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cy-cyborg · 7 months

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Disability Tropes: The disabling change of heart

When a character in a story becomes disabled, they'll sometimes experience a trope that I like to call "the disabling change of heart". This is when the character goes through a massive change in their outlook, their personality, their goals or even roll in the story, specifically because they became (or are about to become) physically disabled. Sometimes, this will be in relatively small ways: the happy-go-lucky comedic relief character might become bitter, angry and jaded after getting into an accident that caused a spinal injury, or the severally depressed and nihilistic character might suddenly start acting more cheerful and hopeful, stating that loosing their leg has "put things into perspective and showed them what really matters". In other cases though, the impact is much larger, the heroic character you've been hearing about looses an arm thanks to the main character's actions, causing them to become consumed with anger and self-loathing which they take out on everyone else, eventually becoming an antagonist as they seek revenge for what the main character did to them. The morally grey or even villainous character is injured by their own scheme, giving themselves a permanent disability in the process, which prompts a change of heart and leads them to turn their lives around and become better people, maybe even deciding to team up with the heroes.

Now, having a character go through a personality and goal change due to a major life event, such as becoming physically disabled, isn't inherently bad. A lot of writers are told to tie major shifts in your character's development to major life events, because realistically, something like becoming newly disabled will at least impact how you view the world around you. I very frequently talk about how if I didn't loose my legs, I would have become a vastly different person, but the issues with this trope depends on how it's used and the reasons behind these developments, and whether or not the change suits the character in question.

Before we get into things, I would like to specify that in this post, I'm only going to be talking about how this trope is used with physical disabilities and other easily visible forms of disability. It does show up with characters who develop disabilities under the mentally ill and neurodivergent umbrellas, and is actually a bit more common than what I'm talking about today, but the specific ways its utilised are so different that it's more or less a separate trope, and one that deserves much more attention than I could give it here as this is already going to be a pretty long post. So for today, I'm keeping to it's use with physical and visible disabilities, and we'll talk about how this trope is used with neurodivergence and mental illness another day.

The main thing you need to be mindful of is ensuring that you, as an author, are not including your ingrained biases about disability into the reasoning behind the change. Let's look at one of the examples from before, an evil character who, after loosing their arm (because it's almost always loosing an arm for some reason) becomes a villain and wants revenge against the main character. In a story like this example, the character who became an amputee often views this new disability as something that has ruined their life. It's something that has caused them to suffer, and they want to make the main character (or whoever has "wronged" them) suffer like they did. Stories like this example portray disability as something that is not just horrible, but life-destroying, especially with villains who become all-consumed by the misery this disability has brought them. Many stories that utilise this version of the trope also often perpetuate the idea that if you become disabled, you'll have to give up all the things you love and your goals, even when this wouldn't necessarily be true for the character in question.

Let's say your character was a knight, and the main character cut off their arm in a training accident. obviously you can't be a knight with only one arm because you can't fight anymore, so they left their order. Now this character has become a villain and has found power that "makes up" for their disability, perhaps magic or some other force that doesn't exist in the real world, and are back to get revenge on the character for ruining their lives. Here's the thing though, the loss of a limb, or at least, the loss of an arm specifically, often isn't the career ender people think it is, even back then. In fact, there are many historical records of real amputees continuing to serve as knights and other similar military roles after loosing an arm or at the very least, continuing to fight in other ways. One such example was Götz of the Iron Hand, a mercenary knight who lost his arm to a cannon. Götz had fought as part of the Roman empire's military in 1498, but shortly after left to form his own mercenary company. He lost his hand in 1504 and continued his career as a mercenary with the help of an iron prosthetic capable of holding his sword and the reigns of his horse, among many other things such as writing, for another 40 years. Götz wasn't unique in this though, several suits of armour from the same time period have been found with integrated prosthetic hands, though the names of their owners are unknown. There was also Oruç Reis (aka Aruj Barbarossa), A privateer admiral who served the Ottoman Empire in and around the Mediterranean who lost his left hand - earning him one of many nicknames: Silver-Hand, thanks to the colour of his prosthetic. Oruç, like Götz, continued his career for several more years until he was eventually killed in 1518.

My point in bringing this up, is to highlight how important it is to double check that the reason your character's whole motivation for turning to villainy, isn't just based on your ideas about what a disabled person can or can not do. Actually double check it, research it, especially if it's important for your plot.

Even in the cases where the disability in question actually would stop someone from being able to do something, the incorrect assumptions can still occur and cause issues in different ways. For example, a character in a more modern setting who looses their arm due to an accident the main character was responsible for while serving in the military would be discharged, ruining the character's plan to become a general some day. This absolutely would be devastating for a character like that, and they realistically could struggle to adjust, both in terms of getting used to their disability and finding new goals for their life. They may well feel anger at the main character, however, if you are portraying just living with a disability, in the case of this example, living with an amputation as inherently "suffering" for no other reason than they are disabled, it is still perpetuating those really negative ideas about disability. I've said this a few times in other posts, but villains who are evil or even just antagonists purely because they're disabled or are trying to avoid becoming disabled is a trope all its own and one that is best avoided if you yourself aren't disabled, as even outside of spreading these negative ideas about life with a disability, it's just an overdone and overused trope.

But what about when this trope goes in the other direction? when you have an antagonistic or even just morally grey character who becomes disabled and this is the catalyst that turns them into a good guy?

For the longest time, I knew I usually disliked this version of the trope too, but I couldn't put my finger on why. With disability being the reason someone became a villain, the underlying reason it's there is often able to be boiled down to "I, the writer, think being disabled would be terrible and life like that is inherently suffering, so this character is angry about it," which is obviously an issue (the "inherently suffering" bit, not the anger). However, when a character becomes good due to becoming disabled, the reasoning is usually more along the lines of, "this is a big change in a character's life that has caused them to reconsider and revaluate things" (or at least, that's what I thought). This isn't bad, nor is it necessarily unrealistic. Hell, as I already said, I do consider my disability to be a catalyst that made me into who I am today. I also know plenty of people who, after becoming disabled later in life, did have a big change in how they viewed themselves and the world, and who consider themselves better people since becoming disabled. It's far, far from a universal experience, mind you, but it does happen. So why did this version of the trope still not sit right with me?

Well, I think there's a few reasons for it. The first being that there's a tendency for non-disabled people to think real disabled people are just incapable of evil deeds, both in the sense that they aren't physically capable of doing them (which is bad and not even always true for the reasons we already discussed), but also in the sense that there's this idea that disabled people are, for some reason, inherently more "good" and "innocent" - As if breaking your back or loosing a limb causes all evil and impure thoughts to be purged from the body. This is a result of many folks viewing disabled people as child-like, and thus attributing child-like traits (such as innocence) to them, even subconsciously. This is an incredibly common issue and something disability rights organisations are constantly pushing back against, as this mentality can cause a lot of unnecessary barriers for us. With how often I and many other disabled people are subjected to infantilization, I would be honestly shocked if it wasn't at least partially responsible for people thinking becoming disabled is a good reason to kick off a redemption arc.

This infantilization isn't unique to physically disabled people by the way, in fact it's way, way, more commonly directed at people with intellectual and developmental disabilities - or at least, people are more open about it, but as I already mentioned, how that is reflected in tropes like The Disabling Change of Heart is vastly different and deserves a post of it's own.

That's mostly just speculation on my part though, since that infantilising mindset does show up a lot in media, but not usually as part of this trope specifically.

However, it's not the only reason I wasn't a fan of it. When the disabling change of heart is used to fuel redemption arcs, I think, once again, that the disability itself being credited with causing the change directly is another factor. When this happens, it's usually because "it put things into perspective for me and showed me what really mattered."

This sounds better than our previous example on the surface, but stories that use this logic are often still portraying disability as an inherently bad and tragic thing, something so bad, in fact, that it makes all the other (legitimate) issues they thought were massive before seem so small by comparison. This is a type of inspiration porn: content made to make non-disabled people feel inspired or just better about their own situation. It's the mentality of "well my life is bad, but it could be worse, at least I'm not disabled like that!"

In a fictional story, this might look like an athlete character who dreamed of making it big so they could be famous and get out of poverty. They were a dick to anyone who got in their way but only because they were worried about not being able to make rent if they don't constantly win. One day though, they overworked themselves and got into a car accident on the way home because they were too tired, and now they're in a wheelchair and can no longer walk, which is (supposedly) absolutely tragic and way worse than anything else they were already going through. But they end up becoming a better person because it has put things into perspective for them. Yeah they were struggling to make ends meet, but at least they weren't disabled! Now that they are, they know they shouldn't have cared so much, because money doesn't matter when compared to not being able to walk, right?

As well as portraying disability in a negative light, these kinds of stories dismiss and diminish the other struggles or challenges the character is experiencing, placing the status of "not disabled" above all else.

There's also the fact that, when a lot of real people say their disabilities had positive impacts on their lives, they don't usually mean the disability itself is directly responsible for the change. There's exceptions of course but for myself personally, and most of the people I know who say they are better people because of/since becoming disabled, the disability has been more of a neutral catalyst than the actual cause of positive change. Meaning, it opened the door to allow those changes to happen, but it wasn't the direct cause. For me personally, becoming physically disabled at a young age didn't make me a nice person like people expect, I was still a little judgemental asshole for a lot of my childhood. However, because I was disabled, I had to travel a lot, initially because I needed medical treatment that my local hospital wasn't equip to provide, and later, because I started competing in disability sports. because of both of those things, I met people I never would have otherwise who made me reconsider what I'd been taught on a wide range of subjects, and made me question where those beliefs had come from in the first place. When I say my disability played a part in who I became, it wasn't because my disability itself change me, but it helped me meet people who were positive influences on me and my life. but when creatives make characters who experience arcs like this, they ignore this, again, defaulting to the "this was a bad thing that just put all my other problems into perspective" reasoning.

Some iterations of this trope also use disability as a kind of "karmic punishment" where the disability is portrayed as a rightfully deserved punishment for an evil character's deeds - usually something relating to the disability they acquired but not always. An example might look like an evil tyrant who punishes the rebels they captured by cutting off their hands. Eventually, this catches up with him, maybe the friend or a child of one of the rebels is able to capture the tyrant and cuts his hands off as payback so that he gets a taste of his own medicine, a taste of the suffering he imposed on others. Now facing at least one of the same realities of the people he subjugated, he realises the error of his ways. With some pressure from the main characters, he has a change of heart and surrenders himself, steps down to let someone else take his place, or perhaps he decides to start changing policies to be more in-line with these new morals until some other character usurps him, becoming an even bigger threat than the previous former tyrant.

Once again, stories that use a disability like this are still portraying the disability as an overall inherently bad thing, but there's the added layer at play in this example. The thing is, there are a lot of people in real-life who actually believe disability is a punishment from God. I remember one time when I was over in the US, an older lady came and sat down on the seat beside me on the bus and started asking me about my disability and specifically, how I became disabled. This isn't an unusual interaction, it happens fairly regularly whenever I use public transport, but on this particular day, the conversation suddenly shifted when I told her I became disabled when I was very young. This woman, despite the bus-driver's best efforts to get her to stop, ended up lecturing me for an hour and a half (during which time I couldn't move due to how my wheelchair was held in place) about how my disability was punishment from God for my parent's sins. She then tried to convince me to attend her church, claiming they would be able to heal me. And the thing is, this isn't an uncommon experience.

A lot of disabled people are targeted by cults using this same method: they'll convince people their disabilities are a punishment, make them believe they deserved it, that they just weren't good enough, but don't worry, if you repent and come to our specific church we can heal you. There was even a case in Australia recently that uncovered a cult called Universal Medicine, who taught that disabled people were reincarnations of evil people, and that being disabled in this life was their punishment, as well as that parents who have disabled children were being punished for other sinful behaviours. They were found to be operating a disability care service named Fabic that was being paid for by the NDIS, a subsection of the Australian government funded healthcare system that specifically aids disabled Australians by paying for and subsidising treatments, technologies (such as mobility aids) and other services relating to their disability. Fabic was found to be stealing excessive amounts of funding from their disabled clients under the guise of therapies and carer services, but was not actually helping their clients at all. Whether it's just taking advantage of them to get their money, or actually using this logic as a justification to mistreat them, this mentality of "disability is a punishment" actually gets real disabled people hurt or worse, and so seeing it come up in media, even if there is no ill-intent, can be very distressing and uncomfortable for disabled audiences.

So with all this being said, is the disabling change of heart a trope you should avoid in all it's forms and versions? No, but it does need to be handled with extreme care. I do think it should be avoided as a reason for a character becoming evil for the most part. If that really can't be avoided in your story though, at the very least, ensure that you foreshadow the change. Your happy little ray of sunshine, embodiment of sweetness and innocence type character probably isn't going to turn murderous and want revenge for an accident for example. A character who is likely to be driven to that kind of extreme of wanting revenge for their disability, so much so that they become a villain, probably already had at least a few traits that would predispose them to that line of thinking already, before becoming disabled. As for when it goes in the other direction, and you have a character becoming a good guy, avoid using the reasoning that "the disability put things into perspective for me". Instead, if you must use this version of the trope, use the character's new disability as the reason they encountered other people and situations that challenged their views, things they wouldn't have encountered otherwise. No matter the reason though, be very careful to avoid inspiration porn, and as always, try to find a sensitivity reader to give your story a once-over, just to make sure something didn't slip under your radar.

