#tbh I've had to learn to love the way I take up space in a lot of ways over the years

[cookinguptales]

Please forgive me the rant but I haven’t slept for more than like four hours at a time in over a month so I am On The Edge and like

If it seems like I talk about mistakes and how it’s okay to make them a lot, it’s probably because it’s something that I have tried to teach myself as an adult and it’s something that’s really important to mental health!

(cut for a long rambling and sleep-deprived thing)

When I was younger, I wasn’t... really given that kind of freedom to fuck up. I went to a tiny combination middle/high school (which means that pretty much all my teen years were in the same place with the same small group of people), which was made worse by the fact that both of my parents eventually came to teach there. My RSD was really, really bad when I was younger (I mean, it still is but at least I know what it is now) and I think my parents could tell that I was already dangerously high-strung, so they weren’t that bad about my mistakes, but... how to put this without sounding like an asshole..

Kids had to interview to stay at our school between middle and high school, and not every kid got to. (Public charter school, it was weird in many ways.) Some kids stayed because they were artistically talented, some kids stayed because they were really nice and tried hard. But it was made very, very clear to me that I stayed for my test scores. lmao. I was in the 99th percentile on every standardized test. My PSAT score was a few hundred points higher than everyone else’s. I was the first kid in my school to ever get accepted to an Ivy. What I’m trying to say here is that I had... a reputation.

And I don’t think that most of my classmates meant me ill? But they had me mentally registered as “the smart one”, and it can be easy to reduce kids to a specific stereotype at that age. It was a really small group of kids and I was always expected to be the best, testing-wise. I literally had kids come up to me after we got every test, quiz, and assignment back to see what I got in order to gauge their own scores. Kids who were in higher grades than me. 

I think I can count the number of times I didn’t get an A on something on one hand, and my classmates never let me forget those times. If I answered a question wrong in class, literally everyone would know it by the end of the day, and I’d get ribbed endlessly about it. If I didn’t do an assignment on time, everyone would whisper.

Add to that my parents being right there so people also ran and told them... Let’s just say I was under a lot of pressure to be right about all things at all times. lmao. And of course I wasn’t! I was a teenager! A really, really sick teenager, at that. (I spent pretty much all my free time with doctors, on heavy medication, or sleeping as a teen.) But every time I made a mistake, I suffered for it. I think that combined with the RSD made me feel like an absolute fucking failure if I so much as mispronounced one word in class. I would spiral over the least little mistake. I vividly remember emailing a friend once because I realized I’d made a mistake about a trivia point when talking to them the week before and I felt like I had to confess. It was pretty bad.

Things were a little easier in college. I actually went to a school known for being very academically rigorous, but everyone there was smart! I met some of the most stunningly impressive people you’ll ever meet in your life there. So if I wasn’t always the smartest person in the class, that was fine. And god, that was actually such a relief??? People always used to tell me I was a big fish in a small pond at my high school and I needed to be prepared to get Cs in college and be outclassed (awful thing to tell a teenage girl, btw) but I was actually looking forward to being normal for once in my life so much. And I mean, I did actually get As and high Bs on almost everything when I was there, so I did excel and most of my professors really liked me and my work. But there was much less pressure to be perfect, and that was a breath of fresh air.

So that... helped. But it’s still very difficult for me whenever I make a mistake about something, even if it’s just some dumb fandom thing on tumblr. I think it’s ingrained at this point... It’s one reason that I don’t like playing games with other people; I’m not always good at them, and the idea of failing at something in front of others makes me feel kind of nauseated. But at a certain point, I realized that I’m really kind of depriving myself of the joys of learning and experiencing things without a safety net if I’m just terrified about being wrong all the time. You can’t throw yourself into new things freely and with your whole self without making mistakes. And holding a piece of yourself back because you’re always afraid of messing up is frankly kind of exhausting.

So I’ve made a really conscious effort the past few years to do things I’m not good at and be kind about the mistakes I make. (Side note, the only thing I was allowed to be “bad” at in school was art because I was one of the only ones there for my brain instead of my artistic skills and that was another common joke, so now it’s almost the opposite with my creative endeavors...? I have a hard time accepting praise when I’m good at something artistic now lmao. I’m so hypercritical of myself. What a mess! So I’m trying to get better at internalizing praise, too.) 

And part of that has been realizing that I never judge other people for making mistakes around me, unless they are uh... egregious and/or mean-spirited. In fact, I usually like the opportunity to teach someone something if they’re laboring under a misconception. But I never afford myself that same judgement-free learning opportunity, which is sad! So I’m trying to make a conscious decision to treat myself the way I treat others, which is with a kindness that I am unaccustomed to. lmao

It’s kind of funny because now when people start to treat my opinions with respect in fandom I’m just like “oh no, don’t do that, I’m an idiot like everyone else here! I have zero insider knowledge!” But I’m doing my best and I’m not stupid and if it turns out that I’m wrong about stuff, we’re just gonna have to learn to live with that. lmao

(Look, you can be smart and a dumbass at the same time. I am certainly at the intersection of those two traits and I choose to find that endearing.)

This was a long rant. I am extremely sleep deprived, haha. But yes, please don’t ever feel stupid if we’re talking and I make a correction or something. I don’t want to ever make someone feel like I do all the time. I want us both to learn and grow without fear of judgement, and I want us to learn to take up space and be awkward and fuck up a lil sometimes while still being loved. By ourselves and by others. I’m trying really hard not to make a tortured plant metaphor here, so instead I’ll just end this now.

I mostly just had to get this off my chest, but if you actually read all this, thanks for listening. haha.

[detectivebambam]

For the choosing violence thing.

I curious about your thoughts on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24, and 25

(Your thoughts make my day tbh)

lol i gotchu pinky

the character everyone gets wrong: Dan. she's not a badass. i mean she is, but she's not. she's a scared little girl who had to raise herself and has no idea what she's doing at any given time and i love her for it

why andrew would never top or bottom: actually he does both, and tends to enjoy it. kind of an agressive top but Neil likes it, and sometimes likes to follow orders when he bottoms 🫣 i think they do anything and everything with each other. Neil could be dominant or submissive at any given time, which gives Andrew space to learn about what he actually enjoys. He finds that as long as it involves Neil, he doesn't mind

worst tumblr take I've seen: that Andrew was a misogynist because he doesn't like being manipulated, and "manipulation is a woman's weapon" like how is THAT not misogynistic be so real

why did you block that annoying person?: kept saying that Kevin abused Riko as much as Riko abused Kevin. don't know how far they had to reach into the depths of their asshole to find that one, i just hope they didn't get stuck

i don't have discord

which ship fans are the most annoying: y'all are going to absolutely murder me for this but kevaaron. 1) where did it come from? 2) what's wrong with Katie?? 3) no hate ship what u want but also, i can ship what i want? and it's fine it's literally fine

what character did you start to hate because of fanon: i hate to say it but Thea. i adored her when I read the books originally, but after 4 years of exclusively fanon content i didn't like her. but i did a reread recently and adore her again so it's all good

common fandom opinion everyone is wrong about: Andrew being a sex god. Neil is his first consensual sexual partner. like yeah he knows how to suck dick like a dying man, which he learned in juvie (when he was 13-16?) but in terms of sex? he doesn't know what he's doing and he's probably really scared and nervous

worst part of canon: kevin and thea turning their daughter into a mini Raven 😔

worst part of fanon: Renee erasure 😔😔

fandom related words you've filtered: as of currently? anything tsc related because I don't have access to it yet and people aren't tagging properly. but I also have Rinee (rixo x renee) blocked because,,, what do you actually mean

unpopular character you like and why people should like them: Aaron. yeah he's an asshole and a little homophobic but he was raised that way and he's getting better

worst blorboification: if this means what i think it means, fucking riko. like wdym "he serves cunt" he needs to serve time

answered prev

answered prev

you can't understand why this is popular: kevaaron, any riko ship, riko himself, ichirou x neil, andreil breaking up in fics ?

there should be more of this: fic: oral fixation. sexual or non sexual idc but let's Freud these bitches. fanart: ANDREW WITH LONG HAIR PLS PLS PLS

it's criminal that y'all have been sleeping on: STUART HATFORD. LITERALLY NEXT TO WYMACK ON THE FATHER FIGURE SCALE. I LOVE HIM

you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like: i don't feel guilt I'm Presbyterian

part of canon you found boring: anytime they were in class like wdym

part of canon you think is overhyped: this one is going to get me in trouble so i wanna start off by saying that yes, Riko was a victim of abuse. I'm not disputing that at all. but the part where he got beat by Tetsuji and "was more blood and bruise than skin", while being horrible, was also because of Kevin leaving due to Riko breaking his hand. Tetsuji lost one of his biggest investments because of Riko's petty ego

fav part of canon that everyone ignores: Stuart Hatford man

ship you've unwillingly come around to: Kandreil lol. i didn't like it at first but idk the more fanfic i see I'm like yeah that could be cute

topic that brings up the most rancid discourse: picture this, if you will: Nora Sakavic says something about her own damn characters. yeah that's all

common fandom complaint you're sick of hearing: "it's poorly written" it's not. if you can get over the first chapter of The Raven King, the rest is actually written very well and it's so so beautiful and depicts traumatized characters in a way I haven't seen before that is very refreshing

ty for the ask pinky ily

[willowser]

how fuuunnn, i was tagged by @itoshisoup to do a self fic rec ! 🥺🩷✨️ which is so sweet !! i — really had to think hard about this, and i have so many that kind of rank in the same space for myself LOL but !! ty for the tag mao 😌🍑🦋🌻 ( fyi !! : all these links are to ao3 and my works are currently set up to only be viewable by those with an account ✨️)

･ﾟ→˚₊ ┊ love to say this to your face: "i love you only" -- bakugou x reader; fantasy au; nsfw.

i had so much fun with this one tbh !!! doing it for the teahouse fic exchange 🥺🩷✨️ i love fantasy au, love arranged marriage, love a language barrier 🥺 and i'm proud of some of the lines in this one 🥺🌻

･ﾟ→˚₊ ┊ well, i've been saved by the grace of southern charm -- bakugou x reader; cowboy au; nsfw.

not done yet LOL but ! i love cowboy bakugou. i'll always love him. getting to indulge in southern elements is so fun LOL and i think i did an okay job conveying the emotion in this one, maybe ?? and i'm really excited for what's to come with it, bc i think the message is important 🥺🍓

･ﾟ→˚₊ ┊ now that my broken bones all have been healed, i think i'm starting to feel -- kirishima x reader; kid fic.

i really enjoyed koji he he he i took a lot of inspiration from my nephew ajfhsjaka and !! i think reader and kiri fit well together ?? idk how to explain it. they both have faced heartache, they both have had to learn patience, how precious time is together, just little things !!

