#It should called be anti-depression
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thojmoth · 2 months ago
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so theres this song...
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so-i-did-this-thing · 2 years ago
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How it's going as a trans person in Florida: Planned Parenthood, 26Health, and Spektrum Health have announced they have paused all gender affirming care.
To recap, DeSantis signed several anti-trans bills into law this week. Care is banned for minors, care is all but banned for adults, Don't Say Gay has been extended, children can be kidnapped from affirming parents by non-affirming family, and there is a bathroom bill that subjects trans folks to arrest for using government owned facilities, such as those in courthouses, airports, many stadiums and parks.
The adult effective ban was felt immediately. The main elements are:
signing at every visit an in-person informed consent form created by the state
all care come from physicians instead of nurse practitioners
no telemed for gender-affirming care
Currently, it is unknown if existing HRT prescriptions written by NPs will be honored by pharmacies. I personally know one person who was able to pick up testosterone yesterday, but I have also read many reports of folks being denied. I myself don't have a refill ready for another 10 days and will report back after I try my own pickup.
What's additionally dangerous is those of us, myself included, who get non-HRT prescriptions from our gender clinics now face the uncertainty of continuing of *all* of our medical care. Our health clinics are at risk of shuttering permanently as they lose major income, and many of us will lose STD meds, depression meds, heart meds, etc, etc.
When we say "this will kill us," it goes beyond suicide risk from forced detransition.
"But you can still get HRT from a physician."
So many suck or are outright hostile and the demand outstrips the supply. Before I found my NP-run clinic, one physician just decided to not call in my Rx, another was so shit at reading lab results, he thought I had hepatitis, and the third I had to threaten to kick in the teeth for trying to force too large a speculum in me.
Also, the state-required consent form has not been finalized and distributed yet, so at this point, everything has pretty much ground to a halt.
It was estimated that 80% of trans adults would lose their healthcare because of how many use providers like Planned Parenthood, but the impact seems even greater now.
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"You can get your non-gender care elsewhere still."
DeSantis recently signed a bill that allows healthcare professionals to discriminate against trans people.
Sure, we can try to find care elsewhere, but it will be a slow and expensive process, with no guarantees. It took me over 20 years to get my heart condition treated because of transphobic doctors.
What can I do as a trans Floridian?
Stay in communication with your clinic - many are working on getting physicians added to the roster to prescribe HRT. Lawsuits are being filed and it's possible the changes to adult care can be rolled back.
Continue to try to pick up your meds, but begin looking for care elsewhere, though. Inside and outside the state.
Remember that while telemed for gender affirming care has been banned, you can still cross state lines for care. See Erin's map of informed consent clinics.
Many people will turn to DIY, but be sure you are aware of the risks here, especially if on testosterone, which is a controlled substance.
What should I be worried about next as a trans Floridian?
I worry about the following next steps towards genocide:
Banning getting care out of state. This is from the anti-abortion playbook. They will likely start with kids again, but we've seen how quickly adult care gets axed.
Being declared mentally incompetent or a risk in some way. This could be anything from being barred from gun ownership to not being allowed to work for the government.
Being declared a de facto predator. This has already happened with the latest bathroom law (cis people can eject trans people from government owned single-gender facilities, with arrest as a penalty), so watch out for it being applied to privately-owned facilities. Watch for discussions of official lists of trans people.
Gender presentation enforcement laws, essentially banning "cross dressing". Laws that block or rollback documentation changes.
These all have historic precedence and are huge "I'm in danger" red flags.
What can I do as a cis person?
Amplify all this news. Talk frankly about how this is genocide. And donate what you can to trans mutual aid campaigns so people can travel to get healthcare or even leave the state.
Here's some articles to get started on building awareness:
Take care, everyone, of yourself and each other.
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gor3sigil · 4 months ago
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I’m Trans and Insane and I’m doing fine.
[TW Psychosis, transphobia, psychophobia, medication, psych ward]
“Are you sure ?” she asked.
I remember looking back at her in disbelief, because that was certainly a question I never asked her when she came out.
“Why do you ask ?” I say.
“Dude, I’ve seen you go into depersonalization so hard you even thought you were a human soul in a robot vessel and now, you want me to trust you when you say that you, too, are trans ?”
That’s the memory that comes back to me as I fold and put in my bag my psychiatrist’s note attesting that I suffer from gender dysphoria, NOT LINKED to any psychotic symptoms. Here it goes in my folder with my prescription note, an increase - again - of my anti depressants and Xan, and my endocrinologist’s HRT prescription, increased too - finally.
I go to two separate pharmacies to pick up each prescription for two reasons:
There is only one in this godforsaken town that always had testosterone in stock.
I can’t explain to you with words the look you can get when you give back to back, to someone who, despite not being a doctor, works in healthcare, a note for trans HRT and then a note for psychiatric meds.
And I’m lucky, because I’m not taking antipsychotics anymore. Contrarily to what you could think, it doesn’t magically makes the voices and the shadowy people disappear, but it can make a mess of your head pretty bad and my doctor and I both agreed that I didn’t need more damage up here than what I already had. And no, it doesn’t make your delusions vanish magically too: in fact, I was still pretty certain that I was talking to my soul family out here in Argentine telepathically about my mission on Earth, the meds just made it more difficult to understand their voices, but the belief was still solid.
Anyways, I’m back home with the Hoy Grail I fought tooth and nails to get: a letter from the Sacred Council of Mental Sanity also known as Psychiatry that I was, indeed, a bit delulu, but also trans, and that both things didn’t play into each other. My transness wasn’t a delusion, my delusions didn’t have anything to do with being trans.
Or did it ?
Chicken or egg, you know the drill. Did I have my selves fractured before and one of the piece that shattered my brain happened to make me trans or was I just trans with a shitload of traumas in the back that made me insane ?
But don’t worry, at least, trans people when we’re together, we have each other’s back ! Right ?
“Transidentity ISN’T a mental illness !! We don’t DESERVE to be FORCIBLY LOCKED UP and MEDICATED and MADE TO CONFORM FOR OTHER’S SENSE OF SECURITY !!”
Neither do I, RIGHT ?
Oh
Or do I ?
Remember what she said, my girlfriend, right at the beginning ?
How I can’t be trusted about myself when sometimes I don’t even have a sense of self anymore or I have too much selves who fight against each other ?
And what do we say to that ?
Get treatment. Get in-patient. Take medication. And for the love of God, shut the fuck up about it, you’re giving us a bad name.
Because being trans and crazy can’t exist. It’s absurd. You have to fix one of these two things. Choose which jacket I’ll wear, and they call it a straitjacket for a reason it seems, so am I queer or am I insane ?
All I know today is there isn’t a universe in which I’m a trans without any mental illnesses, or mentally ill without being trans. And yet, I can’t tell you how many time I got asked “do you think you’d be trans if you never got through [x trauma] ?”. I. Don’t. Know. I’ll never know. And I deserve just as much agency as you get despite being mentally ill. If you don’t believe in that, don’t come yapping about “liberation for all of us”, but “if one of us is crazy they’ll all think I am too and that can’t happen”.
No LGBTQIAA+ person deserves to be told they need to be put away, to be cured, to be allowed out in the open only if they’re deemed “acceptable” by society’s standards. And no mentally ill people deserve to either.
No trans person should be going through years of counseling to have the access to HRT.
And I shouldn’t have had to threaten my own mother’s life to avoid being locked in an adult psych ward at 14.
If you ever think, for one second, that these two things have nothing to do with one another, you are far removed from history.
To hear queer people say “yeah but some mentally ill people are dangerous !” feels like you don’t even know where you come from.
And if I want to say, that me being trans is linked to me being mentally ill, or at least, that both are connected in a way, all hell breaks fucking loose.
So I’ll explain very carefully.
See, when I was young, my mind got shattered into a thousand of pieces I had to try to glue back on. All these pieces of myself broke further more down the line because I couldn’t catch a fucking break. And now, it happens that the final puzzle does not have the same face it had before. It happens that its shape changed over time, for reasons over the control of all of us who tried to build ourselves back. Now there’s a bigger picture, less pieces, a few other shadows, and me. Built from the shatters. With my own needs and afflictions.
And whoever you are, whatever your agenda might be, I will not let anyone take any agency away from me under the false pretext that I can’t know anything for myself. They say that about children, they say that about minorities, about physically disabled people, about the people they want OUT. And my trans siblings, you know that.
I came out for the first time 7 years ago, to my then girlfriend, who was the one asking the question that is the first sentence of this text. I came out a second time 3 years ago. Been on HRT, had top surgery, had psychotic breaks, got my meds changed, switch therapist.
Because I am trans and crazy. And yet, all these choices I made, I made myself. It didn’t have to be that hard to get the basic care I needed. It didn’t need to be. But it WAS. And I’m part of the lucky crowd of people who had access to out-patient treatment, who never have been locked up in ward, who managed to stay alive through meds withdrawals without medical assistance when I had no therapist.
Be very careful of when you start to put conditions on the rights you think you deserve. Be very, very careful about your definition of sanity and of how it warps the way you see people. When you start to say “I have access to that, but there’s people like X or Y who shouldn’t BECAUSE”, pause and ask yourself what led you to think this way. More often than not, you’ll find yourself playing the same mind games as the ones you swore to fight against, and when it gives them the upper hand, they won’t hesitate to come for you after that.
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internal-ethics · 2 months ago
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Ok im bored and ran out of good content so fuck it lets do this. Decided not to publicize it for so long bc its difficult.
This is my boldest and most prized contribution to this cursed fandom, as well as my dearest tribute to Tobirama, the best political character ive ever read in fiction, and his anija.
warning - this might not be for people with too heavy leaning on anti-konoha, anti-Hashirama sentiments or ships that's not hashimito or tobirama/konoha, or take the timings and numbers of the databook too seriously.
Hashirama is vaguely hinted to canonically have retired as Shodai years earlier, then married Mito, then lived till 10-20 years after VOTE and died in or before the 2nd War.
Tobirama died first in the 1st War. The scene where he sacrificed himself for his squad happened before the VoTE fight, not after. It's his death that signaled the End.
Hashirama losing his power/ability to lead due to possible depression and keeping a low profile (no one could know how and when the Shinobi God died because village situations, and there were sensors and trackers who could find him) is the reason why he didnt know the motive of the Police Force that Tobirama created, and also struggled with Kurama to the point he needed Mito to LEND him power, when earlier he could beat both Kurama and Madara.
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Zetsu made up bullshit about Tobirama burying and letting Madara escape with a clone, based that assumption on Tobirama's reputation of creating weird jutsus involving sacrifices, most likely framing him for his surbodinates' doings, because Tobirama totally never knew Tsunade, possibly never even met Mito and dealt with a jinchuuriki, while Hashirama did both, comparing teenage Sakuras power to Tsunade's.
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Zetsu also would not have been near there to know what the senju brothers did because they were both sensors that could detect him. Hashirama was the one who buried Madara.
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As Onoki said this summit was to end minor conflicts, it happened right after Konoha was founded, not right before the WW. the 2nd kages looked much younger than in the VOTE/WW era. Hashirama likely had other means, more temporary and less effective, to restrain Kurama at this point (his mokuton and necklace) The databook also never said Hashirama died in which war.
Tsunade and Tobirama had no recollection of each other outside Tsunade only calling him distantly 'nidaime' since part 1 and only 'heard' about the ones who killed him.
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meanwhile Hashirama was too familiar with tsunade as she with him, and familiar with the village and people, so that he could recall his memories with it despite just having seen it before he died like weve been told.
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He talked like he's been through 2 wars with them.
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Our second known grandkid of Hashirama was Nawaki, who was 11 years younger than Tsunade. Unless his first son has multiple children in short years which is pure fanfiction, how would he know Tsunade was his 'first' grandkid and how she would turn out 'in the end' if he died when she was this small.
Also the fact that Hashirama didnt wear Konoha headband in the VOTE fight.
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But did wear it when he married Mito. Tsunade was not Mito's grand daughter.
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As for how he died, its in battle, probably to a nobody mob while protecting his clan or Mitos clan (both conveniently destroyed or disappeared after hes dead). And by the time they killed him and he let them do that, i doubt they even realized or remembered they killed the First Hokage and God of Shinobi. I mean youd think whoever killed him should have been insanely famous, regardless of his power level at the time.
