#they all have had such rich and interesting lives that deserve to be examined in depth on their own

[lesbianboyfriend]

thinking about your sexual violence discussion in Buffy.

I think there is something in Anya's story arc in season 7 that ties in.

D'hoffryn is always polite and affable but always proves to be sadistic. he wears politeness as a disguise. When Aud cursed her husband, she is praised and exalted by this demon man who promised her power and glory for the chance to do something good in the world like help women get revenge.

but he really thinks of all of his girls as disposable. he kills Halfrek just to make Anya hurt. kind of like how the watchers view the Slayer as disposable. You can always find other woman to fill the gap. preferably a young attractive one.

he is not interested in The actual revenge that happens. he doesn't actually care about the girls who work for him. he just wants power over people. They even say there's always vengeance needed at brothels, implying that a lot of revenge is tied to sexual violence or misbehavior. he is taking advantage of women in these situations to build his influence rather than actually help them.

Anya truly believes she is doing good work until now when she realizes that she is not helping these women, very frequently she is scaring them. That's why she wants to undo the wish. she doesn't want to hurt women anymore and she is punished for that

omg….anon im kissing you on the lips. this is such such a good point. i’ve been meaning to examine anya’s place in the btvs sexual violence schema and i think you’re so right with this…..i think there’s also something to be said for how anya’s character in general has literally only revolved around men….d’hoffryn as a vengeance demon, then xander when she lost that, then d’hoffryn again when she lost xander, then xander again when she loses d’hoffryn again…..the episode where anya gives up being a vengeance demon is SUCH a good episode where she decides that she has to define her life outside of these relationships to men. and then they immediately bring her back to just joke about her and xander again. she deserved so much better…..i think there’s also something to be said for how her loving money is played off as like a joke and a negative character trait but how having money is like. a very material necessity for women to have independence from men especially considering the era she grew up in where she literally would not have had any money of her own. anya has never been independent she has always been reliant on a man in her life out of necessity. she took so much shit from xander because as a demon recently turned young woman she was not equipped to live in the world on her own and the help of the scoobies was dependent on her relationship with xander…..genuinely makes me seethe how her character was treated so poorly by the other characters and narratively as just a joke character when she’s literally such a rich interesting and fascinating person…..anya babygirl i would treat you so right

[zjofierose]

ok listen, i have had to give this pep talk one too many gd times lately, so i am just doing it here in the hopes that this will settle it.

you must operate on the principle that you are fantastic until presented with reasonable, rational evidence otherwise.

i am so completely serious about this. you must, for your own sake, decide to believe that you are funny, you are smart, you are talented, you are attractive, you are liked by everyone, and you're going to get what you want.

"oh no!!!' i hear you saying, "but *I* am TERRIBLE, i am THE WORST, and to assume otherwise would be SO PRESUMPTUOUS and also WRONG"

fuck that. there is absolutely no reason at all that believing you are terrible/ugly/unworthy of love should be the mental default. none. NONE. there's really no reason that "neutral/i'm fine i guess" should be the default either. because the default is what you have to live with inside your own head until you are given evidence from the external world that either supports or contradicts that default. so WHY on g-d's green earth would you want to spend that time inside your own head miserable???

no. no, my friends. you are fantastic. we are all fantastic. until presented with evidence otherwise.

"okay," you say, "but now i have been given a piece of evidence that contradicts the premise that i am fantastic. shall i put on the sackcloth and ashes now??"

no! now you must examine the evidence! and you must do this objectively (hard, i know, but necessary).

for example: someone has had An Emotion because of something you said. consider! is this a person you know and trust? do they have a history of being honest and reasonable? do you, in your rational and objective consideration (real serious about this part, too) think that maybe what you said could be construed in kind of a shitty way?

once you have reached your conclusion (your honest and objective one, remember, this is not just "i am fantastic, therefore everything i say/do ever is fantastic," that is not how this works), take appropriate action. apologize and/or explain as necessary, take any restorative action that needs to be taken, and return to your default. which is, remember, that you are fantastic.

our fucked up capitalistic society has a vested monetary and authoritarian interest in all of us being so caught up in our own suffering that we cannot act for our own and each other's benefit. people who are convinced that they do not deserve to be treated well, or to be happy, or to be respected, will not advocate for themselves in any sphere, let alone take risks on behalf of the wider community. they will buy into failing and harmful systems in a desperate bid to buy, beg, or steal their way to some mediocre simulacrum of joy.

you are better than that. don't do the rich fascist assholes' work for them.

decide that you are fantastic, and you deserve to be happy. because it's true. for all of us.

[fritextramole]

i know you love jenny and eric and hate chuck, but i’m really curious what you think about the other main gg characters and why?

Oh I love talking!!!! I love talking so much this is going under a read more bc it got unwieldy

I'm gonna talk about Blair, Serena, Dan, Nate, Vanessa, Rufus, and Lily here, but if there's anyone else you're curious about lmk

(and none of my feelings about the characters are black and white! I do find Chuck Fun To Hate and Jenny and Eric both have moments I pretend not to see. I just have my favorites and least favorite)

Blair

my relationship with Blair is the most complicated. the short answer is that the way she's venerated by fans has really soured me on her. like I'd like her more if everyone else liked her less yk

the longer answer is that I get why people love her. she had this amazing potential to grow as the show went on. I get the urge to pretend her character development stuck and she had a happy ending with Dan (I imagine I'll come back to that when I get there in the rewatch)

but season 6 went back on her character growth and had her go back to being classist and entitled and end up with chuck and I'm not going to pretend that's not canon

and like... ofc I don't think she deserved to end up with chuck (as you said my hatred of him is documented and I do think he'd be a shitty husband post series.) but I do think she deserves some consequences for her actions I'm not going to erase them to give her some happy ending the other characters have a right to be mad at her (this isn't just jenny she was a bitch to everyone at some point but they write it off bc "it's Blair that's how she is" like newsflash bestie we're all insecure most of us aren't terrible people about it)

Serena

I like Serena!! I do!! Blake Lively is charming and charismatic!!!! but she's maybe the worst about the whole Never Learning Never Growing thing most of the characters do which does get on my nerves a bit on a personal level. but more than anything it makes me not that interested in watching 121 episodes about her

I tend to be more interested in characters I can sink my teeth into (which is why I love Jenny's development and hate blair's character regression) but gossip girl is such a plot driven show that doesn't give characters time to feel things (and doesn't think about how they would feel at all.) and I think of all the leads Serena maybe gets that the worst bc there's a lot of things she should be feeling but it's like she doesn't get to (idk if that's a writing thing or a Blake Lively's acting thing (or a combination)) but it makes me not really care. especially bc iirc she'll be less involved in the main plotlines as the show goes on (which is also true for Nate)

Dan

Dan I always find myself becoming less fond of as the series goes on. I didn't find him annoying at the outset the way I know some people do. he's a good big brother and a good match for Serena getting her out of her ues bubble a bit. but the show goes on and he falls in love with Blair less than a year after she banished his sister (and never brings that up to her)

I've never gotten to the point of hating him but in the second to last episode he calls chuck "the best man I've ever known" (he raped your sister!!!!) and I get close

making Dan gossip girl was so bizarre and nonsensical that I'm just gonna say #gaslightgatekeepgirlboss those rich kids deserved it and move on bc I cant examine it seriously or we'll be here all day

Nate

Nate I mostly wish had been fleshed out more. in the early seasons he goes through a lot of really serious shit but his legacy is that the writers didn't know what to do with him after like season 2 so he just dated everyone.

for the most part I like him I just wish he'd gotten more depth in the later seasons

and I say "for the most part" bc he's got this unfortunate habit of looking the other way about how chuck treats women-until it's a woman he cares about. he has this line when he's fighting with chuck in s1 that's like "did you get what you wanted like you did with all those other girls" which makes it sound like he knows Chuck's a rapist and !!!!!!!!!

but that's unfortunately very common behavior in teenage boys. other than that I really do like Nate!!! I like that he looks out for his friends and doesn't send tips to gossip girl!!! I like that in season 1 he tries to write Blair an apology letter and in season 2 he writes a letter to Jenny I think that's really sweet!!!!! Nate's my boy and I wanna give him a hug (and make him stop being friends with that guy)

Vanessa

in canon, Vanessa has these little throwaway details about living with her sister and making socially powerful documentaries and being really well liked at NYU that we just never explore ??? even a little??????? I love Vanessa and she had her dark moments but they were forgivable (and not nearly as bad as anyone else's)

I mostly wish she had been a character in a different show I think is the best way to put it. like I wanna know about her family and her documentaries and her travels!!! but that's not Rich Kids Doing Drama

I was listening to Jessica Szohr's podcast and she said that at a certain point it felt silly that Vanessa kept talking about hating the rich kids but was still always on the upper east side and I think she's right. Vanessa should've been fleshed out more in canon (which maybe would've given her a reason to be in the neighborhood) but also Vanessa should've been the focus of her own show

Rufus

he's not the father of the year that's for sure

in the pilot Jenny says he "makes us go to private school" and I think that theme of attending Constance St Jude's for your education holds true but he doesn't seem to understand the reality of that?? there's this theme early on that "Dan doesn't have friends so why does Jenny need them" which 1. Rufus should be more concerned that his son has no friends!!!! and 2. Dan and Jenny are different people and I really can't fault a teenage girl for wanting to be popular or caring about her reputation

most of the time when I'm watching the show he doesn't get on my nerves in the moment. but then I think about it and I decide he's not a great parent and he needs to get better at actually listening to his children

Lily

she serves cunt it's a shame she traumatized her children

I'm being glib but also I'm not really. I like watching her!! I like that she went from groupie to socialite!!!! she's fun and I have a good time with her. and then I think a little harder about her kids and this post from @vanderwoodlings says it better than I could so I'll leave you with it

[dumpsterhipster]

The Trash Dweller's Dumpster Dives: 2

[1] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Far From Ourselves - by Babble / @expended-sleeper

fandom || Skyrim rating || M categories || gen, f/f, m/m genre || drama, action/adventure characters of note || Miraak, Sofie, Vilkas, Lucia status || 25/37, 116k

I guess I care about the Companions now.

"Finish it," Sofie ordered, glancing at Miraak and his opponent. The remaining bandit dropped his spear and cradled his injured arm. The potential of his next move rendered Miraak lightheaded. With a swift motion, he could end this Argonian's life. He had not known such a power in many years. But where is the honor that Aela, Vilkas, and Farkas spoke of with such reverence? Certainly he did not see it in his reddened spearhead or the dripping edge of Sofie's axe. Nor did he feel a twinge of honor when he looked down at the cowering bandit bleeding on to the dirt. Sofie took a step closer. "Now, Miraak." "But-" The bandit's hidden dagger slashed and Miraak reacted. While the dagger found no purchase when it hit the leather pad covering Miraak's leg, the spearhead made its home in the Argonian's chest. Miraak stared in disbelief at the living organism that had swallowed the end of his weapon The bandit took a final bubbling breath and went slack against the weight of the spear.

A decade after Alduin's defeat, in a Skyrim still scarred by the barely-repelled Thalmor invasion, Whiterun is about to play host to a new power--one which will test the Companions to their limits, and shine a light on what has always been kept in the darkness. Among those swept up in the conflict are a broken former-Dragonborn looking to regain lost power; a whelp struggling with her inner nature and the young priestess she loves, whose paths seem set in opposition; and the Harbinger of the Companions, who must protect his home and family against this dire new threat.

I'll be honest, it's going to be difficult for me to be coherent about this fic. It's an absolute standout among the current crop of WIPs; a unique, gripping premise executed flawlessly, with a cast of characters who could walk off the page, no matter how small their roles, and the richest and most thought-provoking exploration of theme I've read in a fic possibly ever. Babble's writing is unbelievable in every sense, and this is a fic which deserves so much more attention than it gets.

I'll confess that my usual fic interests don't tend to lead towards the Companions: while there are many very well-written fics set surrounding the guild, they usually tend to focus on the romance between one of the wolf twins and the LDB rather than the rich narrative and thematic potential of the Companions themselves. Absolutely no shade to the many, many people who enjoy those fics, but they've typically fallen less within my wheelhouse.

Far From Ourselves is the Companions fic I've always wanted to read. There are some romance elements--and both the relationships between Miraak/Vilkas and Sofie/Lucia are brilliantly executed and very believable--but they are in the background, with the main subject matter of the fic really being theme. The story asks very meaty, thought-provoking questions about violence and honour and right and wrong and good and evil and all the many shades in between in a way which blows my mind with every chapter update, and inspires me constantly in my own writing. Of particular note is the way Babble asks questions, and examines them from every angle, but so far has yet to provide many answers. The reader is left to turn the problems over in their own mind, to think about the various beliefs and attitudes the characters have, and to arrive at their own conclusions (or not, as the case may be--they're VERY complex questions). It's incredibly well done, and leads to a plot and set of character relationship arcs which feel particularly coherent and meaningful.

This leads me into a discussion of how Babble approaches character. As you can probably assume from how they manage theme, the characters themselves all feel like real, living people with their own complex beliefs and values, rather than author mouthpieces/counter-mouthpieces. Babble is a true master of character writing. I was impressed by the sensitivity and nuance with which they wrote characters in Death of the Dragonborn (which I would also heartily recommend), which is particularly notable given that fic was written between the ages of 16 and 18. In the handful of years since that early promise has ripened and matured to the point where every character Babble takes a brush to comes alive within a few sentences; even the minor characters in Far From Ourselves are incredibly dynamic and three-dimensional. Special mention goes to Babble's sprinkling of OCs, including the wonderful additions to the whelps of Benajah and Hugs-the-Shadows, the Alfiq storekeeper Kishla, and Ruth, about whom I will say nothing other than that it's worth reading this fic for Ruth alone.

