#an adult now lol...but i feel less bad with a little exchange. well mostly i hope she asks first cause i just have one specific thing in

[evandore]

this is the little pattern i got...its not great but also my first ever intentional embroidery attempt so i think she looks nice :)

[sneakydraws]

Well, here it is - a lengthy explanation of each card in my mdzs major arcana deck and what I meant to convey/what i would have changed in retrospect/what alternatives i considered! It’s a bit messy and my typing style is lazy but hopefully it will be an interesting read to some of you :)

And so you don’t say I didn’t warn you - jiang cheng’s section (11 justice) is absurdly long lmao

0 the fool  I elaborated on this in the post itself but yeah basically jin ling is kind of representative of all the damage and trauma caused by the past, and there’s a kind of danger there of him falling victim to the same vices as the older characters and repeating the same mistakes and perpetuating the cycle of war and misery (the cycle that we already see with how the jin sect became the new wen sect, and later with how jgy became the new wwx) and he has a lot of room to grow! He grows so much over the course of the novel, comes to realise the complexities of the past and gets a harsh life lesson in how nothing is as black and white as it seems. But ill save talking about his progress for the end, for now whats important is that he has room to grow and also a dog. I don’t really have a justification for the sun, i mostly just thought it looked sick? It made its way to the next card as well, where it makes a bit more sense, but then i realised it was a dumb motif to include 1 the magician I still very much like wwx for the role, and that illustration would have probably had him raising a corpse on his left and pointing threateningly to the sun on his right. I considered including the table as well, with some mdzs relevant items replacing the card suits. Anyway, like i said wwx got a few cards to himself already so i went with the alternative wq design, since i think she fits the card as well. Both she and wwx are highly skilled people, extremely driven once they set their mind to something. The card to me symbolises the creative mind as well as a general drive for action, which fits them both - wwx was famously a prolific inventor, and wq came up with a previously unheard of surgery, after all. This card strays pretty far from the rider-waite deck design, largely because i was still figuring out how i wanted to approach this series, but you can still see the influence. 2 the high priestess I was actually going to skip this card at first because I couldn’t think of a fitting character, but once i considered a qings character post death, it all fit pretty well. She was already a highly intuitive person in life, and in sharing her memories with wwx she is, in a way, relaying a kind of secret knowledge. Anyway she’s one of my fav characters so im glad i got a chance to include her. The coffins could be interpreted to be xxc and sl or xxc and xy 3 the empress Theres other mother figures in mdzs who got to be mothers for a longer time, but jyl definitely embodies the positive aspects of this card the best. She’s nurturing, kind, emotionally supportive, she already mothered wwx and jc quite a bit when she was young. Plus i liked that the rw card had both water and flowers, making an easy lotus connection. In retrospect the stars look kind of out of place and i should have replaced them with something more relevant... Also, i should have had her hold a lotus seed pod instead of a flower, haha 4 the emperor Like i said I considered jc for the role but hoching bullied me into admitting that nmj was better… they’re both more of an inverted emperor than an upright one but then again theres hardly any character in mdzs who would fit upright emperor so. Jgs was also considered but he’s even uglier than nmj so i couldn’t bear to draw him 5 the hierophant It was pointed out to me that lqr would have fit this card better and the truth if that statement haunts me to this day. Unfortunately I have no space in my brain for lqr so lxc got the role instead. My main reason was his role during the wen destruction of gusu lan, when he ran away with the contents of the library - this is why there’s bookshelves behind him. The keys, take, from the rider-waite deck, are meant to represent the gusu pendants that allow you to enter 6 the lovers Im sure many people would have chosen wangxian here but I uhh don’t really care abt wangxian personally? And also their love story is so convoluted that jyl and jzx seem idyllic by comparison lol. Also i didnt really have an idea for who to put in the angel’s place for wangxian… mme jin certainly did not get these two together in the end but undeniably she and mme yu did initially give them a chance to fall for each other so. Thats something i guess. Anyway the trees became their sects’ flowers and the mountain became the burial grounds - an omen of their tragic fate, basically 7 the chariot There might have been other characters who fit this card better but i couldn’t really think of another card for lwj and i thought it would be weird to not include him… anyway i don’t really care for current timeline lwj BUT i do like that he was clearly influenced by wwx to walk his own path in life based on his moral convictions rather than follow his sect’s rules blindly. The chariot is to me a card of self control, self determination and focused action, so it seemed fitting. The composition felt kind of empty without the actual chariot so i padded it out with the guqin, the cloud recess in the bg (it doesn’t look great but i tried to replicate the drama design….) and the bunnies which conveniently fit the colour scheme of the sphinxes in the rider-waite design 8 strength Like i said before, my interpretation of this card is more… morally ambiguous than the quote unquote official meaning, so i thought about manipulative or duplicitous characters more than kind characters whose strength is expressed through gentleness (though i did consider jyl briefly for the latter interpretation). As such, i considered both jgy and nhs, but ended up going with jgy largely because i couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put the nie sect’s beast as the lion. 9 the hermit My thoughts immediately went to bssr lol. It may be an overly literal interpretation but whatever, i like it just fine. And i like that i managed to echo the rider-waite silhouette in the mountain and the tree (and even in bssr herself) 10 wheel of fortune God i love the parallels between these 2… this card to me is about how you cant trust your current situation, good or bad, to last forever, and these 2 embody that perfectly imo. Wwx went from son of a well off servant and a powerful cultivator, to street rat orphan, to adopted son of sect leader jiang, to double orphan, to MIA, to terrifying but admired warrior, to terrifying and despised traitor, to dead, to, at the very end, suddenly respected and trusted again. The dishonesty and cheapness of whatever the public’s current opinion of him is is portrayed beautifully as far as im concerned. And jgy of course claws his way up to power only to instantaneously become public enemy number one, to the point that he’s probably blamed for stuff there’s no reason to believe he had a hand in. Wei wuxian’s silent astonishment at how quickly the cultivation world turns against jgy and towards him again is a delicious moment of thematic resonance.  11 justice I settled on this card for jc after he got booted from the emperor seat but i do think it fits, in a somewhat convoluted way. I turned both the sword and the scales into visual representations of the golden core transfer (can you tell im obsessed with it). According to biddy tarot, the justice card is partly about searching for the truth, and the scene where jc finds out about the transfer is of course a big deal. I was also very influenced by the reversed meaning again - which is about being reluctant or unwilling to face or accept the consequences of your actions. I feel on an intuitive level that this fits jc but I’m not sure how well i can explain it - it’s something about how he’s a little too comfortable scapegoating wwx for things that were also, if much less so, influenced by his actions, and also something about the way he keeps wwx at an arm’s length emotionally but still leans on him and accepts his support when he really needs it, and somewhat hypocritically expects wwx to put the needs of him and the jiang sect before the needs of others. And also something about the core exchange is the consequence and proof of wwx’s deep - terrifyingly deep, even - love and care for him, which is something jc doesn’t seem to let himself acknowledge. Maybe even something about how you could argue that the way all of the jiangs acted around wwx - jfm’s favouritism that left him with the feeling of a debt he needs to repay, mme yus insistence that he be a servant more than a brother to jc, prepared to give his life for jc, and jc’s own unwillingness - or inability, he was a child after all - to clearly acknowledge wwx as an equal to himself, enabling wwx’s self sacrificial and protective tendencies - that all of this was what caused wwx’s complete and unquestioning willingness to do whatever it took to protect jc, and therefore paved the way to the golden core transfer. And i don’t mean this to be scapegoating jc - especially considering how young he was when this all went down, it wouldn’t be fair to expect this level of emotional perceptiveness, awareness and maturity of him - but i think adult jc has to grapple with the fact that the chain of cause and effect was not as simple as wwx fucking everyone’s lives up to be a martyr, and that both jc and his parents had a role in that story as well. I don’t even necessarily think this is something that jc only realised in the current timeline - i think it’s something he felt on some level this whole time, and it probably led to a lot of feelings of guilt - but the suibian reveal definitely puts it in sharp focus, and i think he’s now better equipped to handle this introspection than he was as a recently orphaned, traumatised teenager, lol. ANYWAY the window with the fabric is both a nod to the rider-waite design and a reference to the destruction of lanling - i actually did some basic ass research for this, and it seems that in ancient china fabric would indeed be hanged in a window if the normally used paper was damaged. The design of the window, as well as the very idea to use it to imply the reconstruction of lanling, was taken from this great piece of jc angst by my pal moroll1! Oh yeah also the covered window kind of works as a denial of forgiveness for jc because it’s like a halo but covered up... Also I completely forgot to put a blindfold over his eyes which would be perfectttt because blind justice and the core exchange......... ok moving on 12 the hanged man I always have issues with this card because i cant find a satisfactory summary of what it’s really about. Best i can tell it symbolises a need to hit pause, surrender or let go of something… ive also seen it tied to sacrifice? So mo xuanyu doesn’t fit perfectly, but sacrifice is definitely there in a surface level reading kind of way, and the idea that you have to surrender or let go in order to achieve your goal does fit the whole deal of getting revenge but giving up your life in exchange and not being there to see it 13 death This is probably one of my favourite cards, definitely not because I have huge issues with change or anything…. I see this card as signalling the necessity of change or putting an end to something / leaving something in the past in order to start anew? At first i considered putting past wwx, mxy and current wwx here as a kind of transformation and one cycle flowing into the next... But firstly, I’d already used mxy in the very previous card, so putting him in again would feel like overkill, and secondly, the longer I thought about it the less convinced I was that this would even fit with the card’s meaning? Because coming back from the dead doesn’t like... trigger an internal transformation within wwx or anything? Anyway, fun fact: the design I ended up going with was actually originally intended for judgement! I thought I was being very clever with the whole “figure plays an instrument and the dead rise” parallel, but apparently I’d just completely forgotten that the judgement card had a completely different composition... Truly I was boo boo the fool... But yeah anyway at the end of the day I figured the design would kind of work for death as well, with Wen Ning and the theme of transformation, (since in his case coming back as a fierce corpse does actually mark a certain transformation in behaviour) and Wei Wuxian’s protection of the Wen people essentially signifying an attempt to break the cycle of oppression if that makes any sense? Like, wwx is trying to revolutionise the way the world works a bit, if you catch my drift 14 temperance  The centrist card! Again this is probably going off track from the “official” interpretation, but to me this card has a certain “don’t commit fully; do everything in moderation; don’t take either side” flavour to it that i personally find infuriating irl and that i very much assign to lxc. It’s entirely possible that I’m misinterpreting his character because i didn’t really pay him (and the 3zun in general) much mind while reading, but hell, I’m allowed to pick favourites and choose who i want to interpret deeply vs shallowly. Again, i wish id chosen lqr for hierophant because its so annoying for a character i don’t care about to get two cards…. But oh well 15 the devil My alternative idea for this was jgy as the devil and lxc plus nmj as the figures, but since all three had been featured already (multiple times, even!) i figured I’d go with xy instead, especially since he’s among my faves lol. I think the devil signifies something along the lines of unhealthy attachment, obsession or addiction, which isn’t 100% accurate in the case of xxc and a-qing, but if i stretch it a bit to cover toxic relationships in general, and especially manipulation or negative influence, i don’t think it’s half bad. My main struggle here was to choose who amongst the xxc/sl/aq trio to choose for the human figures. 16 the tower Arguably jin zixuans death and the following massacre of nightless city were the final and most direct reason for the siege of burial mounds, and the tiger seal is good shorthand for wwx’s loss of control over his powers, which led to the deaths of jzx and jyl. When reimagining major arcana i like to feature some kind of building in this card (spoilers for a possible future project but in my rose of versailles major arcana set the tower is bastille) and even if it’s not a tower, the image of wwx looming over the gathered crowd from atop a rooftop is so good i couldn’t resist 17 the star Struggled with this one - considered both jin ling and lsz for it, as symbolising a hope for the future, but that was kind of covered by the world so it wouldn’t make sense to include here as well... As usual when I struggle with interpreting a card (as opposed to understanding it but struggling with matching a character to it, like with death or moon) I went to biddy tarot and read all the details about its meaning. What i got was that this card signifies an incoming period of introspection and inner peace following a time of turmoil, as well as a general moving on into a new, better phase of one’s life or finding new meaning and purpose. The figure also suggests someone vulnerable, but possessing a keen sense of intuition as well as a good degree of practicality and common sense. Given all those, I settled for mianmian because IM LOVE HER..... I also kind of see her as a prelude to the “just one person is enough” theme present in tgcf!! And i think her decision to abandon her sect because she saw the toxicity and corruption in it is a very inspiring action - even if it didn’t make a large visible impact, i think the appearance of her and her idyllic family at the very end of the novel - paralleling and mirroring wangxian - implies that at the end of the day, it was a meaningful one 18 the moon Another card i ALWAYS fuxking struggle with - this time less because i can’t grasp its meaning and more because I can never find a character that fits it well. I usually get fixated on the “dreams and subconscious” part, but if i lean more on the “disguise, deceit, anxiety and fear” part, i eventually figured the whole yi city arc wouldn’t be a bad fit. I say the entire arc because it really does encompass all those themes if you include both the past and the present - xue yang’s disguise, his tricks with the villagers, a-qing’s lies and even xxc’s reluctance to talk about his past as well as xue yang pretending to be xxc all fit the disguise and deceit angle, and the general mystery and creepiness of the current timeline yi city work well with the anxiety and fear - the mist, the slow uncovering of the past, even a-qing being revealed to be an ally after scaring the shit out of the protags. I definitely struggled with including all the elements and characters, and even moreso with making them vaguely fit the rider-waite composition, but i think it ended up okay ish. OH and i completely forgot to draw mist swirling around them :( 19 the sun I was considering mianmian’s family for this one, but since I used her for star, I ended up with wwx and his parents instead. Once again I’m reinterpreting the card a bit - normally I think it symbolises incoming times of pure happiness and abundance, as well as a connection with the inner child, but I gave it more of a nostalgic or sentimental twist - wwx looking back at the brief glimpse of his happy childhood. 20 judgement another card that i struggle to interpret a bit... Here i actually used the tgcf tarot zine as a reference! In it judgement is summarised as “rebirth, following duty, absolution” SO i figured that nhs, mxy and wwx all together would fit pretty neatly... wwx achieving (public) absolution through clearing his own name after being reborn, and nhs sort of calling on wwx to expose jgy’s crimes... It’s a bit messy but not bad I think! 21 the world This ties very closely to my read on mdzs as a story - which is that it’s, at the end of the day, largely about cycles, and about how hard it is to break them, but how we gotta keep trying and have hope anyway. Or maybe more precisely, that the people directly involved with and influenced by the trauma of the past might not be able to get over said trauma and that the hope for healing from it will be shouldered by the new generation. Or something like that… Basically what i mean is that jc and wwx and lwj and lxc and nhs and jgy and all these people who were in the thick of the sunshot campaign and the siege are so profoundly affected by it that it genuinely feels by the end of the story like there is little hope for them to ever truly overcome that trauma and build a better future without repeating the same old mistakes - but there is a glimmer of hope in the new generation, specifically in jl and lsz. And it’s a bit paradoxical, because they have also been directly impacted by the past tragedies - lsz having his entire clan wiped out after wwx failed to protect them, jl losing both his parents to wwx’s mistakes - but despite that loss, and despite coming from arguably the two opposing sides of the past conflicts, they are both, in the end, capable of moving past that tragedy, of recognising the complicated nature of those conflicts (jl’s moment of clarity at the end is both heartbreaking and hopeful) and forging friendships between clans in the process. I honestly think that the extra where jl is struggling to assert his authority as sect leader, to treat his subjects well and to cooperate with other sects in a truly amicable way is the single hopeful ending note for the larger themes of the novel - it allows us to imagine that maybe these kids can learn from the mistakes of their elders rather than getting sucked in by resentment at those mistakes, and actually build a brighter future for the cultivation world. And sidenote, this is also why i have a soft spot for jin ling and lan sizhui as a ship... speaking of which their poses were directly referenced from the lovers card ehehe

