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scenesniper · 2 years

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☆ norton campbell ; general sfw & nsfw headcanons

pairing / norton campbell x afab gn! reader

disclaimer / overstimulation & breeding kink

word count / 1,159 words

SFW

⭒ norton is not the type to bat an eye on anyone because he has no interest. he almost never falls but when he falls, he falls hard. you must've done something that left a gnawing impression on norton. you'll be the first person he notices in a room full of people.

⭒ norton has attachment issues so its' safe to say he can be easily swayed by jealousy, making him react recklessly. even small things can make him jealous, whether it be miscommunication or not, please help sort it out and remind him of his worth. norton is not the type to take well to criticism and will feel invalidated if not for your affirmations.

⭒ to be very honest, norton is EXTREMELY emotionally unavailable. he has intense thoughts and feelings that of course, he won't share because he knows how intense it can be for the other person. instead, he just wants you to help ground him whenever he's feeling out of it. hugging or holding him tightly, rubbing your hand back and forth on his back, play with his hair, anything to help ground him.

⭒ one of norton's love language is 100% gift giving because that's what he always lacked in his life. he would love to take you out in any luxurious clothing store to have you all decked out in jewelry and designer brand clothing but in reality, he knows he can't spoil you the way he wants to.

⭒ norton is not big on words, mostly because he's a shy person to his significant other. so he mostly enjoys personal time between the two, basking in each other's company and silence if need be. but don't get me wrong, he absolutely loves words of affirmations directed towards him. he'd never outright admit it or ask for it because he finds it embarrassing, but trust me, whenever he's feeling down, he loves to just get reminded of his worth.

⭒ when you're both out in public together, he likes keeping you close to him at all times with his hand around your waist. he's a bit shy but he won't hesitate to call you "mi amor" in front of others. he's shy but he likes pda and it makes him feel proud of himself and a feeling to just simply show you off.

⭒ when you're behind closed doors, he will not bat an eye to wrap his hands all around you. he's a pure golden retriever in private. putting you on his lap, hugging you from behind and his head on your shoulder with his arms wrapped around you so tightly that you can't move.

⭒ his favorite places to kiss you is most definitely your lips. he just loves how soft they feel on his. he also very much likes kissing your neck and thighs, especially marking them.

⭒ if you're shorter or smaller in size than him, he loves to tease you over it. he loves how easy it is to pick you up and sure, looking down can hurt his neck but he absolutely finds it hilarious that you have to look up at him just to make eye contact. if you're taller and bigger in size than him, he'll love that too!

NSFW

⭒ norton does have experience but not much to know exactly what to do to please you. please guide him! he's a fast learner so he's sure to pick up on it almost instantly.

⭒ he's very insecure over this scars that he gained from the mining accident so at first, it was just a lot of clothed sex. when he finally decides to show you his entire self bare means he's finally accepted you in his life. even though he's still afraid of the thought of losing you, it's his intimate way of telling you he trusts you.

⭒ 8 inches 😶. maybe because i'm biased but that man is tall as hell, i know damn well his dick is too. he prefers to keep it clean down there, shaving a bit but leaving some. if you have any hair down there or not, he wouldn't care at all.

⭒ norton is a switch, 100%. some days, he just wants to relax and admire you taking the reign. other days, he wants you to be the one cowering and whimpering underneath him.

⭒ overstimulating and breeding kink, he loves the idea of starting a family with you. for overstimulating, at the start, he was afraid of overstimulating you as he didn't want you to be in pain in any way. but over time, he knows it's okay and loves the dazed expression on you when he fills you up and dry. if you are uncomfortable with overstimulation, do not hesitate to say your safe word as he'll instantly stop and apologize.

⭒ doggy, missionary, and cowgirl are his favorite positions. when fucking you, he loves to see the effect he's making on you. whether it be from your expression giving you away or the way your body reacts from his touch, he's just so infatuated and curious about you.

⭒ big no to public sex. however, if he's feeling extra jealous that day or simply can't handle his situation, he'll call you over and ask to go to a secluded part. i love to imagine that whenever he's needy, he has that urge to just take you in while you're sitting on a counter, the wall, or a door.

⭒ he is completely infatuated with the noises you make, it's an ego boost to him really. he's the type to be so drunk in your noises, he'll keep riding you and overstimulating you (accidentally) just to continue hearing your moans and pleas.

⭒ he loves marking you in visible places but he also loves marking you in places where other people can't see. just the fact that it's only seen by him and only him really turns him on, especially when he undresses you and see that oh so familiar hickey on your thigh.

⭒ aftercare is him silently getting up to go run bath for you and returning to bridal carry you to the bathroom. he cleans up the bed when you're soaking up in the bathtub. the night is filled of his constant murmurings, "i love you's" in your ear while holding you tightly in his arms.

⭒ he's that cheesy and stereotypical type to be the one that's first awake, staring at you affectionately for hours in the morning. also that nasty guy that just peppers you with more kisses in the morning (nasty ass morning breath, but it's okay because it's norton 🥲).

⭒ thanks to norton, your legs are sore so be prepared to cancel all of your matches the entire week and be absolutely spoiled with attention. norton is, by nature, a passionate man. he has so much love to give so please treat him with your utmost care.

#idv #identity v #identity v x reader #idv x reader #norton campbell #norton campbell x reader smut #idv x reader smut #identity v x reader smut #prospector x reader smut #norton campbell smut #norton campbell x reader #identity v hc #identity v hcs #identity v headcanons #identity v headcanon #identity v smut hc #identity v smut hcs #idv smut hcs

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klausysworld · 2 years

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Hoping to get a little ask in…

Klaus and YN were in a f**k buddies, YN gets pregnant and is upset when Klaus is an ass about it. But YN is heartbroken when she walks into Klaus room to find him painting and a naked (covered in bed sheet) Cami.

Thanks so much

A life i do not deserve

Part 2

It hadn’t exactly been in mind to get pregnant when i slept with Klaus. He’s a vampire he isn’t meant to be able to have children. But apparently being only half hybrid has its extra ‘perks’. We’ve had a ‘friends with benefits’ kinda situation going on for a a while before i fell pregnant and i hate to admit it but i was gaining feeling but i could have sworn he was too, there was certain gentleness he would have sometimes, a specific look in his eye you know?

Then witches took me and we found out i was pregnant…with his kid. I won’t lie i wasn’t exactly over the moon, i was terrified and sick to my stomach with nerves. When Klaus found out i, for some reason, thought he might have said something, anything reassuring. Yeah, no. He flipped out, i was a liar, a slut that would sleep with anyone who was desperate enough to have me and i probably couldn’t even remember the fathers name. I don’t think i’ve ever cried harder, in front of Klaus, his brother and a witch, the overwhelming combination of the news and then the person i had finally come to actually understand telling me how disgusting and worthless i am to him just pushed me over the edge.

He left me and our child for dead before eventually returning. By the time he came to bring me home i was in an emotionless state. I refused to speak to him and wouldn’t let him touch me.

Over the next few months he had apologised many times and i decided it was best to move on from the issue, we were going to be parents after all. Plus the small fact that i did still long for him and everything in my heart screamed to forgive him. i knew he was struggling with the adjustment to his life as well, he just went for anger instead of distress.

Besides over that time we’ve had many sweet moments, he could be very kind when he wanted to be. I still hoped that he may see me as more one day. He would give my head a soft kiss and rub my bump in a loving manner. We were going to be a family.

I thought we could be a happy family…

But then he had to fuck his therapist.

I had just got back to our home, my bump was much bigger now as i was nearly 7 months pregnant. I had gone out to collect the decorations Klaus had picked for our baby’s new room, he had insisted we get it ready asap and i couldn’t argue. We designed and got it set up over the past few weeks.

I had just made a few extra adjustments to the baby room before going to Klaus’s room but he wasn’t in there. What was however was a bra and panties set. They were definitely not mine. I could feel my heart breaking as my breath caught in my throat and i opened his art room door.

I’m almost certain he could actually hear my heart shatter as i took in the scene before me. Camille. The blonde psychologist was completely naked on his art sofa, a sofa that they had spent time on in the past. Another girl was sprawled out with her tits on full display, a scrap of a bedsheet covering her most private area. And Klaus he was painting her. He only painted people when he had taken an interest, he told me that when he painted me. Everything he had shared with me was a game. The pregnancy ruined his game.

I took a step back and immediately he was stood in front of me, i could feel the tears streaming down my face, my chest aching as my mind yelled at me to leave. I couldn’t hear a thing he was saying, though i could see the panic in his eyes as he hands came to hold my arms. The second he touched me i let out a sob, my head shaking and my feet carrying me out the compound as fast as possible.

