#me: 'i dont think that thousands of people should be dead while thousands more are injured and starving'

[hope-ur-ok]

Something I really don't understand are the assumptions people on the side Israel seem to hold about everyone who is free Palestine, I.E. that we don't think the hostages should be returned or that we think all Israeli citizens deserve to die for the crimes of their government. Like I'm sure there are people who think that, which is gross and frankly unacceptable, but the fact that they approach everything said in support of Palestine from that angle isn't okay either. All that they are doing is trying to simplify everything in a way that makes Israel the indisputable victim and everyone who opposes them into an antisemitic monster when the reality is that most of us just believe in the value of ALL human life and don't think more than 23,000 peoples lives are acceptable collateral damage. Like we just think that Palestinian civilians should have basic access to food, water, healthcare, and shelter and should not be facing arrest just for being Palestinian as if that somehow makes them inherently dangerous, where are you getting the batshit assumptions from in statements like that?

[ganondoodle]

you know, i had a totk thought (uh oh)

soemthign thats really bothering me about the whole "actually, ganondorf didnt like the guy appearing out of nowhere marrying a hylian and just saying yep das our kingdom now and we can mine it barren under your nose and also i got laserbeam pebbles that i totally wont ever use on anyone come join me or die just bc of all of that but mainly bc the guy brought some weird tech with him that he dont like" - thing is that ......... we see almost not a single tech thing in the past (and for that matter see nothing of the oh so perfect and peaceful paradise hyrule was before big evil desert man didnt want to join our paradise- like what is the point about making the whole point of the game be -we need to restore hyrule to this paradise it once was- when you dont even see it or get to care about anything of it)

it might sound like a weird hangup but no really, the most we see is like two servant constructs, thats it, when they 'prepare for war' im pretty sure all you see is some lightly dressed ( ... is it just me or does their whole get up look alot like native american/other indingenous people too ... i still dont know how to feel about that- kinda adjacent to some of the sonau armor, the battery one i think??, also having that look...) hylians with spears, where the heck is all that tech?? is it implied to be all down in the mines hollowing out the underground (for no real reason either bc .... theres only two sonau left and no one else seems to want use nor need the tech otherwise there should have been more traces or soemthing left of it -unless it all just magically appeared out of nowhere in mostly prime condition while all shiekah tech jsut vaporized for bs non reasons just for it to be in tha game but oh dont you see its always been there lmao- so whats the point really????)

or up in the sky as most battle constructs are and they cant get them down in time bc *gestures vaguely*

or is it intentionally kept out of view bc idk seeing an army of robots on raurus side he can send out on a whim might not make him look as oh so good and perfect as they want him to look when he already got laserbeam pebbles (most of which hes been hoarding until ONE falls into hands not under his control) ?? like it just ... feels weird?? so many battle constructs that can even be a threat to link are jsut fully functioning strolling around in the present still, why wouldnt you want to use any of them to battle gan and if they DID why wouldnt you show that (no the 3 second unicorn cutscene doesnt count bc its just .. gan and his monsters isnt it) ?? (also ... why isnt there a big like battle ground , like fine you dont have to animate an army of monsters and robots clashing but... wouldnt it be cool to have you discover a giant flat plain in the underground (that magically got put under ground like gan just decided to stroll down there to get sealed lol) and its the only mostly empty field in the game littered with thousands of monster bones and dead constructs intermingled?? just to give it all a bit of weight?? evidence that it happened?? cool ass discovery????)

(also also i cannot let go of ganondorf apparently being sooooo anti tech but then clamgan uses the shiekah stuff??? shouldnt he also be against that then or is that suddendly fine bc- oh woops sorry, forgot clamgan is actually just something, not connected to gan at all actually, i mean why else would miasma turn into malice only to turn into miasma again haha none of that is connected actually what is a calamity anyway? also im sorry to bring this up again but i just cannot let go of the ppl in the present being so obsessed with using sonau tech in every part of their life now- they just lived through an apocalypse of a barely understood strange tech but CLEARLY this other even less understood strang tech is not dangerous at all lets make CARS OUT OF IT and what theres no danger in miasma and that tech existing at the same time LIKE SOMETHING ELSE BEFORE THAT IDK SEEMS LIKE A BAD COMBO--- oh sorry forgot that ceased to exist in both the world and peoples minds for *gestures vaguely* plot reasons- why why why are monsters mining the sonanium?? they dont even work with the yiga no that is also completely disconnected we dont wanna draw and interesting connections after all- whats the point if it means nothing but to be a loot box for the player-- actually, so much of totk is just a so built around throwing you into a box of toys with no substance to it- listen i know games are kinda like toys but if it doesnt make sense and offers you nothing interesting to think about even slightly whAT IS THE POINT)

[starwikia]

suicide cw

look i have been in this area before mentally. it sucks and i wouldn’t wish this on anyone. but, and this is going to sound callous, but i don’t feel any sympathy for james somerton. even if i hope he’s like. not dead. But thats all the amount of goodwill im willing to give him. The more i think about this really, the more angry i am. 

ngl this entire situation is another example of how white people weaponize their mental illness to avoid consequences. Im seeing it in real time.

this man has a continuous habit of using self-harm as a get-out-of-jail-for-free card. in both of his apologies, he has worded his supposed attempts in ways that were clearly meant to guilt people who displayed his plagiarism and overall horrendous history of racism and misogyny. i say supposed because, while i’m not saying those are lies and this would he such a fucked up thing to lie about that i don’t want to think he has, unfortunately, it’s been proven again and again that his word can’t be trusted, as he’s known to lie to try get out of consequences. Hes a proven liar. him lying about this is actually the best case scenario, because no one should go through this entire situation, wouldnt wish this on anyone, but you can only do this so often before people stop sympathizing with you. is this callous? Yeah, but like. I’m actually fucking angry he cant straight up take no as an answer. that this is how he reacts realizing he cant be one of the Cool Kidz™️ on youtube anymore. he acts like he DESERVES a career, like its not a privilege hes lost due to his own actions.

He lied about apologizing and forgiving people, he lied about giving the money to hbomberguy to give to ppl he ripped off (yknow, instead of doing it himself), he lied about the jessie gender situation and rewrote the narrative to make it so he isnt the bad guy, and hes the victim all along actually!

you can’t tell me that supposed last message of his isn’t meant to be a 13 reasons why esq attempt to deflect the blame “look i’m going to kill myself and it’s all YOUR PEOPLES FAULT for not letting me achieve my DREAM of being filmmaker IN PEACE!!! I just wanted Nick’s (the guy who I have thrown under the bus again and again) portfolio up!! Im just being a good friend dont you all FEEL BAD” he refuses to take ANY ACCOUNTABILITY of any of his actions and he IS STILL trying to shove the blame over to other people again.

it’s also pretty ironic people are like “uhhh well hbomber’s fans harassed him!!!” like hbomber outright told people NOT to HARASS JAMES!!! ALSO acting as if james doesn’t have a very real documented history of STRAIGHT UP sending his fans to harass and threaten smaller creators, more notably women, trans, and bipoc creators. especially after he’s stolen typically very personal anecdotes so he could profit from them. so why can he do it but the second people are like “hey this guys an actual piece of shit.” and he can’t handle it suddenly people are trying to white knight his shit? like no he doesn’t get that. he doesn’t get that at all just because he couldn’t handle the consequences of his actions. 

what? were supposed to stay quiet about a man profiting off of other minorities because he wanted to be the spokesman for all gay people? people tried to solve this on a smaller, more private scales for YEARS and he kept doing it. it was clear that the giant public video was the ONLY way to get people to notice. HE WOULDVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH STEALING 87 FUCKING THOUSANDS WORTH OF DOLLARS. HE CANT HANDLE THE FACT HE CANT GET AWAY WITH IT. 

am i supposed to feel bad for the guy who basically threatened a trans woman with the police? i don’t care what anyone says, it’s so fucking obvious that he threatened jessie by implying he was getting the police involved in their conflict. what am i supposed to act like that didn’t happen? are we supposed to pretend like he didn’t glorify nazi’s and outright said that gay people made up a good chunk of the nazis? That he didnt say america joined ww2 bc they were jealous of the NAZIS. WHAT WOULD POSSESS YOU TO FUCKING SAY THAT. but then? He gives women (not even women most of the time, he misgenders nonbinary ppl constantly) shit for writing mlm. are we supposed to act like he doesn’t straight-up sees himself superior and better than people of color and steals their works to put himself on a pedestal? Are we supposed to act like he didnt spit on our elders by saying “only the boring gays survived aids” like man! Fuck you! He BLANTANTLY MAKES UP HISTORY TO PUT HIMSELF ON A PEDESTAL!! HE ACTIVELY TRIED TO REWRITE LGBT HISTORY TO SUIT HIS FUCKED UP NARRATIVES!

yes this sucks ! no one deserves this but no one should be making him a martyr. Thats what he fucking WANTS! He wants to be immortalized as a victim!! (again, supposedly, it was reported hes alive but its not confirmed).

The shit he got isnt near the amount of fucking callous behavior hes done again and again. Again, to drill this point, EVEN IF HE DIDNT CALL THE POLICE HE THREATENED A TRANS WOMAN INTO THINKING HE DID!!! The fact he tried to use a head injury to justify years of the outright ghoulish shit fucking astounds me. Why the fuck did anyone in his life thought it was a good idea to let him TRY to come back. in the end, he had options. he didn’t need to try to make a comeback. HE DIDNT NEED TO FUCKING LIE OR IGNORE THE SHIT HE WAS CALLED OUT ON the reality is, he wanted to come back thinking he could shove it under the rug, was told that no dude, you’re not allowed to be a youtuber anymore. you’re done. you need to move on and went full nuclear. it’s not on anyone’s hands but his own. HES BEEN DOING THIS TO HIMSELF!! But nah man we cant call his shit out bc hell may or may not kill himself. Fuck the other minorities who have the same issues but worse and sometimes BECAUSE of him. This is going to SUCKKKK so bad when other ppl, specifically white gays, are going to weaponize this shit to get away with their stuff.

[rachetmath]

Jaune's Last Man

(Hi sorry this has been my head and I completely forgot about this so let me end this with a kicker. A rap you may say. If you need a recap or you don’t know what this is about....he links here.;

Part 1: https://www.tumblr.com/rachetmath/681709097493659648/ilia-blake-i-want-to-come-with-you-blake-ilia?source=share

Part 2: https://www.tumblr.com/rachetmath/683991434179805184/can-we-please-get-a-sequel-to-the-post-about-jaune?source=share

Part 3: https://www.tumblr.com/rachetmath/688883250974916608/so-i-know-ow-you-said-you-dont-normally-do?source=share)

Jaune: Mercury.

Mercury: Vomit Boy. How’s it hanging?

Jaune: I’m doing fine.

Mercury: Really? I mean since you killed your friend. Your girlfriend dead. And Atlas. I would think you be in a site of depression.

Jaune: Yeah. Except I’m in state of rage.

Mercury; Oh.

Jaune: I mean I haven’t seen my family in years to where I can barely remember their faces. I watched thousands of innocent people die. I was betrayed by someone I wanted to call friend. All because of my stupidity.

Mercury: Wow finally admit it. You don’t know what your doing.

Jaune: Still don’t… but I’ll take my chances.

Mercury: So what are you going to do torture me.

Jaune: Haha no. Of course not. Ladies.

Neo and Ilia walks into the room. Neo before she took a seat on the table, she gives Jaune a kiss on cheeks while Ilia a has weapon to Mercury’s neck. Mercury was still shocked with Neo.

Jaune: Alright. Let us begin. I’m here to make a deal.

Mercury: A deal?

Jaune: You bet. I want you on my team.

Ruby: What?

Jaune: Yes.

Mercury: Why?

Jaune: We need someone like you on our side. Guys like you come in very short supply.

Mercury: That doesn’t give me much of a reason. Why should I give you allegiance?

Jaune: I’m willing to give something that can’t refuse.

Mercury: Please, your not even giving me a right to choose.

Jaune: *sigh* Ilia.

Ilia removes her weapon and sits down.

Jaune: Fine, I’ll play by rules. Look, I understand. Your father he was bad man. But brother he’s dead.

Mercury: I know.

Jaune: I know it was by own hands. I get it wasn’t easy but you fail to get-

Mercury: Is?

Jaune: That you can be better. So much clever. Do really want to stay in his shadow forever?

Mercury: Please. Who are you to judge me? If I recall correctly didn’t you cheat. You went to a school filled with talent. With nothing to show but empty promises and values. You talk a big game but you can’t measure up. Face it bud, your only here because of luck.

Jaune: …. ….

Mercury: Got nothing to say. Guess the fun is over. No more debates. I guess I’m done now prison await. Besides Salem offered me world on a plate what’s better than that?

Jaune: Okay, little man, so what’s your plan?

Mecury: What?

Jaune: Yeah, little man, what’s you plan?

Mercury: I mean-

Jaune: What’s your plan? Tell me, little man, what you gone do when you got the world in your hands? You get all money and get some respect. You make yourself sound like you really are a threat. Yes its true, your right about me. I did what it took to follow my dreams. But now look at me. I am all three. Money, Power and respect. A threat guaranteed. I lost many people but yet I still breath. Yet I still believe in what we can achieve.

Mercury: … … …. What are you saying to me?

Jaune: We’re nothing like them.

Mercury: What do you want from me?

