#you are exactly as responsible for the effects of humanity on the world as anyone else around you

[a-dragons-journal]

Forgive me for showing my fangs a little here instead of being as delicate in phrasing as I usually am, but. Periodic reminder:

sweeping "humans suck, humans are evil, the world would be better off if humans disappeared/had never evolved" statements may be cathartic but they're thoroughly inaccurate (ie, the vast majority of uniquely bad effects of humans on the planet are a) extremely recent, like within the last couple centuries, b) the fault of an extremely small minority not the entire fucking species, and c) fixable)

hating being human isn't the same as hating humans. I get species dysphoria is a thing. I get that it's often hard to fit in as a nonhuman in human social groups and that can make it easy to slip into hating everyone around you. Please fight that instinct

villainizing people for traits they didn't choose, such as the species they were born into, is neither cute nor fair. No species is inherently good or bad

misanthropy is cathartic in short term vents or whatever but genuinely embracing it wholesale as a philosophy is liable to lead to you hating humans, human society, and being in a human body more and more over time and thus make your life worse by constantly reinforcing a thought pattern that makes you angry and upset

you are not immune to being part of human society (translation: just because you're nonhuman doesn't mean you're not included in statements about the effects of the human population on the world, ie "humans are killing the planet")

related, you are not better than humans for being nonhuman. looking at my fellow dragons in particular on this one. I get it, draconic pride is a thing, dragon brain probably says you're the supreme being and all else is beneath you especially anyone who annoys you. Mine does too. Please recognize that is an instinct you are supposed to FIGHT, not something that's TRUE AND THAT YOU SHOULD EMBRACE. Good fucking gods.

some nonhumans are also human (it's me, I'm some nonhumans) and you are making sweeping "humans suck, why would I ever want to be human, all humans do is kill the planet" statements in the presence of people included in those statements, which is insanely rude (and no, you don't get to "but you're different because you're nonhuman" me! you do not get to decide to ignore half of who I am because you don't like it, you do not get to decide I'm not "really" human, and also see the previous bullet point). this goes doubly if you're in a space like a DIscord server where people have expressly stated they're not comfortable being tacitly included in statements like that

saying "but I don't REALLY mean all humans, I just mean the specific ones at fault!" after the fact does not actually change anything if every other thing you say is constantly "humans humans humans" and not the group you're actually referring to, or at the very least doesn't change how it reads to everyone around you

[messydiabolical]

i’d once read a Mass Effect take that has been stewing in my melon ever since, about Wrex and him demanding a cure for the genophage during the war in 3. (I think it was on twitter but I can’t remember for sure. Just the idea of it stuck with me.) The general sentiment was that this was a dick move on his part, that there were “bigger problems” and this wasn’t the time and it was cruel and manipulative of him to put Shepard in that position. He should have helped out first and Shepard would have helped him back once the war was over. A lot of people chimed in agreeing, saying how they stopped liking Wrex after that. It bothered me for a bunch of reasons I didn’t feel I could adequately articulate, but i’m gonna try now. Prepare for my meandering thought style! The governing bodies of the Mass Effect Galaxy have repeatedly proven that they believe themselves superior to other species and know what’s best for everyone. They don’t let all species have a say in the council, always look out for their own species’ interests in so much as it pertains to keeping things as they are, and will happily go along with literal genocide to aid this. They approve of secret police and biological warfare espionage tactics. They weaponise bureaucracy to hide their cruelty behind ‘oh red tape has us bound, sorry uwu’.   I’m going to try to remain pertinent to the Wrex subject but as one great example of these governing bodies ways of dealing with percieved outsiders: The first contact war is a great example of how ludicrous and fascist things are.. ‘It’s ilegal to use this thing so we’re going to kill you for it’ without so much as a heads up. How were humans supposed to know that, exactly? The governing bodies of this place do not care about anyone outside their own self interests. Fall out of line and they will work to end you. Until you prove you might be useful or of interest to them in some way (or a threat). And then of course we later learn the asari were breaking these laws themselves, hoarding this tech to stay superior. Classic. Anyway, back to Wrex. Wrex knows this. Wrex has seen how the krogan are regarded and treated, the dangerous monolith species, outsiders who can never be let in, never forgiven, never given a chance to grow or change. For a long arse time. “But the krogan were getting out of control and also committing genocide, the genophage was a last ditch resort to stop a galactic war” … And it’s been hundreds of years since then. That 'last ditch resort' wasn’t used as a stop gap, a reset to even out the playing field so that new negotiations and relations could be developed. It was used to end the krogan, and has been actively maintained to continue that, ever since. Do you really, truly believe that if Wrex petitioned the council/ world leaders to negotiate reversing the genophage, they’d even let him have an audience with them? And if they did, do you really think these people, with their history and all the shit they pull, would listen and be reasonable? I can already hear the responses, that weaponised bureaucracy (“you raise an interesting point Mr Wrex but unfortunately we are recovering from a war don’t you know, please come back in 300 years for review, we are very interested in discussing this further then!”) Wrex is old, wise and knows exactly what is up. The only way the governing bodies of power were ever going to have a listen, was if he had something they needed. The war with the reapers provided that. And even then, he knew that they wouldn’t listen outright; having Shepard’s voice was a way to get the foot in the door. It makes my heart hurt to think about that honestly; how dehumanising (dekroganising?) it must feel to be the ruler of your people and know that you have to rely on your alien friend to even get someone to listen to you, when what you want to say is an extremely reasonable “hey committing genoicde against my people sucks, stop that now”. Anyway, Wrex was right, this was his one chance to save his people and he took it. Good for him.

[paradiseinaverno]

hi! I love your works sm do you accept requests? if yes, then can I request a morpheus x y/n where the reader gets jealous over dream's past lovers?

my eclipsed sun

summary; a chance encounter with your lover’s sibling leaves you full of doubt. you are utterly broken down; and morpheus knows exactly why.

morpheus x gn!reader, perhaps overtly angsty, maybe influenced by taylor swift, no tw’s needed (i think?), established relationship, human reader, tw desire and dream sibling beef as always

masterlist

It wasn’t often that Morpheus willingly departed his beloved realm.

After the incident with Burgess, he preferred to spend time within the Dreaming, perhaps as compensation. Years of his absence had left his world a crumbling carcass of what it once was. Yet, he was not simply a man who could tend to his rose garden whenever he willed. He was an Endless; beyond a deity, beyond a mere mortal. And, as said, great power requires great responsibility. Being Lord of Dreams meant keeping balance with the rest of his siblings.

When Desire called, for reasons unbeknownst to even Morpheus, it was as if someone had cast a dark cloud around the Dreaming. The realm suffered little, but its ruler seemed to be suffering with a torment not even Lucienne could diagnose. Morpheus became distant for the weeks leading up to the anticipated meeting with his sibling; it was as if nightmares had finally infiltrated his own mind.

It was you who had convinced him to attend to his sibling, for you knew far too much of the rift that develops between them. Your own brother had been effectively silent, and each day that passed left you wondering what could have been. To your surprise, he had requested you accompany him.

It wasn’t that you doubted Morpheus held affection for you. It was that he was never expressive with it. There were times, of course there were times, where you were sure of it. When you felt the tenderness in his voice, the imperceptible glimmer in his eye when he gazed at you.

And even now, as you both sit in Desire’s glossy abode, you’re only aware of the firm, yet barely noticeable, grip he has on your hand. You’re at a table, or perhaps what could be describe as one. The entirety of this realm seems abstract to the untrained eye of mortals. No doubt there is a system to be seen here; but it was not one your mind could comprehend.

The air is thick. There’s an uneasiness that has settled in your bones since you arrived, and you aren’t quite sure if it’s you, or the air around Desire. Whatever it is, the entity is entirely comfortable, preferring to practically float around the room. You and your lover, on the other hand, are perhaps the only firm things in here, cemented to the spot you were directed to upon arrival. It’s a long time before anyone speaks.

“Brother, dearest. Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

You’re startled. Desire’s voice is pure velvet, draping itself around you. Whatever discomfort you felt previously has been replaced with what you can only describe as pure honey; melting, manipulating itself into your bones, soothing your blood and nerves with sticky-sweet comfort. You don’t even have to look to your left to know that Morpheus’ jaw has tightened; the briefest of squeezes on your hand tells you enough. Sometimes it surprises you, how well you know him. It is as if your entire being was made for him, only.

He introduces you to each other. You can’t miss the way Morpheus speaks your name, tumbling from his tongue, birthing you into a new life with a mere mention. Perhaps it’s because you’re in the presence of literal desire personified, or because you feel so deeply, but your heart swells with unspoken fondness. Attachment, maybe. Whatever it is, whatever the reason, you can tell Desire has picked up on it, the way the Endless’ face grows ripe with joy, and perhaps a flicker of something else. You don’t realise the motive until later, when your lover has been called to attend an important matter. You stay in the vinyl-red room.

Far too occupied with the interior, you almost don’t notice the silky presence beside you until a a soft hand reaches for your face. Caught off guard, you reel back slightly, only to calm as you gaze into Desire’s golden eyes.

“It’s been a while since I’ve met any of my brother’s lovers,” Desire purrs, one hand cupping your face. The uneasy feeling has returned to you; but coupled with the honeyed aura of the entity in front of you, nausea begins to brew in the pit of your stomach.

“Lovers?” You question. It’s a futile one. Of course he’s had other lovers; haven’t you? But he’s never spoken of them. Never divulged any information beyond what he feels for you. Suddenly, you feel incredibly small.

There’s an almost-grin on Desire’s face. Almost, because the only other discernible emotion you can see is pity. You’d been warned, by Morpheus, of his sibling’s shifty nature. But this, to you, seems genuine, cemented only by the comforting hand that Desire rests on your own. “Oh, he’s had many lovers, darling. You’re not the first. You won’t be the last.”

It’s said so matter-of-factly. There will be others. There will be other loves, as the rides will turn, as night will turn to day, and then night again.

You’ve never been a person who cries. Not in front of people, at least. But you can feel the lump in your throat, something that never settles even as you leave this place. Even Desire’s eyes are burned into your mind; golden, pooling with pity, perhaps not out of genuine empathy but born from a regard for your naive humanity.

Oh, you hate it.

-

You hate that you still dwell on these words for weeks after. Morpheus returns to some semblance of visible joy; you, though, stay stuck in a dark rut. Everything you do is done half-heartedly. Each book you put back in Lucienne’s presence juts out from the bookshelf. Matthew notices your despondency as he informs you of the waking world. You lay in bed most days, or look out of the balcony. Despondent.

Distant.

The only thing you find some enthusiasm in is Morpheus past. Whenever you aren’t caught up in your own thoughts, you’re utterly obsessed with finding out his. Desire had mentioned a few names, before you left; and those names now become your purpose. Calliope, Nada…countless others, sprawled across pages, burned into your memory. Queens and goddesses, lords and beings not even comprehensible by human logic.

You aren’t sure entirely what it is that has defiled your thoughts. Have Desire’s doubts truly permeated your mind? Oh he’s had many lovers, darling. You’re not the first. You won’t be the last.

It’s true, you realise, sorrowfully. Mankind only lives for so long; lifespans so short, in fact, that they seemed only a blink of an eye to the Endless. Bitterly, you smile. Love, indeed. What love was it for him, to last a few years?

You aren’t clueless. Morpheus is a deity; no, more than that. He is beyond fathomable concepts, and ideas, and beliefs. He is more than a mere man. Here is a being who has loved muses, and goddesses, and inhumans before you. And there you are, a mortal. Insignificant, unworthy…irrelevant.