Looking back, I’d like to add some symbol of jin ling’s trauma so that it mirrors baby wen yuan in the tree stump... maybe his father’s sword? 

[jawritter]

You and Me...

Chapter 4

***SERIES WARNINGS**** Rape, non-con, male!rape, injury, violence, description of injury caused by rape, nightmares, self-harm, panic attacks, implied female non-con, language, ass hole Jensen, hurt!Jensen, dark fic, smut. If there is anything else I will add it as I go.

***Chapter Warnings*** Okay guys please pay attention to the warnings I’m about to say! This chapter gets a little heavy, and this is where it all starts to kind of pick up. This chapter will contain hints of non-con/ rape. Rough smut, Jensen is a complete ass hole in this one, and before you ask there is a reason for it, mostly to give you a peek at his mindset before things really get rocky for him. The actions of the characters in this fic are completely fiction, and they are not to be seen as reflections of the people themselves! Lighter warnings are language, self-loathing (implied on Jensen’s part), mild descriptions of injury related to sex, nothing heavy there’s worse out there, degrading actions in a way, regret, angst, smut, I think that’s everything. (At least I hope so.)

Word Count: 2236

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader, Jensen Ackles x Misha, Jensen Ackles x Jared, Jensen Ackles x Jessica, Reader X OFC Alex

A/N: When I originally wrote this chapter I didn’t even know who Steve Carlson was, so the Steve in this story isn’t him lol. Oddly enough I wrote this before I even really knew he was making an album lol. Anyway, all mistakes are mine, please don’t copy my work, Feedback is golden. If you want to be added to the series tag list, or my tag list just let me know! I hope you enjoy this one. After this chapter things tend to start to pick up a little.

Summary: It’s funny how one choice you made can change your whole life. One mistake can alter your course, and set you on a path that forever will haunt you. Two people find themselves getting through one of the hardest trials of Jensen’s life, on just one small promise. You and Me. We’ll get through it together…

Want more? Check out my Masterlist!!

***MASTERLIST***

***YOU AND ME MASTERLIST***

Jensen’s POV:

“I can’t believe she got you back!” 

Jared was laughing, leaning up against the bar in Jensen’s kitchen. Misha was sitting across from him, trying to hide the fact that he thought it was more than a little funny as well. 

“Yeah man, you kinda ask for it,” he finally said, taking a long swig of his beer. A smirk firmly planted on his face and his eyes sparkling with a hint of amusement. 

 "Screw you both,“ Jensen said, turning around and grabbing himself a beer out of the fridge, a smirk playing across his face. He saw the hint of jealousy cross Y/N’s face when he greeted Jennifer today. He didn’t miss that every time he gave Jennifer a compliment, or flirted with her just a little bit that it was getting under Y/N’s skin. He knew Y/N had a crush on him.

He’d been in the entertainment industry long enough to be able to pick it off a girl’s face across a room. Which came in pretty handy at bars and parties. 

He saw the way her breath caught when she met him for the first time. He saw the smirk cross her face when he got pissed today while she was screwing with him.

Jensen slipped his tongue out and over his full pink lips, letting it run across his lips slowly, followed by his teeth pulling slightly at his bottom lip. 

"I know that look,” Misha said not even trying to hide his amusement at this point. “He likes her,” he said, looking to Jared grinning like he’d just won the lottery. “Jensen’s got the hots for Y/N,” still with that same evil smirk on his face. 

“What? No, I don’t!” Jensen said, getting up from his seat he’d just sat in across the bar from Jared and turning his back to them again so that they could not see his face, acting like he was cleaning up a spill on the counter. 

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen that look before. You got a crush on Y/N. Furthermore, I think she may have it for you just as bad. She just doesn’t know it yet,” Misha said, taking another swig of his beer, raising his eyebrows annoyingly.

“I do not have a thing for Y/N,” Jensen said, still trying to defend himself. “She’s a self-absorbed little bitch.”

“She’s only a bitch because you’re a dick,” Jared said, staring at his friend and trying his best to read him. 

Jensen just stopped wiping at the counter and stared at him. The conversation he walked up on coming back to his mind. The look on Y/N’s face when she said that he was probably gonna go fuck Jennifer later stun more than he wanted to admit it did, even to himself. 

He ran his fingers ideally over the small piece of paper in his pocket that Jennifer had slipped there when he hugged her goodbye today. No doubt it was her number. He definitely had a chance to get her in bed. That’s all he’d want from her anyway. She seemed like a nice enough girl, but she was a lot younger than him, and he didn’t want to screw up her life by letting her get attached to him.  It had been way too long since he was ‘with’ a woman, and he needed to blow off some steam. 

“I’m definitely thinking about hooking up with that blonde though,” Jensen said with a smirk, his friends exchanged worried looks between themselves. 

“Jay she’s young, man,” Jared said looking at his friend, his concern grew more and more by the minute. He’d never seen Jensen act this way before, much less heard him talk about or to a woman the way he has lately.  

“She’s legal,” Jensen said, waving his hand, and blowing his friend off, and pulling out his phone and the little slip of paper. 

“Whatever man, I still think it’s a bad idea,” Misha said, getting up and finishing his beer. He didn’t like to see Jensen in this state, and he wasn’t going to watch him sit around and do something stupid. 

“I’ll see you guys around. I got a charity event to help organize. You guys gonna be there?” he asked, looking at Jared more than Jensen. Seems like Jensen’s plans had already been set for the night.

“Sure man, I’ll be there,” Jared said, getting up to see Misha out to his rental car. Jensen just grunted and continued texting, setting up his meetup for tonight. 

Your POV:

Sitting at your friend’s bar in downtown Austin you take a look at the room that was buzzing around you.

It wasn’t late, but it was a weekday, so the crowd here was kind of calmer than usual. You liked it when the bar was like this. Less noise and chaos.  Alex, your friend, was leaning in on the bar cleaning off some spilled alcohol from a few minutes ago when he tried to show off his shot stacking skills and failed miserably. You needed the laugh. He was always good for that. That’s why he was one of the people you were closest to.  He always knew how to pick you up when you needed it.