[Thumbnail ID: An illustrated image showing the same elf character twice. The picture of her on the left shows her laughing evilly, two tiny horns protruding through her brown hair. She is wearing a black dress and red shoes. On the right shows her in a yellow dress, sitting in a bright pink wheelchair with her head held eye and her eyes closed. The horns have been replaced with a glowing halo. In the centre is text that reads: "Disability Tropes: The disabling change of heart." /End ID]

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inaconstantstateofchange · 9 months

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don't come crying - a young!Raphael fic

An incredible rendition of young!Raphael by @shahs1221, here: please go check her out and give her some well-deserved adoration for it!

A/N: I'm gonna be so honest, I have no idea how to tag this in a comprehensible way, relationship-wise. Suffice to say, the Mephisto-lovers are... probably going to appreciate this more than I wish you would, and if you too are fifty leagues down the Niche Forgotten Realms Characters™ rabbit hole, you may also be enticed by the Baalphegor inclusion. 18+, please and thank you.

Summary:

Raphael blinks, attempting to reason past the howling fury within him. He has never before felt so truly attuned to his more fiendish instincts, working in concert with his mortal ones in a truly dangerous storm. He swore when he first came to this wretched plane that he would be its master one day, and he’ll be damned – well and truly – if he fails here. Or: Centuries prior to the events of the game, Raphael's return from a routine fetch quest on Mephistopheles's orders is interrupted by a summons to the throne room. His father has a lesson to impart to him, and he's going to ensure it sticks.

This is part of an ongoing story I've had in the back of my mind for several weeks now. Rather than another WIP longfic, I'll be posting additional segments from this 'verse in a series if/when I add more. If @sky-kiss has any say in it, I'm sure I will.

The only background info you really need is:

All characters are drawn from actual Forgotten Realms lore.

Raphael has recently been plucked from the Material Plane to join his father's court on Cania, in the Nine Hells.

Due to Raphael's stunted development, and an unwillingness to be shamed by his spawn's weakness, Mephistopheles has placed Raphael under the purview of his consort, Baalphegor.

Baalphegor's body is able to produce an empowering draught, too weak to hold much significance to true fiends, but sufficient to bolster Raphael's growth.

Finally, it is a pet headcanon I've incorporated into this 'verse that Baalphegor is the same individual later know as Haarlep, but you are welcome to use your own interpretation.

Raphael stumbles through the extravagant entrance doors to Mephistar, the flesh-shearing winds of Cania grabbing after him as he ducks behind the solid, enchanted stone. He’s done his best to cover all exposed skin, but there is always some that escapes his notice, leaving him bleeding out strength he can ill afford to lose. He loathes these “errands” his father sends him on, tasks purported to test his skill, devotion, and cunning. In reality, it feels more like busywork designed to keep him weak and subservient, reminding him of his contentious existence in the hierarchy and reinforcing his dependence on his father’s dubious goodwill.

The desiccated parchment that proved the focus of this most recent quest crinkles slightly, as he shifts his gaze up, the slight sound echoing across the cavernous hall as he looks with certainty for the being he knows to be waiting for his return, just as always. But — they’re not there.

He furrows his brow, an agitated and disquieting anger growing within his gut. He strides across the marble floor on frostbitten feet he can barely feel, shoving the parchment at the lone figure of Mephistopheles’s chamberlain Barbas, standing at attention at his post, and wearing his habitual sneer as he looks down at Raphael. Raphael ignores it for now, as ever, but files the snub away with all the other insults he will one day be strong enough to return tenfold.

“Where is m—the Lady Baalphegor?” He demands imperiously. They are almost always waiting for him upon his return to bestow his reward. That is the deal, the entire reason he engages in these banal fetch quests even though they are entirely beneath his rank and status. He pushes sharply at the errant thought of the pretty fiction it makes, knowing all the while that his true choice is to bow to his father’s whims or perish. True or not, it does no good to dwell on such matters, not when he will be changing them just as soon as he can manage.

Barbas’s sneer gouges even deeper into his face, growing a biting and nearly gleeful edge as he answers Raphael, “Well, young lord, as your august presence must surely have ascertained, the Lady is certainly not here.”

Raphael can feel his face going blotchy and red, and curses his mortal heritage once again for its constant betrayals. The ice-blue crystals in the eye sockets of the chamberlain harden and glint with glee at the sight. Raphael spins on his heel, marching furiously away, the parchment crumpling further within his fist. Barbas’s mocking voice rings out behind him, “Don’t forget to report to His Grace, little lord! He insisted it be done immediately upon your return.”

Raphael almost turns again to berate him, but manages to stop himself at the last moment, lest he lose even more face from the encounter. He’ll make his report as quickly as possible, then hunt down his wayward… Baalphegor, and claim his rightful recompense. The brilliant halls of Mephistar blur around him as he storms through them, focusing only on making his way to his father’s great hall with haste.

He doesn’t wait to be announced, merely pushes firmly on the doors, both with his physical form and, in a manner only recently attained, with the lashings of his own metaphysical aspect. They creak open, the sound like distant screams even on the well-kept mechanisms, and he steps through without hesitation, words of complaint already springing to his lips, when he stops dead in his tracks.

He’s found Baalphegor.

The succubus – and they are in full succubus form in this moment – is perched indolently on his father��s lap, where he sits on his ostentatious throne. But not just perched, no — impaled, as he finds when, with stricken eyes, he watches them move their body in a smooth, undulating motion up, degree by degree, before dropping back down, brilliant hair falling around them and catching the flickering hellfire-light as it glints off their red-brown skin. Soft, melodious moans are driven from their throat with each movement, as if pushed out by the — by the member within them. Their round breasts shift with the motion, the revitalizing milk within them welling up and dripping down their chest, squandered and disregarded.

He swallows, throat dry, his eyes and chest burning in stark opposition with one another.

His father casts an apathetic glance across the hall, and his eyes alight on Raphael, a cruel smirk curling at his lips. “Ah, the returning triumphant! What have you brought me this time?” His voice is nothing but mocking, no attempt made to couch his disregard for his unwanted and unloved spawn.

Raphael blinks, attempting to reason past the howling fury within him. He has never before felt so truly attuned to his more fiendish instincts, working in concert with his mortal ones in a truly dangerous storm. Everything within him is raging at the broken contract, even as it boils with jealousy at the manhandling of something that is his, and it is only the barest dregs of his staunch self-preservation that manage to keep him from attempting something truly foolish. He swore when he first came to this wretched plane that he would be its master one day, and he’ll be damned – well and truly – if he fails here.

He holds the parchment, now looking rather worse for wear, out before him on a finely trembling hand. He searches for the words he needs in a mind nearly whited out by rage.

“I… your cult in Waterdeep sends their obeisance, y–your Grace.” He curses his tongue for its fumbling, driving home further how well his father’s ploy is working to discomfit him.

“Oh,” Mephistopheles waves a careless hand. “That collection of rabble. You will leave it with my steward.”

Raphael ducks his head a bare inch, keeping his eyes away from Baalphegor as much as he can, and turns to leave.

His father’s voice rings out after him before he has completed even half his turn, sharpening with the first warning edges of his infamous temper. “Where do you think you are going, whelp? You have not yet been dismissed.”

Raphael turns back to face him, slow and careful, as the true danger of the situation sets in. He has rarely found himself in the presence of his father when these moods strike, and never without at least the tenuous support of Baalphegor behind him. And yet… he meets their gaze now, searching, and the barest fraction desperate, but there is nothing. Their red eyes meet his without flinching, cold as Cania’s glaciers. Trickles of the subtly shimmering draught spilling from their breasts have reached down to their hips now, soaking into the thatch of hair between their legs.

He tears his eyes away and forces his attention back to the far greater threat, scrambling for an answer that will satisfy his father.

“My apologies, your Grace.” The epithet comes easier this time, its passage eased by his awareness of his own precarious position. “I misunderstood your direction, and wished only to carry out your will with utmost alacrity.”

Mephistopheles rests his chin insouciantly on his hand, elbow propped against the arm of his throne. His voice, when he speaks, is sardonic and shows no signs of the ongoing actions of the succubus on his lap. “Oh very nicely salvaged, whelp. My wishes, however, are for you to remain just where you are, and appreciate the lesson I’ve prepared for you.”

Raphael swallows, the boiling heat within him growing fiercer, rage intertwined with other, less-savory feelings.

With little warning, Mephistopheles moves his hand to entangle within Baalphegor’s tresses, pulling the succubus fiercely down onto him as he wrenches their head back against his shoulder. A tremulous cry breaks from their throat, and Raphael only barely keeps himself from starting forward at the sound.

Mephistopheles brings his free hand forward and toys with Baalphegor’s breasts, pushed forward into the air from their current position. He twists pitilessly at them, prompting yet more cries as the liquid inside spills out in greater quantities, splashing, wasted, against the smooth skin of Baalphegor’s stomach. It runs in rivulets onto the throne, and down, to collect into puddles on the floor of the grand hall.

Raphael feels his stomach turn even as his mouth, well-trained by association, waters, unhindered by every other horrible aspect of this waking nightmare.

Mephistopheles wipes his hand dismissively on Baalphegor’s hair, leaving behind silvery streaks, then draws them up by their hair and hip, beginning to move within them in earnest as he continues his reproach. Raphael wants to close his eyes, his ears, every one of his senses, but knows such an admission of weakness would be worse than his undoing.

“You’ve prevailed enough upon my largess, and I am no longer willing to indulge your weakness.” Mephistopheles sneers. “You’ve proven more fortunate than any other cambion within the Hells, but from now on you will make your own way, or fail. Such is the way of Baator.”

The fires around the hall burn fiercer in alignment with their lord as he looks down at his unloved progeny. “Should you find yourself desperate for one last taste to stay your appetites, however, you may lap it from the floor like the whelp you are, and thank me for the concession.”

Raphael feels like he is become hellfire himself, the hatred he knew within him for his progenitor stoked to dizzyingly fierce new heights. Jaw aching with the effort of withholding the flood of vitriol within him, he grits out, “My thanks for your… beneficence. I would not dream of prevailing upon it further.”

Mephistopheles snorts, dismissive, then turns his attentions back to Baalphegor, by all accounts having forgotten Raphael’s entire existence.

Raphael stands, Baalphegor’s unfeeling eyes burning into his, until he is finally – finally – dismissed. All the while, the ambitions within him, already cast in carbon, are pressurized further and further, until they are as fearsome diamond, reflecting the blood and fire around him.

He will not remain his father’s lesser for long. He will see him deposed, and make him suffer for these indignities heaped upon his person.

By Asmodeus, he swears it.

#voidling speaks #my writing #my fic #bg3 #bg3 fanfiction #bg3 fic #bg3 raphael #baldur's gate 3 #raphael x haarlep #haarlep #young!raphael #raphael #mephistopheles #baalphegor #merry cursed-mas y'all #vflu compliant #forgotten realms #cfmi

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jackiezenauthor · 1 month

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Illustration by me.

Complete image will be available on my bluesky account. Full resolution image will be available on my Patreon once I figure out how to post on it from my tablet and how 'by item' subscription works to everyone's benefit (so u don't have to pay per just one drawing and I don't have to stress about posting monthly even though I probably will). I'll keep you updated

In the saddle

🔞 Minors DNI, ty.

Story posted on A03 as well, I won't remove it from there even if Tumblr goes entirely purity-mode one day.

Genre: Paranormal erotica

Word count: 3k

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Cw: you pov, stink enjoying mc, mild self degrading mc, containment, dubcon (?), stranger danger, haunted item (lmk if I missed anything important, ty)

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This is a work of fiction!

No haunted items were harmed for the writing of this story.

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Synopsis: Some people enjoy LARPing and historical items. You take that a few steps further. Tonight, you have your eyes on a saddle so old, they even think it's haunted. You don't believe in such nonsense, but you might be proven wrong...

‘Tonight is THE night!’ you tell yourself as you head for the stables with the dimmest light you could manage, just enough so you don’t step on any unfortunate animals, but not enough to alert anyone else nearby.

You've been working at the farm for a few weeks now, and pulled your weight rather well too, if you might say so yourself. They expected a lot more complaining from your rich ass, raised in the big city, hydrated on cocktails around the pool, but they had no idea how much you found yourself loving the place. Among other things.

The smells, the animals, the sounds, the feeling of dirt under the manicure that you’ve already cut short as soon as you heard about your parents’ plans for your summer…

Not to say you couldn’t say no to them. Not only are you old enough to live on your own already, despite the struggles that cooking for yourself still raises, but you know exactly how low to lower your lip and scrunch your eyebrows at your parents to have them give up any ill will that they might hold against you. Deserved or not.

