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star-anise · 4 years

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I wanna reply to a reblog someone added to one of my posts, because I want to wrestle with the ideas in it without singling out the person, who I do not think deserves any kind of dogpile for being wrong. That said, I think this person is incorrect in a way that’s both common and dangerous.

TW: Domestic violence and abuse, sexual assault

This person says:

So hear me out: I am too weak to abuse a woman.

I live a very sedentary lifestyle and most of the women i’m interested in and who have shared interest could easily beat me in a fight. [...] so I would never raise a fist to them not just because it’s wrong but because i’m afraid of getting hurt back.

As a society, we are way, way too obsessed with punching people as the ultimate form of domestic violence. This is dangerous and wrong. It causes a lot of people to think, “My home life isn’t a boxing match, so I’m not being abused,” and/or “I’m not actually hitting them, so I’m not really abusive.”

I am a 5′1″/155cm disabled woman with weak and noodly arms who can’t perform a lot of basic household tasks like carrying a week’s groceries up a flight of stairs. And I could absolutely abuse someone. It isn’t about physical strength.

Abuse is not just a “man bad, woman victim” dynamic. It can happen to and by people of every gender. We need to focus on the realities of abuse and the many ways it can manifest.

In this post: What domestic violence can look like, other than hitting; how domestic violence can happen without huge explosive fights; what healthy relationships would look like instead; why it’s wrong to think of abusers as a different species from normal people.

Domestic violence might look like:

Criticizing or belittling someone’s interests or self. Making negative statements about who they are as a person. Treating them with contempt or derision. Calling them names.

Controlling everything about where a person goes, what they do, and who they talk to. Never allowing them privacy or outside relationships. Monitoring their emails or texts; listening in on their phone calls. Refusing to allow someone reasonable boundaries.

Breaking a person’s belongings. Damaging or wrecking their personal space. Throwing things at or near them.

Controlling their access to basic needs, eg. depriving them of access to money, transportation, food, medicine, or communication with the outside world.

Failing to respect someone’s personal and sexual boundaries.

As well, these things count as abuse whether or not they happen as a Big Loud Scary Confrontation, or quietly, in the consequences afterwards. Like, it counts whether you say “You will never be allowed to leave this house without me!” or just quietly spend the money that was going to repair your partner’s car on something else. It counts whether you force a sexual act on someone who’s visibly resisting, or refuse to speak to or even acknowledge someone for several days after they’ve set a sexual boundary.

And it can be hard, in a relationship, to figure out what healthy and reasonable boundaries are. These are rules that abusers can use to their own ends, rhetorically maximizing the harm to themselves and minimizing their harm to others. “By being in the house when I’m on work phone calls, you’re denying my right to privacy,” they’ll say, ignoring that forcing their partner to be out of the house for eight hours a day is denying them access to basic shelter and they need a different solution, or, "By pointing out how scared and hurt you were by my violent behaviour, which I cannot possibly be expected to change, you’re criticizing me and belittling my feelings.”

At which point it can help to focus on what a healthy relationship would look like:

Consensual: Everyone involved is freely choosing to be there and can, if they want, leave the relationship without serious impairment of their ability to live an independent life

Surrounded by resources: Partners are able to turn outside the relationship, if they want, to express their emotions, achieve their goals, pursue their interests, connect with family and friends, receive support, or take time away from their partner. This is regarded as enriching each partner’s life and strengthening the health of the relationship.

Safe: No one feels threatened or in danger. People are able to assume that their partners will have their best interests and happiness at heart. Partners ensure that everyone in the relationship has what they need. Nobody has to worry that a disagreement or bad day with their partner will make other parts of their life unmanageable.

Respectful: Everyone’s emotions and values matter and are given equal weight. Everyone is seen as deserving the same basic rights to material security, safety, emotional validation, and physical space.

Fair: When there is a conflict, partners work together in a respectful and non-combative way to negotiate a solution that is acceptable to everyone.

Honest and accountable: People admit to the part they play in things and are willing to own their contributions to both success and conflict.

Mutually enriching: Each partner is committed to the goal of a relationship that leaves them all, collectively and individually, better off as people: receiving everything they need, capable of independence, supported and validated, and treated with respect.

Healthy relationships are complicated! They can be really difficult. They demand a lot of interpersonal and social skills that don’t come naturally, so if you haven’t been taught them, you can really struggle. I can really struggle. Anyone can really struggle.

It is really important to realize that abuse doesn’t result from someone waking up like, “I think I will be a Horrible Person to my partner today” and getting ready to rumble. It results from people with limited coping skills and particular attitudes about relationships and how to handle conflict trying to get what they want. Someone could be a really great partner, up until they encounter a problem they don’t feel able to solve any other way than overriding their partner’s feelings and using what force is available to achieve their goal.

But those are things we have the ability to address and improve, if we want to. A few starting places:

Positive ways to avoid toxic conflict

Signs of emotional abuse

Resources for domestic violence

If you want to support my work writing this kind of content, please consider supporting me through PayPal or Patreon.

#staranise original #domestic violence tw #ipv tw #intimate terrorism tw #emotional abuse tw

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noodlepai · 3 years

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Okay soo I can't exactly help myself bcuz I wanna info dump so badly abt my AU again because I just am so fixated on it and I love coming up with ideas for it sjdjJSJ please excuse me, long post with long tags because I am opening the floodgates rn

I just can't stop thinking abt it and putting more story and details into it y'know y'know? It's my guilty pleasure

(I kinda changed some things in it *cough* and am still changing stuff)

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Kyle wasn't really scared but was moreso interested in eteled when first meeting him, and of course being the little kid he is, he kinda messed with the guy a whole lot, when eteled doesn't like most kids all too much, (except for his bro and cousins, and later on Sam) and would ask Kyle to leave him alone, eventually after enough of being swung around in the air, being poked and all around harassed for an unspecified amount of time, eteled blew up at the guy to just leave him alone for good, he does have the axe in this scenario but it's for defense against being picked up again with that stupid ass Wii remote (although he isn't sure if it would work) and also to kinda get the point across to Kyle, so he's basically swinging his arms around a lot as he's yelling, and to sum it up quickly, pretty much what happens is that Kyle's Mii comes up behind eteled on accident, following it's programmed walk cycle and that just scares the shit out of him, causing him to swing his axe to fight back, and you can kinda guess how that goes

^ To add, the thing with eteled being deleted, and then banning Kyle temporarily from the Mii Channel did happen before all this, and Nathan was present during eteled's last straw being ripped from him, but he had less involvement in what pissed the guy off, and basically was invited over by Kyle, nonetheless he still witnessed the accident

eteled feels horrible for his actions, even though what had happened was entirely an accident, he's angry with himself, so he doesn't blame the kid one bit when Kyle decides that he has had enough mental damage and just throws the Wii in the closet, and yes Austin definitely knows about what happened, and he knows Kyle, so you can deduce from that how pissed Austin is, not only because of the fact that a poor kid has probably been traumatized, but it was his damn nephew

Kyle, some years later, does go back to check on eteled, because he's curious even though he doesn't wanna be, and is terrified, but he doesn't put anything on his computer because he is not about to have some scary ass Mii haunt his computer when he can just keep him in the Wii and throw it back in the closet or even in the trash if needed, so he reluctantly sets the Wii back up, not even sure if it works or survived the throw from all those years ago, almost hoping it didn't, but it does work and it turns on, and after some thinking and searching for the Mii, Kyle finds eteled, and they talk, they explain some things like their sides of the story without coming off as uncaring, and etc, and eteled allows Kyle to delete him to show him what happens to him and other Miis and you get the idea (eteled has pretty good control over the camera and other system stuff so it's not hard for him to just take it in there with him)

^Kyle notices that eteled looks a tad different than what he remembers, he certainly doesn't remember the guy looking kinda roughened up and having some marks on his face, which unbeknownst to Kyle, is a hint that there's another sentient being in this Wii but he doesn't catch onto it at this time

It's after the original events that happened with eteled and Kyle's Mii, that eteled starts learning more and more things about his digital body and the things he can effect inside the Wii, like he never realized how disturbing some of his facial expressions could be, especially when upset, so he figured that's why people have reacted the way they did when seeing him make certain faces, and he eventually learns to use this to his advantage, which he tries on Austin sometimes to get him to go away, and later coming into play when he feels the Wii turn back on after some time, and sees some random girl instead of the usual face he expected to see again

Sam, finally getting her hands on the console she wanted, is excited to get on the Wii, she discovers eteled, and is understandably confused at first, eteled wants nothing to do with her and any other kids, period, but he might as well try to scare her away if he has to, so it kinda turns into a scenario where he plays completely normal at first like just some random left over Mii, but then starts to mimick her movements and looks where she moves, to try to freak her out but she just thinks it's cool, Sam is into horror and all sorts of ghost type material, and the possibility of AI life, so it's more fascinating than anything, and when eteled finally drops the smile in a mix of frustration and being unamused, he just plainly goes "Boo" as a last resort, and Sam watches with her eyes lighting up like "Whoa, oh damn you guys talk?", with eteled staring and thinking to himself 'wth is wrong with this kid', he continues to try and push her away, even trying to freak her out with glitches or spooky faces but none of it works, Sam like "Omg that's so cool that you can do all that, you're a funny little guy" and wants to learn more about him and claim him as her new friend officially

^And as time goes on he softens up to her because she's very nice and caring, and he begins viewing her as someone he needs to protect as well, almost like a dad, while simultaneously seeing her as a friend, and even a mother figure in some ways

The situation with Will was a lot more tame cause nobody got hurt, except for eteled being deleted again *cough*, that and if you wanna also count the mental spook Will got when trying to fuck with Sam's Wii, no there was no axe, eteled pretty much crawled back out of The Hallway in pain, and scared the crap out of Will with his spoopy Mii faces, and that was enough for the kid to be like "Oh hell no" and then leave back out the window he came through (mf came through the window I still can't take that seriously in the canon story jsdjJSJ)

^Will got hit with the emo white man jumpscare

Oh, and the main reason Henry died was because of Austin, aka the guy was super pissed off and made sure that he would get his revenge by taking the guy down with him, hopefully causing him to be stuck in the same situation Austin is in by being a spirit confined to a digital body, that way he can continue to make him pay, even if he couldn't guarantee it, still worth getting back at Henry

^Haven't figured out yet how he would do this and if I should change how Henry exactly died but yeah that's pretty much what happened, also yes Todd was at the very least present during the aftermath of Austin's murder, but being the boss and with the amount of pressure Henry was under, it was kept a secret, especially for the console sales blah blah blah, and honestly Todd had a little more respect for Austin and his death, whereas he had much less for Mike when he tried telling the boss about what happened, along with the fact that Mike had to see that whole mess, and even less respect for Henry since he just showed his entire death to the whole workspace, which understandably made nothing much better and made Mike feel horrible, yeah Jonathan's not too happy either and you can guess why

I honestly don't know how Kyle manages to get Sam's contact info in canon, maybe I forgor but I just ?? But we'll go with it, I was thinking for this AU that maybe Jonathan had some sort of yard sale or something, trying to get rid of a bunch of old stuff him and Kyle don't use or don't need, or items that have memories attached to them that he no longer wants to hang around, and he gets Kyle's Wii cause he assumes he no longer wants the old thing, considering he now has another Wii and a Wii U amongst other consoles, and Kyle finds out later on, after it's already been sold to a mother and her daughter who saw the Wii and begged her mother to get it, needless to say, Kyle isn't happy, idk but I guess he could somehow get names and info from that but yeah, anyway, he contacts Sam, he tells the story, from his view, which is portraying eteled as some reckless or anger filled monster, and Sam doesn't believe it or see it, Kyle says he wants the Wii but doesn't say why, cause he knows she'll decline, but she declines anyway because she finds Kyle to be untrustworthy and tells him that "Well, not my problem that you decided to give your console away, it's mine now, I used part of my money to pay for it, and I honestly don't feel that I can trust your story right now" before eventually blocking him

^And then we know how that goes because she later wants them to talk and all that jazz

Sam had made her own Mii in the Wii so she could not only play as herself, but so it could possibly be comforting for her friend, especially when she had to leave like going somewhere or needing to go to school

^eteled kinda finds the other Miis to be uncanny at times but wouldn't admit it, and he lowkey feels panic go through him when he sees Kyle's old Mii still sometimes popping up and around whenever eteled goes and plays some games in Wii Sports, as if it's messing with him

And ah yes the moment of truth when Kyle is invited over to talk with eteled, and it goes how you'd expect it to, eteled tries to explain himself again, Kyle stands his ground, a fight ensues, eteled starts getting pissed and then Austin shows up, so the whole situation is almost exactly the same, Austin wants to get his ultimate revenge, not caring if the Wii will die because of it, and bam, it goes as planned, except for the fact that Sam manages to save the Wii from permanent damage, (idk if I want it to still be the ice method or maybe another way but she gets the job done) and you can understand the shock (no pun intended) when eteled and Austin are kinda in there just waiting to fade away and nothing happens at all, like "Uhhhh.. we're still here?"

^Also it's because of this event that not only does eteled lose some bits of his memory either permanently or for a long while, he also gets pretty corrupted, you don't see it when he's just chilling normally, but it shows whenever he gets really scared, and only becomes worse the worse his fear is, like fight or flight levels is a full on corruption mess, messy textures, (often) twitchy movement, along with a stuttery/distorted voice and all, so it's why his SF state is kinda all over the place if you know what he looks like in it, he's usually pretty vulnerable and hides away when like this but there's times when he can get aggressive and almost zombie like if he's too deep into it so ya never know, yes he has chased Austin before while like this which is funny but I mean it makes sense, imagine the person you're stuck with just starts acting weird in the dark ass space and starts running around and even chasing you, not even mentioning that they were your murderer, absolute nightmare for the big guy, it's like having a raccoon raid your home, imagine exacting your revenge on someone and because of that they have random chances to just become much more scary and maybe even more powerful than you are

^And yes the corruption is painful so eteled is just in more pain than what's normal for him, and it is possible for him to just fuckin lose his eyes or parts of himself while corrupted cause the code just goes absolutely bonkers during this form, he usually doesn't carry his axe with him if he's in ultimate locked on target mode, but sometimes he will and that is just ten times more dangerous for Austin, but it's not often at all cause he mostly carries it when he's more clear headed or scared and is using it for defense

After lots and lots of time, after the events of the Wii being saved, and Sam getting to know Austin, Kyle and Nathan a bit better, she tries to at the very least have everyone make peace with each other and get along, especially eteled and Austin, even though she is still unaware of their past (not for long), but it does start working, Sam, Nat and Kyle all start forming a friend group, and the two Miis, while struggling, do start getting sorta better, and even hang out sometimes on their own, when they feel comfortable enough to do so, they got some sort of connection going on there that they themselves can't even understand, they usually play sports together when the other three are out or are doing some form of work

^They technically knew each other longer than they originally thought since they were around each other and even talked a little as young kids, but even they forgot most details of that and when they switched schools they quickly became strangers, so yeah, childhood friends to strangers to coworkers to enemies to whatever the hell they are now

^Austin is gay as hell so yes the flirting never stayed in the days that he worked in the office, because after many, maaany years in the Wii, after getting along pretty well and having some sort of friendship grow between them, Austin of course starts doing it subtly again, not even sure why he's doing it himself, and eteled still doesn't understand or pick up on any of it, feeling like the guy is trying to gaslight him or some shit "Nah uh I know what you're up to, I've been through that same song and dance many times before"

Will and Sam make up and become pretty cool hang out buddies, Sam even reintroduces eteled and Will, by request of Will, cause he wants to talk and apologize for messing with the guy, and in turn eteled apologies for scaring him, but Will, now that he's older and looks back on it with more of a laugh, he actually thought it was pretty cool, that fact that the guy could pretty much just spook people outta the blue, although he was a little creeped out by it even now, overall they're on good terms

Jonathan is obviously torn so he's got the board in his basement and everything, and he works on it all the time, but each day he just grows more and more frustrated, not understanding why some of the evidence isn't making much sense, he knows Henry is guilty but some things aren't lining up perfectly or are just missing

Mike and Henry were literally close besties for years, worked by each other's sides, and even invited each other to their apartments, sometimes Henry would stick around and chill at his bestie's place for a few days, although Henry lives alone and usually likes it that way so it's not all the time, one big part being because of noise since he's learned to become very sensitive to it, he jumps and shivers at the sound of footsteps and creaking floors, hell even his own sometimes scare him, but Mike and him are very close, and have been through a lot together

I haven't figured everything out yet but somehow someway Mike finds out about Sam, and how she wants him to come over after hearing that he's eteled's old buddy, and when he comes over he learns everything, and him and eteled/Henry have a moment of being reunited and knowing that the other is okay, or at least kinda okay, Sam knows that Mike is trustworthy and obviously knows eteled from a different and much wider perspective than she does, so she allows him to come over and for the guys to talk and just update each other on things, as weird as it may look with some grown man talking to a little figure on a television, she can tell that they're happy to see one another again, they did talk about what had happened, about Austin's death, without Sam around, even though she knows everything already at this point and had already talked to Kyle, Austin, Nat and especially eteled about it, and while the news did definitely hit Mike straight in the gut, he also knew that it wasn't something Henry had planned or did without some sort of influence, he just felt it, not that it made it any better, but it had been years, no point in getting angry, he kinda figured Henry had something to do with it, but knew that it wasn't just that alone, and was too scared to say anything much sooner, so he sorta sympathizes with him, knowing they were both pushed beyond limits from their job and especially their boss, and that they're both in the wrong, although still holding Henry accountable for doing what he did, especially to Jonathan's brother, he wasn't gonna let him go off easy on that, but he doesn't hate Henry, and it shocks eteled that Mike even still cares about him after everything the guy went through during those times, but he appreciates it, and it seems like they still have a friendship going on

Jonathan is also informed about his brother, but this is done at a different time, later on after Mike and eteled reunited because Sam knew that this was gonna be a whole lot harder, Jonathan was Austin's brother, so it's needless to say how heavy this was gonna be, unbeknownst to Sam that Jonathan was already trying to get all the evidence to finally prove Henry guilty, even though the guy was dead and gone, at least as far as he knew, she also knew that this was gonna be hard for Austin and Kyle, who would both be present when Jonathan would come over, Sam debates whether she should even say anything and potentially reopen an old wound, but she goes ahead and only informs him about Austin, not eteled because she fears how Jonathan will react, especially if he connects the dots and realizes it's Henry

eteled is the only damn soul who knows exactly, in detail, what had happened after Austin's death and how he was talked down to and also threatened into keeping it on the down low, he and Mike are also the only ones who know just how bad they've been treated and how worse it can really get, but eteled hasn't told anybody, not a single person about any of it, other than when him and Mike used to comfort each other and talk about work issues, back when eteled was alive, he just tells no one now, not even when explaining himself and the past and what had happened between him and Austin, he just takes the full blame, half because of heavy guilt and the other half because he's terrified, even though the guy is miles away from that work building, is literally dead, is nowhere near his boss, his boss not even thinking about him anymore most likely, he still had that fear driven into him that if he said something that he'd be in trouble or that something terrible would happen, even though he's in a Wii and nobody can or would really do anything to him besides Austin, he still fears people in his past life, he also wouldn't wanna bring up all of the hidden info like "Hey my boss had a part in this" and have it turned down as if he were trying to take away some blame from himself, which he wouldn't be but is scared to come off that way

^Literally nobody would think like that or would treat eteled that way if he brought it up, but the guy thinks they would

A bit of a more light one, eteled and Austin have sort of made a day and night cycle for the Mii Channel, the light is more tame cause it can become blinding normally, and when people are resting or when it's around the time it would be dark outside, judging by the console's clock, then it would get darker and be more comfy

^Not to be confused with when the Channel just goes full on feral mode and gets pitch black dark or starts changing color cause that's usually Austin or eteled fucking with the atmosphere, like eteled causing it to go super dark like in SF sometimes when he's super upset or even "I'm gonna hunt you down" levels of corrupted

Henry had pretty great relationships with his bro and cousins, and he just hopes now that they're all okay, which they are, his cousins, Jane, Faith and Ellie are actively looking into the info and trying to figure out what really happened to their cousin, and his bro I haven't exactly figured out what to do with him yet aside from trying to do the same thing, but maybe being more exhausted and considering moving on cause living in the past is painful for him, and he is just not getting the right leads or ones that are pleasant, and doesn't wanna face the truth that his older sibling could've killed someone

