#and also so I can remember where I am when I'm threading

[eightstarr]

at the count of three — ellie williams.

summary: how do you tell your best friend you’re in love with them? ellie has an answer! just be cool and wait for the right moment— and the next. and maybe another one, just to be sure. if you get impatient, you can always take a deep breath and count to three! (years, that is)

warnings: slow burn (childhood friends to lovers <3), little bit suggestive but no smut!

notes: born from a piece of dialogue i wrote like, a year ago and completely forgot about but somehow a week later it's 4k words? idk you're welcome or i'm sorry!!! also yes they do spend almost every scene sitting together on a couch but that's what lesbianism is all about...

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・。.・゜✧・. ────

ONE!

A movie plays on the TV, a slightly tarnished DVD of an 80’s action flick starring some oily guy and the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen— Ellie doesn't remember much other than an obnoxiously epic soundtrack and lingering shots that made the plot twist too obvious about 20 minutes in. 

She's freshly eighteen; you’re ahead only by a couple months. It's a warm Friday night, Joel and your dad in the kitchen putting scraps together for a mildly healthy dinner, Ellie sitting on the very opposite side of the couch from where you are. It’s hot, she'd said, looking away from your comically insulted face that grew with every scooch she made from your side, a lame excuse to save her from the newly found (and fucking torturous) fluttering that sparks in her stomach whenever she sits too close to you.

From the kitchen comes the sound of a can hitting the floor, followed by Joel’s 'shit!' and then quickly, 'sorry, girls'. You chuckle, turning to Ellie and catching her staring at you. A wrinkle forms between your eyebrows at the same time a pink warmth floods her cheeks. “Dude, you’re not even paying attention.”

“I am,” a scoff, her eyes now strictly committed to the screen. “The noise distracted me,” she adds, knowing it didn't even make her flinch from the careful study of your side profile.

“Scaredy cat— ow!” a pillow crashes against your cheek, sudden enough to shock you, too soft to do any real damage. “What the fuck?”

Ellie raises her eyebrows and looks at you from the corner of her eyes, a smirk half hidden by her hand. “Don’t be rude, you're missing the best scene.”

You throw the pillow back and scoff when she catches it, your lips slightly pursed, the signature sign to tell you’re annoyed. It's almost identical to the replica of that gesture that sits at the end of her last journal entry, an overly dedicated sketch born from a wandering thought. She could make it more accurate, she thinks now, soften the line of your jaw, take the scar on your cheek a little more to the left.

The sound of water splashing from the TV catches her attention and Ellie snaps her head forward (lest she get caught staring again), just as the blonde haired love interest is walking out of a fancy looking swimming pool.

“She’s hot,” you say, fingers pulling absentmindedly at loose threads on the rip of your jeans. When Ellie doesn't say anything, you turn to look at her, “You don't think so?”

Her voice comes out a higher pitch than she’d like. “What—” she clears her throat before continuing to mumble, “I don't know, I guess.”

You laugh. “You guess?” 

“Yeah, I— I don't know, dude, I wasn't thinking about that.”

You watch the nervousness on her face, the gulp that passes her throat, the red under her freckles. Fondness tugs at your chest and your voice softens just slightly, a smile playing on your lips. “Oh my God. Ellie, it’s okay,” green eyes find your face and she sees you hesitate for a second before you shrug. “Who cares? It's just me.”

You make it sound easy. It's the most distinct thing Ellie remembers about this moment, how suddenly safety felt like the most obvious thing. TV light on your face, your arm over the back of the couch, the same eyes she's been looking at since she was fourteen. Of course it's okay. Everything else with you is easy, why wouldn't this be the same?

Ellie shifts on the couch, the distance between you turning quickly ridiculous— offensive, even. She’s embarrassed to have let her flusteredness get in the way, but the urge to be closer doesn't feel right either. Everything she does feels like too much, everything she says too intense. “How long have you known?” she asks.

You tilt your head, less of a question and more of a guidance, “Known that you…”

Ellie parts her lips, unsure of whether or not she’s gonna say it or how, trying to will the words to come out. And they do, she remembers it well, because it was the first and maybe the only time she was this direct about it. “That I like girls.”

The smile on your face is teeth-rotting sweet, but she only gets to bask in it for a second before you widen your eyes and lower your voice to a scandalized whisper. “You what?”

Ellie rolls her eyes, cheeks burning, “Oh, fuck you.”

Your laugh fills up the room and the fluttering in her stomach feels absurd at this point, like she would actually be able to feel those annoying little butterflies flying around if she were to press her hand against her abdomen. “Sorry, sorry,” you say, and for a terrifying second Ellie thinks maybe they're loud too, and you’re able to hear them. But then she looks at you and forgets about it, easy easy easy. “It’s really okay. You know that, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says. For once, there's not a glimpse of doubt about it to be found.

You watch another ten minutes of the movie in silence before your dad's head peeks out from the kitchen to call you both to the table for dinner.

Ellie has a habit of eating like it's her last day on earth. When you were both new residents of Jackson, hungry and scared and not at all used to the idea of a full plate of food twice a day, she couldn't help it. And you were the same, hence why your dad thought it would be good for you and Ellie to spend time together, which quickly turned to being around each other basically every minute of every day. But as the weeks passed, you seemed to be learning to adapt faster. A younger Ellie found this frustrating— especially after that time Joel complimented your table manners.

You’re just… nicer, she remembers saying, a stressed frown on her still childlike face, fiddling with a box of marbles she’d found under her new bed. She remembers how you pulled one out, your fingers brushing against her own for the first time ever, and held the clear crystal with green stripes next to her eyes, a satisfied smile at a practically perfect match. You’re nice too, Els, you’d said, shrugging your shoulders, the marble shoved inside your pocket, I think I just lie better.

Until that moment, Ellie had never thought about it that way; the fact that you could be pretending to feel more confident and comfortable than you really are to make yourself safer, to get people to like you. But when she asked, you swore you had never lied to Ellie. She used to drive herself mad thinking about that, a strange, confusing worry gnawing at her chest— she likes that you don't feel the need to lie, but what does it say about how you see her? Is it that you don't care if she likes you? Or worse, is it that you know that she already does?

You sit in front of her today at the same dinner table, four years later, and watch her practically inhale her bowl of pasta like no time has passed at all. You let out a snort and Ellie wonders if you can see it even now, if her constant thoughts of you are obvious even when she looks this busy.

"What?" she asks, an immediate frown on her face, though she's done you the honor of swallowing her mouthful before speaking.

"You're so gross," you say, chin resting on your palm, tilting your head like you're looking at some thought provoking art piece. Ellie thinks you'll leave it at that, but then you reach over and swipe your thumb over the red spot of sauce next to the corner of her lips, so soft she barely feels it. You watch her frown soften for a second before it becomes even deeper.

Ellie feels like her whole body is exploding with warmth, too hot under the hoodie she's wearing, too pink across her face. It's so obvious, she thinks, it's so— fuck, pull it together. Her gaze follows your finger as you bring it to your lips and lick off the sauce. “You’re disgusting,” she retorts lamely, her hand rough when she brushes it over her mouth, lest you notice another stain and she has to watch you do that again.

You are familiarly not deterred by her meanness. Or her attempt at it. "And you eat like a five year old,” you shrug. “I guess we both have our issues."

Ellie catches herself staring at your hands for the rest of the meal, certain that she's never noticed them in the same way before. How much time has she been wasting? You both have your issues, you'd said, but Ellie thinks she has you beat. Yours can't possibly be anywhere near this dangerous.

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

TWO!

Someone's knocking on her door. Ellie sniffles and lets out a groan as she gets up from the couch, sore throat, her limbs heavy and tired. She knows it's you because it's always the same three knocks; the first two firm and loud, a pause, and then one tiny one that sounds almost like 'sorry'. You’re impatient but still painfully afraid to be rude— if she loved you a little less, Ellie thinks she would make fun of it a lot more. But alas, she's cursed to smile at it every time.

She opens the door and the breeze that slips in makes her fall immediately into an embarrassing coughing fit. “It’s fine,” she mutters, at the same time you’re saying jesus christ, Ellie. “Shit. I’m okay,” she clears her throat and finally gets a moment to look at you, all pretty and put together in your best shirt and a freshly showered scent, the sun setting behind you like a perfect frame. Ellie prays her lungs don't betray her again and tries to make the brush of her hand over her messy hair look casual instead of desperate.

“Well, I was gonna ask if you wanted to come to the party with me for just a few minutes, but… I’m not sure you should be out of bed,” your worried frown is pretty, too. What a cruel fate. “Is Joel home? I can stay—”

“No, no, you’re good,” Ellie shakes her head, arms crossed over her chest like maybe it’ll cover up enough and you won't notice she was wearing the same long sleeve the last time you saw her. “He’ll be here in like, five minutes. I’ll be fine, ’m not a baby.”

You’re both nineteen by this time, Ellie remembers because you wore the same pretty blue shirt that you're wearing now for her birthday, and it was the day she realized her crush was no longer deniable. It's easier to act like nothing’s happening when she feels like she's alone in it, like there's no universe where you could love her like she loves you so she might as well let the fantasy die— but then you put on your shirt that's reserved for special occasions just to come over and bring her the cupcake you made, and suddenly Ellie can picture herself with her hands on each side of your waist, pulling you close, saying thank you with her lips brushing against yours before she kisses you. She can see it so clearly that it startles her, changes everything. Her birthday comes with a punch to the gut and a hunger she wants to tell you and only you about.

“You’re not gonna be bored? I really don't mind staying until he gets home.”

Ellie thinks (dramatically, extremely nineteen—) that if she lets you take care of her, she might actually die. It felt like she almost did last time you visited, your face serious with concentration as you pressed the back of your hand against her forehead. ‘You're warm’, you said, ‘do you feel sweaty?’ Ellie stared up at you, eyes glossy and heavy from sleep. ‘Not really’, her fingers sneaked out from under the blanket to wrap themselves around your forearm, a moment of bravery or delusion, ‘your hand feels nice’. You chuckled, ‘okay, keep it’.

She’s less feverish today, but not yet recovered from the greedy voice in her head that begs her to keep you close. If you don't go to the party now, she thinks (knows) that she’ll let herself casually talk you into staying the rest of the night. “Nah, don't miss your party,” she says. “I’ll be okay, Joel’s gonna teach me how to play that old card game.”

You raise your eyebrows. “So you're gonna argue all night.”

“No— what?” Ellie scoffs. “It’ll be good, I learn fast.”

“Yeah, because you make up your own rules.”

“I have questions about the rules, that's not the same thing.”

“It is if you cheat—”

“I’m not a cheater!”

You hum, a curious tilt of your head, and Ellie rolls her eyes before the words are even out of your mouth. “No, I guess you’d have to have a girlfriend for that.”

You watch her run her tongue over her teeth, her shoulder against the door frame. “You know I could say the same to you, right?”

“Too bad I said it first,” you shrug, pretty smile stretching your lips. “I guess I'll go, then. I’ll come over when it's done so you don't miss me too much.”

Ellie tries to maintain her composure. You know, she thinks, do you know? You must know. You can't know— “Right. Also so you can steal my food and crash in my bed, I’m guessing.”

“When you’re all vulnerable and weak? What do you think of me, Ellie?” you frown sadly, a hand over your heart.

“I think I know you,” she says, the corner of her lips lifting just a little, inescapably.

You walk to the gate and turn around as you close the lock, your hands on either side of your mouth as if she’s miles and miles away. “I’ll take the couch!”

“Yeah, sure!” Ellie yells back, her voice pretty even when it's hoarse, knowing she’ll hold on for just about ten minutes before she insists you take the bed instead.

Joel stays awake with her until around 10pm, when his yawns become too many to hide and he’s already let Ellie win three games, his smile genuine and wide while she chuckles and pretends she doesn’t notice. He leaves her with a tupperware of soup for tomorrow’s lunch and a deck of cards. To teach your friends or— I don't know, keep on the coffee table, he’d said, make you look cool. Ellie’s not sure you would find a box of cards ‘cool’, but she’s not above trying.

Ever since she moved out to the garage, she’s discovered a new type of stress at the notion of having you over. At Joel’s house, all she ever did to prepare for guests was pick up the dirty clothes from her bedroom floor and put her books in a (wobbly) single pile. Now things are different. The garage is small, but it's all hers— her floor, her living room, her kitchen. She can't have you thinking that she can't take care of things on her own.

She spends the next hour moving things around until finally, two loud knocks. A second passes; Ellie looks at the cards and considers shoving them inside one of the drawers on her desk. By the time the one quiet knock comes, she shrugs and decides to leave them on the coffee table, lest Joel was right and she misses a chance to have you start thinking she's cool and mysterious. “It's open,” she says from the couch, tiredness soon catching up with her after all that time rearranging things.

The door opens and you come in, quickly closing it behind you, a relieved sigh at the loss of that crisp, cold breeze outside. “Did Joel forget those?” you ask, bent at the waist as you take your shoes off, your chin pointing at the deck, the only thing on the coffee table. Maybe she should've been more subtle with it.

“Uh, no,” Ellie scratches the back of her neck, her legs stretched across the couch. “They’re a gift.”

She's not sure you hear her over the groan you make as you stretch your arms above your head, her legs moved to the side automatically to make space for you to sit. You fall down with a sigh and both forget about the cards— you, distracted by the warm tingly feeling of a couple drinks, and Ellie by the new jacket you’re wearing.

She lets a million different scenarios spin around her head for a couple seconds before she blurts out the question. “Whose is that?”

“What?” you turn your head away from the movie playing on the TV.

“The jacket.”

“Oh,” you look down at yourself as if you’ve just remembered it’s there. “Maya was leaving too, so she walked here with me. It’s hers.”

Ellie hums, her back sliding a little further down the couch, legs spread. “Stinks like it’s hers.”

You chuckle before you can help it, her animosity ridiculous and charming— Ellie’s better with actions than she is with words. “I don't even know what you're talking about,” you shake your head, not quite slurring, but not too far from it either. "She smells like strawberries."

Fuck Maya and her strawberry shampoo. Ellie could get some if she wanted to, maybe if she traded— what the fuck is she thinking about? She rolls her shoulders back and pushes the thoughts away, gluing her eyes to the screen. “Sure,” she says, less because she agrees and more because she doesn't wanna hear what else you like about Maya. “You had fun, then?”

