in time for the expedition meetings.”

“And why did you not tell me beforehand?”

This was not the first time she had gone off without telling him beforehand. The first time happened during the beginning of their courtship. It had sent him into a frenzy, snapping at everyone and cleaning vigorously to the point of over exaggeration.

For days.

Nobody seemed concerned with the disappearance of their missing superior officer. All he thought to himself during those days was the worst had happened. She had abandoned him, and to an extension the Survey Corps. 

It reminded him someone he personally knew.

The only one brave enough to confront him about his behavior was Hange. They, to this day, are convinced that he tried to kill them with his gaze.

After that fiasco, Levi had made Eden promise to never do that again without ing him beforehand. A promise she’s done good job at keeping. In exchange he promised to ease off on Eren during her time away. The kid being his number one victim during his borderline breakdown.

He begrudgingly accepted the conditions.

“Because I just received the letter yesterday, and we both know you will try to convince me to stay if I give you enough time of a notice- Don’t look at me like that. We both know its true and I'm determined to not fall for your trap of a body... Again.”

Eden looked him up and down before she bit her lip and wiggled her eyebrows at him playfully. He could not help but amuse her with a short chuckle before he straightened up in his seat, taking the tea cup she placed neatly in front of him for a sip.

The fragrance. The smell. The taste.

Just the way he liked it.

“It’s not my fault you get distracted by me. I say that’s entirely your fault.” He spoke after placing the cup down on it’s saucer.

Eden walked around his desk slowly, moving along sensually before arriving behind him. She leaned down, arms snaking over his shoulders and then running down his chest. She hugged him and laid her chin on his shoulder before pecking his cheek.

“I’ll give you a point for that one... Try not to miss me too much.”

Levi will never admit to it, but he always missed her terribly when she leaves.

Often, they did not meet during the day in their everyday lives. Private moments shared almost always during the evening and into the nights. Sometimes whole days and nights go by without seeing each other. Rare but not uncommon. Both occupied in their roles as senior officers during it all, but he knew that she was close by. Even during expeditions when they are literally on opposite sides of their formations. When danger is at its highest and possible death at their every step. He seemed not miss her more than what he deemed as normal for someone in a relationship.

Not that he knew much of relationships before Eden. They were each other’s first relationship and first of everything romantic.

It was only when she was away, far away, that it reminded him that he was somewhat emotionally invested in her. It made him realize how much he hated the notion of it. Use to hate. Still hated? He did not know anymore. The weakness she brought him. How he allowed her to wrap him around her fingers.

Addicting.

She was all addicting, and he could not stop himself from her even if he wanted to. He did not want to if he was honest with himself. He was tired being alone. To be left behind.

Maybe that was it. He was tired of being alone, and afraid of her leaving him behind spontaneously in whatever form. He wanted to be by her side as long as she allowed him to be there. Forever if they both could.

Is this what love is?

“Tch. Miss you? I will dance with glee when you leave. A thorn out off my side. Fucking finally.”

Levi could practically see her beam at his seemingly cruel words. Her breathy chuckle a musical note in his ear that sent delicious shivers down his spine. The vibrations of her laugh practically echoing within him as she pressed against him.

He tapped on her arm, and was promptly released from her hold. He turned to her and stared up at her soft smile that played across her lips. Eyes soft only for him; her lips parting as she was about to speak her musical tune. 

Levi couldn’t help himself any longer. He pulled her closer to him, his arm around her waist. She leaned heavily against him, between his legs, and her hand landed on the backrest of the seat to steady herself. The other hand on his chest near his shoulder. Almost practically siting on his lap.

Eden raised an eyebrow at him.

‘What are you doing?” She asked him, knowing full well his intentions as he looked at her lips and the up to her eyes. She was looking down on him due to his short stature sitting down compared to her. Those beautiful orbs of hue transfixing him into her world and into the essence of her.

She was truly a beauty amongst men.

All his as he was hers.

“Is it wrong for me to want a kiss?”

“No...” Eden looked down to his lips then to his eye. Copying his motions before smiling softly, taking her own hand from his chest to caress his cheek before laying it against the skin of his neck. Thumb still stroking the recently shaved skin of his jaw and cheek. He leaned against her hand unconsciously. Seeking the warmth of her hand as he received an understand look from her.

“No, it is not... Kiss me.”

