#I am at the same time fascinated and horrified

[asmuchasidliketo]

Apart from the "if you're feeling depressed suck it up and remember you must always look your best" this is pretty good. However, I find a big (and surprising, giving the source) problem with this: there is no talk about sanitary products.

I mean. Kotex. You sell them. Why not use this edutainment video to advertise your brand?

Especially if it can help young girls plan their days.

Thinking of the graphic novel Pucelle (sadly not translated in English, afaik) by Florence Dupré la Tour - the biographic story of child and teenage years of a girl with little to no sexual education... despite being born in 1978.

...Okay, here's a terrifying concept. A co-production between Disney and Kotex.

[lenaellsi]

One thing that really gets me about the opening with angel Crowley is that he's not just excited by how beautiful his stars are, or how fun the process of creation is, or how impressed he's made Aziraphale. He’s not in it for the glory or the aesthetics. He’s actually horrified by the idea that the universe will just be "fancy wallpaper" in the future, even though Aziraphale assures him that humans will "marvel" at his creations.

What Crowley loves about his stars is their potential. He is building, essentially, a nursery. Most of the universe's stars, he explains to Aziraphale, will come pre-aged--but his are just starting out! After they're given time to grow, who knows what could happen! Good or bad, black holes or new constellations—there are so many possible futures ahead of them, and Crowley can’t wait to see what happens.

And then Aziraphale tells him that he knows what will happen: those stars will never grow up. They will never shine or burn out or implode or become anything new. They’ll be destroyed before they get the chance.

"You can't kill kids."

“Whose side are you on?” “God’s, of course!” “Same God that wants me to whack the kids?”

"People die." "They do, don't they?"

“Great pustulant mangled bollocks to the Great blasted Plan!”

"Don't test them to destruction."

"It's always too late."

"Nothing lasts forever." "No, I don't suppose it does."

This fear has been chasing Crowley since before the beginning. It’s what caused his first doubts, put the first traces of gray in his wings. He’s been raging at the futility of watching beautiful, complex things be damned or destroyed for his entire existence, and that’s why he seems to the audience and to Aziraphale to be a mess of contradictions.

He loves to follow the trends of the times, but he clings to his classic car in an era of planned obsolescence for vehicles. He lives in an ultra-modern flat, but finds his greatest comfort in the unchanging security of aziraphale’s old shop. He hates the idea of killing children, but is willing to see a child die if it preserves the rest of the universe and foils the Great Plan. He “goes too fast,” but his most unique and notable power is that he’s learned to stop time.

Crowley hates predestination. He hates divine intervention and the removal of agency. Crowley, the architect of free will, is constantly torn between his love of change and choice and potential and his terror that everything will be destroyed by an unstoppable, incomprehensible higher power. That’s his driving conflict in the way that Aziraphale’s is learning to find his own path without following Heaven’s rules, and I am fascinated to see how it resolves.

[misseviehyde]

SHADOWS

My ex-boyfriend James is sooooo fucking weak and pathetic. I hate and despise him with every part of my soul. He is everything that is wrong with men these days. Indecisive, overly sensitive, small and pathetic. What a fucking loser.

His twin brother Jason by comparison is a God. He is the man I now desire. Once I despised and hated Jason, but now he is everything I seek in a man. Tall, strong, rich, dominant... he makes me so fucking wet. My new boyfriend is a total Alpha. The longer I stay around him the more feminine I feel. I love what he does to me.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain how this all started...

Once I was the nerdiest girl at school. It seems insane to say it now, given how popular I am, but there was a time when I couldn't name six fashion designers or contour my makeup or suck off three boys at once in the cheerleaders locker room. I was a fucking loser.

Terrible skin, flat chested, nerdy glasses and goofy teeth. No. I was once plain little Melanie. I even had ginger hair. No wonder everyone bullied me. Popular rich bitch Madison didn't even exist. I was a fucking nobody.

My life consisted of science fairs, anime and role-playing games. Not the fun role playing games where you dress as a sexy school girl and get railed by a hot guy... no... the loser ones where you pretend to be an elf.

To my shame I was even into LARPIng. Live action role play. Each Friday night, me, James, Jason and our other buddies would go into the local woods to play.

We would run around the woods pretending to be on adventures. Fuckkkk it was so pathetic, I feel a major ick just thinking about it.

Jason wasn't the God he would later become at this point. He and James basically looked the same. I don't know why I had chosen James as my boyfriend. I guess he was slightly more confident and had asked me out first. He and Jason basically looked and acted the same though. Many people couldn't even tell them apart. Even me sometimes.

Then Jason found the shadow and everything changed.

As part of our role playing experience we sometimes brought props along and Jason had found this creepy looking glass bottle in a charity shop. It was opaque and stoppered with a wax cork. Perhaps it held a liquid of some kind? Sometimes it looked like there was something dark swirling inside, but it was kind of hard to tell.

We needed a prop to represent an evil demon that was trapped in a bottle so Jason had brought out the bottle.

As usual the group had split up. It was dark now and I was on my own. I had on my favourite druid costume (ughhh so fucking fugly) and I was creeping through the woods under the moonlight.

Suddenly I saw Jason through a gap in the trees. He was on his own too and carrying the bottle. I headed towards him, he hadn't seen me... in fact he wasn't really paying proper attention to his surroundings, which is maybe why he suddenly tripped over a tree root.

The bottle span from his hands and smashed against the ground with a musical tinkle.

I had a perfect view of everything. Jason was lit by the moonlight, his scrawny body shivering and his eyes wide with fear as a rolling mass of black shadows erupted from the smashed bottle and flowed towards him.

I wanted to scream but my voice had left me and I could only put my hands to my mouth like a parody of some dumb anime girl as the shadows flowed into Jason. Black smoke forced its way down his throat, into his nose. It wrapped and enveloped him, melting and merging into his body.

Then it was gone.

But the scene was not over.

Jason let out a cry, or maybe it was a moan. I watched in horrified fascination (and now I'm happy to admit a little bit or arousal) as I watched him change. Jason... my God... was being born.

Muscles rippled and swelled under his skin, causing his shirt to rip and his fantasy style breeches to bulge. He tore his top off to reveal a rippling six back and toned muscles as his skin flowed like wax and he changed and transformed. He grew taller and bigger, more handsome too as his face became more masculine and his hair cut more stylish.

Grunting and grinning Jason ripped off his pathetic role playing costume and stretched confidently. He was entirely naked now and I gasped in arousal as I saw his magnificent ass and his perfect cock. As I watched it was growing. Ten inches of thick white meat now hung between his huge thighs and I almost salivated as I beheld his perfect manly body.

Jason confidently stretched his body, clearly enjoying how it felt. He grinned perfect white teeth and his eyes, once mild and nerdy shone with ambition and dark desire. He clicked his fingers and there was a wisp of smoke as a stylish black shirt and designer jeans encased his new perfect body. He now looked like a male super model and he strode off through the woods chuckling, leaving me breathing heavily and wondering if I was losing my mind.

***

I ran through the woods. Back then I was ungainly and lacking athletic ability. Whereas now I hit the gym daily and can bend into nearly any position (especially when fucking) I was a fucking loser, so I made quite the noise as I crashed through the trees.

James and the others soon found me and I garbled what I'd seen, but they all thought I was still role playing.

"Babe, it's a cool story, but one detail that doesn't work. My stuck up bullying brother doesn't play with us. He thinks we're losers."

I gawped at James. I thought he was joking at first, but as we spoke it became clear he was serious. The shadow had changed Jason, but it also seemed to have changed everyone's memories of him.

I had no idea why I hadn't been affected. perhaps because I had witnessed his transformation directly or something.

James and the others couldn't understand why I was so upset and worried. The shadow had looked evil and I was worried my boyfriends brother was now under the control of something wicked. I decided I'd have to confront Jason directly and see if I could aid him, so I told the others I felt sick and left to go immediately to James and Jason's house.

James started after me, but I quickly lost him in the woods. I didn't want him to see what had happened to his brother. I was sure I could find a way to save Jason.

Haha, what a fucking idealistic moron I used to be.

***

I arrived at Jason's to find the house had changed. There was now a pickup parked at the front and the house was larger and clearly more expensive. Entering the house I found it was better decorated and I nearly had a heart attack as I entered the kitchen to find Jame's Mom and Dad.

Michael, the Dad was now a handsome looking business man wearing an expensive suit. Linda, James Mom had transformed from a homesy kind Mom into a haughty and beautiful MILF. She looked stunning!

Neither of them paid me much attention, they clearly recognised me as James girlfriend. The sneer and look of disgust Linda gave me left me cold. I can't blame her. Linda is now a major icon to me and we are the BEST of friends. She loves me like a daughter and I've learned so much about manipulating and using men from her. But back then I was a dork dating her loser son James.