“So, how much longer do you have to work with said dick?” Alex asked, you weren’t supposed to tell anyone that Jensen was recording at your work, but you knew Alex wouldn’t tell anyone. 

The two of you had met In college, and he was the older brother you never had. You told him everything. You always had. When you started having trouble in any way you always told him. This Jensen issue was no different. 

“Not a clue. Kinda is up to him. However long it takes for him to correctly cut the 12 songs he’s chosen to record. He’s talented enough, but he’s such a raging ass hole,” you tell him, taking a long swig of your beer. 

“You know it seems a little out of character for the guy. I’ve seen all the convention videos and watched the tv interviews. He didn’t seem like a dick then. Jared said he was going through a divorce. We don’t know what his ex-wife did. Just give him some space and some respect. We’re not in his shoes and we don’t know what he’s going through. He may loosen up around you now that he knows you can hold your own,” Alex said, walking down the bar to wait on another customer. 

You knew he was right. He usually was. Alex always tried to see the best in everyone, no matter how they presented themselves. That was just his way. 

Maybe some of this was your fault. You hadn’t exactly handled this situation like an adult either. So if you were being completely honest with yourself, you could be partially to blame.

Tomorrow you will try and make peace with the man because you didn’t really want to go to war with someone like him. You also had watched the con videos, and the thought of having to deal with an ass hole who likes to prank people just wasn’t falling very high on your bucket list. 

Tonight though, you would enjoy the fact that today you won. That would be enough. You still had to work with the man for the foreseeable future. There was no reason to have to go to work miserable every day, just because you couldn’t handle a little attitude from a client. 

You were going to be the bigger person if it killed you.

Still, when he looked at you, no matter how mad you were at him, or how much you tried to hate him, you get that same feeling deep in your gut that you haven’t been able to pinpoint yet. It bothered you. It bothered you more than it probably should have. Cause once he was done with this recording, you knew you’d never see him again. That was probably what got to you most of all.

Jensen’s POV:

Sliding his now softened length out of the young blond laying underneath him, Jensen immediately stood to his feet without even looking at Jennifer he started for the bathroom. She laid there on the bed, saying nothing, just staring at Jensen. A pissed off look on her face. 

That was not what she expected. 

That wasn’t what she really wanted. 

How could she tell him no though? He really gave her no room for an opinion. 

Jensen had been a little rough with Jennifer purposely. All he wanted was to do what came there to do and leave. He didn’t want her getting attached, and catching feelings that he honestly wouldn’t be able to reciprocate it. 

Someone else seemed to have a hold on him already, no matter how much he fought against it.

He could tell she hadn’t enjoyed what had just gone on between them. He had got off though, and so in his opinion, his mission was accomplished. 

When he came out of the bathroom he saw her sitting with her back to him slipping her shirt back on over her head. He saw the light purple bruises he had left on her neck and sides. Flashes of what went on a few moments ago ran in front of his eyes. 

Her small frame slamming against the door. His hands roughly undressed her. The feeling of his hand firmly around her throat. The look of fear in her eyes.

 He shook his head trying to shake the image from his mind. Guilt already starting to take its hold. 

When she stood to slide her skirt back up her legs he saw the bruises he had left here in the shape of his fingers. She had told him he was hurting her, that she wanted him to stop; but he didn’t. He just kept going until he was finished... Why didn’t he just stop…

Jensen swallowed hard, trying to not vomit in the middle of the hotel room floor. His own actions made him sick to his stomach. Why did he do that? What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t want to hurt her. He just…  He just lost control, taking things out on her that he’d obviously had pint up inside of him since the divorce. 

Walking over to her without a word Jensen looked down at her, and she wouldn’t look at him. Damn, he’d screwed up now, and he knew it. 

Putting his finger under her chin, making her look at him. He stared at her for a moment. There was something wrong, no light there. The excited girl he’d taken here just an hour before long gone.

He hated what he was doing, but he had to protect himself. 

“Let’s just keep tonight between you and me. No need for anyone else to know,” he said, winking at her like it could solve everything, and she’d just melt at his feet and forgive him. 

He knew that wasn’t going to happen. She said nothing, just stared at him with hate forming in her eyes. Pulling a few bills from his pocket, Jensen threw it on the bed next to her. She looked down at the money, and then up to him. 

“Show yourself out,” he said. grabbing his wallet and heading for the door. 

He hated himself for what he just did. He saw it now. He needed help. The look on that poor girl’s face haunting his memory as he drove back to his house, stopping several times along the way to throw up. Even though it started out consensual, it hadn’t ended that way and he knew it.  

He didn’t even make it to the front door before another wave of bile fell from his mouth uncontrollably, having already lost the entire contents of his stomach on the drive home. 

He had turned into a monster. He hated himself for what he’d just done, but he couldn’t take it back. It was done. There was no way to fix it.

Images of himself repeatedly ramming himself into her. The dead star that took hold on her face after she finally gave up begging him to stop. The tears that were pouring down her face.  How she tried to squirm away from him... 

Another wave of sick came falling from his mouth as he stood in the shower, scrubbing his skin raw under scalding hot water, trying to wash the monster away. He’d never forgive himself for what he’d done to Jennifer. He dreaded facing her at the studio tomorrow.  How in the hell was he going to face someone he’d hurt so deeply?

He drank himself to sleep that night, texting Jared telling him that he was sorry for the way he’d been acting, promising he would stop being an ass hole. He didn’t tell his friend what he’d done, he couldn’t, he could never tell anyone. It would die with him, shame making him hate himself deeper than he ever thought was possible.

He laid there that night praying that whoever was listening up there would forgive him for what he’d done. 

Give him another chance. 

—————————————————————————————————-

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[rayadraws]

end of an era

Oh my gosh anon, our waiting is OVER. Patiently, not so patiently yearning… wishing… hoping… dreaming… we have IT.

I gotta talk about it, because of course I do, ahhh! This will be long, sorry…

I got my hands on the OVA this morning, about half an hour before work. I watched it, yelled on Discord and then went to work, practically vibrating the whole day until I could go home and watch it again and write down my thoughts!

Before release I had seen what available video clips and screenshots we had, plus a summary given to me by a Japanese mutual, in somewhat limited English. I was unsure what to expect but I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I might! I understand that there’s a lot one can be confused or perhaps even put off by in the OVA but. Well. I enjoy seeing a vulnerable Genos (if like 90 % of the fanfic I’ve written wasn’t an indication lol) so I just ate it all UP. And since I’ve written a fic about him getting amnesia specifically, I was very curious to see how off the mark I was.

I won’t give a proper summary, there’s a good one by Nysh for that. Nor the animation. JC Staff is what JC Staff is. I’m instead going to just… muse and compare and go wild with my own personal headcanons - in that regard, this OVA was excellent, because it does give some hints about what makes Genos tick. Hold on to your butts…

Oh, and need I say that there will be SPOILERS? XD

—

Before I wrote my own amnesia fic, I did some research. So, what is amnesia? Well, the popular TV show version is one thing, of course RL is another. There are several kinds of amnesia, with different causes and different treatments. But the two main categories are longterm memory loss, where you can’t recall past memories (often up to what caused the amnesia) and short term memory loss, where you have difficulty forming new memories. You can get one or both. In my fic, Genos deals with both. In the OVA, he appears to have longterm memory loss only, as he tries to find Fubuki again to help him defeat the monster (if only he knew Saitama would by far have been a better choice!), so he remembers her. Not to mention at the end, when he’s trying desperately to apologize…

There is no instant cure for amnesia. Emotional support is important, medication (if it’s caused by underlying disease, which it can be) and psychological therapy can also be useful. Saitama is doing the right thing in the OVA by remaining calm and trying to avoid agitating Genos or pushing him to remember.

After he first wakes up, Genos is very lost, he only remembers his name and that he’s a cyborg - but not why! It’s really heartbreaking when you think a little more about it - imagine waking up in a cyborg body and not remembering why/how that happened… We actually discussed that on Discord before we had the OVA, what if he wakes up and doesn’t remember… but nahh, that’d be too dark, right? APPARENTLY NOT.

I can’t explain why Genos would be so heavily influenced by media around him as he is. That’s just made up for the humour… but if I were to try to find an actual in-world explanation, hm… Well, we do know he can be a Drama Boy. We also know he tends to be very standoffish and reserved towards most people, which I think is related to his trauma, in a few ways (he doesn’t want to get close to people due to the risk of once again experiencing the pain of losing them - and spending four years more or less on your own during your late teenage years is not an ideal environment for learning how to socialize…). We also know that when Genos finds something or someone he considers important, he latches on. So you could see it as being part of that, perhaps. Lost and confused he looks for anything that would make some kind of sense, trying to find a sense of direction or idea on whom he might be.

What exactly did you forget? Your quest for revenge or the sale you briefly remember later? Knowing Genos, it could be either…

He reacts in confusion to his body telling him that there’s an elevated energy signature nearby - I LOVED this. I wonder if he saw it as a note on his HUD, or if it’s more ingrained, more subtle. The way he got antsy and couldn’t sit still… it’s like his proximity sensors act as an extra sense, like Spiderman’s spider sense…. An extra sense that’s probably saved his life on more than one occasion.

He takes off, feeling like it’s his body moving, not him. I don’t think his body has an separate will of its own, but I have always hc:ed that he probably has systems that can calculate stuff for him mid-fight - how to move, where to release his weapons and at what strength etc. A little helpful internal computer. It’s a LOT for one little monkey brain to keep track of, so it wouldn’t be crazy to think he has some help with that, I think. And here, I don’t think his body is truly moving on his own without him having any control of it… more like muscle memory? Like there are times where I think I’ve forgotten a password to my work computer if I’ve been away for a week but then I sit down and my fingers remember the typing motions on their own. I imagine it’s something like that. He doesn’t know what to do, so he’s going where his instincts tell him.

Fubuki, ah, ever the scheming one. I enjoyed her showing up and being casual at Sai’s place because that’s how I like to write her in my fics. You can see the exact second when she goes into Business Mode, playing hard to get to lure Genos closer. Too bad she didn’t consider just how much his personality changed too, came on way too strong in the end…

And!!! A couple of times Genos puts his hand in defense, without seeminly knowing why, or doing it intentionally really. Hmmmm where…. have I seen this before…

He jumped when a warning flashed at the corner of his vision. It was his proximity sensors going off, his HUD informed him. On instinct, he ducked down behind the nearest tree. He should go back. Kuseno would keep him safe. But if he moved, the stranger might see him too. Don’t turn your back on an enemy.

His sensors told him the direction and the general size of the approaching being, but he couldn’t actually see it between the tall trees. It was moving very fast. He ducked lower, ferns brushing softly against his cheek. On instinct, he held his palm out in front of him, open and pointed at whatever was approaching him.