“y/n! stop running, love please!” he was grabbing me again, hands that had been all over another woman’s body, possibly inside another woman’s body. I was gonna be sick.

“get off me right now or i swear i will leave and never come back, you don’t even want this child and it’s clear you don’t want me so i don’t know why you’re bothering in trying to convince me otherwise” my voice was shaky and pain was obvious as i spoke.

“that wasn’t anything, she’s nobody, you’re carrying our baby, our baby that i love, you know that i love our child, you mean so much to m-“

“you’re such a fucking liar Klaus! This entire time i was afraid you still thought i was a stupid whore but it turns out I’ve been living with one this whole time while lugging around his kid, a kid you wanted to leave for dead, i forgave you and you said that we could be a family” my heart was basically on the floor at this point

“i can’t live here anymore. i’m leaving, i don’t know where i’m going but i’m not staying with you, you keep your filthy hands off of me and you stay away from my child. Do as you please, when you please but do not expect me to come crawling back to you, begging at your feet for a life that i do not deserve”

i practically ran to my car, the car that he had bought me, and drove to a hotel, i would sleep this off and think of a clear plan when i was in a better headspace

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samueldays · 7 months

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Contra Yishan: Google's Gemini issue is about racial obsession, not a Yudkowsky AI problem.

@yishan wrote a thoughtful thread:

Google’s Gemini issue is not really about woke/DEI, and everyone who is obsessing over it has failed to notice the much, MUCH bigger problem that it represents. [...] If you have a woke/anti-woke axe to grind, kindly set it aside now for a few minutes so that you can hear the rest of what I’m about to say, because it’s going to hit you from out of left field. [...] The important thing is how one of the largest and most capable AI organizations in the world tried to instruct its LLM to do something, and got a totally bonkers result they couldn’t anticipate. What this means is that @ESYudkowsky has a very very strong point. It represents a very strong existence proof for the “instrumental convergence” argument and the “paperclip maximizer” argument in practice.

See full thread at link.

Gemini's code is private and Google's PR flacks tell lies in public, so it's hard to prove anything. Still I think Yishan is wrong and the Gemini issue is about the boring old thing, not the new interesting thing, regardless of how tiresome and cliched it is, and I will try to explain why.

I think Google deliberately set out to blackwash their image generator, and did anticipate the image-generation result, but didn't anticipate the degree of hostile reaction from people who objected to the blackwashing.

Steven Moffat was a summary example of a blackwashing mindset when he remarked:

"We've kind of got to tell a lie. We'll go back into history and there will be black people where, historically, there wouldn't have been, and we won't dwell on that. "We'll say, 'To hell with it, this is the imaginary, better version of the world. By believing in it, we'll summon it forth'."

Moffat was the subject of some controversy when he produced a Doctor Who episode (Thin Ice) featuring a visit to 1814 Britain that looked far less white than the historical record indicates that 1814 Britain was, and he had the Doctor claim in-character that history has been whitewashed.

This is an example that serious, professional, powerful people believe that blackwashing is a moral thing to do. When someone like Moffat says that a blackwashed history is better, and Google Gemini draws a blackwashed history, I think the obvious inference is that Google Gemini is staffed by Moffat-like people who anticipated this result, wanted this result, and deliberately worked to create this result.

The result is only "bonkers" to outsiders who did not want this result.

Yishan says:

It demonstrates quite conclusively that with all our current alignment work, that even at the level of our current LLMs, we are absolutely terrible at predicting how it’s going to execute an intended set of instructions.

No. It is not at all conclusive. "Gemini is staffed by Moffats who like blackwashing" is a simple alternate hypothesis that predicts the observed results. Random AI dysfunction or disalignment does not predict the specific forms that happened at Gemini.

One tester found that when he asked Gemini for "African Kings" it consistently returned all dark-skinned-black royalty despite the existence of lightskinned Mediterranean Africans such as Copts, but when he asked Gemini for "European Kings" it mixed up with some black people, yellow and redskins in regalia.

Gemini is not randomly off-target, nor accurate in one case and wrong in the other, it is specifically thumb-on-scale weighted away from whites and towards blacks.

If there's an alignment problem here, it's the alignment of the Gemini staff. "Woke" and "DEI" and "CRT" are some of the names for this problem, but the names attract flames and disputes over definition. Rather than argue names, I hear that Jack K. at Gemini is the sort of person who asserts "America, where racism is the #1 value our populace seeks to uphold above all".

He is delusional, and I think a good step to fixing Gemini would be to fire him and everyone who agrees with him. America is one of the least racist countries in the world, with so much screaming about racism partly because of widespread agreement that racism is a bad thing, which is what makes the accusation threatening. As Moldbug put it:

The logic of the witch hunter is simple. It has hardly changed since Matthew Hopkins’ day. The first requirement is to invert the reality of power. Power at its most basic level is the power to harm or destroy other human beings. The obvious reality is that witch hunters gang up and destroy witches. Whereas witches are never, ever seen to gang up and destroy witch hunters. In a country where anyone who speaks out against the witches is soon found dangling by his heels from an oak at midnight with his head shrunk to the size of a baseball, we won’t see a lot of witch-hunting and we know there’s a serious witch problem. In a country where witch-hunting is a stable and lucrative career, and also an amateur pastime enjoyed by millions of hobbyists on the weekend, we know there are no real witches worth a damn.

But part of Jack's delusion, in turn, is a deliberate linguistic subversion by the left. Here I apologize for retreading culture war territory, but as far as I can determine it is true and relevant, and it being cliche does not make it less true.

US conservatives, generally, think "racism" is when you discriminate on race, and this is bad, and this should stop. This is the well established meaning of the word, and the meaning that progressives implicitly appeal to for moral weight.

US progressives have some of the same, but have also widespread slogans like "all white people are racist" (with academic motte-and-bailey switch to some excuse like "all complicit in and benefiting from a system of racism" when challenged) and "only white people are racist" (again with motte-and-bailey to "racism is when institutional-structural privilege and power favors you" with a side of America-centrism, et cetera) which combine to "racist" means "white" among progressives.

So for many US progressives, ending racism takes the form of eliminating whiteness and disfavoring whites and erasing white history and generally behaving the way Jack and friends made Gemini behave. (Supposedly. They've shut it down now and I'm late to the party, I can't verify these secondhand screenshots.)

Bringing in Yudkowsky's AI theories adds no predictive or explanatory power that I can see. Occam's Razor says to rule out AI alignment as a problem here. Gemini's behavior is sufficiently explained by common old-fashioned race-hate and bias, which there is evidence for on the Gemini team.

Poor Yudkowsky. I imagine he's having a really bad time now. Imagine working on "AI Safety" in the sense of not killing people, and then the Google "AI Safety" department turns out to be a race-hate department that pisses away your cause's goodwill.

---

I do not have a Twitter account. I do not intend to get a Twitter account, it seems like a trap best stayed out of. I am yelling into the void on my comment section. Any readers are free to send Yishan a link, a full copy of this, or remix and edit it to tweet at him in your own words.

#all #essaying #twitter #gpt stuff #racepol #moldbuggery

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mirai-e-jump · 11 months

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Animage November 2023 Issue ft. Murakami Erica Interview (translation below)

Publication: October 10, 2023 (between episodes 32-33)

"I'll do as I want and follow my own path!"

Hymeno Ran, the young queen of Ishabana and a remarkable doctor, is extremely selfish. Although Hymeno sometimes acts out of the ordinary, for her, being selfish is a way of life to get what she wants.

Her aesthetics can be seen in the words she once said, "No one can make your wishes come true, only you can make them come true," and, "Dreams, as well as the future, starts with being selfish."

Hymeno's parents were murdered by the perpetrator of the "Wrath of God," and she ascended to the throne at a very young age. As she tries to avenge her parents, she grows and deepens her bonds as she clashes with the kings of other countries.

Rita Kaniska, who tried to seal off "Tranquility Grodie," the culprit behind the Wrath of God, by sacrificing themself, was stopped, and together with Hymeno and the others, were sent to Earth by the Uchu King Dagded Dujardin, a planet with the same name as Chikyu, where the Zyuden Sentai Kyoryugers and Deboth Army were fighting. Not only is it a concern about whether they can safely return, but also the present situation in Chikyu without its kings.

After a fierce battle on Earth, the battle between the Royal Sentai and the Uchu King will advance to a new stage!

-The secret birth of "The muscles that protect people"-

"Please tell us how you're feeling now that we've crossed the halfway point."

