#but it’s the environment around them that should be examined when this harm is done

[idalievu]

Time for my daily thoughts about how Jaws is rife with potential for an anti imperialist anti capitalist analysis

[realmythsmoved]

@flownintothesun continued from here

𝐁𝐘 𝐍𝐎𝐖, 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑 𝐅𝐔𝐍 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐃 𝐎𝐍 into idly perusing stores — chatting as they go, neither of them ready to give it up just yet. The memories are bittersweet, and Westley is glad to see that somehow, Persephone has managed to retain her light. He hasn’t asked her yet what she’s doing with her life — because that kind of question usually gets turned back around and while Westley’s gotten to be amazing at lying, and has fifty answers on command — he doesn’t want to lie to her more than he has to. She’s like him, in a way — even though it’s clear that they’re very different.       Anyway, it’s easy to say something and mean it to someone else. It’s less easy when the same notion is turned back on you — feels kinda like a sword or medieval torture method. Westley’s never been safe — not when he was a child, and not in his somewhat-chosen adult path. But he is in control of it, for the most part — which is something he couldn’t have said during childhood. He’s not looking for the light so much as he is purpose these days. Seems like everywhere fate decides to take him is done on a whim. He’d ran away because his high school boyfriend’s family had been killed, and the boy he loved had disappeared. Westley’d thought disappearing would be a good idea, too, and he’d done so.       He’d had heroic notions then — first of finding the love he’d lost, and then, of making a difference in the system before he’d finally accepted that the system is so poisoned that there’s nothing he could do except for watch others suffer the same as he’d suffered without any sort of real power behind it. It would be a cruel life, to look on helplessly — to see the bad things that happened, and know that he failed. It’s easier to just be what life seemed to always want him to be. Sure, he’s read enough legal text that he could make a hell of a lawyer (in his opinion) — but at what cost?      She tells him to remember to be kind — and it makes him angry, and it makes him ache — because to the people that had hurt them kindness had been exploited as weakness. Why should he be good to people who go home and do terrible things? They wear such convincing masks that Westley scarcely ever knows ‘good’ from ‘evil’ at a glance, and that’s why he only takes jobs that he’s got a lot of information on. “I hope that works for you. I really do. The world doesn’t seem keen on making a place for soft things.” They’re made to live in harsh environments, like flowers in a desert — a thing so beautiful that no one sees the pain behind it.       He hesitates. He shouldn’t ask, but curiosity always seems to get the better of him — “What have you been doing, anyway? Since we last...”

Persephone had been glad to see Westley. The memories of him are faded, as the memories from her first two foster homes often are. But she does remember. Of course she does. A part of her will never forget. Not because she wants revenge on her first two foster parents. No, nothing like that. She understands why people would want that. Her first two pairs of foster parents had treated her terribly. So she'd be well within her rights to do the same. However, that's not like her. She prefers to kill them with kindness, so to speak.

She picks up a bauble and examines it with a smile, before putting it down. She isn't sure if she'll buy anything, though she's sure her adoptive parents wouldn't mind if she did. They're good like that. Always supportive, always kind. In short, they're the perfect adoptive parents for her. Thanks to them, she's healed a lot from what she'd suffered in her first two foster homes. And of course, the ever-present grief from the deaths of her birth parents. She is never going to forget any of it, though. And in Persy's opinion, that's as it should be.

The past shapes us, but it doesn't solely define us. Still, it is important to remember it. To ensure that one doesn't fall into harmful cycles because of it. That is, at least, Persephone's perspective on the matter.

The world doesn't seem keen on making a place for soft things. If Persephone had a dollar for every time she'd heard something like that, she'd be very rich. But she has a slightly different perspective on the matter. "Thanks! I hope so too. And personally, I feel that then it's the world that should adjust, not me. Kindness is always important. If the world doesn't see that, it is it that should change, not those of us who are kind or softer." That's how she's always seen things, and not even the horrors she'd suffered had changed her mind. Persephone will always believe in kindness and goodness, no matter how tough it may be. And in her opinion, that is as it should be.

When he asks what she's been up to, she smiles and says: "Well, I was adopted eventually by a lovely couple. The Evans. So I'm now Persephone Johnson-Evans. They don't fully understand everything I do but they are always kind and supportive of me. I've been to therapy, of course. How could I not with everything I went through? And it's helped. My experiences will always be there. The scars, mental and physical, remain. But I'm healing. And that's enough for me." A pause. A little chuckle. "How about you?" Her tone is light, and she smiles at him softly. She hopes he's doing okay. That he's somehow found a soft place to land. And if not, that he will eventually find one. He deserves it, just as much as she does, at least in Persy's opinion. So she truly hopes with all her heart that he will find happiness and safety.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hello, I am an inferior Fe who has been told that I sometimes can’t take a hint. It hurts my feelings a bit because I’ve been trying my best to read social cues but it appears that my efforts have led to little improvement. I have some F type friends and family around me so I try my best to learn about social cues by modelling their behaviour and understanding their values better. But at the same time, this is really mentally exhausting for me and it definitely doesn’t come naturally.

Because of this, I’m constantly doubting my social skills and I get anxiety when put into social situations. Furthermore, I constantly overthink social situations and dwell on all the social cues I might have missed. What should I do to improve my inferior function? I would really appreciate it if you could give me some advice. Thank you!

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I'm afraid you haven't provided enough information for me to understand the situation fully. There are several issues to unpack:

1) Type Development: Please state your exact type because I must examine how the entire functional stack is coming together to create the issue. Blaming everything on one function is misguided because that's not how the functional stack works in real life. When you're misusing one function, chances are, you're also misusing the rest.

I often warn people about the inferior function. You should develop functions in the order of your functional stack. Generally speaking, I do NOT recommend trying to develop the inferior function due to the high risk of suffering from inferior grip and not realizing the harm being done to oneself. When a person's ego development isn't properly aligned with their function development, trying to develop the inferior function is premature and can do more harm than good.

"Modeling people's behavior" isn't optimal for dominant Ti learning. Ti must understand operating principles and modeling alone won't get you very far. In the worst case scenario, modeling leads you down a self-destructive path. In order to be like a Feeler, you have to negate who you are as a Thinker, which is harmful. While learning from others can be useful in some situations, you shouldn't try to change yourself to be like others at your own expense. First and foremost, you have to respect your type and learn to inhabit it with ease. Then, you can use the best qualities and characteristics of your type to find the most effective entryway into learning a skill.

For healthy type development, inferior shortcomings should be addressed through auxiliary development. For example, auxiliary Se would make you more present, observant, and assertive as you interact with the environment, or auxiliary Ne would open your mind up to generate multiple possibilities when engaging with the environment. Both of these functions have great potential to help with socializing, so are you using your auxiliary function optimally? If not, that's where you should be focusing your attention. Read past posts on the topic.

2) Social Skills: The information you've provided about your social skills is too limited, so I'm not in a good position to evaluate them objectively. You've been repeatedly called out for inability to read social cues, so you're understandably sensitive about it. However, there are many possible reasons why people fail to pick up on social cues (that are unrelated to inferior Fe). In order to solve a problem properly, you have to be able to correctly identify all of the contributing factors/causes. It doesn't sound like you've done enough reflection and analysis of WHY you have this problem and what exactly lies at the root of it.

Firstly, due to the fact that many people mistype as IxTP because they mistake poor social skills for inferior Fe (even as the other functions don't fit properly), I need to know whether you're 100% certain of your type and that inferior Fe is the cause of the problem. There are no other factors that may be contributing to your inability to read social cues?

Secondly, I need concrete details and illustrative examples of the conflicts between you and these F friends/family. Context is required to determine whether their criticism of you is fair and reasonable. For example, it could be the case that: they are being too demanding of you; their relationship behavior is unhealthy and then you trying to model it only makes things worse; their values are very different from yours and proper mediation is necessary to establish mutual understanding; etc. Relationship problems are rarely caused by only one person. I need a better understanding of the relationship dynamic in order to determine the exact nature of the conflict and how to address it in the best way.

3) Emotional Intelligence: You mention "overthinking". Rumination is a symptom of being unable to acknowledge and resolve undesirable feelings and emotions, which points to low emotional intelligence. A large part of socializing is dependent upon knowledge of emotions (in oneself and others): identifying them accurately; responding to them appropriately; managing them productively; understanding how they are reflective of people's beliefs and values. I've already written a lot about EI, see past posts, the site index articles, and the book recs on the resources page.

4) Communication Skills: Conflict resolution is dependent upon your ability to communicate about issues in a way that is respectful of all parties involved. While it's generally good to be considerate of people, you have to be able to strike a healthy balance between honoring your own needs and meeting the needs of others. You shouldn't just do what people want you to do without reflecting on whether that's the best course of action in the bigger picture.

In a healthy relationship, two people should be able to accept and love each other as they are. When one person is constantly trying to change the other to match their own preferences, it means there is a problem of poorly defined boundaries. Different individuals need and want different things out of a relationship, thus, two people should learn to be understanding of differences. They should negotiate and compromise so that both parties are able to get what they need and want from the relationship.

The willingness and effort you put into improving your behavior should be recognized and appreciated by people. But that will only happen if they understand what's really going on with you. Perhaps they criticize you because they mistakenly believe it should be as easy for you as it is for them. You have agreed to do something that is difficult and exhausting for the sake of meeting the needs of others, but you have to ensure that this doesn't leave your needs unfulfilled in the process, otherwise the relationship becomes unfair and unequal. Whenever necessary, you have to speak up, explain yourself, advocate for your needs assertively, and help people understand your hardships. If they truly care about you, they should be willing to empathize and negotiate a fairer outcome for all parties.

[daughterofanarcissistwoman]

A trauma involving the mother or father is sometimes referred to as a "wound" because it damages the body-mind, needs proper healing, and often leaves a scar or weakness in your body or emotional makeup. No wound is more charged for both men and women than the mother wound. Your relationship with your mother or whoever provided your "mothering" is the primary relationship in your development, and it inevitably conditions much of your life.

By repeatedly staying with difficult feelings and body sensations, your perspective of the past shifts. You become far less reactive and more flexible in your emotional responses. It is not that your history is rewritten, but rather that the self experiencing that history is transformed.

You may also secretly believe that your wound is ugly, something to be ashamed of. But ask, do the wounds of your friends make them any less attractive? Are you not inspired when they handle them in a courageous manner? Why would it not be the same for you? If there is some part of you that you find unacceptable, make it the object of your loving-kindness practice.

The Four Functions of Mothering

You can bring more clarity to your mother wound by reflecting specifically on what mothering means to you. There are four basic functions of mothering- nurturing, protecting, empowering, and initiating-and a trauma can occur in any of them. Although they are interconnected, it helps to examine them separately in order to clarify the trauma.

Through practicing mindfulness, compassion, and loving-kindness, you develop the four mothering capacities within yourself. The practice of developing these inner capacities is slow, but the effect is strong and easily felt. Keep in mind that "fathering" also involves these same four functions, with some differences. Ideally these functions are shared by both parents, with each compensating for the other's weaknesses. If you struggle with a trauma around the father, you can reflect on these same functions.

Reflecting on these functions will also help you understand that no woman is only a mother and no man only a father; "mothering" and "fathering" are done by women and men who by their very humanness are less than perfect in what they can give. For many people, this understanding alone is liberating.

Mother As Nurturer

The first of the four functions of the mother is nurturing, the giving of care that allows for life (symbolized by the mother's milk), which encompasses meeting the wide range of physical and emotional needs a child has in order to grow and develop. You know about a child's needs for food, shelter, medicine, comfort, and relatedness; a child who is not held enough develops into an adult with a range of physical and emotional difficulties, just as an inadequate diet manifests as health problems later in life. But there is a more subtle aspect of nurturing I call "nurturing with joy," which celebrates the existence of the child as a source of delight for the one who is mothering and which manifests in the child and continues into adulthood as a sense of innate worth and spontaneous joy.

If you did not receive sufficient nurturing in childhood, as an adult you may feel an insatiable need, an inability to take joy in others, or a lack of self-worth despite your competency and confidence.

As you develop mindfulness, you find your capacity to be in the moment includes the ability to nurture yourself and others. The practices of loving-kindness, empathetic joy, and compassion can feed your nourishing capacity. Finding teachers who nourish without creating the codependency of excessive mothering can furnish further inspiration and role modeling. Being mindful of the fear is in itself transforming. Observing the thousands of ways in which you are nurtured and nurture others in the greater community also break up the solidity and credibility of your wound's story. Nurturing, as with all the functions, begins with the mindful intention that this is a value, a particular energetic quality, or manner of relating to yourself and others that you wish to cultivate. By giving up clinging to your agenda that nurturing should be a certain way and instead simply staying with your intention, you slowly develop an inner nurturer. In so doing, you will change both your inadequate feelings and your story.

Mother As Protector

The second of the four functions of mothering is protecting. This is the instinctive and cultivated impulse to see that no physical or emotional harm comes to one who is vulnerable. It is symbolized by the warrior or guardian spirit. A child needs to be protected from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, and from the threat of all three. Ironically, the first persons a child has to be protected from are the mother and father and their destructive impulses. These destructive impulses might take the form of excessive anger or emotional instability, for instance.

There is a subtle aspect of protecting energy that gives the child the incredible gift of feeling intrinsically safe, a feeling of trust in life. Unfortunately, quite frequently a child must try to flourish in a home environment that does not feel safe, even though no overt harm is done. As an adult the individual will often be at a loss to explain the unsafe feelings that plague them.

If you did not receive sufficient protection as a child, as an adult you may feel that there is "no one in your corner." You may have a memory of some traumatic event or environment that recurs during meditation. You may have developed an elaborate compensatory behavior pattern for your anxieties. You may be confused about the discrepancy between your family's "factual history" of your childhood versus the feelings you remember having as a child. For these reasons, in making the mother wound your practice, you focus on the feelings arising at present. They can be worked with, released, and transformed. The past is not so easy to work with. It is comprised of outer and inner events that are now immutable, hazy in recollection, or maybe even inaccurate.

There is no "magic bullet" that will dissipate all your past trauma or create instant feelings of safety. But if you continually bring attention to feelings of fear, loss, and confusion as they are arising and receive those feelings with compassion, they will begin to lose their grip. Gradually you will discover that they come less often, with less intensity, and stay for shorter periods of time.

Mother As Empoweror

The third of the four functions of the mother is empowering the child, encouraging and teaching independence and self-confidence. It is symbolized by the queen, who elevates her subjects and facilitates the beginning of their coming into their own power. The mother uses her royal power over the child with fairness, patience, generosity, and a commitment to preparing her child to become her equal or even to surpass her. The ability to perform this function comes from the mother's own self-confidence and love and from embracing the view that it is her sacred duty to empower her young. Empowering is achieved by encouraging self-reliance and providing education, discipline, and learning opportunities for the child. You are empowered to try, therefore to make mistakes and still be fully accepted. Your interests are met with enthusiasm; the importance and joy of hard work are recognized and encouraged. Failure is treated lightly, while curiosity and integrity are held in high regard.

In fairy tales, when the queen neglects or is afraid to allow the young their power, the kingdom becomes ill and languishes. In real life, this is seen in the mother who neglects or is even afraid of her child becoming powerful, so that a host of problems develop through neglect, constant criticism, or creating dependency.

Sometimes because of over-identification, the mother is willing to empower but insists that her child be like her or succeed in ways that satisfy her own ego. This is a false form of empowerment, a subtle form of enslavement. You may not realize that there is a difference between the functions of nurturing and protecting and that of empowering, but the difference is crucial. With nurturing and protecting the mother is doing for you, whereas the empowering function allows you to find your own power through doing for yourself. With your mother's blessing, you become independent and self-confident.

If you struggle with empowerment, then you may lament your anxiety and ineptitude, your perfectionism, or your unwillingness to try new things. Struggles with self-confidence will be visible in your meditation. It is as though a blessing was withheld, and it is debilitating. Slowly, through your yoga of being fully mindful of the wound, you learn how to give yourself the blessing of unconditional acceptance.

Mother As Initiator

The fourth function of the mother is initiating, and it is the most difficult to understand. It is through acts of initiation that you come to feel as though you are a valuable and welcome member of your family. As you develop, it is this function that provides the inner feeling that your life has meaning, and by the teenage years you understand that you have the right to become the full expression of your own unique life. It is also the initiation function that permits, accepts, and celebrates your leaving home to start your own life.

A girl achieves the inner experience of womanhood by way of initiation by the mother, who does this through how she treats her own womanhood and that of her daughter. The father plays a key role in initiation as well by recognizing the girl's power and her natural right to become a woman. For a boy, it is the father who is the primary initiator into manhood, but it is the mother who recognizes that the boy is leaving her side to enter the company of men. She signals that this is appropriate, not a reason for guilt, and she supports his bringing "mother replacements" in the way of female friends and girlfriends into her house. In welcoming them she acknowledges his independence.

When initiation occurs in a timely and clear manner, it is a beautiful process, though often painful for the parent. Most initiation takes place through symbols, rituals, and unspoken behavior. When it does not occur, there is a sense of guilt, of staying a youth, of not knowing or not feeling entitled to one's place in life. For a mother to be effective in providing initiation, she must have somehow received or found her own. It is the most selfless of all the aspects, for she is encouraging a separation that leaves her without. This initiating power is associated with the shaman, the goddess, the magus, and the medicine woman.

In seeking initiation you may be attracted to teachers who claim superior understanding, who create an impression of having vast authority, thus signaling what is often a false claim that they can initiate. You may frantically want answers in your life, not understanding that initiatory power will come to you if you treat your questions as sacred. It is tempting to surrender your power to a teacher rather than seek a teacher who will initiate you so that you gain self-empowerment.

You may simply want something to happen in your life that signals your aliveness, meaning, and place. It is a call for initiation.

Your experience of the first three functions may have been less than "good enough," therefore you may never have had the momentum to seek initiation.

Likewise, your mother and your father may have suffered from their own lack of initiation such that providing initiation was simply far beyond them.

Throughout human history, the tasks of mothering were shared by members of the extended family, tribal elders, and family friends. The community had rituals that helped in the process, including those that taught you to take comfort in the earth or nature as the Great Mother. Unfortunately, nowadays there is often only a mother and father to do all that needs to be done.

The wounds do not disappear, but they lose much of their charge. They fail to hook your mind and imprison your heart.

https://dharmawisdom.org/teachings/articles/healing-your-mother-or-father-wound

[thusspoketrish]

Words Are Very Unnecessary

TW: Dark fic; Angst; mental illness; mention of past suicide attempt; implied self-harm; scarring; psychiatric ward; unethical medical practices/harm; inappropriate patient/doctor/staff interactions; shifting tenses

Created for the prompt Pretend for @drarrymicrofic

Title taken from Depeche Mode’s Enjoy the Silence

3.3K words. This is something that I may consider coming back to expand on in the future. READ ON AO3.

A heartwarming thank you to @starlitsilvereyes for the thorough beta!

When Healer Robins announces that Harry will not be carrying out his final rotation at St Mungo’s, he’s shocked. He’s done everything he can within the last few months to prove himself capable: he’s completed his clinical rotations with commendations, he’s saved lives, he’s brought coffee and donuts in from his favourite bakery in Diagon every Friday, and he’s even played nice with the first-year Trainee Healers. But as Healer Robins announces his fate, Harry not only feels the bottom of his stomach fall—he can practically feel the smug smile burning a hole into the back of his head from his colleague, competitor, and overall pain in his arse, Blaise Zabini.

“I’m sorry Harry, but Blaise has already proven quite successful with some of the patients in Janus Thickey. I’m afraid that if we remove him, many of the patients will respond negatively to the change,” Healer Robins says, aiming a warm smile at Zabini.

“And you have a muggle vehicle, that James Bond-looking thing, am I right, Harry?” Zabini asks.

Harry turns to face him. He hates to admit it, but Zabini looks attractive in the lime green robes—but everything about him is stylish, with his broad shoulders, his fancy clothing under his robes, his stylish haircut. Too stylish for a Healer, Harry thinks glumly, staring down at his beat-up trainers he’s had for three years now. Harry grimaces as the other man smiles widely at him. He’d wager his entire Gringotts vault that Zabini has charmed a tooth to twinkle when he smiles like that.

“Yeah, why?” Harry grunts. He doesn’t want to show just how disappointed he is over missing out on the Thickey Ward, but he’s never been that great at compartmentalising his feelings.

“You’ll need one where you’re going,” Healer Robins says.

--------

As soon as Harry pulled his sleek black ’52 Jaguar XK-120 (a result of his quarter-life crisis earlier in the year) into the driveway of St Peter’s Asylum, the 16th century estate sends a chill up his spine. He exits his car and ambles around the property for a while, wanting to gain a better sense of his new work environment. There’s a 25-mile-long anti-Apparition ward surrounding the property and no Floo Network connection. Everything about the property felt duplicitous. The beautiful large bay windows were covered excessively with sharp, pointy metal bars, stained-glass depicting religious iconography were covered in grime and spiderwebs. The columned archway framing the front entrance has cracks in them and are covered in rotting foliage. Behind the estate is a crematorium where ominous black smoke currently poured from the vents, spilling upward into the grey sky. He should have known then that something was amiss.

After a confusing meeting with Head Healer Madison, a quick introduction to the nurses and orderlies, Harry is shown to his small, gloomy office. Settled in, when he finally glanced through the files of his new patients, he nearly spilled his coffee on the pile.

He did not expect to see Draco Malfoy on his rota.