Tobirama said "my role as Second Hokage was to stand between and meditate between brother and Madara while protecting the village" this raised eyebrows because there would have been no one to stand between if he only became Second after Hashirama died and Madara left (forever). Meaning Hashirama was alive when Tobirama became Second, and it had been like that for a long time.
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This is what a japanese fan thought of Tobirama's death
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Between the two brothers, it makes more sense for the 'normal' one who invented jutsu that defied the law of nature, including
ninja nuclear bombs,
Summoning the dead and giving them infinite chakra
clones only reserved for monster chakra reserves like Naruto with Kurama in him
and a teleportation jutsu that required 5 people in place of an absolute genius like Minato to do- moderately,
rather than a powerful monster with the same annount of chakra as a bijuu AND sage mode that heals himself, to die earlier out of illness.
This is also why Hashirama would ban Tobiramas jutsu and compiled them into HIS scroll seen in the very first chapter - they likely literally shorten ones life. Hashirama wouldnt want random people to drop dead using them...like his brother.
Some more readings on which Japanese samurai characters that have been Kishimoto's references for the founders.
Oda Nobunaga - Hashirama's first concept when he was a scary rugged scarred and big nosed guy, the one who stopped the genenations long wars, unified japan and died right after realizing the dream, but he died partly because of his brutality and crimes in life - he ACTUALLY killed his brother by blood among others of his family who betrayed him. His successor has nickname 'Saru'.
Ashikaga Takauji - Hashirama's later concept, first shogun of his era but softer big brother guy.
Ashikaga Tadayoshi - Takauji's younger brother who stepped up where he couldnt, disagreed with Takauji on politics and died 5 years before his brother did, in defeat but also there are sources that say he suffered some kind of illness before that.
Ko no Moronao - Takauji's close friend who Tadayoshi hated and was later exiled.
More references in Japanese creation mythos involving Izanagi and Izanami, where Izanagi killed his Fire god son Kagutsuchi after Izanamis death, hence his words "my very own child".
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just-antithings · 11 months ago
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Antis have genuinely distorted the way people see age online
For context im about to turn nineteen. I've been feeling more and more guilty about still being into fandom and having hobbies instead of spending 99% of my time looking for a job and talking about taxes or whatever the fuck antis think grown adults do.
Antis have created this narrative that the moment you turn 20 you should immediately drop everything you love and get a dead end job and be miserable for the rest of your life. And if you don't do that you're weird and creepy and a freak who's probably a pedo/s
Seeing people in their 20s being called freaks for still writing fanfics or just having fandom related hobbies in general makes me wanna throw my phone into a lake and never log on ever again
Since when is 27 considered old???? Do these ppl think humans just drop dead at 30????
yeah it’s both ridiculous and depressing
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repotting · 4 months ago
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i hate the way so many non-politician democrats will protest things like the iraq war or police killing Black people when it's on trend, and then the moment it's not trendy it's like. total amnesia.
we can't be anti war when the white house is blue! kids being kept in cages is fine now, who cares if there's even more of em? let's call the FBI on racialized ppl who annoy us and accuse them of terrorism! and w covid the #we're all in this together vibe stopped the moment mask mandates lifted!
like there's a reason ppl accuse liberals of being spineless it's like almost none of them have any principles they actually stick to or like, think through to their obvious conclusions
even trump being considered evil, the main focus of most of them recently, is gonna pass! as soon as there's a worse fascist they're gonna cuddle up to trump like they did with mass murderer Bush
it's so frustrating bc a lot of the things they SAY they believe should make them natural allies to left movements but there are just. no actual principles there, no willingness to actually ACT on those supposed principles unless it's on trend, and it's so depressing
there are exceptions to this, but they're rare. please reflect on what your actual fucking values are and then behave in a way that aligns with those values!!
unfortunately I think for a lot of liberals the strongest value they hold is "seem like a good person" and I'm sorry but that's a totally different game than actually making the world even a tiny bit better!!
#op
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qqueenofhades · 5 months ago
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Hello, qqueenofhades!
I just want to say, that ever since I discovered you in the week following Biden stepping down, you've actually made me not dread talking about politics. I look forward to your thoughts on what's going on, and I want to thank you for that.
I would love to know: What do you think of the apparent exhaustion from Republicans/MAGA about Trump? People leaving his rallies (and that's not even covering how few are even coming at all or his supposedly needing to pay people to come), and the slew of formers we see at the DNC openly talking about their change in sides. Do you have any ideas about what might be causing this shift? Was it Harris? Was it Jan. 6th? Was it one singular reason, or multiple at once?
Hope you're having a good day.
I think it's a lot of reasons. First, as I said earlier, the whole theme of the DNC is about reclaiming the USA FREEDOM message from the Republicans, who have had a monopoly on it for the past three decades at least and used it to justify even more antidemocratic fascist militant theocratic hard-right turns. The scenes of joyful people talking rousingly about hope, compassion, morning in America, and breaking out into regular USA! USA! chants appeals a lot to the average American, who doesn't want to hear constant violent and negative bile from the Orange Felonious Traitor, because that is literally the only thing he has to offer and it's getting openly more deranged and dangerous every day. The whole Tough Talking Populist Outsider shtick worked in 2016, when Trump didn't have four years of incompetent chaos as the actual president and was just a theoretical concept who a lot of people thought would "smarten up" and take it seriously if he actually won. Likewise, the backlash of white grievance against Obama and the complacency that Trump didn't actually stand a chance was able to be leveraged against the decades of smears that the GOP had already leveled on HRC. Of course, Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million-plus, but the Electoral College did what it's designed to do and he snuck in anyway. But it wasn't a rousing landslide or a thumping victory.
As such, a lot of Reagan Republicans are now turning to the Democrats as the actual pro-USA party, because Trump trash-talks America, calls it a shithole third-world country, bellows about WWIII and the Great Depression, cozies up to foreign dictators, etc etc. Reagan also pitched the sunny message of America as the shining moral hero of the world (he in fact used the Make America Great Again slogan that Trump repurposed), and that likewise resonated with people after the chaos and unrest of the 1970s. Now, we all know that I hate Reagan's ass and I hope he's burning in hell for so many reasons, but his message was effective because it gave people a soaring rhetorical vision to believe in (even while he was often stripping away their economic prosperity in particular behind the scenes, all together now, FUCK REAGAN). But the Republicans who joined the 1980s party are now seeing Republicanism become a tawdry cult centered on, as Geoff Duncan (GOP former Lt. Gov. of Georgia) put it yesterday, the worship of a felonious thug. Trump is wildly anti-America; he only uses it as a vehicle to get what he wants, because Donald Trump is all that Donald Trump cares about. Yes, there are still plenty of brainwashed cultists in numbers great enough to make this election far, far closer than it should ever be in any sane universe, but increasingly even his own cultists don't want to hear it anymore. They keep leaving before the event is over and he's drawing far smaller crowd sizes than in 2016, which as we know is pretty much all he cares about. He has a desperate need for attention and approval to feed his damaged narcissistic-sociopath dementia-riddled brain, and he's just not getting it, while the very real prospect looms that if he loses this election (and it looks more and more like he will) he will go to jail for the rest of his life. Terrifying.
That's why we have the unprecedented spectacle of lifelong Republicans and former Trump voters flocking to Harris in large numbers. We've had Republican speakers at the DNC every night, and they keep playing video montages of former Trump voters disavowing him or explaining that they won't vote for him. If you consider what propelled Trump in 2016 -- conservative white grievance against a black guy named Barack Obama -- the willingness to unhesitatingly embrace a black/mixed-race WOMAN named Kamala Harris is incredible. Many of them were already planning to vote for Biden before he dropped out, but it was no certain thing that they would move from being willing to vote for an establishment old white guy to also being willing to vote for a woman and a person of color. The fact that we've had so many high-profile affinity group Zoom events for Harris, including from truly unbelievable quarters (Republicans for Harris, Mormons for Harris, EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS for Harris), shows that there is a country-wide exhaustion with Trump's poisonous selfish grievance performances, where he's willing to do anything to anyone and turn the USA into a fascist dictatorship if it will exempt him, personally, from the consequences of his odious actions. That is not a message that any sane person can support, and more and more, they don't. As I have said before, that is why fascist movements always sow the seeds of their own destruction. They work for a while, but eventually they're boring, they're mean, they're exhausting, and they offer nothing for anyone but being angry all the time at everyone. Most humans don't like that, and eventually, they drift away.
I also think that part of the reason Kamala absolutely nailed it with Tim Walz as VP is because Walz is the literal anti-MAGA in every way. We have seen a lot of similar straight white military-vet football-coach-type Middle America older men drift into MAGA grievance politics because it offers a home for guys like them and feeds on fear of the future and fear of the other. They feel like they're being heard and understood, even if they aren't, and they vote Republican because they've grown up with Republicans being the pro-America party (however defined). But because Walz is a straight white married military-vet football-coach guy who actually models a joyful and compassionate masculinity, an openly emotional and supportive masculinity, who talks movingly about his love for his wife and children, who is a hunter and gun owner who nonetheless loves kids more than guns, who has taken his small-town rural-America values and become an effective and genuinely progressive politician focused on making ordinary people's lives better, he offers a total antidote to MAGAism. He shows that it is possible to be a traditionally manly American straight white guy who is not a gibbering conspiracy theory-addled shitbag dedicated to trampling on everyone else out of reactionary fear. He shows those guys that they can embrace the diverse future and not have to fear it, and he gives them a permission structure to vote for Democrats because it's the right thing to do AND feel that the Democrats are now the real pro-America party.
Basically, right now, Walz is the most popular member on either ticket, and he's crushing Vance into oblivion (there's something like a 27-point difference in their favorable/unfavorable spreads) because Vance is a horrible robotic hateful gremlin and Walz is an authentic and genuine person who a lot of traditionally Republican-affiliated men (and women!) can identify with. He's also the guy who came up with the devastating "weird" attack line that the GOP can do nothing with except splutter and whine, like playground bullies, that no YOU'RE THE WEIRD ONE. He models that it's actually normal to want your leaders to be compassionate human beings who want to use power to make your lives better, and not hateful fascist alt-righters dedicated to making you also hate everyone and be steeped in doom and gloom. That is why people responded so well to Obama in 2008 after the turmoil of the Bush Jr. years, and why this feels even more monumental than Obama. We won't know until the votes are counted, but this giant tsunami just rose out of nowhere when Harris took over, and it's speeding forward in a really incredible way. We've got to do the work and we've got to vote, but if we do, we could absolutely pulverize Trump and MAGA to smithereens in a way that means it wouldn't be able to come back for a good long while, and oh, what a glorious day that would be. So yes.
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secular-jew · 5 months ago
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I’m a Palestinian American. Here’s Why I Can’t Support the Anti-Israel Protesters. By Elizabeth Gillanders. August 16, 2024
Walking past Union Station in the nation’s capital, I recently was met with a heartbreaking sight. Vandals had defaced the Columbus Memorial Fountain with spray paint, writing the words “Hamas is coming” in big red letters.
Trash and signs discarded by anti-Israel protesters littered the ground. A burnt shopping cart stood off to one side with piles of ash beneath it.
Most depressing, however, were the three bare flag poles that had been robbed of their American flags. Protesters had burned the flags, the only remnant a charred piece of fabric atop another pile of ash.
This was the aftermath of the July 24 “pro-Palestinian” protests in Washington, D.C., organized in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address that day to a joint meeting of Congress.
As an American of Palestinian heritage, some expect me to cheer on these people. They expect me to condemn the U.S., hate Israel, and support Hamas, a terrorist organization dedicated to wiping out the Jewish state.
But these expectations don’t represent me, nor my family.
I inherit my Palestinian background from my mother’s side of the family; her parents emigrated to America from the Middle East. My grandma was born in Israel and later moved to Ramallah in the West Bank and eventually to Jordan.
After arriving in America in her 20s, my grandma worked hard to become a U.S. citizen. She learned the English language while raising my mother and uncle. She opened a restaurant with my grandpa, lovingly named the Chicken Pantry, in Hamtramck, Michigan. When that business closed, my grandma worked as a real estate agent before eventually retiring in the land of prosperity.
America brought my family prosperity. My grandparents taught my mother to “kiss the ground you walk on” because they knew what a blessing America is.
They passed this lesson on to me.
Although many seem to think that my Palestinian heritage should cause me to align with protests that supposedly are “pro-Palestinian,” it’s precisely because of my heritage that I cannot do that.