Murakami: After interacting with fans at the Summer event, I realized that the opportunities to meet everyone, and the time the 6 of us have together for filming is running out, so now, I'm just trying to cherish the few remaining film shoots we have left. In particular, the trip to Kyushu for the movie campaign was a big part of my life. After spending some private time with everyone for the first time, I realized once again that, "I really do love these members." Since we were all together the whole time, we got along really well, and it felt like we were on a school field trip (laughs). I wanted to give something back to the fans to preserve these memories with them, so I made a conscious effort to take pictures of people other than myself and post them on SNS.

"That might be why the two shot photo of Taisei Sakai-san and Masashi Ikeda-san taken by Murakami-san became a hot topic."

Murakami: That's right! I took it right after the event at TV Asahi, and I felt a sense of responsibility to, "Deliver it to everyone!" (laughs). Posting photos to SNS is a great way for everyone to remember these events, as the photos will be preserved.

"What are you conscious of when expressing the relationships between the other kings?"

Murakami: I think that the current way of thinking is not to go out and fight alone, but to fight together. In the beginning, everyone was strong in their own way, and their own interests came first, so it was difficult to come up with a plan to join forces, but gradually, as the enemy became bigger, I think the mindset changed to one of working together to defeat them. Because we've gained each other's trust, we can now rely on each other in our respective areas of expertise. For Hymeno, such people with whom she can trust and with whom she can be in a mutual relationship with is a valuable thing. The butler Sebastian and the maids are all very lenient with Hymeno, so there's no one at Ishabana who's willing to speak their mind. I think that's why having someone like Rita, who she can honestly call a friend, is a positive thing for her.

"Episode 30, where the truth of the Wrath of God was revealed, was the climax episode of the drama between Hymeno and Rita."

Murakami: For scenes between the two of them, I was impressed by episode 30, where Hymeno excitedly invites Rita to tea when they come to pick up the repaired royal seal. She's developed a deep relationship with Rita over the Wrath of God incident, and since they went out of their way to come see her, I think she may be under the impression that they want to spend time with her. I personally think it would've been cute if she thought, "Hmmm~?, They want to get along, do they? Alright, I'll invite them over then" (laughs).

"We get the impression that, especially in the beginning, Gira and Yanma were always together."

Murakami: That's right. I really like the combination of Gira and Yanma alot, although we haven't seen much of it recently. There's a perfect balance between Gira, who's honest and straightforward, Hymeno, who thinks that she has no choice but to stop him, and Yanma, who gives him ideas. Just like Hymeno and Rita, I think the interesting thing about King-Ohger is that you can see completely different sides of the characters depending on the combination.

"How about Jeramie, who appeared over the course of the story?"

Murakami: I think Hymeno has the impression that he's an amazing guy who's also between the lines (laughs). Like Gira, who's always moving ahead, Jeramie is always in his own little world, and from my point of view is very cute, but for Hymeno, he's more like a troublesome little brother. Hymeno is able to say what she thinks without hesitation, so when Gira uses his evil talk, she says, "I don't understand, translate for me," and she'll cut off Jeramie's story by saying, "Get rid of reading between the lines." On the other hand, Rita and Yanma are reasonable, so they're easy for Hymeno to talk to. She used to not know what Kaguragi was thinking, but I think her impression of him has changed when she learned of his compassionate side when they swapped bodies (episode 28).

"We heard that the dumbbell lifting in the scene where the 6 of you were gathered was improvised."

Murakami: That's right. I was thinking of Kaguragi's line, "For the sake of my people, I'll get my hands dirty," so I said, "The muscles that protect people." Even though he tends to intervene and pushes through with power, I was alittle nervous because there hasn't been any depictions of him doing muscle training. But, since I was given the OK on set and it was aired, I guess it was fine for his character (laughs). Considering the depictions of her dancing, I also thought that Hymeno's inner muscles were well developed and that she'd be able to lift dumbbells.

"It was a scene that you performed after thinking about it logically."

Murakami: Yeah, I already had some ideas in mind. I also consulted with Kaku So-san, and we showed each other how we'd act in our original roles. When Kaku-san told me, "In Kaguragi's case, I think he's planning to use the swap for something," I thought, "I see." That's why I decided to do muscle training to compensate for the lack of outer muscles in Hymeno's body (laughs). I wouldn't have known unless I had become Kaguragi myself, and I felt like I saw a side of Kaku-san that I didn't know before. I felt the pressure to exaggerate and make it interesting without destroying his character, but I think we were able to make that body swap episode happen because we're all friends who can talk about the performance and say, "This is how I want to do it."

-Hymeno's way of life seen through a collaborative effort-

"Is there anything you're conscious of in your interactions with Sebastian and the rest of your entourage?"

Murakami: For Sebas and the head maid Cleo, I try to be natural. I think that Sebas and the others are like family to Hymeno, those she can show her weakness to that she wouldn't show in public, and who she can entrust everything about herself to. Unlike the other kings, who are equals and share their opinions with each other, I often speak to Sebas and my entourage as if I'm throwing them off. In episode 25, Hymeno's decision to go into battle with Sebas and the others was a very serious one for her, as she had lost her family, and I acted with those feelings in mind.

"What are your impressions of KamakiriOhger, played by Suit Actor Sakanashi Yume-san?"

Murakami: She's so cool! I especially loved the scene in episode 27 where she wields the giant sickle. Seeing Yume-san's beautiful and cool actions makes me feel like I can't lose to her, and I get really fired up during the dubbing. While discussing it with Yume-san, I challenged myself with the pre transformation action scenes in episodes 32 and 33, which were done in collaboration with Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger.

"Episodes 32 and 33 were directed by Sakamoto Koichi, who's known for his action direction."

Murakami: It was fun to challenge myself with actions that I put my whole heart and soul into, and everyone else was really cool too! I even performed an Ina Bauer (laughs). In the scene where I fight with the Ohger Calibur, I didn't swing it around quickly, rather, I thought about the sword's center of gravity as I performed. When I was talking with Yume-san, she mentioned that she was conscious of sword driven movements, where the weight of the sword can be felt, so I also wanted to keep that in mind.

"Other than Hymeno, who's your favorite character?"

Murakami: It's Grodie! I love characters who are apathetic but the strongest, like Kiyotaka Ayanokoji from "Classroom of the Elite," or Levi from "Attack on Titan." I especially like characters who are mindless but can do anything, and who think the world is boring because they can do anything. That's why Grodie, who’s despairing of the world but also strong, is exactly what I like, although, for Hymeno, he's someone she can't help but want to perform surgery on (laughs).

"Please tell us about some of the most memorable scenes you've filmed."

Murakami: In episode 33, when Ian called out to Hymeno, she said something really cool in response, and I thought, "What is this line? 100 points!" (laughs). I think it showed Hymeno's idea that she'll live her life on her own terms. I myself will also keep these words in my heart as I live my life. I think that the unique combination of Hymeno and Ian is what made that interaction so interesting.

"We're looking forward to that broadcast! Finally, what are some highlights of future events?"

Murakami: The king's pasts will be depicted during the upcoming battle between the Uchu King and the Five Jesters, so make sure you pay attention to that. And, just as I felt during the movie, you’ll also see the unique aspects of Sentai, where the characters advance together with their friends, and the 6 members work together to face the enemy. Please look forward to seeing how the kings will conquer their extremely overpowered enemies! _

Question to Hirakawa Yuzuki-san! (Rita Kaniska's Actor)

During the tea party with Rita in episode 30, I think I asked them, "Do you like sweets?" I know that Yuzuyan herself really likes Japanese sweets, but I wonder what Rita likes. When I invite Rita to a tea party in the future, if you know what they like, I can prepare it and entertain them. Also, I need help designing a coat for when I go to Gokkan (laughs). I would love to hear Rita's ideas. (-Murakami)

Question from Watanabe Aoto-san! (Yanma Gast's Actor)

Q: What does Hymeno currently think of Yanma?