“It was alright. You didn't miss out on too much,” the end of your sentence stretched out by a yawn, you cover your mouth lazily and rest back fully against the couch. “Jesse was drunk. They had to stop him from getting up on a table.”

Ellie chuckles. “I don't know, maybe he had something to say. I think I would’ve let him.”

“That's what I said,” you smile and let your head fall to the side, your cheek against the cushion. She feels you staring, enables it for a while by acting oblivious, falsely over-invested in some movie she can't remember the title of. She hears you move closer before she feels it— the shuffle of your clothes, the stupid jacket rubbing against her couch, so easily forgettable by the time your temple falls on her shoulder.

Ellie's about to fall asleep when she hears the little noise you make, something like a sniffle. For a worrying second she thinks she might’ve given you her cold, but then she feels the tip of your nose brush against her shoulder and she realizes you’re trying to breathe her in. 

“You always smell nice,” you whisper, half asleep.

Ellie swallows and prays to keep her body completely still, scared she’ll make the wrong move and have you pull away, scared you’ll lean closer and be able to hear the fast beating on her chest. She sounds breathy, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Like fresh rain.”

Slow like the roll of credits playing on the TV, Ellie feels how every muscle in her body settles down, relaxed, content— fucking cocky. She wraps her arm around your shoulders and hopes the scent will rub off on the jacket and remind Maya of a cloudy autumn night, rain over her garden.

─────✧･ﾟ: *✧･

THREE!

"Do you think we would've liked each other?" you ask, your legs resting on her lap while she fidgets mindlessly with the ruffled cuff of your socks. Every patrol lately ends the exact same way, a quiet walk home and a joint on Ellie’s couch. "Back when the world was normal?”

Ellie turns to look at you, blinking lazily, a reddish hue over her green. You’re not sure if she's more tired or high, but either way you're not doing much better— everything you’ve said during the past hour is the kind of thought you have when you're alone at night and your brain wanders, moments away from falling asleep. It's a meaningless question, but Ellie lets out a soft hum and thinks about it like it's worth considering. You're not sure if anyone you’ve met in your whole twenty years of life is as willing to indulge you as she is.

"Yeah," she says decidedly, in the same tone with which one would say duh. "We—" a yawn cuts her off, slender hand rubbing one of her eyes. "We would be friends, like, in college."

"I wouldn't be in college.”

Ellie frowns, takes one last inhale and discards the joint to the ashtray on her coffee table. "Why not?"

"'Cause I'm not smart like you," you shrug.

The fold between her eyebrows deepens. "You're smart," she argues, with enough conviction that you almost believe her, insisting, "You are."

"In other ways, sure—” Ellie opens her mouth to interrupt but you get ahead of her, “I’m not trying to talk badly about myself, I just don't think college would be for me.”

You’ve never been the most disciplined. It’s hard to imagine yourself staying up late to study, taking diligent notes in class. It feels ridiculous.

“I’d be working somewhere, I think. Making coffee for people or something.”

Ellie pauses before she nods, adjusting her daydream to what you’re saying, strangely committed. "Then we would meet there,” she makes it sound like the easiest thing in the world, a natural equation. “I'd go get coffee from you."

You chuckle. "You don't even like coffee that much."

Ellie shrugs, soft pink lips curved in a smirk that tells you she's sleepy and serves to warn you of the horror that's about to come out of her mouth.

You groan. “Don't—”

"Maybe I like the pretty girl that's making it."

“Awful,” you push her shoulder away, barely any force behind it, her giggles swimming comfortably around your head. “Never speak again.”

"Not my best work?" she asks, her fingers wrapping lazily around your shin. Too much, her brain warns, but then she remembers the pad of your finger over the back of her hand last night, the cursive lines with no purpose other than to be touching her— and it feels right, or like it's not enough. Too much soon turns to coward.

"Possibly your worst.”

She might be going crazy, but lately Ellie feels like you’re looking at her differently. In your eyes there's something gentle, awaiting, a tracing of your eyes over her face that says please. She chews on her lip, her eagerness painful. “We would like each other,” she doesn't think there's a world where you wouldn't, and if there was… "I'd make you like me."

You raise your eyebrows, teasing, "Oh, so like now?"

Her lips part with genuine surprise, more amused than offended. “...I made you, huh?” 

You regret the joke as soon as it comes out of your mouth, immediately brought back to your fourteen year old self, lonely and admittedly captivated by the auburn haired girl from next door. Flashes of you rushing to catch up with her, untied laces on your too tight sneakers, Ellie, do you wanna be friends? The sound of pages shuffling and her voice reading in whispers in the dead of night because you asked, can you talk to me until I fall asleep? Infatuated from the beginning, obsessed. Even now, on her couch, after spending a whole day together— do you like me? Would you like me, always?

A pillow crashes against the side of her face, her laugh almost louder than the embarrassed pounding of your heart. You pull your legs from her lap and lie back, fold your arms over your face. “You're so annoying.”

A lie so obvious it makes Ellie smile. She shifts to crawl closer, one knee on either side of you. “C’mon, I was joking,” she leans forward and you feel her knuckles tap your arm like she’s knocking on a door. The power to make you shy is still foreign to her, makes her feel drunk, thrilled. She doesn't remember having it before, but of course it was there. In little ways, in daily, simple things. Your eyes always looking for her first in any room, lighting up even after an especially bad pun, tracing her arms when the day becomes too hot to keep her jacket on. You like her, of course. How much time has she been wasting? The breath she lets out feels like it's been waiting to be let go, years spent stuck in her lungs. Ellie wraps her fingers around one of your wrists, her voice sweet, achingly soft. “Want me to tell you why I know I’d like you?”

You lower your arms just slightly, eyes peering up at her.

“Yeah?” she tilts her head.

You nod, arms coming down, unusually quiet.

Ellie grins, victorious. “Okay, but fair warning— it's worse than the coffee thing.”

You chuckle. “Is it?”

“Very.”

“Hm,” you hum, pretending to think about it, distracted by the vision of her practically sitting on top of you. Freckled face framed by the hair that's escaped her usual bun, softly lit by the warmth of the lamp on her desk. “Alright,” you say finally.

It takes Ellie a second to respond, momentarily dazed by the thought of being pretty enough for you to ogle like this. She clears her throat. “You ready?”

You tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear and away from her eyes. “Sure.”

Ellie waits for the nerves to come, but even as she parts her lips to speak, they never do. What a kind fate. “I know I’d like you because nothing’s ever made more sense to me— I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. I like you enough for a million lifetimes.”

You look at each other, bask in a moment of understanding. Your eyes on her lips, a hand on her waist that pulls her closer. “That was worse,” you agree.

Ellie moves to rest on her forearms, cages you in, her nose brushing against yours. “I told you.”

She waits, feels herself count once again, a final time, one, two—

A hand against the back of her neck brings her in and the quiet noise of her surprise vibrates against your lips, makes her smile into the kiss for just a second before the hunger takes over. Her hips readjusting over yours, knees pressing against your sides, Ellie kisses like it's a need rather than a whim. She takes and takes and swallows every sigh you make like it's a gift, four, five, six seconds of a messy trail of kisses down your neck to say thank you before she resurfaces again.

“Love you,” she breathes out, because suddenly all that talk about ‘like’ feels stupid— immature, incomparable to what she actually feels for you. “Need you.”

You moan against her lips and it's her favorite sound in the whole world, immediately, as quick as realizing she would fall in love with you the day she met you. “Love you, Ellie.”

A kiss to your clavicle, your hands pulling at her shirt and her thigh between yours. She makes you say it three more times.

[vanessagillings]

I’m posting the ever-so-rare photo of myself alongside one of my characters based on my childhood because today is World Autism Acceptance Day, and I wanted to show my little corner of the internet who this particular autistic person is:  

I was officially diagnosed in February, at age 38 (I’m now 39). A lot of people thought I couldn’t be autistic.  Some people who know me in real life still don’t.  And until around 10 years ago, I didn’t think I could be either, because I was nothing like the stereotype media portrays. I was told that autistics lacked empathy (untrue), and never played make-believe (also often untrue) and only enjoyed STEM.  I was — and am — an empathetic artist -- and make believe?  I can spend days sketching finely bedecked bears brewing tea or carefully choosing the right words to weave tapestries of fiction — though perhaps my hyper focus was a bit of a red flag.  Even so, how could autism describe me?  I was a good student.  I got straight A's. I didn’t act out in class.  I can make eye contact…if I must.  And lots of girls hate having their hair brushed with an unholy passion, right?  Clearly I swim in sarcasm like a fish, so autism couldn't be why I was so anxious all the time, could it?

If someone had told me when I was younger what autism ACTUALLY is — instead of the nonsense I’d seen on screens — I would have seen myself in it.  I didn’t hear that autistics have sensory issues until I was in my mid-twenties, which is when I first began to really research autism symptoms, and I had almost all of them:  sensitivity to light, smells, fabrics, temperatures, textures, and certain touches, all of which make me feel anxious, I fidget (stim), I never know what the hell to do with my hands or where to look, I talk too little or too much, I have special interests, I have entire animated movies memorized shot-by-shot and can remember the first time and place I saw every movie I've ever seen but I often forget what I'm trying to say mid-sentence, I echo movies and tv shows (my husband and I have a whole repertoire of shared echolalias, making up about 20% of our conversations), I was in speech therapy as a kid, I have issues with dysnomia and verbal fluency, I toe-walk, I can't multitask to save my life, I like things just-so, I’m deeply introverted but not shy, I need to recover from all social interaction — even social interaction I enjoy — and I find stupid, every day things like grocery shopping, driving and making appointments overwhelming and intensely stressful, sometimes to the point where I struggle to speak.  It turns out, I am definitely autistic. My results weren't borderline. Not even close. And while these aren’t all of my challenges, and not everyone with these symptoms is autistic, it’s definitely something to look into if you present with all of these things at once. 

So why did it take me so long to get diagnosed? The same bias that exists in media threads through the medical community as well, and because I'm a woman who can discuss the weather while smiling on cue, few people thought I was worth looking into. Even after I was fairly certain I was autistic, receiving an official diagnosis in the US is unnecessarily difficult and expensive, and in my case, completely uncovered by my insurance.  It cost me over $4000, and I could only afford it because my husband makes more money than I do as a freelance illustrator — a job I fell into largely because it didn’t require in-person work; like many autists, I have been chronically underemployed and underpaid, in part due to physical illness in my twenties, which is a topic for another day.  But it shouldn’t be like this.  It shouldn’t be so hard for adults to receive diagnoses and it shouldn’t be so hard for people to see themselves in this condition to begin with due to misinformation and stereotypes. Like many issues in America, these barriers are even higher for marginalized groups with multiple intersectionalities. 

It’s commonly said that if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.  This is why it’s called a spectrum, not because there’s a linear progression of severity (someone who appears to have low support needs like myself might need more than it seems, and vice versa), but because every autistic person has their own strengths and weaknesses, challenges and experiences, opinions and needs.  No two people on the spectrum present in the same way.  And that’s a good thing!  No way of being autistic is inherently any better than any other, and even if someone on the spectrum struggles with things I don’t — or can do things I can’t — doesn’t make them more or less deserving of respect and human dignity.

But speaking solely for myself, the more I learn about autism, the happier I am to be autistic.  I struggle to find words and exert fine motor control, but my deep passion and fixation has made me good at art and storytelling anyway.  I find more joy watching dogs and studying leaf shapes on my walks than most people do in an entire day.  More often than not, the barriers I’ve faced weren’t due to my autism directly, but due to society being overly rigid about what it considers a valid way of existing.  My hope in writing this today is that maybe one person will realize that autism isn’t what they thought — and that being different is not the same as being less than. My hope with my fiction is to give autistic children mirrors with which to see themselves, and everyone else windows through which to see us as we actually are.

If you’re interested in learning more about autism or think you might be autistic, too, I recommend the Autism Self Advocacy Network  autisticadvocacy.org and the following books:

What I Mean When I Say I’m Autistic by Annie Kotowicz

We're Not Broken by Eric Garcia

Knowing Why edited by Elizabeth Bartmess

Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, PhD

Loud Hands edited by Julia Bascom

Neurotribes by Steve Silberman

(trigger warning: the last two contain quite a lot of upsetting material involving institutionalized child abuse, but I think it’s important for people to know how often autistic children were — and are — abused simply for being neurodivergent).

Thanks for reading 💛

[shadyr4m]

REWATCHING SEASON 2 EPISODE 7 OF ARCANE

+ some of my highlights and notable moments that I enjoyed bc people can’t understand media anymore

This is mostly an infodump of stuff I can fit into a twitter thread/didn't rly want to make into a thread. I'm not great at words so I apologize in advance, I am sure there are many people much better at analysis than I.

I want to start off by saying I am heavily invested in timebomb so this is very much going to be a ship analysis. If you're looking for someone unbiased i am very much not the person for that 😭

FIRST OFF:

The disc on the music box is adorable!!! It features au Powder (who I am going to refer to as just Powder for the duration of my analysis) and au Ekko

Compared to the normal Disc

This is very obviously because it takes place in a different universe, one without Vi or "Jinx".

The first scene starts off with AU Ekko writing in his notebook. (Cute mention is Powder's doodle in his notebook!!) Then we see flashes of the wild rune. This is when AU Ekko switches to canon Ekko.

Also one of my favorite silly images from this episode is this one.. Powder is being so adorable and Ekko is just scared out of his MIND. it's so silly.

In the Last drop, Powder asks Ekko. "What is up with you? You've been out of it all day?". One thing I noticed in my rewatch is that i think Powder is aware this Ekko isn't HER Ekko. This is just one instance of many that makes me think this.

This hideout seems so much more vibrant and loved, similar to Jinx's hideout after Isha. It's colorful. There are guard rails that I like to think was pushed by Vander. We can see Ekko's art scattered around. It just shows how much more support and family Powder has compared to Jinx, which i mention a lot.

Id also like to note Ekko being shocked au him went to powder for help. In his mind at this time he believes Jinx to be all that is left, no more Powder. Through out the episode we see that change.