He can recall the last time he saw Malfoy, right after the trials, when Harry’s testimony wasn’t enough to save him completely from time in Azkaban, but anything after? He can’t. He does not recall exactly how much time Malfoy served—had it been three years or four? Did he receive early release or was that his father? How had Harry simply put Malfoy out of his mind after everything they had both been through? How had Zabini not warned him Malfoy would be in a psychiatric ward? Did he even know?

All these questions left a sour taste in Harry’s mouth. He had asked Healer Madison to give Malfoy’s file to a different Healer due to the conflict of interest, but there were no other Healers that would take Malfoy, and so Harry was left with a quandary: either help Malfoy or they’ll send him back to Azkaban, untreated, to serve out the rest of his sentence.

Malfoy’s file was as depressing as Harry imagined it to be.

Malfoy was considered a permanent resident on the ward, but the history is muddled as to why he’s been labelled permanent if his psychiatric care was part of his early release requirements from Azkaban. The threadbare treatment plan had no end goals or date to reintegrate Malfoy into Magical society. The file simply read of an attempted suicide in Azkaban, manic depression, and tendencies towards excessive violence to not just himself but those around him when angered—this was one of the reasons Healers refused him care. He had apparently injured the last three, one almost fatally. He’s been kept heavily medicated, but lately has been refusing treatment. The nurses have been providing the necessary potions intravenously.

Malfoy also hasn’t uttered a single word to anyone—not staff or other patients—for over two years.

From the gossip that the nurses regularly indulged in, Harry was able to learn that Malfoy befriended a young Scottish man named Ziggy and an elderly woman named Lottie that was also considered mute and antisocial. Ziggy had died exactly over two years ago under mysterious conditions and his body was sent to the crematorium instead of autopsied by the local Medical Examiner. When Harry had brought this oversight to Healer Madison, he had been scolded and suspended for three days for viewing files not assigned to him. She threatened to send him back to St. Mungos if he continued to work on the files that have been sealed by the Chief Healer, which would result in him failing his final rotation.

This, of course, further fuelled Harry’s interests.

-------

Harry began to watch Draco’s condition much more closely.

The other man still wouldn’t utter a word to Harry, and sometimes he wondered if Draco even recognised who he was sitting in front of, his eyes unfocused, body slumped in his chair with his bandaged arms wrapped around his body, his long blond hair falling to his shoulders in messy clumps.

Harry began to discover bruises around Draco’s wrists when they’d meet for sessions. When they began to appear around Draco’s neck, and finally, his left eye, Harry calmly enquired about it, and this sent Draco into a silent, violent frenzy. Draco had shoved most of the contents on Harry’s desk to the floor, thrown books at the walls, and ripped one of his bandages free to viciously dig his nails up and down his arm. Harry had to call a CODE RED as he scrambled to unlock his wand from the warded drawer of his desk to Stupefy Draco before he reopened all his wounds. It was the first time Harry had seen any kind of real reaction from the other man and quite frankly, it scared the hell out of him. He had watched helplessly as the orderlies rushed in to gather Draco’s limp body from the floor.

Later that day, he approached Healer Madison.

“I’d like the evaluation forms for any other medical treatments Mr Malfoy is having here,” Harry had demanded. She had popped her gum in Harry’s face before rolling her eyes at his request.

“Those records are private, Potter. For the Chief Healer’s eyes only,” she had said.

“Well, I need the evaluation forms as well. I should be aware of any changes in treatment methods, considering Malfoy is one of my patients.”

Healer Madison patted Harry on the shoulder. “Relax, Potter. No need to be such a bloody worry-wort. Code reds happen all the time here. You’ll soon come to realise how we do things at St Peter’s.”

-------

Harry left the hospital at 5pm every day. Like clockwork, when he’s just about to get into his car, he’ll look up to the third-floor window of the recreation room where he’ll catch Draco staring down at him through the slats of the bars. Each time, the monster in Harry’s chest that’s begun to grow with Harry’s concern and affection for Draco, roared to life. He knew it would be just a matter of time before Draco ended up dead if Harry did not figure out what’s going on in this hospital.

--------

On a particularly cold, grey day in October, one month into Harry’s rotation at St Peter’s, Harry enters the third-floor recreation room. All of Harry’s patients have been improving greatly, Draco in particular. Intravenous treatment ended a week ago as he’s now more cooperative in taking his medication by mouth. His self-harming had eased somewhat, but there were still bad days that Harry monitored closely. Draco interacts with staff and his friend Lottie again, sitting next to her to watch the Muggle telly or just holding her wrinkled hand as they both stare out the window. His grey gaze seemed stronger, more focused, determined, even. It made Harry happy to see a sliver of the person he once knew shining through, and he hoped it would just be a matter of time before Draco speaks, so Harry can help him.

Harry glances around the room. Soft music is playing from off the telly. There's plenty of places to sit, but he opts to walk over to the window where Draco is sitting and playing chess by himself. The man’s wrists are bandaged again, no doubt from picking at his scars. Harry can see a patch of blood through the gauze and wonders why none of the nurses have been around to replace them. He wishes he had his wand (which is locked in his office for safety reasons) so he can replace the bandage himself.

“Draco,” Harry starts warmly. “How are you doing today?”

Draco looks up from the board and Harry gasps. There’s another brutal black eye around his left eye, and the top of his lip is split. Harry reaches out, his fingers lightly touching Draco’s lips before grazing along his jaw. Draco remains very, very still under Harry’s touch, his lips parting slightly as his chest heaves. When Harry remembers himself, he snatches his hand back as if he’s been burned.

“Who did this to you?” Harry hisses.

For a moment, Draco’s eyes turn incredibly bright as he exhales a phlegmy breath before his gaze shutters. Harry sits on the opposite side of the board, staring down at it as Draco takes one trembling hand to move his black bishop to E5. Harry sighs.

“You can tell me, Draco. I…I want to help you. I know there’s something terrible happening in this hospital, and I know someone is hurting you. Please, Draco—”

Draco abruptly stands from his seat, startling Harry. Draco doesn’t pay him any notice as he stretches his long, rail-thin body before strolling up to the nurse’s station. He taps on the glass divider several times before Nurse Mathilde slides the panel open.

“What is it, Mr Malfoy?”

Draco mimes smoking a cigarette.

Nurse Mathilde purses her lips. “The Chief Healer has given you permission to smoke again, but not until 5pm and especially not without an orderly present. You’ll have to wait until then. No exceptions!” she snaps before slamming the panel shut.

Draco doesn’t come back to his board game, nor does he glance over at Harry.

Harry watches as he instead sits next to his friend Lottie who is staring at the only plant in the recreational room. He lifts her wrinkled hand and entwines it with his own before settling in to watch the plant with her.

---------

At approximately 5pm Harry exits the asylum, briefcase in one hand and car keys in the other. When he passes by one of the gnarled oak trees, he notices Draco leaning against it, blowing tendrils of smoke from his cigarette. Harry slows down to watch him.

Draco’s hip is cocked out, his hospital shirt bunched up slightly, exposing a sliver of pale flesh and a titillating v-line that disappears in his thin cotton hospital pyjamas. He’s properly beautiful—all long lines and sharp edges carved in delicate, alabaster marble. Harry has noticed just how clearer Draco’s eyes are now, how the grey is piercing, brimming with cleverness and an intelligence that reminds Harry of the boy he knew in Hogwarts.

Harry’s suddenly startled out of his reverence when he glances around and notices that Draco is currently unattended.

Harry decides to approach him.

“Draco. Are you out here by yourself? Where is your attending orderly?”

“He was recovering from the blowjob I gave him before I did this—” Draco says, his voice thick and raspy. Harry is so shocked to hear the familiar drawl that he stumbles forward, his eyes widening, realises too late that Draco has lunged towards him, left hand raised high to strike Harry on the side of his head with a large, jagged rock.

When Harry comes to, it’s with a sharp groan and with the sound of a string of complex Latin filling his ears. He grits his teeth as a burning sensation wraps around his wrist. He realises that he’s frozen on the ground by a particularly thorough Petrificus Totalus. Despite his throbbing head, he focuses enough to catch Draco at his side, hissing as a thin, red bracelet appears on his left wrist, the bandages now gone. Harry hasn’t seen his left arm exposed before, and he cries out as he takes in the horrific scarring over the Dark Mark, as if someone had tried to peel the Mark off with a scalpel and failed to dig deep enough. There were healed and freshly scabbed cuts from his wrist to his elbow on both arms.

Draco appears above Harry then. “Oh, good. You’re awake.”

There are streaks of dirt across Draco’s face, his hands, and under his nails.

“Please, Draco, whatever it is…don’t…don’t…”

Draco snorts. “What, don’t hurt you? Don’t kill you? Why would I harm the person I’m currently Bonded to?” Draco asks, lifting Harry’s wrist to his face. The red bracelet there matches Draco’s.

Panic seizes Harry immediately. Had he not been completely immobile, he sure he’d be shuddering. “What the hell is going on?” Harry asks, his voice shaking.

Draco drops his wrist and instead lifts a thick, taped together manila folder covered in dirt. “You’re helping me get the fuck out of here, Potter.” A smile breaks across Draco’s face then, making him look both incredibly beautiful and deranged. “It was as if you breathed life back into me, the day you walked through the doors of St Peter’s. I knew then that I had to hold on just a bit longer because surely it was a sign that my initial hard work wasn’t done in vain. You see this file here? I used to sneak out documents I’d gather from Madison, the Chief Healer, and the nurses proving the abuse. Some of the orderlies will let you do whatever you want if you can…provide the right services…and they would often leave me alone long enough for a smoke. I would hide the files here, Potter. But after Z-Z-iggy—” Draco’s excitable tone falters, a veil of sadness falling so quickly over his face Harry experiences a sense of whiplash. “They killed my friend, Potter. They treated Ziggy well before, even let him play Bowie when things weren’t so bad. They killed him during the experiments…”

“What experiments?” Harry asks, shocked.

Draco’s expression shifts once again to happiness. “I knew you wouldn’t be involved in something so gruesome.” He holds up his scarred arm. “On the Dark Mark and Purebloods who have come from Dark families. They’re trying to figure out how Dark Magic is entwined in a person’s DNA and…I don’t know…undo it.”

Harry’s eyes widens, mind beginning to race. “What?”

If the Healers here were literally using human flesh and blood to somehow recreate or understand the links between DNA and inherent Dark Magic, who knows what kind of torture and body modification they’re causing their subjects.

Draco eyes become manic. “You have to help me. You have to get me out of here in the next five minutes. My outdoor time is only half an hour and the orderly is currently passed out—”

“—Draco,” Harry whispers, interrupting Draco’s spiral. “How many others are there…how many other victims?”

“I don’t know, I swear. I just knew Ziggy personally but there would always be screams, so much screaming, so many voices…” Draco says, closing his eyes and swaying on the spot. He mutters softly, incoherently, to himself for a few moments before he opens his eyes, so grey, intense and bright. Harry is overwhelmed with shock, horror, and above all, disgust. Disgusted that the people he’s been working alongside for a month now, the people who have vowed first to do no harm, have been torturing their patients, vulnerable patients.

“Draco, I want to help you, okay? I will help you. You just have to undo the Petrificus Totalus. We’ll get in the car and just drive. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”

Draco holds up Harry’s wand, points it at Harry’s face. “If you betray me, Potter, you’ll regret it. We’ll get in that fancy car of yours and you’ll drive until I say stop. If you do anything to prevent me from getting these files to the right people…if you try to get help from the Aurors or let your friends know what’s going on, I’ll off myself. And this bond here, this bond will take you with me. I’m the only one that knows the counter, and once we get to my final destination, I’ll release you. So, don’t you dare fucking try me.”

Harry bites back a gasp.

Despite his very real fear, Harry’s desire to help Draco outweighs it. He nods.

“Okay, whatever you want. I’ll do it.”

Draco’s face, dark with suspicion, slowly starts to slide towards something lighter. He bares his teeth. “I hold onto the wand. You’re not allowed to touch me, period, or else I might get the wrong idea that you’re trying to get your wand back, and I don’t want to have to hurt you, or worse, hurt myself.”

“Yes, okay.”

With a wave of Harry’s wand, Draco undoes the spell. Harry sits up slowly, so as not to alarm Draco, who has quickly scrambled to his feet, the dirty file hugged to his chest, wand still trained on Harry. Harry follows after him, head throbbing and legs unsteady.

Draco casts a healing charm his way before strengthening a Disillusionment Charm around them.

Feeling much steadier, Harry exhales. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I hit you in the first place. I had no other means to incapacitate you.”

“You could have just told me what was going on.”

Draco shrugs. “I had to make sure you were trustworthy. And honestly, I’ve wanted to knock you out for years, so this very much fulfilled a boyhood dream of mine,” Draco says, his lips tugging upward. Harry pauses to look at him. The monster in his chest is awake, thrashing about as affection and desire feeds it.

Harry knows he’s fucked.

They make their way towards Harry’s car after checking on the unconscious orderly. Once settled in, Harry starts the car and drives, past the gates of the asylum and onto the stretch of empty country road. He glances at Draco, not at all shocked to see the tears that are streaming down his battered face.

“Where to?” Harry asks softly.

Draco continues to stare out ahead of him as he answers, “the only safehouse I know. A house on Spinner’s End, Cokeworth.”

Harry draws in a sharp breath.

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Dolls’ Eyes — A Jaws AU

Pairings: established Peggy/Steve, developing Brunnhilde/Carol Rating: T Chapters: 14/14

Summary: Tony Stark snapped his fingers and the vanished half of the universe returned, but Thanos escaped the battlefield, fleeing into space. Now that he’s virtually powerless, most of the Avengers consider chasing him all over the universe a waste of resources, but Peggy Carter—newly deposited in the 21st century—is determined to finish the job. Brunnhilde and Carol Danvers have the same idea.

When scattered rumours of fresh killings escalate to the death of one of their own, the three women team up to defeat Thanos once and for all.

read the prologue

read ch. 1 one / 2 two / 3 three / 4 four / 5 five 6 six / 7 seven / 8 eight / 9 nine / 10 ten 11 eleven / 12 twelve / 13 thirteen / 14 fourteen

After everything, Carol wasn’t surprised that Brunnhilde put up a fight over being told to just rest. Carol reminded her that she was lucky to be alive, to which Brunnhilde responded that it wasn’t anything like luck, and went on to list the incredible, lifesaving properties of her fine armour, explain the enhanced durability provided by her Asgardian biology, and enumerate all of the injuries she’d previously sustained that were apparently worse than being electrocuted half to death, and then nearly drowning while incapacitated. Carol didn’t believe half of it, but it was kinda hot when Brunnhilde bragged.

So, in spite of Carol’s efforts, Brunnhilde kept getting up the second her back was turned in order to haul bodies off of Thanos’s ship. As they started to fix everything Carol had broken (including a patch job of that hole in the roof), a scan of the local environment informed them that almost all of the life on this planet was aquatic. They left the stack of corpses on land. Whatever water critters were around, they didn’t need toxic eyeball goo leeching into their habitat.

Carol caught Brunnhilde shaking out a twitching arm and made her sit to do electronic repairs rather than manual labour. (Carol had that handled anyway, plus, she knew where all the bodies were because she was the one who’d left them there.) Brunnhilde protested that she was the captain. Carol came way too close to saying not of this ship, but stopped herself. Instead, she suggested Brunnhilde do like any other captain would and let her underlings take on the grunt work. That got a smile, if not verbal agreement.

Thankfully, Peggy was a fast learner; Carol explained the basics of what she’d done to wreck something and Peggy quickly understood how to walk back the damage. They worked their way through the ship, staying at neighbouring stations so Carol would be there if Peggy had questions, and Peggy would be there if (when) Carol had messed something up so badly that it needed four hands to fix.

“Maria would’ve been great with this,” she said without thinking, holding up a fistful of wires while Peggy tinkered beneath.

“Maria?”

It was easier to talk about her than it had ever been before. Like with the repairs, she could tell that Peggy understood without Carol having to do much more than gush over how good Maria had been at fixing stuff, how thorough she’d been with the plane she’d kept in the hangar on her property, how reliable, how trustworthy, how patient…

“Yes,” Peggy told her with a smile. “She sounds like she was wonderful.”

“She was.”

But when the two of them had finished their circuit of the ship and Carol went to tell Brunnhilde they were good to go, she wasn’t there. Carol panicked, worried that Brunnhilde had overheard all her praise of Maria and somehow missed the tone of a person who was in the late stages of grief, who had accepted the worst and was keen to keep living, maybe even loving.

When she couldn’t find her on the ship, she jogged down the ramp, intending to look for her outside. The second she turned to face the water, she spotted Brunnhilde coming towards her from the escape vessel. Carol ran out to meet her.

“What’s all this?” she asked in a tone of amusement, because Brunnhilde had her arms full.

“Food, Peggy’s jacket, a couple beers that didn’t get smashed when Thanos rammed us, uh…” She tried to examine the rest of the pile she was carrying, but it teetered and slipped; laughing, Carol scooped a few things out of her arms before they could end up in the shallow water.

“I thought you might’ve taken off on us,” she said lightly.

“I didn’t think you thought I’d be capable of that after getting zapped.”

“I was just…”

Brunnhilde walked close, pressing her arm into Carol’s.

“I know. I would’ve been the same way if it’d been you.”

“I don’t even know if I can get electrocuted,” Carol said.

“I’m not gonna recommend trying it for fun,” Brunnhilde told her. “Anyway, I used all my discs on Thanos and I dropped the remote in the water somewhere… You’d have to go to Thor with your request, ask him to bring the lightning down.”

“Straight to Thor?!” Carol laughed. “That seems a little extreme.”

“Or you could just stand around outside in New Asgard during a storm and wait for it to happen naturally.”

“And why would I need to be in New Asgard specifically?” Carol asked in a teasing voice. “I could get struck by lightning anywhere.”

She watched Brunnhilde flounder but couldn’t get an answer out of her, not on the way to the ship, not while she was distracted with Peggy asking her a slew of health questions, and not while they were trying to figure out how to get this humongous spaceship off the ground with a crew of only three people.

As they made their rocky assent, Carol was too busy to wonder whether Brunnhilde had heard her talking about Maria before she’d left the ship to scavenge from the escape craft. They had just broken through the atmosphere, blue sky giving way to black, when Brunnhilde spoke.

“Love’s like war.”

It was so sudden that Carol snorted a laugh.

“Ok, poet,” she said. She was tempted to devote some time to getting Thanos’s ship to play her music, if only to put on ‘Love Is a Battlefield’ for Brunnhilde. To let her know what had been said on the subject already.

She smirked to herself when Brunnhilde continued, clearly not giving a shit about her interruption or joking criticism.

“It is.”

“What do you mean?” Carol asked more seriously.

Brunnhilde shifted in her seat, engaging different protocols for outer space travel. Carol noticed the tremor had gone from her arm.

“You do better in both because of experience,” Brunnhilde said, looking straight out the viewport. “Anybody who can’t appreciate the benefit of falling for someone who’s been in love before is a fucking idiot.”

“And you’re not a fucking idiot.”

“I hope that isn’t a question.”

Carol smiled and shook her head. They flew in silence for a while.

“When we get back,” she said eventually, peering shyly over at her captain, “I owe someone important to me a visit, but then I’m coming to see you. Just a heads-up.”

“Vaguely threatening.”

“Sorry.”

“No,” Brunnhilde told her, grabbing her forearm to get her full attention, “I liked it.”

Heat raced up Carol’s neck until she was blushing as bright red as her suit, or the dumb acid burn on her arm.

Just then, Peggy’s agitated voice came from the other end of the wide flight deck.

“Someone’s coming right at us!”

Before Carol had the chance to say what the hell? or who? or again?, an incoming message threw a distantly familiar face up in front of them, hovering in the form of a hologram.

“Hey,” Carol greeted. “Small universe.”

—

Peggy had never thought to imagine what Gamora might be like. She’d had an account of Peter Quill’s affection for her from Rocket, but had recognized that a portrayal of the woman that crew had known—the woman Peter had loved enough to forfeit his life in the quest for reunion—couldn’t be fully accurate. At best, the Gamora they described would be one layer removed from the real person. The Gamora they had known and the one whose hologram had just appeared before Peggy, Carol, and Brunnhilde were a handful of years and a thousand experiences apart.

It seemed absurd to Peggy that this woman may wish to harm them, but she really ought to have considered it.

“Was it your distress signal I picked up?” Gamora asked flatly, eyes locked on Carol in the pilot’s seat.

“Umm… yep.”

“And you still require assistance?”

Carol glanced at Brunnhilde, then over to Peggy, who nodded. They certainly had worked wonders, she felt, in getting this massive spaceship off the planet, but who knew how many things could go wrong between here and Earth? Peggy doubted either of her shipmates had told her the half of it. They were simply short-staffed, too few fingers available to plug any metaphorical leaks they might spring on the journey.

“Yes please,” Carol told her.

With a nod, 2014 Gamora went from unknown quantity to ally. Peggy sighed in relief.

The three of them were transported directly from Thanos’s ship to Gamora’s. The process was quite indescribable, Peggy thought. Tingly, quick, with a bit of a lurch as she rematerialized on an entirely different flight deck from the one she’d just left. Had the transfer been instantaneous? Had she, perhaps, ceased to exist for a moment or two? She was full of questions but unsure to whom she should direct them.

Gamora, while welcoming in deed, was somewhat inscrutable when they met her face-to-face. Standoffish. Unsure of herself, Peggy realized. Immediately, she warmed to the woman. She had been in her place herself once, sort of, if not precisely in her intimidating boots. It hadn’t been so long ago that she’d been ferried through time to find the world completely changed. What Gamora needed was a reason to trust them the way they were trusting her.