Jaune: Show me your bravery. Leave it all BEHIND and make history.

Mercury: But I-

Jaune: You’re nothing like him.

Mercury: I’m-

Jaune: You can still be better.

Emerald: *burst in door* And if your not sure we can explore it together. We’ll have each other.

Jaune: And if you believe-

Mercury: Believe?

Jaune: In yourself.

Emerald: And me.

Jaune and Emerald: There’s nothing you can’t achieve.

Mercury: Really?

Jaune: Right.

Emerald: You can fly. Again. Sore the sky. Again.

Jaune: Away from sun. Together with us. We can make history. Forge our destiny. Our story will be legendary. So-

Jaune: *pulls his hand out* What do you say?

Mercury: Hmm. Well-

Jaune: Yes, you will paid.

Mercury: And?

Jaune: Yes, come man, what do you say?

Mercury: *shakes Jaune’s hand* Alright you got a deal compadre.

RWBY: Dang.

Oscar: They went play by play.

Nora: So Jaune? Tell us, what’s now the team’s name?

Jaune JMNI. What do you all think?

Mercury: I got say, it’s got nice ring to.

Ilia: I accept the team name. No mistake.

Neo: *agrees with smile*

Jaune: Guess we agree. But before we celebrate we have demonstrate, how useful we are, leave no trace to debate. So let’s start on our first case. What do you say?

Mercury, Ilia and Neo(with a sign): Bring it.

Jaune: Oh this will be great.

Nora: Can we stop rhyming.

[glitchdollmemoria]

do people who disregard photosensitivity realize that seizures can fucking kill or do they just not care. do people not realize that their "aesthetic" "cool" flashing lights that happen without SUFFICIENT warning... are fucking capable of killing people. i dont even care if i sound pissy right now because i am pissy, im sick of feeling like myself and others with epilepsy arent even afforded the right to be an afterthought to most people. im not even photosensitive but ffs this shit makes me so angry.

seizures themselves can be deadly if they go on too long, theyre essentially electrical overloads in the brain, you know, that organ that controls the entire rest of the body? and seizures can result in injuries or death from falls. from choking on our own vomit. from drowning in our own bathtubs, if we think we might be safe to bathe and then get proven wrong. maybe someone just wanted to watch a video or movie while they took a spa day.

did you know that epileptics are more likely to die younger than those without epilepsy, with all those risks and more? and have you heard of SUDEP? sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, death without a known cause, a rare but very real possibility for us. it kills approximately 1 in 1000 epileptics a year, if not more since it may not be accurately tracked. thats thousands of us dead a year. we do not need you to add to our death rates.

"all these things are known risks, epileptics just have to be more careful-" epileptic people should not have to be on constant fucking high alert. how about instead, people just learn to give a shit about life threatening disabilities? it takes so little effort to just offer a CLEAR and VERY OBVIOUS warning AHEAD OF TIME, for a SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF TIME, before your stupid flashing lights. or just dont add them at all. are they necessary? are they really necessary? would you really fucking rather photosensitive epileptics have to be constantly on guard, IMPOSSIBLY on guard, rather than you just considering their safety? nobody can anticipate every instance of unexpected flashing lights they might come across. but you, creators, are able to provide warnings, and if for any reason you arent, then hire someone else to edit the warnings in or just get rid of the fucking lights altogether.

again, my epilepsy is not photosensitive, but i will never stop being protective of my photosensitive siblings. my own life is scary enough with the form of epilepsy i have, i cannot imagine how terrifying it must be to have to maneuver through the world with photosensitivity, and i dont want careless assholes to go killing my fucking community because you dont give enough of a shit to worry epileptic people. i am pissed off and emotionally exhausted and the shit with elon musk having a flashing gif on his twitter account was the straw that broke my back today so youre getting a pissed off PSA. everyone better start doing a whole damn lot better.

link to the CDC page about SUDEP

link to the epilepsy foundation site page about seizure risks

people without epilepsy are encouraged to reblog but know that i am already angry and will not tolerate bullshit on this post. give a fuck about other peoples lives and safety or im blocking you.

[emojifarm]

while i don't think you should feel obligated to share or reblog any emojis you don't want to, i think rethinking how you feel about MCYTbrs is important, since there's so many people on minecraft youtube.

minecraft is an endlessly popular game, and there's thousands or maybe even near millions of minecraft youtubers out there.

it's not MCYT in itself that's a problem, its the popular ones that get called out that are, but since minecraft (and minecraft youtube) is so popular, it seems like everyone in minecraft youtube is bad.

but i think you shouldn't say you "do not support those people in any sense.", since that continues the stigma against liking MCYT in general.

minecraft youtubers are just popular because minecraft is popular, there are so many minecraft youtubers that do so much good (ex, technoblade, who's helped raise so much money for sarcoma, even after his passing, and who's inspired and motivated many)

then again, people use MCYT to mean "the dream team and the abusive people they enable" instead of encompassing the many others who aren't even related to the dream team / dream SMP.

this is quite a rambly ask, but as someone who loves certain MCYTbrs, it's tiring to see people say they don't support any mcytbrs, when like... there's such a diverse population. there's some people who might count as minecraft youtubers who are minorities and who try to fight against bigotry and stuff and who don't do weird shit and to say MCYT in general includes them, even if you don't mean to.

although, again, you don't have to reblog any emojis you don't want to, especially since MCYT is a very large label and that CAN include people who are bad, and it's hard to know who's good and who's not, especially with youtubers in general since we only know the persona they put on, and how many there are that you probably know nothing about, let alone if they're an abuser or w/e, but... yeah.

i guess to me it's important since its like saying all actors are bad, when there's many actors who aren't bad people but there's a popular amount that are bad, n such. also mcyt just stands for minecraft youtube, or minecraft youtuber(s), so its like saying roblox youtubers or reaction youtubers, they're a category that has so, so many people that count under that. you can't say you don't support any of them.

unless you literally just dont like minecraft and dont support the game as a whole, or youtube itself as a whole, in which case i'd have more questions but it'd be more correct lmao. also sorry for the ramble i have opinions u dont have to answer this

I knew I'd get someone like this in my ask box when I put my opinion out there 🤦

1. There are literally clips out there of Technoblade saying slurs (including the N word) and him encouraging Dream to do things that have ultimately made others on the team uncomfortable and upset. You definitely need a better example than that. Someone being dead and/or giving to charity does not automatically make them a good person. I'm sure Shane Dawson also gives to charities. We all know JK Rowling does too. Doesn't make them good people.

2. I don't have the time, care, or interest to do research on every single MCYT and it's really only the popular ones that do get emojis of them (with some exceptions, obviously). I only know what I do about the Dream Team and those adjacent because of things I've seen on Tumblr, via friends talking on discord, and some of the YouTubers I watch breaking down the situations. (Also, this low-key comes off the same as "not all men". Like. Yeah, that's true, but that's not who I was referring to. Some of the MCYT I'm referring to aren't a part of the Dream Team either, so I feel comfortable using the broad term)

3. Also, the mansplaining wasn't necessary. I'm not an idiot that lives under a rock. I know what MCYT stands for. As I previously said, I'm not making a broad assumption. I'm just using that term to refer to the people that people think of with that term. To me that's a specific subset of Minecraft creators. I don't consider people that just so happen to do Minecraft videos or streams to fall under that. To me MCYT is just the big ones. It's a title. That's typically what people are referring to when they use that title

4. Also, I've literally played Minecraft and watched others play it on YouTube since it came out when I was like 10 years old. Again. I don't live under a rock. I've just put some distance between me and the creators because I keep hearing bad things. It's not that deep.

[ilynpilled]

also, in her converation with Ned, cersei outright TELLS him that Jaime would kill Robert if he knew how Robert abused her (fuck robert i hope he's rotting). and Robert knew it too which is why all his bruises were generally weren't on her face where people, specifically including Jaime, could see.

This is her exact quote: "Jaime would have killed him (Robert), even if it meant his own life"

that's probably one of the reasons why she doesn't tell him. she was in an awful, awful situation and it reflects the situation of so many other abuse victims across the world. it's not fair that she should have to keep this from her own family and worry about what her brother would do, but if he DIDN'T do anything...what kind of a person would he be? just look at Aemon the Dragonknight as a prime example

regarding this post: link

yeah thats the quote they refused to take at face value when almost everything about his characterization indicates that it would be the case.

i think when it comes to the discussions of much of this the dissonance comes from not confronting that this society refuses to acknowledge marital rape as rape. i do not have the quote at hand (@/georgescitadel might have it) but george himself has expressed that marital rape as a concept doesnt exist in medieval society. that is why it makes sense that while jaime is aware that robert “claimed his rights”, he does not recklessly murder him for it in rage unless cersei gives the word (again, we already know he is ready to do it after he sees that robert is disrespecting her by cheating on her and proceeds to ask her if she wants him dead for it. but like you pointed out, cersei understands that if he saw evidence of physical abuse he likely would not ask for permission and potentially get himself killed.) this is because arranged marriages are treated as a norm in which conjugal rape and a man claiming his rights is not really acknowledged or understood (more like confronted tbh) as rape. this is an integral aspect of the patriarchal domination thats present in westerosi society, its woven into its very fabric. women are placed into a role of subordination, again, it is robert’s “right.” and jaime too is unable to conceptualize it as sexual abuse on the level of rape. hence we get quotes like this:

like we know and understand that cersei was repeatedly raped by robert. we know she didnt make anyone kill her. we know what jaime is saying and thinking here is inconsistent and makes little sense if he believes that she was raped.

that other passage suggests that jaime does not fully grasp or know this. and in general society doesn’t for the most part, including most of the victims themselves. “claiming his rights” is not referred to as rape. robert also knows that what he is doing is wrong, especially the part where he is hurting her (theres also the layer of the code of chivalry being completely contradicted), but he refuses to confront it in multiple ways, and i dont think even he fully acknowledges it as rape either even though i refuse to believe that he is not aware of it. cersei’s right to label him a coward. same with ned in that very conversation, he even sees and knows that robert physically hit her, heard her say that she can scarcely bear him touching her, and yet he asks: “a thousand other women might have loved him with all their hearts. what did he do to make you hate him so?”, and cersei also doesn’t give the answer: “he repeatedly raped me.” jaime understands rape as terrible, he shows concern towards brienne, and risks personal harm (and gets it too since he is kicked unconscious because of it) saving her from it, and it is an act driven by empathy, and he even ironically acknowledges that rape can leave someone broken in a way that does not show on the outside. he executes pia’s rapist too, sets a precedent among his father’s men, and recognizes that she’s “scarred” where it does not show: “That’s all she is, a little girl in a woman’s body, scarred and scared.”

and re the present: while i have a sympathy for jaime in the sense that the betrayal that he was confronted with shatters the delusion that he made immense sacrifices for and defined most of his life atp, and the fact that it makes him feel that he was not actually loved by her as well as recontextualizing his most horrible decisions, he should be showing more consideration and empathy (and i am not saying that he is obligated to die for her either. he isnt) and put in the effort to actually place himself in cersei’s shoes and navigate these blindspots that he has (he has the capacity to, again: “they will leave her a cripple too, but inside, where it does not show”). right now, he is extremely bitter, violently even, and can be selfish and misogynistic as hell about it, and i obviously believe that that is something that has to be recognized by readers for what it is.

but still, regarding the rest, i also think ppl dont acknowledge that because of how medieval society operates there is a very skewed perspective and understanding of certain things and how that affects characters. even with rhaella, jaime is disturbed by the physical abuse:

like he doesnt use the word rape like he does with brienne and the bloody mummers, but he obviously hears and sees that the abuse thats happening to rhaella is horrid and hurts her, and feels a need/obligation to protect her. this is why it is not inconsistent at all that jaime would recklessly murder robert without “permission” even if it meant his own life if he saw evidence of physical abuse, but does not do the same for the marital rape/him claiming his rights. in this society it is not viewed as a violation of rights because women do not really have these rights in these circumstances. their purpose is to marry and bear children. rape is mostly understood and recognized as “low born criminals violently raping women”, “knights and soldiers violently raping women when their blood is up” etc, not “nobles in marriages raping their wives when they claim their rights”, or “coerced rape occurring every time nobles use brothels” etc.

and, as you may have noticed, there’s a strong “you’re hurting me” motif with all of this, because no matter what westerosi society normalizes to maintain patriarchal hegemony, it is obviously all an utter violation of human rights that deals immense harm and trauma to women.

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

*chinhands* Mercymorn plsssss

Why I like them: she's insufferable and ridiculously intelligent and hates everything and has spent ten thousand years despising herself while simultaneously being better than everyone else and she KILLED GOD???

Why I don’t: genuinely I don't think there's anything I dislike about her. everything she did was correct and justified and I'm so sad about her all the time

Favorite episode (scene if movie): every scene she's in is my favorite. acid jail. knocking out all of Augustine's teeth but respecting his request that she not make him bleed on his white dress shirt. pity-killing Harrow. every time she uses an exclamation point.

Favorite line: why would you make me CHOOSE. no but here's where I started crying and then didn't stop until the book ended like forty pages later: "You never loved him as much as I did. This is the moment. This is the chance for unlovable Mercymorn--critical Mercymorn--to show she is most capable of her name [...] Watch me, Augustine. I am the second saint to serve the King Undying. I will teach you a lesson in forgiveness."

Favorite outfit: the Leyendecker thirst trap outfit is simply incomparable.

