#One of them put it on of their own free will. I also just happened to be their roommate

[cameronsprincess]

i understand that reqs r closed and u completely don’t have to fulfill this but i thought you’d do a BANGER job at this prompt: u and rafe r married but are getting divorced and u threw a divorce party… only to end the night going home with him… a little bit of angst with some smut?? idk make it ur own 💗

zyaaaa<3 i love you for this, and thank you for trusting ME with your request!!!

CW: 18+ only! slight angst, more fluff than i intended, divorce, smut, male receiving oral, piv sex.

note: yeah yeah reader went out w her friends but left w rafe and none of them tried to stop her. in my head none of them noticed their interaction/her leaving with him. let’s pretend they’re blowing up her phone while she’s gettin’ the best dick down of her lifeee. also, i suck at endings, its my biggest flaw so yeah sorry if the ending is bad.

“here’s to finally being free of the most toxic marriage to the most toxic man!” you say joyfully, clinking your glass with three of your closest friends.

your friends all giggle, bringing the champagne flutes to their lips and taking small sips. you glance around your house, a weight seemingly lifted off your shoulders as you take in how freeing it feels to finally have your divorce finalized. you’d been married for three years, and while it was good at first, somewhere during the marriage your— now ex— husband had become cold and indifferent toward you. you couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, nor could you give a reason why, but all you knew was enough was enough. you were too young and too beautiful to spend the rest of your life in a loveless marriage to a man who treated you like shit.

your friends voice rips you from your thoughts. “earth to y/n.. you okay babe?”

you squeeze your eyes shut, giving your friend a big smile before nodding your head. “yeah i’m fine,” pausing, you down the rest of your champagne, setting the glass onto your coffee table and rising from your spot on the couch. “let’s go out tonight.”

your friends all share slightly concerned looks with one another before their attention lands on you. nicole clears her throat, awkwardly shifting before she finally speaks, “i mean.. yeah sure, but are you sure you wanna put yourself out there like that right now?”

you roll your eyes, sighing. “yes i’m sure. i just spent the last year of my life going through a messy divorce process, so i’d like to go out with my girls, have some drinks, dance a little, and maybe, just maybe, find some hot guy to bring home. i’m not going out to find my next husband, jesus.”

and that’s exactly what you did, but little did you know… the man you’d go home with was your ex husband.

—

“another shot of patrón please? thank you!” you shout to the bartender, giving him a flirty half-drunken smile.

the bartender nods, moving to pour your drink before sliding it across the bar to you. you smile, grabbing the glass and downing it before setting it back on the bars top.

“a pretty woman like you shouldn’t be buying her own drinks.” a low, raspy voice says from behind you.

you bite at your bottom lip, smiling to yourself before turning to face the mystery man. your eyes widen in shock when you see rafe, standing so close to you that you could smell the whiskey on his breath.

“rafe.. what the fuck are you doing here?”

he smiles down at you, taking a step closer, backing you into the bar. “i could ask you the same question. the divorce only finalized today, trying to forget me so soon, sweetheart?”

“i’m not your fucking sweetheart, rafe. now leave me alo-”

rafe grips at your hips, pulling your body into his. he dips his head down, inhaling the scent of your shampoo, groaning as he rests his forehead on your shoulder. “i miss you. do you miss me?”

your pussy pulses from his words, the smell of him so intoxicating it had your head spinning more than it already was. you did love him, and you hated that he pushed you to file for divorce, but it’s how things were. you couldn’t mess up everything you’d fought for, not now, not ever.

you try and shove him back, but his hands tighten on your waist, not allowing you to move. “baby, stop. m’sorry, for everything. i know the divorce finalized today, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still fuck.. maybe try and just be friends, date, see where life takes us, right?”

he was trying to manipulate your drunk mind, and you couldn’t let him win. you refused to let him win. it was done. you were free of him, so why was he here and trying to reel you back in? he didn’t miss you, he missed the comfort you brought him, he missed how you’d always try and calm his mind, how you’d forgive him every time he fucked up. he didn’t miss you.

“rafe please, stop. i’m too drunk for this argument. you don’t fucking miss me, you miss the way i was for you,” you pause, your half-lidded eyes looking up and finding rafe’s beautiful blue eyes. “i can’t do this, please.”

you tear your eyes off his, knowing if you looked into them for too long, you’d be a goner. you’d go home with him, let him have his way with you, and wake up regretting it in the morning, because you and rafe could never work out. not as friends, not as a couple, not as anything.

rafe slides his left hand up your sides, reaching your face and cupping your cheek in his hand. his thumb slowly strokes the skin before he hooks his thumb and index finger under your chin, forcing your head up.

“baby.. i do miss you. please, just— just let me prove to you how much i fucking miss you.”

his words tug at your heartstrings, your body melting into his touch like it always did. tears well in your eyes, your chin wobbling as you look into his eyes, eyes that used to make your heart stop and made you feel safe and at home.

sighing, you nod your head once. “okay.. okay fine. just one night, we can look at it as… goodbye sex. right?”

a smile takes over rafe’s lips, “whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetheart. let’s go.”

he quickly grabs your hand, pulling you across the dance floor and out the doors of the club you were in. the warm, mid-summer air hits your skin, the light breeze sending goosebumps up your arms. rafe drags you across the parking lot, eagerly reaching his truck and unlocking it, opening the passenger door for you. you raise a brow at him, “someone’s really trying tonight, isn’t he? you stopped opening my door for me years ago.”

rafe chuckles. “i’m sorry for that… truly.”

you roll your eyes, giving him a small smile before lifting yourself into his truck, pulling on your seatbelt as he shuts the door for you. he rounds the front of his truck, hopping into the driver seat and starting the truck, putting it into reverse and speeding out of the clubs parking lot.

the ride back to rafe’s house is comfortably silent, and the second you two arrive, rafe is killing the engine and hopping out to help you out and into his house.

you barely make it through the front door before rafe’s lips are on yours. he grips your hips in his hands, squeezing tightly as his lips devour yours. he bites at your bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth before releasing it softly. he rests his forehead against yours, the sound of both your heavy breathing filling the small entryway of his house.

“fuck i missed you, i missed you so fucking much sweetheart.” rafe breathes out, his hands slowly running up and down your sides.

he runs his hands down to your ass, squeezing at it softly before running them down further, his fingers playing with the hem of your dress. he begins slowly pulling the dress up your body, exposing your black lace thong, sucking in a sharp breath, “fuck.”

your cheeks heat up under his intense gaze, “rafe.. please? ‘m so horny, just need to feel you tonight, okay? just make me forget why we split up.”

rafe bites his bottom lip hard, nodding his head furiously. he pulls your dress off completely, tossing it behind you. he dips his head down again, his lips attacking the length of your neck with sloppy, open mouthed kisses. your knees grow weak, slightly shaking when he sucks softly at the skin of your neck, pulling back and groaning as he admires the deep purple bruise he’d marked you with.

“so beautiful,”

you drop to your knees, fingers fumbling with the buckle of his belt, finally pulling it free from the loops of his khakis and tossing it to the floor before working his button and zipper. rafe is quick to shove his khakis and boxers down, letting his hard cock spring free. you moan at the sight of him, hands reaching out hesitantly to grip at his thick shaft.

a low groan spills from rafe’s lips the second your hands wrap around him, giving slow and deliberate strokes. “always looked so pretty on your knees f’me, never wanna lose this, baby.”

you dart out your tongue, licking up the precum that had leaked from his tip. you moan at the taste of him on your tongue. you missed him, and this is definitely a huge step backward, but you’d deal with the consequences later. tonight, you wanted to soak up having him be attentive and loving with you again, he hadn’t been this way in so long.