Oh yeah, in current time, with the Wii already being saved years ago, everyone sorta getting along now and everything following after, everyone is pretty much grown up and are adults, so they work and are a tad less energetic as they were as teens, a tad I say because Kyle and Nathan are still hyper guys but they are having fun

Kyle and Nathan are besties to lovers, Will is gay but just hasn't found someone right yet so he vibes around, Sam isn't even sure what she is, she just feels happy on her own and likes spending time with the group she considers a family, Mike isn't sure what he is either but he does like Jonathan a little bit, Austin is bisexual and you can just tell by his energy alone /lh, first person to ever know about him being bi was his mom who is also bi so she just immediately is very accepting of him, and Henry/eteled seriously doesn't understand romantic love or how it works or what it truly looks or feels like, he doesn't even understand general love that much and is trying to learn it, so he doesn't even know what he would really be attracted to, he's just a trans guy sitting in his corner, only people he ever told about him being trans to was his mom when he was trying to understand himself (and she was a great woman so she tried to help him in his journey, while she was present at least) and Sam later on when they both got closer, other people had to kinda figure it out, aside from Austin who never knew for the longest time but was told by eteled later on when they've been in the Wii for a while, so Austin was one of the last ones to know

Mike had taken care of young Kyle from time to time, like when being invited over and/or if Jonathan had to go out real quick to attend to business or grab something

Sam does sometimes take eteled and Austin out to places when she learns to transfer them across devices, she also lets them occasionally mess around in Tomodachi Life whenever she comes back to play on it for memories, it always ends in some funny chaos and it's all around a nice time for everyone, or mostly everyone

eteled tries to play fair but sometimes he lets himself slip and accidentally go god mode again, or will get bored and just do it for fun, and Sam will cross her arms and look at him like "eteled I told you no more cheating" and he'd just roll his eyes saying "I'm sorryyy, it was an accident"

Henry immediately regretted what he did after he murdered Austin, and couldn't think of anything else for days and was miserable over it, even though Austin had seen him multiple times by watching from computer screens, the guy being in such a miserable state, he felt it was an act or something, and it only fueled Austin's anger, he wanted the guy dead, more than just dead, he wanted him to suffer endlessly, just when Austin was finally getting somewhere and was about to prove to the world that he existed and that he was special, it was taken from him, so he's gonna take something from Henry, Austin can't accept that Henry is sorry at all, he doesn't believe he is, and so he brings the guy down with him, making sure that it hurt (they're both assholes your honor)

Also yes Henry's mom was a bit emo, with some punk baddie in the mix, like mother like son

Wow this is long and I didn't even talk about everything else or go into more detail, but yeah I don't wanna make this overwhelmingly long so I'll stop here before I go on all night long because I've already been typing for some hours now

If I think of anything else I might edit this or make a different post about it but yeah thx for listening to me ramble on and on and on

#You are BANNED from the Mii Channel !! Security alert security alert !!#Sam: *holding some creepy ass mf in her hands* this little guy is my friend look at him dance #eteled: listen kid I know you think I'm like cool or whatever but please leave me be #also eteled: Anybody who messes with my friend/daughter dies. no exceptions.#Austin is sentenced to Gay Baby Jail #if you squint you can probably see the inspiration from Security Breach in parts of this #eteled: They all hated me because I was too real for them #eteled running around blindly because his eyes either glitched outta existence or are filled with so much crap that he can't see #that or they like. start melting. again #mf just starts running into things #Kyle was a little bit of trouble for Mike since he'd always go 'Father said I can't do this' 'You shouldn't do that' or 'I can't eat this'#so you can understand his frustration like 'Aye you eat this mac and cheese or not I ain't making ya anything else'#and Kyle admits defeat. looking away 'Okay..'#eteled sees his mom in Sam quite often #I would say what happened to the mom but I am suddenly a gatekeeper and as such am gatekeeping that info until further notice #Henry wants to move away from home the moment he legally can and run with the opportunity but he needs to be there for his little bro #they grow a bit distant especially into adulthood so they go separate ways. and that's another reason Henry lives alone.#Will is like 'Ayoo when you jumpscared me? that was sick man pfft just please don't do it again' *sweats*#Probably the only ones who aren't effected by eteled's/Henry's deathly glares and anger is Sam Mike and sometimes Austin #Sam and Mike are kinda obvious since he never is upset with them to that degree so they get the safe pass #and they were/are usually the ones to help him settle down if they catch him getting really angry #Austin after realizing he was murdered just filled with so much hurt and rage #Austin's revenge arc coming in like 'You're sorry? You're sorry ! hah ! .. you're not sorry. but that's okay. you don't have to be.'#The world hates Henry Morris #okay I think I am done for now I'm gonna go play Splatoon ty for reading I now take my leave #wdy #wii deleted you #au

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qiqi-media · 3 years

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How I feel about Mal Bertha and her character PART 1

This is not a Mal bertha Biography and it is biased in the sense that I don’t like her at all. Read with caution.

Descendants 2 was actually the first movie of the trilogy that I had watched. My little sister was watching it and I happened to be passing by and sat to watch it with her when it caught my eye. 2017 me had a completely different opinion of Mal bertha than today not because I was younger but simply because D3 hadn’t come out yet and I hadn’t watched the first movie or even knew there was books. I can’t stand Mal bertha, not even the D1 version of her and that’s the one even Mal antis love. I didn’t like her in the first movie but it was more of a “I wouldn’t be friends with her.” I didn’t think that she was unforgiveable and that it was impossible to give her a second chance. She made her own bad choices but she expressed genuine regret for them and was only 16. Despite me, loathing Mal’s existence I related to her in sense that it’s scary wanting to change but you don’t know whether or not your actions have caused too much damage.

In D2 watching it as a stand alone I saw a girl wanting something other than the ‘happily ever after’ and deciding she would go for what would make her happy when she went back to isle. I was desperately hoping that after the ‘It’s going down’ scene that she would go back to the isle and not choose to stay somewhere she wanted to leave. But we know how that went and the ending left me bitter and sad not for her, but for Uma. She began to leave a bitter taste in my mouth when she broke up with Ben and came back and just expected him to get back together with her. I’m going to go around every version of her character.

PRE D1

She was a dick. That’s the simplest way I can put it. I don’t like even acknowledging pre d1 Mal because it leaves me with this very negative view of her character that I don’t think was necessary. I feel like this is a big fuck up, wanting to have Mal be her ‘evilest’ before coming to Auradon. I understand the reason why they wanted to show her growth and change throughout the series. But after looking at some real life scenarios with a similar Mal situation it made me look at it differently. Imagine this: someone who severely bullied you and harassed you and everyone around getting to go to a new place and get the best treatment there, then she’s congratulated with becoming queen of that land and not only that she then decides she’s going to be queen of the place she was bullying and harassing people at without ever properly apologizing. This happens in real life and these people get exposed which is why I don’t like it. It would be different if Mal actual grew throughout the series but it was real just her gaining more power and the scenery changing from Pre D1-D3. She also continued to make the same type of ‘mistakes’ with no actual direct consequences all she had to do was cry and they forgave her. She would be okay if it Descendants was a stand alone movie. But knowing the type of life she would get to live after all of this behavior puts me off from reading it. It would also be different if Mal lived a simple life in Auradon (Aka not trying to take control by dating the king and then stepping all over said king) She got more than what she deserved to have. In my opinion she did deserve the chance at all better life just like all the other kids who didn’t commit any crimes to be locked up. But in the eyes of people she victimized she wouldn’t deserve to be Queen become royalty, live in castles and get gifted with limos and bikes.

D1 is the version of Mal everyone generally likes however, like I stated before I didn’t like her even then. At the start we see someone who is clearly trying to please her mother so if her mother wants bad behavior she gives her that. Throughout the main plot she did things of her own accord that she can’t use her mom as an excuse for. There’s a couple different things but a lot of them had to do with Ben and I’m making a whole post on how Ben was treated like shit throughout the franchise so that will be addressed then and not in this post. However for a reference she drugged him with a spelled cookie into falling in love with her for the wand. He wasn’t even willing to eat the cookie at first but she guilt tripped him into eating it. We could brush this off as her doing whatever she needed to do to get to the crown but to me she took advantage of the situation by actually going on dates with him. He was already spelled and willing to listen to whatever she wanted so besides for her own personal interest why would she go on the dates? (Granted a 16 year old wanting to get cute and have a nice date with a nice boy is not a fault or wrong in any way the fault here is all of this was happening when Ben was not in his right state of mind until the spell washed off.) Her taking advantage of Jane’s insecurities was not cool either and I’m interested in what ways she would’ve tried to use Jane if it was easier to get to the wand through her. Since her main crime in my opinion was Ben and since he’ll have his own essay post I’ll focus on Audrey here.

Her disrespect to Audrey

It was unnecessary, she had no reason to have had Audrey’s name in her mouth as much as she did D1. It would make more sense for Mal to like Audrey’s sassy boldness to me not shit talk her every chance she got. At the start they had a small passive aggressive conversation that could’ve just been left at that because technically they burred the hatchet between the two families. It was a “hey I don’t fuck with you, you don’t fuck with me” type of a situation that could’ve grown civil. However, throughout the movie in comparison to Audrey who really just had a problem with Mal’s mother until she spelled ben then it became direct problems with each other. Mal was continuously talking shit about Audrey as if Audrey was the one who fucked with her family. This time her upbringing can be referenced, on the Isle she most likely was allowed to openly hate things and Audrey was most likely raised to at least pretend to be polite. But from the Audrey we’ve seen she clearly doesn’t care about holding her tongue she’s straightforward with how she feels and she didn’t have a problem with Mal she had a problem with her mother. The only time she talked about Mal directly was about the hair spells which she ended up being right about (Mal’s addictive reliance on magic in D2 and Jane at the end of D1). After completely ignoring Audrey’s feelings and literally stole her boyfriend (not even on the the you can’t steal a loyal man type of shit she literally stole him he wasn’t even allowed to consent to it.) She later in Audrey’s Diary multiple times tries to reason this with she never meant to directly hurt Audrey and that she didn’t really want Ben she just wanted the wand etc etc. The evidence doesn’t back this up Mal, you’ve made your disdain for Audrey clear and talked shit about her to Evie right after you spelled Ben the did I mention bs claiming “Chad will see her horrible personally” as if you knew her personally and that Chad didn’t grow up with her. Mal can say she didn’t mean to hurt Audrey but she clearly didn’t mind that she did.

I’m going to make a whole separate on Audrey and how I do think she gets a lot of slack because people can relate to her, but also how her treatment in comparison to Mal’s is unfair.

I did think she deserved a chance to show remorse for her behavior (spoiler: she didnt) Again, I like to look at things from the pov of other characters for things like this. If I was an Auradon kid who was friends with Mal and ended up finding out she was using me and plotting to take over and destroy the place I lived with/for her mother but changed her mind last minute. I would see her as forgivable I just wouldn’t want her around me. In other words I would expect her to start her own new life, not continue trying to live the one where she was plotting without even actually apologizing to people. AU: After descendants instead of continuing to date Ben she breaks it off and goes to an Art school frequently coming back to visit Auradon and after high school she goes on a quest (with the C4 of course) exploring all kinds of different kingdoms and countries because she was locked up on the isle her whole life. In the future she possibly returns to Auardon and even could get back together with Ben with a proper start.

The first Descendants Movie I ever saw so it holds a special place with me and I actually rooted for Mal the first time I watched it. I sat in to watch at the argument scene and knowing all of the plots now and after rewatching it my opinion has change greatly. We see a blonde and very stressed Mal who’s dealing with the pressures of becoming a royal in order to secure her place with Ben. I do feel bad for Mal when she was talking to Evie, she was trying to reach out to her friend about her situation and was basically told to stop talking about it. I understand Evie’s feelings of wanting to leave the past behind but I can also understand Mal feeling like she’s cornered and can’t even talk to her best friend. I can also understand her feelings of ending up overwhelmed with her decisions from going to somebody who did whatever whenever to becoming a royal with duties I get the pressure. If Mal decided that wasn’t the life she wanted to live and went back to the isle where she felt more comfortable I don’t see anything wrong with that. She wasn’t required to stay in Auradon if she felt like she was unhappy there. That says a little something about Auradon to me if somebody would rather live where they ate rotten food than live there. My sympathy for Mal stops there because everything else was a result of her own actions and things she brought onto herself.

1. The royal situation

Let’s get one thing clear nobody was forcing Mal to hand sign up for the prime and proper royal life. She did that herself.

Nobody told her that she had to dye her hair blonde and have a complete wardrobe change, she did.

Nobody said she even had to continue the terrible relationship she had with Ben and go straight into being a royal in order to basically become Ben’s wifey, she did.

She’s saying all of these people are expecting things of her when 6 months ago she was stealing candy from babies when she was the one who let people have these expectations. She decided to take up the role herself because that was what she wanted. Let’s be honest with how it happened Mal would not live in Auradon if she had to be a regular citizen she wanted to be in control of everybody and to have power because that how she always lived. However once she realized that nobody was just about to hand her this power just for being with Ben unlike with her Mom (getting to rule the isle just because she was her daughter and not because she actually worked her way up there) and that she actually had duties and work to fulfill if she wanted to be the boss. She let her pride get in the way by feeling she had to prove she could last with Ben and become an Auradon girl and ended up miserable and blaming Ben for something she decided to do herself.

She then had the responsibility to fulfill all of those duties and she was struggling unlike anybody else who would’ve had to abide by the “don’t use magic” quote on quote rule she decided to use Magic after claiming she’d give it up and was still a hot ass mess. She can’t even use the excuse that was to help her with her lady in training because she was using it to not be late to class and later to try and manipulate Ben. @ishiphumasohard made a good response on why it was unfair for Mal to use magic as her ‘right’ because at what point would it be unfair to other kids? While all the other kids have to show up on time to school Mal gets to use magic to turn back time instead of just being on time. If other kids studied all night for a test Mal can use a speed reading spell. If there was a cooking contest Mal can spell her way into a feast while the others would have to the actual labor. You get the point, because magic is not universally used by everyone in Auradon and it’s an unspoken rule that it’s not to be used then she should have followed this rule.

I will say the girl was stressed and was feeling alone, I already gave my sympathies for that.

The magic situation really hit the fan when she felt comfortable enough to spell the boyfriend who had already put enough trust in her to continue their relationship that started with her drugging him for her own benefit. Compared to her Ben did seem to be taking it easy but maybe like her, he didn’t want to show it. It seems Ben and Mal had a sort of pack to work hard together to become ‘the king and queen’ of Auradon they were supposed to be in it together. In my opinion it would make more sense for Ben to be hiding things from Mal than the other way around due to the nature of their shitty relationship. But that’s just not how it went down and after Mal tries to spell Ben into not finding her spellbook he gets RIGHTFULLY ANGRY. That entire scene was her fault, she could’ve explained herself and why she was using magic and that she was having a hard time but she once again decides to take advantage of Ben’s trust. Then proceeds to make sure she ends the fight with her being the victim. So much so that the entire fact that she spelled Ben was never brought up again.

Going back to the isle

She then decides to go back to the isle, if this was really her decision I wouldn’t mind it. There’s nothing wrong with her liking the isle better than Auradon if that’s where she felt at home. The problem was she was clearly emotional and let’s be honest, if she had called all of her friends together and actually broke up with Ben and told them this was her decision to go back to the isle before leaving they MIGHT (hard might) not have ran after her like they did. Not only that the duties that we were speaking of earlier, she didn’t formally pull out of anything which is why it irked me when she was so irritated that they came back for her.

Some people actually didn’t like her attitude as soon as she got back on the isle because she expected to run it. That wasn’t surprising to me honestly, because for her whole life that’s how it was, only person she was scared of was her mother. She quickly realized however now that her mom isn’t around and in lizard form nobody was scared of her. Most unrealistic part of D2 was how Mal didn’t get jumped as soon as people realized she got back. Like I said Isle Mal was a straight dickhead and had too many enemies to be walking around like she was.

Another point was when she got her hair dyed by dizzy, the shop wasn’t open, she saw this, ignored it and went in anyway. Not even because her and Dizzy were tight like that she just expected her to do what she wanted (get the pattern with Mal here?)

Skipping her scene with harry because it did nothing to the plot.

The rest of the C4 and Ben come to get Mal back as expected and she acts all surprised and angry. Ben apologizes to her and instead of apologizing for what she did and then explaining that she doesn’t want to go back to Auradon and be a lady of the court. She continues the narrative that Ben wanted her to change and that she’s not good for Auradon so she’s going to stay on the isle. What’s the difference between the two? The first one is her taking responsibility of her actions and deciding for herself that that’s not the life she wants. While the other is acknowledging none of the blame and deciding to run away not because that’s not what she really wants but because everyone will turn on her so she has to run first. It painted a narrative that nothing of this was her own doing while at the same time making it seem like she is doing the right thing by backing away which in hindsight probably was the better decision. Mal’s feelings weren’t the problem I understand them, she thinks she won’t be accepted as herself so she wants to leave before they can kick her out but that’s not what caused her to leave and she knows it. You got caught doing something shitty and instead of apologizing you ran away.

After Ben gets kidnapped she lectures the C4, again she does have some blame in this. With the way the fight ended it made it look like Ben was in the wrong so he was going to try and apologize regardless if they brought him or not. The rest of them came to keep him safe and as her gang members come back for her. Was this not something she considered after she calmed herself down? Ben honestly had no reason to be directly on the isle unprotected besides to sneak and apologize to you so are you really going to just blame the C4 for bringing him there and getting him captured?

Then when Uma, who has him captured plans a meeting she antagonizes her like that’s what is best for Ben at the time. Even in the mist of Ben being in danger she thought it was a good idea to try and piss off the person holding him captive. If you don’t remember what she did she called her shrimpy, insulted the smell of the restaurant and said she never thought of Uma while implying that Uma always had her on her mind for no reason. None of that was necessary to ask what Uma’s conditions were to give Ben back she just couldn’t help herself.

She didn’t care about Dizzy

Who had just performed a task for her and right after she paid her got robbed and had the place trashed just for Mal to say she’ll be alright. This should’ve been foreshadowing at the very least that she wasn’t ready to be making decisions for other people’s lives because besides her own and her friends she didn’t care for many especially those on the isle.

It’s going down

Even though it was in the song and not directly her words again antagonizing the person who has Ben held captive and threatening his life, insulting them is stupid. This entire scene is messy and they shouldn’t even had been able to win a fight against pirates outnumbered. When has Mal ever picked up a sword???

Car ride Back

She gets mad when Ben has sympathy/ shows understanding for Uma. She somehow realizes that it’s wrong Uma kidnapped him but was comfortable spelling him without a second thought. In my opinion she thought she had some type of ownership over Ben she could do what she wanted to him and if somebody else did it was wrong. (Even though this can be applied to what she did in D1, I’m only talking about D2 because most people agree she showed regret for her actions in D1) When he calls her out on her hypocrisy she goes mute and does that thing, of letting her mouth hang opened whenever she gets called out on her shit.

END OF PART 1

I was going to make this one long post but I’ve been putting this off long enough so here is part 1, no idea when part 2 will be up. I do hope to have the Ben posts up before that.

#anti mal #anti mal bertha #anti bal #anti ben and mal #ben florian #ben descendants #descendants #disney descendants #audrey descendants #princess audrey #Audrey Rose #evie descendants #ben deserves better #uma descendants

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ailuronymy · 3 years

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I doubt you'll remember this, because it happened such a long time ago, but it's been bothering me for years now and I wanted to get some closure on it. Many years ago, when I was 14, pretty new to roleplaying and completely new to Tumblr, I sent you an anonymous ask laughing about ridiculous unrealistic things that people were having their cats do in a roleplay I was in. Building blanket forts, among other things, and being transgender. At this point in my life I thought transgender only meant someone who had undergone gender affirmation surgery, and the idea of cats doing surgery on one another was hilarious to me. I shared it with the hope that other people would find it hilarious too. Instead, you told me that I had said The Wrong Thing and called me a bigot. I was confused, I was horrified, I didn't understand at all, and I more or less fled from tumblr for about two years. It was a formative experience for me.