Israel went to war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip only after Hamas terrorists slaughtered 1,200 and kidnapped about 250 in a rampage of rape, torture, and murder Oct. 7 in southern Israel.
About 10 months later, as pro-Hamas protesters march in this country to “free Palestine,” they call for the death of America. As they burn the American flag, they burn all that my family has worked to achieve.
As the protesters pledge their allegiance to Hamas, they encourage a group that my grandmother wouldn’t hesitate to call a terrorist organization that operates with a strategy of human sacrifice.
Think about it. Why are there no Hamas military bases in the Gaza Strip adjoining Israel? Because the terrorists hide behind their own people.
They dress like noncombatants in Gaza. They establish bunkers in hospitals. They commandeer ambulances for transportation.
These actions are all in direct violation of Article 18 of the Geneva Conventions, the international pacts that set minimum standards during armed conflict for the treatment of civilians, soldiers, and prisoners of war.
One example is Hamas’ use of Gaza’s most important hospital, Al-Shifa. According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Hamas uses a bunker under the hospital as a base for military operations. This not only makes the hospital a target, but takes medical resources needed for the sick.
In contrast, the Israel Defense Forces have given civilians in Gaza opportunities to evacuate and warned of impending attacks. No other nation goes this far to protect enemy civilians.
How can I support pro-Hamas demonstrators who wish to end the nation that brought my family so much? How can I back a terrorist group that uses its own people as human shields? How can I hate Israel, when the IDF has worked to keep Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way?
I believe it’s important to point out that, contrary to popular belief, not all Arabs think the same. Some of us do see this conflict differently. And our thoughts and beliefs should not be snuffed out because they go against the “narrative.”
To some, perhaps our stance makes us walking oxymorons. But we are proud ones, nonetheless.
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honest-moth-of-silver-grove · 3 months ago
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hc for adrian having a girlfriend or s/o prior to his mother's death. they're human and maybe her apprentince or something. and the church takes her too, but before they can burn her at the stake, dracula shows up and rescues her because he knows lisa was fond of her. during adrians and draculas fight maybe she interbenes at a critical moments so drac doesnt kill him and alucard gets away but she's now a prisoner of dracula w/n his castle. and maybe she befriends the generals?
A/N: Aw, man. Sometimes I wonder if Lisa did have an apprentice, that maybe Dracula wouldn’t be as anti-human as he ended up being, or if she could start to turn him to see the error of his ways sometime before Alucard and Dracula end up in Adrian’s childhood bedroom. 
Apologies for the delays in updates. But my brain went WILD with this request so it’s a long one, I hope that makes up for the less frequent posting. Anyway, I hope you enjoy these somewhat bittersweet (then depressing then bittersweet again) headcanons! (Also this is unbeta-ed and prob grammatically messy as hell, so read at your own expense lol.) 
Word Count: 6.2k 
TW: Canon Typical Descriptions of Graphic Violence; Brief Mentions of Sexual Violence; Canon Death; Descriptions of Torture (the church is high-key fucked up here)  
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Adrian W/ A Human S/O Reader (Who’s Also Lisa’s Apprentice, Prior to Her Death):   
━━━━━ ❂ ━━━━━   
The Beginning:   
Okay, so let’s get one thing straight… FIRST OF ALL, Lisa would adore you!!! Like, you make her baby boy happy and you’re smart??? What else is there to it? And then to top it all off, you’re super sweet and kind and interested in learning about medicine and the world around you!   
Lisa meets you once over dinner and she’s already planning the wedding in her head.   
Adrian is smitten, because of course he is, but in an adorable, somewhat restrained way. He doesn't have a lot (ahem, ANY) experience in this department, so he’s hesitant to take things forward with you, mainly because he doesn’t want to scare you off or make you suspicious about what he is. (It’s hard to make out with someone when you have two big vampire fangs in the front.)   
Adrian is young, like you. So, on top of all the complications, he feels no need to rush things. Sure, he’s heard a few whispers here and there about Dracula having a son, a son who according to rumors and gossiping villagers is to rise as the antithesis of Dracula. It’s all silly superstition, but it does stay fixed in the back of his mind. What would this future legacy mean for his relationship with you? And, should it ever come to pass, would you even be a part of it?   
That’s neither here nor there though, and in the meantime, the two of you simply enjoy the talking phase. You get to learn more about each other's interests, and beliefs, but mostly, you spend time in proximity to one another— you remain busy attending to his mother, learning all you can about healing while he, just a table over, spends his time rereading one of his many favorite tomes.   
I honestly don’t see you meeting Dracula until you and Adrian are like a fully committed couple. I’m pretty sure you would have to have been Lisa’s apprentice for a while and/or lived with the Tepes in their Lupu cottage for months before Lisa finally breaks through Dracula’s protests and makes him officially meet you.   
I don’t think that meeting would happen in Lupu either. No, I imagine it would have to take place at Dracula’s castle, just in case you were to freak out, you’d have no way of escaping and telling any others.   
I can almost see your reaction being similar to Lisa’s upon first entering the castle, especially if Adrian is already at your side. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Dracula is terrifying, but there’s also a giant telescope in the next room calling your name so….   
Much to Adrian’s relief, this newfound information doesn’t make you frightened of him at all, if anything, it simply reignites your fascination with him. You throw rapid-fire questions at him: If he's part vampire, how come you’ve seen him eating human food? Does he need both food and blood to satisfy each of his halves? If he needs blood, he could take some of yours you know…   
Your penchant for learning softens Dracula a little. For a brief time, he wonders if, perhaps, it was as Lisa said, that the humans could change, that humanity was changing for the better.   
He sits across from you at their grand dinner table, watching you intensely as you and Adrian talk about the recent literature you’ve read. You’d no doubt feel Dracula’s all-powerful gaze on you, making you turn to him and… Wait, did you just smile?!   
You’ve got guts, Dracula will give you that.   
Knowing the family secret, you can’t exactly break up with Adrian, nor do you have any desire to. I wonder if Dracula would have rings made for the two of you, maybe commission a new family portrait or two.   
You stay with Lisa in Lupu during Dracula's travels. Adrian is around, although he's always off between the castle and their cottage, so you never feel entirely alone or vulnerable. Your life is perfect! It’s better than you could have ever imagined!   
That is, until…   
━━━━━ ● ━━━━━   
The During:   
When the Church comes to take Lisa, you beg them to see reason. You cry and scream, hell, you even try to fight your way out at one point, only for both you and Dr. Tepes to be overpowered by the Church’s henchman.   
The two of you are taken, violently, to Targoviste, where you’re thrown into dark, damp cells with little to no light. Freezing, you huddle together for warmth, each trying your best to reassure the other, that all will turn out well. Adrian was still around, right? He’ll have to come home to find you missing, he’ll come and rescue you. And Dracula was due to return soon, correct? Surely, they’ll come. Surely, they’ll stop this madness.   
It’s a few days later, after hours of interrogation and brutal torture that you realize with a heavy heart, that no one is coming to rescue you. And what’s worse, that these so-called men of the cloth cannot and will not listen to reason. You’re starved and beaten, your hair is sliced off so close to your skin, that they take bits of your scalp with it in some places. And despite initially being imprisoned with Lisa, you find yourself being separated from her for longer periods.   
The men try everything to get you to turn on her. They tell you if you recant her wicked ways now, say she used her evil magic to trick you, your sentencing will be easier. You could still live— they dangle betrayal in front of you as a last lifeline. You don’t take it of course. You love Mrs. Tepes, and you know she’s no witch. You muster what little might you have left, spitting at the men as you tell them to go to hell. You swear she’s innocent, that she knows nothing. Hell, at one point, you find yourself confessing to having manipulated her! You don’t think they buy it though, if the poor doctor’s screams from down the hall are anything to go by.   
The night they light the pyre, the night of Lisa’s murder, you’re sick on more than one occasion. You scream your throat raw, begging them to burn you first! That she was innocent! That you corrupted her! That it was all your doing! But to no avail.   
In a scene that could only rival the Crucifixion of Christ himself, you look up through tear-soaked eyes to see Lisa, enshrouded in flames, begging Dracula to show mercy on her killers, to forgive them, that they know not what they do. “I know it's not your fault,” she cries out, “But, if you can hear me, they don't know what they're doing! Be better than them. Please!”   
You sob and wail, watching as your would-be mother-in-law is burned alive. You scream out for someone, anyone! To please help you, save you! With Lisa’s last words echoing in your mind, you can’t help but fear Adrian’s and his Father’s reactions, should they find you both killed.
Oh, gods…   
You don’t know what makes you feel sicker… The barbaric display you’re witnessing now or the hypothetical one that threatens to wipe out all living people in Wallachia once Dracula learns of what’s happened. You need not wait long for an answer.   
In a fury of fire and grandeur, Dracula’s head appears, molded in flame, demanding to know what has happened to his wife. You cry out to him, apologizing profusely, saying you begged them to burn you first! You scream out how they refused to see reason, they killed her for helping! Injudiciously, in your indignant anger, you plead with Dracula to release his fury on the priests who did this, to send them to hell to be tortured for eternity for this unforgivable transgression!   
With the silent fury of a gathering storm, Dracula’s fiery visage speaks calmly as his anger grows concertedly less. "I give you one year Wallachians,” he finally decides. “You have one year to make your peace and remove any marks you have made upon the land. One year, and I'll wipe all human life from the land of Wallachia. You took that which I love, so I will take from you everything you have and everything you have ever been. One year."   
No sooner than he spits out the words, a coil of fire bursts from his image, winding itself around your body. The guards surrounding you gasp and flee, avoiding the coil’s tail as it whips back and forth, hoisting you into the air.   
The fiery coil burns your skin, and the smell of even more burnt flesh makes you gag. If you had any bile left over at all, you’re certain it’d come up yet again. The pain is like a thousand stinging nettles and boiling water constricting your arms and midriff all at once. Your vision grows blurry as you feel your body move through the air, your nostrils taking in one last wretched breath of sulfur and smoke.   
━━━━━ ◉ ━━━━━   
The After — Part One:   
When you awake you find yourself laid, practically bare, a heap on the floor within Dracula’s castle— the evil Lord himself only feet away, raging over his magic well— as shards of his magic mirror whip around him at incredible speeds. Your head is pounding, it feels as if it might explode, and your arms… Fuck.   
Where the supernatural coil grabbed you, your skin was red and raw, small pockets of blisters already beginning to form. Your arms tremble uncontrollably as you try to move them, the pain that’s consuming your nerves is far too intense to hold them steady as you sit up into an upright position.   
It doesn’t feel real; nothing feels real. It feels like a nightmare. It had all been perfect, everything was perfect— you all were happy! How did it turn into such horror so fast?   
Shakily, you rise to your feet and clutch the remains of your clothes to your chest in an attempt to preserve your modesty, although it’s more of a subconscious act on your part. Everything feels like it’s moving in slow motion, yourself included. It’s like the air is heavier here somehow, its weight filling your lungs and weighing you down.   
A loud noise shocks you back to the present, nearly making you stumble over in fright. At least you would have, had Adrian not used his superspeed to catch you before you fell. One of his gloved hands grasps your left arm directly over the burn, causing you to let out a hiss. His rectangular eyes look wider than you’ve ever seen as he releases his grip, looking over your battered form.   
“(Y/N) ...” Adrian says, his voice serious and quiet, barely a whisper.   
You shake your head furiously, unable to trust your ability to speak without breaking. Upon Adrian’s gentle insistence, you feel your mouth opening, and the words slipping out, scraping against the back of your reddened throat as they exit your frail body.   
“They killed her, Adrian…” you whisper, your voice quivering. “I, we tried to stop them, they just wouldn’t listen!” Somehow, your eyes begin to water again, despite your earlier certainty that your body had no water nor tears left in it at all.   
“Once she realized they wouldn't listen to reason, she lied and told them I was innocent. She told them she had manipulated me, that I was just a child, that I didn’t know what I was doing, that she never got the chance to teach me!” A feeling of guilt consumes you as you speak the words aloud, and soon enough, your body is once again plagued by uncontrollable sobs.   
Adrian listens intently to your words, his brows furrowed. You watch through teary eyes as a range of emotions flash across his face: anger, hurt, pain, sorrow, and finally… acceptance. Your beloved hardens his gaze, choking down whatever grief he may be feeling. At the present, Adrian knows, there are more pressing matters at hand.   