“I take it you killed my father?” Gamora asked plainly once they were aboard.

Oh dear. It seemed they weren’t off to a very auspicious start.

Brunnhilde stepped in front of Carol, who’d just been opening her mouth to speak, presumably to claim responsibility.

“I was the captain,” she stated. “Thanos was killed on my orders.”

“Uh, no, not explicitly,” Carol argued.

“Anyway,” Peggy piped up, “I’m the one who shot him in the head.”

“And he was only vulnerable to that because I electrocuted him to within an inch of his despicable life and his helmet fell off,” Brunnhilde countered.

“On a planet I flew us to,” Carol reminded them.

“We’ll be sharing the blame,” Peggy informed Gamora on behalf of her crewmates.

Gamora cocked her head consideringly.

“And if it’s approval?” To their universal silence, she explained, “I know what he was capable of in my time, and I saw enough of Earth to get a general idea of what he was set to accomplish if he wasn’t stopped.”

“Were you out here hunting him too?” Peggy took a step towards her.

Directing her gaze away from them, Gamora blinked rapidly, looking momentarily confused and upset. In the next second, she’d hidden any outward hint of those feelings.

“I should’ve been,” she said, “but I’ve never been able to stand up to him like I should have. After I left your planet… for a while, I wasn’t looking for him. But I began to see signs. And then Peter Quill came.”

“Peter!” Carol said. “You saw him? Did you talk to him? Rocket never said—”

“No. I just watched. I followed him for a while. I knew he was looking for me. He was so… loud.” Gamora made a face. “Leaving word for me everywhere, telling traders and transports that he was my boyfriend. He was an idiot, but an entertaining idiot… I barely noticed that I’d stopped keeping track of Thanos until he just showed up…

“I was a coward,” Gamora went on. “I saw my father intercept Peter’s ship and I knew what would probably happen, but I couldn’t put myself between the two of them. Was I supposed to stand up for this guy when I’d never been able to stand up for myself? I was raised to be cruel, to think of myself, that attachments formed to accomplish anything but the acquisition of power make you weak. I know Thanos killed Peter. It’s my fault he’s dead.”

Peggy stood in front of her, refraining from placing a reassuring hand on Gamora’s shoulder when she gave her cagey eyes.

“It’s not,” Peggy told her firmly.

“I only heard your distress signal because I heard Peter’s first,” Gamora said. “I went onboard after my father had left; it was days before I could force myself to do it, maybe longer. I used his communications system to speak to his crewmates on Earth.”

“You must’ve just missed us leaving,” Brunnhilde said.

“That’s what he told me. He said three more morons had left the planet, on their way to hunt down Thanos.”

“And you’ve helped us,” Peggy said, tone insistent. “If you do feel any responsibility for what happened to Peter, then surely you should also believe that you’ve redeemed yourself by saving our backsides.”

Gamora’s eyes squinted as though she were in pain.

“I owed him more than this and I hate it,” she said, jaw clenched. “He was no one to me. He knew someone I’m never going to become.”

“Shhh. I know,” Peggy said soothingly.

“I don’t see how that’s possible. Have you ever had someone tell you they love you when it feels like it’s impossible that they even know you? That whoever they loved had to be a different person from who you are?”

Peggy’s shoulders fell. She could feel the bittersweet smile on her face.

“Actually, yes.”

Gamora appeared surprised to have been brought up short in such a manner.

“Do you have any advice?” Peggy urged softly.

For a minute, Gamora was quiet, staring hard at the wall. Peggy could feel that the others had backed away, giving them time and space when Gamora’s stream of information had been diverted by the confusing grief she was obviously experiencing.

“Whatever lengths he goes to because he thinks you’re better than you are…” Gamora finally said, turning her head to look Peggy in the eye. “Try to be worth it.”

“Got it.”

Peggy folded her hands together, pressing her right palm to her wedding ring.

—

They were about to get underway, their new crew of four on a significantly smaller, though sleeker, ship. (Brunnhilde didn’t mourn for the one they’d left in the shallows; it had served them well, first the Asgardians and now the team responsible for the death of Thanos.) However, staring out the viewport from the seat in which she’d been installed as the effective second-in-command, Brunnhilde didn’t feel right. The sight of Thanos’s ship just hanging there in space unnerved her. It would be better if no trace of the Titan remained.

“Let’s blast it,” she suggested to the deck at large.

“Thanos’s spaceship?” Peggy checked.

“Yes.”

“Well,” Carol said, “we aren’t near anything. There’s nothing for the debris to hit…”

Brunnhilde smiled slightly and looked to the captain.

“Gamora? Do you have any weapons on this ship that could do the job?”

“There is one thing I’ve been saving for a special occasion,” Gamora said, gaze fixed on Thanos’s ship. “First, we’re going to need to get clear.”

She piloted them away—away from the planet, away from the ship. Part of Brunnhilde wanted to request the honour of launching the torpedo Gamora was setting the coordinates for, locking it onto her late father’s final vessel, but she was already satisfied with the role she’d played. Let Gamora take this final, symbolic step. It was like Thor’s hideous couch; Brunnhilde had helped him lug the thing into the open air, but permitted him to drop the match (once she’d soaked the cushions in lighter fluid, just in case it wasn’t sufficiently saturated in spilled beer). She would content herself with watching it go up in flames.

And it did. It was an impressive explosion, scattering wreckage in a wide perimeter Gamora had kept them outside of. They were briefly silent as jagged hunks of metal twisted in the void.

“That’s one way to get the stink of dead bodies out,” Carol noted, and Brunnhilde turned to her, shoulders shaking with laughter Carol quickly joined in on.

They flew for some time, and it was good just to relax, to stretch in her seat and tilt her head from side to side so that her neck cracked horrendously and Peggy said things like “good lord!” while Carol laughed her ass off. Brunnhilde remained alert though. She couldn’t help it. In the old days, with the Valkyrie, there’d been a certain relief when the battle in which they’d been engaged was done, but they’d only known true rest once they’d returned to Asgard. Home. The last time she’d been on a ship bound for Earth, the atmosphere had been one of intense grief, muffled weeping in the corridors. They’d known Earth as Midgard and had little admiration for its country of Norway, chilly with fog and swathed in the bleak colours that reflected their inner emptiness. Nothing they loved was there—not their people, not their gleaming towers and soaring statues. How could it ever possibly feel like coming home?

Brunnhilde had honestly believed she’d lost her ability to experience that feeling, that, without her sisters-in-arms, the sensation was lost to her. Yet, despite the tension she still carried from the fight, she felt it easing. She felt herself longing for home, her little house at the water’s edge. For the chance to return to her people as their king and announce a great evil defeated. Maybe this tension was only anticipation after all.

In contrast to the fruits of her own contemplation and revelation, Gamora’s private thoughts had left her expression mournful and roving. Brunnhilde exited the deck to relieve herself and find something to eat in Gamora’s stores, and when she returned, she addressed her.

“You’re not taking us all the way to Earth, are you?”

Gamora flicked her gaze sideways to assess her. Brunnhilde knew there was no judgement to be found in her face, so she stared back calmly.

“I’m taking you to Quill’s ship. Thanos, in his infinite arrogance, didn’t damage it. Maybe he thought he might like to return to it some time and claim it as part of his fleet. It’s a tribute to how much I continue to feel my father’s influence that I planned to do the same. Not build a fleet, but go back. There’s something about that ship… I find it comforting.”

Brunnhilde frowned thoughtfully.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take it and leave this one for us?”

“No. What I felt when I was onboard, examining it and… and removing Quill’s body for space burial… that was just a feeling of, I don’t know, another life. There’s a group on Earth for whom that ship means something. And it’s the only thing they have of him. I couldn’t keep it.”

“One of those people is your sister,” Brunnhilde said carefully.

“Yes.”

“I tried to talk to her, but she doesn’t like me very much. I don’t blame her,” she added as Gamora gave her a wary look. “She was upset.”

“Nebula is at her most dangerous when upset, and she’s always upset, so she’s always dangerous.”

“She was upset about Peter’s death. But I think also because, without him, no one was out here looking for you.”

Gamora stiffened.

“If she really wants to find me, she can come look for me herself. I’ll be ready.”

“She doesn’t want to fight you,” Brunnhilde said. “She misses you. I think. It’s really none of my business.”

“Why would you wish to get involved in our family affairs?” Gamora’s voice was more curious than accusing. “Besides murdering our father, of course.”

Brunnhilde sighed before answering.

“I’ve lost many people I cared about. I don’t have a family anymore.” She glanced over to see Carol and Peggy bent over a screen together, Carol’s sudden snort infecting Peggy until they were both laughing. “I mean,” Brunnhilde corrected herself, “I didn’t.”

When they arrived at the Benatar and Gamora transported Carol and Peggy off her ship, Brunnhilde motioned for Gamora to hold off a moment on removing her.

“If we don’t meet again,” she said, sticking out her arm for Gamora to grasp.

Gamora gripped her tightly and nodded.

“I think we might though. I thought about it and realized it’s easier for me to find Nebula than for her to find me.”

“I may have left you her coordinates.” Brunnhilde released Gamora’s arm. “Enjoy Missouri.”

She joined Peggy and Carol on the Benatar, pausing to bend over Carol’s seat to surprise her with a deep kiss before she took up her own position. She brushed stray strands of hair back out of Carol’s dancing eyes.

“I’m going to have to redo your braid,” Brunnhilde told her.

“Oh, we’ll have time. We’ve got quite a road trip ahead of us. Luckily… Peter left us his tunes.” Beaming, she started up a song with a bright beat.

Brunnhilde smiled and went to her seat, fastening herself in as Carol readied the vessel for launch.

“You know,” Peggy said thoughtfully, slinging her jacket over the back of her chosen seat, “before all of this, I was actually quite afraid of outer space.”

Carol laughed.

“I can’t imagine why.”

[thenerdyindividual]

Okay so yesterday @sterlingdylan made this awesome analysis post about BBC Merlin, stating that it was neither Arthur’s nor Merlin’s fault that Merlin didn’t reveal his magic, something I 100% agree with.

Unfortunately, this post also got derailed by a discussion comparing Arthur’s attitudes to homophobia. Now, to be clear, I do think there are some parallels there. Writers will look to real world bigotry in order to write their fantasy bigotry better. For BBC Merlin, the bigotry does feel a lot like homophobia because magic is: a part of the characters and not something they chose, something the characters must hide or be put in danger, something characters worry makes them evil/monsters, etc. However, parallels are not the same thing as an allegory.  If we try to take BBC Merlin as a direct allegory for homophobia it falls apart because there are genuine reasons for people to be afraid of magic in the canon because it can and has killed people, controlled people, and hurt people. Queer people can’t do any of that with their queerness. Our queerness is fundamentally harmless, whereas magic is not. Also, as sterlingdylan discussed last night, if we take it as an allegory it sets up a concerning narrative about “closeted” Merlin being good, and “out” other characters being bad. Which is injecting a really extreme and problematic moral into the show, and not something we as an audience should be placing on the shoulders of the writers.

I don’t think we need to take BBC Merlin as an allegory for anything, It is enough to discuss parallels to our lives, and examine how the bigotry functions in the context of the show itself. But If we are going to be comparing it as directly as possible to something in our daily lives, then it would probably be more accurate as a narrative about extremism and essentialism. It is still an imperfect comparison because usually extremism and essentialism are not founded on genuine concern, but stick with me. It gets long so the essay is going under the cut.

Uther experienced the death of his wife at the hands of magic. Now, we know that he and Ygraine asked Nimueh for help conceiving. Whether they fully knew the cost or if Nimueh downplayed it is neither here nor there. What is relevant is that Uther was given proof of magic’s ability to harm him and the people he loved. Now, someone who did not hold the black and white “The King is always right” attitude might have taken this instance and pushed for regulation of magic rather than a ban. However, as we witness in later episodes in which he locks up his own children for defying him, Uther can never admit he was wrong so rather than say it was a bad idea to use magic in the way he did, he convinced himself that it wasn’t him who made the mistake, but that magic itself was an inherently evil corrupting force, and started the purge. He took an extreme oppositional view towards magic.

On the flip side, much of the narrative of the magic half of this battle is also about extremism. They are, rightfully, infuriated by and afraid of Uther, but they also let their anger at Uther shade their perception of Arthur. Morgana, starting in season one, was already set against Uther, but was not yet set against Arthur. However, when she met Morgause her train of thought went from justice, to revenge against Uther, to a desire for power, and finally a deep desire to see Arthur dead. Perhaps in some way Morgause really does care about creating a just world for magic users, but she clearly also has a desire for power (as seem when she encourages Morgana to stage a coup and take the throne for herself instead of try to teach Arthur, when he’s demonstrated before a willingness not to lock step with Uther) which are two things that aren’t compatible.

Morgause encourages Morgana to see the worst in the people around her, and encourages her to give into acts of extreme violence against people who don’t necessarily deserve it (ie all the peasants she was prepared to starve when they disagreed with her when she took the throne at the end of season three. A move remarkably similar to something Uther would have done). Morgana no longer stops to consider the times that Arthur stood against Uther, and comes to view Arthur not as someone who can be shown the bigger picture, but as someone inherently against magic rather than the violence it can do. This cycle does not stop with Morgana either, it also reaches Kara who refuses to see the good in Arthur even though he has shown his willingness to make peace with members of the Old Religion (druids), and was prepared to let her get away with attempted murder simply because Mordred and Merlin asked him to show her mercy.

Kara and Morgana both have come to view Arthur as inherently violent and set against magic the same way Uther came to see magic as inherently violent and set against Camelot. Neither of which are accurate views on the situation.

Arthur is the one who was prophesied to break this cycle of extremism and essentialism, and we can see him attempt to try. There are multiple occasions in which he considers that magic may not be evil. Off the top of my head there is the scene after Morgause reveals the true circumstance of his birth, the scene in which he allows Dragoon to attempt to heal Uther, and the scene where he asks Merlin if he should legalize magic in order to save Mordred. In all of these cases someone (usually Merlin) prevents him from exploring that thought deeper. Even so, he does make great strides towards taking up the proper nuanced view needed for this situation. He takes Camelot from a kingdom that relentlessly hunts down and persecutes magic, to a kingdom of fair trials and peace with druids.

Sadly, no one can meet him in the middle. Morgause and Morgana’s insistence on trying to take him down and harm the people closest to him prevents Arthur from learning the good aspects of magic just as much as Uther’s propaganda did. Merlin is the only sorcerer in the entire show not to be set against Arthur, and therefore the only one who could show Arthur how to break this cycle, but doing so presents no small risk to his own and Arthur’s safety. If Arthur took it badly and either banished or executed him, it would effectively prevent Merlin from protecting him. This leaves Arthur trying to draw his own conclusions, and he never gets the additional information that magic can, and is, used for beauty and healing. He can only operate on what he has seen, and what he has seen is magic being used against himself and Camelot repeatedly.

Arthur can’t be held responsible for not incorporating information he isn’t given into his view on magic, and Merlin can’t be held responsible for not risking himself to teach Arthur. We can, however, hold the people around them responsible for creating an environment that prevents Arthur from learning on his own, and prevents Merlin from teaching him. The fault lies primarily with Uther for kicking this whole chain of events off in the first place, and in Morgause who co-opted a genuine struggle in order to gain power. Morgana is also responsible for letting her view of Arthur (someone she has seen stand for justice) be corrupted. In the end the fault lies neither with Arthur, nor with Merlin. The fault lies in the very human tendency to view the world in black and white, and react with violence against those deemed dangerous (despite how much that title is or is not earned).

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

What happened w the rationalist community, if you’re ok talking about it?

LONG REPLY TIME.

In my Wild Youth (tm) I was hardcore in the rationalist/skeptic/humanist community. You know, the New Atheist types (the vast majority of the community didn’t call themselves New Atheists, that was mostly American Dawkins fans, but we were those kinds of people, just less arrogant-PR about it). For people who don’t know, the core philosophy of this subculture basically comes down to: - humans are mostly good people, or try to be good people, and we should act in ways that are good for humanity, the environment, etc. - people with better or more accurate information about the world are capable of making better decisions - it is therefore vitally important that we view the world as accurately as possible. Truth is inherently important and valuable. We should do everything we can to make sure that our beliefs about the world are as accurate as possible. - your mind will lie to you. Cognitive biases have their social and evolutionary uses, but they result in bigotry and bad information. We should do everything we can to identify and compensate for these, and think as rationally as a human is capable of. - while it’s not perfect, science is the most effective tool we have for determining what is most likely to be true. Rationalism is therefore massively pro-science and pro-science education. (This isn’t a blind trust; most hardcore rationalists are scientists and fully aware of the limitations of the messy reality of how science is funded and published and the biases that introduces. These are taken into account. The other hardcore rationalists tend to be magicians/illusionists.)

All of this is perfectly fine and a hill I’m still perfectly willing to die on.

When you get a bunch of people together who are sincerely seeking truth and want the world to be a better place, there are some fairly obvious groups that they’re going to tangle with. Before my time, when we were just called skeptics, the main targets had been psychics and life-after-death spirit-communing con artists (this is where our magicians came from, the philosophical descendants of Houdini, one of the earliest voices in the movement, and later James Randi). But the big proponents of harm in my time were the healing crystals/essential oils/faith healing people, and the ‘Creation should be taught instead of evolution’ creationists. We spent a lot of time trying to stop people from selling oils that they said could cure cancer, and fighting against science education being replaced with religious belief inserted in science classes. (I spent a lot of my teenage years debating creationists on the internet. I can summarise this experience as a frustrating waste of time on both sides of the debate. Neither side was going to accomplish anything in these discussions.)

This is all perfectly fine. I won’t pretend I’m completely happy with everyone’s actions; it’s the internet, so of course there were subgroups doing things like mass trolling conservative religion forums and stuff, which had no purpose except to piss off people we happened not to like, but you get that. The problem with this is that it’s easy. People can believe what they want, but if you’re coming into a rational debate, every pro-Creation, anti-evolution argument is complete and utter bullshit, mostly demonstrating nothing beyond the fact that the creationist debater a) doesn’t understand the most fundamental things about biology or b) does understand and is willingly misleading the audience. Every pro healing crystal, pro astrology or pro telepathy argument is fatuous nonsense. Twelve-year-olds could walk into these discussions and completely shred every argument put forth by big-name “creation scientists” in minutes -- I know, I watched it happen regularly. I was on our conservative creationist Christian-owned community TV station for awhile doing a little ‘creation vs evolution!’ debate against the wealthy station owner’s son to fill air time, and I’d see him do a couple of hours of research for anti-evolution arguments every time we filmed, and it always pissed him off that I’d shred anything he said immediately, having done no research whatsoever, because even to me, a child, the giant drive-a-bus-through-this holes in his arguments were obvious. (Also, they were old hash; I’d read all the books by his idols before and checked the reasoning myself long before.)

Fresh voices in the community came from two main sources -- people who’d been pro-people and pro-reason/science for years finding others like them, and ex-creationists and magic healer victims who’d eventually found the holes in what they’d been taught. This second group, for obvious reasons, tended to be the most passionately pro-reason and pro-science people, and discussing different experiences in a place where people could feel safe being critical and actively celebrate doubt was great. But, inevitably, we got lazy.

A lot of the ‘laziness’ was perfectly reasonable and practical. Time and attention is always limited, and when you’ve dealt with six claims of “the eye is too complex to have evolved!” and explained the flaws in the irreducible complexity argument four times that fortnight, when someone walks in with “blood groups couldn’t possibly have evolved, therefore the earth must be 6,000 years old”, you just don’t fucking bother, and you shouldn’t fucking bother, there’s no value in that discussion.

That’s not the kind of laziness I’m talking about. I’m talking about the part where we got so used to ‘that sounds so fucking stupid’ leading directly being able to tear an argument to pieces,that it became normal to assume that anything that sounds stupid on the surface MUST be obviously wrong. Where ‘this is weird, let’s examine it and check for flaws’ became ‘that person disagrees with my preconceived notions, let’s double down and explain why they’re wrong, because I’m already assuming that they’re wrong’. At some point, “we want to be as rational and accurate as we can be, we call ourselves rationalist and work towards that” became “we’re rationalists, so we’re more accurate and rational than average and probably right”.

You might recognise that as in fact being *the exact opposite of the proported philosophy*. There were always some overenthusiastic idiots in any group, but watching it slowly become normal for rationalising to replace active rationalism and for the names of cognitive biases to be thrown around as gotcha buzzwords rather than things people were seriously considering in their own arguments was... concerning. (There were a lot of very smart people in the community, which unfortunately made it far more vulnerable to this particular kind of thing. Smarter people are better at fooling themselves; a person good at reason is also good at rationalising, and you can’t tell the difference between these things when you’re the one doing them.)