The captain did not have to be told twice. His lips softly brushing teasingly against hers in an intimate moment. It took a few second, teasing her only to feel her smile again before their lips met. Softly at first. A quick kiss before they parted.

“That’s not enough...” She complained. Levi chuckled and gave her a quick peck. And another, And then one more before he leaned away to look at her funny expression. Her closed eyes and dramatically puckered lips. He smirked, making a small noise that made him receive a small scowl from her as she opened her eyes to look at him.

“I think I’ve had my fill.” He declared, leaning back fully into the backrest of his chair. Her frown deepened.

“No. I want more my love.” There it was. The nickname only reserved for these moments between them. Private. Intimate. Just for the two of them to hear and no one else.

He brought his hand, running it along her spine to cradle the back of her head. Hair tangling between the space of his long slender fingers. She let him guide her closer to him. Surrendering herself to him for their mutual wants and needs.

“If you insist.”

It was tender, their kiss, but it quickly grew heated. She was seated completely on his lap and leaning against him. Arms wrapped around his shoulders and pulling him close. Lips running wild with his own.

His own hands were not passive. His hand in her hair, completely tangled in its strands and pulling her impossibly closer to him. The other hand on her waist sliding down to feel her buttocks through the thick materials of her many layered dress. Not stopping their mission on feeling his lover, and holder of his heart, under his hands.

Then there was a knock.

Eden detached herself from him in a flash. He had never seen her move that quickly without the assistance of ODM gear. She quickly fixed her hair and upper part of her dress, tidying herself up too look presentable. She made her way around his desk and away from him as quietly as her heels allowed

Levi on the other hand scooted himself into his desk. Clearing his throat and fixing his own hair before allowing their visitor to enter the room. Pretending to continue his earl grey orders with his usually stoic expression. Humanity’s strongest just having a short conversation with one of the Survey Corps brilliant minds and strategists.

“Come in.”

One of their soldiers entered the room, saluting to their superiors.

“Captain Ackerman. Section Commander Beckwith. The carriage has been loaded by your coachman and is ready to go, ma’am.”

Eden turned to their subordinate. Hands clasped together elegantly.

‘Thank you. Please let him know that I will be out in a bit. Dismissed.”

The soldier saluted and promptly left the room.

Eden turned to Levi, and sighed heavily. Offering a sad smile to him.

“Well, Captain Ackerman, I will be leaving now.”

“Have a nice trip Section Commander. Don’t fall off the carriage. It will be hassle to find a replacement for you.”

Eden snickered and made her way around the desk again. Levi ignored her, but she forced him to look at her. She kissed him while holding his chin, and pulled away before he grabbed her again. Her eyes staring right into his own silver before speaking softly for only him to hear.

“Behave. I will be back before you know it my love. Don’t go crazy.”

Levi watched her leave his office after her farewell. A small wink sent his way before she disappeared from his view.

He stood abruptly from his chair and grabbed the already cold tea. He walked over to his window and looked down towards the entrance of the base where the carriage was stationed. He watched her leave the building with a few of the new members of the corps right behind her, wishing her a nice trip.

Then she looked up and smiled. Knowing he was there to watch her leave.

She got on the carriage and off it went out of the castle grounds and into nature. Towards the city of Trost.

He stared down her carriage up until it was nowhere in sight and past the castle gates. He drank the rest of his tea in cold silence before looking down on it and finally going back to his desk to place it there.

Instead of sitting back down and returning to his work. He thought for a moment before he decided. Nodding to himself, he sauntered over to his door and opened it wide before he left the office. Closing the door behind him with a bang.

"JAEGAR!"

While he waited for her to return; cleaning time was a go.

[fancytrinkets]

Brandy in the Library (Trevelyan/Dorian)

Note: Flirting and friendship features heavily here. Content warning for excessive alcohol use. And if you’ve read it before it’s because I’m repurposing pieces of my recent fic for 30 Days of Dorian. As a courtesy for potential readers, this is probably one to avoid if you don’t want to read about a mage Inquisitor who didn’t support the mage rebellion.

On his way to see Leliana, Trevelyan passes through the library — though it's not much of one yet, stocked only with a handful of books scavenged from Haven. A team of scouts went back three days ago to sift through the rubble. They returned with whatever they could salvage.

Dorian's sitting at one of the library tables, paging through a half-scorched book. He looks up as Trevelyan approaches, and smiles in a way that makes Trevelyan's heart beat faster.

"I see you've found this place," Trevelyan says. "Have you been to the other library?"

