#I'm sure there are some issues that bother some folks and not others and that's fine

[nothorses]

hi sorry to bother u about this, i searched around transmasc subreddits for an answer to this and while i saw a few people joking about getting dry cramps, nobody seems to know what this is. and i vaguely remember seeing a post by you mentioning "mystery cramps" in a post also about vaginal atrophy, but I didnt pay attention to the post much at the time bc at that point i wasnt experiencing atrophy or mystery cramps.

but now I'm a bit over a year on T, (my periods stopped only about 4 months ago though, because i was on a much lower dose than most for a lot longer time than most. that ~4 months ago time frame lines up with upping my dose from 0.2 to 0.3ml. i'm on 0.4ml tho now as of about 3 weeks ago) and suddenly i'm getting "mystery cramps" sometimes, it seems to happen especially the night before my T-shot day, (but i cant say that with certainty—i know i'm having them right now and my shot day is tomorrow morning, and i think thats been the case, but i dont know for sure) and they feel exactly like period cramps. to the point where i feel super paranoid that maybe i've been injecting improperly and the testosterone isnt absorbing right and my period is actually coming back. (something i often have nightmares about)

i searched your blog again for that post and did find it, (the one about estradiol cream treating it) but the wording of it is a little unclear and i wanted to just clarify that this is the same thing youre talking about? or if what im experiencing is different than the "mystery cramps" you meant and i should see a doctor

I am for sure not a doctor, and I think you should see one either way!

My personal understanding of the "mystery cramps" is that it's a part of "vaginal atrophy" that some, but not all trans folks who go on T experience, and it usually doesn't start until a couple of years on T ( which is also, to my knowledge, based on more standard doses as opposed to "low-dose" T).

Mine started about two years in, and was happening occasionally at first- always at night, and often the day before my T shot- then progressed to several nights a week over time. Nowadays I tend to experience cramping almost every time I so much as miss one dose of estradiol. Ibuprofen and Midol are the only OTC pain relievers that seem to do the trick, and the cramping will keep me up through the entire night untreated. It also tends to come in fairly predictable waves (spaced maybe 15-30 minutes apart) and right before I started estradiol, I remember getting some light spotting as well.

iirc, I talked to my PCP when it was just starting up, and their response was along the lines of "that's weird, let's keep an eye on it". I moved and didn't have a PCP for a while, so when the spotting started, I went to a walk-in urgent care clinic and talked to them. They gave me a referral for an ultrasound, and encouraged me to go to a "women's health" clinic that had long history of specializing in trans care as well. When I talked to the folks at that clinic, they encouraged me to go through with the ultrasound (I didn't), and prescribed estradiol cream because I asked them to and they didn't see a reason not to try it.

If you think it's possible this is what's going on with you, I would really encourage you to talk to a doctor, specifically bring up research around this issue and estradiol cream as a treatment option, and ask them if there's a reason not to try it just to see if it does anything for you. If nothing else, estradiol cream also treats vaginal dryness, tightness, and inflammation (other symptoms of "vaginal atrophy"), so it might be worth a shot for those reasons anyway!

And don't do what I did; if they want you to do an ultrasound or whatever else, go with it, and rule out other possibilities. Listen to medical advice from medical professionals who know your medical history and who you trust are listening to you & know what they're talking about.

[chaosroid]

I've talked about this before in discord servers so I might as well share my thoughts here as well. I feel like the inclusion of polyamory in BG3 was handled sloppily. Let me preface this by saying I have no issue with poly in general. Really, it's the way it was executed in this game that confuses me. More specifically, it doesn't make sense to me how the poly companions (Shadowheart and Astarion) react to certain dialogue options you can pick and the inconsistencies in characterization that come with it.

If you suggest an open relationship with Shadowheart regarding another companion, she is completely against the idea and explicitly tells you she doesn't want to be your spare lover.

Yet, shortly into act 3, her entire stance changes when it comes to Halsin and she's suddenly cool with it. And before you say "Oh well, she knows Halsin isn't a serious romantic partner so she's not worried", that's the thing, he CAN be a serious romantic partner. And one of the things you can tell her is "He wants me, and I want him. I'm not sure there's space for you and I", ultimately treating Shadowheart like, well, essentially a spare lover, and she's not only fine with it, but encourages this. Does she just not know that your relationship with Halsin can be serious? Because otherwise it feels very ooc for her.

I feel like none of this would've been an issue if SH was just written from the start to be okay in a poly relationship with every companion, instead of this flip fop where she's not okay with it for two entire acts before suddenly being okay with it in act 3 but it's weirdly exclusive to only Halsin. It's that inconsistency that lowkey bothers me.

I have similar issues with Astarion, because some of his reactions to what you can say makes no sense either. Here you have a man who just started rediscovering his sexual boundaries, but when you tell him you want to hook up with Halsin, he'll ask if it's only because he's not putting out enough. You can prove his worry correct and apparently he's okay with this (the dev notes confirm it).

We're supposed to believe he's not hurt by what you said? 'Oh gee, I finally wanna be seen for more than a sex slave but I'm totally fine with my partner fucking someone else the second I refuse sexual intimacy because of my trauma!'. It's just so in bad taste.

You can say things that go completely against what Astarion and SH would want to hear, and they'll still be like "Yep, alright! Have fun with Halsin!". This game has some of the most mature representations of sexual trauma but will then simultaneously turn around and reduce these characters to fanservice, because the people need to have their cake and eat it too I guess.

And sure, you can make the argument that they only trust Halsin with this sort of thing. But the fact that Halsin and his romance only got added late into the game because of horny fans from EA leads me to believe that the far simpler answer is that it was just tacked on last minute without much thought given to whether or not it would actually make sense. Halsin and SH don't even like each other in act 2, she honestly has more chemistry with Karlach (a companion who can actually fantasize about threesomes in her origin btw) and was smitten with her as early as act 1. But I guess for all the folks who wanted a fully wlw poly relationship, that's just not possible because your only option is a man :)

Again, I have nothing against Astarion and SH being poly. It's their jarring responses to some of Tav's dialogue options, in which I genuinely don't believe they would be okay with hearing those things nor would they respond so flippantly.

tl;dr They would not fucking say that

[lurkingshan]

Dear Shan, I discovered your blog recently and it has been a delight to go through your very insightful takes on BL. I am learning a lot. I love Bad Buddy a lot and since I learned you love it too I thought maybe I could ask you about something that has been bothering me. Another BL blog (ineffable opinions) claims that the series does common queer people in Thailand dirty by making fun of their appropriation of the word wife. I have read posts by absolutebl explaining the term might be a pejorative-adjacent and that made sense then. But on a second thought, I am worried if my western upbringing is leading to some confirmation bias on my part.

Hi anon, thank you for reading! There's a lot to unpack in your question, some of which I am not qualified to address, but here's what I'll say:

I have the blog you are referencing blocked because their main purpose on this website seems to be posting confrontational screeds that make ad hominem attacks against other people for attention, hidden behind a veneer of intellectual language to make it sound academic (it's not)

That said, that doesn't mean every criticism they offer is totally without validity. I am not really qualified to unpack their claims here about how queer people in Thailand may feel about this term or Bad Buddy's intentional rejection of it (neither are they, as they are not a queer Thai person).

But I do know that Bad Buddy was in fact made by a queer Thai man, and one of its running themes was intentional subversion of common bl tropes, including rejecting the use of "wifey" and other heteronormative language. Through this show, Aof Noppharnach is speaking directly to his own community and commenting on the tropes of the genre that he does not find helpful to queer men.

That said, queer men in any country are not a monolith and I'm sure there are some who like to use that language, which is certainly their right. They are also free to make art expressing their own POV about these issues.

That's what I got on that! As a western person engaging with Asian media, it's good that we recognize the limits of our own context and don't try to speak for people we do not represent. I feel no need to plant a flag on this debate, but I do think it's an interesting thing to consider, and it's part of a conversation that happens globally around the reclamation of slurs and heteronormative terms for queer folks.

[yanderes-galore]

Can I get a romantic/platonic Hosea concept please?

He'd be so protective of you... Bill, Sean, or Micah couldn't mess with you. I need advice on how to make him a better yandere... I got nothing, man.

Yandere Hosea Matthews Concept

Pairing: Platonic/Platonic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Overprotective behavior, Manipulation, Violence, Blood, Murder implied, Smothering behavior, Age gap (If romantic), Dubious companionship/relationship.