Hello there. I do actually remember that post, although obviously since you were anon then as well, I didn’t remember you specifically. But I do remember.

I thought about how to answer this ask for a few days. I’m not sure exactly what it is you’re looking for from me, but I’m going to give you the best reply I can and I hope that’s good enough for the both of us.

When you wrote in to me, about eight years ago, I was younger than you are now. I was nineteen and I’d only been on tumblr for a bit over a year at that point, I think. I’d never had social media before, of any kind. It was all pretty new to me as an experience too, and I’d never expected this blog to get the attention that it did. I never even imagined that was a possibility. But it happened and I learned how to run a relatively popular ask blog on the job, as it were.

There’s a lot I regret when I look back on that early era of this blog. The humour and jokes I allowed and sometimes encouraged and said myself here was often not kind, and that’s something I really regret. Eventually, I put an end to that because it just wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted any of us who have fun here to be doing. But I absolutely allowed it to happen for a long time first, and that’s on me.

Also at that same time, there was a particular way of interacting on tumblr that was very popular. It was a lot of exuberance and hyperbole and insults, and being rude for fun, and overall very over-the-top and often harsh or just plain uncaring that there was someone else at the other end of the message. For everyone who was here in 2012, I think you can probably remember what it was like. It wasn’t a nice mode of communication, but it was popular and got great responses and a lot of people found it fun to read. For a couple of years after I started Ailuronymy, I was absolutely guilty of buying into it and acting this way, until I finally hated it enough to stop. It wasn’t who I wanted to be, in general or on this blog specifically. It felt mean and inauthentic and I wanted to be better. But I did act like that for a long time, and that was a choice I made.

I’m not saying any of this because I want to make excuses for myself. I’m more aware than anyone else of the problems early on in this blog’s history, and it’s something I regret and wish I could go back to do differently with the knowledge and experience I have now. Unfortunately, I can’t change the past. I can only own up to it and do better going forward.

I’m sorry for the tone I often used, including to you in that post, and I’m sorry that because of that behaviour, you felt scared and unwelcome here. That’s a failure on my part. I shouldn’t have used the tone I did, or assumed I had to take a defensive, intense stance the way I did. It’s very sad to me to know that because I did that, you were frightened and decided to leave.

However, I would like to share my context too. Because at the time, I was nineteen years old (which I know probably sounds ancient to younger teens, but it’s not, really), and a bisexual guy (which I still am, obviously), and Ailuronymy was already a place that people (especially queer people) in the fandom were looking to for support and education. Insofar as this blog was developing a niche, that was it. I felt a significant amount of responsibility to champion and defend the people this blog was made for.

2012 was also a time when the Warriors fandom on tumblr was genuinely very homophobic, and also quite volatile. It was common for people to be very angry (in general, and often at me) for saying that ableism isn’t okay, or that Warriors characters can be trans, or sometimes just “canon naming doesn’t make much sense.” I got quite a lot of hate mail--also sometimes just... confused, angry mail, for this naming system or any of the political things I talked about--and I was doing the best I could with what I had to give. A lot of what I learned during my years of running this blog came from making mistakes, but I always did my best.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because what you actually said was: “these cats can be homosexual, asexual, bisexual, pansexual, and transgender--don’t even ask me how that’s possible. I don’t want to know.” You came to me, a queer man, running a blog that in no small part is about how queerness is allowed to exist in this fandom and is in fact not implausible, during a time when the fandom as a whole was solidly anti-queer, with something like that. Like you said, you shared it with me--and the readers here--because you hoped we would find it hilarious and unrealistic too.

But I didn’t, because, to me, that’s just what a lot of the fandom already was. It was a hostile environment that regularly argued that queer characters, or people, had no place here. That was the kind of things people on anon fairly often came to yell in my inbox about how I’m wrong, etc. etc., and how I’m bad, etc. etc.

I reacted defensively, which I wouldn’t do now, because I’m much older, and I have experience and confidence I just didn’t then. At the time, though, what I heard in your ask was “queer characters are absurd and don’t belong here, don’t correct me,” and that is what I reacted to. I’m sure for you, it felt scary and disproportionate, and as I said before, I wish I had handled things differently, and gentler.

But I don’t disagree with what I said. The points I made weren’t wrong. And my response--although not how I would respond now--was not wrong, even though it hurt you. It genuinely is horrible to know that because of my lack of tact, you were scared. It was also horrible to receive your ask at the time, just like many of the rest. It wasn’t hypothetical to me, because I’m queer. It was about me, and other people I care about very much.

The fact I’m queer is probably news to you, and you were new tumblr and probably didn’t know what was going on in the fandom, and maybe you would have said something different if you knew all this.

Likewise, though, you were on anon and I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know you were fourteen. I didn’t know you were asking in good faith, and not just another one of the homophobic fans thinking you’d found a friend in me, which frankly felt a bit insulting. I didn’t know you were and, again, although I wish I did more back then and was kinder in my approach, I didn’t have insight into your intentions. I also didn’t have the maturity for that not to matter.

That said, even in my very imperfect answer I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. I specifically said:

“Before you think I’m victimising you - I’m not. This is not personal right now; currently, this is a mistake on your part, and I understand that mistakes are incredibly easy to make. If, by the end of my post, you get where you went wrong here, then it will be like this ask of yours never happened and I will forget you ever said it. I don’t like to hold any kind of grudge if there’s any way to avoid it, and an acknowledgement of where you went wrong here would completely fix everything about this.”

“So what you’re saying when you say that you don’t believe that “homosexual, asexual, bisexual, pansexual, and transgender” cats are possible in the context of Warriors is, basically, that you’re a bigot. I am really sorry to say that, because the chances are - I sincerely hope - that you aren’t. You’re a good person. You’re a good person who said something bigoted by mistake. And if you don’t believe what you’ve said is a mistake yet, let me show you some interesting true facts about our world.“

Because I know how easy it is to make mistakes and how hard it is to get everything right all the time, and know everything, and never do something dumb or hurtful. It’s easy to fuck up. I’ve done it a lot. The answer I gave you back then is just one example.

That what you took from my answer was only fear and confusion isn’t something in my control, however. I hate that that’s what happened, and I regret not being who I am now back then, but even though I did fuck up back then, I still did what I could at the time to mitigate the damage and reassure you that a mistake doesn’t define you. I am sorry it wasn’t enough for you to feel okay coming back. But I can’t say I’m sorry for telling you that coming to me on my blog with that kind of mentality is something I’ll tolerate at all.

Ultimately, I’m sorry that our experience of each other was not a good one. I’m sorry that your memory of me is someone scary and mean, and that you felt you had to leave this site entirely for two years because of it. I regret that my actions left you with such a negative experience, because that was never my intention, even though the way I handled things with you was very poor.

I hope you’re able to find the closure you’re looking for and I genuinely wish you all the best.

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possiblyimbiassed · 4 years

Text

John’s wedding is a crime scene - Part V

I’ve already talked a lot about what ‘crimes’ might have been committed in Sherlock’s ‘reality’ around John’s wedding in TSoT, so now I think it would be interesting to analyse some events that might have lead up to these ‘crimes’, and also how Sherlock might interpret them in his Mind Palace.

This idea occurred to me after a new discussion surged regarding Part IV of this meta series - a discussion which you can find here (X). (To anyone who prefers to start from the beginning of the series, here are the previous parts: Part I, Part II, Part III). In one of the additions, @lukessense was talking about TLD and asked the following questions:

Sherlock gets beaten by John, because he blames him for killing Mary and asks him if this is a game to him (Sherlock thinks he ‘killed’ Mary because he…flirted with John? Or what is the game here? The game of not confessing? The game of unanswered questions about their feelings?).

These things have been puzzling me too, and I’m not sure about the answers in any sense. The following is just my very subjective opinion, and there could certainly exist a lot of alternate explanations. But I’ll try to lay out my view of it all here - in an emotional context - and see how S4, in particular TLD, can relate to John’s wedding and to other events before it.

The Macho Game

Continued under the cut

First of all: what is ‘The Game’ we see played out in the show actually about? I think The Game is basically between Sherlock and John and it’s about not admitting to (romantic) emotions; it’s a sort of ‘macho’ game where the first one to show the ‘weakness’ of being in love with the other one loses. They can dance around each other for ages, but none of them will lower their guard first and risking the harsh destiny of unrequited love and abandonment and consequently be seriously hurt (’killed’) - risking to have their heart burned.

In Sherlock’s view, to fall in love is to lose all power and control over your own life - hence the constant death metaphor for it in his mind. To confess to feelings is to bare your throat to the attack of the ‘enemy’ - and the enemy is Love; in Sherlock’s eyes the culprit of much of the suffering in this world.

Why is this ‘game’ so important to maintain for Sherlock? Because emotions is such a scary, unreliable and stigmatising thing, especially between two men, and they have to be kept at bay. I think Sherlock is against them on the surface because they interfere with the logical reasoning in his work, but in reality he’s scared as h*ll of them because of his childhood (and maybe youth) traumas. I would guess something really bad happened to him, probably involving Victor Trevor and maybe also his parents.

Sherlock’s aim is to be on top of all that, to never feel doubt of his own capacity and to never give in to the dangerous dominance of emotions. His way of doing this has unfortunately been to repress all affectionate emotions which he sees as a threat. But this ’strategy of survival’ has also damaged him gravely. And inside himself, a part of him is still fighting against it.

My view of John is that he has probably been raised in a homophobic and even abusive ‘macho’ environment/family and been taught to look down on LGBTQ people, hence his gay sister’s problems with alcohol. He’s a very reserved guy who rarely talks about how he feels. He struggles with the duality of his sexual orientation and with fear of society’s condemnation of the gay side of it (”people will talk”). He may think he has a ’liberal’ view of these things (”...which is fine, by the way”), but John also believes he needs to live up to conventions and social expectations, at least on the surface, in spite of never actually having his heart in it.

John engages in this ’macho game’ with Sherlock because he’s also very confused about his own emotions. On one hand he’s both sexually attracted to and deeply in love with Sherlock, but on the other he’s afraid of what these feelings are doing to him. He thinks there’s ’something wrong’ with him for feeling this way about Sherlock. But he’s also an adrenaline junkie; he can’t resist danger. His worst nightmare is to openly confess his (romantic) love to Sherlock, only to then be abandoned by this ’un-feeling psychopath’ and left with the stigma of coming out, but with no-one to support him. I see it as unlikely that John will make the first move to break this ’dance’, unless he has reason to feel sure about Sherlock being there for him.

False conclusions

Now, even if S4 is all composed of Sherlock’s dreamed/imagined scenarios inside his Extended Mind Palace, I don’t think we can interpret everything we see in them as his ’gained wisdom’. In science, scenarios are never more accurate than the data you put into the model, or than the algorithm you use to run the scenario. And these being dream scenarios with no support in ’reality’ (in this case John’s blog) prevents us from using common logics to interpret them; the metaphors are mixed and many-layered. And all the events we see in S4 are fabrications, but maybe partly based on things that did happen before, which Sherlock’s brain now uses in ’new’ situations for the purpose of analysis. Also - and this is important - some of it may show us Sherlock’s mistaken conclusions - he might actually be wrong. :)

As for the hug scene in TLD, I think Sherlock still believes that John really wants to be the guy Mrs Het Norm Mary expected him to be, but he can’t and that’s why John starts crying at the end of the scene. When the truth is that John just can’t play this ridiculous game anymore; it has made him a liar and a cheater and it’s eating him up from the inside (and destroying his character on the meta level).

This has most probably to do with internalised homophobia, but I don’t think Sherlock has realised this just yet (because they both have it internalised). If Sherlock and John had sex on the stag night, then yes; maybe Sherlock (subconsciously) believes he thereby destroyed John’s protection from exposure. He ‘killed’ Mary, he ’broke the spell’ by making John cheat on her, and the result is a depressed John.

All of this is conclusions that Sherlock reaches first in TLD, after having run this whole scenario about John’s psychological motivations. (And I don’t think Sherlock is aware that his brain keeps running scenarios; he thinks everything in S4 actually happens). I have tried to describe my view of TLD in my meta series ‘What happened to Sherlock’ (X). All seems back to normal after the hug scene, but the problem is that TLD still ends with John being shot, so the problem has not been solved. Which propells Sherlock into his next mental scenario, TFP, where he finally has to confront his own emotions and traumas.

But I think the hug scene in TLD is false - at least partly - because it shows us a John whom it is very hard for Sherlock to comfort because of John’s self-loathing. I actually don’t believe the ‘real’ John would tell Sherlock that “it’s not okay” when Sherlock for once is there for him emotionally and actually offers him something as intimate as a hug. The ‘real’ John would take this opportunity without hesitation and hug him back. But Sherlock misinterprets his own data; he thinks this is all about John’s love for Mary, and his mourning after having lost her. While in ‘reality’ (where Mary may not even be dead) I think John is hoping for precisely this; he’s waiting for Sherlock to show his cards first. But this would mean that Sherlock first has to embrace Sentiment.

All in all I think Sherlock is a very empathetic person who cares deeply about people, especially those closest to him; he is by no means a ‘psychopath’. In fact he uses empathy as a method of crime solving; he puts himself in another persons’ shoes to see what he would do in that situation (and this comes directly from canon). This way he often manages to reason backwards to reconstruct what has happened. The problem with Sherlock’s analyses, though, is that he actively tries to avoid considering emotional aspects. His fear of certain emotions sometimes leads him in the wrong direction.

Why the beating?

So what about John’s beating of Sherlock in the morgue in TLD, where he blames Sherlock for killing Mary? This scene is outright horrible to watch and very difficult to understand. Disarming Sherlock and make him drop the scalpel is one thing, but how can Sherlock even dream that John would assault his best friend and kick the sh*t out of him while lying defenseless on the floor? For something that he didn’t even do? This is so absurd that I strongly suspect something else is going on. But here we must remember that this nightmarish scenario, as well as many others, might be based on things that have actually happened before; things that might have lead to the oddity of John’s wedding becoming a ‘crime scene’.

So let’s use Sherlock’s empathy methods on himself here, and try to analyse how Sherlock might have interpreted certain things that lead to the situation in TSoT. Because I think this is basically what Sherlock’s brain is trying to do in TLD, even if he still doesn’t actually ‘get it’. :P Which, by the way, is smoothly illustrated by this interchange between Mycroft (= Sherlock’s Brain) and Mrs Hudson (= Sherlock’s intuition? His heart?) in TLD:

Before beginning I want to point out that in my view most of the things we see happen in the show (especially after TSoT) represent Sherlock’s lively interpretation of what John has written on his blog. So in order to understand the beating in TLD, the first thing I would do is look for any kind of beating accounted for by John on his blog. And yes; there is of course this one in the blog post The Empty Hearse (X):

John actually admits publicly that he did beat up Sherlock in a restaurant, and then he goes on to wave the whole thing away without even a shred of remorse. Trying to look at this through Sherlock’s logical eyes (where emotions are repressed), I get the impression that John thinks this was a perfectly OK thing to do, after Sherlock’s little ‘joke’. It’s as if John were saying, in big macho style: “Don’t mess with Captain John Watson, Sherlock, because this is what happens, see? Sneaking up on me like that, you’ll get what you deserve.”

In fact, this whole blog post stands in stark contrast to what John had written about Sherlock when he thought he was dead. Instead of honouring Sherlock’s memory, now he talks about “Sherlock Bloody Holmes” and “I know he's a psychopath and I've accepted that, but...” And also that “he hadn't trusted us enough to tell us what was really going on. Not sure I'll ever truly forgive him for that”. And “he comes back into my life which means I find myself being attacked, kidnapped and stuck in a bonfire”. In this blog post, the only redeeming quality that Sherlock seems to have in John’s eyes, apart from his crime solving, is that he offers John a chance to help with it, which means danger for the adrenaline junkie. “He’s like a drug”. And John finishes with stating that Mary “is the best thing that's ever happened to me”, addressing it directly to Sherlock with a smiley. What is Sherlock supposed to make of all this?

I can understand that John is upset and appalled by Sherlock’s seemingly heartless nonchalance in just appearing before him like a ghost and behave like John’s years of grieving were all but a joke. But once he had assaulted the guy (thrice, if we are to believe the show’s version), why still this intense resentment? Why wasn’t it even enough to ‘vent’ by hitting the guy? Hadn’t he begged and hoped that Sherlock by some miracle would still be alive?

Apparently, now that Sherlock is back from the dead, all John’s emotional defenses immediately snap up again like a protective wall and the 'macho game’ is on once more. But unfortunately I don’t think Sherlock gets this, because it’s about Sentiment, and it has to do with him and John. Sherlock probably wouldn’t look at it that way.

But my point is, that this is what Sherlock’s subconscious is trying to tell him through the comatose scenarios in TLD: ‘Mary’ is dead because Sherlock has effectively destroyed John’s heteronormative façade.

And when did this happen? Well, it probably began when Sherlock suddenly returned from the dead; by that he managed to explode John’s carefully crafted little bubble of ordinary life. Or - more accurately - he blew up his little bubble of heteronormative life; he started to ‘kill Mary’. Hence John’s deep resentment; he was losing ‘the game’. But the biggest blow would have happened around John’s wedding, I think. Because if they actually did end up in bed after a wet Stag Night, this would have been the ultimate proof, wouldn’t it? The final evidence that Mary was not the best thing that could have happened to John, that this was just some BS that John was trying to hide behind.

John’s cover would have been blown, but he still proceeded to marry Mary Morstan as if nothing, making Sherlock feel like a trash can, only worthy of abuse. I even think there is some more evidence of this in John’s comment to his own last blog post about the Mayfly Man:

So John tries here to legitimise his own conduct, right? A married man who wanted some one-night stands. It might be significant that Sherlock doesn’t even comment on this blog post, but after the wedding he simply hacks the blog. No wonder that Sherlock’s scenarios in HLV, TAB and S4 would be dark and cynical then, is there? No wonder Sherlock calling himself “a sociopath who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high“. No wonder him calling it “surgery” when Mrs Het Norm ‘Mary’ skillfully cuts out his heart.

But the thing is, that John’s useless marriage could most probably have been avoided if Sherlock had been frank and honest to John about his feelings for him in the first place. And it’s still not too late; the ’crime’ can be reversed. I still have good hope that Sherlock will eventually reach that point in S5 by finally recognising the importance of emotions and take on the real criminal here: homophobia.

Tagging some people who might be interested:

@raggedyblue @lukessense @sarahthecoat @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sagestreet @tjlcisthenewsexy @loveismyrevolution

#TLD #John's Blog #John's wedding is a crime scene

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captainjanegay · 4 years

Text

Summary:

Bucky is a single dad coming back from a work trip with a very bored, very whiney 7-year-old girl. A mysterious stranger with a kind heart and a notebook full of doodles comes to the rescue.

A/N: This fic was supposed to be just a short one-shot for the Stucky Bingo but somehow, it's at 11k at this point and it's nowhere near done. I have two more chapters all done and ready and a vague outline for the rest of the story. It's my first time posting a fic chapter by chapter so it's both exciting and kinda scary. I hope you'll like the story enough to stick with me for a while.

My sixth fill for the @stuckybingo2020 ♥

At some point in his life Bucky didn't mind spending hours at airports and he found traveling —even work-related —quite enjoyable. But that was when he was young, stupid and alone. Now he's older, just as stupid and has a wonderful girl in his life.

The girl in question is now standing next to him, little arms crossed and a sullen expression on her face. She's repeatedly kicking at the leg of the chair he's sitting on. There's no real force to it —she's only 7 after all —and she's not doing it to do any real damage to anyone or anything. It's just little taps, really and she's doing it out of boredom. But dear lord, Bucky's about to explode.

"Alex, sweetheart," Bucky says, slowly breathing out through his nose. "Could you please stop with that kicking? It's a bit annoying."

"But papa," she whines, drawling out the word. "I'm bored!"

"I know, love and I'm really sorry but papa’s gotta do something important for work," he sighs, trying to run a hand through her hair. She ducks and flops onto the chair next to him, an angry little pout on her face. "I have to finish it before we go on the plane. I'll do it as quickly as possible and then I'll be all yours, ok?"