And then there's the main cast. Once again Miraak is not usually in my wheelhouse, but Babble paints such an incredibly complex, multi-faceted interpretation of a post-defeat Miraak that I was sucked in from the first harrowing paragraph, and have not been released since. I have never read a character like this Miraak in a Skyrim fic, and am awed at how consistently Babble portrays a mind so alien yet human. Babble's Vilkas is brilliant: he truly feels like the whip-smart, capable and thoughtful man we're given a glimpse of in canon, and a worthy Harbinger to succeed Kodlak. Grown-up Lucia as a priestess of Kynareth is both a delight and very fitting, but oh my god, for me the true standout of this fic's main cast is Sofie. I don't want to give anything away, but this is Sofie is probably one of my favourite canon character portrayals in a Skyrim fic, ever. Babble has done so much more with her potential than I ever could have imagined, and she is a true masterclass in just how much scope there is for both breadth and depth in turning the sketches we get in canon into fully rich and realised characters.

This review is already very long but it's worth noting that the plot is also incredibly fresh and gripping, with a really complex and nuanced 'villain' faction; Whiterun itself is beautifully rendered, as are those parts of broader Skyrim we have the privilege of being shown; and Babble's technical skills are excellent, with marvellous prose and dialogue both. I cannot recommend this fic highly enough--if you have any interest in the Companions, or in just really, really well-written and original, thought-provoking fantasy fiction, you owe it to yourself to check this out.

[anonil88]

Malcolm and Marie live blog

I don't usually do liveblogs for movies but yea.

Spoilers ahead!!

I love that its modern timed but very 70s stylized.

A tune indeed.

When you are high and drunk on success and

How the white critic reacts is why I feel like gatekeeping my scripts. At the same time some things I do make are about race or involve.

Marie sitting on the patio smoking is a mood whenever men are talking.

So he's pretentious and unaware.

Whoever chose the music for this, I feel like we would be Spotify mutuals.

Can this nigga stop pacing.

Also can he stop talking;

Marie is so tired and unimpressed.

Also little booties matter and are to be bitten.

Oooo the tension and the jazz.

Title Card over mac and cheese.

Shitty boxes mac and cheese but still mac and cheese.

Tbh i always wonder if spouses/significant others get upset when their spouses don't acknowledge them during speeches.

John sounds so much like his dad but I really hope his acting style differs from his dad a lot.

Guilty confession?

He did not profit off of his partners backstory and then not even acknowledge her.....I.....

If that ever happened to me catch me cussing my partner out during the beginning credits, the end credits, in the car, and at home.

GASLIGHTER!

The way I'm excited for Zendaya to give me some, oooo can she work with Regina King. Please on my knees I pray.

Um no that's not your job to coddle your lead.

He's a dick and the type of dick who makes himself look like a good person around other people.

If Sam Levinson is trying to make his viewers more of misandrist, it's working.

I feel like Marie has her flaws probably a lot of them and we will surely see as this continues, but Malcolm needs to learn how to apologize sincerely.

70s vibes! 70s vibes!

Them kissing and talking about criticism and dreams makes me miss a partner. A partner that I've had and haven't had.

Women really are behind every great man.

Yea sir you fucked a happy moment.

Oh visual allegories for looking in from the outside and cat and mouse chasing and looking from the outside in.

She's saying she doesn't feel noticed by you.

Gas lighter :0 he called her an emotional support dog, bruh.

I would LOVE to co-write or take a writing class held by Sam Levinson. The fights i write are very much in this same realm of reflection and anger and monologue.

Sam.....sam.....are all the sides inside of you doing okay sir?

The ugly side of dating and being in a relationship with someone who struggles with their own demons.

Honestly I could close my eyes and listen to this script being read without seeing these characters visually. Just close my eyes and get a sense of these characters like it was a radio story.

Oh. Oh this is a new wheelhouse of Zendaya acting; a different voice is like breaking through here and her expressions aren't the same we are used to. You can literally hear another character in there....hmm.

Mans is outside really fighting with his invisible demons lmfao.

Selfish ass, how after everything she said you came out of it thinking about your own craft and self instead of how you hurt her.

So she's conditional.

Me: did sam (a white man) say nigga this many times in his script or are the actors adding their own inflections. Not just the lingo used but the topic of race and directing etc. being written by a white writer about black characters is always gonna be a critique when you're writer is a white person.

Alexa play Broken Girls by Saba

He is so hurtful.

A clown nigga a clown look in the fucking mirror you bozo head ass looking like you need some Mehron clown white and a size 16 in clown shoes.

John is doing a really swell performance and reading of these lines.

He is reading her for her insecurities by bringing up his experiences with other women and that.....is yikes.

Arguments can get messy like this in real life but it takes a lot of maturity and control to either not let it get to this point or have a healthy conversation afterwards.

This film is really shot on some very crisp lenses.

They sitting there like 🚬🧍‍♀️🧍‍♂️.

Leftover Mac and Cheese and unfinished cigarettes.

The nyt etc. pay walls are so annoying, but there is a work around look at the articles on incognito or add a period at the end of the url.

He sounds like his daddy so much here, weird, this is the only part I'm eh on the dialogue it feels real but a bit out of pace in how they are bouncing off one another.

Nail scissors? So the end is not the only part he based off of Marie. 🙄

ITS A GOOD REVIEW YOU DINGUS but also its a full review they are going to critique things. She isn't wrong though he did profit off of a woman's story that was not his own to profit from.

Yes Malcolm because unfortunately all marginalized people look through a lens of life that is inherently political because of the world they live in.

He is so mad and upset and had a lot on his chest. But I think he Malcolm and Sam are talking about something thats an issue and a non issue. Being critiqued for you art is hard but also Malcolm is not super self aware. He's like a stand in figure of for example rich depop sellers who wanna be oppressed so badly they yell at others instead of examining their own personal behaviors and ethics.

Oh Marie, when you know the spark is gone and you pick fights because.

He ain't even ask her to read?

One critic I have for most of hollywood actors is they learn their cry and that is it. A change from this is Margot Robbie, I adore her fluctuations of crying being similar but the crying is carried differently for each character. If I had to say any actor that does a cry scene amazing its this woman right here (Amy Adams)

You stole her story from her and gave it away, she has a right to be upset and angry and a rubber band ball of emotions.

Citizen Kane, not the cinematography, but the story is it even that good? (Unpopular opinion but meh, maybe in my rewatch it will be better.)

But that is what people want authenticity and whatever authenticity means to them. What is real for one is false for another.

To be honest look at the criticism of Euphoria, well earned, but a lot of people were like this isn't real even though he literally wrote about his own life. People said it was inauthentic like....wtf.

Ahh the smoking is just a habit, he quit and she didn't.

CAST ZENDAYA IN A HORROR MOVIE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING. Get Lupita and Zendaya and some more black actors preferably less known ones in a horror movie. One with a interesting script and story, directed by Regina King. Please and thankyou.

I love Marie yep that was amazing.

Behind every great man is a greater woman, one that deserves her credit for how she has stood behind. I wonder the stories of those women, what they have sacrificed or not sacrificed. Their thoughts and feelings when the world is surrounding their partner and views them as a plus one. (I'd write a short script about this but I think do I have the time, can I, or am I equipped ?)

He is a shitty person for bringing up his exes, like she even said I don't wanna know any of that.

Imagine being on anti depressents and rarely having a sex drive and then when you do your partner starts talking about their exes and tearing you apart for all your faults.

I love when you see peaks of Zendaya's cadence in roles.

Tension, what if's and he didn't even bring her up in his speech.

Marie to herself and the audience:

He is not afraid that he will loose her but as my character says in my unreleased story, "i can't wait til you give me a fucking reason to leave your ass." Malcolm expects everything in order for not even doing the bare minimum and she is only asking him for something as simple as consideration. She just wants him to be considerate. He wants to get married and considers their relationship like rolling down a hill at full speed and he cannot apologize, he cannot be considerate, and he cannot admit his wrongs. He can only offer her I love yous that he probably does mean but he does not back up outside of what he's done for her in the past. The past which was more of her experience than his and he sees his part in it as a burden. He doesn't use his own vantage point of the past to further his career he uses her. He does all of these things without a real apology or thankyou because he is not afraid to loose her.

The restrictions of quarantine and the panorama have made Sam's writing very no frills. I wonder how other films from other directors and writers that are filmed in small contained crews like this will be structured. But this was a very good movie gonna add to my letter box 3.3-3.5

Oh shit this is my song,

Ratings/overall thoughts:

Script is like a C+, B- : I could go into my heavier big brain thoughts on the script but I don't feel like it. You catch hints of it above it centers conversation on race and privilege, mainly the writers and questions i have that won't be answered but Sam did make me grow disdain for Malcolm over a short time. Which is sometimes hard to do because im one sympathetic person but the sympathy i have for Malcolm is at 0. Maybe a 2 at some scenes but then it quickly goes back to 0. Some parts of the dialogue miss the mark or hit the are off balanced. While some of it like Malcolm's bathroom speech albeit mean is really strong or their conversation when he comes back from peeing really shines for me.

Performances: B+ to A- because they carried the script further than it could of gone with less talented actors. The monologues do well to showcase their current skill levels which are already high af and leave room for anticipation in where these actors go next.

Zendaya holding a knife: A+ with a gold star. That switch on and off and on is delectable.

John being a shitty boyfriend but following Marie like a lost puppy: B+ with a good job written at the bottom of the paper, Malcolm being nervous a frantic dialed up with more realistic nervousness would have sold me completely on Malcolm's anxious waiting.

Cinematography: A and a participation award.

The mac and cheese: A+ for the easy mac. Wish it was like Annie's or Velveeta.

Cigarettes: Participation award and their picture hung up for student of the month. Why the grill lighter? Everytime Malcolm opened up his mouth Marie was like sparks fly.

The music: A++ with a prize. Whoever picked the music probably makes good Spotify playlists.

[dsm-v]

on “privilege”

so this is coming from twitter (egads, i know), but i’ve noticed this phenomenon of people using the language of “privilege” to talk about things which to me aren’t actually reflective of privilege at all. as I understand it, privilege is a systemic structure which makes some aspects of certain peoples’ lives easier, to the chagrin of other people’s lives. to me, privilege is at play if the “privileged” person is automatically offered access and inclusion to a greater extent than is offered to the “unprivileged” one, and it is precisely because the privilege is self-reifying that the privileged ones can go their entire lives without acknowledging that privilege has been at play to their benefit, while the unprivileged can clearly see the negative influence that other people’s privilege has had in their life.

and so i see this urge to “name the privilege” comes often from people who are, in some form or another, unprivileged and disadvantaged by the presence of privilege which posits some identities or states of being as superior to others. the most privileged people, e.g. rich white cis people, never have an interest in examining their privilege because it would only invalidate their worldview that they deserve the things they have and they got those things by working hard for them. but it feels like people who have some privileged identities and some which are non-privileged, really have this urge to dissect and micro-examine the role of privilege in their lives. even if the privilege they seem to be naming is not actually indicative OF privilege.

so i’ve seen a lot of autistic people argue about what part of the autistic life is a privileged existence and it often boils down to something like: “diagnosis of autism is a privilege” and frankly i think this is quite wrong and misses the essence of what privilege really is. to me, the privileged person in this case or circumstance is the neurotypical person, the one who is never told or even has to consider whether they are “different than normal”. to me, diagnosis of autism is not a privilege but is a specific experience of a fundamentally unprivileged existence. some experiences of autism may be even more under-privileged, but no part of autism is a privilege, in and of itself.

so this urge to name things and experiences which i would call “less-unfortunate circumstances of misfortune” as privileges really misses the core essence of privilege at play, which is structural power. a person who is without structural power cannot possibly be privileged in that facet of their identity or experience.

e.g. “diagnosis of xyz is a privilege” no the privilege is called being healthy, and that takes no diagnosis.

“having family members who you can ask for money if you need to is a privilege” no, the privilege would be never needing to ask anyone for money and that is called being rich.

“having access to HRT and being able to transition is a privilege” no, the privilege would be never even needing to question or affirm your gender and that is called being a cis person.

i think we need to stop calling everything and anything “a privilege” because then we miss the core essence of what “privilege” really is and how it is founded in structural power, and not just in circumstances that may have been easier or better than others. 

TLDR: less-unfortunate circumstances of misfortune, do not necessarily privilege make

[stillness-in-green]

Ahistorical, Absurd, and Unsustainable (Part Four and Conclusion)

An Examination of the Mass Arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front Introduction and Part One Part Two Part Three

PART FOUR: Thematic Problems

For all that portions of the Western fandom look at the MLA and see Evil Quirk Eugenicists and Hypocritical Ultra-Rich, they had legitimate complaints, and their goals, while overly radical if taken to their logical extremes—see Geten[51]—still offer a way to address a huge number of the problems this society faces. Locking them up and throwing away the key is shutting off one of the most prominent angles on addressing those issues. Consider:

The Problem of Heroics

Quirk-based prejudice is real, and a huge amount of it is based in the hero/villain dichotomy. This isn’t surprising; when you set up a group of people as “heroes,” it follows logically, linguistically, naturally that the people they fight must be villains. Villains are bad, are evil, are black-and-white figures with no motivation worth considering. Toss them in jail; who cares? They earned being in there with their Bad Actions. But that kind of thinking is insidious—it spreads.

If someone looks like a villain, if someone has a bad quirk, they may well be a Bad Seed. And if they aren’t, well, the responsibility is on them to rise above that prejudice, to become better than the people around them think they can be—but no one asks the people around them to maybe stop being so damn prejudicial all the time.

A horrifyingly stark example shows up in Chapter 310, in which a woman is being attacked by a group of three men for no reason save that they think she looks like a villain, so they assume she must be a villain. Her obvious villain trait? She’s a heteromorph—unusually tall, with a vulpine face. That’s it. She’s not dressed in a threatening or antisocial style; she’s not aggressive or angry. She’s just a heteromorph who didn’t go to a shelter right away because she thought things would calm down if she waited it out.