But that was soon about to change.

I found Jason in a room I'd never seen before. A personal gym.

He was stripped to the waist, his muscles rippling as he pumped iron. He turned and grinned at me as I entered.

"Well well well. My brothers dork girlfriend? What the hell do you want Melanie?"

"I saw everything Jason. I saw that weird shadow enter you. We have to get it out of you. What have you done to your Mom and Dad? This isn't right."

Jason grinned. "Ahhhh. So you saw it? So you remember the old me? Haha you have no idea Melanie. No idea how good this feels. The shadow within me hungers for power and pleasure. It serves no other purpose but to give me what I want. It can change things, people too. Anything that falls under my shadow can be twisted to serve my whim. I am a fucking God now."

I watched nervously as black shadows seemed to spread around Jason as he spoke. The air rippled with potential and a cold numb feeling spread through my body and my soul. Jason grinned as the light seemed to be sucked out of the room and I was drowning in darkness.

"You could be so much more Melanie. You're such a fucking dork, just like my pathetic brother. I always wanted you to be MY girlfriend and now I have this power you can join me. I won't force you, I want you to join me willingly. A taste of this power and I think you'll want more."

I gasped falling to my knees as the shadows surrounded me. All the warmth and kindness and love inside me was suddenly numbed. It was like the shadow was feeding on my positive emotions... perhaps it was.

The dark shadows enveloped and wrapped my nerdy body. Tempting whispers invaded my mind and I felt Jason's presence beating down on me and willing me to give in. The shadow wanted to change and corrupt me, but it would only do so if I wanted it to. Jason hadn't lied.

I don't know if you've ever been offered something so fucking delicious and perfect that even if it came at the cost of your soul you'd jump at the chance... but when that moment finally arrives, it's pretty hard not to succumb.

I'd seen what the shadow had done to Jason. It had turned him into the perfect example of masculine perfection. It could probably do the same for me, but make me the ultimate girl. All I had to do was let it in and surrender to the darkness.

I'd seen girls in magazines, on TV, on teenage drama programs. I'd always wondered how it would feel to be a Queen Bee... a head cheerleader type. What must it be like to be so pretty you can get whatever you want? How would it feel to be a bitch?

"Yes... change me," I groaned. "But only a little... I just want to be a little prettier."

I gasped as my body suddenly ached and I felt the shadows begin to change me. I ripped my dorky glasses off and felt my brace snap as I spat out the metal to leave perfect white teeth. My red hair turned a sexy black and my pale spotty skin tanned as my body toned.

It felt so fucking good.

"Don't you want more Melanie? Don't you want to become a real fucking bitch? If it feels this good to go a little of the way, why not let the shadows take you all the way?"

Jason had a point. The more I transformed the more I wanted to transform. As I felt myself become more popular and beautiful, the further I found I wanted to go.

"Yessss mmmmore," I gasped feeling the shadows pour down my throat and into my body. I could feel Jason in my mind now, his fingers manipulating my pleasure receptors and his thoughts becoming my own.

"That's right Melanie. You don't want to be a dweeb anymore. You want to go all the way. You want to be a fucking bitch. Say it."

I shuddered as delicious throbs of pleasure pulsed through my body. "I... mmmmmh, ohhh yes, I want to be a bitch."

"That's right Melanie. Let's picture a girl. Let's call her Madison. She's everything you want to be isn't she? Thin, pretty, bratty and spoiled. She's the kind of girl that has a new outfit every day, that all the other girls bow down to. I want you imagine how hot she looks. Nice tits, a toned body, ultra-feminine body language. So different to the dork you are. Are you picturing her?"

I was picturing her. I was thinking of every mean bad girl and bitch I had ever know in real life or in the movies. I was picturing Madison and boy was she fucking hot.

"Now say it. Say you want to be Madison. You want to be the bullying popular Alpha girl."

My pussy was wet, my already partially transformed body felt so good. I needed more... I needed the shadows to corrupt me completely.

"Yessss I want to be Madison."

I screamed and orgasmed as I said it, feeling the shadows flowing into me and destroying Melanie forever. All the kind gentle nice parts of me were consumed and the shadows pumped me full of evil, mean bratty thoughts.

Melanie died in that instant and I... Madison... took control.

Long bitchy nails shot out from my fingers. My face became meaner and even prettier, soft pouty lips curving into a bratty grin. My clothing became designer, my handbag expensive and my personality became that of a spoiled rich bitch.

Reality rippled and changed. Only Jason and I would remember the old me. It was as if Melanie had never existed and only I had been born.

The shadows withdrew, but they left their mark. I was a fucking evil bitch now, devoid of mercy. I only cared about myself... oh and Jason of course.

"How do you feel baby?" he grinned, towering over me in his Adonis body.

"I feel amazing baby," I grinned. "In fact I want to thank you for being the best boyfriend ever."

I giggled and sank eagerly to my knees. My long nails looked so hawt as I unzipped Jason's fly and his huge ten inch dick flopped out.

Moaning I began to pump and suck his cock. This was who and what I worshipped now. Jason had taken me from that loser James.

"Yesssss, good girl," grunted Jason as he put his hands gently on my head and pushed me deeper onto his cock. "You're my slutty bitch now and I have everything I ever wanted."

I just gagged and gargled happily, I fucking loved my man's big cock.

I couldn't wait for him to cum. I needed to taste it...

***

And so that is how I ascended from being a fucking pathetic loser into a Goddess myself. Jason is the Master of the Shadow and so long as he holds that power I am his willing accomplice.

Soon after the transformation James came home. He no longer remembered I had ever been his girl, but that didn't stop me and Jason fucking loudly next door and laughing about the little simp jerking off in his room next door.

I felt so evil and perfect. Being Madison was like a perpetual state of orgasm. The meaner and nastier I was, the better it all felt.

Sometimes I wondered what would have happened if James had smashed that bottle instead of Jason? Perhaps he would be the Alpha stud with the delicious bitchy girlfriend.

But it was just idle speculation. The shadows answered to Jason...

And I answered only to the shadows now.

THE END

[revelboo]

Invisible Monsters Pt 2

Lost Light Megatron x Reader-forgiveness

• One arm still cradling the empty cube, the other stretched out over the bar so his cheek can lay on it, you’re caught in a mix of pity for Trailbreaker and indignant anger that Swerve had just kept serving him. You hadn’t known what to make of the fact that they could get drunk or that Swerve and Whirl both find drunk Trailbreaker hilarious. Most of the time. They’d both lost interest as soon as he made the inevitable buzzed slide to depressed muttering. You’d watched the whole mortifying show with the same horrified fascination usually reserved for truly awful train wrecks.

• And at some point, Whirl had ditched you. Leaving you with Trailbreaker since there’s no way to get off the bar top Whirl had plopped you on without a broken neck. The big mech’s been silent long enough that you think he might finally be recharging, but you still keep well out of his reach.

• Neck craning to stare at Swerve on the other side of the bar, you wait for him to remember you’re still trapped. Because the only way to get to him is by climbing over Trailbreaker’s arm and hoping you don’t get swatted in his drunken stupor. No thank you.

• You’re relieved as soon as you spot Rodimus entering the bar and you lift an arm to get his attention. That grin as his optics light on you makes your stomach drop, though. You know that look. Sure enough, the red and orange mech was looking for you. Probably for something you’re not going to like. A certainty that grows with icy dread as he comes over, reaching for you.

• For a heartbeat, you tense and seriously consider taking your chances with the passed out drunk. Shoulders slumping, you allow the co-captain to scoop you up. “There you are,” he says, voice cheerful which set off all sorts of alarm bells. And then he’s walking with you trapped in his servos.

• “I’m not going to like whatever this is, am I?” You ask, clinging to his servos as his quick stride almost makes you fall. A grin is your only answer and you groan. It’s going to be bad. Definitely bad.

• As soon as you spot the massive, intimidating form of Megatron on the bridge, you wilt. Especially as Rodimus heads right for him with a cheery, “Hold this for me,” and thrusts you at the huge mech. Heart nearly stopping as Megatron instinctively reaches to catch you as you fall a foot or so into his hands with a yelp.

• Surprised to say the least, Megatron cups his hands around the tiny form that’s just been dumped into his hands. “Rodimus,” he growls, as the human glares at the younger mech.

• Backing away toward the door of the bridge so Megatron can’t try and give you back, he folds his hands behind his back. “Remember that asteroid field I piloted us through?”

• “The one I specifically said not to fly through?” Megatron asks, servos starting to curl into fists when a little hand lands on one. Startled, he glances down at you in his palm and forces himself to relax before turning his attention back on Rodimus. “Yes. I remember.”

• “Oh, good. Great,” Rodimus’s optics dart to you in Megatron’s hands. “So on a completely unrelated note, apparently one of the engines is now inoperable. Gotta go.”