Notice how Powder gets upset at Ekko in this scene. However, she doesn't react explosively like Jinx would've. She handled it in a way that shows she had support. She told him to leave instead. Again, the main difference between Powder and Jinx isn't only Vi but also the existence of multiple support systems that Jinx simply didn't have.

THIS FLASHBACK! Oh my god this flashback. The fact it happened after he upset Powder? I think it shows just how much he truly cares about Jinx/Powder. He remembers VIVIDLY the day that he thought he killed her. Jinx was his childhood best friend, and I don't think that kind of feeling ever truly goes away. He doesn't want to hurt any version of her, not even the alternate universe her. We see that showcased more later on. Also, random probably insane note. He is interrupted by small children playing, having fun. This isn't a coincidence, it shows he does miss the moments from when they were kids.

While talking with Heimerdinger, we see Ekko look at Powder multiple times. Watching her laugh and be expressive, he smiles. When she doesn't return it we see him get upset. Once more this brings me to my point that he doesn't want to hurt her. Considering he hasn't known this Powder very long you can see where I gather my point that he doesn't want to hurt her in GENERAL. Any version of her.

THIS SCENE!! He is such a bad liar it's adorable. This brings me to my earlier point, Powder knows what's up!! She suspects something 100%. He is talking about this dream her like it was real.

"You aren't the kind of person who helps other people with their projects. Your ideas change the world. I can't shake the feeling that that's who you're supposed to be."

Are you LISTENING TO THIS? He is obviously talking about Jinx. You can tell this by the first sentence because obviously Powder IS that kind of person. He's starting to see that Jinx is just a part of Powder, one that is unavoidable and that he unknowingly appreciates in a sense. Like two sides of one coin he can't see Powder without Jinx and that is good. I think it is here he realizes truly just how much he cares about Jinx.

This whole montage is beautiful but I want to zero in on two things. Powder's reaction to the notebook and how she looks at Ekko after. NOW THIS. This is the nail in the coffin for her. She knows that this is not her Ekko. She has fully gathered that he isn't from this universe.

Also heimerdinger totally knows how Ekko feels you cannot tell me otherwise. Pushing him to go to the party? yeah he knows what you are.

THIS WHOLE SCENE. I AM NOT ANALYZING THE WHOLE THING HERE BUT IT IS GORGEOUS. I saw someone talking about how it was animated on 4's to signify the way Ekko can only go back 4 seconds and I honestly shed a tear. THE SONG TOO? I encourage everyone to look at the lyrics because they're beautiful.

Okay now for my favorite part of this episode so much to dissect and i'm totally going to mansplain but yk..

"I used to dream the undercity could be like this" — That sets the tone for the whole conversation and just what world he is talking about. The canon one.

"But somewhere, I got consumed by all the ways it wasn't. I gave up on it. Gave up on YOU." — Heavy emphasis on this line. Once more he is talking about Jinx. He is talking about how he got so consumed by the way that Jinx wasn't good, and he gave up on her. Believed she was irredeemable. Powder showed him that Jinx is capable of love and happiness, it's just under that tough protective shell. The undercity in the metaphor is Jinx, from my interpretation.

"I promise i'll never forget this." — Now time for my insanity. He doesn't forget this. That's why he saves Jinx from ending her life in the first place. He remembers Powder and knows that with the right support Jinx doesn't have to be the way she is. It's not that she "needs to be fixed" she just needs to be LOVED, like Powder. He sees that now. He sees how in the au the love that everyone shares for one another shaped the undercity beautifully, and made everyone in it much healthier mentally despite going through hardships. That is beautiful. People with mental illness are not unlovable they just need more support, it can't be cured, or fixed just healed. Mental illness is always there it is how you DEAL with it that matters.

Nothing too major to talk about with the kiss. It's sweet I love it, but nothing too notable for me to say about it.

Finally, Ekko leaves the au. I have seen people say that this is a sacrifice, he could've had everything he wanted and he gave it up to save the people at home. But i take insanity to another level. I see this as him appreciating his home. He knows he can never truly love this Powder because she isn't the version he fell in love with. He learned to appreciate Jinx even through her flaws, and that while this world has everything he could want and more he can have that home too.

I am experiencing HEAVY timebomb brainrot if you can’t already tell. I was tired of people taking things in the complete wrong way with this episode, if anyone has different views pls tell me I love hearing how other people took certain scenes. there are a few scenes I love but I would’ve made this post way too long..

[doberbutts]

hello! I'm the one that sent you that ask a week or so ago. Sorry I didn't check to see if you'd answered for a while because I was just so upset and had to take a second. I will say I scrolled through a bunch of helpful posts you reblogged before I even found the ask again that helped a LOT.

Two things I thought you might want to know is that it wasn't speculation that you'd blocked the weirdo blog that sent me your way: they literally have "proudly blocked by doberbutts" in their bio which was why i felt safe coming to you lmao. Second is I guess my struggle with this issue was an overall struggle with how bad wider misogyny has gotten in general and how muddied it's gotten with the "male loneliness crisis" and like, centering men's issues under patriarchy and just how insanely upset it's been making me. Seeing cis MRAs identify with trans men freaked me out because like, yeah it's important to talk about how (cis) men suffer under patriarchy but it's just so rare for me to find men do that without devolving into misogyny, and I start to feel so helpless because I know validating these issues matter but women are being literally dehumanized openly. I do play oppression olympics with this specific issue and just of COURSE women suffer more under patriarchy, but the same men who demand space to air how they suffer won't acknowledge that truth. (sorry for soapboxing; some of them do! It's just...things are so bad for women rn lol it's really hard to have compassion when it feels like none is being given to me).

So the more I see this issue the more I think people are being affected by larger misogyny like I am, but are doing the typical thing that happens where you lash out at a group you can "reach." Policing and harassing trans men's behaviours is way easier than cis men. I've also been seeing some parallels between this discourse and the "gay men vs lesbian women" discourse. It's not really a one-to-one but the discussion of the role of misogyny re homophobia towards gay men who still have male privilege but, come on, if they have feminine affectation it's Different and the back and forth that used to happen when gay men and lesbian women did oppression olympics, it just feels similar.

idk as i type this I hope I don't come across disingenuous or like, my Too Casual Overly Respectful tone is trying to subtly incept you. I worry my vibes are too "women first" but I just can't help it misogyny really is ruining my life 😭. Anyways I'm very grateful for your perspective and your blog. I feel more settled and equipped to push back against anti transmasculine behaviour with rhetoric that can actually challenge people

To respond to each point in turn:

1: Again I still don't really know who that is, though I am somewhat bemused by the idea that someone I clearly don't really remember is still so obsessed with me that they're proud I've blocked them. For the record, my block list is as follows: people who send anonymous hate, people who continue to harass me after I've told them to stop, people I catch with posts containing inexcusable bigotry, obvious trolls, self-identified zoophiles and MAPs, and people who repeatedly send me fundraisers after I have already said I only share fundraisers from people I know and trust. Being on my block list is, um, not really good company, so it's kind of funny to me that someone is proud to be there. Yeah I'm sure they'll fit right in with the neo-nazis and dogfuckers and cyber bullies. Oh and I guess my ex but I only blocked them after they started harassing me about our failed relationship years later. Enjoy block hell I suppose.

2: I'm not really here to play who has it worse, not because I don't recognize the wider understanding of privilege vs oppression but because I think it is a self-defeating thread of thought because you will always find a "more oppressed" example, and I think that people should be allowed to talk about their hurts regardless of their status of "more oppressed" vs "less oppressed". Talking about the ways society has hurt them is not what makes MRAs dangerous. What makes them dangerous is who they blame, how they go about fixing their problem, and the solutions to their problems they come up with.

To be quite frank, the majority of MRAs are men who have experienced some form of social rejection or isolation. Most have been sold some patriarchal lie about how by being men they inherently deserve good sex with hot women on demand, a wife at home to keep barefoot and pregnant, a high paying job where they are respected and valued regardless of the effort they themselves put into it, and all the luxuries that lifestyle can afford. This is a fantasy, you and I both know it. And when these men realize the hard reality that we live in an age of extreme social isolation, that in order to have a partner you need to actually have more personality than a used dishrag and with only half the mess at max, that good sex is about give and take and not just yourself, that these high paying jobs are few and far between with most takers being born into some level of wealth rather than any merit they themselves have earned... they lash out.

It does not at all help things to understand that many of these MRAs are themselves marginalized in some way, but their framework not only doesn't let them see it but also advocates a harsh rejection of anyone who is self-aware enough to realize it. A lot of these guys are undiagnosed, have trauma, and are just as affected by the systems of racism, classism, homo- and trans-phobia, xenophobia, sexism, and ableism as the rest of us.

Quite frankly, I'd rather these dudes see a group of (trans) men fighting for our place in society by joining hands with other activists with more feminist, black-friendly, disabled-friendly, gay- and trans-friendly in an attempt to lift everyone out of the pit rather than continuing to fight over scraps... than to see them continue to blame women and Jews and then go shoot up a school or a mall about it. One of these helps. The other just kills people and excuses rape. There's a lot of value in deradicalizing people by offering them a path to resolving their pain that is perhaps less destructive and more constructive.

This is also why the constant comparison to MRAs annoys me. MRAs kill people in senseless acts of terror and despair because they're upset that they're not having the sex fantasy the patriarchy sold them. Trans men talking about our oppression- regardless of the word we use to express it- are mostly talking amongst ourselves about suicide and rape statistics and sharing ways to get hormones and surgery despite unwilling doctors and insurance companies. We're talking about how our social groups rejected us the moment we came out, or how people use us being men against us in ways that was not happening before we came out or passed. These are not at all equivalent conversations.

3: Again I ask you- I see people using both cis and trans feminist frameworks to hurt other people. Where is your concern for that? I am equally concerned about TERFs as I am about MRAs, as they have driven multiple transgender people and our allies to suicide and even have committed acts of violence against people irl as a result of their ideology. Most TERFs will also be the first ones to tell you that they have been hurt, deeply, by men and that they also are frequently undiagnosed or untreated, traumatized, and affected by the same systems of oppression. Does their existence and their determination to latch onto every feminist conversation including those of people who are staunchly against them then poison all feminism to you? If not, then why make that distinction for trans men and MRAs?

I am black. I am Indigenous. I am transgender. I am gay. I am disabled. I am poor. I suffer. People hurt me. I see every day how bad things are. Do you think I cannot see it, or that my ignorance is the reason for my request for compassion? Perhaps consider that it is rather my knowledge and my lived experience that fuel my call for compassion, instead. I never said it would be easy. But I do think it would make a better world.

4: I do actually agree that it is very similar to the gay man vs lesbian conversation and have said for a while that it's the same queer infighting discussion we've already hashed out for the last 50 or so years, but the target groups just swapped out. It's just butchphobia, it's just biphobia, it's just aphobia, it's just panphobia, it's just nbphobia- it's the same fucking shit over and over and over again. It was shit infighting before and it's shit infighting now. Privilege is a conversation that depends so heavily on context, and the way it has been bastardized by the internet's poor understanding of political frameworks developed by women of color and their allies into cute soundbites and phrases rather than a deep, nuanced knowledge will never fail to annoy me.

Do gay men have privilege over lesbians? As a class, sure, they would have male privilege. But what do we mean by male privilege? The privilege to not worry about being assaulted on the street? To walk home late at night unbothered? To marry who they want, to have the romantic partner they desire, to feel safe within a domestic partnership? You and I both know that doesn't quite match up to the lived experience of gay men worldwide or even here in the "gay paradise" US. How does this interact with other marginalizations? Does a black gay man have privilege over a white lesbian? What happens if he's a drag queen dressed up for an event and she's a butch that passes for cis male? Does that change retroactively if this "gay man" figures out she's actually a transbian 5 years later, and the lesbian is a TERF? I'm not saying this breaks the framework of male privilege- I am saying that sometimes the theory doesn't match the reality, and a nuanced and intersectional understanding is required when talking on an individual scope rather than class politics.

Additionally- as a side note- it is also incredibly annoying to watch people act like privilege = oppressor = dangerous, and oppressed = victim = safe. Privilege, and whether or not you have any, is not a moral indicator nor is it an indicator of the safety of the person you're interacting with. I have privilege over people who cannot walk, because I can. I am not objectively or systemically oppressing people who cannot walk by the use of my legs in my day-to-day life. Oppression is action- if I vote for policies and politicians that removes ramps and safety regulations and provisions to assist wheelchair users? Now I am oppressing people who cannot walk. If I block or move or interfere with the disability aids, if I mock people or assault or harm them, if I dump them out of their mobility aids or break them, that is oppression. The act of climbing the 3 stairs on my front porch to get into my house is a privilege, but the oppression stems from the people who built my house to even have stairs on both exits.

5: lastly to end a very long post, I don't actually think there's any harm in centering yourself when discussing things that objectively affect you, as long as you remember to include others who are affected and let them have their floor to also center themselves when they need to speak up. I am a black trans man. My politics are pretty centered on black feminism. I don't think that is objectively a bad thing. I prefer to let the demographics with similar problems speak for themselves- I would rather my trans fem friends get the mic when they open their mouths, my lesbian friends, my Jewish friends, my latino and asian and arab friends. I don't think there's anything wrong with them centering their own problems and outlooks, as long as they recognize that there's shared space to be had with others who feel similar hurts. I think it's pretty normal to center yourself. I think the difficult thing is knowing when to relinquish the megaphone to someone who's been dying to use it, while you yourself still have so much to say.

[riteliso]

ALRIGHT SO

Here's how we're doing things, right? We're gonna go one episode at a time, and I'm gonna give my thoughts whenever they come up. This is a train of thought type beat, alright? Unlike my usual grandstanding authorial and analytical self, this re-watch is purely for the rant factor. If you don't know me, and you just happened upon this thread because you like reading she-ra rewatches, hello. I'm a writer from Canada who found she-ra in 2025 and is currently on her sixth watch through. From that, hopefully you can discern that I like this show, even if I'm likely gonna criticize parts of it. We good to go? Good. We start with S01 E01.

RIGHT, THE SWORD PART 1! A zoom in, with an angelic singing being drowned out by digital bloopy fright zone vibes, and then Adora being a fuckin dweeb as her leitmotif plays in a decidedly crystiline synth-y tone.