Love Midoriya following this up with, “I bet they were just scared too.” Way to chase an aggression with a micro-aggression there, hero. (Chapter 310)

Of course, tensions are running high right now, higher than would ever be the case under normal circumstances, but even in “normal circumstances,” this uncomfortable bias persists. Consider Class 1-A’s Shoji: Shoji wears a mask because he's a gentle soul who doesn’t want to scare small children, but maybe instead, people should be teaching their kids not to judge by appearances? Then maybe their kids wouldn’t grow up to be the kinds of people who attack others for looking a little scary and not going to sufficient pains to hide it?

As far as bad quirks go, meanwhile, Shinsou is the classic example on the hero side. He was told by classmates, laughingly, that he had a good quirk for a villain; he carries himself at all times like he’s got something to prove. I suspect the only reason he’s at U.A. and not running with the League of Villains is a supportive home life,[52] but either way, people are all too ready to apply a villain label to him based on an ability that was nothing but genetic lottery, and that’s because the existence of heroes defines itself by the existence of villains.

Of course, the otherization of villains and people-who-kind-of-seem-like-they-might-be-villains is only part of the problem. The other and frankly larger issue is the effect that limiting quirk use to heroes-only has on the cultural mindset—heroes, villains, and civilians alike.

Japan in real life fosters a sense of community support so profound that children as young as four can be sent on small errands[53] around the neighborhood, safe in the knowledge that if they need help, they will be able to get that help. It’s far more common for young children to walk or take public transit to school than it is in the U.S. Another example is the country’s enthusiastic embrace of publicly available AED machines, complete with easy-to-understand printed and audio instructions about how to use them on people suffering heart attacks, a movement that has saved the lives of many who might not have otherwise survived long enough for an ambulance to arrive.

In My Hero Academia’s Japan, though?

You wind up with people who don't even particularly want to become heroes enrolling in hero schools anyway because it's the only way they can imagine contributing to society. Uraraka and Gran Torino are obvious examples—Uraraka becoming a hero less because she felt a calling to and more because it seemed like the best way to ameliorate her family’s hardscrabble lot in life; Torino getting a hero license not because he cared about being a hero at all, but because he was in on the One For All situation and needed to be able to use his quirk freely to help fight that secret war.

An even more telling case is that of the main character himself. Midoriya desperately wanted to “save” people, and from all the evidence we have in the early manga, as far as he was concerned, the only way for him to do that was to become a hero. He never even considered e.g. signing up for any volunteer programs around his neighborhood or joining the police. It’s like he never even considered the possibility of helping people via other channels.

And this is a consistent issue! People who don't think that they can become heroes train themselves (and are trained by society) into believing that they are powerless, that it isn’t their responsibility to help when they see trouble, leading to things like Shimura Tenko's “long walk,” where countless people look at a child of five, bloody and alone, and then make the conscious decision to look away, because “a hero will help.”

Hell, it even spills over onto actual heroes, who in the first chapter stand around like chumps waiting for “someone with a better quirk” to come and do something about the sludge villain, because they don’t have the perfect quirk to solve the problem themselves, so they don’t even try.

Of course, even if they did try, it might not be welcomed. Consider cases where people wanted to do good, like Gentle Criminal or Vigilantes' Koichi, but had their road to heroism blocked—this led them to villainy or vigilantism, which in turn can lead to arrest and possible prison time, with all the attendant stigma.

Restricting quirk use to heroes-only has impacts beyond just how it distorts people’s desire to help, too. Evidence in the manga suggests that some people feel a stronger biological drive to use their quirks than others. What options do those people have, then, if their quirks—or their personalities—don’t seem naturally cut out for heroism?

In Tamaki Amajiki’s flashback in Chapter 140, a teacher tells his class, “People make fine use of their quirks at any number of jobs. Being a hero’s not the only option. How will you be useful to society in the future? That’s what we’re here to explore in quirk training.” This is the scene in the manga that most explicitly tells us that other avenues for quirk use exist, but we’re never once shown what those avenues might be. At best, this suggests that those avenues are drastically limited (e.g. only available to those whose quirks are deemed “useful to society”) and/or poorly explained to people in-universe—else why would Uraraka have chosen heroism despite her lack of interest in it if she could have just gotten some kind of job license for her quirk? At worst, it’s an example of Horikoshi throwing in a line that contradicts the surrounding canon. Either way, we’re left with people who feel a strong drive to use their quirks being pressured into heroism or straying into villainy for lack of other acceptable outlets.

All of these issues could be mitigated by less draconian restrictions on quirks—which Destro's followers are the only characters in the manga we've actively seen pushing for, rather than just heard about second-hand—and by not using an ideologically charged word like “heroes” to describe a glorified independent police force. Allowing people to freely use their quirks[54] means fewer people being pushed into a heroics job they're unsuited for, means fewer people being pushed into villainy, means a more rounded view on how quirks can be used, leading to less quirk-based prejudice and less—well, let’s talk some about false dichotomies.

All For Nothing, Nothing For All

Shigaraki stands as a fundamental accusation of the way the hero/civilian dynamic exacerbates the Bystander Effect, making people think of themselves as powerless, while at the same time putting untenable pressure on heroes to be perfect victory machines who don't experience pain or doubt or weakness. He further attests that this dynamic pushes out people who don't fit either category—victim or hero—making them villains. This is one of the fundamental thematic conflicts of the series—is one hero enough? Are heroes themselves enough? What are heroes, what do they fight, and what should they be fighting? Who deserves to be “saved” and what does it mean, anyway, to “save” someone? What happens to the people who aren’t saved? How will the world grapple with the consequences, the resentment, that stem from that failure?

In his work Underground, written to grapple with and criticize the way Japanese media covered the sarin gas attacks, author Murakami Haruki talked about the response to the incident being to call the members of Aum Shinrikyo evil, insane, diseased, other. They were spoken of as a monstrous fringe that could not have been predicted, about which nothing could have been done, rather than examined as bright, well-educated young people who by all accounts ought to have had good futures ahead of them but instead spiraled down into a doomsday cult. Murakami asserted that, because the Japanese public was unwilling to ask how and why that happened, was unwilling to self-examine, the country was locking itself into a repeating cycle. Memorably, he wrote, “Most Japanese seem ready to pack up the whole incident in a trunk labeled THINGS OVER AND DONE WITH,” to describe this resolute incuriosity, the strong aversion to looking into the face of evil and trying to find the humanity within it.

In this post and its follow-up, tumblr user @robotlesbianjavert discusses the problems that stem from that exact tendency as portrayed in My Hero Academia. She says, “Only making decisions that benefit the greater good is not the real solution that the narrative is rooting for. Not so long as it fails to recognize and address the needs of the victims that still come of it.” Hero Society will never stop creating its own villains so long as, every time it fails people, it does nothing but shrug and write off the victims as unavoidable, inevitable sacrifices for the greater good.

I would also like to highlight her point—which I hope she one day posts her own full essay on—about the way All For One and One For All serve as two extreme poles of equally unsustainable visions for society. This dynamic is all over the manga.

There are the characters of AFO and his younger brother themselves, each forever locked in battle to prove the correctness of his own way of thinking, and forever talking past the other even when they’re face to face.

There’s the contrast of heroes, giving their all to help strangers even when it hurts the people they love, with villains, giving their all to help the people they love even when it hurts strangers.

The flaws in the One For All model can be seen in the multilayered ravages it inflicted on All Might physically, emotionally, and socially. Thus, one for all is not always ideal.

The strengths of the All For One model can be seen in a team of heroes and police combining their efforts and will to help one single person—Eri. Nighteye even highlights this with his speech about everyone’s efforts coalescing into Midoriya and helping him to “twist fate.” Thus, all for one is not always about selfishness.

Once you start looking for it, this duality shows up everywhere, and I think—I hope—it’s an angle Horikoshi is conscious of. The obvious solution is that the extremes of this society are all undesirable—that total selflessness and total selfishness are equally unsustainable, and both are, ultimately, damaging. A more holistic approach is needed, yet if a holistic approach is what the manga ultimately proves to be seeking, it makes the mass arrest of the PLF particularly problematic, if it’s allowed to stand unchallenged. You cannot just choose not to see 115,000 dissatisfied people—some way or another, you have to reckon with them, and if you don’t do it in a way that actually helps them address whatever their core problem is, you’re just setting yourself up for more of the same further down the line.

The MLA believed that they were fighting for a just cause, for freedom, for the future. They absolutely had issues—Geten’s words indicate that much—but they were issues that would have been much better addressed by actually challenging them openly, rather than suppressing them. If they couldn’t get society to agree right away that the use of one’s quirk should be as unregulated as the use of one’s hands, maybe they would have accepted a tiered license approach to quirk use as a good starting compromise. If they wanted totally unhindered quirk use, such that people could murder with impunity? Well, that would never have gotten past the House of Representatives, but maybe a bill declaring that crimes committed by quirks should be treated no differently than crimes committed via any other means would have. A weeklong debate on the Diet floor would have stood a much greater chance of e.g. addressing the needs of the quirkless than the MLA alone would have bothered with.

The MLA didn’t get to have that kind of debate. Instead, they ran headfirst into Shigaraki Tomura, who made them far more dangerous. And yet… For all that Shigaraki twisted them, he didn’t change them so much that Re-Destro couldn’t still see the light of his ideals within them. Furthermore, even though the PLF didn’t win the battle we call the War Arc, it may be that they’re well on their way to winning the actual war.

“The Seeds Are Already Sown”

So what did the PLF actually want? Well, we have a few sources on that—Shigaraki’s desire to destroy “everything,” the cloned Re-Destro’s vision of liberation through “order without order,” and so forth. But a very instructive place to look is Hawks’ doomsaying in Chapter 258. While the PLF is a bit too scattered or imprisoned to appreciate it, a shocking number of the things Hawks laid out for the audience have actually come about, even if they didn’t happen exactly as the PLF planned. Consider:

Bring down the status quo by annihilating all heroes. Heroes—a number of whom died the day of the raid—are retiring in mass numbers. As the manga describes it, they are “being put through a sieve.” They certainly haven’t all been annihilated, but the ones remaining are having to do the work with little in the way of thanks or glory—the false heroes Stain spoke of have left the table.

They plan to attack all major cities at once throughout the nation. Gigantomachia stampeded over more than twenty cities in the space of less than an hour. A bunch of them were surely not major cities, but all the same, it was a rampage that caught the heroes almost completely off-guard (because they were all tied up arresting the PLF and didn’t think Machia would be an issue), leading to massive collateral damage and unspeakable loss of life.

With society brought to a lawless standstill… Thanks to AFO’s prison breaks, a bunch of villains are now out there raising hell to their hearts’ content, and there aren’t enough heroes around to always respond in a timely fashion. They’re having to open up schools as shelter zones, evacuating entire cities, which the common people respond to predictably poorly, leading to groups of people who were not previously villainous deciding to take the law into their own hands.

…Re-Destro and the Hearts & Minds Party will storm the political world. In Chapter 297, the less openly fascist guard worries that the remaining factions of the HMP[55] will still be stirring up trouble on the political front, especially given the enormous wave of brand-new complaints about human rights violations that he doubtlessly figured were incoming.

They will distribute weapons and extol the virtues of self-defense, calling it true freedom. Whether Detnerat picked up the pace of its black-market support goods sales, bankrolled Giran doing the same, or some other groups—yakuza, perhaps—stepped up, we already know that there are weapons and support goods circulating throughout society, and that people are using them for self-defense.

These people will throw the world into chaos and enthrone Shigaraki atop the rubble. The second coming of All For One. Far more so than anyone in the PLF would have wanted, this one has come horribly true with the AFO vestige’s possession of Shigaraki.[56]

While it is perhaps karmic that the PLF is in no position to enjoy the fruits of their villainous efforts, it’s striking how much of what they wanted has come about anyway. And how much of this can really be undone or wound back? Complete societal breakdown isn’t the kind of genie you can easily rebottle, and this, I think, is particularly illustrated by the civilians Yo and Tatami encounter in Chapter 307.

I’d like to wind this essay down by zooming in on that encounter somewhat.

The group of people the Ketsubutsu pair encounter in 307 are not nice, but neither are they violent. Having, like so many others, lost faith in heroes to protect them, they want only to protect their hometown and for heroes to leave them be. They’ve fended off a few small-time villain attacks and are bluntly uninterested in cooperating with condescending heroes (an impression Yo is not helping to mitigate) who have done nothing but disappoint them.

The spokesman in particular feels to me like someone who’s suffered a significant personal loss. The shadow over his eyes here is telling. (Chapter 307)

When Muscular shows up, they are 100% ready to put their lives where their mouths are. They are all in the process of charging outside, first to stop their town from suffering more damage, then to back up a hero kid they just got done telling to buzz off. And you know? It’s possible—probable, even!—that Muscular would have murdered every last one of them, and them charging in to fight him would have led to a horrific tragedy, one more to stack atop the pile.

And yet, while the narrative doesn’t allow them to actually assist,[57] neither does it entirely rebuke them, in the end. When all is said and done, the civilians agree to hear Tatami and Yo out, and they help Tatami get Yo inside for medical attention. The leader is a little abashed, but he doesn’t bow his head and admit to being wrong; his group doesn’t meekly submit to being herded to shelter. And that’s because the narrative is—wisely—unwilling to say that they’re wrong.

After all, how could it?

Midoriya Izuku and the jaded civilian's instincts. (Chapters 1 and 307)

For a last comparison, remember that in the first chapter, Midoriya Izuku—quirkless, untrained Midoriya Izuku—dove into a fight he had no way of winning, no way of even affecting. All he was doing was endangering himself and making the sludge villain even harder to target. Still, All Might and the narrative alike praised him for his action, because it was driven by a “desire to save.” In Chapter 307, a group of undertrained civilians witnesses a high school boy being attacked by the highest tier of villain their society knows, a Tartarus escapee, a gleeful and unrepentant serial killer with a devastatingly powerful quirk. Their response is to gather up their weapons and numbers and dive in to try and help. Regardless of the weakness of their quirks, regardless of their lack of training, regardless of the danger to their lives, their instinct is the same as Midoriya’s was back then—“the desire to save.”