You didn’t do it this time.

They thought it was because you were finally willing to take responsibility for your irresponsible choices, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The true reason was waiting for you in the barn. Quiet, rugged from overuse, smelling like anything but the leather that it’s made of: a saddle so old, nobody could tell how it even got there in the first place.

‘Might as well be part of the ole land, at this point’ their grandmother had said.

‘I reckon it outlived five barns now,’ the grandfather had said.

‘Word is, it’s haunted’ their daughter had said. ‘Don’t go looking about the barn if ye hear any ungodly noises, hear me?’

There were no ungodly noises to hear, as you stepped closer and brushed your fingers all across its unkept seat… yet.

If all went well tonight and nobody went by the barn, same as both weeks you’ve been around now, some ungodly sounds might come out… out of your mouth, that is.

Despite its mysterious age, the saddle holds perfectly fine as you move it from its resting wedge and onto the saddle rack closest to the height you need for your plans. Smells like sweat, tobacco, horses and filthy things that you can only guess, and you can feel your body tingling with anticipation, as you muse about adding your own filth to it.

There’s beauty in old things. You’ve always had a fondness to them, to the stories they might have lived through, the people who might have touched them. And old things in places as simple and unassuming as this, you can get to know them in ways that others might frown about… personal ways…

A horse whinnies in the pasture nearby and a dog barks with little conviction. You can hear the wind rustle the trees and grass around, but nothing human, nothing that could spoil your fun.

It’s time.

Your night gown drops off you easily and the hay and dirt on the floor sticks to your naked soles. There might be something wet on the ground too, and it makes you feel dirty. A smirk pushes at the corners of your mouth. The barn smells like it should: dung, dried herbs, old iron, spent wood, grains and leather…

The saddle is rough against your belly as you wiggle your way on it. Not sitting, like one should, but bent across it, like a damsel kidnapped by some rugged wild west men, ready to rob some train, lose all their loot in the pub, and brawl over which one gets to show you a good time first, not necessarily in that order.

Maybe the one carrying you might not even wait until you stop anywhere…

You bite your lip as your breasts hang down, your attempts at adjusting your position without touching the ground, as you would on a horse, making them jump, gravitation pulling against them. Your heart takes off as your imagination mingles with reality, the saddle under you easing you in the scene. It’s perfect like this, you know exactly what you want to hear, how to be held. Imaginary or not, you know you’re in for a really good time.

Touching yourself over the saddle sounded much easier in your mind, but you’ve been eyeing this saddle for far too long to have come unprepared. There’s something already inside you, just waiting for your instruction… at one press of a button…

Your smart watch is dead.

You could have sworn it was fully charged when you left your room in the farmhouse. You’ve been so meticulous too, made sure it worked on Bluetooth alone, if the signal was to fail you. There’s a manual switch too..

If only…

If only you could reach around…

A rag and what could only have been another saddle fall from a rack above and miss you by a scrape of your head, taking off your hair tie. That’s lucky. It could have taken off your conscience too, was it to fall any closer. Or worse? That would be a fun way to hit the news… good thing you wouldn’t be there to see it.

You could get off, start the vibrator, and get back on before you hit the first orgasm. Would be harder to stop or control it, but that sounds rather exciting, now that you think about it. Your misfortune turned out for much better instead.

…

You can’t get off.

Your toes can almost touch the ground, but your ribcage can’t pass through the space between the racks. They must have misaligned when that saddle tried to end your career…

Oh, no…

“Well, I’ll be darned…” a distinctly male voice vibrates in the silence of the barn, just as you were trying to turn around enough to see what’s keeping that blasted rack from moving off you.

Fuck!

You got so distracted with your fantasies, you forgot to pay attention to your surroundings. You’ve never gotten caught before. Today was the day.

“You look rather… tight, miss?” the man speaks again, from right behind you.

The racks are blocking your view and the hair in your face and the darkness of the night aren’t helping either. Moonlight doesn’t reach in the back of the barn, where he is. You don’t know his voice either. Who, and most importantly, why would they be here at this time of the night? Had he been here this all time? Watching you undress? Climbing in? Struggling?

He rests a hand against the rack that’s holding you pinned, but it doesn’t budge. You know he’s moving behind you, but you can’t hear any steps. Even if he was barefoot too, the floor should creak…

You do feel his hand caressing your waist, however, from right under your trapped ribcage.

“You could scream, ya know? I reckon someone would come help…” he says, his hand slowly following your hip and spine, his touch cold like the night air. You should be scared, but it makes you feel reassured somehow. Like you're some horse he’s trying to befriend… a very caught-red-handed horse…

You want to point out that he could help you himself, since he’s already here, but your voice cuts off when his other hand mirrors the first and his fingers dig into your ass, lifting you up for a closer look.

“What in tarnation?” he huffs and his breath travels all between your thighs.

He must’ve seen your vibrator and you’d like to tell him a thing or two about minding his own business, but he also found the button for it and your feet instantly raise and tremble as the stimulation hits you without warning. You hate to admit it but this entire situation… it works.

You curl against the saddle and jolt as you come before you can even remember yourself. The vibration keeps going as you do, and you can’t help but whine in humiliation and ecstasy as you come again, right between the strangers hands, his grip unyielding as you shake. He must be enjoying it. Seeing you writhe like this. Helpless. Trapped.

“You alright there, miss?” he asks while you come a third time.

You can taste the amusement in his tone, but his voice is low, his every word pronounced just a bit too carefully… He’s past just enjoying this.

There should be a remission time after you’ve come five times in a row, but you’ve never done that in front of someone else… your lower half entirely in their hands… Their eyes catching ever twitch of your pussy. You can’t even tell if your heart is racing or just took off on its own at this point.

You’re never going to hear the end of this, if word comes out.

“Please… stop it!” you manage to say between tears and gasps, too many emotions rushing for your attention at once while your ass is twitching so high in the air.

“Why, I thought you put that there plumb on purpose…” he chuckles but the vibration stops before you can start curling again. “Le’me give ya a hand then…”

A moan escapes your throat as you feel your vibrator pulled out of you, slow but deliberate, the orgasm you were heading for before he turned it off, revived within you. You can’t stop yourself from grinding against his other arm, as it stands right between your legs, supporting your belly.

You barely register your toy hitting the floor as you writhe in the stranger’s palm, his hold against you steady, despite your juices already spilled all between your thighs, much more still flowing out of you and all across his arm. You can feel him breathe against the curve of your back: cold but slow, heavy. It makes sense, a weak, rational thought passes your mind, but the animal, feral side of you is nothing but delighted to be met in kind.

Now that there’s nothing inside you, your body frets, demands… there’s nothing inside you…

“I reckon…” his voice is so low, he sounds like purring and your pussy throbs against his arm as the vibration trickles across your skin. “t’wasn’t bein’ stuck that ailed ya… and ya done made your problem mine, lass…”

He lifts your ass higher in the air, his hand still under you, your clit jumping to attention as it rubs against his wrist. You could die of embarrassment. But maybe… not just yet…

You try your best to keep from trembling and moaning as his other hand brushes across your innermost thigh and his thumb slips between the folds of your already tender pussy. It finds your entrance easily and he pauses by it, pressing to go in but not quite. Hesitant. He growls in a language you’ve never heard before and pulls his thumb away, straightening up and dropping you gently. He’s no longer touching you. Worse: he’s taken a step back.

After all of this?

Is he going to just up and leave you like this?

Would he at least set you free before, or will you have to endure the horror of being found in the morning, hopefully by anyone other than the grandma.

But you can hear cloth and metal, maybe leather?

“I won’t force myself upon you, miss,” he says while you can clearly hear him unbuckling his belt. “I never was that kind of man.”

‘Until now?’ you want to throw at him, but find yourself reluctant to argue.

“I reckon we can help each other a smidgen, though,” he says and grabs you once more, rougher this time, holding you up with an arm around your waist while he brings himself to you.

You feel his legs strap around yours while his cock slides right between your thighs, hard and impossible to ignore when it rubs tight between your lower lips and clit, hitting your belly.

On the outside.

“Just yell or make noise if you need me to stop” he says as his legs trap yours tightly and his hands grab each side of your waist.

It’s not stopping that you need him to do. You can tell he’d fill you up to the brim and your insides throb wilder than ever at the prospect. Wanting. Craving.

He pulls away before you can say anything, adjusting his grip one last time before slamming against you, his tip teasing your clit as your insides cry in equal parts excitement and frustration.

The sounds of your wet flesh against his unrelenting thrusts fills the barn and your entire body shakes with them. You want to say something, but save from yelling, you worry he won’t hear you, and he’s chasing the breath out of you as it is.

Your core heats up, you barely keep from collapsing against the rack you’re holding for dear life against. The pleasure. It floods from deep within you and your legs escape his grip as you shake under his thrusts. Your heels hit his ass hard and he grunts, his momentum disturbed.

He readjusts and is just about to resume when you finally manage to catch your breath enough to say “In…”

He pauses. He must’ve heard you but you weren’t clear enough.

“Put it in!” you manage to say.

“Well I’d never refuse…” he readjusts his grip on you and pulls away just enough to make room for his cock to tease your drenching pussy. “…such a lovely invitation.”

You can taste the smirk he says it with, even if he also sounds wistful, but have no time to even think of a retort before he moves inside you, your walls wrapping warm against him. Welcoming.

He swears, and whatever he mutters along with it comes out shaky as your insides throb against his advancing thrusts.

Demanding. Hungry. Still not full enough. Still not hard enough.

Your ass perks up, helpful, giving him all the room he could possibly need, your gspot pressed tighter against his length.

“Thirsty little thing…” he breathes out, his grip on you painful as he touches your inner ring at the same time as his hips come flush against your splayed ass. If his dick was made to order, it would still not reach as perfectly.

He seems to be enjoying the same idea for a moment, his grip loosening just enough that you can wiggle. Just enough that you can swing your hips against him. Urging him where your mind and voice are too taken with the thrill of a fullness you’ve never though possible, and the anticipation of what’s to come.

He resumes thrusting, too gentle at first.

“Harder…” you manage to breathe out but you can’t tell if your mouth managed to pronounce it. It felt more like a pleading moan… and once that was out, there is no stopping the others.

He thrusts harder with every single one of your moans, and every thrust breeds yet another moan, even more pleading than the other. More demanding… more pathetic.

If someone walked in on you now, you’d care for nothing, as long as you kept getting fucked.

Your throat is dry and you feel wet around your mouth but you can do nothing other than cry out in mindless delight as he slams harder into you, so hard that you could swear the whole barn might come apart above you. Your body holds. No, it craves for more. It craves for all. Insatiable.

His grunts behind you have long changed to moaning, his thrusts wild, unstoppable, unhinged. Pleasure that has been playing all across your body gets drawn to full attention, no longer just to the thrashing of your core, but to his grip, his voice, his mindlessness.

The ecstasy organizes. You feel it come together like a horde, savage and relentless in one goal only: ripping you apart. You’re helpless against it. And eager. It’s closing in.

He growls loud and helpless, his thrusts speeding up as your core clenches against him, your insides quaking as overwhelming pleasure threatens to tear at the very seams of your being. Unyielding. Unstoppable.

It’s as if a vulcano breaks from the center of your very existence as you shudder and curl against the saddle, around his cock, in his arms, his fingers digging so tight into your hips that you could swear your skin gave, but the pain only peppers the ecstasy that takes over when his moan sounds delightfully ethereal alongside yours. You can feel your insides trying to squeeze him dry still, as he fills every last space left within you with his cum.

You lay limp from the saddle, his hips still flush against your ass, his cock still deep inside you and you both catch your breaths and minds from everywhere.

“Darn, sweetheart…” he whispers, slowly pushing himself to his feet. Your insides complain as he pulls out just as slowly, but they’re too spent to put up any fight. “They’d need a locomotive to pull me out of you, were I still kickin…” he lets his hands brush across your back so slow and intent, it feels like a caress.

There is a mess of rags and saddles all around you, every rack destroyed, but the one you’re still bent over, the old saddle tight against your belly. The whole barn looks like a tornado just went through it…

“Alas…” the stranger whistles sadly.

It’s morning, and everything around you is increasingly visible, but when you slip off the saddle and turn to look at the stranger, there is nothing but darkness. Pitch, surreal, darkness.

You can feel his hands caress your legs as you pull away, but still nothing of him. The entire side of the barn where he’s standing is nothing but strange, unrelenting blackness. As if the night itself is taking refuge there.

A rooster crows outside, announcing the new day, and, as its song travels across the morning dew, the darkness lessens, giving way to… nothing. The entire side of the barn is empty of even the smallest speck of dust. Not even your toy is there.

