#when really my mind should be on this theory stuff. horrible.

[jupitersflytrap]

need to do this essay but i just want to think about musical theatre

[thesiltverses]

You folks have so many worlds inside your brains! Do you have any tips for keeping your different ideas organized?

I have a bunch of story ideas but they are starting to clump together into something like The Amalgamate from A Lonely Broadcast.

This is a really interesting question, because for me a big (and very useful!) part of creativity lies in amalgamation; it's taking old discarded story ideas that weren't working in their own right, and finding new and exciting ways to stuff them into a new idea - as background elements, as one-off episodes, as secondary storylines or characters.

The obvious example that comes to mind is Douglas Adams raiding his own Dr Who scripts to write his novels.

Or to give one example of ours: S1E4 of The Silt Verses was a short story idea I'd had about a bickering couple tramping through the New Forest in the UK, and the boyfriend (who keeps marching ahead and insisting he knows the way) ends up getting transformed into a deer and pursued pitilessly through the woods by a hunter-god, while the girlfriend escapes.

And it wasn't working, because 1) the story arc is just 'douchebag man dies horribly, non-douchebag woman runs away and lives', which feels predictable and 2) because it's a two-hander, there's not really a mechanism to gracefully explain what the antagonist is or how its curse works.

So I left it alone for a couple of years, we were writing TSV, and I thought - oh, maybe the girlfriend isn't the protagonist at all, maybe she can be the antagonist instead.

But the key ingredients there are time, space, and prioritisation, and it sounds like your frustration lies in having all these ideas at once and losing the shape of them because they all start to blend into one.

I guess from what you're saying, I'd advise you: decide which of your story ideas is a sapling, and which are seeds.

The sapling is the idea that feels furthest along, is the strongest-defined, and has the most space to grow. Focus on that one, build its shape, get it really clear in your head. Try not to get distracted, give yourself time alone with it.

The more clearly you've defined this idea and the more detail you have, the less you'll be tempted to bring in extraneous or muddled elements from other drafted ideas.

(To avoid said distraction, the key for me is really terrible file management.

I use an unfoldered Google Drive system, so that the 'recent documents' and search function are the only way to find my work. I keep all the documents relating to my sapling project open in different tabs, so that they always refresh back up to the top of my recent docs.

That way, any irrelevant seedling draftwork is rapidly buried in the drive, and I'm not going to spot it by accident while navigating to my current work. I have to be actively thinking about it to remember it exists.)

When your creativity's starting to feel strained or the initial plot and character momentum is no longer there, take a step back and check in on your seeds.

Maybe a couple of them are looking like they could be set aside and earmarked as a future big idea, maybe a few more don't feel quite as strong any more.

Dissassemble the bad seeds, atom by atom. What was the really good part of this idea? What can you gainfully repurpose? Take those components back to the sapling and see if you could benefit from jamming them into exciting places further into the storyline.

Since your sapling was already so strongly defined, they should add interesting new dimensions to it rather than confusing it (in theory).

I don't know if that helps, but I hope it does!

[yallalreadyknowitsunderale]

FUNNY DELTARUNE [DISCU55IOM THREAD]:

MIKE, SPAMTON, AND TENNA

WARNING: YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENCOUNTER [BASELESS CONJECTURE] AND [HORRIBLE OPINIONS]!!! YOU HAVE BEEN [YELLED AT]!!!!

Also it should be mentioned that anything I write here isn’t going to appear in character on the blog. I make it a point to only cover whats been made explicitly canon (just a personal thing)

But I’ve been mulling over the Spamton sweepstakes stuff and I figured I’d share my personal thoughts

1. MIKE

It was made pretty explicit in the hidden sweepstakes monologue and QnA that, contrary to most common theories, Mike is NOT the TV themed darkner hinted at the end of Chapter 2, nor is he even someone Spamton dislikes.

Mike is, seemingly, actually the only person (other than Kris) that Spamton seems to like or respect at all, given that he’s the only one who Spamton doesn’t feel like deserves justice for wronging him.

Spamton also vehemently defends Mike from a question about who he is, because Spamton believes the question is coming from one of that “[Cathode]’s Crew”

This also re-contextualizes a line that Spamton says ingame about Mike

What Spamton is saying here isn’t,

KRIS!! DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU HEAR FROM MIKE! THE MAN’S A CRIMINAL, I TELL YOU!! A CRIMINAL!!

What he’s actually saying is:

KRIS!! DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU HEAR FROM THAT TV!! THE MAN’S A CRIMINAL I TELL YOU!! A CRIMINAL!!

He’s begging Kris not to listen to anything that (presumably Tenna) has to say about Mike.

But we ALSO know that, for some reason, Spamton hasn’t been in contact with Mike for what seems like a very long time.

The shop dialogue is Spamton talking about how he doesn’t “Need” Mike

When everything fell apart, Mike seemingly isn’t somebody Spamton could turn to for help

At the end of a violent NEO fight, Spamton says this about Mike

He’s screaming out loud to Mike, as if he doesn’t know if he’s really there or not.

So, from this we can infer:

1. Mike is somebody Spamton values/respects very highly

2. Spamton has not been able to communicate with Mike for what is presumably a very long time. Mike also cannot or will not help Spamton.

3. Spamton, for some reason, does not view this lack of contact as a betrayal on Mike’s part, which is very interesting, considering that that is basically how he feels about literally everybody else in Cyber World who isn’t talking to him

4. Spamton believes that Mike should be “kept out” of whatever beef is between him and Tenna

5. According to Spamton, Tenna himself might have it out for Mike, to the point where Spamton feels the need to protect him from anybody he thinks is associated with him.

2. TENNA

There’s a lot less to go off of with Tenna

All we really know about him is that Spamton despises him, and blames SPECIFICALLY him as the reason he lost everything.

We do not explicitly KNOW if Tenna IS the TV, but I feel like we can be fairly confident in this assumption

Like earlier, according to Spamton, Tenna might have it out for Mike as well.

That’s about it !

3. BASELESS CONJECTURE

Now is the time for UTTER BULLSHIT!!!

I have a couple of different thoughts on Mike and Tenna, but again, I must stress these are simply personal ideas I have, I’m not asserting these as fact

Mike and Tenna

If we assume that Tenna is the TV, and we assume that Spamton’s repeated defense of Mike from Tenna means that Tenna has it out for him, I have one idea that comes to mind

Tenna is a TV themed darkner (Antenna), while Mike is a RADIO themed darkner (Microphone).

Their relationship is a literal interpretation of the phrase, “TV killed the Radio Star.”

Mike, as a radio themed darkner, represents a form of entertainment that has been broadly forgotten by lightners, which is a direct result of the rise of Television. In this case, it would put Mike and Tenna directly at odds with each other, as Tenna seeks to establish himself as the true ruler of Lightner Entertainment, and getting rid of Mike permanently in order to achieve that end.

This would explain why Spamton is so keen on protecting Mike from him, Tenna quite genuinely has it out for his life.

There isn’t any kind of radio in Kris’ house though, from what we can tell, so again, this is just an idea

ANOTHER BULLSHIT IDEA

This isn’t really something I believe but it’s something that I thought of and I figured I’d share it.

If we assume that the person who had been helping Spamton on the phone was Mike, there IS a story we can weave there (if we make a bunch of shit up)

Hear me out

Spamton was simply calling his phone for help, and eventually he made the right phone call.

If this person was Mike, then perhaps he had called into a Radio Broadcast by coincidence

Mike, somehow, began helping Spamton advertise his products, and brought him a lot of success

The man on the phone is described as having “disappeared”

The Blue Addison comments that they could “still hear someone on the other end,” of the phone when they went to check on Spamton, but when they put the receiver to their ear, it was nothing but garbage noise.

Spamton believes it’s Tenna’s fault that he lost everything, so here’s an idea:

Mike was helping Spamton become a Big Shot, but suddenly disappeared. What if this disappearance wasn’t Mike abandoning Spamton, it was TENNA forcing Mike off the air and into hiding. Mike could no longer help Spamton, and Spamton lost it all.

What if that final conversation Spamton was having was cut off because the signal was disconnected. The garbage noise from Spamton’s phone wasn’t the same as the garbage noise from Kris’ phone, it was Radio Static.

That’s why the Blue Addison could “hear someone” before actually picking up the phone. The voice was “running out,” being consumed by the Radio Static until the connection was totally lost. Whether Spamton was talking to Mike or Tenna here is up to interpretation.

This is why Spamton doesn’t blame Mike for anything. Mike was the only one who ever truly helped him, it was Tenna who took everything from him, forcing Mike off the air and making him unable to help Spamton anymore.

Like i said, I don’t particularly believe this and there’s a lot of holes but it’s just an idea

Thassa bout it! Don’t forget to [like an suscribe] for more [NOTHING!! NOTHING!! NOTHING!!]!!!!

[chonnysinferno]

tumblr deleted my ask :( anyway first n most importantly, could you listen to bopgil https://youtu.be/rORI1sZM-9I?si=wwaYyY82DnO9VLHk

anyway can i send you odd asks more often

anyway anyway i thought that was a completely one sided thing like. yeah. sometimes i just rotate people in my mind for a bit n then stop . pokes you with stick

juke’s towers of hell is a tower styled obby game. while you may be cascading down the social spiral, perhaps you will be able to ascend one of these trauma inducing towers

my head hurts so much but i got fries i think it’s because of malnutrition i don’t eat enough

fuckin like. i made a vaguepost about you. just two star crossed tumblr users. i guess that’s probably weird whatever

at first i saw cjshippers on your dni and i was like ok. goodbye then. and then it’s just like that one time you horribly interpreted my post about aro mind which i definitely said in a way liable to misinterpretation when i maintagged it aka i should’ve known better and then someone i admired at time took your misinterpretation n that was so fear and then i avoided you and now you are just like. oh it’s that person again. in my notes. on occasion. youre a cryptid tawa mi… i spin my pencil sometimes. badly. so sometimes when i am thinking now i get the urge to spin my pencil and i am thinking abt it right now. spinning fry gets fry seasoning in my hands so. i wrote loveless aro heart but it’s in a fic i definitely didn’t intend platinically. it’s this thing right. shipping is so weird because i’m aromantic and when it comes down to it, the difference between romance ala romance just seems like wording. a label. cause friends can do everything that partners can and there’s no depth difference so like wh huh? i call it a shipfic but it could be considered as just thing different than how i usually write thing like. i make them kiss. whatever. i focus on how close an intimate they feel. but i could also do that when romance li lon ala. so. allos are so weird to me. still figuring out what i think of the word love but still. allos……. ? ? ? anyway writing relationships where it not being love ISN’T A FLAW is so so enrichment i should do it more

pokes you with a stick pokes you with a stick pokes you with a stick hiiiii hi hi hi hiii

it’s like the mutual i would usually send writing asks has established it likes ‘weird violence’ and complicated dynamics n such so i can send stuff w/o fear i know it a little bit however i don’t know. what is up. with you. i literally saved something i sent to it so i could just put that here however that feels like cheating and or betrayal. you turn the corner to your kitchen and i’m standing there. consuming ice very loudly and aggressively. recklessly even. ‘so do you think about the transient nature of any positive hms relationship’, i ask. what do you do (also i have plugged my own ice maker in btw)

also i’ve already convinced three (3) mutuals to watch centricide so if you do i will feel even more powerful like ohhhh wawa mi li kama suli…. surprisingly they didn’t eviscerate me very cool

it’s like showing up to the function like oh so you rbed that post you like those types of relationships. writes something down. ok so can i write about [paragraph redacted cause i realized maybe there’s a reason you shouldn’t put gore and cannibalism in someone’s inbox without permission. so can i put gore n cannibalism in your inbox :3]