It's not really surprising when he doesn't get an answer. With another sigh, he leans to the side and presses a kiss to the top of his daughter's head and then turns back to his laptop.

From the very moment she woke up today, Bucky knew it's gonna be a long day. She was cranky and teary all morning, not wanting to say goodbye to Natasha and it took a good hour to calm her down. Then Bucky had to basically beg her to eat something before they left for the airport. It wasn't a great day. And Bucky knew she didn't do it just to make him miserable, she was just as frustrated and tired as he was. On top of that, he has to edit and upload a report from the conference and the airport Wi-Fi is so bad Bucky is close to tears himself.

The work would probably take less time if he wasn't getting distracted every minute or so and glancing to the side, making sure that Alex is fine. Or relatively fine, the bad mood excluded. At the moment she is slouching on the plastic chair, still pouting. Felicia—a pink stuffed Triceratops —is placed on her lap so at least Alex has something to occupy her for a moment.

Bucky tries his best to get through the documents quickly but he doesn't want to miss any errors either. He gets lost in the work for the entirety of about five minutes when he hears something truly surprising.

Alex laughs. It’s so unexpected after what seems like hours of complaining, crying and whining that Bucky’s head snaps up from his laptop and he looks at his daughter.

She is still sitting by his side, Felicia pressed closely to her chest and there is a smile on her face. It’s definitely not aimed at Bucky, though. So Bucky follows her line of sight and… oh.

It’s not like he didn’t notice the guy sitting across from them before. Because he did. It would be rather impossible not to notice this guy. He is tall and well-built and could look intimidating if it wasn’t for his bright blue eyes or tousled golden hair or the gentle smile or the fact that he’s wearing the softest beige sweater Bucky has ever seen. He is both ridiculously handsome and cute at the same time. So of course, Bucky noticed him before. But now he tries to figure out what about him made Alex laugh. It doesn’t take long, because the man is holding up his notebook, showing the page to Alex.

On the page are three little, cartoon-like doodles. The first one at the top looks unmistakably like Alex—her brows are furrowed, arms crossed and a little storm cloud is hovering above her. Underneath there’s his daughter again but this time she’s laughing, her eyes only small slits and a little sun peeks from behind the cloud. The last drawing, just next to the smiling Alex, is of Bucky. His head is partly hidden behind a laptop screen and there’s a look of utter concentration on his face. Above his cartoon persona floats a swarm of little gears, question marks and lightbulbs. Bucky snorts. It’s probably quite accurate.

Noticing that Bucky is staring at the drawing, the stranger startles and his cheeks turn red.

“I’m not some creep, I promise!” he starts explaining himself, before Bucky even opens his mouth. “I just—she seemed so upset and I’ve heard you said you have something important to do so I just wanted—Man, it’s weird, isn’t it? I’m sorry I promise I just wanted to help, not bug your kid without permission.”

“It’s not—,” Bucky starts, slightly taken aback. “It’s very sweet of you, actually. Thank you. Really, that’s just—I don’t mind. And Alex here seems to enjoy your drawings.” Bucky smiles down at his daughter and then at the stranger. His smile falters a bit and he sighs. “I’d really love to chat some more but I really need to get this shit done and the airport Wi-Fi is truly horrible.”

“Oh! Bad word!” Alex gasps, covering Bucky’s mouth with her little hand. “You said a bad word! No sweets for you!”

The stranger laughs at that and Bucky probably shouldn’t be as charmed as he feels right now. He just kisses Alex's hand and leans away from it.

“OK, sweetheart. Promise not to eat any when we get home,” he says solemnly. “But papa really needs to work a little longer, OK? Ten more minutes, I promise. Try not to bother the nice man too much until then, yeah?”

She lets a long-suffering sigh but she agrees.

“I’m Steve, by the way,” the man says, smiling at Bucky.

Before he gets the chance to answer, Alex chimes in, “I’m Alexandra. And papa’s name is James but only mama and people at work call him that. Everyone calls him Bucky.”

The man — Steve — lets out a small laugh. “It’s nice to meet you both. Alexandra, do you want me to draw you something specific, while we let your papa work?”

“Oh, can you draw Felicia? She’s a...,” Alex furrows her brows in concentration, “tri-ce-ra-tops! That’s a dinosaur!”

Steve leans forward from his chair and smiles at her. “She’s so cool! But weren’t dinosaurs kinda dangerous?”

“Some of them, yeah. They ate other dinosaurs. But the ones like Felicia only ate plants, so she’s cool.”

Steve lets out an attentive hum but something in his expression tells Bucky that it’s not new information for him and he’s just indulging Alex and letting her share what she knows. It makes Bucky feel a wave of sympathy towards this Steve guy.

Soon enough, a new page of Steve’s notebook gets covered with doodles of various dinosaurs, based on Alex’s jurassic knowledge—it’s a bit flawed, but Bucky is proud of her nonetheless.

It takes Bucky a few moments to stop sending glances towards the two. It’s partly because Steve—no matter how sweet he seems to be—is still a stranger. Steve might be bigger than him, but Bucky would end him if he tried to do anything to his little girl. But there are no red lights when it comes to Steve—and Bucky always prided himself on his ability to read people.

The other thing making it hard to go back to work is the fact that the scene he’s looking at is quite an adorable one. Both Alex and Steve are sitting at the edges of their seats, leaning over the passage between the two rows of chairs and their eyes are fixed on the notebook propped on Steve’s knee. They’re chatting, exchanging random facts about dinosaurs but since their knowledge is limited, they switch to talking about modern animals soon enough. Steve listens intently to whatever Alex has to say without patronising her. And sadly, Bucky has met a fair share of adults for whom it was impossible to take Alex seriously just because she was a kid. It calms Bucky enough to actually focus on his work for a little longer.

Some peace of mind does wonders for his concentration and the ten minutes he promised Alex are actually enough for him to finish editing the reports. The WiFi is still a bitch, though. However, after staring at the loading circle for what feels like an eternity, he is able to send the documents. With a triumphant little cheer, he turns off the laptop and slides it back into his bag.

Steve looks up at him and smiles. Alex completely ignores him, though, still too focused on whatever Steve was drawing. Bucky feels a bit betrayed. When she looks up, she glances at Steve first, probably to ask why the drawing has stopped and turns to Bucky when she notices Steve looking his way.

“Oh, you’ve finished the work, daddy?” she asks and when he nods, she smiles and reaches to wrap her arms around his neck. “It took you some time. But I’m proud of you.”

Bucky laughs at that, shaking his head slightly, “Thank you, sunshine. I see you were having fun with Steve while I was busy?”

“Yeah! Steve drawings are so pretty! He drew you riding a dinosaur!” Alex giggles, pointing at one of the little drawings.

Raising his brows, Bucky sends Steve a questioning look but the other man just shrugs and rubs at his neck. “It was her idea,” he says with a sheepish smile.

The doodle Alex is pointing at is indeed of him sitting on a dinosaur's back. It’s the one with the long, giraffe-like neck, Brachiosaurus if he remembers correctly. The cartoon Bucky’s arms are wrapped around the base of the reptile’s neck, his hair fluttering behind him and his mouth is open in either a big smile or a scream, he’s not sure. Either way, it’s a very cute drawing.

“Well,” Bucky says. “I’m not a fan of horses but I’d totally ride a dinosaur if I had a chance. Shouldn’t he have a saddle, though?”

It’s not even that funny but Steve still laughs and Bucky smiles at that. His daughter is less impressed or at least tries to appear so. She rolls her eyes but there’s a grin on her face.

“You’re so silly, daddy. They didn’t have saddles back then! And besides you’d need a very, very big one for a dinosaur!”

Bucky hums in agreement and looks up at the departure display. Noticing that their flight’s gate is open, he nudges Alex lightly.

“We gotta go, sweetheart,” he says. She perks up a bit but then glances at Steve with a small pout. “Sadly, we have to say goodbye to Steve. On the bright side, we’re gonna be home soon, yeah?”

Alex nods and slides off her chair. Steve looks up at the display and straightens up.

“Oh, my flight’s boarding, too. But you know what?” Steve asks and then rips the page with all the dinosaur doodles and holds it out to Alex. “You should keep this, if you want.”

Hearing this, Alex’s whole face lights up and she takes the drawings with gentle hands, as if afraid to mess it up. “Thank you, Steve! Those are so cool I’m gonna keep them forever!”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Steve smiles. He looks up at Bucky. “It was nice to meet you, guys.”

“Likewise. Thank you again for the help. It was very nice of you,” Bucky says sincerely.

“It was my pleasure. My knowledge about dinosaurs is so much better now,” Steve’s smile grows even bigger and Bucky chuckles.

Bucky leans to help Alex put on her little backpack, since she refuses to put down the drawing and then reaches for his bag. He rests his hand on his daughter’s back and turns to Steve one last time. He’s still sitting at the edge of his seat and is watching them. A smile is still plastered to his face and at this point Bucky is sure that it’s his default setting.

“Bye, Steve. Have a safe flight,” Bucky says.

“Bye, Steve. Thank you for the dinosaurs,” Alex adds, making Steve laugh.

“You are very welcome, Alexandra,” he says. “Have a nice day, guys.”

Bucky gently steers Alex towards their gate. Before they disappear behind the corner, he turns away to look at Steve one more time. The man is already looking back and he waves at them when he notices Bucky staring. Alex waves back enthusiastically and Bucky just ducks his head, feeling flustered all of sudden. He used to be more collected around nice, attractive people. And Steve definitely qualifies as both.

***

Some time later they finally make it to the plane. Alex flops down onto the middle seat and eventually — after a long discussion and promises that he won’t ruin it — she lets Bucky put the drawings she got from Steve into the folder he keeps his documents in. When the treasure is safely put away Bucky straightens to put his bag in the overhead compartment.

“Oh,” he hears a voice behind his back and a low chuckle quickly follows. “Fancy bumping into you here.”

Bucky looks over his shoulder and the surprise makes him try to close the compartment while his other hand is still holding the bag. He yelps in pain, making Alex look up.

“Steve!” she says with a smile, completely ignoring her father’s distress.

“Hello again, Alexandra,” Steve shoots her a quick smile and looks at Bucky, concerned. “You’re OK? I didn’t want to spook you.”

Man, he really got bad at keeping his cool around attractive people. Feeling a blush creep up his neck, Bucky nods. “No, no, you didn’t. I’m just a clutz, this happens a lot, ignore me.”

Steve raises an eyebrow at him but he doesn’t say anything more. For a moment they just stand in the narrow aisle, looking at each other. Finally, Bucky’s ability to think kicks back in and he moves to the side.

“Sorry, you probably want to get through to your seat.”

“Actually,” Steve says and glances down at the boarding pass in his hand. After checking it, he points to the seat by the window, on Alex’s other side. “That one’s mine.”

“Oh,” Bucky looks at the seat and then at Steve. His cheeks still feel warm for some reason but he hopes he's not blushing too visibly. "That's great. I'm just gonna—"

Bucky shifts to the other side and takes a step back, making room for Steve.

"You're flying with us back home?" Alex asks with a hopeful glint in her eyes. "Will you draw something more for me?"

"Alex, come on. Don't abuse Steve niceness like that," Bucky scolds her gently but before he can even finish the sentence, Steve starts shaking his head.

"It's fine, don't worry about it. I often doodle when I get bored anyway so I'd be honoured to draw for you again, Alexandra," Steve grins at her.

She actually lets out a little happy squeal when she hears that and Bucky's heart skips a beat. He's absolutely charmed by the way Steve treats his daughter. He really seems like entertaining some random little girl is the best thing he could be doing and while Bucky - absolutely objectively - thinks that Alex is the most wonderful little girl in the world, it still seems unusual. And he positively melts every time that Steve uses her full name, just because that was the way she introduced herself the first time. Most adults Bucky knows don't do that with other adults, not to mention kids. And Steve is just so… kind and genuine, it takes Bucky off guard but it's a really nice surprise.

"Ok, fine," Bucky says with a smile. "You have no idea what you've brought on yourself. Is it possible to strain your hand from drawing too much? The flight's almost two hours, right?"

"Does your dad always complain this much?" Steve asks Alex and she giggles in response. He sends Bucky a glance over her head and he has a smirk on his face. Ignoring Bucky again, he says to Alex, "Hey, have you ever watched Sesame Street? There was this one grouchy green guy."

Bucky just sends him his most unimpressed look. Steve doesn't seem affected. Alex is delighted. And in truth, Bucky has to bite the inside of his cheek to contain a smile.

It turns out that on top of being nice and lovely, Steve is also a little shit, because he draws a Bucky-version of Oscar the Grouch - with a grumpy expression and wild hair, sitting in a garbage can. It's actually amazing. Bucky doesn't say that out loud, but he snorts when he sees it, so that might betray him a little.

This time — prompted by the mention of Sesame Street — the conversation resolves mostly around animated movies. To Bucky’s surprise, it turns out that Steve is a huge Disney fan. He doesn’t even try to hide it. Not to brag but Bucky knows his way around animated movies — partly because he has a 7-year-old daughter and partly because who doesn’t like animated movies? But compared to Steve and Alex? He knows nothing. They use names he doesn’t even recognise - who or what even is Flit? Judging by Steve’s drawing it’s some kind of a bird, apparently. When Bucky can’t remember — he knows it, of course, it just slipped his mind — the name of the redheaded princess from Brave, he is given the most disdainful look he’s ever seen. Both by his daughter and by Steve. Bucky still tries to participate in the conversation, at least for as much as they let him. He never expected his own daughter to team up with some stranger against him. It hurts.

The pain is all forgotten when Steve and Alex start quietly singing Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid together. Bucky can’t help a laugh that bubbles from his chest at the sight. How is Steve even real, Bucky has no idea. He is over six feet of muscle, his bicep is bigger than Alex's head and he could probably bench press Bucky and here he is, sitting next to Bucky’s little girl, drawing a picture of Megara, because she’s his favourite Disney princess and singing a song from The Little Mermaid.

This guy can’t be real.

About half an hour into the flight it turns out that Bucky was wrong — Alex does leave Steve alone but it’s only because the tiredness catches up to her and she falls asleep. And she’s sleeping with her head resting on Steve’s arm. It’s a really nice arm, Bucky has to admit, a nap on such an arm would be good and comfortable even for him, probably. But that doesn’t change the fact that he feels left out.

“Sorry,” Bucky says quietly. “You probably want your arm back, I can just—”

He offers to move Alex’s sleeping body but Steve just shrugs with his free arm, careful not to jostle the girl.

“Don't want to wake her and I really don't mind," Steve says, smiling at Bucky.

"You sure?" Bucky asks and after getting a nod in confirmation, he chuckles and shakes his head. “I keep trying to figure out where the catch is but I’ve got nothing. You’re just naturally this kind, aren’t you?”

Steve barks out a laugh and then slaps his hand over his mouth to quiet the noise. He looks down to make sure he didn’t wake Alex.

“Oh there’s plenty wrong with me,” Steve says with a chuckle. “For one I’m usually really awkward around kids. Alexandra’s such a great girl, though. But I do like to help and try to be nice whenever I can.”

Bucky narrows his eyes at Steve. “You think you’d side-track me by complimenting my daughter? You’re totally right, but that doesn’t mean I’m not curious.”

With an exaggerated eye roll, Steve makes the ‘bring it’ gesture and grins. “Come on. Hit me with your best guesses.”

“OK. OK, fine,” Bucky says and shifts in his seat so he can look at Steve more directly. Crossing his arms, he asks, “Do I have a limited number of guesses?”

“It’s not that long of a flight,” Steve shrugs with one shoulder, grin still in place.

In a theatrically thoughtful gesture Bucky strokes his chin gauging Steve with his eyes.

“You… secretly work as a hitman” Bucky says slowly, “or like, an underwear model. Which is not a bad thing to do.”

A blush creeps up Steve’s cheeks as he laughs again. “Those are… pretty far off. Why those two?”

“Well, you’re built appropriately for both from what I can see,” Bucky explains, enjoying the way Steve cheeks go darker. Maybe he’s not so helpless at talking to attractive people as he thought. It feels a whole lot like flirting.

That terrifies him for a moment. He didn't do flirting in what feels like ages. He doesn't have time for this. Should he even do this? He has a daughter, he shouldn’t just—

Bucky takes a deep breath and smacks himself mentally across the head. He’s not doing anything bad. He’s just talking and having fun with an attractive stranger. Maybe even flirting a bit. And that’s OK, this is allowed, he doesn’t have to go anywhere else with that. It’s not like he’s ever going to see the guy again, anyway. Natasha would punch him for denying himself that. So he will make sure not to mention it the next time they talk.

“Well…,” Steve rubs the back of his neck. “I am not. Hitman or— I’m neither of those. I’m actually an illustrator. Mostly freelance stuff. I paint sometimes, too. But that’s mostly for fun.”

“OK, fine. Somehow I can believe that. You seem like an artsy type,” Bucky agrees.

“No hitman vibes anymore?”

“Who says a hitman can’t enjoy painting in his free time?”

Steve laughs, throwing his head back. Somehow he manages to keep the left side of his body completely still, mindful of Alex sleeping on him.

“I don’t know if there’s a point in trying to convince you, but I’m really not.”

“Sure. Probably what a hitman would say,” Bucky waves a hand at him but smiles. “That’s cool though. Being able to get paid for doing what you love.”

“It is. Sometimes you get frustrated enough to hate it but it’s still pretty cool,” Steve agrees. “You don’t like your job?”

Bucky scrunches his nose, making a non-committal sound as he tries to find the best way to explain. “It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s fun. Interesting, exciting, sometimes frustrating as hell, too. And the responsibility can be incredibly stressful. It’s just… I never took time to think about what I really like doing in life. And since the job was good enough, I just stuck with it.”

Steve hums, nodding along to Bucky's words. "It's never too late to figure it out, you know?" he says. "I mean, I don't wanna impose and tell you how to live your life or anything. I'd never. I just— I think it's an important thing to know."

"You might be right," Bucky agrees. He glances down at Alex. "I don't think it's a good time for me to experiment, you know? Besides — if there's one thing I know for sure that I like it's having this little rascal around."

The smile on Steve's face turns soft. But only for a moment, before it turns back into that smirk he had earlier. "Any guesses left? About my dark side?"

"A few," Bucky grins.

It's a bit of a lie because he really struggles to see Steve as anything but perfect but he can try. It's just a game they're playing to kill time after all.

"You are that kind of guy who can eat garbage food and not move a finger and still look like you've just walked straight out of a gym. I hate those people. It's so unfair."

"Are all of your guesses based on how I look? I kind of see a pattern here so far."

Bucky opens his mouth to protest but there's something in the way Steve looks at him, with a raised eyebrow and one corner of his mouth quirked up that makes him close his mouth without a word. He might be blushing. Maybe he's being too forward. It's probably not appropriate to talk about a stranger's body this much.

Before he gets the chance to apologize, Steve answers, "And you're wrong, again. I like working out. Takes my mind off things, helps me clear my head when I need that. Besides I used to be small and sickly my whole childhood. Couldn't even play with other kids for too long without getting an asthma attack. So I'm kinda compensating for that," he jokes.

"Really?"

"Yeah. All pointy elbows and bony knees."

"Huh," Bucky says. "Bet you looked way cuter than me when I had my bowl cut. We all had our dark moments."

Steve laughs again and Bucky really enjoys the sound of that. He really enjoys Steve's company in general, which is weird considering they've just met. It usually takes him much more time to get comfortable around people. Maybe it's the fact that they'll go their separate ways as soon as the plane lands makes it all easier.

"I'm kinda disappointed, you know?" Steve starts after a moment. "I thought you'd guess at least once. Or at least would be more creative with those."

"Who says I'm done? It was all on purpose, I was just assessing, gathering intel. I'm a scientist, I don't know if I've mentioned that before," Bucky points a finger at Steve. "You've got to be methodical about stuff."

Raising his hands in surrender, Steve tries to keep a straight face. He fails miserably.

"I wanted to say that you secretly hate dogs or cats but that would be just too harsh," Bucky says. "I don't think you're a monster."

"I love dogs," Steve confirms. "Always wanted to get one but my flat's too small and I doubt that'd be good for a dog. I don't have anything against cats but I feel like they don't… like me that much."