･ﾟ→˚₊ ┊ pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name -- touya x reader; canon divergent; generally nsfw just bc dabi.

ptmy is my little baby that's in kindergarten rn. i don't know how else to explain it to you than this LOL it's so low on my list bc, looking back at it — there are certain details i wish i could change !! and those details stick out in my head so much when i think about this fic 😭 but ! i love it for the love touya is going to get 🩷✨️

･ﾟ→˚₊ ┊ and you take me the way i am -- bakugou x reader; assistant au.

ah. my first child. my dear, my darling. i — can't not love this fic bc it's quite literally put me right where i am LOL and i think...a lot can be said about the first fic you write for a character, and this reader is probably truest to me, personally, so i definitely hold it close to my heart for that reason. but ! just like ptmy, i read it back and wish i could edit it !! LOL

tagging (only if you want to 😌 !!) : @sipsteainanxiety @namodawrites @petrichorium @crybaby-bkg @bfbkg

[moonlit-positivity]

Sometimes when changing our old behaviors, patterns, learning new things about the world & about ourselves, theres this very precious thing that can happen to us internally.

"What if I disappear if this part of me leaves too? What will happen to me now? What if I'm not gonna make it without this part of me there? It's always been there, and this is how I've had to live the whole time. I don't want to leave it behind."

It can feel like self abandonment in a way, to come to terms with acceptance. There's this wall of defeat you have to climb each and every time, and that wall is denial, anger, bargaining, and grief.

Denial has you looking everywhere else except the reality. You'll do everything imaginable to just, not look at it. Turn the other cheek. It doesn't exist! We don't look at it! It's not there!

But then as time passes, yeah, it's still kinda there?! Wow what a jerk. Now we gotta go project that anger onto something & someone else, bc I didn't ask for that?! Who put that there?! And because, you know, denial is still jerking us in the opposite direction, that anger only grows in intensity until it's time to sit it down and ask it what's wrong.

Then Old Man Bargain Depot shows up, and tbh he's not such a bad guy once you get to know em. He means well. Honestly, he does. But he's still a scam artist. He'll try his best to sell you everything else in the box first. "Can we go back to how it used to be instead? Maybe if I work a little harder, this won't be happening??" Thing is, he's not really that old once you get to know him. He's actually the youngest one of the group. He's your baby, your inner child. And he wants you to know he's sorry and if he could have changed it, he would.

And honestly, all of them are kinda young, because the wall you're climbing is more like a waterfall. You're not meant to swim upwards. But yeah, you'll try it. Over and over and over until it sinks in, you're drowning. Things won't be working the same way as they used to, because you're taking in more and more of the world around you. And now you know enough to see it for yourself, that you're in need of a change.

These old parts can feel so deeply rooted in all that we do. Our identity constructs depend on the ways we cling to the things that bring us comfort and help us cope with our life, even if maladaptive or harmful to us. Once upon a time, they weren't maladaptive at all. They were what saved us. Thats normal! That's just the cost of living!! The ways we adapt and survive!!

But when it's time to "change", or "shed the old layers and grow new parts," the emergency cling of "oh my god I'm gonna disappear now please no go back go back!!!" That's also more normal and healthy and I don't think I ever see this part mentioned out loud, that theres a grief even in grief itself. You're mourning who you used to be, how you got here, and all the hardships that brought you from one bad time to the next, all lined up in a way that others have probably given you a hard time for, bc this world is fucking nuts sometimes and there's never any encouragement for the healing process without someone making you feel like shit for it.

So when those old parts are clinging so hard, I hope you find the courage to embrace and celebrate all the ways you have lived so far too. Acceptance doesn't have to be defeat. Acceptance can also be a life long relationship with your inner world, where you acknowledge it was hard and maybe not the best thing youve had to go through; but also look forward to all the ways these parts can come with you in the future too!! And make space in your life for these parts to have loved and existed and for your experiences to stay a part of who you are!! Because you don't really need to throw them away like they were old garbage. Acceptance wants us to grab hold of those moments and cry, grieve it out, and find the compassion to say, "i love you anyway, because I needed it. Thank you for loving me, thank you for getting me through, I know it's different now, but you're always gonna have a place to stay here. I won't leave you, I won't abandon you, you're safe, and we can make this home, too."

Over and over, as many times as you need to! Because yeah healing sucks, yada yada, nobody likes it. But yeah, you kinda deserve to be celebrated. Yeah, you just do. You're a good person who bad things have happened to. You don't deserve to feel bad for that.

❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

((moonlit reminders of the day))

❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

[dameronology]

you and me [joel miller] - 1/2

"now i've had time to think it over, we're much older and the bone's too big to bury" - jaded, miley cyrus. a.k.a the one where you and joel see each other again and don't know what the fuck to do

warnings: angst, swearing, break-ups, swearing again because my god there is a lot, mentions of alcohol, mentions of death, no tlou 2 spoilers but probably some spoilers from the show. ok i think that's it.

this is my first full length joel fic and tbh i'm not even sure i've got the hang of his character lol. also, it's been about four years since i played the game and i'm writing this from memory of that and the show so pls forgive any inaccuracies. hope you enjoy. xx

jazz

p.s there will deffo be a part 2 to this lol dw

2 0 1 8

Life outside the Quarantine Zone was different.

It was both better and worst; better because there was no military breathing down your back, but worst because the Infected roamed free. It made Joel more tense - even when he kept you firmly behind him, rifle ready to go and finger itching on the trigger - to know that they could be anywhere. Sure, the military sucked but the biggest threat now was the Infected, and you'd come to learn a long time ago that there was no point arguing with his overprotectiveness. It was warranted, after everything he'd been through, so you operated under three rules: he went first, you went second, and if anyone was going to die first, it was going to be him. That last part was the one you loathed the most but he wasn't going to make the same mistake again.

Still, there were moments outside the QZ where he could let his guard down. When you were far enough away from civilisation, and far enough away from any hoards, he would let himself exist beside you, peacefully and at rest. Those nights camping - sometimes on the way to Bill and Frank's, or on a smuggling run - were his favourite. Sometimes it was beneath the stars, or beneath a tangle of trees. It was a tiny insight into what things could have been like in another life, without outbreaks and infected and constantly being on the move. They were moments he craved but so often, you found yourself hating them. Mostly because you knew they would eventually come to an end, but also because it was proof that you could exist out of the QZ. You'd felt like the place had been suffocating you for months. For you, it felt like a death sentence. Joel didn't love them either but he liked that you were both safe there. He could easily find you amongst the walls and you only ever left together. The thing that he thought was keeping you together was actually, in your mind, the thing that was driving you apart.

You'd pose the idea to him (for the tenth time) on a cold night, about four miles outside of the Boston QZ. The two of you had set up camp in the thickness of a forest; your tent was older than your respective ages combined and the fire was dwindling, but you were both content. Joel was leant against a tree, an arm wrapped around you and keeping you firmly to his side, free hand ready on his gun.

"I don't think I want to go back."

Joel peered down at you, quirking an eyebrow. "The hell are you talking about?"

"To the QZ," you said. "I don't want to go back to the QZ."

"This again?" he sighed - but you couldn't ignore the way his grip on you grew tighter. Tenser. "We've spoken about this a thousand times. The QZ is safe. It's...it's our home."

"Just because our stuff is that doesn't mean it's home," you murmured. "After this run, we could just take our stuff and go. We know the way out, we know how to run at this point, don't we?"

"It's dangerous out here," Joel reminded you. "We know how to be out here for limited periods of time. Those routes, those safe spaces and uninfected areas will run out eventually. So will our resources."

You sighed, sniffing. "Yeah. You're right. It's a silly idea."

"Hey...look, baby, don't get all mopey on me now," he shuffled slightly to the side, gently placing his hand on your cheek. "The main thing is that we have each other, wherever that may be. We've just gotta stick to the QZ for now but I promise, I'll get us out eventually. Just hang in there."

"Of course," you gave him a smile.

"It's you and me," he quietly added. "That's what matters."

"You and me," you'd replied. "I promise."

Still, Joel couldn't deny that he'd seen the light in you withering - the light that seemed to come back every time you were outside of the QZ. He knew you were stubborn; that once you had an idea in your head, that was it.

That's why he wasn't surprised to find you gone two weeks later.

2 0 2 3

Joel, my love,

I'm sorry. I'm never going to stop being sorry, but I tried to tell you a thousand times and you never listened.

I couldn't live that way any longer. I wanted to leave the QZ the day I got there, but then I met you, and I stayed longer than I ever imagined. You made it bearable - more than that. I just couldn't carry on anymore, especially knowing that the outside world may not be all that bad. It would be even better with you, but I can't force you to do something so drastic when you don't want to. That's not fair on you, but forcing myself to stay wouldn't be fair on me. Putting myself first feels like the worst thing in the world right now, but I have to do this. For me. I hope you can understand. I love you and I don't think I'll ever stop. I hope we cross paths again one day. It's you and me, always.