I am SO glad that I called this in my fic, it’s a small detail but it adds a lot I think! Raising his palm as a threat is second nature to Genos, even when he doesn’t consciously know why he’s doing it…

It’s interesting that throughout, Genos keeps referring to himself as “boku”, which is usually reserved for a male who is younger than 16 (though there are exceptions - Amai Mask also uses it, probably as part of his charming idol persona). Usually Genos refers to himself as “ore”, which is mostly used by adult men, more informal and can be viewed as disrespectful, depending on circumstance (Genos is not typically respectful towards people, if they are not Kuseno or Saitama). Combined with how meek he is, man… Okay, ONE said that before the mad cyborg attack, Genos’ personality was about the same as it is now. So why is he so different? Well… I don’t think that’s too shocking, really. I mean, if you lost all your memories and sense of self, realized you were a cyborg for some reason???, ended up alone in a weird city, not knowing where you were or what to do, and suddenly people pointed at you asking you to fight a terrifying monster even though you have no idea how to fight… you’d probably be terrified too! I think we can assume his personality change is caused by his amnesia. But we can probably also assume that a Genos who never had his village attacked and never got involved with fighting/being a hero would not grow to be exactly the same as canon, anyway. He’d probably be a rude brat… but yeah. At least a few degrees less aggressive/ready to throw down!

Again with the hand!

A thought I had reading the exchange between the monster and Genos… it reads almost like how you might expect Genos’ meeting with the mad cyborg might have looked like, only in a sad, reverse kind of way. These lines - “I’m not ready yet… I’m not ready to die here… not yet!” - like, dude… that sounds exactly what might have gone through his head back then. Maybe the first inkling of his past returning to him at that second…

He feels something, remembers something, is shocked.. and it comes back… “I cannot win like this!”. And then he remembers Kuseno, and Saitama…

Once more, those lines together: “I’m not ready yet… I’m not ready to die here… not yet! I cannot win like this!”

We’ll probably never get it verified, but I find it very, very likely he used more or less these exact words, or something very similar, after meeting the mad cyborg.

Also, as much as I appreciate the closeness between Genos and Saitama, I AM glad that he remembered Kuseno first - he’s known Kuseno for four years, Saitama for less than 2 months, when this takes place. It’s only right and it fits very well with his character introduction too, where he thought he was dying and his last thought was an apology to Kuseno. A nice nod. I enjoyed that animation sequence a lot too!

When he remembers who he is, Genos feels so bad about his actions but he still can’t deny what he said before… Saitama’s face… omg… Bless them both.He brings Saitama wild/game meat - d'ya figure he bought it or, um… got it for free? I mean, that’s… exactly the kind of creature he fought… maybe he’s learnt Sensei’s ways…

And Saitama is happy he’s back. He cares about Genos! He likes him like he is, as intense and blunt and socially awkward as he is! What a sweet note to end the OVA on!

[pearloftheorient]

sorry to not be a fandom blog or roleplay blog for a moment. i just feel like i wanna express a bit of a heart-to-heart, just a quick rundown of whatever’s going on and how it all happened from my perspective. i mean i don’t even care if nobody reads this, but as someone who expresses a lot more in writing i feel like i should take this opportunity to help unload, you know?

so the lockdown definitely hit us here on friday the 13th in march, which didn’t feel as bad as it was. as a nurse i’ve had this weird concept that a lot of the common diseases that spread around can easily be blown up by social media (hold that thought for later lol) and i just you know, say you should just wash your hands, it’ll be okay. i mean i tend to take the logical route when it comes to health care?? because that’s what i studied and i feel like i owe it myself not to panic TOO MUCH. plus, my husband (an intellectual) also had the same attitude towards media being exaggerated, so like i’m copying his cool attitude as much as i can. i mean we even went to budapest just a week prior, watched a play, mingled with clusters and clusters of people..... and even though people already started wearing masks, i even make fun of them for wearing it wrong or just being quite excessive and wearing gloves in public (i still don’t like seeing gloves in public and if you’re a health care professional you might feel exactly the same way)....

and then they told me on that friday that all of the training days for the next three weeks that i have worked hard to set up, study for, book on rotas, juggled, invited speakers for (i’m a nurse-educator and i organise staff training as part of my job) are now to be stopped. my staff are now asking me about their learning opportunities, is the course gonna go on, and i feel a bit more responsible to give the correct information but i just don’t know where to get it??

then come monday, it was a whole different story again. since the non-clinical aspect of work has been indefinitely stopped, i am one of the people who had been expected to go back into the clinical area and handle patients (i mean i still do this despite my role, but i now have to do it more often). which was fine because handling patients is my happy place, i feel like it is within my remit, i know exactly what i’m doing most of the time, i have a smaller scale to tackle and that’s gonna ease my brain a bit while the world starts to fall into chaos. i’ve done this for the next few weeks. i did mostly clinical shifts, and just do some admin stuff like once a week?? just so i can keep up with the new developments and properly disseminate information, like what PPE are we gonna have, train people in wearing them, what we actually need to do if we get patients with COVID, crash courses for those who will be redeployed, cancelling and cancelling and cancelling study days and training days and finding multiple alternative ways so people still maintain standards despite not having the face-to-face training....

as a nurse-educator, i also feel like i should always watch the news and be aware of the latest guidelines, what WHO wanted us to do, how am i gonna apply this for my colleagues and the safety of our patients... so i’ve done that on a regular basis, and my brain is just filled with information and i actively help in setting up bedspaces with the initial instructions of what PPE to wear....

and then towards the end of march, people are dying. and the fact that it was building in numbers made it more real. and now i started to question what i already know, if we’re actually doing the right thing, but why do other countries do it differently?? why do other hospitals do it differently?? how come people are still on the street?? decisions from the government and the big execs just fluctuate and this trial and error approach just all of a sudden.....became the new normal. 

and then we’re all like, but we just have to work together - since all of our non-clinical stuff had been on standby then we can just focus on working clinically, doing patient care. and then i was given the instructions to gather nurses from my unit (we deal with neonates - babies - like i personally haven’t got a clue on how adults work anymore as i haven’t handled one for like 15 years) who can be redeployed based on their previous experience. redeployment sometimes is viewed as heroic, like wow you’re brave to work in adults despite your rusty experience just for the sake of helping with the pandemic, that’s Great. and then to some, it is their worst nightmare, being redeployed is like being fish out of water - going back to square one, not knowing exactly what you’re doing (remember how i was so confident doing clinical?? yeah that’s only for neonates). and then the solidarity feel like, yeah but at least you’re not alone? we gonna support you?? you’ll get all the special messages, a round of applause, because you’re doing something so brave. i wasn’t redeployed, but six of my colleagues are - and every time they talk to me about how stressful it was and how scared they were being uncertain all the time and surrounded by death and suffering, i felt responsible for putting them in that position.

and then i started to feel sadder and sadder. but i can’t stop working, i am physically well, i am strong enough and i am a Great addition to the numbers. besides, with all this redeployment, we are also receiving some temporary replacements who simply had no idea how neonates work! (it’s like a full exchange programme but with little training) and it is my responsibility to make sure they are trained (i mean look, we all did LONG ASS courses to reach where we are in terms of knowledge, months and months of clinical exposure to the area to gain experience, but now i’m asked to train all of them for just ONE DAY.) and so after training, i’m like this mother duck chasing all the ducklings making sure nobody goes astray. so that was the first two weeks of my april.

it’s also when i decided to stop watching the news or looking at social media about the virus because i have enough stress going on, and i don’t wanna like sound so depressed whenever i’m teaching this new people that are coming to us. i have to be open and warm and welcoming and maintain a cheery attitude despite my patience running so infinitesimally thin. i’ve always been known for my calmness and patience. i may be an anxious bean but i’m quite good in not letting it show in my handiwork.

so i know that’s been stressful - but the good things, i am definitely thankful for. people stepping up, working hard and together with less animosity. the free food was overflowing, i don’t even have to bring lunch at work anymore because there’s always something, even fresh produce because tbh everything hurt after a hard day’s work that you can’t even go grocery shopping :p we had this really posh resto that gave us free breakfast every single day and normally in this resto you like have to make reservations at least 6months before to be worthy lol. despite the back and forth decision making, we do have the right equipment to do our work, and with the virus not usually affecting the little ones, we are not heaving as much in terms of the amount of patients. and just the love, the supportive messages, the rainbow drawings, the applause - i mean just wow.

i guess the more i’m fueled to work harder. and the fact that i get to keep my job when a lot of people had been furloughed or lost theirs, i just feel i have to make it count and continue helping in ways i know how.

i have just trained the last two nurses to come (so far) when i got called that my husband got sent home because he got ill. and he is a nurse too, looking after adult patients with covid so he is getting far more exposure than me.

by protocol, i am automatically self-isolated because of him. and so for the last week of april, we are on a full lockdown, with him on a sickbed and me trying to “work from home”

i am working from home and my colleagues continue to ask me questions about work, i write guidelines, mark essays, basically all the admin stuff i’ve stopped doing because i have been pulled into clinical numbers. i constantly dreaded how my husband will be - knowing the scary stories about how the virus treated some people and the rising number of deaths, especially among frontliners. he was fine and got better, thankfully. and then i fell ill that very weekend - and i became a full dramatic binch for a week because my fever and muscle weakness definitely prevented me from doing anything productive. (this is when i binge-watched the untamed lol)

but then we both got tested and we’re both negative lol. whatever the fuck that was surely knocked us down but thankfully it wasn’t covid WHICH MEANS we should go back to work sooner rather than later. yay. we’ve been off for a total of 10 days.

and then i returned to work last week, and i felt so exhausted. apparently it was a common theme from those who had symptoms or had self-isolated (even though i am negative) and i just felt like those 10 days despite spending them mostly in bed, i felt like i ran a marathon that entire time and now i’m paying the price.

i still feel tired now after 4 days of work, and i haven’t even been clinical (they gave me the benefit of the doubt that it might be FALSE NEGATIVE) so i haven’t handled patients YET and instead focused on my admin work - which welcomed with its spiky arms fuck that shit we just had the most dramatic cases at work that i had to deal with, and that’s not even covid-related. and so my brain was also like scraped to the core lol

so anyway, yeah i guess that got long.

i mean i still haven’t talked about what’s happening in the background at this point, like my family (they are okay! thankfully. and my mom is very paranoid which means they are always taking care of themselves lol), the government in where i live and where my family lives (lotsa fucked up things happening right now out there too, dammit i’m so sorry philippines), and all my future plans for 2020 that have now been shitted on by this virus, but let’s not get overly dramatic now.

idk i just feel like pouring stuff out because apparently that’s healthy for you.

stay safe. wash your hands. stay at home if you can. frontliners - and i’m just not talking about my fellow nurses - TAKE CARE AND STAY STRONG. AND THANK YOU. but don’t be an extra hero. wear PPE when you come face-to-face with potential risks. take breaks. know where to draw the line.

[laws-yellow-submarine]

3, 4, 8 for skylar and hazel!!