You follow Adrian’s steely gaze back, seeing his Father where he is bent over his summoning circle, cursing in a language that is foreign to you before he switches back to Romanian.   
“One year! It will take me one year to summon an army from the guts of Hell itself!” Dracula proclaims, promising to enact vengeance for the death of his love.   
“No.” Adrian counters, slipping out of your grasp.   
“Adrian,” you whisper, warningly. “Don’t—”   
“What do you mean, ‘no’? That woman was the only reason on Earth for me to tolerate human life!”  Dracula retaliates, enraged his son could even conceive of such lenience.   
“Then find the one who did the deed,” Alucard proposes. “If you set loose an army of the night on Wallachia, you cannot undo it, and many thousands of people just as innocent as her will suffer and die.”   
“There are no innocents! Not anymore! Any one of them could have stood up and said, ‘No, we won't behave like animals anymore.’"   
“(Y/N) did.” Adrian points out. “She tried to take all the blame, in an attempt to save Mother’s life.”   
Dracula looks over at you with blood-red eyes, contempt clear on his face. “And yet,” he snarls, “Here she stands, and my Wife, your Mother does not!” He hisses the last word, livid that out of the two of you, you were the one who survived.   
With large, fearful eyes, you watch as Adrian closes the gap between him and his Father.   
“I won't let you do it. I grieve with you, but I won't let you commit genocide.”   
“Adrian,” you warn again.   
The next bit happened all so quickly.   
Faster than you could blink, you watch, helpless, frozen in horror as Adrian charges his father, his longsword drawn. Despite their vampiric speed being unrecognizable to the untrained human eye, you swear you watch the scene unfold in slow motion. Adrian charges first, but Dracula, roaring in a fit of rage, counters faster— his Father’s elongated claws slash diagonally across Adrian’s chest, before his fist pauses, still embedded deep within your lover’s gut.   
You don’t have time to think before you act. To you, Adrian has the abilities of a god, but to his Father… It was clear there’d be no match. You have no clue how you got your hands on it, no idea as to how you even managed a successful hit, but the next thing you know, a triangular shard of magic mirror is impaled in Great Lord Dracula’s back, put there by your very hand.   
Too terrified to even breathe, the only sound you can hear beyond your racing pulse is a wet, gory squelch as Dracula retracts his claws from Adrian’s body. You hear the spray of blood before you see it, a rush of bright red blood gushes onto the marble floor between Dracula and his son.   
Standing at his impressive full height, Dracula turns ever so slowly, ever so menacingly, to face you. His pupils are that of a blood moon, his sclera so bloodshot they practically look as black as night. In that second, you know you’ve fucked up.   
You cower as Dracula raises one hand to you, instinctively shielding your neck from his nasty bloodied talons. With surprisingly repressed strength, Dracula backhands you, the force sending you flying backward, smashing into the base of one of the curved bookshelves lining the walls of his summoning room.   
With his focus still on you, Dracula stalks toward you. Knowing it’s now or never, you scream at Adrian to flee. “Run!” The words rip out of your raw throat, sounding like an eleventh commandment.   
You see Adrian, previously stunned by his Father’s disregard for his life, holding together the gaping wound across his chest. He has no time to even spare you, his beloved, a last look before evaporating into clouds, his cloud of bloodied mist bolting for the door, fleeing as fast as his injured state would allow him.   
Dracula only turns to watch as his son, his very possibly fatally wounded son, flees the confines of his castle. For a moment it is silent— only the sound of both yours and Dracula’s heaving breaths echo across the chamber.   
Clenching his clawed fingers into a fist, Dracula says nothing as he too makes his way to the castle doors, leaving your bruised and broken body alone in the dark.   
━━━━━ ❍ ━━━━━   
The After — Part Two:   
Somehow, Christ only knows, you find your way to one of Lisa’s old labs and do a half-assed job of patching yourself up. You find your burns and dislocated shoulder to be the most painful of injuries.    
Thankfully, Lisa had taught you enough about setting a patient’s shoulder that you managed to smash it into an adjacent wall, popping your joint back in yourself. The burns you wrap in honey and milk-soaked linen gauze, wincing every time the bandages brush against your skin. It’s awful work, slow work too, but you must have managed it alright because you find yourself patched up and passed out in one of the castle’s kitchens a few hours (or days? had it been days?) after that.   
You eat raw vegetables and berries— nothing that requires cooking. Lord knows you couldn't prepare anything successfully now even if you were to try. Eating your foraged meal in silence you debate your next steps. Do you go back home? Would your family even welcome you home after your long and unexplained absence? And if they, along with all the humans in Wallachia were ultimately to be driven from the land, did it matter anyway?   
‘Oh god,’ you think. You have to warn them, have to make them flee before a year is up. But where would you go? Where could you go? Greater Styria was a possibility, although it was not by any means an easy journey, and the climate there was much colder than your folks were used to here. You shakily rise to your feet and set out to find a map within one of the Castle’s many libraries.   
After a good night’s rest, you find your mindset with a newfound determination: you will go home. You were going to get your family on the move and then… Then, you’d come back here.   
You knew, in all likelihood, that returning to Dracula’s castle after the fact entailed certain death. But you also knew, things would get worse if he were to be left alone.   
Dracula may not have ever loved you for a daughter-in-law. Hell, he may not have ever loved anyone aside from Mrs. Tepes, but you promised her while huddling together that first night in those dingy cells that no matter what happened, should either of you get out alive, you would not leave Adrian and Vlad. “They need humans, (Y/N),” Lisa coughed into your ear. “And most importantly, humanity needs them.”   
Dracula would resent your company, he would want to be rid of you. But you could not be rid of him, not after what Lisa had asked of you.   
‘Besides,’ you thought, ‘Nobody should have to grieve alone.’   
The journey back home to your parents is majorly uneventful. Sure, it was touch and go for a while, your body was exhausted after the ordeal you endured, and your wounds had gotten infected once or twice. Thankfully, you had the mind to pack with you any potential treatments you might need.   
It felt good to be home, to be amongst family again. You couldn’t stop crying and hugging everyone when you first arrived. You kept the details to a minimum but made it clear they needed to be the hell out of Wallachia before a year. You told them you had found an apprenticeship, that the woman was kind to you, but while in Targoviste, you saw the burning of a witch, and soon after the face of Satan himself appeared in flames, threatening the crowd. It caused a panic, you see, and you had gotten trampled in the process.   
You didn’t bother to explain that the woman you were learning under was this so-called witch and that this Satanic figure was her husband. Nor did you tell them of your half-inhuman partner. You knew had you told the family the whole truth, they might have cast you out as a devil worshiper and a liar and choose not to heed your words.   
Your warnings spread through your extended family like how ivy creeps up a stone wall. A fair part of your relatives in the country believed you enough to agree to uproot their lives and settle outside of Wallachia: some settled on Syria, others had decided on Greece, Egypt, or Rome. The more skeptical ones who hemmed and hawed over the validity of your claims agreed to move into the countryside, a decent distance from any major Wallachian city or village.   
When you were certain they’d heed your words, you told them you could not stay with them, your Mother wept for three straight days and your Father could do little to console her. As much as it broke your family’s heart, you knew that your need to return to Castlevania was larger than yours. You weren't just doing it for your family, you were doing it for every family across the land. You couldn't be selfish. Mrs. Tepes was the most selfless woman you had met, and she taught you well. If you meant what you said to her when you first met, that you wanted to help people, you would need to buck up and accept the consequences of that.   
Your journey back to the castle was much more melancholy than your journey home. You could almost feel the whispers of the tortured souls Dracula had slain before blowing cold air into your ears, begging you to turn back. Nevertheless, you continued. You entered Castlevania to find you were alone, however, that would not be the case for long.   
Months later you had fallen into somewhat of a predictable routine within the castle and its new occupants. Dracula had recruited two humans to serve as his war planners— men by the names of Hector and Isaac, respectively. You appreciate the levity Hector, and his undead pets bring, and you admire the intelligence and loyalty Isaac has. You just wish they weren’t going along with Dracula’s plan.   
You tread carefully as you find the time to express to each of his Generals that you wish they wouldn’t go through with this plan. You explain humans are not the kind of species to give in to subjugation, they will revolt eventually. You suggest the vampires come up with some sort of tit-for-tat system with the humans instead like, for example, promised blood servants would equal vampiric protection for that territory.  
It’s safe to say no one is impressed with your centrist ideals, so eventually stop taking part in the conversation. You silently hang around Hector, and just listen with a sorrowful expression, satisfied with knowing that if you can’t change the Generals' minds, you can, at the very least, make them somewhat uncomfortable.  
When Carmilla arrives, you’re immediately put off by her little display of insolence. Unlike yours, her dissent doesn’t seem to come from a place of concern. You make a mental note to keep an eye on her.  
It’s during the General's next argument that you receive a ray of hope: “We are quite certain that Alucard sleeps at Gresit.”  
You feel your body grow lighter.  
“So, that means,” you speak aloud to yourself more so to anyone else, “Adrian is alive?”  
You’re met with a handful of annoyed glares from the other vampires as Isaac continues: “And that there was recently a Belmont there.”  
Upon hearing Carmilla berate the others for not sending night creatures to the ancestral Belmont home, your smile falls and your improved mood falters. These Belmonts were famous monster hunters, famous enough to frighten your current vampire company. That means, if there was a Belmont in Gresit, at the same time as Adrian, as Alucard, whatever the hell he’s going by these days, it could prove disastrous for your love. For all you know, he’s still recovering from the wounds dealt to him by his Father. And if this Belmont, this monster hunter strikes first and asks questions later, he may accidentally kill the only living vampire in existence who stands against the very nature of this war.  
‘How ironic,’ you think solemnly. Just as fast as the universe gives you hope, it rips it away once more.  
You excuse yourself, and make your way towards Hector’s forge, aiming to distract your distraught mind with some cute reanimated pets.  
Shortly thereafter, Hector joins you. He asks if you truly did not know Dracula’s son was still alive. You shake your head ‘no’, telling him how you had prayed every past night to any God who would listen, that they would send their holy armies and angels to guard him, but no, you had mostly just feared he was dead.  
You spend the rest of the night talking to Hector about Alucard, Adrian as you knew him. How smart he was, how much the two of you used to laugh, and how much he looked just like his Mother.  
“Perhaps that’s why,” Hector supposes, “Dracula could no longer bear to see him.”  
You say perchance he’s right, conveniently leaving out the part where the Father and Son duo almost fought to the death right in front of you.  
The conversation with Hector reignites something within you. You feel as if you had been praying all this time for an answer, and this was it. Alucard was alive, and so was Belmont. You understand now what needs to be done.  
Your lover must once again fight his Father, and this time, he must win.  
Your silent observations allow you to learn of Carmilla’s scheme fairly early on, as well as Godbrand’s demise at the hands of Isaac, yet all that time, you say nothing. You keep your mouth shut and your eyes down. If Carmilla divides Dracula’s army and court, she will inevitably make it easier for Alucard and Belmont to destroy him.  
The Generals, and even Dracula himself, believe you are mourning the loss of your love for the second time, as his demise will be inevitable the moment he meets his Father and his armies— or at least, that’s what they assume.  
When Carmilla has Hector send special night creatures to the remains of the Belmont home, you attach a letter around one of the creature's necks, hoping your love will notice it, and if he doesn’t, you pray he instinctively outwits the traps that await for him within his Father’s castle.  
━━━━━ ❂ ━━━━━   
Beginning Again:   
The night Dracula chooses to move the Castle to Braila, you manage to speak with him one last time.  
You bring him some tea, even though you know he won’t drink it, and you tell him, for what must be the hundredth time, how sorry you are about all that’s happened. You apologize for not being able to do more to save his wife. You tell him that if you could do it all over again if you were given a choice between who they should burn first, you’d demand it be you.  
Dracula turns away from the fire to look at you upon hearing those words.  
“She was fond of you, you know.” He says, sounding far away as if lost in a distant memory. “She was overjoyed at the thought of gaining a daughter”  
You nodded along a hurt smile on your face. “It was my honor.” Gathering your courage you continued: “Even though it didn’t work out, I want you to know I loved your wife very much… And,” you kept going. “I love your son very much.”  
Dracula said nothing. He simply turned his attention back to the flames within his study’s fireplace.  