That is exactly how he finds you, later; on the balcony of your shared room, hands planted on either side of you, overlooking the realm. You can feel his presence, of course you can. You’d know him anywhere. You’d thank every atom that shared his presence, if you could. But you don’t turn around. You can’t bear to.

It’s almost as if he can hear the torment inside your mind. Tenderly, he reaches a hand out to you, fingers curled to brush your face. But you cannot bear to be around him. You cannot bear to feel this touch. There is more than just insecurity inside you; your insides are burning with jealousy. You simply cannot bear the thought of any other soul, living or dead, touching him the way you have, knowing his lips like you do, feeling him as you do. Your jaw tightens.

“I’d like to be alone right now, Lord,” the words tumble from your lips. But there is a cool air in your tone that surprises even you; and your lover, too.

He doesn’t speak yet, only comes to your side. His eyes are burning a hole into the side of your face, you can feel it, but you do not relent. Your gaze is planted firmly on whatever you can see in front of you.

“Why?” He asks. It almost sounds like a plea. What would he plead from you, you think? What would he require? What could you give him?

Silence settles around you, cooling into a thick wall. He makes another effort to reach for you, but once again, you back away. Morpheus settles for resting his hand next to yours. He isn’t touching you, but you can feel every movement he makes; he’s that close. Every atom in your body begs to relent, to have mercy on yourself, to touch him. And perhaps it is your pride, that fatal flaw of humanity, that forbids you from it. The other fatal flaw of humans; forgetfulness. He may be King of Dreams and Nightmares - but where do they dwell? The subconscious. And, because you are human, because you forget, he finds himself slipping into your mind. He never intended to. But there has always been something about you that has drawn him in. From your first meeting, you had the Dream Lord utterly under your spell. It was your complete authenticity, your vitality, that drew him to you. You were so unlike any other human, no, being, that he had met; so full of human joy and kindness, but there was an air about you that seemed almost brilliantly…alien.

The Lord of Revelations has an unpleasant one when he enters your mind. He is filled with despair, instantly. Had you truly been so blind to his affections for you? Or perhaps had he been blind to your sorrow? All these names, all his past lovers. He had kept them quiet, perhaps out of his own pride too, but because they were in the past. You were his present, and he hoped, his future. Morpheus had learned not to dwell on the past in these past years trapped. But avoidance is not acceptance. Full of regret, he turns to you. You weren’t like the others. He loved them, as he did you, that was undeniable. But you were his present, and he could not watch you slip through his fingers too.

“My love,” he begins. There’s a fresh softness in his voice that you’ve never heard before. It’s like a summer breeze. It’s unbearable.

You turn to him, gaze staying on the horizon.

“Look at me, my love,” he pleads, the smallest of wavers in his voice. Your eyes swell with tears; reluctantly, you turn to him.

You understand why people find inspiration in dreams clearly now. In the light of this dying sun, he looks utterly, tragically, beautiful. The setting rays gleam on his pale skin, shining like soft dawn snow. He looks perfectly composed, but the faintest red rim around his eyes tells you everything. He’s sorry.

“Morpheus,” your voice comes out as a whisper. But the mere mention of his name from your lips gives him hope.

He speaks. “I have been neglectful of you. I have forgotten that you are mortal. My sentiments are perhaps too cold.”

Your heart sinks. “That…That’s the problem.”

He furrows his brows. You continue, the pressure building in your chest, threatening to burst.

“I am mortal. I’m not like you. I’m not a god, a royal, I’m…I am painfully human, Morpheus. Don’t you understand? It’s never been just me. It’ll never be just me. Do you know how painful it is to love someone who has loved so many times? To know that one day I’ll die, and you’ll find someone else? That I’ll never be the la-”

The words stay unfinished, because in an instant, Morpheus pulls you close to him. You can feel the faint beating of your own heart. The sound of your soft sobs become more prominent as the tears flow freely, into his chest. A part of you screams that you shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be crying into his chest; but the stronger part of you wonders what you should be doing anyway. And despite it all, despite the despair, it feels so good to sob into him, to be held in his arms, to feel his hands cradling your head.

“Your humanity never bothered me, nor was it a factor.”

His quiet voice fills itself into your being, sapping away your sadness every moment he speaks.

“Do you really think me so vain, that I would only love a status? Y/n,” he breaks away to look at you, hands cupping your face, “Not for a moment have I compared you to anyone in my past. They are my past. You are now. You are what keeps me here.”

You swallow thickly. He continues. “I would never forget you, even in death. Do you think so little of the love I bear you, that I would simply carry on? You destroy me with each tear. You are my death.”

“Don’t say that,” you mutter weakly, your hands desperately trying to find his own. Any cold air you had for him is gone. You just want your lover.

“It is true. You are my undoing. I…For once, I fear I may not have the words to describe the enormity of what I truly feel for you.”

It’s enough. His words are enough. The faintest rays of sun smoke through, dimly illuminating the balcony the two of you stand on. And it’s enough. The conviction with which Morpheus speaks is telling. You lean into him, pressing into his neck, arms encircling each other.

“I’m sorry, too,” you whisper into his ear. You feel him shake his head.

“There is nothing to apologise for.”

There’s a soft silence between the two of you, perhaps making up for weeks worth of distance. You’ve never thought much of comfortable silence, until now; and you’re grateful that the two of you can just enjoy each other’s presence, because words might fail you.

“What brought this on you?” Your lover wonders aloud. His voice vibrates in his throat, and you smile softly at its depth. How you missed this voice.

“It’s nothing. Just something Desire said when we were leaving. I’m sure your sibling didn’t mean it like that…I think I just have a tendency to let these things get into my head…”

You continue talking, but you’re unaware of the way Morpheus’ jaw tightens as you do. Desire…so once again, his siblings were interfering in his affairs.

“Me and mine…” He trails off, and you tilt your eyes up to look at him, cocking your head to the side.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing, my love.”

He leans down to press a soft kiss on your mouth. It’s more than tender, this time. His kiss is soft, yes, but there’s a desperation behind it, something you can perhaps describe as purely restrained rage. When you pull away, there’s a fire in his eyes that both terrifies and excites you.

You’ve missed him. You’ve missed this. Hungrily, you pull his head down for another kiss, fingers twisting themselves between his dark hair.

What you can’t miss, however, is the honeyed spark of desire that fills the air as he carries you to the bed.

——

end.

——

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@stygianoir @liv-n @whovian378 @ultimatreality

a/n ; for some reason i can never quite be satisfied with this, no matter how many times i rewrite. please let me know your thoughts! i am so grateful for every piece of feedback i receive!

[nartml]

Toothless (and generally most dragons) lost all his personality in thw.

Gone was the loyal, protective, intelligent, curious, silly, expressive, understanding, and sassy/snarky dragon we adored more and more through each new installment in the franchise.

Who is this puppy in thw and what did he do to Toothless?

Look me in the eye and tell me that if anyone, dragon or not, was to pluck Hiccup off his back and send him into the ocean to die, they wouldn't get a minimum of two blasts in the face.

Yes, Toothless is playful and silly and adorable, but only around the people/dragons he trusts, and especially around Hiccup specifically.

Otherwise, his guard is up, he is wary, and he himself has to evaluate whether or not someone is safe to be around.

"Hey, I guess Dean dumbed him down because he wanted to show the effects of domestication—"

Woah there, big words.

Domestication? The definition of domestication is "the process of taming an animal and keeping it as a pet or on a farm".

That is not what's happening on Berk.

Dragons were never pets to humans. (If anything, humans were their pets.)

They stood by the Vikings' sides out of their own volition, and were free to come and go as they pleased.

We see this clearly in GoTNF.

They wouldn't let a human they didn't trust so much as touch them, let alone allow them anywhere near their backs.

They are the ones that choose their riders, or if they even want one, not the other way around.

And they weren't exactly "tamed" either. Or rather, nobody tried to alter their nature and innate instincts.

In RoB, we clearly see that Vikings are the ones who adjust, who adapt accordingly, because dragons are gonna do what dragons do.

And those instincts of theirs were honed. They weren't tamed, they were trained.

The notion that wild dragons are more powerful because they're wild makes no sense to me, because while wild dragons have raw power and raw instinct, trained dragons arguably have more than that.

They learn to work with other dragons, and they're able to pull off some incredible moves, because their bodies are, well, consistently trained.

They go on dangerous missions on the regular, for fuck's sake. During which, they also have to think. The dragons aren't told what to do, nor are they steered by their riders constantly (and when they are, the dragons trust them to do so)

They can take the reins as well (and when they do, the riders trust them to do so), but most of the time, they both move together in sync, understanding what, and how it, needs to be done.

In what world would such a lifestyle weaken them, or threaten to erase their aforementioned instincts?

I don't get Dean's point.

And Hiccup? What's up with the poor decision making?

Because I know damn well Hiccup wouldn't let dragons take over Berk to the point where, within the first ten minutes of the movie , half of it collapses. An event which apparently everyone is used to, because nobody worries about it.

He put an ocean between Garff and a couple of dragons because of how incompatible they were, in terms of needs and way of life.

He relocated dragons constantly, so as not to overcrowd and/or to protect the Edge.

Even when he was, what, 15 in RoB/DoB, he was mindful of the way he handled situations, to ensure Berk and the Vikings wouldn't be overwhelmed with dragons.

He understood that it's impossible for thousands of dragons to cohabitate with humans, and with each other, peacefully and without chaos.

Not to mention, he respected dragon culture and understood that some spaces were not made for the human eye. He made such a big deal about revering Vanaheim, and you expect me to believe he'd be okay with just exposing a place called The Hidden World, a delicate draconic paradise?

And wow, way to go, let's uproot the ENTIRE village, and go searching for this place that we don't even know for sure exists? Yes, very responsible.

And why not just make a life-changing call without consulting anyone, or thinking it through, based on what you alone think is best, while you're at it? Sounds like a great idea.

It's not like in previous installments he always made sure to have a team huddle to discuss (or at least inform the group of) their next move, even in the tightest of spots and with the littlest time; no, of course not.

His leadership abilities, his tactical and strategic thinking, his caution, his conviction and determination? Gone. Erased.

Who is this guy in thw and what did he do to Hiccup?

And as for Toothless and Hiccup's dynamic in this movie, something that Astrid said bugs me to an unfathomable degree.

"You gave him his freedom back, what did you expect?"

Woah there, big talk.

This paints a horribly ugly picture. It makes Toothless seem like he'd been held captive by Hiccup, that if he could've flown on his own, he would never have stuck around this long.

Which, much like the rest of this movie, is a load of horseshit.

Toothless is just as free, if not free-er than, as the rest of the dragons. Because while all dragons love and trust their riders, and vice versa, nobody has a connection quite like Toothless and Hiccup (save for perhaps Valka and Cloudjumper).

Toothless could've been flying on his own for a long, long time now. But he didn't want it. He was vehemently opposed to the idea.

Why? Because to him, flying was no longer worth it if Hiccup wasn't right there with him. Because Hiccup took the loneliness out of flying. Because Toothless wanted nothing more than to be by Hiccup's side. Hiccup was the one that made flying worth it.

A major theme of this movie is learning to fly on your own. Toothless had to learn how to fly without Hiccup, and Hiccup had to learn how to fly without Toothless (I mean, personally I'd rather them remaining inseparable soulmates that are mildly codependent. I recognize it's not necessarily the healthiest dynamic, but fuck if I care)

Toothless did this through meeting his mate, and falling in love (no matter how horribly written and designed she is, and no matter how I personally would've preferred for the Hicctooth bromance to remain undisturbed).