Joel Miller carried two things with, always. Three things, actually; his rifle, the letter you wrote him, and the grief that you'd left in your wake. It wasn't your fault - and Joel didn't blame you, not one bit - but he couldn't help but feel like it was his. You'd told him you'd been struggling and as he often did with his own emotions, he'd forced you to swallow it down. He thought that would have kept you together but unsurprisingly, it had driven you away.

Life, as it always had, went on. People came and went - though you never came back - and before long, Joel found himself trekking through Wyoming for the second time. Ellie had consumed all his priorities at that point. She had healed more than one of his wounds, but the night she'd found that letter in his bag and began asking questions had re-awoken Joel's yearning for you.

"Joel Miller, a relationship man? I never would have thought," she'd joked. And she hadn't really stopped asking questions since. She'd wanted to know how you met, how you fell in love, and most of all, why you'd left. Though, it didn't take a genius to guess.

The first time Joel had been in Jackson, he hadn't actually spent much time in Jackson. He'd been in the workshop, then in the bar with Tommy, and then he'd left with Ellie not long after. Now that he was there for the foreseeable future, he found himself wandering one morning. Ellie was still dead to the world, and he'd taken it as an opportunity to see what the fuss was actually all about.

Joel had never believed in ghost towns; maybe that was what this place had been for a while, but most of his ghosts resided back in Texas and Boston. Not Jackson. He had no history here; no one except from Tommy knew he was. Maybe he liked it that way. Maybe that was his chance for a fresh start, for him, and for Ellie...and for you, apparently.

He felt like he had seen a ghost the first time he saw you again. Coming in from patrol with Tommy and Maria, you were leading a horse at the front of the pack. You didn't look any older - if anything, the freedom and comfort that Jackson had brought you had de-aged you slightly. You were radiant; beautiful and shining and with the spark that Joel had always feared he'd strangled out of you by forcing you to stay in the QZ.

He hadn't meant to call out your name. It just sort of happened. It had been a whisper at first, actually, growing into a shout as he crossed the town square and towards the gates. You'd recognised his voice straight away but you hadn't actually believed it to be him. It wasn't until you saw him coming towards you that you realised. It hit you like a truck; actually Joel hit you like a truck, because he hadn't really thought about hugging you, and you in too much disbelief to hug him, so you sort of just fell to the ground in a pile-of-you-and-Joel-and-snow.

"What the fuck, Joel?!" your words had been muffled, on account for the mouthful of snow you had. "What the...what are you doing here?"

"What the fuck are you doing here?!"

"You didn't answer my question," you shot back. Joel stood up, sticking out his hand to help you up. You were happy to see him - and he was happy to see you - but before the happiness, there was the other a thousand complex emotions that had risen in your time apart. "How on Earth did you get here from Boston?"

"Couldn't I be asking you all the same things?!" he'd demanded. He sighed, then, and faltered for a moment. "Shit. I can't believe it's you."

Joel took a deep breath, anger fading; he finally held his arms open to you, taking you into a warm, desperate hug for the first time in five years. Your bodies practically thudded together, arms tangled into one as you clung onto him. You didn't regret leaving - not one bit, now that you were here, not that you were free - but god, there had been days where you would have traded all of that freedom for one more day with Joel. There were no radios here, so you'd hadn't a clue if he was even still alive.

It had been worst for him, because he did have a radio. And he spent days waiting by it, hearing story after story about people being found dead, or new Infected being found by the walls of QZ. They had matched your description on more than one occasion, and after a while, he'd just assumed the worst.

Tommy cleared his throat. "I won't ask, but if you need a moment, the bar is empty."

You glanced at Joel. "Yeah. Thanks Tommy."

Trudging to the bar, with Joel in tow, you walked in silence. It wasn't that you didn't have anything to say, it was just that you didn't know where to start. You'd gone over this scenario a thousand times in your head but now that it had actually happened, you were speechless.

The bar was, as promised, completely dead. You stepped inside and locked the door behind you, heading straight to the whiskey shelf. A double Glen Morangie for you, and a double of the cheapest stuff for Joel. That had always been his favourite.

You took a seat opposite him, sliding the drink to him.

Joel's dark eyes flickered to the drink and then back up to you. "You remembered?"

"I didn't forget a single thing," you shot back. "I promise."

"It's funny - and forgive me if I sound shitty for saying this, but I hope you can understand my position right now - but your promises...I can't say they mean much," he murmured.

You faltered slightly, heart dropping in your chest. "I don't blame for you being angry at me, Joel. I left you and obviously that hurt but can't you see it from my perspective? I was drowning. You could see that I was fucking drowning and you just...you ignored me. You brushed it aside because of what you wanted-"

"- I wanted you," he cut you off. Joel downed his drink in one gulp, slamming the glass back on the table. "All I fucking wanted was you."

"You wanted me in the QZ," you reminded him. "I told you I couldn't stay. A thousand times, Joel, and you ignored me on every single occasion."

"And leaving was the solution?"

"Yeah," you said firmly. "Yeah, it was. I wondered for a while, maybe two years or so, and then I joined a bunch of other stragglers and we ended up here."

"And Jackson isn't suffocating?"

"When I can come and go as I please? When we have running water, electricity, houses and infrastructure?" you couldn't help but let out a derivative laugh. "For what it's worth, I've missed you."

Joel's angry guard quickly came down with your admission. He reached a hand out across the table, brushing a thumb over your palm.

"I've missed you too," he murmured. "The people on the radio...they always spoke about finding bodies and Infected, ones that matched your description. I assumed after a while you were dead."

"I'm sorry," you softly said. "I wish you knew how many times I thought about turning back. Even recently, I thought about it, but I was scared I was gonna come back and find you dead, or even worst that I would find you alive and that you wouldn't want to know-"

"- you think that me rejecting you is worst than me dying?" Joel raised an eyebrow, trying to fight back a smile. "You're always so fuckin' dramatic."

You smiled. "Yeah, I know."

"It hurt, y'know," he went quieter again, voice dropping to a whisper. "You leaving...I knew you spoke about it but I didn't think you'd do it. Not without me, at least. Not when I promised to try and get us out-"

"- you hurt me too, Joel," you admitted. "It was all well and good to say one day, I promise but when is one day? Every time I tried to tell you how I was feeling, you shut me down. You shut me out and then you shut me down."

"So you're sayin' I drove you away?"

You paused for a moment; you could have denied it, you could have said it was all your own doing and that Joel's purposeful ignorance to your suffering wasn't relevant. He wouldn't have believed you. There was no point in denying what he already knew was true.

"Yeah," you shrugged. "You did. And I'm sorry about it, okay? I'm sorry that I left, but I didn't do it because I stopped loving you, or because I wanted to get away from you. I had to get away from everything and there hasn't been a single fucking day since I left that I haven't thought about you, or missed you, or wished that you'd come with me..."

You stopped then, barely able to swallow the lump in your throat or ignore the tears that had formed in your eyes. Joel was feeling a too - maybe just not as visibly - but he so desperately wanted to take his words back.

"I don't know what I'm meant to do now," you continued. "Now that you're here...I don't know how long for-"

"- for the foreseeable future," he said. "I have a kid with me. She's not my kid, but she is my kid and....she's the best thing that happened to me since you. Don't tell her I said that."

You smiled slightly. "The foreseeable future, huh?"

"Yeah. This seems like the best place to be, compared to the rest of fuckin' country," Joel replied. "Especially if you're here."

"Right," you nodded, smile not faltering. "I'm glad you're here. Despite everything."

He raised an eyebrow. "Despite everything?"

"You gotta understand, Joel, I'm over the fucking moon to see you. To know that you're alive, and well, and that..." you paused, trailing off.

One thing you hadn't expected to feel when you saw him again was hesitance. Anger, and resentment, and fucking hesitance. It was something you hadn't realised you were harbouring, but knowing that the man you loved had purposefully ignored the way you felt - even five years ago - hurt. You just hadn't realised how much til now, and seeing him had wrenched all those unhealed wounds right up, tearing them from the back of your brain and making them fresh all over again. Especially when he'd had the audacity to be angry at you - maybe rightfully so - but then not understanding why you might be angry at him.

There was an elephant in the room: what happened now? Did you get back together? Forget about everything that had happened, so that you could be happy again?

No. That ship had sailed. It had sailed, and then it had hit an iceberg and sank, and it had whatever versions of you and Joel that had existed then down with it.

You grabbed your drink, downing the whiskey in one gulp in the same way Joel had just moments earlier. "I'll see you around Joel."

