#of stuff to discuss

[somewhereincairparavel]

"jason is a knockoff watered down percy" NO hear me out, jason actually parallels annabeth immensely, sharing SO many similarities with her personality, not percy, in this essay I will-

edit: my full analysis is out now! here

[ddddd-pixels]

For International Asexuality Day, I'm hitting you all with the Ace Beam. ☺️

(This took a lot more effort than I thought it would, lol...)

Edit: 800 notes?! In less than five hours?! Thank you all so much!!

Edit 2: 2000... The most I got on any post before was just over a hundred, lol. You are all so nice!

[australet789]

Some assholes on Instagram saying that Epic fans are "gaslighting" themselves about Odysseus being faithful to Penelope because of the Circe part and being pretentious about it and how we are stupid for considering The Odyssey romantic

Motherfucker

1. The Odyssey is an epic poem we all fucking know that? That it's a tragedy, technically comedy (comedy in ancient literature used to mean "happy ending", not funny stuff)

2. The Circe bit can be interpreted in different ways, as if it was fully consensual or not or just a transaction. There was still a difference in power dynamics, which was 100% mentioned by Calypso in the beginning, but if you choose to ignore that part if the same as saying some of Zeus' kids were ok to be conceived because the women agreeded to what A GOD wanted.

3. Obviously Epic!Odysseus is differente from Homer!Odysseus, but trying to say Homer! Odysseus is a horrible person that fully wanted to cheat on Penelope just because you want to defend ALEXANDER HAMILTON, i have bad news about you.

4. "The crew had to beg to go back!" I read the Odyssey too. As a child and a few days ago. They stayed on Circe's island to rest so Odysseus job as a captain was literally wait until his crew told him they were ready to leave, specially after what they have lived. Odysseus didnt force anyone to stay in that island, when the crew went "oh, sir, we miss our families, please lets go back now, yes?" Odysseus immediately said "ok". It literally felt like a father waiting for the kids to stop playing in the playground.

5. Homer!Odysseus is not perfect, at all (man killed his disloyal maids because he didnt want to deal with shit anymore, even if they also were coerced/raped by the suitors), but come with a better gotcha than Circe. You are just fixiated on the Telegony and it shows.

6. Idk what to tell you, but if you think renouncing a life with two inmortal godesses (one of whom offered you immortality), traveling for 10 years defying a God's rage, killing 108 men who wanted to marry your wife (and ruined your house), almost killed yourself when said wife rejected you only for her to go "haha i was just testing you, silly :)", have your literally marriage have a word created for you two specifically is not romantic... Idk go read Bridgerton

[bunnis-monsters]

People who hate on reader inserts will not survive the winter.

Fanfiction writers keep your fandoms alive, and that includes reader inserts writers.

[umblrspectrum]

tessa, being the edgy little freak she is, obviously took the original darkxwolf username

[teratomatica]

you always land on all fours

[thatwavephenomenon]

Do not think about Anders having to write copies upon copies of his manifesto by hand. His manifesto has to be sent or handed to people, as many people as possible, in order for things to change. He has to convince them. They have to read it, they must. So he makes copies to hand out. By himself. Because he could never afford to have it printed. Printing is way, way too expensive. He knows it. One of his best friends, Varric Tethras, is a writer who keep having books published, but Varric is also well-off enough to cover any unexpected cost. Still, Varric isn't interested in his fight, and any printing shop who would dare to risk being under templar's scrutiny for helping him would surely ask an exorbitant fee, and Anders could never repay such a huge favor. So he write all those copies by hand, for hours. Because people has to read them for things to change. But they do not in the end. They do not read them. Not even his own friends read them.