She didn't pay much attention to Yanma in the beginning, but when he talked about the Wrath of God in episode 7, he gave Hymeno a different perspective and values that she didn't have before, and now she trusts him. That was the first scene where Hymeno had a realization to what someone said to her. But it's not just Yanma that she trust, it's everyone. I want to tell him that. (-Murakami)

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9w1ft · 7 months

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How do you find LGBTQ+ people are viewed in Japan? Is it safe to come out?

i think it’s a bit of a mixed bag

on the one hand, laws and civic setups are still pretty antiquated (gay marriage is only recognized in several cities, still very common for forms to provide man/woman as the only options for gender, etc) on the other hand, even as we move at a snail’s pace, ending discrimination is, in general, a publicly communicated goal for the country, and many big businesses have proactively adopted lgbtq+ friendly policies without waiting for the government (gender inclusive bathrooms and uniforms, access to family benefits for partners regardless of gender, etc).

there is definitely representation of a variety of lgbtq+ people in media both in fiction and also news/variety tv though it can get a bit trope-y at times especially with effeminate stereotypes. still, there is a history of gender swapping / adopted gender presentation in theater (kabuki, takarazuka), and many known famous historical figures having same sex suitors and confidantes, so i think that more than in some countries people are predisposed to the idea of gender as a concept and the existence of gay people who have done important things. its also not incompatible with religions indigenous to japan, so there’s not so much a “you’re going to hell” vibe to the prejudice, its more of a “why do you insist on being different” prejudice if that makes sense. not great but it could be a lot worse.

i was part of a lgbtq+ circle at university and a gay friend of mine told me there’s a phrase that goes something like “it’s okay to be gay as long as you have a wife and kids” so once again just this idea that older generations value maintaining a public face for the sake of the group, whereas gayness is considered a subculture or private part of oneself.

so i think in terms of coming out i think it really depends on your situation, like my understanding (based on the stories of japanese friends i have) is that in general you would closet during your school years to avoid potential bullying for being different (maybe be out to close friends) but it’s much easier to come out in university or to move to a bigger city as a young adult. easier to find your people. but you might be careful when dating and stick to places where you know gay people are. you might closet at your company as well depending on the industry, and it’s a bit of a don’t ask don’t tell vibe socially among strangers, but it’s not necessarily something you’d hide.. if that makes sense. in my case i flag at work and i definitely know lgbtq people because they flag too and i know they know im flagging. but we don’t really talk about it. we just vibe and are extra kind to one another.

in terms of if it’s “safe” i’d say once again it depends but that there’s less (not zero but less) of a physical safety issue than many countries. even so, irl harassment exists and internet harassment is also a thing especially for out public figures. you might hesitate to come out to family or friends just so as not to ‘upset the order of things’ or to chance making people you love uncomfortable. over time your parents might ask why you won’t marry or won’t have kids like so-and-so’s daughter or so-and-so’s son.. these social pressures and tensions, especially in important relationships, can lead to depression and because mental health is also not that progressively talked about here, this is the part that is most dangerous, in my opinion.

just as a footnote this is all my impression of the generation of my age group and the ones above it and i think things are a little more relaxed or open for the next generation. but i think it’ll take one or two more generations to get to the point where it is in the US where everyone’s like, out and proud and colorful at school and work and among strangers. so once again, it’s not great, but i feel like things could be a lot worse.

#btw unironically Lover era coincided with a big push in the country to promote understanding of LGBTQ+ issues and taylor’s support helped 💕#YNTCD and her messaging in general was cited on the news and on tv programs a lot. so thank you taylor!

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opinated-user · 11 months

Note

Sort of a nuanced take so bear with me here-- I honestly think its a little weird that you obsessively post about every trans woman that happens to be poorly behaved. Not saying that Lily Orchard, Sophie Labelle, whoever this Poppy person is aren't doing bad things. It's just I don't know kind of strange that you have a blog all about documenting trans woman misbehavior as a non-binary person. Speaking as a trans woman you come off as transmisogynistic some times. I'm sorry it is. The only people who's bad behavior you post about are trans women. That's weird.

this blog started off talking about LO because i have seen evidence of her abusive/predatory actions to the point i felt worth talking about. she's the main focus.

P&Z came to the picture because they talked and responded to LO's lies about them. turns out they were abusive, as i have seen evidence myself and believed on their victims, and that felt worth talking about. especially since thanks to their videos on LO, the people who watched those and supported them deserve to know the kind of people who made them.

sophie labelle is a big name in trans/progressive spaces. massive even. i was a fan of her work and supported it fully until everything to do with using a irl toddler for lewd furry diaper art came out. i have only ever brought her up on that post in months to make an example of LO having a bigger issue with queer acceptance and usage than with pictures of irl babies being used for porn, so it was relevant.

EssenceOfThought made videos following on LO and then was unabled to continue doing them out of her own circunstances, so that clearly was relevant for this blog. she apologized to both Brittany and me in private for not telling us about that earlier and i have absolutely no ill will towards her or Levi. i'll probably not going to talk about her again in this blog except to say just that.

regarding all of them, i have never, ever, encouraged or supported any kind of harrassment, misgendering or transphobia against them. if anyone has any issue with any of them they can quietly unfollow or unsub. on my pinned post i put link to sites where you can download videos from youtube without giving anyone views if so people want it, encouraging, once again, to not go after any of these people for any reason.

i'm sorry that existing on the internet as a trans woman means being constantly demonized for merely existing. being used constantly as an example of a predator when you haven't done anything to deserve it it's incredibly tought and demorilizing. nobody deserves that. i don't blame you one bit for having a negative reaction when seeing transfemme being called out precisely for that, because so many bad people are going to use that as fuel to keep believing all transfemmes are the same and i hate that, i wish i could change it. for every transfemme that i discuss here i also met so many transfemme who were the sweetest, most considerate, smartest and kindest people that anyone can be.

but keeping quiet about these people is not an option either. it just isn't. they're bad people, dangerous people, who happen to have platforms where they have influence and power over vulnerable people, traumatized people, marginalized people who are desperate to feel safe somewhere. they're bad people because they chose to take advantage of the trust put on them, because they manipulated, lied and abused, not because they're trans women, and if i ever implied that then i'll dennounce it because that couldn't be further from the truth.

these people should never be used as any kind of example of how trans women are. they just happen to be trans. anyone using my blog or anything on it to further that narrative is no ally of mine and i'll block them whenever possible. if there's anything else you think i could do, please let me know.

#lily orchard #poppy&zena

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wildpeachfarm · 7 months

Note

This is what caiti said on discord (If you didn't see it ) :

Hello everyone! Bad timing, i am getting on

a long flight as of now! As ghostie said, i have

seen what was said and I will formulate all i have

on the flight for a message as people have asked

me to. Once im grounded, I'l release it, and will

be away for a bit.

Im telling you this so you don't stay up stressing

and know when things will happen. Originally i did

not want to add to this situation with proof. I

didn't want to create this idea that its petty

drama and not real life people that have been

effected. i also don't want victims to feel they

have to prove themselves to people to be

believed. i believe you. but i cannot control how

situations play out. yes i know i do not owe it, but

I will give it nonetheless.

this will be the only "proof" or "response" i have

as i don't want to keep proving myself and

participate in a drawn out back and forth publicly.

the more information and screenshots released

the more complicated everything gets and the

point of all of this becomes lost. i don't want to

participate in him proving himself, or me doing so.

i just wanted to share my story so victims around

me know they arent alone. I willlet people do as

they please moving forward and will not respond

to anything else. As well because I need to take

time for it all.

this will be the only "proof" or "response" i have

as i don't want to keep proving myself and

participate in a drawn out back and forth publicly.

the more information and screenshots released

the more complicated everything gets and the

point of all of this becomes lost. i don't want to

participate in him proving himself, or me doing so.

i just wanted to share my story so victims around

me know they arent alone. I will let people do as

they please moving forward and will not respond

to anything else. As well because I need to take

time for it all.

i appreciate all who have supported me, and

ESPECIALLY those who have reached out

privately to me with their stories and those who

felt strong enough to publicly come out with

them. u aren't alone.

once i am back in about a week i will stream my

FINAL response and message to everyone about

the situation and bigger issue at hand. because

there is a lot to say before moving on or healing.

love u all!

thank you anon!

she didn't want it to be a big public issue but she...made it one herself...this could've been easily avoided by at least confronting him in dms first

also i really don't know what she could show to prove more tbh and I wonder about streaming "final message about situation and bigger issue at hand" could mean

#ask #anon

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bluegekk0 · 8 months

Text

I'm not gonna respond to the ask I just got but for some very rough context: it's about the recent ask about me not tagging some things properly. I just wanted to clarify some things and at the same time ask people to drop the topic.

The issue wasn't just about a single post or a mention of the subject. It was about quite a long arc that I did a while back, one that went on for some days up until I revealed Lewk's design, and one that included many asks related to the subject that weren't just small mentions (which, looking back, could be a bit much even for people who are normally okay with the topic). I'm not going to question people about what subjects trigger them, that is their business, and as long as they're respectful when asking me to tag things and it's something I talk about relatively often, I have no reason to ignore that request since it costs me nothing to add a tag, and I'm certainly not going to mock it.

I appreciate that some people want to jump in my defense, though putting down or mocking someone who didn't mean to be hostile isn't something I'm okay with. If they were being rude about it, sure, telling them that this isn't how you handle those things is a good idea. But that wasn't the case here.