[takeariskao3]

What kind of relationship do you think Harry would have had with Jily? Do you think he would have been a mama’ boy or daddy’s boy? How do you think his childhood would have differed? What about his personality? Do you think he would have noticed Ginny sooner?

my strength is not meta. i'm just going to throw that out there. i am not great at analysis, or receipts, or even deconstructing symbolism... so as much as i've asked myself these exact questions, it's impossible for me to do it without pondering them through the lens of a story.

so i am going to do it, but i need to let everyone know that this is from a very specific alternate universe that i've created in my mind.

okay now that i've got my preface out of the way, i have Thoughts (!!!) this is long so i'm putting a cut

i'm going to go point by point if that's alright?

the first hurdle you have to overcome is 'how are they even alive?' it's hard for me to imagine a jily lives scenario in a typical canonverse, so let's go with a no voldemort au. even then, it's hard for me to imagine james and lily with more kids, so again, for my purposes, let's say harry is an only child.

harry as an only child with two loving parents is a whole different harry in a lot of ways. we can argue that he was in a perpetual state of fight or flight for the first eighteen years of his life. canon!harry dealt with massive amounts of grief, loss, guilt, and responsibility at an incredibly young age. jily lives harry just... doesn't have that? so how do we keep harry... harry? and not some completely unrecognizable oc?

i like to think lily and james were still "every child in our world knows their names" famous. this gives harry the discomfort of growing up in the public eye, and also a decent amount of impossible expectations to live up to. it also gives him some degree of separation from his classmates and other kids his age, which is also quinnessential to harry's journey. and that's fun to play with as a writer.

despite these areas of tension, i still think harry and his parents are extremely close. I think james is harry’s best friend. i think harry goes to his mom for advice about most things. and i think with love and support behind him, harry is given the space to think first before he acts, instead of act first, think never. this also gives the parts of canon!harry that he (and most everybody else tbh) take for granted to really shine. his resourcefulness, his determination, his cunning can you see where i'm going with this? take the driver's seat. james and lily are incredibly intelligent and gifted magicians, and somehow i don't think they would coddle harry. they would love him. fiercely and without question. but i also think they would give him space to solve problems on his own and learn life lessons the hard way (lily more than james, let's be honest)

all in all, i think if you take away the instant gag reflex canon!harry had to malfoy's proposal of friendship as well as slytherin being rooted in pureblood dogma, i think harry ends up sorted into the silver and green. his independence flourishes, but so does his loneliness. and i think harry gets home sick a lot. james and lily are his people. and we know he's not super good at expanding his inner circle.

as far as ginny goes, i still like the idea of him getting clobbered over the head by jealously when he accidentally stumbles upon her with another bloke. so i don't know that i would change that in any universe. i like it too much.

i love thinking about this kind of stuff. it’s honestly super inspiring and fun! thanks for the question!

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

Why tf is harrymort something you ship? Not only is Voldemort constantly trying to kill Harry, has killed Harry's parents, threatened to kill all of Harry's friends, and actually did sort of kill Harry, but like. He's definitely over fifty in the books. IDK how old he is exactly, but he's old enough that he was a feared political cult leader missing 6 chunks of his soul and a Hogwarts graduate when Harry is a baby. It's creepy, man.

Bruh, all of my ships are incredibly problematic in more than one way. I'm suspicious over that being the only one you seem to take issue with.

1.) You lack imagination. HP is a very fleshed out fictional universe with many options at your fingertips for fanfic. Tom Riddle appears throughout the series, in the ages newborn, 11, 15, 16, 18, 20+, 30+, 50, and 70. Harry has appeared in the ages of 1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 37/38. Time Turners exist. Alternate Universes exist. You can do literally anything because HP is a massive sandbox. I can have Harry find the Diary in his 6th Year and then he is actually older than Diary-Tom. I can have Adult-Harry Time Travel to any point between 1950 and 1970 and end up in a relationship with Adult-Tom.

2.) What attracts me is the potential. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean there aren't ridiculous connections between Harry and Voldy. People would see Voldy's obsession as some kind of mad crush if Harry was a girl and we all know it. Just because Harry's a boy doesn't mean Voldy getting touchy feely isn't weird, or Tom staring at him 'hungrily' many times isn't suggestive, or Harry remarking 18 times between 2 books that Tom Riddle is 'handsome' while doing nothing to tell people about how attractive the supposed love of his life(Ginny) is.

3.) My weakness is Protag/Antag ships. Ever since I was a child and a romance was happening in something I was watching, my first thought was always preferring the hero with the villain. I didn't understand why until I was about 13. Suddenly it's, how would that work? How can they realistically go from being enemies to being in love? Can any fic writers manage it since it isn't canon?

Bruh, I shipped Sailor Moon with almost every enemy she had(even Diamond tbh). I shipped Kagome Higurashi with Naraku and Sesshomaru from the moment those characters were introduced in the story(Inuyasha). Long before we learned any back story on them. I shipped Naruto with almost every member of the Akatsuki at some point out of curiosity the moment I learned about the organization. I shipped Kaname Kuran and Zero Kiryu(Vampire Knight).

As a result of my Protag/Antag obsession, most of my ships end up being unhealthy by nature. Even in cases where they are undeniably canon, like Luo Binghe/Shen Qingqiu | Shen Yuan, they aren't very safe or sane.

Something you need to remember is that it is fiction about fictional characters. Real people are not being harmed. And the only way someone could realistically be 'triggered' by such content is if they go to specific lengths to see it. You have options to curate your online experience. Don't follow blogs/accounts about topics you don't like, mute words/tags that bother you, block ppl who make you uncomfortable. It takes a few minutes to ensure your future is hassle free.

I'm at that age where I've been in fandom spaces so long I don't care about people's ships or interests. Spending my personal time worrying about some stranger's obsession with Tragic Non-Con Reylo fanfic won't do me any favors when I honestly dgaf. I'm here for the fandom stuff I like and only occasionally participate in discourse, and that is never aimed at ships and is always about characters and the people who wrote them.

So yes, I ship fucked up shit, and I could write the fucked up stuff(maybe, if I ever get emotional strength to) but typically I'm more into nuance and drama and slow burns that take 400K words to work through. I don't do Non-Con Triggering horrible stuff because mentally I can't handle writing or reading it very much. But I'm also not up in arms over the people who do. Let people like what they like. Ship and let ship. Live and let live. They're pixels on a screen or words on a page. They don't exist. They aren't real. They are meant to entertain us, and how people find their enjoyment in fiction isn't for anyone to decide.

[jabeur]

i was tagged by @drunkenromantic and @steffigraf to do the get to know me tag thank youuu <3 (ericka i'm doing it on this blog even if you tagged my main sdksdn)

1. Do you make your bed?

not always but i prefer to! it makes my space feel neat and welcoming (even if it's just to myself lol that's what matters) and it's so nice when i get home and my bed's all tidy bc i made it before going out it's like. ah yes i beat mental illness this morning

2. Favourite number?

19!!!!!

3. What's your job?

an office job in a social cooperative. specifically my office's digital transformation which probably means nothing to anyone

4. If you could go back to school, would you?

well you see. absolutely not! i mean i could probably take night classes to get a high school diploma, i don't want to but i could, but like actually going back to school ? jesus, no. middle and high school were awful

5. Can you parallel park?

i can't drive (yet ?)

6. Do you think aliens are real?

yeah. not in a conspiracy theories way or whatever but i think it'd make sense if they were

7. Can you drive a manual car?

i can't drive any car (yet ?)

8. Guilty pleasure?

mh i don't know? maybe that i too often fall into the temptation of eating outside of meal times and that ruins my appetite and my schedule which makes me mad at myself sdjsjdbs

9. Tattoos?

i have two (like ericka!) both on my right arm. one's inspired by my favorite place, porto selvaggio in puglia (southern italy) and i love it sooooo much i think it's so pretty (and i get compliments about it pretty regularly which is impressive bc it's not Super easy to see but it catches people's attention who want to see it better). the other's a person painting 3 stars with the lyrics "cambia le tue stelle" underneath. i'd like to get more, but same issues as ericka (what to get?? they're fucking expensive) BUT i'm thinking of like getting an addition to the stars tattoo bc basically the 3 stars represent 2 people + 1 pet who passed away that i love very much and now that my sweet little cat ripy is gone too it feels right to get something for him as well. but i have to decide stuff and i'm super bad at decisions lately :^)

10. Favourite colour?

blueeeeeee. any shade tbh. light blue dark blue pastel blue cobalt whatever. i love all blues

11. Favourite type of music?

i listen to a lot of different genres, in different languages, from different decades etc 😭 but i guess if i had to pick, rn i'd say i lean more towards r&b, classic rock and italian pop

12. Do you like puzzles?

yes!!! word puzzles my beloved! i suck at crosswords but i'm trying to do them anyway bc it is so satisfying when i finish one and it's a good way to learn stuff and keep my mind sharp. i like physical jigsaw puzzles too but actually i haven't done one in aaaaages. now i want to tho

13. Any phobias?

no i don't think so

14. Favourite childhood sport?

i played volleyball during my childhood/early teens, i liked it (i wasn't particularly good at it tho). i didn't really play any other sport until tennis (after i dropped volleyball i think? memories are hard) i love tennis but i didn't take lessons for nearly long enough to be decent at it lmao

15. Do you talk to yourself?

yes all the time. now that i live alone i'm always going on monologues while i pace around the (small, it's a lot of back and forth lmao) apartment or do chores or whatever

16. Tea or coffee?

both. tea tho, i prefer it hot so i mostly drink it during the cold months. i actually didn't drink coffee until like 2 years ago then i got a job and..... being around working italian people, i was doomed to start

17. First thing you wanted to be when growing up?

a writer or journalist

18. What movies do you adore?

so many????? i love cinema. if this means like, genres, then again so many. i'll just give you 3 movies i've watched lately and loved: wife! be like a rose! (1935), letter never sent (1960), calcutta 71 (1972)

idk who's done this already or been tagged so feel free to ignore this but i'm tagging @shapovalovvs @lewisfencer @fortyfive-forty @belteppismo @tiiresias @marcotardelli @carlosheinz <3

[toastess-with-the-mostess]

VF Lance HCs

It's been a little bit since my last HC list, but I want to write down what I've got on my second favorite blorbo, also because I can't remember if I did one for him already

This got long, so for dash purposes the hcs are under the cut <3

He's an orphan > basically taking from i believe both the comics and V3D, Lance lived on a colony planet. One day a space pirate raid happened and killed everyone in the small village he lived in except for Lance, he did try to get home when he saw it happen but fire errupted and blocked him from getting back. It kinda turned out to be a good thing because any pirates on the ground completely missed him, almost like the fire had protected him

He was in the adoption system until joining the military > Since he was technically an Earth citizen, he was taken back to Earth to be put in the system, he bounced around homes a lot because of the trouble he'd cause or straight up because people thought he was too broken to be a good kid to care for. Eventually, at 16, the GA offered him a place and a way to get revenge for the raid, so he didn't even hesitate on taking up the offer

He's anti-military > Lance isn't stupid, he was in the system for a long time and because he bounced so often he learned to read people well. He knew the GA was taking advantage of him and his grief but he didn't care as long as he got what he wanted. Unrelated to him though he publicly hates the military because of how unnecessary it is most of the time and because the GG itself is a shit organization

He's part alien > Coming from a colony planet, it's no surprise more than just humans were there to settle. Lance doesn't know what species he's a part of but he knows it was far back enough that the family members he knew about didn't look like anything but human. Though he does have his suspisions even though he never says it out loud because his ear shape looks oh so familiar to one of the alien races he is in contact with a lot

He has a sixth sense > Now Lance doesn't really have tangible evidence of it but it's a hell of a coincidence for his gut to tell him something is wrong and be right about it every single time. Even the force (as cadets) didn't believe it at first until it kept happening, he has debated on opening a psychic stall to get easy cash.