Ahhhhh ok, I'll do these in 2 sections just so it's easier to read lol also I'll try not to ramble since it'll already be kinda long 😅

Skylar:

3. Does your s/i have a full backstory yet? Or is it still in the works? If it's done can we see it?:

Skylar's backstory is pretty much done (I'm constantly adding/subtracting/moving things around but the core of it stays the same). Basically she's a bisexual disaster whose girlfriend joined the marines as a way to earn some money for them to leave home (very domestic), but her ship was blown to pieces by a pirate crew and she's presumed dead. Meanwhile, Skylar's parents are pretty archaic in their thinking (they run a huge business empire, both legal and on the black market, and their goal has always been to keep it in the family), they're also violently homophobic (and don't believe people can be into more than one gender, so the fact Skylar was in love with a woman is her "choosing" a side in their minds), and there's the implication of a sorta conversion therapy kinda thing that happens in between her girlfriend leaving and the start of the actual story. The week before the story starts it's decided she's been "good" enough to allow some freedom once again, and one day when a certain yellow submarine pulls into the harbor, Skylar makes the snap decision to run away (she's dealt with emotional and physical abuse for a very large chunk of her life, so even though it's not a well thought out plan and could very likely get her killed, she'd rather try to leave than stay under their thumb). She does end up getting caught (of course) and convinces Law she's just an idiot (no bad intentions towards his crew) and he does agree to let her live, but even after getting to the next island she ends up right back on his sub and they bargain for her to work on the sub in exchange for room and board (she thinks it's because nobody else wants to cook, but part of Law's reasoning is she dropped a comment about the black market and "some guy named Joker" that her parents are always talking about, and while she doesn't know who Joker actually is or anything about it, Law's gears are spinning and he figures he can use her for information somehow in the future)

And then shenanigans 😂😂

4. How did your s/i feel when they first met your f/o(s)? How do they feel about them now?

She was terrified of him 😂😂 Skylar absolutely knew who's ship she was sneaking onto but she chose to do it anyway, and he threatened to remove her limbs the first night they met lol but she does grow to care for him pretty quickly. She's a very emotional person, which helps her read emotions in others a lot easier than most, so she can read him really well (which tbh terrifies him and pisses him off for a long time until he stops being a butt about his own feelings lol)

8. Does your s/i have any kind of powers?

Skylar has a so far unnamed devil fruit, but it's kind of a mixture of a few existing ones (i had already come up with hers before I saw them in canon so I tried to make it work so it wasn't the same lol) technically the ability is the ability to manipulate light particles (inspiration from marvel's Invisible Woman ✌). She mostly uses it to camouflage herself/turn invisible, but she eventually learns a sort of force field technique (like the hardened light bridges in portal 2) and that same technique can be used as a way to "fly" in some cases (but it's very draining so she doesn't use it often when she does learn it). She also ate the fruit totally on accident, thinking it was something else, and is really upset that she can't swim anymore, but can't deny it REALLY comes in handy lol

Hazel:

3:

So when I said self-indulgent I meant it lmao she's Luffy's older sister (blood relative), older by 4 years (so older than Ace and Sabo by 1 year. She's the BIG sister lol). Most of her backstory follows the same as Luffy's, though she definitely caused less trouble. She also can't really remember their parents despite being 4 when he was born (it's not too farfetched, especially if they went to Foosha Village when they were that young), but she can remember snippets of Dragon's face, and a voice she thinks is her mother's if she tries hard enough. The biggest thing is that she can remember the first time she saw her baby brother, and how he seemed to be beaming at her even as a newborn, and her "older sibling" instinct immediately set in (the stronger Luffy gets the less he needs her to "protect" him, but she's always going to, and that extends to the other 2 as well later on). Unfortunately this does turn into a sort of maternal instinct for a while, and she has a kind of maturity complex, but after more adults join the crew and tell her "YOU ARE STILL A LITERAL CHILD GO HAVE FUN" she eventually chills out a little lol

4.

Soooo I haven't actually decided who she'd end up with, if anyone, yet lol the thirsty part of me says Law, but I think she'd fit with Nami or even Zoro well too (and unfortunately I think she'd fit really well with Ace as well but that treads into iffy territory that I'm not sure how to navigate yet)

Either way: with Zoro she spends the whole first day with him on the crew apologizing for Luffy's antics (he no longer cares), she's honestly initially suspicious of Nami (nobody wants to hear it though), but now both girls are fiercely protective of each other, with Law he'd just finished patching her up after Marineford, she shouldn't even be moving around yet, and she pulls a knife on him that he better not try anything funny with Luffy (highkey overprotective since he's now her ONLY brother and on the brink of death), but after Luffy recovers she comes to respect him, and at Punk Hazard she's one of the first to trust him with the alliance (though he does make a few quips about her almost stabbing him, which she shrugs off).

She actually got into quite a few fist fights with Ace when they first met for "being mean to Luffy", but with everything that happens with those kids she comes to love him deeply and is devastated by his death (I kinda feel like if anything were to have happened between them it would've been while they were teenagers, mostly due to hormones but the feelings were still real, but they decided not to pursue it further and he left to become a pirate while she stuck around to wait for Luffy, so by the time they're adults it's no longer romantic love? Idk yet lol I started shipping them on accident and now I have to make it work without it being...yikes lol)

8.:

Hazel doesn't have any devil fruit powers, but she does have a robot leg (lost it in Enies Lobby, Franky hooked her up. Complete with knee-pistol and roller blade), and during the time skip she first learns some basic Fishman Karate from Jinbei before he goes back to Fishman Island, and then she trains with Hancock and the Kuja Pirates (which only happens as a favor to Luffy, and even then ONLY because she's his sister and therefore not a rival lmao)

[quicklyseverebird]

Adoption arguements

I am posting the full history of this conversation to give context, and leaving off the name of the speaker because I don’t want this to be a hatchet job or have it look like I want this person hassled.  Ultimately the position is what I want to address, not the person, who is undoubtedly sincere.But sincerity doesn’t mean right. This came about from a post discussing the value of adoption where this individual pointed out many adoptees have complaints. I choose to do this this way mostly because I don’t want to feel limited by the PM system, and because I have very strong feelings following this exchange.

 Them:

If you can, check out the following links to see what I mean. https://twitter.com/DebbieGarratt/status/1188565960061378560?s=19 https://twitter.com/DebbieGarratt/status/1188585006311989248?s=19 https://twitter.com/DebbieGarratt/status/1188592298021404674?s=19 Also, their living status doesn't outweigh adoptees' complaints about their adoptions if they're almost 4x more likely to attempt suicide.

And this too: https://adoptionsurveysblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/14/results-in-adult-adoptee-perceptions-in-closed-adoption/

[for reference, the twitter posts says this]:

Me:

I'm a little bit confused as to what you are debating? That adoption carries hardship and some mental trauma? Sure. Life has that too. Would it be better if adoption took place within the family? Of course! I think anyone would agree with that so long as family isn't abusive or drug ridden. I HATE what that woman said in the twitter. What kind of monster do you have to be to say that to a child? Talk about causing mental trauma... And no, the fact that they are alive definately outweighs any other factor. Unless you're going to argue that a higher percentage of suicide means they are better off dead to begin with? If so, will you advocate for the death of transgender people who have suicide rates 20 x the national average? That's absurd. Adoption comes with hardship, absolutely. hardship increases chances of suicide, matter of fact. I would like to see those graphs plotted against a random selection of the population to see how they compare to norms. I didn't happen to see the 4x figure. but then I'm trying to get to bed now, lol. I'm just confused as to what your position is. Abortion is better than adoption?

Them:

No, I am a pro-lifer and so is Debbie and some of these adoptees. We just don't think that claiming another person's child as your own is a beneficial or necessary way to care for a child from a crisis pregnancy. It's because many pro-lifers believe that it is that many adoptees are turned off by the pro-life movement. Legal guardianship is a good way to take in a child who doesn't have any relatives who aren't willing or able to care for them, but adoption is not necessary and can and often does cause a lot of the trauma that's described in those links.  As for what kind of monster would say that to an adoptee, it's the same kind of monster who will say to a homosexual, "that 'love is love' and 'born this way' lines are nothing more than propaganda and I was a fool to believe otherwise". This is what adoptees will say because they know this first-hand and they know that they're far from alone in this.

Me:

I just...I can't fathom ever saying that kind of thing to a child. Talk about destroying a child's confidence and self image and making them suicidal. I can't think of a single child that line could ever help. The lines to a homosexual are bad because they are wrong. Telling an adoptee they are special is not only kind, it is also true. After all, they ARE special. Each one is special to God, and each one is made special by the love of others for them. They WERE chosen, literally! To say to a child, "no, you were unwanted and not special, but that's ok, you're not less than anyone else..." I mean, that literally sends two opposite messages. I don't know if you are a Christian, but God himself says that we, as believers are adopted sons and daughters of God. The term is applied to us. And once again, if there is someone in the family that could take them in, that's great. We agree on that, certainly. And I believe the courts do as well. That's a form of adoption, in fact. But if they can't, then adoption outside the family would be the next step. Any family will have its issues, but I believe adoption is a net positive outcome situation. I don't...I just don't understand what you are fighting against.

Them:

You're misunderstanding what we're talking about. The grown adoptees are not saying to an adoptee that he/she isn't inherently special or chosen. They're saying to him/her that his/her parents didn't adopt him/her for those reasons, but because it was their last resort after trying to have children of their own. They're pointing out the selfish and covetous reasons for adopting a child that have little (if anything) to do with the child's best interests at heart. That's the reality with many adoptive parents and adoptees are sick of them trying to pretend otherwise. As for what we're fighting against, you're confusing taking in a child and caring for him/her to always mean adoption, but that's not the case. Adoption, as it is defined in the adoption community, is only one way of doing it. Another way to do it is with legal guardianship even if the child isn't related to the family. The difference between that and adoption is that adoption involves the extra step of the family severing the child's ties with his/her original family and claiming them as their own. That is the thing that adoptees and their allies find problematic and unnecessary and different from biblical adoption (which only involves adults being adopted for inheritance purposes) and that's what we're fighting against. Despite what adoptive parents and adoption agencies will tell you, blood ties are important because they make up a huge part of a person's origins and identity. It's one thing to choose or be chosen as part of a spiritual family, but it's another thing to completely severe ties with your original family to try to replace them with someone else. God wants us to honor our parents, including our biological parents, and that's really hard to do when our connections with them have been cut in all but DNA and our blood ties have been rendered insignificant.

Me:

Ok, you've given me a lot to think about and I believe I understand a little better what your position is, but before I reply, I need you to answer a couple questions to help me understand better how to do so. Were you adopted? Do you have children?

Them:

Neither, but I do know people in and outside my family who were teen/single moms and some people in real life who were adopted. And I used to have that pro-adoption mindset, until I saw some things that helped me understand what adoptees must feel about their parents rejecting/abandoning them. And not long after, I started doing research and reading a lot of testimonies from adoptees and bio moms (who are not always mutually exclusive, BTW) about the trauma that they've experienced from the relinquishment. There are whole blogs about it on Facebook and all over the Internet with a bunch of testimonies from writers, followers, and commenters. You can Google them and see what they have to say. And when you do, please just listen to them instead of trying to argue with them about adoption because they've already been through that and they're sick of it. There's also scientific research about it with biology and social science fields that you can also Google.  Also, take note that just because some adoptee may seem happy with their adoptions doesn't mean that they actually are. They might actually be hiding their true feelings, in denial about it, or not having processed the trauma that they experienced at a young age. Many of the dissatisfied adoptees that I've heard from were once in that position.