• And he bails, leaving you in the former warlord’s hands. That jerk. “Seriously?” You growl, anger faltering as Megatron looks at you. And sure, he’s been gentle with you so far, but he’s huge and Whirl’s told you stories. Horrific, traumatizing stories that don’t quite mesh up with what little you’ve seen of him so far. This mech isn’t some bloodthirsty monster. He’s just a perpetually exhausted adult having to deal with nonstop stupidity. And he is tired if the way he vents with a soft growl is any indication.

• Casting about, Megatron isn’t sure what to do with you now. Set you down and let you wander the halls or just wait until Rung or someone else remembers to look for you? Anything but hold you in his palms as you look up at him with wariness, but not hate. You should despise him for what he’s done to your kind and your world. So why don’t you?

• Seeming to resign yourself to being stuck with him, you curl your legs up under you. Make yourself comfortable in his grip. “He looks up to you, you know.” The soft words surprise him as he frowns down at you in his hand before heading to his chair. It feels almost blasphemous to cradle your warm, little body and feel the steady beat of your heart against his servos. Something soft that was never meant for him.

• “Hardly,” he says, tensing as you jump lightly from his palm onto the arm of the chair to look around. “They’re all afraid of me.” Like you should be. Such a fragile thing, you shouldn’t fearlessly meet his optics. The almost sympathetic, wry twist of your smile as you spread your arms and walk to the edge of the flat surface, cuts him.

• “Everyone makes mistakes,” you tell him, head tipped up to study the empty vastness of space. Huffing softly, he sinks back in his chair. You dare sum up all the wrongness as just a mistake? He can’t understand how easily you can forgive and move on, but maybe, short lived creatures have to be able to let go because of just how short their lives are. Maybe they can’t afford to cling to old grudges. Or maybe it’s just you in particular.

Previous Next

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 20: Academy Era Edition

Please note that some Academy Era info is dispersed throughout the other parts as well; I just wanted to make one dedicated to these nerds. I am not repeating stuff from other parts (purposefully, there may be some accidents, but I'm trying not to repeat things like Koschei teaching Theta hypnosis or like the hyperball team) or including some basic info I think are decently well known (like Torvic or the Gallifrey Academy Hot Five). ;)

The Master's real name is 32 letters long.

As students, Theta and Koschei enjoyed building time flow analogues to mess with each others experiments.

Koschei once gave Susan a toy which was actually a communication node that he could use to find the Doctor and Susan if they ever left Gallifrey.

Theta and Koschei also used to sneak out of the Academy to drink with Shobogans. On one such occasion, Koschei picked a fight with six drunk Shobogans.

Theta's name day and Otherstide are on the same day.

Koschei often hypnotized people as a joke. He was never punished for it.

Drax had a home-made skimmer that he would often use to go to his House rather than stay in the Academy dormitories. He'd also give Jelpax rides home because they lived close by.

Koschei was in charge of organizing the end-of-term parties, but the Eighth Doctor remembers that they weren't very good.

While at the Academy, Theta and Koschei traveled to Gallifrey's past in search of Valdemar, an ancient entity and Old One, but they found nothing of Old Ones. Theta was horrified by Valdemar's power while Koschei was fascinated.

When Vansell broke his leg while climbing Mount Cadon, Theta created a localized time bubble with a sonic wrench and two lengths of twine. This accelerated the healing process, and it was healed in two minutes.

Koschei and Theta also once traveled to Machasma and used sonic agitation to get out of a tight spot.

Theta Sigma came fourth place in the Time Lord Academy Sprint Championship.

Millennia had a natural gift for temporal engineering, and Theta believed she would one day make great intellectual achievements.

Tebediatroculozan attended the Academy at the same time as the Deca. He was incredibly clever but also envious of the Doctor for the adventures he had. The Eighth Doctor helped him move past this jealousy.

When Koschei stared into the Untempered Schism, he noted with much contempt that the Time Lords who had taken him there all refused to look at it themselves.

Mortimus is likely about 50 years younger than Theta Sigma.

The Second Doctor recalled that Koschei enjoyed being scared of the dark too much.

The Toymaker had Theta play Capture the Flag and thought that Theta had cheated.

When the Toymaker was using Rallon's body, Rallon had enough influence over his personality that the Toymaker had a sense of "good and evil." When the Toymaker went against the Fourteenth Doctor, he was no longer using Rallon's body, so this was not the case.

Theta was Borusa's teacher's pet, and Borusa favored him over other students. Later on, the Doctor would believe this was why the Master was bitter towards him.

In fact, an unproduced story's original script originally had the Doctor’s grandfather be named Borusa, but it was later changed to Pandak.

While at the Academy, Koschei befriended Salyavin and manipulated him to gain access to the restricted libraries. He wanted to steal The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey but could not find it, and Salyavin took the blame for his wrongdoing.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - Review

firstly, i just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has taken an interest in and encouraged me in doing these liveblogs! this has been such a fun project to work on, and reading these books for the past nine months or so has been a bright spot in what has otherwise been a relatively tough period of my life. i’ve really enjoyed getting to theorise about all of the lore of these books and make horribly ill-advised emotional attachments to inevitably doomed characters

more fun statistics that no one asked for: this liveblog was the longest, at about 20,000 (!!) words. my GtN liveblog was 12000 words for comparison. i have no excuse other than i like to talk

NtN definitely was an interesting diversion from the other two books so far. it wasn’t exactly a breather, since it was still incredibly heartbreaking and horrifying, but it was fun to see a part of the worldbuilding very different from what we’ve seen before. as much as I missed both Harrow and Gideon, i liked that it gave other characters time to shine outside of interacting with them. it was fun to see more of Palamedes, Camilla, and Pyrrha, and how those characters act in a vastly different environment to the Nine Houses

although NtN was essentially telling two different narratives, John chapters vs Nona’s, it still didn’t feel particularly disjointed - i think it was thematically held together by being a bit more grounded than the other books so far, sci-fi and fantasy elements notwithstanding (contemporary issues like climate change and nuclear war, & John’s world being a setting far closer to our own vs Nona’s domestic life & very real problems of living in a warzone)

i also loved getting John’s perspective in the chapters narrated by Harrow, his point of view and recollections were equal parts funny, terrifying, and fascinating. he’s certainly got a … unique perspective on the world. it was just a slow horrifying journey trying to figure out how the world ended, knowing that it was doomed but not exactly how it happened

Muir really has a talent for endearing you to a protagonist, and Nona was no exception, I absolutely loved her, and just, her whole story and how tragic it was physically hurt me. i also wasn’t expecting to get as attached as i was to Hot Sauce and the school gang - i hope we get just even just a mention of what happens to them in AtN

tldr: 11/10. reading this series is like the emotional equivalent of voluntarily getting stabbed in the heart repeatedly. i have absolutely no clue what I’m going to do with my life now that this is over for the meantime, other than go crazy in a locked room with a red string conspiracy board trying to figure out whats going to happen in Alecto the Ninth

speaking of, obviously its not a pressing issue since to my knowledge there isn’t even a release date yet, but i’m not sure if i’ll do a liveblog for Alecto when it comes out? on one hand the most fun bit about liveblogging has been the reaction from everyone who’s already read the books and we’ll all be in the same boat of not knowing what’s going on when Alecto comes out, so i don’t know how much of a point there is? on the other i would very much enjoy doing it anyway, and i’m a perfectionist so it would be nice to have completed all of the books like that. so i guess it depends on how impatient i am to read the whole book when it comes out lol

[vexingwoman]

I'm radfem adjacent, and primarily consume "whump" for a lot of the reasons already detailed here. For me personally I find a lot of catharsis in this kind of content, but I admit a large part of it is probably my brain being rotted by fanfiction.

A lot of it is self fulfilling prophecy. It's simply way too difficult for me to see a woman character being hurt or tortured, and seeing a man under the same situation is in both parts a kind of revenge or catharsis for my own suffering. And if I desire to see this dynamic, there are truckloads of fanfiction and doujin about this specific topic, sometimes even with a happy ending. Someone else proposed that seeing your favorite character that vulnerable is appealing, which I think holds true for me as well. I think so many women are primarily drawn to gay male fiction because of internalized misogyny, but primarily in the sense it is difficult to see oneself in a sexual fantasy. Projecting or inserting myself into a female character requires so much internal observation of the self. It completely changes the dynamic in my mind, so it is so much easier to just insert a male character that I can project onto as the victim. With a female character I'm asking myself all these questions. Am I as attractive as her? Would the character I'm interacting with in this scenario ever be attracted to me? Would the sexual fantasy proceed in the same way if the other character perceived me as female? It is too painful to think about these things, so I just default to a comfortable impossible yaoi fantasy.