He met a creature that he wanted to follow and be alone with, a creature that made flying alone, with nobody on his back, worth it.

And more importantly, Hiccup had to realize that he's not who he is because he has Toothless, and subsequently the dragons. It's the opposite.

This is growth, and the realization that they don't need each other is important.

But why the fuck does that mean they have to say goodbye?

I don't need most of the people in my life. That doesn't mean I don't want them here.

The point was that Hiccup doesn't need Toothless in order to be someone.

Not that he didn't need Toothless, period.

(Even if the point was simply that he didn't need Toothless, which I could concede to, that again doesn't mean that Toothless had to leave, and take the entire dragon population with him.

To me, that sends a message of "if you don't need them, then they gotta go".

It's not what outgrowing a friendship looks like, despite the fact that many people choose to interpret it as such.

Sure, this movie shows what outgrowing a friendship is; if outgrowing a friendship means making room in your life for other people. If outgrowing a friendship means you found romance. Which is ridiculous.)

___________________

To further clarify:

I am well aware the shows aren't canon.

This, however, doesn't change the fact that all these series tie in with HTTYD 2 really well, and that they make sense.

They expand on the characters and give us a better grasp of the world in httyd. They allow us to understand everything better.

When you only have, at most, 150 minutes to tell a story, every minute of it needs to somehow add to the plot. To further the narrative. There is very little time for fluff.

In a movie, it's practically impossible to properly explore the characters' different dynamics, to give everyone their own arc, to let the audience bask in the slow moments and to let the characters just be.

In a series, however? Well. You've definitely got time.

For someone who only watched the movies, it would be pretty damn difficult to understand the mis-characterization in say, Snotlout, Fishlegs and the twins.

You don't know these characters that well. You don't know the well-established dynamics between the gang in the same way that someone who's watched the series does.

Which is exactly why I think that people who've watched them are the ones that dislike the hidden world the most.

I, too, am usually opposed to using non-canon material to make a point, but RoB, DoB and RTTE are the only spin-off series from a successful movie franchise I can name that make perfect sense. That succeed in accurately portraying the main cast, in realistically expanding on the secondary characters (like Fishlegs, Snotlout, and the twins, who now have the space to become part of the main cast), and in smoothly integrating new characters.

They also manage to beautifully explore this magical universe full of dragons, adventure, and mystery, while firmly establishing the dragons as an important part of ecosystems all around.

Whether it's subconscious or not, they create an unshakable image of how all the characters think, act, and interact. You spend a hell of a lot longer with the characters in a lengthy eight season series than in two movies.

But it's not a bad thing, because this image carved by the series fits in nicely with the image carved in all the canon installments of the franchise.

Well. Except for one, cough cough.

[realbeijinger]

Another semi-coherent rant on climate change, the value of idealism, and TGCF (I finally finished!)

Well, I finished Tian Guan Ci Fu. And, oh man, if you read my last post, you’ll know that I was terrified that the entire novel would be a criticism of blind idealism. But I am SO glad I was wrong!!! Looking back on what I wrote before… it’s kind of hilarious how worried I was. I was so sure that I knew where it was going, was so busy preparing myself to be offended/emotionally crushed, that I wouldn’t even entertain the idea that maybe MXTX had a similar worldview to me all along.

In my defense, aside from the line, “Something like saving the common people… although foolish, it is brave,” everything seemed to point toward the idea that trying to do good is pointless. I mean, up until the moment when Xie Lian was lying with a sword in his chest on the streets of Yong’an, all of his efforts to do good had essentially been in vain. He hadn’t been able to help anyone.

And then, when the one guy stopped and gave Xie Lian his hat, I dunno, I just cried. It was so perfect! Like, ugh, damn you, MXTX! So sneaky… destroying us, just to bring us back later!! It was such a small, insignificant win, but it was exactly what Xie Lian (and I) needed. I love the line, “Just one person was enough!” Just one person doing something selfless. It’s enough to give us hope.   

It really resonates with me because I think a lot about how to maintain hope. In terms of the climate crisis, I feel like Xie Lian—completely powerless. I want to stop eating meat, use less plastic, spend more time on environmental activism, but honestly, what do any of these things matter? The meat industry is not going to change because I choose to stop consuming. Even my activism has a completely negligible effect—whether or not I join a protest or write a letter to my congressman will almost certainly not be the deciding factor for any climate legislation, no matter how much effort I put in.  

And yet, I still want to. I love the moment when Xie Lian chooses to get stabbed over and over rather than create a second plague of Human Face Disease, and White No-Face asks him in shock, “Why??”—as in, why would you ever do that? And Xie Lian responds: “I don’t have a reason—just because I want to! Even if I explained it to you… Useless trash like you wouldn’t understand.” This line is so great. Xie Lian can’t explain it to White No-Face, because, in truth, it isn’t entirely logical. It can’t be explained by reason. I want to do my measly, unimportant part to help the world… because I want to. Because it feels right. Because it’s my way of keeping my heart, of maintaining faith that there is some good in this world worth upholding. (As an aside, I love how the English title of the live action drama—which we may never get to see, God damn censorship!!!!—is called “Eternal Faith.” Of course it refers to Hua Cheng and Xie Lian’s faith in each other, but I think it also means having eternal faith in the value of doing good, despite centuries of experience that seem to show its pointlessness.)

As I talked about in my last post, if you zoom out far enough, nothing really seems to matter. Everything we love and care about will one day be gone. And yet, I believe we still have to act like it matters. This is the basic tenant of existentialism, and I think MXTX portrays this philosophical paradox really beautifully.

It’s funny, because I think MXTX has a lot of profound things to say, but in an interview I read, she warned against viewing her work too deeply, saying, “I am not a guru.” I get that she may not want the responsibility of giving people spiritual advice, but I do think she presents some really fascinating, really novel, philosophical ideas. So, sorry MXTX, but I’m about to analyze TGCF like it’s a piece of freakin scripture. Soo here we go…

The main theme she comes back to again and again is that fortune is limited, so the only way you can do good for others is by taking fortune from somebody else. Which leads the characters to a bunch of ethically impossible choices: the people of Yong’an and the people of Xianle can’t all be saved (Xie Lian must choose who to help), neither can the people of Wuyong and the surrounding kingdoms (Prince of Wuyong must choose), and Shi Wudu can’t save his brother from a tragic fate without taking fortune from an innocent person. When the characters try to avoid choosing, and try to “play God” by creating a “third path,” it just invites disaster.

But is this really true? Is fortune actually limited? It’s an idea that reminds me of Buddhism and Daoism, but also seems kind of revolutionary… (I like to think I know something about Chinese philosophy but it could certainly be a thing and I don’t know). I don’t believe in fate, but I do believe in limited resources, and the idea that nature tends toward balance. I think conceiving of it this way, as a pool of fortune, is really interesting.   

It reminds me of this Meme:

In other words, who is the protagonist and who is the villain is entirely based on perspective. And, according to the laws of nature, we all must survive by eating others, or causing others to starve (i.e. avoiding being eaten).

I tried to think if this is really true in all areas of life. I’m a teacher, and one of the ways I convince myself that I am doing good in the world is by helping my students—preparing them well for college so that they can get into good schools and follow their dreams. But then, is this just taking fortune from others? If I do prepare my students well, and as a result they all get into top universities, does that mean they are taking spots away from other students? Am I simply just helping “my own,” at the expense of others?

One place where I see this concept play out very clearly is with our modern, industrialized society. As I mentioned in my last post, we live in a world of abundance. Most of us have enough food to eat, live in houses with electricity and running water, and don’t worry about a whole host of diseases endured by our ancestors. It seems we have done what Xie Lian couldn’t—we have expanded the well of fortune for most of humanity.

But this fortune wasn’t spontaneously created. It was taken from other species. It was borrowed against our own future, when climate change will likely destroy this world of abundance we have created, causing untold suffering. In truth, when it comes to prosperity, there is no such thing as a free lunch.   

Even now, when we ought to be enjoying our fortune, most of us are not happy. We want other things. We take food, clothing, and shelter for granted, creating even bigger, more lofty demands—a bigger car, a better house, a machine that’s sole purpose is to make bread. In fact, it seems like whenever we make things “better,” the goalposts just move. I recently read a book called Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, which mentioned that with the advent of washing machines and vacuum cleaners, everyone assumed there would be more free time. Yet, the real outcome was that standards of cleanliness just changed. Suddenly, people expected you to wear fresh clothes every day and have a perfectly dust-free home, which meant spending just as much time cleaning as in the past.     

And according to psychologists, getting what we want doesn’t really make us happier. Instead, something like getting a promotion causes our happiness to spike, before it quickly returns to baseline. The psychologist Dan Gilbert writes that the purpose of our emotions is to act like a compass—to tell us which direction to go in. If you feel good, you can continue the way you are going. If you feel bad, you should probably turn—make a change. But if you get what you want and become permanently happy, your compass is now broken. It’s stuck in one direction and becomes useless.

All of this is very Buddhist, of course. Suffering is not caused by our external circumstances, but our desire to change them.

Like I said, I don’t necessarily believe in “fate” or “fortune.” But I believe this all points to something deeper that MXTX is getting at: which is that we cannot fundamentally make a better world, for the common people, or for anyone. This idea of “better” doesn’t really exist. The world is as it is. Trying to alter that is like playing God. And like Xie Lian says, “In this world, there are no true gods…”  

So, what do we do? How can we survive this absurdist tragedy of life? I don’t think we can just throw up our hands and not give a shit—that way lies depression and Jun Wu-style cruelty. We cannot lose our heart. But we also can’t try to fix everything.

One thing I find a bit difficult about MXTX is she is very clear about the impossible situations our characters find themselves in, but not really clear about the solution. She seems critical of the characters’ actions (I’m thinking also of Wei Wuxian here), but what exactly does she think they should have done? In other words, what is the point?

I spent a long time thinking about this. And I realized that Xie Lian was able to get back on his feet, find happiness and make peace with himself. How did he do this? Ultimately, I see Xie Lian’s solution as having three parts: self-sacrifice, gratitude, and purpose. Which all sounds very academic and maybe not that profound on an emotional level. But hear me out. Because, in the end, I think these choices are incredibly beautiful. They are the kind of thing that make me feel like reading TGCF was actually a spiritual experience, no matter what MXTX says. That makes me admire Xie Lian and want to follow him (like the God he is).

Okay so first: self-sacrifice. If fortune is limited, and the only way to make others’ lives better is to take fortune from someplace else, then there is really only one place you can take it from without hurting others—yourself.

So, part of Xie Lian’s solution is to take fortune from himself and give it to others. It’s why he asks for a cursed shackle that disperses his fortune, so that his fortune will naturally flow to those around him. It’s, of course, a very small thing. He is no longer playing God, or trying to “fix” the world on a grand scale. He is simply, in his own, quiet way, serving the common people.

My desire to give up meat and to spend more time on activism—these things feel like big sacrifices for me. And yet, they will have a very small impact on the greater situation in the world. They’re a drop in the ocean. I still want to do it, but it’s hard. It’s hard to care, or think that these things matter. Yet, this is the trade-off Xie Lian was willing to make. I really admire him for it.   