“c’mon baby, suck my cock, need to feel those pretty lips wrapped ‘round me.”

you obey, wrapping your lips around his swollen tip and sucking at it lightly, your hands still slowly stroking at his shaft. rafe groans, his head thrown back in pleasure as his cock twitches in your hands. you slowly push more of him into your mouth, sucking him down your throat until he’s buried deep, the tip of his cock hitting the back of your throat. you hold him there, breathing in deep through your nose, while your tongue works at the vein on the underside of his cock.

you pull your head back, leaving only the tip in your mouth. you tease him, sucking at his head before pulling him out completely, giving quick strokes with your hands, your lips leaving soft kisses up and down his length.

rafe wraps his hand in your hair, tugging harshly at your messy locks as he groans in frustration. “baby, please? you wanna hear me beg? i’m not beneath begging, not with you at least.”

you shift on your knees, your clit pulsing at how desperate he was for you. this is what you wanted, for rafe to be desperate for your touch and attention. not wasting another second, you push him back into your mouth, hollowing your cheeks as you begin bobbing your head up and down, taking him all the way down your throat before slowly sliding him back out. rafe’s grip on your hair loosens, but he quickly tightens it back, yanking at your hair harshly as he holds you in place. he begins thrusting his hip, fucking himself down your throat at a quick pace, taking away your air with each push of his hips.

tears roll down your face, your throat already sore from how hard he was fucking it. you gag and moan around him, feeling him twitch in your mouth, the vein on the bottom of his shaft throbbing. you work your tongue against him, helping push him toward his release. rafe’s cock swells, low curses falling from his lips. he yanks your head back by your hair, his cock slipping from your lips, “goddamn… forgot how good you take a throat fucking, baby.. but i wanna cum somewhere else tonight.”

your tear-filled, bloodshot eyes meet his and he extends his hand out for you to grab. you hesitantly place your smaller hand in his, letting him pull you up off your knees. his lips are on yours in seconds, tongue slipping into your mouth, tongues swirling and teeth clashing. rafe listen you off the ground, pulling you into his arms as your legs wrap around his waist. he walks you into the large living room, his lips never leaving yours. he finally breaks the kiss, gently dropping you onto his couch, the cool leather chilling your hot skin.

rafe drops to his knees, his fingers digging into the waistband of your panties, slowly pulling them down your legs and tossing them onto the coffee table behind him. his eyes flit down to your dripping pussy, the bright blue of his eyes drowned out by his blown pupils. he grips your thighs in his hands, roughly spreading them further apart, “you’re soaked, sweetheart. i knew you fuckin’ missed me.”

you whimper, rolling your hips in a silent plea for him to touch you. rafe chuckles, his right hand releasing your thigh and moving to cup your pussy. he slides two fingers through your slick folds, coating them in your arousal before bringing them to his lips, “mmm.. still so sweet.” he rasps.

rafe stands to his full height, lifting you off the couch and turning, sitting himself down with you in his lap. you grind yourself against his hard cock, moaning at the delicious pressure on your clit as you did. rafe lets his head fall back, his hands tightly gripping at your ass as he helped you slide yourself against his throbbing cock. you lift yourself onto your feet, hovering over him as you grasp his shaft in one hand, lining him with your entrance. rafe’s eyes find yours, his bottom lip sucked between his teeth as he waited to finally feel your pussy wrapped around him.

you slowly sink yourself down on his cock, the two of you moaning in unison. you sit yourself all the way down, burying him to the hilt, both of your hands flying to his shoulders, your nails digging into the soft skin. rafe hisses in a breath, his cock pulsing inside you, “can i move? please baby? wanna fuck this perfect fucking pussy.”

you whimper when he bucks his hips, the swollen head of his cock hitting at your sweet spot. “yes. please, rafe. please fuck me.”

that’s all rafe needed to hear. his hands make purchase on your hips, lifting you up off his cock, leaving only the tip inside before he slams himself back in. you cry out his name, leaning forward and burying your face in his neck. rafe lifts your hips slightly, allowing himself just enough room to quickly pound himself into you. your walls clench around him, tears rolling down your cheeks from the pleasure he was giving you but also because you knew, you couldn’t let him go again after this.

you lift your face from his neck, resting your forehead against his, the two of you staring into each others eyes as rafe continues to fuck himself inside you. rafe pulls his right hand off your hip, his thrusts slowing as he reaches up and swipes a tear from your cheek. “don’t cry, baby.”

you sniffle, “just feels so… fuck— so good, rafe.”

rafe slowly moves his hips, his thrusts slow and sensual. you cup his face in your hands, your eyes scanning his perfect face before falling to his lips. rafe leans forward, capturing your lips with his as the two of you move your hips in sync. you moan against his lips, your walls fluttering around his cock, “rafe.. ‘m so close… please..”

“i know baby… i know,” rafe lets out his out pleasure filled moan, his voice cracking as the next words leave his mouth, “i love you… fuck i love you, this is all about you, let it out, be my good girl and cum f’me, yeah?”

you let out a choked sob, the three small words that left his mouth pulling your heart in more ways than one. your mind is reeling, does he mean it? was losing you what he needed to realize he truly loves you and needs you? do you forgive him? your pussy clenches around rafe’s dick, your lower belly tightening as rafe’s slow strokes push you toward the edge. you sink your teeth into rafe’s shoulder, muffling your cries as you come undone around him, tears uncontrollably rolling down your face.

rafe groans, his thrusts slow and sloppy. his dick twitches inside you, a choked “i love you,” escaping him as he pushes in deep one final time, holding himself inside you as he fills your pussy with his cum.

the two of you are holding onto one another, coming down from your shared highs. heavy breathing fills the room, and when you fully come down from your bliss, you’re pulling yourself off of him, scrambling to find your panties, ignoring the wetness between your thighs and his cum seeping out of you. you’re quick to throw your panties on, turning to rush and find your dress, but rafe grabs your wrist, pulling you back into him.

you can’t look at him, “hey.. baby, look at me, please.”

a tear falls down your face, but you force yourself to look into his eyes, noticing that his are filled with his own unshed tears.

“this was a mistake.” you whisper, but rafe heard you anyways.

his brows furrow, “how can you say that?”

you try and push off of him, but he tightens his arms around you.

“rafe, please. we got a divorce. you made your bed, you chose to treat me like shit and lose me. we can’t work. we don’t work.”

rafe sighs, “listen. i meant everything i said, i’m fucking sorry. i love you, i just… goddamnit, i just suck at showing my emotions. i suck at letting people in, and because of that, i pushed you away and lost the best fucking thing that ever happened to me,” you laugh, rolling your eyes but rafe’s face never falters. “i’m not fucking joking. i fucking love you, okay? okay, y/n? i fucking love you, and i need you.”

you don’t know what to think. your divorce was just finalized, you can’t possibly go back… can you? you do love him, and never wanted this in the first place. what if you take him back and things go back to shit? you’ll look like an idiot.

rafe cups your face in his hands, his blue eyes shining as he stares back at you. “i see you overthinking this, and i understand. i do. but hear me out, please?”

“o—okay..”

rafe blows out a breath. “thank you. i know how i feel. i fucked up, and i want to prove to you that i can be better… for you. please, just, stay with me tonight, let me try and get a start on proving to you how much i need you back,” he pauses, swallowing harshly before he continues, “and if after tonight, you still feel the same.. you can leave and i’ll never bother you again.”

you think over his words, knowing that you would do anything to receive the love you once did from him again. you squeeze your eyes shut, running a hand through your hair as you let out a shaky breath. “rafe, i— fuck.. okay. fine. but if i do choose to take you back, you cannot go back to how things were. i can’t go through this again, i can’t look like the idiot who went running back just because her ex husband spewed a few sweet words after sex..”

rafe smiles hopefully, “i understand, i promise, i mean everything. i will prove to you how much i fucking love you,” he leaves a soft kiss to your lips, standing from the couch with you in his arms bridal style. “now, let’s get your upstairs and cleaned up, then we’ll lay in bed and we can talk about anything, whatever you want, tonight’s all about you, and i’m here to listen and do whatever i can to fix us.”

tagging some moots: @starkeysbabygirl @rafesthroatbaby @rafesheaven @rafesbabygirlx @sarahsangelicdoll @nemesyaaa @cherryobx @httpsdrewstarkey @rafeyscurtainbangs @oceandriveab

[wayfinders-coven]

Hi there. First off, I’m sorry my DNI was not posted on this blog but outside of this discussion, do not interact with me. Feel free to respond though. Other endos, go away.

I am having this discussion in good faith, but I have a poor opinion of the endogenic community and I am not trying to be polite about it. The way i say things might sting some, but I have too much to say to take the direct autism out of my tone. I apologize in advance and thank you for your understanding.

Also, i will be putting “non-disordered plurality” in quotes because… i still don’t believe in it, but there’s an explanation for everything and I’m not trying to deny the experience you do have, but I would like to highlight that it may not be what you think it is.

-

First: you can say all you want that all of the above is true, and honestly I do not really care because endos do not keep me up at night. But even through your entire rebuttal you call endogenics with disabled terms, all while claiming that you’re different things.

System is a disabled term, for disabled people, not for “endogenic plurals” or anyone non-disordered.

Using it as a “non-disordered plural” is ableism. You are taking words away from people with real and serious disorders when you use them to spread information about “non-disordered plurality”. Those words are not for you. Please respect that. Use your own words.

On a similar line, endos also use tags containing “system”, “alter”, “split”, etc. Anecdotally, you haven’t seen it, because maybe you stay out of our way, but others don’t.

[Edit: Checked your profile: you *personally* use system! Please stop doing that. And please don’t say you don’t, it is all over your profile!]

Also, A LOT of you guys love to use “traumascum” when (disordered) systems don’t want to interact with you! That is top tier ableism, bordering on entire slur usage at this rate. You guys as a community *invented a slur* to be ableist to systems. Just be aware of that.

To sum up this section: Endos are generally an ableist group, either stealing our words or using a slur they made for us. They should not be doing that regardless of the truth of “non-disordered plurality”.