In practical terms, this doesn’t matter that much when you’re playing in the easy leagues of explaining to someone that the overpriced eucalyptus oil they bought from an MLM won’t protect them against chicken pox. The person who’s gotten lazy is shit at being a rationalist, but your reasoning skills don’t actually need to be all that impressive for this. You know what they do need to be impressive for? For when somebody says, “women are taken less seriously than men in science and biased against in hiring, payment and promotion”, and this hypothetical you, a male scientist who’s never noticed this and already knows that his profession is full of smart and reasonable people who wouldn’t do something stupid like that, thinks “that is fucking stupid” and automatically, without thinking about it, puts their energy into shouting down and dismissing alternate evidence. Or when somebody points out islamophobia in the community, or passive racism, or... you get the picture. Social issues can (and should) be examined and interrogated using rational philosophies, but it’s so much harder to do that than laugh at creationists who are sending you abusive messages about going to hell. And given the particular hot-button issues in the community, most of the people there were interested in biology, chemistry or physics and simply had no idea how to *do* social sciences, treating the parts that were familiar from their own specialities as valid and the rest as irrational nonsense. And now, you have prominent rationalists panicking about Sharia law, sneering at the made-up problems of feminism, and generally making fools of themselves... because they got lazy.

Because, like how it’s hard to be a liberal (American definition) but easy to be a conservative in a gay hat, it’s hard to be a rationalist, but easy to be an arsehole with a big vocabulary. And that’s why I can’t gush about how great Richard Dawkins’ early science books are without somebody bringing up his bullshit twitter opinions.

[ofcloudsandstars]

March Magical Forecast

Welcome to March and eventually SPRING everyone! This Pisces and Aries season is all about HEALING and making peace with the past so that we can move forward. Though the two zodiac seasons are split in the month of March, the final lunar cycle in Pisces will weave our internal journeys of healing through the month, reviewing our spiritual paths, examining our emotional bodies, shedding beliefs and mindsets that no longer work and making peace with the people of our past along with mending emotional wounds.

In the Pisces half there will be a lot of days with no notable transits so there will be a lot of time for rest and reflection before the fiery excitement of Aries season kicking it off on the first quarter moon. It's a time to reflect on challenges in life and see what is and what's not working in order to grow. Along with healing there will be a lot of opportunities to get work done. Aries season will bring endless transits of lucky boosts in our areas of work, business and responsibilities so it will feel like things are waking up and taking off after hibernation. Though there are a lot of exciting steamy romantic aspects, there are more aspects urging us to heal before we make new bonds. However in Aries season there is a lot of potential for new friends, new opportunities and new lovers. You just need to prioritize the healing or else some of those challenging aspects can hit you like a brick. (One of Aries season's theme is confronting challenges so if you try to skirt past the work it wont end up in your favor later).

Week 1

1 - ☾♎ Moon in Libra

The first day of March has a pleasant and calm vibe as the moon wraps up it's transit in Libra. There are no other notable transits so the energy will still feel high after the full moon however it will be a time to process that energy and integrate it into our lives as we look forward to the new month ahead.

When the moon is in Libra it's a good time for peace and harmonizing spells, glamour magic, love magic especially self love and investing our energy towards the things that we love. There will be a lot of themes revolving around love and healing this month so reflect on what truths the Full Moon in Virgo wanted to show you and think about how you can integrate them in your life to promote more self love.

2 - ☾♏ Moon enters Scorpio

There are no notable transits today other than the moon entering Scorpio. When the moon is in Scorpio it's a good day for shadow work, energy work, spirit work and hedge witchcraft.

3 - ☾♏ Disseminating Moon | Moon Trine Sun Venus in Pisces trines Uranus in Taurus

Today will feel celebratory and exciting! These energies are brought to you by the Moon in Scorpio trining the Sun and Venus in Pisces trining Uranus in Taurus. The Disseminating moon is a time for gratitude as we reflect on what we've accomplished so far on a personal level during this lunar cycle since the New Moon. However if we feel our tasks aren't complete yet its a time to focus more energy towards them. With the Venus and Uranus trine it will bring new and exciting discoveries, people and ventures to our interests in life. In romantic relationships this can cause couples to want to experiment. With artists we may find new outlets to express ourselves. Venus and Uranus trine is a great time for creative experimentation and expanding our perspectives on our interests.

4 - ☾♐ Mars enters Gemini Moon enters Sagittarius

Suddenly our source of motivation and drive may feel a shift as Mars enters Gemini. Here mars is considerably more versatile and flexible, however unlike Taurus, it is less determined and focused. Our interests may become more diversified however our energies may become scattered and sometimes ineffective. Though we may excel in communicating ideas, acting out on them may become more challenging in this cycle. However this time could be about expanding our interests and learning new material. As the moon enters Sagittarius we may feel more optimistic and ready to focus on the bigger picture. It's time to put focus on our true interests and learn more material about them.  

5 - ☾♐ Mercury conjuncts Jupiter in Aquarius

It's a day to expand our perspectives and feel optimistic as Mercury and Jupiter join in the heavens. This conjunction brings good news, optimism and a happy frame of mind. We should be feeling broad-minded, generous and sociable. A great way to take advantage of this energy is to plan journeys and holidays (the best time for this!) or take time to study something new. This energy is great for taking exams or for doing anything that you are supposed to mentally ace. A lucky transit like this only happens once a year! You should also be getting endless ideas today so it's a good time to write them down. This energy can also help you overcome creative/mental blocks as this conjunction will boost our mental energy. One thing to be aware of though is this optimism may make us plan more than we can handle in the future. As long as you are are aware of your limits this should be a great day to make plans for travel and for future fun! Lastly make sure to have fun on this day! Do something you enjoy, call up some friends or take time to learn about something you've always wanted to try out!

6 - ☾♐ Last Quarter Moon

It's a day of reflection as the moon enters it's last quarter phase in Sagittarius. Today we can reflect on our personal and emotional journeys from the start of the New Moon in Aquarius on the 11th of February. In what ways have we aimed to release ourselves from elements in our lives that are repressing us? How did we honor our uniqueness and individuality? Did we feel like we've experienced some type of progression, evolution or freedom during this time? It's a good day to meditate, bring awareness to these aspects of your life and see if you are happy with the lessons you've learned or if there is still more work to do. With the moon in Sagittarius it's a time for expansion and growth so if you don't feel like you've done enough during the Aquarius new moon cycle, this last quarter moon is giving you the opportunity for additional growth and exploration of these elements before it wraps up the cycle. As the Last Quarter moon is a good time for reflection on the previous cycle it's also a good time to do some divination for shadow work. You can look to your sources of divining to see where you should focus your energy for the remainder of the cycle or how you can still honor the lessons of this Aquarius new moon cycle before it ends. Ask your cards is there any way you can make further progress or release certain repressing ideas before the cycle ends.

The week ahead is going to be very peaceful with it's transits until the New Moon in Pisces. It will be a restful yet contemplative period that can allow us to focus on wrapping up our goals or doing internal work before the new cycle begins.

--------------- Week 2

7 - ☾♑ Moon enters Capricorn

There are no major transits today other than the moon entering Capricorn. When the moon enters Capricorn we may find it easier to tackle our to do lists and analyze our emotions and thoughts with more ease. It's a great day to complete tasks as we will feel our sense of responsibility heighten. It's also a great day for ancestral magic, mineral based magic (crystals, earth and metals), strengthening wards and boundaries and as the moon is waning it's good energy to help wrap things up.

8 - ☾♑

The moon continues it's transit in Capricorn today. Today's energy will feel the same as yesterday making it another good day to focus on work and wrapping up projects.

9 - ☾♒ Balsamic Moon | Moon in Capricorn sextiles Sun in Pisces Moon enters Aquarius

When the moon is waning into it's Balsamic phase it's a good time to start cleansing, breaking chords, banishing and clearing anything unwanted from repressive relationships to harmful mentalities that are weighing you down before the new cycle begins. The moon will sextile the Sun in Capricorn making this energy feel productive. The sextile will be the boost we will feel to get everything needed done. As the moon enters Aquarius the themes of our freedom, repression and individuality becomes the theme of our inner landscape again. We will find ourselves reflecting on this lunar cycle starting with the New Moon in Aquarius, what Mercury rx in Aquarius had to teach us about our past, our previous social circles, if they were helpful to our growth and progress or if they were repressive and suppressed our uniqueness. As the moon closes up it's cycle in Aquarius, we will start to understand the lessons of Mercury's retrograde, what Aquarius season had to teach us about our own freedom and individuality and the inner progress we've made during this Aquarian lunar cycle. We will start to understand what roles we may have played in social groups and how that could have shaped the way we see ourselves, if we feel supported or if we feel like an outcast. Certain truths that could have been obscured by social politics or emotional pain and insecurities could finally be understood and help us move on from the past. After all Aquarius is all about progression and individuality.

10 - ☾♒ The moon continues it's transit in Aquarius today. It's a good day to reflect on the themes of the lunar Aquarian cycle, Mercury's retrograde in Aquarius and what we have learned from Aquarius season's lessons.

11 - ☾♓ Sun conjunct Neptune in Pisces Moon enters Pisces

Today will feel magical and dreamy as the sun conjuncts Neptune in Pisces increasing our sensitivity, intuition, empathy and magic. Our boundaries may feel a bit loose today so be careful of who you choose to surround yourself in or the environments you have to be in. Of course make sure to protect your identity or information as Neptune aspects can make the scammer, thieves and deceivers come out of their little holes to ruin lives. Make sure to treat everything with discernment as illusions may be more enchanting than usual. On a positive level this is a good time to escape reality through art like the movies or books, music and illustration. We will feel creative today and more attracted to the spiritual world. It's also a good day to practice magic and review our path. Other than exploring our creativity, we can explore our magic and collective subconscious through dream magic. It's a good day for drinking a dream brew and practicing lucid dreaming. Some herbs that help with this are lavender, mugwort (small amounts- and do not consume if pregnant), rosemary and valerian root. Clary Sage helps as a fragrance if you'd like to sprinkle the oil on your bed. However it has a very sharp fragrance that is not too soothing so be sparse with it.

12 - ☾♓ The moon is in Pisces so the energy will carry over to today as well. When the moon is in Pisces it's a good day for art magic, water based magic, dream oracling, boundary setting, meditating, healthy escapism through art and divination.

13 - ☾♓ New Moon in Pisces

A new lunar cycle begins as the moon aligns with the sun in Pisces. We will feel heightened sensitivity and empathy as we will be having four planets in Pisces at this time. (The Sun, the Moon, Neptune and Venus all within four degrees of one another). Pay attention to your dreams during this transit as they will become more vivid and can give you deeper insights towards your current spiritual path. With so much energy focused on Pisces we may feel a sleepiness during the day but also a strong sense of otherworldliness as the realms become blended together. This is the final lunar cycle before the fresh new start coming in Aries season. Pisces lies at the end of each journey, being the amalgamation of all that has come before. As we enter this last lunar cycle, it will be like diving into the ocean-like source as our subconscious connects us to the collective emotions and astral plane. Lunar cycles are all about our inner progress and emotional landscapes. Each new moon begins a new cycle with a theme. As each comes to an end we end up reflecting on that theme and our emotional growth. The Pisces New Moon marks the end of all of the lunar cycles. This cycle will be reflecting on the emotional progress of the entire lunar year starting from the first Aries lunar cycle from March 2020. As it's been a traumatic year for most (last Aries season marked the global lockdown in the western world for most countries), we may be faced with not only our own but the collective emotional sense of feeling restless, lost, confused and unsure of where to go. We will feel a sense of drowning in the dark night of the soul. However this new moon has the energy of surrendering. Surrender to fate, surrender to the tides and let go. In the release and in your dreams you can find rest and in that space of void can birth new opportunities.

This new lunar cycle will have us focus on our emotional body, what we may have absorbed emotionally throughout the year, releasing it and expanding our creativity. Maybe use divination to see how you can expand your creativity, your magic, balance your emotions and let go of/create boundaries for any negative emotions or unhelpful mentalities that are keeping you bound to where you are.

--------------- Week 3

14 - ☾♈ Venus conjunct Neptune in Pisces Moon enters Aries

The energy is fantastic for starting something new especially in regards to us using our creativity. With Venus conjunct Neptune in pisces our creativity and compassion is at a high right now. Our artistic pursuits and hobbies could greatly benefit from us focusing our energy towards them. With the moon in Aries there is a focus on new beginnings and taking action. Though the Venus and Neptune conjunct could slow our motivation to get any responsibilities or busywork done, with the moon in Aries we will get some motivation at least to focus on anything that helps us to day dream, be creative or escape. Along with our spiritual perspectives expanding and our creativity being explored, this conjunction can strengthen compassion and spiritual bonds in an existing relationship or bring new partnerships your way. If you are in need of spiritual friends or people in your life that are aligned with your journey, today is a good day to manifest them and work on that attraction magic. However with Neptune aspects it can bring dissolved barriers and deception. Be discerning with whom you let in your space and be clear in who you'd like to attract. This aspect can make it difficult to see people as they are as we could choose to believe in a projected fantasy in our minds about them instead. This can allow deceptive or manipulative people to slip past our boundaries easily.

15 - ☾♈ Mercury enters Pisces

We will feel an energy shift in the mental realm today as Mercury enters Pisces. We may pay less attention to specific details yet glean information from our surroundings through emotions and feelings. Our sense of empathy is heightened during this time along with our intuition. We may experience incredibly vivid dreams during this transit, pick up on others emotions around us with ease and feel a deeper sense of creativity. Unfortunately Mercury in Pisces transit can make us easily prone to escapism and daydreaming which makes these next few weeks more difficult to focus on work and organization. You can take some time to surrender and just escape or explore the ethereal, your magic, your subconscious and dreams. Yet for the times you need to concentrate you should take time to meditate and focus on grounding yourself and shielding. Mercury in Pisces can make us more susceptible to illusions and trickery. It's important we have strong boundaries during this time. Consider working with Hematite and Black Tourmaline during this time. If you do not want to work with crystals, using energy can help with meditation. Practice grounding and setting up a shield around yourself. Make sure to practice discernment especially when giving out your personal information or signing any agreements and contracts.

16 - ☾♉ Sun in Pisces sextiles Pluto in Capricorn Moon enters Taurus

We may feel a sense of things wrapping up or cases getting closed on this day as the Sun sextiles Pluto. This positive aspect gives a boost of energy between the two planets, making us motivated to uncover truths, understand our own or others hidden nature, change deep seated habits, suddenly cut out any unhelpful beliefs, people or situations in our lives and grant us the determination to complete any goals. This sextile is like a helpful trimming of everything unneeded from your life right now along with a boost to complete any essential tasks you need to wrap up. We may feel ourselves suddenly over a situation, ready to move on and distancing ourselves from places or people who may bring the worst sides out of us. Maybe a deeply buried emotional issue or trauma we haven't been able to process can finally be understood with some clarity that can help us move on. On a physical level this can be the motivational boost for us to either cut a bad habit or finally take care of the dreaded laundry chair. It's an empowering time that can help us execute our plans.

17 - ☾♉ Waxing Crescent | Sun sextile Moon

It's a good day to review your new moon intentions and any new projects or ventures you have started and start experimenting! When the moon is in it's waxing crescent phase it's a good time to try new things, experiment and learn something new in our area of interests. In regards to our projects, it's a good time to start on some rough drafts or brainstorm. It's a great time to experiment, make mistakes and take notes on what works and what doesn't. Today the Sun will sextile the Moon giving us a boost of energy to work on ourselves, our personal spheres and interests so we will have the motivation to get tasks done. Reflect on what intentions you've set for the Pisces New Moon and see if there's anything there you'd like to explore or try out. If you wanted to be more creative or process your emotions creatively maybe try to experiment with art today. If you wanted to expand your spiritual perspective maybe try it from a green magic approach and get in touch with nature as the moon is in Taurus. It could be a good time to ground your practice and connect to your local nature.

18 - ☾♊ Mars in Gemini sextiles Chiron in Aries Venus in Pisces sextiles Pluto in Capricorn

It's another day where we will get a positive opportunity to work through some trauma yet also find some solutions to lessons in life. This energy will be brought to us by Mars in a sextile with Chiron. This sextile will give us the motivation to work through some of our insecurities or current obstacles. Whatever we may have seen as a set back we could feel the desire to break through today. This energy will be supported by Venus in a sextile with Pluto which will give us the drive to find alignment with our authenticity. We may be more aware of our passions and interests in life which we would like to devote ourselves to. In terms of relationships this may make us crave finding a soul connection or deepening our relationships on a more profound level. This can also make us want to explore our sexuality more. The two sextiles can give us the drive to work through any deep insecurities, expand our sexuality and be in more alignment with our true selves along with getting rid of any obstacles that are in our way.

19 - ☾♊ Moon in Gemini

There are no major transits today other than the moon entering Gemini. When the moon is in Gemini it's a great time to learn something new, express ourselves through writing, do air elemental magic, music and sound based meditation and musical magic.

20 - ☾♊ Spring Equinox Ostara Sun enters Aries

It's the Spring Equinox!! Blessed Ostara to those who celebrate. Happy Spring and Happy Aries Season!

Aries season feels like a fresh start in the year and the official end of the hibernation season. Our ENERGY is back!! At 100% especially after the restful and dreamy Pisces season. You can always feel the fiery energeticness of Aries season the moment the sun transits into the sign. It's the unmistakable energy of the Mad March Hare, the excitement to spend time outside, and to get stuff rolling into action.

Ostara and the Spring Equinox is all about sprouting in a physical and metaphorical sense. In a physical sense the world around us is starting to bud, sprout and blossom. Reflect on the intentions you have set during Imbolc for this year and see how you can progress those plans and start to materialize them. Review your plans and your goals. Do you see anything starting to bud? How can you bring more nurturing to these areas to help them progress? In a physical sense sometimes when we sow seeds, they do not germinate just because the conditions weren't right. Metaphorically we can take the seeds we've sown as our intentions in Imbolc and see if they have started to sprout. If they haven't it's time to try again and if they have then it's time to move forward! Aries season is about charging forward, trial and error so it's a good time to take stock on what needs to get done and just do it!

Other ways to celebrate this solar celebration and sabbat is to do a final cleanse of your space to say good bye to winter and the hibernation period (Spring Cleaning!), using your preferred method of divining to examine your current path and seek a new direction if you feel you need one, use green magic to sow seeds and write your desires on an eggshell starter or contemplate on new people and experiences to attract into your life. Right now may not be the best time for attraction magic for people but it is for opportunities and experiences. If you need a new job, another chance or even to break through obstacles and barriers it's a good time to send energy that way. The Libra full moon is a great time to attract people your way and do love magic in general, but this year the Full Moon will have a strong focus on healing. This year may not be about advancing our social circle (also most of us literally can't with the new regulations) but astrologically the heavens want us to reflect and heal anyway.

--------------- Week 4

21 - ☾♋ First Quarter Moon Venus enters Aries Mercury in Pisces sextiles Uranus in Taurus

There will be another fiery energy shift today as Venus enters Aries. This will make the first chapter of spring feel exciting with increased potentials for new partnerships, hookups and friendships. Venus in Aries loves to seduce, chase and conquest so the spring fever may arrive early with this transit. While Venus is in Aries, love will feel more spontaneous and direct. It will feel like a brand new start so if you are looking to date again or get over past relationships whether it be an ex or an old friend-group you've grown apart from, this is a good time to meet new people. We may be aware of this energy shift as the moon enters it's first quarter phase in Cancer. We may look back on our Pisces New Moon intentions and reflect on our emotional body or what we may have been carrying emotionally with us from the previous year. We could think about who kept us feeling supported or safe. In a positive scenario this Venusian energy could make us feel more inclined to hang out with loved ones and plan new things to do as things open up. In another scenario it could make us feel like we need new friends and people around us since we are not feeling as supported as we need to be. Alternatively this energy can make us review our values and see if we need to change our current path to align us to what we want and need. The first quarter moon is good for reviewing plans and strategizing and Venus is also about our values. With Venus in Aries we may develop new preferences or styles and there could be a drive to update these aspects of ourselves. Lastly Mercury will sextile Uranus today adding additional excitement to the energy. This transit brings exciting news, potential change of habits and routines but with the chance to learn new things and meet new people. This transit also brings flashes of insight, intriguing dreams that can help shift our perspectives and help us to look forward to the future and make plans. New insights can help solve old problems on this day.

To wrap up, First Quarter Moons are perfect for planning and there is a lot of positive energy helping this to go ahead. Making plans and strategizing would go favorably today. If you do feel restless with all the Aries energy and the first quarter moon creating tension, then today is a great day to focus on the home and do some spring cleaning! The moon in Cancer may give us the boost to want to tidy our space and freshen it up for Spring. It's a good way to channel the energy since its not the best time to go ahead with plans under the first quarter moon.

22 - ☾♋ Mars in Gemini trines Saturn in Aquarius

It's a great day to get work DONE!!! As Saturn is a slow moving planet, this positive aspect with Mars only happens about twice a year. Trines are beneficial aspects that bring a lot of luck, but only if you put the work towards it. However once you do you will notice everything flowing together so smoothly as if you are under a lucky charm. Unlike Sextiles which can give you a boost of energy to get to work, Trines are so harmonious you can easily miss them, so it's good to mark the calendar and remember that today is a great day to GRIND! Set your morning clock to get up early, get a nice caffeinated drink and DOMINATE the day. You will realize how powerful you feel with Mars in a positive trine with Saturn. This transit gives us the strength, ambition and perseverance to take on the hardest of tasks and complete them on time, on budget and with perfection. You WILL find the most efficient way to get the job done. This is an excellent transit to follow through on something you are passionate about or something you have desired for some time to accomplish. Lasting success and practical results can be found in business and work. This is a great time to start a business and expect support from authority figures. Work, responsibility and finding courage to accomplish tasks and goals can all sound draining but today the heavens are giving you a lucky boost to get things done. Think about any tasks you feel you need a boost with accomplishing and set today aside to focus on them!