I wanted to say this privately to the person sending the ask, but they're anonymous, so I'm just dropping this here instead, to explain it without sharing the content of the ask, and to discourage other people from sending more asks about the topic. It really wasn't that big of a deal, if I overreacted and made people think otherwise, then I'm sorry. I sometimes do that, I've had quite a stressful past few days so it did make me feel a bit bad, but I don't blame the person in the slightest, that's just my brain doing its usual thing. So really, it's fine.

This is my blog, yes. I will not stop talking about subjects that aren't harmful by themselves, just because they may trigger someone, but again, if it's something that appears relatively often, I'm always open to using tags to help people block those posts and have a more comfortable experience. Especially in cases where it is a subject that, while not always a trigger, may not be to everyone's taste (if I'm being honest, going too much into detail about this specific one isn't something that I'm super comfortable with either). The internet is an escape to many, myself included, and I can understand not wanting to see certain things from artists you like and want to keep following. Just be respectful about it.

That's all I'm going to add about this. Like I said, this was already made into a far bigger deal than it really is, so I think it's best to move on.

#gekko.txt

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phoenixyfriend · 9 months

Note

Id not heard about this before your post, but I’d say the moon is everyone’s but most importantly earths herself - would adding weight and mass and gravity (more colony related than burials but bear with me) constitute a planetary danger due to the moons role in earths maintenance for tides/other duties of the moon? Probably safest to leave her alone?

Also, in the context of bigger fish to fry, if some rich asshat came to me for approval for this I’d sit them down and tell them there’s much more important things for them to spend money on, read the room. Which brings up the question of how far do we allow personal projects to go, unregulated (surely if they infringe on everyone else they need to be handed carefully)? (Don’t expect you to know, just boggled)

I think the moon is large enough that a colony would need to start entering megapol territory to have a non-negligible effect on gravity.

I see your point but with increasing privatization of the space exploration sector, I view the rich space burial fee as a research contribution: not paying for the trip itself, so much as paying for the research that follows in its wake. The space burial is just a perk to entice them.

At that point this issue is not the rich people, it's the privatization of the space industry, which is VERY BAD for many reasons.

But also neither of those points relate to my actual dilemma, which is how we approach cultural claims to the moon and its significance.

#it's like the Met Gala tickets being tens of thousands of dollars. it's not about the food or the networking or even being seen #the cost is to fund the costume wing of the museum. if rich people need to get dressed fancy and photographed to donate #then fine. get fancy! but donate #Phoenix answers asks #current events #the moon #space exploration

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sassyfrassboss · 2 years

Note

Its sick that they're using their children for emotional blackmail. Archie never went to balmoral for Christmas or Sandringham for summer break when the queen was alive. Why are you suddenly wanting a relationship months before the coronation??

I have a very firm belief that they won't be getting a balcony photo. Charles is absolutely going to respect their wishes of their children being "private citizens" who currently don't live in the UK. Harry and meghan want approval by BP of their children, official photographs released, rolls to play in this history-making event. its just another temper tantrum, but throughout all of this both times charles has directly spoken to the public he has acknowledged (with no titles) and their life overseas. I don't think that will change on the biggest day of his life. He wrote his Christmas day speech having already known about the docuseries. Two weeks later after the book, he notified them to move out of frogmore. He's drawing a very clear line in the sand relating to the monarchy, they don't get to take advantage of it. I may not like the fact that the children have titles of a country they have no connection too, but the only thing it does is make them look really bad and desperate. And give something to charles to take away that they very obviously care deeply about.

Saying that the titles are their children’s birthright is just absurd at this point.

I’ll never for get when I was watching the Netflix series and Meghan mentioned her children’s “role” in the family. So she truly thinks her children will one day have a role in the BRF.

Remember the rumors going around that 2023 was going to be their reconciliation year? This tells me that Harry and Meghan didn’t expect TQ to die. It also tells me that they fully expected TQ to issue an apology to them after the Netflix series and the book.

The one thing that is stopping Harry and Meghan from them basking in the BRF fame is that H&M still expect an apology. For what? Who knows. But they will keep making disparaging remarks and paying for negative BRF PR because they want that apology so they can look like they are the victims and the bigger people by returning to the fold. However, the BRF have made it clear that an apology will never happen. Therefore, H&M’s strategy has backfired.

Here is what I think they expected to happen:

1. The Netflix doc and the book raising their popularity ratings to the stratosphere.

2. The Netflix doc and the book getting the world on their side.

3. Using this as leverage to garner an apology from the BRF and to demand the 1/2 in and out deal along with patronages and military titles back.

4. Once #3 happened they would graciously and benevolently accept and start their new journey as the “stars” of the BRF where they and only they attend red carpet events, state dinners, and 5 star tours.

5. #4 would show Hollywood that they are now ever more royal than the royals so they would receive the hero’s welcome back to Cali they expected in 2020.

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gibbearish · 7 months

Text

📌 Pinned Post 📌

About:

GIBBEARISH

/jĭb′bâr-ĭsh/

noun - a hairyish dudeish whose weight fluctuates too much to call itself a bear (bear-ish, if you will).

and also rambles a lot. you have been warned.

blog title reference

uquiz visitor landing pad

(was @dave-striiider)

Notes:

- messages + asks are always open and welcome, i publish asks by default so if you want it answered privately just include a note at the end or smth

- i try to trigger tag and write image descriptions when i can, but do not do so with any kind of consistency, so if that'll be an issue please don't follow

- if a post isn't marked unrebloggable then it's ok to rb!

Opinions™:

(not a DNI as i don't see the point in those, just here as quick reference for new/considering followers)

i believe in transunity and that transandrophobia is a useful term. i support "contradictory" identities (e.g. bi lesbians / lesbian trans men / girlfags/boydykes etc) and believe no one has the right to tell other people how they should identify. i support slur reclamation and do so frequently. queer is the main umbrella term i use for the community.

Interests:

Links:

Art blog

"Am I Trans?" u-quiz

Fatphobia blog I help mod on

Vaginismus education post

Organization Tags:

#origibberish - stuff from me; includes og posts + rbs where i add things

#gingeryart - my art

#my cats - my sweet darling orange children with one braincell split three ways

#bigger gibbers - original posts that have done well-ish

#gibberasks - asks

#uquibberish - asks from uquiz visitors / posts that i recommend uquiz visitors check out

#(blank)posting - og fandom posts (ex. #stardewposting)

#selfie - evidence of my meat husk

#self rb - rbs of my own posts for bumping purposes

#and still the feeling comes - wistfulposting

some of my art below the cut!

(am always open to requests, + any kofi donations i'll definitely draw something for you if you want, just include it in the message:3 )

#if theres anything abt this post you think should be added/changed/removed lmk! i want it to be as useful as possible lol #origibberish #bigger gibbers #gingeryart #my cats #selfie

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soupedepates · 10 months

Text

Mister Kirshenbaum was a well-respected man in his neighbourhood in Zürich. He had come out of nowhere, and settled as a clockworker in his own workshop. He helped everyone, and if he knew you rather well he would fix your watch for free. By the time people got used to him, he was betrothed to the rabbi's daughter, the shy Zisel. She had been keen on clockwork since he was around, spending her time at the workshop when she had nothing else to do.

They talked for hours, or so it seems. Her smile brightened everytime she saw him. She brought him to dinner with his father - she still lived with her parents, being a PhD student. Her mother loved him instantly. Her father took him in private, for 'men talk' as he said, before welcoming him as his son.

And mister Kirshenbaum wedded Zisel, which was quite the event. Everyone tried to give some useful advice to the just married, and the crowd got quite worried the groom's family didn't bother to come. Kirshenbaum explained it was because they had had some issues and therefore went no contact; the community embraced him as its own child.

Zisel got a job in a lab, not her dream job but it was the first step. They moved onto a bigger flat, close to the workshop and the lab, with a spare room for a potential child. Fortunately, Zisel got pregnant.

They were ecstactic.

And they had twin girls. Judith and Romi. Two bright, beautiful girls, with greenish eyes and hazel hair.

"They took all after you", laughed Zisel, black haired and blue eyed. "Gosh, if you're right we will have two autistic girls at home", he said tenderly while holding his sleeping daughters. "But look, they have your nose and your smile."

The girls were, like their father, autistic. Kirshenbaum took care of everything, he knew the deeds, he fought for his children, he did everything for Romi and Judith not to resent their brain for being wired the way they were. Zisel became sick around their fourth birthday. She acted as if nothing was wrong, but as she coughed blood, as she fainted, as her body shook painfully, her husband couldn't be fooled.

"I'm taking you to the hospital."

It was cancer. She fought tooth and nail like a lionness. She tried to live as much as she could. But she ended bedridden at the hospital.

"We're going to see mommy, right?" Romi asked. "Sure thing, darling!" "Will she be able to go on a stroll with us?" Judith hoped. "If not it's alright..." "Yeah, I've brought puzzles!" Romi giggled. "If she's too tired we will just be quiet, it will be nice."