OTP: ahaha you already know. Augustine. I just think the horrible old people with millennia of baggage should stab each other and kiss about it, what of it

Brotp: it seems like she and Cytherea probably had a nice friendship :(

Headcanon: prior to the resurrection she wore reading glasses. absolutely no reasoning behind this except it makes me smile imagining her furiously scrubbing at the lenses with the hem of her shirt and getting those funny dents in the bridge of her nose

Unpopular opinion: idk what's popular/unpopular bc I avoid the fandom writ large like the plague. uhhh. I think she's a lot more complicated than some people portray her. like yes she has some great comic relief moments but her entire identity is built on this kind of bone-breaking grief that she can't even really address ten thousand years later... I imagine the explosive anger and high-strung attitude is at least partially a result of the thousands of years of emotional repression in that regard.

A wish: Mercymorn the First pleeeease come back and kill God again and then marry me I mean what. who said that

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I trust the author not to do this but the "babies ever after" ending would literally be both my nightmare and hers. at least she's dead so that can't happen probably yayyyy

5 words to best describe them: laser-deadly, tightly-wound spring.

[whumpster-fire]

A Curated Selection of Tweets from Dread Lord K'thyzyxathrax The Soul Flayer's account @KthyzyxathraXXX

Dread Lord K'thyzyxathrax the Soul Flayer is an evil overlord, accomplished lich king, and one of the most dangerous necromancers in the world. He is also terrible at using Twitter. These are some of his recent misadventures.

CW for dark humor, satire, genocide references, animal death,

The Sans Undertale Incident

I fucking hate all you people trying to "destigmatize" skeletons but especially Toby Fox. People dont even think a walking skeleton is scary anymore. Fuck off its a dead guy walking around with no muscles or tendons. This is an abomination against Gods and nature.

~~

I'm trying to strike terror into the populace here and you are making my job way harder. I'm not saying challenge doesnt breed innovation, wait til you see the shit I have in my dungeon rn, just sayin if I hear one more Sans Undertale joke some of you are gonna have a bad time

~~

Curator's note: replies omitted but you can imagine what they were like

Motherfucker. He says that? How the fuck was I supposed to know, I don't play your stupid preschooler video game about being nice to people.

~~

Shut up all of you. I am not your funny video game skeleton teenager. Power Word: BLOCKED

~~

The next motherfucker who remixes my ominous entrance music with Megalovania will be slowly flayed alive over a hundred year period, and also sued for copyright infringement.

The Mortuary Supply Drama

Since Charnel Chuck's Mortuary Supply Co. has refused to lift my "lifetime ban" on the grounds that they only approve of necromancy for "peaceful purposes" and with the "consent" of those whose remains are being used and have deleted my 1 star Yelp reviews (1/3)

(2/3) I have no choice but to take my grievance to Twitter. Your "code of ethics" is completely discriminatory against my desire to use undead to murder people. Go fuck yourselves. Your business is shit and even if you lift my ban I will never patronize your establishment (2/3)

(3/3) again after the way I have been treated. Your customer service is appalling. And another thing, any "lifetime" ban on me should have expired like a thousand years ago so double fuck you. @CharnelChucks www.CharnelChucksMortuary.com follower horde ratio them. Get their asses

Curator's Note: A followup tweet also posted the address of the business in question. This has not been reproduced due to our policy against doxxing, although it is available on their website.

(4/4) fuck I didn't add enough parts. Your products are also shoddy and overpriced and your storefront is inappropriately brightly lit for your industry. I hope your vampire customers sue you for using fluorescent lights.

(5/4) @CharnelChucks unblock me you fucking cowards. I saw that fucking statement you made disavowing all association with me, and you have no room to talk shit. You still sell products over Amazon.com after the scandal over them staffing their warehouses with (5/4)

(6/4) reanimated corpses of employees who said the word "Union" on the messenger app. Y'all can't take a stand for "respecting wishes of the deceased" and "ethical necromancy" while picking and choosing which evil overlords you work with. Also you refused to honor (6/4)

(7/4) your buy-2-get-1-free sale on crematory urns on my order of 600 urns. There was nothing on your sign about a 3-urn maximum. You assholes owe me $79,999.76. I'm opening my grimoire right now and looking up Power Word: Go Fuck Yourself

The Washington Monument Restoration

To everyone tagging me while they watched the evening news last night:

1: I didn't do it, that was my friend @CardinalCarnage

2: I wish I'd thought of it first, that was fucking hilarious, and I'm impressed with him for getting two 50' solid marble orbs onto the National Mall

~~

3: The Washington Monument was supposed to have balls and a glans in the original plans, but the confederates got custody of the balls in the civil war and at the time an aluminum cap of that size was too expensive so it was downsized.

~~

So actually it's a restoration not a defacement.

4: If you want to see what defacing a monument looks like it wait 'til you see Mt Rushmore

~~

I didnt fucking do anything to Mt Rushmore you idiots, they literally carved it into a sacred mountain just to be dicks to Native Americans. Fucking mortals. But hey thanks for the idea

~~

As an evil overlord I think carving your face into the monument of a people you conquered and oppressed is a pretty swag move but doing dead guys' faces instead of your own is just sad.

~~

I was thinking about re-carving all the major statues into my own face when I take over America but since I'm skeletal people will probably just think it's the same guys except accurately depicting how they look now since they're dead. But then again thats also a power move so still considering it

~~

Retweeted from @CardinalCarnage:

No, I only did the Monument, @KthyzyxathraXXX deserves full credit for filling the Reflecting Pool with blood. Nice job bro, my cultists think it's really cool and so do the boys in Hell

Thanks. Turns out it takes a lot of people to fill that with blood. Really wish there was more of it per body, had to keep healing the sacrifices because I didn't bring enough.

Vulture Culture, The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and Cincinnati

Really loving the Vulture Culture pinterest boards for inspiration when making new unholy abominations. Newbie necromancers take note: don't limit yourself to using human remains, you will stifle your creativity.

~~

Been making so many "pets" lately I'm actually running out of space, so I'm adopting some of them out. I made this little fella from roadkill on I-64. He's free to a good home. I am not responsible for odor or leakage of putrefying bodily fluids onto your carpet.

~~

Replying to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

Yes those are crow skulls. Nicely spotted!

~~

Replying to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

I didn't sign any goddamn migratory bird treaty.

~~

Replying to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

Fine, I removed and destroyed all the bird parts. JFC tell your followers to cool their jets. I cant believe I found a government body more annoying than the IRS

~~

Tweet made at the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Come get your game wardens. Sorry not sorry but they wandered into my labyrinth of terror and fell in a spike pit. You have 1 week to recover their bodies or I'm using them.

~~

Replying to OSHA:

Don't you fucking start. It's a dungeon it's supposed to be full of deadly booby traps. If you tell me I'm supposed to have railings on a spike pit I installed with the express purpose of people falling in it and dying you'll be first to go when I conquer this wretched land

~~

Replying to OSHA:

No I'm not fucking removing them. Shove a traffic cone up your asses. No weight that's the DOT's thing. What do you even do again?

~~

Really disappointed in the lack of adoption offers. How can you resist a face like this? Yeah the flesh is peeling off. I think the kids today call that Skrungly.

~~

Man this hobby is really addictive. Fuck I'm supposed to be raising armies and pillaging cities but I just spent the last 4 hours sewing a dozen raccoon arms to a dead coyote's neck.

~~

NVM I gave it a petrifying bite and a chain reanimation spell so killing two birds with one stone. Might also transmit rabies. Oh this is gonna be FUN. USFWS don't @ me because I said "killing two birds"

~~

I meant P U T R E F Y I N G bite. Fucking autocorrect. Petrifying bite and chain reanimation would be useless.

~~

Check this out. This buck's antlers carry a whole rack of Multiple Indepently Maneuvering Possums.

~~

Really Autocorrect? You correct Petrifying but let Indepently slide? Whatever. Anyway got a pretty good army going after all. Those possums are MEAN. City of Cincinnati pray to your impotent Gods because I'm coming for you. That'll teach you to lose the superbowl.

~~

Yeah, yeah, I only got as far as Covington and Newport. Fuck off, I know most of you have never invaded a metropolitan area. This was easier in medieval times when infrastructure wasn't so car dependent. 40k casualties is still a productive weekend

~~

I can cross running water just fine. I stopped south of the river on purpose because seeing the other side reminded me of how much Ohio sucks so I decided I don't want it.

~~

Okay fine. I swore a blood oath to never set foot in Ohio again after losing a hundred bucks on the superbowl this February. Exact wording was "until an Ohio team wins a Major League Sports championship" so in practice never.

~~

Catapulting diseased corpses across the river is fair game. Have fun with that.

~~

@CardinalCarnage appreciate the offer but seriously don't worry about it, that city sucks anyway. Just gonna let it go, pretty sure making "Ohio" no longer exist as a political entity cancels the oath anyway so shouldn't be too long even if their teams keep sucking ass

[nny11writes]

i dont know if the ao3 prompts thing was like requesting numbers but please consider: 5 is its all fun and games, 10 is glitra, 15 is super pal trio. the first two are just entrapta as person A and person B respectively.

I won't lie, it was a Schrodinger's reblog where it was both for people to prompt me but also not until someone decided to do something about it lol.

5. Person A writes the rules. Person B breaks them all. [It's All Fun and Games Until...]

Glimmer had been very proud of herself. It was actually very mature of her you see. Some might even say, regal and royal behavior. Responsible. Yes, she’d thought to herself nodding serenely. Responsible.

Responsible, she’d reminded herself even when the headache started as she gave the scroll to the super pal trio.

Responsible, she’d demanded of herself when she’d noticed the pattern.

“Oops,” Catra drawled, shrugging her shoulders in the least apologetic manner humanly possible, “Our bad!”

Scorpia smiled brightly, but the small bead of sweat at her temple was a dead give away.

“What was our bad?” Entrapta asked, hanging upside down and fully tangled in the wires of the war room’s ceiling.

Responsible, she reminded herself firmly and held up one finger before summoning her water glass to herself to buy a moment of peace. Which miraculously did not break in her hand when Catra snorted.

“Are-” Glimmer stopped herself. Refused to finish that sentence. Mature. Queenly. Responsible. “This idea of yours was…sure something, but as clearly stated in the rules I gave you you three were not to mess with anything in this room while unattended!

“Oooooh, is that what that meant?” Catra asked, over acting her part and delighting in being a little shit of massive proportions.

Fuck it, she was gonna say it. “Are you seriously this fucking stupid, or can you not read, or what?????”

Catra crossed her arms as she hunched in, losing her grin. “Shut up, Sparkles! Just because some of us didn’t have royal educations with fancy shit like reading doesn’t mean you get to be mean.”

And for a moment Glimmer felt like the scum of the planet, just the lowest of jerks who punched down when anything happened to annoy her.

And then she remembered all the thousands of times she’d literally seen Catra reading.

“YOU READ THOSE REPORTS OUT LOUD TO ME LAST WEEK!?!?!??!”

“Did I?” Catra asked, clearly trying to find a way to wiggle out of this one before giving up on her little charade. “Still, you should think before you throw around insults like that. You could’ve hurt someone’s feelings for real!”

“Yeah!” Scorpia said, clearly meaning to just back up her friend regardless of the situation. Except now everyone was looking at her to see if she had anything more to say and she looked like the world’s most pathetic creature. Like a wet dog trying to fade through the soil below their feet to vanish and never be seen again. “Well, you could’ve.”

“I mean, that’s fucking fair, I guess.” She grumbled. “Now let’s focus on the fact that this is the fifth-”

“Wasn’t this the sixth one on the list?” Entrapta asked, somehow now inside the holoprojector in the table. Her voice somehow was muffled but almost squeaky sounding.

“Hang on,” Catra pulled the scroll that Glimmer gave them out of her pocket and opened it with a flourish. “Huh. You’re totally right, we skipped number five on accident.”

“Skipped it. On…accident?” Glimmer looked at Scorpia who nodded happily.

“Yeah, we figured it was a streamlined process, you know.”

“Also I really REALLY wanted to get my hands on all this tech!!! I mean, with just a few tweaks the proficiency-”

“NOPE!” Glimmer whirled around, teleporting in to grab Entrapta before teleporting back out to grab Catra who she knew would reflexively grab Scorpia for her. “NOT TODAY!”

She quickly teleported them all out to the hill two miles outside the city and dumped them on the fresh, soft grass waving on top of it. The last thing she heard before leaving was, “Excellent work team-”

“I didn’t finish my project?”

And then she got her hour of peace, facilitated by cake and a healthy pour of chocolate milk.

10. Person A is starving and goes to the snack machine, just in time to see Person B taking the very last one of A's favourite item. [glitra]

Catra had just barely opened the bag of chips when she heard a high pitched whistling sound that she was only a little ashamed to admit scared her half to death. Look, when you’re friends with a scientific genius you get used to the idea that sudden, loud, high pitched sounds rarely meant something nice. But instead of jumping around to watch the vending machine explode, she found a woman glaring at her instead.

“Uh…hi?” Catra tried, already dipping back in for her snack when the woman stopped over and nearly managed to grab the snack our of her hands. Catra yanked it back and up reflexively but the woman just held her hand out.

“No one, and I mean no one ever buys the pickled plum flavor. It’s my flavor. I fought to have it in there.”

Pickled what in the who now? “Okay?” Catra popped a chip in her mouth and had to pull on every reserve she had to not choke. Oh, okay!