23 - ☾♋

Today the moon is wrapping up it's transit in Cancer. There are no other notable transits today. Therefore it's a good day to take it easy and rest. When the moon is in Cancer it's a good day for magic in the household such as kitchen magic, bath magic, cleaning and cleansing and gardening. It's also a good day for journaling, emotional reflection, shadow work and self nurturing.

24 - ☾♌ Waxing Gibbous | Sun Trine Moon Mercury in Pisces squares Mars in Gemini

Aries season can feel exciting, rushed, fast paced and hostile, yet as much as we all feel like we are racing through this period, there are definitely some speed bumps to be aware of in order for us to not spin out of control. Today is one of those speed bumps with Mercury in a square with Mars. This square has the huge potential for fights to break out. There is an increase of rushed thinking, short tempers, aggression, rash decision making, jumping to conclusions, all which can make us say the wrong thing or choose the wrong decisions. Take a moment if you can to just reflect, meditate and bring some self awareness so we can navigate the day with a clear head and not make the wrong step or trip on any land mines while we are at it. Others may display more hot energy but it's good for us to do some energetic shielding and be mindful of our boundaries to not get swept up in it. Using this day to reflect (squares are always great for reflection and strategizing!) we can see where we may hold repressed anger or even repressed desires. Strategizing on how we can healthily release this energy or go after what we need or want can be beneficial with this energy. Today the Sun in Aries will trine the Moon in Leo which will bring some luck and positivity to the day. It can be a great day for us to go after what we want but it's good to really reflect and be clear on it before diving right in since the energy will feel chaotic. Alternatively if you don't have anything you are chasing after and you resonate more with the repressed energy and anger aspect, then the moon in Leo is also great for self expression and creativity. It's a good day to channel your repressed energy into a personal creation to get it all out. Also to keep in mind, the moon in Leo means the drama and big egos will come out of everyone so be cautious of big personalities in your life looking for a fight. It's a good day for boundaries.

25 - ☾♌ The energy may still carry on to today, however there are no notable transits. The moon is wrapping up it's transit in Leo. When the moon is in Leo it's a good day for creativity, fire and light based magic, self love rituals and performance arts.

26 - ☾♍ Sun conjunct Venus in Aries Moon enters Virgo

The energy today will feel HOT with the sun conjunct Venus in Aries. This is a nice energy switch from two days before where tempers could be high and people around us aggressive. With the Sun conjunct Venus there will be love, peace, harmony and increased pleasures for all the things lovely in our lives. It's a great day to focus on our relationships, creativity and finances. This conjunct is also fantastic energy for friendships, romance and social influences. With the energy in fiery Aries it's a good time for dating, meeting someone new, sexual exploration or trying out new forms of creativity. It's still not the best time for love spells as the moon will be inconjunct the sun today. This means that the energies are in disharmony so you may not want to invite that energy in your life right now. However we could potentially meet someone new today by chance anyway. With the moon entering Virgo, reflect on your thoughts from the previous full moon (when it was in Virgo, Feb 27th). What insights did you gain? Where could you organize and focus your energy to help manifest your dreams? The energy today could bring us to the next chapter of that journey. Reflect on your path so far to see if you feel you are on the right track.

27 - ☾♍ There are no notable transits today. The moon is wrapping up it's transit in Virgo. When the moon is in Virgo it's a good day to take stock of what needs to be done, organize, review details, tackle any issues and focus on our mental and physical health.

--------------- Final Week

28 - ☾♎ Full Moon in Libra Venus conjunct Chiron in Aries

So usually this full moon is the love spell EVENT of the year however this year 2021 there is a SHADOW work twist to it.

The Full Moon in Libra has themes of harmony, balance and justice but it's also all about partnerships. The full moon opposes the sun bringing together the other side of the element for a full balanced picture. Aries season is all about ourselves, our goals and new beginnings, however the full moon in Libra is about partnerships and what people bring to enrich our lives, help us grow and strive towards our goals together. Especially as the Spring season hastens, this is a great time for love magic and putting out energy to attract someone new.

However since humanity and the universe is experiencing some collective growing pains and the transits want to push us to grow as they challenge us more, our dear planet Venus, the ruler of Libra is in conjunction with CHIRON in Aries. They both will oppose the moon in Libra but that depends where you are, for most people this opposition will occur tomorrow on the 29th when the moon is still full yet no longer at it's peak. To break down what's happening with this energy we need to examine Chiron and the lessons this planet brings. The celestial bodies of Saturn, Jupiter and Chiron have the same similarities that they are all teachers and teach generations certain lessons to overcome. However unlike Jupiter which likes to teach through traveling, expansion and good vibes, Saturn and Chiron get a bad wrap cause they require responsibility and inner healing which are harder obstacles to overcome. In classic astrology Saturn is seen as a malefic where as Chiron is seen as a wounded healer who just exists in your star chart to give you deep seated insecurities and incurable trauma. Both are not true.

Chiron is an alchemist. It is a problem solver and ultimately a healer. It's true that the aspects it may give in your star chart can never go away and it's a sensitive area, however it doesn't serve to be a source of pain but a gateway of understanding of how to empower yourself in that area and in turn empower others once you figure it out. Chiron has three levels to it's energy. First it makes us aware of what hurts and brings this pain to the surface. This is the wounded healer phase. The second phase is healing the wound. This only happens if we are aware of the wound. Like the great lyrics of Elizabeth Fraser, "You Can't Heal what You Can't Feel". Lastly Chiron transforms the wound into a gift. Chiron's glyph is a key helping us to unlock new levels of understanding. Shyness becomes quiet confidence. Low self esteem becomes self empowerment. etc.

We all may have some insecurities when it comes to romantic love because we live in a society that deliberately tells us that some are worthy of love (and eventually reproduction or having a family) where as others aren't. We may look in the mirror and think 'I am undeserving because I am not a good enough candidate' because we were taught good enough candidates have access to money, or can market themselves well on IG, or are close to whiteness, thinness, neurotypical/able bodied- whatever this white supremacist late stage capitalistic society favors. This full moon in Libra wants us to heal. It wants us to look at our past relationships (and I mean all kinds from partnerships to friendships to romantic affairs) and forgive yourself for any ugly situations in order to move on. If you hold negative beliefs revolving around romance (examples: you feel you need someone to complete you, you need a partner of a certain status to elevate/validate you, you feel unworthy when you are single etc.) it's time to release them in order to grow. If you are afraid of love because of the past, it's time to release that pain in order to grow. Reflecting back on the New Moon's cycle starting in Pisces, this full moon wants us to review these emotions we could be holding from our partnerships in the past and previous year and release them. Chiron is similar to Saturn where it does want you to do the work and if you skirt the responsibility, you will feel the pain. However if you work with this energy, it will show you how to love so you can break through the fear and start loving yourself and others for real. In this sense this full moon is about clearing, releasing, self love and emotional growth instead of inviting something new.

29 - ☾♎ Sun conjunct Chiron in Aries

More healing is in the forefront today as the Sun is conjunct Chiron in Aries. Both Venus and Chiron (no longer conjunct though) will be opposing the transiting moon in Libra but at different times. Some of the energy from yesterday during the Full Moon's peak will carry on today creating another chapter of healing. When the Sun is conjunct Chiron we may have emotional pain come to the surface, it can even be the theme of the day, however Chiron wants us to work through the pain in order to heal and find a solution.

Especially after the height of the full moon, it's a good day to rest, do shadow work, spend time alone and heal. If you have a loved one going through it, feel free to reach out if you have the energy to. It's especially a good day to extend compassion to our loved ones and make sure everyone is ok and that they know they are loved.

30 - ☾♏ Mercury conjunct Neptune in Pisces Venus in Aries sextiles Saturn in Aquarius Moon enters Scorpio

It feels like this day is the day to put what you've learned in your love healing to work. Today Venus sextiles Saturn making the two planetary energies want to work together to build better foundations of love. This can manifest as us wanting to curate long lasting substantial relationships, better friendships and helpful partnerships that can promote our growth. We won't be interested in one night stands or superficial relations today. In terms of our work and finances this may make us want to work on our finances or put effort towards our creative work. Creativity will be heightened today with Mercury aligned with Neptune in Pisces. We may experience an expanded sense of imagination, creativity and incredible dreams with this transit. It may make getting work done a bit more difficult since we will be caught up in day dreaming. However this energy will be appreciated in creative pursuits. The moon enters Scorpio allowing us to feel deeply which can help the healing and creative process. It's a good day for shadow work and spending time alone to bring awareness to our inner worlds.

31 - ☾♏ Sun in Aries sextiles Saturn in Aquarius

The last day of the month ends with a positive aspect between the Sun and Saturn. It's another great day to get things done! We will receive a big boost of energy to tackle tasks and meet our goals. This sextiles gives us patience, perseverance and a strong work ethic. Completing serious and difficult tasks will come more at ease today.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Dealing with Intruders.”

So sorry this came out so late today. I was at work and things got busy. I wanted it to be a bit longer, but decided this was a good enough stopping point. I hope you all enjoy

Yeb took a step back.

“I said run, and DIE!” The small, Fuzzy creature said, its ear twitching spastically over its brightly colored fur.

She froze in place, she didn’t know what this creature was, she had never seen it through all of her spying on the ship. It was small though, so there was more than a distinct possibility that she just hadn’t seen it. Either way that didn’t change the fact that she didn’t know anything about it. It could be poisonous, or venomous, or have some other strange ability that she didn’t know about.

“Who are you!” it demanded.

She held up her hands, “Yeb…. my name is Yeb, please don’t hurt me I’m sorry I snuck aboard your ship…. I… I panicked.”

“A stowaway then, from the ice planet.”

She nodded quickly, “Please, I mean you no harm, I just…. I just made a dumb mistake is all.”

“I feel that the Admiral will be very interested to learn about this.”

She felt her fur stand on end thinking of the genial alien captain and how he would react to the sudden appearance of her on his ship, a stowaway. What might he think about her betraying his trust like that, what would he seem like when driven to anger?

“Come with me.” The little fuzzball ordered, turned and began waddling away, “Try to escape and I break your kneecaps.”

Yeb followed behind silently. She didn’t see how the small creature would even reach her kneecaps, but she certainly didn’t want to challenge it. If it was THAT confident it could hurt her, then she had no desire to figure out why.

They stepped into the hallway, her following, keeping mostly to the maintenance tunnels, gone unused by most of the crew. At a certain point she started to hear low murmured voices rising up in some agitation over the thrumming sound of the ship’s distant engines. They came out of the maintenance corridor, and the sound around them rose higher.

It was still agitated, but hushed, and as she walked into the room she was greeted with a very odd…. And an almost disturbing scene.

There was a ring in the center of the floor, surrounded by seats. Inside the ring, little drops of red made a smattering over the floor. The humans sat around in agitated silence looking between each other and the occasional Drev.

Sitting just outside the circle was the human leader…. looking …. More the worse for wear.

He had a small crowd gathered around him,and that strange red liquid was leaking down the side of his face and onto his shirt. Just to the side, the small Blue Drev was standing looking concerned.

As Yeb got closer, she noticed to her horror that the human’s leg was missing! She froze in place and the entire group of whispering humans looked up as she stopped. Concern turned to confusion turned to shock.

The human leader lifted his head, which was discolored and leaking fluid but paused as well, “You!”

“She shrunk back.”

“I found this stowaway hiding in the maintenance tunnels.” The fluff ball announced to the whole room.

The human opened his mouth, closed it, tilted his head and then sighed.

“Will you give us just a moment.” His voice was calm and restrained, almost, tired.

He turned to look over at The blue Drev and a smaller group of humans clustered around just to the side.

“Any joy?”

“It doesn’t look too bad sir, most of the main components are intact as expected, it is just a faulty joining pin.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Unfortunately….not with what we have here. But it should be easy enough to order At Europa.”

He sighed, “Sit, well, it’ll have to do.” He turned to look at one of the other humans, she knew to be named Ramirez, “Head to my room, look in the closet, and in the back corner, you will find those crutches that go around your wrists.”

The man nodded, “Yeah, for sue.” He jogged off and the human leader, Adam, turned to face her.

Slow red was still oozing from the side of his face still as the little spidery alien creature attempted to stop it.

“Yeb, I can’t say I expected to see you here.”

“I...I am so sorry… I have no idea what I was thinking. I saw the box, and it was open, and i just sort of… jumped in, I have no idea why I did that, and then I was worried that you were going to be mad, so I…. So I hid and…. and .” 

It was getting very hot all of a sudden, and she was beginning to pant.

“Wow, slow your roll there for a moment.” He held up his hands.

She stared at him, teetering on the edge of concern and fear.

“That….. Sounds like exactly something I would have done.” He smiled at her with his pearly white teeth, “Welcome aboard the Omen. I wish you would have told me sooner as this is hardly a hospitable environment for you. Where have you been hiding.”

She looked down at her shuffling feet, “The…. walk-in freezer?”

He barked a laugh, “Ingenious.” 

He held a pad of white to the side of his head and went to stand but stopped suddenly apparently seeming surprised that he was missing a leg. He huffed, “Will someone help me up.” He turned to look at the small doctor frowning and arms crossed over its bug-like chest, “Yes, we will discuss my idiocy later, but right now, we need to figure out how to keep our friend comfortable.”

The little doctor gave her a good once-over, “Does your fur grow back?”

She paused, frowned and then nodded slowly, “Yes it does.”

“Even the under layer?”

“yes , it would.”

The humans glanced between each other, and Adam held up a hand, “Now, this is not out of offence to you, so Don’t take it that way, but….. It might be cooler and more bearable if…. Perhaps you had less fur…. As in shaving it.”

She paused in thought, “I….I have never thought about it….I suppose…. It can’t hurt, if it would make the heat more bearable.”

“Alright, than that is something we can do. Your other options to wear a cooling vest,but those are heavy and would require battery changes and charging. Granted the other way would not be permanent either, but it might last longer.”

She paused to think about it, then, “Will you let me stay here.”

“I was going to let you stay here no matter what you chose to do, so it's your call.”

Just then Ramirez came jogging into the room holding a pair of metal sticks with strange loops at the end, which he handed over to Adam.

The human threaded his wrists through the loops, and levered himself up onto his one remaining leg with his weight supported on the metal sticks. Yeb tried to keep from staring, but fascination outweighed her propriety.

“Krill, take Yeb to the infirmary, and see if you can’t figure out how to safely remove some of her fur. I mean sheep shears would probably be best, but it's not like I have any of those lying around the ship.”

“And you?”

“I will be right along.”

The little spidery alien moved to the side of her and guided her away from the room. She glanced back over her shoulder just in time to see the Blue Drev and the human duck their heads in fervent conversation, her keen hearing managed to pick up some of what was being said, “Adam, I am so sorry I…”

“I asked r it, its ok.”

“No its-”

“Yes it is, now please don’t worry about it, and if you really are, just fix my leg when we get back to Europa.”

She saw the human touch the Drev’s Arm for just a moment before he limped away on his crutches, following after them up the hall.

Again she tried not to stare.

He was fast on those things, and surprisingly mobile, but her eyes kept being drawn to his missing leg, amputated at center thigh. She had seen wounds like that before, mostly after someone got to close to an ice beast or a crevice lurker. They had never lasted long dying from cold and shock a few hours after the incident.

What kind of…. Ungodly power would keep someone alive after trauma like that….

Her thoughts were cut off as she was pulled into the bright hite room next to the freezer. She was sat down and examined by the small studious doctor, who still seemed too grouchy to be particularly talkative. After a while two of the marines came trotting into the room each holding a box.

“This is all we could find, a couple of razors from the crew quarters.”

The one named Maverick eyed her, “I doubt they will be very usable after this.”

Ramirez nodded, “I’d tend to agree.”

Adam limped up behind them, “Might as well try.” he looked down at Yeb with a smile, “Want to do it yourself, or have some help.”

“Er…. help?”

Ramirez clicked on the Razor, “Hey, do you want a mohawk?” 

She blinked, “A what.”

“We could do it all the way down your back, have the hair longer there, it would look badass.”

Yeb thought he was joking for a moment but seeing the look on Adam’s face she had a feeling he wasn’t. She wondered, they seemed excited and almost hopeful she’d say yes…. She didn’t see the harm in it,and  she didn’t know what badass meant but it sounded fun. So she hesitantly nodded.

“Fuck yeah.”

She wasn’t entirely sure she trusted “These two humans, but what else was she to do?

The going was very, very slow, and the strange machines were very, very loud, she watched as her hair fell to the floor in great chunks, and was surprised when a cool breeze rushed over her neck.

It took them over an hour, and by the time they were done the floor was covered in hair, and she was marginally more comfortable. It felt so weird, and when they turned a mirror towards her she was shocked.

She was so…

Small.

She turned her head looking down at the scruff of hair left on her back which she was delighted to find made her look more vicious, the effect would be even more prominent when her fur stood up on end.

“See, badass.”

The little doctor crossed his arms again, “Don’t you think, Admiral that this might cause some diplomatic issues with the Tricar if they were to know she is here?”

“Than I guess we better not let anyone know she is here, and look at her, a horrible accident caused her to lose her fur and now she wouldn’t last a day back home, we are simply being generous hosts.” he patted her back then paused, “I have another potentially inappropriate question, so please don’t be offended.”

She looked up at him her head tilted and her ears pulled back.

“What?”

“Can I please…. Touch your fur, you look very fluffy, and humans love to pet things. Its sort of a thing about us?”

She shrugged and didn’t see the harm in it.

He grinned at her rather happy and adjusted himself to balance on one crutch, hooking his hand out of the other as he reached over and ran a hand from the top of her head and w nto her shoulders.

“So fluffy!”

She laid her ears back, That was actually kind of nice, and when he stopped she was only mildly disappointed. She’d have to convince someone else to touch her fur, which she doubted would be hard.

“Anyway, I have to take care of a head wound, but Ramirez and Maverick, why don’t you take Yeb around the ship, and give her the full tour, you know without the sneaking around and being forced to hide in the walk in freezer.”

They nodded and laughed somewhat.

“Try to keep her out of trouble will you. Oh…. and if you see Sunny…. Can you send her up here?”

His voice had grown somewhat hesitant, a minute change in pitch which she detected with her large ears.

She wondered what was going on, but let it go as the humans took her by the shoulder and led her away.

They seemed excited to have heron the ship, and their excitement made her excited. She was more than ready to learn and spend time with this strange alien species. And to try more of their food, which was about ten times better than the bland over-salted fish on her planet.

Hopefully she would be able to repay them somehow.

[mggpleasedontlookhere]

reid’s anatomy pt. 2

summary: after seeing spencer in the OR, you have no other choice but to wait and see if he makes it or not

word count: 1,827                                                                                               reading time: 7 mins

masterlist

Pt. 1

My spine had succumbed to the soreness that had spread throughout my lower body as me and Morgan sat almost lifelessly together on cold hospital floors.

If Spencer was present at the moment, he would ramble about the billion strains of bacteria and viruses incomprehensible by the naked eye, at which our skin would be exposed to. But he wasn’t here, he’s laying placid under OR lights that were just as bright as Time Square’s streets at night and a scalpel just as sharp as the sushi chef in the japanese cuisine he took me out for our 2 year anniversary.

Morgan still continued to stroke my head, our tear ducts running dry as the minutes passed us. I sat up from his shoulder, facing him for the first time since he came to check up on me.

“What happened out there?” I asked disdainfully. It was evident in my tone that I held some sort of animosity, possibly blame towards the team for not protecting Spencer. But deep down I knew that no matter how many cautionary provisions they’ve taken, you can never dodge the inevitable.

He flinched at the presence on my voice, not anticipating that I would be so prominent in speaking. He shifted to face the ceiling, sighing as he dragged his hand over the bridge of his nose.

“I-i can’t even to begin to explain Y/N. I-i’m so sorry” He repented, his eyes beginning to water again. I prolonged my examination of him, egging him to continue his narrative.

He now bowed his head, laying them on his hands that were supported by his knees. “We were with the unsub right” He painted out the scenario, I nodded while following along with his recollection of the events. “We were in the middle of a standoff. We had about 3 additional agents with us and the police force, but me and Reid were hanging back behind the unsub, in case he had tried to escape...” He paused in the midst of his sentence, taking in a breath as he began to choke on a few words.

“It was supposed to be me” He confessed, earning a look of perplexity from me. “The unsub had a kid in hostage, and the kid got in the middle of me and the unsub. So naturally I went to take the kid away, but I made the stupid mistake of dropping my gun. Obviously, the unsub heard and turned around to shoot me and the kid since we were both defenseless. But...Reid, he-. He shoved both me and the kid, taking the shot himself”.

The words that came from Morgan’s lips were incoherent by the time he finished. He looked over to me, his eyes exhibiting a great deal of grief before searching my own for a response or clemency.

In contrast to the circumstances that were placed before us, a forced chuckle lunged out from my throat, acquiring Morgan’s attention. A morbid smile planted on my lips as I thought about Spencer.

“He would’ve been such a good father. Don’t you think?” I asked using the same tone from earlier. Morgan agreed apprehensively, sorrow still evident by the way his body responded to mine.

“He deserves children. Doesn’t he, Derek?”

“Y/N- I don’t understa-”

“Then he should be able to have them” I snapped, slamming my fist against the wall behind me. Morgan reached a comforting hand out, but I swatted his hand away. I gave him a crazed look, running my hand through my hair. “H-he should have a family, he deserves a future...Morgan, he should be...alive. That’s how it’s supposed to be” I choked out, word vomit spilling from my mouth as my thoughts swirled around my head at a thousand miles an hour, any sense of rationality I had depleting. 