I believe self-sacrifice is actually a really important, beautiful thing, that our society has forgotten the value of. We are individualistic—obsessed with our own wants. As I mentioned previously, our expectations have risen, so we buy and buy and buy. We are unwilling to rein in our consumption. I know a lot of people baulk at lifestyle changes as a solution to the climate crisis, and I agree that putting pressure on individuals instead of governments or corporations is misguided. But, first of all, there simply aren’t enough resources on earth to sustain our current levels of consumption. And, second… I don’t think we can completely let individuals off the hook. What is society anyway, but a collection of individuals? If we are going to address this thing, it’s going to take a massive movement—bigger than the civil rights movement or the works’ rights movement or the women’s movement. It’s going to take millions of people worldwide getting out of their own heads, their own lives, and concerning themselves with the greater good. That requires immense sacrifice.

Which takes me to gratitude. In order to be willing to sacrifice, you have to appreciate what you already have.

People often talk about gratitude these days as a path to mental health. Instinctively, it sounds like an uplifting, positive thing. And it is… but it also entails having a relatively negative worldview. It means remembering all the horrible things that exist in this world which we are lucky enough to avoid on a daily basis. You stepped in some dog shit? Well, that sucks, but you could have stepped into an open manhole and broken your neck! So! That’s something to be grateful for.  

We are all so lucky. I’m sure everyone reading this has pains and traumas and challenges. This isn’t to diminish those, but, I hope, at least we all have at least one person to love. That’s all Hua Cheng had, and it’s what kept him going. Just one person was enough. And most of us, I hope, get to eat food every day, get to sleep in a bed, get to play video games or read novels or write poetry when we are sad. Not everyone gets those things.  

Xie Lian, of course, was the king of low expectations, because he knew his future was going to be bad. He had intentionally accepted bad luck for a lifetime. So, there was no point in hoping for things to get better.

I think this attitude is best shown by his interaction with the Venerable of Empty words. The Venerable of Empty Words feeds off people’s fears. But Xie Lian didn’t really have any. When the Venerable of Empty Words warned him that his hut will collapse in two months, his response is, “Two months? If it’s still standing in seven days, then it’ll be a real miracle.” Because his expectations are so low, he’s essentially immune to fear. I can’t help but think that if you could really think this way, it would be a kind of superpower. It reminds me of the famous quote by spiritual teacher Krishnamurti, “Do you know what my secret is? You see, I don’t mind what happens.”

And so Xie Lian is okay with everything. He can sleep anywhere, crash boulders on his chest for money, not eat for three days, regularly suffer corpse poisoning, and still be okay.

Which leads to my third point: purpose. Xie Lian is able to endure such hardship because his expectations are low, but also he knows all his suffering has a purpose. “If I am to become a God of misfortune, then so be it,” he says. “As long as I know deep down that I am not.” He is okay with being laughed at or avoided for his bad luck, because deep down he knows he is doing the right thing. People can withstand a great deal if they feel their suffering has meaning. In Man’s Search for Meaning, the psychiatrist Victor Frankl’s writes about the horrors of living through a concentration camp, and how over and over, it was creating purpose that allowed him, and others, to find motivation to survive. Which I think has an important lesson for self-sacrifice. People are willing to sacrifice a lot, if they feel their sacrifice has purpose.

I get it when MXTX says that she is not a guru, and maybe it’s a lot to ask of a danmei novel to take spiritual advice from it. The book wasn’t necessarily perfect, and I do have some critiques (which I was gonna add here, but this thing is already wayyy too long). But… I do think I found something really meaningful in this story—some inspiration. I want to follow Xie Lian’s example, and live with gratitude and acceptance, while keeping my faith in doing the right thing. In other words, WWXLD! (What Would Xie Lian Do?)

[littlemisspascal]

Rockford & Roan

Pairing: Tim Rockford x Female Reader/OFC 'Roan'

Word Count: 2.8k

Summary: You meet Tim Rockford in the true crime section of the library of all places.

Rating: T 

Warnings: Language, reference of self-harming + assault, meet cute, Reader has a dog, Reader has military background, Superpower AU, They Were Roommates AU, self-esteem issues, soulmates-ish, original characters, worldbuilding

- Reader has no first name and no physical traits described in detail except for being shorter than Rockford

Author Note: Elements of X-Men and Sherlock/Elementary mashed together because my brain said so. I've got more of these two (plus another Pedro Boy *cough* Thief *cough*) outlined if y'all are interested in seeing more of this world. It was a lot of fun attempting this new guy 😊

Special thanks to @beecastle for beta reading and encouraging me 💜💜💜

Part 2

The Session

You cross your legs, trying to get comfortable, immediately grimacing when the plush leather couch squeaks as a result. Your psychologist’s office smells overwhelmingly of lavender from the burning candle on her desk. Dr. Odair insists the smell has a calming effect to combat anxiety, but you remain unconvinced. You’re unconvinced about a lot of the advice these mandatory sessions offer, actually.

“How’s your search going?” Dr. Odair asks, pen poised above a fresh sheet of paper. “Have you connected with anyone?”

According to the internet, Dr. Charlotte Odair is one of the leading experts on empaths, telepaths, and other similar mind-gifts in the world. She’s also renowned for helping discharged military personnel integrate back into civilian society which meant you didn’t have much of a choice seeing anybody else.

Most people’s emotions are a finicky and erratic mess, shifting and fluctuating depending on the countless number of influences stemming from one’s surroundings. Some feelings are easy to identify at once, others are too obscure or complex to be named. The latter are the ones which overwhelm you. The ones which bury beneath your skin, an itch you can’t scratch no matter how harshly your nails dig into your arms, deeper and deeper until they’re stained red. 

Dr. Odair’s emotions resemble crystalline waters, transparent and blatant. There’s no second-guessing with her, no hidden tricks. She’s been trained, masterfully so, to carefully bind her feelings to her will.

“Yeah, it’s been going great,” you answer, then nod down at your feet where a small, golden brown dog lies with his chin on his paws. “Connected with Banjo here over the weekend. We’re a total match for each other.”

She fixes you with a look over the thick rims of her glasses. “Is that so?”

Compared to humans, animals have a much smaller range of emotions. They broadcast exactly what they want like a neon sign, whether that be food, shelter, or a good petting. And if their desires are met, the hum of their contentment is a far more pleasant tune than most songs on the radio nowadays.

You’d actually been looking to get a cat when you went to the pet shelter, dismissing dogs as too needy and energetic for your liking, but fate had other plans. One look at the little mutt, with his tangled fur and deep, froggy bark, and you were signing the adoption paperwork within minutes. And still, even after that unexpected love at first sight moment, Banjo continues to surprise you with how easily he adapts to your routine, standing by your side like he always belonged there.

You tell Dr. Odair as much, but there’s no response even though you know she’s absorbing every word out of your mouth, turning them over in her head, analyzing each syllable. Her mood remains almost frustratingly steady, giving no indication as to what she’s thinking. That look remains though, blue eyes narrowing even further. 

“You never said my match had to be another human.” Your hands tighten around Banjo’s leash, hoping she doesn’t catch the defensive edge your voice has taken. 

Her pen starts to scribble a note across the paper, too similar to a doctor’s chicken scratch for you to read upside down. 

You bite the inside of your cheek, glancing towards the flickering candle. Damn it. 

“Miss Roan,” Dr. Odair begins, and you taste blood on your tongue, “I know it’s annoying, being forced to attend these sessions every week, but the fact of the matter is, empaths aren’t meant to live alone. Especially not after what you’ve endured. Finding someone to match with is what your empathy needs to finally settle down.”

She makes it sound so easy, like the rest of the world doesn’t have any issues with mind-gifts and the lack of privacy that comes with them. Like there isn’t a set of laws specifically written for people who can read thoughts with a single touch or predict the future through dreams because their gifts aren’t as flashy, as visible, and thus in the eyes of the government that makes them the scariest threat of all.

On the battlefield things were different. The laws of polite society didn’t apply, not out there amongst the pools of blood and ceaseless gunfire. Your mind-gift was a tool to take advantage of, capable of numbing pain away faster than drugs and boosting the troop’s morale to a near fever-pitch. There was no time to stop and assess the damage you were self-inflicting unintentionally by overworking your empathy. Nobody who cared enough about you as a person to recognize the warning signs—not even your own self.

It was a miracle, as your commanding captain would later put it, when enemy forces staged a midnight raid on the camp and a man pinned you to the floor, radiating nothing but vulgar lust, that your lapse of control only resulted in putting every hostile within a mile radius to sleep instead of killing them instantly. 

A miracle for the unit maybe, but for you it marked the abrupt conclusion of your military career. Loss of control of one’s gifts stipulated their immediate release from serving, even if in your case it saved lives. Your discharge papers were officially signed and filed by the higher-ups before you regained consciousness three days later with a pounding headache from hell. Your mind-gift, once seen as a helpful aid to win battles, was now a time bomb dumped into the hands of Dr. Odair to deactivate. 

And what is her brilliant solution? Matching. Or, as it used to be called back in the olden days when gifts were thought to be divinely bestowed instead of being entirely unpredictable mutations in one’s genetic code, soulbonding. A powerful connection forged between two individuals, locking their gifts together and intertwining their lives until death splits them apart. 

Movies and fairytales will describe matching as the ultimate manifestation of true love, but love’s got nothing to do with it. Matching is a direct result of a human’s innate instinct to survive. It most commonly occurs when one or both members of the potential pairing possess dangerous gifts likely to cause harm to themselves. Supposedly, the bond is instantaneous once the two meet, causing their gifts to settle down, easier to control. Balancing each other out as if they were two halves of the same whole.

Sounds wonderful. In theory, at least. The biggest problem with matching is it can’t be done with just any random person. It can’t be forced either, not even between established couples. The bond happens solely on the choice of the gifts, not the will of the people involved. The hows and whys and other intricate details of the fateful decision-making process remain a mystery, one perhaps beyond mankind’s ability to ever solve, but regardless, it’s hard to argue against the overwhelmingly positive end results. To date, every recorded pair has admitted their match stabilized their gifts and saved their lives from an early death.

So until your mind-gift figures out who it wants, all you can do is walk the streets of Fox Leap, searching for just the right stranger in a sea of wrong strangers, empathy buzzing like a live wire pressed against your brain with each disappointing encounter.

“I am looking.” You’re being honest, despite what the dropping of your eyes to the floor might suggest. It’s too difficult to meet her gaze, afraid of the pity you might find shining through her carefully maintained facade. “I’m just not sure they want to be found.”

The Meeting

You meet Tim Rockford in the true crime section of the library of all places.

Fox Leap Central Library has essentially become your second home ever since you sought shelter from the rain one miserably gray afternoon two weeks after moving there. It’s one of the few places in the city that doesn’t make you feel like ants are crawling along your spinal cord, designed with dozens of cozy spaces to curl up with a good book and cup of coffee and zone out for a couple of blissful hours.

Your eyes are drifting over the colorful covers of fantasy books offering to transport you to alternate universes full of mythical beasts when you feel it. A flash of anger, stronger and more intense than anything you’ve ever felt, illuminating your mind-gift identical to a streak of lightning tearing through the darkness of night.

The emotion fades just as fast as it made itself known, but your empathy bays like a bloodhound picking up a scent trail, urging you to follow it to the source. Your fingers twitch at your side. Not with the desire to scratch, you realize with surprise, but to soothe. You haven’t felt this kind of compulsion since you’d been on the frontlines, taking away the pain from bullet-stricken soldiers, but that had been your purpose back then, a duty expected to fulfill. 

This…This is a purely selfish want.

You bite your lip, glance down at Banjo, tail wagging as if to say what are we waiting for?, and then surrender to the temptation.

Three aisles down stands the library’s only other occupant in sight: a tall, broad-shouldered man in a white shirt and tan trench coat with dark, unkempt hair like he’s been running his fingers through it lately. He’s rubbing at his stubbled jawline, brown eyes glaring beneath furrowed brows at a book on serial killers. 