Bucky chuckles. "I feel like there's a story there."

"Just— My friend Sam has a cat and she absolutely hates me. I can't leave my phone on the table cause she pushes it off, but she doesn't touch Sam's. Every time I'm there she follows me around and hisses at me for no reason. She peed in my shoe more than once," Steve says and tries to look hurt when Bucky starts laughing. "It's not funny! I haven't done anything to deserve this. I tried to bribe her with food, I tried to pet her but I only got scratched for my efforts. And she doesn't do that with anyone but me."

"So that's your dark secret? That your nemesis is a cat?" Bucky asks with a grin.

"It's… definitely true."

“Can’t say I’ve seen that one coming,” Bucky laughs.

Steve shrugs with one arm. “I’m full of surprises.”

Clearly, Bucky thinks, shaking his head at the other man.

Title: Wrap me up (in your love) Creator(s): niallhoranbitches Card number: 065 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27745402/chapters/67911988 Square filled: B2 - Airport Rating: Teen and Up Archive warnings: None Major tags: Meet-Cute, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Kid Fic, No powers AU Summary: Bucky is a single dad coming back from a work trip with a very bored, very whiney 7-year-old girl. A mysterious stranger with a kind heart and a notebook full of doodles comes to the rescue. Word count: 4591

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clonesome · 4 years

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Can't find anything else for it and I am not looking through a p0rn filled tag just to see gifs of a movie I like. But Come Play, a horror movie that released Halloween of 2020 is really good. Especially for a PG-13 rated film. Both this one and Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark are really hitting it off for PG-13 Horror, and it's something I like to see bc no shower scenes or the like allowed lol.

However almost all of the reviews I see for this movie have it.. very wrong. In the sense that the people who are reviewing this movie say its "A commentary about how Screen For Kids Bad, Technology Dependence Is Bad." When.. that's not it AT ALL. Because the character of Oliver, played by Azhy Robertson *who to my knowledge is not autistic, is autistic. A nonverbal autistic child is the center of a horror movie. And I love to see that.

So in other words, in order to 'use his words' he needs the assistance of a picture to speech app on his electronic device. And there is nothing wrong with that because there are people, autistic or not, that need this to 'verbally' tell others how they are feeling/just to 'talk' to other in general. It is literally tool that helps some disabled people 'talk'.

And I feel like the people reviewing this movie just don't get that. They don't get that this is The Normal for some people, and that that Normal is Okay for them. Another this this movie touches on is both of Oliver's parents wishing he were """""Normal"""" or wishing he was """"Like Everyone Else"""". And honestly that hurt, because some of this movie is focused on the parents complaing, in my opinion as an autistic human. I'm not saying they can't like.. want these things I guess??? But it is still damaging, especially because Oliver either hears the two parents talking about their issues with him OR it is said DIRECTLY TO HIM on multiple occasions.

Which. I hate. Becuase I have dealt with that, not only from my own parents but from just rando people as well bc some people think that being disabled is the most horrible thing ever. And it's. Its really fucking not.

Lets move on to the Monster, Larry the literaly embodiment of loneliness. This creature is scary as hell, only able to be viewed the majority of the movie by way of a device camera. And it's design is cool, reminds me of The Rake a little bit. There is this one scene in a parking garage where all of these newspapers are flying around and a good amount get stuck in Larry's silhouette and o h that sent chills through me. And the glowing red eyes are such a nice and easy touch to get across a feeling of uneasiness. Larry is just a really cool Monster and isn't really evil in my opinion. But Larry is a supernatural being that basically takes children so, can't really uh defend it too much there lol. In its defense, it does think it it Helping. Not that it necessarily is lol.

Anyway, if you want a new film to check out I would definitely recommend this one. Thanks for reading this post, I dunno if I got all my points across but I hope it is enough for this movie to at least get your interest. Even with all of my griping lol.

#Clonesome #Come Play 2020 #long post #autistic character #autistic child character #i dunno if this is a long post but i thought id tag anyway lol

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zuzuslastbraincell · 4 years

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For the salty ask game: 6, 10 and 16? <3

6: Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

I never used to like kataang or maiko much, but I’m good with the former and really like the latter now.

while I’m still not a big fan of the kataang (without wanting to write an essay: ember island players ruins it for me), I’ve softened on it a lot largely just from seeing the content for it on here. they’re just honestly very sweet? I don’t know if it’ll last for practical reasons, but the idea of aang & katara offering each other hope from the beginning and until the end is just lovely.

as for maiko, I absolutely love the strength of mai & zuko’s dynamic (platonic or romantic) just from their boiling rock interactions alone. I feel like a lot of early s3 maiko very much demonstrates that they have some communication difficulties to work through together (thinking about the beach in particular here, but also the ‘are you cold?’ scene, as well as the break-up via letter interaction, that’s the big one) and in a sense mai represents part of zuko’s ‘ideal’ life as a perfect prince that he realises that he has to break from in the first half of s3, but I’ve come around to the idea that if they spent some time working through their communication issues they could really have something lovely? I do also think mai deserves a short break from the stifling culture of nobility/time to explore herself first, but after that? totally could work. like, i’m personally really attached to the gay zuko headcanon and always have been but a lot recent mutuals are maiko shippers and i’ve become very attached to maiko as well because of them (in parallel universes of course).

16: If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

so many things....

1. less racist, more sensitive worldbuilding. crucially better south asian rep, clear south asian rep. this also means including removing the caricature of guru pathik and changing the design of combustion man (and p’li) not to include a reference to shiva. the show’s philosophies and vocabulary owes so much to south asian culture and the lack of representation in that aspect alone is shocking.

2. references to the fact that there are some air nomad survivors / descendents in hiding in various and that being a late s2 / s3 subplot. (maybe aang is still the last airbender tho? but certainly his culture won’t die with him). the culture isn’t perfectly preserved / has changed with time and enduring hardships, some things have been lost, but there are still survivors clinging on, proud. maybe it’s this community that helps with him the avatar state, not a random guru? or they could help him with his s3e1 dilemma about ‘blending in’, as many of them have discarded certain aspects of appearance in order to hide? i feel like this could add so much to aang’s arc in the latter half of the show.

3. better writing of the white lotus, with the white lotus as a international resistance org that operates in all nations, that uses old man’s pai sho club as a front. they’re introduced as opposing the dai li in ba sing se, as trying to organise resistance in secret, have ties to some local revolutionary/radical factions as they have a long standing rivalry with the dai li (& part of the reason the dai li side with azula is to crush the white lotus and resistance to their reign). iroh is not grand lotus but merely gets recruited in s2, as part of a redemption arc.

4. a subtle iroh redemption arc where iroh realises he cannot simply be passive and perhaps let the treasonous thought ”hm, maybe it would have been better if the avatar fought sozin” cross his mind - he needs to take a more active role in opposing the fire nation, and he joins the white lotus. i think he also needs to reckon quite specifically with the cost of the siege of ba sing se, he needs to make amends to those hurt from it on both sides - be confronted by fire nation defectors who left after the siege because why were their deaths less important that his son’s? as well as encounter how the siege left scars on the lower ring, in a less visible way (untrained lower ring residents formed resistance militia and generally died in huge numbers; plague and starvation greatly affected the lower ring, etc.). no iroh as a moral authority here - he’s morally grey trying to become good. also he doesn’t stick around in ba sing se, he realises the jasmine dragon, as lovely as it is, isn’t true redemption either, and at the end of the series he stays in the fire nation.

5. leading into point 3 (and 4): in s3 the gaang encounters and works with grassroots underground resistance in the fire nation. i think this is a better message than ‘oh the fire nation is a soceity ridden by class division that exploits its poorer / less privileged people and its own environment as long as it doesn’t affect the elite, and turns even its most privileged children into traumatised child soldiers and is indirectly hurt by its own colonialism and imperialistic culture, and that’s deeply sad’ - i think a better message is ‘the fire nation is a society with all those problems and you can do something about it. you can stand up. even though that’s scary.’ this resistance group is around for day of black sun (in fact they’re vital to it) and then you see a key member in boiling rock too.

6. no combustion man. honestly? weak writing. would much prefer zuko attempting to ‘stealthily’ track the gaang on the false premise of a ‘welcome home tour’ where he slips out under night to try and chase them down - this would mostly be alluded to in a few scenes. i also think this would get zuko to realise how much the fire nation itself has been hurt from war. i think the main early s3 plot points e.g. the beach episode still happens, as does the war meeting. i feel like zuko would need extra firepower to be a decent s3 threat - maybe he takes mai and ty lee with him? zuko ultimate lesbian ally takes bored lesbians from the palace for a knife throwing chi blocking field trip kjfshdj i’m joking. but seriously we could also have a combustion bender on board as well as a potential new character (i’m imagining someone like a younger p’li if i’m honest, same age range as zuko), as long as they have a character beyond being a scary assassin. maybe they defect early to the resistance group before the day of black sun, tell zuko they should too (but zuko doesn’t listen)? that’d be rad.

7. the existence of grassroots resistance would basically allow for the series to end with zuko being offerred the crown, but deciding to give it up / end the royal line. rather than a power vacuum, or iroh, the existance of resistance means there are clearly people (i.e. adults) who can fill that space. maybe this is a bit optimistic of me but i would just love to set up a scenario where zuko doesn’t become a boy-king of an imperialist nation and where absolute monarchy doesn’t continue, where there’s a clear shift in system. i understand the narrative power of zuko acknowledges he has inherited wealth and power that has been gained through exploitation and imperialism, and dedicating his whole life to undoing the damage his family has done, but i think he can do this without being the fire lord? in fact not being the fire lord is a good first step. zuko finds another way of doing exactly this.

8. talked about this a lot recently but better toph s3 representation & greater ties to the earth kingdom. also, i’d just appreciate a lot more flavour from the earth kingdom as a whole, and more prominent characters from there?

9. okay i’m not sure there is quite honestly space in the narrative for an azula redemption clearly on screen in as much depth as zuko’s but 1. i’d like iroh not to treat her horribly, thanks, and maybe even try to reach out to her at appropriate moments, maybe we see him (comically) say a lovely warm hello during her s2 appearances, maybe we see her play pai sho with him in s3 while he’s in prison in return for some secret info he’s not actually giving her while he’s not-so-subtly suggesting she should defy her father (but it’s too little too late, he already *chose* zuko in her eyes, and perhaps he did and is only just beginning to realise that) 2. i would like some hope and optimism at the end for azula. her breakdown is truly tragic but it feels like pain for pain’s sake in a sense - i would have loved for the finale scene with zuko & ozai replaced with a scene where someone visits azula and tells them they’ll be there for her and/or they love her. perhaps iroh, perhaps zuko (though i think that one would be more complicated obviously). i would love a post-finale scene where iroh sets up a tea shop somewhere in the fire nation where we see azula out the back, finishing up wiping down/mopping the patio, and before aang goes inside to say hi to his friends, we see them bump into each other - azula bows deeply, a clear apology, and aang accepts it. then we see azula runs off to go hang out with some friends before we follow aang inside as he encounters his own friends.

basically i’d rewrite a lot of s3. i’m dearly, dearly attached to s3, especially the second half, which has some of my favourite episodes of the entire season, but i think it’s flawed.

#drowning-in-cacophony #long post #sorry this ended up being REALLY long

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symphonicspecter · 5 years

Text

Subcon Family Headcanons

Have I mentioned that I LOVE the idea of Snatcher basically just adopting a hundred child spirits and all these kids hanging out in the forest and caring for each other as siblings? @birdsareblooming‘‘s post inspired me to get my butt in gear and finally write all the thoughts I have

These are going under a read more because there’s a lot

(Any time I say spirits, I mean both Dwellers and Subconites)

All those little dolls the Subconites possess? Snatcher made those. He’ll drop everything to repair them if they get damaged. He spent days making all of them early on. Some of the Dwellers just didn’t want bodies, and he respected that and let them be. He’s taught some of the Subconites how to sew, so that they can repair themselves or if they want to make modifications or clothes for themselves.

Everybody knows everybody’s names. Some of the spirits use the same names they did in life, others made up new ones. They think it’s very important to always spell and pronounce names correctly.

If an outsider makes anybody uncomfortable everyone else goes into Get His Ass Mode

The Minion/Boss relationship is mostly just for intimidation. Regularly, the spirits refer to Snatcher as “Snatcher” “Dad” , or a nickname they made up, some like how “Boss” sounds too, But when outsiders are around, he becomes ““The Boss” exclusively, and they pretend like he’s intimidating. They like taunting about eternal servitude and permanent soul removal in their idle chat. And Snatcher acts a little bossier with them. It’s all to scare whoever is currently contracted.

Snatcher is very adaptable for the spirits. Some of them are easily discouraged or self-conscious, so he speaks more softly to them and never has them talk to him in work mode. Others love to do tasks, so he gives them chores, even when nothing needs done. He knows which ones are mute, have trouble talking, are sensitive to certain words, like to rant about their interests...

Everybody is valid! When Subcon froze over and everyone became ghosts (some with memories, others without), it essentially became an opportunity to start an entirely new society. They all foster a ““you can do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt anybody”attitude. Along with choosing new names, some of the spirits wanted new pronouns. Queer? Neurodivergent? It’s all cool with the Subcon gang they will accept and validate you

Subcon Village is where the most houses are. The spirits take up residence in old houses, trees, anything that can be a cozy shelter. They mostly live close to each other, and several live together.

Snatcher has a check-in rule...if somebody has gone unseen for several hours, it’s time to look for them. Even with everyone already dead, there are a lot of dangers in the forest. So anytime somebody plans on hiding away for a while or wandering off by themselves, they tell somebody else. They all keep tabs on each other to stay safe

One of the Subconites made Snatcher a #1 Boss mug

The Subconites get excited to show Snatcher things they’ve made/done and he always turns into Proud Boasting Dad for them

Like a Subconite could show him their drawing of a tree and he’d be like Wow That’s So Good You’re So Talented!!!!!

Some of them want to give him the things they make. He has a special little place higher up in his tree where he keeps all of it. Sometimes he just goes up there and looks through stuff

Some of the more musically inclined spirits get together to practice and play. And they’ll invite Snatcher too

Games! Whether it’s Tag or Uno or Monopoly. The kids are always playing something. Sometimes it’s a big group of dozens, other times it’s a little group of four or five. And of course, they invite Snatcher to play with them too.

They all talk to each other so much, any news, gossips, jokes, what have you gets spread to everybody in a few hours

Movie nights...They get a big cloth and hang it between trees for a screen, and hook up an old projector and some type of player. It could be a movie left laying around from old Subcon,or something Snatcher stole from outside. A big crowd will settle on the ground and in trees and they’ll watch one or two or five movies

Campfires! They make a fire and gather around it and tell stories. Maybe they’re scary, maybe they’re not. It could be a story made up on the spot, something from a book, something they wrote themselves..they pass stories around for hours. None of them eat but they’ll put various things on sticks just for the thrill of catching it on fire

The spirits know not to bring up Vanessa

Most everybody knows how to deal with Snatcher in a bad mood. Whether he’s depressed or angry..after enough time they’ve learned what sets him off, when to give him space, when to give him hugs and kind words

Hugs and cuddles galore oh my god

All the Dwellers and Subconites are like siblings and say ““I love you” all the time

Snatcher has a hard time saying or accepting the L word but that’s okay, there’s a hundred ways to show it

Snatcher will take recommendations on what tasks to put on contracts

Snatcher has a hard time saying no to any of the kids, unless he’s in a bad mood. If he says no or seems annoyed, it’s a clear sign that something is bothering him

Cuddle piles...this mostly happens amongst the Subconites but sometimes a Dweller or two joins in or some of them want to cuddle on Snatcher

Snatcher steals from people in nearby towns...In game he says he steals mail. That’s his main method of theft as it’s the easiest. He redistributes to the Subconites. They love reading gossip in mail. Even a bill can be used for an art project. The best is when he snatches packages...who knows what fun things are inside! That’s how some of them ended up with smartphones

If Snatcher finds out that any of them want something specific, he’ll look for that when he’s out, That’s when he breaks the mail theft routine and might steal from elsewhere or con somebody into giving him whatever the item is

Besides just getting mail that Snatcher stole, the Subconites like to send each other mail. Yeah they can easily go talk to each other, but writing letters and sending packages is fun. They take their mail to Snatcher and he distributes it once a week

Snatcher absolutely will tease the kids...pretending to not understand something they’re telling him, mispronouncing the name of whatever they’re talking about, terrible puns, holding something out of reach, silly voice imitations, standard horrible dad humor

If anybody so much as looks at one of the kids wrong, Snatcher will end them

How the Subconites respond to a contractor heavily influences how Snatcher treats them...if you make friends with them, he’ll consider letting you go, but if they don’t like you...

The spirits are just as protective of Snatcher. If a contractor talks bad about Snatcher or tries to hurt him, they go into defensive mode. They’re ready to make a little plush shield around him, to kick some ass, or to check on him and tell him nice things afterwards. Or, like in game, to be his cheer squad while he does the ass kicking himself

If anybody is having a hard time you can bet the rest of the forest is saying/sending nice things to them instantly

Subcon has its own inside jokes/memes..

Several of them pitch in to decorate or host activities for holidays. Around a holiday, Subcon Village is covered in decorations. They have their own traditions, taking from what they remember from being alive, what outside towns do, and anything they think would be fun to add

They all teach each other..Snatcher taught some of them to sew, he teaches some of them about law, he’s shown a few how to play violin and cello...they teach each other about space, biology, painting, historical figures...it’s very common for them to talk about their interests and to want to learn about someone else’s

Sometimes Snatcher reads out loud for a group of spirits. He picks out books specifically for it, and then lets them pick from the collection

Every so often they plan events..maybe a bunch of them get together to write/make/perform a play, or the musicians hold a concert, or there’s open mic/creative writing readings, or dances! They always run it by Snatcher to get the okay and to get help planning/scheduling/reaching out/spreading word. There’s always a great turnout at these, with most or maybe even all of the spirits attending!

Sometimes Snatcher practices his Intro with a Subconite or two, and they give him some tips on how to be scarier

Yeah, arguments and misunderstandings happen occasionally, but they get resolved quickly

The kids tend to go to Snatcher for advice and with questions. He doesn’t like to bring up his own problems with them as he doesn’t want to bother them.

Snatcher, the Dwellers, the Subconites..they tend to just get a little burst of happiness seeing each other/saying hello

Snatcher just genuinely enjoys the company of the kids, and playing with them, and when they get so excited to talk to him it just makes him so happy, and he’s so protective of them...And just the same they respect him so much, and look up to him, and feel safe with him, and try to look out for him

They’re all there for each other and have a secure relationship 🖤

#ahit #a hat in time #evps #the snatcher #for someone who doesn’t like to read a lot on tumblr I sure do write a lot huh #apparitions

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firelord-frowny · 3 years

Text

obligatory disclaimer that this post is ENTIRELY based on my own perceptions of my own experiences, and may or may not be true to a broader degree.

anyway, Weight Stuff under the cut. also LMFAO this post is long as SHIT lmfaoooo and it doesn’t even end with the topic i meant for it to be about.

Sooooo, i’ve always very loudly been on Team Mind-Your-Business-About-Other-People’s-Bodies, and i still am, and i am ALWAYS down to (usually gently) call out someone who’s overstepping their boundaries as far as other people’s bodies and lifestyles go, blah blah, and i am KEEEENLY aware of the damage people cause with fatphobia, and that rhetoric surrounding ~diet and exercise~ is almost ALWAYS malicious in terms of hyperfocusing on “ugly fat” and shaming people into feeling horrible enough about theirselves that they pay out the ass for Quick Fixes, and there’s almost 0 focus on The Actual Health Benefits of a healthy lifestyle other than just Maybe Being Slimmer.