He dyed his hair ginger > In my redesign of him I did give him ginger hair but I've decided to change that. Feeling like he had no control in his life during the 5 years working with Wade, he impulsively dyed his hair ginger. Hunk and Pidge laughed at him but it was pay back for laughing at Pidge's new haircut that made him look even shorter than before

He's a wine mom to the cadets > It's no secret he's tired of the cadets pulling stupid stunts, especially the kind of stunts HE did when he was only a few years older than them. Those kids drive him to alcoholism but goddamn does he worry about and love them a lot. He didn't want to bring the cadets into the fight so early but the only consolation he gets is that there's seasoned superiors to help them out compared to his own team being alone and forced to figure it out themselves

He's an alcoholic and nicotine dependent > Lance would rather not talk about when he started smoking, but he got started drink the same way every other teen who grew up to become an alcoholic did, underage drinking at parties. Eventually, he got so tired of the shit the academy would do to him that he drank and smoke as a release, which started him on his addition for both. Now being back on Arus, he still does both but he's been trying to quit smoking at least, mainly because of Pidge and Allura and now including the cadets. He and Keith still drink a lot together though so that isn't going away soon

He flirts for fun > Lance had originally flirted to hopefully start a relationship with someone or just to get lucky tbh, but eventually he got tired of it. Now he just flirts because he likes the reactions but he never intends to make anything seriously go down. The only people he ever actively flirts with are his team (sans cadets obvs) because they know he doesn't mean it and they even flirt back for the hell of it sometimes

He plays piano > this man SUCKS at every other instrument other than piano, he doesn't know what it is that makes him terrible at it but after he learned piano he's made sure not to get too rusty every once in a while. Sometimes he and Pidge do duets on the grand piano that the castle has in one of its rooms, it's one of their ways of bonding since Pidge is the only other person who knows how to play

Lance has a passion for teaching > He absolutely loves to teach, while working in the garrison as a flight instructor it was one of the few things he actualy enjoyed, the paperwork much less. He discovered this when first training Allura to be a pilot and member of the lion force, his nack for noticing the small things helped guide her to being the force of unruly ocean she is today. This is also the reason he's the cadets main mentor, he knows what to get done and even if the paperwork is boring the cirriculum is fitted to work with him as well

He has a slight pyrokinetic power > This only manifested after the pilots had died in their lions during their comet episode in dotu. The lions themselves had revived each of their pilots and with that, they all became forever tied to each other. A side affect of this is access to some mystical abilities, for Lance he accidentally sets things on fire, legitimately he doesn't know how to control it. Plus if he gets worked up about something, the immediate area around him has its temperature spike. He also has more access to the lions magical abilities but that's kinda unrelated as everyone else has that too.

I have a ton more that I both can and can't remember but I'll stop it at this, i'll probably make another and link this one to it

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

Hi there! So I'm gonna start off with the fact that a lot of people say that I come off as blunt and ask rude/insensitive questions, so I do apologize if I do that, as it is not my intention! Just trying to learn more about stuff. *Sorry if anything is offensive, not the intention!*

Oh, also, secondly. Love your blog, it's absolutely amazing and it's great reading it.

Ok, so questions!

Question 1 (and this is kind of personal, so feel free to not answer. Actually, feel free to not answer any if you don't want to.): Did you recognize that you had NPD or did someone tell you? If someone else told you, is there anyway that you would've liked them to phrase it better or be more sensitive (or anything else)?

Question 2 (less personal? Maybe?): Are there any organizations that you know of that act like they're for NPD, but are actually really harmful (like Autism Speaks, but for peeps with NPD).

Question 3: OK, so this one needs a bit of ✨️backstory✨️. Again, feel free not to answer.

Question 3 Backstory: So, recently I've been looking up the symptoms of narcissism/NPD and I've realized that my mom displays a lot of these symptoms and could probably get an official diagnosis if she went to get one. I'm trying to bring it up to her, but I'm not exactly sure how to bring that up in conversation.

Ok, question 3: How do I tell her that she has a disorder in the most kindest and respectful way. I'm super forward and blunt and suck at "adding fluff" so I feel like if I just tell her that I think she has NPD that she'll take it badly cause she's super stigmatized about it (not sure if that's a good adjective, but it's the one I'm using. I guess I'm trying to say that she views it negatively)

Again, apologies if anything is offensive or anything like that!

Also, thanks for making this blog! It's awesome and super informational!

heyo! don't worry, honestly a lot of people tell me i come off the same and it's because i'm autistic so i get it 🥲

1. fair warning, my memory is a bit hazy because it was over a year ago and it was also a stressful time in my life.

i figured out about my NPD on my own.

from what i remember, i found out about my HPD first. it's a long story for any day, but long story short, i ended up having a huge breakdown because i was forced to confront a lot of symptoms and feelings i had been experiencing that i deemed inherently shameful my entire life. when i recovered from that a bit, i started interacting more with cluster b spaces and communities.

i already knew i was most likely cluster b even before i found out about my HPD (i wasn't exactly diagnosed with BPD in 2020 but my psychologist at the time was understably concerned about the fact that i said yes to every single question on the assessment he gave me) but i had gone into heavy denial about it and figured it wasn't true for a mixture of reasons.

interacting with spaces and researching PDs in general more made me realize i met a lot of the criteria for NPD (among other things. honestly this time in my life has made me confront that i am extremely disordered in the personality department in general!). sorta went back and forth on wether it was just HPD or just NPD, but turns out it is very much both!

2. i don't know of any organizations that are specifically about NPD at all tbh, especially not one as large scale as something like autism speaks, but what i will say is on a more general level, a lot of organizations that strive to help people with trauma will still use ableist language like narcissistic abuse, calling abusers narcissists/narcissistic or psychopaths/psychopathic, ect or just straight up demonize NPD itself. so while, fortunately, pwNPD don't have something like autism speaks to stand up against (as far as i know! i may be wrong!), we're not exactly very welcomed by trauma survivor organizations in general.

3. see, that one is definitely tricky. i've definitely been the one to break the news to people at times, but they were people around my age who already had an understanding of mental health/psychology and weren't perpetuating stigma.

i might suggest starting out with a more detached approach, trying to break down her biases and internalized stigma by educating her on the topic before bringing up her connection to it? like if the topic somehow comes up or she does something like call someone a narcissist, maybe use it as an opportunity to subtly educate her wether that be in the moment or maybe later on in the case that she's upset.

i do also want to emphasize to only do this if you if you feel it'll be safe to do so. obviously i'm not saying that because your mother exhibits NPD symptoms, i'm saying that because i don't know much about your relationship with your mother and i know not everyone has a relationship with their parents where they can talk to them about certain things safely. i have an incredibly abusive relationship with my mother but i believe i'm in a better position than most where i can talk to her about her mental illness and the possibility of her having BPD without it being guaranteed to immiedately flip into a dangerous situation.

if you feel like you can safely educate her and then safely bring up the possibility so she can get help, i welcome you to do so. it all depends on your specific situation. if she doesn't show any signs of backing down on her stigmatized views, i more than encourage you to prioritize your mental health and safety.

i also want to emphasize as her child, you are not responsible for her mental health and her refusal to accept possibly having a disorder would have nothing to do with you.

in all honesty, i'm not super sure about how to "add fluff" to that sort of conversation either. i'm also usually super blunt and don't exactly remember how i brought up the possibility of people having NPD to them or specifically how i brought up the possibility of my mother having BPD to her. if anyone wants to add on with some advice on that, that'd be cool, but i think i've done as much as i can for now myself </3

[aprillikesthings]

okay one more tonight

Which according to netflix is s3 ep1 but ehhhhh it's really a continuation of s2 imho

The Price of Power

(ominous)

I told myself I'd make this post shorter than the last few and I'm 99% I completely failed lol but this one had a LOT of lore and shit

AAAUGH

Angella's protectiveness is usually annoying but tbh I would feel the same way here in her situation, anyway Glimmer got it from somewhere lol

low blow, Shadow Weaver

I couldn't figure out why she woke up gasping so hard even though I just watched the last episode like three hours ago lol (Hordak had cut off her air until she passed out, and this is where she woke up, poor thing)

Catra: "It doesn't matter what I do. I don't get to win." :( but also "winning" should not be the objective of your life and you will spend the next season and a half being forced to learn that

Once again Scorpia's obvious one-sided love is painful to watch.

I hate that she's not entirely wrong!!! Like given her life up to this point of course she'd come to this conclusion. D:

Glimmer: The Horde is evil, and EVIL PEOPLE DON'T CHANGE Adora: I'm standing right here. Like you're literally talking to me.