He’s the perfect example of tall, dark and handsome but it’s not his looks that has your pulse quickening, a flutter of something dangerously akin to hope beginning to stir. If Dr. Odair’s emotions are a crystalline pool, then this man’s are an ocean in the midst of a storm. Turbulent on the surface, rough and irritable, concealing unexpectedly mesmerizing depths luring your mind-gift to dive deeper and deeper–

“Psychic or empath?” the man asks without looking away from the shelf, a slight raspiness to his voice that has your stomach flip-flopping before full awareness of his question even registers.

Startled back into your own head, you can only manage an eloquent, “Huh?”

He finally turns, piercing you with his gaze, intense yet not unkind. The storm afflicting his temperament lessens some, followed by a series of feather-light curious touches along the edges of your mind-gift.

You suck in a breath, expecting the stinging bolt of displeasure that usually follows when someone interacts with your empathy. Whether they’re being delicate or not, it’s never fun to have the most sensitive part of yourself poked and prodded and toyed with. But there are no symptoms of a headache in the seconds that follow. Only a strange sort of thrill at the connection. A sense of rightness.

And there’s that damn fluttering again…

Once again, you find yourself caught off-guard, unsure how the roles have swapped so quickly from you seeking to comfort a stranger to now you being comforted by him.

“Empath,” he says after another beat, answering his own question with a confidence that’s neither tentative nor arrogant. It sounds like a regular fact of life. The sky is blue, the sun is hot, and you’re an empath. 

“Y-yeah, that’s right.” You nod your head, hands trembling where they are clutching Banjo’s leash. God, you don’t understand what’s wrong with you, why his stare has such a strong effect on your galloping heartbeat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

The man looks down at Banjo then, taking in his snaggletoothed grin and perked ears with a soft smile of his own. “Cocker, poodle, schnauzer—interesting ancestry. I bet you have quite the story to tell.”

How did he–? You shake your head, getting your thoughts in some semblance of an order now that you’re no longer the sole focus of his attention. “This is Banjo. I adopted him from the shelter last weekend. We’re still getting to know each other.”

“Oh, good,” his soft grin widens, revealing a dimple in the side of his cheek. “It won’t take long to catch up then. How do you feel about takeout?”

You blink, frowning because huh? Is he just asking your opinion or is he asking something…more? It’s been so long since you’ve been asked on a date, you’re not even sure what the common etiquette is anymore. Isn’t everything arranged online nowadays? Swiping left or right and all that app rubbish?

“My schedule is unpredictable which leaves little time for cooking or grocery shopping, so at least three days a week I order takeout,” he continues, seemingly oblivious to your increasing confusion. “I also have frequent bouts of chronic insomnia, sometimes I’m up for days without any sleep.”

“Why are you telling me this?” 

The question comes out sounding ruder than it had in your head, but if he’s offended by it the man shows no outward sign. “I figured if I were in your shoes, I’d want to know upfront the annoying traits of who I’ve matched with.”

“Who I’ve–?” you choke on the words, eyes widening.

Oh, you think faintly, a strange clarity sweeping over you, at last connecting the dots that seem so incredibly obvious now. What better reprieve for an overwhelmed mind-gift than an underwater safe haven muffling the chaos of the city. It’s you.

The Offer

“Rockford,” the man—your match—says, extending a hand to shake, warm and calloused. “Tim Rockford.”

You introduce yourself, probably looking a bit unhinged with how wide you’re grinning but you can’t help it. You finally found your match. The urge to run to Dr. Odair’s office and jump on her sofa, screaming he’s actually fucking real! at the top of your lungs is near irresistible.  

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” Rockford says. “I had a feeling our paths would cross soon once I settled into my new place. An apartment a couple blocks from here. Three bedrooms. One for me, one for my office, and the other is yours if you’re interested.”

Your eyebrows lift incredulously. “Seriously?”

“A good roommate is hard to find these days,” Rockford responds easily, shrugging. “Who better to live with than my match?”

You think about sharing a space with someone else. Someone who's human that you can have a two-way conversation with over meals, who doesn’t react to your mind-gift with repulsion or contempt. He makes a good point; good roommates are hard to find. A yes sits on the tip of your tongue, held back by a little voice in the back of your head insisting it’s too good to be true. He’ll grow tired of you eventually. Get sick of you dipping in and out of his head like a parasite. You should say no. There’s too much of a high potential you’ll wind up hurt and alone again. It’s too risky.

But, another voice chimes in, deep down beside the fragile hope, if it worked out for all the other matched pairs, then aren’t the odds in your favor? 

“You barely know me,” is what ends up coming out of your mouth, a weak extending of a shovel for him to dig himself out of his offer.

He hums a thoughtful note, head tilting to one side, and your shoulders start to instinctively tense up in preparation of rapid backpedaling. A sudden wave washes over your mind-gift, though, steady reassurance drowning your budding fears.

“I know you’ve recently been discharged from the military,” he begins calmly, that same matter-of-fact tone from before. “I know you’re new to the city, not by personal choice but because you must attend mandatory sessions with a psychologist who resides here and has an excellent reputation with patients sharing your similar background. You’ve begun dreading the appointments—possibly because of trust issues, more likely because until you meet your match there’s very little she can do for your empathy and that frustrates you. And I know you adopted Banjo hoping he would pass as a substitute for me, but while he’s been helpful providing companionship, your mind-gift has continued causing you pain up until our meeting.” A pause for a quiet breath. “I think we have quite a solid foundation already, wouldn’t you agree, Miss Roan?”

“I–you–what?” You blink dumbly at him, brain function short-circuiting. Seriously, what? “How on earth…?”

“We all have our gifts."

And maybe it’s because he doesn’t elaborate further, meeting your quizzical stare evenly, still emanating steady reassurance, that makes it surprisingly easy for you to make a decision. You want to know this man. Not just his likes and dislikes, no, you want to know his happiness, his hurt, all the miserable shades of his sadness and every sharp pang of his rage. You want to look at him the way he looks at you: confident and steadfast. Unique to him in all the world.

If the stories are true and he’s going to be a part of your life for a long, long time, then you have the distinct feeling you’re going to need every one of those precious seconds to understand the infinite depths of Tim Rockford.

So, you nod your head. “Okay,” you tell him, lips curling at the corners into another wide grin when you detect how pleased he is with your agreement. “Let’s give it a try.”

“Meet me there tomorrow afternoon,” he says, grabbing the book he’d been burning holes into earlier with his glare. “445D Albatross Lane. Bright yellow door, can’t miss it.”

Then, turning on his heel in one fluid movement, he heads for the front desk, leaving you to process how a single meeting has just shifted your entire world on its axis.

[multiversal-pudding]

…Welp. Surprise Bad Opinion time I guess :P

Personally, even after ep 6 I still kinda genuinely want at least part of the Solver/Cyn-as-we-know-her’s actions to be actually Cyn, or at least some distorted version of her?

Like, I know Tessa’s dialogue implied more that Cyn was just a puppet of something else + the whole “something made a pact with her” that’s definitely gonna come back later, but like also

tbh in a series with so many good examples of characters driven to terrible actions by their convictions, be it Doll putting vengeance above all else before realizing someone else was infected, Khan getting so lost in his fear he abandoned his own daughter and is still trying to be better, V just trying to put her head down embrace her role and survive while protecting N but only hurting him in the process until Uzi started forcing her to confront it by helping N- hell, even Uzi herself has shades of this in wanting to destroy humanity without really even considering maybe not all of humanity in general is personally responsible for every single bad? Not counting Camp Incident, that was more outside influence induced rampage

Not to disrespect anyone who has another opinion- I think there’s very good options with the other way around too, but like to say it’s just the Solver alone that made Cyn like that, and the Solver is some malicious entity directly responsible for making Cyn the monster she became. Feels kinda boring to me? (Not that I think the Solver’s SAFE mind you- it definitely gives off at the very least major “has side effects of Needs To Kill To Live + does not care what is done with its power beyond that good or bad/blue and orange morality + if the host is at risk it will hijack the host to preserve itself and *only/mainly itself*” vibes)- I feel like there’s a lot of potential in the perspective of like.

What if Cyn’s like an Uzi that gave up on humans and her fellow workers alike, once had that ideal of wanting to change the world only to have it fall into bitterness, then suddenly had all the power in the world to act on it dropped into her lap?

What if Cyn’s a foil to Uzi- an Uzi that got the power to fully destroy humans and DDs and everyone who ever bullied her but wasn’t able to take a step back and find something to care about outside that rage like she did with N in canon?

What if Cyn’s what Uzi could become- if not metaphorically, then literally

Also, NGL Tessa’s not exactly a 100% solid source in my eyes- like. I think she’s telling most of the truth but there’s definitely something deeper going on-

[666writingcafe]

Exam Prep, Part One

Barbatos

"Your professor has informed me that lately you have been struggling with the lab portion of your seductive speechcraft class," I calmly tell MC, who sighs.

"I can block advances just fine, but actually trying to seduce someone is proving to be quite difficult," they explain. "I don't feel like I'm sounding genuine, if that makes sense. I mean, I never had that much luck with it in the human world, and it seems like I've not had to work super hard here, which still baffles me, but that's a topic for another day." Interesting. I didn't realize they were that introspective. Most humans aren't.

"If it's any consolation, you're doing better than some other demons."

"Like Levi?" I allow myself to smirk, amused by their observation.

"Exactly. Leviathan either can't bring himself to seduce anyone at all, or he pulls from existing media and provides out-of-context lines that don't fit the person he's talking to. From what I've heard, you at least are trying to be original. We--your professor and I--just think that there's room for improvement."

"Of course."

"So, for today's session, I want you to try to seduce me." Of course, that's the moment Diavolo decides to walk past the room MC and I are in. My back may be turned to him, but I can still sense his energy.

You may watch, but do not disturb us.

Understood.

"What?" MC asks, appearing both confused and terrified.

"I am one of the oldest and most powerful demons in the Devildom. If you can manage to produce some sort of effect on me, then you'll pass your exam with flying colors."

"But I don't know that much about you."

"A demon never has a lot of information on a particular human when they first encounter one, but they can use past experiences and context clues in order to be successful."

"I see." In order to ease their nerves, I kindly smile at them.

"Just try the best you can." MC closes their eyes and begins one of the breathing exercises that I taught them.

Why are you doing this? Diavolo just can't resist the urge, can he?

Their power is heavily tied to their emotions.

That isn't what I'm talking about, Barbatos.

Would you rather I have them seduce you, Young Master? Silence. Excellent.

MC opens their eyes, and immediately something seems different about them.

"You do so much for Lord Diavolo, the brothers, and the Devildom at large," they state. "Any other person would have gone insane from the sheer amount of responsibility, and yet you stand here before me with a cool, calm demeanor."

"Practice," I respond.

"You have most people fooled into believing that this life is easy for you, but not me. I know that you work a thankless job that forces you to put everyone before yourself." They're glowing, which isn't entirely unusual for them, but the color's different this time. It's not completely white like it normally is.

"Deep down, you want someone to take care of you. You have been forced to hold yourself up for so long, and you are utterly exhausted. You feel completely alone, like there's not a single soul in the entire universe that would want to take the time to get to know who you truly are." As they step closer to me, I can see spots of pink mixed in with their white light. I don't know how, but I think they've managed to tap into a portion of Asmodeus's power.

"I want to help you, not because I want anything in return, but because I care deeply about you. You deserve to have someone love you unconditionally." MC gently grabs my hand and leans closer to me. "All I ask of you is to let me in. Allow me to grow closer to you, Barbatos."