Now, what do we learn from this? This, aside from one gripe I'll have more to speak on later, is an excellent introduction. With the music alone we're essentially taken from the beauty of the planet, the overwhelming dread of the fright zone, and then into a hopeful tune that isn't FREE from these sort of digital themes in the music, but is very defined and separate FROM them.

This isn't gonna be one of those things where I praise literally every single fuckin thing so keep your panties on, I'm not gonna full-on overanalyzing avatar this shit, but the most important parts of a story are the beginning and the ending.

Now, when I say that, I am speaking pragmatically. Every part of every story is important-- but when it comes to what people remember, what they love, what they never shut up about-- it's the start and the end. You need to nail the take-off and the landing, people will forget the turbulence from the rest of the trip.

Now, what does THIS bitch's intro tell us about her? Well, a lot, honestly. Most of what we know about Adora at this point is she plays by the rules, but she is a notably goofy person. She's goofy, but she's unwilling to goof-OFF too much.

And while we get a taste of the rivalry they have instantly, with "That's low, even for you." "You know nothing's too low for me~"

We instantly see that that is not the CORE of their relationship.

I'd like to praise the voice direction in this show for the first of many times here. The voice actors do amazing work in this, and the direction can be felt throughout.

"Come on, you look stupid hanging there" can obviously be a seen as a strange first line to show the warmth these two share, but the inflection from Catra's voice actor, AJ Mikalcha, makes it read as downright sweet.

Also don't get used to me using names of the crew besides ND Stevenson because I'm so awful with names I was still calling Catra Katara half the time on my second re-watch and I was like 90% of the way to realizing I kinned her at that point

Also don't make fun of me for kinning Catra there's no RESPONSE to people making fun of you for kinning Catra THAT DOESN'T MAKE YOU SEEM MORE LIKE FUCKING CATRA OKAY

Anyway, the following scene makes it clear that this is not a one-way dynamic. The two banter, and it's clear Adora knows how to get under Catra's skin and annoy her as well. This is notable in a few places MUCH further on, but it is a difference worth highlighting NOW.

Once Adora leaves, Catra's primary goal is still to get under her skin. She's angry about it, she's mean about it, but she's still just doing what she's always done. The relationship between the two doesn't actually change as much as the context does. I'd say the relationship itself doesn't change much until the final season, at a scene I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about.

On the flip-side, Adora's goal when it comes to Catra is simply to fight her off. But that's not all there is. At points, it's clear that Adora holds some sort of REVERENCE for Catra, and while Catra is very capable of very mean things, don't get me wrong, Adora sees Catra as more of a threat than she realistically is.

At a few moments I'll point out she also relishes in getting under Catra's skin, but admittedly those are few and far between.

People have gone over this introduction billions of times, so I won't BORE you to death with it, but Shadow weaver's introduction does hint at a lot of what we'll learn later. I think it's very notable that while Shadow weaver brings a dark gloom that encompasses both our leads, her vile tendrils only dare to touch Catra. We learn the specifics of the dynamic these three have later, but it is a very unique and terrible situation to be the least favourite of an abusive guardian. Especially if you are repeatedly reminded of that fact.

I'm not gonna go over all the body language shit I've seen other text posts about it there's plenty of them a lot of focus in this show goes into tiny details where characters are constantly reacting to the world around them, and very rarely do we get lame stretches where anyone's face is just frozen and unflinching while they listen to someone else.

with all due respect to the setting at this point in time the bright moon rebellion is so pathetically anemic it's the two teens, some movie night lesbians, an immortal princess queen, and a bunch of fucking trees.

And you'd think the one carrying the team would be THE IMMORTAL PRINCESS QUEEN, BUT NO, ITS THE FUCKING TREES DOING ALL THE GOD DAMNED WORK

This introduction is fine. I don't particularly like it, nor have any strong feelings about it. It establishes the relationship between glimmer and her mother, but besides that it doesn't honestly do much. And don't come at me with "Uh, all it needs to do is establish that relationship?" Yeah, no shit, but we just had a better introduction to our other lead characters. And yes, those are the MAIN leads, the sort of heart of the show, but that doesn't mean that the other characters are unimportant. Glimmer's development later on is truly interesting, and Bow becomes a massively inspiring character. Fun jokey times are fine or whatever to show that they're immature and don't know the first thing about war, in contrast to our full-blown child soldiers raised from birth in the fright zone, but we really don't learn anything particularly INTERESTING about our best friend squad compadres in their intro, nor do we really see any of it until episode 2, to be frank.

This is something we don't actually see much of-- Catra has this ideal of being a conqueror, but it's very clear that she doesn't want that. Her threats are vapid and aimless-- She can enjoy some chaos, sure, but a shit-stirrer isn't gonna use that feces to build brick shithouses that they never intend to fall.

I think this should have been elaborated on more, personally. Catra is comically terrible with authority, and her plan, as stated later, is to wait it out until her and Adora are the ones calling the shots. But we don't really see what she thinks conquering even looks like, and it's not clear whether that's that she hasn't even imagined it and just likes evil words, or if she genuinely wants to rule with Adora as her Queen.

I gravitate towards the first, but that's partially because I wake up and post shit like "I want to destroy the world and rule its dust" and then forget I posted it when someone likes it 5 minutes later. If she do, in fact, as studies point toward, "be just like me fr," then I fully understand. If not, then I'd like to understand.

aw :(

Fuckin dweeb pulling the "my mom doesn't want me hanging out with you anymore" card

HA! Ah, what a bitch. Anyway, she's lashing out, but it's also quite tragic. A lot of people seem to think Adora IS, in some way, a people pleaser, but in reality she just has such an ingrained and violent sense of justice that she wants to right every wrong she has ever and will ever come across. She believes her validity is tied to what she can provide to the world, and she's got a natural sense of charisma, so it's natural for someone who refuses to blend in and naturally tends to put people off like Catra to have this view of her.

In reality, Adora is just-- a good person. And people LIKE good people. She's not a good person with an asterisk-- a good person with terms and conditions-- someone who falls into the definition of a good person while feeling and being treated like something else. Catra is the "a tomato is a fruit" of good people. Adora is just, like, a 1 dollar costco hotdog of a woman. An inarguable good treading water on this earth, no matter how hard it tries to pull her under.

Imagine falling for a brat with mad hops, like a fucking 50 foot vertical, you say you're too tired to play their favourite board game and they go hang out on your neighbour's roof, couldn't be me. Get fucked I guess

Yeah this is sad. Empathy is very much a learned skill, and people who don't learn empathy don't GET happy FOR people. Catra's not a complete person yet. She's not ready to be. That doesn't happen for a really long time, during an exceptionally long manic spiral. We'll get there, calm down, don't think about how far away that is and how much I've already yammered on.

Anyway, if you find yourself getting jealous or annoyed instead of getting happy for people, consider empathy isn't what you thought it was, and that you might still need to work on yourself.

fucking porno framing. Immensely sexual image, really. These bitches violently gay I suppose, I think I'm picking up on that during this sixth re-watch.

Buddy you got no idea how many problems those two already have you literally lose your little tiara at some point I think it ends up in the middle of a tree in space or something it's kinda unclear

Adora elbows her square in the nose during this so to everyone accusing Catra of physical abuse I just want it to be clear that Adora started it :/

Actually I'd like to retract that joke immediately because I know how people get about these two

My feelings are that they are literally child soldiers who were likely raised sparring each-other.

I was raised sparring other children and I ended up fine! Not for war, for Karate. And I didn't end up fine. And neither did they. Anyway, my point isn't even specifically that because this is sci-fi fantasy it's ridiculous to hold real life standards to it, it's more-so that because it's sci-fi fantasy there's extenuating circumstances that are going to affect how these two characters treat each-other. I'll go into hotter takes later, I'm sure, and get people to send me plenty of death-threats, but I'm gonna go into the nuances of exactly what forms Catra's abuse takes, and how it differs given by the separate circumstances we're shown the two in throughout the show.

my girl when I'm tryna live my best life playing as blue toad in mario 3d world

also holy shit we're only like halfway through this I am an AGONIZING yapper jesus fuck

Okay, what to say about lighthope-- well, their first words are "balance must be restored," far before they say Adora's name, so it somewhat lays out their secret priorities for us there. Besides that, I dunno, they got circuits on them? I don't have particularly strong feelings about lighthope, nor their introduction. I think they serve the setting and are written well, I just subjectively am not a sucker for the way they be. Their friendship with Mara is cute tho

I was gonna point out this is cute and how often I do this exact brat tactic but instead we data moshin, nothin wrong with a little data moshin, I'm down

This is the only reason she even wears a ponytail I'd stake my fuckin life on it

Once she leaves the fright zone that thing's fucking vestigial like a tailbone or having "any pronouns" in your bio when it's pretty clear you're very much a "she/they" type of bitch by now

glimmer why don't your windows have glass

or alternatively

how the fuck do you open and close that window

you can absolutely fucking hear her from this distance what on earth are you trying to pull

you a pillow princess tho how many of those arrows are just hitatchi magic wands attatched to a stick with duct-tape after the series ends do you think

The fuck you mean BOTTOM drawer we lookin at left and right here

or is this similar to my pillow princess comment and she's just addressing him and giving him an order

"Bottom; drawer."

It's established later on that he's a tech wiz but at this point in time they don't really give us much to lead us to the fact that he made that fucking thing

she's a freak

yes it's very sweet that she sleeps this way but I don't think it's some bdsm powerplay thing or anything like that, which would honestly be more tolerable, I think she's just like that

like how the way I'd sit in high school was to get two chairs and face them toward each-other then sit cross-legged across both

even if there weren't enough chairs to go around

people would sit on the FLOOR because I wanted to sit criss-cross-applesauce across two chairs, they wouldn't even ask for one of my chairs

also since I was sitting, again, cross-legged, it would have made more sense for ME to sit on the floor

I mean I think I got asked ONCE for one of the chairs and I just said "fine" but besides that people just let me sit on my fuckin throne

She really is kinda dumb, though. Like I ain't complaining, it's a character trait, but like obviously even if just you get in trouble Catra's gonna get blamed, you've seen it like at least once a month for your whole entire life

Mind you, can't really have Catra for the next part, because Catra's reaction to Bow and Glimmer wouldn't be "just let me have the sword" it'd be murder

oh wow we hit the image limit looks like we're doing TWO SEPARATE POSTS FOR THE VERY FIRST EPISODE YEE-HAW!!!!! THIS IS GOING TO TAKE ME FUCKING FOREVER

[stitchposts]

Heyo! Had two questions - one a little less relevant to your blog but I thought I'd shoot my shot :D

First off, do you have any experience with visible mending using embroidery techniques? Both my denim jacket and favorite sweater are getting worn out after years of constant wear, and I'm unsure how do deal with some of the holes. My main issue is that the very ends of the sleeves are simply... splitting open? Like the fabric got so thin from whatever stress I apparently put it under, it fecking disintegrated. It seems simple enough, straight line on an edge, but I'm worried about messing it up anyway.

And, speaking of my jacket, with it falling apart a little and me seeing more about battle vests and the like, I've been wondering about trying to embroider it, maybe make some patches... I have a bunch of cotton embroidery floss that was gifted to me years ago, but not only have I not embroidered much since learning it in school more than 15 years ago, this is also literally my only (wearable) jacket. The other two are a 10 year old fake leather coat that is peeling itself and also doesn't fit right, and a windbreaker in terrible colors that, if I remember correctly, is too badly damaged for me to know how to easily fix it. Meaning just going ham on it is a big risk. Do I try to find my first new jacket since 2019 and hope to stumble upon one satisfactory in both price and fit? Do I just pray and start fixing up my denim jacket? What else do I need anyway? I got thread and sewing needles big enough to fit it, but nothing else.

Help.

Thanks! <3

This post got kinda long even for me, sorry. First off, this is all embroidery related imo, this is still about stitching on fabric. A square is always a rectangle but a rectangle is not always a square. There's nuance under the umbrella of 'embroidery' here and this counts.

There does reach a point when clothing can't really be repaired anymore, and after that point, historically became rags, or the patches used to repair other clothing. You'll eventually need a new jacket, but if your choice is to immediately find one now or to repair your jacket and buy time to be able to locate one, it seems a bit obvious to me what the option to follow here is, especially if you like the look of visible mending.

This is the part where I wanted to add a cut, but tumblr is glitching out and refusing to add one. So I guess everyone is just subjected to this now. Sorry, and I'll try to have an actual pretty embroidery picture up for everyone to see this week since my furnace is no longer trying to blow up. So: visible mending is at the core applying mending techniques to clothing, and instead of trying to make them invisible repairs, using the stitches or extra material that reinforces the repair to creative visual interest and turn it into a design feature. The stitching itself is done to reinforce the fragile parts of your garment. Sometimes it can be darning, other times it's adhering new fabric to back/cover the fragile parts. It depends on the repair which to use, or even which method the mender prefers. It's not always clearcut and even then, sometimes we prefer doing the thing we know better more than a brand new technique and we bruteforce it to work. So, dealer's choice on darning or patching here, but I'll get to both of them. My opinion of your situation is that you have nothing to lose with trying to repair your jacket that fits you. It's already falling apart, and it's better to stabilize it before it gets worse before there are giant gaps in the fabric. Clean it gently by hand by letting it soak in a bucket or a tub with some ph neutral detergent - do a couple rinses of letting it soak, until the water runs clear and stops smelling foul. Then lay it flat to try on a towel, don't hang it up to dry as that will put more stress on the fabric, I find the shoulders are usually one of the first places to give out on my stuff but I am very broad shouldered. In my opinion, gaps in the fabric at high stress spots like the cuffs should have new backing fabric added to the weak spots, and then the visible mending can adhere that in place. If you were to make new embroidered cuffs you could just sew them on, and protect the integrity of the base fabric, the same way patches do. But you may prefer other options. For darning there's a few ways to go about it. Darning itself is using new threads to weave through the holes in fabric, and stabilizing it past the delicate thin edges of the base fabric. A dear friend of mine lives and dies by her Speedweve loom these days, and I've seen her work with it. She is one of the top 5 trusted fiber artists in my life so I vouch for these looms being cool as fuck and very functional without having used it myself. I also got her this particular book called Darned Easy, by Sally Simon, that I find interesting that has a lot of patterns in it for darning - I grabbed it at a used book store at some point. I messaged her before I made this point because she follows this blog and would know this part is about her. Hi bud. She's the only one who gets to see the rest of the interior of the book, because it was published in 1981 and I'd rather not use this blog to host scans of books that are that recently published.