But alsoooooooooooooooooooooo???

i’ve always felt like, because of all that shit, it’s so difficult for me to feel comfortable talking about my own body and my own habits and my own shortcomings and my own goals. like, i DO feel bothered by the weight I’ve gained recently. NOT because it makes me feel ugly - i don’t feel ugly at all. i literally almost always feel beautiful lmao. NOT because i’m worried about how other people see me - i don’t have relationships with people who would give someone a hard time about their weight in the first place, and beyond that, i’m generally unconcerned with what people think of my appearance.

the thing that bothers me is that i KNOW my weight gain has been the result of unhealthy lifestyle choices. i’ve always eaten more junkfood than anyone i know, and i’ve always tended to eat VERY few healthy things. so like... that’s bad enough for my health. but i ALSO don’t get much physical activity. and then covid hits and my job is snatched out from under me and i spend most of every day in the same 100 square feet. so like... OF COURSE i gained weight. lots of people did! people gain weight all the time for lots of reasons and nobody should feel bad or guilty about it.

but for me, even though i don’t see my weight gain as cause to lament about my appearance, i DO see it as an indicator that i’m not taking very good care of myself. i mean, if i’m thinner with a shitty diet, then my thinness kind of allows me to ignore my bad choices because there’s no ~visual~ reminder. i know that’s prolly fucked up, but that’s what’s happening in my head. when i’m thinner, i don’t have to acknowledge that there are going to be consequences for my choices.

but to SEE my body change as a direct result of crappy diet and no exericse??? it’s really made me see how urgent it is that i start treating myself better RIGHT the fuck now. i mean, i am Young, but i won’t be young forever, and the longer i keep eating garbage and sitting around all day, the sooner i can expect to start having real health issues. and like, heart problems run in my family (as they do in MANY black families). i already have pcos, and that puts me at a higher risk for stuff like that.

so, it’s been scary to have to face the reality that i’m setting myself up for disaster.

and i figured that CLEARLY i’ve been unable to get myself on track For Free, so i finally caved and signed up for noom, and i’m down almost 10 pounds already.

and i get on the scale and weigh myself and i feel proud! i feel happy! i feel capable! i feel like i’ve proven to myself that i CAN make better choices. i’m NOT weak-willed. i’m NOT incapable of taking care of myself.

But then I feel like i shouldn’t say that out loud, or i shouldn’t tell people how glad i am to see the natural result of my healthier choices.

i’m not glad because i look different - i’m glad because my different look is a sign that i’m succeeding in taking control of my lifestyle. my different look is visual evidence that i’m eating more fruit and whole grains and drinking more water and i’m eating less sugary foods and less meats, and i’m eating healthier portions, and i’m not snacking all day. i can SEE the proof that i’m making choices that are going to give me a better chance at staying healthy throughout my life.

i’m KINDA exaggerating in that i don’t actually think i LOOK different just yet lmao i feel like i look more or less the same. but i definitely do FEEL some subltle differences. i mean maybe it’s a placebo effect, but i think my forearms are slightly narrower and my bewbs are a bit less... cumbersome lmao. (i SWEAR like half of the weight i’ve gained has been in my boobs alone omfg).

but idk, i guess what i’m trying to express is that i just... don’t feel comfortable sharing how glad i am about my progress bc most of my social circles are comprised of people who are rightly critical of the way people talk and think about weight loss. i knooooow that most reasonable folks, if i give the Full Explanation about how my gladness is due to the fact that i can see that my lifestyle is changing for the better, would understand and would be happy for me.

but uhhhh lmao some people Aren’t Reasonable and are committed to having a negative reaction to any statement that seems to exalt thinness in any context at all whatsoever.

and i KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW that a person’s weight is not an automatic indicator of their health, and you can’t assume that a person has Become Healthier just because they’ve lost weight, and you can’t assume that a person has become unhealthier just because they’ve gained it. there are all kinds of reasons for people being whatever size they are, and we can’t make those kinds of judgments about people’s size bc obviously we don’t know their life! we don’t know if they eat veggies and go jogging! we don’t know if a thin person has a cinnabon for breakfast every day or if a fat person is a professional dancer. so like. it’s stoopit to assume anything at all about a person’s health/lifestyle just based on their size.

BUUUUUUUUUUT!!!! an individual person can make those judgements about their own size and their own health. like, people know why they’re the size that they are, whether it’s genetics or lifestyle or health related. one person who’s super thin knows it’s because they have a fast metabolism. another person who’s thin knows it’s because they starve theirself. another person who’s thin knows it’s because they intentionally make choices that would result in their size. and the same goes for big people! they know if they eat too much junk food, or if they’re just genetically ~meant~ to be their size, blah blah blah.

so when a person talks about their own weight and how it relates to their own health and their own lifestyle, i feel like it’s Inappropriate to lecture them about how ~it’s okay to be fat, you don’t need to lose weight~ blah blah. bc like... DUH, it’s okay to be fat. whether it’s because of lifestyle or genes, it’s still okay. it’s allowed. and people should be free to feel beautiful and see theirselves as UNCONDITIONALLY valuable and intrinsically worthy of the space they occupy in the universe. If a person actually disparages theirself because of their weight, then sure, you’re probably welcome to tell that person that their size, no matter the reason for it, has no bearing on their worth and that they have the right to feel good about who they are and how they look.

but if someone says, “you know, it’s really time that i finally started eating right and exercising so i can be healthier and lose weight,” thennnn... i feel like the only appropriate response is to cheer them on and tell them to go for it! if someone knows that their weight is the result of unhealthy habits, and they express a desire to change that, there’s no need to try to tell them that they don’t need to try to change it omfg.

like... literally everyone needs to eat well and exercise in order to give theirself their best chance at staying in good health. thin people need to eat well and exercise. fat people need to eat well and exercise. they only people who DON’T need to eat well and exercise would be people who are actually physically incapable of rigorous movement or people who are, idk, allergic to most ~healthy~ foods.

So if someone who’s been eating junk and sitting around tells you that they want to start eating well and exercising... that’s a GOOD THING. 100% of the time. it’s ridiculous to respond to that with a lecture about ~all sizes are beautiful~ and ~you can do whatever you want, you don’t have to Fit The Mold~ like omfg THAT’S NOT THE POOOOOIIIINNNTTTT!!!

basically, i feel like in the midst of rightly defending fat people’s right to exist as they are, some of the Discourse has inadvertently careened into the absurd territory of actually DISCOURAGING people from making HEALTHY lifestyle changes that would result in weight loss.

as i’m typing this, it also occurs to me that there seems to be an assumption that anyone who intends to lose weight is planning to do it via extreme but temporary methods like restrictive diets and unsustainably vigorous exercise.

i feel like some people need to acknowledge that there’s a difference between “i’m only going to eat one meal a day and exercise for 4 hours a day so i can lose 30 pounds before my wedding day,” and “i’m going to lose my excess weight by transitioning to a healthier lifestyle.” the former describes an unhealthy and unsustainable attempt to starve and overwork yourself to lose x amount of pounds that you’re inevitably gonna regain after you go back to your normal habits, and it’s exclusively focused on appearance. like, it CAN’T be about health, because those methods are unhealthy! you don’t get healthy by doing unhealthy things!

the latter describes a legitimately healthy way of life that can and SHOULD be sustained for a person’s whole life if ptll ossible. there’s no need to try to force your body into a different shape in a short amount of time when you could instead just allow your size to adjust slowly to a permanent and positive lifestyle change.

but it seems like there’s a knee-jerk reaction to condemn weight loss in any context altogether.

i under staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand why people might have that attitude and i’m not mad about it. i GET why some people might be hypervigilant about condemning any belief that suggests that being fat is something that a person should be unhappy about, and i don’t want people to stop doing that.

but i doooooooooooooooooo think that perhaps it’s time that people begin learning to trust other people’s analyses of their own bodies and their own choices and their own goals, and learn to tell when a person’s weight loss is motivated by genuine health reasons, or by social pressure/shame/embarrassment. not everyone who wants to lose weight hates their body. not everyone who wants to lose weight has low self esteem. people can feel fabulous and gorgeous in their current body, and still want to make choices to change it via improving their health.

and like! some people genuinely just don’t WANT to lose weight that they know they’ve gained from unhealthy habits. some people are totally fine with living their life the way they like to live it, and prioritizing their enjoyment of their lifestyle over efferts to prevent future health issues. and that’s their right! and nobody should say shit about it! mind ya business!

i kinda compare it to like... cave divers, or daredevils, or mountaineers. those are all HELLA dangerous activities that kill or seriously injure a LOT of people. and the people who engage in those activities KNOW this. they KNOW that they’re at a significantly higher risk of premature death compared to people who DON’T do those things, and they know that they could increase the odds of living a log time by Not Doing Those Things.

but they do it anyway! because they want to! because they think it’s fun! because the enjoyment of the activity is, for them, worth the risk of harm. they’re living a lifestyle that could kill them, but nobody says shit about it. nobody shames them for it. they just accept that people have the right to be cray cray if that’s what they want to do. people might think daredevils are stupid, but they’re not trying to bully them into quitting.

so if somebody wants to eat a diet comprised of nothing but eating cinnabons 3 times a day every day their whole life, that’s their right! mind ya damn business! if somebody hates exercise enough that they’re okay with the possibility of health problems down the line, then fine! it would be fair to worry about that person and to wish that they’d make differen choices, in the same way that it would be fine for someone to worry about their dearedevil friend and wish that they weren’t a daredevil. but it’s still not grounds to be a dickhead to them.

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trashynyland · 4 years

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Alright, someone asked about this and I'm here to give.

There's not much to the HermitFamilyAU. I'll try and go in order in a way from oldest to recent characters that have been created so far.

Grian, mute avian hybrid. 23 but acts like an excited 10 year old. He communicates in bird, sign language, writing and charades. Only Mumbo, Iskall and Xisuma can understand Grian's bird talk (he'll chirp, squeak screech and squawk). He's a bundle of joy, really energetic, he loves to cuddle and he's usually always happy. He'll tend to stick by Mumbo's side a lot. He has the habit of sitting on people's shoulders, it helps him with his height dysphoria, makes him feel taller which makes him happy. He loves to build with his legos since he isn't allowed out of the house unless he's with Xisuma. He was abused by his parents who cut out his vocal cords with a knife at age 9. He's lived in the hermit household for 5 years. He has a feather shedding habit which Doc despises (that's what earned Grian the name "Feathers"). Grian and Doc have a love hate relationship but mostly, Grian loves being a little shit to Doc and annoy him. Grian can easily get sent into a panic attack if someone touches his neck without permission. He has trust issues and won't let anyone he doesn't know near him.

Mumbo, human but has the power to generate Redstone dust from his hair (like King Sparklez but he can generate the dust with his hands). He's 24 and a nervous wreck. Mumbo always needs an explanation to things he doesn't understand, if he doesn't get it then he'll try and figure it out himself. He's very shy around others he doesn't know and has a horrible stuttering habit when he has to talk to people he doesn't know. He loves hanging out with Grian (his comfort buddy boyfriend) and loves to help the little avian. His legs got shattered and ripped from a piston malfunction that he was trying to fix, they had to amputate his legs from the knee down. He's got Redstone prosthetics that are powered with Redstone (made by King Diamond). He has no recollection of his past, all he knows was that he showed up on the Redstone King's doorstep at age 7 and was adopted by the king. Mumbo's father is King Redstone (or CaptainSparklez) but Mumbo lives with Xisuma since Mumbo himself isn't found of the Royal lifestyle. But he works for his father and helps around the castle from time to time. Started living with Xisuma at age 19.

Iskall, slime hybrid. He's 27 and a comedian. He acts like a crazy uncle, loves to make inappropriate jokes but also acts like the 2nd father of the house. He loves to jokes around and pull pranks. He's very kind until you hurt his family in any way. Again, acts like the second dad of the house because things can get too crazy sometimes. When he was 16, he was shit in the eye by a blast spell which caused his eye to never grow back. Instead of getting an eye patch or a regular eye prosthetic he asked Mumbo and Doc to make him some kinda cool looking eye instead. He was abandoned by his mother at age 13, was taken in by Xisuma at age 15. He has abandonment issues.

Xisuma, Archangel hybrid (four wings, halo and 6 eyes. 4 of the eyes and the halo only appear when X uses his powers. Two of the wings get hidden beneath the top two wings.). He's over 1000 years old (but 38 in human age). He absolutely loves adopting and it's his horrible bad habit. He's been banned a few times from adoption centers because the guy can't control himself. Because of this, he's been named the "Caretaker" and "Dimensional Adopter". He's a Warrior (meaning he goes out to different dimensions to help out others in corrupted dimensions) but he's also a coder and hacker. He loves his family and would do anything to protect them. He was banished to the world Palace Concy at age 17(human age) and has lived there happily ever since. In his old world, he use to live in the heavens which had thin air. Since the air is much thicker on the ground and too much for him he wears a ventilator to help him breath better. He also can't die, he can respawn which he finds unsettling. When he dies he respawns in his bed. He's a bottom, he's gotta admit that and his husband is Doc (someone he first saved when he became a Warrior). Most of his scars on his body (including his "X" scar on his face) we're given to him by Doc himself on accident. He's a dad of the hermit household.

Doc, creeper human cyborg. He's 40 years old and a cranky guy. He tends to put up a touch guy act but in reality he's just a soft teddy bear. He'll only show his true softness when alone with Xisuma or playing with the kids. He's caring but will act like he doesn't give a shit. Parents call him Soccer Mom because of how prepared he is and how much he helps his kids but also because he tends to pick fights with the entitled parents who thinks their kid(s) are better than everyone, "News flash Christian! They aren't special!". His prosthetic arm, half head and neck, part of his chest and half is heart were all designed by King Diamond and Doctor Joe Atlantic(they also got some help from Prince Stampy). In Doc's old dimension he use to be a creeper that couldn't explode (which hunters found amusing so they'd pick on Doc and give him scars, basically abuse him). One day he fell in love with his world's Cub who later ended up turning him him an and forcing him to become his science experiment. Once he was deemed useless, Cub put him up for auction which Xisuma ended up buying him and taking him home. Doc has major trust issues with everyone and still doesn't trust Xisuma's 3rd new adoption, Cub Issatic who's always on edge and thinks someone is after his blood (character Cub is still a wip so this may change later on). Doc is surprisingly actually a cuddly type of hybrid. He loves to cuddle alone with X when they get the chance. Doc's husband is Xisuma. Doc is the mom of the hermit household.

Tango, very energetic guy, he's a Telikiantors (a mythical creature created by me the artist, there's a post I made about them but to be short, they're forest creatures that are like SirenHeads but don't eat humans unless provoked by them). Tango is a hybrid version of a Teli. He's 6 years old and still waiting for his future surgery to get on his mouth tail so he can start eating from it again (in his old home it was damaged). He loves to pull all sorts of pranks and is the house's little chaotic demon. Even with no arms, he can't be stopped. He use to be owned by an old woodworker who used Tango as his personal slave. Since Tango was young at the time and didn't know any better and was a child he'd always fool around and didn't listen. This angered his old owner who cut off Tango's arms off and cut his tail mouth so he couldn't eat. Xisuma stumbled upon him one night when the Archangel got lost on a hike in the woods. X saved him and adopted him at age 3. Even though Tango went through that torture he's still bubbly and doesn't have much trama. He's more unsure about things and will asked about them.

Impulse, he's a God actually who was the son of a lightning goddess and ocean god. He's currently 5 years old. When he was born his eyes were completely gold and blue but after his mother and father forced him to use his magic he went blind. Since he was only 3 at the time his eyes were still sensitive and not use to powerful magic or anything bright. His mother was frustrated with him that he couldn't summon up lighting or water so she summoned up some lightning and struck it right in front of Impulse which caused him to go blind and his eyes to lighten up a bit. When the parents left to argue after the situation, that's when Xisuma jumped into the dimension to save Impulse and take him away. Originally his eyesight was supposed to be fixed and he was supposed to be sent back to his home world but he refused the care and refused to leave X's side. He's very scared of powers and when people raise their voices. He's shy and fragile and can easily get overwhelmed by things. He has some sensitivity issues, where when he's so overwhelmed by something he can easily fall into a panic attack. Doc, as a Christmas gift, gave him two shovels that have turned into his comfort item. They help conceal his magic so it doesn't get too out of hand when he gets overwhelmed, upset or angry. He usually sticks by his brothers Tango and Zedaph's sides but when he's not with them then he'll be hanging around his dad, mom or one of his siblings while on a child leash (he doesn't mind the leash and actually loves it since it gives him comfort. He's still not use to being blind and all).

Zedaph, he's a witch, that what everyone knows so far. He's 5 years old and has a teddy bear attitude, his personality is very fluffy and caring. He loves the world and the world loves him. In his old dimension, he was a rich witch's slave and was forced to do dirty work. His owner once had enough of him one day when he accidentally dropped her food and his owner blasted his arm off. Because of the traumatic experience, Zed prefers to keep his eyes shut in fear of having to go through something terrible and scary again. His old owner sold him off to Xisuma who took him in and adopted him. Zedaph's powers are unknown because they haven't yet activated. He's been labelled as a witch for now because of the place he came from and his low power levels. His favorite person in the world his his Uncle Stizoom because of his fluffy hair and tail. He loves to curl up in anything soft and fluffy because of how comfortable and safe it makes him feel. It's the reason why he owns a large Wooloo plushy.

Cleo, a very rare zombie eel siren. She's 31 years old and doesn't like speaking. She likes to stay mute unless talking to Xisuma or False. Nothing seemed to be wrong with her old dimension same with her except that she was always bored. Pirates and fishermen always tried to catch her and at first Cleo loved to prank them but as she got more and more bored she started letting them capture her and sell her at black markets, auctions, sold to royals. She always knew how to escape and she found it fun at first but soon grew bored of it all again. It was always the same routine. Xisuma found her while he was wondering her dimension in a black market. He asked her if she wanted to join him but of course she said nothing. Xisuma ended up buying her and bring her home with him. Cleo has never tried to leave or escape since (except to False's bedroom to sleep with her).

Ren, dog hybrid who has DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). Since he has many different identities all have different personalities (check out his character sheet for more details on all the identities). But mostly Ren is in charge and upfront to control the body, he is the main host after all. Ren is the definition of the one crazy uncle. He's comedic, crazy and loves to put a smile on others faces, he's also very playful. He can get flustered easily if someone dominates him (either in bed or at his own games like flirting). Ren and the body are about 21. In his old world he was abused a lot, mostly chained to a wall in a basement his entire life. He was abused a lot by his owner alpha and many other bad things. It's where a lot of his trama comes from. He one day ended up escaping but fell through a dimensional portal and ended up in Palace Concy. He was found in the woods passed out by Slime n Bone podcast who were taking a vacation with the Woodworks family in the Kosikians Sky (mt. DeathLoxes) mountains. He's was taken to Xisuma after the podcast group couldn't figure out how to help him since Ren wouldn't say anything and just shake in fear in the corner. He was taken in by X which Ren is very greatful for. Ren is scared of everyone since he's an omega and comes from an omegaverse, he thinks an alpha will come and hurt him again. Ren has a huge crush on Iskall and even though he knows the man likes him back he's too scared to ask him out. Ren loves to hang out with Grian, Doc and sometimes Iskall when he isn't blushing nervous. Very cool dude.

Bdubs, human but is immune to explosives but can still get stabbed. He's 19 actually and has a big habit of getting into trouble with Impulse and Tango. He works at an explosives store in town, helps out the construction crews when they need a certain area exploded and loves to volunteer at the firework stands that pop up during July 1st "Redstone Founders Day" (Bdubs favorite holiday). He's enthusiastic and doesn't mind teaching kids about explosives and safety in his spare time. He loves causing trouble when he can but he also loves helping out others with decorating. He's got a side job he's made "Bdubs Interior Design" and usually many people hire him for help. He use to live in a HermitCraft world when he decided to leave one year and stubbled upon an Earth dimension which he was then used as a bomber during the everlasting wars that were going on. He was one day capture and take to Palace Concy by Lunch Army and was then later adopted by X. During his time on the Earth War he gained black smudge on his face that X has found won't come off so it's become part of Bdubs skin basically. Some have called him blackface and think that he's being racist but he's not. He's just got some black smudge on his face that is unremovable. He's bubble and loves to make others smile when having a bad day. He doesn't really have any trama except for being weary of portals. He's got a crush on Keralis but won't admit it.