One might expect MC to take the opportunity to kiss me, but instead they remain still, staring into my eyes. My heart begins beating faster, and I find it harder to focus on my surroundings. In this moment, I finally understand why everyone seems so enamored with MC. I don't even have a pact with them, and yet my mind is begging them to give me an order to follow.

As MC steps back, the glow emanating from them begins dissipating. They're returning to normal.

Why can't I?

"Barbatos? Are you alright?" Shit. I'm on duty. They're not supposed to see me in this condition.

"You'll do just fine, MC." My voice sounds hoarse, and I have no idea why.

Someone's caught feelings.

I would appreciate it if you didn't tease me, Young Master.

But I'm not wrong.

That is irrelevant.

[hispillowprince]

not to "um akshully..." with my first post on my shiny new blog (that is exactly what i am doing),

but ao3 (and initially tumblr to an extent) is, to its core, a "proship" website. the funny thing about this more recent distinction between pro/antis, the terminology itself and the discourse surrounding it is that it's simply rebranding and packaging topics of censorship within spaces that exist for self expression by and for fans/nerds/outcasts/what have you.

the principle of using a tagging and filtering system to AVOID broader censorship (that more often targets marginalized groups and limits freedom of expression) is a progressive one. censorship that is out of the hands of the community is not. this does NOT mean that everyone should simply subject themselves to content that makes them uncomfortable, or that people shouldn't be held responsible for, you know, basic human decency and respecting boundaries with one another...which is why tagging and filtering systems are set in place for us to have the ability at our disposal without altering the experience for others. what it DOES mean is we know that understanding that distinction between fantasy and reality is often integral to our experience in fandom.

we are not spokespeople. we are not and should not be held to a standard of wholesome, squeaky clean representation in our own free time and space we have simply to have fun and find like-minded people. this isn't the writing room for a bloody disney channel program trying to make The Gays palatable to pearl clutching parents, and frankly, when websites like tumblr, fanfiction sites etc are hit with the banhammer, things tend to only go downhill from there and lose creativity and engagement (including sfw creatives!). censorship has always and will always target those that don't fit the marketing bill, aka unsavory "fans/nerds/outcasts/what have you," whom are often - you guessed it - marginalized people that utilize fandom as an outlet.

whether people use fiction to draw inspiration for their art, process and recontextualize things in their lives (like traumatic events, introspection, humanitarian issues and so on), find community or simply have a good time, it is something that makes the human experience so fascinating. we have always and likely WILL always fantasize, dream and create (and share in those things).

to me, the fundamentals of an anti-harassment or proship stance is not that fiction has NO bearing on people or their experience, but that without the ability to make our own decisions and boundaries for ourselves, we are inhibited from learning, progressing and breaking the barriers of what confines us. this includes - but is not limited to - sexuality and sexual content.

sexuality. sex. infamously a natural form of expression/communication that has been weaponized and stolen from people in a sickeningly long game of "if we can't sell it or use it to manipulate and instill fear into you, then we don't talk about it at all." this game is effective in its continued tired controversy over whether or not people are allowed to discuss icky, gross sex in ways that can sometimes challenge our relationship with it and how we've been socialized to approach it. WHY open discussion about these things is healthy and helps set a precedence for being safe and mindful with it.

how does this tie in with proshipping? it's an alignment of values with censorship in this way. it's symbolic, really. we reclaim power for ourselves, making our queer coded villains and monsters something to play with than to shut us out. giving our little faves toxicity as a treat because we know how harmful it is to navigate a world without anyone to guide us through the steps or understand our own history/ies. or, you know, just be horny and silly online and find people who want to do the same.

anyone who claims they're pro/anti and makes it solely about what they deem okay to harass others with earns them my opinion that they're an asshole. anyone who simply does not want to engage with/discuss something that may or may not be considered problematic or controversial is simply a person. we all have lines we draw for ourselves. much like how someone playing d&d or video games doesn't spawn evil cultists or violent criminals, exploring sexual themes through fiction does not a predator make.

so, on that note - the end, lol. i hope this drabble of not entirely coherent figurative fist shaking at the sky serves you, or doesn't. either way, you know what to do when you don't like something! it's called blocking, babeeey. gold star if you made it to the end of this fat essay lmao

drinking water is really important though fr like it's not just a memefied thing it's-

[gojosbf]

Hi...if you don't mind, can I ask something from Jujutsu Kaisen? What do you think are Gojo and Geto's greatest personality strengths and weaknesses? Why? What do you love about their dynamic? Sorry if you've answered these questions before.....

oh i haven't answered these before and i would love to, now:

1. Gojo

• Strength : since he always embodies the goofy unserious persona it's so easy for people to overlook how great of a person he is overall. He is very patient, has clear goal and motivation, continues to have trust and hope in people and is infact very caring and kind and emotional. Yes!! Most of his actions are emotionally fuelled from grief or love or both (like swearing to create new generation of strong sorcerers, a world where he'll never fail anyone again, where nobody will be left alone again). He grew so much since hidden inventory and premature death arc, he went from the cocky naive strong boy to intuitive kind protective man. He was under no obligation to take in megumi, to save yuuta, to save yuuji but he did. He knows that the people in power are corrupt and he knows he is capable of wiping them out if he wanted, but he wants to do everything the right way, he is constantly making sure that the kids don't go through the things he did. Knowing that your birth disrupted the balance of the world and now you bear the burden of maintaining it and still having the courage to laugh it off. The term strongest boils down his humane nature so much it makes me sad.

• Weakness : ironically the fact that he is the strongest is his main weakness, he cannot relate to people, it's hard for him to understand why they give up so easily or why something bothers them so much, it's not that he doesn't try to, he does but there is a very big gap between normal sorcerers around him and gojo satoru himself. This gap is also the reason why he is lonely, he craves human intimacy which is why he is continuously trying to bond with others but after geto he never really confined in anyone, he knows he has to be be to solve his own problems and he's not allowed to show vulnerability, being the strongest means you cannot slip up, the weight of world is on your shoulders, you cannot cry, you cannot lose your composure, you cannot be human anymore. (236 proves it even when in panels gojo says "even those who adored me did not understand me" something along the lines). The day gojo satoru feels truly loved and the day he doesn't have to bear so much responsibility alone, he'll break. He is literally that line "if I don't laugh I will cry" (okay that went off tangent but yeah, emotions. are his biggest weakness)

2. Geto

• Strength & Weakness : this is going to sound real twisted but geto's strength is how he pretends to be fine when he is not. this is both his strength and weakness. He is such a complex character actually because his strength are also his weaknesses, both of them go so well together. He has very strong morals and once he is set on them he won't budge, both a blessing and a curse, because that is how he helped gojo become the gojo satoru he is today but at the same time due this strength of his once he stepped into dark he never came back. His love and trust for his friends, there's nothing that will ever beat geto's loyalty towards his friends, again this is his strength right? it's supposed to be a good thing but that is exactly what causes his death too and even in his death he still remained loyal to jujutsu high, infact even after his death he remained loyal to gojo. He is soft hearted towards the innocent, again something that's supposed to be a strength but because of this character trait of his the death of riko, haibara and the incident with nanako and mimiko had such a huge effect on him. He is self reliable to fault, he doesn't want to be a burden to his friends so he never shares what's bothering him. He wants to make this world a better place for his loved ones and he'd do anything for it, even become their enemy. To talk about geto by separating his strength and weaknesses would be doing him injustice, every good thing he had within himself was what caused his doom and every part of his soul had to carry so much grief and remorse. both his strengths and weaknesses stand together on a very blurry line.

what i love about their dynamic so much is trust and loyalty, even when they are both on opposing sides gojo could trust on geto to not kill panda and inumaki and geto knew gojo trusted him so he couldn't kill them. geto wanted to make a world where gojo wouldn't have to carry all the responsibility alone (his other part reason), gojo wanted to create a world where no one will ever feel left alone again. they're both so similar yet so different, both of them took kids under their care and swore to protect them, the difference was one one did not care about anyone else except the people he loved and the other was looking out for everyone especially the people he loved. even after everything that went down between them there was no sign of hate, not even close, they understood each other, they might've not agreed with each other's method but they understood. they were probably the only ones to ever understand each other fully, soul deep. it's right person, right time but ill fate and cruel life.

[uncanny-tranny]

I'm trans nonbinary and I really kind of hate myself for it and feel like such a fucking freak and I don't even know why because I didn't even grow up around a lot of homophobia or anything. I let everyone assume I'm a (trans) man because in my head if someone found out I was nonbinary they would just think I'm so fucking wierd, even when I'm in spaces or with people I know for a fact wouldn't actually think any of that. I don't feel this way about anyone else, just me. I'm really sorry if this is too much of a vent kind of thing I totally get you deleting it or whatever, but any advice you have would be really great.

I want to preface this by emphatically saying: Nobody here (least of all myself!) are judging you. I am sure many trans people who are following this blog know how you feel intimately. It's a consequence of the world we live in, not an intrinsic failure of character. I want to make this clear because you were incredibly vulnerable and I don't want you to worry that your vulnerability is a bad thing. It takes a lot to open up like this, no matter if you're on anon or not.

I've talked about this before, but this is a process that takes... a long time to work through, if I'm honest. I've been out since I was a young teenager, and now as an adult I still fall into the trappings of feeling similarly to you. What helped for me is to generally avoid judging myself for when I do feel like this. I think trying to outright ignore how you feel is very inefficient - I have tended to be a person who needs to feel those awful feelings so that I can look back and notice exactly what went wrong. I wouldn't specifically recommend that you do this - I have had many years of combating internalized transphobia to feel this is effective for myself. But, regardless of where you are in your journey of internal acceptance, I will advise this: don't judge yourself for these feelings. It is easy to do, but you don't deserve to have even more feelings of shame, isolation, or overall feelings of hopelessness or helplessness.

Often, we won't know exactly "why" we feel these feelings of internalized transphobia. For me, I also didn't grow up with outright homophobia, but I did grow up with the idea that I would only be loved if I was cishet, so when I discovered I was neither, it was jarring. I thought I would never be loved. And years later, I became open to the idea that I might have been wrong because there were people along the way - friends, certain family, strangers, even - who showed the love I felt I surrendered when I realized who and what I was.

It has helped me to expose myself to other trans people, as well. It's a delicate balance, at times, because there are moments where I find myself growing envious of another trans person for the way I perceive their own transition. It's a natural response, I guess, a natural human response that is amplified when you are part of a group that is often maligned. But I have found that the pros outweigh the cons: I see trans people of all identities now, trans people who look like me, who have incredibly similar experiences, who taught me so much about what it actually means to love and be loved. It's funny, because I'm largely a trans man (with caveats), yet some of the people who have deeply impacted me forever weren't always the same as I am (in fact, one of the first true "I look up to this person" experiences was from a trans woman who I still to this day admire and look up to).

I'm not going to lie, this (how you're feeling) is an incredibly common, but sometimes devastating result of so many factors. While we all go about these feelings in different ways, it can be hard. Therefore, it's important that we support each other. I want to offer my support to you, and let you know that you aren't going to be looked at by others in the way you might fear. It's hard to even conceptualize, honestly, but I am being honest. I understand that some of what I might have said won't resonate with you now, or ever, and that's okay. When we have a community to talk about ideas as a way of support, we can start to have more resources that we might be able to utilize effectively.

Your vulnerability right now isn't going unnoticed. It took a lot to express this, and I hope you might read this and feel even slightly better. I wish nothing but good things for you, nothing but bountiful joy and understanding that you deserve so much from this world.