You don't need a loom for darning if you know what patterns to follow to darn using your needle, and there are a lot of ways to make darning decorative in the manner you want for visible mending, just use your contrasting threads to stand out on the ground fabric. There's also other books available, a HUGE amount of them because darning's existed for millenia, but this is the resource I physically had on hand that I wanted to use as my example so it's the one you get pics of.

On the other end of repairs, you can applique on patches or reinforcing material, then quilt the material into place, with the quilting being the surface embroidery you are pushing through the layers of fabric in order to adhere them into place. Before anyone replies to this op telling them to fucking look up sashiko, please get off my post. I take umbrage with a lot of embroidery designs being referred to as 'sashiko.' This type of repair on existing clothing genuinely is one of the origins of sashiko as a necessity of life - it was that a pattern was laid down on the clothing or items that needed to be repaired or pieced together, and then quilted into place with running stitches that formed the design, which reinforced the clothing and allowed the fibers to be usable for longer. I really despise the words 'sashiko' 'wabisabi' and 'kintsugi' tossed around casually out of historical context by every fucking art blogger under the sun. Fabric was fucking expensive pre industrial revolution, so preserving clothing mattered a lot. Many different cultures have preferred methods (very often extremely regional even within a country) for mending in a manner that is similar to what we know of as quilting or applique today, but there's a certain obsession with anything Japanese in particular that bloggers love to describe as mysterious and wholesome when it's just a visually distinctive fucking way to repair a hole in a garment and quilt things together to make it warm and functional.

Anyway. My first vest I made, it did eventually disintegrate. I knew it would happen because fucking entropy of the universe and so I managed to find a new vest I could afford at the time when I happened across it, and kept it in a back closet till I was ready to transform it into my dragon vest. I repaired that first vest until almost every seam was paper thin and shredding. I loved it a lot. I wore it daily for years and years. I'm still sad I can't wear it anymore, even though I kept my back patch from it, and I still don't know what the fuck I am going to do with that patch. Eventually fabric is destroyed, after many many years of service and wear. Things die. You can't put resin on your embroidery and make it live forever. But when things finally do perish, you can use the base fabric that is still good to make new patches. You get to design and plan a new battle vest or projects you want to start. If you're not sure yet about how badly you'll be hit emotionally by seeing something you put hundreds of hours into disintegrate into nothingness, then hold off on making this particular jacket your battle jacket holding a lot of purchased patches and such, instead of as a test springboard for learning repairs. This is not me being facetious or jokey. It hits people pretty hard to lose, especially the first time this happens. We're humans that hold bonds with things we like, especially things with that much personal hand investment on it. It won't be a failure on your part if you decide to learn repair and extend the life of this jacket, when this jacket does finally bite the dust. It will happen. The accomplishment here is how much service and use you get out of the jacket past when you thought you'd have to throw it away far earlier than if you had learned to repair it.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I'm tired of my ideas always being big. It's overwhelming. I like seeing others' WIPs and ideas because they're just so simple... Like, that comic about a mermaid living in the ocean in our modern time and dealing with plastic trash. So simple and my own brain is bursting with ideas. But my own WIPs... they just start huge. I'd like something smaller... but I don't know how.

Stories Always Get Too Big

Stories can get out of hand quickly when they sprout too many independent threads. There are three primary culprits that serve as sparks that create these threads:

1 - Setting 2 - Non-Protagonist Characters/Relationships 3 - Back Story

The thing to remember, though, is that no matter how interesting your setting is, no matter how compelling your other characters are, and how fascinating the back story is, those things are not your plot.

Plot is the sequence of events through which the protagonist (and potentially other main characters) attempt to resolve the story's conflict by overcoming obstacles and setbacks in pursuit of a goal.

In other words, focus on this:

the protagonist > their normal world > the event that introduces a problem they must resolve > the goal they formulate in order to resolve that problem > the events that occur as a result of their pursuit of this goal > their attempts to overcome obstacles and setbacks encountered along the way > their attempt to solve the problem once and for all > failure or success > life in a changed situation/world

Anything else doesn't need to be there unless it is critical in order for one of the above steps to make sense.

So, let's take your mermaid example... though I haven't read that comic so I'm winging it here:

the protagonist = mermaid normal world = doing mermaid stuff inciting incident = finding plastic trash in the water goal = clean up/find the culprit and teach them to do better events = cleaning up, learning about humans, tracking down culprit climax = mermaid appeals to humans to do better finale = mermaid is living in a cleaner ocean

Now, let's say your brain starts to go off on a tangent about a deep oceanic rift and an evil merman wizard who lives there... stop right there. It's a fun idea, but what does it have to do with this story? How does it relate to the trash, clean-up, finding the culprit, or appeal to humans to do better? It doesn't. Theoretically, you could make it make sense... like, maybe the merman wizard likes the trash and wants the ocean to be dirty and gross, so maybe he is opposing the mermaid's attempts to clean up and to appeal to the humans. Okay, that works, so you can keep it. But, let's say you also have this idea about these creatures that live around the hydrothermal vents, and the mermaid meets and falls in love with a scientist who's studying them. Okay, again, interesting idea, but this one is much harder to fit in with the rest of the story. Sure, you could say the scientist is studying marine pollution instead... that brings it back around to the main conflict, but still, what does this relationship add to the story? How does it help or harm the mermaid's mission? How does it help to explore the story's themes or help deliver the message? It doesn't really sound like it does, so this would be an example of a thread you can probably snip.

And the thing is, it would be okay to follow a thread like that while you're plotting or writing your first draft, just to see where it goes and see if you can make it work. Part of why we edit and revise is to snip out the threads and elements that aren't pulling their weight. But learning how to curb them as they occur to you will help save you work later on down the line. Try writing those ideas down in an ideas document, and maybe those can be worked into different stories, a sequel, or a companion story.

One final note: I am very much aware that there are some epic writers out there who let wild tangles of threads sprout as they write, and they follow them all without abandon, relevant or not. That's okay, too. These are writers for whom that works, who don't feel overwhelmed by all of those threads, who want to write something bigger and more unwieldy. Maybe in time as you get accustomed to writing smaller, tidier stories, you embrace the bigger stories your brain wants to tell. Or maybe you don't. Whatever works best for you is all that matters. :)

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[grinnames]

HOW THE HECK DID THIS HAPPEN AND WHY ARE YOU ALL HERE

200+ followers.

We are over 200 followers strong already folks.

What do I even say?! Well I gotta say something, because it's been over a month since I hit this milestone, and I finally got all other ideas finished.

SO! Let's start with saying that I am incredibly and forever grateful and lucky that this has happened to me and that I get to do this online and that so many people enjoy my work. I've always been an outsider looking in, always the spectator, and never the performer. For so long, I have dreamed of finally being the person on the other side of the screen, making countless people smile and maybe even brighten up their day just a little bit. It feels like I've only just started making content on Tumblr SINCE LAST AUGUST, and I'm already having to write grandiose thank-you letters!

On a more serious note, I had been going through a rough time for the past few months, just a little after I started Tumblr. I had just transferred to a new school, and have had to leave all my friends behind for a second time. The transition period was hard, and I had never felt so lonely in a long while, but coming back online to see you interacting with my blog always brightened up my day. I've come to learn and accept that sometimes, online communities can be just as good as in-person communities, though it did take some getting used to!

Speaking of grandiose thank-you letters, let's get on to acknowledging some VIPs!

First, thank you everyone that has decided to hit the follow button, and for giving me a chance! It really feels validating, and motivated to continue working on and posting my story!

Also, I would like to thank God for gifting me with artistic talent and the drive to hone it at the tender age of five. He's given me so many opportunities to practice my craft, and He continues to give me more chances to use my gift for the happiness of others, and for myself. Without Him, I wouldn't be the person I am today.

@novajuniper! You know who you are to me. So I'm just here to remind everyone what you did. YOU ARE MY BEST FRIEND IRL AND YOU ENCOURAGED ME TO START TUMBLR IN THE FIRST PLACE! You were also one of my first and only fans of my art for a very very long time. Everyone, let's give it up for the OG!!

@oppsiedoo! YOU. You were one of my first fans that gave me FANART! The first Godbox AU fanart came from you, and the first Grinnames fanart came from you! And then you kept giving me more! I'm honestly sometimes a little concerned with the amount of fanart you do for me and my work. Surely you have other creators you look up to?! But thanks for giving me that much support since the beginning when I was small! I felt so validated and seen!

@bow-and-aro-child and @smgx-pez! I always remember you because you were some of the first people to notice Godbox AU! Though we don't interact much, I very much appreciate that you stuck around! You two often appear as my top-fans on my Activities page!

Also @smgx-pez you were also one of my first reblogs. It was the one where you compared Rewrite Sonic to Godbox SMG4, and my stomach kinda dropped in a nervous but excited way! That thread where you found out I actually was inspired by Rewrite is something I will never forget because that's how I discovered that Tumblr was chill like that! Thanks for representing Tumblr!

@hexsie! You were also one of my first reblogs! I was so young and inexperienced on this platform and some stranger (you) sends me some OOC drawing of your OC hugging my boys... I have to admit I was very flattered but so stunned that I didn't know how to respond. Well, now here's the response! I now think that this interaction was hilarious! Thank you for being my introduction into the SMG4 community! Looking forward to that Hexsie lore!

(It's always been the Hug Saga, hasn't it...? From the very beginning...)

@smg6-the-memer! My first asker! You probably submitted the most asks to my ask box as well! That's how I remember you! I had actually not intended to start asks at the time, but the askbox was open by default, so I just went along with it because I HAD ALWAYS WANTED AN ASKBLOG. So thank you for being the push!

@supern0vashii! The infamous Starter of the Hug Saga! Also currently the Ender of the Hug Saga! (for now) We've come full circle! Honestly, Hug Saga was fun, and it's all thanks to you reaching out to me! You also started the Godboxified OC trend with SMG6... you really be out there trailblazing! I've always enjoyed redesigning my OCs to fit AUs... so to have people doing the same for MY AU?! IT FEELS SO AMAZING! Thank you!

@bear-boi-5! My first mutual that isn't @novajuniper! (she doesn't count because I met her IRL before tumblr) When you followed me back you have no idea how shocked and excited I was. I'm not really interested in the fandoms you draw for now, I mostly followed you for your amazing SMG4 au art (Monster Containment AU is my favorite! It's what got me to follow you!) but I'm sticking around because of the sentiment and I also like your vibes!

@michaelscorneroftheinternet! Holy hell. You are one of the creators that I really look up to! Your art-style is just so yummy! So I kind of, may have, freaked out when you joined the Godboxified OC trend AND followed me back! ON TOP OF THAT, YOU SAID I'M ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE CREATORS TOO?! I nearly died from all the happiness rushing up to my head! Not to mention, I really love your energy whenever you reblog stuff! It's rather infectious! Keep up the good work!

@libbytwq! I also look up to you! We may not have interacted much, but I am honored that you follow me back! I really enjoy watching SMGL:e's silly little adventures and interactions with other OCs! So much so that I was inspired by you to later publish some lore about my own OC Grinnames herself! I'm looking forward to some more delicious lore-drops in the future!

@purpdrawsthings! You are probably one of the the NICEST most BUBBLY people I have met on this platform! I just like watching you be nice to people and the fanart you make of other creators' AUs! Not to mention your own AUs are mighty interesting... I want to be as nice as you when I interact with other blogs! Also MY SONA BECAME AN ANIMATION IN YOUR CHRISTMAS VIDEO, SHE'S GOING PLACES THANKS TO YOU!

@bstroobery! specifically @bluestrawberrybunny, Apprenticeship AU is actually one of the first SMG4 fanfics I decided to sit down, lock in, and read through. And over time, your OCs SMG5 and SMG6 really grew on me! I also liked that you were open to AU interactions in your askbox, and crossovers have always been my sort of thing, so I decided that your askbox would be the first I would interact with! Thank you for being so chill with me!

@clowntrickery08! My latest mutual! Dude I really like your artstyle, and its super easy to tell that its you! The way you draw characters is really charming! So I can say for certain that I WAS SO EXCITED WHEN YOU DREW MY BOYS IN YOUR STYLE. Also I really like your sona's design! Also, your concept for SMGPuzzles and SMGWren is SO COOL that I am gonna play around with it sometimes!

@itz-miss-kamilyvision! My god, your OC has a whole-ahh saga in Godbox AU. You having your OC have so many interactions with my boys was so much fun to watch! Thank you doing all that, I always love making characters interact and you gave me just that over and over again! I also like seeing your OCs lore, and the other interactions you have with other creators!

@alan-william! The one who turned ME into a gacha character AND animated me! But what I appreciated the most is how you made my sona interact with yours and also Micheal's. That is the closest thing to real human interaction to me on this platform, and something that I've enjoyed the most here is finding community, and I really feel connected with you!

@birdy-four! We haven't interacted that much, but to this day, that giant reblog of Godbox AU Chapter 0 with you word-vomiting everywhere about my fanfic is my favorite reblog of all time! I sometimes go back and read it again because while most people see my art, they don't really get to see my writing, and I've never gotten feedback like this before!

@smg33exe! And last but not least, the one that put my boy Godbox!SMG4 in a gacha video! BECAUSE OF YOU I MADE IT ONTO YOUTUBE! Thank you for throwing my creation out there on the web, and for creating a video that I sometimes come back to just to marvel at what I've become!

As for the rest of you... I have planned something that everyone can partake in! Stay tuned, I just need to finish preparing it...

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

Oct 30th

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1. So I suddenly forgot to bookmark this fic and now I am desperate to find it.