Hosea is definitely a protective yandere with a no-nonsense attitude.

Despite being an outlaw, Hosea doesn't usually solve problems through violence like Dutch and Arthur.

He tends to talk things out and talks down situations.

However... He is definitely capable of violence.

Hosea just seems to be a subtle protective and caring yandere.

He isn't all that possessive.

In fact, regardless of his intentions, you may see him as a guardian in a way.

He'd be a platonic yandere most of the time I feel.

Many members in the gang see him like a father figure.

However, I'm not saying him as a romantic yandere is impossible.

In fact, I think he'd even treat a partner well.

Hosea is very nurturing, looking out for you despite his failing health.

He only ever seems to want you happy.

Honestly, it may be hard to see any red flags in him.

You're both outlaws, both capable of crime.

You know Hosea isn't innocent as one of the first members of Dutch's gang.

While he doesn't prefer murder, it comes with the lifestyle.

His most toxic trait is probably being smothering at times.

Even then he just seems concerned for your safety and health.

He wants you happy and healthy, as he himself knows what it's like to be sick.

Despite being close to Dutch, their yandere behaviors are definitely different.

Dutch is possessive, violent, and a bit unhinged as RDR2 plays out.

Hosea would give you more freedom.

While both of the older men are smothering, Hosea isn't possessive.

He just... looks out for you.

He's willing to do whatever it takes to do that, too.

He may not be as young as he used to be... yet he still wants to make sure you aren't in any unnecessary trouble.

I don't think he'd follow you around too often.

As said before, his health isn't what it used to be.

There's times he'll accompany you to places, but he isn't going to do any stalking.

He'll accompany you to saloons if you go, or just around towns on horseback.

If he can't do it, he sends someone else like Arthur to watch you.

Even if he gives you freedoms, he still isn't trusting you alone.

You always have a supervisor... a babysitter.

Someone needs to report back to him so you aren't in any trouble.

It gives him peace of mind.

After all, you mean a lot to him.

Be that another young soul to nurture like Arthur and John... or maybe a new love, something he hasn't had in a long time.

He doesn't mind other people talking to you.

Unless they're Bill, Micah, or Sean.

Hosea never seems to have any patience for folk like them.

They're a bad influence, complete trouble.

You may even see him chewing them out for one reason or another.

Especially if they messed with you.

(Which now brings the idea of a Platonic Hosea, who's protective of you like a father... with Romantic Sean/Micah/Bill trying to court you... An idea for another day, maybe?)

Hosea respects your emotions and treats them seriously.

If someone hurts you, Hosea himself will confront the issue.

He may be a little old for it... but some blood staining his coat doesn't bother him too much if it's for you.

Hosea has no doubt shot someone over you at least once.

You can't talk your way out of everything.

That, or maybe Hosea deems what they did to you too heinous to let them live.

Not many people mess with you... Even when Hosea isn't around all the time.

They know, despite his age, Hosea is fierce.

It's obvious he's taken a liking to you.

In what way is up to you.

If platonic, he acts like an overprotective father figure.

Illness or not, he enjoys taking care of you... another lost young soul.

If romantic, Hosea wants to try his best to be a good partner for you.

Yes, he isn't as young as men your age...

But he's still willing to give you the affection you crave if you ask.

Would he kidnap? Not really.

The closest to it would be subtle manipulation and coercion.

Like maybe he tries to convince you to join the gang through subtle convincing.

Then once you're there, you're under constant surveillance from him or members he trusts around you.

But in reality, I feel it wouldn't really want gang life for you.

Maybe instead of him inviting you to the gang, Dutch does.

Then Hosea gets close to you... and as Dutch slowly begins to go insane, Hosea may even plan ways to get you out of the gang.

He's too old to be possessive... He's selfish, yet he prioritizes your happiness along with your safety.

Hosea isn't as intense as other yanderes.

He's willing to let you go if it means you're safe and happy.

Especially when he knows his death is close.

If you were ever unhappy or harmed... Hosea will do whatever it takes to see you smile.

He'll shoot a man for you, he'll find a place to stay for you if you dislike the gang, he'll comfort you...

If you're unhappy with him, he'll give you space.

He's respectful.

He wants you to love him like he loves you, however that may be.

That's all he really asks for.

Which is... leagues better than most yanderes.

He wishes he could come with you if you did leave the gang...

Yet he can't.

He'll visit often... if he can.

But if you decide to be in the gang, Hosea defends you with his life.

He may be ill and old... but you give him something else to fight for.

He cares for you... maybe even more than he should.

Even to the point of wondering... maybe you should stay in camp with him...

Would you like that?

As tame as he is, he can still be a dangerous man.

It makes him happy if you do decide to stay beside him.

He's protective, but he knows you need your independence.

So instead of shielding you entirely from everyone and everything...

He'll simply aid you through it, he'll prepare you for everything...

He's come to terms with the fact he isn't a good man... that he'll die that way...

Despite it all, however.... He loves you all the same, no matter how selfish it may be... He'll always consider you as his.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for asking my mom to stop singing?

okay so a couple months back i (a uni student) moved out of my old apartment and back in with my parents while i try to find a new one. the only issue is, since i first moved away, my parents had moved into a smaller house than they had when me and my siblings were growing up. they now have their bedroom and my dad's study, but no additional bed or guest rooms. for this reason, i have been sleeping on their living room couch.

my mom also doesn't have a room of her own, so her laptop is also in the living room, as is mine. so basically the living room is our shared domain for the time we spend at home. i have class and friends to spend time with, so i'm away relatively frequently (though i'm on winter break now of course), while my mom is retired and is at home basically 95% of the time year-round.

me and my mom both listen to music a lot and our tastes do not overlap basically at all. i listen mostly to indie, folk, rock, the kind of stuff white queer kids love, while my mom's music is almost entirely soulful christian pop about big j and stuff.

up until recently, my mom didn't wear headphones. she'd play music directly from her laptop speakers. this obviously bothered me somewhat, but i hadn't said anything about it. recently (i.e. a couple weeks ago) i asked her if she'd consider starting to wear headphones, which she has for the most part, though sometimes she forgets. i just kinda let her do whatever if she does, i haven't mentioned it again since.

so that's the first time i asked my mom to be quieter, and i don't think i'm an asshole for that. my worry is about the second time. you see, over the last week, she's taken to singing along to her tunes. maybe she did that before and i just didn't notice over the actual song itself? anyway, i can definitely hear it now.

and of course it's not the best musical performance, it's a lady with little singing experience belting along to her favourite songs, but it's not really about the quality of the singing. i don't like the music she likes and would prefer not to listen to it, is all.

today, whilst she was singing, i gently asked her: "could you stop singing?" i didn't mean forever, just in that moment. i really tried to say it in a nice way, and i don't think i sounded particularly rude? it should be noted, though, that my parents do seem to think of me as some kind of sensitive sally intent on criticizing every little thing they do. that feeling does kind of go both ways, but i admit sometimes i can be harsh on my mom, because she can be overbearing and a bit neurotic, and i don't really get to have the space i wish i could, especially not now when i'm living with them.

anyway, so i ask: "could you stop singing?" and my mom says something like "okay- well, i would prefer not to." the way she said it really made it sound like i had hurt her feelings. so i said, "okay. that's alright. you can sing." she stopped singing and has been sort of running around for the last 10 minutes or so restlessly doing random things.

my parents are that kind of people who are really really deep in "politeness" and genuinely baffle me since i'm autistic (like, a couple of days ago we had some leftover cake, and my dad straight up forced me to take half of what was left over even though i said i didn't want it. i still don't really know why?) so i'm sure even though i said "okay, nevermind then," my mom didn't believe me.

while she was running around doing random things, i told her, "sorry if i hurt your feelings." and she said, "oh, it's nothing." i genuinely don't know if i'm in the wrong here. i feel like, on the one hand, this is a space we have to share, and i should have the right to ask her not to make noise (i always wear headphones and never sing along to music or vc with friends when my parents are around), but on the other hand, it's her house, and she should have the right to sing in it, right? i don't know.

TL;DR: i asked my mom to stop singing in the only space for our computers in the house and i'm pretty sure it upset her. AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[sawyerconfort]

the coven + kyle spencer head canons for jealousy issues and how they would each handle it differently?