  Ok, deep breath.  

First off, I think you are over-simplifying things enormously.  And I think you fail to keep things in perspective.  Are there bad parents, whether they adopt or not? Yes.  Do some people adopt for the wrong reasons, or because they have no other option?  Yes. Do some people have kids of their OWN for the wrong reasons?  Yes.  I think you are so focused on this one aspect of family life that you fail to remember that there are $****ty people everywhere. That parents can mess up, that kids can get hurt, no matter how they became a part of a family.  Everything you say about adoptee kids above, can be said by natural children.  You speak about how many websites there are from adopted kids talking about their hardships.  Did you ever check to see how many websites there are about natural children talking about their families?  Heck, that’s practically a rite of passage and a badge of honor these days for kids to complain about how much their families messed them up.  If you wanted to make some kind of definitive statement about the value of adoption, you need to compare it to a baseline, which I don’t see that you have.

Now, I agree with you that separating kids from their families is a hardship. Would it be better for them to be “adopted” (by whatever form, or however you want to call it, becoming a part of a new set of guardians) within their extended family so they retain a sense of their roots?  Certainly. However, that is not always possible, or even desirable for a multitude of factors.  Would you force the family to keep a child they didn’t want for the hypothetical value you think it would gain in being part of such a family?  I would hope not.  I think you oversimplify the types of adoption there are too.  Not everything is closed.  I have friends who adopted a child through the foster system that regularly sees his biological grandparents, even though the parents didn’t want him. There is a whole spectrum of adoption formats, each having their own unique dynamics and struggles.

Now I also agree with you that adopted kids are likely to have some unique struggles of their own.  Some hardships that natural children aren’t going to have.  Some will be unique to their circumstances, such as feelings of abandonment and issues of self worth because of their birth mother giving them up. Some will be due to the genetics or condition of their birth.  You talk about adopted kids having a suicide rate 4x higher than the norm.  Assuming that’s true, there are other factors at work here that could contribute to this apart from them just being “adopted.” Many women who give up their babies have medical, genetic, mental or drug issues that lead to their not only giving up the child, but having it in the first place.  How many adoptee kids are born with damage due to their mother’s drug or alcohol use?  How many kids are given up because they themselves have medical issues their parents don’t want to deal with?  My pastor adopted a daughter who has had lifelong struggles with medical issues almost certainly due to her mother’s lifestyle and who was surrendered for adoption in part because of those medical issues.  These things are present in a higher concentration among adoptees than the general public, which itself would lead to a higher risk of mental illness and suicide.  You are only looking at one factor, adoption, and making a simplistic correlation:  If X is with Y than Y is caused by X, ignoring factors A, B, C and Z.

Once more I want to freely admit that people can adopt for the wrong reasons.  Absolutely true.  But, how many people have babies for equally wrong reasons?  Which child has it better: the one who was adopted by a loving family because mom was a crack addict and got knocked up by her pimp, or a child conceived and kept by the biological mother so she could collect child support from the baby daddy?  Chances are, over all, the adopted child has it better.  While there is value in knowing where you come from, good or bad (think about the huge popularity of ancestry.com and similar sites, even if knowing your ancestors came from 20 different countries has no meaningful effect on your day to day life), it is not a magical panacea that cures all things. Often, that knowledge can be just as damaging, or moreso, than ignorance is.  Substitute “child” for “adoptee” in your comments above and the result would be equally true.  Not to mention you fail to consider the dynamic of “The Review.”  When you’re looking to purchase an item online, you will check the reviews to see what people think.  The problem here, is that, statistically, the only people who tend to comment are the ones who either had a GREAT experience with it and want to share, or the people who had a horrible experience and want to vent.  The vast majority don’t bother and continue on with their lives.  Only the vocal ones are seen and noted.  Its why anecdotal evidence is meaningless.  Now your statistical data has some value, but without a comparison to a control, it’s useless.  Some 30% or so of them have considered suicide in the past.  Ok, but what % of people in general consider suicide at some point in their life?  I did myself, and I’m not an adoptee.

Now to get to the issue that has me fired up.  That quote by Debbie and your claim that telling kids “the truth” that they aren’t special has some value.  Now I understand that what you mean is, telling kids they weren’t adopted BECAUSE they were special.  But saying that to a child, and telling them they were adopted because they weren’t wanted by their parents, and the adopted parents wanted them because they couldn’t have kids of their own is….is…

I want to be clear here. I am not using hyperbolic language. I am not trying to be dramatic.  I am giving my diagnosis of such an approach, as a mother with a teen daughter.

This.  Is.  Evil.  

And I don’t mean that in a nebulous, general sense.  I mean, telling that to a child, any child, at any age, or even an adult, is doing the literal Devil’s work.  This is beyond despicable, beyond selfish.  This is wicked, horrible, evil and cruel.

Now you and Debbie couch it in terms of, “well it’s just the truth, give up the fairy tale.”  No.  You are missing the point entirely.  Even if everything you said is technically true, and they were given up because their parents were horrible people, and they were adopted by horrible people, you’re still wrong.  Someone is not made special because of who gave birth to them or who adopted them. They aren’t made special by their family.  Every single woe you declare present in the life of an adopted child would be made worse by them hearing such a statement.

Now before you respond with indignation and outrage, saying “but what we really mean is…”  I want you to think about how this would sound if said to a non-adopted child.  Because in large part it can be.  Everything Debbie said could be applied to many children:

“You aren’t chosen, you aren’t special.  You were born even though your parents didn’t want you, couldn’t afford you, or were forced to.”  You can even riff off of this same idea with, “You were just born because your parents forgot to wear a condom, or Mommy was trying to get Daddy to marry her, or they were drunk one night, etc, therefor you aren’t special.”  Same exact energy.

If I said that to a child from the inner city, living with his single mother, you would be horrified. It doesn’t matter if I followed it up with a:  “Oh by the way, you’re not less than anyone else, you aren’t here because of a sin and you deserve to be here.”  The only thing you or that child is going to hear and remember is the first part, and it, quite frankly, refutes and negates anything said in the second half.  Saying that to a child will scar them.  Because, in fact, that child IS special, regardless of the circumstances of its birth.  And it quite likely is wrong anyways, since it’s based on a host of simplistic assumptions.

Seriously now, you talk about the hardships adoptees face due to their circumstances and you honestly believe telling a child, or even an adult, who is already struggling with self worth and their identity, what Debbie says, is going to help them?  Are you insane?  If someone is struggling with depression, will telling them they aren’t special, but buck up anyways, is going to help?  Will it help someone who is part of a population with 4X the suicide rate?  Will it help anyone?

The answer is no. Because it is a lie framed as a “brutal/honest truth,” and to say it to anyone, especially a child, is literally evil. Even if it WERE true, as the Bible says, “speak the truth in love.”  There is no love in that statement.  Adoptees face many struggle, by your own arguments.  You aren’t helping.

[toomanysurveys9]

Do you prefer apple cider or chai? apple cider for sure.

Do you prefer pumpkin spice tea, pumpkin spice coffee, or no pumpkin spice? no pumpkin spice. Have you ever made a stupid mistake? well, yeah. i’m human. we all make stupid mistakes. Do you ever feel insecure? yeah. all the time. and it’s super bad right now. What does your trick-or-treat bag or pail look like? i don’t have one. i’m an adult and no longer go trick or treating. i do need to get one for wy this weekend though since halloween is next week. How old will you turn on your next birthday? twenty-six.

What are your plans to celebrate? probably just hang out with family as always. What floor do you live on? i live in a house, but our room is upstairs. Do you have a balcony? nope. we do not. Do you ever feel alone? yeah. i feel that way a lot. Do you ever feel afraid people will question your sanity? i guess so.

Do you like fall evenings or mornings better? evenings. i’m not a huge morning person, regardless of season.

What is your favorite way to spend a fall evening? cuddled up inside. or maybe a bonfire.

What is your favorite way to spend a fall morning? sleeping. lol. my morning routine stays the same regardless of the season. wyatt and i wake up, and we go downstairs to eat breakfast. then he gets a diaper change. the usually we will play together, although this week he’s been busy playing with lilli and rose since they’re on fall break, so i bounce/rock on the exercise ball and do some surveys. What is your favorite fall drink, if you had to pick just one? apple cider for sure.

Which X Factor audition(s) was/were your favorite? i don’t watch it so couldn’t say.

Were you a straight A student in spelling and grammar? for the most part, yes.

Were you a straight A student in math? no. usually i got b’s in math.

Would you rather wear orange or black? black. i don’t like orange that much. i never have. Were you abused or do you know anyone who was abused? i was and i know a lot of others who were as well. Are you scared of something right now? yeah. being pregnant forever. ha.

Are you a democrat or republican, or neither? kind of somewhere in the middle i think.

Do you plan on voting in this November’s election? yeah, depending on eliana.

Do you have trouble keeping your room clean? not so far since jacob spends less time in there.

Who would take care of you if you needed surgery? my mom mostly. maybe jacob on occasion.

Do you have anyone that you can rely on? my parents. sometimes jacob.

Do you tend to wake up early or sleep in? depends entirely on wyatt.

Do you wish you could wake up earlier? i don’t really enjoy waking up early..

What is the name of your favorite coffee shop in your town? i usually just go to dunkin’ if i want iced coffee.

What is fall weather usually like where you live? cool. usually about 50-60s during the day, and 34-45s during the night.

Do you think you have an accent? not to those who live around here, no.

Have you been told you have an accent? i have been but it was weird.

Where do you live (country or state)? indiana.

Are there any churches you feel welcome at in your town? i don’t go to any churches.

If you could start a church, what would it be like? i wouldn’t do that. i’m not religious.

What color is your favorite laundry basket? i don’t have a favorite laundry basket. i just have our little tan one.

What color is your clothes hamper? tan laundry basket.

Do you use plastic, wooden, or wire hangers? my mom bought plastic ones when we moved in so that’s what i use.

What is your favorite shade of yellow? i don’t know. i guess a pale yellow that isn’t all up in your face.

Are there any shades of blue that you don’t like? If so, which ones? not really... i’ve never been a huge fan of, like, indigo, but i don’t mind it either.

What color eyeshadows look best on you? if i wear it, i use natural colors.

What is something you want to accomplish before you turn 30? i would love to get a job in my field.

Are there paper-thin walls where you live? kind of. or my sisters are just really freaking loud.

Do you feel happy today? i’ve been kind of happy i suppose. but bored.

Are you afraid of getting yelled at? no.. although i haven’t done anything to get yelled at about, so i would be confused.