[daedalusdavinci]

10) I have never been this sick before I'm sorry did I, haha this is so weird, but did I confess my love for you? f- four times? yeah? haha oh, superbats

listen. as someone who has been entirely out of my mind on medication for the past two days, i felt like i understand exactly what to do with this prompt. and yet. and yet. i still went off the rails with it. this is not as superbat as i wanted it to be but duke is there and i feel like tha tmakes up for it

id link the prompt list this is from but i lost it. sorry. i ptu off answering this for too long

Alfred said it was the flu. Not Ivy's newest batch of toxin, or Tetch's mind control, or the lasting effects of a JLA fight gone wrong, or even a stomach bug from eating Tim's latest feeble attempt at cooking while desperately trying to practice to impress his boyfriend. It was just the plain old flu. And Bruce had never felt worse.

Alfred said it probably wouldn't have been half as bad if he hadn't gone out to patrol in the snow, multiple times, even after being warned not to. Damian said it probably wouldn't have been half as bad if he hadn't insisted on testing those antitoxins on himself recently. Jason said he'd slipped a viral strand of zombie DNA into his coffee grounds the last time he swung by, and it was only after Cass pointed out the coffee grounds also would've poisoned half the house that he realized Jason was most certainly just fucking with him. Duke said he should probably run the tests just in case, because the freezing batcave would certainly do him a lot of good, and somehow that entirely reasonable suggestion just wound up making Alfred more frustrated than ever.

And then Alfred did the unthinkable.

He called in the cavalry.

There were few things more humiliating than being babysat by the man of steel in his own home. Objectively, Bruce could understand why Alfred had called Clark; Clark was responsible, kind, reasonable, already familiar with the Manor, and very good at fielding both Bruce and his kids. He also had the physical strength to literally stand his ground with Bruce, when needed. But Bruce was half-out of his mind with the flu and even through the fogginess of his own miserable stupidity, he had just enough awareness to know that it was beyond embarrassing for Clark to see him like this.

He was sleepy and disgusting, useless beyond any injury he'd ever sustained, even his mind rendered weak in the face of the sickness. He was sweaty all the time, and half the time he could barely think past the sensory nightmare of being sick, all of his routines shattered and his own bed so nasty it made his skin crawl. Words felt impossible most of the time, until it was easier to communicate with Cass than anyone else. When he did speak, it was barely more than incoherent mumbles, and usually about The Gray Ghost, which was the only thing he could bring himself to focus on for more than ten seconds at a time. His memory came and went, and being sick turned into a montage of Gray Ghost episodes and beloved faces, with Clark's featuring most heavily.

When his fever finally broke, he felt desperate to be out of bed and gain some semblance of humanity back. It was humiliating to constantly be guided back to bed like he was frail, or to lie around in a shivering, sweaty mess while Clark tried simultaneously to keep him distracted and pretend not to notice. He needed a shower, and food, and goddamn it, even some sunlight would be welcome. More than anything, he needed to not be in his damn room for ten seconds.

Perhaps taking pity on him, Clark agreed to it, deeming that he was at least well enough that he could probably make it down the stairs without falling over. The world felt a lot less hateful after a shower, and even bundled up in a miserable huddle of blankets, unable to smell the fresh pancakes through his congestion, it felt good to sit in the kitchen and breathe fresher air, out of the cramped darkness of his own room. His coffee was warm in his hands, and for a while, he just closed his eyes, listening to the rush of the gas stove and the scrape of Clark's spatula against the pan.

"Hey, looks like the jailbird's flown the coop. Or are we finally posting bail?" Duke's voice was light as it drifted into the room, shoes scuffing on the floor. It wasn't the same heaviness as the Signal's boots, so he was in his civvies. Not here on bat business.

"He wanted a change of scenery," Clark explained. His footsteps were steady, the tap of a plate as it touched down in front of Bruce soft. His fingers brushed through Bruce's hair, combing it back out of his face. "He's doing better today. His morning report says he's still got the shakes, and his congestion is pretty bad, but there were barely any typos this time, and it was actually coherent." Bruce didn't miss the teasing tone in his voice, and he scowled.

"Wow. Does that mean the spelling error "love you" era has come to an end at last?" Duke's voice sounded from closer to the stove, no doubt stealing pancakes from the remaining pile.

Bruce could hear the grin in Clark's voice. "I overestimated on the pancake batter. Help yourself."

"Sweet."

Clark kissed the top of Bruce's head, giving his shoulder a squeeze before he returned to the stove. "Eat, Bruce. You're only going to feel more shaky if you don't eat anything."

Bruce sighed, taking one long, last sip from his coffee before he set it down and forced himself to open his eyes. Clark hadn't given him a ton of food, probably knowing he wouldn't be able to finish it, but the pancakes looked golden and warm enough that he allowed himself to unfurl from his blankets, reaching for the fork. Clark and Duke's chatter fell into fuzzy, comfortable background as he ate, and he had to admit, it was nice. It was always nice knowing one of his kids was close by and safe, and it was good to listen without any real expectation of having to participate himself.

After a while, his phone buzzed in his pocket. There was a text from Duke that said, "How are you holding up, big guy?"

The string of texts before the most recent one were disturbingly incoherent. He could remember some- his rant about The Gray Ghost most clearly, from when Duke had dropped in to check on him and infodumping to Clark had turned into infodumping to Duke- but a lot were lost to the fog entirely. There was a pattern to them, though; Duke, checking in, or sending him pictures, keeping him updated, and Bruce responding with some variation of "I'm ok, tell lckar to let me uot," or "Thank yuo, loev you."

A quick look at his other recent contacts revealed a similar pattern. Jason had blocked him two days ago after Bruce had texted him the same check-in message ten times in one day. Cass had started texting him pictures all the time. Barbara had gently informed him she was locking him out of his emails and social media for his own good. Diana had delightedly texted him back that she loved him too. Bruce did not want to even look at he and Clark's history.

He texted Duke back, "I know they're saving screenshots of me. Make them delete them, immediately."

Duke's laughter was loud and warm. "It is way too late for that, B."

[sister-lucifer]

speaking as a traumagenic and autigenic osdd system/collective, prejudice against endogenic and/or non-traumagenic plurality is the antithesis of mental health advocacy. non-disordered plurality is exactly that — being multiple in a way that doesn't negatively impact the multiple's/system's/collective's/etc.'s daily life, at least not in a way that would medically or generally qualify as disordered (ex. with amnesia, issues with accountability, struggles with bodily control due to switches, among other debilitating symptoms of a dissociative disorder).

plurality in many, many forms has been around for centuries, whether as a naturally occurring phenomenon, a spiritual practice, a therapeutic practice (for one example, i highly suggest a bit of reading on internal family systems. it's a highly effective therapeutic practice involving internal communication within the human psyche), etc., etc., etc. i could dig up a carrd site for resources for you if you'd like to read more on the subject, but it's not serious enough to tell people to kys over it.

the violent attitudes toward non-traumagenic plurals within internet spaces do nothing to solve any sort of issues that disordered plurals face from ableists in both the real and virtual world. the idea, particularly, that non-disordered plurals want to steal resources from disordered plurals for some malevolent reason or another, is unfounded in that... why would non-disordered plurals need those resources when they don't need to manage debilitating symptoms? the logic isn't there.

the point is — just like within any other marginalized group, we achieve more together, working against actual issues like a medical system that is founded off of ableist practices and medical "professionals" who don't actually give a shit about their patients, than we do with a cartoon cloud of flying limbs and infighting.

i fully expect a rather nasty response to this from anyone with a hatred of non-traumagenic plurals, but i wanted to address YOU and your acknowledgement that you can't act as an authority on a mental difference that you don't have, by providing a non-prejudiced perspective on a rather vicious "discourse" front on this website.

thank you if you've read.

-P

girl shut the fuck up

you cant just wake up and decide to be a system. you cant just not have trauma and be a system. can you just get off my blog. like actually. if i see you in my inbox again it’s a hard block and i’m making fun of you

also where did i tell anyone to kill themself. be fr

DID/OSDD/what have you isn’t just a quirky thing. it’s formed from trauma. it inhibits every day life in ways you could not fucking imagine.

i don’t wanna see bullshit like this in my inbox ever fucking again, are we clear?

[fanfic-obsessed]

Do you dream?

This is an offshoot of  Perchance to dream. While I highly recommend reading it, because I think it is neat (as the writer), I will summarize it here. The gist is that what we know as canon, starting roughly when council goes to confront Darth Sidious (though the timeline does not match exactly to reality) is a shared hallucination of the Jedi council, caused by a chemical weapon created by the separatists (which has been calibrated, using the Jedi councils’ DNA, to only affect the Jedi council).  In this Palpatine is not a Sith, rather he is exactly what he portrays himself in canon. 

In this variation the creators of the weapon make mistakes in how it was formulated. The first mistake is that it does not drag the victim quite as deep into the hallucination, in that they can interact with the real world, however they will disbelieve or not perceive anything that contradicts the world in the hallucination. The more important and far reaching mistake is that they did not restrict who was affected quite like they thought. The Jedi council was affected, to be sure, but so was roughly 80% of the galaxy and not all groups were affected equally.  There did not seem to be any rhyme nor reason to who was affected or not.  

90% of the senate was affected by the weapon, it should be noted that both Sheev Palpatine and Padme Amidala were not.  The GAR was affected at 75% of the clones not stationed on Coruscant, though only 3% of the Coruscant Guard were affected (Most of this is more horror than funny but I just want you to picture this: Random Separatist Leader: You created a chemical weapon that only affects people based on their genetic code. Scientist: …Yes. Random Separatist Leader: And it is affecting roughly 70-75% of a group of genetically identical clones. Scientist, slumping: Yes. Random Separatist Leader:How? Scientist, wailing: we don’t know!!!), every battalion has clones affected. Of the Jedi, something like 97% is affected (Because the original intent was specifically for Jedi ), including all of the council (Anakin is not affected, though Ahsoka is). The highest ranked Jedi, by experience and title, unaffected were Jocasta Nu, Depa Billaba, Bant Eerin, Aayla Secura, and Anakin Skywalker. Most of the rest of the unaffected were padawans, initiates, and younglings. 

It will only be looking back that anyone will be able to pinpoint the first indication that something is wrong. It is a simple thing, the Rodian senator mentions the ‘New Emperor’ to several of his fellows. Most of the room nods or responds, knowing what he was talking about. A few look at each other, confused but ignored. 

Before we fully look at the horror, consider this. Here Sheev Palpatine does not want to be an Emperor.  He was actually looking forward to retiring, to becoming a consultant where he could have all the influence and none of the responsibilities. Now 90% of the senate is sure he is an emperor (a human centric, misogynistic, bigot at that) and ignoring anything and anyone who tries to protest otherwise. He is being forced, largely against his will, to be an all powerful emperor who can’t actually do anything that is not based in pure evil because the afflicted will ignore it. 

There is much confusion.  We will get back to the effects of that confusion in just a moment. 

Within the hallucination Order 66 goes out. Though there are signs that something was wrong earlier they are not nearly as wide spread. This, then becomes the most defining moment of the new era. 75% of the clones, not stationed on Coruscant, fall under the control of a chip that does not actually exist. To the utter horror of the unaffected clones, the afflicted clones open fire on any Jedi present (no matter who they might have been firing at in canon). Countless Jedi survived because they fell comatose at the same time, killed within the hallucination. Handfuls of clones that otherwise would have survived died at the hands of their brothers, who were trying to protect the vulnerable Jedi. 