How could the narrative possibly tell us that they're wrong?

And if they aren’t wrong, this group of people who are so very close to the vision the PLF had for the world after their revolution, the narrative simply cannot expect to retain the slightest hint of credibility if it tries to tell us that the PLF are worth nothing more than an authorial handwave and the slamming of a cell door.

Conclusion

What we are seeing in the manga now is a society that is fumbling towards a new way. It isn’t perfect; it has a lot of wrinkles to iron out. Yet in some ways, if this is a society that has gone back in time, it is also a society that has a chance to chart a different path forward than it did before, a more inclusive path, a more balanced one. Heroes can still exist in the same way that surgeons and emergency responders exist, but that doesn't mean people throw their first aid kits in the garbage.

People protest that untrained civilians using their quirks leads to collateral damage, and that's true. The same would be true, however, if a nation that relied solely on public transit suddenly faced the total breakdown of that system and found that, if they wanted to get anywhere farther than walking distance, they had to get behind the wheel of a car and drive there themselves with no previous experience handling a motor vehicle. With some basic training, or perhaps a test and associated license that is as ubiquitous as a driver's license, how much of the collateral damage caused by civilians fighting might be reduced? How might people feel more empowered to act when necessary?

I very much want to see that future in the manga. It will feel terribly bitter, however, if the people who always believed in that future the most don’t get to see it themselves.

Bit characters are bit characters, I know. Terrorists in fiction don’t typically get to walk away scot-free. But numbers aren’t just numbers, even in fiction, even when they’re villains. If all Horikoshi wanted was a sufficiently large, scary threat to throw his heroes up against, he should have stuck with mindless Noumu or maniacal robots. He didn’t. He chose to make that threat human. He cannot now choose to dehumanize the threat, just because those humans are no longer convenient to his story.

Or at least, he can’t make me look at his doing so as anything other than appalling—ahistorical, absurd, and unsustainable.

Come back next time for sources and further reading.

-----------------------------------------------------

[51] And yes, as always, I do think that Geten-whose-name-means-Apocrypha is a radical, not a reliable barometer for the MLA norm.

[52] Contrasting Toga, the standard-bearer for bad quirks on the villain side.

[53] We don’t know if that practice—so widespread it became the subject of a long-running TV program—survived the Advent and raised crime rate, but if it didn’t, that only further suggests that kids wandering the streets unattended are probably in need of assistance.

[54] Within the same bounds other freedoms exist, e.g. they’re not unduly burdening others.

[55] Small political parties in Japan merge and fragment all the time, particularly in times of crisis, so it’s not surprising that the HMP has some sub-groups. I am somewhat surprised that these factions themselves weren’t dissolved as well, given the heavy-handedness on display everywhere else. This is about the only thing that suggests that the arrests might not be as totally over-the-top as is otherwise implied, though really, if that’s the case, it just brings us back to the problem of all the people who probably slipped the net if the HPSC did opt to undercompensate.

[56] Another enormous thematic issue I have with tossing away the PLF like this is that it renders Shigaraki and the League’s hard-fought victories in My Villain Academia all but meaningless—worse than meaningless, since settling into the villa instead of staying on the run or bunking up with Ujiko wound up losing them Twice—but that’s more a problem with the writing of Shigaraki’s arc than the themes of the series as a whole. Certainly, fumbling Shigaraki’s arc will have a nigh-incomparable impact on the themes of the series as a whole, but there’s time to salvage his situation yet, so I’m crossing my fingers and reserving judgement on that for now.

[57] It should have.

[ihearthes]

Quarantine Christmas Part  2

Author: @ihearthes Pairing: Harry x y/n Rating: Smut Word Count: 2768 (Part 1) Fiction Chalenge via @caitlin‘s fiction party via @sweetcreatureinthedark

Part 1

December 24, 2020

“Smith!” he bellows way too early and cheerfully as he pounds on my bedroom door. “Happy Christmas Eve! Come on! Let’s go for a jog.”

“Arrrrggggghhhhh,” I growl. “No.”

“If you hike the Hastain Trail with me, I’ll spring for coffee afterwards.”

“Go away, Styles.” Drawing the pillow over my head, I try to block out the sound of his voice. 

“Fresh air will be good for you.”

“You’re not going to give up, are you?” 

“Not on your life. I hate hiking alone.”

“Fine!” Throwing the covers off, I don my newly cleaned leggings, sports bra, and a t-shirt before opening the door and marching past him in my tennis shoes. “Bully,” I accuse. 

“You’re mad that I’m forcing you to take care of yourself?” Although he sounds offended, that smirk is back. 

“Whatevs, Styles. Let’s go.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

He sets off at a brisk pace, and I trail behind him slightly. After all, I’m still waking up. 

“Keep up, Smith!”

Just to be ornery, I slow my stride, taking my time examining the plants next to the path. When I next glance up, Harry is a solid quarter mile ahead of me, and I contemplate turning back, finding a picnic table and taking a nap on it until he’s done. 

But no. That’s not to be, as he turns and jogs back to me, keeping his legs pumping as he moves backwards. 

“You’re going to trip on something,” I caution. 

He grins. “You care about me!”

My eyes roll so far back into my head that I swear I can see my own brain. “No. But I care about Glenne, and she would be mighty upset if I had a part in damaging you.”

“Mhm.” The smirk is back, and as hard as I try to keep a sour look on my face, it’s challenging. “Where was Christmas supposed to be?” His question is casual, but it causes me to flinch.

“Indiana,” I snap off the word like one would a twig on a dying tree. Immediately, I feel guilty. “Sorry.” My mumble is quiet, but loud enough for him to hear and nod in silent acceptance. “You don’t deserve rudeness. What about you? London?”

“Holmes Chapel. With my mum, my sister, and her boyfriend.”

“Ah. Is it cold there this year?”

“Fairly mild. And Indiana?”

“Cold, cold, cold. Maybe even snow still on the ground.”

“Yeah. Christmas in Los Angeles is quite different.” Harry gestures around the trail, and I smile. 

“Definitely.”

“What are your favorite traditions?” 

By the time we loop back around to the start of the trail, we’ve exhausted the topic, and I realize my mood has improved tremendously. 

“Thank you, Harry.” The words are soft, and I try to insert as much authenticity as I can into them. 

I have the pleasure of watching his eyes soften as he observes me over the top of the car. “Coffee next! And a trip to the grocery!”

“Grocery? You’re cooking?”

“WE are baking and then cooking.”

“Really?”

“Yep. We’re going to create a mashup of our traditions.”

“No fucking way!” I exclaim, excited at the prospect. Sitting up, I search for a piece of paper and a pen. “I didn’t bring my purse, Styles. Give me your phone.”

“My phone?” Confused, he gazes at me while at a stoplight. 

“I need to write down the ingredients we need to buy. Let’s see. We can’t make some of the cookies we each like because I don’t know if Glenne has cookie cutters in the right shapes. So how about some ginger biscuits?” 

When he nods, I gesture for his phone. “Come on, Styles. I need to look up recipes and make sure we get the right ingredients.”

Reluctantly, he unlocks his phone, handing it to me. “No snooping,” he warns, shaking his finger in my direction. 

“Puuuuuuullllllleeeeeasssse. As if.” Using his browser, I search for a recipe for the ginger biscuits for him as well as one for thumbprint jam cookies, copying the ingredients into his Notes app. 

“Now, for dinner,” he begins, and my fingers pause as I wait for his next words. “Mum used to do a roast, but I don’t eat meat anymore. Just fish. And your family always does turkey. How do we compromise on a protein?”

“Scallops? Salmon? Both delicious and something I would consider fancy enough for a holiday meal.”

“Excellent!” Harry declares. “And can we agree on brussel sprouts and yams?”

My whole being is excited at the prospect of this meal with Harry. Suddenly there’s a silver lining to spending my favorite holiday away from my family. 

As he turns off the engine, I rest my hand on his wrist until he twists to look at me. “Thank you, Harry.”

“You already said that.” He rolls his eyes, but the crinkles send a different message. 

Less than 30 minutes later, we’re back in the car with the trunk full of groceries, including prosecco. After stopping for the promised coffee, we return to Glenne and Jeffrey’s house, unloading the food. 

“Mind if I take a shower before we start?” I ask, looking down at my clothing. “I feel dusty still from the trail.”

“Let’s both shower --” He stalls at my shocked expression “-- in separate bathrooms, Smith. Then let’s see who can put together the worst Christmas outfit from whatever we can find in the guest bedroom where we’re each sleeping.”

A grin crosses my face. “Oh, you’re going down, Styles!” Rushing out of the room, I’m confident that my ears are playing tricks on me because I think he responds with “I would love to go down on you.” He must have said something completely different, and I shake my head to clear the thought. 

When I emerge later, I’m wearing my grey sweatpants which I’ve pinned garland to along with one of my green hoodies and a giant wreath draped around my neck like a necklace by a red ribbon. Arriving in the kitchen, I’m stopped in my tracks by the sight of Harry wearing a skirt of wrapping paper over his also-grey sweatpants, along with a variety of bows stuck to his Green Bay Packers hoodie. 

He shrugs, “Apparently they use that guest bedroom for storing wrapping paper.” 

I laugh as I pluck one of the bows off his hoodie and place it on my chest after removing the wreath. 

“You win,” I concede. “I’m surprised there’s so much Christmas stuff in their house.”

“Eh. The Azoff family celebrates everything.”

“Lucky us, then.”

Side by side, we create the dough first for the ginger biscuits and then for the thumbprint cookies. After he slides the first pans into the oven, Harry crosses his arms. “Scrabble while we wait for them to bake?”

“Oh, it’s on!” I agree, and we settle at the dining room table to play the game. 

“Fine. You win,” Harry pouts over an hour later as I play my final letter which manages to be on a triple word score tile. 

“Woo hoo!” Stuffing one of the ginger biscuits in my mouth, I chew thoughtfully. “These are pretty good. I might make them again next year.”

“Same for these,” Harry grins as he chews on one of the thumbprint cookies. Crossing his arms on the table in front of him, he leans toward me. “Now how about you tell me exactly why you turned down my account when Glenne offered it to you?”

Shock courses through my body, and I freeze, knowing my face is likely turning into a candy cane red. 

“She told you?”

“Of course she told me! I had specifically asked for you, so I was a bit heartbroken when she told me that you refused.”

His word choice makes me raise an eyebrow. “Heartbroken?”

“Devastated? Wrecked? Disappointed? Take your pick, Smith.”

Swallowing, I make eye contact with him. “I’ll tell you why I turned down our account if you’ll tell me why you call me Smith.”

His tongue darts out and wets his lips as his green eyes bore into me. “Because you remind me of a Granny Smith apple.” Confusion must sweep across my face, as he continues talking. “You’re tart at first, but you can be sweetened. I’ve witnessed it in the past as well as just the last two days.” His face colors, but he continues speaking anyway. “Plus I suspect you’re incredibly juicy, and I would love a sample.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. Had Harry Styles just made a very obvious overture? Yes. Yes, he had. My eyes float over his face, searching for any indication that he’s lying, but the sincerity is striking. 

First I look at my entwined hands, and then I decide to show the same courage he has exhibited. “I turned down your account because I couldn’t possibly work for you when I’m this attracted to you. It’s bad form to want to --” I can’t decide on the appropriate word, so I settle for “-- jump your client.”

The smirk is back, and it’s followed by an uproarious laugh. “This is too rich! To think that we could have been having some sort of relationship all this time is mind-numbing.” Rising, he holds out his hand. “How about we consummate our mutual attraction?”

“In the middle of the afternoon on Christmas Eve?”

“You got a better idea of how to spend our time?” 

“Swimming?” I tease. 

“Smith?”

“Yeah?”

“Take my hand.”

His words and tone make it clear that he’s interested in moving forward with this. My own body’s response is in sync with his. Gently, I place my hand in his as I rise from the table. Twisting his body, he also shifts his hand, leading me in the direction of…where? A bedroom seems too rushed. Not that my hormones would agree. 

But no. We walk down the two steps into the living room where he turns on the Christmas tree lights before settling on the couch and tugging my arm so that I join him. “Oh, wait.” Rising, he approaches the sound system, and soon the strains of Christmas music fill the space. Returning to my side, he settles with his arm around me. 

“Smith…” His words are a whisper, and I rotate my head in his direction as he brushes his finger over my cheek. When our lips meet, I swear I can hear the angels sing. His mouth is soft and tender, and I twine my fingers through the hand draped over my shoulder as I open wide to allow him to enter. Our tongues tangle in heat and dampness that also seems to pool between my legs. He tastes of the lemon curd thumbprints we had jointly made, and I relish the flavor, wanting more. 

Shifting closer to him, I tilt my head to provide greater access, and his hand drifts to my sweatpants. Withdrawing from me, he examines our clothes. “Mind if I remove this garland?”

“Not at all,” I purr. “As long as I can get rid of these bows.” The wrapping paper skirt had already been ruined when we sat down for the Scrabble game. 

Rather than unpinning the garland, though, he hooks his thumbs into my waistband and draws the sweatpants over my hips. “Up, Smith.” I lift my bum as he removes my bottoms, leaving me in my panties. 

In return, I inch his hoodie up his chest and off, tossing it over my shoulder, heedless of the bows that seem to desire to stay attached to the musician. Can’t say I blame them. 

“Hmmmm,” he murmurs before capturing my lips again. 

When we come up for air, my hands have managed to roam his chest, tweaking his nipple and wrenching a moan from his mouth. For his part, his hand has drifted over the small piece of cloth separating my treasure from full access. His thumb rubs a pattern over the fabric, and soon I’m panting. 