[teaboot]

Social anxiety level: Chatting with someone experiencing a schizophrenic episode and becoming increasingly self-concious of how I'm just saying "That sounds really stressful", "I've never heard of that but it sounds scary", and "You must be pretty worried about that" over and over again

[nonbinary-vents]

A lot of non Jews just do not understand ashkenormativity and what non Ashkie Jews mean when we try to discuss it, and it’s really getting infuriating to me. Non Jews think ashkenormativity equals Ashkenazim being like, the privileged oppressors of all Jews, when that is just… completely not the case, and sometimes actually the invert— the early 20th century, for example, was not a good time to be Ashkenazi among other Jews, Samech Tet supremacy was a pretty big thing. Ashkenazim do not have a ‘one up’ on other Jews when it comes to how Jew haters see us, in fact, there’s actually some specifically Ashkenazi specific bigotries and conspiracy theories, things like Khazar conspiracy or chunks of leftists Jew hatred.

Some examples of actual ashkenormativity is the neglect to try to preserve and document Jewish diasporic languages that aren’t Yiddish, or the heavy focus on Ashkenazi history and oppression while downplaying everything else— I can not sit through another Jew trying to say that Jews had it good as Dhimmis or that Mizrachim were living it up with the Islamic countries until we got expelled, please I will explode—, or acting like the epitome of Jewish food is Kugel and Latkes, or the generalisation of non-Ashkie Jews as one cultural group, or the way Mizrachi culture has been looked down upon and seen as ‘primitive’, and are you seeing the pattern yet? Ashkenormativity is an intracommunity issue, and it works fundamentally differently to how most non-Jews think they understand it. It’s mostly based on the idea of neglect and the centralising of Ashkie experiences, not whatever weird idea you have of ‘Jewish racism’. If you’re trying to define it as that, then you’ve fallen for some intense disinformation and propaganda, or you yourself are knowingly spreading that to demonise Ashkenazim. Frankly, I really don’t want any non-Jews to be involved in these things at all, because it’s a self contained Jewish issue, meaning that outside communities can’t really change or work on the problem. It has to come internally.

There are a lot of things I want the Jewish community to improve on when it comes to non-Ashkenazi subcultures. I want things like my family’s customs, diasporic languages, cultural tales, foods, all of that to be preserved, cared for, and revitalised in the same way that many Ashkenazi counterparts are. I want the neglect of our Jewish subcultures to improve. I want to not feel like crying when I hear about how my mother grew up being looked down upon and being embarrassed to be spoken to in her mother’s native language in public, I want to be able to know that’s a complete thing of the past and there’s nothing that resembles it at all now. I want to be recognised properly.

I do not want, in any way shape or form, to make Ashkenazim less safe, or have Ashkenazi culture be less cared for.

Trying to tear down Ashkenazim, who are just as vulnerable to the non-Jewish world as the rest of us are, who need just as much help and respect from the people on the outside, and whose cultures are just as valuable, just as beautiful and integral to the Jewish people as anything else, that is evil. It’s just evil.

[soulbrand]

man you all were not kidding abt the therapyspeak in veilguard.

[bisexual-king-icon-tonystark]

the most devastating thing a ficwriter can do is delete their fic. i make a desperate appeal to all ficwriters, please, even if you think your work is shit, leave it on fanfic sites anyway. any piece of your work that you have done is extremely valuable and valid.

[cacodaemonia]

I have several recommendations for addressing the specter of compulsory sexuality—and the marginalization of asexual people—within sex positive frameworks. ... Third, sex positive frameworks should avoid a narrow focus on guilt and shame that solely emphasizes guilt and shame associated with the presence of sexual desire/activity. Sex positive frameworks should also emphasize that guilt and shame can be associated with the absence of sexual desire/activity.