NEW CENTRICIDE THEORY: radcen is called the ringleader of the centrists cause he

i forgot the joke fuck

i am so sorry im like. drawing funny objects (when im not supposed to0 be but SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH shhshshshshhb) and watching centricide rn sodfsdfkjkljddmklslmk im like. really scatterbrained im sorry HGAHAHGHAS yea im already watching it btw feel more poiwerful in return you should watch hfjone if you havent tho. like a trade of interests i get into yours you get into mine >:-)c sorry for like. misinteruptting that one post that one time. hides away i n shame i think that was like. the time i actually knew you existed. for a negative reason ^_^''''''''''' i try not to think about it cause i dont think ur still mad at me for that. hopefully this is goign to be like not arranged in the order of the ask (aka im not reading this in the way this is written. things are being answered in a way that makes no sense) PLEASE SEND ME ASKS even if they are odd. actually the odder the better im going to be honest with you i do not get much interaction askwise so. it brings me joy it wasnt a one sided thing LMFAO i guess i can see why ud see that. no its weird idk whats going on anymore. hi tho!!! is continously poked with a stick. youch. twitches like a bug uhjhmmhmhmhmh ill try jtoh i rememebr you ranting about it sometime but i dont rmemeber any of it i am so sorry also dont vaguepost about me. coward /JOKE that is funny thjo HAHAHAH also eat more. or i will find you. dont malnourish yourslef /silly idk about the shipping thing. i dont get shipping either im going to be honest with you romance is like. just not understandable to me??????????? i cant comprehend why this happens. what is romance continues to be poked more. stares at you i dotn know whats up with me either maybe someone else knows. i dont know much about myself so ^_^ being called a cryptid is probably the best way to describe me i feel. yeag put anything you want aslong as its not. nsfw or smth. ill smite you also can i have some ice pls ice is great wdym by relationship do you mean like. platonic??? romantic????? what do you mena byt his i think ive answered everything i keep having 2 scroll up LOL also edit (once again i know) i did enjoy the video link u sent thank u

[ewingstan]

Okay, for the philosophical ask game: Jack Slash. I'm curious as to what this one could possibly be lol

SEND ME A WILDBOW CHARACTER YOU LOVE. I WILL TELL YOU WHICH PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT EXPERIMENT YOU SHOULD GET REALLY OPINIONATED ABOUT (SLASH DEVELOP A PSYCHOSEXUAL FIXATION ON)

This is less a specific thought experiment, but a lot of ethics and metaethics will have "person who is very inclined to harm others, very good at harming others, and cannot be convinced to stop harming others*" as almost a stock character of sorts to pose a variety of questions. They're often invoked as an edge-case to test various common moral claims, especially claims about what ground morality. For instance, most ethical systems are based on commonly shared moral intuitions. If we all have the same basic beliefs about what's good and whats bad, the claim goes, we can use that as a foundation to decide the more complicated stuff. But we can invoke the stock badman to question this—if someone doesn't have the same basic moral intuitions, should it throw our confidence in trusting such intuitions into question? Or the claim that rights are based on a sort of reciprocal obligation members of the moral community have towards each other—would such a person be part of the moral community? If not, do they lack rights?

Probably the most famous example is Plato's Ring of Gyges, where a man presents the case against justice by arguing that if someone could get away with being unjust—if they had a ring that allowed them to be invisible and commit crimes without being seen—they would obviously do it and be better off for it. The whole of the Republic is a response to this position, arguing why it would be in someone's best interest to act justly even when unobserved.

*Notably, this often gets conflated with psychopaths, especially in philosophy of mind and neuroethics. Which I'm not the biggest fan of. I think you can have a lot of interesting philosophical explorations of "psychopathy" as a label, and even a lot of exploration about how specific symptoms and causes interact with various ethical theories, such as models of moral responsibility. But a lot of papers that invoke people with psychopathy treat psychopathy as an ontological category instead of a way to say that someone checks some number of boxes on a large checklist of related behavioral symptoms. And then they misrepresent what people with psychopathy are like, because they often use them to mean "people who don't have moral intuitions" which is a huge oversimplification. There are specific symptoms associated with psychopathy or ASPD you could explore the ethical implications of, such as a worse emotional theory of mind than "normal", or greater impulsivity, or a lowered tendency to change behavior after encountering negative stimuli. And you could talk about those in isolation or even all of them in tandem, or you could just talk about a theoretical person who lacks moral intuitions. But nooooo lets just pretend a group of people fit the abstracted view of moral intuitions as a general category that I need for my argument. Its lazy is what it is.

And that's not even getting into the philosophers who use psychopath to mean "ontologically evil person who will always behave horribly." All the ethicists who do this shit need to A) learn how psychologists actually talk about psychopaths and more importantly B) do their goddamn job and analyze the assumptions said psychologists are making/what principles are behind their taxonomies/what different assumptions and principles might lead to. Criminal psychologists aren't carving nature at the joints, stop treating this like a metaphysical category and certainly stop treating it like an ethical category. This is what happens when ethics keeps the concept of "moral character" as a concept that gets taken seriously.

[dca-prompts]

Heavily based theory/AU on this song. (Sudden burst of ideas, and this is not complete so it might be wonky but ye, wrote it when I was very tired)

Contains themes like: gore(heavy), violence against machines, unhealthy obsessions, horror themes, guilt, mind control and many more!

. . .

Y/N, who used to work at the Pizza Plex, went missing, but what really happened didn't matter, it's something only for them to know. They know it was wrong. But they didn't have a choice..

Sun and Moon, lately known as 'Eclipse', is a fusion of Sun and Moon's consciousness. They are both in control so they can survive, the ruins of this place and the captivity. They can't go anywhere now, it's all blocked off. So they sit and wait out their existence in this daycare, with nothing better to do.

Everything started when Moon became violent a few years ago, he kept on insisting that they should be put back together in one body(as they separated in this universe) and ranting how when they're apart they can't feel each other anymore.

That was only Moon, Sun on the other end denied it, he liked having his own body, it's what the both wanted at first. Now Moon doesn't anymore, which weirds him out.

Sun begins digging into Moon's stuff, and finds nothing but a plush of Glamrock Bonnie, all dusty and with an eye ripped off. Well, not very successful, but he'll take it just in case.

At some point through time you went missing and all went down, Sun didn't want to do his job anymore, Moon acted out too often now because of your absence and the Pizza Plex collapsed on itself because of not one, but two earthquakes happening at the same time, and a fire under the place, which spread faster and faster until it left nothing but smoke behind itself.

Sun and Moon survived the fire with the luck of the basements being made of concrete, which doesn't burn, they were still damaged. Sun lost his leg in the process of running out the daycare and Moon lost his left eye.

Everything went down. Moon still wasn't okay, he kept on acting out and Sun ran back to the daycare leaving him behind.

Moon began to hunt anything and everything that moved, and for a time, he steeped upon Chica, who looked worse for wear than any other time. He ripped and ripped at the metal that was still on her body until she turned off and all the trash fell out of her chest cavity. Moon enjoyed himself too much, and he continued until the endo was torn apart and every bit of Chica was brutally dented, scratched and lost.

He finds Monty, Freddy and even Roxy at some point, who end up with the same fate as Chica, and he is already off the rails. Moon is not himself anymore and he can't control the desire to be put back together with Sun. At some point through everything, he gets back into the daycare, and he approaches Sun with more then enough malice to make him back off. Sun trips backwards due to the missing appendage, his leg. He backs off but at some point Moon is too close to do anything and he is frozen in place.

"I'll put us back together... Just like before.... It only hurts for a little bit.."

And then it all goes black, his vision out and his body limp and laying on the play mats.

Moon couldn't be more proud of himself yet. He tears at the metal of Sun's casing, rips and rips, before he finally rips off Sun's arms, adding them to himself, off with his rays, the force and the brutality of it not making it enjoyable in the back of Sun's mind.

Moon then embraces Sun's body, hugging it close to himself. This was going horrible. And he didn't like it, it isn't him, and he can't fight back. A stray oily tear slips down his cheek, and he's completely gone.

. . .

Moon rips out Sun's wires in one quick motion, destroying everything but his memory chip, which he shoves back onto his own body. Back together again, never to be left alone, and never to be mistreated again.

"There there... At last... There's a piece of me in everybody... After all..."

And now back to my cave I go, adios, bc I'm pushing everything here. 🙇‍♀️

ㅤ

[flightfoot]

I don't understand people who only know a character for a few episode/chapter and then decided that "this is it. This is a horrible character and I'm going to tell the world about how horrible they're" that they ignore every nuance, background and motive of that character. Even worse people who only echoing people bad take and decided that is the canon and spread it like fire.

I was a "victim" of this kind of people because my friend is an Adrien salter. That time I don't even know Chat Noir, I only see some fanarts and think his design is cool especially because I always love cat boy or cat in general. My friend saw me liking and share Chat Noir pictures and told me that "he may be cute but he's a horrible and problematic character" which made me raised an eyebrow and she explain more about how he is so "creepy" that he lied to someone who has a girl that he has crush on, saying they're a couple and when the other male get upset he blame the girl for it instead. She also told he that he's a sexual harrasser and tried to force to kiss his crush even though the girl already reject him and the reason people don't mind his problematic action is because he's "cute". Well, that just some among other things that she told me about him and none of it was really positive.

She said she hate the show and already dropped it but sometimes whenever I liked miraculous stuff, she'd tell me some other "horrible thing Chat Noir do" under the post that I share.

I wasn't the type who would back down from watching something just because my friend told me it's horrible but it does make me wonder if the show and this character is as horrible as she made it to be, because this is not the first time she hate on a character that I have interest in.

I'm glad I decided to watch it when it finally aired on TV because what she told me before was a complete BS. Adrien isn't like what she always told me to be and the more I watched miraculous the more I loved him and he's one of my cat boy.

The fact that the Chat Noir that she told me and the actual Chat Noir is like 360° difference just make me wondered, what's her problem? I mean, it's one thing to hate on a character or a show but to spread such misinformation because she hate that character is a horrible act! If you don't like the media or a character then keep it to yourself?? No need to drag others into a black hole full of misinformation!

I myself stopped watching halfway in s4 because I don't like the whole sentimonster theory, Ladybug attitude there and how the show sometimes not acknowledging Chat Noir awesomeness (that giant gallette especially) but I don't make it a habit to tell people the show is horrible just because it's no longer my cup of tea. So people like this make my brain goes brrrr.

Yeah people have an issue of latching onto one or two things they don't like about a character, and then ignoring every bit of nuance and motivation that characters has in favor of blindly hating them. You can still dislike a character, but it should at least be done fairly.