“Y/N- I-” 

Soft sobs racked my entire body and defeated whimpers had crawled up my esophagus. I rocked myself back and forth, burying my head into my arms until all I saw was the artificial darkness I placed myself in. It was almost a cocoon that composed of me and my thoughts, regardless if Morgan was next to me. 

My own heartbeat was ringing in my ears, drowning out any other noise around me, including Morgan. That wasn’t until I heard scurried footsteps, metal hitting metal, and the attending inside the OR yelling brutal commands at the staff. 

It suddenly came clear to me when Morgans hand gripped mine and all that could be heard from the OR was, “his BP is down, he’s going into V-fib, we’re losing him”. At that moment, my heart stopped and my vision dwindled, I was too tired to react. Pain resurfaced as my mind grew dizzy, next followed the sensation in my arms, legs, and back. Finally, my consciousness inevitably followed in its footsteps as it withered away to the sound of the doctors frantically shifting around to save Spencer’s life.

-

Light began to be apparent again, my vision gradually retaining it’s efficiency as I noticed I was placed on a hospital chair. I rubbed my eyes, sitting up in the seat that I was slumped down on, scratching my head while my eyes examined the environment. 

The first thing that had caught my attention was that I wasn’t in the hallway anymore, but in a post-op room. My eyes felt heavy from all the crying I’ve done previously and my forehead grew hot from the stress I’ve undergone. 

The sound of voices pricked my ears, and in curiosity, I stood up to investigate. Getting closer to the noise, I noticed my legs were tender and that I had a great difficulty at maneuvering around. 

How long was I out?

I finally got to my destination and was met with a privacy curtain that ran from the ceiling to the floor. I heard a multitude of voices that rang from the other side of the curtain. 

Uneasiness set in my bones, not wanting to get my hopes up. I slowly pushed the fabric aside, letting my presence be known, and let me tell you, it was the best decision I’ve made. 

To my fortune, there stood the attending that was operating on Spencer with the rest of the crew that surrounded a single bed. On that hospital bed laid the love of my live. 

Spencer was the first one I locked eyes with, he was in the middle of speaking with his colleagues when we did, which halted his speech. In recognition of Spencer’s pause, all eyes were then relocated to me. Although I didn’t reciprocate anyone else’s glances, except Spencer. 

“C-can we have a moment of privacy please?” Spencer requested, looking at his doctor for approval. 

The attending nodded in agreement, shifting his focus to me and gave me a hopeful smile. The same smile I would give to my patients after a successful surgery. Everyone filed out after the doctor one by one, leaving Morgan to be the last one out. 

As he exited the room, I stopped him by the shoulder and silently thanked him. He returned the gesture with a large smile, nudging me towards Spence. When the room was finally empty, I inched towards spencer with the brightest smile I can wear. His eyes shone nothing but love as he continued to gawk at me venturing towards him. 

When I finally got to his side, he greeted me with an amiable ‘hello’ like it was the first time we met. He reached out for my hand, placing it on his chest for comfort and giving it an affectionate kiss. 

I, then, proceeded to lovingly whack him upside the head in return, earning a playful wince from him. 

“I swear to god Spencer Reid, if you ever, and I mean EVER, put me through anything like that again, I will personally go into the OR and cut your LVAD wire and kill you myself, bec-” 

“Y/N, honey, I’m here no-” 

“DON’T. Don’t you dare tell me to calm down Spence because I will have to be restrained and placed in a mental hospital when I lose my license for kicking the IQ out of you” I finished, heaving as I gathered my composure. 

Spencer looked at me amused, gripping my hand in his and hauling me closer to the side of his bed. “Y/N Y/L/N, I’m sorry for putting you through everything you went through” He looked up at me with sincere eyes, melting all the disdain that swelled in my heart. 

I sighed, leaning down to lay my head on his chest, in which he gave me permission to hop into his bed. I pulled him in closer, terrified that he might vanish from my grasp into thin air. “Spencer, I love you so much” I sniffled, muffling my words into his chest. “You have no idea Spence, I-i felt so lost and hopeless. I-i couldn’t do anything to save you, they-they wouldn’t let me” I sobbed, my throat tightening up as the words spilled actively from my lips. 

Spencer quieted me down, stroking my hair as I spoke. “I don’t know where I’d be without you Spence”. I looked up at the man who held me, my heart beating in delight, in contrast to the emotion my face was probably expressing. 

He leaned in pressing a long lasting kiss on my lips, then he proceeded to reciprocate the same gesture on my forehead. “You’re my absolute everything Y/N’ He sighed. “Before I- before everything became a blur, all I could think of was you. All I could think of was that I took out one less person that can harm you. I love you so much Y/N”. 

A comforting silence followed after, creating an environment of serendipity. I toyed with the hospital gown that covered his body, thinking of all the events that had occured before, thanking the heavens for the outcome that was given to me and praying for the future. 

“I want a baby” I professed without warning, feeling Spencer tense up in surprise. 

“W-what did you say Y/N?” 

“I want a baby, I want to start a family with you” I continued, adjusting my position to get a good look at his reaction. “I want to have a baby now” I declared, determination dripping from my confession. 

Spencer chuckled, gesturing to the IV and the tubes that were wired into him. “I would be glad to Y/N, but I’m kind of a human experiment as this moment” He joked. 

We both chuckled in glee, holding each other tight as we basked in the pleasant scene. “But I would love to have little Y/N’s and Spencers running around, especially with the one I’d want nothing more than to spend my lifetime with” He pulled me into another kiss, peering deeply into my eyes before shutting his own to get some rest. 

“I love you so much, Y/N Y/L/N” He whispered through his breath.

“I love you more than you know, Spencer Reid” 

-

A/N:

That’s a wrap, you know I was going to end this short story with Spencer dying, but I thought about how evil that was. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it and don’t be afraid to put in any requests :)

taglist: @l0ve-0f-my-life  @spideyreid​ @evelyn-4034

[belfrygargoyles]

I Answer Questions I Get About Star Wars Fanfiction

So, when I made this post a while back, I did end up getting quite a few people coming to me for advice!

And while I was happy to give what help I could through tumblr DMs, there was also quite a bit I was realizing was a bit Much to be conveyed just through the DM format.

So, while this is by no means a catch-all, comprehensive list of what to do and what not to do, I thought I’d make a post going into a bit more detail! I’ll specifically be addressing questions/concerns that have been brought to me, mostly

Because of the specific subject matter of the original post, most of the question askers were white/cis/het women, so much of what I cover will be directed at authors of that specific demographic.

The brunt of the post is about writing reader-characters of different demographics and why “gender-neutral” reader-inserts tend to fail to reach that mark, but the first two points I address are related to racism and fetishism in writing. Because of this, I want to preface: I am White, and I will never be an authority on what is or is not racist or fetishistic. These are questions I, specifically, have received, and needed more space to elaborate on. Everything I say, I have learned by listening to fans of color speaking out about the ways they and characters of color are treated and by doing my own research into the subject- my experience and advice is not exhaustive, I cannot cover every important facet, and my word should never, ever come before that of a person of color speaking about the same subject.

If while reading, you come across something that is not true, is offensive, harmful, or otherwise just not good advice for me to give, please contact me and I will remove or edit as needed.

I’m a White, cishet woman, and I like to write fanfiction about characters I find attractive who are men of color. How can I avoid writing fetishistic or racist stereotypes? 

To recognize fetishism, you first need to understand racial stereotypes and why they’re harmful, even if they’re “positive.”

First thing’s first: there is no such thing as a positive stereotype. All stereotypes bring with them the very real potential to harm people, demean or belittle them, isolate them, impact their social life, work environment, and how they interact with the world and the people around them, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, culture, or body type.

It is very important that you seek out and listen to the word of these people themselves. Understand why it is harmful to write a story about a “savage” tribal man seducing a White colonizer (and why “savage” is a terrible word to use to describe someone in the first place). Understand why it is suspicious to be obsessed with the sexual prowess of dark-skinned men. Understand why the common tropes and stereotypes you see associates with people of color are harmful, and understand that this is not about you. This is not about what you want to see as a reader, this is not about the specific fantasies you want to write out with a certain character, this is not about your fulfillment and enjoyment, because you are the person writing and putting your writing into the world for others to see and consume. The way you portray your characters and the situations they are in is important.

Second: you need to learn how to step back and examine your own thoughts and behavior for bias, conscious and subconscious.

Would you think the same way about a character if they were a woman? Would you write a character with the same personality if they were White? Would you think two characters have the same romantic tension and chemistry if they were different genders?

For example: In the game Subnautica: Below Zero, the player character is Robin, a Black woman. At some point in the game, she expresses defensiveness in response to unintentionally rude remarks about the human body, from a source that would have no idea that it was rude. Her offense and defensive tone is not at all unwarranted or unreasonable, nor does she hold a grudge, but upon first playthrough I found myself thinking, “man, Robin’s kind of a bitch.”

Then I remembered the fact that Black women are frequently seen as aggressive, rude, and “pushy,” and that Black women in media are commonly seen by (White) fans as “mean” in comparison to other (White) characters who act the same way, if not worse. I realized that at no point in the game does Robin ever act spiteful, cruel, selfish, or vindictive towards the source of the offending comments. She was someone who was proud of her physical capabilities and the hard work she put into her body’s fitness, and she was not in the wrong for getting offended at the implication that her body was flawed or inefficient. Throughout the game, Robin is patient, driven, compassionate, and forgiving, and expresses grief, frustration, offense, and anger as is appropriate for the situations she finds herself in.

What I had done was subconsciously put Robin in a set box of character traits based off of racist stereotypes and characterizations frequently seen in media and fanworks. I didn’t realize I was doing it in the moment, and had to take a step back to examine the source media and my own behavior, and realized I was projecting a completely false idea of what Robin, a Black woman, should be like as a character.

That is an example of subconscious racial bias. Subconscious racial fetishism can look more like...

- Believing male characters of color all have insatiable sexual appetites and massive penises

- Automatically headcanoning characters who are large, burly, strong, or aggressive as Black or dark-skinned

- Putting East Asian women on a pedestal for being beautiful, pure, innocent- or, on the flip side, as beautiful and “please queen roundhouse kick me” treating her as “beautiful but fierce.”

These examples, alone, in singular instances, aren’t fetishism- headcanoning a single man of color as sexual and being well-endowed isn’t fetishism alone, headcanoning a single physically large and strong character as Black isn’t fetishism, thinking an East Asian woman is exceptionally beautiful and elegant isn’t fetishism.

It’s how you do it in relation to how you interact with other characters. Do you only ever write about a male character of color in a highly sexualized context or only ever talk about how big his penis is and what you want him to do to you? Is that large and forceful character the only one you headcanon as having dark skin? Do you fawn over East Asian women as beautiful goddesses and “dragon ladies” but never actually explore them as anything else but just being there for decoration?

(Warning for the next paragraph: intersex fetishism, racist tropes in Star Wars fandom)

Something I commonly see in the Star Wars sphere of fandom is, particularly with the clones, use of the word “savage” or “feral.” For the sake of not singling anyone out, I won’t use URLs, but an example I recently saw firsthand was a prompt about Stewjonis (e.g. Obi Wan) all being intersex and “fertile” and as such exceptionally desirable to the clones, described as having a “hunger” and having “savage, animalistic instincts,” including having a violent, animalistic rage they unleash when they think the White man they think they own is in danger.

The author is fetishizing intersex people (making Obi Wan, a White man being paired with brown men, intersex for the sole purpose of making him “fertile” and able to be impregnated for the sake of a breeding kink- he’s not written as intersex just to be intersex representation, he’s written as an idealized fantasy of intersex for the sake of keeping him “male” but also able to get pregnant to fulfill the author’s bioessentialist fantasies of aggressive, animalistic cis men of color inherently desiring and being unable to help their “instincts” around a “fertile mate.”) and using a common racist stereotype for brown men: that they are “savage,” “animalistic,” sexually aggressive, sexually driven, violent, and sexually dominating over “smaller” (Ewan Mcgregor is 5′10, Temuera Morrison is 5′7. Even if you headcanon the clones as 6′0, as Wookieepedia defaults every adult male human to, that’s still only two inches of difference) light-skinned love interests (who have a vagina).

At a very, very basic level, I can get why the idea of such a dynamic might be appealing: the idea of someone finding you desirable and protecting you/fighting for you without reservation, the idea of “instincts” showing someone’s true feelings they can’t fight for you, etc. etc.. When that’s what you’re going for, it’s a case of you really, really needing to think long and hard about the characters you’re using and how you’re portraying them. I mean, you need to really think about it.

And I get it if it’s a trope you really like or a dynamic you really want to write, but I repeat: this isn’t about you. It’s about the image and stereotypes you may or may not be reinforcing about people of color, men of color, and intersex people to yourself and your readership.

This is the best advice I can give you: Take a step back. Check yourself. Check the way you think about a character, the way you write them, and the way they are portrayed in canon. Think about why you want to write the situation you want to write. Think about how you are portraying the character, and how it might be interpreted by people who aren’t in your brain. Ask yourself if you really think the character would act that way, or if that’s just how you think they should act, and then ask yourself why.

If you find that what you are writing might be falling into fetishistic or derogatory tropes or stereotypes, that’s where you stop. Identify what, specifically, about the situation or scenario appeals to you. Identify why the characters appeal to you. See if you can use those elements in a way that doesn’t reinforce those stereotypes.

2. When does a smut fic involving a man of color become fetishistic? What if an author is simply exaggerating pre-existing character traits for the sake of a smut scenario? Is writing characters partaking in specific kinks or tropes fetishism by default because they’re played by men of color?

I’ll go down the line:

- The short answer: when you use fetishistic tropes. The longer answer: when you use tropes in a context that could be considered fetishistic, and do nothing to add depth to the situation. Show that you put thought into your decisions, and show us why you believe the character would do/act/think that way. If you can’t because it doesn’t make sense and it’s just something you want to happen to engineer a specific trope (E.X. Clones never getting any sex ed ever and freaking out at the thought of a vagina), don’t do it. Are you focusing on a character as a dominant party in bed? Then analyze how you’re portraying that, if you’re using animal comparisons, references to how small and petite his submissive partner is, if you’re portraying it as a healthy sexual relationship or if you’re implying that he’s always possessive, domineering, and intimidating towards his partner- it very much helps to have beta readers.

- Then the author needs to put effort into the scenario they’re writing and really examine why those are the character traits they’re exaggerating in a character of color. Why, of all the character’s traits, are you choosing to play up his strength, size, and aggression in the way that you are? If you still really want to write it: write the characters discussing it as a BDSM roleplay scene or show aftercare that tells us that’s not what the character is normally like, but was an act he was putting on in a pre-agreed scenario. Oftentimes, the issue can be that the author makes no effort to show that this isn’t how the character acts outside of the bedroom, or even erases that line completely by showing no difference between how the character treats his partner in day-to-day life and in bed.

- Not at all. You can write Boba Fett being a Dom and having kinky sex all you want- but it needs to make sense. By that I mean-  writing OOC, shallow smut isn’t a sin, but when it involves men of color, especially in situations where they have already been highly sexualized and fetishized, you, as an author have to think about how you’re writing them. You have to think about if you’re just using them as sockpuppets to write out a dom fantasy you already had pre-engineered, and you need to think about why, exactly, you want to use that specific character in that specific role. Are you writing about the character, or are you using their name and face as a prop to play out the fantasy?

3. I’m White/cis/het/female and I write reader-insert fanfiction, I...

a. ...try to keep my readers ambiguous, but I think I still mess up.

First: Accept that some measure of character description is needed for your readers to not feel like they’re inhabiting the fictional body of a ghost. You’ll never be able to be 100% ambiguous, and that’s okay. Parts of who we are and the way we experience the world will always leak into our writing, and that’s just part of the experience. What’s important is that you’re able to recognize where your experiences are not universal, and decide on if that’s something you can change in your writing.

Next: Some basic tips for common whoopsies that are easy to overlook.

- Hair length, color, and texture

Instead of saying something that implies a particular hair type, such as the way it blows in the wind or how the reader-character brushes or styles it, you can reference that they just have hair without going into detail, such as:

“He found himself unable to sleep that night- normally, he would count the rivets in the ceiling until they blurred together, but now he had a new distraction catching his eye. Your hair against his pillow was new, novel- he found his eyes tracing the strands from root to tip, the way the dim light catching on the strands almost hypnotic, and before he knew it he was delicately tracing his fingertips along a patch near your ear that had grown in what was, to his sleep-deprived mind, an utterly fascinating whorl.” Vs. describing a character running his fingers through the reader’s hair.

- Body type

I will say: sometimes, it makes a reader-insert infinitely more engaging if we have just scant details about the reader character, but that’s usually if the details are uncommon in the genre. By this, I mean: if a reader-insert specified that the reader-character was actually buff and very tall, I would already be more invested, because I never see reader-characters like that.

This being said, when you want ambiguity, when it comes to body type avoid referencing the reader’s weight, size, musculature, height, and build- nothing about curves, nothing about hips, nothing about stomachs.

Again, you can reference that the reader has these things, but without specifying that their stomach is flat or their hips are curvy or that they look small and delicate compared to the love interest. What I see the most of is references to the reader being notably shorter, lighter, or weaker than other characters. If someone is targeting the reader over, say, Din, because they look like they’d be an easier target, instead of saying that it’s because the reader is the smaller, “weaker-looking” target, make note of it being because of some other vulnerability- armor, lack of visible weaponry, hands aren’t free, distracted, because they saw the reader choke on an apple seed in the market earlier and it made them think they were incompetent and easy to take out, etc.

- Skin color

This one is the most basic, but also easy to mess up. Along with things like hair type being correlated with race (ie if you describe a reader-character with long, fine, straight hair, you are excluding the possibility of the reader-character being Black), something that can be easy for lighter-skinned authors to forget is that blush, flush, sunburn, and pallor aren’t easily visible on all skin colors.

If you want to write things like that but don’t know how to portray them without indicating skin tone, try instead using temperature. Reference the reader feeling heat rise to their cheeks, or the uncomfortable warmth radiating from a minor burn, or how cold and clammy their skin feels.

- Unnecessary references to the reader’s gender (E.X. gendered bathrooms, dressing rooms, calling the reader-character things like “the girl” or “the woman”)

If you’re writing a fic with a gender-neutral reader, you do not need to use any of those in the story. I promise, you don’t. If you have to, either find a way around it or just... don’t. If you want to make the reader gender-neutral, you don’t need these. I promise.

If you’re writing a gender-neutral but explicitly AFAB reader: also don’t use these, because it defeats the purpose of you saying the reader is supposed to be gender-neutral. In fact, make the reader’s gender the absolute LAST thing you put in the fic. Write the whole thing as if the concept of gender doesn’t exist.

- Typically gendered characteristics such as voice pitch and tone, face shape, chest, hips, hands, height

See above. The thing is, none of these things are inherently indicative of gender, but for many people, they are. If you say you’re writing a gender-neutral reader, but include reference to very feminine-associated traits, you’re telling the reader that you wrote the reader-character as essentially Girl Lite.

Something not enough people realize is that there are AMAB nonbinary people, there are cis AFAB women who are very masculine, and so on. “Gender-neutral” shouldn’t mean “Female 2″ or “tomboy.”

- And think to yourself: Would I write a male character acting this way?

This is... self-explanatory. And also very important. And why I say to make gender the absolute last thing you put in the fic. I’ll talk more about this specifically at the end!

Something important to note: Nonbinary is not the same as gender-neutral!

Nonbinary specifically refers to the gender identity in which you are neither strictly male nor strictly female- your gender identity exists outside of the male-female binary.

Gender-neutral means that references to the reader’s gender are removed and it can be read by someone of any sex or gender without being taken out of the experience by gendered traits or situations.

...want to start writing readers who aren’t like me, but don’t know where to start.

Just do it, really. That’s the best way to do it. You don’t have to make it a major part of the fic!

I can only really speak on the experience of being nonbinary and reading fics written by cis authors, and again, at the very end I’ll go more into personal feelings and experience, but I really do mean just write it. Get a beta reader, or friends to look it over. Ask people from different reader demographics what they want to see. It doesn’t have to change the entire course of your writing.

...am afraid of writing a different kind of reader-character and getting something wrong.

It happens! No one can know every experience under the sun, and if you’re not writing from experience, you’re bound to get one or two details wrong.

But! That shouldn’t stop you from doing it! This is where getting a beta reader or having a discord server really helps, you can get viewpoints from people with different experiences to tell you what does and doesn’t work.

At the end of this post I’ll talk about things I, specifically, would like to see as a trans person, and how being nb affects the way I see things.

4. What’s wrong with dysphoria fics?

from here on out is personal conjecture

Nothing. I just don’t like them because, well.

They’re basically the only time I ever see fics with an explicitly trans reader, and they all follow the exact same formula: Someone or something triggers reader’s dysphoria, the reader is sad and having a bad time, the love interest comes in and validates the reader’s gender and it’s all better.

One: I’ve never seen this done with a trans woman reader.

Two: It’s... tiring, having the only representation you ever see of yourself being about dysphoria. A lot of the fics are written as personal comfort fics or were requested by a trans person with dysphoria, and that’s fine, but I want to see a grand, multi-chapter fic with an engaging plot and reader-character engagement that just... has a trans reader. It’s not a thing, they just are, because trans people’s lives don’t constantly revolve around how trans they are.

There are more “nonbinary” reader fics than there are fics about trans men or trans women. And all the nonbinary readers are AFAB- I have not seen a SINGLE AMAB nonbinary reader-insert in the Star Wars fandom.