[avpdpossum]

can we talk more about avpd being a (proposed) schizospec disorder? because i almost never see that theory talked about but i wish it was. like…

avpd makes me censor my thoughts because i think someone might hear what i’m thinking and see what a horrible person i am on the inside or judge me for thinking embarrassing things.

avpd makes me so afraid of someone walking in on me doing something i Shouldn’t Be Doing that my brain twists background noise into the sounds of whispers and footsteps behind me.

avpd makes me so worried about people staring at me that in my peripheral vision, anyone near me looks like they’re already staring at me, and it’s only when i look at them directly that i realize they’ve been looking in a totally different direction the whole time.

avpd makes me so convinced of how much everyone must secretly hate me that i often start thinking everyone secretly wants to hurt me too, to the point where i’ve had panic attacks from a person walking too close behind me because i feel like they’re getting ready to attack me (when i haven’t had any kind of trauma that would create that fear), and the paranoia just serves to reinforce my need to avoid people.

avpd makes me lose my ability to speak or reduces it to nothing more than one word answers only when spoken to, turning the thoughts i wanted to express into a jumble that’s impossible to turn into words or just throwing them away completely and making my mind go blank, so i end up just staring at people silently or even acting like i don’t see them standing there at all (not on purpose but because my brain won’t let me engage with them).

avpd makes me look damn near emotionless around everyone but my safe person (and sometimes even around my safe person) because showing my emotions would be far too vulnerable for its liking, so it completely takes away my ability to express them.

and i could keep going! there are so many things i experience because of avpd that i’ve seen really closely reflected in the experiences of schizospec people. i don’t know how common these kinds of things are in avpd overall, but they’re a really prominent part of my experience with it, so when i found out that some research suggested it could be considered a schizospec disorder itself, that made so much sense to me! and i’d be so curious to see how many other avoidants have dealt with this stuff but haven’t talked about it because it’s never mentioned as being part of avpd.

[cannibalisticdespair]

So, humanity is at over eight billion people. Time for a bit of statistics education for y'all, because I feel like it.

Okay, take a group that's around 1%. At least officially, it could possibly be higher. So like,

BPD: 1.6% officially

DID: 1.5% officially

Trans: 1.14% officially

Schizophrenia: 1.1%

These are American statistics, but presuming that overall none of these have some sort of strong cultural cause, they should be representative of the norm of humanity. Now, let's get the raw number estimate out of this. What we're going to need to do is multiply 8,000,000,000 by 0.016, 0.015, 0.0114, 0.011 respectively.

128,000,000

120,000,000

91,200,000

88,000,000

So, this a rough estimate for the number of people in each category respectively. Bit bigger than you might assume when you hear "approximately 1%", right? When you hear "approximately 1%", you're liable to think something is super rare. And in proportion, yeah, sure.

But plot twist, I'm discussing misinformation and bad propaganda. Did you know the internet allows disparate groups of small populations to connect and form larger communities than was ever possible offline due to how irl populations are distributed? Now, imagine a community of just 25% of trans people. Using the prior information, you can do this calculation yourself.

Done it? Did you get 22,800,000 people? Good job. If not, the calculation should have been 91,200,000 x 0.25. Now, imagine a community online of 22,800,000 people. That's a pretty damn big community online, right?

And this here shows how false claims of the level of visibility of various groups online being the result of "fakers" and "trenders" is. Those claims rely on your inability to understand that even 1% of humanity is 80,000,000 people. You aren't seeing anywhere close to 80,000,000 different people posting about it. You aren't even seeing 1,000,000 people posting about it. You are seeing a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of humanity posting about it. Social media just enables that itty bitty bit to find each other and interact.

[fafodill]

The exact wording of the ask I got was: 'what if someone was asking deprived!Snape (read my whole essay about him) to "break them off a piece of that KitKat bar?" How would they go about it?'

So today we're going to discuss this. Buckle up people.✨

SO his reaction will largely depend on the context and their current relationship but one thing that will happen FOR SURE every time before anything else is that he's going to think they're messing with him.

What else could it be? This man had been so heavily bullied as a teen his self-esteem is buried and has its own tombstone.

"Here lies Snape's self-image. Spit to pay your respect."

We don't have any canon proof of it happening but many people headcanon that some of the bullying might have been people being dared to come up to him and fake attraction or compliment him (so funny omg) only for him to realize they were just messing with him. It's totally the kind of immature stupid shit kids will come up with (speaking from personal experience here). Not funny but deeply scarring for one's self-image. So being told he's attractive would trigger him in his adult life. Any potential suitor asking him out would be welcomed with him immediately closing up and getting angry at them. They'd need to find a way for him to believe them first.