I find female fandom space fascinating, because it is the only part of the internet men have never had any interest in colonizing. So it's an almost clear mirror of how women feel in a hypersexualized society. There are certainly women who sexualize real gay men, but a fictional man is not a man. A fictional gay man is not a gay man. Lines on a screen will always be a projection. As long as women exist in a society where they are told constantly they could be raped, when all real life porn is men getting off to random women being raped, a lot of women will naturally turn that fear into a fantasy that can take the edge off of this constant, looming fear.

Very interesting. You touched on a sentiment I’ve had for a long time, which is that male characters get to be viewed as human first and male second, but female characters are viewed as female first and human second. For example, when a male character is emotional and vulnerable, it’s viewed as a consequence of his individual self. But when a female character is emotional and vulnerable, it’s viewed only as a consequence of her being female. I can definitely understand the feeling that envisioning yourself as a male character is much easier and requires less self-awareness or internal observation.

Honestly, it’s fascinating that you’re interested in the victimization of male characters, at least partly, as vicarious revenge for misogyny. It almost comes across as though you hate these male characters. However, as I mention here, most women in these communities are extremely vocal about loving, caring for, and adoring the male characters whose anguish they romanticize.

Overall, I’m learning that the radical feminist community has very differing opinions on this matter. You and many others have expressed the opinion that whump consumers are interested in male victims because female victims are too real and horrifying to read about. However, myself and others are of the opposite opinion, which is that whump consumers are interested in male victims because there is a lack of compassion for female victims—meaning, female anguish is only recognized for the horrifying tragedy that it is when imposed onto a male character.

@misandry-is-justified articulated this view nicely: “when a woman is victimized its to titillate the (male) audience, but when a man is victimized it is treated rightfully as a horrific and traumatizing incident […] this is why whump so often uses a male victim, because only then is trauma and violence treated as it should and only then is the victim truly treated as a victim.”

[veespee]

Firebrand HCs

Firebrand is like,,, one of my favorite characters, and he's not talked about enough. (and i don't support Ad*m R*sner btw)

-LOVES goth literature. He 100% reads Edgar Allan Poe every morning while drinking black coffee. (if they can eat or drink in the Collective realm)

-Also loves goth music. I just generally HC him as a goth. I feel like he'd love Bauhaus especially, and maybe London After Midnight, Christian Death, but also mostly classical music. He'd be more of a traditional goth.

-He has a complicated relationship with HABIT. He doesn't like him, he probably can't even handle him. HABIT is loud and pretentious, he needs to show off how great he is and how powerful he is, while Firebrand doesn't need to do all that. He's quiet, he speaks just a few words, and that's all you need to know how knowledgeable he is. And i feel like HABIT respects that, in a way, and of course Firebrand respects HABIT for the fact that he saved Firebrand from the Collective. So there's just,, mutual respect, i guess, but they definitely wouldn't get along just hanging out like friends.

-I feel like his face would look pretty horrifying with how burned he got, but like… in a tragically beautiful way? Like sure, his face is deformed and burned, but that was something he had to suffer through. And from that, he got knowledge. And with that knowledge, he strived to help his other versions, so they wouldn't end up like him. He shows them how deformed he looks, encouraging them to not make the same decisions and end up like him, which i view as,, tragically beautiful, i guess? It's bittersweet, that he uses his appearance and trauma to teach his other versions not to make bad decisions. (hence the quote: “I am now something that I shouldn't be. A rogue god. I belong, and yet I don't. An abomination of existence. Trapped in this awful form.”)

-Def has written poetry before. Or a book. I just feel like he loves literature in general, and after being kept in the Collective for so long, in isolation, that's his only way out. He tries to keep his emotions inside, and writing is the only way to get his emotions out without going insane basically.

-He has a fascination with humans and mankind. Not in a positive, but not in a negative way either. It's more… curiosity, and some respect, but also some resentment. He's curious about what humans could accomplish, as he watched a lot of things evolve. (i'm not sure for how long Firebrand has existed, but i'm assuming since the Collective was created, which was in World War 2 so let's just say 1940s.) He watched scientific progression, he watched society socially progress, but he also witnessed war, genocide, opression. He's fascinated with it, as time is linear, unchanging in the Collective realm, while for humans.. they move, they change, they evolve. He can not. His purpose is one, to do the Administrator's dirty work, “stuck in this awful form”, “a rogue god”.

thank you for reading!🖤

[corviiids]

back in your asks unfortunately you can’t get rid of me. i’m going to keep enablign you.

you bringing up the kr version of hurricane and the martyr complex light has in it is great bc what fascinates me about hurricane as a song is how radically different it is in different languages? as we all know in the manga light has this horrible visceral reaction to what he’s done. he looks like he’s gonna be sick when he has that guy hit by a truck. when ryuk turns up he admits that he’s been losing weight and barely sleeping. but the musicals differ so massively in how light is portrayed? because in english light seems to have this very strong sense of justice from the start - in where is the justice he denounces the corporations corrupting the legal system and asks “how can we turn away and say that’s just the way things are?” and then in hurricane he hardly seems upset at all by what he’s done. he seems vaguely surprised at how easy it was and then turns around and sings about how he’s got this insanely strong, perfect, untraceable power that he’s going to use to deliver righteous retribution. BUT then the jp versions of witj and hurricane are much less certain and light seems more horrified and then hopeful. the focus is on creating a perfect world, not necessarily punishment. he’s more a glass half full kinda guy. and then it changes AGAIN in the kr. it’s so fascinating he is a completely different version of himself in all three versions and i just need to ask. what are your opinions on this. am i making this up. do you understand how my brain is firing

you are NOT making this up and i DO understand how your brain is firing. listen. listen. in that same post about light/achilles (intertextual comparison not ship) (although?) and prompted by a response from someone else cool i reposted these tweets (which you have literally just seen because i shoved them at you but ill post them again so everyone can see)

to me it is like, very key that every iteration of light yagami SEEMS really different. in their behaviour, their values, what it takes to push them to acting and how they react, etc - obv you've brought up light as he appears in the three most well known languages the musical exists in, but i also am a huge fan of comparing his animanga self (already two different iterations to an extent) with the tv drama, which has maybe the most distinctive version of light out of all of them and which i BELIEVE? drew criticism? but i am not 100% because i was not here for this because i watched death note for the first time in fucking february. because i am hip with the kids. #rad

anyway this is part of a much larger ramble of mine that i am not really doing justice here but i actually really like that that version of light is so incredibly different - and yet he really isnt, somehow, because he ends up not only at the same ending but recognisable as the same person. that's what i think is so interesting! these differences are undeniably there and they're BIG - as you said, between musicals he ranges from being a vengeful guy on a power trip to being an idealist with a martyr complex, and you'd think those are two totally different sets of core values. between animanga vs tv drama he goes from being this cool and collected hyper prepared cynical idealist to being a depressed nihilist who's working extremely hard to shed his own ability so he doesn't have to deal with the pain of caring. again, these seem, and factually are, completely different sets of values.

and yet they're actually perfectly reconcilable. every iteration of light no matter how distinct and no matter how much their core values seem to oppose or contradict each other ends up reconciling into the same guy partway through the story, where all of these different directions he's been going in all converge. his priorities even out - regardless of if it was the power trip that came first or the desire for the perfect world, they balance ultimately and coexist. regardless of whether his idealism led him to bitter radicalisation or nihilism, they also balance ultimately and coexist. is light affected by his first murder? yes - how does it show it? that differs, but none of the lights are actually deluded enough to think that murder is good. they all think it's bad but defensible and justifiable and then visibly cope with that fact in different ways. light looks like a VERY different man depending on which of his values are being pushed to the fore in a given interpretation, but all that really does is serve to spell out exactly how complex he is internally once you watch them all converge at around similar points in the story, even when at the barest and most uncharitable interpretation he just looks like a maniacal serial killer with a delusional god complex. this is why i like him so much unfortunately

also none of this applies to netflix light who is irreconcilable and irredeemable. and white

[vickyvicarious]

Okay, so this is one of several (I believe?) timeline errors in Seward's accounts. It happens in a few other places but I think nowhere so egregiously as here, with a week of time added in since yesterday's date. I recall that last year there were theories about Dracula affecting Seward's mind in some way, similar to how he affects Renfield and Lucy. While those can be fun to play around with, I'm certain the 'official' explanation is simply that Stoker got mixed up on his timeline and failed to notice that he'd added a week between the 19th and 20th.

All that's backstory though. Because it has only been a day for us, it's perhaps easier to miss, but if we assume the timeline mentioned in the actual text of the entry is what Stoker was envisioning, then... Renfield has seemingly been chained to a wall and in a straightjacket for a week straight:

For the first week after his attack he was perpetually violent. Then one night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet, and kept murmuring to himself: "Now I can wait; now I can wait." The attendant came to tell me, so I ran down at once to have a look at him. He was still in the strait-waistcoat and in the padded room, but the suffused look had gone from his face, and his eyes had something of their old pleading—I might almost say, "cringing"—softness. I was satisfied with his present condition, and directed him to be relieved.