“That’s my bag of chips!!!”

Catra finally stopped staring into two beautiful purple eyes and clocked that Chip Girl looked like death. We’re talking fifth all nighter in a row fucked up. We’re talking no amount of caffeine or reason was going to work on her levels of “Dude, do you need an ambulance?”. The near assault over a bag of nasty chips made a lot more sense all the sudden.

“I bought them.” Catra reminded her anyways, because she was what you’d call an optimist.

“And I had them put in for me! You- youyouyouyou little thief! You are basically a thief.” The woman finally seemed to snap out of it a little groaning as she rubbed at her eyes. “I don’t mean that. I just- look. I have had the day from hell today. I will buy you anything else you want in the vending machine. I just need my comfort snack, okay?”

Catra slowly ate another disgusting chip while considering her options. And then another just because it was kinda hilarious.

“I don’t want anything else though, and they are public vending machines. So you may have gotten them in there, but it’s like a public service. You deserve a medal.” Catra nodded firmly even as she lied through her teeth. She’d rather have the chocolate chip cookies that would break her teeth that were in there. She’d rather have a pack of fucking gum. She’d rather be eating anything besides these awful, horrible chips.

But she was nothing if not committed to the bit.

“There has to be something you want!?” The woman was desperate now, and grabbed Catra’s jacket to haul them both back over the machine. “T-there’s, uh, look bugles! Those are chips. I will get you two of those for that bag.”

“...hmmmmmmm, look….” Catra waited and looked at the woman expectantly until she grumbled her name, “Glimmer, look, I can see this means a lot to you.” She ate another chip out of pure spite. “But I don’t know what to tell you, I don’t want anything from in there.” The next one she ate because she hated herself apparently.

“What DO you want?”

Was she really going to do this? Be an asshole like this? “Are you free this weekend? There’s a new exhibit at the art museum I want to go to but couples get in on a discount.”

There was a very long silence before the woman asked, mouth hanging open in shock, “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“Gross. Maybe. Look, do you wanna dupe the feds or not?”

Glimmer laughed, somewhat deranged from her lack of sleep. “What are we stealing the art? Dupe the feds? What the fuck?”

Catra scoffed before finally giving the bag of chips back over, “Steal the art, please. Never on the first date. Anyhow, you in?”

This time her laugh was much more wild as she shoved a handful of the disgusting chips in her mouth. “Yeah, sure. Why not? But you owe me more chips.”

“This is highway robbery!” Catra gasped, even as her hand gripped tighter onto her phone.

“Chips, no dips.” Glimmer insisted as if that made any sense to anyone.

“Fiiiiine. Chips and no dips. Saturday, 2PM. See you there.”

On Saturday Catra arrived with a small grocery bag filled with pink chip bags only to learn that apparently she’d actually bought seafood flavored chips and not pickled plum chips. Glimmer only mocked her the rest of the afternoon, and it turned out to be something they both enjoyed. The chips that is. Not each other’s company or the date. Just the chips.

If they went again the next weekend it was by pure coincidence.

And if they went again every weekend after that, well, sometimes these things happen.

15. Persons A and B are roommates for reasons other than their own choosing. They have opposite preferences for: waking and sleeping hours, thermostat settings, volume levels of various entertainment options. [Super Pal Trio]

When Catra signed the lease, admittedly, she did not read the fine print. It was a one year lease on a piece of shit apartment in a poor neighborhood close enough to the college for it to work for her. So, yes, this was her fault. But also, when she’d spoken with Scorpia things seemed decent enough even if the giant woman gave off major “I’m a secret serial killer that’s the only reason I don’t already have a roommate” vibes. And Scorpia hadn’t mentioned that Catra was the third person on the lease.

In fact, she hadn’t even found out about Entrapta’s existence until she’d gone to take a shower after moving in only for the grate in the bathroom to rattle as someone in the fucking wall asked her, “Excuse me, how long do you think you’ll take? I was doing something with the water heater and- please stop screaming.”

That was the first red flag really.

Then she’d woken up sweating to death because Scorpia was apparently always cold. Catra turned the thermostat down and while she finally got some sleep, Scorpia woke up with a sniffle and cough.

“I’m from the desert, you know?” Scorpia slurred through her daytime cold medication. “It’s just so cold everywhere else!”

Over the span of one week, Catra figured out that this was going to be hell. This was why Scorpia couldn’t find a roommate- oh excuse her, a second roommate! It’s because she’s bonkers crazy and sensitive and so nice that you feel mean when you try to do anything that Scorpia doesn’t want! AND ALSO BECAUSE ENTRAPTA IS A CHAOS GREMLIN WHO LITERALLY MOVES AROUND IN THE WALLS HALF THE TIME!!!

After a single month, Catra was so exhausted that she willingly called a house meeting. 

She’d suffered cold showers (from Scorpia using all the hot water), and weird little foods that didn’t fill her up (because of Entrapta’s dietary needs), and boiling hot nights even with six fans in her room (Scorpia again), and been actively spied on (Entrapta again).

“Okay, we might need to break the lease.” Catra opened with, doing her best to stay chill.

“Why?” Entrapta and Scorpia asked at the same time, both of them looking different levels of hurt.

“...dude, seriously?”

To say the conversation went poorly after that was an understatement. Catra broke down yelling, Scorpia broke down crying, and Entrapta had scuttled out of the room looking for a quieter place.

The next morning Catra was surprised to find the apartment didn’t feel like Satan’s asshole anymore, and crept into the kitchen to find Scorpia somewhat bundled up with some fresh coffee made in the pot. Entrapta sat nervously fiddling with her tiny quiches, but there was also a plate of regular sized toast and eggs.

It was a lot of apologies. “Sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t say anything, I’ll work on taking things less personally.” “Sorry I made you both eat things you don’t like, I should have asked what you wanted too.” “Sorry I blew up at you both, I was being a total dick about it.” But it set a much better tone.

And weirdly it, like, worked? To talk about their feelings and stuff? Disgusting. But Catra couldn’t argue with the results. Stumbles aside it turned out they were outrageously well suited to living together. Like, scary good for one another.

It was around the three year mark when Catra realized that she was happily reading the little note Scorpia left in her lunch while munching on the fun sized chocolate Entrapta slid in there, while hoping Scorpia saw the note that she’d left her and Entrapta would see the instant coffee she slid into her work bag that it hit her.

Catra quickly called the group voice chat.

“Hey Wildcat, what’s up?” “HiiiiIIiiiiiIII!”

“Hey, uh, weird question, are we dating?”

“Yup!” Scorpia said with a giant happy wink, clearly waiting for a punchline.

“I assume so,” Entrapta said at the same time, but was clearly getting distracted by something that was causing an orange flicker on her face.

“Huh.” Catra said, fiddling with her phone and wishing she was back home at the house they’d bought together after Entrapta’s promotion brought home some more money. Oh no. Oh no, Adora had been actually right when she’d once called them Catra’s girlfriends and Catra had laughed thinking it was a joke. Adora fucking Gray figured it out before her and Catra was the one dating them. “Shit.”

“What?” Scorpia asked before seeming to notice the sound of an alarm ringing from Entrapta’s side of the call. “Hey, everything okay over there?”

“Yes.” Entrapta nodded, eyes flicking up with some alarm before looking back at them. “Well, no. But you two are more important!”

“Okay, well, don’t die in a fire for us, you’re important too.” Catra said before realizing this was now a totally normal part of her life.

“OKAYTHANKYOUILOVEYOUBYE!”

There was a long pause before Scorpia cleared her throat. “So…uh, why’d you call?”

Catra grinned a little. “Nuthin’, see you tonight Scorp.”

“Okay, bye, love you, thank you for the note! I’m gonna keep it forever!”

“Bye.” Catra waved before her brain caught up. “Wait- I said to burn those-” But Scorpia had already hung up again.

[cloomsday]

im so so so fucking anxious. all the time. fuck. idk life stuff generally but also family...

like ive been in Greece for a full month now and my dad is just. himself. I definitely should not have relied on him for anything. we get to our summer place and for a full ass month my dad has just been smoking weed. the summer place is in an undeveloped rural beach town and we have no car, no washing machine, no fridge, no wifi, and no cell service. a week ago my dad got a car, but it’s a stick shift and he refuses to let me drive it for that reason. all I can do, day after day, is walk to the beach on this busy ass road with no sidewalk, since I can’t drive anywhere. the beach gets old after a month. my dad is just high all the time and does not care. I could have been spending this month preparing for technical interviews, but without wifi I can do nothing. I can’t go anywhere either.

ive been spending some time with my aunts, uncles, and cousins out here. they’ve got money, for real. their house has a damn elevator. and besides being rich, they actually, like, love each other. like they are an extremely tight-knit family, and always helping each other out and supporting each other. they host so many parties and like are always hanging out. I know nobody has an absolutely perfect relationship with their family, but I think they’re as close as it gets. my uncle is also like a big deal apparently, besides being a European like backgammon champion, his business is worth dozens of millions and he is also just a charming and chill dude. but the cousins have rich people problems- like the fact that one of them is 30 and has never had a job because she’s pursuing music. the other one dropped hundreds of thousands on flight school here in Europe just to drop out his last year because he decided he wanted an American certification instead.

I dont know. they're my family, and we were really close when we were kids, but some serious drama went down between my dad and them, that was entirely my dads fault, and we didn’t have contact with them for 10 years because of my dad’s orders. after my parents divorce, my mom went to live with them. oh it was all so traumatizing. it was all my dad’s fault. but anyway, time has passed and now it feels weird, that one day we were kids playing together, then ten years pass and they live in a seaside mansion with an elevator and a close family life, while my brother was sleeping at a homeless shelter not too long ago and our mom is dead. I mean its not their fault at all that things turned out this way and in all honestly i’m happy for their success, but its just hard to see them living a life that is far beyond anything I've ever even conceived of for myself. it also seems like they've been so successful that they’ve forgotten about us. they're perfectly nice in every way, but sometimes it feels like they barely seem to care about us aside from some pitiful looks now and then. they definitely dont blame my brothers and i for any of the shit my dad did, but they seem weirded out at us sometimes, like when they ask why I don’t go anywhere and I honestly tell them I don’t have money to do anything. In those situations I feel like being honest is making them look down on me, but im tired of lying to others about the realities of my life to make them comfortable.

anyway, I woke up today at 9am and it was pouring. it was nice to look out the window at the rain. so soothing. I went back to sleep under the pitter patter for a little more and woke up at 3pm. I dont know why, I fell asleep at 1am the night before and that's 13 hours of sleep. by the time I woke up my dad and brothers had already left for a day trip without me. i knew it was father’s day but I guess id momentarily forgot because my uncles and I were trying to figure out logistics for a trip and I called my dad to ask him some planning questions, then  he got upset when he realized id forgotten it was fathers day. shit I guess that was my bad. I said sorry, but I guess he’s still pissed.

so he was out on his day trip and didnt wanna pick me up from my aunts house, so we couldn't celebrate fathers day together. I told my aunt a little last minute that I wouldn't be going out and wanted to join her for dinner with my cousins and uncle, and she literally popped off on me saying there won't be enough food and stuff, and I was trying to say its alright and I can just spend the night on my own and eat out but I just started crying and it was so embarrassing lol.

u know when u just feel it coming, your hands shaking and your eyes watering and u cant blink the tears away fast enough and you look like a fool? damn I got so triggered. and suddenly im in middle school eating lunch alone again, at every holiday eating a microwave dinner alone again because my immediate family cannot stand each other, and I guess my extended just doesn't want much to do with me. fuck I hate eating alone now.

well, they ended up calling me in to eat and there was more than enough food and everything was ok. 

[snelbz]

Life As We Know It {Chapter 23}

Summary: After the sudden deaths of Nesta’s sister and Cassian’s best friend, they gain guardianship of their nephew, Nyx.

Based on Life As We Know It (2010) and a prompt sent in by anonymous for our Nessian fanfic contest. This is a modern au.

Instead of doing a tag list for this story, we have decided to have a set posting schedule. Chapters will be posted weekly on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Occasional surprise chapters could be posted at miscellaneous times. Chapters will be posted on both my and Tara’s blogs! >> @tacmc.​

Life As We Know It Masterlist

Shelby’s Masterlist

Tara’s Masterlist

Nesta was torn.

Half of her thought that Cassian was overreacting, but the other half of her thought that his anger and frustration was perfectly justified.

What exactly were they getting into? And, was it what was best for Nyx? Yeah, the last month had been great, but if it didn’t work out, what would that mean for him? Would it be better if she and Cassian had simply remained two friends, co-parenting under one roof?

Nesta’s heart began to beat a little faster.

She felt like she was going into a panic attack.

Cassian and Nyx had been gone for an hour, and every second that passed became more and more unbearable.

She needed him to be there.

She needed to figure this out.

She just didn’t know what the answer was.

Alis had gotten into her head, there was no doubt about that. A little over an hour ago, she was living in a dream, then Alis came in, out of nowhere, and brought her back to reality.

She was sitting on the couch, almost exactly where he’d left her, when he finally returned. He was covered in sweat, his t-shirt sticking to him. Nyx was having a conversation with him, more to himself though, since it didn’t seem like Cassian was even close to paying attention to him. But his eyes went directly to Nesta as soon as he walked in.