And I know the ML saltdom tends to not just emphasize negative aspects, but flat-out spread incorrect information when bashing on characters - the anon I got awhile ago claiming that Chat threatened Ladybug that he'd give up the ring in Syren unless she dated him comes to mind. People get caught in these echo chambers and don't actually think to check the show itself, nor to look at the actual reasons the characters has for doing what they did, from both a Watsonian perspective and a Doylist one.

[volfoss]

Leaving it up to Tumblr to choose my next comic chronology in like... 2 months when I'm free of green lantern (2 months is not very generous I fear)

Reasoning under the cut :3 (very long)

Duke- pretty short (less than 200 issues), I really like his character from what I've seen of him. I think it will also be hell (as is the nature of most batman adjacent chronologies) but it'll be worth it... Nice and short one and also swag character

Jefferson- 1. Black lightning is very fun early on and 2. I've already made the spreadsheet so I just have to read it. He's just like... A very cool character and I like him a lot so far. I just am gods scaredest soldier with long chronos (which his isn't too bad but it's ALSO batman adjacent and those are so scary)

Barbara - my best friend Babs but also if I have to reread the killing joke I AM killing Alan Moore ok. In theory I love her SOOOO much. In practice I think the fact I'm having to keep a "how bad is the disability rep" counter next to each issue says a lot. Unfortunately. Also already made this spreadsheet but I think it would be a very bad and good time.

Clint- again in theory would be fun. He seems right up my alley but alas if I have to see Tony Stark I do fly into a blind rage. And unfortunately I think he appears a lot... And also unfortunately I think I would suffer due to blonde man disorder ok (as I always do)

Silhouette+Aaron- package deal bc they're siblings. I've already started this one and then stopped because whoever is writing the early stuff SHOULD go to hell for what they're doing. For those unfamiliar, silhouette is one of the only heroes I've ever seen using forearm crutches (pretty awesome) and her power is that she can kind of travel via shadow iirc? Which would be really cool if they didn't like... Make her lose all her clothes and mobility aids when she's doing this. Which is why I quit. But she's very very cool minus that (and in my mind... I know she's written better later on) and her brother is his own can of worms (in... Definitely a way). In theory tho I rly gotta get through their stuff

Theodore - first off: I am a FIEND for marvel 70s horror comics. Second off: he is better than swamp thing. Third off: his big red eyes. But to be serious though like .. the Steve Gerber and Gerry Conway era of man thing is SO good and like .. political in an interesting way. I just need motivation to get around to it. Also he's cutesy ok!!!

Jason Blood- another consequence of the 70s horror era fan but this guy has CRAZY lore. He's a medieval knight who got possessed by a demon thanks to Merlin and then he's just lived through the centuries and become an occult guy. Reasons why I stopped this one - sometimes old horror comics are bad and horrible. And also a like 60 issue Garth Ennis written series. But I do really wanna finish his stuff bc he's like .. DC's version of Hellstrom (which. Genuinely awesome character, if you're interested in older horror comics def check his original run out <- my plug for my silly husband hellstrom who sucks so much or whatever. He's rly good tho seriously)

Jennifer - I've already made her spreadsheet and started it but the writers are soooo fucking bad most of the time. It's actually horrific. Pros for her- pretty good character when written well (her hellcat series stuff was REALLY nice for me. But I'll always hype up patsy walker aka hellcat at any chance) cons for her- the misogyny ... And my reward for finishing it is watching the she hulk show. So take that as you will

Dracula- I started his stuff bc I was PROMISED Gerry Conway (who is like.. one of my top 5 writers. He does amazing old horror comics and made a bunch of very cool characters). And then he left like 2 issues in and it went downhill. Some of the same authors who did some of the good (other marvel vampire who is redacted for my own safety ok) issues did stuff for drac. In theory this would be silly campy 70s horror comics fun. In practice oh my god I am gaining new authors to hate so bad...

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: Fahrenheit 451

Author: Ray Bradbury

Rating: 13/15

Some scattered thoughts on "Fahrenheit 451" and "Brave New World"

Not much here -- just a small bit of introspection about Ray Bradbury's work, some of which may not make much sense in context. I wrote most of this while at the beach, with the idea of writing it down when I got back home, but I never got home, which means that I'll never actually write it. But I wanted to write it anyway, just in case I end up reading more of Bradbury's work some day, if only because I don't want to read a book in which the only thought that ever crosses my mind, and which I'm only able to write down because I have nothing better to do, is "well, that was pretty damn good."

Anyway, you know how I keep talking about Theodor Adorno? I've been meaning to read Minima Moralia and Philosophy of Modern Music just to get a sense of Adorno, even though I've been pretty unimpressed by the "populist"/post-Marxist culture of the 1960s and 1970s. The Adorno tag also has some stuff I haven't finished reading, but I've been meaning to reread Aesthetic Theory. Anyway, I've been thinking that maybe Bradbury is kind of like Adorno in a lot of ways -- not his views on culture, though there is that, but in his writing style and attitude towards his own work. Like, Adorno is obsessed with a type of literature that is, he says, "bad in the usual sense," and which he takes to be (he doesn't really say this, it's just that he's trying to hint at it in a negative way) the product of people who are "nihilistic, cowardly, and servile" and who are "more eager to please than to disturb." The type of writer Bradbury loves to hate, and so he loves to hate his own writing.

So this was a book about a book. A book which you can hate. Which you can hate even more than you love it. Which you can keep hating for long, long stretches of time. So much so that it becomes an obsession, or a disease, and begins to distort your whole life, and it even begins to alter who you are, so that when you look back on it, you can see the horrible mistake you made when you started it.

Okay, so I read this book, and now I have to go read another book. Not this one, not any of these books. But another, the last, and the lastest, the latest, the very bestest, the purest, the one that contains all the others, which, I promise, is the one you should read, because it contains all of these books, and nothing else, and nothing else ever will, and nothing else in the entire world ever will.

Keep reading

[hornynofilter]

I love everything about my girlfriend. She's smart, kind, funny, and sexy as fuck. The only thing I don't like is the noise she makes when she's cumming. She'll whimper and moan in the hottest way when she's approaching orgasm but when she actually starts to cum, she makes this deep guttural grunting noise that, frankly, disgusts me. I know that's a horrible thing to say but it's a huge turn off for me.

Fortunately, she's super kinky, too. I started edging her and denying her orgasms. She's taken to the denial lifestyle and loves it. I haven't let her cum in two months and she's turned into a whimpering, pleading mess who's constantly wet & needy. She thinks it's all just a fun game we play. She has no idea I'm doing it simply to avoid being grossed out by her orgasms.

I feel really guilty about the whole thing - being so negative about her when she's at her most vulnerable - and what, in theory, should be her most attractive - and the deception. But honestly our sex life has never been better. She loves being a denial slut and I've become much more in tune with her and what gets her off. Our whole dynamic has changed for the better.

But it's all based on a lie.

I don't know what to do at this point. Do I keep my mouth shut and deal with my own guilt, or do I come clean and hope it all works out? What happens if she tires of the game and wants regular orgasms again?

One more piece of info: she's so horny I think I can make her cum from nipple play and/or anal, neither of which she's experienced before. I wonder if she'll respond differently to those types of orgasms. I'm wondering if those types of orgasms will hit her differently and be less problematic for me. Maybe I should focus on those and see what happens?

Kinda was excited to answer this one as it's also asking for advice and honestly- part of my mind says to be open and honest while the other part says to keep it to yourself. Truthfully it depends on who she is and how she'd respond to hearing you don't like her orgasm sounds.

If she's more of the emotional type and can feel insecure or upset at the drop of a dime- I wouldn't tell her. I say this as someone who's the emotional type as well. I work to make myself vocal for partners (I typically go nonverbal) and if I heard that the sounds I made made them disgusted, I would feel negative towards myself and not really wanna make any sounds with them.

Or is she someone who's a bit more logical and can take criticism without taking it to heart? Then maybe sit down and discuss it and hopefully she understands.

Also if I know anything about being denied for a while and then being allowed to release, the sounds at the end are ... usually? Deeper and heavier so might back fire but everyone works differently.

While it is shitty you have those feelings towards her O-sounds, it's not like you can really help it much. Everyone has a preference and I know I have disliked many peoples sounds. I also have a whole "name moanablity" scale? Like if I can't moan your name unawkwardly then like.. I'll pass, thanks lol.

If you keep her denied and stuff a lot, just make sure you're doing the same aftercare stuff after play and making sure she's okay mentally/emotionally (as well as yourself too honestly).

Think about it a bit more I'd say. Like her reaction, how you might tell her if you do, what would be the best and so on so forth. I hope I was able to assist a bit and thank you for your confession! And keep me updated? ❤️

[nothorses]

Interview With An Ex-Radfem

exradfem is an anonymous Tumblr user who identifies as transmasculine, and previously spent time in radical feminist communities. They have offered their insight into those communities using their own experiences and memories as a firsthand resource.

Background

I was raised in an incredibly fundamentalist religion, and so was predisposed to falling for cult rhetoric. Naturally, I was kicked out for being a lesbian. I was taken in by the queer community, particularly the trans community, and I got back on my feet- somehow. I had a large group of queer friends, and loved it. I fully went in on being the Best Trans Ally Possible, and constantly tried to be a part of activism and discourse.

Unfortunately, I was undersocialized, undereducated, and overenthusiastic. I didn't fully understand queer or gender theory. In my world, when my parents told me my sexuality was a choice and I wasn't born that way, they were absolutely being homophobic. I understood that no one should care if it's a choice or not, but it was still incredibly, vitally important to me that I was born that way.

On top of that, I already had an intense distrust of men bred by a lot of trauma. That distrust bred a lot of gender essentialism that I couldn't pull out of the gender binary. I felt like it was fundamentally true that men were the problem, and that women were inherently more trustworthy. And I really didn't know where nonbinary people fit in.

Then I got sucked down the ace exclusionist pipeline; the way the arguments were framed made sense to my really surface-level, liberal view of politics. This had me primed to exclude people –– to feel like only those that had been oppressed exactly like me were my community.

Then I realized I was attracted to my nonbinary friend. I immediately felt super guilty that I was seeing them as a woman. I started doing some googling (helped along by ace exclusionists on Tumblr) and found the lesfem community, which is basically radfem “lite”: lesbians who are "only same sex attracted". This made sense to me, and it made me feel so much less guilty for being attracted to my friend; it was packaged as "this is just our inherent, biological desire that is completely uncontrollable". It didn't challenge my status quo, it made me feel less guilty about being a lesbian, and it allowed me to have a "biological" reason for rejecting men.

I don't know how much dysphoria was playing into this, and it's something I will probably never know; all of this is just piecing together jumbled memories and trying to connect dots. I know at the time I couldn't connect to this trans narrative of "feeling like a woman". I couldn't understand what trans women were feeling. This briefly made me question whether I was nonbinary, but radfem ideas had already started seeping into my head and I'm sure I was using them to repress that dysphoria. That's all I can remember.

The lesfem community seeded gender critical ideas and larger radfem princples, including gender socialization, gender as completely meaningless, oppression as based on sex, and lesbian separatism. It made so much innate sense to me, and I didn't realize that was because I was conditioned by the far right from the moment of my birth. Of course women were just a biological class obligated to raise children: that is how I always saw myself, and I always wanted to escape it.