Do you ever experience paranoia at random times? it’s not really random times.. it’s when i’m alone or when i go down the stairs to go bathroom early in the mornings.. i’m afraid someone is going to be standing outside our front door one of these times because we still haven’t got a curtain for the window on the front door so you can see right in.

Who has the best decorated house in your town? i have no clue.

What is your favorite part of Halloween? taking the kids trick or treating.

Do you think Halloween could be made into a Christian holiday? If so, how? i don’t know but it isn’t necessary regardless.

Is there a cemetery in your backyard? no, thank god. although i don’t mind them, that doesn’t mean i would want one in the backyard.

Do you feel a connection to the moon? can’t say that i do.

What does your heart long for? be the best mom and wife i can be and make people happy..

Do you know what your purpose in life is? take care of my babies!

If so, what is your purpose? Why are you here? ^^^

If you live in an apartment, what is the maintenance man’s name? i live in our house, so jacob and my dad does the maintenance stuff.

Did you decorate a pumpkin this year? we did this past sunday actually!

If not, will you decorate a pumpkin this year? we already did. :)

What are some fall activities you would do with your kids? we picked pumpkins and apples. read “fall/halloween” themed books (wyatt’s favorite is “there was an old lady who swallowed a bat”). maybe watch some movies, especially as he gets older (like harry potter, beetlejuice, etc). would like to go to the corn mazes, hayrides, and even haunted houses as they get older.

Have you ever seen a fox? only in zoos/animal sanctuaries.

What color are the squirrels where you live? i mostly see brown/black ones.

Do you find Halloween fun or scary? i love halloween, so i think it’s fun.

Is there anything about Halloween you find offensive? nope. nothing comes to mind.

What was the last thing you drank? water.

What do the trees look like where you live? the leaves are changing colors, so they’re pretty right now.

What is your dream vacation? i want to get out of the u.s. so maybe italy or the uk.

What was the best vacation you’ve been on so far? our florida trips were always amazing when i was younger. but the kentucky trip we took when wy was a few months old was great too, plus it was our first family vacation with him.

What is the best class trip you’ve been on? went to an amusement park for the day once. that was about it.

Did you like field trips when you were a kid? yeah. i loved field trips.

Do you find museums boring or interesting? i kind of like them actually.

What was your school’s rival team’s mascot? i don’t know. i never paid attention to any school sports in college or high school.

Do you wish you could do your life over again and make less mistakes? as long as it wouldn’t change current things going on too much.

What are three issues you are passionate about? animal abuse, child abuse, and suicide prevention.

What are three countries you have no desire to visit? i’m not sure, to be honest.

What are three countries you would like to visit? italy, u.k., and greece.

Do you like your country’s flag? sure. i don’t have any issues with it.

Would you ever wear a shirt with your country’s flag on it? i have before, and probably will again.

Do you have a bedspread or a comforter? comforter.

What size is your bed? queen, and it’s still not big enough. i still get kicked off the bed.

Do you prefer cotton or microfiber sheets? i think i’ve only ever used cotton..

Does anyone love you and support you? my husband, at least most of the time. and my parents and siblings i guess.

What’s a medicine that makes you sleepy? robitussin. knocks me right out.

Do you like bath bombs? i’ve never actually used a bath bomb. i don’t take baths really.

What was the best summer of your life? 2016 was a good one. i graduated college, got married, had fun with friends, and got pregnant with wy.

What year do you wish you could go back to? i’m okay to keep going forward.

What did your favorite homecoming dress look like? i never wore a dress to homecoming i don’t think.

Who is your favorite neighbor? don’t have a favorite. i don’t really know any of our neighbors.

What did you last have for lunch? i had two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches today.

If someone told you “trick” instead of giving you a treat, what would u do? nothing.

Would you ever be friends with an alien exchange student? yeah.. why wouldn’t i?

Who are your favorite small youtubers? i don’t care for youtube that much.

Who are your favorite big youtubers? ^^^

What was your favorite girl group when you were growing up? barlow girls. ha. it was a christian girl band i really enjoyed.

Do you like Disney movies? i love disney movies.

Were you ever in the popular crowd? ha. no. not even close.

If not, do you want to be popular? i never cared to be popular, and i still don’t.

Would you rather live in a log cabin or Smarthouse? i don’t know. probably a log cabin. i think the smarthouse might get annoying.

Have you ever used an outhouse? no. closest i got was the port-a-potty and i avoid using those at all costs.

What does your middle name rhyme with? see.

What was the name of the first dorm you lived in? i never lived in a dorm.

Were your college years the best years of your life? not the best, but there was  a lot of fun times. i don’t remember them all. ha.

[ursae-minoris-world]

Fans tend to forget that most Voltron viewers are casual viewers who don’t notice all the foreshadowing

I think a lot of people get frustrated with Voltron’s writing because sometimes it feels like we’re waiting for so long between the moment when we suspected something due to foreshadowing and the big reveal. What makes it worse is that in the meantime we keep projecting how we would like it to happen. And with fanfiction writers, comic artists and so on, we also see how others see it and we get excited about it, and sometimes are a bit disappointed when what happens in the show is not how we expected.

For instance, one of the first things that lets you suspect that Keith might have galra blood is in “return to the Balmera” when he interacts with Galra technology with his hand and it works. At least it’s the first thing I’ve personally noticed (I know he had his knife since episode one, but you couldn’t conclude much about it aside that it seemed important to him). And then evidence piles up, and the wait is kind of agonizing specially considering how we see Keith getting anxious about it...until the actual reveal in “Blade of Marmora”, 12 episodes later, right ?

Well yes, if you noticed this. Thing is... I’m pretty sure most viewers don’t.

Look, I’ve got 3 irl friends who are watching Voltron. They’re all adults, and I wouldn’t even call them “casual watchers” because they can be quite analytical in the media they consume, and some of them are actually storytellers themselves (in one case in a professional way as the person is a comic artist). At least two of them had realized Pidge’s identity from the photo in the pilot episode (which I had missed hahaha), so they’re definitely not blind.

None of them had caught that anything was weird with Shiro after his return. They all were REALLY surprised and not entirely convinced when I talked to them about clone theory and possible brainwashing.

In my case, when Shiro (or Kuron) escaped in “the Journey”, I was already wary at how easy his escape was, and was wondering if it was set up. When he saw that operation room with that other Shiro strapped to the table... for me it was such a punch in the gut that I literally had to pause the episode while cursing like a sailor and trying to catch my breath. Seriously.

Well... None of my friends had noticed anything. They just thought it was part of Shiro / Kuron’s flashback, and they hadn’t thought that usually his flashbacks are triggered by something...

So I asked one of my friends when she had started noticing about Keith’s origins. She told me “well given he looks entirely human, I hadn’t suspected anything at all until the Blade of Marmora episode.”

I’m putting the rest behind a "read more” because as usual this got really long.

Same with Keith becoming a Blade. I think a clever viewer realizes as soon as he sees the BOM episode that it looks kind of like an initiation. I personally only realized it in “Best laid plans” when Kolivan stepped in when Keith wanted to go on what he called a “suicide mission”. I thought something along the lines of “wait Kolivan why are you stepping in here he’s not one of your... oh sh!t he is one of your Blades now, isn’t he ?!” and Thace calling Keith a fellow Blade cemented it. So I got excited : are we going to see Keith join the Blades next season ? But, it was not addressed at all in s3, so I thought the show wasn’t going that route and that I had gotten excited over nothing. And then season 4 , 13 episodes after the BOM episode ? Keith joins the Blades. I was super excited first and then when he left Voltron I thought  “nooo I wanted it BUT NOT LIKE THAT !!!” lol.

I haven’t asked any of my friends about that. But I bet the casual watcher’s reaction is... to not think about this at all until they see Keith being a Blade in “Code of Honnor” and go “Oh ! Cool ! Keith’s a Blade, now !”

From the 2 more in depth conversations I had, my friends hadn’t noticed anything about Keith and Shiro’s backstory either, aside from “they knew each other”. They hadn’t realized at all that Keith got expelled from the garrison around the time where the Kerberos mission failed, and that those facts could be linked. We’re all here, trying to imagine it, writing / reading I don’t know how many “pre-kerberos” metas, fanfictions, fancomics, edits, etc. The average viewer probably just realizes they knew each other and seemed to be friends (and some even miss that). Even if they are curious about the back-story in the moment, when they don’t get it they don’t think much about it.

And look at Allura’s space magic ark : there are 17 episodes between Allura using magic to heal the Balmera, and her using it again against Haggar in “Blackout” ; then 13 episodes again before she uses it in “a New Defender”, and then 6 before the “White Lion”. Frustrating ? Yes. I bet the average, casual viewer, doesn’t think much about it and goes “oh, right, she does have space magic, that’s cool !” when she does use it.

And 23 episodes between Keith’s dad explaining that Keith’s mom gave him the BOM knife in “Blade of Marmora” and Keith finally finding Krolia in “Bloodlines”. But not every watcher expected Keith to find his mom. I know I hoped he’s find some answers, but I didn’t expect him to actually find her.

So here we are, waiting for season 6, and being impatient that “project Kuron” ark to finally come to an end, because we have been worried about it since season 3. Well, if, like me, the foreshadowing about Shiro’s arm being used to alter his memories in “Shiro’s escape” (s2) made you worry, then you’ve been anxious about it quite some time now.

After all, it’s been 14 episodes since “the Journey” so it feels about time for this to come to an end... Which is not that much longer than for Keith’s galra reveal (13 episodes) or Keith becoming a Blade (13 episodes). I admit it’s a particularly distressing ark : for “Kuron” who is in a dreadful situation ; for Shiro, if there is a double, because if that’s not Shiro... where is Shiro ? Is he ok ? Is he even alive ?! (oh please let him be alive). For the rest of the team, because of the way Haggar uses Kuron to spy on them. For Keith because he will be impacted by anything that affected Shiro, and because it really seems to me that his departure from Voltron was at least in part due to feeling rejected by Shiro (and the team).

But the casual viewer ? The casual viewer has only realized something was wrong in season 5 when he saw Haggar actually watch through Kuron’s eyes, and with the mindscape incident. He’s certainly hooked now on what will happen next, but not nearly as worried as the viewer who has suspicions since s3 (or even before).

And those viewers ? The viewers who catch the foreshadowing, and who try to see what’s coming ? They are a very little part of the general viewership of the show. And I’m just talking about the engaged viewer who notices stuff. The fans who discuss all that online, listen to every interview, dissect the show image by image, write long metas, or fanfictions or create art around it ? A very very small fraction of the viewership. We’re immersed in it; because well... we interact, and because we see those who interact (for the best and the worse) with the various creators of the show but... a lot of the viewers just enjoy their episodes, don’t dwell on them, and move on until the next season.

Voltron is written in layers so that different kinds of viewers can enjoy it !

Don’t forget that the most important target are young children who might want to play with the toys. Most of them will enjoy the fight sequences, the action, the funny stuff. Later, they’ll remember something like “oh I watched this show, the transformation sequence was cool, my fav lion was the red one and my fav character was Pidge !” and maybe a few of the most significant plot events. Maybe.