This is how it goes, it was a modern au and wei ying and lan wangji is in an arranged marriage due to the lan elders forcing it because wei ying was baoshan sanren grandson. Lan wangji and wei wuxian co exists with each other without getting in a way of each other, lan wangji first interest or crush is nie huisang but he rejected him because he likes Jiang Cheng and I don't know the rest of it. It was mpreg and wei ying adopted a-yuan. @lanwuxian0725

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2. Hi, I'm desperately trying to find A) a fic where WWX dies and then LWJ plays the guqin until his fingers bleed and brings WWX back to life and Lan Huan is horrified but doesn't interfere and when WWX comes back to life, he asks LWJ to promise not to do that again but LWJ silently doesn't promise. Please do you know what fic this is

B) Also second fic im trying to find: one in which WangXian keep getting remarried to each other as WWX ages and then after he dies he comes back as a ghost and says, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, let's get married again @boneshriker

2A)

FOUND? a song you've never heard by arahir (G, 4k, WangXian, Canon Compliant, Presumed Dead, Angst with a Happy Ending)

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3. Hi I’m looking for a fic were Lan Qiren goes to the Wen indoctrination in lan Zhan place were he ends up fighting the murder turtle with Wen Ruhan they defeat it together. Ruhan also ask Wen Cho how is he so stupid his mother wasn’t . @cfox96

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4. Good Evening! I'm in desperate need of some help finding a particular story. I don't remember a whole lot but: •wei ying & wens make a deal to live in gusu lan land•wei ying must be cleansed & returned to sward path•they almost kill him...which he thought that's what they wanted•they didn't...they didn't "mean" to hurt him even though they where told otherwise.• I believe wangxian is endgame

I hope this is helpful enough, thank you!

-Beth @carey-roza

FOUND! 🧡 decay by antebunny (G, 15k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Angst, Misunderstandings, Miscommunication, Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending, the fluffiest ending, Hurt/Comfort)

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5. hii i would like to find a fic and its been driving me crazy! i remember it was like the 'only one bed' trope except it was wwx who kept on trying to make it happen but when they finally got to their accomodations there were two beds and his plans to seduce lwj kept getting foiled. i think at one point he purposefully spilled wine on the bed? @f1sh1ng4gl0ry

FOUND! Wei Ying's Very Good And Not At All Likely To Fail Plan Of Ultimate Seduction by craftyTrickster (luoxiaobai) (M, 6k, WangXian, Modern AU, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Misunderstandings, Implied Sexual Content)

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6. Hello! Could you all help me find a thread fic? I think wangxian were exes in this one. I think they both have tattoos that are supposed to be for each other. They're on vacation at a resort or something and wwx is by the pool or by the beach and lwj keeps trying to see if he can sneak a look at the tattoo. I think the end has a beach scene where they confess to still liking each other and lwj reveals that he got the tattoo a day after the break up. I can't remember what the reason for the break up was.

FOUND? Twitter fic by anaphoricae

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7. Hey its me again! thanks for the help last time. A) there is a fic that randomly crossed my head where WWX grew up with Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan, maybe after he defected from YunmengJianng or something i am not sure, but he gets similar title as XXC & SL. Thank you very much in advance φ(*￣0￣)

B) Hey! Nice to meet you again, there is a fic i am searching for long time, I remember only one scene i hope it works, there is a change in yunmengjiang and JFM YZY were thrown off from sect leader seat? not quite sure about that, and Lotus Pier was searched thoroughly and they found pheonix type creature that YZY imprisoned in Lotus Pier so that it obeys her and her son. idk for sure what was other content. thanks in advance @vbhardwaj-reads

7A)

FOUND? Frost moon’s sun by RenaFair (T, 116k, WangXian, XXC/SL, Slow Build, Childhood Sweethearts, Angst and Feels, Fluff, Family Feels, Canon Divergence, Mentions of Smut, Attempt at Humor)

7B)

FOUND? Hua Xianle by Tiffany_Guinne (Not rated, 260k, hualian, wangxian, TGCF, canon divergence, not Jiang friendly, madam lan lives, WWX adopted by hualian, WWX with different name, overprotective hualian, hurt WWX, WIP) Canon divergence + TGCF crossover, Hualian raise WWX as their little prince, Not Jiang friendly at all, the phoenix is found tortured at Lotus Pier bc YZY is a massive b*tch in this

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8. Hello dear mods, I am looking for a fic that for what I remember go's like this madam yu find wei ying playing dresses up with Jiang yanli and thinks to punish him with the constriction of the female of the time but he Excelles at it then comes the time to study at cloud recess and he decides to catch him shelf a husband that is a second son that second son is Lan Zhan @androgynousbelievergarden

FOUND! 🔒 Aunt Knows Best by retired (misbehavingvigilante) (M, 10k, WWX & YZY, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Character Study, Crossdressing, Dysfunctional Family, Gender Identity, Fix-It, Sexism, Trans WWX, Good Parent YZY)

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9. Hello! For fic finder please: I am looking for a fic which heavily featured the Xuanwu of Slaughter scene/cave. WWX wasn’t there for the fight, but he did go and help rescue the trapped heirs after. I think WWX might have been a rogue cultivator, and he made a name for himself by helping: he was known as the Savior Of Muxi Cave or something similar. The fic went into graphic/gory detail about how the disciples died in the cave, and there was a sequel about WWX and the survivors going back to the cave to collect the body parts and swords of their fallen clan disciples. @gloriousclotpole

FOUND! Just go forward like you mean it by tawaen (M, 101k, WangXian, WWX & WN &WQ, WWX & JYL, NHS & WWX, Canon Divergence, WWx does not attend the Wen indoctrination, WWX saves Lotus Pier, Inventor WWX, No Golden Core Transfer, Sect Leader JYL, JC Has No Golden Core, Bad Parents JFM & YZY, Not JC Friendly, but he gets a happier ending than canon so don’t look here for bashing)

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10. Hi! First off thank you for all that you do! Can you please help me find a fic? This is a hard ask because I don’t remember a lot of particulars.

One of the main components of this fic focuses on the fact that Wei Wuxian really likes and prefers Lan Wangji. This fic observes how many people compare Lan Wangji to Lan Xichen and find him lacking because Xichen is much more sociable. I think Wei Wuxian even mistakes Xichen for Lan Wangji at some point and then is disappointed when he gets closer and sees Lan Xichen.

I think at least part of it is in Lan Xichen’s pov where he is pleased to see someone so devoted to his brother. I also think this fic mentions how most people consider Lan Xichen the prettier Twin Jade but Wei Wuxian absolutely thinks Lan Wangji is prettier. If I remember correctly this fic was complete when I read it. Thank you for your help! @kjwaikiki

It’s not this one (although it is a good fic). The one I’m talking about took place in Gusu and I think they were still cultivators.

NOT FOUND! The Twin Jade Problem by bonyenne (T, 23k, wangxian, LXC&LWJ, modern, college/university, humor, miscommunication) sounds like the fic where wwx thought that lz and lwj were the "twin jades of lan" and lxc was the older brother but mixes them up completely. I cannot for the life of me remember the fic title, but let me go have a look!

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11. Hello fellow mods!! I don't know if you guys can also help with thread-fics on twitter(X😐) but i will still ask just in case. So it was starting with wei ying and his friends making a bet like "text lan zhan from a fake account to see if he would cheat" and when wy did that lz started to like that person too (bc he was similiar to wy) and felt guilty. I remember him crying and talking with wy, getting really mad and dissapointed when wy says that he was just testing him, that it was just a bet. Them having a break up(?) bc of that and making up. I don't have much hope but i would be really happy if someone could find it, thank you in advance!! @for13years-i-play-inquiry-foryou

FOUND? Twitter fic by cheerywhiskey And the extended version on AO3: hundred and one by cherrywhiskey (T, 20k, WangXian, College/University, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Modern AU, Happy Ending)

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12. Weird ask, but I am hoping for closure to mourn. I see in my bookmarks a fic was deleted. I had written in the notes "rating due to WWX alone time in the tub ;)" I assume that means it was rated Mature and they didn't have sex but WWX was thinking ab it! It was also tagged Wei Ying POV. It it was bookmarked 5/14/2021 so it was published before that. I'm pretty sure it was canon era, tho I couldn't say why.

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13. Hi! I think this is count as a fic. I’ve been searching for the fan story art about wwx de-aged then Lwj took back his husband to Cloud Recessess. I remember LQR thought Wwx and Lwj had a child together (as the de-aged wwx looks like wwx 😂).

I hope you can help me find it. Thank you!

~*~

14. Hello! I’m looking for a 3zun fic that I fear has been deleted. (TW Sexual Assault) It was a gender bent cnc fic where Xichen was dealing with extreme purity culture and asked her girls to just force her, all worked out beforehand, and they pretended to break in and hold her at knifepoint? It was so good and sweet at the end but I can’t for the life of me find it! Thanks in advance!!

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15. Hello! Back in search of another fic. It was canon divergence where Wei Wuxian was a disciple of Baoshan Sanren and he and Lan Wangji were friends due to him traveling before the lectures started in Gusu? I think Wei Wuxian had some sort of run in with Jiang Fengmian or Jiang Cheng in the end, but I can’t remember anything other than that pls help

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16. Im looking for a fic where wei yong and the wen leave the cultivation world and settle somewhere like Thailand and after some years sects are looking for his help @theladylily

FOUND? 💖 Echo, Murmur, Dream, Here by bluerainmist (M, 51k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Universe Alteration, the yiling patriarch survives, Angst with a Happy Ending, Catharsis, Slow Burn, Drama, Getting Together, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Melancholy, Love, Mutual Pining, Reunions, Love Confessions, Eventual Smut, Blow Jobs, Anal Sex, Switching, Grief/Mourning, fucking while pining, Implied/Referenced Torture, Self-Harm, golden core transfer, Playing fast and loose with worldbuilding, Battle Scenes, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, implied / Referenced suicide attempt, Sect Leader WWX, YLLZ WWX, Yílíng Wèi Sect) Wei Ying & the Wens don't head to Thailand but they travel to the "Undying Lands" and come back to help the cultivation world

FOUND? After All I Drifted Ashore by lingering_song (T, 4k, WangXian, WIP, Canon Divergence - Ambush at Qiongqi Path, Historical, Mutual Pining, Cultivation Sect Politics, JGS Wins, Meeting Again, Wen Remnants Live, The Cultivation World gets exactly what they wanted, But oh nooo they're not having a good time about it :), POV Alternating)

~*~

17. Fic finder: I’m looking for a modern au that had a funny scene where wei ying used a dildo to take a dent out of his car and got caught by lan zhan. I don’t remember anything else about it but that scene

FOUND? Elevator Pitch by relenafanel (M, 6k, WangXian, Modern AU, Elevators, meet ugly, Crack, Romantic Comedy, Demisexuality, one-sided banter, Mutual Attraction, inappropriate use of a dildo in a PG way, somewhere in North America probably, Hand Kink)

~*~

18. Hi, i'm looking for a wangxian fic where they get togeter during the war and eventually live together at Cloud recess, and Lan Xichen is like what good friends, and just think they are sworn brothers or somehing and eventually Lan Wangji has to tell him that he and Wei Wuxian are like married.

Please help, i've been looking for days. @herebedragons02

FOUND! happy not knowing by plonk (Not Rated, 16k, WangXian, Canon Era, Canon Divergence, Established Relationship)

~*~

19. hi!! i hope you guys are well!! i don't know exactly how this blog work (i read the pinned but I'm afraid i misunderstood smth 🥹) but i hope i got it right and didn't clown myself 😭😭 sooo I've been searching for a fic for the past two days and i can't find it for some reasons? and i thought you guys may be my heros and help me 😭🙏 if I'm not mistaken i think it was inspired by tangled/rapunzel, wwx was locked in koi tower i believe? and he had long magical hair if I'm not mistaken and he had a crow as a pet, i can't remember exactly how lwj found him but i do remember that lwj took him to an inn afterwards and people gave him weird looks and i think later lwj got injured becs someone tried attacking wwx i think and wwx healed him (?) and they had the journey of going go the village that had a festival (where they light lanterns but i can't for the life of me remember what the author called it 😭) and I'm not sure of this part but either they both ride the boat and have a cute moment or lwj tells wwx to ride it w/o him and he investigates smth in a nearby temple and i think jgy was there 😭? the ending is the part that goes very foggy to me and i genuinely can't remember it's name or the author's name but i believe it was yllz wwx and i think it was rated M? I'm literally blending my brain in the blender but there ain't any more juices coming out I'm gonna tear the walls 😭😭😭 i have a feeling it got taken down or deleted but i don't wanna lose hope :(( thank you in advance and I'm SO sorry for the HUGE rant/explanation forgive me gusy I'm near my breaking point 😭😭😭

FOUND? may have been the rivers start to sing by fruitys but, if so, I believe it's been deleted from AO3.

~*~

20. Hello, I'm looking for a MDZS fix-it/watching the future fic. Lan Sizhui is LW and WWX bio child, Lan Jingyi is JC and LXC Bio child through duel cultivation. Juniors are showing the future. No one believes they are parent child until they pull their parents swords. JC and LXC relationship was kept secret in the future due to the political climate I don't think it was explained. I think Madam Yu and Fengmain was being bashed or bad parents. Please help me! @megdbrew

~*~

[angelsdvsts]

sweet little affirmations since it's the day of love & i adore y'all so bad... i hope each and everyone of you have a lovely day ♡

♡ might be in la la la love ~ sweet baby angels that i annoy way too much who literally have my entire heart ??