That's... I didn't really put it together last year, too caught up in the actual dates we're given, but. That's horrifying.

I love the delivery of Renfield's "now I can wait." But something about the amount of time it took makes it so creepy and so sad. He's been raging and fighting for a week, and it's only now when he can finally calm himself enough to go back to his more strategically placating approach towards his captors. (And it seems the moon has prompted this change within him... more thoughts on that later.) Indeed, only when he does so does he regain any semblance of his former freedom.

"They think I could hurt you! Fancy me hurting you! The fools!" It was soothing, somehow, to the feelings to find myself dissociated even in the mind of this poor madman from the others; but all the same I do not follow his thought. Am I to take it that I have anything in common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together; or has he to gain from me some good so stupendous that my well-being is needful to him? I must find out later on. To-night he will not speak.

I think this passage proves how Seward's view of Renfield is very tied to his own personal feelings, and is thus anything but professional and objective. In the past, he's been overly indulgent of Renfield when he wants to discover a new madness that he can put his name to, and has even been tempted to go further; in his previous entry he felt hurt by Renfield ignoring him and then escaping, and lashed out with dismissive assumptions of delusions he must be having, and locked him up/restrained him. Apparently, kept him restrained until he resumed his former more placating behavior. Seward is fascinated by Renfield partially out of ambition, and partially out of this idea that they have some kind of bond or he has some unique understanding of Renfield.

And yet that idea upsets him too. He knows that he himself is abnormal in some way, perhaps is very conscious of or worried about this fact, and kind of scoffs at/dismisses the idea that Renfield might view him as someone who is on the same 'side' or understands his perspective. It sort of feels like Seward wants Renfield to be open with him and confide in him but only in a respectful way that acknowledges him as mentally/status-wise superior. If Renfield treats him as equal to the attendants, that is failing to acknowledge his superior status and intellect and training. If Renfield treats him as an ally opposed to the attendants, then that implies the two of them are of equal status and that Seward's being viewed as mentally on a level (and thus mad at least to an extent) rather than superior. Even as it partially soothes his hurt feelings the idea kind of upsets him, and he kind of scoffs at it.

The last possibility he brings up is that Renfield is using him. But Seward tests that right away and it doesn't seem to go anywhere yet: the cats that previously were Renfield's greatest desire today do not interest him in the least. I keep feeling like there's a weird balance of Seward being very willing to see Renfield as very calculative and secretly harboring murderous plans, but at the same time not having much ability to recognize when he himself is being manipulated by Renfield. Like this pleading/cringing behavior. On the one hand he has definitely noticed it is a deliberate action in the past, but at the same time he seems to consider it an indication that Renfield can be 'managed' again and set loose from his padded cell/restraints. (Not that I think releasing him is a bad idea, but it is an interesting disconnect from how Seward has kind of looked at it in the past, I guess?) Seward often notices when Renfield is trying to get something from him but doesn't necessarily refuse it, or still lets his own emotions/ambitions influence his response. I feel like it comes down to a lot of ableism in his faith that he is smarter/more able to see through and manage Renfield, and thus can afford to sometimes indulge Renfield's efforts to use him. Meanwhile I feel like Renfield has deliberately played into that at least sometimes in order to get his own way, and Seward doesn't recognize how clever he actually is.

Happy thought! We shall to-night play sane wits against mad ones. He escaped before without our help; to-night he shall escape with it. We shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow in case they are required….

I love the way he pauses and then says "happy thought!" He truly is just having a sudden idea, and his curiosity is overwhelming his ethics/common sense here. Honestly, in this entry? It reminds me a lot of Dracula once again. I can easily see Dracula thinking this to himself with a few minor changes.

Perhaps on May 15th, before reminding/taunting Jonathan never to sleep outside his own rooms. Or even better, on June 29th when Jonathan asks to leave right then and he gets his wolf idea:

Happy thought! I shall to-night play predator nerves against prey ones. He tried to escape before without my help; to-night he shall have the chance to escape with it. I shall show him the door, and have the wolves ready outside in case they are required….

...look, I'm just saying, Seward is super creepy this entry.

[jennycalendar]

so i am endlessly fascinated by the space river is occupying in her first episode with eleven. the doctor abruptly turns into the worst version of himself around her. she represents a lack of control over his own life -- he usually gets to pick and choose the people who enter it, but she is not someone he would have chosen to stay! she has an edge, she knows things that he doesn't, and she not only does not tell him but cannot tell him what those things are. she knows more than him in a way that he can't argue his way out of, and i would say that the eleventh doctor ESPECIALLY is not comfortable with not being the Specialest Boy In The Room. he's biting back because he wants to put river in her place and show her that she isn't actually as smart as she thinks she is, which is horrendous, but at the same time it is coming from this place of obvious insecurity.

and god help me, i thought i was not gonna get shippy with it (which was stupid because i have loved these two since middle school) but i think that the insecurity stems from the fact that he isn't her doctor. we saw that in her very first episode!!! she keeps on mentioning her doctor with all of these big cartoon heart eyes, and the way she treats him is very much "well, you're going to be him someday, so i guess i have to put up with you." i don't think the doctor is very used to smart people looking at him and finding him lacking in a way that is out of his control! and he's able to usually delegitimize the people who don't like him by saying "well, you obviously aren't smart and i don't like you either," but he doesn't have THAT to fall back on because he KNOWS that future-him trusts river enough to tell her his name!! so he is in this nebulous, horrifying space where his hearts are/aren't in the hands of a woman he does/doesn't trust, and he likes to be in control of his dynamics with other people. he wants to be the one who can get in his box and fly away. river is one of the very few people who can get through to him wherever he is. he wants soooo badly to show her that she's not as smart as she thinks she is because then he can prove that he's her doctor. and he hates that he wants that. so he tells himself and everyone else that he doesn't like her.

[separatist-apologist]

I just read an article in that guy who murdered two women. Absolutely horrifying. All the booktok crazies fawning over him reminds me of the women that would write letters to Ted Bundy while he was in prison.

I wasn't gonna answer this because I felt like I said what I needed to say and like, I was just preaching to preach but THEN while I was asleep, an anon came into my askbox to accuse me of not being a girls girl while intentionally missing my point. I blocked them before I thought of a good comeback (tragic) but like fellas is it anti-feminist not to stan a man who killed two women because (and this is so important to me) he hates women?

I'm gonna put the rest of this under a cut with a heavy trigger warning for domestic violence, I just want to say it and then I think I'm done talking about it because it's genuinely so disheartening.

Anyway, I think sometimes I get nervous to answer these kinds of asks because as a therapist I should know better than to speculate on people and what they're going through and whatever else, but as a person, its like...do you want to be picked that badly?

I think we all know by now that I work in DV and all the people fascinated with men like this fuck me up because like..."oooh what makes him tick, I want to talk to him, why did he do it-" and for me, I sit on the opposite end talking to survivors of violence asking the same questions with hollow eyes, with shaking hands, with safety plans meant to buy them just enough time to get out of their house so they aren't killed. I still think about some of the people I spoke with who didn't survive it.

When I was in grad school, I took a summer internship at the local DV court helping survivors with orders of protection. The system was set up better than a lot of other courts, but its still the legal system, you know? With all its flaws. My job was to flag for lethality based on what I was reading in the OPs and then reach out directly to survivors to help them navigate the process, connect them with resources, and sit with them in court. And I still remember this one particular woman who's situation was so desperately dangerous. We did a safety plan- and at that level, a safety plan isn't like, "remember to take your keys and wallet with you when you go", its "don't go into the basement or bathroom if he's in the house with you because there are too many hard surfaces, exposed pipes, and basins of water that making killing you easier. Go to a bedroom or closet because strangling a person is really hard and takes time," like THAT kind of safety plan. Anyway she thanked me, I remember this so well, she said thank you and I told her I'd call her the next week with an update and over the weekend he bludgeoned her to death.

And I guess I just don't think there is anything fascinating, interesting, or otherwise unique to men like this (obligatory yes I know women kill/abuse too). They're everywhere. I saw another post about how some podcaster is trying to get him on to talk to that guy and its like, why don't you just call up one of your friends' exes. Like. If you've got more than one female friend, you've probably got a friend who has experienced violence at the hand of a male partner, call him. Talk to him. Ask him why he did it, let him give you his made up story about trauma and sadness and oh life is hard because whatever whatever.

That's my thing. Books, movies, tv- they're not making people like this, and I'm not condemning people for what they enjoy in fantasy spaces. I am condemning it when you bring it out of those spaces and side against the women who were violently murdered because, and this is so important to me (did I say this already??), he HATES women. You are not special. You cannot fix him. He's not smart, or interesting, or fascinating and the having an attractive face is literally just chance and not something inherently moral.