I tried to stay in the realms of TIRF (Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist) and "gender critical" spaces, because I couldn't take the vitriol on so many TERF blogs. It took so long for me to get to the point where I began seeing open and unveiled transphobia, and I had already read so much and bought into so much of it that I thought that I could just ignore those parts.

In that sense, it was absolutely a pipeline for me. I thought I could find a "middle ground", where I could "center women" without being transphobic.

Slowly, I realized that the transphobia was just more and more disgustingly pervasive. Some of the trans men and butch women I looked up to left the groups, and it was mostly just a bunch of nasty people left. So I left.

After two years offline, I started to recognize I was never going to be a healthy person without dealing with my dysphoria, and I made my way back onto Tumblr over the pandemic. I have realized I'm trans, and so much of this makes so much more sense now. I now see how I was basically using gender essentialism to repress my identity and keep myself in the closet, how it was genuinely weaponized by TERFs to keep me there, and how the ace exclusionist movement primed me into accepting lesbian separatism- and, finally, radical feminism.

The Interview

You mentioned the lesfem community, gender criticals, and TIRFs, which I haven't heard about before- would you mind elaborating on what those are, and what kinds of beliefs they hold?

I think the lesfem community is recruitment for lesbians into the TERF community. Everything is very sanitized and "reasonable", and there's an effort not to say anything bad about trans women. The main focus was that lesbian = homosexual female, and you can't be attracted to gender, because you can't know someone's gender before knowing them; only their sex.

It seemed logical at the time, thinking about sex as something impermeable and gender as internal identity. The most talk about trans women I saw initially was just in reference to the cotton ceiling, how sexual orientation is a permanent and unchangeable reality. Otherwise, the focus was homophobia. This appealed to me, as I was really clinging to the "born this way" narrative.

This ended up being a gateway to two split camps - TIRFs and gender crits.

I definitely liked to read TIRF stuff, mostly because I didn't like the idea of radical feminism having to be transphobic. But TIRFs think that misogyny is all down to hatred of femininity, and they use that as a basis to be able to say trans women are "just as" oppressed.

Gender criticals really fought out against this, and pushed the idea that gender is fake, and misogyny is just sex-based oppression based on reproductive issues. They believe that the source of misogyny is the "male need to control the source of reproduction"- which is what finally made me think I had found the "source" of my confusion. That's why I ended up in gender critical circles instead of TIRF circles.

I'm glad, honestly, because the mask-off transphobia is what made me finally see the light. I wouldn't have seen that in TIRF communities.

I believed this in-between idea, that misogyny was "sex-based oppression" and that transphobia was also real and horrible, but only based on transition, and therefore a completely different thing. I felt that this was the "nuanced" position to take.

The lesfem community also used the fact that a lot of lesbians have partners who transition, still stay with their lesbian partners, and see themselves as lesbian- and that a lot of trans men still see themselves as lesbians. That idea is very taboo and talked down in liberal queer spaces, and I had some vague feelings about it that made me angry, too. I really appreciated the frank talk of what I felt were my own taboo experiences.

I think gender critical ideology also really exploited my own dysphoria. There was a lot of talk about how "almost all butches have dysphoria and just don't talk about it", and that made me feel so much less alone and was, genuinely, a big relief to me that I "didn't have to be trans".

Lesfeminism is essentially lesbian separatism dressed up as sex education. Lesfems believe that genitals exist in two separate categories, and that not being attracted to penises is what defines lesbians. This is used to tell cis lesbians, "dont feel bad as a lesbian if you're attracted to trans men", and that they shouldn’t feel "guilty" for not being attracted to trans women. They believe that lesbianism is not defined as being attracted to women, it is defined as not being attracted to men; which is a root idea in lesbian separatism as well.

Lesfems also believe that attraction to anything other than explicit genitals is a fetish: if you're attracted to flat chests, facial hair, low voices, etc., but don't care if that person has a penis or not, you're bisexual with a fetish for masculine attributes. Essentially, they believe the “-sexual” suffix refers to the “sex” that you are assigned at birth, rather than your attraction: “homosexual” refers to two people of the same sex, etc. This was part of their pushback to the ace community, too.

I think they exploited the issues of trans men and actively ignored trans women intentionally, as a way of avoiding the “TERF” label. Pronouns were respected, and they espoused a constant stream of "trans women are women, trans men are men (but biology still exists and dictates sexual orientation)" to maintain face.

They would only be openly transmisogynistic in more private, radfem-only spaces.

For a while, I didn’t think that TERFs were real. I had read and agreed with the ideology of these "reasonable" people who others labeled as TERFs, so I felt like maybe it really was a strawman that didn't exist. I think that really helped suck me in.

It sounds from what you said like radical feminism works as a kind of funnel system, with "lesfem" being one gateway leading in, and "TIRF" and "gender crit" being branches that lesfem specifically funnels into- with TERFs at the end of the funnel. Does that sound accurate?

I think that's a great description actually!

When I was growing up, I had to go to meetings to learn how to "best spread the word of god". It was brainwashing 101: start off by building a relationship, find a common ground. Do not tell them what you really believe. Use confusing language and cute innuendos to "draw them in". Prey on their emotions by having long exhausting sermons, using music and peer pressure to manipulate them into making a commitment to the church, then BAM- hit them with the weird shit.

Obviously I am paraphrasing, but this was framed as a necessary evil to not "freak out" the outsiders.

I started to see that same talk in gender critical circles: I remember seeing something to the effect of, "lesfem and gender crit spaces exist to cleanse you of the gender ideology so you can later understand the 'real' danger of it", which really freaked me out; I realized I was in a cult again.

I definitely think it's intentional. I think they got these ideas from evangelical Christianity, and they actively use it to spread it online and target young lesbians and transmascs. And I think gender critical butch spaces are there to draw in young transmascs who hate everything about femininity and womanhood, and lesfem spaces are there to spread the idea that trans women exist as a threat to lesbianism.

Do you know if they view TIRFs a similar way- as essentially prepping people for TERF indoctrination?

Yes and no.

I've seen lots of in-fighting about TIRFs; most TERFs see them as a detriment, worse than the "TRAs" themselves. I've also definitely seen it posed as "baby's first radfeminism". A lot of TIRFs are trans women, at least from what I've seen on Tumblr, and therefore are not accepted or liked by radfems. To be completely honest, I don't think they're liked by anyone. They just hate men.

TIRFs are almost another breed altogether; I don't know if they have ties to lesfems at all, but I do think they might've spearheaded the online ace exclusionist discourse. I think a lot of them also swallowed radfem ideology without knowing what it was, and parrot it without thinking too hard about how it contradicts with other ideas they have.

The difference is TIRFs exist. They're real people with a bizarre, contradictory ideology. The lesfem community, on the other hand, is a completely manufactured "community" of crypto-terfs designed specifically to indoctrinate people into TERF ideology.

Part of my interest in TIRFs here is that they seem to have a heavy hand in the way transmascs are treated by the trans community, and if you're right that they were a big part of ace exclusionism too they've had a huge impact on queer discourse as a whole for some time. It seems likely that Baeddels came out of that movement too.

Yes, there’s a lot of overlap. The more digging I did, the more I found that it's a smaller circle running the show than it seems. TIRFs really do a lot of legwork in peddling the ideology to outer queer community, who tend to see it as generic feminism.

TERFs joke a lot about how non-radfems will repost or reblog from TERFs, adding "op is a TERF”. They're very gleeful when people accept their ideology with the mask on. They think it means these people are close to fully learning the "truth", and they see it as further evidence they have the truth the world is hiding. I think it's important to speak out against radical feminism in general, because they’re right; their ideology does seep out into the queer community.

Do you think there's any "good" radical feminism?

No. It sees women as the ultimate victim, rather than seeing gender as a tool to oppress different people differently. Radical feminism will always see men as the problem, and it is always going to do harm to men of color, gay men, trans men, disabled men, etc.

Women aren't a coherent class, and radfems are very panicked about that fact; they think it's going to be the end of us all. But what's wrong with that? That's like freaking out that white isn't a coherent group. It reveals more about you.

It's kind of the root of all exclusionism, the more I think about it, isn't it? Just freaking out that some group isn't going to be exclusive anymore.

Radical feminists believe that women are inherently better than men.

For TIRFs, it's gender essentialism. For TERFs, its bio essentialism. Both systems are fundamentally broken, and will always hurt the groups most at risk. Centering women and misogyny above all else erases the root causes of bigotry and oppression, and it erases the intersections of race and class. The idea that women are always fundamentally less threatening is very white and privileged.

It also ignores how cis women benefit from gender norms just as cis men do, and how cis men suffer from gender roles as well. It’s a system of control where gender non-conformity is a punishable offense.

[utilitycaster]

What’s your feeling on the Laudna-is-a-suntree-corpse reveal? I think I remember you finding the theory silly at one point, so are you still frustrated? The thing with her ears was somehow the most upsetting to me.

You know this is a great question and I was wondering if anyone would ask it. I actually found that I didn't mind how it was presented in the story, in the end. You've caught me in an oddly reflective mood, which is probably good for everyone myself included, and I want to answer this and also maybe elucidate my philosophy on theories in a way that's perhaps more honest and a bit...idk about kinder, but at least more patient and less contrarian than I've been.

Specifically about this theory

In hindsight, I don't love this as backstory but I don't hate it either. I think I reacted so negatively to this as a theory for a couple of reasons.

The first is that I do feel Vox Machina at times occupies this outsized mythos within the fandom and it was something I felt particularly keenly coming in with Campaign 2; it felt (still feels, tbh) sometimes that there's this air of "welcome :) you don't have to have seen campaign 1 to enjoy campaign 2 :) but jsyk campaign 1 was better in every way :) it was better when the fandom was smaller and all you johnny come latelies weren't here and you're wrong for preferring campaign 2 :) anyway welcome :)" (I should note - many, many people who have been around since Campaign One don't do this at all, it's a tiny minority who do, but god they piss me off). Anyway, to that end I'm hesitant about strong connections to Campaign 1, to the point that it took a good deal of time for Orym to grow on me (and he has, to be clear).

The second is that, and maybe this, ironically enough, is me jumping to conclusions, it felt like it was treated as definitively correct (well, that and the competing theory that Laudna was a de Rolo) when it was merely a possibility, and one that I didn't feel added much (more on this below).

The third is that I could feel the way a certain segment of the fandom wanted this to be true for Angst Reasons and this is a sticking point; I have a low, low tolerance for angst and I've talked about that before, in that I'm way more interested in realistic depictions of responses to tragedy, ie, either like, actual grief and trauma, and then processing and healing. Like, I want the Nein post-Molly's death, I want Yasha and Caleb's stories...but I also want stories that we're getting in Campaign Three, in which Laudna, Chetney, Orym, and Ashton have all experienced objectively horrible, life-altering events but they all seem to share this attitude of "yes, this was horrible. Nothing I can do will change it, and even resentment against those who did it won't help, and all I can do is move forward." I guess what I'm saying is that if you want to delve deep into angst and "oh no I made myself sad" that is an entirely valid personal choice but I have no taste for it, and I can't really block it either without blocking a lot of stuff I do want to see so I just...seethe.