HI HI HI FOLKS I'M BACK!

Ok, ok, let's do it then!

Lots of lots of ideas for this one! Just you wait!

(Wasn't sure if you wanted me to include Marie on that one, but I did just for the complete headcannons, hope you don't mind, anon!)

Enjoy!

Requests open!

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

The Coven and Kyle Dealing With Jealousy Issues (Young!Reader, just for the record!)

Cordelia Goode, Fiona Goode, Zoe Benson, Madison Montgomery, Misty Day, Nan, Queenie, Myrtle Snow, Mallory, Marie Laveau and Kyle Spencer!

Cordelia Goode

Cordelia would be upset, of course.

She would let her insecurities get the best of her when she sees you talking to someone else and seeming too intimate with them.

But I don't think she would let the intrusive thoughts win that fight, not this time.

Cordelia doesn't want to seem so possessive. She's not like that, and she knows it would bother you a lot if it was miscalculated.

So, regardless of the situation, she will just leave where she is, walk to you and wrap her arms around your body, pulling you close to her, her eyes analyzing detail by detail of the other person.

"What is so funny?"

She would ask, pretending to be clueless, so she could take control of the situation better.

Internally, though, you can be sure that a few dark curse words and some not-so-friendly spell ideas are going through her mind, without her being able to show it aloud or with gestures.

She would have her arms around you the entire time, keeping you close until the other person understood that you were hers and nobody else's.

And when you guys get back home, she would insist that you cuddle with her to make up for the moment of insecurity and jealousy.

Fiona Goode

THE QUEEN of drama and jealousy.

Honestly, making Fiona jealous is like leaving a predator without prey.

Of course, she takes great care, despite her strong temper, not to seem like she's trying to pull you out of your comfort zone and push you away from the world for her sake.

But no one (nobody at all) goes unnoticed in Fiona Goode's eyes.

She will probably go to great lengths to touch you in the best places, just to tease you and make the person next to you feel uncomfortable enough to leave.

"It's a shame, my dear, but they're taken."

Just imagine her husky voice saying that, right in your face, also to tease you and to make sure she looks wild when she's jealous?

Fiona probably wouldn't let you talk much longer with the person afterward, or say goodbye. She would pull you to where she is and keep looking the whole time to see if the person isn't following you.

And if so, you can be sure that she would throw the person to the wall with no shame and no fear of being in public.

When you guys got home, she'd make a scene, again, to let you off the hook because she's a drama queen.

There would DEFINITELY be make-up sex.

And it would DEFINITELY be the best sex you've ever had in your life.

Zoe Benson

Crying, drama, insecurity and a little bit of fighting.

Zoe is overly afraid of losing you, but not to the point where she won't let you hang out with other people, friends in general.

The problem is that when the person starts to take advantage of the situation, Zoe becomes confused and desperate.

She is quite similar to Cordelia, though, when it comes to handling the scene itself.

Zoe will just cling to you to make sure she's in control and to make sure nothing bad happens.

However, things get worse on the way home, when she is silent throughout the ride.

She will probably lose her mind when justifying herself, letting her insecurity speak louder and expressing in an exaggerated way how important she is to her.

This is troubling because Zoe knows it is.

Anyway, when the fight is over, she will need some time to think and then she would probably come to you again, to apologize.

"I didn't want our relationship to be a threat, but I'm really afraid that you'll leave me for someone better."

She would hug you and then apologize if she sounded too possessive.

You would end up in a good mood, cuddling and thinking of a way to improve your relationship without jealousy that would be harmful to both of you.

Madison Montgomery

If you thought Fiona was the drama queen, wait until you see Madison.

She just can't control herself.

She doesn't want to control herself.

Every time someone comes close to you, she pulls you close to her very willingly and gives that typical killer look to whoever is looking at you two.

Madison is extremely possessive, especially when it comes to you.

Sure, she doesn't go around hitting and cussing people out for no reason (even though she can do that), but just staring Madison Montgomery intimidates a lot of people.

"How many times do I have to tell you that you're mine and nobody else's, (Y\N)?"

She'll find a stupid excuse to fight with you.

And then she'll drag herself out, pouting and apologizing, confessing how horrible she is as a person.

Or she will probably ask you for kisses to fix the situation.

There's make-up sex, but Madison isn't urgent and aggressive, not that part. She just wants to make love to you so you know no one else would top hers.

Misty Day

Misty is oddly bipolar with her jealousy of you.

Some hours, she may seem too possessive and feel the urge to punch someone because she thinks she's too inadequate for you.

But in the others, she handles it generally well, and just gets a little grumpy.

Considering that years of seclusion in the swamp have prevented her from feeling anything serious about anyone, being jealous is a very unusual and weird thing for Misty.

She doesn't know how to handle it well at first, but she learns to control herself. And she doesn't want to hurt anyone, most of all, especially you.

So most of the time, Misty will just slowly walk over, hug you and let you rest on her chest as she kisses your head and turns to the other person with a sweet little smile.

"Excuse me, the conversation must be great, but they already have a girlfriend, I'm sorry."

On the way home, she would insist on being isolated in her corner for a few seconds, and it would take a considerable amount of time to admit that she is genuinely jealous of you.

But overall, having Misty jealous is just as adorable as having her around.

Nan

Nan is not that over the top when it comes to being jealous of you.

I mean, except for the fact that she can control people's minds - and easily can control hers as well - she doesn't show overly jealousy, and maybe isn't even overly jealous.

She knows that you would never betray her like that, nor would you exchange her for anyone without a reason behind it.

But, of course, Nan has her moments of extreme caution.

She first assesses the person, reads their mind to be on the safe side, just to know how to approach them without scaring you off.

If it's someone who is clearly just someone close and significant to you, she'll let it go, take your hand and gently lead you away, apologizing later.

But if she catches some ulterior motive, oh, then that person is probably screwed for life.

"Oh, sorry, I read your mind, I feel something is wrong and I want to secure my territory. (Y\N) is mine and mine alone."

Nan doesn't like to fight with you, and when you have alone time, she just wants to make sure you're comfortable with her and that your relationship is going well.

The two of you cuddling after discussing the relationship and making a decision about Nan's adorable bouts of jealousy.

Queenie

Get ready for the jealous queen.

Honestly, I feel sorry for the person who decided to test Queenie's patience, especially when it comes to you.

She hates to think about the possibility that you would replace her, but it's impossible not to when everyone else has already replaced her.

Queenie is not at all afraid to approach the person and you when they are jealous.

And she'll hug you and kiss you real quick just so the person on the other end understands that you already belong to someone else.

I don't even need to go into detail about her being a voodoo witch, do I?

Of course, Queenie's case isn't as severe as Marie's, but there would definitely be a thought about creating a doll of the person.

Although Queenie knows the limits of voodoo and knows that it would be cruel if you knew she was hurting someone out of jealousy, so she won't even bring it up and will promise to forget about it quickly.

LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of curses. Every one she knows.

"Listen here, pervert, they already have someone, okay? Get the fuck out!"

You wouldn't fight, even though she always ends the day with a hot head.

She just wants you to know that you're important to her, and that nothing and no one in the world could ever break the bond you have.

Myrtle Snow

Myrtle knows how to deal with feelings, but she's not ready to be jealous of someone.

That's why she is confused about this, about her behavior when she notices that you seem quite happy in the company of someone other than her.

Since Myrtle doesn't control her impulses, she will probably approach you and make up an excuse for you to pull away from the other person, without using excuses or justifying yourself, just getting you out of the way.

No, she would never commit any atrocity with the person who was chatting with you. Myrtle Snow promised that she would change that part of her behavior for you and she will keep it until the end.

"I don't understand, (Y\N), I felt strange… seeing you with them…"

"That's jealousy, Myrtle dear", you'd say, laughing and finding that very cute.

Myrtle would certainly ask Cordelia for advice after the first scene of jealousy, for fear that she was feeling something really wrong, or even to cope better without running the risk of pushing you away.

Anyway, as long as she doesn't lose you, Myrtle doesn't mind feeling weird…

Mallory

Mallory wouldn't handle jealousy, that's the answer.

She would feel too awkward to set boundaries with you, and anyway, she would feel awkward approaching someone out of the blue.

But even if she insists on not hurting you, that feeling that something is wrong would haunt her forever. And that's one thing Mallory would never admit.