“It’s not too late, you know,” you prod gently. “If Adrian is alive, he could still come back, we could still be a family-”  
“No!” Dracula’s low growl sent shivers down your spine.  
For a moment you feared he would rise to attack you or perhaps berate you further, but no such action came. Instead, the former Great Lord Dracula’s shoulders deflated back to their hunched position, as he fell silent once again.  
Quietly, you made your way back to your room, shutting and locking the door behind you. If you had any tears left at all, you would have shed them throughout the night. Instead, you merely lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if there would even be a tomorrow to awaken to.  
Pleased to still be alive at this point, but feeling increasingly suffocated by this overwhelming sense of doom, you spend the next day cooped up in your room, on your knees, the rosary in your hand, whispering prayers of safety for your loved one. You couldn't explain it, but at the time, you felt compelled to recite prayer after prayer and reveal all the fears and worries in your heart.  
You speak out to Death, to God, to all the angels and saints, and beg them to grant Adrian safe passage as he completes his task of saving humanity— it’s something his Mother would have wanted after all.  
Amidst your fervent prayers, you feel the Castle shake and creak, but you soon realize something is off: it keeps jerking from side to side, several times, way too many to be a case of a single relocation. Your heart races, and in the pit of your gut, you know this is it:
The Alucard has come.  
Your love has come back for you.  
You scramble behind the door, poised with a wooden stake in hand (just in case, you never know), and wait.  
And wait.  
And wait.  
Following a crescendo of metallic crashes and screaming, you hear more crashes, this time lesser in intensity and they’re accompanied by the distinct scent of fire, sulfur, and burnt flesh.  
It terrifies you, bringing such horrible memories of your almost demise to the surface. You look down at the burn scars on your arms and feel physically ill. Every time you shut your eyes to blink, you see the corpse of Ms. Tepes, burning alive right before you as if no time has passed at all, as if you’re trapped in the permanent hell of that memory.  
The overwhelming ornery atmosphere in the castle only grows, seeming to suddenly flood your nostrils and every pore.  
You watch in shock and horror as thousands of soot-colored transparent ghouls burst through your doorway, the shock of the impact sending you reeling into the bed. Tortured faces of all shapes and sizes circle you menacingly, before bursting through your room’s glass window, vanishing just as fast as they came.  
Within an instant you feel… lighter, freer almost. It’s as if something major has changed, but you don’t know what.  
Timidly, stake still in hand, you make your way down the castle corridors. Unfortunately, you have to take several detours, your regular route being cut off by giant holes in the architecture. A good portion of the castle looks like it had been hit with cannon fire.  
You sincerely hope that whatever caused that damage is no longer rampaging around these halls, lest you stumble upon them yourself.  
By the time you reach the throne room, the sun is just peeking out from behind the horizon. The sight of it flowing freely into the castle interior lifts your spirits with hope. Sunlight means no vampires. No vampires means…
You follow the originating path of the sun’s beams, finding three figures illustrated against the sunrise. One of them is a burly-looking man, with a large frame and broad shoulders. Another is a woman, at least, you’re fairly certain they’re a woman, with curly hair, dressed in flowing blue robes. And the third is….  
You don’t even need a second glance to know who the third person is.  
Crying out his name, you run towards your long-lost lover, almost losing your footing over all the debris covering the floor. But just as he would before, and just as he always would, your lover, Adrian, catches you before you can fall.  
The two of you cling to each other for dear life, just silently sobbing, feeling grateful to be in one another’s embrace. You’re not sure how long the two of you stay intertwined like that, you just know however long it was, it could never be enough to make up for how much you missed him this past year.  
“Adrian,” you clutch his coat, “I thought you were dead! I thought he had killed you! I was so worried.”  
“He almost did,” the strange broad-shoulder man reveals in a teasing fashion. You watch as the robed woman elbows him in the gut.  
“Alucard,” Adrian says, regaining your attention as he grasps your hands in his. “I am Alucard now.”  
You look into his golden eyes, sensing while this is still very much the body of the man you loved, this Alucard before you, is not the same person that your Adrian was. After all this time, it feels like quite the loss, and yet, you cannot fault him for it. You are unaware of the journey he’s been on, of the sacrifices he’s had to make. God knows your character must have changed as well, living amongst a vampire court and necromancers for just under a year.  
You back away from your love, temporarily ignoring his concerned expression.  
“Hello Alucard,” you say, extending a hand, “My name is (Y/N). And I’d very much like to share a drink with you if you’d let me.”  
“Don’ know about Alucard,” the broad man mumbles, gripping his side in pain, “But I’d very much like a drink. Or five.”  
“Trevor!” The robed woman scolds.  
“What?”  
You smile at the three of them, feeling beyond blessed that your love has found such wonderful new friends.  
When you had first fallen for Adrian, you assumed your family would consist solely of him, his mother, and his father, that you’d spend the rest of your days learning medicine in a little cottage nestled in Lupu. That simple life was to be yours. But now, it’s all changed. And Alucard is all that remains of that family you once loved.  
You gaze out into the forest beyond the castle grounds, closing your eyes and sighing as you feel the morning’s sun on your face.  
Yes, it was true Mrs. and Mr. Tepes were gone.
It was true that the old Adrian could never come back.
But if you had to choose a new life, a life here amongst a gorgeous castle, with your former lover and his two new friends, well… you doubted you could pick a better one than that.  
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A/N 2.0: WHY DID THIS TAKE ME SO LOOOONG? Who knows? Anyway, it’s here now. And hey— did you pay close attention to the symbols in the dividers? Go ahead and look back if you didn’t, just a silly little fun symbolism storytelling. Oh, also, I will finally be updating The Queue List to reflect all the asks I’ve since answered and posted to not confuse people checking on the status of their ask/new readers.
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If you liked reading this, please REBLOG! Likes are great but reblogs spread my work much further. 
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If you really, really liked reading this, Consider Buying Me a Coffee <3. 
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ultralightpoe · 10 months ago
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Anti-hero - Roy Kent
Authors Note : Based off a request I got {Could you do a Jamie or Roy fic with a girl who feels self conscious as their date to a gala or something? Lots of fluff and comfort! If you don’t want to write it, no worries 💜} A quick reminder that you are all beautiful and truly wonderful. You all deserve the world, and I hope you all find your own Roy Kent. -Ultralightpoe
Word Count: 3,997
Warnings: self doubt. curse words
Requests: OPEN
Main Master list - - Midnights Event List
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(Thank you for the gif @50shadesofpemberlypost )
x Enjoy x
I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser
Midnights become my afternoons
When my depression works the graveyard shift
All of the people I've ghosted stand there in the room
It had been an issue for years, one that was directly caused by your mother. 
It’s not that she was a villain, and it wasn’t like she knew she was doing it anyways, it was always something that just managed to slip out of her mouth in passing moments . A quick ‘that shows your back fat’ there and a ‘are you sure you like that color? It washes you out baby’. Always said with that tone that made you rethink every decision in life. 
She did it out of love. 
But the comments she made built up, that and the pressure of school and social media building up. It all took a toll on you. You found your life mixed with new issues. Anxiety, self-doubt, depression, and you became a new person. 
It was like a shadow version of you, one that tracked how much she ate and thought about how loud she laughed and how much was too much talking. Every single move you made was tracked and overthought.
But then Roy came into the picture. 
At first you did what you usually did, you tried to speak low and not draw too much attention. Tracking how much you laughed and how much you ate. It was fine because your friend group never really realized it, they didn’t know a thing was out of place. But Roy, who had been brought by his sister, was quick to call it out. 
“Fucking stop that.” He muttered when you tried to fix your skirt, using his hand to slap yours away. “You look fucking perfect. Take a breath, yeah?”
“I just…. I’m debating the color, everyone else wore pastels and I hadn’t realized that it would be that type of party.” You admit, body hot with embarrassment as a group of girls pass you at the party. But that was the least of your worries, you had eaten too much cake and had tripped on the stairs in front of your friends. Could everyone see your makeup on your neck? Were they laughing at you-
“Do you overthink everything?” Roy blurts, catching your elbow to pull you back gently as a waiter with a heavy tray passes by. “Because I’ll tell you right now that you’re the prettiest fucking woman at this party.”
“You can’t say that at someone’s birthday party.” You laugh, stepping closer to him without realizing. “That’s one of the biggest rules. It’s like saying someone is prettier than Aphrodite. Next thing you know that person will be cursed to marry your father because the goddess hates you.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s…. Greek mythology. I’m not going to marry my dad. It… okay. I’ve ruined this so I am just going to-” You move away quicker than he can follow and you think that it was over. But you had not known just how determined Roy Kent was. 
Soon enough he was taking you out, one date became 4 which led to a relationship. 10 months in and you were the happiest you had ever been. He saw you, in every outfit and every mood and every way, and he loved you just as you were. 
But there was something you didn’t expect, the amount of attention that would come with dating a professional football player. It was a whole new demon in itself. 
I should not be left to my own devices
They come with prices and vices
I end up in crisis (tale as old as time)
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day I'll watch as you're leaving
'Cause you got tired of my scheming
(For the last time)
Lunches with your mother were the worst, and yet you loved her more than anything. Today she chose an extremely fancy restaurant dressed in a Valentino outfit and her makeup to perfection as she cut her salad up with her fork and knife. 
“Oh this is dreadful.” She sighs, shaking her head. “There is barely any chicken in here. This is insane. Do you see chicken?”
“There is chicken.” Roy shrugs, narrowing his eyes a bit. Lunches with them were always such a weird dynamic considering they were exact opposites. Your mother looked for drama, she thrived off of arguing. Roy chose brutal honesty, he worked best on shutting arguments down before they could even start.  “It’s right there.”
“Oh, baby that is a terrible color on you.” She huffs, sitting the plate back down and turning her glare on you as her hand raises to call the server over. “It washes you out. What have I told you about-”
“She looks fucking stunning today.” Roy scoffs, blinking slowly. 
“It’s fine.” You whisper to him, trying to defuse the situation. 
“No, it’s not.”
“Now I read somewhere that there is a big fundraiser gala coming up, it was in the paper. I assume you both will be attending.” Your mother begins, smiling when the server starts heading over. “You should let me dress you darling. I know how you get anxious about that all and I want to make sure you look your best.”
“She’ll look bloody fantastic in anything-”
“Oh you finally decided to serve your table.” Your mother interrupts him, talking to the server and completely disregarding your boyfriend. 
He takes a moment to lean over to you, catching your eyes. “I’m about to stab my fork into my fucking eye.”
“I know.” You smile, leaning in closer to kiss his cheek which makes him growl a bit at the pda but you see the smile he fights off anyways. “We’ll be gone soon.”
“You look great and the dress you pick will be fantastic. Don’t listen to her.” He gruffs out. 
“Have you seen those posts of you two? They were commenting on your age difference and I just want you to know that I do not think you are too immature for him. Truthfully honey I am proud, I never thought you’d make it with someone so accomplished. I mean it’s not like you had many prospects.” She laughs as the server sends Roy a wide eyed look while taking her plate away leaving the table once more. 
“That’s it.” Roy snaps, slamming his silverware down on the table and pointing his finger at her. “You watch how you speak to her. She’s perfect. And she will be a bombshell at the gala.”
Your mothers face flushes, blinking at him slowly as Roy goes back to his meal like nothing happened while you fight off a smile, your foot rubbing his calf under the table in a silent thank you before you try to pull it back only for his legs to slam shut keeping your foot held there. 
He sends you a sharp look, but the corner of his mouth curves up and you know that was his way of showing his love so you take it, smiling right back at him. 
It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me
At tea time, everybody agrees
I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
The dress you chose for the gala was perfect, you were excited to wear it and truthfully you were excited about the whole thing. This would be the first event you had ever attended with the Richmond team in the public eye, and you wanted to make a good impression. 
But your mothers words from the years rang through your head constantly as you waited for their practice to end, leaning against the wall in the hallway as you thought about everything. 
“Oh! Hello.” A angelic voice rings out, pulling your attention to Rebecca Welton coming down the hallway, making you stand up quickly. 
“Ms. Welton! Hi, hello, hey…. I’m saying hi in too many ways.” You blush, moving to shake her hand. “It’s great to see you again.”
“I was just about to say the same thing. Are you waiting for the boys?”
“I am, yeah. My car is in the shop so I need a ride.” 