So this was a super long way to say that it's not going to be my favorite choice but I actually appreciate that Laudna is like "I was an innocent bystander who brutally murdered to send a message I don't even totally understand, and I don't want to think about it too much, but in the end, it is what it is and I'm somehow still here so let's make the best of it."

(FWIW the part about the ears doesn't bother me terribly? I mean it's awful but we already knew how horrible the Briarwoods were, like, this doesn't really change much and I can respect a gory detail, but I understand it being rough)

Theories in general

So I'm in no way above theorizing to my own taste...but I do want theories to answer a question. Otherwise it's wild unfounded speculation, and I know that is fun for some people but it's no fun to me. I don't even mind being wrong about the concrete happenings, but I do mind being wrong about vibes, I guess is the best way to say it?

Like, to give a couple examples in which I was wrong (both C2 because I was spoiled for a decent amount of C1) - I was very wrong about the campaign going on longer bc the Uk'otoa and Trent plot threads were still out there, but I was correct in that they were still out there and need a resolution; the difference was just that the resolution would happen for the most part as epilogue or post-campaign. I was wrong in that I leaned towards Essek not being a traitor and just being caught up in some weird personal stuff...but he was indeed caught up in some weird personal stuff and his intent wasn't really to betray.

So here, I was 100% wrong about Laudna not being a Sun Tree corpse. But I do think that her response to her death seems like it would have been the same had she just been killed by a necromantic wave of energy, or by a stone giant, or whatever. That's what I ultimately felt strongly about - that the connection isn't rife with meaning, that it's just a thing that happened. I should probably, when dealing with theories, focus more on things like that than the details. I feel like this is hedging but I promise that's not my intent - this is me realizing things about why I dislike certain theories and how to better personally frame it instead of shooting them all down wholesale.

[chudleycanonficfest]

Day 28, Post #1 by @floreatcastellumposts

Title: The Argument Author/Artist: FloreatCastellum Pairing: Gen Prompt: “Siblings: The only enemy you can’t live without” -Anonymous Rating: T Trigger Warning(s) (if any): Mild language

When he was a child, Ron had sometimes sat secretly on the stairs, feet in slippers too big for him, teddy tucked under his arm, listening to the goings on in the kitchen. Often his sister or a brother or two would be with him. This was especially the case when there was an argument, because they were a nosy bunch of kids, and they would grin gleefully at one another as they heard their mother roar over some issue, like when Bill came home with his first tattoo, or Charlie had done something dangerous like climb on the roof, or the many, many, many things that Fred and George had done. They would gather on the stairs and snigger and delight in their siblings being in trouble - that it wasn't them, and usually it was over something hilarious too. 

Today was quite different. The stairs were narrow, so Ginny was pressed right up against him, but she was gripping hold of his arm too. Behind them, Fred and George sat in grim, stony silence, their knees occasionally knocking the back of Ron's head, but, remarkably, none of them were squabbling.

'Is it so hard to just be happy for me?' Percy was bellowing, and that in itself was unusual, because it was never Percy in trouble. 

'It's not about that,' Dad was bellowing back, 'are you so naive? Are you really so foolish-?' This was unusual too, because it wasn't usually Dad bellowing. 

'Percy... Percy, we're just worried, we're just concerned...' Mum was sobbing. This was unusual, because she usually had a bit more fight in her, not this desperate pleading. 

'You're so cynical, the pair of you-'

'We're realistic! You've been promoted well above your grade before the dust has settled on the inquiry-'

'STOP BRINGING UP THE INQUIRY!' Percy sounded quite deranged; the ferocity of his voice made Ginny jump slightly, and grip Ron's arm harder. 'That - wasn't - my - fault! That was the point of it! That PROVED I wasn't to blame, I was acquitted-'

'Yes, and we were delighted,' said Dad, and to Ron's astonishment, his words sounded bitingly sarcastic, 'but even so, you have to see that mass scandal is not usually a precursor to promotion!'

'He SAW something in me!' 

'Yes, he did! He saw a potential spy! On our family - on Dumbledore-'

Percy let out a maniacal laugh, forced and sneering and sanctimonious, it made Ron wince as he heard it. 'And you say I'm arrogant?' 

'We've never said you were arrogant-' Mum tried to chip in desperately, but Percy continued talking over her. 

'You think you're important enough to warrant the Minister for Magic spying on you? You think he considers you in the same circle as Dumbledore? More to the point, you think Dumbledore truly respects the likes of you?'  

'Fudge has been going round making it more than clear that anyone who supports Dumbledore can clear out their desks-'

'Utter rot-'

'-He knows I'm friendly with him, he knows I have advised the school on muggleborn inte-'

'No one cares!' Percy screamed. 'No one cares about that stuff! You're ludicrous!'

'Ludicrous?' Dad echoed, with an uncharacteristic scoff to his voice. 

'Ludicrous! Not everything is a conspiracy, not everything has an anti-muggle agenda - I know what this is really about, you're embarrassed that your own son is rising above you, is succeeding where you haven't-'

'Percy!' Mum's gasp was so clear that Ron could easily imagine her hand leaping to her chest. 

'I've had to struggle against your lousy reputation ever since I started! Do you know how embarrassing it is? Do you know what it's like having people ask if I'm related to the muggle-mad Weasley on Level Two-' 

'That's enough,' said Dad coldly. 

'I lie to them, d'you know that? I tell them we're only distantly related.' 

'What the fuck?' Ron heard one of the twins whisper behind them. 'Is he serious?' 

'I never imagined I had raised you to be so small-minded-' Dad was spitting back.

'It's baffling that you raised me at all! You, who has no ambition, no sense, no idea of how ridiculous you come across with your obsession with muggles - is it any wonder you've always been passed over for promotion-'

'-Because of bigotry!'

'-Any wonder you've left your children to grow up in poverty? To be humiliated by the failures of their father?' 

'Stop it! Percy, stop it!' Mum was wailing, and whether it was Fred or George directly behind him Ron didn't know, but their knee was trembling against the back of his head. 

'It's not failure, it's a matter of principle and integrity!' Dad roared back. 'There are more important things than gold, that's what we've always-'

'You are deluded! You are so blinded by your persecution complex, by your victimhood, that you cannot be happy for your son!' Percy’s voice was hoarse and raw, whether from tears or overexertion, Ron wasn’t sure. 'You can't bear to see him succeed where you failed! To see him make something of himself!'

'Why would I be happy watching my son be manipulated and used? Make no mistake, Percy - this is no achievement, this is Fudge playing you as a puppet - if you're ashamed of your background, that's your prerogative, but there's no denying this family is known to be close to Dumbledore and Harry, and Fudge is waging a vendetta against-'

‘You’re an idiot to run around with Dumbledore!’ snapped Percy. ‘He’s heading for trouble - gone completely power mad the last few years - you know full well his glory days are over. You’ll end up going down with him-’

‘Fudge is fighting a campaign against Dumbledore when he should be-’

‘I know where my loyalties lie, and it is not with my old teacher! It is with my employer, the leader of my government, with people who look at the facts!’

‘The facts are that Harry-’

'Yes - Harry - here we go,' snapped Percy. 'You rank the word of a child above the expert testimonies and mountains of evidence brought up by the inquiry, above your own boss - no wonder he thinks you're cracked. You’re determined to see conspiracy everywhere-’ 

‘How can you say that? You saw the aftermath of what happened, you saw him-’

‘I saw the actual dead boy, I saw Diggory!’ snapped Percy. ‘Think what his family is going through, their child’s death being used as a political quaffle-’

‘That is Fudge’s doing! That is his choice! He has chosen to make a mockery of Diggory, to disregard Harry-'

‘To question the story of a teenager,’ corrected Percy. His tone was cold and quiet, the kind of sanctimonious "I'm being the grown up here, actually" patience that Ron found unbearably aggravating. ‘The only evidence is his word, it’s not unreasonable to question a witness. In fact, it’s a perfectly standard part of due process.’

Ron’s growing anger was now twisted with a kind of lurching dread. The snide little comments in the Daily Prophet, which they had all blustered and raged and gasped in revolted disdain at over breakfasts for the past week, suddenly felt sinister. As he thought about it, Percy had never joined in… had always been silent… 

‘Percy…’ said Mum, so faintly that, as one, Ron, Ginny, Fred and George all leaned forward to listen. ‘Percy, surely you… surely you believe him? Surely you can’t believe he deserves what they’re saying about him? He’s just a child - it’s like the whole world’s forgotten that he’s just a child.’ 

'Yes, he's just a child - so why should he be the centre of everything?' Percy demanded. 'Why should he shape our family? Impact our careers?' 

'Percy… if you had seen him in the hospital wing, if you had looked into his eyes…' 

'Mr Fudge was not convinced,' said Percy, as though that settled the matter.

‘Has he asked you about Harry?’ Dad asked abruptly. Beside Ron, Ginny was shaking. ‘Casually?’ 

‘I - no more than is to be expected when you have someone famous living under your roof-’

‘What did he ask? What did you say?’ 

They heard a brief, thick silence, and a sharp exhale of air. ‘He… he’s not relevant to this discussion. This is beyond - this isn’t the issue - the only evidence is his word, as I said-’ 

‘You don’t believe him.’ Dad’s voice was blank, stunned, quiet. ‘You… you know that boy, Percy.’  

‘You don’t believe in me,’ said Percy, and Ron could hear his tears now, the slight thickness to his voice, the sniffs between words. ‘You’d rather believe in some ludicrous conspiracy theory from a teenager who thinks he sees You-Know-Who around every corner than believe that your own son might have worked hard, might be talented, might deserve his career. You’d really think so little of me.’ 

‘That’s not it. That’s not it at all,’ Dad said quietly, and Mum was crying loudly. ‘We just-’

‘I don’t care!��� said Percy harshly. ‘I don’t care what you think! Not any more! Years I’ve put up with it, years! I’m going - I’m gone - I don’t want to see either of you again - you’ve made it clear that you don’t have my interests at heart, this was your choice-’

‘What do you mean?’ Mum shrieked, and they could hear the scraping of chairs being moved aside, thundering footsteps, Mum begging-

The door was thrust open, and Percy stood for a moment in the hallway, looking up at the four of them sitting on the stairs. His expression was unreadable. Tear tracks shone from beneath his horn-rimmed glasses, and his mouth was a thin, grim line. 

‘Move,’ he told them. 

‘You’re being a right bellend,’ said Fred at once. 

‘MOVE!’ 

They did not, and Mum had come running after Percy, hanging desperately onto his arm though he tried to shake her off. ‘Come on, Perce,’ she pleaded. ‘Come and sit down, let’s all cool off and talk about this-’

‘Get out of my way,’ Percy told his siblings once more, and now Ron stood. 

‘Harry’s part of our family,’ he blurted out furiously. 

 ‘He’s not, Ron,’ Percy growled. ‘He’s your friend, that doesn’t mean everything he says is right - move out my way.’ 

‘How can you say that!’ Ginny demanded. ‘What’s wrong with you? How can you say all these horrible things?’ 