Then she would be content to approach you very slowly, putting a hand on your shoulder or wrapping your hips around. And look the person on the other end of the conversation straight in the eye.

"Don't you think you've talked enough?"

She won't say it in a possessive way, but she will turn extremely red when she's done, pulling you back and taking you back to where she was before.

The conversation would be calm and sincere, and Mallory would express that she loves you very much and that she just couldn't bear to lose you.

But she knows you love each other too much - and she loves you enough - to just take care of you like no one else ever would.

Marie Laveau

I just wanted to say that anyone who decides to make Marie Laveau jealous is pretty crazy.

She LITERALLY is the Voodoo Queen, what did you expect?

Years of experience to be sure how to handle such a situation.

Marie won't let it go and will immediately talk to the person who is showing ulterior motives towards you (and believe me, she knows very well when a person is or isn't…) "They already have someone, and that someone isn't you, so get the fuck out."

She wouldn't dare call you names or fight you out of jealousy (definitely Marie is someone who thinks it's cheesy to fight out of jealousy and make a scene)

A LOT of make-up sex.

She loves to tease and tease you during sex after a jealous scene like that.

Marie loves to get you flustered, she thinks it's cute and she's even more in love with you when she's done teasing.

No, no chance of having a person's voodoo spread in Marie's quarters.

Or, at least, not that you ever found out about it…

Kyle Spencer

Kyle is usually not jealous.

But it's because he learned that the rare times he did show it, things got highly self-defeating.

He doesn't want to scare you, so now he just walks up to you, pulls you into his strong arms as he looks you up and down, then kisses you on the nose and pulls you out of the way.

He's secretly ashamed that he can't get the words out anymore, which is why he's always quiet when it comes to a scene like this.

Back in the day, before the accident and death, he was out of control and things almost always ended in a beating, and he doesn't want to be that way anymore, not after meeting you.

"(Y\N). Not. Comfortable."

He would whisper to you as he tried to explain to you what happened, and as he watched to see if you were okay.

When you were alone, he would cuddle with you and pet you, just to make sure you weren't mad that he pulled you out of a conversation where you seemed happy.

[cacodaemonia]

As we're all very aware, we live in a time when open hatred of many marginalized groups has been growing. And as many others have said, it's super fucking important that we stop fighting amongst ourselves over relatively minor issues when there are people who quite literally wants us dead, or at the very least, silent and subservient.

Punching down and sideways to attack the people who are 99% on our side might make us feel superior for a little while, but it's important to ask ourselves if attacking other marginalized people helps anyone.

With that in mind, I wanted to remind all of us that language, culture, and iconography all change over time, and not everyone keeps up with those changes at the same speed.

As an obvious example, 'they' is now a much more commonly used singular pronoun than it used to be. It's meaning has expanded and changed subtly.

Another example is the comedy genre in general: movies and TV shows from even a few years ago relied on humor that many of us now see as tasteless at best and dehumanizingly cruel at worst.

Then you have things like reclaimed slurs. For some of them, their meanings have changed multiple times.

We've also got all of the microlabels among queer folks, which are rapidly multiplying and evolving. Many of them didn't exist 2 or 5 or 10 years ago, but now they might be the most central part of someone's personality.

Pepe the frog is an example of an image whose meaning has radically shifted in a short period of time. What was originally a harmless cartoon was appropriated by the US alt-right movement and is now considered a hate symbol (though the ADL acknowledges that 'the majority of uses of Pepe the Frog have been, and continue to be, non-bigoted').

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have characters like Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat, who were designed to be minstrels. Now, of course, almost no one associates Mickey Mouse with blackface or racism.

Those are just a handful of examples involving the English language and the internet's largely American-centric culture, but there are obviously many, many more. All of this is difficult enough for native English speakers to keep up with, but we should also bear in mind that, for many folks, English isn't their native language.

I've seen awful harassment by queer people against another queer person just because her English wasn't perfect and she used a term that, at that time, wasn't considered the correct one by the people who attacked her.

We should also keep in mind people who have other language or cognitive difficulties (I'm honestly not sure how to phrase this, so please don't assume I'm being derogatory or cruel—I am one of those people).

Even for those of us with the best of intentions, all of this can make online interactions feel like navigating a minefield because many people exclusively engage in paranoid reading of everything from novels to shitposts.

I think all of us would be better served if we stepped back for a moment to consider questions like, "Does this person have malicious intentions?" and "Is this something that causes real harm to real people or does it just bother me, personally?" and "Will calling this person out or shaming them help anyone?"

A lot of us are on the same side, and we might have slightly different beliefs, but we don't need to be enemies. Wasting our outrage on each other is exactly what our real enemies want.

[theremina]

Adoption causes way more intergenerational trauma and collective health crises than I think many "kept" people realize.

If you bother to read it, the science is clear: adoption is violently traumatic, causing devastating, irreversible health issues for millions of human beings. Yet I'd have more luck conveying the severity and longevity of my own trauma to most non-adoptees with "I was dropped on my head as a baby."

Heck, I didn't begin to contend with the horrors of my own situation until my mid forties. Being yeeted directly after birth into foster care and eventually adopted by lovely, well-intentioned folks who were not prepared *at all* to help me deal with the lifelong neurodevelopmental disorders and physical health problems directly caused by my abandonment at birth has permanently damaged me. I'm saying so as one of the "lucky ones".

I adore my adoptive family. They're incredible parents. We love each other dearly. This doesn't change the fact, not for one second, that I wouldn't wish adoption on ANYBODY. Thankfully, my folks understand this. I wish more adoptive parents did.

The modern adoption industry* is, by design, deeply misogynistic, racist, transactional, ableist, imperialist, colonial. Ignorance and hate and apathy and coercion and subjugation and dehumanization and capitalism keep the machine running.

We're already seeing the beginning of Baby Scoop Too: Electric Boogaloo on Facebook. On Twitter. On Instagram. On other social media platforms owned and controlled by obscenely wealthy white men who don't consider private adoptions to be unethical.

You may *think* that legalized human trafficking doesn't really effect you, but soon, if the Christofascists continue their cultural blitzkrieg, the amount of infants and children who end up in the foster care system, adopted by unqualified people, in devastating private "rehoming" situations like the one shared above, or worse, is gonna SKYROCKET.

So...I'm barely on Facebook anymore for a few different reasons. One of them is that I couldn't handle watching a whole bunch of ignorant self-proclaimed feminists making shitty adoption jokes after Roe was overturned.

Another reason is that Facebook is LITERALLY A BABY MARKET.

ADOPTIVE PARENTS ARE BUYING AND SELLING CHILDREN ON FACEBOOK. WHAT THE ACTUAL UNFORTUNATE FUCK.

Nearly 100 million American families are in the adoption triad, with a majority of adoptees' needs and voices being considered last instead of first. It's so backwards.

Non-kinship adoption is a systemic violence that cannot help but touch the lives of billions. That is so very, very bad for ALL of us, not just abandoned infants and children or their struggling parents.

Some straightforward response questions for every person who has ever asked me about about my adoption:

Are you a feminist? Are you antiracist? Are you a humanitarian? Anti-ableist? Do you consider yourself lefty, liberal, or otherwise progressive? Do you respect science? Then please reevaluate your perceptions of adoption.

For every adoptive or bio parent you listen to, listen to three or more adoptees. For every shitty adoption "joke" you've ever told, check in with an adoptee (or first mom) in a kind and caring way. For every ignorant question you've ever asked an adoptee about our "real parents", crack a book!

Please. Do some research. Learn. Please. Center transracial adoptees, international adoptees, disabled adoptees, queer adoptees. Please. This stuff impacts all of us just as surely as countless other aspects of systemic rape culture do. Try to understand. Please.

I'm more certain than ever that we must abolish before we can rebuild.

Please give a shit. Please.

*The fact that adoption is an industry at all should shock and horrify us all, and yet... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[image description: a screenshot of a Facebook post with a black border and caption reading, “Welcome to America, where people try to regime adopted children on Facebook Marketplace.” The Facebook post itself reads, “So basically they either want him to come back home, or have CPS place him in a foster home. Or I can find someone willing to take him in, and ‘under the table’ pay them the stipend, we get. If CPS places him they will have to have an open case against me. In doing that I will lose my job. I cannot work at a daycare, school, group home etc. if I have an open active CPS case against me. How the hell do I go about ‘re-homing’ my child? Should I create a post in market place? Through no fault of our own, we are being forced to re-home our thirteen year old son. He can be the most loving, helpful young man. He does suffer some learning difficulties. He comes with a complete wardrobe and a monthly allotment. Only serious inquiries please.” End id]

[sordidmusings]

Just a life update and opening!