And like, lastly, when you prop these men up and give them a platform, you signal to EVERY man just like him that there is something special and tragic about him. You let him play the victim, you let him rewrite the narrative, you shift the blame of his actions off of him and onto the people he hurt. Like with this particular man, you also side with a white supremacist so what are you saying to all your BIPOC/Jewish friends/mutuals, you know?

Anyway. That's my self-righteous rant, I guess.

[willknightauthor]

I'm so stoked! I've had so many breakthroughs simultaneously on this system!

I've been churning through RPG after RPG, trying to find everything useful, see every way it's been done. It's been a whirlwind, and I'm still in the middle of it, but I've been surprised at how little variation there is. Even the free form, "roleplaying forward," GM-less jam games do a lot of the same things as each other. Even if the mechanics are technically different, using different dice, the goals and ethos of the designs are identical. And we're all aware of the hoard of OSR/NSR games.

It started out with my fascination with balancing simulation and character-driven storytelling in a fun way, eventually becoming a desire to fix my frustrations with the World of Darkness. While I enjoy the campy, B-movie side of horror in the World of Darkness, I myself am more of an A24 type of writer (e.g. Midsommar, The VVitch, Under the Skin). The worlds I like to build, even when surreal, have solid internal logic. I crave that balance between the impossible and the gritty, between the beautiful and the horrifying.

I figured out how to tie everything to one health system, which itself is tied to one 10d6 dice pool. Now stress and health are one thing, and it directly affects what type of dice you roll, which changes odds and side effects. Your stats and your combat exhaustion determine the number of dice rolled, which means the more you do in combat, the fewer dice you have, and the lower your odds of success.

Because it's a d6 pool with success on one 6, the probability changes roughly linearly compared to other dice pool systems. Because there's only one vector for probability--more or less dice--difficulty is an easy thing for the GM to determine, and the probability of the roll quickly judged.

By tying actions to the dice pool via fatigue, I realized I can encourage scrappy, gritty, tactical combat by rewarding players with a second wind, meaning they get dice back. Now there's momentum between attackers and defenders. If you get backed into a corner with no options you start getting exhausted, but if you find a way to scramble out of it, jab them in the eyes, utilize the environment, make them hit their ally, then you recover and turn the tables. Even the initiative system ties into this scrappy back-and-forth, since initiative changes non-randomly during combat. And this is all in a zone-based “theater of the mind” combat system.

I've completely eliminated experience. Instead when you do difficult things and take risks, you get temporary boosts to that skill for future rolls. To permanently advance it you must engage in training, either as a side activity or during down time, over a realistic amount of time. At the highest levels you have to go on personal quests to advance your skills. Thus your skill advancement is tied to roleplaying.

Going up a single point in anything is very difficult though. Most of the "character advancement" instead is about character change. You gain new skills and abandon others, and via your new skills you can acquire a new "class." Basic advancement is quantitative, but all significant advancement is qualitative, using skills themselves as currency. You don’t just advance, you adapt.

Your "class" is advanced through a customizable narrative achievement tree. Thus to become a better mage, you must pursue life goals, narrative turning points, and personal transformations, based on their own ambitions and your ambitions for them as a character.

Almost every stat is an abstract representation of the character's internal qualities and state. Those internal states then have mechanical effects during the game if you can roleplay them: goals, passions, memories, knowledge, social ties, reputation, etc. It's conceptual, but it's not the loosy-goosy LARP style. There are mechanics with numerical and statistical effects, they're just tied to qualitative stats driven by roleplaying.

Importantly, there are many hooks for alternate or additional systems, especially weird and supernatural ones. I hate it when "magic" just amounts to a list of very narrow spells and their usages. Now there are many mechanical hooks for supernatural things tied to capabilities, knowledge, motivations, social role, self-image, core memories, etc.

I designed it backwards from multiple future games which will be very weird and abstract. The system as it stands represents the gritty foundation of any number of future games emphasizing social intrigue, personal horror, heart-pounding combat, and Lovecraftian worldbuilding. It's the ruleset for the regular, mortal humans, doing possible things in the real world… but with mechanical possibilities for much more.

Here are the games which inspired or influenced the design. I think it gives you a sense of how diverse and specific the design choices are.

Wraith: The Oblivion

Alien RPG

Over the Edge

Heart

The Wildsea

The Burning Wheel

Fate

Thousand Year Old Vampire

Na Ratunek Marsowi

Feng Shui

Barbarians of Lemuria

Mythras

Exalted

Fireborn

Delta Green

Reign

Gumshoe

Shock: Social Science Fiction

The True OSR: Obsolete Shitty Rules

The Devil, John Moulton

Cyberpunk RED

Dune RPG

Mothership

Streets of Peril

His Majesty the Worm

The Cypher System

Next I need to look into more (genuinely) experimental systems, especially ones involving memory and investigation. "The Between" and "Brindlewood Bay" are next on my list. The closest vibe design-wise I've gotten is from "Broken Empires" (which I'm so stoked for).

It's getting to the point where the overall rules are all set enough that I can drill down to specific numbers for everything, make some premade characters, and start playtesting. Fuck yeah.

[saintsenara]

Oh, and kind of a follow up but, thoughts on Harry/Ginny/Voldemort or even just Ginnymort?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

now, i'll admit to being quite fond of a bit of tominny [or, to give it its proper name, gin and tonic] but i think the more interesting thing to do here is to take you specifically asking about hinnymort and ginnymort seriously and assume that we're talking about the adult lord voldemort. no nose and all.

because i regret to say that how ginny would interact with this version of voldemort is something i spend a disturbingly large amount of time thinking about. and this is largely because i think it's really fascinating that she's the only person in canon [other than hagrid and myrtle, neither of whom the narrative particularly cares about] whose torture comes at the hands of tom riddle in young and pretty form and whose hatred of voldemort is - therefore - not hatred of the horrifying voldemort who brought the country to its knees in the 1970s and is determined to do it again, but of someone she considered her best friend in the world.

i'm always really struck by harry's insistence when breaking up with ginny at the end of half-blood prince that he's afraid she's at risk from voldemort if they stay together, because this is one of the only examples prior to deathly hallows of him demonstrably thinking of tom riddle and lord voldemort as a single continuation of the same person. in both chamber of secrets and half-blood prince, harry - however begrudgingly - is interested in and sympathises with [and, let's be real, fancies...] the teenage voldemort. his sympathy vanishes when voldemort comes for his job interview with dumbledore - that is, when he begins to look like his adult self, who harry is only afraid of and enraged by.

i think something really interesting can be done with that in terms of thinking about how harry's fear of the voldemort ginny's at risk from doesn't square with her own experience. harry's trying to keep her safe from the eldritch monster; ginny finds him considerably less scary than the beautiful boy who was her best friend.

and there is also the fact that there seems to be no evidence that the non-diary voldemort actually knows who ginny is. one of the things which really stands out in the first chapters of deathly hallows is just how wrong harry is about needing to go it alone for his friends' own protection: nagini has evidently not been briefed to expect hermione in godric's hollow; ron isn't identified by the snatchers who capture him after he leaves the horcrux hunt; and the vast majority of the order, including the adult weasleys, are free to continue working until at least april 1998.

and so i think it's quite interesting to think about how ginny is probably going to be less bothered by finding herself entangled with the adult voldemort - after all, he's so obviously evil that there's none of the wheedling his way into her trust which got her into such trouble with tom. she can just go with the flow...

and - of course - this experience would be very different from how harry's going to react to finding himself as the third in this triad. i actually think ginny would find it easier to talk to a voldemort she never felt any inclination to trust. harry very much would not. his interest lies with the young voldemort, who he can convince himself might be salvageable. i don't think he's rushing home from the ministry for cuddles on the sofa...

what does voldemort get out of the arrangement? apart from the opportunity to live rent-free in grimmauld place and leech off harry's riches, that is...

well, his whole.... vibe with harry is obvious, and he does have a canonical fondness for bolshy women with great hair...

but i think it's also arguable that ginny also possesses lots of qualities he canonically values - above all, the fact that she clearly has a bit of a vindictive streak. i am absolutely certain that diary!tom plays on this in order to make her all the more vulnerable to manipulation surrounding the basilisk's attacks [i.e. reminding her that she was complaining about how annoying she finds justin finch-fletchley the day before he's petrified, convincing her that she's the person responsible] and i am also certain that the secrets he uses to strengthen himself are her most violent and unpleasant ones.

bellatrix's capacity for casual cruelty is clearly one of the things voldemort particularly likes about her - and, indeed, there are more similarities between hinny and bellamort in canon that i imagine was jkr's intention [she never gave up on voldemort either!]. i actually think you can write yourself fairly plausibly into a scenario in which voldemort becomes quite fond of ginny, and ginny becomes reasonably happy to listen to him complain about harry's taste in interior design and how everyone who works for the ministry is insufferable.

harry's getting through it by screaming into a pillow at regular intervals. and - y'know - because of the whole soulmates thing.