“Fuck,” I mutter as we separate. 

“Yes please” is his cheeky reply. 

“Dork,” I indict.

“Mhm. Take off that hoodie. Please.” 

Willingly, I oblige. Before the material has hit the floor, he’s capturing my nipple in his mouth, and I throw my head back as fire stokes through my body from my tits to my core. “Shit,” I proclaim. 

His fingers return to the scrap of cloth covering my center. As his thumb teases my clit through the silk, a finger slips underneath and into me. Without thought, I cry out, my lower body rising from the bed to get closer to heaven. 

“Been a while?” His voice is rough, sounding like sandpaper as he dislodges from my breast. 

“Too long,” I pant, “but you’ve always had the power to bring me to the brink just with a look.”

“I see,” he smirks, and normally I would want to smack him, but this time, I find it endearing. 

“I want --” I gesture to his sweats, and he grins. 

“If I refuse?”

“Then my treasure box can close pretty quickly if I don’t have something in my hands.”

Harry laughs. “Fair enough.” Shucking his sweatpants over his hips, I find that he’d chosen not to wear underpants as his cock springs upwards into my waiting hand. 

“Shit. I need lubricant.” I complain. 

We gaze at each other, the lust clear. Jumping up from the sofa, we race together to Glenne and Jeffrey’s bathroom. I scour the lower cabinets while Harry throws open the linen closet. “Got it!” he announces, holding the bottle over his head. 

“Thank God!” My relief is real. Grabbing the bottle from him, I find I can’t move. Now what? Where do we go? We can’t very well do the deed in their bed. 

Grabbing my hand, Harry once more takes the lead, and we end up in his guest bedroom. I gesture at the bed, and he strips off the duvet before lying down on his back. Crawling onto the mattress, I settle between his thighs, tilting the bottle of lube and squeezing a fair amount into my hand. Relaxed, I hold my hand over his cock, allowing droplets to fall. His eyes plead with me, and I grin at him. 

“Impatient, Styles?”

“Desperate for you, Smith.”

With that pronouncement, I wrap both hands around his length, allowing my fingers to glide gently along his shaft. One hand falls underneath where I can tickle his balls playfully. When his hips start bucking, I withdraw from him completely -- albeit slowly with a final few long strokes. 

His eyes fly open, and he pats the bed next to him, so I lie there. 

“Smith…”

“Shhhh. Hush, Styles.”

Miraculously he doesn’t say anything, but he does reach out and shift aside the fabric over my vagina before he delves a finger inside. I know I’m wet. Hell, I can feel the dampness. 

His finger teases me, and I writhe under his attention. 

“Fuck, Styles. I’m gonna…”

“Do it!” he orders, and my lower body creates a bridge as my hips rise into the air while my thighs tremble in ecstasy. 

As I land back onto the bed and earth itself from my recent visit to heaven, Harry carefully removes my panties and throws them over his shoulder. 

“Condom?” He inquires.

“IUD. You clean?”

“Yep. Got tested not long ago. You?”

“Fuck me, Styles. We deserve this.”

“Indeed,” he grins just before he plunges into me, and I cry out at the feel of his length inside me, filling me and touching every part of me. 

“Shit.” My breaths come in short spurts as he pumps into me. I can’t seem to catch my breath as my second orgasm starts building. “Shift to the left, Styles.”

“You got it, Smith. Can you scratch at my back?” 

“You bet.” 

The communication is nice as we guide each other to what pleases us the most. As much as I want to take our time, it’s not nearly long enough before I feel my insides begin to clench in a familiar way. 

“Fuck, Styles. I’m coming!”

“Me too, Smith! Fuuuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkk!” He stretches the word into multiple syllables as I feel his seed squirting into my womb, stopped only by my birth control. His fingers reach between our bodies as he manipulates my clit until I see stars and arch my lower body to become closer to him. 

Collapsing on top of me, his breathing is as uneven as my own. 

“Merry Christmas, Smith,” he murmurs while we’re still joined. 

“Merry Christmas, Styles,” I reply, hugging his body tightly to mine. No telling if we have a future, but this holiday is going to be one for the books. 

A/N:  This short story is dedicated to those who aren’t able to join family this Christmas due to the Coronavirus.  Be safe.  Be healthy.  Make the best of the situation. Sending you BIG HUGS!

[buryme-makeoutcreek]

Best shows I watched in 2020

I wanted to look at some shows I watched that I felt had some of the best writing. Most of these shows did not come out in 2020 but are shows that definitely deserve some attention for their masterful writing. Minor spoilers below. 

1.Succession

This show took me by complete surprise. While I love stories about complicated, and darker characters I went into this show expecting it to be a classic story about power dynamics among the rich. And it is but the show is really about cycles of abuse and trauma and how that relates to a capitalist system. The show follows the children of billionaire Logan Roy as they continuously jostle for power within the family company, it’s very Shakespearian in nature but also one of the most absurd and hilarious shows on.

The writing on this show is very interesting because none of the characters can actually say what they want to say, it is all disguised such as a politician’s word choices would be. And bringing that veiled rhetoric into a family dynamic makes for an exploration of power and manipulation. The writing is also significant for doing something called by the cast, “the language of strength” which is using aggressive and sexually charged language frequently, this is used both in the company and within the family as both intimidation and to show off. There’s really a lot to dissect in word choice and meaning in this show and for that reason it is fascinating.

2. Hannibal

This was another show I didn’t expect to like but was pleasantly surprised by. This show ended its series in 2015 but it has always been a cult favorite and has been receiving renewed attention as of late and all I can say is thank god. This is a brilliant show both visually and story-wise. As I watched the first season I felt like I was stepping into a different world of just complete madness, and the show is really escapism in that way even though it features horrific deaths every episode. While I don’t think this is the best written show out of all the ones listed here, and I do think it expresses itself more through visual prose rather than words it is still reminiscent of a dark epic poem. 

The show follows FBI consultant Will Graham as he investigates a series of grisly murders and comes across the path of notable psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter (also notable cannibal and serial killer). The writing is very interesting due to it’s plentiful of metaphors. In regards to the main relationship between Will and Hannibal the distinctions between wanting to “eat” one’s love and wanting to be with them are really interesting and the word choices made can only be called poetic. 

3. Atlanta

I went on a Donald Glover kick after finishing Community and I’m so happy I did because it led me to this show. Many have called this show “what TV could be” and it really is. This show starts off simply enough with the story of Earn trying to become a music agent for his cousin, the rapper Paper Boi. But the show delves deeply into the surreal in order to illustrate its points about poverty and being black in America. 

The writing on this show bucks traditional story structure completely with each episode being more of a “day-in-the life” rather than a continuous plot driven towards a goal, this allows for much more experimentation but also the feeling that no matter what the characters do they’re going to get weighed down in some way or other. This disregard for classic show structure also bleeds into the genre, it’s hard to solely classify this show as a comedy because there are so many elements of horror, drama, and satire within it. The writing is overall beautiful, heartbreaking, and hilarious. This show is a must watch as it is probably the best thing on TV right now.

4. Ramy

This show is the spiritual successor to shows like Atlanta and Fleabag who have paved the way for this new brand of comedy show, often focused around a single character as they try to better their lives. Ramy is a show about a Muslim- American milennial who is trying to get more in touch with his religion, thinking that it will help him to get his life on track. While the humor can be brass and the story lines can get pretty weird and disgusting the first word I think of with this show is delicate. 

Especially in its second season, which has moved away from Ramy’s perspective to focus on the rest of his family. The writing in this show can swing from a really fragile sense of beauty to super crass and sexual in the blink of the eye, which makes it so hilarious and interesting to watch. The writers have complied a series of character studies under the guise of a TV show, and watching this family deal with issues of assimilation, lost dreams, religion, and loneliness makes the watcher feel deeply connected to them.There’s a lot of stuff happening in this show that is very fragile but very moving and also hilarious.

5. The Great

This show is chaos embodied. From excessive violence, sex, and rampant and ridiculous abuse of power this comedy which is extremely loosely based on Catherine the great’s life is a real ride. It was created by the writer of The Favourite and interacts with absurdity and power in similar ways.

The writing is really interesting because it is so crass. In that way it is meant to be humorous but also terrifying. Many things in this show act in more than one way- Peter (Russia’s emperor) is terrifying, ridiculous, and lovable sometimes all within a single scene. And this ability to be all of these things makes this a very good examination of power.

6. Veep

This is how you do a villain arc. Perhaps the best and most honest show about American politics Veep focuses on Selina Meyer, the first female Vice President who is surrounded by the most competent incompetent people and virtually powerless and unfulfilled in her job. Throughout the seven seasons we follow her through presidential campaigns and personal woes all in classic dark comedy style. While this show is first and foremost a comedy it is not afraid, as it’s ending shows, to dig into dark themes and character exploration of a narcissist with a bottomless thirst for power going after the highest office in the country.

This show predates the Trumpian era America currently finds itself in but much of it’s subject matter and even specific plot points have come to be echoed in our current history. Such as an election depending on the results out of Nevada and a politician’s base protesting to “Count the vote” and “Stop the count”. This just proves that the show is so in-touch with the reality of American politics (even when the show was just a satire rather than the bleak truth). This is a perfect dark comedy with excellent, well-crafted characters, and solid plot points. Definitely a must watch for anyone.  

[doshmanziari]

Architectural Criticism in 2021/2022 || Part 1.5

Before writing a fuller continuation of my previous essay on architectural criticism, I’m inserting a mini-essay that focuses on a particular piece of criticism. Let me be clear: I don’t see Kate Wagner, the person behind @mcmansionhell, as an enemy; I’m just using one of her articles as an example because I had, in my essay, already linked two articles of hers (more accurately, one article and an image from another), and I’d rather elaborate on what I mean when I write “...a vapid buildup to a politically convenient takeaway” than bring in an entirely different item. Wagner, in my view, represents a sort of destabilizing criticism that takes pleasure in tackling “dry” subject matter with breathless, Meme-heavy sarcasm. I find the tone off-putting, but I appreciate it as one attempt to invigorate and broaden the audiences of architectural appraisal. My issue is that by now the joke has overestimated its capacity for judgmental clarity. Really anything can be made fun of if you’re determined enough, and the more of an unquestioning audience you have the easier it is to believe everything you say is true or coherent.

The image was from this 2018 Vox article: “Betsy DeVos’ summer home deserves a special place in McMansion Hell” (a title likely devised by the editor; given the other residences Wagner has lambasted, I would be surprised if she truly believes this is among the worst). My observations won’t make sense unless anyone who is reading this reads her article as well, so please do that if you’d like to follow along. It should take only a couple of minutes.

What I’d first draw readers’ attention to is that Wagner spends the first four paragraphs on the United States’ beyond-vast inequality of wealth. Two of these paragraphs are the article’s largest, and the article is twelve-paragraphs-long, meaning that 1/3 of it is devoted to establishing a socio-economic context -- at least, that is the pretense. Once Wagner writes “...getting paid to make fun of DeVos’s tacky seaside decor is one of few ways to both feed myself and make myself feel better”, it is clear that her personal intent is a kind of vengeful mocking, and that her intent for readers is to prime them to associatively, knee-jerkingly despise anything which could come next with flat-affect “lmao”s. It’s hardly irrelevant to mention economic realities when examining luxury items (and what else is a mansion?), but Wagner’s subsequent analysis is not really architectural or even artistic: it is rather about looking at several photographs of a building, knowing who lives there and hating that person (and also imagining that they were responsible for all design decisions), and then mocking this-and-that in whatever ways one can devise. These grievances are understandable, but understandable grievances do not automatically lead to perceptive criticism.

Please look (perhaps again) at the first image. Note that only four, maybe, of the fourteen details Wagner chooses to focus on -- “no wry comment needed”, “these look like playdoh stamps”, “when you love consistency”, and “oh my god is this a shutter” -- approach anything vaguely resembling coherent criticism; and the other four images fare even worse (with the exception of the highlighting of an apparently absurd interior balcony). The rest are inane attempts at saying anything at all. Writing “hell portal” by an upper porch area may be funny for a moment, but what does it actually express? Well, nothing, except the author’s own irritation which will find whatever it can to announce its contemptuous sarcasm. Wagner’s captions will land only to the degree that the reader is humorously sympathetic.

The aforementioned remarks, excepting the one about the embedded chubby Tuscan columns’ Play-Doh-likeness, suggest that the worst thing a building can do is be formally heterogeneous. The implicative corollary here is that good architecture is eminently justifiable in all of its parts -- consistent, unified, rational. This is as fine a personal belief as anything else, but when it is wielded as dogma against architecture which has no interest in being a Petit Trianon it can only reveal its intellectual self-limitations. Wagner writes that “there is a difference between architectural complexity and a mess”, yet what that difference may be is hand-waved away. We just have to believe that thirteen different windows styles is too much. What’s the threshold? Does it depend on the size of the building? The types of styles used? Who knows.

Now of course bad architecture exists, and sometimes the failure indeed points to deficient editorial acumen; for architecture, like any other art, is as much about what’s included as what’s excluded. But in saying so little about the shingle style itself, Wagner seems to have given no thought to readers concluding that all shingle style houses are freakish -- more specifically, concluding that this freakishness is a damning transgression, and that no self-respecting, punching-up class-warrior would ever be caught dead sincerely enjoying their geometric, “exquisite corpse” escapades. In fact, the freakish tendencies of shingle style houses are just what make them such great fun to see, visit, or reside in. Wagner’s article, as far as I can tell, omits this possibility. When she writes, “Betsy likely went with this style because it is very popular in New England and in coastal enclaves of the rich and famous in general”, one is being pushed to presume that the only probable reason the shingle style exists or could be preferred over another style is to signal élite solidarity.