Brought up because of an ask wondering if I still do stuff here so I figured I'd put out some of whats goin on if anyone is interested! Also throwing it into the void of the internet feels less guilt inducing than forcing it on specific people especially after how overwhelmed folks tend to be cuz I'm bad at metering it out and not just being like 'light jokes about struggle that don't scratch the surface or say anything meaningful' and 'here is all the dark lore' 💀 It's also been a struggle because there really does sometimes feel like theres a whole ass language barrier within your own language when you're AuDHD.

I do still do headcanons and write and draw and yada yada there’s just been quite a bit happening and I’m doing poorly at keeping up with life maintenance let alone things I enjoy 🥴 with writing especially in my hobbies I find myself discouraged in what feels like poor quality of my writing and seeing that reflected back to me because I am Weak 💀 general overview of some of the bigger problems below the cut if you’re interested but I won’t bother y’all with the whole picture! Will be more a summary/overview/alluding to things over getting into gory details. Basically a lot will be covered but I won’t force anything below the broad strokes on y'all.

The end is an ask for people to please reach out if they are struggling so please take that seriously. I offer a space with me but please find wherever in this world you are at least somewhat comfortable and have someone be there with you while you process 🤍 I will have a header above that little piece just incase you'd like to skip to only reading that which is completely fine!

CW for mental health talks, allusions to family issues, references to rape and abuse, death by suicide, and suicidal ideation.

What's Up, Doc?

Between hospitalizations (old and new issues and unfortunate near misses 🤡), my couple jobs (the days my body ain’t tryin to give up and even some days it still is means back to the grindstone. Thank you capitalistic overlords 💀), money stresses (medical debt plus just like y'all know shit ain’t the best for most everyone rn), the spring struggle (nightmares + flashbacks get worse from seasonal + anniversaries of men not caring for consent amongst other things lmaoooo), the mental health slew (diagnosed with AuDHD and most of the big hitters besides a personality disorder), and a few other life happenings and old traumas I’m doing a terrible job at everything 🤡 most of it ain’t new so I know all the proper things to do to help for everything from years of therapy and managing the symptoms and all that but dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s hasn’t been offering any relief for a long while so I’m floundering and quite exhausted.

The health issues making everything difficult and painful ain’t helping but I’m also not being the best at taking care of some of them because Why Bother 💀 Many are issues I’ve had for years that ebb and flow in severity and I’m just tired of feeling them and having to manage them. I’m sure any of you with chronic issues understand the feeling well. Those with years and years of major depressive disorder probably also understand the frustration and exhaustion and guilt with knowing you should enjoy something, you WANT to enjoy it, but your body just can’t produce the reaction it should.

I tend to isolate because I’m managing it poorly enough that the topic tends to crop up with the closer few if they ask and that goes Badly cuz, even if they think they won’t, people get uncomfy with the topics which just makes me feel Worse from guilt and sometimes frustration from it being passed over for their comfort or lack of understanding. I am lucky enough to have more recently found one person who Gets It and a beloved soul from lovely old Jersey came back into my life so the bigger problem in that situation is me allowing myself to consistently receive support from them 🤡 One’s so sweet always telling me I can call any time and the other is of the same vein and my dumbass brain keeps being like “but that would bother them” or the usual “you deserve to get worse not get help” 🤡🤡🤡. Clown ass behavior.

Also some bad coping mechanisms make my typing and communication sloppy as hell and I’m quite ashamed of that so best hide that away while it’s going on 💀 due to insistence that it’s Fine I have forgone that instinct to what feels like very Poor Result 🥴 ah the eternal struggle between needing to be Seen to fight the sense of isolation and worthlessness but also being petrified of being perceived while imperfect. Not having any of the connections really be in person doesn’t help too much with feelings isolation because I don't really have anyone around me besides parents that have literally said "why are you making us deal with this" about the intentional near death miss 💀💀💀 my immediate world feels very much like it wants me gone in explicit and subtle ways but c'est la vie. Beggars can’t be choosers so at this point I’m likely just being ungrateful 🤡

One thing making it harder to keep trying is my folks’ years of insistence that I don’t understand my own experience and I’m just dramatic and make things up. It’s an echo of many painful experiences including a whole group intentionally playing games with my sense of reality to enable their friend’s abuse (they got unconsensual nudes from him out of it so that’s worth the price of treating someone like that right?). Such is life.

One of the new things I’m uncertain how to approach handling properly is the grief and such shifting back to the forefront from the first anniversary of my childhood brother figure being taken from us by his bipolar depression. I have known people taken by suicide before but not this close to home. My childhood wasn’t the happiest but he and his family were a bright place in it. His little sister was my best friend in the whole world through my childhood and their family treated me more like family than my own. He was the best mix of a good and bad influence in an older brother figure I could’ve wished for. He fought long and hard but exhaustion hits us all, sometimes even with proper help. What eternally pains me is knowing how helpless and scared he must have felt and even worse how absolutely alone he felt. That was his last feeling in this life. I can only hope that more than anything, whatever happens next is giving him relief, peace, and rest.

Talk on reaching out below!

On that note, if any of you experience suicidality too, my messages (or ask if you’re more comfy on anon) are always open. This is an issue that’s been in my life in many forms since I was 12, so I will not shy away from you or your thoughts. Even if shared with something uncomfortable or "ugly", I find the discomfort of sitting with someone’s pain negligible in comparison to being the one in pain so why not prioritize that person in their need? It’s also negligible under the importance of truly holding space to process those hurts and stresses instead of just simple little niceties.

I am not the best at being active but if I see any of these messages especially we will truly talk. I know how insanely isolating and disappointing it can feel when someone offers support to be nice and then shoves to the next topic or barely responds because it makes them uncomfortable. It is a bitter pill we must often swallow to forgive those who think they will help for making things worse because they have bit off more than they can chew. It is also a bitter feeling that that reaffirms to us that by our very nature, we are too much to handle and are too much to deal with for sharing our internal space and circumstance. But at the same time, all of us are simply human so who am I to malign someone for making mistakes or being imperfect? So long as someone truly wants to try, there is all the reason in the world to give them grace.

Qualifications kind of???

The one good thing that has come from a lot of the experiences that I’ve gone through is that it has forced perspective on me and forced me to learn skills in holding space, validating, and connecting to others in immense pain. No one is perfect in this skill (even therapists struggle - the number who have said they don’t know where to start untangling the traumas or who have cried at it and in turn needed comfort 💀 a strange experience I know my darling at least gets too lol) but I have found in both giving and receiving that honesty and openness is W A Y more important than being perfect.

This is something I’ve watched more people struggle with than not as life circumstances has not made it so that they must learn the skill at the same time that there are resources to learn it, so I may make more posts with advice for it than the bit I go through here. I’m not a licensed therapist so this isn’t going to be a clinical breakdown of how to be someone’s therapist but I would consider my experience as a confidant, consistent reading up on psychological and related sociological research, and experience going through various forms of therapy worthy of giving solid advice. Unfortunately, co-morbidities and resistant brain chemistry really make using the skills on myself Difficult 💀 but as brief examples of experience for validity speaking on this, I’ve been to a lot of group therapy where licensed therapists literally coach you on this, guided a safe space/group for SA survivors in college, coached friends who couldn’t afford therapy through suicidality or abusive situations, and coached survivors through feelings and decisions when deciding whether or not to charge or going through the process of charging their abuser. All of which is much easier to be effective to people you know irl but the support online can be nothing to snub your nose at either. None of this is to say I'm perfect or exceptional - neither is true - just that I’ve had circumstances and experiences that afford me a bit of extra knowledge in this.