Kirshenbaum never felt so proud of his daughters, and they were his most precious treasure. They got out of the car, and entered the hospital. A pregnant woman with blue hair was chatting with her teenaged daughter looking at a tablet.

Their eyes met.

Mister Kirshenbaum had seen a ghost.

No, it couldn't be... No. Don't be stupid.

The girls were attracted by the blue hair, so unusual for them. He had to run after them and excuse them to the woman.

"I-I am sorry, madam, you know how this is at that age..."

As she didn't respond but still glared at him.

"I'm... sorry, I am sure I know you but I can't tell from where." "Oh, you do know me quite well, David", Tahel replied with a deep furious undertone.

#anger #oc #lpm #la peste moderne #did u see that coming uh #domestic angst #writing

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breakfast-n-backrolls · 2 years

Text

My parents are fucking insane

They've convinced me to visit them together with my soulmate/best friend (they think we're a couple, can't tell them we're aromantic lol) just to try and manipulate him into making me lose weight.

I literally left for 5 minutes to use the toilet and I instinctually felt something was off, even though I didn't hear them talking. After he left for the bus (I stayed overnight) we were texting and he told me about the situation, how pissed he got and how much he was straining not to talk back.

Yes, he's my feeder and he's totally endorsing my gain, he's feeding into my food addiction and wants me way bigger. But even if he wasn't, using him to try and sneakily make me change is just appalling. If they wanted to try and change my mind, they should have confronted me personally and in private. Trying to pull my apparent life partner into their games took it too far.

I've already told them a thousand times that I don't want to lose weight, that I'm aware of the consequences and that it's my private and personal decision that I don't want them to interfere with. The more they push, the stronger I am in my rebellion and reclaiming pleasure in my life. It's none of their business I'm fat, since I'm a consenting adult that can make its own choices, I love being fat and I'm making a conscious choice to stay as such. It's my life. I want hedonism, I want to give in and lead an unhealthy lifestyle. It makes me happy. Fuck anyone who thinks they can control me. If I die young, at least I'll die happy and not miserable like I used to be for so many years while battling self image issues and constant fear of enjoying food and clothes in an even slightly chubby body. I feel emancipated by making my own choice to embrace fatness.

Just to be clear, this isn't the only nor the worst instance of their mind games. My parents have been severely emotionally abusive to me up until the point I moved out. I'm currently seeking treatment for my psychological trauma. I don't feel much emotional connection with them, because they never made any effort to establish it. They're not evil, they're cool as friends, but they are shitty, manipulative and abusive parents. I don't hate them, I'm just many a time disgusted by their behaviour.

Stay safe, bacon babes, and don't let people dictate how you should live your life.

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autumnbrambleagain · 1 year

Text

Yhelm P3 - readmore for full

"Let me guess… you… prefer it sweet but drink it as bitter as you can because it gives you a weird satisfaction in not giving yourself what you want!"

The tall, lace-decorated knicknack (Afternoon Sale) had sat down across from Yhelm with no warning and now this was happening.

"It, uh," Yhelm stuttered.

"Nononono," Afternoon Sale said. She leaned all the way across the table and took one of Yhelm's paws in her long, dainty, cotton fingers. "Not just black. One drop of smoke. Greant's wood. Yes? No. Two drops."

"Uhm, yes. Yes, that sounds, fine," Yhelm said. "Is this how you take everyone's orders?"

Afternoon Sale nodded very seriously, and stood up to make a better show of it. "Oh yes. Oh yes! Tell me, when you see a doctor, or physician, do you have them prescribe the treatment? Or do they look at you, and nod, and rub their faces, and say, ah, ah, here is the issue, and then they fill you with the tonics they pick out? When you go to a tailor, do you say, make my shirt such-a-size, or do they bring out the measuring tape, and say, ah, here are your dimensions?"

Yhelm hated, just, hated it when knicknack logic made sense.

"Maybe in an outdoor coffee cart, rolled around the ditches of the out-city, oh there you can pick your coffee! There you can get what drugs you like, too, and clothes in whatever poor fit your Traverse-abandoned mind thinks wise, but oh, oh this is a proper establishment! Am I not the picture of metropolitan style?"

There was nothing Yhelm could to do stop Afternoon Sale from raising her thin arms and twirling, sending the countless lace layers sewn into her body flaring and fluttering. It was midday but the windows in the place were thin and let in more air than light, and what light it allowed entered in long, golden spotlights that cast Afternoon Sale's shadows dancing behind her in complement. She had to have had practiced this.

"I've certainly seen knicknacks worse stitched," Yhelm said. If you play along, it usually goes faster. Or drags out forever. She wasn't sure. Honestly just not sure.

"So it is!" Afternoon Sale said, still twirling on her narrow little feet. "Is this cafe not the symbol of Flyhhnemonia's delights? Do you not marvel at my summer-killer?" She stopped without any regard for dizziness and pointed dramatically.

The dark cafe was an utterly chaotic place. A dozen small private nooks were built off of the main room, little half-things just big enough for undersized tables and backless chairs to squeeze out of the way. That's where Yhelm had sat, hoping to get some kind of privacy. The main floor had the bigger tables, the bigger chairs, but at the very center, fenced off by itself behind wooden railings, was a tall, wooden box.

It was definitely some kind of permanent ritual-piece. It was the height of summer but the entire room had a late-spring coolness to it, and the closer to the box Yhelm had walked, the colder it had been. "Well. I've seen things like it before," Yhelm started, "but that is how I know it is an especially good one."

"Yes! Yes so you see. In this place where I rule, it is I who make the orders, and you who receive them. Is it any different in the Princess' court? I feel like you understand, S'ent, and so you must swear to Aiax to become a regular customer this very instant!"

Yhelm frowned. "I haven't even tasted the coffee yet."

Afternoon Sale pointed at Yhelm very seriously and nodded. She skipped and twirled through the maze of tables and towards the bar. One of the few other customers--a shaved sgnowme hunched over in a seat far-too-small--gave her a little smile of sympathy from across the room. Yhelm raised her eyebrows and tilted her head at the knicknack, as if to say, is it always like this? The sgnowme shrugged, picked up its cup with its oversized hooves, took a sip, and shrugged again, smiling, as if to say, hey, the coffee is good at least!

Yhelm looked out her narrow slit of a window. There wasn't much to see. Even people watching was hard with how slim a view of the outside she got. It was better than inviting the knicknack back to the table through idleness. Hopefully Latti would show up soon. Hopefully she'd show up before the knicknack was finished making her drink. Oh Meadoe be kind.

Wait, reading. She could be reading. Afternoon Sale would never be rude enough to interrupt her reading! Yhelm unclasped her spellbook from her belt and opened it to a random thesis. It never hurt to refresh the memory of a spell, anyway. Let's see let's see. Oh, here was Examinations on the Conservation of Detail in Changes to Objects, Such that Small Changes may be Reverted (EXCODJECT). She had forgotten one of the proofs the writer had made in it. Where was the paragraph--here, the one where he started writing about sofas for half a page.

"Ah, what are we reading?" Afternoon Sale was back, now with a steaming mug in her hands. She was leaning over, trying to get a look over Yhelm's shoulder at the book, which was impossible, since the nook was so small the wall was directly behind Yhelm. The knicknack’s head just smushed on the wall and stared directly down at Yhelm’s crown.

"Thesis magic," Yhelm said. "Thank you for the coffee," she added, hopefully.

"Oh, are you an academage?" the knicknack whistled. "My my s'ent, that explains the smoke in your coffee, that explains it right there! Just goes to show the skill in my profession, don't you know?"

"Thank you," Yhelm said, again, this time raising her paw to take the cup.

Afternoon Sale didn't give up so easily. "You know, we have all sorts of biscuits, too, all made today. But something told me you didn't want that… not yet… no, you… you… you're waiting for something…"

"I'm waiting for my coffee," Yhelm tried.

"No, that's already here, see?" Afternoon Sale said, holding the cup even further out of Yhelm's reach. "No you are… you're meeting someone, aren't you!"

The cafe door opened and a sudden rush of summer heat rolled across everything, carrying the awful, sweaty, tingly feeling of outside with it. A free person hurried inside and closed the door behind her. She was a smooth coffee color, glasses highlighting blue eyes, a summer dress to match. She came in on all fours, but stood up on her hindlegs as soon as the door was shut.

"Latti!" Afternoon Sale called out. She abandoned Yhelm's coffee on the table and went shuffling over to greet her new guest. "What an odd time for you, welcome, welcome."