Everything around, but the barn itself and the saddle you got fucked on is in complete disarray, you included. There’s bits of mysteriously old leather rubbed into your skin, the smell of it sunken into your pores. You can’t explain what has gone on, but you can still feel its aftermath. You can see it too: your inner thighs are punctured, blood dripping slowly, mixing with juices that are not only yours.

The dogs bark by the farmhouse and the animals start fretting. Soon, the family and their helping will come out to tend to the farm’s many needs. They’ll ask questions that you have no answer to.

You need to get dressed before they see you… still dripping…

#cowboy smut #ghost smut #haunted item smut #smut #jackie zen shorts

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watatsumiis · 2 years

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Reader with chronic headaches series - Dottore edition

Yes. this is self indulgent. I deserve it because head hurty and i can just feel its gonna get worse. As bonkers as he is, i think he'd be a great person to have look after you when you're not well (provided you have a close bond with him). Be aware that this is heavily based off of my own experiences with chronic headaches and migraines (and what I do to look after myself when I have them), and is not indicative of everyone's experiences.

Content: Gender neutral reader (implied to have chronic headaches and/or migraines), pre-established platonic relationship with Dottore, just. general Dottore warning, he's a little creepy and likes to keep lists about people.

At first, he's weird about it. He's trying to note down your symptoms and figure out exactly what's wrong, giving you solutions that (surprise surprise) don't work. It would almost be sweet if you didn't know he saw you more as a puzzle to solve at this point.

The idea of chronic illnesses is like a challenge to this man, he's so annoying about it, constantly bothering you about your symptoms, asking you to chart your headaches, where you'd rate them on a scale of one to ten, etc., at this point, he's almost more of a headache than the headaches themselves.

Eventually though, he calms down a bit and starts being actually helpful. He's very observant, so he picks up on the common signals you give off when you've got a headache or a migraine coming on, even if you don't notice them yourself.

When he notices, he'll have someone wordlessly bring you a cool glass of water and your pain relief of choice, sometimes even offer to take over your more menial duties to remove some stress from you.

He takes careful note of what you do to help alleviate them and will replicate those actions, sometimes sternly ordering you around when you're continuing to try and push yourself further. Being of such a high rank, he's easily able to take advantage of it to give you a day or two off.

He'll usher you into a quiet, dark room with a nice cool temperature and a pile of blankets, making sure you're stocked up with plenty of water and your preferred brand of pain relief, while nattering away about what he thinks may be the root cause of your pain this time (as much as he tries to eliminate all potential causes, some still manage to slip through the cracks).

He's uncharacteristically tender with you when you're in pain, especially if he feels guilty for not noticing before it got as bad as it has. He's gentle and speaks in a soft, low voice that's both easy to understand and listen to even through the ringing in your ears.

Though he's used to how your symptoms manifest, it doesn't mean that he worries any less - he still checks up on you just a little too often, but he always tries extremely hard not to disturb you, especially if you decide to take a nap or have a lie down.

He makes sure you're extra stocked up with your favourite snacks, blankets and comfort items, and might even try to find you something simple to keep you entertained that isn't too much strain on your head if you get bored or restless (you're not sure where he got these colouring pages from, but they're well made!)

The amount of documentation he keeps on you is almost unnerving, there's enough there that, even when he's not around, there'll be someone who has been given a briefing and knows exactly what to do to help you.

Once you're feeling better, he scolds you if you overworked yourself or acted too stubborn, insisting that he's a doctor and you should listen to him.

Overall, he's a great person to have take care of you when you're not feeling a hundred percent. He's willing to field almost any request if it'll get you back up and feeling well again.

Please don't repost, steal, copy or otherwise plagarise my writing! This includes posting translations to other sites (without credit + permission).

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imwall-e · 1 year

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Until we meet again : Chapter 1

Pairing : TB!Arthur Morgan x Reader

Warning : MAJOR SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAY THE GAME, major character dea•th, tuberculosis, angst, (tell me if I forgot some), reader but external POV

A/N : I wrote this a few months ago and finally decided to post it. I'm really proud of this chapter, my best work so far (imo). I first wrote it in French and mostly used Deepl to translate the text, and even if I re-read it, they may be some mistake so don't hesitate to tell me! This is not beta read. This is my first work for the Red Dead fandom and I hope it's good. Consider liking, rebloging or commenting if you like my work (and feel comfortable with that of course).

The atmosphere of Beaver Hollow was already being felt long before we arrived at the new camp. The area was dark, damp, stinking. It was as if it were haunted. Cursed. As for the cave, it was a concentration of all that, only worse. Once home to a local gang nicknamed The Rejects of Murfree, it bore indelible traces of the horrors it had harbored. The smell outside was unbearable, but inside was a vision of dread. Blood was visible from floor to ceiling, pieces of decomposing corpses smeared all the way down to its entrails. Impossible to settle inside.

Where just a few weeks earlier the gang had been celebrating their exit from the snowy mountains, and everyone was ready to give their all to make a new place a comfortable place to live, now there was no laughter to be heard. Not a smile was to be seen on any of the faces. Only whispers, distrust, fear and death reigned.

And Arthur… his coughing fits were becoming more violent, and more frequent. His skin was pale, contrasting with the blue of his eyes, which betrayed his illness and fatigue.

Outlawed, hunted by the Pinkertons or opposing gangs like the O'Driscolls, he'd been shot at many times. And yet, he was dying of tuberculosis. A fucking disease. After all, he'd probably earned it with the life he was leading… had led. His punishment for beating up Mr Downes. A good man, always ready to help others even though he didn't have much.

Arthur, who'd never done anything right. Or so he thought, but she was always there to remind him otherwise. After Mary, after Eliza, he never thought he'd fall in love again. Then she'd come along, and offered him more than he thought he deserved.

Arthur had met her while hunting. She was wearing a long white dress. At first, he thought he saw an angel. Then their eyes met. He saw the fear in her eyes and decided to put down his bow. He introduced himself and she gradually seemed to calm down. After a few minutes' silence, she finally told him her name. Her voice trembled, but she'd asked for his help: she was supposed to be getting married that very day to a man she'd never met. But what she was looking for was freedom.

She wanted to travel. To discover. To live. And Arthur had offered her all that. For five years, they'd been happy together. Arthur had even proposed to her while they were still in Blackwater. But they'd kept it a secret until things got better.

Unfortunately, the moment never arrived.

Micah was a traitor. And Dutch had blindly followed him, going so far as to question the words of John and Arthur. He'd rather believe a dangerous madman than those he considered his own sons.

Arthur should have left after the Blackwater massacre. Hosea had tried to warn him when they'd all fled to Colter. Or he should have let Micah hang at Strawberry. If only he'd been willing to open his eyes to what Dutch had become. To his true nature. If only.

But it was too late now, and there was no point in dwelling on the past. Now he had t o protect those who remained. Tilly had already taken Jack to safety. Abigail was safe thanks to him and Sadie, and the two women had left to join Tilly. Mary-Beth and Karen had probably escaped too. She was the only one left. And he knew exactly where she'd be safe.

He helped his young fiancée onto her mare, then settled down behind her. He wanted to smell her hair while he still could. He wanted to hold her close. However, time was running out and lingering was a luxury they couldn't afford. The person he was looking for was passing through the Annesburg area, but they'd better get moving fast. He nudged the horse's flank to move it forward, and whistled for the stallion carrying the young woman's belongings to follow.

The journey wasn't long, but it went by faster than he would have liked. A dilapidated house appeared in the distance. Arthur had exchanged a few letters with the man who had taken an interest in his bleak landscape, a man he had helped not long ago. He was standing outside, setting up his camera. His gaze wandered to them, and he soon recognized Arthur.

"Mr. Morgan! I'm so happy to see you again! As you may have noticed, I've given up taking pictures of wildlife. I'm now content with the magnificent landscapes" exclaimed Albert, warmly greeting the man who had helped and saved him on numerous occasions. But his familiar enthusiasm soon disappeared when he saw the young woman's tears and Arthur's sickly pallor. "What's the matter?" he asked worriedly, abandoning his camera.

"Mr. Mason, I need you to…" but Arthur was interrupted by a coughing fit causing him to cough up blood as he stepped to the ground. "I'm dying and I'd like you to take care of my fiancée."

The young woman tried to smile at Albert, but knowing that the man she loved would soon be leaving her was too much to bear. It dashed all memories, all hopes of a better life with her cowboy.

"I'm sorry I haven't written to inform you, but recent events haven't given me the opportunity," Arthur resumed after helping his beloved off his horse.

The tears continued to roll silently down the cheeks of the woman who was to become Mrs Morgan. She was silent now, staring into space.

"Mr Morgan…", Albert didn't know what to say. This kind man, who had come to his aid so many times, was going to die. He could see the sadness in the lovers' eyes. And Albert saw only one way he could do something for them: "Don't worry, I'll take care of mademoiselle."

Arthur was relieved: she would be safe. She would live. He turned to her: she seemed no more than a ghost. But she had to fight. For him. For her. For them.

"I love you, Princess," he began, taking her in his arms. "More than you can imagine. I wish I'd said it more often. I regret so many things. But I promise we'll meet again. Not in this life, unfortunately, but in another. I'll find you again."

"We… we… we didn't even have time to get married," she managed to articulate between sobs, the crying resuming in earnest following Arthur's words.

"It wasn't our time. Now you must stay with Albert. Live, princess. Do it for me. I'll always watch over you, but promise me you won't let yourself die."

"I… I promise, Arthur."

That was all he needed to hear. He had to go now. He had unfinished business with Micah, but also with Dutch.

The sun was setting as he rested his forehead against hers. His way of kissing her for the last time, wanting to avoid her contracting tuberculosis too. He squeezed her hands and heard her whisper "I love you, Arthur".

He gently let go of her hands and she kept her eyes closed, not wishing to watch him go. To tell the truth, she was so focused on remembering his scent, his laugh, his voice, that she didn't even hear him mount his mare and gallop away.

When she opened her eyes again, the sky had darkened. A storm was approaching. Arthur was gone. Only Albert remained, looking after the stallion carrying the young woman's belongings. He knew she wouldn't move immediately, but it was time to go. He'd better get back to the cabin he'd rented before nightfall.

"Mademoiselle, I'm sorry but we must leave now. Tomorrow we'll go to Rhodes, my house is close to the city."

"Of course," was all she could reply, her gaze fixed on the mountains.

The journey to the cabin Albert had reserved was silent. The storm was roaring in the distance. She held back from joining Arthur. But she had to keep her promise.

Without Arthur, life would be difficult. Her heart would be broken forever, but she had to try. And one day, they would be reunited. She had to believe that.

The rain finally came, falling on her cheeks and mingling with her tears. She couldn't stop thinking about all those mornings she'd wake up alone. She couldn't accept that he wasn't coming back. Ever.

"Mademoiselle?" Albert's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "We've arrived. You should try to eat something and get some sleep." He didn't know what to do or say.

She followed him silently. Inside, she sat by the window, where she could see the mountains near Beaver Hollow. Soon, she closed her eyes, tears still flowing.

Her mind took her to a river in the middle of the woods. The light wind gently moved the leaves on the trees. She was wearing a long white dress. A branch cracked, startling her. But it was only Arthur, wearing the hat he always wore and the blue shirt she loved so much.

"You're beautiful," he said, and she threw her arms around his neck. "Dance with me?" Was there an answer other than "yes"?

And, each immersed in the other's gaze, they danced. Without stopping, they talked about their future: having a ranch, raising horses, starting a family. A quiet life away from traitors and the Pinkertons. Just them.

"I love you, Arthur."

"I love you too, princesses," he replied, kissing her tenderly. A deer passed by them. Then nothing.

When she opened her eyes again, she knew Arthur was gone.

It was nearly nine o'clock when Albert and the young woman began their journey to Rhodes.

"I think you'll like Rhodes very much, mademoiselle. It's much quieter and warmer since the Gray and Braithwaite families, two rival families, entered… well, since they left."

The young woman smiled at the mention. It brought back memories that were certainly recent, but seemed so long ago. But her smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared as she recalled Sean's death.

Then came Kieran's turn. Hosea. Lenny. Eagle Flies. John. And Arthur.

Sensing that she wouldn't talk any more than she had the day before, Albert decided to talk to her about anything and everything, in the hope of distracting her from the sadness that overwhelmed her, even if only for a few minutes.

"The landscape is also much brighter. Annesburg offers beautiful scenery, but it's a very dark, eerie area. Rhodes is nicer, warmer."

Albert was right: the further they got from Annesburg, the fresher the air seemed, the more colorful and welcoming the surroundings.

She glanced back one last time, to where Arthur had remained. Her heart sank. She felt she was abandoning him. But she had to stay strong.

Finally, Rhodes appeared before them as the sun tinted the sky orange, ready to give way to the moon.

"Miss, look!"

A majestic deer had stopped in the middle of the road, staring at them with its big dark eyes.

"It's the first time I've seen one approach like that. They're usually very frightened," Albert continued.