-

Next: The ICD recognizes spiritual practices an example of multiple *personality states*. It does not recognize the “plurality” most endos claim to have, which are either real symptoms of a CDD, or mimicking a CDD.

Also, I hate to be this guy, but when something is normal for someone, it can’t always initially be reported as “distressing”; It doesn’t become distressing until you realize what happened to you, and sometimes it becomes undistressing after you accept it. I know clinicians wont diagnose unless you show distress, but I firmly still believe that if you have all the symptoms of a CDD and yet don’t feel distressed, you’re still disordered. CDDs are traumagenic neurodevelopmental disorders, that doesn’t go away because you become okay with it.

Another thing about this: The cut off date is a theory, and only works for otherwise-NT kids. If you have a neurodevelopmental disorder (like autism for example), your “cut off” date is a lot later. Also, your small-T traumas count too; You don’t have to have been seriously abused or anything to need to cope with life by developing a CDD. Kids brains are the ones in charge; ‘serious trauma’ is whatever your kid-brain fet it was. Just think about that.

(The “im trauma-endo because my trauma happened when i was 10” crowd are the ones i worry about the most, because you aren’t endo just because the trauma happened ‘late’, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.)

-

Sidebar, i do not have time to vet all those doc sources you sent me in addition to all this, but i will eventually rb with my findings. Thanks for understanding. I will concede that part to you as you did present something, and I can’t debunk you right now in good faith.

-

You said something interesting here:

You cannot be ableist about something that *you claim* is not a disorder. Ableism is discrimination or prejudice based on disability status. This is the point we keep having to hammer home for you.

And I’m sorry that it hurts your feelings when people point it out, but it’s necessary: If you’re talking about the pointing out of delusions, I have delusional episodes and I can personally assure you, I say it with concern for some of you. I genuinely think a good amount of you are covering up whatever trauma you endured, or are possibly suffering from a delusional disorder. It is not ableist to say so.

[Edit 2: If your claim is true (your heart symptoms get worse and you experience physical pain when told these things), that is **POTENTIALLY** indicative of a larger issue! If available, please see a doctor, and if not, watch your health and stay out of syscourse.]

We ((disordered) systems) get to decide what “real systems” are because, and say it with me: SYSTEM IS A DISABILITY TERM. We get to decide how it’s used, just like nonverbal autistics get to tell selective-mute autistics to get *their* own words. Words mean things. Get your own.

-

Bottom line, be “plural” all you want, but I’m sorry to tell you that what 99% “endogenics” claim is non-disordered plurality, just isn’t, and it’s dangerous to spread the misinformation I just had to debunk in this post.

For all these reasons, i firmly believe that Endos and their community full of what OP described, and predatory people who want to keep it that way.

I don’t usually interact with people who claim to be endo, because I feel this way, but I know y’all have a right to your beliefs. You need to think about them though. And you need to not steal words from the disabled to express them. Thanks.

I hope you understand and take the time to read the whole post.

-Juniper

what actually are endogenic systems?

• Endogenic is an umbrella term that refers to all systems that are not completely traumagenic in origin.

Why are some people claiming to be endo?

• people claiming to be endogenic systems may:

• be misdiagnosed, they may not have DID/OSDD and may have a different disorder.

• may not have researched. Which is not a excuse. You cannot claim to have any disorder without any level of research.

• they may be a traumatic system in denial of there trauma.

• singlets with fractitious disorders [Factitious disorders are conditions in which a person deliberately and consciously acts as if they have a physical or mental illness when they are not really sick.]

•singlets misidentifying normal experiences

• singlets who enjoy "being a system" finding it fun etc

Why can't endos exist?

• as previously stated. DID/OSDD is a TRAUMA RESPONSE DISORDER. you cannot have it without trauma literally.

• OSDD/DID occurs because of childhood trauma between the ages 4-9 (commonly). Because extreme trauma happens when the majority of your "personality" is formed by then. the trauma interferes with your personality development, causing the formation of other alters to help cope with that trauma / deal with the brunt of the trauma and survive day to day life.

• OCDD/DIDs can only be formed through trauma.

Why are endos so harmful?

• they spread very harmful misinformation. (Even the idea of being endogenic, forming without trauma)

they spread dangerous misinformation and stigma (demonising roles (persecutors for example)) impossible beliefs (alter death, sys hopping etc)There growing presence in general on many platforms

• endos trying to say that they have any experience to anything close to the serious trauma that causes DID/ OSDD is so so harmful to actual DID/ OSDD have had to live through and survive.

• WE ARE ALREADY STIGMATISED AND DEMONSIED IN ALL SORTS OF MEDIA AS IS.

• IT IS SO HARMFUL AND HURTFUL TO SYSTEMS WHO HAVE ACTUALLY SURVIVED AND BEEN THROUGH THE HORRORS AND TRAUMA THAT CAUSES DID/OSDD - OUR TRAUMAS ARE NOT BADGES FOR YOU TO WEAR.

- blurred asf

[lexiecon-mp4]

Jayvik and Butterflies || Arcane Meta

The butterfly motif has put everyone into a chokehold (myself included) and has had me brainrotting so hard for the last few days that I felt compelled to make my first Arcane post.

With how repetitive the butterfly motif is within Viktor and Jayce's lives throughout Arcane, I thought it would be fitting to do a meta looking into what that symbol might mean.

So first things first; where do we see this symbol pop up? In presumed chronological order of in-universe events, here are some of the following;

1. Viktor when following his toy boat (S1E6)

2. Jayce after being saved by the mage (S1E2)

3. Mechanical butterflies shown during Progress Day (S1E4)

4. Butterfly at the Fissures when Jayce and Viktor talk about failing to "do good" (S1E9)

5. A flash frame of a butterfly appears when Jayce hits the Arcane with his hammer (S2E3)

6. The hammer itself is shaped like a butterfly after Jayce emerges from the Arcane (S2E5)

7. Viktor and Jayce vaguely form a butterfly-type shape when they sacrifice themselves (S2E9)

(If I'm missing any I apologize, but these are the memorable examples that I think embody the themes I'm going to discuss. Feel free to comment more!)

I'm not including Jinx's mechanical butterflies here since they are more reminiscent of Firelights, but it is fitting that she has taken a symbol associated with progress from Progress Day and retrofitted it to her own design, just like she does with Hextech itself. That already serves as a manifestation of how Jayce and Viktor's shared creation can lead toward a dangerous path.

Ultimately, I think there are three main themes that I believe fit both characters respectively along with their arcs.

1. METAMORPHOSIS

Viktor goes through a literal metamorphosis of his own as a result of the glorious evolution, both physically and emotionally. Like the change of a caterpillar to a butterfly, his evolution is one that he perceives to be an "improvement" on his prior form. Simultaneously, his obsession with perfection (due to his own insecurities, struggles and oppression) shifts his focus. His original ambitions to help the people of Zaun and beyond are lost as he prioritizes using the Arcane to "improve lives", even against their own will. For the final step of his evolution, he sacrifices his humanity and breaks out of his "chrysalis" as a changed man. Viktor become utterly unrecognizable to everyone, even to his own partner; until the last scene between the two.

Jayce has seen that he has become something completely different than the Viktor he knew before. But regardless, he sees him as beautiful in the context of his current "perfect" AND prior "imperfect" state. The caterpillar and butterfly are one and the same, just like the man he knew and the "Machine Herald" that stands before him. He sees under the facade (a literal mask) that Viktor wears, knowing that his partner is still there.

What distinguishes Viktor from the butterfly is that his metamorphosis doesn't end with the "glorious evolution." While the evolution was intended to be a point of no return, it was eventually shown to be another step in his ever-changing arc. Viktor doesn't revert back to his original state, but makes his sacrifice alongside Jayce because of the growth of his character. The final, glorious evolution he always wanted was in liberating everyone from the Arcane, not enslaving them.

The metamorphosis theme also applies to Jayce, as he has obviously "evolved" after touching the Arcane. Yet despite his own evolution, he never loses that humanity that allows him to keep hope for Viktor still being in there. Both of them become something more in the end. I especially love that this happens by each accepting their flaws and acknowledging one another as beautiful. Jayce would still love Vik if he was a worm the caterpillar, since that was the first and original iteration of the man he admires.

2. THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

The butterfly effect is one of my favorite thought experiments related to chaos theory; the underlying patterns/laws of the universe's systems that seem random but are actually dependent on initial conditions. The effect argues that a simple flutter of a butterflies wings could lead to a chain of events that cause something completely different and significant. Arcane has several of these "butterflies" (e.g. the note Vander wrote for Silco) but the most prominent one yet again connects Viktor and Jayce.

Old Viktor explains that in every universe, he gave young Jayce a different rune in order to invent Hextech, presumably with the hopes of preventing the apocalypse as well. He knew that Jayce was the only one who could show him the truth about perfection, but without the right rune, he couldn't get there. It was the specific choice of an acceleration rune that allowed for the events of season two to occur. This small change gives Ekko a chance to fight back and Jayce the chance to talk it out with his partner.