(Okay but it's often true in the case of abusers, especially in romantic relationships. If you haven't read "Why Does He Do That" you should. Majority of abusers don't change for long--he talks about the circumstances under which they do, but repeatedly notes that it's very very rare and that a lot of them are good at faking improvement just for the amount of time it takes to get you under their control again. In any case that's why if people believe your partner is abusing you, the universal advice is "you need to leave.")

uggggh and the worst part is, she's actually right about a number of people in the Horde! I always knew it was a matter of time before Scorpia left the Horde, for instance.

But Shadow Weaver? Adora wants to believe this because Shadow Weaver was her mom, basically.

that's not how it works!!!

NOT REALLY.

I know I'm going to end up referencing this post again later, but it's worth a read:

"You think Shadow Weaver should have had a redemption arc? From her perspective, she DID." It also compares her arc to Catra's.

(spoilers for the rest of the show obv)

Anyway Bow and Glimmer offer to go with her, which is a good thing to do if you're ever going to try to talk things out with your abuser, because 1. they behave better in front of witnesses, generally speaking 2. other people are more likely to spot manipulative bullshit

yeeeurgh the way she says it is so icky

seriously she lays it on thick "oh I've missed you my child" eat dirt. Even after Adora's like "lol nice try" she's still like "oooh, so clever, I always knew you were smarter than everyone else" like you're still doing it.

"I was special only as long as I obeyed you" damn right

Compassionate to a fault as always, but also, I know there's still that bit of hope in there, the same one Catra had, of making her happy and finally getting loved. Adora has a huge advantage Catra didn't, though; which is that she has a great deal of love in her life from other sources. :(

Hordak: I am Evil and Scary!!! And I want Catra GONE. Entrapta: Yeah, okay. So anyway like I was saying, Catra's improved everything, but also, we need her to get us this thing!!! Hordak: No. Go away. Entrapta: :( k but I'll leave the info here for you to read on your own

The sad thing is, Shadow Weaver can be a good teacher.

ngl that's cool

also ugh. Shadow Weaver is in fact honest here: she's got nowhere to go, she wants revenge, helping Adora's the best way to do that.

plotty stuff I want to remember later: Hordak's goal is opening a portal into space to get Horde's armies through and defeat Etheria forever--and this is the first time a bunch of characters find out the Horde is bigger than one army on Etheria, and the reason he's close to getting that portal now is that Entrapta is helping him, and that once upon a time Hordak did succeed in opening a portal for a moment, and Adora was the result--she wasn't born on Etheria.

Glimmer: you're a fuckin' liar Shadow Weaver: I mean usually yeah lol. But like, why would I bother this time, what would I get out of it?

has anyone written an essay/post/paper about Adora as a bit of a Jesus figure

(I mean a LOT of people treat She-Ra like she's a messiah equivalent? But uhhhh that's also just how The Chosen One trope tends to go. Plus Jesus didn't resurrect himself so he could kiss a girl--though he did choose to show himself post-resurrection to Mary Magdalene first, so interpret that as you will.)

Anyway Adora kinda flips out at this information (she knows in her bones that Shadow Weaver is telling the truth) and bolts from the room

airbrush THAT on the side of a van lol

The way she screams "answer me!" at Light Hope is so good

Adora: babies don't remember shit????? Light Hope: oh.

There's a "vaginas are portals to another dimension bc childbirth" joke in there somewhere.

plot plot the First Ones came from beyond the stars, the sword is made to only respond to "one of their own kind," congrats Adora you're literally a different kind of person than every other person on Etheria.

(the timelines on this are confusing to me, I can't remember if Mara taking Etheria into another dimension also fucked with time passing, OH HEY I FOUND A FAN-MADE TIMELINE no idea how accurate it is tho especially considering the number of typos/misspellings, also elsewhere someone said each season of the show is apparently meant to be a whole YEAR?? I was thinking a few months at most??? I need to find if that's Word of God anywhere)

Theoretically yes but Netflix doesn't have the rights to any of the He-Man stuff, sorry

When Mara cut Etheria off from the rest of the universe she destroyed the portal capabilities. If you open a portal now bad shit will go down

(uh oh)

Adora: omg Mara's from the same place as me???

LIAR

Light Hope: being She-Ra is an honor!

Oh look it's one of the major themes of the show! Being The Chosen One sucks, actually!!

GEE, REALLY??? you think maybe people like getting to fuckin' cHOOSE

Adora: man I am tired of people not telling me shit!! Fuck this I'm gonna see what I can actually figure out on my own

She wants to know why Mara stranded Etheria. Remember that constellation being over part of the Crimson Waste that was in the whole "Mara portal Serenia" message bullshit? That's where she's going

Glimmer and Bow: road trip! road trip!

i'd be pissing myself in fear ngl

Hordak: this bitch is a failure!!! Catra: no u

everyone's reaction to that is priceless omg

LOL SHE'S RIGHT THO does Hordak want to spend his day looking at files listing how many bits of armor they need

I was gonna make an Entrapta joke but the next line is "and that's why you can't defeat a group of teenagers" and damn she's got a POINT

BAAAHAHAHAH

"My girlfriend doesn't want to do stacks of paperwork and shit either, it turns out; anyway you're going to get us some old spare parts First Ones' tech from the Pick-n-Pull Crimson Waste"

(I just realized people might not know what a Pick-n-Pull is--it's like a junkyard of cars where you can go and just take parts off of things for cheap. You have to find and take the parts off yourself.)

Catra: dude nothing lives in the Crimson Waste??? Hordak: heh heh I know :)

AAAND END OF EPISODE

Sadly I have the energy for another one but my headphones are killing me and I can't do it in the bedroom without headphones because Daci is trying to sleep. Which is a shame because the next episode is Huntara!!

ALSO y'know that timeline I linked way earlier in the post? parts of it are kinda iffy but I'm lol'ing because good lord as bananas as the lore can sometimes be, I'm still thinking that one for Steven Universe would be even wilder (and we know Rebecca Sugar actually had one, written out on paper, with a ton of color-coding). But also this summary of Adora's first convo with Light Hope is WILD because IT'S NOT WRONG (hardcore spoilers ahoy? but also if that's an issue you shouldn't be reading these posts lol):

Adora encounters Light Hope and is given the quest to "balance the planet". Light Hope attempts to isolate Adora from her friends my saying that balancing the planet requires her to let go of her attachments to her friends. This bears remarkable similarity to cult-psychology isolation tactics. It is especially worrying once you know that Light Hope is a Paperclip Maximizer and "Balance the Planet" is a euphemism for "rebuild and rearm the Weapon of Universal Genocide".

And if you've never heard of "paperclip maximizers" the wikipedia page about them is awesome but also I once wrote a post about the gems from Steven Universe also being paperclip maximizers. Here's a quote from the wikipedia page:

Suppose we have an AI whose only goal is to make as many paper clips as possible. The AI will realize quickly that it would be much better if there were no humans because humans might decide to switch it off. Because if humans do so, there would be fewer paper clips. Also, human bodies contain a lot of atoms that could be made into paper clips. The future that the AI would be trying to gear towards would be one in which there were a lot of paper clips but no humans. (Nick Bostrom, “Ethical Issues in Advanced Artificial Intelligence”, 2003)

[heartofstanding]

Rewatching old favourite crime dramas...

I just finished rewatching Vera up to Series 9, am in the middle of a rewatch of Death in Paradise and have started rewatching Wallander as well and am having some thoughts so I'd thought I'd write a post instead of just stewing in these thoughts.

Vera

I love her, your honour.

I love Vera, I love the location and how it's so beautifully shot, I love the slightly gothic edge to the mysteries. Most memorable episodes for me are "The Crow Trap" and "The Deer Hunters". It holds up really well too - sometimes I'll rewatch a crime drama that I once loved and find myself getting increasingly intolerant of the way it deploys certain tropes, like the tortured brooding lead detective with anger issues and/or a tragic backstory or "internal investigations are bad actually" or "it's fine for the lead detective to lose his temper and almost murder someone" which spoiled Waking the Dead and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries for me (the latter in the final seasons, mostly). Vera lacks most of that kind of drama. Vera is, in a way, a tortured, brooding detective but it never takes over the story.

One thing I did pick up on is that while I don't really have any preference for Aiden or Joe as Vera's offsider, I do miss the way that Joe's character opened up different storylines. We don't get nearly as much about Aiden's family and home life as we do about Joe's, and we got more about Vera's past and private life with Joe, like the subplots about her half-sister and her angina. I do feel cheated that Joe's exit happened off-screen, between series, but apparently he's coming back in Series 13?

(n.b. I finished at Series 9 because I don't have Series 10 on DVD, I started Series 11 but it was a bit too fresh in my mind and Series 12 isn't out on DVD yet.)

-

Death In Paradise

This isn't the first rewatch of the show I've done (the early seasons I've rewatched multiple times, they're very familiar and I can remember whodunnit) but I haven't watched any of the newer seasons since Series 8, except for a couple of episodes (I watched the one with Sam West and the one where Camille came back). I'm halfway through Series 9 at the moment so officially this is no longer a rewatch but a first-time watch.

It's interesting to see how my opinions have changed. I still think the show was strongest in relation to its core concept in Series 1 and 2. You can really tell the way they were planning the show to unfold had they managed to hold onto Ben Miller as Richard and Sara Martins as Camille, and I do really like that version of the show. But they didn't and the show had to change and that's fine. I used to be very fond of Humphrey but I found him painful in the rewatch - he hits my second-hand embarrassment squick much too hard and his unrequited love for Camille was... ah, not good? I was glad to see him go, tbh. Perhaps because of that, I appreciated Jack a whole lot more - I previously felt he didn't really have much of a character beyond "rambling Irishman" but that is really unfair. I just watched his last episode and I'm very sad to see him - I also felt his ending felt a bit... contrary to the character and the way he threw himself into island life, becoming part of the community in a way neither Richard and Humphrey never did. Neville seems a bit of a return to Richard, in that he doesn't want to be on the island, except by making him have so many medical issues, it really feels like that yeah, he really shouldn't be there.