The 501st never marched on the temple, their battalion fell below the average with only 47% affected and without Vader to lead them, they are able to subdue the affected before it happens. However, the comatose Jedi cover every surface of the temple and for a bit it is believed that some sort of sleeping sickness afflicted the Jedi while most of  the rest of the galaxy went insane. 

The separatists are not excluded. They match the 80% affliction rate of the rest of the galaxy. Most of the leadership that is afflicted also fall comatose (read die in the hallucination). Even amongst the scientists who created the weapon (roughly 100-200 beings depending on when in development we are talking about) about 20% fell to the effects.  The remaining scientists try for 6 months on their own to reverse the effects without success.

All the while the galaxy has largely turned itself into an oppressive empire, built a rebellion (that is being secretly supported by the Emperor himself), and is both tearing itself apart and gluing itself together at the same time.  Various non affected beings, who would have died in the first few months of the empire, watch as the people they love mourn them.  More than one unaffected Senators, up to and including Palpatine, see the way a number of so called respectable beings in power act when they are given free reign (case in point, Tarkin) and are horrified.  And for those first six months no one can figure out what was going on. It is called an illness, a madness.  

Roughly 80% of the galaxy believe themselves to be part of an empire and are unable to perceive anything that would break the illusion (Anakin becomes largely reclusive, as they react as if he is Vader and he can’t take the pulse of fear when anyone afflicted sees him).  A new government has to be built, staffed by the non afflicted and weaved around the hallucination. They are building blind as within the hallucination the human rights violations start to appear and grow exponentially.   

14 months in, Jocasta Nu finds a way to access the hallucination, an old mind based force technique.  It works in that she is able to convey what had happened, what was happening within the hallucination. It failed in that she, having been dead in the hallucination, fell comatose. No one was willing to risk anyone else. In particular Anakin, as the non afflicted were afraid that Anakin would fall to Vader. They could not risk it. 

Cody, who had been afflicted, woke from the hallucination after 2 years. It was only a coincidence that he was in the temple at the time. Anakin had requested to speak with him (hoping that they could find out more about what the ‘chipped’ clones thought was going on). He would be one of 400 throughout the galaxy. It was discovered that non force sensitives with particularly strong minds could break through the hallucinations, eventually being able to see the contradictions. Anakin without a suit was one of those contradictions. Cody, upon waking, had what could conservatively be called a panic attack, and what could rightly be called a series of panic attacks so severe that it drew the attention of empaths from 6 levels away. His attack on his general, his Obi Wan (they had built a relationship during the war and had plans to marry after it was done), had been entirely real. Obi Wan and Yoda could not be accounted for, no one knew if they had survived or not. 

Between the Separatists, who rejoined the Republic 8 months after the weapon was deployed, Scientists and the Republic they were able to study enough of the reawakened, like Cody (Volunteer only), that they could start building a device to reverse the effects. 

The device is activated 10 years to the day of the original weapon.  It stimulates the brain waves matching the frequency of the awakened in anyone who was afflicted. The non afflicted gather together across the galaxy in little clumps, clutching at each other. The previous decade has changed the face of the galaxy in a way that cannot be properly articulated. The non afflicted have watch the reactions to a genocide, have seen the people they love embrace the very worst evils (or watched them rise above to fight back).  Even those who would have supported the Empire are horrified by the depths that the hallucination dipped into (Over those 10 years they have been able to get other, scant looks into the hallucination).  And this was a decade long tragedy in which everyone who was unafflicted experienced, to some extent. Tragedy is a great equalizer. 

First the comatose began to wake, family and friends or very variety sitting with them. Even those who had no one unafflicted had someone celebrating their waking in the packed rooms. Then the afflicted started focusing fully on the people around them, fully for the first time in a decade.  Spouses who had ‘buried’ their loved ones blinked to see them hale and hearty. Children that had effectively been orphaned, both as afflicted and non, found that there was suddenly a decade missing. 

On Tatooine a Jedi Master turned butcher froze. He, like all the other afflicted, had gone to work that day, never noticing as the non afflicted among them were more anxious. The oppressive darkness vanished so abruptly he could feel it, even through the shielding.  Not far away he could see a Togruta woman clutching one of his coworkers to her, who was bewildered.

An announcement went out to a broadcast system that had been built specifically for this (and Obi Wan realized he had never seen that broadcast tower before) an hour after the afflicted woke up.  It took two days to reach the Outer Rim (but to be fair, so did the ripple that woke the afflicted). It gave a brief explanation about what happened and a location that any of the former afflicted could go to register themselves, in case they had changed planets under the affliction and wanted to find their loved ones again. It was recommended that the former afflicted remain where they were, as long as they were not in danger, to keep from clogging up the hyperlanes. 

Obi Wan collected his lightsaber from the desert, and found that there was only one when he thought he had buried two. Driven by the force, he reported to the registration locations. Once his information was in the system it lit up from here to the Core. Cody was the one sent to collect him, as Anakin was helping to settle Ahsoka (who did not react well to being a decade older and having been killed by Vader). 

Cody and Obi Wan maintained skin contact for the entire trip back from Tatooine, after a decade of thinking the other lost they could not bear to be parted.

Palpatine was finally able to step down, playing the emperor had been a horrific experience for him.  He retired entirely, unable to bear the thought of power. Even if he had been interested, people still flinched when they looked at him.  

Everything that happened next was to a galaxy irrevocably changed.

[i-killed-a-prostutute]

Im so sorry for the super late response!! Im not even going to question the heat pill and how it came from pitou 💀 at least tell me reader gave consent to being mutated and it wasn't something killua just decided for her….. I totally get being a Virginia and all, it's just that your other killua fics were a lot more detailed and longer. The neko one seemed more like it was done in a hurry. Don't want this to come off as me complaining though, because I know I'D definitely feel a little disheartened if one of my requesters told me they were disappointed with my work. It was fine, really! And anyway, anyone, even the best smut writer, has room for improvement :) I really appreciate that you'll let me know if you can do my request or not, not a lot of writers do that and it's really helpful, instead of just leaving me waiting and wondering. (God knows how many of my requests have actually been made but I don't know because I stopped checking…) With that out of the way, here are my two requests! 🌸

You said you'd be fine writing more killua x neko reader. So I was thinking perhaps just general relationship headcanons, sfw and nsfw. And this time, it takes place in the hxh world where reader was BORN that way and that's not exactly weird lmao. No pituo pill 💀 same personality: shy, sweet, cute, cuddly, you know..

And for my second request, I'm not sure if this counts as a hc, I guess it does, it's basically just me asking for your thoughts on this: I've being wondering about this for a while. I didn't think it, but turns out silva and kikyo do actually love each other. So killua probably grew up seeing those expressions of "love" and thinking that's normal for a relationship. How do you think that would affect his relationship with reader? And if it isn't too much, how do you think his overall experience with his family effects it? Because I highly doubt after everything he's gone through that his relationship with the reader would be perfectly normal.

It's totally fine if you only want to do one of those, or even none. No pressure! And take all the time you need. Thanks in advance :)

PS: you said you had some ideas of your own, so feel free to write them if you feel like it. i check your account sometimes, so I won't miss your killua content. But I understand if your busy and can only write what is requested. But you haven't posted anything for 2 weeks now, so I THINK it's safe to assume you don't have or get a lot of requests. So in the meantime, you could write and post your own fics. Just an idea though! (I hope this isn't coming off as forceful...) this is already super long, sorry about that, so good night/morning/evening and I look forward to hearing from you!

You check my account sometimes 🥺🥺🥺

I really appreciate it and I was just thinking about writing another neko one, but maybe a relationship head Canon set would help me with the writing a bit.

I for sure like your suggestions, and I just like the crazy side of yandere's. A lot of my personal ones have a lot of stalking lmao.

I'll probably put out something for another character today and here in the next few days get some Killua X neko stuff in my drafts and at least one out.

Link to Superman comfort:

[aromanticbuck]

“I don’t like that look. What happened?”

For troubleshooter and troubleshootee

hi I love this dynamic I'm so glad we talked about this

Jay leaned against the counter between them, choosing to stay quiet while he waited for Mouse to notice his presence. In reality, he probably already had, but the last thing Jay wanted to do was surprise him and make him jumpy in the middle of the day. That might throw him off for the rest of the week, and then where would they be?

But he didn't have to wait long, not when he received a glance and a dismissive wave - to most people, it would be seen as being told to go away, but Jay had known his best friend enough to know his quirks and idiosyncrasies. That wave meant come in, and he was one of the only people who knew how to translate it. There were maybe three people in the world who knew what gesture meant, and two of them were in that room.

And that was fine. He was more than happy to translate the odd things for everyone else as needed. It kept things running smoothly, and it wasn't like he didn't have plenty of practice. The thing that wasn't fine was the frown, the expression that he didn't know how to read only because the person who made it generally didn't know what it meant, either. Unless he was wrong, for once, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

"I don't like that look." Settling into one of the wheeled chairs, Jay shook his head and willed himself to relax. Tension didn't help things. He just needed to ask the right questions, not worry over things he couldn't fix yet. "What happened?"

Mouse let out a grunt instead of an actual response, pacing around the small space as if he was looking for something. Whether it was something in the boxes of tech or some unknown answer to the universe, Jay couldn't tell, but they'd get there.

"That's fine, I won't make you talk." Jay never understood it, but that almost made it easier. Words could be misconstrued too easily, make every answer wrong, confuse them before they got to one at all. The quiet was easier - nodding for yes, shaking a head for no, a few basic signs they'd both picked up over the years when they needed to be more specific. It worked, and he wasn't going to stop doing something that worked. "I'll just go through the list, okay? Just yes or no. Did you eat lunch?"

He got a nod, even if Mouse was still pacing, and that was a relief. With so much going on upstairs, Jay hadn't been able to make it down, only hearing whispers about a sandwich run from Kim and Roman when he passed through on his way down to the garage. "That's good. So, you're not hungry. Have you had anything to drink today?"

Another nod, a gesture toward the empty can and the mug on the desk at his elbow. The energy drink probably wasn't exactly hydrating, but the tea was a good sign. And there was water in the fridge by his knees, if they needed to come back to that point.

"I know it's probably stupid to ask because none of us ever do, but did you sleep okay last night? Full eight hours?"

Mouse stopped pacing to look at him, his expression pointed and easy to read - that was a no, but that was to be expected. Jay couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten a full night's rest, either.

"Yeah, we'll come back to that one. It's okay." But that was the end of the list, off the top of his head. That was every basic human need he could come up with without pulling the longer list of questions up on his phone. But basic human needs weren't the only things that sent Mouse into this kind of spin - stress could do it, or anyone raising their voice to much, or being dismissed... Maybe Roman had been rude while dropping off lunch, or something. Jay wouldn't have put it past him. And there was an unorthodox fix to that kind of thing.

"Do you need to sit down?"

Mouse blinked at him, as if thinking over the question, like he hadn't even considered that. He'd been up on his feet since Jay walked into the room, at least, maybe a side effect of the stress but certainly not something that helped it. And there were more memories than he could count of both of them settled on the floor, seated on the thin carpet of their first apartments, doing nothing but enjoying each other's quiet company.

"Not in a chair, I mean. When's the last time you just... sat on the floor? I've noticed that helps."

Blinking again, Mouse hesitated before lowering himself to the ground. He stayed quiet while he settled there, in the middle of the floor, and processed the new position and the new sensations that came with it. He didn't look unhappy, his frown even disappeared, and that was a good thing.

"Did that help this time?"

A nod.

"Good. I'll come join you. Today's been exhausting."

[ dialogue prompts ]