(My personal theory is that the acceleration rune allowed for Ekko and Jayce to travel to a different dimension through the Arcane. This led Ekko to create the Z-Drive and gave Jayce the knowledge of his and Viktor's fates. The rune in his wrist was likely what brought him to Old Viktor in the first place. Otherwise, it's likely that Ekko, Heimer and Jayce would have been absorbed/disintegrated in the process.)

At the beginning of S2E6 Viktor describes Jayce as having "a singularity simultaneously self-replicating and self-annihilating." While the singularity seems to be driving Jayce insane and irate, it contains the chaos needed to stop the influence of the Hexcore over Viktor, Piltover, and Zaun.

In the end, both are able to intersect the "chaos and order" of the Arcane, connecting the rune embedded in Jayce's wrist with Viktor's Hexcore-ified body. The disorder of the Arcane in Jayce seemed random at first, just as the rune given to him did. Yet it was these initial conditions that determined the fates of everyone involved, including the closure that he and Viktor were able to have in the end.

The way that these two are able to break the terrible fate determined for them if they ever met, while still being able to resolve their conflicts at the end, is some extremely beautiful storytelling.

3. MIGRATION/THE JOURNEY

Finally, the act of migrating is one that I feel applies most to Jayce in season two, but also is present in Viktor's backstory and struggle against his disabilities.

There's a specific species of butterfly that migrates every fall, which are the Monarch butterflies that are native to North America. These creatures must brave difficult conditions as they travel down south to more temperate climates. It is a physically demanding trip that tests the resolve of the butterflies, which in Jayce's case, also shakes him to his core.

He has to endure many perils and pains when the Arcane transports him to the "bad ending" universe. He travels through Zaun, gets stuck in the Fissures for a while, then finally climbs the Hexgates to learn the truth about his dream. While the sufferings of the journey itself feel unnecessary, it's a path Jayce must take in the end no matter how painful. Like the monarchs, he perseveres and makes it out of there alive.

But unlike them, this difficult pilgrimage is necessary to shape Jayce's character. He essentially speed-runs Viktor's personal journey as a Zaunite; born in Zaun, being poisoned by the Fissures, and "pulling himself up by his bootstraps" all the way up to the gilded heights of Piltover. It's a perilous and painful trip, made more difficult by his injured leg. Yet when Jayce reaches the top, none of the achievements matter to Viktor in this universe. After everything he had done, there was only the empty husk of his loved one and the truth it carried that remained. His illness and "imperfections" were cured, but at what cost?

This puts everything into perspective for Jayce. At the end of his travels, he realizes what he really wants to save isn't Hextech, or his dream, but his partner. In turn, it saves the lives of everyone including that of Viktor's, who comes out of the other side of this journey loved rather than alone. Perhaps their presumed deaths aren't the most happy ending for both of them, but they certainly made it to clearer skies together.

(One last additional note: I love that the alternate universe only has dragonflies instead of butterflies; the connecting symbol between the two is missing in this universe because they couldn't save it in the end.)

So ultimately, the motif of butterflies for Jayce and Viktor represent the change, resilience and interconnectedness of the pair. Throughout the entire two seasons, this symbol follows them on their respective arcs like a red string of fate. As Viktor calls it, they are "two sides of the same coin, inextricably bound." The final two variables needed to solve the Arcane, and they could only do so together.

(i hate these guys they have irrevocably rewritten my brain chem)

Thank you for reading if you made it this far!

[vikkirosko]

Hello, I wanted to know how Asmodeus, Stolas, Sir Pentious and Fizz would court the person they like.

Headcanons Courtship

🐍Sir Pentious x Reader 🎩

Sir Perntios tried to appear confident, but when it came to you, all his confidence crumbled. His feelings for you were obvious to everyone except, it would seem, you, or you just hid the fact that you knew everything perfectly well so as not to embarrass him even more. But he didn't want to just sit around and hope for a miracle. He wanted to show you his feelings, but he couldn't do it so easily. To do this, he had to prepare a lot, and first of all, prepare mentally himself, so as not to end up in an awkward situation through his own fault

Even though he had been dead for a long time, he remained a gentleman, which meant he had to act gallantly. One of his first steps in trying to show you his feelings was flowers. Sir Pentious came to you with a beautiful bouquet of flowers, muttering in embarrassment. You smiled softly and asked if these flowers were for you. He could only nod, after which you took the bouquet and thanked him for such a nice gift. He hurried away, feeling agitated, and only when he was alone with himself did he give free rein to his emotions and joy. He was genuinely glad that you accepted his little gift, and when he remembered how you smiled at him, he just couldn't calm his heart, which was beating furiously in his chest

Every time he was around, he tried to be gallant towards you. He held the door for you, even if your hands were free and you didn't need his help, he pulled up a chair for you when you sat down at the table, he helped you carry weights, even if it wasn't really hard for you and you could handle yourself. You were sure that he was doing it out of politeness, but everyone else who saw it understood perfectly well that the reason for this was not only politeness, but also his feelings for you. Sir Pentious tried his best to show you his feelings as best he could, even though you didn't perceive his actions as some kind of romantic gestures. But despite that, he wasn't going to despair

Your smile continued to be an incentive for him to continue courting for you. He wanted to give you another gift, so he was making a little surprise. He was sure of his skills as an inventor, and he decided to use them to show you his feelings. Sir Pentious used to make tools with which he tried to seize power, but for you he wanted to make something more elegant, more suitable for you, something that could please you. He spent a lot of time at work and dreamed of seeing your affectionate smile again. For the sake of you, your smile and the opportunity to show you his feelings, he was ready to create any number of new inventions, regardless of whether they were intended for attacks or just cute trinkets that you might like

🦉 Stolas x Reader 🎩

From the very day Stolas realized his feelings for you, he wanted you to understand that he was sincere when it came to you. He tried to surround you with attention and show the love that he didn't have a chance to show to anyone else, but Stolas also understood that if he was too intrusive or assertive, you could on the contrary, pull away, start avoiding him. That's why he tried to stick to the golden mean in his courtship of you, trying to find ways to please you and show his feelings, taking his time and trying not to do anything that could alienate you from him

He often invited you to restaurants. He chose places that you would like, where the menu had dishes that you would like to try or that you would just like, and at the same time these were places where the chance that something unexpected would happen was less. He was gallant, took you by the arm when you let him, he smiled gently at you and tried to make you smile too. When the weather was good, he would take you for walks, trying to find places where you wouldn't have a lot of prying eyes on you. The last thing Stolas wanted to do was put you in an awkward position because of the excessive attention of others, so he chose quiet, but at the same time picturesque places so that both of you could enjoy a walk

Stolas wasn't sure if giving you expensive gifts was a good idea. When he thought about it, he felt like he was buying your affection, and he wanted your relationship to be built on sincerity and nothing else. That's why he decided to refrain from expensive gifts at this stage of your relationship and preferred something more appropriate. He gave you flowers, he gave you books that he knew you might like. Gifts weren't the main way he showed his feelings for you, but they were signs of the attention he wanted to show you, and Stolas hoped you could figure out what he meant when he did it all

Many times Stolas worried that he would do something wrong. He was worried that he might offend you or push you away in some way. He was afraid that you would find him too intrusive or that he would deprive you of a choice. But that wasn't the case. He genuinely loved you, and if you turned him down because you didn't feel the same way about him, then he could try to understand and accept, hoping that you could at least remain friends. But until you refused him, he tried to make you understand how sincere he was in showing his sympathy towards you. It was probably one of the most sincere things in his life

🐓 Asmodeus x Reader 💕

Asmodeus was not someone who could be imagined romantically courting. He was the epitome of lust, and it imposed certain restrictions on him. That's why when he fell in love with you, he had some trouble openly expressing his feelings to you. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to try. He intended to approach this more creatively so that his reputation would not be damaged, and at the same time so that you would not think that he treats you lightly and that his feelings for you are only lust or a fleeting infatuation. He was more than serious about you and wanted to show you that despite all the obstacles

He often invited you to his restaurant. There he could not worry that someone would see you, because for him there was always a balcony free, from which you could perfectly see the whole hall, but no one would be able to see you in the semi-darkness. He always approached your dinners together with great attention, and the waiters who served your table knew perfectly well that they shouldn't chat too much if they didn't want to provoke his anger. Ozzie was courteous to you and chose the days when you would like the show that took place in his restaurant. It might not have been the most suitable place for a romantic pastime, but you liked going to his restaurant, and so far you liked everything, he was more than satisfied. After your dinners together, he always gave you a ride home so he wouldn't worry about whether you got home safely or if something happened on the way