-

Have been pondering how awesome it'd be if the next Death in Paradise detective is in the model of Vera.

-

Wallander

I needed something to watch in the space where I normally watched Vera and I remembered how I was going to try and watch some things in Swedish in effort to help myself learn Swedish better (I'm doing the Duolingo course, it's not going well), and well, this isn't in Swedish but it's set in Sweden so it might just do for now. I went... slightly insane* over it in my first and only watch but I thought I was safe now.

Yeah, well that happened again.

The thing I really like about it is Tom Hiddleston's face the way in which it spends a fair amount time of the affects of coming face-to-face with violent, brutal crime. How intensely Wallander feels everything, how involved he gets, and how all of that just means he's held at a remove from his family, friends and co-workers. He has this remarkable empathy that keeps him cut off from them.

It's also beautifully shot and I'm obsessed with the title credits.

Parts of it hold up fairly well - I feel "Faceless Killers" is still very pertinent to today, though I suspect there would a bit less... "both sidesing" within the main cast. Parts of it do not hold up well, like "One Step Behind" which, uh, is kinda extremely transphobic in a way that does not refute the transphobia.

The language and accent choices throw me occasionally in this rewatch. I think what they ended up going for is the translation trope/convention where the characters are not actually speaking English but are actually speaking Swedish, we just hear them in English, and a similar logic applies with the British vs. Swedish accents. When we see text, it's in Swedish, not English, which tends to confirm my hypothesis. Given the unlikelihood of the BBC doing the series in Swedish and the perils of getting the cast to put on an accent (no one wants to accidentally invoke the Swedish Chef in a brooding crime drama), I think this "they're speaking Swedish, we just hear it as English" thing works pretty well. But there still moments where it pulls me out of the story because the dialogue sounds so terribly British.

Random note: the cast of the first episode is like, full of pretty damn famous people? Obviously, there's Kenneth Branagh and a pre-Loki Tom Hiddleston as series regulars. Plus there's Nicholas Hoult and Rebecca Ferguson in guest roles. There's also a lot of people who are the sort of people you know for turning up in British TV shows, like Sarah Smart and Sophie Stanton (who, most memorably for me, was Falstaff and Caliban in the Donmar Warehouse's Henry IV and The Tempest).

Also, this reflection from when I first watched the show is still true. I thought I was over my Hiddleston phase but he's so fucking pretty in this show. It's distracting. It's literally sir, sir, sir, I am trying to watch Kenneth Branagh have a mental breakdown while solving crime in Sweden here. Take your cheekbones and go somewhere else.

Which he does at the end of Series 2 and then I miss him. Obviously, it doesn't impact the series that much - I enjoyed Series 3 and 4, his character isn't important to the story and isn't that interesting. But I liked the dynamics of the team and I dislike losing that (we also lose Lisa at the same time, and Ann-Britt only sticks around for a bit longer before she's gone too). I'm sad we lose that. I'm also a depraved whump lover and frankly think it was a wasted opportunity. Send Magnus off horribly (as Ann-Britt and Svedberg were sent off) and let Wallander writhe and wallow around in the guilt and grief. Also, I am completely shallow and didn't really want Hiddleston to take his cheekbones and go.

* I, uh, may have written an 87k word thing that's 3/4 whumpy fanfic and 1/4 origfic because it was November and I was doing NaNoWriMo and I was too hyped up to research and too scared to commit fully to the fanfic. I've reread and I feel like it holds up ok. I think the Kurt voice is good, as is the "gets too invested without being able to show it" thing. I am experiencing the urge to turn it into proper fanfic. I need to see how S2 ends and S3 begins but it could even work well as a "and that's where Magnus went" fic. But I don't think there's a fandom for the show outside of the migratory Hiddleston smut fandom.

-

That last point is one of those things with British crime dramas. It's quite common for some of the regular cast to leave between series and you might get a throwaway line about why they're no longer there but there's no proper send-off, no real resolution for the character, and sometimes there's no explanation. It happened in Vera, Death in Paradise, Wallander, Waking the Dead, and probably more than I just can't think of. I understand why it happens but it does make for frustrating storytelling.

The most egregious is Joe leaving Vera - he was the most important character after her! We were invested in his relationship with his family! The relationship between him and Vera was so paramount to the series! And he just disappears between series and his departure explained in a line about a "big promotion". Sure, this ties up one of the parts of his storyline quickly but there's no scene to say goodbye to him, no sense of closure. He's just gone.

-

Both Vera and Wallander are based on novels by Ann Cleeves and Henning Mankell. I've read a few novels of both series (and Cleeves's Shetland series) and I have to say... I feel the TV series really elevate them. With Wallander, maybe it's a case of a bad translation or something else but it seemed to lack something - perhaps the prose felt too simplistic or too blunt? With Cleeves, I think it's a case of has all the right elements, just doesn't have the ability to take it to the next level... I find I enjoy her novels more when I haven't seen their TV adaptation or are significantly different, but they're still not novels that I have to read. I wish the Shetland series had stuck with adapting Cleeves' novels because I'm obsessed with their first/second series (it was released as one series in Australia) which were based on the Cleeves novels, and I feel like the Shetland novels that weren't adapted would make excellent TV.

There are also four Death In Paradise spin-off novels that feature Richard - I've only read two of them and only really remember the first, which was OK - not great, not as fun as the show but still fun. It's nice to get more Richard but it comes with a trade off: Camille, Dwayne and Fidel play much, much, much smaller roles than they do in the TV series.

[sweet-beezus]

Edit: Somehow, my queue glitched and posted this earlier this week, so hopefully~ this works out-

Golly, another @khoc-week has come and gone, time sure flies when you're having fun-

Thank you for another AWESOME week full of such fun OCs!!! I love seeing everyone's creativity shine through their characters, it's like a small look into everyone's brains where we can admire the little worms living in there... in a good way!

Whether they're freshly hatched or well aged, these silly guys always bring me so much joy! :)

Genuinely, I wish I had the energy to interact with every single one of them, so instead I will blow them all a kiss from afar!!! ♥ ♥ ♥ They are what makes this week of the year truly special!

Beware, I will be lurking in tags ready to pounce on every OC I see after this is over I'm OBSESSED- (jk jk... unless?)

Onwards, then, to the final prompt of the year!!

Day 7 - Happily Ever After

Now, alas I've been following the canon timeline and filling in gaps with my own fun worldbuilding, characters and lore, so by all rights their stories are not gonna reach a happy ending for a WHILE (writing? who is she?), however the hypotheticals are always a good way to cope with that!

What their endings have reached so far while we're in lore hiatus (waiting endlessly for Missing Link and KH4... jk jk I hope they take their time tbh-) is that ideally after KH3, while everyone is looking for Sora, they're world jumping and clearing out remaining hoards of darkness together as a crew, alongside Reixen for more bonding time, in a variety of new places! They solve some mysteries surrounding their own personal character arcs and learn things about themselves they never considered, it's a real eye opener. Day 2 kinda hints at that with my picks of places I want them to go to fulfill that! At this rate, they may just be a series of oneshots...

Of course, it all eventually HAS to end, so here's some loose ends and how they may tie them up!

Iris:

Considering Iris ended up in the future, of course she has to cope with the reality that the worlds she knew are gone, or at least have yet to be restored (aside from Daybreak Town there's no repairing that-). Plus the existential crisis of having technically been dead AND given a new, puppet-esque body to inhabit. Lucky, she is, to even be here to begin with.

At the same time, she's helping Alto regain his memories from the same era they both managed to escape in some way. Being repeatedly reincarnated kinda screws some things up along the way, so it's a long haul process for the both of them to come to terms with.

Depending on what happens with the Scala ad Caelum plotline, they may both travel there, or to what's left of it, for closure, as well as to learn about the culture there to see what became of it after they were both long gone. Pay their respects to Alto's pal Ephemer and all that.

Her ending ideally is moving on and learning to live in a time she didn't anticipate seeing, which should be simple in theory since she's so young. She stays with Irene and Alto in Radiant Garden, and together with Alto they both take up lessons with Merlin and Yen Sid to learn more modern Keyblade skills, eventually (despite being Keyblade Master precursors) they are granted the titles of Master and help protect the universe.

♡♡♡

Irene:

She returns to her job, forever changed by her experiences, and helps her fellow castle staff move on and forgive themselves for the horrors they had to go through. It's a long haul process, but it will be worth it!

She finds herself a comfy living place in Radiant Garden to offer as a safe space for those she grew close to when they need it, where she essentially adopts Alto and Iris, since they don't really have a place to go that isn't rooming with a wizard or an on-the-road teenager. From time to time she also travels to Twilight Town to visit Reixen and her found family (maybe attending her polycule wedding at some point), but otherwise seems perfectly content staying put. Maybe the occasional visit from Iliana, as a treat. That doesn't require much aside from constant pestering, really.

While readapting to life a decade later than she's used to is a hassle in of itself, she seems to do it with grace, which is impressive considering she was presumed dead for said decade-

She also has that wonderful romance with Russell, as they deserve, and they both get to retire at some point knowing they have their chance to heal from all the suffering they experienced... and with more adopted kids than they know what to do with-

♡♡♡

Iliana:

What I envision for her is kind of complicated and long, so I'll try to keep it short-

Ideally, she gets to save her world once and for all while also getting rid of Igni, which almost costs her her life (nothing is allowed to be easy with Igni, as we've learned from Day 4-). So afterwards she's in recovery surrounded by the loved ones she gained along the way. For how long? Who's to say, miss ma'am will either be MIA or in a comatose sleep (jk jk... unless?) so it depends entirely on her and the awful side effects of Igni's possession tbh-

Chronically ill? With Igni goo disease? More likely than you think!