She’d changed. She no longer wore his t-shirt, instead in a loose shirt of her own and a pair of jeans, and her hair was loose and wet around her face. As if she’d need to shower their night together, shower him off of her. Not a shred of that beautiful skin was showing, not like she’d been doing lately. Leggings and shorts and tank tops. She’d been comfortable around him.

With a scoff, Cassian set Nyx down on the floor. He headed for the stairs, but Nesta stood, nearly toppling the cup of coffee she’d been clutching over as she set it on the coffee table. “Cassian, we need to talk about this.”

He paused, waving a hand towards her. “What for? It looks like you’ve already made your decision.”

“I need you to calm down,” she said, steadily. “I need you to think logically.”

Cassian closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I need you to tell me.”

Nesta hesitated. “Tell you what?”

“If this is something you want to pursue or if I just wasted the last couple months falling in love with you,” he finished.

His voice may have lacked emotion, but Nesta felt every word like a stab in the chest. Falling in love with you. Those were the words she was going to tell him today, under much different circumstances.

Now, she didn’t know what to think.

Now, she was overwhelmed.

Now, all of her thoughts were rushing toward the same spot in the middle of her skull at a thousand miles an hour, and when they got there, her head would explode.

“It’s not that easy,” she said, and her voice cracked.

“But it should be,” Cassian said. “If you feel the way that I do, it should be that easy.”

“We have to think of Nyx,” she breathed.

“I am thinking of Nyx,” he said, struggling to keep his voice low. At the sound of his name, the baby turned to look at him. “I want him to grow up in a happy home, seeing two people who love each other, and damn it if that isn’t how it’s been for the past few weeks.”

“It’s not that simple,” Nesta said, shaking her head. “What happens if we break up? What happens if we get in a fight or something happens to one of us? What then?”

He had strode down the stairs and was in front of her before he could stop himself. He framed her face in his hands, like he had so many times the past month, to kiss her, to make love to her, to show her how he cared for her. “Why are you worrying about the what if’s? Why are you worrying about what could go wrong, rather than how right everything has been?”

Because everything goes wrong eventually. The only reason we’re together is because we were shoved into this house after the worst thing imaginable happened. They died. We took over. What right do we have to be happy?

The words flooded her mind, but stilled on her tongue.

Nesta didn’t push him away. She wanted to reach up on her toes and kiss him, softly, but she didn’t.

Instead, she met his gaze. “Cass,” she breathed.

The pain in his eyes nearly shattered her heart into a million pieces.

Nyx had walked up to them and was hugging Nesta’s leg, as if he knew that she needed the comfort.

“Dont say my name like that,” he whispered.

Nesta slowly shook her head. “I just think this has all happened too quickly. We haven’t been thinking, we’ve just been acting-.”

“You’re pushing me away,” Cassian interrupted, swallowing harshly. “Damn it, Nesta.”

“You don’t understand,” she pleaded.

“Because you’re not making sense,” he argued. “Things have been perfect—”

“They’re dead!” She cried, pulling from his grip, scooping Nyx up. “Things have been far from perfect. We’re only like this now because Rhys and Feyre are dead.”

The words seemed to freeze something inside of Cassian and he stepped back as well. “So what? We go back to how we used to be? I’m back in the guest room and we awkwardly exchange good mornings over breakfast?”

She closed her eyes, trying to block out the sight of him, the scent of him, everything. “I don’t know, Cassian, I don’t—.” She took a shuddering breath, her arms wrapping tighter around Nyx. “I just need some time to think, to breathe…”

When she looked back up at him, his jaw was set and he was slowly nodding. “Fine. Take your time.”

And then he was moving, back up the stairs before Nesta could even ask what he was doing.

A few minutes later, he was back with a duffle bag in his hands.

“Wh—what are you doing?”

“Giving you space,” he said, refusing to meet her gaze.

Nesta opened her mouth but nothing came out. She was frozen where she stood, her feet stuck to the floor, her mouth hanging open, that panic rising from the pit of her stomach into her heart, which was beating far too quickly.

Cassian kissed Nyx on the forehead as he passed, but paid Nesta no mind as he went for the door.

“Cassian!” She called, at last.

Cassian stopped just in front of the door, keeping his back to her, one hand on the doorknob.

“You're just going to leave?” She asked, quietly, bouncing a sleepy Nyx on her hip. “Just like that?”

Cassian didn’t turn around. “Are you going to ask me to stay?”

Yes. No. I don’t know. Nesta said nothing.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” he grumbled, exhaustion lacing his tone. “Maybe I need time to think, too.”

He opened the door and shut it softly behind him.

*

He didn’t know where else to go. He didn’t have anywhere else to go.

He knew where he wanted to be, but right now…

He couldn’t look at her.

It didn’t escape him that when he’d told her he’d fallen in love with her, she didn’t say it back. He couldn’t even act like he hadn’t seen her eyes flare in panic. So he couldn’t stay there. Couldn’t go back to sleeping in that guest room, not when he’d become so used to sleeping with her in his arms every night.

So Cassian had ended up here, knocking on his brother’s door, thankful that his car had been parked in the driveway when he pulled up.

He needed a drink. He needed someone to tell him he was being an asshole. He needed someone to listen while he vented and bitched. He knew Azriel would do all that for him.

When he answered the door, Seph was in his arms, pulling on his bottom lip. She smiled when she saw Cassian, but Azriel’s surprised smile quickly faded.

“Do I want to know?” He asked, looking at the duffel bag tossed over Cassian’s shoulder.

Cassian sighed, raking a hand through his hair. “Can I sleep here tonight?”

Azriel stared at him for a second before stepping aside and letting Cassian pass.

“Are we talking about this now or later?” Azriel asked, shutting the door behind them.

“Beer?” Cassian asked, dropping his bag beside the couch.

“Fridge,” Azriel said, slowly, watching him.

Cassian made his way to the kitchen and threw open the refrigerator door, grabbing a cold bottle and chugging its contents.

Azriel followed, leaning against the countertop and Seph continued to play with his lips.

“Where’s Elain?” Cassian asked, tossing the empty bottle into the trash and getting another.

“Work,” Azriel said, sighing. “So, if this involves smack talking Nesta, you may want to get it out now.”

He shook his head. He didn’t want to do that, barely wanted to think about her. But he owed Azriel at least some explanation.

“The social worker stopped by this morning,” he sighed, leaning back against the counter and opening the beer. “And honestly, yeah, it was unexpected, but I figured it’d be fine. Last time, Nes was drunk off her ass, but we— I figured, since we were more of a family this time, things would be great.”

Azriel blinked. “They’re not taking Nyx, are they?”

Another shake of his head. “No, gods, no. They— She could tell he was in good hands, but she immediately picked up on Nesta and I. What we’ve…become.”

It seemed, just like Cassian, Azriel didn’t see it as a problem. He wasn’t following. “And?”

“And Nyx was hungry so I left the social worker and Nesta alone to get him breakfast. I came back and she’s gone and Nesta is second-guessing our relationship. She asked if I’m just fucking her out of convenience.”

The thought made him sick to his stomach, almost as badly as it hurt his heart.

“And you replied with…” Azriel began, trailing off, waiting for Cassian to finish the sentence.

“I went for a jog,” Cassian said, shrugging.

“So you ran away?” Azriel pushed.

Cassian shot him a look. “No. I went for a jog.”

Azriel sighed. “And when you came back?”

“She said she needed space,” Cassian said, emptying his bottle.

Azriel set Seph on the floor with a plastic spatula, which she instantly start banging on the cabinets. “And that’s when you ran away?”

“I didn’t run,” Cassian snapped. “I gave her what she wanted. I gave her space.”

Azriel slowly shook his head. “Did you even try to talk things out?”

“Yes,” Cassian said, the word clipped. “Told her I was falling in love with her, and guess how she replied?”

Azriel watched his brother.

“Didn’t say a fucking word,” Cassian finished.

When Azriel didn’t speak, he walked back to the trash can, dropping the bottle inside.

“Quit looking at me like I’m the bad guy here,” he said, unable to turn around and look his brother in the eye. “She was ending it. She was calling things off and I’m supposed to, what? Just keep living there like we were before? Pretend nothing has changed?” He swallowed hard, willing the damn tears clouding his vision to fade. They wouldn’t. “She didn’t even ask me to stay.”

Azriel sighed, opening a cabinet beside the fridge that Seph couldn’t reach. He produced a bottle of whiskey and set it on the counter. “I can’t drink until Elain gets home. And I absolutely think you need to talk to Nesta, but I think you’re right. You need to stay here tonight. Give her space.”

Cassian blinked, and a tear that was holding on slid free, down his cheek. He angrily wiped it away. He felt ridiculous, but it had been a long time since he had told a woman that he loved her. He’d never said it in his adulthood. A couple times in his teens, before he knew what the word really meant, but never as an adult.

He’d said it.

He’d meant it.

And she hadn’t felt the same.

Cassian nodded and poured himself a glass of whiskey.

*

Nesta stared at Cassian’s contact on her phone screen.

She wanted to press the call button, but didn’t.

She did open a blank text a few times, but couldn’t type anything.

She didn’t know what to think, didn’t know what to do.

She knew what she wanted.

She wanted Cassian.

But, she didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

She had never been one who was dependent on a man, had spent most of her twenties single and having no problem with it. But suddenly, she couldn’t imagine her day to day life without Cassian in it. And that terrified her.

She heard murmuring on the baby monitor sitting next to her on the side table and glanced over to see Nyx sitting up in his crib.

It had been nearly three hours since Cassian left, and aside from putting Nyx down for a nap, Nesta had barely moved. She still sat in the same spot on the couch she’d been in when the social worker had shown up and when she’d ignored that Cassian had said that he loved her.

The words should have filled her with joy and she should have screamed from the rooftops that she loved him, too. Instead she locked up and thought she was going to be sick.

What was wrong with her?

Wiping away the tears she didn’t even realize had fallen, Nesta hurried up the stairs, and into Nyx’s nursery. He reached for her the moment he saw her, his own big, blue eyes beginning to fill with tears.

“What’s wrong, bubba?” She cooed, resting his head against her shoulder.

After a deep sigh, he looked up at her and reached for a tear that had fallen down her cheek. His lip began to wobble.

“I’m okay,” Nesta promised, even though her voice cracked and those tears continued. “I’m okay, buddy, I promise.”

Nyx knew, though.

He knew something wasn’t right.

He knew Cassian was gone.

He knew Nesta was heartbroken.

Little did he know that her heartbreak was self-inflicted.

Nyx laid his head back on her shoulder and clung to her. He stayed like that as she walked back downstairs and sat back in her spot on the couch.

He held onto her, looking around the room. She knew he was looking for him and was about to tell him he wasn’t here when he spoke. The word wasn’t a mash up of noises like it had always been. No, it was a true and steady word. His first word.

“Dada?”

Nesta froze. She didn’t even know what to say. Should she tell him Cassian wasn’t his father? He probably wouldn’t even understand, just like he didn’t understand where Rhys and Feyre had gone.

But…for all intents and purposes, Cassian was his daddy now. And she was his mama.

So she pressed a kiss to his dark hair and whispered. “He had to leave, baby. He had to go for a little while.”

Nesta hoped and prayed that Cassian would walk back through that door, and yet, she couldn’t muster the courage to ask him to.

That night, instead of Cassian taking up the spot next to her, it was Nyx, who held her hand until they both fell asleep.

[oatchi]

you know what since i was just in someones text post about raging and seething over transformers lets talk about tfa im dying to talk about tfa can we talk about tfa?

i love tfa dearly because the autobots are so. god damn. fucked. up. no one ever talks about it. why? because no one has read the allspark almanac. if you are the kind of person to woobify optimus im going to need you to sit down and read the complete allspark almanac for me. we are just getting a taste for it today. lets talk about the HORRIFIC BODY CRIMES the autobots have! you guys know about project omega? they show it in the show, so i should hope so. its the project that made omega supreme! well, if you dont already think that project omega is fucked up (creating sentient creatures that have “lower functioning power” to keep them from questioning why they kill people) im sure what im about to say is going to at least shock you. the autobots had tfp styled vehicons, and we know this because they were forced to create the omega sentinels!

nameless, faceless workers by the dozens creating what is essentially child soldiers (or mentally disabled. or both!) by the tens, all of which were made to, once dead, still function in ship mode. because, yes! there were more than omega supreme! the steelhaven is one! we know of at least twelve of them! yep! yep! autobot behavior! (tears a pillow apart with my teeth) okay, but thats just one (ginormous, majorly fucked up,) example, i hear you say. well, do you know about the autotroopers? no? of course you dont. it wasnt in the show, so why would it be relevant? lets look at them!

when you join the autotroopers, essentially common police bots, you lose all your individuality. and the astute reader might call out that its not all individuality, just a body type reformat. hell, ratchet and ironhide have that body type, right? but you would be wrong. in medias where it actually shows these bots, it includes the head as well. a whole crowd of this design specifically. its a full body transfer. you lose your whole self. AWESOME BEHAVIOR AUTOBOTS!!!!!!!