When he was too busy with work and you couldn't meet in person, he always sent you gifts that could make you happy. Your favorite flowers, your favorite snacks, tickets to events you wanted to attend but couldn't get tickets. He always found something to please you with, and when you asked him with a soft smile if he could keep you company, he was only happy to agree, even if he knew that after that he would have to seriously sit down to work and documents that he had postponed for the sake of your time together. He never told you that he was putting things off for you, not wanting you to feel guilty. He wanted you to feel happy around him and not worry about problems. If the events you attended together included dancing, then Asmodeus was happy to spin you around, admiring your smile and the way your eyes shone with happiness

Every time you spent time together, Ozzie noticed that the blush on your cheeks began to appear more and more often, and this gave him hope that his feelings would be mutual. He was in no hurry to confess, knowing full well that such things were not worth rushing into. He wanted to be sure that he would find the right moment, and until that moment came, he continued his courtship, opening his heart and soul to you more and more

🎪 Fizzarolli x Reader 💟

From the first day you met Fizzarolli, he shone with confidence and determination. He was used to being like this in front of others, although next to you this confidence became sincere. But it got harder when he realized he was in love with you. He still tried to be smiling and confident, but he started to get nervous around you, his laughter could get nervous and you worried about him. Fizz convinced you every time that everything was fine and you didn't have to worry about it. He didn't want to tell you so early that he was in love with you, especially since you obviously saw him as just a friend. That's why he decided to try to romantically court you so that you could see in him not only a friend but also a possible object of your romantic sympathy

Every time you were sad, Fizz tried to make you laugh or support you. If you were too sick to laugh, he would hug you, showing you that he was there for you and that he was ready to help you in any way he could, and all you had to do was ask him. He would never refuse to help you. When he stayed at your apartment overnight, he often got up before you to make you breakfast. You woke up to the noise and saw the chaos he caused in your kitchen, but you didn't get angry and sometimes even ate what he cooked when the dish he cooked was at least more or less edible. Fizzarolli smiled contentedly, glad that he was able to please you, and then together you put your kitchen in order, eliminating traces of his cooking as much as possible

You couldn't go out very often, because he was famous. Fizzarolli didn't want your outings to be ruined by persistent fans or mercenaries who decided to kidnap him, so you preferred a quieter pastime. You were always happy to have his company in your apartment. He brought you something you might like. It could be your favorite snacks, self-care products that you could make together if you wanted to, several times he brought you a pair of sweaters that made you smile sincerely and a barely noticeable blush on your cheeks, which became stronger when Fizz put on one of the sweaters after you put on the other. Looking at your reaction, he was genuinely glad that he was able to please you, and your blush caused a similar blush on his cheeks and a flutter in his chest

Fizz became more and more convinced that he had to finally admit to you how he felt about you. He saw how you started to get embarrassed and worried around him, and he wanted to believe that it was because you fell in love with him. He didn't want it to turn out to be just an illusion that his mind had created in an attempt to pass off as wishful thinking. But he could only find out the truth by confessing to you and hearing your answer. He simply had no other way

[anemicjellyfish]

Random theorizing and/or speculation post idk.

So I've said it before and I'll say it again. Helluva Boss is pretty damn good at "Show, Don't Tell."

While it isn't entirely devoid of expositional dialogue, it really doesn't seem like they rely on it heavily. Even with a few heart-to-heart moments between characters like Blitzø & Fizzarolli in Oops and Loona & Octavia in Seeing Stars, big dialogue exchanges are kept to a minimum. Character development happens over time and through on-screen events rather than sitting down and talking it all out.

This, combined with the show's tendency to both 1, let events come full-circle and 2, show generational trauma as a way to let characters break free of the molds set for them, is why I think Octavia might get the "Stolas Experience" soon.

Now, I love Octavia. If I could pick a character to make sure the writing team doesn't traumatize, it's her. (This is a No Hate Zone for Octavia and Stolas btw.)

What I mean is that Octavia seems to have been kept from the same expectations that were put upon Stolas his whole life. She appears to make her own choices and express herself in ways that Stolas wasn't allowed. I have a feeling that, now that she is with her mother and uncle, she will be held to a similar standard as her father (at least until she's of age, which is likely 18).

I feel like minimal expositional dialogue will come in to bridge the gaps in her knowledge. Octavia getting told she's "just like her father" as an insult when she's not adhering to new standards.

To bring it to a head, I also like to speculate that Stella will try to arrange Octavia a marriage of her own. When Via pushes back on this, the "just like your father" line may come back. I also think Stella will deliver the final nail in the coffin of Octavia's opinion of her parent's marriage here.

My personal headcanon of the line is something like: "oh, for fuck's sake, Via. All Goetia marriages are arranged. It's not like Stolas and I ever loved each other. *laughter* Andrealphus, could you imagine? Stolas and I in love?! How ridiculous..." (mocking fades into the background as Via processes what she just heard) But this is just fanfic-level stuff that plays in the background of my brain.

Now, to skip ahead just a little. There are very few characters for Octavia to turn to. The most likely candidate for a lot of us is Loona. It makes sense, as they've already shared some screentime & Octavia got some solid advice then. And I don't disagree at all. It's a good choice.

But I like to think Octavia has something in common with someone she despises, but who could never hold hate in his heart for her.

Blitzø and Octavia have some unlikely common ground in severing connections with those they care about most through an emotional response to feeling unloved.

Octavia's song "I Will Be Okay" uses fire imagery to burn photographs to symbolize her readiness to cut off contact with her father after she came to the conclusion that he never loved her.

Blitzø set a literal fire unintentionally when his own father valued Fizzarolli over him, and likely felt that Fizz would never love Blitzø in return.

While the parallel between them isn't completely perfect, Blitzø is uniquely suited to understand a teenager who is scared, alone, and feels unloved.

We know a good deal about the circus fire, but Blitzø really hasn't spoken about it to anyone. It's unclear if he ever went into detail about it to Fizz, and he only vaguely referred to it being "traumatic" when Stolas brought up Blitzø's love of horses.

I personally like to think that Octavia will be the one Blitzø tells about it all. I think he'll obscure the details of a teenage crush to stay on-topic. But the loss of a loving parent (Blitzø's mom/Stolas) and being left with a horrible one (Blitzø's dad/Stella) is something that connects them in ways that both of them don't realize yet.

This doesn't have to fix things. Confronting traumatic events doesn't mean those events no longer happened. Blitzø carries the physical scars of his past with him everywhere he goes, and the emotional pain doesn't always heal without leaving scars of its own.

Octavia could slowly rebuild her relationship with her dad over time. It's not impossible yet. But she is slowly gaining an understanding of how things work in Goetic society; she will likely know soon that she was only born to be an heir out of precaution. So a part of her is always going to be the teenage girl who needs reassurance that she's loved, that she isn't the obligation that she thinks she is.

Sorry for another incomplete post. My thumb is hurting at the knuckle because I over-extended it the other day and it's hard to type on my phone with just one thumb.

[philosophicalparadox]

Oh 100% Itachi is a parental figure to Sasuke. And you don’t even have to look at Itachi to see it.

Sasuke treats him more like a father sometimes than a brother. Especially given the overall narrative that this series usually establishes about father-son relationships, which to be fair are also reflected a bit in teacher-student dynamics but nowhere near as much.

And that narrative overall is not unique to Naruto but is a rather typical shonen trope thing about having a goal to supersede your father, to best him at his own game, or to otherwise surpass him. (This is a deeply cultural thing in Japan…but I am not going there today).

And while occasionally brothers do stand in for this as ordinary brothers, usually if a sibling, trope wise, has to step into the “you must live to surpass me” role, it’s because they’re narratively a paternal figure.

And like I said, Sasuke’s got all the clues here. He:

Is always looking for Itachi’s attention, be it positive or negative

Obeys his brother without even thinking about doing otherwise even long after the massacre*

Pre massacre, he’s clingy and needy towards Itachi because his father won’t give him the time of day, but also because canonically that’s just how he’s always been. Sometimes babies really do pick their parents. (I’ve been in that situation, sort of, otherwise I’d of said it seemed unrealistic. But no, sometimes a little baby just says “no, YOU get to be my mom!” And there’s really nothing you can do 🤷‍♀️ this happened twice, with my niece AND grand nephew.)

Sasuke is always striving to best his brother, even after the massacre, like when he was training with the Kunai, trying to beat Itachi’s record. Yeah that’s a typical sibling thing, but in the bigger context, like after Itachi’s death when Sasuke is once again trying to out-do him, it feels more shonen-trope-fatherly to me. (Though I will concede that I only really watch Shonen that leans in the general direction of Seinen, which is to say more mature themes that twist the typical Shonen narrative; Naruto both is and isn’t an exception to this. Point is I’m biased lol)

* in reference to two:

There is one poignant scene in which Sasuke doesn’t kill Naruto explicitly because he doesn’t want to do what Itachi tells him to anymore. He then semi reneges on this later and decides that severing the bond is more important— he’s still technically not doing it for the reasons Itachi said, but he has changed his mind all the same.

After Itachi dies, Sasuke decides to go counter to his brother’s wishes, but he’s ultimately still doing what he thinks Itachi wants…sort of.