If you're thinking "this already sounds like a pain", yes it is. Welcome to deprived!Snape. Welcome to Snape, basically. If they want a piece of him, they have to brace themselves for the long run.

He will get angry and leave a lot. Fleeing the situation - since it's a very vulnerable subject for him - will be his go-to move. The whole ordeal will require patience. So what should this person do?

Friend or Stranger?

If it comes from a DE he'll think it's an angle. If it's from a member of the Order, he'll think it's a joke. If it's from a colleague at Hogwarts, he maaaay be a tad less suspicious? In any case, it will depend on how close they are. The more time they have spent together, the closer he'll be to not flip out... too much.

I'm a bit torn about his reaction if it was coming from a stranger. Either it's easier because he can lean into the idea that maybe they're lying about their attraction and he doesn't care (and if he's horny then why the fuck not, it won't affect him as much since they both now they're here for physical release) OR he might not be into it at all because he actually needs a real connection (and I think this is more realistic). Severus is a feral cat, he needs time to trust people.

What else? He could also maybe open up faster with someone not from his usual inner circles (a foreigner or a muggle) as the interactions wouldn't be charged with the same deep-rooted habits and expectations.

I also believe he'd unconsciously feel way more at ease with someone coming from a modest background. A pureblood aristocrat hitting on him would have little chance of getting past his natural distrust of them (unless he knows them very well).

So what should they do?

Build trust

The quality of their interactions and conversations will have a huge impact. Do they have an interesting personality? He needs someone capable of taking him on and keeping up intellectually. Can they keep up with him and challenge him?

Severus has a temper. Can they deal with his bullshit and not give up on him at the first scowl? Argue with him? It doesn't mean they can't be nice, but I don't see him get worked up over someone cowering under his gaze.

They need to be stubborn. He's a Capricorn and he's got the horns. He's hard-headed. They need to not back down when he bites or dismisses their attempts at flirting. One of Severus's classic tactic is to hurt people so they leave him alone, so they need to be able to dodge the attack, make fun of him or retaliate.

If they manage to deal with his temper, they will start to see what's on the other side of the snarky exterior. Then, they'll be able to start kneading the dough (Severus is the dough).

Convince him the attraction is real

That person could go the gentle/honest way, assuring him they're not kidding and explaining what they find attractive about him (he'd be super wary and need days to digest it - if he can). Genuine compliments could work quite well as he's good at reading people but it would be a process and it shouldn't be too much at once. He's NOT USED to compliments so if the person goes too hard, he's going to get overwhelmed, distance himself and reject it. A good trick would be to compliment his intelligence and magical skills alongside physical traits. A 2/3-1/3 ratio would be a good start. He would trust compliments about his big brain way more than anything regarding his cute butt.

Complimenting his presence, aura, voice might be good too as it's not directly related to physical traits. Else, physical starters could include hands and eyes. But I also love the idea of taking him by surprise and complimenting his nose. Might weird him out in a good way.

Or they could go the blunt way (or what I now refer to in my mind as the @maxdibert way) and be like "dude, I really think you're hot, deal with it" and leave him to sort his feelings out like a big boy.

The two strategies can be mixed of course. But at the end of the day, the real problem is that Severus as approximately a thousand confirmation bias in his mind telling him this is not happening. So what could they do to help ease this process?

Make him horny

Less overthinking = more chances to get this piece of ass.

Severus Snape needs to be warmed up. And as stated in my previous essay, he's plagued with the core beliefs that he's ugly, ridicule and undeserving. These beliefs need to be kneaded and challenged enough (not healed, this would take decades and it's not their job), so that he can relax and open up to the idea of intimacy.

Here are a few strategies to do so.