"There's another library? Does that one have more than eight books in it?"

"In fact it does. If you're free in two hours, I have a break between meetings when I can show you."

"I have a better idea," Dorian says. "Let's make it later this evening. I hear the tavern's expecting its first shipment of supplies. I'll nick a bottle of something good. You can have a drink with me in this secret library of yours."

That same evening, he finds Dorian waiting for him in the upstairs library with a bottle of Antivan brandy in hand.

The man looks even more attractive than usual, if that's possible. He's clearly taken extra care with his hair and clothing. He's chosen robes with an uneven cut, alluringly designed to reveal the contours of his chest and shoulders. Trevelyan has to force his imagination away from its preferred course — conjuring up vivid imagery of Dorian taking off those robes and climbing into bed with him.

Instead he focuses on the brandy.

"Always a good choice. Shall we get started?"

"Lead the way," Dorian says.

Trevelyan endures a pleasant case of nerves as he takes the stairs to the cellars and unlocks the lower library. He's been looking forward to this all afternoon, and now that the moment is here, he hopes Dorian won't find fault with his choice of venue.

His worries disappear as soon as the door shuts behind them.

"Very interesting," Dorian says. "A mage's library."

He pauses at a shelf near the entryway to have a look at the spines of the nearest books.

"Old, but not ancient," he says. "I wonder who was living here several hundred years ago."

Trevelyan doesn't have answers. While Solas seems familiar with Skyhold, he doesn't speak as freely and generously about it as he does when he's asked about the Fade.

"Hard to believe we found this site just when we needed it most," Trevelyan says.

"Or you were, in fact, chosen by Andraste." Dorian doesn't sound like he's joking.

"I can't rule it out," Trevelyan says. "But I'm not claiming it either."

"Fair enough. Here."

Dorian pours for both of them and hands Trevelyan a glass. The first sip warms his throat delightfully. He takes a seat and Dorian pulls up the other chair, moving it closer to Trevelyan before he sits down.

"Here we are in a southern mage's library," Dorian says. "I think you should tell me what it's like to be a southern mage."

"What would you like to know?"

"About you? Probably everything," Dorian says. "But start with what it was like to learn magic at your Circle."

Trevelyan shares a few stories from his younger days at Ostwick — of learning magic along with his peers, and being cautioned all the time about its dangers. In contrast, Dorian offers some details about his own elite, but tempestuous magical education in Tevinter. The differences in their training are vast, and yet the more they talk, the more Trevelyan appreciates the similarities in how they both turned out.

Openly and without shame, Dorian loves being a mage. It's obvious just from watching him. He loves the way it feels to use magic — and he's exceptionally good at it. Trevelyan knows that feeling also. Not the total lack of shame, of course. But in the months since he's left the Circle, he's grown to love his own magic in a way he never truly did before. The chance to use it fully for a good cause, to push himself to the limits of his capacity, and to see, for the first time in his thirty-five years, what a powerful mage he is — it's an unparalleled experience.

One that Dorian understands.

Trevelyan reaches for the bottle and pours them both another drink. He can feel the warmth in his belly, relaxing him.

Dorian smells good, he thinks. He'd like to hold this man close — press him against the bookshelves and kiss him, perhaps — all the while breathing in deeply to appreciate his scent up close. Trevelyan is far from anything he'd find so embarrassing as being fully aroused by nothing more than conversation and fantasy — he's not a teenager, for Maker's sake. But he is aware of the early stages of that particular reaction, and his close-fitting robes don't help him. He shifts in his chair for better comfort and discretion, and tries to stop the flood of mental imagery from pouring in.

Soon enough, he and Dorian are falling back into the friendly give and take of a conversation in which they don't quite agree.

The topic is templars — more specifically, the need for the power of mages to be held in check by a group of trained professionals with the ability to suppress magic when needed. Trevelyan finds it essential, given Tevinter as the cautionary tale. Dorian finds the south to be an example of a system both poorly designed and horrifically implemented — "hence the mage rebellion, yes?"

"Well, obviously the Circles here need to change drastically," Trevelyan says.

"And yet you were loyal to yours," Dorian points out.

"It's complicated."

"How so?"

Their exchange continues over drinks refreshed a third and fourth time.

Trevelyan replies with some details about Ostwick, but witholds others. He explains it as more lenient than most, without dragging his family into it. He may be keeping things back, but it's mostly because he wants to stay on topic. He likes these conversations.