The deer approached the young woman and rested its muzzle against her leg. She gently touched its large antlers, then the animal moved away, disappearing among the trees.

"Goodbye, Arthur."

I hope you liked this first chapter!

#red dead redemption fanfiction #red dead 2 #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 arthur #arthur morgan #first red dead redemption fanfiction #angst #red dead redemption two #red dead redemption angst #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #fanfic #dutch van der linde #sadie adler #micah bell #john marston #charles smith #albert mason

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dragon-queen21 · 4 months

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im so happy you enjoy my ramblings! it means a lot to me, thank you🤍

Going off your recent mini fic, I DEFINITELY agree with the idea of zoro regressing, had that headcanon FOREVER but yeah sorry im a sucker for “big strong man being taken care of” he deserves it man. i feel like he’d be a older regressor normally (round 8) but if he needs to can slip really far (2-3, sometimes younger) like the idea of like regressed zoro just working himself up over something and stomping his feet and everyones like so surprised and hes so embarrassed about it idk i keep thinkin about it

i feel like the first time zoro FULLY regresses, he wakes up little. specifically after the crew leaves a island where he had to fight a huge battle and he doesnt realize he feels different until he goes to see his crew for breakfast, so now he one, has no idea whats going on and why he feels like this, and two, the poor baby is silently working himself up over it :(

i see zoro being strangly picky? sanji brings out breakfast for the crew and zoros just looking at it like its the grossest thing in the world. and sanji notices and its the strangest thing because sanji has MADE this dish for him before. sanji KNOWS zoro likes this ??? and now that sanji pointed it out everyones put their attention the zoro waitin for him to say something,

in my imagination, choppers the one to process that fact zoros regressing

and the kid is all overwhelmed with all the attention

in my head the end of this situation either ends up with zoro crying :( or him getting mad at everyone for thinkin theres somethin up (there is)

i dont see zoro as aomeone to get genuinely mad at the crew often but throw in overwhelmed kid factor and what do you get?

in another situation after both he and the crew accepts zoros a little, they make a rule that he cant use his swords little and that pisses him off because he got to use his swords when he was kid? why not when hes regressed and the crew has to explain that its because what if he slips younger all off a sudden? they cant control that, its too dangerous.

okay thats it for now, im sorry it was SO hard to put my thoughts on little! zoro into words, and ill be honest im not to happy about how i worded this, so i hope you understand what im trying to say and convey

but please if you have any little! zoro hcs id be happy to hear! no pressue at all though!

📷

Mkay we are going to pretend this didn’t take me as long as it did to answer. I wanted to give you a proper well thought out response and my brain was fighting me for days 😭

Anyways!

~I have had so many thoughts about regressor Zoro (when my brain will cooperate). I swear I say this all the time but I WILL post that fic in full. Eventually. One day. >///< ahh too many projects.

~I have such a soft spot for a character who is always protecting those around them getting taken care of in return.

~Zoro would throw so many small temper tantrums over the silliest things.

~In love with the idea of Zoro being ever so slightly clueless about his own regression. Add injury and blood loss, post adrenaline haze, etc. and just so many reasons for him to make excuses that everything is fine, he’s just feeling a bit off that’s all… until it happens again and again and suddenly he starts to realize, hmm maybe something is up… maybe he needs to go to Chopper about this.

~Ooh okay, I’ve had that headcanon for awhile with Zoro being fussy when it comes to food. I think that Sanji would eventually get so fed up with trying to feed the little, because he liked eating this meal yesterday so why is he throwing a fit today???, that eventually Robin takes over for him just because she has more patience for the regressor. (Also just mama Robin my beloved.)

~Zoro acting funny, my first thought was, oh gosh Luffy would be just so- Luffy.

“There’s not’ing wrong alright?!”

“Yes there is. Zoro is acting funny.”

“‘m not!”

“Are too!”

~Telling Zoro he’s not allowed to use his swords also because no one knows how to properly watch over him. Unlike him as an actual kid there is no one to properly ‘train him’ does that make sense?

~Recently been on the kick of caregiver Luffy. Just loving the idea of him being oddly good with kids and highly responsible in his own way. Overly protective once he knows one of nakama is little. So just thinking about him watching over Zoro and realizing his first mate is small before Zoro realizes it himself.

#mayliz rambles #one piece agere #age regression headcanons #anime agere #fandom agere #age regression #sfw agere #agere headcanons #thank you for once again sharing beloved <3 #📷 anon

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cumulo-stratus · 1 year

Note

hiii !! recently ran into your blog and i love ur posts sm. i have this silly little thing in my mind i was hoping you could maybe write it?

Spencer (thinking mostly season 2, mostly cuz i love his glasses look) and M!Reader have been dating for a while already, like a few months to a year, and Spencer still gets flustered by him. He still gets all nervous when reader is around him, and when he kisses him. Imagine reader giving Spencer a small kiss on the cheek or smth and he becomes a blushing mess, and reader teases him about it which just causes him to become more flustered over it.

you don't have to write that specifically, just anything with Spencer getting easily flustered by reader would be really cute ^^

Smart cookie

(GIF NOT MINE)

request: yes/no

flustered!spencer reid x Tattooed!male!reader

Description: reader asks for readers help with a new tattoo he wants, and when reader calls Spencer a smart cookie Spencer gets flustered, and reader can't help himself

CW: possible swearing, needles (lemme know if theres anything else)

A/N: thanks for the support love <3 and ofc course ma biche! im actually in love with this idea of like cute little baby spencer being all flustered by reader. i think ill add some of my own stuff bc u did give artistic liberty but i hope you enjoy it!

!!!!SORRY ABT THE TERRIBLE FLIRTING!!!!

Y/N L/N and Spencer reid have been dating for 9 months, 2 days, and 3 hours (and counting according to spencer), but he still had a tendency to get adorably flustered when Y/N would flirt with him, and especially if he called him smart cookie. Which y/n didnt quiet understand since he’d been calling his boyfriend smart cookie since practically day one of their relationship. But y/n found it adorably hilarious so it was okay.

one instance of this adorable awkwardness, was the day y/n decided to ask spencer for help with a new tattoo he wanted, something special for the two of them. Spencer had highly advised against it stating

“31% of men and 24% of women regret getting tattoos of someones name. And if even I plan on being with you for long time that may not happen angel.”

“ugh, your too sweet for me darling. But the world doesn’t deserve a hottie like you anyways” y/n replied with a wink as spencer blushed profusely

“and by the way, you cant change my mind on this spencer, im getting that tattoo. And you’ve seen how stubborn i can be, remember The Book Incident? ya thats what i thought” y/n smirked as spencer grimaced remembering the fateful incident earlier that year.

“okay my love, i wont object to you getting the tattoo, but it has to be something good, and i wanna help with it.” spencer finally relented.

this caught y/n of guard, as he had just been planning a heart with with their initials in the center. nothing special, but when y/n told spencer of this plan, he was incredulous.

“do you not know me y/n/n, thats to simple, and not romantic enough! and its something morgan would get.”

after Y/n was done laughing at the morgan comment and had regained his composure they continued their arguing over what the tattoo should be.

“its gonna be on my body!”

“the tattoo is about you and me!”

but after much bickering they came to a consensus that a simple latin phrase would be nice. Simple, yet elegant and romantic. Some for y/n, some for Spencer. now the hard part was deciding which latin phrase from spencers extensive encyclopedia of knowledge in his head.

After much discussion they decided on the phrase “Amor animi arbitrio sumitur, non ponitur” spencer had translated for y/n when he asked what it meant but he already liked the sound of it without the meaning. But when spencer told him he liked it even more, he stated “we choose to love, we do not choose to cease loving.” And you were in love.

“thats it- thats the one!” y/n exclaimed with excitement. “thanks for the help smart cookie” you added with a smile and a wink. As always spencer flushed bright red when his boyfriend called him the pet name. As y/n studied his boyfriend in his flustered state, he couldnt help but notice how cute he was. His reddened cheeks and small smile as he looked away. Y/n couldnt help but get that enamored feeling of intense love and adoration that often came with staring candidly at his beautiful, beautiful boyfriend. In his thoughtful state he didnt even realize that spencer had noticed the intense gaze of his lover.

“why are you looking at me like that?” spencer questioned with a shy smile.

“cus your just too cute not too! and you deserve it” y/n responded with a sly smile. spencer once again flushed red at the flirtatious comments.

“what? Oh c'mere hot stuff I wanna give ya a kiss" y/n pulled his boyfriend into his lap and put his hands on either side of the man's face. "ugh! Your so cu-" The rest of the man's sentence was cut off by him kissing his boyfriend. Very aggressively Spencer would add, but he was to busy being kissed. Finally y/n let go of his lips and they both sucked in a large breath. But before Spencer could get word out y/n started peppering his face with kisses, using them to punctuate his words

"You. Are. A. Smart. Cookie."

If it was even possible Spencer's ears grew redder. "Thank you, y/n." Spencer responded with a small smile playing at his lips. "of course love" y/n said as he gave a bigger sweeter smile this time before leaning in for a more loving and passionate kiss. And as they kissed all that fun through y/ns mind, was Spencer.

THE END

#bau #criminal minds #bau team #spencer reid #Spencer reid x reader #tattooed!reader #Male!reader #Spencer reid x male reader #Spencer Reid x tattooed reader #Request #cute

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rougepancake · 1 year

Note

Hello! I saw that your request are open, can i make one? About genya and sanemi(separate and with nothing of yandere themes, i just want comfort) with a reader who is very similar to yui komori from diabolik lovers, that is a girl very gentle, kind, sensitive, shy and positive that had suffered in the past kidnapping(even could make a little drabble about the reader seeing again one of his former kidnappers in the street) and has post traumatic stress disorder because of that, basically a cinnamon roll that not deserves the cruelty of this world.

Its okay if you don't want to make this request, if youre busy ill understand and have a nice day/afternoon/night

Your wish is my command 🙏

Ft. Sanemi Shinazugawa and Genya Shinazugawa

Warnings: Mentions of kidnapping and ptsd, angst with comfort I promise just bear with me I like building up the trauma. I would not recommend if you aren’t good with the idea of living with trauma or anything like that. BUT IT DOES GET FLUFFY I SWEAR. Not proofread!!

SANEMI SHINAZUGAWA

He had found you in an abandoned village, with not a single bit of light in your once shining eyes. It was raining, and destruction had surrounded you, a reminder of the pain that had led to this nightmare. Your village was gone and you seemed perfectly content to just sit there and wait for death to find you.

However, something in him just wouldn’t let you die. Typically he’d leave a scene like that and allow the person to move on and grow up on their own.

But he just couldn’t leave you behind.

There was just something about you that drew him in, and he couldn’t figure it out.

So he took you back to Shinobu’s estate and let her take care of your shock and minor injuries. Once those were taken care of, he brought you back to his home and showed you around.

“This is your new home.” He paused and slowly looked over at you. “What is your name? I’m Shinazugawa Sanemi.” It was unlike him to be so caring- so soft towards another person.

“I’m Y/n.” You said simply as he showed you around. You were so quiet, so shy.

Within a few weeks of living with him, the light that once shined in your eyes returned, and you were studying wind breathing under him. You were now beginning to enjoy life once more, having been given a second chance to do so.

“Hey. Are you ready to go out?” Sanemi stood in front of you, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but he was worried about taking you with him on missions. But he didn’t really want to leave you alone either.

“Of course.” You smiled and ran over to him, giving him a thumbs up before heading out to the path.

You thought it would just be simple demon slaying, with a few weak ones here and there and then one at the heart of it. But you were so wrong.

There you stood, separated from Sanemi as you stood before the very demon that destroyed your village. The very demon that had taken you from your family because you were different. The destruction that had devastated your life and the monster that was responsible for it all.

It all came flooding back to you, washing over you in violent waves as you tried to hold your own.

“I missed you so much.” The demon spoke, slowly slinking towards you. And you froze. Unable to say or do anything as you fought for the mental stability you needed to get out of this. You felt nothing but fear, your legs shaking as you gasped for air.

“Now we can be together for-“ The demon choked, an all too familiar blade piercing through its throat. You screamed and stumbled backwards, watching as Sanemi lopped off its head mercilessly.

“We’re leaving.” He growled, grabbing your hand and rushing you out of the forest. He was trying to forget how afraid you had looked, and he was failing. That damned demon must have been the one to take everything from you, and it deserved its cruel fate.

You were so kind, so sweet, so why did you keep suffering? Why were you constantly being put through such pain?

It made no sense to him.

Sanemi continued to run along, dragging you behind him wordlessly until you came to a clearing. The sun was beginning to rise now, so any demon that had been following you two wouldn’t be able to attack now.

“Come here.” He whispered harsher than he wanted, pulling you into his arms. He wasn’t good at comforting- hell he wasn’t good at making anyone but himself satisfied- but he did his best for you. He held you tightly and said nothing as the world awoke around you.

You didn’t need to say anything, because he knew. He knew more than he should, but he didn’t care. You deserved nothing but happiness, and that was final.