First, de-dramatize the subject. Making the topic less taboo by talking about it in a lighthearted way (no flaunting! certainly not!). A good move would be to joke about it. Deprived!Snape isn't comfortable with the subject but it's because it's evaded him and then he convinced himself he wasn't concerned or interested.

-> Here are some of the things he could benefit from hearing: that sex is not a big deal at all and we can laugh about it. It should be fun, a shared moment, trials and errors are part of it and there should no be judgment about experiences and preferences. People with a high 'body count' aren't necessarily good lovers, it's all about presence and intent etc.

His potential partner could share funny mishaps that happened to them and - when there's an opening - ask him what he would expect from a pleasant intimate moment (that's a very advanced move, don't forget he's bad with words)(it would only work in my opinion if they're both drunk and have been going at it for a while).

Also sharing experiences is a great way to build trust and intimacy (and arousal). He thrives on knowledge so learning more about his potential partner might ease his mind in some way (and give him some free intrusive thoughts). See it as added ingredients to make him simmer.

Though they shouldn't talk too much about the number of partners they had and said partner's skills. This might make him retreat. Again: low self-esteem and always on the lookout for an excuse to sabotage it.

Wait what about drunk!Snape you say? That's a trope we enjoy around here. Although I headcanon him as not being a heavy drinker (if a drinker at all because of his father) it would be a great way to lower a bit his inhibition. A DE would have a hard time sharing a drink with him, same for an Order member (he never stays after meetings but could be coerced), but a colleague could maybe drag him to the Three Broomsticks with other members of the staff and then leave early with him. wink wink Come on, rub his foot under the table and look at him choke on his ale. He'll skin you alive with his eyes and you can just raise a suggestive eyebrow back.

Persistence, persistence.

Of course a bit of physical baiting could help with his dusty libido. After all, they'd kinda be dealing with an teenager, experience-wise. Nothing too bold (though I headcanon that his sooty Cokeworth self would get way more worked up over unabashed desire than delicate courting but he's buried a bit too deep at the moment) but a nice cleavage, some leg showing, a fitting pair of pants or robes might not be a bad move. Since he might be uncomfortable with words, they could flaunt the goods in his face! The man has eyes, let him look and scold himself for looking. Also a few heavy looks, biting a lip and lingering fingers could go a long way for such a deprived man, especially if it's directed at him.

At the end of the day, the trick is to make him able to put his worry aside (or snap, if you find the word sexier).

They could go the provocative way, being insufferable and making him want to shut them up.

They could try some endless teasing until he's a lost hot mess, unable to express what he wants except by going 'fuck it' and going for it.

They could go slower and create a safe space with a weekly ritual (every Friday night meeting for a drink/to grade essays/to hang out) which can lead to a late night snog (floating candles optional).

They could be blunt and go 'I want to kiss you so bad right now' as they leave Hogsmeade together and are walking on the dirt path towards the castle. A gust of wind will prevent him from hiding himself behind his hair and they'll see the flush creeping on his face.

They could hammer the compliments and validation, because Severus craves recognition (is there a praise kink in there? yes). So first it could be his mind, his work, his skills... then the way his cape suits his frame so well, his silky voice... and then bam, hitting the nail on the head with complimenting his mouth. Blabbering mess guaranteed. Might flee but blush deliciously. Or might stop dead in his track and then it's time for them to claim these lips.

Kissing

Clumsy. Tentative. Awkward.

But earnest.

He might freeze at first. Wait, these lips knew how to do that once upon a time... how does it go again? He'll need a bit of time to remember but the best way to (re)learn is practice.

It will be a lot for him. As he's extremely touch-deprived he'd be literally rediscovering human contact. So much to feel, the supple of the lips, their shape, the softness, the wetness.

Honestly, deprived!Snape could get really worked up just from kissing.

(They could honestly make him cum just from this and some grinding. Amen. If he does he'd need reassurance after and still might flee and hide and snarl for a few days because male performance blahblahblah. Hopefully they'd be able to skip this step at this point in the relation.)