"Dentsile," Latti said. "I'm--"

"--meeting someone!" Afternoon Sale said with a little hop. "Ah, I've figured it out now, I've surely got it. You are meeting that dark colored adversary in the corner there, I know that you are, aren't you!"

Yhelm waved grimly from her nook. "Hey."

Latti smiled and tried to walk on over, but Afternoon Sale put herself directly in the way.

"I have deduced it, impeccable logic," the knicknack bragged. "A new customer and a repeat customer at an odd time, why what else could it mean," and Latti didn't bother to wait for any more of that before she hopped right up onto the table next to them, and got around Afternoon Sale that way. The knicknack followed after her babbling the whole time, but Latti did, at least, make it all the way over to Yhelm and even managed to sit down across from her.

"This is where you wanted to meet," Yhelm said.

"It's very good coffee," Latti said sheepishly. "And Afternoon isn't so bad once you're used to her."

Afternoon Sale was looming over the two of them, smiling her perpetual smile, and Yhelm decided that she was never going to allow herself to become used to this sort of service. "Latti! You will have your usual two-cream three-sugar Palleste-crystal cup with your two biscuits one-a-blueberry-soft and one-a-raspberry-filling and you also want… oh let me see… flakey eye-pastry, with butter, for your guest, who is, ah, ah, let me diagnose, let me diagnose! Your. Sister! No. No! Half-sister! Oh, mysterious!"

Yhelm and Latti both grimaced. "That'll be fine, Afternoon," Latti said. "A little bit of privacy, too, if you don't mind?"

"Only, only because I diagnose it as the necessary complement to your afternoon coffee," Afternoon Sale agreed. Thankfully, thankfully, she wandered back off into the cafe, leaving Yhelm and Latti alone. Finally.

And wow, look at Latti. In this light, she was starting to look so much like mom. The exact same feather-shaped ears, the way her neck grew gracefully from the blue summerdress. Yhelm couldn't see a single hint of gray fur on her, a single crease or discoloration in the cream rings around her mouth or eyes, though. How long had it been since she'd spoken to mom? Had mom aged as smoothly? This was a good start, at least? This was a good start.

It wasn't a good thing to focus on, anyway. To focus on how Latti and Bodo looked so much alike, how they both looked so much like mom and dad.

How Yhelm, her dark, wood colored fur, her deep red eyes, her fluffy ears, her long wedge face full of endless teeth, how Yhelm looked so little like anyone else in the family.

Half. Sister.

Yhelm sighed through her teeth. "You look good. I didn't get to say, when we met at the gambling-loop. But you look good."

"Thank you! You've really filled out, haven't you? Look at your arms, Yhelm, you look so strong now. Remember when you were little? You were the skinniest little thing, just, bones and fluff. Ah, look at you."

"Yeah. Yeah. How've you been? Are you still with Fairday?"

Latti smiled that very specific smile that is not a smile. "We aren't together anymore."

"Oh," Yhelm said. Was it bad, was it especially bad, if her first thought was pride? Pride that she and Madrigal were still a couple, despite all the things mother had said about them, that she and Madrigal were still together, but family-favorite Fairday was gone? Was it that bad? "What happened?"

"Well. What's the polite way to say it. He went from being a citizen of Flyhh to being a citizen of Apat-in-Flyhh."

"Oh. Oh dear."

"Mmm, it's not that I would have minded if he was, wandering afield. But when you come home and find two… sex-cultivar… prostitutes? In your bed? With your husband? And then he's the one angry at you?"

"Oh. Like, in your apartment? In the apartment you own and paid for?" Yhelm took a sip of her coffee. Oh. Oh no. Oh no, this was really, really good coffee. There was just a hint of smokey richness that balanced out the hard bitter burn. Oh no. Yhelm would have to become a regular here, wouldn't she?

"I was finding the whores' leaves in the bedroom for a week after I kicked him out."

"Yikes. Sorry, Latti. Do you have anyone else now?"

"No, no. I don't want to go back into a relationship just because I became used to it. There's a few people I was, considering? But, uh. The cliches exist for a reason, I've been learning to love myself."

Yhelm snorted.

"Not like that!"

"Swear to Aiax?"

"Oh you have not changed an inch Yhelm. Are you and Madrigal still together?"

Oh hey, she remembered their name. "Of course. We're sharing a place near the coast."

"Right, you work in the uh. What, uhm." Latti looked around the room conspiratorially. "What is your actual, job, now?"

"We do odd jobs."

"… odd jobs. Odd jobs. Yhelm. Like being a bouncer at a racing-loop. Like being a tough at a gambling den. Yhelm."

And here came Afternoon Sale again, this time with a wooden tray balanced at the very tip of one of her long fingers. Thankfully, oh thankfully she didn't stay to chat. She left it on the table and went off again. The creamier, sweeter smell of Latti's coffee mixed in the nook with the burnt, smokey flavor of Yhelm's. It made Yhelm a bit sad. She wasn’t sure why.

"The eye-pastry is yours," Latti said, taking a tiny sip of her coffee. "I'm not going to force you to tell me anything, Yhelm, but. I'd like to know what my little sister is up to? Do I get to know that? We haven't seen you in years."

Yhelm stared at the black surface of her coffee. "Uggggh. I'm Guild of Porters and Fishermen."

"Oh," Latti said, very quietly. "Uhm. So you work with uhm. Fish--"

"It's how things work, Latti," Yhelm said firmly. "I'm not, a thief or whatever you imagine. This is how the out-city works. The out-city has too many people, the city can't keep it under control, so, you get the guilds. They're what keep the order. I'm not a criminal." At least not a petty criminal.

Latti nodded. She nodded again, threw another one out there, just to be safe. She took a bite of her blueberry biscuit, too. Washed it down with some coffee. "So. Uhm. How is that. Going for. You."

"Guild academages are rare. It's, it's good. It's fine."

Somehow the eye-pastry was as good as the coffee. Oh no, it complimented the coffee with a sweeter flavor that was a relief to the harsher notes of the drink. Oh no. It was so bad when a knicknack was right.

"That's really what you're doing with it," Latti said.

Yhelm looked up from her plate. "Doing with what." If Latti wanted to do this, she could say it, say it with her own mouth and see how much she liked the taste of it. It probably wasn't as good as the coffee. This coffee was so good.

"I mean. You know mom spent a lot of money to send you to the--"

"If she wants me to pay her back--"

"It's not about the money--"

"Then I don't see the problem."

"How could you waste it!"

There it was.

"You, you got a chance no one else in the family got. I, I would have loved to go to the Cazirizahd! You had a gift, Yhelm, you have this, wonderful gift, and you got the opportunity to use it, and you threw it all away."

Yhelm leaned back into her seat. It was tight enough she could prop her elbow on the table, and lean her face on her paw. Settle in for the long haul. Here it came.

Latti was almost standing up out of her seat at this point too. She got like that when she was upset. She never noticed. A part of Yhelm thought, it was still adorable. Context aside. "They put, more love and care into you than the rest of us, they saved up so, so much money! And send you overseas to learn! And then you come back to, to, to, to go play at being a criminal. Meadoe's sake, Yhelm, you're throwing all of their love away so you can go be, go be an adversary!"

She was trembling now and standing fully, her ears twitching and flickering and her eyes wet. Yes, Yhelm told herself. This is exactly why you don't talk to family anymore. "Are you done?" she asked.

"Can you just--"

"Then it's my turn," Yhelm said, sharply, not moving from her recline. Cheek still on her paw. That was how you won these things. By being the only calm person in a family of dramatics. "I showed. A passing interest. In magic. And mother and father jumped at that, and decided that was my destiny. They insisted I went to Cazzhad. They insisted I become an academage. I wrote them so many letters begging to come home. I hated it. Latti. I. Hated. It."

"How could you hate, how could you hate an actual chance to become a wizard? To, to be--"

"I did not," Yhelm said, and her voice was getting a bit more loud and she wasn't sure if she could stop that, "I did not ask for it. I never wanted the pressure of having to do so good it made up for mom being raped."

There it was. Latti was staring, because it was a topic they had spoken on, once, ever, when Yhelm was just old enough to understand. They had spoken about once why Yhelm was different, and then it had gone back to being a taboo, and everyone had gone back to pretending it hadn’t happened. There it was, out and alive again. There was no taking any of it back now, so, there was no reason to stop there, either.

"I didn't ask to exist. I never wanted to have to spend my entire life, justifying my right to exist. They gave me more attention, spent all that money on me? Because they wanted it to be okay. They wanted to be able to look at me and not feel disgust and shame. They wanted me to do so well they could be proud I was their child. But like you said, Latti. I am an adversary. And I am not going to spend my life making up for a crime that isn't even mine."