Now, before I go here, I want to say that this is entirely my interpretation, and you’re free to disagree.

But when Itachi tells Sasuke to hate him more, that he’ll only get stronger if he harbors more hate…a lot of Itachi haters take him literally here, and/or are very confused by it. But in my mind, what Itachi is actually saying as a deeply traumatized 18 year old with limited life experience who has just come back to the place that started it all and probably isn’t in a great place is:

I want you to hate me as much as I hate myself.

And, in particular reference to the “you’re weak if you can’t hate with all your heart” thing (I don’t have the panels on hand) :

I want you to throw away or erase everything you ever cared about just like I did.

As someone who has dealt with severely angry and angsty teens before, this is the message I heard. He wasn’t really goading Sasuke on, insofar as he was looking for someone to commiserate with. And nobody else but Sasuke would genuinely understand. I don’t think it was a planned response, personally— Itachi wasn’t looking for Sasuke, and didn’t appear to know that Naruto was his teammate. So my bets are on that being an impulsive reaction to a stressful situation and Itachi trying really hard to put a wall between them while inadvertently pleading for closeness.

But the point is that Sasuke heard what he meant, not what he said. Because he knows his brother. And Sasuke did exactly that — threw away everything, just like Itachi, severed his bonds, just like Itachi, became a rogue, just like Itachi, etc.

You could very well argue that Sasuke just went and did that if his own accord trying to feel closer to Itachi, which I would completely believe. But either way it’s far more son-father than brother-brother in its dynamic. Don’t get me wrong they absolutely have their bro moments, like when Sasuke is chasing Edo tensei Itachi down and calling him a big fat liar essentially, and being a complete child while Itachi basically rolls his eyes at the Drama 🤣 it’s both funny and sad.

But overall there is certainly a sense of paternalism in their relationship. But it’s not solely defined by Itachi, which makes me wonder how anyone ever missed it.

Ever since @shinoposting made a post about Itachi being a more parental figure to Sasuke a couple of months ago, I've seen several angry responses to it, with the sentiment that "Itachi fans want to make Itachi look good and their parents look bad."

Listen.

A five-year-end boy is left alone on the night of the kyuubi attack with his toddler brother.

He doesn't even seem disconcerted, but instead promises "I'll always protect you, no matter what."

Itachi is the one who sits with him, despite his busy schedule, despite grieving Shisui, and despite being burdened with what's more than he could handle, he took time to check on Sasuke's report card.

Itachi was also ready to abandon his first Anbu mission for Sasuke's sake. It was after this their father even recalls he had to go to the Academy.

Itachi "ignored" Sasuke. And, like, what do people even expect from someone who's been this much burdened that isolating himself is the only thing he can do to protect Sasuke and his innocence?

Yet, Itachi doesn't know exactly how not to be distant. That's a sign of how much he was suffering at this point. He was "bad" after the massacre, but before that, he was kind and sweet, who cared about nothing but Sasuke's wellbeing.

[scythlyven-art]

What Pokémon would perc'ahlia have

Percy would obviously flock towards dark and ghost types imo

I think he'd love a mimikyu

(and Vex would have some sort of bear kind of pokemon, obviously)

You have no idea what you’ve asked of me anon I’m about to pull out the whole damn Pokédex and put together a team of six for each. I will not be including legendaries or mythical Pokemon as options but each will get one of the starter Pokemon.

We’ll start with Percy who 100% is on the ghost/dark train but I also see some steel/fire/electric as viable options too.

As an Empoleon enjoyer, he’s definitely getting that as his starter. Plus the regal look and fact blue and black suit look matches him. I’d also give him an Absol, Luxray, Hisuian Zoroark, Bisharp, and Chandelure. A lot of edgier looking Pokemon but ones that have some pretty decent attack.

Chandelure for his fancy upbringing/Orthax deal with stealing souls. Bisharp for his leadership and thirst for revenge since the Pokédex claims Bisharp will always pursue its prey. Absol purely for the white design (to match his hair heh) but also it’s ability to sense disasters before they happen makes me think of Orthax adding Cassandra’s name to the list before Percy had even realized she betrayed them. Hisuian Zoroark also for the matching white but mainly Zoroark’s ability to create illusions. Percy in the campaign had the ability to create minor illusions and he used it enough times to note it. Finally, Luxray partially for the electric typing to go with Percy’s tinerkerer side/the diplomacy glove and its gold eyes that can “see through anything” just makes me think of Percy’s demon eyes with Orthax.

Tldr: Percy gets Empoleon, Absol, Luxray, Chandelure, Bisharp, Hisuian Zoroark

On to Vex— she definitely leans towards grass/flying to me but I feel like she could toe the line with fire, fairy or even ice in the mix

Her starter is 1000% Decidueye on account that it’s literally a flying archer. For the others I would pick Ursaluna, Milotic, Roserade, Mismagius, Mimikyu.

Ursaluna covers its body with a hard type of mud to create natural armor which matches Trinket and his armor. Milotic because it is seen as one of the most beautiful Pokémon to exist and the Pokédex describes its ability to charm others into forgetting combat (like Vex’s own charm). Roserade more or less fits the same as Milotic being incredibly beautiful, luring opponents in before it lethally strikes. Mismagius I initially put on here solely for the witch hat reference. And I would give her Mimikyu over Percy because Mimikyu’s whole thing is that it desperately wants others to love it so it disguises itself as something everyone does love hoping to receive the same love. Just like Vex trying desperately to have her father love her by trying to dress and act more noble and elven than her true half elven status.

Tldr: Vex gets Decidueye, Ursaluna, Milotic, Roserade, Mismagius, and Mimikyu

Of course these are just my opinions so feel free to disagree or share your own!!

[i-bring-crack]

A–Aventio TGCF idea?? Wherein Civil God Veritas Ratio meets the infamous Ghost King Aventurine during his first mission cuz cuz like— The "live for me" paralels?!? The one who has all the luck partner as well?!? The villain who was actually not the Villain this whole time!?!? The loving humanity a little too much it causes their downfall !?!?!?

Rant AU in the tags proceed with caution

[milfbrainrot]

thank you loris for serving ur entire purpose of having vi briefly hallucinate vander in ur place

[comixandco]

my favourite part of season 5 is still the reveal that Gabriel and Tomoe thought Adrien and Kagami made the perfect pair and wanted them to be together because it completely flips their relationship

Kagami and Adrien sneaking around and finding the slightest gaps in their schedule and giving their bodyguards/parents the slip to spend time together and feeling so clever that they’ve gotten away with it their parents don’t suspect a thing

only to smashcut to Gabriel and Tomoe doing an evil pound it because their ship is canon

[rivilu]

The better I get at crusade management and the midnight fane the worse the end of it is going to hit I can just feel it

[underwaterspaghetti314]

Watching Dune with my roommates and violently swinging between “I’m yapping too much just let them watch the damn movie” and “My word you have a lot of questions.”

This culminated in the scene with Shadout Mapes, where I was going to talk about xyz thing, then decided against it, and then had one of them say to me “Alright. I’m gonna need you to explain all of that.” My yapping has been vindicated!

[themoonking]

see someone spreading misinformation about ancient greece online, gently correct them, they say "well discerning whats canon and whats fanon in greek mythology is really difficult". i am killed instantly.

[the-travelling-witch]

i can tell you guys aren’t as fond of the entertainment industry which is a shame bc idol! childe, model! kaeya and club owner! diluc are very tasty :(

[britneyshakespeare]

I'm curious about people's levels of familiarity; I intend no judgment or elitism and it's absolutely fine not to be a completionist, btw. I didn't think I would've intended to have read them all at age 25; it just sort of happened that after I passed the halfway point in the middle of 2023, I came out of a reading slump and was motivated to finish. Fwiw I consider myself a hobbyist (I am not involved in academia or professional theater) but I realize that that label is usually attributed to people with less experience.

I also have always loved seeing other bloggers' Shakespeare polls where they put certain plays or characters up against each other, but I'm often left wondering if it's really a 'fair' fight all the time if you're putting up something like Hamlet or Twelfth Night against one of the more obscure works, like the Winter's Tale. It's not a grave affront to vote in those polls if you don't know every play, but I am curious about it.

Please reblog for exposure if you vote; I would appreciate it a lot. Also feel free to elaborate on your own Shakespeare journey in tags, comments, reblogs, because I love to hear about other people's personal relationships to literature.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Predicting the present

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/09/radicalized/#deny-defend-depose

Back in 2018, around the time I emailed my immigration lawyer about applying for US citizenship, I started work on a short story called "Radicalized," which eventually became the title story of a collection that came out in 2019:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250228598/radicalized/

"Radicalized" is a story about America, and about guns, and about health care, and about violence. I live in Burbank, which is ranks second in gun-stores-per-capita in the USA, a dubious honor that represents a kind of regulatory arbitrage with our neighboring goliath, the City of Los Angeles, where gun store licensing is extremely tight. If you're an Angeleno in search of a firearm, you're almost certainly coming to Burbank to buy it.