“Oh lovely, will I be seeing you at the gala? I have been planning it for weeks, my ex husband used to plan it. The wanker.”
“I’ll be there. I just hope I dress well enough.” You laugh slightly, but her eyebrow raises and you panic slightly. Did everyone on this team just see right through all your shit? 
“You’ll look perfect. I wish I still had a figure like yours.”
“ANGEL!” Someone calls out before you are lifted into the arms of Danny Rojas, kissing the side of your face as he swings you around. 
“Alright. Set her down, will ya?” Roy snaps, coming around the corner and rubbing his knee as Danny sets you down quickly, kissing your cheek one more time before heading away. You lean forward and rub Roy’s knee right where you know he feels the most pain. 
“Is it hurting a lot?” You mumble, as he pulls your hand away. “Sorry, did I hurt you?”
“No, I just don’t want to moan in the middle of this hallway. Let’s go home?” Before you can even answer he is grabbing your bag and moving to take you to the car. 
Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby
And I'm a monster on the hill
Too big to hang out, slowly lurching toward your favorite city
Pierced through the heart, but never killed
Roy was in a shit mood the day of the gala, slamming cupboard after cupboard. You knew he was irritated about having to dress up and see the reporters that used to write about him all the time, and you knew in moments like this it was best to let him work through it. But sometimes you just couldn’t stay away. 
Shuffling closer, in his shirt, you wrap your arms around his center and shove your face into his back. He huffs out as he keeps swiping  the sponge against the counter, but he doesn’t push you away so you take a chance and kiss between his shoulder blades. “It’s going to be okay. What they say about you doesn’t matter.”
He sighs out, letting go of the sponge before turning around in your arms and wrapping his own around you, placing a kiss on your forehead. 
“You were young and they were assholes for that…. So fuck them.”
“Fuck them.” He repeats. 
“You’re going to walk by them in your fine ass suit with your fine ass body-”
“Please don’t objectify me.” He mumbles, but a smile is already on his lips as he leans down to kiss you deeply before pulling back. “And I will have the brightest fucking gem with me tonight.”
“Oh, c’mon.” You blush, trying to pull back but his arms are tight around you. 
“I think we need to fuck.” He huffs kisses at your face again. 
“Don’t be so crass!” You laugh, trying to escape him and shuffling you both to the bedroom right as your phone rings. “It’s my mother.”
“No. Don’t answer.”
“I have to, or she’s gonna be mad.” You answer back, watching his face turn dead serious as he looks at you. His hands come up to rub at your jaw. 
“You listen to me you little rat.” He mumbles, you fighting back a laugh at the nickname. “Don’t listen to a word she says, because you are beautiful.”
“I won’t. I promise.” You promise, kissing his lips deeply and losing yourself to the kiss for a moment before he pulls back and shuffles to continue cleaning the counter. You swipe your thumb across the screen and mumble out a “Hello mother.”
“Oh you’re there! I thought you were about to ignore my call.” She snaps through the phone. 
Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism
Like some kind of congressman? (Tale as old as time)
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day I'll watch as you're leaving
And life will lose all its meaning
(For the last time)
You broke your promise, and you let your mother get the best of you. 
Her words from earlier bounce around your mind as you get ready. You debate whether or not your hair looked healthy as you spray hairspray across it. Did it look greasy? Untamed? Could they see your split ends?
Was your nail polish the wrong color? Was there a patch of hair on your legs that you missed? Did the dress color wash you out? Did you look too heavy? Was it too late to cancel?
“You look…. “ Roy blinks, coming up behind you to help zip the dress. “Fuck.”
“Is that good?” You ask, biting at your lip as he leans to kiss the nape of your neck. 
“Good? You look bloody amazing.” He snaps, kissing your neck one more time before standing straight. “Now let’s go make money.”
“What are we fundraising for? I never looked into it?”
“I have no fucking clue.” 
“Right.” You laugh, turning with your hand in his as he kisses your knuckles softly. “Then let’s go make money for whatever needs money.” 
“Make a fortune.”
It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me (I'm the problem, it's me)
At tea time, everybody agrees
I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
Your lip was worn down from the amount you had been biting it. 
Walking up to the gala you saw a red carpet with dozens of flashing cameras and begin to panic as you get closer, your hand tightening in Roys as he stands straighter. You would not be able to handle the cameras and see your picture all over the internet. What would people say? They would trash you, oh how bad would it be?
But Roy, ever the perfect man, simply held your hand tight and walked across the red carpet with a confidence that made your skin hot. He muttered to each that called his name, his voice deep and uncaring. “No. No. Fuck you. Fuck off. Fuck no.”
A smile blooming across your face as you let him lead you into the building where everyone is walking about with drinks in their hand. 
“I’m going to go get us drinks. Your usual?” He asks, waiting for your nod before heading in the direction of the bar leaving you standing there to take a look around. 
You took your chance to look around at everyone around you, smiling at anyone you make eye contact with. The anxieties began rising, as every gorgeous female passed you in their perfect dresses. Was your dress cheap looking? Did you look pathetic?
You were caught up in your thoughts as Jamie approached with his date, a model that introduces herself with a hug that makes you sniff caramel, leaving you with a crater in your chest as you look at her perfection. Jamie talks about the gala, looking around at everyone as a flash makes you blink, all three of you turning to the person that just took your picture. 
“The actual fuck?” Jamie scoffs, staring at him. “We were having a conversation, ye?”
“Sorry.” The man nods, moving to walk off and bumping into Nate with another apology. “Didn’t see you.”
“Hi Nate.” You smile, trying to seem calm when he walks up. “You look great.”
“Thank you! Mr. Lasso actually bought me this suit.”
“Who?” You blink, trying to see who he had been talking about. It wasn’t meant to be a snappy or snide comment, you had yet to be introduced to the new coach and the name didn’t ring a bell at first. But the second you saw the man with the mustache owning the crowd not far off you knew who Nate was talking about. 
But when you turn back to Nate you see a glare set on his features, his cheeks a little red as he blatantly looks away from you. “You look great, Jamie. You as well Keeley.”
Then he walks off, bumping into you harshly as he passes which makes the blonde look at you with wide eyes as Jamie excuses himself for another drink. 
“Oh, that was extremely rude of me. I shouldn’t have asked about the coach- that was-”
“What are you talking about?” She blinks, looking extremely confused. “You didn’t do anything wrong?”
“Here you are.” Roy grunts, handing you the chilled glass. “Keeley.”
“Hello Roy.” She smiles before Jamie whistles to pull her over. 
“Did he just call her like she was a dog?” You ask Roy as she walks over, and he shrugs. 
“He’s a wanker. Always has been and always will be.” Roy grunts out, rolling his eyes. “He doesn’t ever pass the ball. And he is a massive tool. You should hear some of the things he says to-” He begins to explain as you try to smooth out your dress before his hand shoots out to stop you. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Your answer was too quick, his eyes narrow and he catches it. 
“What happened?”
“I just…. I think I upset Nate because I asked to Lasso was and I didn’t mean to and everyone here looks amazing. But I’m fine. Everything is fine.” 
“Did that little fuck say something?”
“No. It’s fine Roy. Everything is fine.” You smile, leaning forward to kiss his lips which he allows before moving back and holding his hand knowing he doesn’t like pda.  “Let’s go find our seats?”
I have this dream my daughter in-law kills me for the money
She thinks I left them in the will
The family gathers 'round and reads it and then someone screams out
"She's laughing up at us from hell"
“Hello Roy, you handsome devil you.” A southern voice rings out, walking up to where you and Roy were seated together. “And what pairs so well with a handsome devil? An angel.”
“The devil is technically… well historically the devil is an angel.” You blush, immediately feeling stupid as the fun fact slips from your lips. “Well, I mean- I’m sorry that was stupid.”
“Stupid? Absolutely not. I feel ashamed that I didn’t know it.” He laughs, leaning to shake your hand. “My name is Ted, all my friends call me Ted which means you must.”
“It’s wonderful to meet you. Roy was telling me about all the new techniques at your practices.” You smile, making your boyfriend shake his head. 
“I said nothing good.” Roy huffs.  
“He said everything good.” You smile which makes Ted smile back. 
“You both look fantastic. Have a drink on me, since it’s an open bar.” Ted jokes, moving to walk away as Roy places his hand on your lower back. 
“Why the fuck would you tell him that I said good things?” He huffs and your stomach drops. 
“I’m sorry. It was just teasing and you do always say great things about him so-”
“Take it easy. You are fine.” He shakes his head. “Are you okay?”
You hadn’t noticed but your fists had clenched and your nails were digging into your skin, his own fingers were quick to make you release the hold and rub his thumb over the crescent marks left on your skin before bringing your hand up to kiss your palm. 
“I thought you hated pda.” You whisper, leaning so your foreheads were pressed together as he pretended to roll his eyes. 
“Fuck it. I have a gorgeous date and I deserve to kiss her in public.” 
“Are you sure? It’s a big move for you.”
“Have you seen yourself? Prettier than the goddess aphrodite.” He smiles and your eyes widen. 
“How. Dare. You! What have you done? I’m going to have to marry my dad now. Roy, how could you have done this to me?” You laugh, shaking your head. “I also cannot believe you remember that from almost a year ago.”
“Of course I remember.” He blinks. “That was the first conversation I had with the love of my life. Who would forget that?”
“Oh knock it off.” You mumble, shaking your head. 
“Knock it off? Knock what off?” He snaps. “Do you realize how fucking lucky I was that day? The day you looked at me? My life was made. The second best day of my life.”
“Second?”
“Second. My niece’s birth is the first.” 
“I’m fucking honored.” You laugh, smiling from ear to ear. 
“Did you just cuss?”
“I did. I’m sorry. My mother would kill me.” You blush. 
“Can I be honest with you for a second?”
“When are you not?”
“Fuck your mother.” He blurts, which makes your eyes widen. “I hate her. I think she is miserable and you are far fucking prettier than aphrodite and you don’t have to worry about the goddess making you marry your dad because I will be marrying you. No goddess or god could keep me from you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“You’re stuck with me. And I need you to stop being to fucking mean to yourself. You hear me?” He asks seriously. “Because that’s the love of my life you are talking about.” 
“I can try.” 
“Good. Now lets get another round and wait this fucking gala out. Then lets go get actual food because I know you skipped lunch.”
“Sounds like a plan.” You smile before a flash blinds you once more, making you both whirl to the man with the camera. 
“You fucker-” Roy begins to stand as he dashes off. 
It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me
It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me
It's me, hi, everybody agrees, everybody agrees
You both end up at a late night potato stand, sitting on one of their benches as you both laugh at the memory of the auction that had taken place. 
“A fucking grandma bid on me. You know how embarrassing that was?”
“Hey! I bid on you too!” You laugh, body shaking from laughing so hard. “And Keeley!”
“Keeley was pissing that little wanker off.” He huffs, rubbing your thigh gently as you keep his blazer wrapped around you. “Thank you for coming with me tonight.”
“Thank you for bringing me. I am sorry I upset Nate-”
“Stop saying sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for.” He mumbles, leaning to dig his spoon into your baked potato and take a big mouthful of it. “Fuck. That is good.”
“You say that about anything I get! You always do this!” You laugh, pretending to pull the potato away. 
“You always choose better!”
It's me, hi (hi), I'm the problem, it's me (I'm the problem, it's me)
At tea (tea) time (time), everybody agrees (everybody agrees)
I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero
“Fuck!” You wake up to the sound of Roy yelling from the kitchen, rushing to wrap yourself in the sheet left on the bed from last night as your feet pad across the floor to find where he is at. 
You find him sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee, glaring at his laptop, until he sees you coming out of the bedroom in just a sheet. 
“Fuck.” Unlike his last curse this one is said with a lusty tone, setting the coffee down as you come closer to the couch and move to sit by him. 
“What’s got you so mad, handsome?”
“They posted a picture of me and they said I’m retired. What fucks.”
“Is it a bad idea? To be retired?” You ask, moving to straddle him before he can pull an attitude. “You would have more time with me. More time to hang out and cuddle and sleep and…. You can finish the rest.” 
“.....Fuck.”
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cynthiav06 · 9 months ago
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The entire Fandom needs to listen to this:
Percy having a thing for Rachel was so absolutely deserved like he should have been head over heels for her. Here's why?