The photograph right above is of Kragsyde, a Massachusetts shingle style mansion, designed by the US-Northeast-oriented firm of Peabody & Stearns, completed in the 1880s. It was demolished almost a century ago, but the few exterior images of it which remain are, I think, fascinating -- maybe most of all for its enormous archway, possibly a porte-cochère, which has a thin, overextending keystone bizarrely driven into the top like a nail puncturing a petrified rainbow. I bring the building up because Wagner gives us no reason to consider why Kragsyde may have been a genuine architectonic accomplishment and not merely an oversized farce of contiguous pretensions. To the layperson hot off of the Vox piece, there may be no artistic difference between it and DeVos’ place, except that perhaps Kragsyde has a more consistent fenestrative application (would that make it better? if so, why?).

I appreciate that only so much can be said when you’re limited to less than a thousand words, especially when the issue is “complicated” (as the byline for Vox’s First-person series advertises). But the problem I keep coming back to is how DeVos’ mansion is treated as a stand-in for DeVos herself. This makes any architectural critique, no matter how pressed it is for size, flimsily presentist: its durability starts and ends with how alive the architecture’s resident(s) and political presence are. On some emotional level, this is pretty sensible: if we despise monarchical institution, we can find a sort of loophole to enjoying Versailles palace on the basis of it no longer being the residence of royalty. Our awe over its decadence and scope is intersectionally “admissible” on the basis of its having become a UNESCO World Heritage site. Similarly, one can imagine DeVos’ mansion being appreciated in a hundred years (should it still exist then) because the passage of time will have rendered DeVos’ person a historical fact, and perhaps more separable, and then tolerable, in that regard -- even if the building remains private.

But if architecture is, as a craft, critically whittled down to nothing more or less than inorganic expressions of social disparities, with every aesthetic decision a reflection of politically explicable taste, then we must assume that a great deal of the world’s most remarkable architecture is equally ridiculous and despicable, since so much of it was born out of great privilege and required specialized resources. I doubt Wagner actually believes this, because it would betray the entire premise of her McMansion Hell project, which is to demonstrate how so many modern day mansions are deeply unpleasant mounds of visual illiteracy, and cannot hold even a stump of a candle to the luminously learned and eclectic talents of prior great architects such as Mackintosh, Norman Shaw, Lutyens, or Ledoux. So what’s the takeaway here? As far as I can tell, it’s simply that if you hate Betsy DeVos, and if you care about class, you should hate her house too. And I do not think that that is architectural criticism.

[starneko123]

Purest Pupil

OC Characters Involved

Selene ♔ Tethys

Tethys belongs to @ren-meteor! Selene belongs to me!

Tethys had been thinking about this for a while. She had prayed many times but this particular prayer required some rare tribute. She had heard tales, myths, and supposed acolytes talk about Selene. She had many names and that was for certain. She went by Harbinger of Dreams to children to scare the big and bad monsters in their nightmares. She went by the Mother of Light Magic that brings light to the Dark Magic. Maiden of the Moon, was obvious since she was the Goddess of the Moon.

The last name that Tethys had heard was that she is the Mother of the Divine Children. It threw her off entirely because she didn't know how to think of the title. More than likely she was a mother. 'Don't think too deep about this Tethys.' She scolded herself as she got on her knees, remembering a position that Kung Lao had taught her so that she wouldn't be uncomfortable. 'Yes, child don't think about it.' Tethys froze the only thing she could see is the ground and her chest move up and down as she tried to calm her breathing like Raiden and Fujin taught her.

'She's already here? But I haven't even said the prayer yet.' That was a test question. She read the books and listened to the stories she knew of Selene's many powers. But she didn't get a response at least not right away. Tethys continued to walk the misty forest determined to find the praying shrine. She absentmindedly stepped on a twig. Keyword absentmindedly. Not even a second later she heard an animalistic growl.

Her first instincts was to fight even though she didn't know what she was fighting or she couldn't even see what she was fighting. So she ran. Her speed picked up when she could clearly hear footsteps. Footsteps meaning plural! Tethys didn't like that. 'You should run faster.' Tethys didn't know if the voice came from her head or around her but she was too busy running to find out. The voice clearly belonged to a woman. But she had no choice but to shrug it off as she arrived at Neoma Shrine.

Neoma was just another name for the moon. She liked it. She got on her knees, lit a white candle placing it in front of the shrine then took put pendant that moon design aligned with little stars. She placed it around the shrine and finally, she poured some water in a bowl because this was apart of the prayer. If the water turned white like milk that means that Lady Selene appreciates your offering and praise your prayers will be answered soon. But if the water turned it was simple, you have now angered the moon goddess.

Unbeknownst to Tethys Selene herself was sitting in a tree close by. She was always interested in all species coming to pray to and for her specifically. Selene had heard about Tethys but never seen and she was a beautiful woman! But still a child in Selene's eyes, she didn't mean to mess with her mind a few moments ago, Selene was just trying to warn the girl before her darling white wolves would have gotten her and ripped her to pieces whether she was half god or not.

Selene teleported behind Tethys waiting for her to finish the prayer. Selene waited until Tethys finished preaching to her or for her. Tethys opened her eyes and took off her hood she looked at the water and it was white! Tethys clapped her hands in excitement and then dipped her fingers in the water and the texture was surely- "It's bad luck to dip your fingers in the offering water." Selene informed and she watched as Tethys stood up grabbing her blade from her holster then and tried to strike Selene.

Selene caught her hand but did nothing more than speak "You're not an assassin because you would have reacted faster and much earlier. Are you a priestess may be a simple traveler." Selene knew who she was but she wanted to hear it come from Tethys mouth. She knew who those seafoam eyes belonged to. "Tell me who you are, if you wish to live to see another day," Selene said as she let go of her wrist and she wasn't going to hurt Tethys. It was against her morals and her vows.

"I'm Nomad-" Selene put her hand up to stop Tethys "Your real name. Do not make me repeat myself." Tethys would be lying if she said she wasn't intimidated right now the woman was smaller than her but she still had higher authority over Tethys. "My name is Tethys. I came from my village in Earthrealm. I trained under Raiden, The White Lotus, and the Shirai Ryu. I seek you now." Tethys declared. Selene smiled and tilted her head to the side "Do you know what you truly seek, my dear? I have had the dissatisfaction of meeting your father a time or two. Apologies." Selene laughed slightly to change the atmosphere because things had gotten so serious so quickly.

Tethys giggled "Well, I'm not offended I have never met the Almighty Poseidon either. Not much I'm living for." Tethys finished her sentence with a soft but sad smile. "Walk with me, raindrop," Selene said beginning to walk anyway, and Tethys collected her things not taking any notice to the love name that Selene called her then did a small jog to catch up with her. "My temple isn't far from here. You may stay the night if you'd like and as I can see, you are well packed." Selene said raising her brow gesturing to her bags.

"Me meeting you tonight was pure luck, Ms. Selene-" Selene had cut Tethys off again "Don't say luck. Luck is such a boring word to use at least in this situation. I would call this destiny...because neither of us know what the future holds now, do we?" Selene said and took that moment to look up at the sky and then back down at Selene. She could see everything so clearly. Selene had snow-white hair, pale skin with full lips, azure eyes that had no pupil showing another trait of her divine rights. She was wearing a pure white jumpsuit with a cape attached that was flowing behind her even though there was no wind and to top it off she was wearing boot heels that seem to shine and sparkle every time Tethys glanced at them.

Selene raised her hand and waved as blue magic started to whirl around the both of them. Selene then swiped her hands down, and Tethys closed her eyes thinking she was going to hit her. "Open your eyes, raindrop." Tethys could hear the rich laughter in her voice. Tethys did so and she was fascinated at the temple she was in. Just like her outfit, like her hair, and her outfit it was pure white with some black and blue of various shades. "Come. I'll show you to your chambers." Selene was already walking up the stairs. Tethys followed after with a big goofy smile on her face.

"Selene-" Selene cut her off "Don't take my kindness into something to be looked over Tethys." Right she was an elder compared to Tethys and she had to show respect and use the honorifics. "Lady Selene this happening fast I-I think we should talk more! I would really like to know more about you." Tethys spoke truthfully, and they reached a door. "And I you but from my perspective, you don't look in the best of mind to speaking to me in this time. Tomorrow." Selene told her and all Tethys could do was nod.

She had worn herself out collecting information and trying to find this location. Plus she still needed to send word to Raiden or Fujin that her travels were victorious or that she was safe. Tethys snapped out of her gaze as Selene opened the door. "I hope it is to your liking," Selene said and Tethys examined the room she did that with every room she walked in. She could tell immediately that this room had mot been tampered with or...ever used in the first place. She was the first one to enter this room. But other than that it was extravagant. Truly deserving of the meaning spoils of my wins.

Selene had teleported away and she was on top of the temple. She had to think and relax her body before something else internally would happen. She looked up to the moon. It was a full moon. "Who made you complete?" She questioned to herself with a chuckle.

Tethys watched as Selene left and had an overwhelming feeling of guilt. Was she mad that she didn't compliment the room or thank her for the hospitality? She shook her head trying to clear it of wandering thoughts. She set down her stuff then climbed in the bed herself.

By the gods, the bed was pure too!

Don't worry this is getting a part two.

[coffeecomicsgalore]

A Little Rain, A Big Love Story

Ao3

This is my submission for the @luckycharmzine! I hope you enjoy the Ladynoir Identity Reveal Scene.

------

Ladybug looked across the dark Parisian skyline, allowing the cool breeze to sweep over her. It was still fairly warm out, the heat of the summer day seeping into the night. The cool breeze felt welcomed against her exposed skin.  

Chat Noir sat beside her as they relaxed on their favorite beam on the Eiffel Tower. As usual, it was an easy night of patrolling. There was nothing besides a stray cat stuck in a tree and two young boys arguing over a pack of trading cards. They didn’t have to stress over an akuma or deal with police-solving issues. So, when they have nights like this – quiet, peaceful, and relaxing – it made their conversations quite comforting. 

While they couldn’t talk much about their civilian lives and risk revealing too much, they did enjoy giving each other a glimpse of themselves. It would only be little things, like favorite colors, snacks, or subjects. Things that were common enough that neither could guess easily, yet they still relished in those little tidbits of information. 

Trusting yourself in your partner without knowledge of who they were underneath the mask was a risk, but Ladybug would risk her life for him on any occasion. 

If he would let her, that is. 

“You know.” Chat started, continuing to look towards the skyline as he spoke. “You would really like my friends. We are so close. I don’t know what I would do without them.” He ended with a satisfied hum as his lips quirked into a small smile. 

Ladybug looked over to her partner and grinned. He looked so at peace tonight. It was a pleasant change to their last conversation where he seemed distressed and distracted. She missed it when her kitty didn’t ooze silliness out of his suit. 

“I know what you mean.” She looked back out to the skyline as he turned to look at her. “Do you remember that boy I had that major crush on?” 

“You mean the one that never gave you the time of day?” 

She scoffed and pushed his shoulder teasingly. “Chat!” 

He chuckled. “Alright, alright. Go ahead.” 

Ladybug side-eyed him for a moment. When she felt like he wasn’t going to continue teasing, she proceeded. “Well, over the last two years, especially after me trying to get over said crush on him, we grew closer. I consider him to be one of my best friends. Like so close that he is a close tie to my best girlfriend. But I won’t tell her that. I enjoy my life too much to succumb to imminent death.” They both laughed. “But anyways, he said something today and it reminded me of you. I think you two could be close friends.” 

“Why? Does he have amazing puns like moi?” He joked, bringing his hand to his chest as he mentioned himself.  

“Actually, yeah. I didn’t even know he could joke like that. But you would appreciate his puns. Sometimes I think he could probably out-pun you.” 

“Out pun the pun master? Never.” 

“I know of one other person that could probably out pun you, chaton. But I can’t mention who.”  

“I guess I will have to battle your friend in a pun duel then. I need to keep this knight and shining leather fighting by your side, puns and all.” 

Ladybug shook her head. “I have enough room in my heart for all three of my pun masters. No dueling required. I promise.” 

They sat in a comfortable silence for a moment before Chat noticed that her face softened, but her eyes meant she was a distance away. 

“You okay, bugaboo?” He inquired, just enough softness in his voice to allow her to talk her feelings through, but also enough to show her he wouldn’t pry. 

She sighed, but decided to tell him. “Even though he’s my best friend, a part of me will always love him. Do you know how difficult it is to force yourself to move on considering he’s constantly in my life? Of all the people that have come into my life, no one has caught my eye or my heart like he has.” Ladybug turned to him. Chat could see the sadness in her face. “Actually. There has been one other person, but it’s just not possible. At least not right now.” 

Chat eyed her with a mix of fondness and sadness. Seeing her feel like this broke his heart, and he knew exactly how she felt.  

“I know what you mean.” He looked back towards the sky, the last two years crossing his mind. The relationships he had made and lost were pressing against his heart and he ached from the pain. “Letting go of the one you love, especially when they’ve made a significant impact in your life, is hard. But love has never been easy. No matter how much you try to move on, it still lingers.” 

Ladybug turned to Chat and took his hand, squeezing the love she had for him through her fingers. “I love you, Chat, more than you can begin to know. But you have to understand, you were never meant to be second best. You deserve someone who will love you with their whole heart.” She looked down and laughed bitterly. “And unless luck is truly on my side, maybe the boy I love is really you beneath the mask. Once Hawkmoth is defeated, I want to know who you are. You will always have a place in my life and my heart no matter how this chapter of our lives end.” 

They gazed into each other’s eyes as her words etched themselves into the spot in his heart reserved for her. Chat was the first to break the gaze, looking back out into the Parisian skyline as a comfortable silence mingled between them. When Chat finally swallowed the strangling pain in his throat, he confessed. 

“You know. I’ll always love you, bugaboo. A part of me always had. It always will. I’ve tried to move on and date other people, but no one besides this one girl, my best friend, has ever caught my eye.” 