Walking, cycling and driving past more gun stores than I'd ever seen in my Canadian life got me thinking about Americans and guns, a subject that many Canadians have passed comment upon. Americans kill each other, and especially themselves, at rates that baffle everyone else in the world, and they do it with guns. When we moved here, my UK born-and-raised daughter came home from her first elementary school lockdown drill perplexed and worried. Knowing what I did about US gun violence, I understood that while school shootings and other spree killings happened with dismal and terrifying regularity, they only accounted for a small percentage of the gun deaths here. If you die with a bullet in you, the chances are that the finger on the trigger was your own. The next most likely suspect is someone you know. After that, a cop. Getting shot by a stranger out of uniform is something of a rarity here – albeit a spectacular one that captures our imaginations in ways that deliberate or accidental self-slayings and related-party shootings do not.

So I told her, "Look, you can basically ignore everything they tell you during those lockdown drills, because they almost certainly have nothing to do with your future. But if a friend ever says to you, 'Hey, wanna see my dad's gun?' I want you to turn around and leave and get in touch with me right away, that instant."

Guns turn the murderous impulse – which, let's be honest, we've all felt at some time or another – into a murderous act. Same goes for suicide, which explains the high levels of non-accidental self-shootings in the USA: when you've got a gun, the distance between suicidal ideation and your death is the ten feet from the sofa to the gun in the closet.

Americans get angry at people and then, if they have a gun to hand, sometimes they shoot them. In a thread /r/Burbank about how people at our local cinemas are rude and use their phones in which someone posted, "Well, you should just ask them to stop." The reply: "That's a great way to get shot." No one chimed in to say, "Don't be ridiculous, no one would shoot you for asking them to put away their phone during a movie." Same goes for "road rage."

And while Americans shoot people they've only just gotten angry at, they also sometimes plan shooting sprees and kill a bunch of people because they're just generically angry. Being angry about the state of the world is a completely relatable emotion, of course, but the targets of these shootings are arbitrary. Sure sometimes these killings have clear, bigoted targets – mass shootings at Black supermarkets or mosques or synagogues or gay bars – more often the people who get sprayed with bullets (at country and western concerts or elementary schools or movie theaters) are almost certainly not the people the gunman (almost always a man) is angry at.

This line of thought kept surfacing as I went through the immigration process, but not just when I was dealing with immigration paperwork. I was also spending an incredible amount of time dealing with our health insurer, Cigna, who kept refusing treatments my pain doctor – one of the most-cited pain researchers in the country – thought I would benefit from. I've had chronic pain since I was a teenager, and it's only ever gotten worse. I've had decades of pain care in Canada and the UK, and while the treatments never worked for very long, it was never compounded by the kinds of bureaucratic stuff I went through with my US insurer.

The multi-hour phone calls with Cigna that went nowhere would often have me seeing red – literally, a red tinge closing in around my vision – and usually my hands would be shaking by the time I got off the call.

And I had it easy! I wasn't terminally ill, and I certainly wasn't calling in on behalf of a child or a spouse or parent who was seriously ill or dying, whose care was being denied by their insurer. Bernie's 2016 Medicare For All campaign promise had filled the air with statistics (Americans pay more for care and get worse outcomes than anyone else in the rich world), and stories. So many stories – stories that just tore your heart out, about parents who literally had to watch their children die because the insurance they paid for refused to treat their kids. As a dad, I literally couldn't imagine how I'd cope in that situation. Just thinking about it filled me with rage.

One day, as I was swimming in the community pool across the street – a critical part of my pain management strategy – I was struck with a thought: "Why don't these people murder health insurance executives?" Not that I wanted them to. I don't want anyone to kill anyone. But why do American men who murder their wives and the people who cut them off in traffic and random classrooms full of children leave the health insurance industry alone? This is an industry that is practically designed to fill the people who interact with it with uncontrollable rage. I mean, if you're watching your wife or your kid die before your eyes because some millionaire CEO decided to aim for a $10 billion stock buyback this year instead of his customary $9 billion target, wouldn't you feel that kind of murderous rage?

Around this time, my parents came out for a visit from Canada. It was a great trip, until one night, my mom woke me up after midnight: "We have to take your father to the ER. He's really sick." He was: shaking, nauseated, feverish. We raced down the street to the local hospital, part of a gigantic chain that has swallowed nearly all the doctors' practices, labs and hospitals within an hour's drive of here.

Dad had kidney stones, and they'd gone septic. When the ER docs removed the stones, all the septic gunk in his kidneys was flushed into his bloodstream, and he crashed. If he hadn't been in an ER recovery room at the time, he would have died. As it was, he was in a coma for three days and it was touch and go. My brother flew down from Toronto, not sure if this was his last chance to see our dad alive. The nurses and doctors took great care of my dad, though, and three days later, he emerged from his coma, and today, he's better than ever.

But on day two, when we thought he was probably at the end of his life, as my mother sat at his side, holding the hand of her husband of fifty years, someone from the hospital billing department came to her side and said, "Mrs Doctorow, I know this is a difficult time, but I'd like to discuss the matter of your husband's bill with you."

The bill was $176,000. Thankfully, the travel medical insurance plan offered by the Ontario Teachers' Union pension covered it all (I don't suppose anyone gets very angry with them).

How do people tolerate this? Again, not in the sense of "people should commit violent acts in the face of these provocations," but rather, "How is it that in a country filled with both assault rifles and unimaginable acts of murderous cruelty committed by fantastically wealthy corporations, people don't leap from their murderous impulses to their murderous weapons to commit murderous acts?

For me, writing fiction is an accretive process. I can tell that a story is brewing when thoughts start rattling around in my mind, resurfacing at odd times. I think of them as stray atoms, seeking molecules with available docking sites to glom onto. I process all my emotions – but especially my negative ones – through this process, by writing stories and novels. I could tell that something was cooking, but it was missing an ingredient.

Then I found it: an interview with the woman who coined the term "incel." It was on the Reply All podcast, and Alana, a queer Canadian woman explained that she had struggled all her life to find romantic and sexual partnership, and jokingly started referring to herself as "involuntarily celibate," and then, as an "incel":

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/76h59o

Alana started a message board where other "incels" could offer each other support, and it was remarkably successful. The incels on Alana's message board helped each other work through the problems that stood between them and love, and when they did, they drifted away from the board to pursue a happier life.

That was the problem, Alana explained. If you're in a support group for people with a drinking problem, the group elders, the ones who've been around forever, are the people who've figured it out and gotten sober. When life seems impossible, those elders step in to tell you, I know it's terrible right now, but it'll get better. I was where you are and I got through it. You will, too. I'm here for you. We all are.

But on Alana's incel board, the old timers were the people who couldn't figure it out. They were the ones for whom mutual support and advice didn't help them figure out what they needed to do in order to find the love they sought. The longer the message board ran, the more it became dominated by people who were convinced that it was hopeless, that love was impossible for the likes of them. When newbies posted in rage and despair, these Great Old Ones were there to feed it: You're right. It will never get better. It only gets worse. There is no hope.

That was the missing piece. My short story Radicalized was born. It's a story about men on a message board called Fuck Cancer Right In the Fucking Face (FCKRFF, or "Fuckriff"), who are watching the people they love the most in the world be murdered by their insurance companies, who egg each other on to spectacular acts of mass violence against health insurance company employees, hospital billing offices, and other targets of their rage. As of today, anyone can read this story for free, courtesy of my publishers at Macmillan, who gave permission for the good folks at The American Prospect to post it:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-12-09-radicalized-cory-doctorow-story-health-care/

I often hear from people about this story, even before an unknown (at the time of writing) man assassinated Brian Thompson, CEO of Unitedhealthcare, the murderous health insurance monopoly that is the largest medical insurer in the USA. Since then, hundreds of people have gotten in touch with me to ask me how I feel about this turn of events, how it feels to have "predicted" this.

I've been thinking about it for a few days now, and I gotta tell you, I have complicated feelings.

You've doubtless seen the outpourings of sarcastic graveyard humor about Thompson's murder. People hate Unitedhealthcare, for good reason, because he personally decided – or approved – countless policies that killed people by cheating them until they died.

Nurses and doctors hate Thompson and United. United kills people, for money. During the most acute phase of the pandemic, the company charged the US government $11,000 for each $8 covid test:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/06/137300-pct-markup/#137300-pct-markup

UHC leads the nation in claims denials, with a denial rate of 32% (!!). If you want to understand how the US can spend 20% of its GDP and get the worst health outcomes in the world, just connect the dots between those two facts: the largest health insurer in human history charges the government a 183,300% markup on covid tests and also denies a third of its claims.