First meeting? Runs her through with Riptide, and where anyone would have spent the whole time yelling and arguing, Rachel quickly gauged the situation, helped Percy hide, deviated the skeletons from their orignal path all at the same time.
Percy is so awed and he should be and Rick Riordan doesn't do justice to the whole thing.
It ends on Percy saying he owes her one, almost an indication that they would meet again.
Yet Percy is terrified of running into Rachel again because he isn't sure if he could answer all her questions, most definitely because he doesn't want to drag her into the whole thing. So much so that when he sees her at Goode, he calls her "my redheaded nightmare " .
Not only has he thought of her since they last met, but he may or may not have dreamed about her, not to mention he remembered her full name after listening just once.
When he does meet her again she yet again warns him about monsters hence saving both of them.
The most important thing is Percy, who all his life has been judged blamed ridiculed, and mocked is for the very first time understood so instantaneously by Rachel. She who has been put in mortal danger every single time she meets him doesn't blame him, doesn't judge him for it, and openly takes the blame for the burning school. Even Annabeth's first response to seeing the smoke is blaming Percy despite being around him and knowing well enough for 3 years; she chooses to blame him as if she doesn't know that it's never Percy's fault. Yet Rachel, someone who he has met only twice and that too for meager few minutes, understands him and his situation so well.
All the people in the Fandom ask yourself this: Will Percy Jackson not for all that he is be absolutely head over heels and in awe of someone like that?
He can barely give her any answers at the moment, but she agrees to a death quest to help him save the world.
Throws a literal hairbrush at the Titan King and stands her ground.
Stays by him and comforts him through his depressive thoughts about dying due to the prophecy.
Falls in love with him despite knowing he has little time left.
Does her best to help him while still keeping his mind off from spiraling into dark thoughts.
Rides a literal helicopter mid-apocalypse to get to him just to warn him of the dangers?
Percy would be so absolutely over the moon in love with Rachel, were Uncle Rick not so fixated on Percabeth agenda.
The last bit is for toxic Annabeth stans:
Rachel is a genius too.
She is ambidextrous and can draw with both hands and legs; probably has exceptional memory, and her composure and quick thinking are on par with Percy himself.
I hate bringing this to looks, but I will if I get to shut up toxic fans. Annabeth is certainly beautiful, and her grey eyes are quite unique, but Rachel is the most underrated and definitely the most beautiful out of all Percy Jackson females.
The woman literally won genetic lottery with red hair and green eyes, and the only reason Uncle Rick doesn't rave about her beauty is to not make Annabeth insecure.
Also, for those overly concerned about the Oracle celibacy thing, I will address that in my next post and how it's not a problem at all. (Now posted link is here:
Expect more Pjo-centric posts along with Perachel headcanons and more.
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nelkcats · 2 years ago
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The Spiteful Ghost
Danny loved space, and loved exploring it almost as much as he loved the Realms (yes, apparently he had made a home there, and learned to love its quirkiness, who could knew right?). The problem was that over the years the halfa acquired another characteristic: He hated heroes.
It might seem ironic, considering his teenager years but he just couldn't stand the concept of heroism (he never chosed to be one), not after all he had been through. Not after losing his family and ending up with more than deep wounds, not after humanity called him a villain for protecting the ghosts, not after the world chosed to sacrifice him after all he did for them (Amity was his world, and the city handed him over on a silver platter to save itself, they forced him to take drastic measures, actions he should never have taken, but when you're alone it turns out that no one can stop you)
They say that rancor can change you, the halfa can confirm. The point is, Danny hated heroes (he hated what they had to go through, hated that adult heroes weren't there for him, hated what it took to be a hero, leaving everything for the world was absurd, why would you accept something like that?). When the ghosts told him about the DC dimension he didn't take it exactly well. Although at least those heroes had a base in space.
Clockwork forbade him to go for a few months (he understood his grudge, quite personal, but he didn't want it to destroy him, he didn't want him to destroy himself), but when he saw him lost and depressed he allowed it, probably because he knew it would cheer him up for a while. Maybe he saw some future where he reconciled with the "profession", or maybe he thought he needed it (the halfa wasn't evil, Clockwork knew he wouldn't hurt anyone).
So, Danny arrived in the hero dimension and set out to be the world's biggest nuisance: moved chairs, ate their snacks, disappeared their stuff. He wasn't doing anything exceptionally big until he overheard an argument between the Red Hood and Batman.
After that, Batman ran out of gadgets in no time and Red Hood found little desserts everywhere. By the time they called JLD, it was pretty obvious they had an invader (the invader strangely loved Young Justice, and anti-heroes, seemed to hate Batman thought).
John Constantine entered feeling that he was walking to his funeral, why the hell had the Ghost King installed himself in a hero base, if it was rumored that he hated them to death?
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deadsetobsessions · 7 months ago
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Bestie sent me a tiktok by @craycrayglitterbug. Thanks for driving all this way to visit me~
——
It was the beginning of Gotham’s Summer seasonal aggression week, which was the city’s own version of seasonal depression limited to one week where instead of getting depressed, Gothamites got pissed off.
They had one for each season. Spring’s seasonal aggression week coincided with the first release of pollen from the surrounding plants, aggravated by Ivy’s proclivity towards increasing plant growth in her forest. Since most people weren’t actually pissed off enough to bring smoke to a Rogue (Ivy got strongly worded mail though), they took it out on each other. The Bats broke off more street brawls and knife fights during this season, all the while handing out tissues and anti-allergy medicine to red-nosed, puffy eyed people.
Fall… well, that week was Halloween. Enough said. Scarecrow, committed to his bit, was the most active this season. In the same vein, Spoiler and Red Robin were on the scene more often than not during this season. Gas masks and a bat were popular accessories during this season.
Winter meant Penguin and Mr. Freeze became more active, having a natural advantage in Winter. Like Pokémon, but instead of being cute, they’re busy being menaces to society and Gotham’s already fraying threads of sanity.
The Joker is terrible all year round. Fish fear him, insurance policies want him, and Red Hood tries to go for his throat every time he makes an appearance. Such were the unchangeable facts of Gotham’s hellish landscape.
Summer, though. Summer was the worst of the four seasons for seasonal aggression. The other three could generally be avoided with a modicum of luck, but Summer’s heat was unavoidable. Normally, stone architecture such as those that Gotham sported would aid in the ventilation of the city. It was not so for the normally clouded over metropolis. Instead, the curse that Gotham was built upon had adapted to modernity. Now, for exactly one week, the city had sweltering heat at night and day, inside or outside. The pavement could cook eggs, and the marble inside banks sometimes were so hot that people had to flood it with water to avoid burning their fingertips. Some of the buildings had cutting edge AC, thank you Wayne Enterprises, that the curse had yet to adapt to. They were popular spots and silently agreed upon to be protected from the usual shenanigans and robberies.
At night, the heat cools enough to be a natural irritant instead of miserably bringing people to heat exhaustion.
This is where we find two of the more active members of the vigilante scenes during this season:
The Red Hood, and the Batman.
To be fair, Batman is active all season, but summer called for more reinforcements than normal.
Red Hood made sure his Alley had access to clean water, shade, and handed out relief to the less fortunate inhabitants. He also cracked down on the fools that tried his rules, not killing them because the Seasonal Aggression led to seasonal stupidity more often than not and he couldn’t exactly blame criminals for doing crime. He can, however, blame them for breaking his rules while doing said crimes.
Batman covered the city, helping irritated children find their way back to equally irritated but worried mothers walking him at night, taking down rogues, and disarming the numerous pipe bombs people built out of aggravation.
Though the vigilantes had thermoregulated suits, they were not immune to seasonal aggression.
“What the fuck, old man?!” Jason shouted through his helmet as Bruce took down the goon Jason was gunning for.
“Hm,” Bruce grunted back, ducking low to kick another goon in the chest.
Jason shot the last one in the foot and slammed his fist into their face as they dropped in pain.
“What the hell are you doing in my territory?!”
Bruce, unable to say he missed Jason and unwilling to get shot should he even hint at telling his son that he swung by to check on him, simply grunted.
“Oh, well fuck you too, you overgrown rat!” Jason scowled, holstering his guns. He knew how riled up he could get on a regular patrol. A patrol on hell week stood no chance of ever ending peacefully. He’d better stow away his guns so Bruce doesn’t walk home with a couple of noticeable dents in his Kevlar. Alfred would be upset if that happened. “You want to start shit? Fuck you, I’ll start shit first!”
Batman opened his mouth- whether to reprimand him or deny the accusations, the world will never know- but Jason cut him off.
“Okay, your suit? Whack. Your parenting skills? Whack,” Jason quickly spat out, the built in voice changer changing it to sound even more growly. “Your taste in literature? Abysmal. Don’t even get me started on your hypocrisy!”
“Hood-”
“You know what? I will get started on your hypocrisy! The Joker straight up murdered one of your kids! I was your kid! You said- you said that you loved me!”
Jason, who had thought he had moved past this despite not putting in the work to do so and refused to work through his emotions in anyway that wasn’t murdering someone or crying on Jane Austen novels, had in fact not moved past this. Unsurprisingly, Bruce wasn’t the best model for self care and healthy coping mechanisms. And despite Jason’s vehement objections to being compared to Bruce in anyway, being like Bruce in anyway, the fact of the matter is that eventually, all of Bruce’s kids will inevitably have a facet of themselves turn out like him.
“I do!” Bruce objected, the heat getting to his head and making it easier to actually express any form of emotion that was not mildly related to Justice.
A goon groaned, but Jason knocked him out again with a swift blow to the head before turning and pointing an accusing finger at Batman.
“If you loved me, why didn’t you kill the Joker?!” Jason screamed, punting the unconscious body of a goon against the HVAC. He took off his helmet and hurled it at Batman. Jason jabbed a thumb at his masked face, pointing out the myriad of raised scars on his face. “Look at me! I’m- I have scars! And they never stop hurting! I had to fucking dig myself out of my grave because he killed me and I was unfortunate enough to be dragged back!”
“Jaylad-”
Jason snarled, stalking closer and shoving Bruce back. Bruce allowed it, his head pounding with the heat.
“You couldn’t save me, fine! But fuck, you let Gotham pay the price for letting him live! This is the third Joker group we’ve downed this week! People died, B! Good, innocent people and scumbags! You could have killed him! You could have stopped him! All of this,” Jason gestured angrily at the downed goons and the blood splattered on top of the roof, jaw clenched and eyes more fiery than the summer day Gotham had been subjected you. “Just because of your no-kill rule!”
Bruce drew his shoulders back like he was about o admit something shameful. “That’s not why I didn’t kill the Joker. I tried to kill him, but Superman stopped me.”
Jason’s next shout died in his throat, the anti-hero looking floored as he stared at his father figure, frozen in place with his mouth agape. Bruce continued, now that he could speak, the words rushing out of him like a dam that could not be stopped from breaking. “What?” Jason breathed out. Bruce barreled on.
“I know. I know I’m a hypocrite. But if I tried to kill him, I wouldn’t stop at just him.”
“No, wait, Superman what?”
“He stopped me.”
Three beats of silence.
“Then, why… why didn’t you try again?” Jason asked, voice strangled and thrown helmet all but forgotten in this new piece of information.
“Because… it was an attempt to kill myself too. After that, I didn’t have the will to do anything but to cling onto the Mission,” Bruce said, voice softening to that which he used for children because despite everything, Jason’s was still his son. “And… I didn’t think I deserved to take the easy way out, not when you had the opportunity to live taken away from you like that.”
Jason swallowed. “Why the fuck couldn’t you have told me this earlier?”
“You were angry at me. I deserved it.”
“Fuck you and your stupid martyr bullshit,” Jason rebuked. He went to collect his helmet. Jason paused when he passed Bruce, a split second of understanding running between them that wasn’t there before. Jason picked up his helmet roughly as Batman stood stock still- akin to someone standing still when their cat purrs on them, afraid to move and provoke an unfavorable connection- and huffed.
“I’m gonna beat up the Boy Scout.”
“No.” Bruce paused. “I can’t condone that… but I can tell you that there might be security lapse in the kryptonite safe tonight.”
“I still don’t like you.”
“But you know you’re my son… right?”
“I’ll think about it,” Jason muttered. He pulled out his gun and shoots a guy in the foot. The unconscious goon twitches.
“Hood!” Bruce’s tone changed to scolding.
“There we go. And we’re back.”