Ladybug looked at him and smiled even as a twinge of jealousy ran through her body. She shrugged it off and placed her head on his shoulder. Their fingers laced together as they enjoyed the small embrace. If she couldn’t love him in the way they both wished she could, she could at least love him like this. “That girl is lucky to have your heart.” 

They sat there in another comfortable silence before Chat scrunched his face and let out a breathy chuckle. 

“What’s so funny?” She asked, lifting her head up from his shoulder to look at him. 

“Well, it has something to do with that girl. You know, I don’t think anyone knows this, so I think I’m in the clear to say it.” Ladybug scrunched her nose, but then decided it would probably be fine. She gave him a nod to continue. “She became my first self-initiated friend when I started school. There was a huge misunderstanding. I almost lost her friendship before building one.” 

“That seems extreme. What happened?” 

“On my first day, she thought that I was trying to target her. She had always been bullied by one of my longtime friends, so she assumed I was the same way. Believe it or not, I’m socially awkward. I didn’t know any of the dos and don’ts of making friends.”  

Ladybug could see his face visibly soften. 

“It was raining and we were the only two standing outside as I was leaving to go home. I don’t know why, but something just compelled me to talk to her, to tell her that I didn’t have any friends, that everything was still so new to me. I almost left but then turned around. I told her I was sorry that I made her believe that I played a cruel prank on her. I told her that I only had one friend before that day and at the time, I didn’t want to lose that friendship either.” 

Chat continued to look out at the skyline, but Ladybug had caught on to something interesting about his story. It was one that was strangely similar to her own story. One that no one else would know of. 

“Once I apologized, I gave her the umbrella I had. I mean, my car was right there so it didn’t bother me to get a little wet. But I just didn’t want her to get soaked going home and I didn’t know how long the rain was going to be around for. I didn’t know where she lived and I didn’t realize that she lived so close to the school, but I couldn’t just let her get soaked.” 

He let out a lovesick sigh and let out a chuckle before looking down at his claw to examine his ring. “Honestly, I think that was the first moment that I started to fall for her. I just didn’t realize it because I was so infatuated with you.”  

Ladybug looked to him with such softness. Tears were welling up in her eyes and a blush donned her cheeks. Chat looked up at her and started to worry, afraid that he said something he shouldn’t. 

“That moment is a moment too beautiful to forget.” She said, wiping the tears that started to fall in front of her mask. “She is lucky to have such a caring person in her life, chaton.” 

Chat finally smiled. “Yeah, she’s so caring that I’m afraid to lose her. She’s shy around me sometimes. I’m afraid that she’ll reject me if I ask her out.” 

“I think you should ask anyways. I bet she’ll say yes.” 

He thought for a moment before asking her. “What about you?” 

“I guess since you told me about your bestie, I should tell you about mine.” She snickered. “Every time I tried to confess to him, something went wrong. Like this scarf I made him, or the valentine I tried to send him, or the doctor’s note I gave him instead of a love confession, the video love confession that got deleted. Oh, and the beret... it just never worked out before.” She shrugged. 

Guess it doesn’t matter now because she could finally confess without having to do it first.  

“You see. I fell in love with this boy who I thought was a bully. I thought he put gum on my chair and was a prissy rich kid because he was best friends with the girl who hated my guts. But then he apologized and handed me his umbrella in the rain. That simple act of kindness and his laughter after I accidentally pressed the close button on the handle filled my soul with so much love, that I couldn’t let it go.” 

Ladybug turned to Chat to see that he was wide eyed and jaw slacked. 

“No wonder why I couldn’t let it go.” She smiled with so much love in her eyes that she could not contain the giggle that bubbled up within her. “I guess I was lucky after all.” 

“Marinette?” He said so quietly, afraid that the conversation would crack and leave them in a different world. 

“Hi Adrien.” She replied back softly. 

Chat cupped her cheek with his claw and rubbed his thumb against the line between her mask and her skin. “It’s really you. I fell in love with you twice.” 

“And I never stopped loving you. My love only grew.” 

He leaned in and nuzzled his nose against hers. She sighed at the contact, her eyes pleading. He leaned in and kissed her lips, slow and soft but full of love and want. When they pulled back, they looked at each other as rain started to fall around them, the clasp of thunder bringing them back to that very first moment that sealed their fate. 

“My lady. I love you.” 

“I love you too, my chaton.” 

[starshipsofstarlord]

Hard Lives - Jason Todd x Reader

It was unfair. The whole team seemed to hold a grudge against Jason, for what reason you did not know. He was cocky and arrogant, but he was harmless, to the team at least. He needed more experience, or so Bruce said, but he wasn’t being given it. Dick wanted him and the rest of you teenagers to stay in the Titans base. But it was clear Jason didn’t want to.

You didn’t either, but you were obeying the adults to the best of your ability. If they wanted you to remain put, it was in your best interest to do so.

From the way they treated him he became distant, retreating into his own quarters and limiting his socialisation to talking to Gar.

Jason liked to train. He wanted to be the best Robin he could. You envied his skill, and here you currently were, watching him take out his frustrations in a stick battle with the green haired boy.

Bruce's adoptee appeared to be winning, throwing his stick to the back of Gar's legs so that he fell onto the mat. The vigilante smirked, offering the closest person he had to a friend a hand up.

Gar accepted, shaking it before coming towards the exit, where you were stationed.

"He's not that bad." He told you, suspicious of your hovering.

Perhaps he thought you wrote examining the flaws in Robin's agility, or noticing how he was almost too cocky and confident with his physical ability. But you weren't. If anything, you'd consider what you were doing as admiring.

"I'm not judging tiger." You smirked at the blush that crept upon the meta human's face, watching as he bowed his head and fled to the hallway.

You enjoyed having that affect upon people. You had learnt a lot from those who had raised you. Your mothers as they were known.

Green eyes darted to you. Jason had spotted you. "Don't you have a circus to run or some plants to grow?"

His voice hunted his irritance. He knew that you had been raised by Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, and he happened to hold it against you.

"Don't you have some blue eggs to squeeze out?" You retorted, coming away from the doorway and walking slowly towards Jason Todd.

"Funny." He simply remarked, not moving as you adventure closer. "What is the reason I am graced with your hilarious presence?"

The stick was still grasped in his left hand, since he had swapped it from his right when aiding Gar to his feet.

"Is it so hard to believe that I'm not here to taunt you or put you down like the others do?"

Hank was a criminal for it. He would purposely anger Jason, often ending in both a verbal and physical fight. You'd have thought that Hank, a grown man, would have more maturity than pick on a kid but apparently not.

Rachel made her occasional comments, whether that be away from his ears or not. Even if they were, Jason was well aware that she had a problem with him, even if it wasnt personal.

Kori never really had an opinion of him whatsoever. She had her own problems and it was visible that he was appreciative that she didn't consider him one of them.

Dawn kept her distance, but still stopped Hank from getting too into bullying the teenager. She was mature, not stupid. She was well aware of what Jason was capable of.

Dick always put him down. Telling him he could do and be better. It may have had the intention of being encouragement but it didn't work that way. It made his life even harder, reminding him that he wasn't the only Robin. Maybe he didn't want to be a copy of the Robin that Dick was. Just maybe he wanted to be his own version.

"Yes." He answered, tightening his grip whilst looking you in the eye the same way an enemy would.

It was stupid this whole ordeal was. Harley and Ivy stole you when you were a child from what you assumed to be a loving mother and hard working father. Yet Jason treated you as if it was your fault that you landed in their custody.

The others were nicer about the situation, possibly because you had distanced yourself from those villainous figures, and you were obedient. The same couldn't be said for Jason. He hated all of the rules that were set.

It was fine for him beforehand, when he had the full run of Wayne Manor. He could do whatever he wanted. But this was a base, a training facility that sheltered you all until you were ready to take on the real action.

"For all the time we have been here, I don't recall once doing such a thing." You smiled at him, but he only grimaced at the expression you put on your face. "Tell me if you do, refresh my memory if it's mistaken."

Jason couldn't hell himself, his eyes were trained to roll whenever you tried to be a smart ass. "Is it just a game to you? Why do you pretend to be so nice to me?"

It came blurting out of his mouth and he realised after. He had never voiced such a thing before.

"I don't pretend Jason." You told him, crossing your arms and looking down. "I've heard how hard your life was before Bruce, and I thought I'd cut you some slack. God knows that you need it."

He locked his lips nervously. He usually tried to present himself as proud and cocky, but it seemed that you had set off that switch in him.

"Do you maybe want to get out of here?" For all he knew, you would shove the offer back in his face or laugh at him for actually believing that you were joking all along. But you didn't. Instead you sent him a warm smile, one that you were clearly containing.

"And where do you have in mind?" You asked, knowing that you could trust him. You were a part of the same team, of course you could. If you couldn't have faith in one another, you couldn't have it in yourself.

...

Dick stopped Dawn when he saw her. This place, the past that came with it was a lot for them all to take in. But this was Titans Tower, a home for those who could do good with the bad in them.

"Have you seen Jason and (Y/N)?" Dawn wasnt the first person he had asked. He had yet to go around the rest of the tower, Gar had told him he saw you enter the training room just as he was leaving, but it was now empty.

"Maybe you should check the roof." She informed him. It wasnt meant to bring up their history, but when Dawn and Dick had been together, that had been their spot.

The sky was calming, even if it was under the influence of a storm. It was away from the world, and that was something they needed when being a hero.

He nodded at her, clambering up to where the roof was. And then he saw something he had never expected when he laid his feet on the very top surface.

You and Jason. It was a warm day, and the two of you barely noticed. The pair of you were curled into one another, with your eyes shut and your breathing calm.

This was how he wanted to see the two of you. Acting like teenagers instead of vigilantes in training.

The two of you had had such hard lives you deserved a break, and that was clearly what the two of you were having. Except you were sharing the time, seeing each other in a vulnerable state.

It made Dick feel old. He wasn't that old, but still, you kids were all growing up under their care, finding yourselves and each other.

...

You and Jason entered the dining space, together. Donna raised an eyebrow but remained silent.

Dick smirked at the Robin replacement, noticing how the boy kept stealing glances at you.

"I think you got a little burnt on the roof." Hank laughed at mostly Jason, which made him lower his head and shrink back into himself once again.

"He can't get burnt if he's already smoking hot." You defended him, leaning Hawk and everyone else at the table speechless.

Gar tried to stifle his laugh, but failed. For once he was happy to see you making someone other than him flustered.

And Jason was clearly flustered. His cheeks were glowing coral, and it wasn't due to the sun's beaming rays.

"You don't actually have a thing for him, do you?" Rachel attempted to joke, twirling her fork in her dominant hand.

"So what if I do?" You challenged her. The two of you got along, but you didn't appreciate anyone picking on Jason. It wasnt fair, they weren't even giving him a chance. "Perhaps you'd understand why if you stopped treating him like the shit on the bottom of your shoe."

"(Y/N)." Dick scolded you for your language but you ignored him.

You had let everyone's behaviour towards Jason slide for far too long. Today was the end of it, you'd ensure that. "No." You said to him. "None of you have even given him a chance, except for a few of us. You all look down at him or think of him as some rich spoilt boy. Maybe if you got to know him, or paid the littlest attention to detail, you would see how uncomfortable you all make him. He's human, like most of us in this room. He's done nothing but try and save our asses or follow Bruce's orders yet you still disregard him as the public does to us. Perhaps if you weren't such hypocrites, then you'd see the affect you are having on a teenage boy! "

There was nothing more you had to say, so you left, without eating or looking at Jason once more.

Dick tried to call you back, but instead you went to your room, where you hoped no one would bother you.

....

A fist lightly tapped your door. "I swear to god if it's you Rachel, I will got to the kitchen on a personal vendetta and grab that fork you were using and stab it into that stupid gem on your forehead."

But when you opened it you weren't met with Rachel. It was Jason.

"I hope you're not gonna stab me in the forehead." He sheepishly smiled, and you could only do the same. It was nice to hear him cracking the littlest of jokes.

You widened the entrance of your room, opening it so that he could enter. After he did, you shut it.

"Are you okay?" You were concerned. You knew the opinions of everyone in that room took a toll on him.

"I am after your explosive rant." He grabbed your hand. And then he frowned. "You must be hungry." He concluded.

"I'm fine." You assured him.

"Well we could always go out onto the streets and find some random food cart that serves overly expensive hot dogs." Jason still hadn't let go of your hand, and you didn't mind.

You let him see the warm smile again. "I'd like that." And you did.

[dustyard]

Predator/Carnivorous Dæmon Profiling: some of my long-winded thoughts

One of my biggest pet peeves in the dæmon community is the characterization of prey animals as being gentle/good, and predator animals being mean/bad. This is not an everybody-does-this kind of thing, by the way, but it crops up sometimes. It’s an easy trap to fall into (heck, I’ve done it before), and this isn’t an accusation towards people who personality-type this way. This is mostly to help A) newer or confused dæmons, B) start a discussion, and C) let me rant.

            I think one of the largest hurdles when dealing with characterizing predator dæmons is working through what it means for a dæmon to be carnivorous. To best do this, let’s look at why some animals evolved to eat meat rather than plant matter. In the simplest terms, meat, and especially organ meat, are incredibly nutrient-rich compared to pretty much all plant matter. Herbivores spend the vast majority of their days foraging for food, eating that food, and then repeating the process. If you’ve ever had a pet like a goat, cow, or horse, you know how long they’ll spend grazing, if you let them. While herbivores expend comparatively little effort meeting their nutritional requirements, the payoff is also relatively low; that’s why they’re forced to spend so much time eating. Consider, then, that while herbivores trend towards low risk—low reward, carnivores trend towards moderate/high risk—high reward. When examined in this way, it’s easier to see that predatory/carnivorous dæmons are people who work based on efficiency above all else. While I noted the possibility of “high risk”, what carnivorous animals really want is to put in the least amount of effort for the highest amount of payoff. This is why they frequently target the old, the young, the sick, the weak, and the slow; if a carnivorous animal can avoid putting in excess effort, they will. Also, fun fact! Most herbivorous animals can and will eat meat if it is made available to them. They might not be able to eat much of it, but they can digest at least a little bit. It’s actually quite common for herbivores to eat meat (birds, rodents, frogs, lizards, even carrion), so if you want to put some kind of moral judgment dæmon-wise on carnivores because they eat other animals, it’s going to have to extend it to herbivores, too.   