Percy started climbing the stairs, pushing Ron aside and stepping over Ginny, furiously struggling past Fred and George who immediately made their bodies as big and awkward and gangling as they could imagine, shouting colourful insults at him as he pushed past and thundered up to his room. 

‘He just needs to calm down,’ Mum was squeaking. ‘Go - go to your rooms, let me and Dad talk to him-’ 

‘No chance!’ 

‘I haven’t said my piece yet!’ 

He returned just a few moments later, carrying a bulging bag with a jumper sleeve trailing out, a little line of abandoned socks and a pair of underwear left on the stairs. ‘I’m going to stay with friends,’ he said. 

‘You haven't got any,’ goaded George. 

‘Be quiet, George!’ Mum wailed. ‘Percy-’

‘Then I’m getting my own place, I’m not staying here anymore - I’m not letting you all drag me down with you. If you’re all going to be traitors to the Ministry I’m going to make sure everyone’s well aware that I don’t belong to this family any more-’

‘You do, Percy, you do - you’ll always be my son-’ Mum’s words were barely audible beneath her crying. Percy pushed past her, and stormed towards the door. 

‘Percy!’ Ron shouted, and to his surprise, Percy turned and looked at him. 

Ron could not find the words for his contempt, could not find an insult strong enough, could not decide what to do with the rage that was coursing through him. All he could hope was that Percy could feel it in his cold, hard stare. ‘How could you?’ 

Percy said nothing, simply looked back for a moment, and then turned his back and strode swiftly to the door. Mum was running after him, and though they heard the ear-splitting crack of disapparation, she stood in the doorway shouting his name. 

Dad had not followed, and with a creak, Ginny rose beside Ron and descended the last few stairs. She peered through the doorway to the kitchen. ‘Dad?’ 

Ron heard a splutter, and then dry, heaving sobs. Ginny vanished into the kitchen. Behind him, Fred and George were muttering mutinously, swearing and cursing. 

‘What’s he playing at?’ 

‘He’s an idiot. A big-headed, pompous, ridiculous idiot, we’ve always said it, we were right.’ 

‘Who does he think he is? Does he really think that promotion is normal? Does he honestly think he’s that extraordinary?’  

‘Moron…’ 

Ron’s jaw was aching from gritting his teeth so hard, his heart was trying to break through his ribcage and go after Percy to beat him. 

‘Do you really think he meant that stuff he said to Dad?’ George said. ‘It’s just…’  

‘I bet he does, the git,’ said Fred. ‘I bet he really does pretend he’s not part of the family. He’s ashamed of us. Slimy, brown-nosing prick…’ 

‘All that stuff about poverty? So uncalled for.’

‘That’s it, really, isn’t it? He’s a greedy arsehole.’ 

‘Well, he’s certainly written himself out of the will now, hasn’t he?’ 

‘He won’t care, nothing for him to inherit anyway, apparently.’ 

That prickling, heated anger was back - his very ears were hot with it, he wouldn’t be surprised if steam had been bursting out of them. The memory of Harry, pale and shaken in the hospital wing, his hands gripping Mum’s robes as she hugged him, was lingering in his mind. ‘Did you hear all that crap about Harry? Did you hear what he was saying about him? Harry!’

‘Yeah,’ muttered George. ‘Pillock.’ 

‘Why would he say that? What the bloody hell is going on with him? He’s gone bonkers. When did he turn into such a - a -’ He still could not quite find a word strong enough.  

‘Berk?’ suggested George. 

‘Something along those lines…’  

‘Easier than admitting he’s horrible, selfish, idiot snob, I suppose,’ said Fred. 

‘Money’s always been an issue, but blaming Dad like that is just…’ 

‘Nasty,’ said Ron, simply. 

‘You can make money without completely selling out and betraying your family,’ said Fred seriously. ‘You can do it and keep your integrity.’ 

‘He’s acting like we weren’t fed enough,’ said George spitefully. ‘Percy didn’t even get that many hand-me-downs, really - Mum and Dad were doing all right before they were hit with twins, and we all know Ginny was probably unexpected.’ 

‘Was she?’ said Ron distractedly.

‘Are you joking, you were only about eight months old, who picks then to decide to have another baby?’  

‘Mum.’ 

‘Fair.’ 

‘Anyway,’ said Fred, ‘Percy’s not exactly been hard done by, not really. He’s just always been ashamed we’re not as well-heeled as his smarmy new colleagues at the Ministry.’ 

‘It’s childish,’ said Ron, who was feeling another lurch of guilt as he thought back on the previous year. ‘It’s really petty…’ 

‘We’ve all wished the family was better off now and then,’ said George fairly. ‘Who wouldn’t? But that was a seriously low blow. God, poor Dad,' he added, his voice lowering further. 'I'm glad Ginny's gone in to comfort him, I don't even know where to begin.'

‘Do you think he’s really gone for good?’ asked Ron.

‘Hope so,’ said Fred viciously. ‘Hey - one less mouth to feed now, maybe the family’ll be better off.’ 

'You know what else,' Ron said sharply, his brain whirring, 'did you hear him dodging Dad's question about what he's said about Harry? Good thing he's buggered off before we go to the Order Headquarters, isn't it? Who knows what he would have blabbered about?' 

Fred was looking at him as though in a new light. 'You know what, Ronniekins, that is a really excellent and disturbing point. You're a bit of a bright spark at times, aren't you?' 

'Brighter than Percy,' Ron muttered.

[raeynbowboi]

Why I Believe Angel and Husker Will (or Should) Be Endgame

As a shipper and a writer, I pride myself on finding the meat in shipping material, and despite how little official content for it is available, Hazbin Hotel’s juiciest pairing (by my observation, and not counting Charlie x Vaggie cuz that’s already canon) is Huskerdust or Angelhusk, the main mlm pairing in Hazbin Hotel between Angel Dust and Husker. While I’m a big fan of any mlm pairing no matter how small the serving size, this one is an absolute feast, and I want to explain why I think that is, because Angel flirts with multiple men in the first episode, namely Sir Pentious, Alastor, and Husker. So he just comes across as a relentless flirt, but I believe his destiny truly lies with the grumpy sourpuss bartender.

Given what we’ve learned about Angel Dust from the Addict music video and the prequel comic, it’s becoming clear that Angel doesn’t exactly love his situation. He pretends it’s fun and glamourous for his image, but it’s all an act. In the very last pannel for the comic, we can even see a box of dildos in his room with the words “for fun” crossed out, and the box being relabled as “work stuff”. I believe that Angel’s arc and character growth will be strengthened by having a love interest who cares about Angel as something beyond a sex object. Travis and Valentino clearly only see Angel as a piece of meat. Even Tom Trench one of the... less horrible denizens of Hell we’ve met, only recognizes Angel as a porn star, implying that he too only values Angel for his body. The creators have even verified that Angel will have a love interest in the series. So, that’s the easy part. Angel’s very clearly a gay man, and him having a love interest will help put the romance back in relationships with men for Angel. No surprises there. So why will/should it be Husker who fulfills that role as Angel’s redeeming lover?

In the simplest terms, it’s because their needs fit together perfectly. Angel needs someone to care about him romantically that also values his emotions, mind, and autonomy instead of just his body. Husk has likewise pretty much spelled out the flaw he needs to fix. He lost the ability to love years ago. Whether he just shuts out his emotions, someone broke his heart and now he’s jaded and bitter, or he freezes out his feelings so he won’t get hurt again, Husk has rejected love and his feelings. Learning to love and open up to Angel helps Husk to overcome those toxic coping mechanisms. Especially because his other vices such as drinking, are an extension of his core issue. His hang-ups with love. He drinks to forget and suppress. Overcoming his issues with his emotions will help Husk free himself of other sins in the process. Now the important issue though, does Husker even like boys? Yes, he does. Husker was confirmed by members of the crew to be pansexual, so he is capable of finding Angel attractive. Also, on a related note, Alastor is both Asexual and Aromantic, so he’s very unlikely to give Angel the core thing he needs, the tender appreciation of his romantic partner. That’s not to say Asexuals and Aromantics can’t date, it’s just less probable. And all the other males are either villains, or objectify Angel already. Which kind of leaves Husker as the best candidate for Angel’s love interest, at least currently. In fairness we know very little about Baxter, but that’s the thing. Without knowing anything about him, we can’t really weigh him against the other options.

Character design is very important, as it can provide visual cues about a character. Looking at these two, they share a lot of similarities. Starting from the top, while not visible here, there is a heart-shaped spot on the back of Angel’s head, and this heart appears as well on Husker’s forehead, palms, and wings. More importantly, I may be wrong, but I believe the only characters with hearts in their design are all connected to Angel. Only Travis and Val share this heart motif, two men Angel has had sex with, though in Valentino’s case, it's not always willingly. They share their wearing of a bow tie, but to be fair, Charlie wears one too, as does Sir Pentious, so it’s a weak connection. Color theory also matters. Firstly, they are Yin and Yang. Angel is mostly white with a few dark accents, while Husker is mostly dark gray/black with white accents. Angel’s left eye, bow tie, and shorts/skirt are also the same color (or pretty close) as Husker’s darker fur patches on his forearsms, ankles, ear tips, and whiskers. The stripes on Angel’s top also repeat in Husker’s ears. Finally, while not repeating on Angel’s design, Husker’s fur on his ankles resembles spats, a fashion trend from the early 1900s. Although this trend was pretty dead in widespread use by the 1940s, it remained popular with gangsters and mafia, so much so that it’s almost a streotype of mafia. Angel’s family was an Italian crime family involved with mafia dealings. So while it makes little sense for a man who died in the 1970s to be wearing spats, it connects him to Angel’s ballpark of time as well as drawing connections to Angel’s past and his family.

Hazbin Hotel has Instagram accounts for the characters, and using Husker (bar_cat75) Angel Dust (angie_fluffy_bootz) and Niffty (babyfeathrdustr), we can put together further developments in their relationship off-screen. Starting with one of Husker’s posts, we see Angel leaning on the bar offering him a ticket to his “peep show”. The next post shows Husker still at the bar, but now there’s drool on the counter, and we can see the back of one of Angel’s legs and the red smoke from the Addict video trailing behind him with the line “Fuck, I passed out. Did I miss something?” Next, there’s a post from Niffty of Angel leaning on the railing smoking as he does in the post-credits sequence of the Addict video. Granted, I can’t tell how much of Addict is prequel and how much is happening in real time following the pilot, but we know at least the ending is canonically after the pilot episode. Seems like Angel wanted Husker there (we don’t know if he offered tickets to anyone else) and he seems bummed that he didn’t go, with a later message from Husker (that I can only seem to find in Tumblr posts) with Husker realizing that he missed Angel’s show and feels bad about it. As “owing” Angel a favor for missing his show, Angel leaves his beloved pet pig Fat Nuggets in Husker’s care, who proceeds to eat all of Husker’s limes and cherries. Now it is very important to point out that Fat Nuggets seems to fill the dual role of “purse dog” and emotional support animal for Angel, so leaving him in Husker’s care shows a lot of trust because this animal means a LOT to him. There’s also apparently rumors that Alastor keeps trying to eat Fat Nuggets which... I haven’t found a credible source for. But if Angel is worried about Fat Nuggets’ safety, him trusting Husker to protect his pig only further demonstrates his trust in the grumpy old booze cat. Upset about all the fruit Fat Nuggets ate (because it’s not easy to get in Hell) Husker wants Angel to pay to replace what the pig ate, but Angel argues that because Husker owed him a favor it’s not his responsibility. Angel says he’ll pay him if Husker agrees to come to his next show, and they compromise to get milkshakes instead. The creators said Husker was a Tsundere, and it shows. Someone called their outing a date, and Husker was QUICK to shout that it wasn’t a date, just settling up on a favor. This almost plays out like an episode 2, turning the Addict Video into the jumping off point for a second story in the hotel. I don’t know how many full narratives will come out of the Instagram accounts like this, but it’s really cool how they’re approaching this almost like a multi-media story, and I’m curious to see if this will continue when the show starts airing on television. One last thing of note is that in Angel’s latest post, there’s pictures of Fat Nuggets, Cherri Bomb, and Husker on his bedroom wall, much to Husker’s annoyance. In all of these Instagram posts, Angel seems to now be training ALL of his attention on flirting with Husk, to the point that unless another character sweeps Angel off his feet or causes Angel to start flirting with them instead of Husker, I think this pairing is sailing quickly and unopposed toward the canon zone.