It’s just one of those things that is just... it’s not bad, it’s just kind of exhausting? I’m the kind of person who wants to see stories of people like me just on adventures, not more about how miserable we are because our bodies are wrong or something.

I don’t speak for every trans person, I don’t and I never will. But I think a lot of the people who request dysphoria fic... don’t actually want to read about that. Body dysphoria is touted as the defining trans experience, and a lot of people genuinely believe you have to be dysphoric to be trans. Not only is this not true, but it’s also harmful. Hating your body sucks. Hating your body specifically because you know people use it to judge how to treat you super sucks. Thinking you have to hate your body or else you’re not really trans and are just pretending? Ultra suck.

I’m nonbinary, my partner is a trans man. I’ll paste his thoughts on the matter (minor edits to punctuation and paragraph breaks):

“But in all honesty it’s very very tiring, I think the majority of people asking for a dysphoria fic don’t actually realise they want something else. Many trans people feel dysphoria, myself included, but not all of them do, and it doesn’t make them any less trans, but the overall focus on dysphoria has made it this be all end all thing in and out of the trans community. It’s what people often think of when they think of trans people and while it’s certainly a thing, I think the focus has become entirely too toxic. I think newer trans people tend to internalise dysphoria a lot, especially if they don’t experience it to an extent which is ‘acceptable enough to be considered trans’.

Given that context I think that what a lot of people are looking for when they ask writers for dysphoria fics is actually validation and gender euphoria. They want validation of their gender identity because they’ve recently experienced dysphoria and are looking for escapism. It’s something I myself have only come to realise recently despite being out as trans for a considerable amount of time. I don’t expect cis writers to fully understand the intensely personal and nuanced relationship every trans person has with gender and identity, nor do I blame them for using dysphoria as a go-to, especially when the request was for a dysphoria fic. I am however asking writers to instead try more validation and less focus on the bad aspects of being trans such as dysphoria and discrimination.

Again, this is a very complicated subject, and I am only one trans person and one opinion. However I do believe people get stuck in that focus on dysphoria, and it’s not a healthy mindset to be in. For cis writings including trans people in their reader inserts, I’d recommend making them explicitly trans, whether it be male/female/nb, because you cannot have gn pronouns and call it a day, especially not if it’s an nb person because it’s simply not the same as gn pronouns in a fic. Cis writers tend to have a stereotype when it comes to trans people, especially on tumblr where trans men are always seen as soft twinky UwU Bois and it gets real old real fast. I cannot name a single fic I’ve read that’s had a trans reader not in a binder or on hrt. You don’t have to transition to be trans, but it would be nice to see some variation and have some guys only have top surgery or only have bottom surgery or have no surgery and be okay with it. Medically transitioning is by no means the be all end all but every trans experience is unique and it’s very bland to see the same trans story every time you read a reader insert. I am of course speaking from the point of view of a trans man, I can’t imagine what it must be like for trans women because those fics are even less common!“

5. Okay what was it you said earlier about stuff you’d come back to?

Glad you asked!

Look, I’ll be straight up and honest, this is something that’s hard to put into words because it’s such a nebulous experience, and I don’t know how to describe it to cis writers but.

Sometimes the way gender neutral, nonbinary, and trans male readers are written really comes across like the author wrote a female reader and just went back to change the pronouns.

The reason why it’s hard to explain at times is because there’s nothing overt, but there are specific patterns in the way authors write reader characters and their love interests, like... female-coding.

The way the reader-character interacts with the world, the way they’re written interacting with characters, the way characters are written viewing them, the way their body language is described- things that, if you take a step back, you’d realize “oh, I wouldn’t write a cis male character like this.”

Again, it’s... really, really hard to put into words, but it’s a pattern my partner and I have both noticed that’s made it hard to enjoy a lot of trans/nonbinary reader fics. The issue isn’t that the reader-character is feminine in any way, the issue is that that’s all anyone ever writes them like.

Reader-insert fics already have a very homogenized experience of “reader-character is extremely passive in their narrative and has little agency in their story other than to exist alongside a canon character for him to eventually fall in love with.” Even in fics where the reader is explicitly a cis woman, there are these... unnecessary references to her being female that, to me, just seem to serve no purpose.

This is. Incredibly just Me saying this here. But it’s genuine, from someone who hasn’t actually Had A Gender in over a decade now: Is... being a woman really that prominent in cis women’s lives? Is it really that big a part of who you are? I want to know, because it’s so wildly different for me, and if I’m going to give advice on how to write reader-characters of other genders, I kind of. Really need to have that one ironed out.

If your gender plays a large role in who you are and your perception of yourself: that’s great, chase your bliss, it’s good to know who you are and what you’re comfortable with! It’s just a theme I keep seeing in reader-inserts that... takes me out of it? Someone whose gender is featured so heavily in their identity and the way they interact with the world might not realize that, say, a nonbinary person, just... has a completely different relationship with gender.

And I’ll say this, too: Trans men’s experiences and relationships with their gender is also wildly different to that of a cis woman. There is overlap in some places, yes, but it is still a completely different relationship, and cannot be treated as the same.

I think this is where the problem lies, and why I never see trans woman readers or AMAB nonbinary readers: consciously or not, cis female writers write what they know, and are applying their experiences and relationship with gender to trans AFAB readers assuming it will be the same or similar enough.

I will say, as a general rule of thumb: it really is not. Do not treat it like it is, please. This is why I say to write as if gender doesn’t exist. Just write the character, write the story, and then worry about their pronouns. Don’t even think about what they look like or their voice if you find that stopping you.

Write the reader as a character, not as a woman.

Now that that’s out of the way.

6. How can I make my reader-insert stand out?

I’ll let my partner, Felix, take over for this one again:

“People write what they know so expand your knowledge by talking to others.

Reader inserts are often very passive, too. Try to have your reader become the driving force instead of letting plot happen around them. For example, try to imagine why the reader and the characters would have a reason to talk/bond, what would be reasonable motivations for the reader? Why would the characters care about the reader?

Easy ways to do this include having an already established relationship between the reader and character that you can draw from, the reader has to accompany the characters for an amount of time on a joint goal, anything other than ‘reader is sexy lamp and characters like reader because reader is sexy.’ If you’re gonna write about a one night stand, then write about a one night stand, but don’t try to shoe horn in a whole relationship.

if you’re gonna write tropes then you have to:

1) Make it your own. “School for superpowered kids” is the core of several IPs: my hero academia, Harry Potter and xmen, but all of them are very different to each other. If you’re writing for reader inserts, a common trope is ‘reader whisked away by character to start a new life.’ This trope is everywhere, and it’s fine, but art is all about that execution.Think more about why these things are happening; why is the reader being whisked away, why does the character care about them, why would they stay together after the initial danger has passed? Don’t explain it to me either, show me the events leading up to the scene you want. Don’t tell me ‘ever since character rescued reader he’s been in love with them,’ show me those events, show me the lead up, show me why I should give a damn. If the fanfic wasn’t specifically reader insert, would it still be interesting?

2) Execute your tropes well. Execution is the most important thing when it comes to art. You can have the most brilliant idea in the world but if you don’t execute it properly it’s worth about as much as dirt. A movie can have a great idea, but if the pacing is off or the lighting bad or the sound design shit it’s not gonna work is it? Best example are the original Star Wars trilogy vs the prequels, I could go on for ages about the differences between them and the behind the scenes, but the gist is that during the filming of the og trilogy Harrison Ford, Carrie fisher and mark Hamill were constantly rewriting the script during scenes to flow better and sound better, Lucas’ wife was the editor and was the reason we have those great scenes that are seared into the memory of our society.

With the prequels many people had credited Lucas as being the sole reason the og trilogy was so successful, therefore he had more free reign and bogged down the movies with things that, yes, might have been interesting lore wise, but served no purpose for the actual story. His execution was bad. Your execution of your fic doesn’t have to be on the grand scale of a million dollar budget movie, but you do have to make the effort if you want to make a good story. You wanna write a horny smut fic? Power to you, do research into bdsm and healthy safe sex practices. Go into depth about how that makes the characters feel and how it connects to them as people. You can do a fantastic character study just from bdsm practices because of how personal and intimate that situation can be. Even without hard smutty stuff you can still write a deep and personal fic about a character falling in love with the reader if you just take the time to actually develop the relationship between them.”

Phew, that was a lot. Those were really the Main Big Questions I hopefully answered to a satisfactory degree. Ask box is always open, though!

[mental-ch-illness]

Can you fake or exaggerate symptoms of any mental disorder? And actually get away with it?

absolutely. 

i know that this community isn’t too fond of addressing this topic, but this has definitely happened and continues to happen. for every person who is caught, i can almost guarantee you there are at least 3 more that haven’t been. that being said, i don’t think that fakers are extremely common, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have these conversations.

not everyone is gonna want to see this, so i’ve put it below the cut.

when we find out someone is faking something, our emotions may be varied. it can be really difficult to sort through it all, and that’s okay. your emotions are an involuntary response to your environment, it’s only how you deal with those emotions that truly matters. i think that the most common emotion experienced, however, is probably anger and rightfully so. these situations, though, are rarely something that can be handled correctly with anger. moving forward and deciding how to take action can be very difficult. 

if you suspect someone you know is faking, or even have proof of it, you should step back and asses the situation. ask yourself the following questions:

what is the scale of this situation?

how many people are actively they faking to?

are they faking in public or in private?

do they have any power/influence?

are they attempting to educate or spread awareness about a condition that they do not have?

what are they gaining by faking?

are they taking up community resources?

taking up space in therapy groups or activities

taking up limited clinician time

taking up psychiatric unit beds 

receiving government aid, financial or otherwise,

receiving aid from other organizations/charities

etc

have they hurt themselves or others to prove or maintain their facade?

what kind of people are they lying to?

what do you personally want to happen?

honestly, trying to describe each and every nuance of this situation and what i believe is the best course of action is really taxing so i’ll be summarizing as best i can. 

under what conditions would i POTENTIALLY need to call this person out within a friend group/community?

if they have received financial aid or donations of resources from friends or from the community 

if they have a large following or influence, particularly if they are championing themselves as an educator or advocate

if they have hurt themselves or others in the process

be extremely careful with callouts. remember that you are one person and you can’t possibly know everything about a situation. this person could have received the wrong diagnosis, mistaken symptoms/experiences for the disorder, have been manipulated into believing they have a disorder, or are just not aware that they are faking (yes, this does happen!). a call out can do way more harm than good. 

for the most part, if a faker is just faking for attention and isn’t attempting to use their faked disorder for personal gain, you should literally leave it alone. it’s not a fight worth starting. some people are just horribly insecure and incredibly toxic. you can’t change them and you can’t save everyone around them. calling a faker out when it doesn’t really need to happen will victimize them and push them to lean further into the lie. ignoring them and encouraging others to ignore them and leave is generally the safest and least stressful option for everyone- except the faker. 

additionally, remember the ramifications of this action. some people will get very defensive and actively seek you out and try to sabotage you. 

i’m not close to the faker, what should i do?

distance yourself from the faker. tell others you do not want to be around them and do not want any contact on the faker’s behalf. 

i’m not close to the faker but a friend is, what should i do?

pull your friend aside privately and calmly bring up your concerns. do not demonize the faker, even though that is very easy. you cannot force a friend into taking your side, but if you at least address the situation, you’ve done what you can. 

i want to directly confront the faker, what do i do?

if your reasoning for confronting a faker is because you want to hurt them or make them feel bad, don’t. that will only cause them to lean into the lie even more. it victimizes them and they love that. 

if you want to confront the faker in an attempt to maybe get them to understand that what they’re doing is wrong, you need to have a private, one on one conversation. be nonjudgemental. being nonjudgemental doesn’t mean condoning their actions, it means staying neutral to achieve a goal. many people who fake for attention are actively hurting. plenty of them come from rough situations and are insecure. additionally, many feel guilty. offering them a chance to come clean instead of destroying them can be a great act of compassion and really turn someone’s life around. it can also provide a lot of closure as well.

this is NOT for everyone though. examine your emotions and how you feel about this person. if you genuinely can’t forgive them at this time, or ever, this isn’t something you should do. there is absolutely NO SHAME in just dropping the person and never seeing them again. you are the victim in this situation, you do what is best for YOU, not the faker. 

i’ve found the faker in another community, what do i do?

are they actively faking in this other community? if they are, then privately speak with whoever is in charge. if they aren’t faking and aren’t hurting anyone there, there’s really no point to bringing it up. 

if you have previously confronted this person in the past and they are not faking anymore leave them alone. it’s clear this person has made an effort to change. they don’t need to have mistakes thrown in their face constantly. following someone around and trying to make their life miserable is just not healthy for you. 

i have been open in the past about being a compulsive liar. i have else met a LOT of other liars and illness fakers in my life. this is how i have dealt with them in the past. if you feel like this is too light, yeah, maybe it is, but fixating over trying to ruin someone will only ruin you. the best way to show someone you see through them is to literally cut them off and go no contact. nothing drives a manipulator up the wall more than losing one of their prey.

if a person is trying to change, then let them. when i came clean about my lying, i lost a lot of friends, and rightfully so. i don’t blame any of them for feeling the way they did about what i did to them. i don’t see myself as a victim of their anger when it comes to their initial actions. that being said, they have continued to go after me despite the fact that i have actively changed and have people around me who keep me accountable. it’s not healthy for anyone involved to drag around a dead horse and beat it when you get angry. 

i hope this helps!

[star-maiden]

Weekly Tarot Forecast

For the week of August 29th, 2020 - September 4th, 2020

This is a weekly tarot reading by zodiac sign for the collective. Please use your sun, moon or rising sign to find the message that resonates most strongly for you. May these readings serve you well in the week ahead! 💜 

♈️ Aires - Strength Reversed: We are seeing a return of energy that was present around you near the beginning of August (strength reversed was pulled for aires in the weekly forecast for the week of the 8/10/20). Repeating cards mean that the message is amplified. Aires, in this coming week it will be very important for you to play close attention to where you are placing your energy. Take care to not allow yourself to fall into patterns. If something is not working out for you, don’t waste your energy. Try a different angle, or a new endeavor completely. You have so much inner strength, and sometimes that strength is best expressed by knowing when to walk away.

♉️ Taurus - 3 of Swords: There’s some dissonant energy around you this week. You may find that there are arguments or hurt feelings among your close relationships. You may even feel that a situation is hopeless, likely due to a situation or conversation you will experience with someone close to you. This could be a warning against gossip. Taurus, remember where your power is. You are resilient and practical in your approach. There is a lot of wisdom to be had in standing your ground. If you feel that your needs are not being met, say so plainly, but take care not to be argumentative. Do not engage in petty arguments or word games with others. They won’t get you anywhere, and will likely prolong the drama. A refusal to engage in the drama is response enough, and sends a powerful message.

♊️ Gemini - 3 of Wands: There is some really big, expansive energy brewing this week! If you have been working on a project, this is the week where things are going to start really taking off. If you are considering something. your prospects are looking pretty good. Stay focused on your end goal and keep moving forward, and you should see results. This card may also indicate an opportunity. If something pops up this week and you aren’t sure if its for you, this card tells you to go for it. Take advantage of what is being offered to you, but be prepared to move beyond your comfort zone. Growth and success are likely, but you’ll need to step beyond your current beliefs and self-held limitations.

♋️ Cancer - The Empress: A world of beauty, prosperity, happiness and indulgence in the senses are your themes for this week. Overall, you should have a fairly harmonious experience. To take advantage of this Empress energy, spend some time close to home. Focus on self-care and creating an environment of elegance and luxury in whatever capacity that means for you. You may find yourself greatly benefiting from taking time to appreciate all of the beauty around you. This is an important time to to reconnect with your inner empress. What are you being called to create? How can you stay with this energy until your work is done?

♌️ Leo - The Tower: This week brings some big changes. This could be an internal change, as old beliefs and paradigms crumble away, or it could be more literal. If the latter, you may find yourself standing in the ruins of something  that was once a major part of your life. Don’t be scared of this energy. It is not inherently negative, even if it may seem like a disaster on the surface. The message of the tower is an opportunity to rebuild, reform and create something that is truly in alignment with your spirit, passion and life path. This is your clean slate. You can go anywhere  and do anything you’d like from this point. What will you build in the tower’s place? Tower energy comes into our lives when we are ready to change. The possibilities for how your future will unfold are endless. How will you choose to move forward?

♍️ Virgo - 6 of Swords: This week, brings a dream-like and peaceful energy. Any conflicts, worries or fears that you may have previously experienced are starting to fall away. Their energy has dulled, and you are now moving toward a new sense of calm. Alternatively, if you have been experiencing any negative self-talk or distracting mind chatter, this card is telling you to let that go. It simply isn’t true, and you are ready to move away from that mindset. Take some time to relax this week, either through an activity you enjoy, or something more spiritual (like meditation, yoga or by practicing mindfulness). Relax into the moment. You don’t need to act right now. See where the current takes you.

♎️ Libra - 4 of Pentacles: The energy around you is very stable this week.You should be feeling pretty secure in areas related to the material world. This could be in relation to finances, personal safety or your home space. You have worked hard to make this stability a reality for yourself, but also take care not to hold too tightly. There is the possibility of letting things get stagnant. If you find yourself unwilling to budge or reach consensus with others, it may be time to consider a different perspective. If you find yourself feeling stuck or bored, let some new ideas in and see where the fresh outlook takes you. There’s no harm in at least considering new angles. You can choose to act on them (or not) when you are ready.

♏️ Scorpio - 4 of Wands: Your home life will be at the forefront this week, and the energy is looking very supportive and stable. Keep in mind that “home life” may be your family, your living space or even the people who are closest to you. I’m hearing very strongly that, for some of you, you will be experiencing this family-like energy with roommates. Overall, it’s a very positive energy. There is a very prominent sense of safety and feeling as though you belong. All heads are working together well, and things are running smooth. Take advantage of all this support and use it as an opportunity to rest and recharge. You’re in good hands.

♐️ Sagittarius - Queen of Cups: This week, you may find yourself needing to connect with your emotions to make a choice or to see a situation in its entirety. If you encounter any difficulties, uncertainties or situations that require you to interact with others, be sure to source from within. Go deep, like the Queen of Cups, and listen to the ebb and flow of your emotions. No one knows them better than you, and you will have exceptional emotional clarity this week. Use that as your mantra. Tell yourself “I can clearly see and understand my emotions.” Let that be the light that guides you forward. Don’t try to rely solely on logic this week. A softer approach may be needed. You are strongly connected yo your inner wisdom this week. Breathe into the feeling. You’ve got this!

♑️ Capricorn - 8 of Wands: There is a lot of movement around you this week. This may be literal movement for some of you, such as travel or mobility in the work place. However, for many of you this card is referring to the movement of information. Messages are arriving and situations that were once shrouded in uncertainties are now becoming clear. Pay close attention to any signs or messages you receive this week, as they will contain important information for your benefit. If you have the opportunity to make a choice this week, do so immediately. This is not the time to be waiting around. If an opportunity presents itself, act on it. You don’t want to run the risk of missing out on something wonderful. At the same time, be sure to be sourcing your decisions on a foundation of clarity and understanding. Make sure you know what you’re doing. 8 of wands energy runs the risk of being scattered. Don’t go chasing after things willy nilly or you won’t get the results you are hoping for.

♒️ Aquarius - The Moon: This week, you may find yourself walking the delicate balance between the dream world and cold logic. You are deeply connected to your intuition this week, and that connection can be a great source of inspiration and guidance. However, it will be necessary for you to fact check at times. If something is making you react with fear, anxiety or worry, that is a sign to examine the matter a little more deeply. What is clouding your judgement? What preconceived notions or deeply held beliefs are influencing your reactions? Once you uncover the answers, the way forward will seem much more clear. Additionally, don’t allow fear to make decisions for you. You need to move beyond the literal, and get to the real heart of the matter. This may be done through questioning, soul searching or by simply being tenacious about a situation. 

♓️ Pisces - 6 of Cups: You may find yourself feeling nostalgic this week, or experiencing a deep longing for the way things used to be in the past. It is likely that these memories hold a deep sense of comfort and security for you. It’s alright to take comfort in them and to use them as a source of strength, but take care to not cling too much to the past. You may find that clinging too hard to the past will prevent you from moving forward. We all reminisce at times, but do not forget that your power resides in the present moment. For better or worse, we cannot change the past. It is in the present moment that you can determine where you life will lead you. Take action steps that align you with what you want to achieve.

[mcdonniealds]

Healing

BEFORE READING • This literature contains heavy mentions of self-harm, self-hatred, implied OC/canon pairing, and a mentioned needle (that is used in a metaphorical way). Please turn back if you’re sensitive to these subjects, and stay safe!

Just a note: I’m not good at writing literature or any fanfiction at all. So the writing might come out as rushed, and canon character(s) featured in the story may come off as out of character (which I will apologize for). Nevertheless, enjoy the fanfic!

(Also, I'd suggest listening to Will Stetson's cover 'I'm Glad You're Evil Too'; it's heavily inspired by it.)

Words: 1,165

Feeling hurt can be a dreadful thing to live with - or at least that’s what Axel believes in.

For as long as he can remember, he felt hurt, used, and powerless for a long time against the world. The once human being learned that the world isn’t a pretty place to live perversely, constantly relying on thieving in a harsh environment for survival. The only thing that kept Axel going was his little sister, who unfortunately had the same fate as him to become what they are now; monsters or freaks from the public eye.