Keralis, human. He's 18 (looks 16) and a punk. He's mean and bitchy to everyone and doesn't let a single soul through his walls (he doesn't let others see his emotions and what he's really feeling). He love to break the law and pick fights. He works with "Brtakis Construction Company" which causes him to travel from home a lot. He's very strong and can pack a punch. He's a warrior so that's why he's got his own special weapon, he's not allowed on any dimensional missions but he's allowed to kill Alumas (soul takers) when they show up. In his old dimension he was a homeless immigrant who lived on the streets of New York (where he earned his punk attitude). He was saved by Xisuma one night when he was about to get killed by a gang group, almost got shot in the head. X had offered him a home but Keralis denied his offer. It took 5 years of constant saves and denied offers until one year he almost committed suicide he finally opened up to X and accepted his offer with a wailing sob. He still keeps his punk attitude because he grew up with it but also because he finds it cool. He also kept it because of Doc, Keralis wants to be just like the guy. All smug and strong. Doc is the person he looks up to, his idol in a way. His trama? He gets scared and panicked when left alone and he can't go near any big cities that are similar to New York.

Wels, avian hybrid mixed with an angel hybrid. He owns a halo that's cracked and shattered but only appears when he's angry. He's got beautiful golden wings that goes along with his ruby red hair. He's 15 but a secret Drag Queen at night. He loves to entertain people and put on a show, show off what he can do. He loves the stage and to him it's his home and life. (Idk how to explain it but he's just like the YouTube Wels but gay). He owns two Drag Personas, Cherry Rider who's his usual sona he dresses as who can be a wild ride. Cherry is an encouraging fool that will try and help anyone build up their confidence to do anything that their heart desires to do. His other persona is HelsKnight, Hels is a naughty bad fool who, for Wels is his way of getting his anger out in style and in a safe way. He'll preform and have a happy attitude when Cherry but have a dark and naughty~ attitude when being Hels. Because of X's worry, Wels has paired up with Doc on the weekends to do drag but pairs up with Skeppy during the weekdays for drag. Since he's young he still needs parental vision. Not much about his past except for being an orphan all his life and getting bullied at school and at his orphanage for being gay and loving to cross dress. When Xisuma adopted him, Wels hid his love for drag which ended up causing problems because when Cherry Rider first appeared on TV Xisuma fell in love for her and was horrified when he found out the drag person character was his son. After a bit of awkward talking and drag performances from Doc for X, Xisuma got over his silly love crush for Cherry and told Wels that he accepts who he is and will always love him as family. Xisuma told him that it would just be a bit awkward for awhile because X still had to get over the fact that his favorite drag queen he had a crush on was actually his adopted son. Doc helped both X and Wels after the reveal. Wels grew more confident and stopped hiding his drag cross dressing side (while his father Xisuma got over his crush and dropped it entirely but he ended up crushing on Wels' drag performance partner Skeppy). Wels still has a small fear of being himself in front of others but has overcome most of that fear because he knows his family has got his back (especially his over protective Dadsuma who would kill anyone who hurts his family and his Docmom who will murder any parents that talk his son down, "I'm lookin at you Rebecca! Your daughter is a lesbian and will never be straight you blind fu-"). Wels has a small crush on Biffa (an orphan friend of his that lives on the other side of the world (Biffa is still being developed) who Xisuma is thinking about adopting.

Jevin, rare blue slime hybrid. He's 1 year old and there's not much to him. He's a happy a baby who has a weird love obsession life with the Jello food. Iskall loves to take that and tease his baby brother with it (like stabbing his lil brother's jello in front of him and watching him cry about it, Iskall just finds Jevins whole Jello obsession hilarious). Xisuma actually found Jevin in a basket by his tracker right before he was about to work on his farm fields. Jevin will usually be hanging out with Iskall since he's also a slime and the hybrid connection helps them work better with each other. But also since Xisuma and Doc have no idea how to take care of a slime hybrid since they're hard to come by in Concy and there's not many books about them, so the two husbands let nature take it's course with Iskall since it looks like he knows what he's doing.

NPC Grian or Rustie, he's a demon but apparently can change into a robot? He's an interesting type. He's 25 and a cheerful man. He works in architecture, both with planning out the building and how it will look along with the construction. He also works at a bookstore named "BookRook". He's sweet and kind but will snap your neck in you make him angry, a smile with a dark atmosphere like aph Russia. He loves his kids but if he finds Grain making anY MORE ROBOTS THEN HE'S GOING TO-. He love to volunteer for events and he loves his husband Zoom. He was found by Zoom in his old dimension where Rustie was still locked and hibernating in his closet. He would have taken his robot brother with him but Robot Grian was in horrible condition and... dead so there was no use of him. Rustie owns a nice little rustic cabin in the woods beside a like with a great view. He and Zoom built the house and nother are proud of their work and family.

Evil Xisuma or Stizoom(Zoom), a Strider hybrid but fluffier. He's 27 and has a very gentle heart. He loves nature with a passion and Rustie tends to find him curdle up in his flower beds quite often. He likes to bird watch and plant flowers. He's a five star chief for "Blossburgi Restaurant" and a karate teacher for "Hightri's Karate". He hates the cold and loves to cuddle up with Rustie during the cold seasons and Rustie finds it adorable. Luckily, the two own a nearby hot springs so when things get to cold, Zoom will go hang out in the hot springs for awhile. He loves animals, all kinds. In his old dimension he was always forced to be near creatures and he always hated the small to so little space he always got. Xisuma found him and took him in for all awhile until Zoom found and fell in love with Rustie. His husband is Rustie and they both love each other very much. Very cute :3.

HermitPets, they're more used and made for a different AU of mine but in HermitFamily they're more background characters for sorts. Not much.

HermitFamily house, huge house I mean huge. It's a mansion that's up in the Stonety Mts. It sits in a large valley surrounded by mountains. The valley is actually a farm the the hermit house owns. They grow crops and sell it the small nearby town they live by named "Vellenture". Their house, in the back has a large poor (more of a lake and it's for Cleo) but it attaches to a nearby forest. The house itself, on the outside is a creamy white and on the inside, many colors. (I'll have to draw it out for a better explanation but basically the house looks like Grian's mansion but a creamy white and rustic grey.

#hermitfamilyau #hermitfamily #hc abouts

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lavenderek · 4 years

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i have a thought to express, feel free to scroll past.

i’m gonna discuss rape and sexual abuse in this post. it’s also long because i don’t really have a conclusion, it’s just some thoughts.

so i was looking into that reality show that facilitated shane dawson’s horrible movie “not cool” and i stumbled across a reddit thread posted by someone who was a fan of his as a preteen. the OP alleged that shane’s content contributed to them developing some serious issues including body dysmorphia and the normalization of sexual behavior involving children.

some of the comments were in support and agreement, but a large amount of them were like, “where were your parents? it’s not shane’s job to police what you see online. it’s not his fault you were too young for his content.”

now, shane was well aware from the jump that his fans were mostly kids and teens - he talked about it multiple times - but that’s not what this post is about. this post is about that particular argument, which does not sit well with me.

it reminded me of a couple years ago when i made a very critical post about c*ptive prince.

pause: i want to make it crystal clear that i am not drawing a comparison between people who like cp and shane dawson. i’m not mad anymore, so i am not making this post making a value judgment on cp or fans of it, positive or negative.

specifically, i was really bothered by the way cp content was posted and shared with no mention of or reference to the actual material. people were calling it a queer romance. it was a little-known series by a little-known author, so there were no synopses anywhere online, only the summary you’d see on the back of the book. so people would seek out cp thinking it was a romance and be blindsided by the fact that, spoilers, the story is set in a fantasy world where child rape is a major tenet of society. the scenes are explicit, detailed, and many. it’s not a thing that happens once or twice and is a major plot point, it’s a thing that happens multiple times in every chapter and is just kind of a thing that’s going on. if you’ve ever read twilight, i would compare the presence of rape in cp to the presence of rain in twilight.

like, that’s how often it happened, that’s how it was treated. sometimes with indifference, sometimes with a negative opinion, sometimes it caused problems, bella talks about it every two pages. it is a very rapey series.

and people like, did not want to discuss this. they were like, “the characters decide the rape is bad in the end. and that’s not even what the story is about, it just happens in the story. i don’t know what to tell you.” like... people were not receptive to any kind of conversation about this topic lmfao, it was very touchy. they wanted to acknowledge that rape itself is bad, and then they wanted the subject closed.

now, why is this a problem? i read the books. there were parts i enjoyed, and there were parts i didn’t enjoy. i’m not gonna reread them, but i’m still game to talk about it. ultimately i wanted to be able to talk about books with a friend of mine, and while i was like, “yikes, this is a lot of rape, was not expecting the volume of rape,” it didn’t occur to me this would be a pervasive issue at all until a different friend of mine happened upon it. this other friend was a rape survivor, and i happened to know she would find this content very upsetting. when she said she was thinking of buying the book, i was like, “halt, you know what happens in it, right?”

nope! she didn’t. she saw cute fanart and a ficlet on her dash, somebody told her it was a queer romance. nowhere was there any indicator in summaries online or the posts she was seeing that the book would describe a person being drugged and sexually abused. she was pretty relieved that i’d warned her and shaken that that’s what happens in the books lmao. she would never have guessed. the cp fandom was made up of people who loved the main pairing, and they’d talk about them being in love and draw them being in love, and it felt like everybody was just acting like the rape wasn’t even present in the books lmao.

pause: i didn’t go in the tags. this is not representative of the fandom as a whole. this is just my and my friend’s experience of it as passive internetgoers.

people got uncomfortable and a little defensive if i brought it up. they’d agree to tag for cp, but if you don’t know what cp is about, that isn’t helpful information. like that post that’s like, “waterboarding at guantanamo bay sounds like a lot of fun if you don’t know what either of those things are” lmao. if you don’t know what cp is about, tagging for it just tells you what it’s called. and it very clearly ruined everyone’s fun if i talked about this.

so that’s what i was mad about, i was mad that i felt as though there was no recourse here, and i was mad because i felt like the cp fandom was the emperor’s new clothes. nobody was acting like it even existed and everybody got uncomfortable if i brought it up, like, i legitimately wondered at some point if i had somehow accidentally read a kinky rewrite of it, that the real version did not have rape in it and nobody knew what i was talking about. i felt like i was going crazy and i got shitty in the middle of the night one time, and wrote that post.

i ultimately deleted it, so i do not remember how it was worded; but i do recall that it was a venting post, it was not intended to reach a wider audience. i was not trying to convince anyone in that moment, i was just talking shit. so i can bet that it probably came across as very judgmental and unkind.

i made a bunch of people very angry with that post. somebody got thousands of notes by reblogging with an impassioned smackdown saying basically what those redditors were saying about shane - it’s not their job to police what people see online. it’s not their fault you were unprepared for cp.

i do not think this is a nuanced enough argument because i do not think it acknowledges that not all content is created equal.

i even got an anon ask in good faith saying, well, a huge trigger for me is body horror, and people will draw or reblog stuff with body horror in it, and i can’t hold that against them.

and like, no, you can’t, but body horror is not the same as rape or child sexual abuse. body horror isn’t the same as sex trafficking. right? like those things aren’t comparable in the way that i think the anon was wanting them to be. they were saying that both of these are common triggers that people would want tagged and be unable to move past in media, you know? and i get that, i got what they were saying.

kind of like that cartoonist who wrote a spooky horror comic a while ago and somebody sent them an ask being like, “that was really scary, you usually post fun comics, this was damaging, unfollowed :/” like obviously a stranger’s fear of spooky things is not something he should be expected to take on on his own blog lmao. i am deeply afraid of ghosts, by the way.

but according to rainn.org, 1 in 5 women experience rape in their lifetime. 1 in 5 women are not frightened by literal ghosts in their lifetime. 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 7 boys aren’t body horrored. body horror and ghosts aren’t used on a global scale as tools to control and abuse people and they do not have the same connotations of shame, degradation, and control. the things are not the same.

i don’t have an easy answer. i can’t wave my magic wand and make people not enjoy the rape erotica, nor was that my goal in the first place. i wasn’t clutching my pearls like, “how dare you! do not draw this art! think of the children!” and i don’t know how else i would have solved the problem, aside from having a weird disclaimer under your art of two dudes cuddling that says “warning, these dudes are from a book that’s got several thousand words of explicit rape in it, and i know that, you’re not the only one seeing that,” like that’s a lot and i get it.

i don’t have an easy answer because there isn’t one. i felt like “well, that’s not my problem” was an easy answer.

as i get older, the more responsibility i have as an adult online to maintain boundaries between me and minors, for example. i am not responsible for their internet experience and they can’t get mad at me for cussing or writing about gay werewolves on my blog, but i do have to be mindful of that context if i’m interacting with someone online. that’s where the complexity comes in. you can’t wash your hands of the context of the things you say and do online.

just how to solve these problems, i did not know then and i do not know now. i guess we take it on a case by case basis.

if you’re curious about shane dawson and his horrible movie, by the way, this guy did a few funny videos about the horrible movie and this guy did a not funny but comprehensive breakdown of shane and his career.

and i tried to tint my eyebrows for the first time the other day, i have red hair and my eyebrows are darker than my hair for some reason, so i tried to use an eyebrow tint to lift my brows just like, a shade, so be closer to my hair? but in doing this i discovered that my eyebrows are a mixture of red and brown?

so the red hairs lifted to a sunny orange, and the brown hairs stayed brown. so my eyebrows are fully like, calico right now. boom, orange juice, that’s life

#diary post #long post

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consultingsister-aa · 5 years

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✩ ceebastian, pls!!

SEND ‘✩’ FOR SHIP THINGS // @asteriananthologies

under read more for some nsfw, tw things but mostly bc it’s really fucking long.

𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒. Who is more likely to raise their voice? Cecelia, easy. Sebastian pretty must never shouts and if he does, Cee instantly starts crying. It’s like yelling at a puppy, you know something you should because that’s how they learn but it is horrible. Cee shouts all the time though. Who threatens to leave but never actually does? Kind of Cecelia, she doesn’t really ever threaten to leave but she’ll say she met this really nice man and she’s going to go off and live with him now if Seb doesn’t give her enough attention for two minutes. Who actually keeps their word and leaves? Probably Sebastian, never for long, but Cee is sometimes very hard to live with and I think, after a massive fight, he’s way more likely to leave the house for a night or two. She won’t leave because she’ll want to talk it through ( in reality she just wants to keep shouting until he agrees she is right ) but Seb can always tell when it’s not going to go anywhere constructive for either of them and leaves before she has a chance to say something really horrid that she can’t really take back, because she will. Who trashes the house? Neither, although Cee is known to throw things.Do either of them get physical? Cee does, Sebastian never does. Not specifically angry with Seb but Cee lets her anger about lots of things build up until she physically cannot hold it back anymore and, like a child who doesn’t know any better, can become violent. While this is never okay, she’s really not that strong, so can’t do much damage but it does remain something she really needs to work on, it’s just lucky that big strong Seb can take her. How often do they argue/disagree? They get into joke/silly argument a lot but real actual argument happens much less frequently. They can argue about the kids a lot, especially when they’re young because Cee is perfectly happy for the girls to go to private schools and have nannies and basically have the same upbringing she and Seb did but… Seb is not. Who is the first to apologise? Does anyone? Seb will if it’s something he started but most of the time it’s not and Cee just pretends nothing happened because avoidance is a personality trait at this point. Cee will though if Sebastian continues to huff about something but it won’t be a good apology. It’s like, ‘sorry you took that horrible thing I said a bad way?’

𝐒𝐄𝐗.Who is on top? Cecelia. Sebastian can be, and Cee likes him to take control but naturally, she likes to control the situation and he likes her to take control. Who has the strangest desires? [ cee voice ] as a non-judgmental couple, none of our desires are strange, sexual desires are a perfectly healthy thing. Seb does though, fo’ sure. Any kinks? They’re both pretty into rough sex or passionate sex. Post-argument sex is a major thing in the Holmes-Moran household. Things get full-on broken as they roll around. Also, Sebastian likes being told what to do and Cee is very bossy so that works out well. Who’s dominant in bed? Cecelia, she falls into it and Sebastian likes it, it’s perfect.Is head ever in the equation? Head is always in the equation, it’s not even a question, it’s the answer. Cee likes it to be known that she enjoys giving head, okay, it’s empowering. If so, who is better at performing it? Cee has zero complaints but she would probably say herself, and I think Sebastian would have a hard time arguing that one. She gives great head! Ever had sex in public? Yes. If Seb is being chatted up at the bar, Cee will just get jealous and drag him into the bathroom, which is probably why Seb started talking to someone at the bar. They’re probably the sort of couple who leave a restaurant table, with friends, to go have sex. They’re horny teenagers who never left the honeymoon stage, it’s not their fault! Who moans the most? Cecelia, you know, unless she’s telling Seb to be louder. Who leaves the most marks? Sebastian, although Cee is known to leave a hickey or two. Who screams the loudest? Cee, she is so loud. Like, Sebastian putting his hand over her mouth loud and if he tells her to be quiet, she’ll be louder because that’s hilarious to her. Who is the more experienced of the two? They’re both slutty equals and proud of it. Do they ‘fuck’ or ‘make love’? Probably fuck more, but can be known to have very loving sex. However, both of those terms made Cee super uncomfortable so they have sex. Rough or soft? A little rough. A lot rough? There is a time and place for everything. How long do they usually last? They both know what they’re doing, they can go for a while however with two children and full-time jobs? A quickie is almost always called for. Is protection used? Cee is the worst at remembering to take the pill, that’s how they ended up with Lia (sorry darling), plus it makes her very depressed. Eventually, she gets an implant or something because they’d go through even her fortune buying condoms every time. Does it ever get boring? No, they’re way too into each other. They also probably like to spice things up sometimes because they’re an old married couple now. Meeting in hotel rooms, pretending they don’t know each other, maybe inviting someone else to join? They know what they’re doing at this point, they’re not the sort to have sex for the sake of it. Where is the strangest place they’d have sex? So one time they had sex in an old office block, which was sort of around the corners from the Vogue offices. Although it’s not really his job much anymore, very occasionally it will fall to Sebastian to deal with some of his employees which leaves him very amped up. Basically, Seb beats a guy up, realises how close he is to his wife, calls her to come over (once everyone else has left) to come have sex because what would be better than hitting someone over and over and then having sex with your wife, thirty floors up, with panoramic views of London? Nothing, nothing it better.

𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘.Do your muses plan on having children/or have children? Yes, their first daughter was very unplanned however, but their second daughter was planned, badly perhaps. If so, how many children do your muses want/have? They have two girls and since Celia kinda didn’t want… any, that’s quite enough, but she loves her kids very much. Who is the favorite parent? Ophelia, who the oldest likes her dad best and Viola is a massive mummy’s girl so luckily they each have a child who likes them, most of the time. Who is the authoritative parent? Cecelia is always like, “wait till your dad gets home!” like? he? is in the one who gives out the punishments but it’s almost always Cee, she’s the scary shouty one while the girls have Sebastian wrapped around their little fingers. Who is more likely to allow the children to have a day off school? Cecelia, she takes them out of school a lot even though she thinks a good education is so important, she’s also like, let’s go to New York for the week! And honestly, since money is no object, she knows it’s more important for her children to be informed than… educated since lol what’s a real job. Who lets the children indulge in sweets and junk food when the other isn’t around? Probably Sebastian, Cee does sometimes give up but most of the time she’s a all-orgianic-vegan-bullshit sort of mother. She eats McDonald’s all the time but the children do not. Who turns up to extra curricular activities to support their children? They do both try but they’re pretty busy working parents; probably Sebastian more? But Cee is convinced he only does it because the other mum’s fawn over him whenever he picks Vi up from ballet. Who goes to parent teacher interviews? That’s a joint effort. Mostly because Cee knows they’re going to get in trouble for Lia swearing and starting fights a lot and she wants Sebastian there so she can blame him, because like, for fuck sake she never swears, ever. Who changes the diapers? Cee does because she takes time off with both Viola and Ophelia but if it’s a case of both Cee and Seb at home, she gave birth to them, he can do that. Cee is super dramatic about it as well, she’ll make retching noises till Seb takes over. Who gets up in the middle of the night to feed the baby? Usually Cee, she doesn’t really need as much sleep as a normal human but they try and take turns. It’s different depending on who is working or maybe they swap nights or week “shifts” so it’s fair on them both. Who spends the most time with the children? Cee spends more time with them on a daily basis, because she’s cut down her hours but she also goes away more, so she’ll go away for weeks at a time and then Sebastian is with them, but she picks them up from school mostly. Who packs their lunch boxes? Sebastian gets then ready int he mornings, so he does their lunches. The first time Seb was away for a while Cee was so confused because she thought they just got their lunch at school and has pretty much zero idea Seb packed their lunch. Who gives their children ‘the talk’? Cee does, although sex was never really a taboo subject. Celia always thought it would be more awkward if it was all kept a secret or lies about for years and she really never wanted sex and sexuality to be something that was hidden or something to be ashamed about. She knew from her own experience that without a healthy view on sex, she did things way too young and before she understood what it meant or the physical + mental consequences and didn’t want the same for the girls. Who cleans up after the kids? Celia mostly, but they do have a cleaner. Who worries the most? Cee and Seb are the more chill parents ever and they worried ALL THE TIME. It’s sort of impossible to correlate the two but they’re both massive worriers. To be fair, Seb has a very risky job and with since Cee’s first daughter dies, it understandable. Who are the children more likely to learn their first swear word from? Really it’s hard to know, they both swear as much as each other, but Cee would probably blame Sebastian.