            When it comes to profiling dæmons, I understand that a certain amount of anthropomorphizing animals is required to do so accurately. However, I think sometimes people in the dæmon community take this to the extreme. I do get it—when you’re anthropomorphizing one animal, you’re obviously going to anthropomorphize them all, so the circle of life previously untethered from morality comes out a little more murder-y. Here’s the thing though: there is no such thing as sadism in the animal kingdom. The closest thing I can think of is animals that envenomate their prey and then follow them until they die so they can eat them (like Komodo dragons), but even in those cases this is, again, a case of a predator using the lowest risk action to gain the highest reward. And like, I do get it. Animals dying is sad! It’s violent, and brutal, and often extremely bloody! We all feel bad for Bambi, but that isn’t very helpful when it comes to dæmon profiling.

I frequently see predators characterized as vicious, when what they actually are is vulnerable. Predators aren’t competitive over territory and breeding rights because it’s fun, they’re competitive because if they lose their territory they will likely die. Without a safe area for them to live and hunt, they will probably starve or be killed, so when predators act aggressively towards other animals or people, they’re usually doing so out of desperation. Predators in particular have to be extremely careful about what fights they pick; as a general rule, they want to avoid conflict. Serious injuries are a death sentence to predators in a way that they aren’t even to prey animals, because predators are on a ticking clock to heal fast enough that they can hunt again, or they’ll starve to death. If a lynx were to somehow break its leg, that’s it, that animal’s life is over, so if a predator is willing to actually fight over a resource, they’re doing so because they have no other choice. The general list of what predatory animals will fight over can usually be summed up as follows: breeding rights, cubs/babies (if they have them), food, territory. These are the essentials of the animal kingdom, so to speak. To put this into perspective for why this list matters in regard to dæmons, people with predator dæmons will not be constantly aggressive, or evil, or cruel. For the most part, predator dæmons are very conflict-adverse, and will only involve themselves if said conflict directly affects them and/or something that holds an extremely high value for them.

            Now, that being said, most predators are also opportunists. A pack of wolves will go after a human like they would a deer because humans are, generally speaking, relatively easy to kill. While we may attach a moralistic perspective on that killing because as humans, we relate to said prey, these hypothetical wolves are just trying to meet their needs in the way that is the least strenuous and least likely to result in them being injured. This is a characteristic which often gets labeled selfishness—which I’m not denying that it can be—but which I think might be better labeled as individualism. I’ve seen people describing carnivorous dæmons as taking care of themselves at the expense of others, but often times what they’re referring to is an anthropomorphized approach to carnivorous behavior. I personally think this is a bit lazy and doesn’t get at the heart of what predator dæmons are like, because predator dæmons do invest in themselves above others (especially for animals that are lone hunters), but it isn’t because they kill other animals; it’s because, as I mentioned before, they’re inherently vulnerable. I’ve seen people refer to predator’s natural prey drive (such as tigers in zoos stalking patrons, or wolves overkilling livestock) as a sign that people with predatory dæmons are constantly looking to fuck someone else over, but the reality is that predatory animals (and therefore dæmons) are simply extremely aware of how vulnerable they are, and will take every occasion to meet their own needs, especially if that can happen without them needing to put themselves at risk.

            So how do we translate this into dæmonism? Mostly with a lot of generalizations and patience. Generally speaking, carnivorous/predatory dæmons are conflict-averse, efficiency-based, need/interest-focused people. Despite the aggression stereotype, most predator dæmons just want to be left alone, and will likely only engage if they feel like or someone/something extremely important to them is being threatened (this is slightly less true for animal forms that are group hunters, as they have a wider support network to fall back on and can manage more risky behavior). Predators are also efficient animals, and dæmons of the same kind will reflect that. This means that people with predator dæmons won’t usually be inclined to expend effort unless they’re actively gaining something of high value from it. This doesn’t mean that people with predator dæmons can’t be active, it just means they aren’t likely to take on a challenge without a sufficient reward waiting for them at the end. Predators dæmons are also going to be need/interested-focused, which I tend to translate into predator dæmons having a few categories of things that are actively important to them; it might be their career, their family, their hobby, whatever. These categories tend to overlap, and become the main concerns for people with predator dæmons’ happiness. Everything outside of those specific concerns don’t matter overly much to people with predator dæmons. If something doesn’t directly affect a person with a predator dæmon, they probably don’t care. This is where the selfish characterization comes in, and while it isn’t wrong, I think it lacks the awareness that the downside to this blasé attitude predator dæmons carry towards things outside their interest is that, should that person lose any of the things they consider vital to their own life, they will experience a huge amount of upheaval and distress. This is what makes them vulnerable. A lion needs to eat, you know? And if a predator dæmon can’t feed themselves (metaphorically speaking), they’ll waste away. These three traits (conflict-aversity, efficiency, need/interest-focus) all tie into one another, and present a person who will likely only take on challenges in their own life if they can either do so without significant risk to their personal comfort, or see the potential reward as worth significant possible loss. So, it’s a somewhat contradictory personality that stems from wanting the best for the lowest price.

            Just some disclaimers, since anyone who’s read this far deserves them! Not all predator dæmons are going to meet this personality type exactly. Predators higher on the food chain, and predators that hunt in groups are going to be more prone to risky behavior than lone hunters, and predators lower on the food chain, generally speaking. There are also outliers, as with any broad category (fisher cats have successfully killed lynxes, those little bastards do not fuck around). A lot of omnivores also get stuck in the carnivore/predator category, when they can, but don’t always follow the same personality type (some bears do, like black bears, but not all). So, while I hope this essay/rant helps people, I also hope that anyone who reads this understands that personality-typing dæmons is complex, so if you feel like this doesn’t apply to a form, don’t worry about it. Or, hey, reply to this and let me know. If anyone thinks I’m completely wrong, I’d also be curious about your take on predator/carnivorous dæmons. 

[digdag88]

When you’ve spent a lifetime among dysfunctional people, operating out of self-protection, competition, and a compulsion to please without expecting reciprocation, everyone seems untrustworthy and disappointing. This is an illusion created by years of you treating your value as conditional (you must be charming and successful to have value) and keeping everyone at arm’s length out of fear. It’s as if you’ve spent the first three decades of your life building a castle out of bulletproof glass. You’re protected but you’re looking at everything through a warped window. Your vision is warped. Your reflection is warped. The way other people see you is warped. Reality is impossible to understand or let in. In fact, reality feels like a looming threat that you’ll never see clearly, like a monster in a suspenseful horror movie. Your own emotions are a kind of creeping monster, too. They threaten to ruin all of your already fragile relationships, and they compromise whatever limited attention you’re getting from the distracted friends and lovers you seek. When you finally mention your history of abuse to someone, it serves as a desperate means of regaining some shred of moral high ground after you already sense the other person is halfway out the door, but it makes you feel even more like the monster in the horror movie. You’re fearful and fragile, yet your sudden confession makes you seem unsteady and out of control, an echo of some dark reality that no one wants to acknowledge or consider, least of all those who aren’t that invested in the first place. So this is where I would start: Ground yourself in reality. Walk around your castle of bulletproof glass and examine how warped it is. Watch how you move away from people who actually care, or lump together bad friends and good friends in an effort to keep yourself safe. Witness how you ingest your own shame, every day, telling yourself a story that you’re not good enough because someone took something from you. But this isn’t solely an intellectual exercise — that’s just where it starts. Notice how hard you try to keep people around. It might look desperate to you now, but that kind of concern for connection lives inside of you and it’s beautiful. Notice how hard you had to scramble, to make yourself seem whole when you didn’t feel whole. Those efforts might look weak to you now, but you picked up a lot of skills and a little magic in those efforts. Notice how fast you had to run away from anyone who might recognize that you were broken. Then consider what it means to be broken. What if you could proclaim yourself sick and hurt and sad and broken and malfunctioning, every single day, and still believe that you deserved love? What if you could sit in the rubble of your shattered castle, and still feel compassion for yourself? Because compassion for the self is the same thing as passion: That’s where inspiration and beauty are waiting for you. It’s also where your passion for your life begins, where a real, sustainable passion for other people can begin. It’s a leap of faith into a new world where you can look at reality with clear eyes and not feel afraid. The monster from the horror movie is wheeled out onto the set in the light of day, and it’s just a mess of blinking red eyes and shiny scales and rubber claws. There’s nothing to fear. Once you ground yourself in reality, and dare to give some love to your true, broken self (that part is very difficult at first!), then you can finally approach the world as you are. You don’t need to be entertaining or sexy or clever or useful to be lovable. You don’t have to prove your value in order to be valuable. You can simply be what you are. Being what you are looks like this: You enter every room as a calm, neutral observer. You are average. You don’t have an agenda. Your only job is to listen and observe and offer your support. Your only job is to watch and learn and allow room for yourself, even when you don’t say a word, even when you don’t look that good, even when you seem useless. There you are, giving yourself the right to be without running or hiding or dancing. That is grace. It matters. Being still and silent and broken is its own kind of religion. Doing this — existing around other people without proving yourself — works well because it feels good. It feels good when you’re not trying hard to win people over. It feels good to stand without adornment and know that you are enough. But it also works because good people respond to it. Trustworthy people will accept and embrace your listening and support and your silence. Untrustworthy people will think you’re a fucking weirdo, or believe that you’re not worthy enough because you’re not dancing or running or staying half-hidden and building suspense. In contrast, it is exceptionally difficult to feel connected or close to other people when you’re sure that your value is conditional. You can spend decades in this state, and the more energy you put into keeping other people happy, the more convinced you become that no one is dependable and no one loves you for you. That doesn’t mean that you haven’t withstood abuse or tolerated selfish friends. But refusing to give yourself the right to simply exist is a way of preventing other people from simply existing. Everything is bartered or traded. No relationship is what it is: lopsided and weird and flawed and sweet. Every effort must be reciprocated with equal and opposite force (even if your emotional accounting is never shared with anyone) or you’re being ripped off or taken for granted. No one is allowed to be broken. You have to be better than you really are, and so does everyone else. Once you develop an independent faith in your own value (this takes constant, repeated reminders to be compassionate and patient with yourself for the first time ever), then you can start to treat other people as valuable even when their value isn’t immediately apparent. You can enter the room as a broken person, sit with your brokenness without hiding it, and let it exist out in the open. You don’t have to share your own secrets straight out of the gate. You can ask people about the things that broke them, because you understand that being broken is interesting and includes a good story, or maybe 100 good stories. You listen to their stories not because you expect that then they’ll listen to yours, but because you’re making it your goal to take in reality, to connect, to get closer to the real world and the real people who live in it. This is the hardest thing for someone like you or me to do: to crave the real world. We had to create imaginary worlds to survive, and it’s hard for us to resist the temptation to live there now. We are fundamentally self-involved because that was the only way to survive neglect. I wouldn’t characterize my childhood as abusive, but self-involvement is also a way to survive abuse. It’s not an inherently negative thing to be self-involved, as long as you have enough compassion for yourself that you can channel your secret worlds into some activity or point of focus that feels rich and sustainable and renews your faith in yourself and others. I started working from home around your age, for some of the same reasons you are. I had a few friendships fall apart, my co-workers drove me nuts, and I was disappointed and distrustful. I knew a lot of narcissists, and I was a narcissist myself probably. I gave too much but I didn’t really show up a lot of the time. I didn’t believe that I deserved love unless I was useful or entertaining or special, and I didn’t really know how to give myself what I needed. It’s easy to become isolated under those conditions, so you should work hard to schedule breaks and force yourself to get out of your place often. Exercising somewhere else, joining a running club or other group that meets regularly, setting up weekly plans with certain friends can all help to keep you from feeling alienated and bugging out alone. But working from home did really help me to slow down and figure out a lot about myself. I also got a therapist who helped me to understand that connecting with strangers was possible. I felt better, but I still had a lot to learn. It took years after that to welcome reality, to believe in my worth without feeling ashamed of that belief, as if it were hopelessly self-indulgent. It took years to learn how to listen; I said I cared about listening long before I felt the sensation of real, honest connection with a good friend and knew that it wasn’t just a weird twist of fate that we landed there. It took years to show up and make some room for the real world, in all of its glorious disappointments. The more compassion you have for yourself, the easier the next year will be. You’re doing something that’s incredibly difficult. Every single day, every single minute, you need to push away the feeling that you’re uniquely screwed and you’re running out of time. Because you’re surrounded by people who feel many of the things you feel, and you’re still very young, and you have plenty of time. We all have plenty of time, though. A day can feel like a divine eternity when you spend it letting the world in with an open heart. You let the world in, and it hurts, and you sit with your hurt. You let reality in, and you feel shame, and you sit with that shame. You invite in the things that make you hate yourself, and you let them exist without judgment: This was how I learned to run very fast. This was how I learned to dance and sing. This was how I built a castle all by myself. This was the warped view from my castle. Everyone looked so small from my castle tower. The days flew by, and even when I wasn’t alone, I felt so alone. I thought I would die if I ever came down from my tower, but once I did, everyone looked big and scared and sad, just like me. And time stood still. This world has been waiting for you to catch up. This world has been waiting to show you its treasures. Your monster finally gets to stand in one place, feeling the sunshine, knowing that it’s okay to be broken. This divine moment is yours.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/08/how-do-i-start-over-now-that-i-know-how-damaged-i-am.html