All thanks to the oozquitos.

To make matters worse, they were rather ‘fortunate’ enough to get in the hands of the Foot Clan, who have trained the mutated siblings to become Foot soldiers. Axel was obedient and submitted orders without a complaint to get the job done. They taught themselves to be detached from any humane emotions or sympathy - just so they wouldn’t feel remorse hurting other people for the Foot Clan’s gain.

Zir sister, however, had a different view from zem.

Lynn, the loud fox child with a heart of gold and a positive view of the world, didn’t bother to mask her hatred on the clan, who gave her and Axel a home. It was blatant that she was upset with her brother, who let the leaders use him as a puppet to control his actions. He should’ve listened to her sooner.

But…now it’s in the past. The siblings betrayed the Foot Clan to fight against the demon Shredder. The very same demon Axel tried to collect pieces of Dark Armor to resurrect him once more. They became the turtle brothers’ allies… sort of.

Axel can sense some distrust from the turtles, which ze couldn’t blame them for. They fought in the past before, and ze is capable betray them at any moment. Though, it could be worse if it weren’t for the hyperactive sister’s behavior slowly rubbing on them.

Nevertheless, that can’t be said to the distant axolotl mutant. Axel was just…too distant and sometimes emotionless to the turtles and the crew apart from Lynn, whom he showed affection and care. It wasn’t his intentions, of course. The cold soldier has trouble communicating with emotions to other people and particularly has issues being touched without permission. Well, until a wild box turtle started to reach out to Axel.

In truth, Axel is surprised that the youngest one of the turtles would reach out for them. Their personalities contracted one another - and yet, both managed to become close and friends even. That was when the axolotl mutant realized Mikey’s touch didn’t bother them that much and sparked something within them.

A peculiar warm feeling.

Chuckling pitifully at the thought, Axel put those feelings by the side and stared down at zir arms which their mahogany wraps are now removed. Not only it hid Axel in the shadows, but it helped hiding the scars ze planted to cope with the pain. Ze was aware that it wasn’t a good idea to hurt zemself.

But he deserved it, right? He was the bad guy, yes? That was what those shadows behind Axel said… Right?

“Axel…?”

Then why was Mikey sitting opposite Axel with a worried and shocked look? They swore they saw tears forming at the corner of the turtle’s baby blue eyes as he examined their arms covered in fainted scars. He didn’t understand it.

Why would a person hurt themselves like this?

Mikey was trying to say something anything to react to this situation, but all came out a stutter: “Wh-why would you- I-”

“I-I’m sorry.” Axel interrupted with a remorseful look on zir face; it was clear it was as painful as to talk about the fainted scars, “I just…”

Just what? Axel didn’t know either; why would he do that?

Mikey felt like he was getting more pricked with a needle the more he stared at the scars. He didn’t know what to do - He could go to his brothers for guidance on how to handle this situation, but how would Axel feel? Would it feel like he was violating their boundaries without permission?

“How long were you doing this?” Mikey asked with a gentle tone. The former Foot Soldier let out a shaky sigh before answering, “For a while; since when I joined the Foot Clan.”

The answer made the wild turtle widened his eyes with pure shock and anger. The Foot Clan did this to zem? He didn’t realize he tightened Axel’s hand in pure, internal fury.

Before he could explode in a pure fit of anger, he pulled the axolotl into a hug. Mikey started to sob uncontrollably, from the sympathy of his friend to his surprise: “I’m so sorry!”

… Sorry? What are you sorry for? Axel thought for a moment. They didn’t understand why their friend was apologizing to them when they should be the one to confess the apology. Axel returned the embrace, and without realizing it, began to tear up.

The pair sat embracing one another, crying out apologies after apologies before the room quieted into a stiff silence. Both Axel and Mikey did not know what to do or how to react after the session. Until a lightbulb lit up in Mikey’s head, signaling an idea.

Pulling away from the hug, the box turtle turned his back on the axolotl before revealing to be what appeared as a used pack of colorful markers.

“Mikey, what are you about to do?” asked the curious Axel while tilting his head; they watched Mikey trying to pick out one of the markers and ended up with a red marker. He turned to them with a bright smile on his face that could lit their dark world. “Isn’t it obvious? We’re about to draw flowers on your arms! If you’re alright with it, that is.”

Mikey exclaimed in joy before adding the last sentence to ask Axel first if they are alright with the plan. Axel blinked a few times to regain his thoughts and composure. Ze then let out a small smile and nodded to give Mikey a go, which made him squeal with joy. Ze loved seeing him smile.

The pink mutant pulled out one of his arms for the orange turtle to draw on. Mikey first started drawing the flower on his wrist before working his way up to the forearm.

This whole thing felt like time has stopped around them so the two teenagers could have a tranquil moment. Axel thought for a moment about what just happened minutes or hours ago - from being a sobbing trainwreck of a mess to now an individual who’s finally in peace with someone they love and care about. Maybe this won’t be so bad, even though the road might be a long way to go.

“Maybe I could heal from this.” Axel blurted out his thought and shared a simper with Mikey, who nodded in agreement.

[hyperactivepuppy]

Parties Are The Worst - Chapter 1

New fic! I found this partially written story in my google docs from months ago and thought some of you might enjoy it. ^.^  I had way too much fun writing all of the students being crazy XD.

Summary: Todoroki gets dragged to a party at Kirishima and Bakugo’s new apartment, but turns out his tolerance for alcohol is not as high as he thought... **Note—this is set when all of the students are in their early 20s, so there is no underage drinking :).

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28635390/chapters/70190049

~*~

Parties were the worst. They were loud, confusing, and extremely overwhelming. Why on earth would anyone choose to attend such an event?

Todoroki had been wondering this for the past hour, tucked away in the furthest corner of the room to try and escape the noise.

When Kirishima had gleefully announced the event that Monday, he immediately declined. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Kirishima—he just didn’t want to spend an evening crammed in with a bunch of hyped up 20-year-olds. Then Midoriya came along with his wide, innocent, puppy eyes and somehow managed to change his mind.

So here he was, trapped at Kirishima’s apartment while the entire class of 1A shrieked and danced. Someone had dragged all of the couch cushions onto the floor and Mina and Sero were diving off the wooden frame into a mound of pillows. Loud, obnoxious music boomed through the room and Kaminari was screaming along with the lyrics in a horrible attempt at karaoke.

Todoroki wanted to leave. The whole atmosphere was just too much. It was too loud—too overwhelming. And to make it all worse, he didn’t even have Midoriya there to help ground him. Honestly, he wouldn’t even be there if Midoriya hadn’t asked him so sweetly the day before. He’d promised to stay with him all evening and said they could sit in the corner and talk. But Kaminari somehow managed to burn all the frozen pizzas and both Midoriya and Yaoyorozu had gone to the store to buy more.

So now he was alone—anxious, tired, and with no escape. His head was starting to ache from the constant chatter, making him even less tolerant of the chaotic environment.

Sighing, he pushed away from the wall and headed toward the snack table. Maybe a drink would help. At least it would give him something to do. Methodically, he pulled a plastic cup from the stack and filled it with punch.

As he sipped the cold drink, he pulled out his phone, smiling a little as he scrolled through cat videos on Tiktok. Watching cute kittens calmed his anxious mind, but it also distracted him enough that he didn’t notice Kaminari sneak up behind him until the blond yelled in his ear.

“Hey, Todobro, wanna make drinks with us?” Kaminari asked, grinning dopily at him.

Todoroki started, looking up from his phone. He was about to politely decline the offer and head back over to his designated corner, when he remembered something Midoriya had said that morning.

It will be fine! I’ll stay with you the whole time. And if you’re feeling anxious, you could always try having a little to drink. No pressure or anything, but a bit of alcohol might help you relax a bit and enjoy yourself more.

At the time, he had dismissed the idea, wary of the adverse effects of said beverage. He’d seen what some of his classmates acted like drunk and he wasn’t too keen on throwing away his neatly filed inhibitions and making a fool of himself. Even though they were of age now, he hadn’t tried much alcohol. It was usually served at parties—something he mostly tried to avoid.

A sharp cough startled him back and he blushed when he noticed Kaminari still standing there, hand on hip as he waited for an answer. Mina had joined him and was giving Todoroki wide puppy dog eyes.

He swallowed. “Oh, uh… sure, I guess.” He still wasn’t sure if it was the best idea, but it had to be better than standing against the wall stressing. At least he hoped so.

“Yes!!” Mina punched a hand in the air, rushing over to the kitchen. “Kiri, do you have any tequila?”

Kirishima poked his head around the door, eyebrows raised in interest. “We making drinks?”

“Yup!” Kaminari cheered, almost dropping the two glasses he’d pulled from the cupboard.

It was almost as if Bakugo could sense the near accident as he gave Kaminari a seething look. “Watch what you touch, Pikachu. This isn’t your damn house.”

“Chill, man. I’ve got it under control,” Kirishima soothed, patting his boyfriend’s arm gently. “This just comes along with hosting a party at your own flat. Now do you want a drink or not?”

Bakugo rolled his eyes but got out another three glasses. “Whatever.”

Meanwhile, Kaminari was carefully pouring pineapple juice into a glass, tongue sticking out in concentration.

Mina hovered over his shoulder, watching intently.

“Then you add two shots of tequila,” Kaminari explained, nodding expertly like he’d been mixing drinks his whole life.

“Ohhhh.” Mina measured out two shot glasses and handed them over.

“You sure it’s two?” Bakugo asked sceptically.

“Course I am! What, you think I’ve never done this before?” Kaminari dumped the liquid into the glass and started adding carefully sliced lemon peel.

“Dude, are you putting the peel in there?!” Kirishima asked, only just noticing what was going on.

Kaminari nodded, waving the lemon in front of Kirishima’s face to emphasise the point. “Yeah! They give it that extra zest.”

“Omg. You guys are gonna feel so sick,” Bakugo drawled.

Mina shrugged, taking the glass and sipping at it. “Mm! Super good. You were right about the lemon peel, it does add flavour!”

Kaminari beamed, already mixing up another drink. “Here, Todoroki, try it!” He practically shoved the glass at Todoroki, sloshing some of the liquid over the side.

Todoroki blinked in surprise. “Uh, thanks.” He looked down at the glass, frowning as he examined the contents. It seemed a little weird, but who was he to judge Kaminari’s mixology skills when he knew nothing about the subject?

Tentatively, he took a sip of the drink. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad. A little bitter and the chunks of lemon peel were kind of weird, but overall it tasted pretty good. Shrugging, he tilted his head back and downed the rest in one go.

When he looked down, Kaminari and Mina were staring at him with huge eyes, expressions of shock mirrored on both of their faces.

“Dude, you’re not supposed to chug it!” Kaminari shouted, barely getting the words out between bursts of laughter.

Todoroki blinked down at the empty glass in his hand. “Oh.” He frowned.

“Still, those are insane skills you got there, Todo. I want you on my team next time we play beer pong,” Mina added, watching him with jealous eyes.

Todoroki had no idea what ‘beer pong’ was but figured it was one of those things that he would be made fun of for if he asked, so he kept quiet.

“Okay, now—who wants jello shots?!”

~*~

Thirty minutes later, Kaminari and Mina had introduced him to a whole array of new drinks, some of which he was suspiciously sure had only been invented that evening.

Surprisingly, he was actually starting to enjoy himself. The alcohol surrounded him in a pleasant buzz, steadily clawing away at his fierce barriers until he was laughing along with the other two.

“Okay, try this—pink lemonade, beer, and that weird rum Shinso likes.” Kaminari held out a glass, giggling so hard the cup shook in his hand.

“Ew!” Mina cried, sticking her tongue out in revulsion. “Kaminari, that sounds disgusting!”

“Can’t know ‘til you try it.” Kaminari raised the glass to his lips and took a long sip, spilling half the contents down his front. Giggling, he pulled away. “Oops. Here, Todo, you gotta try!”

Normal inhibitions dissolved, Todoroki accepted the cup and downed the rest of the drink.

“Dude, you should do karaoke with us!” Kaminari gasped suddenly, eyes lighting up with excitement. He grabbed the mic from the counter where he’d discarded it while they made drinks. “I bet you have a hella gorgeous voice.”

“Yeah!” Mina cut in, waving enthusiastically. “Don’t worry, you can’t be any worse than this idiot.” She snatched the mic from Kaminari, giggling at his gasp of outrage.

“Rude!” he cried, trying to grab the mic back.

“Omg you two. Cut it out,” Jirou said, suddenly appearing as if summoned by the prospect of music. She rolled her eyes dramatically. “If you keep arguing we’re never gonna get Todoroki to sing.” She held out an insistent hand. “Give it.”

Mina sighed and reluctantly handed over the mic. “Fineeeee. But only because I wanna see Todoroki sing.”

Jirou smirked and held the device out to Todoroki, ignoring Kaminari’s dramatic whine as he stumbled over his own feet trying to get over to the karaoke machine and collapsed into the pile of pillows that littered the floor.

“Oh, uh, no thanks,” Todoroki said quickly, taking a step back. No way was he going to sing in front of all his classmates.

“Aw, come on!” Mina cried, pouting. “It’s just for fun!”

Todoroki shook his head, taking another step back. “I don’t want to.” Or at least, he shouldn’twant to. But for some reason he didn’t feel all that opposed to the idea. Which was strange because he would never normally consider singing in front of people.

“Aw, don’t be such a scaredy cat, man!” Kaminari whined from the floor. He sat up, messy hair flopping over his eyes. “How come you can face villains without batting an eye but singing a little karaoke has you shaking?”

Todoroki frowned, genuinely perplexed by the blunt statement. When Kaminari put it like that, it did seem rather silly. Surely there wasn’t any harm in giving it a go… Midoriya always encouraged him to try new things.

“Okay,” he said, utterly shocking the three students gathered around him.

Mina gaped at him. “Sorry, what?!”

“I’ll do it,” Todoroki clarified, taking the mic from Jirou’s limp hand.

It only took a moment for Mina’s excitement to return in full force. Squealing in delight, she ran over to set up the karaoke machine. “What song do you want?”

Todoroki shrugged. He probably wouldn’t recognise any of the songs anyway. He’d never been very caught up on the current popular music. “What do they have?”

“Hm…” Mina tapped her chin. “Come look.”

Todoroki nodded, moving over to peer at the little booklet in Mina’s hands. After scanning the list of unfamiliar songs, his eyes finally settled on a familiar title and his heart gave a little leap of excitement. “This one,” he said, running his finger over the small print.

Mina’s eyes widened. “Dude! I didn’t know you liked the Greatest Showman?!”

Todoroki nodded solemnly, as if this should be common knowledge. “It’s an artistic masterpiece.”

Kaminari giggled from the floor. “Kay, let’s hear it then, Mr. artistic masterpiece.”

Mina broke into a violent fit of laughter as she pressed the ‘start’ button on the screen. “Alright, take it away!”

Todoroki raised the mic to his lips and breathed out a slow sigh, watching the TV screen as the opening notes of “This Is Me” filled the room. He almost felt like he was floating, riding a giddy wave of euphoria that really shouldn’t come from standing in front of a crowd. But this was happening and he felt greatso he sucked in a deep breath and began to sing.

“I am not a stranger to the dark. Hide away, they say, ‘cause we don’t want your broken parts. I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars. Run away, they say, no one’ll love you as you are. But, I won’t let them break me down to durst. I know that there’s a place for us. For we are glorious.”

Cheers erupted from his fellow classmates, sending his heart stuttering with a strange exhilaration. Feeling a little like he was whirling through an extremely realistic dream, Todoroki started the chorus with a heightened sense of conviction.

“When the sharpest words wanna cut me down. I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out. I am brave, I am bruised, I am who I’m meant to be, this is me.”

By the time the song ended, Todoroki was positively glowing, his mind swept up in a giddy whirl of excitement.

The others seemed just as excited, whooping and hollering as Todoroki set the mic down.

“Omg! That was amazing!” Mina squealed, grabbing his hands and spinning him around so fast he almost tripped over his own feet.

“Thanks,” Todoroki gasped. Even though Mina had let him go, the room continued to spin around him, creating the unpleasant sensation that he was on one of those spinny theme park rides. He swallowed, reaching out for the wall to try and steady himself. God, he was dizzy.

“You should sing more often! You have such a pretty voice!” Mina continued, still bouncing around in excitement.

“Yeah!” Kaminari enthused, stepping up beside them and throwing an arm over Mina’s shoulder.

Todoroki barely heard them. Suddenly he wasn’t having fun anymore. The swaying room sent his stomach pitching and he wanted nothing more than to lie down on the floor and close his eyes until the spinning went away.

The others seemed to notice his distress, voicing their concerns as they pressed in on him.

“Whoa, you okay bro?” Kaminari asked, eyeing him warily.

Todoroki nodded, mumbling a feeble reply. “Yeah.” His body burned with an uncomfortable heat, entirely different from his own fire. “Jus’ gonna si’down for a mi’te.” He stumbled toward the couch, reaching out blindly as he tripped over his own feet.

Suddenly Kirishima was there, catching his swaying body before he could fall and guiding him over to the couch.

Todoroki groaned, closing his eyes when the change in position aggravated his already queasy stomach. He sucked in a few deep breaths, pressing his cheek against the couch in an attempt to ground himself.

“You good?” Kirishima asked, crouching down next to the couch and laying a hand on Todoroki’s shoulder.

Todoroki nodded feebly, wincing when the small movement intensified his dizziness. Even with his eyes closed the room seemed to spin in lazy circles around him. He swallowed. “Yeah. Jus’ got kinda diz’y.”

Kirishima hummed in understanding. “Yeah, that’s the downside to alcohol. I think maybe you should slow down for a bit, man.”

Just the thought of drinking anything more sent his already uncomfortable stomach churning. He swallowed again, shifting a little on the couch to try and get more comfortable.

“He okay?” A voice suddenly spoke above them

Mina and Kaminari gathered around the couch, watching Todoroki in concern.

Kirishima nodded, hand still on Todoroki’s shoulder. “I think he just had a little too much to drink,” he explained.

Mina and Kaminari exchanged guilty looks.

“Oh…” Mina breathed.

Kirishima frowned, brow furrowed in suspicion. “What did you guys do?”

“Nothing!” Kaminari defended, waving his arms wildly. “We were just making drinks. Todoroki was all for it!”

“Yeah! We didn’t force him or anything,” Mina added.

Kirishima sighed. “Fine, fine. I believe you.” He glanced down at Todoroki’s pale face. “I guess he’s just not really used to drinking.”

Kaminari couldn’t suppress a grin. “Omg, who would have ever guessed perfect IcyHot was such a lightweight!”

Todoroki pressed his face further into the cushions, trying to block out the sounds of the others talking. He really didn’t feel well. And Midoriya was still out with Yaoyorozu looking for stupid frozen pizza. Why oh why had he come to this stupid party?!

Another wave of nausea slammed over him, this one noticeably stronger. The taste of liquor brushed the back of his throat, bitter and rancid against his tongue. Gross—why was he tasting it again now?

You’re going to throw up, his mind supplied, almost as if it was annoyed with his inability to put the clues together.

Shakily, he pushed himself upright, swaying when dizziness slammed against him. He forced his eyes open, searching desperately for any indication of where Kirishima’s bathroom might be. Why hadn’t he asked about that earlier?

“Hey man, you okay?” Kirishima asked, startled by Todoroki’s sudden movement.

Todoroki swallowed, eyes falling to the ground. He knew he should get up and try to run to the bathroom, but his head was still spinning and he couldn’t get his limbs to respond.

“You aren’t looking so good… are you feeling sick?” Kirishima asked tentatively.

Todoroki nodded, pressing a fisted hand to his mouth to stifle a sudden burp. “I don’ wanna drink anym’re,” he mumbled, trying to swallow back the bitter saliva that suddenly flooded his mouth.

“I think he’s gonna hurl,” Kaminari put in, earning him an eye roll from Mina.

“Yeah, no kidding, dude. He’s greener than Midoriya’s hair.”

Todoroki groaned, closing his eyes again as his stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. “‘M gonna throw up,” he mumbled, voice muffled by the hand covering his mouth.

“Shit, yeah, okay,” Kirishima swore, jumping to his feet. “Think you can make it to the bathroom?” He didn’t wait for a response, already grabbing Todoroki’s arm and dragging him to his feet.

Todoroki tried to steady himself, but as soon as he was on his feet, all traces of control evaporated and his stomach gave a violent heave and vomit rushed up his throat. He tried to bend over, but he was too dizzy to navigate properly and most of the vomit spilled down his front. He whimpered, coughing miserably.

“Shit!” Kirishima gasped, grabbing Todoroki’s arm as he swayed dangerously.

“Sor—” Todoroki tried to say, but was cut off by another rush of vomit. He wiped a hand across his mouth, groaning.

“Okay, okay. Come on. Let’s get you to the bathroom.” Kirishima hauled him across the room and down the first hallway, only just managing to get Todoroki situated over the toilet before he heaved again.

“I wanna go home,” he mumbled, gripping the edge of the toilet as he swayed. “C’n you get Izuku?”

Kirishima reached out, sweeping Todoroki’s fringe out of his eyes. “Midoriya isn’t here right now. He’s out with Yaoyorozu. But he’ll probably be back soon.”

Todoroki gave a miserable little sob, collapsing over the toilet with his arms laid across the lid to keep himself upright. Tears welled in mismatched eyes, blurring his already hazy vision. Kirishima was being really nice about the whole thing, but he wasn’t Midoriya. No one could replace Midoriya.

**To be continued**