He's being pushed, yes. But in the process, he's clarifying his thoughts — revising and rethinking them. Sometimes he agrees that he's wrong, or concedes that he's too accustomed to one way of thinking to change it immediately. And Dorian takes as well he gives. He's got a certain arrogance about him, sure, but when they start talking this way, he often yields a point and backs off without rancor when he knows he's mistaken.

It's refreshing and interesting to speak so candidly.

"Alright," Dorian says after the fifth drink has been poured. "If your Circle wasn't abusive towards you, then what about your peers who voted to rebel. What did they want?"

By now Trevelyan's thoughts are feeling nicely fuzzy.

"I don't know," he says. "More from their lives? The chance to move freely, live where they choose, visit families, get married, have children, that sort of thing."

"And that didn't matter to you?"

"I agreed with them. We all deserve those chances if we want them."

"But?" Dorian asks.

"Complacency? I'd begun to accept my life for what it was. A limited one."

Dorian shakes his head, disbelieving. "You don't strike me as complacent at all."

"Oh?" Trevelyan asks. "How do I strike you?"

Dorian smiles, but doesn't answer. At least not at first. He finishes the last of his drink, holds the glass forward, and then watches as Trevelyan pours him another.

"You strike me," he says. "A lot of ways."

"Good ways, I hope."

Dorian tilts his drink until it shines with reflected candlelight. He studies it a moment, then looks at Trevelyan.

"You're not as well-read as some, but more clever than most. Good-natured, though I suspect you have a temper under there somewhere, and that's intriguing," he says.

"Also, you seem to genuinely care about everyone. Including the people you don't like — which I can't even fathom. What sort of forbidden magic granted you that ability? Please tell me so I can avoid it — it looks exhausting!"

Trevelyan laughs. "And here I was expecting insults about southern mages with our backwards ideas."

"Yes, I was getting to that part."

Drinking and laughing with Dorian is a wonderful way to spend the evening. As the haze of intoxication sets in, Trevelyan finds he's happiest to talk about the battles they've won while fighting together.

"Do you know," Dorian says, "how thoroughly I underestimated you when first we met? I thought I'd have to look after you at Redcliffe castle — get you through the ordeal with my superior knowledge and abilities."

"Hah! How altruistic of you."

"Not at all. You were very nice to look at — I considered it a pleasant burden."

"Wow, that's– I'm speechless." Trevelyan can hear the drunken slurring of his words. It only makes him giggle.

Dorian's still lost in the story.

"When you took down that first guard with one hit, I thought, alright, perhaps this one can handle himself. And that was before we stumbled into the large hall full of Venatori."

"Ugh, there were nine of them, I remember."

"Yes, and I didn't like our chances," Dorian says. "But then you said, 'You take those three, I've got the rest,' and I started to think that between the two of us, maybe I wasn't the unbearably arrogant one, after all."

"No, hold on," Trevelyan says. "Did I not get all six of them?"

He knows he did. And he's sure it doesn't count as arrogance if you're actually capable of doing the thing you claim you can. But he thinks he might have that backwards. Thoughts are increasingly difficult to keep hold of.

"You did get all six!" Dorian says, sounding delighted. "I was very impressed."

"Glad I wasn't too much of a burden for you."

"I'm honestly surprised you trusted me. I doubt I would have."

"I didn't," Trevelyan admits. "I was expecting a double cross. But I was desperate enough to risk it."

Dorian grins at him and raises his empty glass.

"Here's to desperation!"

"To being wildly desperate for things," Trevelyan says, and clinks their glasses together.

Dorian tries to drink, only to find nothing left of alcohol.

"Fuck, I'm drunk," he says.

"I'm the same. And I should go to sleep," Trevelyan says. "I have meetings in the morning."

And so the evening ends with friendly words of goodnight and a hazy walk upstairs to his quarters.

.

When Trevelyan wakes in the morning, the sunlight is painful and a headache sets in. On his way to the kitchens to grab a late breakfast, he runs into Dorian doing the same. He looks perfectly groomed, as always, but Trevelyan can see the exhaustion in his eyes.

"Didn't sleep well?"

"No," Dorian says. "And you?"

"Terribly," Trevelyan admits. "But that was fun. We should do it again some time."

"Find a strange old room that frightens other people and go there to get drunk off stolen brandy?"

"Exactly," Trevelyan says.

The hangover is worth it for the way Dorian smiles at him.