In the vast majority of cases, someone who is struggling and coming to you for help wants you to be there - your thoughts, your feelings, your perspective. They don’t want someone sitting uncomfortably and saying the occasional “sorry” they want engagement because more than anything they don’t want to be alone. In a basic example, if you find yourself freezing when someone comes to you with something you don’t know how to handle, instead of saying nothing or only short cliches due to fear of making a mistake, be honest about that. “I’m not sure what to say right now to be honest because that’s so much to deal with. I can’t imagine having to live with that all the time. Is there anything in it frustrating you the most or that you’re having the most difficulty tackling?”. This is active listening and engagement. You are being honest with where you are at so they aren’t guessing what you’re thinking, you are showing that you see how overwhelming the situation is, especially for the person who has to live with it. If you can’t handle a conversation where these issues exist, how do you think it feels to live with them day in and day out, sometimes for years or the majority of a life?

Asking questions is SUPER important too. Trust the other person to only share what they are comfortable with and don’t assume all questions are bad. Asking questions is one of the truest and simplest ways to show you care because why would you want to know more if you don’t give a shit? Asking questions is also very helpful and one of the reasons talking to others about your issues is important - it gives the person struggling something to react to and give perspective. It helps them process the issue in ways they won’t be able to do by themselves. This may make the process sound slightly manufactured but I promise it’s not, especially as it becomes second nature to know what thing to use when. Communication is a skill so advice around it will inherently make it sound more clinical than the actual process is.

People are also not a monolith so while this type of being there works for the vast majority some people may not like it. That is also where communication comes in - check in with the person on if this is helping and what isn't helpful. Make sure to adjust when you make a mistake.

Conclusion

I’m happy to hold space for other issues as well. I’m no replacement for a therapist but I’ve been a helpful supplement to many people I knew struggling throughout the years so I’m at least okay at that! Since I’m doing pretty bad functionally right now the help won’t be as consistent as I wish but I will give whatever is in my power just like these things deserve. I hope to get better soon so that I can properly offer a stronger foundation of support outward again 🤍

[xenodelic]

Actually curious about your take on this. I have been bothered by MUD because I feel like it is the antithesis of antipsychiatric thinking, where disorders are coined based on new patterns of behavior to be pathologized -- and this pathologization is glorified, like in the case of the most popular one (fantasy personality disorder) taking what seems to be benign, if not normal, traits or traits of other conditions like MADD and explaining them in the frameworks of symptoms of a disorder as if it's a DSM entry... Many of these coiners don't seem to have a real understanding of how psychiatry works as a social system rather than a fun hobby. That's how I've been conceiving of it but I admit I really haven't looked into it too much (I think the tag "mud" is banned on Tumblr for unrelated reasons) so I'm curious to see if you all can help me understand it better?

Actually I think your observation/ critique is a very valid one. I do think many of the people participating in the coining of MUD (medically unrecognized disorders, for those out of the loop), are fundamentally upholding the structure of the psychiatric industry in the sense that they find new ways to pathologize human behavior.

However, we don't necessarily condemn MUD as a concept or community. We think that many folks in it are people who have been done harm or neglected by psychiatry, which is what has led them to coining new terms in the first place. I really doubt that someone who would identify as having Fantasy Personality Disorder, isn't genuinely struggling in some way that they feel isn't adequately addressed by whatever frameworks are currently avaliable.

We sympathize with that. Despite ourselves being heavily antipsych, we still strongly identify with the term DID because we feel it adequately labels our struggles with dissociation. For one reason or another, these individuals feel that in some way, the psychiatric industry has failed them. And their response to that is to create new terms within a similar framework to make up for those gaps.

We think that even in a hypothetical post-psychiatry world, people will still likely come up with terms to describe clusters of behaviors. If the term DID didn't exist, we'd likely try to come up with something to describe our struggles, because terms like "disordered plurality" don't cut it for us personally. There is an undeniable usefulness in being able to put a word on your experiences, even at risk of being reductive.

So overall, while I do agree that the MUD community has some issues with continuing the same patterns of pathologization. I think that it stems from the same issues that antipsych thinking does - that they've been failed and neglected psychiatry. I think they've simply chosen a different direction for how they respond to it.

In a way, one could consider the community based coining of new diagnostic labels as a criticism in and of itself. In the way it makes a parody of the supposed scientific, peer reviewed construction of diagnostic terms. It forces one to question what makes an "official" diagnostic label legitimate, as opposed to a MUD term. To us, turning it in a social activity is actually much closer to what we'd want to see in a post-psychiatry world. Where the creation of new mental health terminology falls to the community and the people experiencing it, as opposed to the hands of a beauracracy.

We do hope that those in the community read up more on antipsychiatry, and stray away from intentionally trying to copy the format and rhetoric of diagnostic manuals. I think they do this in an attempt to seem convincing in their legitimacy, but as you said it does unfortunately recreate some of the same problems that the current psychiatry industry has.

We think there's a lot of potential here for opening up questioning of psychiatry and pathologization in general, but there's a lot of work to be done for sure.

[moonlight-tmd]

Cons are good a.u.

How much better would the decepticons handle neurodivergence?

Hmm well, I'm sure they would have something but they're not really that far away from Cybertron.

Decepticons were originally from Cybertron and followed their rules until they were outcasted. Some of the best medics and mechanics were sided with Decepticons, although with lack of proper equipment and medicine, there isn't much to work with outside of major cities outside Cybertron they control.

Despite things not being registered in the medical code, the Decepticon medics handle such things as any real issue one would have.

For example Shockwave/Longarm- he has a slight personality split thing from creation. He was originally just a normal civil mech just living his life as more than one person. When the war was brewing he joined the Decepticons and with his ability to be one person with many faces he acts as a spy for them.

Blitzwing is a whole new thing- he was programmed with some sort of AuDHD (autism+adhd). He was originally a seeker working in the Decepticon file department along with Shockwave and got the appropriate treatment but the need to move and be in action was eating him inside out, so Megatron re-assigned him to be a seeker scout. Then the war got rougher and Decepticons were forced to abandon any honor they had left and turn to more heinous means.

The projects to improve their frames started and along with that several candidactes volunteered or were picked. Blitzwing originally didn't want to do it but got persuaded by Megatron. The success rates were low but Blitzwing was a success... at a cost.

Something went wrong with his programming when adjusting to another altmode and now he had a permanent personality disorder. He was the first and the last to go under such procedure and be alive.

Blitzwing may be scared of Megatron after this but Megatron still treats him with respect. He thinks of Blitzwing as his son and will protect him if need be.

I don't really know where i was going with this, i'm a bit rusty but to summarize: The 'cons are aware of the existance of such issues and are trying their best to help folks with them. They have treatment and try to share it with whoever they can without getting them killed for having associations with Decepticons. Those that have neurodivergent and other issues get assigned to appropriate jobs to do well in.

Cybertron's council is corrupt and they only care about profit so people are forced to live in this pretend-utopia dystopia to survive and deal with whatever shit hits them. If they have those undiagnosed issues the society only treats them as useless troublemakers and they are most likely quick to lose jobs.

Bumblebee, being forged in the corrupt era of Cybertron, had several issues with his programming and ended up being an underdeveloped frame that got classified as minibot. He struggled with academy and somehow landed a job at a club, the owner was secretly a decepticon-favoring folk and got him in touch with specialists to patch whatever issues he had, even sponsored it when he didn't have money for the procedures. He had a little easier life.

On earth he got diagnosed with ADHD and symptoms of depression- Ratchet never says where he gets the treatment pills for him but they work so he never bothers to ask. Prowl has autism so he's also on the treatment list, Optimus too (PTSD stuff). (He pays Swindle to deliver him stuff a normal supply delivery wouldn't give him. It's the only reason he's able to maintain them all working. A less ethical practice of his is copying one's files to another hard drive in case their system crashes and deletes them, he keeps quiet about it.)

I think that's about it? Lemme know if i missed something.

[greeniegreengreen]

Hi! Can I request gojo x falling in love with his booty call who's in denial that he loves her and she lives him?

A/N: First request on this account and I'm so happy about it!! Took a while to do because I had an assignment due last Sunday.

College Au - Gojo Satoru x Fem!Reader - FWB to Lovers

Warnings: Suggestive themes, Mentions of Alcohol/Tipsy Folks, MDNI & Ageless Blogs will be blocked

Word Count: 1809

I hope you enjoy @diavolosbaby!!

Wish me luck

Phone clutched in his hand as he stared back at the text. Deciding to not reply to it, he put his phone face first on his desk and redirected his attention to the lecturer.

He wasn't able to focus on what she was saying though. The message clouding his mind along with questions of his own.