Maybe he’d stop taking you out on missions after all.

He just couldn’t afford to lose you so soon.

Or at all.

GENYA SHINAZUGAWA

“Excuse me. You’re in my way.” He pushed past you, but immediately stopped upon seeing the light in your eyes. You seemed too happy to be a demon slayer, and it boggled his mind.

“Hiya! I’m Y/n!” You grinned and stuck out your hand for him to shake, but he just ignored you and continued on. He wasn’t about to be caught slacking on his tough guy act.

You chased after him though, and just wouldn’t leave him alone. You were determined to speak with him, and he wasn’t interested in the slightest.

Or maybe he was.

Who knows.

“What the hell do you want?!” Genya eventually snapped, turning around and glaring into your eyes. He was hoping that it would intimidate you into leaving, yet you didn’t seem phased by it.

You only giggled and continued to follow him down the city’s streets, curiously observing everything around you.

You were like a child in that aspect and it annoyed him even further.

“Hey can you sense that?” You stopped walking and grabbed his sleeve, tugging on it gently to get him to stop. Your smile had fallen and you looked serious, your eyes scanning the crowd of people before you.

“Yeah…” He spun around and pulled his arm away from your grasp, taking a step out into the crowd, seemingly unfazed by the amount of people that were in sight. He pushed against the current, leading the way towards the strange aura that had just washed over you.

“Wait-!” You called out, quickly following after him and nearly tripping in the process. You stopped when you felt a heavy hand land on your shoulder.

Instinctively, you froze and looked over your shoulder, your fearful gaze meeting the hungry one of the man you knew too well. The face of a man that you swore to never forget.

And here he was.

“G-Genya!” You called out, taking a step back and accidentally bumping into someone else. You muttered an apology and began to panic.

Where the hell was Genya?!?

BOOM!

There he was. And there was your former kidnapper. Lying dead on the ground with a bullet in his brain.

The crowd around you screamed and cleared out, quickly leaving you and Genya alone as the police made their way through the streets towards you two.

“Thank me later.” He grumbled and grabbed your wrist, dragging you away from the scene. He knew you were too happy, and for good reason. You didn’t deserve whatever that man had done or what he was going to do.

The sounds of the police whistles echoed in the background, horrified screams following as they looked at the sight.

“Don’t tell anyone about this.” You panted, looking up at Genya with wide eyes.

“Your secret’s safe with me.” He huffed and pulled you up into a nearby tree to take shelter in. “However…” he looked over at you and raised an eyebrow. “I do have some questions.”

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stupid-and-cute-are-enough · 1 year

Text

it WAS 1:30 am and now i've got finals in mere hours so obviously this is how i should be spending my time. behold: screaming and crying publicly over @get-rammed's montgomery gator doodles

starting off STRONG with this beauty:

THE FULL-BODY HUG???? THE SKIN ON SKIN CONTACT??? one thing you MUST know about me is that i am WEAK for when the bigger partner wraps themselves around their s/o WEAK I SAY

(also monty's nose????? it's absolutely darling and so perfect for his lil face)

KEEPING ON THEME WITH WERE-MONTY

specifically the face................ he looks so dejected...................so tired................ so sad...................baby has had a ROUGH night and i desperately want them to be better 😭😭😭 (the HAND HOLD???? THE TEAR STAINS??? AUGHH)

we already KNOW how i feel about this one after all i'm that motherfucker who was so consumed by this doodle that i asked ram if i could clean it up and otherwise go insane over it we already KNOW that this doodle has me on my fucking KNEES

again THE FULL BODY HOLD??????? THE SAD EYES???? HE HOLDS ONTO THEM LIKE THEYRE SOMETHING PRECIOUS 😭 monty is trapped in a life he pretty much hates and they've gotta be one of his only sources of comfort 😭😭😭😭 i imagine the anon has to pull wayyy more hours once monty becomes a glamrock so they're constantly exhausted but desperately wants to be there for their struggling friend and vice versa for monty (and how pissed monty must get w/the virus bc why the fuck should he feel bad for them when it's HIS life that got screwed over?)

everything i just said applies to this one too except with more melancholy bc it feels like when you have to wait for your loved one to fall asleep so you can slip away quietly (but, of course, monty is holding on, so he'll be disappointed sooner rather than later)

MOVING FUCKING ON TO THIS NEXT ONE OHHHH MY GOD YOU GUYS PREPARE YOURSELF

THE SNOOT RUBS???? THE HAND ON ANON'S CHEST???? THE BLUSH????? THE WAY HE RUFFLES HOW OWN HAIR 😭😭 GIVE IT BACK!!!!!!!!!!!! GIVE IT BACK RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM GOING TO BEAT UP MR. FAZBEAR ENTERTAINMENT HIMSELF GIVE MONTY HIS HAIR BACK!!!!!!

but seriously this one is just SO cute 😭 gator golf monty were such simpler times and it DESTROYS me knowing where they go from here :( ik both of them heal together in the end but they hurt so much between those two points AUGHH THEY DONT DESERVE IT 😭😭

GOING BACK TO WERE-MONTY

THE SHIRT??? THE SKIN-ON-SKIN CONTACT???? literally what else is there to say i rest my case moving on

THE CASUAL INTIMACY????? THE SKIN ON SKIN????? THE ANONS SILLY LIL SMILE AND ALL THE LOVE BITES?? look im down bad for monty as much as everyone else here but good LORD there's something so tender about non-sexual touch (esp with minimal clothing) 😭😭 its so special to me............. they're so happy to have each other i am ILL

iconic

SCREAMING AND CRYING THEY'RE SO SILLY TOGETHER!!!! LET THEM BE SILLY AGAIN THEY DESERVE IT!!!!

look at them they're up to MISCHIEF they're up to NO GOOD <3 and freddy is RAPIDLY APPROACHING (side note SWEETS??? 😭😭 i love all of monty's nicknames but something about "sweets" makes me AUGH................. it's so cute...............)

BONUS:

MORGAN <333333 WHAT A MASSIVE W TO TRANS-MASCS EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wouldn't wanna be represented by ANYONE else

feddy <3

last but not least the comment i left (with my user and pfp blocked out bc you don't get to know me like that) on part one of project starlight that strikes fear into me to this very day. ignore my spelling mistakes i was going through it

i would've also grabbed a screenshot of the monty plush bc i feel special every time i look at one bc ram thought my comic was cool and it instantly became a core memory but this post has taken LONG ENOUGH!!! SLAP A SHIPPING LABEL ON THIS BITCH AND SEND IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#im not gonna put like any main fnaf tags on here bc none of this is mine lmaoo #i also used this as my opportunity to spew my headcanons bc they're so special to me #anyway #thank god remaking the post didnt take more than an hour #the og one took like an hour and a half but i could steal all of the talking points #if i do manage to recover the original i'll edit it a bit and post that bc im sure its better than this one #REGARDLESS #i hope u enjoyed my incoherent screaming ram this is just the surface #this is only the stuff i can put into words #layer on a deafening amount of sobbing and rabid sounds and youll get the idea #im climbing up the curtains and ripping out carpet. eating grass if you will #I FUKIN DID IT YIPPEE #alr i gotta get ready to leave for class #time well spent i say #my post

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win-writes · 2 years

Text

𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘪𝘳

༶ pairing; jouno x fem!reader

༶ contains; sensitive topics (s/h), mentions of cuts & scars, fluff, jouno comforting reader

༶ a/n; please proceed only if you're sure that reading this won't trigger you!! this is pretty much a vent and i was really hesitant if i should post this, but i thought that maybe something good can come out of this and help comfort others as well

"I'm sorry" your voice comes out raspy, cause by your violent cries from just a few moments ago. Your eyes are puffy and your hands, that previously assaulted your own body, are now trembling.

"It's alright" he replies, without interrupting his hands carefully taking care of your damaged skin. The soft pads of his fingers run over your cuts ever so gently one last time, before applying bandages over them "But you shouldn't be asking me for forgiveness, my love" he leans closer, placing a kiss over your covered scars "Your own body comes first" Your chin trembles as you feel another pool of tears forming in your eyes.

Jouno always finds the right words to say when you need it the most. You truly couldn't be more grateful he embraced with so much love this side of yourself that you despise so much. But there's still a part of you that feels guilty knowing he has to deal with something like this because of you.

"Princess, what are you thinking?" you snap out of your thoughts and stare at him with your big sad eyes "That I don't deserve you at all" your throat thickens as your tears roll down your face. Jouno lets out a sad sigh, positioning himself beside you "Please. don't ever say that again" he cups your sweaty face in his warm hands, drawing invisible circles on your cheeks with his thumbs.

"But it's true" you lower your gaze as you speak "You could do so much better than this.." a sob arises in your throat "With someone far less pathetic than me"

Jouno can feel his heart twisting at your words. It pains him when he listens to you speak so ill of yourself. Especially when you say things like that. Like he could find somebody else and be happier. Little did you know that Jouno couldn't even dream of being with someone who isn't you.

"My love, look at me" you slowly raise your eyes. Jouno gently pulls you closer to him, connecting your lips together. Your hands grab on his shirt for dear life, afraid that he's gonna disappear the moment you open your eyes. Like he's part of a dream and you'll lose him when you wake up. He can taste your salty tears on your lips and hear your heartbeat pacing with every passing second your lips remain locked with his.

A few moments later, he backs up "I wouldn't change you for anyone else" he whispers right above your mouth. He places a kiss on your cheek before resting his forehead against yours "Not a single day passes without thinking how lucky I am to be yours"

Hearing his last words sent an electric pulse through your bones. Jouno always preferred to express his feelings through actions, so to say you're not shocked by his direct confession would be an understatement "If you're the lucky one.." you raise your hand to play with his earring "Then what the hell am I supposed to be?" you ask while a smile slowly roses on your face.

Jouno's face dazzles with happiness the second he notices your heartbeat returning to its calm rhythm. He holds your free hand into his own, placing another kiss at the back of your palm "Since I'm the lucky one.." he caresses your face and gives you his warmest smile, before leaning into your ear to whisper words coming from the bottom of his heart.

"I guess that makes you the perfect one"

Hello again, if you've read this far, i just want to let you know that you matter and idc if you don't take my words seriously cause i'm a silly little nobody on the internet, but this comes from the bottom of my heart, your life matters and i'm so proud of you for being here today <3 thank you for spending your time reading this, please take care and remember that you'll always have someone wishing nothing but the best of things coming your way<3

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tavyliasin · 3 months

Text

Disability Pride Essays - Astarion, Complex Conditions, Specialised Diets, and Addiction

Today’s look into disability and BG3 is going to be around Astarion. Now, I will preface this with a very large “I’m not going to go into the obvious PTSD and trauma that he suffers, not because it isn’t important but because it really deserves an entire post of its own and one that I’ve been putting off for a while despite having 9 pages of it tucked away in a doc that has been there for months.” So instead I’m going to be looking at the other parallels that his unique condition provides, and the insight we can gain from that. I hope you’ll forgive me for skipping what is essentially the core of his story for now to instead focus in under the microscope at the smaller parts, but I really want to do that side of him justice outside of this essay series. With this in mind, I will be discussing topics which some might find triggering, including dietary restrictions and eating disorders, general mental illness, chronic fatigue, and also some of the controversial “cures” like the outdated and frankly barbaric uses of things like lobotomy. I’ve also got a short section discussing SH scars, and what ended up as quite a long section around addiction and substance use and how this can relate to the Ascension storyline. I have included headers for the sections so they can be skipped if needed. If you feel you are not in the right place to read about any of these right now, please do skip this entire post and I’ll see you for the next one. For everyone else, take a deep breath and we’ll dive in to Astarion and Disability. And, as always, discussion is more than welcome - I would love to hear your views, opinions, and experiences if you are comfortable sharing them~

What is Astarion’s Disability?

Astarion can arguably represent a lot of different things in both mental and physical health. The specifics of vampirism leave him with some very complex needs, from dietary requirements to the sensitivity to sunlight without the tadpole, and we also see the downside of his needs not being met (he is literally weaker when he doesn’t get the blood he needs). There are also ways in which his mental health affects him outside of the specific trauma, which may well feel relatable to some. There are also ways to see his vampirism and the potential ending outcomes of it as being similar to a degenerative condition with a risky treatment path. Ascending him is, without a shadow of a doubt, the simplest and clearest way to overcome many of the downsides and difficulties that he experiences from vampirism, but it comes with a very large cost to it as well. It’s also an irreversible change, and one that can mirror some very drastic treatments that have been used in the past to treat psychological illnesses and even some developmental disorders.

How Do We See The Disability In The Game?