UHC is a vertically integrated, murdering health profiteer. They bought Optum, the largest pharmacy benefit manager ("A spreadsheet with political power" -Matt Stoller) in the country. Then they starved Optum of IT investment in order to give more money to their shareholders. Then Optum was hacked by ransomware gang and no one could get their prescriptions for weeks. This killed people:

https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/malicious-threat-actor-accesses-unitedhealth-groups-monopolistic-data-exchange-harming-patients-and-pharmacists/#

The irony is, Optum is terrible even when it's not hacked. The purpose of Optum is to make you pay more for pharmaceuticals. If that's more than you can afford, you die. Optum – that is, UHC – kills people:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/23/shield-of-boringness/#some-men-rob-you-with-a-fountain-pen

Optum isn't the only murderous UHC division. Take Navihealth, an algorithm that United uses to kick people out of their hospital beds even if they're so frail, sick or injured they can't stand or walk. Doctors and nurses routinely watch their gravely ill patients get thrown out of their hospitals. Many die. UHC kills them, for money:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-08-16-steward-bankruptcy-physicians-private-equity/

The patients murdered by Navihealth are on Medicare Advantage. Medicare is the public health care system the USA extends to old people. Medicare Advantage is a privatized system you can swap your Medicare coverage for, and UHC leads the country in Medicare Advantage, blitzing seniors with deceptive ads that trick them into signing up for UHC Medicare Advantage. Seniors who do this lose access to their doctors and specialists, have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for their medication, and get hit with $400 surprise bills to use the "free" ambulance service:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-12-05-manhattan-medicare-murder-mystery/

No wonder the public spends 22% more subsidizing Medicare Advantage than they spend on the care for seniors who stick with actual Medicare:

https://theconversation.com/taxpayers-spend-22-more-per-patient-to-support-medicare-advantage-the-private-alternative-to-medicare-that-promised-to-cost-less-241997

It's not just the elderly, it's also the addicted and mentally ill. UHC illegally denies coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment. Imagine watching a family member spiral out of control, ODing, or ending up on the streets with hallucinations, and knowing that the health insurance company that takes thousands of dollars out of your paycheck refused to treat them:

https://www.startribune.com/unitedhealthcare-will-pay-15-7m-in-settlement-of-denial-of-care-charges/600087607

Unsurprising, the internal culture at UHC is callous beyond belief. How could it not be? How could you go to work at UHC and know you were killing people and not dehumanize those victims? A lawsuit by chronically ill patient whom UHC had denied care for surfaced recorded phone calls in which UHC employees laughed long and hard about the denied claims, dismissing the patient's desperate, tearful pleas as "tantrums" :

https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-healthcare-insurance-denial-ulcerative-colitis

Those UHC workers are just trying to get by, of course, and the callouses they develop so they can bear to go to work were ripped off by last week's murder. UHC's executive team knows this, and has gone on a rampage to stop employees from leaking their own horror stories, or even mentioning that the internal company announcement of Thompson's death was seen by 16,000 employees, of whom only 28 left a comment:

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/unitedhealthcare-tells-employees

Doctors and nurses hate UHC on behalf of their patients, but it's also personal. UHC screws doctor's practices by refusing to pay them, making them chase payments for months or even years, and then it offers them a payday lending service that helps them keep the lights on while they wait to get paid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frr4wuvAB6U

Is it any surprise that Reddit's nursing forums are full of nurses making grim, satisfied jokes about the assassination of the $10m/year CEO who ran the $400b/year corporation that does all this?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/leading-medical-subreddit-deletes-thread-on-unitedhealthcare-ceos-murder-after-users-slam-his-record/

We're not supposed to experience – much less express – schadenfreude when someone is murdered in the street, no matter who they are. We're meant to express horror at the idea of political violence, even when that violence only claims a single life, a fraction of the body count UCH produced under Thompson's direction. As Malcolm Harris put it, "'Every life is precious' stuff about a healthcare CEO whose company is noted for denying coverage is pretty silly":

https://twitter.com/BigMeanInternet/status/1864471932386623753

As Woody Guthrie wrote, "Some will rob you with a six-gun/And some with a fountain pen." The weapon is lethal when it's a pistol and when it's an insurance company. The insurance company merely serves as an accountability sink, a layer of indirection that lets a murder happen without any person being the technical murderer:

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

I don't want people to kill insurance executives, and I don't want insurance executives to kill people. But I am unsurprised that this happened. Indeed, I'm surprised that it took so long. It should not be controversial to note that if you run an institution that makes people furious, they will eventually become furious with you. This is the entire pitch of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century: that wealth concentration leads to corruption, which is destabilizing, and in the long run it's cheaper to run a fair society than it is to pay for the guards you'll need to keep the guillotines off your lawn:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/

But we've spent the past 40 years running in the other direction, maximizing monopolies, inequality and corruption, and gaslighting the public when they insist that this is monstrous and unfair. Back in 2022, when UHC was buying Change Healthcare – the dominant payment network for hospitals, which would allow UHC to surveil all its competitors' payments – the DOJ sued to block the merger. The Trump-appointed judge in the case, Carl Nichols – who owned tens of thousands of dollars in UHC bonds – ruled against the DOJ, saying that it would all be fine thanks to United's "culture of trust and integrity":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-antitrust-shooting-war-has-started

We don't know much about Thompson's killer yet, but he's already becoming a folk hero, with lookalike contests in NYC:

https://twitter.com/CollinRugg/status/1865472577478553976

And gigantic graffiti murals praising him and reproducing the words he wrote on the shell casings of the bullets he used to kill Thompson, "delay, deny, depose":

https://www.tumblr.com/radicalgraff/769193188403675136/killin-fuckin-ceos-freight-graff-in-the-bay

I get why this is distasteful. Thompson is said to have been a "family man" who loved his kids, and I have no reason to disbelieve this. I can only imagine that his wife and kids are shattered by this. Every living person is the apex of a massive project involving dozens, hundreds of people who personally worked to raise, nurture and love them. I wrote about this in my novel Walkaway, as the characters consider whether to execute a mercenary sent to kill them, whom they have taken hostage:

She had parents. People who loved her. Every human was a hyper-dense node of intense emotional and material investment. Speaking meant someone had spent thousands of hours cooing to you. Those lean muscles, the ringing tone of command — their inputs were from all over the world, carefully administered. The merc was more than a person: like a spaceship launch, her existence implied thousands of skilled people, generations of experts, wars, treaties, scholarship and supply-chain management. Every one of them was all that.

But so often, the formula for "folk hero" is "killing + time." The person who terrorizes the people who terrorize you is your hero, and eventually we sanitize the deaths, and just remember them as fighters for justice. If you doubt it, consider the legend of Robin Hood:

https://twitter.com/mcmansionhell/status/1865554985842352501

The health industry is trying to put a lid on this, palpably afraid that – as in my story "Radicalized" – this one murderer will become a folk hero who inspires others to acts of spectacular violence. They're insisting that it's unseemly to gloat about Thompson's death. They're right, but this is an obvious loser strategy. The health industry is full of people whose deaths would be deplorable, but not unsurprising. As Clarence Darrow had it:

I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

Murder is never the answer. Murder is not a healthy response to corruption. But it is healthy for people to fear that if they kill people for greed, they will be unsafe. On December 5 – the day after Thompson's killing – the health insurer Anthem announced that it would not pay for anesthesia for medical procedures that ran long. The next day, they retracted the policy, citing "outrage":

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/05/health/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-claim-limits/index.html

Sure, maybe it was their fear of reputation damage that got them to decide to reverse this inhumane, disgusting, murderous policy. But maybe it was also someone in the C-suite thinking about what share of the profits from this policy would have to be spent on additional bodyguards for every Anthem exec if it went into effect, and decided that it was a money-loser after all.

Think about hospital exec Ralph de la Torre, who cheerfully testified to Congress that he'd killed patients in pursuit of profit. De la Torre clearly doesn't fear any kind of consequences for his actions. He owns hospitals that are filled with tens of thousands of bats (he stiffed the exterminators), where none of the elevators work (he stiffed the repair techs), where there's no medicine or blood (he stiffed the suppliers) and where the doctors and nurses can't make rent (he stiffed them too). De La Torre doesn't just own hospitals – he also owns a pair of superyachts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/28/5000-bats/#charnel-house

It is a miracle that so many people have lost their mothers, sons, wives and husbands so Ralph de la Torre could buy himself another superyacht, and that those people live in a country where you can buy an assault rifle, and that Ralph de la Torre isn't forced to live in a bunker and travel in a tank.

It's a rather beautiful sort of miracle, to be honest. I like to think that it comes from a widespread belief by the people of this country I have since become a citizen of, that we should solve our problems politically, rather than with bullets.

But the assassination of Brian Thompson is a wake-up call, a warning that if we don't solve this problem politically, we may not have a choice about whether it's solved with violence. As a character in "Radicalized" says, "They say violence never solves anything, but to quote The Onion: that's only true so long as you ignore all of human history":

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-12-09-radicalized-cory-doctorow-story-health-care/