She had told him about her crush on Nanami. He had encouraged her to pursue it. She had mentioned how their arrangement would have to come to an end if she wanted to proceed with a relationship. He had said he didn't mind.

So why did it bother him she was really going to ask him out?

Why did he harbour so much hate for himself for playing the supportive friend in this?

They were just friends that fucked. Heavy emphasis on friends. They weren't exclusive or getting to that point. So this shouldn't bother him that much.

His phone vibrates again and he's quick to pick up on the pattern. He had customized it a while back to make it easier to identify when she had sent him a message.

Not wasting a second he unlocks his phone and immediately regrets doing so.

guess who has a date this Friday~(˘▾˘~) you're gonna help me pick an outfit right

Heart dropping he tried to type back a reply. Of course Nanami would agree. In the little group they had it was very evident Nanami liked you back.

sure

He should be a lot more excited for you but for some reason he can't bring himself to it.

Maybe the loss of his daily fuck was what made this an issue for him?

It had to be. The only reasonable explanation there was in his head.

***

The end of class could not have come fast enough.

With the worry on his face as he packed his bag, Geto took notice.

"Didn't understand what Mrs Wagner was saying again?"

He paused his packing and looked up at his best friend.

"It's not that." He shoved his laptop in it's pocket and zipped up the bag. "I'm just thinking."

"About?" He watched his friend get up from his seat and toss the bag onto his back.

"Don't worry about it." he tried to get Geto off his case. "It's nothing serious."

Geto gave him a doubtful look but decided to let it go as they left the hall together.

Walking through the courtyard on their way to their apartment Geto's phone went off. He pulled it to see who had messaged him. Gojo not taking notice to it as he was stuck in his thoughts.

"Oh?" He voiced after reading the message. "Nanami got asked out by [Y/N]. Now that's a pair I didn't expect to happen."

He replied back to the text.

"They'll look cute together, no?" Looking to his right at Gojo who despite not being present before was fully aware of everything Geto was saying now. His clenched jaw an indication to that.

"I doubt." He disagreed.

"Why not?" He asked, curious to hear what Gojo would say.

"They just don't click." Like she and he did.

"They could. A relationship is all about learning about the other." he looked ahead as they were slowly approaching their building.

"Even so, they barely spent enough time together." Unlike they did.

"True. Haven't seen them have a conversation for longer than 10 mins" He looked at him thoughtfully. "I still think they could make it work."

"I highly doubt that." Gojo said with a roll of his eyes.

He may not have been looking at Geto but Geto was sure to take note of every little twitch that pulled his face. The slight furrow of his snowy eyebrows, the tick in his jaw. He wasn't happy about this news and it showed.

"By some chance," he started as they got in the elevator and Gojo pressed their floor. " Would you have a crush on [Y/N]?"

Gojo's head turned to look at his friend for the first time since they left the class. He tried to read his facial expression to see if it was a joke of a question he was being asked.

None. Geto was dead serious.

No one knew about the arrangement as per your request. So Gojo not wanting to anger you and continue what you had going kept his mouth shut. Not even his best friend got an inkling to what was going on. The secrecy of it all did make it more exciting.

But a crush?

On [Y/N]?

Impossible.

"No, I don't" He turned to look ahead of him as he exited the elevator.

Reaching their shared home, he pulled out the keys to unlock the door. Geto not far behind him.

"Well it looks to me that you're jealous." He said.

Stumbling with the lock at that statement, he got it in and opened the door.

Jealousy?

Is that what he was feeling?

"If you like her, now would probably be the best time to tell her. Nanami seemed awfully excited by the sound of his message." He set his bag by the couch and plopped down on it.

Gojo made a beeline to his room not wanting to hear any more of what his best friend had to say.

Upon entering he dropped his bag on the floor. Fell onto his bed face first face and laid like that for a bit.

"Okay okay waait." you slurred as you and Gojo sat on his bed with an open bottle of wine between you two that you shared swigs of.

The party going outside his room basically shook his door from how loud the music was being played. It was times like this that he was glad he and Geto agreed to moving into a Student Residential instead of a normal setting.

His fellow peers were too busy getting drunk, sleeping or minding their own business to care about another random party happening on a Saturday night.

"I never pegged you for the submissive type." you gave it some thought, or as much as your just above tipsy mind would allow.

Gojo grabbed the bottle between you two and chugged down a bit letting the sweet liquor take over his throat. "Well it'd mostly depend on the person in charge. I can't just submit to anybody ya know."

"So," you took the bottle from him and swung it back finishing it's contents, "If it were me?"

You got on your hands and knees and crawled the short distance between you two, making sure that once you got close enough to get on your knee in front of his sat body making him look up at you.

He brought his hands to your waist as his pupils dilated in the blue sea that were his eyes. You slowly caressed his smooth face with both your hands before moving one to his hair, pulling it back a little more till he was looking at you through his fair eye lashes.

"Well if it were you I don't think you'd be able to handle me right." he said, voice barely above a whisper but loud enough to hear over the music that thumped his door.

He moved his hands up and down your body feeling you up before slipping them under your shirt and gripping the skin that was there.

"is that a challenge pretty boy?" you started closing in on his lips.

"And what if it is?" he was visibly excited.

"Then I'm gonna have to take you up on it." your breathe fanned his lips before securing yours on his.

***

The day after you had found yourself in his bed naked in his arms. You may have drunken a lot but you sure as hell were not that drunk to forget everything that happened.

Getting out of the bed and looking for your clothes must've been what woke him up. He watched you in silence get dressed before deciding to make it known he was awake too.

"Morning." he greeted giving you a little jump.

"Oh, morning Gojo."

"Satoru."

"Oh, first name basis now?" you teased.

"I had you screaming it, I don't see why we'd have to revert back to my surname at this point."

He was right. If anything after last night's event, reverting back to how things were was going to be weird.

"So," you started trying to figure out how to word what you were about to ask while looking for your bottoms. "Friends?"

"Personally...I'd like to keep this going." he looked at you expectantly awaiting your response.

You paused your search to look at him. He was very much still in his birthday suit with his covers on his bottom half.

Would you like to go into an arrangement with the same man you had a what you define as a high school crush on?

Would it be a good idea?

Well, if you were least likely to end up in a relationship with him why not just have a little fun with this.

Fuck it.

"I'm up for it."

He gave you a lazy smile before getting up from his bed. You watched his sculpted body leave his covers and make his way towards you.

"What you want to pinky promise to this?" you let out a little laugh.

Arm snaking around your waist while the other went to cup your cheek.

"I was thinking of something a lot better."

That was about 4 months ago.

Nothing really changed from where you two stood as friends other than the fact you fell harder for Gojo each day while unknowing to Gojo himself he was in the same predicament.

Sure he enjoyed the sex but he enjoyed your company as well. Jus having you around to talk to or watch a movie or go on a random adventure or coffee shop hangouts or having study sessions together made his day.

He loved the way you laughed at his dumb jokes and the smile you gave him that you didn't really give to anyone else. He loved getting to cuddle you while watching a series you found together. He loved hearing about your latest interest and the excitement you held behind each word.

He loved...

He loved you.

He LOVED YOU.

He's a fucking idiot for not understanding that so soon. it was right in front of him.

But you liked someone else.

So what does it matter.

A lot. It matters a lot.

He got out his bed to grab his phone in his bag.

What was he doing?

Pulling up your chat obviously.

Was he going to confess his newly discovered love for you over text?

Why of course not.

He was going to invite you over. A lot needed to be discussed anyways.

come over? we need to talk

What did y'all think though? It'd be nice to get some feedback since I haven't written for quite some time now.

So um,,,this is gonna be getting more parts than this because I didn't reach the cutesy ending I wanted to. I also didn't want to make it too smutty since I wasn't sure if you'd like it but if you would like the stuff they do inbetween I can write those seperately!!

Will go through at a later stage to edit it.

[donnerpartyofone]

I'm sure @staff has kind of a lot on their plate right now but while I'm thinking of it, this would be nice to have:

Add a Fandom community label. Or a dedicated universal tag, or a box you can check during post creation, or just anything that has the ultimate effect of allowing users to filter fan content.

This could at-least-slightly ameliorate problems with the search.