Quite simply, Astarion has lower stats if he hasn’t fed on blood. He also has weaknesses to damage types, and by the end if he remains a spawn we see clearly that he can no longer be in the direct sunlight. So we can also assume that any other downsides to being a vampire spawn are also going to return when the tadpole is no longer suppressing them. What we see more of in the game is how he deals with everything. His coping mechanisms of humour, deflection, and often overcompensation in some areas too. Often it becomes “gallows humour” for those of us suffering chronic conditions and disabilities - which, it’s important to remember, should really be reserved for those who are actually “on the gallows”. But we also see the genuine fear, the struggle, and the acceptance that if he remains a spawn he will not have many more days to walk in the sun. He has to give things up to be able to stay alive.

How Does This Reflect Real Life?

There are a lot of things here so I’ll try to go symptom by symptom. Astarion’s specific conditions can reflect a lot of aspects of a lot of conditions, so it’s harder to compare him to any single diagnosis. There are also a lot of complex health issues that share symptoms, making diagnosis harder in the first place - something I’m sure many of us are far too familiar with in misdiagnosis or just long times to actually find the cause of these symptoms. So anyway, my ramblings aside, let’s look at the most obvious one first. Astarion, no matter what path his story takes, needs to drink blood to thrive. He can survive on animal blood, but he is stronger - quite literally - when he has partaken of the blood of sentient beings (mainly living humanoid types). This is similar to those who have very specific dietary needs, including those who might need supplements or infusions to make up for deficiencies in how their bodies process food. Substitutes might stave off the worst of the deficiency, but the right things are needed to regain quality of life. I could also now make jokes about how relatable Astarion is with that pallid tone, because I, too, am the kind of being who makes white paper look tanned by comparison to my pasty flesh, but there’s a real comparison here too. On the milder end you have those of us who get sunburn easily, who need to use strong sun cream and often still cover up and seek shade, but there are rarer conditions where exposure to the sun can cause far more serious reactions. This can be expressed as a severe sunburn after very little exposure, or it might even be an allergy response that goes beyond the skin. Albinism is also rare and can include a person having very pale skin and hair (and though eyes tend to be in the more usual colours they can more often appear red or pink in photos), and equally means direct sunlight can be a hazard. For some this might be a lifelong condition, but for others it might be something that develops later which means a similar adjustment - no longer able to just go out in the sunshine as they might’ve done in the past, they need to adjust how they live. There are also those who experience other difficulties from sunlight, like those with migraines strongly triggered by the light, or even people who have Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder which impacts their ability to be awake and active in the daytime/daylight. Some vision and sight related difficulties might also be affected by the light, which can be partially aided by light blocking dark glasses, but this arguably still impacts a person’s life and lifestyle. The way the plot plays out can even potentially be a much less direct parallel to any chronic condition that has a period of remission before worsening again, necessitating a major lifestyle change. Whether this is physical health or even mental health, there are plenty of conditions that can result in someone being less able to leave the home - a similar isolation to not being able to go out in the light.

Disability and Scars

I am going to just briefly touch on the scars Astarion has - not from the trauma point of view, but instead that in the real world many of us have scars as a result of chronic illness. Whether this is from treatments to help conditions, from incidents that caused them, or even from the conditions themselves, scars can be a constant physical reminder and something people can feel uncomfortable about others seeing. This could also represent self harm, which I would argue is a symptom of severe mental health difficulties. I know I certainly had plenty of years where I made myself uncomfortable to hide scars. Covering up with clothing even when the weather is hot, feeling discomfort at romantic partners seeing scars from harm or from surgery, even feeling the discomfort in myself to see those reminders of illness. This is something I have become much more comfortable with over time, though granted recovery and support have helped a great deal there. Coming to that understanding that I don’t have to always associate the marks with the pain of their cause, that even if I don’t love them, that I can accept them as they are. A record of what was, of the things that I have survived.

And that’s perhaps where the strength can be found in Astarion’s scars from his story. They’re not always going to be a reminder of the pain that caused them, but over time can instead be a reminder of everything that was not powerful enough to take him down.

We are all stronger than our darkest days, and being alive is proof that nothing has been enough to take us out of the race yet. Which isn’t to say we should be complacent, careless, or take risks. I think it’s more like a middle finger to a bursting appendix, or a dark period of mental health, or any number of ways the world leaves its mark more visibly on our bodies. A map not of our weakness but the strength and tenacity to go on, even if it was hard, even if we struggled. That matters.

Dietary Needs and Food Ethics

I think it is also worth looking at a little bit of dietary needs here, but from a different angle. A specialised diet can have some more nuanced issues towards it, including an aspect of morality and guilt. Whilst we don’t see a lot of guilt from Astarion over drinking blood - other than if he goes too far when the player allows him to take a taste and he apologises - there arguably can be, particularly if he remains a spawn and frees the other spawn. At that point in his arc, he doesn’t seem to revel in the idea of the thousands of spawn feeding on the citizens of Baldur’s Gate and beyond. Whilst I don’t want to go into a discussion on the ethics of certain diets in the real world - that is a choice for each individual to make alone based on their own morals and health needs - I think it is important to recognise that sometimes what a person needs to nourish their body might not match up with their personal ethics. For example, animal products. There are some people out there who cannot get enough nutritional value from a vegan diet, even if they did have plenty of time and money to manage it properly with all the best medical supervision and supplements in the world, quite simply put there are allergies and other digestive issues that can make this impossible. Other things like income, time, energy, and ability to cook can also impact how practical certain food choices are for people. This can result in the individual feeling frustration or guilt at not being able to make the decisions they would like to for themselves, and even facing pressure from peers who are not willing to understand that there are some circumstances that make certain choices impossible. The same can apply for people who struggle with food variety, and can apply to other ethical food concerns like the source of the food production, environmental concerns, and humanitarian concerns like fair trade goods. Whilst in an ideal world we would all be able to stick to our moral and ethical values in all things, at the end of the day we need to ensure we are getting the basic nutrition we need within our means. Some people also need to buy pre-prepared foods with more packaging, not because they don’t care about the environment but because they are physically unable to prepare the food otherwise. It’s something I see criticism a lot from abled people who don’t take into account how someone might not be able to safely cut their own fruit or afford to have someone to do it for them. Pre-packaged and prepared foods allow us to have choices, variety, proper nutrition, and not to forget another big point in this one: independence. So whether dietary needs come from allergies, digestive issues, long term chronic illness, or even from neurodiverse conditions that make it difficult for people to tolerate certain flavours and textures, there are a lot of things that can impact our foods and food choices. And the most important bottom line is that we are fed. That we get the best nutrition that we can within our own limits, whatever those might be.

The Cures and Their Downsides

Here’s the big one. And we are going to be talking about the downsides of the Ascension storyline here, and how it can parallel the difficulties of seeking relief from certain conditions. In the game, when Ascension is the chosen route, what we see is a marked change in personality - one that arguably is the worse outcome for the character in terms of who he is as a person and his continuing the cycle of abuse rather than breaking free from it. I am not, however, here to judge anyone who enjoys that storyline. I’m not going to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with a fictional character, a fantasy story, and a situation that is not actually real or affecting any real people in the slightest. We are here to look at how this can mirror the experience of disability, which is a heavier topic in its own ways.

In the horrifyingly not-that-distant past, people with severe disabilities did not receive caring treatment. They were subjected to horrifying experimental treatments in the desperation that either they or their loved ones had for finding a cure for their conditions. This included treatments that drastically altered their personalities and decision making, like lobotomies. Early forms of ECT - electro-convulsive-therapy - were also not as well tested as they are today and were used a lot more frequently than perhaps they should have been, leading to potential lasting damage (modern ECT is a proven treatment for a limited range of conditions, but it is only used for severe cases that have not responded to any other treatments and is far better regulated at this point in time). Even now, people who are suffering with an illness or disability might look to very drastic or extreme remedies that might not be the most rational choice for their well-being or for those around them. It can also still arguably change how they act towards others, similarly to how Astarion takes on a different persona once he has Ascended compared to how he is if he remains a Spawn.

This is again where it gets more painful for some of us to discuss, because it can touch on the topic of addiction.

Astarion, Addiction and Disability

Addiction in itself is an illness, and more often than not stems from other severe issues like trauma, chronic physical conditions, and other psychological difficulties. At the core, this can be an attempt at self medicating - arguably we could see Astarion treating blood and sex like a substance that he is using in this parallel too. Something so he doesn’t have to deal with his reality, something that dulls the pain that he has chosen to perpetuate instead of facing in this option. Addiction to substances in life can be very similar - sometimes even starting in a similar manner: “If I have this, I’m stronger and better, I’m safer because I’m stronger too, so I will continue to have it. More than the minimum to get by, because I need it.” For some it’s an escape, for others an attempt to cure a problem that hasn’t been treated any other way, but the result can end up the same - they might be the same person on the inside, but to the outside, to the people around them, they’ve changed. Become something else. Luckily, though given how unfortunate someone generally is to be caught in the jaws of addiction in the first place, the real world does have support and treatment for sufferers. It’s not an irreversible Ascension, even if there are some who might treat it that way. Granted there are of course actions that someone might take whilst intoxicated that are far more severe and can’t be taken back, I’m not trying to minimise that in any way, the point really is that addiction can be helped and treated if the individual is willing. Again this could even be another mirror through Astarion’s story. Cazador could be an allegory for a substance, something someone turned to in their darkest hour, or even genuinely needed to survive in the case of prescription medications. Then perhaps gaining the tadpole is a period of sobriety, where the sufferer makes new friends outside of the addiction, ones who support making more changes and staying free from substance use.

Then there are his siblings, who might well be those still under the influence, leading to that most difficult choice. To pursue recovery alone, to try and help those who he knows are also suffering under the same problem which might make his own recovery harder, or to fall back into the same patterns. The more I think on this allegory - literally didn’t plan it out this way, it came to me whilst writing this piece - it really does feel very fitting as a mirror to that story and not one that I’ve seen discussed before. In addiction, one of the things that can more often keep pulling people back is being around others suffering the same addiction as they enable one another to continue the substance use and justify it to one another. “We don’t have a choice, it’s our best option, actually it’s pretty good” - and all this despite the suffering. There is a strong aspect of denial to those suffering addiction, it is much more difficult for them to see the impact on themselves - much like how Astarion can’t see his reflection, or the scars on his back and what they mean. Honestly I’m starting to feel like this could be a piece all of its own, so I won’t go much further than this and instead leave it to anyone who has bravely read this far - would you like to see more of a discussion around the realities of addiction and how Astarion’s story can parallel the experiences of those who suffer from it? And just to end this section for now I will make this very clear - addiction stems from suffering, and is very very rarely something that a person consciously chooses to fall into. Whilst I recognise the all too real pain and negative impact on those who are close to people suffering from addiction, it should be treated as a severe illness and given some measure of compassion and understanding where possible rather than judging every single sufferer purely by the fact that they are struggling with addiction. Of course you do not have to forgive someone who has done terrible things to fuel a habit or whilst under the influence, but most often the only way for them to recover, to not repeat the same hurt again and again, is to get the appropriate help from those who are fully qualified to do so.

It is arguably a chronic illness, and one that can be disabling, as well as a condition that can be brought about by disability itself as people seek ways to cope with the physical and psychological impact of disability.

What We Can Learn From Astarion’s Story

There’s an awful lot here, honestly, but I think if we strip it right back it circles back around to one thing in every section: These issues are complex. Although it might look one way from the outside, if we take the time to truly listen to and understand the depth of the individual and their unique situation, we will find that there is more to it than it may have appeared. Just how we find through the game the depth of Astarion’s pain through his past, how we see his interactions changing as he opens up and lets go of the mask that has kept him safe for a very long time, if we take that time with real people who have complex and unique difficulties we will be more able to understand their needs and ensure they are met. This might simply be not judging someone’s choices in food or drink, or it could be lowering the lights and closing the curtains for someone who is struggling with the bright sun. We can also learn to show that compassion to ourselves, and accept that though we might have scars that we cannot remove, they do not define us. They do not own us. Those scars aren’t proof that someone or something was strong enough to hurt us, they are proof that we were strong enough to survive, and even better to keep on living and finding joy in life beyond that basic survival too. To regain ownership of ourselves as the scars fade. We can’t get rid of them, not entirely, just like we can’t erase the past that caused them (whether through accident, surgery, or otherwise). What we change is how we see them, how we accept them as a part of our whole. And there is another core right there - whether it is disability, chronic illness, or trauma, we do what we need to survive in the moment until we can move beyond it. We can’t erase our history, but we can learn from it and know that it is just one page in our story. So, keep filling your pages out there. Tell the story only you can tell, the one you’re writing as you live each moment. Find the meaning in your own narrative.

Above all, be kind to yourself and those around you. We never know what scars are on the backs of others unless they show us, just as they can’t know ours either.

#baldurs gate 3 #astarion #disability #chronic illness #essayposting #bg3 essay #disability pride month

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ravenkinnie · 3 months

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i love love love the way you write jinx and the way you talk about her and her relationships!!! not to be annoying bc a lot of ppl in the fandom are like 16/17 but the general interpretation of jinx as little more than a victim of her circumstances and silco’s manipulation who should make up with her sister, be caitvi’s slightly annoying third wheel and ekko’s (or lux? lmao nothing against either ship but yk) quirked up gf is soooo boring (like god forbid a girl contains multitudes and is both a meow meow and an absolute cunt) and your take on her is such a breath of fresh air! not sure if you talked about this in a post already but what are your hopes in general for the new season and ofc for jinx in particular?