♡ @drcamsx - my sweet lil anna , we've been with each other for so long n i literally adore you to pieces <3 our bbs will forever be special to me & i literally developed a reading addiction bc of you so heh <333 ♡ @unraptures - helloo, timezones will always be the death of us, but i will never stop screaming about how absolutely feral our bbs are?? adore you so much, sweetpea! <3 n love how much entertainment you bring me on the daily whether its about coworkers (lol) or our bbs <3 ♡ @slumpcd - pfft... remember when i was so scared to interact w/ you now i literally annoy you on the daily? bwahah, i love writing with you sm, it seriously makes my shitty days better! ♡ @shcrtnsweet - my love!! literally adore all the concepts that we come up with, the four core will never be stopped <3 love love love writing & blabbing about literally anything w/ you <3 ♡ @swtsours - no way to explain how each one of our ships always have me giggling and kicking my feet??? i swear, i literally be grinning ear to ear while typing replies <3 ♡ @cravemore - i will forever love every single thing you throw at me, literally gagged @ your writing every single time -- also can't believe how many beautiful bbs we have together <3 ♡ @tumkink - hi hi hi !! despite us recently just interacting + talking, i enjoy blabbing on about our muses sm !! literally brings me joy throughout my boring day at work <3 ♡ @candiedstrwb - come jump in my pocket rn <3 keeping you in my heart forever and ever. literally love love love the thousands of threads we have going on n you're fr on my mind all the time <3

♡ hope you know how proud i am you were created ~ angels who i just think are absolutely amazing & i adore everything we have <3

♡ @emotionlcss - will never stop screaming about our well developed bbs & the new ones that will come <3 seriously just love blabbing with you! ♡ @brckensociety - i'm pretty sure you are my oldest follower. . . which is kinda insane to say??? literally adore you so so much, you've been through sm and you're still here entertaining me with your bbs, so ty <3 ♡ @gracland - the way we only have two threads but those bbs own my life, i absolutely love them and enjoy writing with you sm ! you're such a joy to write with & i love screaming about our bbs together. ♡ @thursdaygrl - our ships are so good every time, it's so crazy?? literally could pick up right where we left off like neither of us disappeared n i love that :') <3 ♡ @everseens - each and every one of our ships are so chefs kiss, pls the power we have <3 heh love love writing with you <3 ♡ @sevcnminutcs - love how we are able to just keep adding more muses onto our already huge list?? it's just amazes me how we can just keep adding more and more heh <3 ♡ @cardigaen - your writing is just too skilled for me tbh, but i love everything you give :') <3

♡ if i told you how much i think about her you'd think i was in love ~ angels i always see on my dash n love to interact w/ more <3 whether we have previous threads, ongoing threads, or none just know that i'm adoring all y'all from afar <3

@nepotizm , @angelvings , @whorifics , @svftlove , @harshlxve , @whileurmine , @seriallcver , @lovedrunked , @pcrtrait , @cocained , @cheatcodcs , @pinkpcny , @malboraslihan , @pureshoney , @atgvnpoint , @popcultr , @deviiates , @poetsprophecy

[mermaidsirennikita]

Omg I am so tired of people in romance book communities within places like Instagram or reddit talking about "too much spice" and "ew porn" in modern romances I am convinced they're just reading authors that aren't writing good scenes or have bad pacing and blaming it on all sex scenes in general like they're weird or gross. I've come across some explicit scenes I didn't like but I was able to say that author's writing style isn't for me instead of complaining about books having "too much spice" (I'm really starting to hate that term I wish pepe wouldjusr say sex or explicit scenes lol). I've enjoyed and loved so many books with no sex scenes or face to black without complaining that it's hard to find romances with no sex (it's really not).

Lol I hate the term spice. I get why it exists. I think it's confusing and dumb. I've gotten into (minor) arguments with people insisting that there's a difference between "steam" and "spice". Like, babes, I remember when these books were being sold on the shelves at Walmart in the early 2000s, the blurbs would say "STEAMY" and they meant explicit sex, not heavy breathing kissing. It's the same damn look.

The thing is that when people pearl clutch over this shit, they're feeding into a neopuritanical culture we can NOT afford to cater to. I'm at the point where I'm like "can y'all please be quiet and simply google some closed door books". It's sincerely NOT hard to find low heat or closed door romance novels.

But to be fair, a lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too (pay a subscription fee every month for a bunch of books, with a lot of churn and burn, versus spending more for tradpub OR GETTING A LIBRARY CARD AND PLACING A HOLD!!!!! or buying secondhand for a lower price) and they're not looking at tradpub, which is where you'll find a lot of lower heat or closed door books. They also aren't looking at books published more than 5 years ago; they're not looking at books outside of their niches (usually contemporary romance or monster romance or dark romance, and I am *sorry*, but dark romance has to be open door lol).

The romancebooks subreddit is honestly kinda bad about this. There are a lot of cool people on there with great recs, but the Achilles heel of that community is that the mods (who are definitely overtaxed) miss that even though a thread isn't titled "sexy books bad", the conversations often devolve into "I am being persecuted by publishing because everyone loves sexy books".

There is also a reality that like. Yeah. Most likely, the MAJORITY (I'm not saying a vast majority, but a majority) of romance readers probably prefer books to be open door. The degree of heat they want may vary, but this is kind of what the genre was built on for a long time, and it's what a lot of people grew up on, and it's what they've passed down. I'll always say, my first romance was handed to me by my mom, and it was open door. It was a 90s-era Johanna Lindsey, but it was open door. And the books she grew up on where open door, and the books her mom read when the genre was really picking up steam were open door.

Because that's what made a book like Shanna create a true differentiation in the market, compared to all the other books targeted towards women, romance and otherwise.

I'm totally fine with closed door books existing (The Favorites by Layne Fargo was one of my favorite books so far this year, and it's closed door), but if anything I feel that much of tradpub has downgraded the heat versus upping it. Though there's definitely a response thing, right? Ali Hazelwood said she was encouraged to cut the scenes down to the one big one in The Love Hypothesis, when she was naturally a higher heat writer in her fic days. As she got more creative control, the books bumped up and became higher heat with each release.

But a LOT of authors write lower heat books. People just need to know where to look for them, and that's on them as readers.

[fishfingersandscarves]

I don't even bother scrolling the ao3 armandaniel tag anymore, I just wait for your glorious art and then read whatever you illustrate...

That being said if you had any recommendations I'd happily take the o' knowledgeable one

ah nonnie i am happy to pull some from my meticulously vetted list

remember to read and mind all the tags

a haunting just for company by valkyrisms

"I know what a breakup looks like," Daniel says. "The better question is, why are you coming to me about it? I'm the one who broke up your little sham." "This is what humans do, don't they?" Armand asks, letting his voice drop. "Crashing on their friends' couches when there's a blip in their romances?" "Except we're not friends. We're actually very much not friends." Daniel shrugs, as if it's all the same to him. "And I can't imagine the great vampire Armand deigning himself to sleep on my fucked-up sofa. That thing's been here since the nineties." "Well," Armand only says. "I saw you have a guest bedroom."

Lie Back and Let Me Unlock You by Thunder_Puss

Independently wealthy man, early 30's, seeks arrangement with young male aged 18-25, not too muscular and no more than 200lbs (anything more would be most unmanageable) to share my apartment and affection with for 1 year until slaughter. All needs up to that point will be met -surpassingly so, I must admit, as I can be rather doting. There will be no need to consider expenses as they will be covered entirely by myself- "-There will be a rigorous interview process consisting of correspondence by email..." Daniel shook his head, laughing. "Of course, buddy. I'm sure I'll have a lot of competition." He raised his whiskey glass to his lips and wet them. "If this sounds like an amenable blah blah... Christ, this guy is verbose. I'll have to bring along a thesaurus to keep up." Daniel Molloy was 24, not too muscular, and no more than 200lbs. He was also steadfast and enterprising -when he could keep his nose clean- and had nothing more interesting to do than chase a story about an independently wealthy man with the screen name Botticelli_Angel who seemed to have the world's most taboo kink. Daniel could play the part, see where the story took him for a while. If shit got too weird, he'd dip. (Spoiler: He doesn’t dip.)

the sin and this mess we're in by ringfinger

He’s sitting on a beach he hates, trading shitty jokes with a centuries-old monster whose body count would put Ed Gein to shame and who is almost certainly also plotting to turn him into a flesh lampshade. “Don’t be dramatic,” Armand says, picking up on that thread, “I do wish you’d stop returning to that.”

how memory makes monsters into myth by blueskiddoo

“I said I’m fine, Alice,” Daniel snaps, and time itself grinds to a halt. Not literally. Ha. The things you have to specify with vampires. Daniel wishes he could laugh, but the sound is stuck somewhere in his throat, along with his heart. Now, of course, his hand chooses to be perfectly still. Why the fuck did he say that? * daniel keeps slipping up and mistaking armand for his ex-wife and the more he looks back on his memories, the less reliable they get. he's pretty sure he married alice molloy, but how do you marry a woman who apparently never existed? armand is armand about it.

chase away my heart and heartache by sahwen

With nowhere to go and an eternity ahead of him, Armand decided to work his way backwards. Or: Armand's Tour de Divorce in six acts.

to stretch the night, to fill it fuller with dreams by typefortydeductions

Armand and Daniel return to Venice to confront some of Armand's oldest demons. Louis comes with them, trailing ghosts of his own.

I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love. by cannibalenthusiast

“Did we call each other boyfriend? Surely not. Sounds weird even saying out loud.” “You were my beloved,” Armand says. “My lover. My boy.” “Your human pet. Your mortal fool. I get it,” Daniel says, not neglecting to notice his use of the past tense. “You want to go see a movie?”

such a pretty box (all fancy wrappings, and a bow on top) by snuffreel

“That is a fascinating shade of scarlet. In the dark, now, it almost matches the color of her blood.” Or: Armand, Daniel, and the age-old question of what's really inside a girl.

flash the camera (you're a star) by exastris_scientia

Daniel is starting to think he should put a little more thought into the promises he makes in the heat of the moment. He’d qualified it a little, sure, so technically he doesn’t have to do it. And it’s not like he needs the money, not after Louis and Armand had thrown his that’s my whore number comment back in his face by actually paying him ten million fucking dollars. But a promise is a promise, even if it’s one literally no one would expect him to follow through on. Whatever. He said he would, so he will. It might be fun. So he starts an OnlyFans.

bang it up inside by leavethebes

"Come on," Daniel goads. "Come the fuck on."

she will be your living end by kanxie

Daniel reaches his hand out for Armand to take. They wait a few moments in silence as the world stops moving around them. The animals hush. The air stills. A faint smell of smoky dust drops from the sky and lifts from the ground. Rural Armenia has always been too quiet for Armand, but this is to a level where noise itself seems to atrophy into a cold, nightmare-like state. Armand takes his hand, and the usual dampened sounds of movement are stark in this nothingness. “It's okay to admit you're scared,” says Daniel. His deep and rumbling voice. Armand keens for it in the lamplight.

Armand and Daniel are at home when the bell tolls.

Backroads to Sonoma by burntcrimson

Where the hell have you been, Daniel wonders, and why me? A bloody American summer in the belly of the AIDS crisis.

open eyes and behind your teeth by tisiphones

It wasn't fascinating, the way the boy didn't know whether to lean into the touch or away from it, confused by the comfort and the pain it offered in equal measures. It wasn't. Armand could do the same thing — did do the same thing, whenever Louis deigned to touch him at all — and Louis still thought he was boring. It couldn't be this that had captivated him. But that didn't mean it wasn't fun. --- Armand weighs the pros and cons of dog ownership.

[scoobydoodean]

Reading through your Sam tags after your excellent post regarding 8.23 I was struck by a weird thought. Do Sam and Dean even really like each other? Do they genuinely understand each other? I am coming to the conclusion that while they care for each other due to circumstance I don’t think they would be “friends” in a normal life. That’s such a depressing thought to me but so often what they want/believe seems to be at odds held together by the thread of “he’s my brother”. I feel like, irl we would be saying they need to cut off the toxic relationship. Lisa did say this and I think she was right.

I think we can conclude that Dean thinks he and Sam wouldn't be close if not for everything that's happened, given his djinn dream in 2.20 shows him and Sam are estranged. The show tells us there are other realities where Sam and Dean aren't close—for example—Lebanon and (sort of) The French Mistake, but it also shows us HunterCorp Sam and Dean who live a very different life and had a very different upbringing, but are still close.

I think Sam and Dean would agree that shared experience is part of what makes them close in their universe, and in another, their childhood experiences might have torn them apart, but that didn't happen. I also think Sam especially makes it pretty clear that he prefers a world where he and Dean are close.

See 2.20 "What Is And What Should Never Be" when Dean tells Sam about the djinn dream:

SAM: So we didn't get along then, huh? DEAN: Nah. SAM: Yeah... I thought it was supposed to, to be this perfect fantasy. DEAN: It wasn't. It was just a wish. I wished for Mom to live. That Mom never died, we never went hunting and you and me just never uh... you know. SAM: Yeah. Well, I'm glad we do. And I'm glad you dug yourself out, Dean. Most people wouldn't've had the strength, would have just stayed.

And the end of 6.15 "The French Mistake":

DEAN: You know that if we drop Virgil, get the key, then this might be it. We might be stuck here. SAM: No, we'll figure out a way back. DEAN Yeah, you wouldn't be that broken up if we didn't, though. SAM: What? Don't be stupid. DEAN: Well, I'm just saying. No hell below us, above us only sky. SAM: Dean, our friends are back there. DEAN: Yeah, but here, you got a pretty good life. I mean, back home, the hits have been coming since you were 6 months old. You got to admit, being a-a bazillionare, married to Ruby, the whole package. It's no contest. SAM: No, you know, you were right. We just don't mean the same thing here. I mean, we're not even brothers here, man.

We can also point to 4.17 "It's A Terrible Life", when Zachariah again makes it so Sam and Dean aren't brothers anymore, and forces them into a fake life, and Sam ends up asking Dean to hit the road with him and become a ghost hunter, while knowing nothing of their history:

SAM: We should keep doing this. DEAN: I know. SAM: I mean it. There gotta be other ghosts out there. We could help a lot of people. DEAN: Right, we'd be like the Ghostfacers. SAM: No, really. I mean, for real. DEAN: What? Like, quit our jobs and hit the road? SAM: Exactly. DEAN: How would we live? SAM: Uh... DEAN: You gotta be kidding me. How would we get by? With stolen credit cards? Huh? Eating diner food drenched in saturated fats? Sharing a crap motel room every night? SAM: That's all just details. DEAN: Details are everything. You don't wanna go fighting ghosts without any health insurance. SAM: All right. Um. Confession. DEAN: What? SAM: Remember those dreams I told you about with the ghosts? DEAN: Yeah? SAM: I was fighting them. DEAN: Okay. SAM: With you. We were these, like, hunters, and we were friends. More like brothers, really. I mean, what if that's who we really are? I mean, you saw us back there, working together. The ghost was scrambling people's brains. What if it scrambled ours? DEAN: That's insane. SAM: Is it? Think about it for just one second. What if we think this is our life, but it's not? DEAN: Hey, man, the ghost is dead and we're still standing. I mean, I'm sorry, but— SAM: Look, all I know is this isn't who we're supposed to be. DEAN: No. I'm Dean Smith, okay? Director of Sales and Marketing. I went to Stanford. My father's name is Bob, my mother's name is Ellen, and my sister's name is Jo. SAM: When was the last time you talked to them? To any of them? DEAN: Okay, you're upset. You're upset, you're confused— SAM: Yeah, 'cause I only moved here 'cause I just broke up with my fiancée, Madison. But I called her number and I got a damn animal hospital. DEAN: Okay. What are you saying? Are you trying to say that my family isn't real? Huh? That we've been injected with fake memories? Come on. SAM: All I know is, I got this feeling in my gut. And I know—I know that deep down, you gotta be feeling it too. We're supposed to be something else. You're not just some corporate douchebag. This isn't you. I know you. DEAN: Know me? You don't know me, pal. You should go.