On the bright side, she finally gets to reunite with her brother in this timeline, though later than intended, and the two eventually take off on a journey of self discovery! Or they probably camp out with their uncle for a while before they do that, either way. They make up for lost time and get to grow together as people while also tying up a whole heap of loose ends their pasts left behind. A whole heap is nothing to sneeze at in this case-

In between, she makes time to check in on various allies as well as hang out with (her nerdy now bf) Ienzo. They have a funky long distance relationship because of her travels, so she surprises him with her presence when she can.

Maybe she gets an engineering degree, who knows? Certainly not me, at least not yet.

I like to think she eventually takes on apprentices or something and is probably the most annoying mentor known to the universe, especially if one of her apprentices is conveniently a secret younger sibling (I joke but... maybe-).

Nothing will be easy, of course some stupid new plot will pop up and she'll have even more nonsense to deal with, but that's a later issue to think about.

♡♡♡

And finally, they all get therapy ♥

They're doomed by the narrative to be absolutely demolished but can never truly die, so it's only fair they can live out somewhat happy and fulfilling lives despite every up and down I throw at them!

That's all I've got for this prompt, thank y'all for another wonderful KHOC Week and I will see y'all next year!!

Or in the tags, I'm always in the tags. :3c

[theswordwizard]

sorry ahead of time if this is a weird Q, i've been a follower for some time! i went to VCUarts but i dropped out when covid hit and for personal reasons i'm probably not going to go back even though i'd really like to, so i've been piecing together my own art education. were there any subjects/projects you were exposed to in the program that changed the way you approach art? one of the last classes i was able to take was a typography class and it opened my eyes to a design world i hadn't considered. you have such strong graphic design skills and it'd be really cool to hear what helped you develop!

Hey, thank you! and not at all - i totally get that, and i love talking about design lol. i rly enjoyed the gdes program but i kinda wish i could take it again now, i dont think i appreciated it as much as i could have when i was there 😭. as is life ig. i think def the biggest thing that i learned was about using typography and trying to develop an eye for it. im bad at the math parts of it but usually i can eyeball the negative space well enough. basically getting used to considering typography as graphic parts of a composition as opposed to just placing text on top of a graphic.

i think whats honestly most helpfully informed my own design work is honestly just trying to look at and collect as much "cool stuff" as possible. i follow a lot of random design instagram accounts (tbh u can just look thru the graphic design tags on insta and pinterest) even if i dont necessarily respect the artist (LMAO) even if they just do one thing rly interesting. also following some more experimental and a lot of art book/publication/zine accounts because theyre def gonna have some of the cooler graphic design work for print format especially.

one thing about insta (and tiktok tbh) thats both annoying and helpful is that with all the promoted posts you end up seeing a lot of whats currently "trending" for design, if ur following enough design accounts. like the truck sticker i just did on twitter is actually using an effect i learned from an insta reel that popped up on my feed lol.

one assignment from a class i rly appreciated was doing "make-a-days" where you basically made an image every day. didnt matter the quality or what it was but you just had to make something. it was good for experimenting and trying new things. also just picking a theme and making fake graphics/posters for my friends comics or something i liked.

i would also say that my personal biggest strength is that im just rly good at the programs, so i can ideate really quickly and its easier to figure out how to get a certain effect i want, and specifically how to copy a style I saw from something cool i saw somewhere :) outside my more bolder lines and compositional style (i dont have enough patience for rendering 99% of the time) i have a pretty flexible style because i usually have an end product or look in mind. also im usually inspired by other artists i follow online a lot too. but honestly just take the time to rly get used to ur program of choice and what effects settings and filters it has.

biggest advice is collect as many cool images as you can find and figure out what you like across them and how you can copy it for whatever ur making.

[frankenfossil]

for the space related asks, ⭐️ & 🛰?

whee!! thank you!

⭐️ Star - Do you have a favourite character? If so, why are they your favourite?

Oh no a very hard question actually... Probably the answer is evidently Emily and Dee since I spend more time thinking and writing about them than any of my other characters. POSSIBLY if I had to choose out of the two of them I'd pick Dee because I am kind of a sucker for a sad sack loser with emotional problems and I deeply enjoy thinking up situations to make him happy and/or traumatised. I also enjoy overthinking his powers and what kinds of things I have to tweak about physics for him to exist with the functions I've given him. (Such as recently I've thought of new objections to the plausibility of time travel but I think I've also thought of a way to resolve them storywise which I personally think is very funny, but if I learn more about physics before it comes up it might change.)

I love Zoe a lot but she is much harder to write and to draw for some reason? I feel like she is clear in my head but never comes out right somehow. It's weird.

I have other characters from other stories that I love too... another favourite who is unrelated to this story is a guardian angel whose first guardee died prior to the story beginning; clearly the angel fucked up a bit with that but gets a second chance, but then is pretty lousy with the second person too!! Trying to push them to fill the shoes of the first person.

Recently I found out that the person who inspired my first 'canon nonbinary' character (I didn't know that was a thing at the time tho) has since come out as for real nonbinary, which obviously makes a lot of sense lol. It was mostly about this one very cool jacket they owned. But that character was a strong fave for a long time... the story was terrible and really problematic lolol but ah well. Probably all the good parts of that character have gone into Dee and Zoe anyway.

I LOVE THEM ALL ;_;

🛰 Satellite - Do you have a character who is very dependent on another character? Is it healthy or unhealthy?

WELL. Again... Emily and Dee are each other's most emotionally intimate relatinship... Dee again is more dependant on Emily than vice versa, and less healthy about it, although I would say it's overall good for them both (but I would say the healthy/unhealthy balance varies over time and may be affected by external factors...).

Zoe is still on the periphery a bit but.............. well there are/will be some dynamics of questionable health there. She doesn't have particularly healthy attachments and is still not exactly over her previous friendship dynamic of being the second best friend of two besties who were shitty to her, and is still kind of stuck in the mode of 'trying to be exactly what the other person wants so they will like me'. Which Emily is not really aware of because she doesn't ever do that. Although the kinds of things Zoe plays up to try to be friends with her probably aren't as bad as what she has done to get OTHER people to like her, and she's relatively confident that Emily isn't going to use any of the stuff she knows against her.

Again, in terms of OTHER characters I have a couple where they are both disabled in various ways but one has more problems with mobility and communication than the other, and also had to be rescued from a kind of slavery by the other, which naturally gives the rescuer some pause for thought about the power dynamic there and whether she's ~taking advantage~ by falling in love with her at the same time (I mean by the time she even gets aware enough of her feelings lolol, gotta sort of pine without realising first!!)... but I'm trying to write that one as pretty healthy tbh, they're just trying to support each other through a difficult world yknow. And anyway the one who used to be a slave deliberately tried to square that debt immediately so it wouldn't be hanging over them both and is now mostly consumed with a quest for revenge lol. But also love.

I am going to.... stop rambling for now lol!!

[msommers]

1, 9, 13 and 25 for riya and jorina from the romance meme!

ty!!! 💜💜 // romance & relationship headcanons

1. what is your muse's sexual/romantic orientation?

RIYA — bi princess 🥰 [some rambling about other thoughts on this topic in the next question] 

JORINA — also bisexual, and i've had some occasions of bouncing around thoughts of her potentially being demi as well. explains her lack of a romantic history (aka being entirely uninterested in pursuing romance) and beginning to crush on aleksi after she's gotten to spend a good amount of time with him on missions.

9. is your muse monogamous or polyamorous? would they be interested in a polyamorous relationship?

RIYA — i was thinking about this the other day and am still in somewhat of a "i could be debated out of my choice if the right points were brought up" space around it, but i could see her as polyamorous. i think she’s had past experience and learned a lesson or two (not as many as she should have but hey that's riya), and would certainly require a long starting discussion on boundaries/comfort levels and frequent check-ins as things go along, but i could see it. the biggest issue here would be her suffering jealousy, but that’s rarely a problem for her and could be solved with clear communication (which i simply don’t see her struggling with since she talks about fuckin’ anything loudly and openly, as i’ve discovered through dadnd sessions).

JORINA — monogamous, i don’t think she’d be able to handle polyamory tbh. she already has to juggle a lot of self-doubt with just one partner, her overthinking would go into overdrive if somebody else was in the picture. I’M gonna have a panic just thinking about how worked up she’d get over it lmao

13. what traits does your muse value in a romantic partner?

RIYA — rough because riya’s had numerous partners and the range of personalities is Insane, she’s not consistent in type. some general ones: romantic, passionate, direct, confident, supportive, brave. circling back after finishing other answers to add that sensual, patient and adventurous also come to mind.

JORINA — loyal, courageous, reliable, honest are all the ones she could have expected. romantic and optimistic are ones she discovered great appreciation for along the way, learned that she values having a partner that's an opposite in some ways to bring her a new perspective.

25. does love and romance mean a lot to your muse? do they seek it constantly or let it come when it does?

RIYA — i’d say it’s high-up on the top 5 of her priorities list because of the easy life she’s had. i can’t see her having trouble with or a preference for either, there have been times where romance/attraction has fallen into her eager lap and also plenty of occasions where she’s sought after it herself because she feels a lack. i’m including sexual ventures in this consideration just because it's riya, but if we take that bit away then it’s probably a bit lower on the priorities list. slut (but said as a goof and with all of the affection in the world she's valid there's a lot of hotties around)

JORINA — didn’t seek it out at all, was absolutely gobsmacked when it showed up. they weren't things that meant a lot to her until she suddenly found them in the midst of the inquisition, and because that work was so dangerous it helped in how quickly they became important to her. she'd been all business for so long, it was uncomfortable and unfamiliar to start but so gratifying to discover with aleksi what love and romance could mean.