❤️❤️❤️ that's my pookie and even tho I'm hoeing across runeterra she will always be the one

no fr fr and listen I do feel like I'm fighting in a kindergarten when I hate because I realise it's cause everyone I'm beefing with is 18 and just likes the same YA archetypes as everyone else at that age but if 10k bitches can post it on ao3 I can hate on it. especially because it erases a supremely well done character that they made out of a lol champion I wouldn't even think twice about when she first released like that's a talent and that's work

and also if people want to complain about female characters in media it feels disingenuous to then remove agency from complicated female characters we do have to make them one dimensional - like one thing you cannot say about jinx is that she's flat - in personality I mean cause well. she is an active dynamic character with insane narrative potential and a lot of layers and being both a victim and a victimiser is an important part of that

my main hopes for season 2 are honestly

*I hope its consistent internally with its own ideology </3 I think s1 at the end starts unraveling a lil because it seems to despair for this both sides ass take but it just wouldn't make any sense with league lore or the show itself. here I mostly fear for ekko gkbknj

*everybody should become a somewhat worse person, like vi provably will because she will become an enforcer, caitlyn seems to also be heading for some corruption arc, obv viktor is there, so I think this will be fulfilled teehee

*I want jinx to have her own arc and I mean an arc where she develops her own goal and motivations outside other characters too and maybe this goal will be to love evil till the day she dies, ill take it!! I just think seeing jinx grow outside that child/flighty troublemaker into a full on villain/terrorist will be fantastic and will also give her actual league lore another layer that hopefullyyyy they can continue to build on (and they will never stop banking on jinx like that's basically leagues mascot)

*mel survives </3 like it would be way too much of a loss of a great character to give her so little storyline of her own, she needs to be in s2

*overall, sorry to be a freak but I'm a tragedy lover and enjoyer and I know they are tied to champion lore somewhat now but I still hope it ends sad or bittersweet for everyone. and when you say tragedy people often think of character death but that's probably the least tragic ending you can give a bitch, the true hollowness in losing everything you once were and could have been is what im talking about!!

*I did say this before but I hope jinx kills imagine dragons in arcane universe. first of all they are touring in israel so they deserve that but also it would be really funny to see them on her list of victims like just whole ass imagine dragons under silco or sth

#asks #arcane #jinx

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witch-of-the-hazelwoods · 5 months

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It is 4 AM and I'm feeling mentally ill so I wanna make an appreciation post about the sun and moon. Not in an astronomy sense, but in a cultural sense

Both have had extreme impact on cultures and religious beliefs for generations-as they should. They're the dominant forces of our sky, a great radiant ball of light and heat-it warmed us before we had fire, fed life probably before we even had notably complex creatures, capable of mildly changing our appearance, but severely injuring us if we weren't careful and didn't respect its strength-and a bright, white stone that seemed to have carved features, that disappeared partially-or, often, entirely-from our view.

One, a symbol of a glorious new day coming about

Another, a sign for a time of rest, and one of the best natural "allies" in the darkness, providing a bit of light to try and see

It's birth and death: The sun birthed our system, the moon is the remains of a near shattered earth; the sun signifies a time to rise, live, and work, while the moon represents a deserved time to rest, relax, and bade forewell to a day. Forever gone, but not wasted. And it's just the same as in death, living a life not wasted before turning in to rest. And often, death may still loom present over the living. Not as a threat, but merely a fact, just as the moon may appear in the blue sky of day

And yet, countless cultures made their own beliefs of what each was. To the vikings, it was 2 gods running from chasing wolves, signaling both an endurance, but an inevitable end. To the greeks, while I can't recall much of how the sun was viewed, I believe the moon was a comforting presence, I suppose akin to a lullaby

While I, as an insomniac and night owl, am very partial towards the moon, I wanted both to be appreciated here. There's no talking about one without the other, because while they are by an astronomist's standards, entirely different, to a species who spent several millenia looking up before a telescope was ever pointed up there, they're inseperable.

And lastly, I feel this post is incomplete without mention of one more part of our gorgeous Earthen skies, and a long missing friend for many of us: the countless stars in the sky. A gorgeous sight, inspiring curiosity, guiding us and providing a canvas upon which we have painted the stories of man.

This post is just as much about the wonders of humanity as it is about the sky. We saw these lifeless bodies in the sea of clouds and stars above us, and we saw beauty in them. We looked at those, and we put faces and names, we put explanations-maybe incorrect, but we tried!-to these gorgeous phenomenon. We see a mass of rock in the sky, and we make poetry! We see stars innumerable, and we label them with people! With animals! Or even just with items! And we give STORIES! We saw random, chaotic specks, and we put a piece of ourselves in those specks!

I'm not sure how to end this... it's early and I'm tired but... I may hate many things we do, but never forget to love humanity, love our world, and love that you get to experience it

#girlypop rant #moon #sun #sky

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coldheartsbreakboys · 1 year

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ill start this by saying i understand @its-actually-minicika said the matter with @blackdreamspeaks is over and done but i literally cant let go of some things she said.

((also english is my second language so im sorry if i make mistakes 🤡 i will put this under the cut but i really think people should read this))

here is the problem. she said that she, takes the blame for what happened but she posts this after not even a full day of calling out that she did something wrong

there are no multiple sides to this story girl like none at all. it is literally the fact that you took content from mini/mina without credit and after you apologised you didnt even own it uppp. you said it was a coincidence and that you maybe took inspiration from her from the unconcious which is such a dumb excuse.

yesterday i sent you an ask with screenshots of compared writing from mini that she posted 2 months ago and stuff you posted 2 days ago. and it was clear you took the sentence from her without even an edit. you also used the same insult she used with hw aemond for your aemond. which is again really shitty and so clear because only she uses it.

i didnt compare everything you wrote in your update to hw because it is very long and i think that even those two things are enough to prove this point. it is not fair that you took from mini but then not even apologise in truth. you cant say this was a coincidence. you cant say this isnt done with intent. she is a very nice person and she deserves a real apology where you actually say that, yes you copied from her but that you re very sorry.

i waited for you to at least answer my ask if you were actually sorry and assuming your blame. because i wanted to give you the benefit of doubt and let you prepare your answer. sadly you never replied but i still have the screenshots even after your edit.

so this one is yours.

and this one is from minis series.

there was also the insult as i said but i didnt take screenshots of it before you edited. but the insult was 'whithered cunt' which mini wrote in the first part of hw and that was a long time ago.

you guys can cancel me if you want and whatever i honestly dont care because i am a small blog and i tbh dont even post. threaten to doxx or send me mean dms I fr dont careee

this is a post that i made for both mini and me because she deserves a real apology and you didnt give her that and also because i am honestly very angry. i think most people also dont know what happened because you never released the screenshots in my ask and you never actually said what you took from mini. because yes!!! you took from mini. there are no sides to this. there is the right side and that is mini. you play the victim too much and that is not okay. you are 21 and you should know better.

i end this by saying i understand you talked to mini and you say she is okay with everything now. she didnt say anything to any of her followers to do. she actually told me and someone else to not bother anymore with this drama. but i am bothered. and you are very frustrating. what you did is not okay at all

so girl bffr and take the blame. it isnt that hard. i might be back to edit this or to add stuff i think is important but these are the most important things that i can think of right now. i will post with the tags for hotd because people need to see this and i don't have many followers.

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dual-fantasy · 8 months

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So much. Yes. the babyfication of mike(& the rest of the system to an extent) cause hes nervous sometimes and mentally ill makes me so mad. hes a bit of a dick and its okay. let him be a dick. he deserves it. let him be awful and gritty. scike ultimately would fail because of how much they just dont love each other. they end it on awful terms. anytime they're near each other they end up getting in a fistfight. mike kicks his ass every time. he'd have to be physically dragged off scott if anyone cared enough to stop him. jo cheers him on. people only get in the way of it when they realize scott might actually Die and even then its just a suggestion. Also, bit of an unpopular opinion in the fandom but I don't like zoke. I think they'd be friends after the show but they wouldn't date. mike grew a backbone after the show as well. he got cooler i reckon. its the mental illness though he stopped going to therapy after roti(also. i want to talk about how people completely forget that he actively sees a psychiatrist?? he is fucked in the head stop ignoring it) and somewhere through dating scott he just Stops Giving A Shit. he contracted scotts shark rabies or whatever and it made him evil. but its okay cause its mike. let him be evil. he deserves it. let him be mean to people. scike are absolutely awful for each other. their ''relationship'' is messy at most. nobody knows how they started dating it just happened one day. they yell at each other in the furniture displays at big stores and make everyone uncomfortable. they cant hang out together around anyone else cause 30 minutes in they get mad at each other and ruin the mood. actually the fandom interpretation of mike pisses me off so much. he is not a dainty little twink he has abs. that isnt just vitos italian superstrength(funniest fucking thing to me) or whatever hes strong as hell. let him beat someone up. let him be mean. he pushed scott into shark infested waters. he was a stupid boy in love with a pretty girl but hes also a dick. it means so much to me. hes an awful person sometimes and he absolutely deserves to be. half of the total drama fandom can not comprehend a mentally ill guy having complexities that make him a kind of bad person. hes a dog motif in a guard dog way. his bites worse then his bark. i do not frown on him being horrible i think he should be like that more. make mike mean twenty twenty four. td fandoms displayed him in such a horrific way i have to level the scales by making him the horrible person he deserves to be. not even in an angsty way he isn't sad and miserable. he should just be allowed to fuck scott up a lot. let him break some noses. I saw a post about brick and mike(no idea what the ship name is. bike ????) and i think they should be allowed to kiss just a little bit. brick frowns on him getting in fights but he isn't gonna stop it. scott deserves to get beaten up a little. mikes stupid and in love with brick though. tying into the guard dog motif. he comes home soaked in blood(probably scotts. none of its his own) and makes brick dinner cause hes actually the best boyfriend ever. just not to scott. theres no scike happy ending they dont become friends or learn to tolerate each other theyre forever bitter and hateful Grave Dog. i wrote this all in one sitting in 2 minutes i hope its somewhat comprehensible

YOU'RE SO REAL the fanon interpretation of mike actually drives me mad. like fucking insane. I hate it. I think the issue is that people don't want actual mental health representation they want the perks that come with being able to say he's mentally ill without actually having to see what mental illness is. they would rather die than realise nuances in his character. and your right the system has also had this happen but to a lesser extent. I like the fanon system more but only in the way that it's actually researched. in every other way it sucks. Ive seen it happen a lot with svetlana too. Its the obsession with easy troupes and simple characters that are easier to portray. they want characters to be more palletable so they erase their real character for the simplicity. it's bad

I think scike is literally never going to work out. it's always bad and it never improves and they're so terrible. they would never say they'll love eachother but they'll spend every waking moment imagining ways to destroy eachother. it's so bad and so good. mike is actually fucking killing Scott at one point. like his face is three hits from caving in. the only person to bother with helping him is brick because of "moral codes" or something. Cameron also wanted to help but he would get killed like. immediately. not even intentionally he would just get hit and crumple and die. everyone else is cheering them on tho. Anne Maria and B made a betting pool. lightning and dawn are announcing everything that happens like sports commentators.

I do not like zoke either because I don't like the way that Zoey was handled in canon. I think they should've made her weirder. she cannot be the "weird small town loser" if her only weird personality trait is a flower in her hair. she shouldve collected bones and made them into jewellery. they're friends but I can't see them dating. he stops caring after the show (and the reset button doesn't work!! it does not fucking work!! the system is still there!!) and decides to just be terrible. making up for the fanon bullshit my making him worse you're right.

and the Italian superstrength is easily one of the funniest explanations I've ever seen. in anything. Vito doesn't have fucking superpowers y'all mike is strong. he canonically does kickboxing!!! and is very passionate it!!! the show makes a point out of it!!! and also he can do everything that Svetlana can. even if he doesn't have the form or the practice in order to actually do it he could still theoretically do it. because Svetlana can only do what their body allows. mike is fucking jacked and incredibly strong he's just skinny. his ass is NOT a twink you all just hate nuances! he needs to beat up people. he needs to be worse. he needs to be terrible and horrible and cruel

and the guard dog motif is soooo good. weapon that's only used in necessity. bites not for enjoyment but for protection. able to fight but has the morality to restrain himself. he should be allowed to go crazy though. pleaseeee pretty please can he go crazy and silly and insane and violent. you're so real about brick and Mike I think they would be cute.

also DW I write all my posts in 2 minutes too that's why they're all incomprehensible

#babygirlification of mike is going to drive me insane #total drama #td #td roti #td revenge of the island #revenge of the island #td mike #scike #td scike #🪦🐕#long post

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