“That’s great,” Oracle said in their ears. “Next time, remember to shut off your comms.”
Jason’s face burned. “Oh fuck.”
“Little wing… I didn’t know you felt that way.” Dick said, voice watery as he audibly beat thugs over the head with his baton.
“Hey, Harley’s scheduled to break out of Arkham like tomorrow if you wanted to beat up Superman with her.”
“Sure, Red. Now fuck off!”
Jason shut off his comms, zipped down to the street and stomped angrily to his motorcycle.
Batman turned to gather up the goons, pettily deciding not to warn Superman. Hey, hell week affected him too.
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vavuska · 6 months ago
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J. K. Rowling vs David Tennant: where is the truth and where the lies?
Probably everyone have read something about an unpopular opinion posted by J. K. Rowling on Twitter (cough, I mean X), where she decided to go after David Tennant. She claimed that during an interview Tennant was talking about whinging f**kers who need to just shut up. These whinging f**kers who he is referring to are women who’s rights are being oppressed, according to J. K. Rowling.
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Unfortunately, Tennant didn't say anything against oppressed and abused women. Actually, Rowling is *again* pursuing her personal crusade claiming female-only = no trans-women. Tennant, after accepting an award, took the microphone and gave a speech about the state of LGBTQ+ rights in the UK, and the sad need for awards like the one he received (he was honored at the British LGBT Awards with Celebrity Ally award).
During the speech, Tennant also targeted UK Minister for Women and Equalities, Kemi Badenoch, who had previously said she would exclude trans-women from single-sex areas. Tennant said:
“I suppose if I’m honest I’m a little depressed by the fact that acknowledging that everyone has the right to be who they want to be and live their life how they want to live it as long as they’re not hurting anyone else should merit any kind of special or award or special mention because it’s common sense, isn’t it?” Tennant said in his speech. “It’s human decency. We shouldn’t live in a world where that is worth remarking on. However until we wake up and Kemi Badenoch doesn’t exist anymore — I don’t wish ill of her, I just wish her to shut up — whilst we do live in this world I am honoured to receive this.”
Tennant’s speech started a war of words with Badenoch, who later took to social media to say she would not shut up as the actor suggested. She went on to call Tennant “a rich, lefty, white male celebrity so blinded by ideology he can’t see the optics of attacking the only Black woman in government by calling publicly for my existence to end.”
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Which, again, is a... Ehm... Lie, since Tennant didn't attack Minister Badenoch for her ethnicity or threatened her life. Tennant speech was critical of her position regarding trans rights and not her personal life. Tennant was calling out government bigots for their political opinions regarding social issues and not attacking anyone on personal basis and NEVER - NEVER said anything about institutional racism (which Minister Badenoch herself claimed it's not a problem in UK) and violence against women (both cis and trans) not being major problems.
In a separate red carpet interview on the awards ceremony, Tennant was asked to say something to the trans youth. He responded to don't feel judged or unloved, because transphobic politicians are just a little minority: “It's a tiny bunch of little whinging f**kers who are on the wrong side of history, and they’ll all go away soon.”
The whole interview is available under here and it's sweet and heartwarming:
youtube
As always, J. K. Rowling and conservative politicians are strumentalizing LGBTQ+ awareness contents to make the community and it's allies look like evil terrorists (“gender Taliban”) and therefore pursuing their anti-trans goals while also belittling abuse perpetrated on women in religious states and systemic racism. Since violence against women is overwhelmingly committed by cisgender men, why are the Tories blaming LGBTQ+ community and it's allies?
J. K. Rowling and Minister Badenoch demonstrated through their words, how danger narratives can be invoked not only to obscure (hetero) cis men’s violence and abuse against cis and trans women, but also justify violence against the whole LGBTQ + community in the holy name of (cis-hetero) women's safety. [Here my previous post about this]
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tiramisuwithmascarpone · 8 months ago
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Hello! I'm a 15-year-old devotee of both Lord Hermes and Lady Aphrodite who is raised in an extremely Orthodox Christian household, and I would like to share my story with you ⋆˚ʚɞ
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Hi! for safety reasons I will not use the name I usually use online for this account, but you can call me Jellyfish. I live in Eastern Europe, more exactly Romania, a country whose population is 98% devoted to Christianity at the time of speaking. My mother is a perfect example. She wholeheartedly believes in God, I grew up with pictures of him and the Holy Mary all over the walls, which I wouldn't escape even at my grandparent's houses. My house always smelled of myrrh, I would carry a picture of God everywhere I went, I would pray to him before bed, go to church on every holiday, but I never felt fulfilled or connected to him in any way. I didn't truly know what I believed in. My mother was telling me all about how should I praise God, but I don't think I ever did it because I wanted to or felt connected to what she was telling me or felt like it was the life I wanted to live. When she would fight with my father, even now, she would threaten that she would run away to a monastery and become a nun. She thinks you cannot change your religion and you can not be Christian if you were born with Christian parents and raised in that environment. I did not have faith in God because I wanted to and felt connected to his message and wanted to worship his divine being, I did it because my mother felt that way. And that destroyed me.
As I grew older, I started believing less and less in God. I was struggling with going through teenagehood, fighting my own inner battles, and dealing with friendship that slowly felt like they were taking away my lifespan, and it wasn't just that I didn't have faith in a divine being (which is completely alright. Please do not believe this monologue is Anti-Christian, I believe everyone is allowed to believe and worship the one who they feel most connected and inclined towards.) I didn't have faith in anything anymore. When my brother reached 15, he hated my parents for their beliefs. I will not get much I detail since his story is not mine to tell, but he had battled with alcohol and substance abuse. And I was his only shoulder for him and my parents to lean and cry on. My mother told me to pray for our family, she would pray to god every day, light up myrrh, take me to churches, and I would feel miserable. I felt like an imposter in that church. I truly wanted to have faith in a god, anyone, but I felt like my only choice was God since that's what my mother taught me. Both my parents trust God so I cannot be different, can I?
How foolish I was. I can only look back to my past self and wish to embrace and hold her till she cries all her sorrow out. She was so confused.
Back in 2022, I had first heard of Aphrodite. My brother was sent to a mental hospital for his substance abuse when they caught him on the verge of overdosing. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder after a suicide attempt, autism and ADHD, but my father (who already couldn't accept the fact that my brother has ADHD) fought with them saying they ,,don't know me well enough" and,,there's nothing wrong with me". And he's right, there's nothing wrong with me. Not even If I am neurodivergent. I was at my lowest, I felt disgusting, I fought with my parents and was their therapist every single day, I stopped going to school, I was a mess. But, I was heavily active on social media because I had tons of online friends. While scrolling on tiktok, I found a video of an Aphrodite devotee. My interest was piqued. I heard about Greek Mythology before but never actually researched it. I liked the video and commented, talking about how gorgeous their faith sounds, and that's when it all started. I started getting more info about Aphrodite, the swans swum by me every time I would go to the lake with my family so we could ,,get some fresh air". I started getting lots of pins on Pinterest with her. I always had a desire for water and the beach was my safe place, where I felt fulfilled and free from all I'm feeling. I had a Dove make itself a nest on a tree next to the window of my classroom which I would always sit by while having lunch (on the rare occasions I would drop by to school). I started researching more about Lady Aphrodite, loving her story, beliefs, ways of worshipping, how it felt like silence was washing over me when I would make a non-physical offering to her. Her tales. The way it felt like she was always there to give me a warm hug and squeeze me while I was crying. I also felt a boost in my confidence! I started loving my features, taking care of myself again, etc. It wasn't always just sun and rainbows, I would still have breakdowns and wish it would all just end and all that, but it was more bearable with her. She made my life more bearable. I love, worship, and adore Lady Aphrodite for that. I worshipped her till this year when I officially felt strong enough to devote myself to her.
This year, actually, I started noticing my strong connection to Hermes. I was always attracted to the kind-hearted, mischievous, kind-hearted, highly intelligent and funny thieves. I always idolized them and wished to be like them. That's how I feel about Lord Hermes. I feel like he was reaching out to me all my life. Everything he is associated with I had an inexplicable obsession with for pretty much all my life. Turtles, golden or silver, travel, learning new languages, astronomy, astrology, everything you could think of. I have been devoted to him since last month, that's when I officially started labeling myself as a Hellenic Pagan, but I am still a beginner, and I need to hide all of this from my mother since I am afraid of what she would do if she were to find out I have another belief since she reacted super badly back when I was an atheist :( I set up the first altar for Lady Aphrodite, and the second one for Lord Hermes. I always had been an artistic soul and loved making my room all pretty randomly so I told my mother this is one of those cases and she believed it. She does not know english and is not at all cultured about any beliefs besides Christians, Muslims, and Jews. They are both hidden in my closet. I feel very bad for not being able to make them a bigger and more obvious altar, I hope I'll have that chance when I move out from my parent's house..
I wanted to ask if Lord Hermes would be mad if my mom kept setting random things on his altar? she even put a picture of the Holy Mary. I moved it to the other side of the closet and made a DIY necklace for him out of orange garnet or beads to apologize to him, and he didn't seem mad, but I'm not sure...I sketched drawings of both of them and rested them on their altars. Everything you see are either offerings I heard they may like or things that reminded me of them! the little notebook on Hermes's altar is specifically made for learning new languages and thought he would enjoy it. Do you guys think any of my offerings are disrespectful? or should be removed? I'm open to any advice! Thank you for listening to my story <3
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teambyler · 10 months ago
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Will's anti-Vecna song should be David Bowie's "Heroes"
We know from the new BTS pic that he has headphones and a Walkman. Like Max, he might be fending off Vecna:
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Max's anti-Vecna song was highly personal to her. It helped her through her guilt and depression and feeling like she deserved to die.
For Will, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" is cute, but it doesn't have emotional weight. It might have helped a child Will in the Upside Down in s1, when it made him think of home and Jonathan, but he's all grown up now. He's changed.
If Byler becomes realized, David Bowie's "Heroes" is the perfect song for Mike and Will's relationship that would help Will resist Vecna. It's canon that Will likes David Bowie: kid Mike prefers the androgynous rock star over Kenny Rogers (s2e1).
@surferbeto on YouTube comments:
This is a heroic love song. Bowie starts out crooning but pretty soon he ramps up and belts it out hard. This song is about risking getting shot by East German border police and dragged over barbed wire for love. This is about young love against impossible odds. It's about that gloriously tragic fantasy... of giving our life in some grandly romantic way to save the life of our beloved. Maybe by taking a bullet for them and dying in their arms in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.
Having David Bowie's "Heroes" in the show would call-back to Peter Gabriel's somber 2010 cover from s1, when Mike hugged his mom thinking Will was dead. But Bowie's original is defiant, triumphant, and bittersweet. (Seriously, if you haven't yet, listen to it before reading further. It's perfect.)
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It would play when Mike and Will have their first kiss. Their song of losing each other is now of finding each other.
If Byler is realized, it could play as Mike and Will dare to hold hands in the school hall, as we fade out to the end credits.
Will would put it on his Walkman. If Will and Mike are bullied for their relationship, "Heroes" perfectly expresses their defiance and willingness to love each other despite the harm that might come to them.
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It's the song that would most help Will in case he gets Vecna'd. It doesn't just remind him of Mike; it culminates his journey over the five seasons. As a kid he told Jonathan he's not a baby, not just a victim. Despite seeming shy and weak, he has a huge amount of quiet courage, but his struggle in s3 and s4 was largely internal. ("I'm not gonna fall in love.") Show creator Matt Duffer says about s5: "Will's going to be a big part and focus... We're starting to see his coming of age, really... You're starting to see him come into his own." If Byler becomes real, then his fight becomes external, confronting the homophobia in Hawkins and the literal hell threatening his friends. He will rise to the occasion.
"Will really takes center stage again in [season] 5," Ross Duffer told Variety. "This emotional arc for him is what we feel is going to hopefully tie the whole series together. Will is used to being the young one, the introverted one, the one that’s being protected. So part of his journey, it’s not just sexuality – it’s Will coming into his own as a young man."
In s2, Will only allowed Mike to protect him because he didn't feel pitied by Mike; Mike saw his strength. A stronger Will will pay him back and protect him from the twin dangers they face.
It's Will's turn to be the hero. His fight for others is his fight for himself. "Heroes" perfectly expresses his journey of defying all odds to fight for HIS RIGHT TO LOVE.
-teambyler
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