𝐀𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍.Who likes to cuddle? It’s a mix of both, you would never describe them as cuddly people but they do like to be in each other arms and they can be very affectionate with each other. Who is the little spoon? Cecelia, but it’s more like how much ‘accidental’ bum wiggling can she do before he gets hard. Soz not soz that she’s still a sex-crazed teenager. Who gets naughty in the most inappropriate of places? Cecelia probably initiates more but Seb is never adverse. Again, she gets pure joy out of giving him public boners. Who struggles to keep their hands to themself? Sebastian, although not always sexually. He likes being able to touch Cee, hand on her back, holding into her knee etc. How long can they cuddle until one becomes uncomfortable? Cee likes being held but she is also very big on personal space. She’ll say, “okay, done now” and he has to let go. Who gives the most kisses? Cee, she wants a kiss every minute of every day. What is their favourite non-sexual activity? Horseriding! Or more specifically, teaching their kids how to ride a horse. It was one of the draws to get a house and land in the country.Where is their favourite place to cuddle? Living room couch in the country house. Who is more likely to playfully grope the other? Probably Cee. How often do they get time to themselves? Almost never, they have two kids, one dog, are always hanging out with friends of Cee’s, or work commitments get in the way. Honestly, they’re lucky if they get one date night a month. It sometimes makes Cee sad because they never really got time to be a newly married couple in their own home because Lia was already born but she also loves a chaotic messy busy house so wouldn’t change it.

𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆.Who snores? Cee does a little bit, like tiny, it’s cute but if you say that? Ultimate denial. Do they share a bed or sleep separately? It depends. They have their bed, in their bedroom, which they share but it Seb is having a bad night, he sleeps in the spare room to avoid waking Cee up or, at worst, hiring her during one of his night terrors. If they sleep together, do they cozy up together or lay far apart? Cozy up at first, then move apart to sleep, Cee really cannot bare being held when she’s trying to sleep. Who talks in their sleep? During nightmares, Seb yells. If it’s a peaceful night, no one. What do they wear to bed? Seb used to wear nothing until the girls were old enough to just barge into their bedroom unannounced, now he at least wears boxers or pyjama bottoms. Cee loves wearing Seb’s shirts to bed but also silky pyjama sets, mood dependent. Are either of your muses insomniacs? To some degree, they both are. If Cee is going through a more manic episode, she can be. Seb though really does suffer at night due to PTSD and often goes out for a run very early in the morning because he can’t sleep. Can sleeping pills be found by the bedside? In the bathroom cabinet, but yes. Do they wrap their limbs around each other or just lay side by side? At night and in the mornings they come back together but while sleeping they lay side by side. Who wakes up with bed hair? Neither, Cee would but she puts her hair in plats. Who wakes up first? Usually, Sebastian but they’re both morning people to some degree. Who prepares breakfast in bed for the other? Sebastian does most weekends. What is their favourite sleeping position? Celia has perfected sleeping on her back to avoid getting wrinkles, so dumb and Seb lies on his front with one arm stretched out to Cee. Who hogs the sheets? Probably Cecelia. No, actually, definitely Cecelia. Do they set an alarm each night? Yes, although Seb is often awake before it. Also with young kids, who needs an alarm clock? It’s usually set for half six and then another at seven.Can a television be found in their bedroom? Yes, but Cee got one of those ones which double as a picture that hangs above the unused fireplace across from their bed. Who has nightmares? They both do and they’re both bad but Seb’s are way more frequent and way worse. Nightmares are a big part of Seb’s PTSD and a real strain in their marriage.Who has ridiculous dreams? Cee, her dreams are insane. Also if she ever dreams that Sebastian is cheating on her, she’ll hold him against him all day, no matter what he says. Who sprawls out and takes up most of the bed? Cecelia, for a woman who doesn’t like to be touching, she certainly makes her way over to Seb’s side of the bed a lot. Who makes the bed? Cee does, it’ll ruin the aesthetic of the room otherwise. What time is bed time? Ten or eleven for Sebastian, sometimes the same for Cee but she quite often uses the time the kids are in bed to catch up on some work. Seb tries his best to pull her away from her emails before twelve though, often physically lifting her to bed. Any routines/rituals before bed? Cee has a Vogue youtube channel worthy skincare routine, Seb brushes his teeth. They do often chat in the bathroom before bed though, it’s like their peaceful catch-up time. Also, Seb checks on the girls once more before bed. Who’s the grumpiest when they wake up? Maybe Cee but she’s quite good at getting up without a fuss. But if she is being very fussy, Seb can bring her round with morning sex.

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊.Who is the busiest? They are both very busy people but Cecelia can always seem more stressed so might come across as the busiest. She has said she’s cut down her hours since the girls arrived but in reality, she’s trying to shove the same amount of work into less time.Who rakes in the highest income? Sebastian, Cee is well paid and is probably worth more (also probably earns more from investments) but Sebastian is raking it in as king of crime. Are any of your muses unemployed? These workaholics? No. Who takes the most sick days? [ cee voice ] what the fuck is a sick day? Neither. Who is more likely to turn up late to work? Again, neither. Who sucks up to their boss? Ugh, Cee can but she’s very opinionated at work and that’s one of the reasons her boss likes her. Sebastian doesn’t really have a boss. What are their jobs? Cecelia is fashion editor at British Vogue, eventually becoming Creative Director. Sebastian is… CEO of Moriarty Co. I guess? King of Crime also works though. Who stresses the most? Cee. Shoes are much more stressful than crime. Do your muses enjoy or despise their careers/occupations? Celia really really loves her job, like, would die for her job, is killing herself for her job. Sebastian does to a point, his work is hard and he’s not overly interested in being the boss. He also just doesn’t want to have someone dictating what he can and can’t do. He’s happier when he can take a step back from it, his job isn’t his life or his passion, while Cee does not understand that at all. Are your muses financially stable? Very. Their finances also are not that dependent on their jobs; Celia has various trusts and Sebastian was a good saver when working for Jim.

𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄.Who does the washing? Sebastian. Who takes out the trash? Sebastian. Who does the ironing? Sebastian. Who does the cooking? I’ll give you three guesses. Sebastian. Who is more likely to burn the house down just trying? Cecelia. It’s not even an inability to cook, it’s just a complete lack of interest and a tendency to get distracted while cooking. Who is messier? Cee kicks off her shoes at the door when she gets home and Seb trips over them every time. Although Cee really does hate a messy house, she just… doesn’t really keep it tidy. She leaves her books and mugs of tea and paperwork and clothes everywhere.Who leaves the toilet roll empty? Actually, this might be Seb. Who leaves their dirty clothes on the floor? Cecelia. Who forgets to flush the toilet? Neither, usually one of the girls. Who is the prankster around the house? Kind of neither, although Seb is more likely to help the girls with something to get Cee. Celia do dumb shit occasionally but not often. Who loses the car keys when it comes time to go somewhere? Cecelia, “fuck, they’re in my other handbag!” Or Vi took them to add to her collection of shiny things. Who mows the lawn? Sebastian, with his top off, because his wife is watching. Who answers the telephone? Whoever is closets, usually Cee. Who the hell would be calling for Sebastian, he has no friends. Also, his work people never call the house. Who does the vacuuming? Sebastian. But honestly, I think they have a cleaner. Who does the groceries? Celia usually does an online shop, if they actually go to a supermarket they usually go together. Sunday family outing at Waitrose, super fun. Who takes the longest to shower? Cecelia. She can shower quickly but she loves a long hot shower. Even if they have a shower together, which they often do, Cee will be the first to get in and the last to get out. Seb turns on the hot tap to hurry her up sometimes. Who spends the most time in the bathroom? Cecelia, without a doubt.

𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐂.Is money a problem? No but only because Cee is so bloody wealthy, she still spends way too much. I feel like Seb does get on at her for spending money, but not because they’re short of it or because it’s his and she’s spending it but just because she buys the dumbest things or another pair of shoes; no one should be able to spend eight grande in a day but… How many cars do they own? A few. They have a family car, which is probably a Range Rover or something of that ilk and Cee has a couple cars in storage, she’s a bit of a speed demon and then Sebastian probably has more than one. Basically a lot for a woman who pretty much always gets a town car to work and for a couple who live in London. Do they own their home or do they rent? They own both their homes. Do they live near the coast or deep in the countryside? Deep in the countryside. Do they live in the city or in the country? Both! They have a home in London which is sort of their main house because that’s where they work and where the girls go to school but they have the country house; their favourite house and that feels more like home these days. Do they enjoy their surroundings? Seb is happier in the country, Cee is marginally happier in the city but loves being in the country; that feels more like home to her. What’s their song? So cheesy but, Taylor Swift’s You Belong With Me. From the good old days of Cee trying to convince he would be better off with her, rather than Jim. She will still dramatically sing along to this song, prancing around Seb, making up new lyrics so they fit in better with her and Jim, “ALL THIS TIME HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW BAAABBYYY!” What do they do when they’re away from each other? Seb and Cee are pretty independent people, they’re happiest when they’re together but Celia enjoys her time away from husband and kids as much as any normal person. She likes going out with friends and she loves going to Paris and New York for fashion week. Seb gets more into going out for drinks and guy chat with Aidan, John and Mike. They text a lot though, little life updates, teasing each other, mostly flirting with each other like teenagers who just fell in love though. Where did they first meet? A bookshop called Topping’s Books in London. How did they first meet? Sebastian offers her out Romeo and Juliet and asked if this is what she was looking for, Cee said she was looking for Hamlet. That conversation became one about which Shakespeare play was the best, which became a coffee date, which became a dinner date. This would have all been very cute if it wasn’t a clever plan that Seb and Jim had come up with to get to Sherlock’s sister and use her against the detective. Who spends the most money when out shopping? Easily Cecelia, easily. Seb knows she’s had a down day if he trips over Dior shopping bags left in the hall. Her card has no limit. Who’s more likely to flash their assets? Cecelia, she would flash Seb across a room. Who finds it amusing when the other trips over? Both, although Cee looks like a baby giraffe learning to walk when she’s drunk and you can’t not laugh at that shit. Any mental issues? How long you got? Both Celia and Seb suffer from PTSD, although Cee has better control, or at least sees a therapy more often. Cee also suffers from bouts of manic depression and has a lot of anger issues, so does Seb but they tend to come out in different ways. Cee and Seb, and their children, are both shelter and storm for each other. Who’s terrified of bugs? Neither, but Cee does get creeped out when they’re in the house. Who kills the spiders around the house? Cee takes real joy in crushing spiders, mostly when she imagines they’re Moriarty in the middle of his web. However, she also puts cups over them sometimes and waits for Seb to get home and deal with it. Their favourite place? The country house, with the house full, probably in the garden. Who pays the bills? Mycroft managed Cee’s bills for most of her like, or at least managed the accountant who managed her bills, and this went on for about a year until Seb found out. He was asking about a discrepancy with a bill and Cee just shrugged and told him to ask Myc. Obviously, he wasn’t having Mycroft running his household so now Sebastian does.Do they have any fears for their future? All the fears. All the normal fears for parents plus a whole host of others because of Seb’s work and Cee’s family. Sebastian and Cecelia aren’t exactly your dream parents mental health-wise and they worry about how that is going to affect the girls when they grow up. It’s also hard to see Vi and Lia growing up and not think of Charlotte and how it’s possible they might suffer the same fate because of Seb’s work. Who’s more likely to surprise the other with a fancy dinner? Cecelia! Kids in bed or staying with Mary and John, she’s maybe cooked, or maybe… got someone to cook? A night in just to themselves, you can’t beat it. Well, actually, a night in Paris would beat it but…. Who uses up all of the hot water? I would say Cecelia but I feel like she made sure they had a heating system where that wasn’t possible, it’s 2020 people, that can’t still be a thing?Who’s the tallest? Sebastian, he’s over six foot and Cee is just under. Who’s more likely to just randomly hop into the shower with the other? Cecelia, maybe, but they quote often shower together. It saves time, plus they’re wet and naked? Score. Who wanders around in their underwear? Neither, not with kids running around. Who sings the loudest when singing along to the radio? Cecelia, although sometimes they duet and it’s truly awful. They don’t even sing, they butcher classic songs. What do they tease each other about? Other people fancying them, constantly. Seb is always winding up Cee, telling her about all the mum’s at school staring at him. Cee sends him selfies with young hot models with things like, “thinking about trading you in for this.” Who is more likely to cringe at the other’s fashion sense at times? Cee likes the way Seb dresses, so oddly, for all her fashion awards, maybe Seb? Not often, if ever, but maybe she’ll wear something a little out there and he’ll question it. Cringing is a bit strong though. Do they have mutual friends? Seb has adopted Cee’s friends because he didn’t have any, sorry Seb! Although they did both know Mikey, who is Cee’s assistant’s husband but also owns the private London gym that Sebastian goes to. Mikey and Seb weren’t really friends beforehand though, that came from hanging out through Cee and Syd and the children. Now they quite often hang out with Mary and John. John and Sebastian get on really well. Who crushed first? [ cee voice ] ‘Bas did, obviously, look at me? (but also, Cee did). Any alcohol or substance-related problems? Sebastian has had his problems in the past and occasionally, they creep into his present. Celia’s drinking and drugs problem are still pretty prevalent, although she’s high functioning. Although she is aware she needs help, she doesn’t actively seek it because she knows to come off drugs and drink will be very hard. Who is more likely to stumble home, drunk, at 3am? Cecelia. Although Seb is more likely to be called out to come to pick her up, drunk, at 3am, demanding they stop at Mcdonalds. Who swears the most? Sebastian but not by much, their both bad for it.

#asteriananthologies #( i. message )

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ripples-in-the-river · 5 years

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I was thinking, for my weird Miraculous fic that's probably a one-shot -- maybe I should cut off the first part? It was supposed to be about introducing the villain AKA the plot device that would force Marinette and Adrien to react to the whole Lila situation in school, with later chapters/paragraphs focusing more on the dynamic that the town has with akumas, how they react, how their lives change, etc. Bur well, the fight scene was nixe to write, and I love angsty battle scenes where everyone gets splashed with a good old dose of tears, and also battle sequences are so much fun to write, I had no idea but I apparently like the dynamism of a battle, the scenery that keeps changing, the characters that are thrown in an unexpected situation and need to resolve it, etc.

So I'm also thinking to cut off the fight scene because the akuma doesn't make sense. We have this weird eldritch eel thing that floats, then later on I was searching for a power and I liked the combination of like, pale fire and dark blue, a bit like those pictures of like, heat levels in the body -- and also because it was fun to have this creature from the deep sea spout flames like some kind of surface dragon thing. Then with that came the concept of making it into some sort of turtle/mammal thing that kind of looks like an angry turtle with bits of lava rolling on its back -- like, so hot it's almost yellow. The back design ended up looking more like a mountain with tall, slender grass and some dusty soil, like, the pale kind with some darker patches where it's more shadowy/cliffside-esque? And I had this idea that there was sort of a mountain thing on top of its carapace, and there's something in a little taiga thing between the mountains where Marinette needs to get to either fix the akuma, get rid of its weapons, or fix the damage it's causing. I thought of like, a combo between Audimatrix and a more element-themed villain like Weredad: there's the technology part that's like, controlling damage ans sort of scaring everyone down on the ground, while there's the eel thingy doing... Other stuff? Shooing people away? Shooing the technology away? I don't know at this point.

Like, the robot part was kind of a shot in the dark. I had this random idea of making robots appear, then that the robots were connected to the eel thing (that I had to physically force myself to picture as an eel and not a turtle because holy crap mental images are hard), and the lava was like, shot down from the robots. Since there was something shooting flames/lava/some weird acid thing that ended up being a weird liquid fire thing nonsense. So I thought, well, robots, right? Since they're easily something a villain can conjure -- or ar least, something you get to turn civilians into. The idea that you'd turn people into "cold" metal monsters by throwing them into lava felt kind of cool, too, if not completely disgusting to really think about. But it's an Akuma, and magic, so I guess it doesn't hurt. Deal? Deal. So now I just have to connect the pieces, but I'm kind of worried about the fic being weird or something. And I have to figure some kind of gimmick too.

The eel thing (I'm calling it Eldritch because why not, it might even be some sort of a villain name like Eldritch Metal or something) is really strong -- fic starts when it yanks Marinette off her feet while escaping her confused mess of yo-yo string/spaghetti/trap thing under the Eiffel tower. Tower collapses, Marinette hangs on for dear life, and since she'd just cast her Lucky Charm, things kind of suck. So she has to basically just hold on until Chat Noir comes back, and since she's there, she can fight a robot or two like why not, right? The fight is uneccessarily tense because honestly? I wanted to un-downplay how dangerous akumas are like, those kids are badass and akumas cause real danger, you know? And I wanted to show how Marinette reacted when she had to fight an Akuma on her own, like, we never really look into how scary it's gotta be to right these guys without your partner -- especially if you rely on them as much as Marinette does Chat Noir. Basically talk about how she depends on him -- the show stated how important Chat was to her, and honestly, I think it's gotta be something to talk about sooner or later. Ladybug's position is basically like being the bomb technician in a war zone. Like, sure, you have some field knowledge, but seriously? Go try to defuse a bomb when the whole tagteam is shooting at you and also THEY HAVE BOMBS and you're the only technician and you really can't unfuse a bomb without someone making sure you don't get murdered in the face. So I wanted to talk about that! I thought it might be something Marinette really needs to realize, and also people in general, because like, Chat is cool, nobody says he isn't, or should say. So yeah.

But the thing is, I hadnt planned for the fic to be taking that direction. It kind of turned into commentary on their characters/relationship when honestly, I meant to talk about like -- how does the town handle akumas? Can they do better? How can people handle bullying better? Is Chat being bullied/disvalued? Should something be done? How do the people handle akumatization/bullying? Basically, rhe fic started with this premise that yes, sometimes, you really WANT to believe in the people you're supposed to have faith in -- yourself, others, teachers or friends, God, parents, whatever. But sometimes you just stop pretending and you allow yourself to be dissappiinted, and angry, and it sucks. I wanted to delve into that. Into the premise of the show, into how some characters did things that others considered good but sometimes made horrible decisions that didn't get addressed or that were swept under the rug because you just wanted to believe so badly that they were good and you didn't want to stop believing in them.

Like Caline Bustier, I wanted to believe she was super sweet and all, but well, sometimes it's just no, and Mme Mendeleïev is supposed to be rude, there's stuff happening all over the place between Chloé and Sabrina and you just have no idea???? And I felt like maybe it's really freaking stupid to say this, like, isnt it the point of every fanfic ever to expand on canon and say that you're angry about things? But, I dunno. I guess I just kind of wanted to see stuff the way they are.

And I might or might now have talked about the bullying, and Lila, and how Chloé bullied basically everyone in the past and how that affected them, and also like, criminally, what is everyone's crimes? What would you sue them for? That's kind of what I wanted to explore. Kind of take of this blanket of "they're a good person, of course they wouldn't do that", like. I guess, stop taking people for better people than they are just because you want to believe they're a good model or something.

So yeah. I might post the start here? I don't know.

#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain-cheng #adrien agreste #writing

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