But I believe he'd enjoy it greatly and this might be a step he'd want to stay at for some time before going further.

Undressing

I headcanon deprived!Snape as being very self-conscious about revealing his body so it might only be possible with someone he really trusts. It might be painfully difficult for him (might require dimmed light if not obscurity but I mean come on, they're here to look at him and it'd be better for him to rip the bandaid... but giving him the option might help).

Either he'll be too aroused to care (or act as if he doesn't) or he'll feel very self-conscious and look for cues to confirm his belief that his partner will find him disgusting. It's the right moment for them to express their desire.

If for some reason he gets too triggered and leave, they wouldn't be back to square one but again, patience is key. He needs time. Or maybe they could convince him to stay and try to resolve the situation by stopping the intimacy and just talk about something else. It could be good practice to show him this isn't a big deal and that everything is fine.

But at this stage, complimenting him sincerely (no coddling) whilst not hiding their arousal could work nicely. Sprinkling some of the fantasies they had about him as well. ('I've been dreaming about these hands on me', 'You have no idea how much I've been wanting to kiss these lips to make you shut up', 'I laid awake at night thinking about touching this part of you'). Showing appreciation with touch could convince him more though and it has the advantage of preventing him to think too much.

But really, he won't like to focus on his appearance as it's something he has no control over so they should -unfortunately- bite their tongue and keep the flood of horny compliments to themselves at first. A new one might be fed to him once every two weeks to slowly build his confidence.

In Bed

Deprived!Snape is: prideful, yearning for control and very sensitive.

Now honestly I could make a whole other post with the different scenarios where he'd be more top or bottom. Instead, I will focus more on what would happen either way.

He'll want to learn. Because Severus is nothing if not a scholar. He's got a very curious nature regarding topics that interest him so if his partner is showing him how they like something, he'll get super serious about it. He will try to touch them in the exact same way at first and he's a fast learner so once it's mastered, he'll experiment. And he's going to be good at it.

That man got dexterity and an inventive mind. And that's canon.

But his focus on his partner might also be a way to keep control during this highly new situation. Depending on how self-conscious he is about his inexperience, shifting the focus on him might be a challenge. Maybe letting him take the lead could be a good idea. But maybe shoving him against the mattress and seizing control is the way to go here.

Now, he will be very sensitive, won't he?

Yes, he might. He might be a whimpering mess in no time. His partner should be cautious and gentle with him. Severus letting his guard down and letting them touch him is a very big effort coming from him so they should savor it and be sure to make it feel safe if they want this to happen again. Help him relax, let him breathe, don't hesitate to pause if he gets nervous. The walls will be destroyed, moan after moan.

But what if he isn't sensitive?

That's a possibility as well. He's been by himself for years and his wariness of intimacy and people is wired in his cells at this point. He's disconnected from his own body and never pays attention to it. He might also tense heavily once in bed with his partner, the vulnerability of it accentuating the disconnection. He might not feel pleasure, might get frustrated and feel angry or inadequate.

This situation - which I find very interesting and seems like a realistic follow-up to him wanting to kiss for a long time and struggling with undressing - is tricky and will require diplomacy and more patience.

But maybe this could be a dealbreaker for him. If the payoff isn't worth the discomfort, he could easily take it as a confirmation bias that intimacy isn't for the likes of him. The best course of action could be to focus on non-sexual aspect of intimacy.

But this essay is way too long already so I'm going to stop here.

What should I write about next? Is there something you wish I had addressed here? Is there something you'd like me to discuss next?

UPDATE: so a few people seem to be mad at me, demanding I keep on elaborating SO. Let's say I'm done here for the 'how to bed him' part (which was the premise of this essay) and I'll do another one following thoughts and possibly... focusing on the different roles in bed (top/bottom/switch) for our dear Severus. See you there.

TLDR: He's gonna be a pain, his partner needs to have calming draught for their nerves but in the end it will be very rewarding because he's starved and inventive.