now, what im going to say now is actually pretty common knowledge, but i would be remorse if i didnt mention it. TWO KIDS FUCKING DIED IN A FACTORY AND THE AUTOBOTS WENT HM, YEAH, LETS REANIMATE THEM AND FUCK WITH THEIR BODIES AND BRAINS WHILE THEYRE DEAD AND FORCE THEM INTO WAR

while i cannot post the whole comic here, word for word, jetfire and jetstorm almost die in a factory explosion and are considered “expendable volunteers.” they did not have a choice in the matter. the fact that they liked the outcome does not ignore the fact that the autobots were okay with the possibility of KILLING SOME GUYS THAT WERE ON THEIR DEATHBEDS, OR TURNING THEM INTO DECEPTICONS BY IMPLANTING CODE PULLED FROM STARSCREAM INTO THEM. FANTASTIC WORK AS ALWAYS AUTOBOTS!!!!!!!!!!

now. all that i have said. i must ask a crucial question.... why is it always sentinel who gets blamed for war crimes when ultra magnus is literally right there?

im not going to pretend sentinel didnt do fucked up things. or stupid things. working with a bounty hunter that commonly works for the decepticons... yeah. not the most rational thinking. putting a child in prison for thousands of years and vehemently hunting them down later when they escape... i mean, the first part cant really be of his blame (seeing as how ultra magnus probably had to approve the jailing itself. and once it was there it was out of sentinels hands.) but the second part. couldve been handled better. and yeah interrogating bots on neutral space territory is so shady. but sentinel is not even CLOSE to having been the most fucked up autobot.

ultra magnus is literally in charge of... all of these things, i would say. especially, directly, project omega (omega supreme) and project safegaurd (the jettwins). why does no one talk about ultra magnus being so so so fucked up..? because by the end he says that he was wrong about optimus...? girl he experimented on dying people and under his rule it is commonplace for nameless faceless clones to exist. its normal to BECOME nameless and faceless. he BUILT mentally stunted people to fight a war and not question why they were killing and had functionality built in them to DIE if necessary for “regular” autobots. what in the fuck is wrong with him hello. talk about this more please. direct your hate for some of this shit to him. this isnt even talking about how he refused to at least attempt to see if elitas shell could be recovered from archa 7. blame sentinel for taking them there, sure, but blame ultra magnus for the fact that blackarachnia was alone on archa seven for implied hundreds of years before the decepticons found her.

not to bring it back to a phrase i say all too often, but fuck it, my post. your sentinel hatred bias is showing. and to an extent, for some of you, i think your ultra magnus liking bias is showing. im taking away your attractive silver fox ultra magnus until you can stop pretending sentinel is the autobot whos done the most fucked up things.

[probably-haven]

Hello!! After seeing what you wrote about xiaoven fics I went to see what things you usually write and omg, your archon Venti headcanons????? I am absolutely in love. So if it isn't annoying, could you talk about xiaoven or Venti or Xiao or whatever ship or character you like? I don't care what you are going to say, I just want to know more about your thoughts ^^

I- is this... bestie, this is essentially a free ramble pass- kerujsgheskdfug. Trust me when I say that in no way is this, and in no way will it ever be annoying in the slightest- i literally- lets just say rambling off thoughts is kind of my specialty, especially when provided a topic to branch off of because otherwise I'm just- really indecisive about it so- iujskdh yeah- 100% definitely down to talk about Venti, Xiao, and/or Xiaoven XD. Also, yes- it may have been awhile since i last posted one(cuz again, indecisive about which direction to take part 5), but the Archon War Era Venti headcanons are still without a doubt my favorite posts I've made. It's just such an interesting topic with such endless potential that so few people actually think about or consider or even realize is there, so i always just get really psyched whenever i see someone interact with them lol.

.... this ended up being a bit of a mess: warning in advance

Anyway! onto the actual content!

- You see the thing about Xiaoven is that there's a lot of different ways that it could end up working out, and just personally my favorite way of portraying Xiaoven in my mind is as an unlabeled relationship because if anyone in genshin would give off that vibe its these two. And a number of other reasons.

- Firstly, I heavily headcanon Venti as being an aroace polyplatonic or perhaps heavily demiromantic. However, regardless of this I just don't think that Venti is really the kind of person to worry about how he should label his feelings, thinking it's silly to try to put them in one box or the other, especially with feelings and emotions being as fluid as they are in general. Plus it fits his whole God of Freedom vibe. I just- dont think he's the biggest fan of labels or social categorization in general.

- And secondly on the hand of Xiao... his defense mechanisms are very much ingrained in his personality. It's probably hard enough for him to not go into fight or flight(the answer is fight) at the slightest affection at first, at the slightest feeling of vulnerability. Even further down the line, with his fierce dedication to Liyue, I cant help but get the vibe that the moment he recognized that he was falling for Venti he would begin avoiding him, not only to avoid distraction from his duty, but to avoid corrupting him or losing him in general like he has with like basically every other person he gets close with(even believing that the cycle had repeated once more when he first heard of Morax's death)... now imagine Venti tryna slap a label on their relationship and tell me Xiao would have a positive reaction.

- The thing with Xiaoven.... honestly, i feel like theres more ways that it can go wrong than it can go right, but if they do manage to make their relationship work out, it's just simply beautiful in all terms of the word.

- Lets talk about killing. - During the Archon War, both were forced to kill a large number of people and gods alike- Venti out of a need to remain alive to protect Mondstadt, it's freedom, and the nameless bard's legacy by extent- and Xiao out of servitude to the god that was once his master

..... actually- break here- ive talked a lot about Venti on this blog but I havent actually spoken about Xiao all that much- so i should probably do that a bit first... do note though that my characterization of Xiao is pretty flexible actually- this is just- the possible characterization of him that i tend to favor as being the most- uh- "realistically complex"

-

Theres a line I saw this one time in a certain story: "He is a trained weapon. That's what he is, was, and always will be. You cannot change that so stop trying." And i just- think its a really interesting concept- that applies pretty well to Xiao now that i actually think about it. - the concept behind it is this: After spending more than a vast majority of his life killing or otherwise in battle, it's become a part of who he is, a normalcy that after centuries and centuries would be near impossible to get rid of or reverse, and even if it was possible, with his karmic debt constantly eating away at him its unlikely he has enough time left for that to happen. - it sounds like a cruel thing to say about him- but in context it's actually pretty layered and i think about it a lot. It's not as much a "he's a killer lol, that his whole personality" its more of a "The centuries of trauma he experienced have conditioned him into a constantly alert and battle ready mindset while also shaping his dehumanizing inferior-in-worth-but-superior-in-capability view of himself that would have likely been necessary to get through those time, and at this point he's been under that conditioning for long enough that it's essentially ingrained itself in his personality."

- the main idea is- it's a part of who he is, that needs to be accepted as who he is because its not something that he can just up and change. It's not all he is of course but his constant battle mode, as though always waiting to be ambushed or to be granted a new target to eradicate.

a couple character story quotes:

-"His past of service under the evil god had rid Xiao of his innocence and gentleness. All that remained within him was the means to kill and the weight of his sins. The only way he could be of service to mortals was in combat." -"Xiao does not feel any hatred. Having lived for over two thousand years, no single karmic debt constitutes anything more than a fleeting memory. No grudge can last a thousand years; nor is any debt so great that it cannot be paid off in this time. Xiao has spent many long years alone. But his battles have never been in vain." -"where did Xiao have to return to? He was merely leaving the battlefield." -"since Xiao wages a constant war against dark forces powerful enough to devour Liyue in its entirety, any bystanders who witness him in the heat of battle are likely to end up as collateral damage." -"The war he fights can never be won, and will never come to an end." -"Because ultimately, the one with whom Xiao wrestles is himself."

i feel like at some point this very nearly did consume his whole personality, almost turning him into nothing more than a being of slaughter under Morax's control, devoid of any "humanity" at all, consumed and corrupted by his karmic debt like his fellow yakshas before him. - until he experienced a moment of clarity- a song in the wind, the peaceful melody of a dihua flute. - and pulled back from the border of something he wouldnt have been able to return from, there a was a shift in his mind- a concept grown unfamiliar enough with time that it took him a great time to identify what it was; a curiosity. Something that there was no place for on the battlefield, something that by all means should have been completely useless to Xiao, and yet he held onto that curiosity, slowly regaining over time, a sense of who he was and who he could choose to be with each song that the wind chose to carry towards him every once in a blue moon.

and eventually that curiousity turned to longing. Longing "for a day to come when he will wear the mask and dance — not to conquer demons, but to the tune of that flute amid a sea of flowers"

...... uh- heh- if you couldn’t tell already i have a tendency to make my characterizations/analyses of characters more serious that i probably should. 

to summarize: Xiao is constantly toeing the line between his ingrained nature and his humanity- almost as though still trying to decide how much of that humanity he deserves to have, how much he is allowed to have, and how much is safe to have.

^looking back after writing this, i think the best way to explain it is that this is the view that i keep in mind/the lense that i tend to most enjoy looking through and refering back to while examining and/or analyzing his character, actions, story, lines, and overall personality.

idk- i kinda got off track but i just think its a really interesting interpretation to think about because it has some really interesting implications ig- it’s not the full extent of how i view him of course, but i kinda got ahead of myself and its long enough as is so ill just elaborate as i go- Lol i actually have in progress playlists for both him and venti and just- vibes- i could ramble about the playlists alone for hours explaining everything... It’s probably a problem- uh- ill keep going now lol.

anyways! stepping off the angst path for a brief break! Brought to you by their lines in the snow: both waiting for it to get thick enough, Venti for the purpose of a snowball fight and Xiao for the purpose of a tasty and nutritious breakfast.

but its actually something of note that Xiao doesnt actually need to eat so anything he does eat is usually out of obligation or enjoyment- so like.... snow.... like i dont blame him, but of all things- an adeptus who refuses to eat basically anything but almond tofu looks at the freezing-cold-floor-water that yeeted itself from above and decided at some point- damn- that seems more edible than basically ever single actually edible thing ever.... im gonna eat it- like- im glad if eating snow makes him happy but- at the same time...

He probably convinces Venti to eat snow too though and Venti wouldnt even resist I mean he’s wind and has probably consumed worse things in his time so- 2 anemo cryptids with glowing tattoos sitting in Dragonspine monching snow in the dead of night is an amusing thought to me.

- kay, now back to more serious-toned thoughts

One of the things about the ship that i really like is the different contradicting parallels between them:

A lot of how i view Xiao’s character is someone formed largely by the things he cant control and who was forced to accept that accepted that and learned to thrive in it as much as he can.  Venti on the other hand is surrounded by things he cant control and is ever adapting to control as much as he can while embracing whatever he cant as being part of the unpredictability of the world, seeing beauty in it. 

both of them have lost people and do what they do to honor their memory: Xiao continues to do what the Yakshas once did And Venti chooses to do what his friend couldn’t

Xiao’s power coming from himself  and Venti’s from others And both seem to appear to use their power for their own gain while truly helping others behind the scenes

both have killed a lot of people during the archon war Xiao views it as another necessary event out of his control and Venti would likely view it as a tragedy he chose to enact himself

and this is where we meet out balance

Xiao- contrary to how i think a lot of people view him as thinking of himself as a monster- seems canonically to have accepted this as part of his duty, as long as those he killed are not mortals. I dont think he enjoys it no- but someone has to do it and he’s just accepted that its a part of his duty Venti on the other hand-

See the beauty of the ship- as someone with an angst-centric mind- is this- these are two of the most traumatized mfers in the game 

Xiao is by far the one who needs the most help and who can serve to benefit most from the ship- but he is nowhere near self aware enough to recognize that there’s anything wrong or unhealthy about his mindset in the slightest-

whereas you have the contrast with Venti who sorted through most of his trauma with the nameless bard alone during the archon war and while the result appears more healthy- is still really not- but he’s not self aware of that either because i mean- who’s going to tell him? nobody even knows. 

however- venti is aware enough to notice flaws in Xiao’s mindset and “Venti” enough to want to help them through it-

Xiao- while not aware enough to recognize the flaws in Venti’s mindset, can recognize where it contrasts with his own, and is blunt enough to point it out- and then it’s out there to be mulled over- 

they’re so similar and yet so different and a feel just conversing between the two of them, being in each others precense, just being exposed to two mindsets that are so very different could do both of them a whole lot of good.

GEEE THAT BIT OF RAMBLING HAD LITTLE TO NO DIRECTION AT ALL- LET ME-- LET ME MAKE THIS START MAKING SENSE- WITH... DYNAMICS OR SOMETHING

I don’t think Xiao needs to sleep really- and i dont think that sleeping would do anything except make him uneasy at first- he’d probably just get nightmares after all he’s been through- but with Venti he would soon learn that it doesn’t have to be that way, lulled into the first peaceful sleep he’s had in... as long as he can remember.

anywho back to not making sense cuz im fickle and i think most questions about ships are best displayed through character interactions so like- a possible exchange thats cliche but cliches exist for a reason

Xiao: Why do you try so hard to help me, it isn’t easy. I know that much Venti, with the most adoring expression: Because you’re worth it, obviously Xiao: But surely there are others more deserving of- Venti: No Xiao, everyone is just as deserving as the next person, you included Xiao: Then why me above others? Venti: ehe, cuz ur my warrior of course [O//////O oh shit, hes right] Xiao: My contract is with Morax alone [gay panic but in broody yaksha]

it’s kinda difficult cuz neither of them really address their feelings.  I mean Venti does but he does it very indirectly and its rare that he ever does it with like- genuine directness- even spilling his backstory was in the form of a song- and told in the third person- so a lot of their interactions would often have some deeper meaning, especially with Venti being the bard he is. 