Latti sat down, slowly, with her elbows on the table too, and her face hidden behind her eyes. There was such an awful tension in the little nook right now. Yhelm risked a look for Afternoon Sale. She was sitting at another table, telling--probably terrible--jokes to two other customers. She was being just loud enough no one noticed their fight. Wow. This really was a good cafe.

"They do love you," Latti finally managed to say.

Yhelm took another sip of coffee before anything else. "No. They don't. They wanted to. I know what Love feels like. Their end never solidified. You're eight years older than me, you were going to be their one and only child. Then I'm forced into the picture, and they tried to feel something for me, and when it became clear they were never going to, they gave up and had another child that's both of theirs, and that one they can love. I'm not dumb. Bodo was their do-over. They couldn’t stand their last child being a rape child, so they went and made a better one to make up for it."

That went and truly killed it. This was over. Either mouth only opened for coffee and bread. Afternoon Sale continued to dance and weave from customer to customer. A trio of victims with matching blue jelly bodies came in, claimed a table near the center of the cafe, and Afternoon Sale loudly asked to buy one of their ears to make a sweet tea. A bird nomad that had been hiding in the corner finished his business and left. The sgnowme that had gestured with Yhelm earlier stood up to leave, got their oversized body stuck on the table, and toppled onto the floor with a crash.

"Oh no," the sgnowme groaned. "Oops. Oops, oh no. Oh no."

"Ah! You clumsy fool!" Afternoon Sale hopped from table to table to reach the scene of the disaster faster. The table and chair were flipped over, and a coffee mug and two plates were scattered in pieces on the floor. "This isn't Solid's week, you aren't supposed to break the tablewear yet!"

"I got stuck in the chair. I'm still stuck in the chair!"

"Oh S'ent you fool! You Jaycene! Here! Let me get you up!"

Yhelm and Latti shared a glance with one another.

"I'm probably going to start giggling at this," Latti warned. "I think the things you said were, honestly, probably right. They were right, and I don't like that. And I don't want you to feel like I'm not taking it seriously. But."

"No, it's fine," Yhelm said. "You can laugh. Should we be helping?"

"I think she's got it? Afternoon Sale's pretty strong--"

Out popped the sgnowme from their chair and back flew Afternoon Sale into the table behind her.

"Okay no let's help," Latti agreed.

She helped the sngowme to their feet and righted the table, while Yhelm helped Afternoon Sale set the table and chairs she'd barreled over. It took just a few seconds, and all that was left were the ceramic shards on the floor. The trio of victims applauded politely.

"Is this normal, for this place?" Yhelm asked.

"Of course not!" Afternoon Sale said while Latti nodded seriously behind her back.

"Delightful. Does anyone have a cloth for the plates?"

"What we need is a broom, and a reminder to myself that from this moment onwards, dear S'ent Uligard will be exclusively using metal tablewear."

Yhelm was already using her hoof to push all the broken bits together. "Latti, do you have a cloth? A handkerchief or something?"

"I want it back?" she asked, passing over a white and blue checkered thing, with her initials monogrammed onto it too. Yhelm dropped it on the floor over the shards. "I actually want it back right now if you're just going to throw it on the floor?"

Yhelm ignored Latti for a moment. She ignored Afternoon Sale and Uligard the sgnowme and the smells of coffee and the coolness of the air and focused on the fact that something could be lost for years and show up suddenly beneath a couch completely unharmed, even if you'd already looked there, which only goes to show that when you're not able to see something--"Excodject."

The handkerchief gave a startle and a sudden pressure change made everyone but Yhelm wobble backwards in the shock of it.

"You're welcome," Yhelm said, returning to her seat. This was something Madrigal had taught her as siblings of the same element. Never pass up an opportunity to Style on people.

Latti picked her handkerchief back up. "Oh no way Yhelm."

Yhelm made a point of not looking at the mug and plates that were sitting on the floor, fine as could be, as if nothing had ever happened to them, because she'd decided they hadn't. She drank the last dregs of her coffee instead. She was actually stoked. Her heart was pounding. Excodject wasn't normally able to restore damage that severe, but that she'd pulled it off so Stylishly had given it the extra push. That was the adversary advantage. So long as she made it look cool she could do so much more. It was an advantage. She was proud of it.

It didn't matter why she was born an adversary. She liked it. She was proud. No one could tell her not to be proud.

"You have a plate-fixing spell!" Afternoon Sale shouted. "You will be my employee."

"I just want the bill," Yhelm said.

"No, as an employee you are entitled to a payment, not a debt."

"But as a customer, I still deserve my debt." Yhelm looked over at Afternoon. She kept her posture loose and lazy. It was the ultimate Style trick of not looking like you cared about anything despite your insides being red hot and full of everything and it was all bursting to explode constantly. "You don't give me my bill as a customer, then you can't be trusted to give me my pay as an employee, so if you don't charge me you can never pay me. If you never pay me, then I can never fix plates for you. The plates are already fixed, so you have to give me my bill. That's just how it is."

"That's cotton logic, that," Afternoon Sale agreed. "I'll be just a moment."

Latti slipped back into her seat. "You have a plate fixing spell, though. Really?"

"It's not just for plates. And a spell isn't kept just for its practical effects. Each spell is a literary essay on reality, you don't just read a spell to learn that spell, you read that spell so you can get a greater academic context. Like, look, that spell, that spell is actually a commentary on one section of an older spell, so when you get a good grip on that spell, the other spell makes a bit more sense, too. So they're not just essays on reality, they're essays on essays on reality, and, you're smiling."

"I don't want to be, you know, mean? But look at you. You like being an academage."

"Uuuugh I like being an academage but I hate other academages. They're all, the worst kind of people? They're so, so important? Latti honestly have you ever even spoken to a lamplighter?"

Latti ran a clawtip around the rim of her mug. "I don't want to be racist."

Yhelm leaned in. "Have you ever actually sat down and talked with a lamplighter?"

"Yes. Yes! Okay. Okay. Point taken. I'm sure there are lamplighters that aren't, like that?"

Afternoon Sale twirled back to the table with a little chalkboard in her grip. "Sooo that was. Two coffee, bespoke, crafted by a coffee expert, the veritable successor god of coffees, in fact, and I dare either of you to dispute my divinity in the field."

She was looking right at Yhelm, so Yhelm just sorta gave her a one-arm shrug. "No?"

"So you'll agree my prices are fair, yes, and that was two biscuits and an eye-pastry, made with expert skill and not by me but by a Dead who despite having no taste has excellent taste in taste, you won't eat anything as good for the rest of the day and come dinner time you will be deeply disappointed by whatever sad fare you find, and you will curse me, curse my very name but find yourselves with no choice left but to return here, and therefore, your total bill is forty wants, and I will not do the math for you if you wish to pay individually, your familial politics are yours to sort out."

"I'll get it," Latti said. "Afternoon, you can put it on my tab--"

Yhelm had already placed a half-need on the table. "It's fine."

"Yhelm, I'm an accountant, I make--"

"I'm a guild academage," Yhelm said, standing up, which was the universal sign for winning these sorts of things. "Do you want to meet again?"

"I do. What do you say to, uh, the seventh? Same time?"

"Same place?" Afternoon Sale asked hopefully.

"… same place," Yhelm agreed.

"And another one becomes mine," the knicknack cooed. "If you're all done then shoo away with you, let me clean your table, I have an ear to turn into a tea."

Stepping outside was a miserable thing. Latti and Yhelm had to push through a wall of solid heat and now they were standing in it. Ardent was high overhead, wide awake, and especially enthusiastic today. Yhelm could already feel her fur starting to stick to itself. No, no now she hated being an adversary. Why did she have to be this fluffy? She let her umbrella slide out of her inventory and out into her hand. No offense, Ardent, she thought, as she pulled a shadow over herself, never liked you as much.

"Well, I'm back to work," Latti said. "Yhelm, it was really good. No, it was actually really upsetting. But I feel like we're, like this was the first time we ever really, really got to talk. I think… I think being away from our parents was good for you. I think you did need it."

"Thank you--oh--" oh, a hug was happening now. Latti probably just wanted to steal some of her shade. Oh, this was weird. Family was weird. She was full of way too many feelings. But she was an adversary and fur be damned she was not going to stop being cool now. Latti had always been so cool when they were little. Look, look. Look at how grown-up I've become, Yhelm thought to herself. Oh wow did she have a lot of issues to work out didn't she.

"Ah, this is good. This is good, isn't it?" Latti asked, finally pulling out of the hug. "The seventh. Denstile, Yhelm."

"Gentsile." And back onto her fours there Latti was going, now once again a part of Yhelm's life. Family was weird.

… a half-need was so much money for coffee why the fuck did she do that.

#autumn writes things #series tag yhelm #yhelm 3

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