I hope I’ve provided sufficient proof to back up my wild accusations, but I sincerely believe all of the building blocks have already been assembled to create a compelling romance between these characters. The flaws they need to overcome interlock with each other perfectly, their designs draw connections between them, and their Instagram accounts weave together a narrative for a soft Episode 1.5. I believe all of this together points that these two are meant to become a romantic couple, and if they aren’t, then maybe the showrunners should consider it.

[honkhonkrichard]

Theory: Stanley Uris was Murdered.

Tagging @vvanini I hope you can follow this okay it’s very word vomity lol

Okay So TW because this post will touch on Stan's death ad the methods behind it

I propose that Stan Uris was murdered. by IT. In his home on that fateful night. I think that Stan posed the biggest threat to IT and therefore IT felt the need to take him out before the battle even started.

Allow me to explain.

Okay, so, I need to lay out some basic "rules" or "facts" before I make my case. They are as follows.

- IT planted it's roots in Derry, and finds it difficult to leave, but still can at it’s own wil.  If you read the book (I honestly don't blame you if you haven't) You'd know that once the Losers kill IT for the final time, Derry (the Physical town) is obliterated. Buildings explode, sinkholes appear, things are flooded. The town is in ruins by the time that the Losers leave the sewers. The movies don't adapt this so If this is news to you thats fine. the bottom line is that destroying IT destroys Derry, like ripping a tree out of the ground with all it's roots. Because of this, we can make the claim that while it can Leave Derry (as it does every 27 years) it probably takes tremandous amount of power to do so, which is why IT only goes when the cycle is over. Why does this matter? Well, what if IT left Derry to get to Stan? The murders had stopped for about a week when they're all in the Jade of the Orient. Plenty of time for IT to cross from Maine to Georgia. Side Note: We KNOW IT leaevs Maine to elsewhere in the world because of King's extended universe all interconnecting. it's not far off at all to make the claim that IT is the same evil that haunts, say The Shining's Overlook Hotel, which is in Colarado.

- IT is omnipresent This is also a given, IT lives everywhere, and can fuck with time and space in godlike (or maybe eldritch like) ways. in IT: Chapter Two, when Mike claims "IT Doesn't know I know what I know" he's unfortunately wrong, because we know that IT can be in A) Multiple places at once, B) can manipulate anything on the drop of a hat (See: Stan being teleported away from everyone else in Chapter One, Everything about Neibolt, etc) and C) Knows everyone's deep fears. This is further proven by IT Saying things like "Beep Beep Richie" (although this is Horribly Horribly executed in the films, ugh.) and so on and so forth. On top of all of this, We can make the claim that IT can exist outside of Time as well, given that IT is immortal. SO, what's stopping IT from Knowing Mike was going to call them all back (Espically considering that IT TOLD Mike to do this?). Even if we keep IT's omnipresence to the location that IT inhabits (in this case Derry) IT would still have knowledge of where the losers are through Mike. And if you take the Lucky Seven/Chosen Seven route (oh my god I got theories on that too) you could argue IT knows where they are inherently due to their cosmic status.

- Stan is the "most Powerful" loser So, obviously all the Loser's are powerful, espically considering they're the ones who Defeat IT (Again going on to the Lucky/Chosen Seven theory). This next claim is going to be less focused on what the 2019/2017 Movies do because they are Bad Movies and that's a whole other rant. However, in the book, Stan is (to my knowledge feel free to correct me on any of this) the only loser to Actively ward off and 'defeat' IT on his own without running away. He uses his belief in this what is Real (birds) to ward off what is "not real" (IT). The other losers do manage to take down IT in their own Right, but Stan is ultimately the one to Really get IT. This is because Stan's character revolves around Belief and Willpower. These are, in some form or another, the ways to Defeat IT. the ritual of Chud is a battle of Wills. in the book, Bill takes IT down and Eddie does the final blow. In the Remake (ugh) the losers can defeat it Technically using the belief that IT isn't as powerful as it claims because IT's "just a clown" (Ihatethatfuckingendingsomuchugh). Stan being much more skeptical than the rest of the group in his ability to understand Reality vs IT's illusions is a powermove, and IT knows that ability doesn't go away as Stan grows up, but rather he gets more powerful. Stan is the Only loser out of the 6 who left that has any sort of knowledge about IT, where the other losers have nothing. Bev has nightmares, yes, but she still forgets them. We're told in his chapter (Chapter 3, Six Phone Calls (1985), Part One: Stanley Uris Takes a Bath) that he has some hazy knowledge of his place in the Lucky Seven, and even goes so far as to MENTION it sometimes, even if he doesn't quite remember or understand any of it, his knowledge of IT and Derry is worlds more prominent than that of the rest of the losers.

(page 52 of IT:  "Stanley, nothing's wrong with your life!"  "I don't mean from inside." he said. "From inside is fine. I'm talking about outside. Something that should be over and isn't. I wake up frmo these dreams and think, 'My whole pleasent life has been nothing but the eye of some storm I don't understand.' I'm afraid. But then it just... fades. The way dreams do." OR  page 45: He had been smiling a little. Now the smile faltered, and for a moment he seemed puzzled. His eyes had darkened, as if he looked inward, consulting some interior device which ticked and whirred correctly but which, ultimately he understood no more than the average man understands the workings of the watch on his wrist. "The turtle couldn't help us," he said suddenly. he said that quite clearly.)

So, Stan has some cosmic knowledge of IT and Maturin and his role in the battle against It. What does any of this have to do with his death? Well, let me point out some other things about Stan's death that always stuck out to me. - His death chapter is narrated by his wife, Patty, rather than himself. The other chapters - almost all the other chapters - are narrated by their respective Loser (the caviot for this is Ben, but Ben is also wasted out of his damn mind so its understandable.) - Stan's personality is few and far between in the book, but we know he has a weird little sense of humour and that he's incredibly logical. I think that this logical part of him would be able to understand that Suicide is Never Ever the answer, and that it would cause FAR more problems than it would solve. (the 2019 movie tries to reexplain his death and it's crap and i hate the letters i hate the letters so much im gonna explode) The other losers try to rationalize his death by saying "He would rather Die Clean than Live Dirty (Page 506, Chapter 10, The Reunion, part 3, 'Ben Hanscom Gets Skinny') but he had already BEEN Dirty when he defeated IT the first time, and I think he would've recognized that. - upon finding him, Patty (in her narration) notes that Stan's head is bent back over the edge of the bathtub, so from his sight she would have been upside down. If Stan DID kill himself, why would he be positioned like that? It's unnatural, like someone Posed him. - the cuts on his arms are two length wise cuts. I'm no expert but.. that's suspicious. That's weird. - IT is written in blood on the wall. Why? Why would Stan right THAT of all things? You know who DOES like to paint with blood? IT.

Alright, returning to my thesis statement, Stanley Uris was murdered. Do I think Stan genuinely was going to take a bath at 7pm (which we're told is weird for him)? Yes. I think that's absolutely a thing he could have done or planned to do. Do I think he slit his wrists and commited suicide so he wouldn't go back to Derry? No. Not even remotely.

Let me paint a New Picture.

It's May 28th, 2016, or 1985. Stanley Uris gets a call from Mike Hanlon. Stan is incredibly hesitant to go to, and says he needs time to think about it. Or tht he'll try. He can feel the starts of a Panic attack, and as he's remembering the circles of Hell he went through as a child, he tries to hold himself together. He doesn't want his darling wife to see his break, so he says "I think I'll take a bath" and nothing else before going upstairs. he hides in the bathroom. He closes and locks the door, because, well, he's panicking. Locking doors is one of The Small things he does. Is it usually the bathroom door? no, but still (OCD is a bitch, and even with medication, but this is a special case). He looks in the mirror and tries to breathe. This is fine. He can do this. They killed IT once before and they can do it again. He thinks about his younger self, the promises made, and how he could explain all of this Patty in time to catch a flight to Maine. It's terrifying, but if his friends are going to bite the dust, he wants to be there with them, wedding vows be Damned. Then he looks at his reflection again. A younger, rotted version of himself stares back at him. IT crawls through the mirror. Stan freaks out, obviously. This isn't real. This Can't be real. But IT utilizes this notion against him. It digs it's claws into his arms, and forces him to bleed out in the bathtub. IT then sets the scene nicely. Razorblades on the counter, a bloody signature on the wall, a horrible posture of Stan's neck. So on and So forth. and then IT returns to Derry. IT's a little weak, yeah, but Stan is dead. That's what matters. the Lucky Seven has now Officially broken, and the balance shifts in favour of the clown.

So that's the theory. feel free to correct me on anything or engage I have plenty of theories on this story and I like discussing this stuff :).

[a-dusty-emerald]

Till it sinks in: Draco x Reader / Hurt-Comfort, Fluff Fic

A hurt-comfort fluff fic, with a slytherin Y/n being the girlfriend of the softie-who-hates-to-be-called-softie-so-he-bitches-all-day Draco Lucius Malfoy.

Where Umbridge uses her quill on you.

_____________________________________________

Dolores Umbridge, maybe the most hated teacher to set foot at Hogwarts, had a special dislike against anyone who disobeyed. And while that may be all teachers, not all teachers dismissed sobbing students from their detention. Every single student that got detention with Umbridge looked broken afterwards, but no one knew what she said to them; it was a mystery.

Professor McGonagall, for instance, made sure the students that misbehaved researched a wide topic for a few hours during the week, with the intimidating presence of her self. Professor Snape, on the other hand, locked students in the Potions classroom and let them out after the successfull brewing of a potion of his liking. Hence, it must be something similar.

Y/n strolled into class, her curls bouncing around the embroided slytherin crest of her robe. Defence against the dark arts was her worst subject, she only thought it was interesting when Professor Lupin taught it, and had done surprisingly well. Then, it was a hands-on, useful and fascinating module, while now, Umbridge followed the Ministry's policy to teach the students in a "risk free" way, by only reading through the theory. Not only were the lessons incredibly boring, the whole book was utterly useless.