I come up with a lot of- errant thoughts about Xiaoven- but this is making me realize that a true analysis of their ship is rather difficult because it just encompasses so many dynamics so its hard to settle on just one and not go rambling about who knows what bouncing from one end of the ship to the other-  Because you truly can and thats the beauty of it

within one moment you can be having a heartfelt conversation about the archon war the impact of lost friends and times past, and the next moment Venti is trying to forcefeed Xiao an apple while Xiao screams about disrespecting the adepti and its just- so lovely

so while they have picnics with nothing but apples, dandelion wine, and almond tofu they can sit down and talk about the dreams Xiao once devoured, and the dandelion wine and apple cider that the first Ragnvindir invented from the plants that never could have grown in Old Mond. The foods that tasted of familiarity, or of the grilled ticker fish Pervases always used to eat, foods that tasted of friends and frankly family that had since passed, glaze lilies and cecilias and qingxin flowers scattered in the surroundings and woven into Xiao’s neat braids and Venti’s now messy ones, rebraided by the steady and inexperienced hands of one unused to gentle action. 

and then of course Venti steals Xiao’s tofu once the mood becomes too grim and replaces it with a bottle of wine that Xiao refers to as “vile poison,” a remark that fatally wounds Venti as he collapses on the floor, proclaiming how he can only be healed by a Yaksha’s kiss. Xiao ignores this of course and simply takes back his tofu with a slight smile on his face, but as Venti persists he soundlessly places a kiss on his own palm before intertwining their fingers and pulling him back up from where he was dramatically sprawled on the floor, grumbling about how such action was “unbecoming of an archon.” A sign of affection only Xiao would ever know about. But Venti is literally wind and I hc his senses work differently anyways so he definitely knows- plus Xiao’s face is red as the blood of his enemies and the way he is pointedly not looking at Venti at all really speaks volumes anyways. 

 -Venti playing epic battle music whenever Xiao goes into fights in what looks like a ridiculously extra performance to anyone else but is actually doing wonders to keep Xiao’s karma at bay

-Venti preaches the practice of “kissing wounds better” and Xiao is unfamiliar with this medical treatment but views it as unnecessary regardless because adepti have accelerated healing, doesn’t mean he’s going to stop him though. 

-Messages whispered on the wind

-Venti’s 1000 year sleep- an accident, not a fun time for the yaksha, and not a fun time for Venti once he woke up. Venti is actually more afraid of restful sleep than Xiao is, hence the sleeping in trees thing, but when Xiao is there, he can sleep restfully with faith that Xiao wont let another millennia slip through his fingertips. 

- Xiao tends to make excuses when doing things that aren’t necessary to his duty, like in his birthday voice line “Have this, it’s a butterfly i made from leaves... Okay. Take it. It’s an adepti amulet -- it staves off evil” because at the current point in his progress it helps him to feel like he’s allowed to do these things. Not wanting to put him off from progress, Venti never comments on his excuse but never fails to whisper a quick reminder of how proud he is of how far Xiao had come.

- Xiao’s karma saddens Venti greatly- not only because of how it effects Xiao but also because its a reminder that as much as Venti tries to honor the memory of those he’s killed, there will always be those who resent him for it, and when he took the option of living away from them, he truly can’t blame them. - And when he gets too wrapped up in thoughts, whether around this topic or similar ones or otherwise, eventually, he’ll hear the sound of a flute on the wind. It’s not divine by any means, but as his own wind connects him to the source, he gets the sentiment all the same. “What impact does one individual’s remaining wrath have on the present. You have done much to help the living in the present” the unspoken idea that Xiao has included himself in that statement, because now, with Venti’s help he’s beginning to learn just how to experience living for himself. 

- Venti’s form and Xiao’s mask are off limit topics though because if either mentions it the other will counter with the opposite and the mood will turn immediately bitter at the idea that both know that what they’re doing is destructive but neither are willing to change

- Venti who has different tells for negative feelings than most people because as much as he likes to pretend it is- this form isnt his, and Xiao who is able to identify those

- many fanfics and headcanons have Venti recognizing when Xiao is uncomfortable and getting him out of those situations. I see that and I love it but i raise you: - Venti taking Xiao to Mondstadt, careful that he doesn’t get to the point that he’s uncomfortable. And nothing goes wrong exactly, but Xiao notices the the way Venti’s cape is blowing in the wind, the way he’s holding his weight, barely on his feet so much as floating on the wind, connected with the ground only for the sake of appearance, all the while he looks just as happy go lucky as ever. And without a word, he grabs his hand and teleports them both out of Mondstadt.  - turns out it was just a slight thing that reminded him of the archon war (cuz i will die on the hill of him having more tragic backstory than just Decarabian), and he of course gives a sincere if not flustered thanks to Xiao, because he’s really not used to people noticing. 

- Venti trying to vent sneakily through fictional stories and Xiao is just like “Didn’t that basically happen to you” and Venti is just like “<_< shit”

- Venti once said affectionally that he wished he had met Xiao sooner and Xiao immediately and seriously shot it down by saying “If you had, I would have been forced to kill you” and both of them now stay up at night wondering who would have won that fight, not sure which result would have hurt more. (because honestly I have no idea who would win in that fight and that terrifies me- I like to think it would have been one of those legends that end with “and the fight persists to this day” or something along those lines)

- “How long have you been together?” “Adepti have no need for-” “1000+ years T^T how dare you deny our love” “O///O our...? ...useless”

- its disney- let me explain- i have this- i have this headcanon inspired by watching too many animatics- - so venti has a human form that isnt his- which he would have had to get used to moving in- and he’s a bard- - uh- anyway- as a third degree black belt in mixed martial arts, i can speak as an authority on this(not really an authority since i havent gone since quarantine but lets pretend). We have a thing referred to as the big three(most things do), and those things are martial arts, gymnastics, and dance. The idea is that they reflect really well off of each other and the best in any one category are good in all three. Timing, balance, form, discipline, technique, hand-eye coordination, grace, ease of motion, they all play a part- anyway-

- Venti taking Xiao’s prowess in martial arts and acrobatics and teaching him how to dance, and as someone who’s extremely skilled in the first two, the third comes easy to him, almost naturally. And it’s delicate and beautiful and lovely and it isn’t hurting anyone. And Venti points all these things out and more and despite how much Xiao insists that he feels ridiculous he truly does enjoy it and it goes a long way towards helping him form more healthy views of himself and his worth.  - Verr Goldett walked in on him once and made a joke about performing at the inn. unfortunately Venti was there and agreed on Xiao’s behalf before he could protest and- and it wasn’t as bad as Xiao thought it would be... he still wouldn’t do it again though without reason, but with good enough reasoning he could probably be convinced. 

- anyways point is he likes dancing to Venti’s songs and i just think that’s really cute - just picture the idea that all the animatics you see actually have the potential to be canon- ugh

- venti tries holding something out of Xiao’s reach since he’s taller and Xiao just fucking teleports 

- both need their space but when they dont, all they have to do is speak the other’s name and they’ll be there.

- and because i just had to.... love languages

- lets start with Xiao- i don’t think he’d view acts of service or quailty time as a love language tbh, and he blunt but really bad with words so affirmation is out, leaving gift giving and physical touch. However, he seems to view most material things as meaningless so- - Xiao who’s love language is in his fleeting touches, something he’s only recently grown comfortable with because of Venti, and now is giving back, which he knows he doesn’t have to do, but that he want’s to, though he’ll still continue to make excuses for each one. “you were shivering” “The inn is high up, you could have fallen..... I said what I said, you’d question an adeptus?”

- and as easy as it is to say words of affirmation for Venti- he does that for everyone- i want to say his is actually acts of service - its the acts of service that let him see just how much Xiao has progressed afterall, from teaching him to dance, to playing another song on the flute, to supplying him with the almond tofu he seems to enjoy so much. Every little thing he does helps Xiao to grow and he couldn’t be happier about that. 

-

- of course most of my headcanons for the ship do take place latter into the relationship because- y’know the less serious unhealthy vibes allow for greater range of thought, but i do still love to think about the serious implications so i kinda hopped back and forth. So sorry about how messy it is btw, i kinda- got carried away- it kinda got some kind of structure near the end tho so- maybe it’s okay. anyway- back to... lol something, we’ll see where thought forests lead. 

[spaceocean9]

I am back on my Wandavision bullshit! I am rewatching the show and there is so much that us bothering me with the framing of Wanda and her actions. It would be something if this was a phenomenon that was unique to this show, but I dont think it is. It is a small reflection of society and how we treat white women in relation to depression.

I am going to compare Wanda and Tony again. I am comparing Wanda and Tony so heavily because they both have well defined canon depictions of mental illness. Hell, Tony is even featured a psychology textbook as an example of PTSD in media. While Bruce and Thor also have mental illnesses (depression, suicidal ideation)they are not focused on as heavily or as seriously(which is a shame).

The treatment Wanda and Tony get in the narrative of the mcu are pretty different. Tony is constantly reprimanded for his behavior. He faces some sort of consequence in almost every movie, even if he has a mental health issue. And while his progress is shaky at times he always tries to do better. A big part of Tony's character is redemption. Even if you personality think that Tony should be punished more harshly, the point still stands that he is criticized in the narrative. The intention is there.

I would go so far as to say that sometimes the mcu is harsh to Tony when talking about his PTSD. His mental illness being outright ignored by teammates or the people around him for a long time. I totally remember in Iron man 3 when Tony tried to talk with Bruce about his issues and he was sleeping. It was supposed to be funny that he was highly disinterested. A lot of people are annoyed with Tony's PTSD rather than concerned. It doesn't matter if Tony is likable or not, that is not okay. And even though Tony saved the world and is hailed as a hero at the end of his story, it is important to remember that he is dead and his death was kind of framed like it saved him. Pepper says that he can rest now. That is clearly a reference to his mental health struggles. And I dont love that. Not at all, especially with the rates of suicide for people with PTSD. I have PTSD and that is a thought that haunts me constantly. That death is the only way my mind will relax. I am sure that the writers didn't intend for his death to come off that way, but I dont know. It feels squicky to me.

Wanda on the other hand isn't held responsible for her actions. She is downright coddled. She is presented as younger than she actually is in civil war. POC characters that she has tried to actively kill make a thousand of excuses for her, and even say that they would do the same. The POC people that she has killed( Johannesburg and Wakandan citizens)are pushed aside and ignored. She abuses Vision and it is not addressed. When he walks down in his retro outfit and she all fucking gleeful that he is going along with her whims, and then he states that it was the only thing in the closet; absolute chills.  Wanda knew what she was doing to the poor people of Westview. She might have not known at first but she caught on pretty quickly. Wanda is the villian Wandavision, even if the narrative doesn't want her to be and tries to distract you with Agnes. Agnes was just piggybacking off of Wanda's creation. She didn't create this nightmare. Agnes is only the big villian because she is opposing Wanda. Wanda is framed as the absolute victim so much, especially in this show. God, when Monica says to Wanda" they will never know what you did for them" I wanted to chuck my remote. WHAT?! She tortured them. Made them her dolls to play house with. She did nothing for them except give them trauma and uprooted their lives. The people of Westview are even presented as threatening and unreasonable at the end of the show, with them looking at Wanda and she looking small in her hood. Ugh, it so nauseating. I'm sorry, but the accords never looked so good right now.

There could be many reasons for this difference in treatment. I think one of the big ones is because Wanda is a white, skinny, traditionally pretty woman; and they are the face of idealized sympathetic media depression. I would even say that Wandas depression is treated with more care than Thor's and Bruce's. And PTSD is not understood very well. It flip flops back in forth between the" scary" illnesses( bipolar, schizophrenia, personality disorders), which leaves it in this realm of misunderstanding. There are actually a lot of people who don't even know its an anxiety disorder.

[angst-fairygodmother]

Girl Talk (The Song of Sway Lake Fic)

A/N: The moment has finally arrived! The first official collab/crossover between myself and @miss-kittys-magical-library​! I’m really excited for how this came out, and how much fun we had writing it together. 😊 Word Count: 3127 Rating: T - mild language, brief mention of blood, discussion of violence

~The Papermill bookstore, Sway Lake~

Selina burst through the door of the bookstore.  She almost doesn't wait for Jess to say hello or ask questions.  Selina is overcome with adrenaline, the exhilaration of what she did. A giant smile spread across her lips.  There's almost a dreamy look in her eyes.  

She's covered in blood: her hands, her jeans, the bottom of her shirt.  Selina held her hands like a surgeon so she didn't touch anything.  

Jess’s mouth hung open while she pointed nervously towards the upstairs.  Her friend knew where to find what she needed.

Selina comes out of the hot shower knowing Jess will be in the room waiting.  She found clean clothes but stopped to study herself in the mirror.  Somehow she felt like her body had changed somehow.  

Selina caught a picture of her and Jess and held it up.  How far they've come from the girls in the photo on her best friend’s dresser.

She glimpsed Jess in the mirror, a strange smirk on her face.  Selina knew something was up.  She handed the picture to her friend and spoke,

“Can you believe this was us?”

------

There had been a time in life where Selina and Jess had told each other everything, no matter what. And yet somehow this summer, one of the most eventful in recent history, Jess hadn’t told her best friend anything. Anyone who had spent any time on the lake knew about tensions between the Sways and...basically everyone, but especially Selina’s mother and her relatives. And more than that, it had been kind of nice to have a good secret all to herself for a little while. But she missed her friend, and would have loved her advice on what to do about the boy who was quickly becoming someone important, and a problem for her heart. 