[faun-the-fawn77]

Chapter 1 - "𝔾𝕒𝕞𝕖 𝕆𝕗 𝕊𝕦𝕣𝕧𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕝"

"Are we the hunters? Or are we the prey?"ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ Word Count: 2.5k Chapter Warnings: injuries, swearing Note(s) at the bottom! <Previous: Prologue - Next: Chapter 2>

Hanging upside down was only fun for so long. Feeling my blood rush to my head was nauseating. The only thing that kept me from passing out was watching the blurred upside down figures of the spider demon, Rui, fighting with Tanjiro.

Watching the fight between Tanjiro and Rui was both fascinating and horrifying. Tanjiro Is a strong kid but Rui is faster. Demon's are nearly perfect beings. The wounds that Tanjiro inflicted on the demon did nothing as it just healed seconds after. My heart was beating out of my chest and I choked on air a few times thinking Tanjiro was going to get a death blow. I know he lives but it's still scary to see in real time.

I wanted to help somehow. Nichirin weapons are the only thing that can hurt a demon. I looked around the floor for a fallen slayer's sword but no luck. I huffed in frustration. The only thing available to me right now is my pocket knife. It wasn't nichirin and it was too small to cut through even the demon kid's neck but it's really all I have right now.

I maneuvered the arm that wasn't held as tightly as the other, shifting it to reach back. I usually kept my pocket knife in back pocket. I'm actually surprised nothing fell out of my backpack or pockets considering I am dangling upside down. Brushing the thought off, I reached into my back pocket. I felt the metal of the knife graze my fingertips. I tried to reach more in hopes of just being able to slide the blade up so I could grasp it easier.

Finally grabbing hold of the knife, I shuffled my arm up so I could open the knife. I glanced up to see Rui was still distracted with fighting Tanjiro. I can't remember if the demon could feel his threads getting cut but it's now or never. Tanjiro needs help and if I can distract them for long enough for Tomioka to get here then I'm golden.

I brought the blade of the sharpened knife to a thread. I kept my eyes locked onto the spider demon and cut the thread. I waited a bit to see if anything happened and...nothing. I watched as Tanjiro cut through threads, Rui producing more in retaliation.

He can feel threads being broken but because I had cut mine at the same time Tanjiro did, the spider didn't notice. I smirked a bit at that and made sure to time me cutting the threads around me to when Tanjiro sliced the ones attacking him.

The last thread around me was cut, dropping me unceremoniously to the hard forest floor. Pain shot up my spine at the landing causing me to groan a bit. My bandages that I had put on earlier were falling off. I grumbled and swiped them away as I got to my feet. I swayed a bit as my blood rushed back down from my head. I could feel a trickle of blood leave my nose that I wiped away.

I looked up just in time. Threads from Rui's fingertips were surrounding Tanjiro. It was like time slowed as the strings enclosed around the injured slayer. I gripped my pocket knife, the metal design of the handle digging into my skin. My feet moved on their own, sprinting towards Tanjiro who was trying to block with his broken blade. I felt my body jump on its own, gaining air.

My arm moved on its own accord. My knife was held up, the moonlight glinting off the blade as it was swiped from left to right. I hoped that even with this small blade I could cut through some of the threads.

What I didn't notice was the words being mumbled from my mouth.

"Breath of the Dragon. Sixth Form: Tail of Thorns"

A burst of orange light erupted from my blade, blinding for a few seconds. Opening my eyes, I saw a scaled tail swishing through the air. The appendage looked to be made of fire. The heat from it was so much that I felt like I was sitting in a sauna fully clothed. Spikes trailed down the back and sides which led to lethal looking blades at the end of the tail.

My heart was racing and I could feel steam escape my throat, as if I had a fire burning in my lungs. I couldn't feel my nails extend into claws and dig into the palms of my hands. I couldn't feel my canines lengthen either, cutting into my bottom lip. I almost didn't notice my eyesight get sharper, clearer. I could see every ember fly off the tail that sprouted from my pocket knife. I could see every string that the demon kid controlled and produced.

Hearing Tanjiro's heart stutter at the sight almost distracted me. It was beating irregularly from the panic he felt. I could hear Rui suck in a gasp at the sight of the giant flaming tail swish around a bit.

The tail was a bit longer than that of a car. I noticed how it was idling, as if waiting for a command or something. The thought of it cutting through the spider demon's threads crossed my mind and with that thought, the tail raised itself and swiped through the threads, disintegrating them at the touch of the flames. The fire burned through all the strings that were touching, Rui letting them go at the last second to avoid the deadly flames.

Everything was quiet. Tanjiro looked like he pissed his pants and Rui was glaring at me with a frown on his lips. My lungs felt like they were on fire. It was getting harder and harder to breathe with every breath of air I sucked in. My hearing was no longer as good and my eyesight went back to the shitty vision I had before.

"Are you a new demon of Master Kibutsuji?"

The moment that name spilled from his lips, I looked up. Tanjiro looked at the demon before setting his eyes on me, watching me. Why did he say Muzan's name? What was he asking? The anger in the spider demon's eyes simmered to that of confusion. I could see Tanjiro visibly shaking, probably thinking that he'll have to fight two demons.

I opened my mouth to respond when I choked on the steam still coming from my lungs. I coughed and hacked, trying to gain air. I dropped to my knees, a hand holding my burning throat. My eyes were watering and black spots were dotting the edge of my vision.

If I die from this I am going to be so upset.

With the little strength I had, I looked at Tanjiro. His eyes screamed confusion and fright as he stared at me coughing my lungs up. I reached a hand out and that's when my vision decided to go black. The last thing I felt was my head hitting the rough ground of the forest floor.

It was silent. Tanjiro was looking at the woman with alarm. Her head made a sickening 'crack' as it collided with a rock. His heart was racing and his stomach was in knots. She wasn't a demon, his nose caught a whiff of her humanity. He could barely smell it through all the smoke around her. It was so suffocating, like he was stuck in a burning building.

Rui was looking down at the woman with confusion and disdain. If she was truly a demon then she wouldn't have passed out. He also would be able to sense if she was. He watched as the woman's chest rose and fell with shallow breath's. Someone so powerful was stuck in such a weak body. How pitiful.

After a few moments, Rui turned back towards the young demon slayer. He rose his hands and before Tanjiro could even defend himself some way, Nezuko appeared in front of her brother, taking the brunt of the attack. Her blood spurted out. She groaned a bit, still in her stance to protect Tanjiro. Rui dragged her towards him via web and went on his long speech about family.

It was a long fight. Nezuko ended up being tied upside down like the strange female was before. She used her blood demon art to incinerate the strings and Tanjiro used Sun Breathing! His celebration didn't last long when the decapitated demon kid caught his own head and placed it back on. The anger from the spider demon was palpable.

"I haven't been this angry in a long time..."

Rui raised his hands and with the utter of his blood demon art, Tanjiro covered his head. The sound of the strings slicing through the air could be heard as the descended onto Tanjiro. Before the strings could get even inches from him, they were cut.

Tanjiro looked up. Tomioka Giyuu stood with his back to Tanjiro.

"I'll take it from here." And with that, Tomioka was thrown into battle with the lower moon.

Tanjiro was quick to crawl towards his injured sister who happened to land next to the unconscious foreigner. Tanjiro rolled the girl to her side to see if any of her injuries were in need of a bit of help.

Steam was coming from the cuts scattered across her face as they seemed to close themselves up. Tanjiro furrowed his brows at this. When demon's regenerate, steam never comes the wounds that are closing. He also thought back to that breathing style she had used. Her eyes turned slitted, like that of a demon but he could still smell that she was human.

When that tail appeared from her small blade, even she looked surprised. It's like...she wasn't expecting that to happen. The tail was huge and, if swung wrong, surely could've decapitated both him and that lower moon.

If she isn't a demon, then what was this girl?

"Who is that? And why are they dressed so provocatively?"

"And they're arms? They seem to have been in battles before!"

"Look at their face! i have never seen someone so young with that many piercings!"

My head was pounding. The voices around me were speaking in a language I couldn't understand. The ground I was on was rough, like I was face first in gravel. The muscles in my arms were straining from being held behind my back. And my fucking head hurt like a bitch, did I mention that?

I groaned, trying to sit up. When I went to pull my arms forward I was met with resistance. That's when I opened my eyes. It was bright. I was laying on my side, facing an old style Japanese house. Tall trees with bright purple flowers were almost surrounding the estate. When I looked to my left I saw the passed out figure of Tanjiro, also tied up, and being beaten by the kakushi.