"As if Voldemort will ask you the theory of Merlin's rule of categorisation of spells when he Avada-Kedavra's your ass", Y/n had scoffed when she saw the chapters. Draco had laughed, but told her that his father had owled him that Umbridge was a family ally, and hence he could not be out of line in her class.

"When did you become such a nerd?"

"Oh shut it Y/n", Y/n recalled.

She had also implemented some stupid rules, like "no touching between boys and girls, and a six feet distance at all times", and reduced the hours that students could go out of their dorms. While Dumbledore wanted the students to be at their dorms by 10pm, Umbridge thought that 6pm was acceptable.

As if.

Y/n entered the class, the only class she did not sit with Draco. Apparently, boys and girls could also not sit with one another, since they would eventually touch. And in a doomed world controlled by Umbridge, that was a sin.

Draco spotted his girlfriend entering the room, wearing a bored look on her face. He was not excited about DADA either. His parents might have told him that Umbridge was the best thing that could happen in this school, but he was not blind or stupid. The stuff being taught were useless and her teaching method was more boring than 5 hours of Divination with no breaks in his eyes. At least then, he could laugh at Trelawney. Now he just was supposed to stay silent and listen Umbridge reading the most basic book ever again and again.

He realised he got lost in his thoughts and was staring at Y/n longer than intended. She seemed bored as hell, but her eyes always intimidated him - yet, he would never admit out loud. Even the plainest of her looks had such passion beneath it, her deep dark orbs had a fire in them, surrounded by thick eyelashes, making her look coy and mischevious even when she was not planning to.

Y/n noticed him looking and smirked back at him.

"Stop staring, people might think that you like me" she mouthed silently to him. He grinned and shook his head. 'She is something else', he thought.

An unpleasantly familiar trotting of heels approached the creaking floor at the centre of the classroom, making students focus on the short, evil woman that was tormenting the school; Umbridge.

"Hello, my dear students" she smiled in a sickly manner. "Today we are learning about the theory of protection spells."

Y/n groaned, thinking other students would join her, however, it was this uncomfortable and awkward moment that everyone had decided to stay deadly silent, making her disapproving groan loud and clear to be heard.

"Is there an issue, miss Y/l/n?" Umbridge smiled in the evilest way she could.

"No, no, of course not. I always wanted to listen about the theory of protection spells." Y/n smiled in the fakest way possible.

"Is that irony I am sensing, Y/l/n?" Umbridge had a more serious look now, her smile not decieving anyone.

"Nope." She said, emphasising the "p" sound in her lips. Out of the corner of her eye, she quickly glanced to Draco, who had a warning glare. "Don't aggravate her!" He mouthed. Y/n rolled her eyes, and unfortunately for her, Umbridge saw that, taking it as it was directed at her.

She scrunched up her nose and stomped her heel lightly on the floor, when she exclaimed: "Detention after class, miss y/l/n! That attitude of yours is no match for a young witch!"

Draco did not know why everyone was saying Umbridge's detention was horrible, he had heard she only requested some lines. Even so, her detention had gained a horrible reputation, and he didn't like it one bit that his girlfriend would be the one going there.

Even so, he was angry at her, he had warned her so many times. She was such a brat every time she spoke to Umbridge, when he had told her that every student that was leaving her detention was crying.

The DADA lesson had finished, when Y/n saw Draco stomping towards her, stopping around the 6 feet limit, keeping his distance.

"Why do you never listen?!" His angry hissing voice aggravated her even more.

"I rolled my freaking eyes, Draco, chill."

"You were sarcastic. You know you were. Are you happy now?" His glare was piercing her soul.

"I am not, actually. I would prefer no stupid rules, but I guess my boyfriend is too much of a wuss to think for himself and see how ridiculous Umbridge is."

"She just wants order. Besides, its temporary!" He half whispered, half yelled.

"Sure. Tell that to yourself to feel better, darling." Now she was mad at him. "Now excuse me, I have a detention to go to." She closed the gap between them - breaking the rule- just to bump on his shoulder angrily, and stomped past him, going to detention.

"Fine! I don't give a fuck, then!" She heard her boyfriend's voice. She knew he didn't mean it at all, but she silently prayed he changed his mind after her detention, he had an hour to think by himself after all. She was hoping for an apology.

Y/n lightly knocked on her door, listening to Draco's advice for once. She should be polite, calm and collected no matter what she said to her. She couldn't risk an expulsion. Umbridge's sickly laugh was heard. "Come in, y/l/n."

Y/n opened the door, fighting back her urge to laugh or roll her eyes. Her least favourite colour, fuchsia pink, was plastered everywhere, cats trapped on the walls, and a heavy, sickly, sugary aroma filled her nostrils, she did her best to keep her pokerface.

"Sit", the teacher ordered. "You will do some lines today, Y/n."

Relief passed through her. That wasn't that bad. She grabbed a piece of paper and moved to grab her quill, when the fuchsia toad in front of her stopped her. "Oh no, dear. I'm afraid you wont need that." She smiled, and handed her a large black feathered quill from her own collection. "Use this, please. It is one of my favourites."

Y/n grabbed the quill and moved again to reach for her ink. "Oh, silly me, I forgot." She heard the professor giggle. "You won't need any ink, dear."

She looked at Umbridge confused, her tamed eyebrows furrowing to her words. Still, she went with it. She grabbed the quill and before she started, Umbridge directed her "you shall write the line: I must not be arrogant." Y/n resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"How many times, Professor?" She said.

"Hm... let's just say... till it sinks in." Umbridge giggled once again, sipping her tea.

Y/n scoffed silently and started writing the lines, red ink magically appearing on paper. Her left hand was uncomfortable the whole time, but she ignored it. As soon as she finished the first line, though, the discomfort became a burning sensation, and hurt so much, like someone was creating small cuts in her skin. She looked at her hand to see what was going on, only to see the line she wrote engraved in her hand.

'You evil bitch' Y/n thought.

Every time she would rewrite the sentence, it was like the invisible knife digged deeper and deeper in her skin, twisting at each twist of the quill. She looked at Umbridge with teary eyes, a silent plea to stop this torture. Blood was seeping out of her wound uncontrollably now, staining her robe. Umbridge just glanced at her and said "one more page."

Through silent tears, a wrecked bloodied hand, trembles and gritted teeth, she finished her torture without making a sound. She excused her self, said goodbye to the professor, and closed the heavy door behind her, exhaling with a trembled sob escaping her lips. An exhale that she was holding for an hour.

She contained her tears and hid her hand from plain sight. She did not want to worry anyone, and she sprinted with all the energy she could muster to the dungeons. She just wanted to wash it off, wrap it in a clean cloth, and have a good cry.

As she was approaching the dungeons, it dawned on her: she could run up to Draco there. What should she do? On one hand, the thought of making him feel bad enticed her, she was still mad about his behaviour. On the other hand, she knew he meant no harm, and that he would make her start a legal war with Umbridge. She really didn't want to do anything right now, as much as she hated her guts.

She hid her hand better, wiped her eyes, took a few deep breaths and prayed that her boyfriend was not in the common room, as she opened the door.

Unbeknownst to her, Draco was waiting restlessly at the common room all this time. He didn't like the fact they fought before, he hated not being on good terms with Y/n. He didn't think he was entirely on the wrong though. 'Maybe if she listened to me once in a whi-'

His thoughts came to a halt when he saw a trembling Y/n enter the common room. Her eyes were red and glassy, and she was crouched in a weird position. He instantly forgot everything he was thinking of and sprinted towards her. When her eyes fell on him, she inhaled sharply, sttaightening her posture. He was terribly worried and she could feel it.

"Darling?" His soft voice was music to her ears.

Her eyes avoided his, refilling with tears just from his worried voice.

"I-I need to go to my room." She said with a lowered gaze.

"Tell me what's wrong please-"

"I thought you didn't give a fuck." Her voice was low when she said it, her teary eyes finally meeting his. She did not mean to snap at him, but everything was too much.

He finally locked eyes with her now, the emotion he saw in her overtaking him. He pursed his lips and looked down.

"I'm sorry. You know - baby you know thats not true. I want to know what happened. What did she say to you that made you cry? You don't cry easily, I know that. If you want I'll report her!" He was frantically searching for her gaze again, his grey irises full of concern.

"She said nothing bad to me. She instructed me through my lines." She avoided his gaze once again.

He lowered his gaze as well, and broke the -for once- uncomfortable silence, his voice slightly broken.

"Do you not trust me?"

His words echoed in her head. She did. She did with her life. She could not stay mad at him, no matter her anger. "I do. I'm sorry, I'm a-a bit of a m-mess, i'll tell you, j-just give me a few m-minutes..."

His hand grabbed hers to pull her into an embrace, to hold her close, to calm her. As soon as his hand grasped her own, though, a strong wave of stinging pain shot through her, a hissing sound escaping her lips as she yanked her hand away. She was holding it close to her heart, a few hot tears escaping her eyes. There was no escape now.

Draco looked at her wide eyed, a blank expression of confusion mixed with worry resting on his features. "What-"

He looked down on his hand. Blood.

He inhaled sharply. Blood? His heart was pounding in his chest now, his fury for Umbridge boiling. What exactly happened in her detentions?

"Darling." He spoke. His voice was low and steady, and Y/n could swear she could hear her own heartbeat. "Your hand. Please." He extended his own to signal her to give her hers. Slowly, she put her bloodied palm on his own.

"Did she do this?", he hissed angrily. Y/n nodded but winced at his tone, not ready for facing an angry Draco. He saw that, and his features calmed down.

He grasped her shoulders carefully, gently pulling her in a hug, lightly kissing her forehead and letting his lips linger there. He tilted her chin up, pressing a quick peck on her lips.

"Im not mad at you". He said steadily, to show he meant every word. "I'll kill her, honestly" he mumbled, as his eyes examined the wounds.

"I must not be arrogant?!?"

He felt his anger rise again, as he managed to read the cuts that were filled with blood.

"She h-had a black quill. I would write on paper and it would transfer the letters in m-my hand. Must be c-cursed." Y/n said between small sobs.

His one arm cradled her head and she felt him moving the other one on her waist, urging her to move. "Come on, lets get you cleaned up. I'll send a letter to my father. She will be out of her position tomorrow."

Y/n's eyes widened "No n-no I-"

Draco didn't let her finish "Y/n, I love you but please shut up."

For the first time in a while, Y/n giggled, music to Draco's ears.

He took his time being extra gentle on her wound, making sure it is clean, before putting a few healing spells on it, muttering apologies whenever Y/n would wince.

"Tomorrow your hand will be good as new. Trust me."

"I trust you Draco. Thank you."

His eyes looked up from her wound, and Y/n was sure she could melt. He had the softest gaze ever. They fell asleep in each other's embrace, soft kisses taking away the pain.

The next morning, Y/n could hardly stiffle a laugh at the annoucement of Umbridge being suddently fired. She turned at her boyfriend, who looked smug as ever.

His eyes glimmered and his eyebrows wiggled with smugness, as he said:

"She should not have been that arrogant. Guess karma is a bitch." He shrugged.

That Malfoy boy was your everything and you knew it.

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