Older children might catch a bit more of the story, character arks, and themes. And start to enjoy the more emotional scenes.

The casual teenage or adult viewer will just... go with the flow and enjoy the plot twists when they happen.

The fans of the 80′s Voltron (another target, specially considering that they can have children in the age of watching too)  will mostly either enjoy the changes, or be frustrated about them. They will enjoy shout outs like Sven in “Hole in the Sky” or Allura’s pink armor, and so on. Other than that, their level of involvement can vary from “casual viewer” to “fan”.

Attentive viewers will notice some foreshadowing. They’ll probably be more engaged than the casual watcher because they’ll be more curious about how things will get solved. They might get frustrated when it takes to long to unfold, but mostly they should enjoy the story. (That was me while watching the first 2 seaons). I think attentive watchers are already a minority in the viewership. Honestly, most people I know are not that analytic about what they watch, and are casual watchers, whatever they’re watching.

And then, fans who are attentive watchers but also discuss and exchange theories on internet, and as such, miss even less of the clues ? They are the most engaged, but obviously also the most frustrated. We notice the most, we get more excited about it, we have more expectations because, as we’ve seen the signs, we start thinking about how we would like the story ark to be solved. Even if it feels there are many fans because we see a lot of them in our online experience... they are a very small part of the general viewership.

So when people get frustrated that we don’t have the answers for everything yet, and say it’s bad writing that it takes so long, or that some stuff isn’t addressed immediately... I’d like them to consider that the show isn’t written only for them. It’s actually quite impressive that this cartoons provides enough depth for us to be involved that much, to make crazy theories because foreshadowing, to make big character analysis because they are that well developed. In many tv shows, even ones for adults, you just can’t analyze that far. Because there’s just not that much to analyze !

But at the same time, it is still targeted towards kids. And it is still meant mainly as, well... commercials for robot toys.

Also, Voltron is clearly written as one, long, story. The seasons are only chapters. It doesn’t work like, say... Doctor Who, where every season is a story ark on its own that reaches a conclusion. It is normal to still have questions at the end of a new season. When we will have all the answers... the story will have reached it’s ending !

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So yeah, just my take on this, and I might be wrong but... really, I keep seeing fans being frustrated and considering that every watcher experiences the cartoon as they do but... I know that they don’t. A lot of people don’t.

And yes, people, it’s a cartoon for children. Stop comparing it to stuff written only for adults. Here the writers have to juggle so that children stay engaged and that adult viewers still have fun. And they managed to have a part of the viewers who have become deeply engaged fans. Honestly, I find it quite amazing.

[emptynarration]

Verses and AUs (Long Edition)

All these AUs can work with either Host or Author. I’ll write down only the Host option, though in the Human AU Author’s human name is also stated.

Most of these verses have been made from my old version of Host. Said Host is small, sort of depressed, pretty sad and soft. So the opposite of the new revamped Host. There might be differences in how I write Host due to having those two versions of Host.

I’ll make a second page for verses keeping my old version of Host in mind, which will be linked with every AU that has it.

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Human AU [Second Version]

Host is named Markus Barker. Sometimes uses Host as nickname.

He is either: Born blind (sclera/pupil milky).                       Blind due to a disease (Neuromyelitis Optica).

He lives on his own with his pets. He either:     Lives in his cabin in the forest.                       Lives on the outskirts of town with a garden.

He has an older brother (Arthur, world-wide known author).

He works on a rather popular podcast as main-narrator. He also either: Works at a radio station.                    Stays at home (financial help from his brother).

Can also go with human Author, the aforementioned brother of Host.

Both can also exist without brother.

Human Slave AU:

Host is named Markus Barker. Host is his nickname though

He is either: Born blind (sclera/pupil milky).                       Got his eyes gouged out by an owner.

He had been sold as slave when he had been a young child (around 4 y/o?).

Medieval AU: [Second Version]

Host is named Markus Barker.

He’s a servant for a noble household, with bad eyesight. He hates it there, but there’s nothing he can do if he doesn’t want to end up on the street. Even if that means being treated like dirt.

Royal AU: [Second Version]

Host is named Markus Barker.

He’s a rather young king (20-25) because his parents died in a tragic “accident”.

He’s rather strict, but very open-minded and protective of his kingdom.

He is as good as blind, only able to see colours and shapes, due to an accident as child.

in case of magic, his situation with Alden is pretty much the same, though they keep it hidden.

Neko AU: [Second Version]

He is named Host (by his mother)

He is 2'4"

He was born blind (sclera/pupil milky).

He is biologically female but identifies as male.

He was taken away from his mother from a very young age (too young to be taken away from his mother).

His first real owner mistreated him terribly.

He’s angry at the world and hates people, not afraid of them even with his very small size.

Broken Host AU:

This Host is based on the old fandom interpretation after MarkiplierTV:

Dark is at cause for taking Author’s eyes, in exchange for power.

Due to that Host is one of Dark’s “pawns” and is forced to tell him about visions and things in the future as soon as possible.

Due to basically abuse he was mentally broken by Dark.

He is extremely obedient to Dark.

He’s covered in scars and brandings (burn scars).

He doesn’t speak a lot.

He gets lost in his head, and especially in his narrations, a lot.

Angel AU:

Host is named Markus (he was once human).

His pupils are white (eyes usually covered up by a cloth)

He is a collector of souls from dying people.

He can see the souls of living beings with his eyes uncovered (but not allowed to do so technically).

His wings are white, the feather-tips golden.

Knows English more or less.

Mermaid AU: (other versions depending on size!)

Host goes by the name of Host.

He had almost been caught once by humans, which resulted in the loss of his eyesight, and thick scars over his eyes.

His scales are golden. His fins are slightly see-through, and tipped green. His ears are fins. He has fins on his underarms. He has scales on his shoulders and arms.

He has scales that glow in the dark, and markings on his face which also glow in the dark (not visible unless glowing)

He’s a siren, and thus can speak and understand English.

Underwater mermaids communicate via clicking sounds (kinda like morse code, but different).

Fairy AU: (Basically an OC shhh) (More extra info here)

Host is named Rhosyn, but may go by the name Host as well.

He is a (flower) fairy.

He can change his size, between 0.5 inches and 3 feet.

His wings are large and slightly see-through. Golden in colour, with intricate swirls covering them.

(The rest of his looks)

He lives in a small flower field he takes care of by himself.

He is blind, but has learned to see magic.

Every living thing (from humans, to fae, to plants) have magic to some amount, which he can see and tell what he is looking at.

Harpy AU

Host has no name he goes by, but will let anyone name him

He is 8 inches tall

He’s a brown thrasher harpy

He has slightly darker skin (than Mark), short, like brown fuzz on his head resembling hair; white feathers with dark spots on his chest and hips down his thighs, where his legs then turn into bird’s feet; dark brown, almost black eyes. His wings have light brown feathers.

He mainly eats fruits, berries, nuts and insects

He isn’t afraid to attack anything larger than him, going so far as to attack humans if he has to

Forest Deity AU (It’s basically an OC shh)

Host goes by the name Elvin, since the forest he lives in is called Elvin Forest (Elvin means friend of elves)

He’s 5'3 tall

He has long dark brown hair, reaching his mid-back. His eyes are the color of tree resin/amber, the colour looking different depending on the light. He has “antlers”, long branches growing from his head and upwards. They change with the season; growing leafs and flowers; but are always decorated with little trinkets. He’s always bare-footed.

He is “bound” to one tree, which would hurt and kill him if it were chopped down. But he is also the heart of the forest, feeling with it, and it feeling with him

He has magical powers, and can talk to plants, trees and animals

For the people he is something of a myth: some people pray to him, some people ask for help or advice, some don’t believe in him

Fused AU:

Host isn’t a regular ego but also is an ego

TBH I’m uncertain about the lore of this either I’d say all egos are fused or this is a punishment made by Dark or smth

Host is “fused” with his recording equipment

Headphones always on his head, microphone in a metal mask strapped over his mouth

A rig on the back of his chair connected to his arms and hands which controls his movement. He can’t stand up

(Inspired by this drawing, and how he looks like in the AU)

Little Demon AU:

Host is a demon, still called Host

He is 7 inches tall

He has dark purple horns and two tails, and no bandages, but keeps his eyes closed

Looking into his eyes will cause the looker to be pulled into their own mind and be faced with their deepest and darkest fear

Host will be able to see that and interact with the person there, but also leave them there alone to suffer

He can “teleport” short distances, mostly through shadows

Doll AU: / It’s basically an OC shhh

Host is called Benjamin

He is a porcelain doll, 20 inches tall

He is typically asleep, and only comes to life and awakens after 4-5 days of constant care and love towards him

He stays alive through the love and care and want to have him alive from his owner, but also needs to be near them

If left alone and too far away from his owner for too long, his energy will slowly vanish throughout a few days. Making him tired, sluggish, and slow, until he can’t manage to walk anymore, and then can’t keep his eyes open

He was made in 1667 and has been with 19 different people/families throughout his life

A/B/O AU: [Second Version]

If human, Host goes by Markus Barker, Host as a nickname.

He’s a little feminine looking, but due to his height, no one suspects he’s anything but an Alpha.

He’s an Omega. Takes suppressants and scent-blockers to hide this status though.

Child Host AU:

Normal Host technically, but Host is a child now.

He’s 3'3".

He looks the exact same pretty much.

He doesn’t have any memories of being an adult.

Alden is also affected by this, and is brought to a more child-like state.

Asylum AU

Host goes by the name The Host

He is locked in a cell because of hallucinations and unreliable behaviour

Eyes AU

Host still has his eyes

Author was actually more timid and nice and not lusting after power

Dark absolutely hates him because Host doesn’t let himself be manipulated

(Inspired by this picture)

Swap AU

Host is swapped with Dark

He is monochrome. He wears a black trenchcoat and black tights, as well as knee-high black combat boots. He has a bright strand of hair, no eyes, and bandages around his eyes.

Here’s some info about the swap AU and Host’s backstory

He is called Darkiplier in this AU (pronounced Dark-eplí-er? sorta french lol)

He talks in third person as a comfort mechanism

He doesn’t really have a goal like normal Dark (getting revenge on Actor) but he takes care of the other egos and keeps them safe and in check

He does his radio show still, but has no narrating powers

Forest Creature AU

Host had died in the forest wishing to be a part of it

He is still humanoid, but he is covered in moss, leafs, plants, etc, growing all over him. Flowers grew over his blind eyes.

He fell in love with Edward Iplier, but he died in his arms. He is alone.

Banished Author AU

Author was banished into the void by Dark due to Dark believing Author would grow to become very dangerous towards himself and others

He had been stuck in the void, all by himself, for years

Being stuck in the void, he doesn’t physically age, and has no bodily needs

The void seeped into him, mixed with him, changing him

While he still has his powers of writing, and they are still primarily that, the void is a part of him now in a way

Little Space: (nsfw-ish)

Normal verse Host

In headspace he’s either around 1 year or around 4-6 years old

He usually is alone in his room to be little on his own

He largely prefers to be diapered and wear soft clothes