Tanjiro...

Oh my lord. I forgot I was dropped into this universe.

I tried more frantically to sit up but with my arms tied behind my back, that made it a bit harder. A set of hands grabbed my shoulder's and helped me sit up. I looked over a bit to see a familiar flame patterned haori.

"I'm so glad you're awake!" God, his voice was even more soothing to hear in real life. He turned me to face the rest of the Hashira. Seeing them all, I almost cried. They were all talking, breathing, and just... alive.

"Are you okay?" I turned towards the voice. Uzui was looking at me with a frown on his lips. I tilted my head to the side, my brows furrowed as I tried to see if I recognised any of the words he said.

"Sorry, I don't speak Japanese." It got scarily quiet after that. I gulped, grasping on to a rock that my fingers could reach as each Hashira stared at me. That's when I heard that growling voice walk into the circle.

"A foreigner? What the hell is someone like that doing here?" Sanemi being able to speak and understand English was a shock. Why would that asshole ever learn that anyway?

"You can speak English?" The Wind Pillar looked down at me with a glare. Nezuko's box was under his right arm. He stepped closer towards me making me want to scoot closer to the bright Flame Pillar who was still behind me.

"Why are you here? What was that breathing style you used back on that mountain? And why in the hell are you dressed like that?" My head pounded more at the loudness. I glared at him from under my lashes.

"My name is (Y/N) (L/N) and I'm about ready to shove my foot up your ass if you do-"

"Nezuko!"

All heads whipped towards the bruised and beaten demon slayer. I watched as Tanjiro tried to free himself to get to Nezuko. I did end up scooting back into Rengoku to try and get away from the commotion as much as possible. A warm hand was placed on my shoulder, their thumb rubbing soothing circles on my skin. My racing heart calmed down at the comfort.

Sanemi brought out his blade, the sun hitting it just right and blinding me for a second. Asshole.

He smiled menacingly at Tanjiro, stabbing through the box that Nezuko was hiding inside of. I watched as he pulled his sword out, blood dripping from it. I frowned at that. Could this guy be any more of jerk?

Tanjiro yelled out at that. He sprinted towards the Wind Pillar and headbutted the shit out of him. When I tell you that the sound from that was deafening, I mean it. I actually felt concerned for Sanemi until I remembered how he treats his brother.

A laugh escaped my chest at the sight. I tried to keep quiet but then I heard Mitsuri laugh as well and that's when her and I looked at each other before descending into full belly laughter. The grip on my shoulder tightened a bit which caused my to shut my mouth. I saw Uzui glancing at Mitsuri which seemed to shut her up as well.

Tanjiro grabbed onto the straps of his sister's box and landed a few feet away from the injured Wind Hashira. He glared at the heavily scarred slayer with anger and hurt.

"If you can't tell the difference between a good demon and a bad demon, then you don't deserve to be a Hashira!" As Sanemi got back on his feet, the pillar smiled evilly. He growled something that I couldn't hear. Before the scarred jerk could make a move, a young voice called out from the porch of the estate.

"The master of the mansion has arrived!"

The girl was quite cute. Her hair was a bright white, whiter than Sanemi's. Her eyes almost looked lifeless but when she caught sight of me, they sparkled a bit. She turned back to look at the entrance of the estate, waiting for her father to step through. I could see the tall figure of Ubuyashiki Kagaya making his way to the porch of his mansion.

Rengoku stepped from behind me and kneeled at my left side. He gently guided my head to bow down at their master. I stared at the rocks in my line of sight and let out a sigh.

Well, let's hope all goes well in this shit show, huh?

SURPRISE!!! I have today and tomorrow off and I wanted to write so I decided "Why not post this chapter?" And that is exactly what I did. Hope you all enjoy! I'm going to be writing up Chapter two now cause that one is gonna be an info dumper.

I'll have to write out battles eventually but considering that reader wasn't part of the last bit of that battle, I decided to skip it. This one was short and I'm sorry but I want to make the next chapter longer with the Hashira meeting and Ubuyashiki meeting Reader. I felt that if I put it in this chapter then it would be too much info at once.

TAGLIST:

@eris-rose-86

[minijenn]

"True Leader" - Bill Cipher and White Diamond (non-paring)

White Diamond’s ship was empty, quiet, and cold like usual. That’s honestly, how she liked things. Nothing out of place, everything under her control… but, things were about to change.

“Come out, Bill. I know you are here” the white lady revealed with a sweet and delicate voice. If anyone with no context heard that, they would be sure she was kind and gentle… and they would be very wrong.

Finally, the yellow triangle became visible. Usually, when he did so, the area around him would lose color, and time would stop. However, White’s ship was already empty and filled with shades of gray and White.

“I came just like you asked, White? What do you want with me?” Bill asked, cleared not happy being there. That kind of behavior was unexpected coming from the guy that joked with all his potential clients. White was different…

“Is that any way to treat a partner?” she asked teasingly, with her same creepy smile of usual.

“Get to the point, White!” the triangle demanded, crossing his arms in anger. White didn’t seem completely satisfied, but didn’t lose composure.

“I just wanted to know how my dear Starlight is doing on earth?” the diamond asked dramatically, as if she was a caring mother.

“I though you and your… bleached mind powers allowed you to spy 24/7 into Quartzy and Rosebud’s lives” Bill stated, still unpolite. 

White approached him threateningly, making the triangle shiver in fear.

“Oh, but they do, Bill. But, well, it’s a bit hard keeping Blue, Yellow and Starlight in check at the same time, you know?” the diamond retorted. Although she seemed happy, she was clearly sending a message: ‘behave if you don’t want to face the consequences.

“Right…” he agreed, this time, being more polite. He already faced many beings on his life. Scientists, other Human Scientists, and all his henchmaniacs. But, none of them was compared to the gem matriarch. She had a lot more power than it seemed.

“Although, to be fair, I have to admit that the events on your… ‘Nightmare Realm’ were quite fascinating” she smiled, referring to the incident involving Stepper’s journal.

Bill felt a shiver down his spine. The deal involved Pink Diamond’s gem intact. And he almost shattered her in an attempt to stop Stepper.

“It was all…” Bill tried to defend himself, horrified at what could happen to him if White found out the truth. She, however, only made a sign for him to stay quiet.

“I knew it wouldn’t work. Your little ‘stealing the book’ act. You would have had to come up with something more creative. That’s why I didn’t call you immediately” she turned her back and walked a bit, going back to her usual spot at the ship.

“I hope that, next time, you will stay true to your word. Will you?” she questioned. Bill simply nodded, not wanting any more trouble with the gem.

“Good boy” White said, patting his head. Bill HATED being treated like that. But there wasn’t anything he could do. That gem was ruthless.  

“I need to go back to the Nightmare Real now! My pals need their ruler” the triangle said, trying to find an excuse to leave.

White diamond, however, gave a wicked laugh that shook her ship’s walls.

“A ‘ruler’? What makes yourself believe you are a ‘ruler’?” the gem snickered, making the triangle turn red.

“Well! I keep the Nightmare Realm in check! A beautifully chaotic check!” Bill shouted, finally losing his patience.

“‘In check’? You call that mess a place that is ‘in check’? Don’t make me laugh” White grinned.

“At least my peers have fun there! Unlike here! Which means, I am a better leader than you” the triangle tried to defend himself. The gem matriarch wasn’t affected by that… at all.

“A better leader? Well, I never burned my dimension and destroyed my own kind” White sassed, knowing where to hit.

“…what?” Bill puzzled, unable of guessing how the gem matriarch managed to find out about his past.

“Euclydia. Does it ring a bell to you?” the gem matriarch questioned. The triangle froze.

“Poor Bill. The first time you tried to take charge, you destroyed everyone that cared about you. It surely doesn’t make you seem like a good leader” White sassed, satisfied with the reaction she got.

“Shut up! I will be going now!” Bill yelled, tired of being reminded of his past.

“Oh, so soon? Came back again. I love your visits, dear” the gem matriarch teased, satisfied at all the nerves she hit.

“We are not FRIENDS!!” the triangle shouted, finally returning to his world. White started laughing again.

“Oh, Starlight, I wonder why you were so enchanted by such an inferior life form. I am excited to hear it ALL from you when you get back” she said, thinking about the youngest diamond, that was galaxies away…

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Author’s Note: Okay, I don’t know if you accept people submitting our own UF inspired stories, but you speaking about Bill and White’s relationship, Billrose and all the other things gave me inspiration to write this.

It’s my first time writing for either Bill or White, but I am kind of satisfied with the result.

Anyway, sorry if I got to excited. Hope you liked it. Bye!

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Oh man we’re back to UF fan submissions! This makes me so nostalgic! Great job with this btw loved how catty these two are to each other; very in line with how I imagined them interacting in UF2 lol