I have come into acceptance of the fact that fixing the notoriously dysfunctional search, even on individual blogs, is just way, way, way out of scope for some reason. Tumblr must know that a functional search would radically increase engagement, so I assume that the persistence of this glaring problem means that there is simply no way to fix it. I tell myself that "search" really just means "give me a handful of related suggestions" and not "show me every instance of X". I am learning to live with this.

What compounds this issue is that there is no way to separate fan content from content directly related to your search terms.

EXAMPLE: I search for a popular movie, and the results are so overburdened with people's personal stories and drawings that it's impossible for me to find anything actually related to the film. I give up quickly and Tumblr loses engagement from both me and the people who post screencaps/gifs/music/production info/etc.

EXAMPLE: I'm searching for something--anything--but my commonplace search term happens to be related to a very specific fandom. Perhaps I have never even heard of this fandom. But after scrolling through yards and yards of fan fiction, I have to give up, and Tumblr loses engagement from me and also whoever is posting about the actual thing I wanted.

OTHER NEGATIVE EFFECTS:

1. I stopped tracking ALL tags because they were constantly serving me fan content. I haven't bothered with tags for years because of this.

2. I blocked tons of innocent users because I couldn't avoid seeing their fan content; in order to stop seeing it, I have to sacrifice our entire ability to interact. I'm not alone there, sometimes I even see a note about this in someone's header ("Sorry you're blocked, it's probably because Tumblr won't stop showing me your fan art").

All of these scenarios happen to me and other users all the time and we have been vocally complaining about this. And I know Tumblr has rebranded itself as the fandom app in recent years, but I would say that even a fandom person still wants to see i.e. actual movie & TV show stuff and not just other people's drawings and stories.

So basically Tumblr has two big, related problems: Search doesn't really work AND is clogged with fan content that drowns out everything else.

BUT what if we could just have ONE problem? What if the search had a toggle that includes or excludes fan content. Then even if the search only gives me limited results, I can improve those results by making sure they are ONLY related directly to the thing I want. This would make the Tumblr search instantly, hugely more useful and I would do way more with it, way more often.

Maybe it could even work both ways, like I can choose to ONLY see fan content for a given search term, fandom folks would probably have a use for that. But the main thing for me is that even if search functionality is unfixably limited, I could refine the limited results and get only the most relevant stuff by excluding one common piece of metadata. Problem not-solved, but significantly reduced!

[talokanda-forever]

Oh boy.

I intentionally avoided posting any thing about the allegations against Tenoch yesterday because I require time to process information. I needed time to give my brain a rest. This still feels a bit too soon. I will never be one to say Tenoch or anyone else would, "never do something like that." Because I have no idea. I'm hoping that the allegations aren't true. This post is my way of venting. It is in no way meant to persuade anyone else on what they should think or feel about this situation. And certainly not meant to be proof or evidence of why it happened or didn't happen. I don't know. None of us knows.

1. The framing of the dissemination of this information as "news." My biggest issue is that I've seen a lot of Twitter accounts pick up the same link that appears to be the outlet that first brought the Tweet by Maria Elena Rios to light (reforma.com). I don't know what journalistic standards this outlet follows, so I won't speculate. I did check to see if any well-established US outlets had Tweeted anything (Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, MSNBC), and as of roughly 30 min. ago they had not.

So far, all we really have are glorified Retweets, not a news story. There are A LOT of accounts with well designed pages that have all the hallmarks of looking like "official" news organizations, but they are not. It takes virtually no time or effort to Retweet something and start an avalanche. It's a trend that has bothered me for the last decade or so. Journalism requires independently verifying information you have received. It's going to multiple sources to corroborate the information. It's at the very least attempting to reach out to the involved parties to get their statements. It's reviewing public records and court filings to see what has been officially documented. And not to say that WON'T happen at some point, but it sure as hell isn't going to happen within 24 hours. It will take time and we STILL may never know the full story.

2. We should believe victims. ABSOLUTELY! In this particular instance and from this vantage point, Maria is only his accuser. It has not yet been established that she is his victim. I understand that she is a victim involving another individual, and thank goodness she survived that horific attack. However, as it pertains to Tenoch, I don't think interjecting alleged sexual assault in a Tweet focused on a different issue is enough to automatically leap to saying she was absolutely, 100%, without a doubt victimized by Tenoch. If it happened I would hope Maria would take legal action, given she was comfortable enough to make the accusation publicly under her name. Even then, she is not required to do so (which is why I say we may never know what did or didn't happen). I would imagine navigating the justice system in Mexico is no less stressful as navigating the justice system in the US. There are valid reasons for women not subjecting themselves to (potentially) years of legal struggles. But I also hope she wouldn't be so reckless as to throw out an allegation and not allow Tenoch to formally defend himself, assuming he denies these allegations. Once again, something that requires TIME.

3. To all those I have interacted with over the past few months on this site, know that I luv ya! I value our time together here. Regardless of what you've said or haven't said about this situation, that hasn't changed. I'm choosing to reserve judgement because that's how I am and how I will always be. I respect that everyone is not like me (thank God). Like many others, I will suspend posting here because, if for no other reason, I know how to read a fucking room. Let's all be kind and respectful to one another. To those folks who interact with me regularly, don't hesitate to DM me.

[alpaca-clouds]

Okay, but honestly...

You know what bothers me right now? Since I am recently writing a lot more stories set in the DnD world, I really gotta struggle with the "evil gods" and their cults. Because I will always ask: "Who the fuck are those people praying to the god of murder?!"´

Just looking at the Dead Three there is already the issue. Sure, I absolutely can see who is going to pray to Bane, god of tyranny. Because... I mean, there are enough people who want a "strong man" to lead them. Like, those mindless drones voting for Trump and such. So, yeah, if there is a god promising those people: "I'm gonna give you a strong leader!" Sure, they are on board with it.

Myrkul as well. Like, I absolutely can see how someone grieving a death or something like that can fall for the evil death god, promising folks ressurection, if they are good in following him. Whatever. I can see that.

But Bhaal? Sure, there are going to be a handful of murder hobos who think that is totally their religion. But... That is barely gonna be enough for a coven, let alone a full on cult.

And some of the other evil gods are much like that. Like, who the hell are the people praying to the goddess of poison? And while it is totally possible to worldbuild Loviatar in a way that people actually would think that is a good idea... The canon worldbuilding definitely isn't it, buddy.

The fact that a lot of the evil gods are also way less world built than the good and neutral gods does not help. It is very clear from what is written that the idea was basically always that the players will pray to the good and neutral gods, while the evil gods mostly exist as a vague backdrop for possible BBEGs.

And boy... It is frustrating.

[yuurivoice]

Anon w/ the Auron hc here, YES my hc is 100% derived from canon. Which is a testament to your writing if someone can have a character down-pat enough for that, I guess. Although that is what confuses me sometimes in this fandom when someone GREATLY misinterprets Auron I'm like... bro it's all in the text. How can you be so wrong? It's right there.

Here's what I've learned, as a recovering nitpicker of fandoms I'm in doing that to characters I love. One, I just avoid other people's interpretations and characterization of my own work as best I can in the wild so I'm not tempted to lose my mind, and two, I accept that not everyone will digest things the same way or WANT to.

Sometimes you like a character and want to make them your own little blorbo. That was how I started when I was younger. Sometimes it is radically different from the text. I just didn't have social media when I was doing that lmfao

And, benefit of the doubt, the narratives are admittedly not organized in a traditional way and with nearly all of the details being transmitted through audio, surely some things will fall through the cracks. Whether it's entire videos or individual lines. So sometimes it can be chalked up to accidental ignorance.

Ultimately, it's lovely and flattering when people can pick up what I'm putting down, that's very gratifying. And even if that isn't always the case, I'm still grateful for those who love my boys enough to want to be wrong about them too, if that makes sense.

Lord knows I've clung to my "wrong" interpretations of characters for the sake of my own enjoyment.

So long as people don't bring it to me expecting me to sign off on it or change my own course based off of their own desires, I've got no issue. Even then I try to not bother, though sometimes there are comments that almost seem so wrong that I have to be like "Well, you see..." just for the sake of someone not spreading misinfo to others.

Auron is pretty straightforward though. I recognized a long time ago that the audience doesn't always have patience in this medium and I'd rather speed things up for the sake of keeping an audience engaged rather than stroke my ego as a writer thinking I can do it a certain way and expect folks to wait it out when this entire premise is centered around the gratification of the listener.