She was just thinking about the other girl, wondering if she should call her after work, maybe suggest a bonfire or late night rowboat race like they used to have, when Selina burst through the door. Jess’s eyes fell to the blood first, and then rose quickly to Selina’s face and the expression that didn’t match the apparent situation at all. 

A thousand questions raced through her mind as she pointed her best friend toward her bathroom (not that Selina didn’t know where it was by now) and made quick work of closing the shop. She didn’t seem hurt, so everything else could wait. While Selina washed herself clean, Jess dug for any clothes left behind the last time she had come for a visit, and failing that, any old shorts and t-shirt. She left them on top of the dresser and poked her head into the bathroom to gather the discarded bloody garments and throw them into the wash. 

Selina was standing in the bedroom, studying herself in the mirror when Jess returned, and for a moment she wondered, again, if her friend was injured. 

“Can you believe this was us, what?”

Selina laughed, “These girls.  We’re just girls here trying to be grown women.  I sort of treated you like I did Sunny.” 

She waited for Jess to maybe bristle or tense up at his name. “I marched on to the beach, saw the first girl my age who had SOMETHING in common with me, and declared you mine.  We aren't little girls anymore.”  

There was a bittersweetness in her voice.  Selina didn't even care that she was naked. 

Jess laughed. She remembered that day, meeting Selina after escaping her siblings in search of a moment of peace and quiet, far from what actually found her instead. But they had got on so quickly she'd forgotten to be angry about it.  

"No, we really aren't," she agreed with a tinge of nostalgic sadness in her own voice.

She leaned back on her hands on the bed, watching her friend study the picture. "I never minded, you know. It was kind of nice to be claimed by somebody. You'll always be my first for that," she bit her lip, hoping the joke didn't come off as uncomfortable given the situation. 

Selina finally dressed and sat beside her friend on the bed.  Her knuckles caressed the other woman’s cheek before she swept the hair from her face. Without a thought, she leaned in and gently pressed her lips to Jess’s, tongue lingered a bit before she broke away.  

“That's from Sunny too.”  Selina laid on her side tucked under Jess’s arm.  “How is it that I was here for a few weeks, and youuuu have been tramping around Sway Lake with some chick?!  Have you gone FULL lesbian?” she dropped her voice low. 

Jess turned onto her side, propping a head on her arm to face Selina. 

"You two are so weird," she rolled her eyes. "I don't think I'll ever get used to that." 

Her stomach flipped at the thought of Sunny, eyes cast to the ceiling as her thoughts wandered. She loved Ollie, but there was something raw about the idea of losing the other boy, even though he wasn't really hers anymore and hadn't been in quite some time. 

She quirked a teasing eyebrow as she returned to the present moment and the woman beside her.

"If I was going to do that, do you think it would be with anyone else than you? Whoever gave you your gossip needs glasses."

Selina’s mouth dropped open, “There's a guy around here with hair that long?!”  

She linked her arm through Jess’s and pulled her in for a hug.  The other woman now wrapped up in her embrace.  Selina let her chin rest on her friend’s head as she stroked her hair.  “You feel happier.  Content.  Like you're just drifting along.  I know you loved Sunny in your own way, but this is different.  It's the,” she ran a hand up and down Jess’s body without touching it, “this.  Papa would call it your aura.” 

Jess grinned. "I am. I'm really, really happy," she answered dreamily. "Ollie's a really sweet guy. But only here for the summer…"

She swallowed down the lingering bitter taste her argument with Ollie the previous morning had left in her mouth, not wanting to burden the conversation with her fears. Especially not when she still had so many questions of her own. 

"But don't think asking about my love life is going to get you out of explaining yourself, missy." She teased.

Selina sat up, “Oliver Sway?!  Jessica!  Come on.  Any other Tom, Dick or asshole at this stupid lake.  Sunny.  Sunny’s RIGHT THERE.  Just grab him by the ankle and bring him back to Earth.  He needs you.”

She took a breath, “That.. harpie will tear you apart because you aren't good breeding.  It's Sway Lake because that's what those upper crust cunts hold over this entire town.  Sway.  Lakes dont belong to one family, they should belong to EVERY person.  Are Sunny and I the only ones NOT under this family’s curse?  First Tom, then Nikolai and now you.”  

Selina’s voice was full of disappointment more than anger.  She looked at her hands.  Her palms, white and clean, were just caked brownish red not even an hour ago.  “It can't be the both of us.”

"Nikolai?!" Jess asked, staring for a moment before doubling over in laughter. "Oh god it all makes sense now."

She struggled to contain her laughter, gasping for air and wiping away the tears in her eyes from it. 

"Fuck Charlotte Sway, I couldn't care less what she thinks," she said, sobering and then sighing. "It's not like I planned on falling in love with Ollie. But I did, and it kinda scares me. I really really don't want to lose him. And he hates her and the whole legacy bullshit as much as anyone. Let it all rot or burn or whatever."

Jess was silent for a moment. It was hard to say Selina was her only or even oldest friend. But they were best friends, for certain, and they knew everything about each other. There were even times when they were younger that Selina and Sunny had talked about soulmates and Jess had wondered if she were hers. Which is why her stomach twisted with guilt as she realized just how unsettled Selina was, and pretending not to be. 

"But enough about me, it doesn't matter. Are you okay?"

Selina took Jess’s hand in hers.  She laced their fingers together and laid down again.  This time she and her friend were side by side.  She was certain no one in any spoken language had invented a word for what the two of them were.  

Selina knew it was why Leon and Johnny always ended phone calls and visits with long hugs and I love yous.  Why Honey and Klaus showered each other with intimacy and affection Honey showed Leon.  Friendships that made people question your sexual intentions.  It was probably something in the Kostas skin, like a pheromone. 

The 23 year old pushed the thought out of her mind that everyone around them was their friend because they didn't have a choice.  Instead she squeezed Jess’s hand.  

“You know Honey, she holds grudges with a tight grip.  There's only two people she hates: Charlotte Sway and Reginald Hargreeves, and he's the one she really wants dead.  Charlie is lonely and miserable. That's punishment enough for Mama.  Papa always says she would make a great Mafia don. She DID like Tim Sway; 

cried when he killed himself.  He wasn't even Charlot-”  Selina cut herself off.  “Either way Ollie must take after him then.  I hope he does.  I think we played together when we were little?”   

She realized she was avoiding the question and wanted to deflect solely on Jess.  Sunny wasn't the only one who slept around up here, or had a weird effect.  Selina again panicked if maybe, somehow, what was in him was in her.  That the Russian on a canoe in the middle of the night would show up in the Village, screaming at her in the dead of night.  Some of the guys she fucked flopped around on top of Selina for a few minutes, got off while she stared at the ceiling.  Then they laid claim to her like any White guy who thought he owned someone else’s land.

“And don't laugh like that either!  I was doing my duty as a future nurse and helping someone who got hurt.”   

She watched Jess cross her arms, even on her back.  She was giving Selina THAT stare.  Selina threw her hands up. “Ohhh,” she whined, ”I was swimming, floating really.  Probably out further than I should be in the middle of the night, but that fucking moon.  And there he was on his way to get rid of those horrendous jet skis of Jimmy’s.  And he was flirtatious and made me groan, but also laugh?” 

Selina had pulled her knees up to her chest so she could hug them.  A far off look on her face.  “And he's very.. I didn't really pay attention to what he looked like.  WHO, right?  It was just this fire that went through me.  Like I knew him?  

“Mama always talks about the day I was born and speaking into existence this notion. That every version of her will be loved by and love Papa.  She thought it was blood loss creating insanity, but Sunny and I had designs on a love like theirs.”

“And the way Nikolai made me feel, and the way he knew my body?  We didn't even fuck; not like that.  I haven't cum that hard or much ever.  Even by myself.”

“Then he got hurt, and I made Sunny take me to him.  Ollie had saved him, right?  As we're stitching him back together, I see his face.  That face I grew up with three times over.  He's fashioned for me, Jess.  Maybe like Ollie is for you.  But Nikolai is Leon and Nicklaus and Klaus and he's made to be mine.” 

"No, no  I'm not laughing at that, or you," Jess promised. "Just...the first decent conversation Nikolai and I had, he mentioned meeting someone. Matching his description to you is what's funny. And the fact that you two are such opposites." Jess paused, smiling in fondness for both parties in question. "But it's safe to say he likes you, a lot." 

She felt silly now, not putting it together sooner. After all, there was no one else in the world she could think more aptly described as a siren made of the moon. And as funny as it was on paper, something about Selina and Nikolai made sense. 

 And, it made her heart beat giddily. Her faith in fate was complicated, but when it came to the Kostases, the concept was shockingly simple. And it seemed impossible that this was just coincidence, the four of them tied together like this. 

'Or maybe,' she silently scolded, 'it's wishful thinking so you can tell yourself you're not being completely crazy.' 

The rest of what Selina said registered belatedly and she blanched. "Wait. That was a lot of blood. Are you saying that it was all Nikolai's?"

“It was,” Selina replied softly.

"Jesus. What did he do, get in a knife fight?" Her voice was a mixture of concern and annoyance. 

She could see Nikolai doing something like that, to defend his own pride which he deflected onto Ollie, or for some other stubborn, idiotic thing. And now that there were two people she loved who would get hurt if something happened to him, she made a note to have a little chat with him about being so reckless. And to find Ollie later to check on both boys. 

"I know if he had you helping take care of him, I don't have to ask if he'll be alright." She nudged Selina teasingly with a shoulder, hoping to break up some of the heavy, contemplative air settling over them both.

“Knives don't cause QUITE as much damage as you think.  Unless you hit a vein.  Diego showed me how to do it effectively once.  Plus if he's like the others, Nikolai probably prefers fists to weapons.  Or the spider monkey sleeper-hold thing Klaus and Sunny do.  Although Papa stabbed Uncle Jonny once, it was just an artificial wound.” 

Selina suddenly scooped Jess up in her arms so they could go back to a cuddle.  She tangled her legs and arms around Jess to sort of dominate her personal space.  Her forehead pressed into her friend’s neck.

“He and Jimmy got into it, and they were on the boat dock.  Nik slipped and hit his head.  Ollie swam for like, the first time ever to get him up into a boat.  Had pressure on it.  I just stitched him with fishing wire.  They'll do better at the ER.”

Selina sighed, “If he's like them he wouldn't die anyways.  Klaus died like twice in a few days, also head injuries?  Either way, Nikolai would’ve been fine without me.”  

Then almost like an afterthought, “Did you say he talked to you about me?  Probably something about conquests and the Russian army.  But you!  YOU FELL IN LOVE this summer!  I got my pussy licked and think he's this mythical soulmate.  You're in actual, real love.”

Selina propped up on her elbow, “Have you slept together?  No I'm sorry,  YOU get to call it MAKING LOVE!!”  she burst into a fit of giggles around cheeks fired by jealousy.  “I am happy for you.  I promise.  I'm glad Sunny..  I'm just happy.”

"No, actually," Jess said, shifting around Selina so they tucked together more cleanly, like two matched puzzle pieces. This kind of closeness wasn't Jess's favorite thing, but Selina knew that, and Jess trusted that if she didn't need it, she wouldn't be initiating it. "It was surprisingly non-militant. And only one nautical reference."

Jess hesitated, remembering some of the incidents Selina had to deal with and one or two more from the summers that  Sunny, or Jess herself, had headed off before they got far enough to be a concern (or for Selina to even know). She wanted her friend to know just what Nikolai had said, and that he very much did not just see her as just some conquest. But the line between sweet and creepy was a hazy one at best. She brought one hand away from the tangle to fret the corner of her thumb between her teeth while she thought it over. 

"I'm not saying I'm jealous...but I thought it was romantic. And dramatic of course, look who we're talking about. But dramatic isn't always bad. I wish you'd stop dismissing yourself like that. Soulmate or no, you have some sort of feelings for him which seem serious; one might call it a crush at least. And he made you feel good. He made you happy. You're allowed that. You deserve it. And now, for the moment if not more, you have it, savor it." 

"As for Ollie and me..." 

She froze, frowning as she struggled to figure out just what to say. There was a part of her that feared a reputation of some kind (even though it was just Ollie that she'd been a first time for, and Sunny, but he didn't count). And another part that wanted to keep it to herself, even though most of her wanted to share. She bit again at her thumb, searching for words. 

"It's not that big of a deal?" 

Selina bit her lip before a yawn escaped her.  “One: a crush is a crush because you can get hurt.  Otherwise, it would be called a cushion.  I think that's what Papa said once.  Or was it Klaus?”  

Selina closed her eyes now. “Either way, it's a very big deal!  I can feel the difference in you.  I want you to be in love.  To maybe leave Sway Lake.  Come back to the city with me?  Close up this place for a few months.  You can live with me.  Or Oliver for a little while. Oh lovely little Oliver making my sweet Jessica come ‘round again.  All your sadness and little pieces everywhere.  I couldn't stitch you back together with fishing wire, could I?  I shouldn't have let Sunny break your heart.  I just didn't want being around me to remind you of him.  I'm sorry.  But Ollie.. he’ll..  Sorry, I think I'm a bit delirious from adrenaline?  Mind if I nap a bit?” 

But Selina was fast asleep before Jess could give permission.

Jess shook her head with a smile, carefully extricating herself and tucking her friend into the bed. Selina had given her a lot to think about.