One interesting thought that emerges here is whether Dean feels differently than Sam about this, and a secret part of him might prefer more distance from Sam. But I think the fact that Dean's 2.20 djinn dream transitions into an estranged Sam figuring out something is up with Dean and hitting the road with him, and Dean being genuinely touched by Sam's rejection of the French Mistake universe shows that isn't so cut and dry. I think there are definitely points where Sam and Dean want nothing to do with each other, but I also think that's brought about by circumstances and betrayals rather than a general dislike of each other as people. I think there are points where Dean doesn't like Sam but still loves him, but I think if we catch them on an off day/week/apocalypse, we're also making inferences from a biased sample. It's not easy to be a good brother when apocalypses are happening and demons are after you and want to wear you as a meatsuit and you've been through incredible grief/torture/pain/loss on top of a bunch of childhood trauma and evil forces are trying to use you for evil and you feel like a monster and it's all accumulating over time and you never actually have the space to deal with it as much as you wait for breaks where you can finally breathe. Does that mean you abandon each other because your relationship is "toxic" or do you give each other grace because your lives are fucking insane? Like I definitely think there are things Sam and Dean don't get about each other, but I also think experiencing a lot of trauma together is something that makes you understand other parts of each other in a way no one else ever will, and there's a comfort in that that I'm not willing to paint as toxic.

I also think Sam and Dean tend to conflate hunting with each other, so if one wants to hunt and the other doesn't, it influences how they feel about being close to each other. For example, despite grieving Sam for a solid year, when Sam actually shows up in 6.01/6.02, Dean promotes distance—in the opening of 6.02, when Sam asks for his help, Dean refuses until a baby is mentioned. I also think Lisa's analysis of the situation in 6.06 is colored by the fact that she doesn't have all the details, and the idea that Sam is the catalyst for Dean ditching normal keeps coming up, but is frustratingly misleading. Trying to grasp normal for Dean... Sam isn't the problem. The problem is decades of cumulative trauma and Dean's belief that he is a monster and a danger to the Braedens both directly and indirectly through retaliation from his enemies (Dean also says some of this under a truth spell in 6.06 and to Ben in 6.14). Soulless Sam doesn't help with that, but "co-dependency" isn't what drives Dean away.

[things-arent-what-they-seem66]

*it happened not long after the recent Extermination Day, Stolas was shocked to see Octavia bring home an angel, this angel was a very beautiful man with brilliant gold wings and brown hair that reminded him of milk chocolate, his dark blue robes were torn up and covered in gold angel blood, the poor angel looked like he was on the brink of death*

Octavia: Dad we need to help him.

Stolas: Via, there is a way we could help him, but I don’t know if he would like it.

Octavia: What is it dad?

Stolas: Since Goetia used to be angels, I could give him some of my blood, but he would turn into a Goetia.

Octavia: Wouldn’t being a Goetia be better than being dead. I found him begging for help and I promised I would help him after so many people ignored him. He told me his name was Adam before he passed out.

Stolas: Alright, I will do this for you Via.

*Stolas had Adam brought to one of the guest rooms and he had some of his black blood drawn and put into an IV bag connected to Adam, once all the Goetia blood was put into Adam, he would be passed out until the transformation was complete, it started with all of the hair falling off his head and his teeth falling out of his mouth, his body was then covered his brown feathers the color of his hair with threads of gold in them and the feathers on his head looked like the hair he had when he was an angel, his mouth became more like a hawk like beak, interestingly he kept his wings, but the feathers were now like the feathers on his body, his hands now had dangerous claws and his feet became hawk like talons, the final step was his lower half became more bird like including the fact that he now had a cloaca, like all Goetia Adam could now impregnate someone or lay an egg to have a baby, Adam slowly opened his eyes which were glowing golden orbs*

Adam: Where am I?

*Octavia gently took one of his hands smiling at him*

Octavia: We are at my home, you remember me right?

Adam: You are Octavia.

Octavia: This is also my dad Stolas, we saved you.

Adam: Thank you.

*Stolas just had to figure out how to tell Adam that he was now a Goetia like them*

Adams head was spinning he felt so dizzy and his body ached all over from what happened on the battle field and from the transformation.

He lifted a hand to his head to touch it and stopped when he saw claws.

Adam: What the-

Stolas: Before you freak out, I need to explain to you what had to be done in order to save your life.

Adam wasn't sure he was going to like this........

Once he listened to Stolas explain everything he was so conflicted. He was grateful to be alive but now he was a Goetia?

He looked at himself in the mirror, that would take a lot of getting used to.....

Stolas: I know this is a lot, but you are more than welcome to stay with us so you can get used to things.

Adam nodded: Thank you. I have one small request.

Stolas: What's that?

Adam: You can't tell Lucifer I'm alive.

[cleolinda]

My sister noticed

Previously on: I grew up in a haunted house and I didn't notice: So I told you a story about how a Count Chocula used to creep behind me at night when I was a child, and I described my very weird childhood home to you. I told you how my sister had Something Dark living in her bedroom, and I told you about the time she and I compared notes and realized that we also had the ghost of a young woman in the house. Maybe.

I asked my sister to read over the draft for me, maybe gather up the fortitude to fill in some details, and she texted back, "Oh, I'll tell you anything you want. But that’s not how it happened."

I am willing to believe her version for two reasons:

1) My memory has been shit after having covid umpteen thousand times.

2) I actually remember her version of the conversation we had, now that it's in front of me.

I also remember my version, is the thing—the one where I told her about Rebecca when we were younger. And that raises some questions about how independent, how uncompromised, our experiences were. But I think those questions are themselves the story. Can I trust my memory at all? I had such bad brain fog the first time I had covid that I could not remember how to scramble eggs. A lot of things are just mist to me now. There's what I remember and there's what actually happened, but what do I even remember? And that's before you even get into the idea that we're talking about ghosts we "felt" in the house. We saw no apparitions, no shadows, no odd movements.

This is not a story where I'm asking you to believe me.

There are things you experience, and things that happen. An example from the winter of 2016:

What I experienced was standing out on our deck one night and looking up at the stars. They were moving in a slight swirl motion, not unlike the painting Starry Night. I turned to my mom and said, "Well, the stars are moving, so if the world ends or something any time soon, here's our first sign." She stared at me.

What happened was, our upstairs heating unit had a leak, and I sustained mild carbon monoxide poisoning. (I like rooms to be cool, so I had used the heater less than most people would, at least.) This was only discovered during a routine furnace check, after my vision had been a little weird and I had been deeply fatigued for two or three months. I have had a CO monitor upstairs ever since.

Did I see the stars swirling? Yes. Were they? No. That's the distinction I want you to make while I tell you all this. Did my sister and I experience things? Yes. Do I know what happened? No.

So what I agree happened was, we were having Grownup Sunday Family Dinner a few years back, maybe 2019 or so. I had been really into Buzzfeed Unsolved, which later evolved into Watcher Entertainment, but my sister was refusing to watch any of it. She's a big fan now, but she only started watching the guys last year. Yesterday, we tried to piece this back together via text.

My sister ["MS" from here on out]: Like I feel like off and on for years you mentioned [Shane and Ryan's shows] and I refused

MS: And one day my argument was to talk about our own house

Me [let's go with Cleolinda Jones, "CJ"]: You said you felt like fake ghost shows were disrespectful to people who actually experienced [hauntings].

MS: YES I FEEL LIKE THAT WAS THE CONVO

I love paranormal investigation shows, whether they're patently fake or not, as long as I enjoy the people investigating, so I couldn't understand why they personally offended her. Pulling at this thread back in 2019 is how the the whole ghost story started coming out.

CJ: And I was like, okay, but here’s one show where they get, like, nothing, but I can promise you that it's real

(Because the Unsolved/Watcher shows pair a believer with an actual skeptic who still, lo these many years later, does not believe in any of it. I truly believe Shane and Ryan would not stage "evidence," for that reason. Shane makes fun of ghosts and people who believe in them, but he's honest about it, and my sister likes that.)

At this point, we go back to the first version of the story that I posted: my sister had told me that Something had lived in the Four Closets Bedroom with her when she was a preteen/early teenager. It felt very dark, very bad, and she had not told anyone else about it until that dinner. The way I relayed it to you, Dear Reader, was that she hadn't wanted to go into detail, and I wasn't sure what it looked like, or if it "lived" in the little witch closet, or what. That night at dinner, I had gone on to tell her that, you know, now that you mention it, I did feel like something used to follow me up there at night. And this was when "My sister started crying. Like just staring at me in wide-eyed horror, her eyes filling with tears" had come in.

1. Something Dark

CJ: So you were telling me about our house being haunted. Something in your room. How would you describe it?

MS: I think it more lived in the attic

(our pal the dark fucked-up attic room)

MS: but would roam the entire floor so I felt it in the peach room [my (Cleo's) old bedroom and then later, my sister's] but more so in [the Four Closets Bedroom] as it was closer to the attic

MS: The best way I can describe it is just never feeling like I was alone. Feeling like something was always behind me. But I refused to turn around to look. It felt like a darkness that almost oozed behind you in a way that was almost suffocating.

CJ: What I find interesting is that we both describe it as Just Feelings, and never feeling alone.

My sister texted me at this point that she used to sense Something upstairs whether it was day or night; "even in the day, it didn't feel safe." But night was worse.

MS: There was one night in 3rd grade when I was reading and had like my first panic attack because I was newer to living upstairs and I felt it come in the room at night for the first time

MS: I also used to feel compelled to keep the AC running all night like it was never cold enough.

Here's the weird thing: when we moved to the house where I currently live and our rooms were on the same floor, we always fought over the thermostat. My sister hated her bedroom being too cool, whereas I get hot. I remember one night, we were arguing over it, and she was weirdly on the verge of tears: "Why do you have to have it so cold?" In 2023, my sister texted me at this point that she didn't want our childhood home to be cold; it was like the thing wanted that temperature, even if she hated it.

You often hear that ghosts make rooms cold, that's a big ghost hunter show thing—but whatever was up there couldn't lower the temperature on its own?

CJ: "If you can’t make it cold yourself, storebought is fine"

CJ: And you don’t have a visual impression of it, I’m not just blowing past that?

MS: I refused. REFUSED to look. Ever. For any reason.

CJ: I did too, so that’s interesting

CJ: I describe it as a Count Chocula, which should tell you how much it didn’t bother me. Which I find weird

(Truly, there is a reason I titled that post "I grew up in a haunted house and I didn't notice.")

MS: I can’t tell if it was truly terrifying. Or if the amount of data I was getting from it was just so overwhelming that that alone was terrifying to a child. I wish I could answer that now.

CJ: Yeah, in some way I think we’re saying the same thing. I was seven years old and I couldn’t comprehend what it was, either, so I just imagined a silly vampire

CJ: like I can’t overstate how cartoonish it seemed to me at the time, while still being very DON’T LOOK BACK

Part of the problem, she added, was that she felt compelled to go turn down the air conditioning... and the thermostat was next to the (carpeted. shag carpeted) bathroom. And then she had to race back to her bedroom... the same way I used to, as quick as she could.

MS: I also felt like I could NOT run. Like the way you shouldn’t run away from a mountain lion. It would create the need for it to chase me.

MS: What is so strange is that [learning about paranormal investigation] has not changed my perception of my experience in the slightest. Whether that’s the reality or not. It is still something I find dark and terrifying.

CJ: I think you would answer this differently now than you did then: what do you think it was?

We discussed this by text for a while. I mentioned being intrigued that Something Dark wanted to be cold (but apparently was not able to make the room cold). My sister—having agreed to be quoted here—said, "I kinda hope to avoid someone being like 'you had a demon in your house,'" as she doesn't really feel like that's what it was. Her gut feeling (and, bear in mind, we are working off nothing but feelings here) is that it was a spirit or ghost: something formerly human. We agree that it seemed male in some way (again: a Chocula).

And you're probably thinking, This is total bullshit. And it probably is! I'm not claiming any of this to be real evidence! I just find it interesting that we somehow came up with the same bullshit.

CJ: It just fascinates me that I did not experience 90% of this, and yet I got a strong enough whiff of it that I’m like, yeah, I can see it

But what about the female presence, the one I went off to color with in the middle of the night?

2. Rebecca

MS: I didn’t find out you had done the ouija board until we were adults. You didn’t tell me when we were kids

MS: That’s why I was SO shocked when we talked at the dinner table.

See, I was convinced that I had told her about my ouija adventures when I was a teenager, and "What about Rebecca??" flowed really well in the first post. That conversation was already a bit fictionalized in order to condense it from what I remembered—that's how memoirs work, really, unless you have actual transcripts of your life and room to include them. You're telling a story. I thought I was telling a condensed version of a true story. And yet, I do remember how shocked my sister was at dinner that night. And she would have only been seven or eight when I was messing around with that shit. Those two things do support the idea that I wouldn't have told her.

MS: You did tell me skeletons lived in my closet tho

I told you I was kind of a shit.

CJ: when I told you about Rebecca, what was your reaction?

MS: That’s when I went white. Bc I realized we had had a similar experience and I wasn’t just crazy

CJ: The thing is, I WOULD HAVE SWORN I had told you about Rebecca when we were younger

MS: If you did you didn’t name her and that’s why it was nuts when I realized 2 decades later we pulled the same name and we both remembered it.

We did it again, too—I posted briefly about putting this whole saga together, and how my sister asked me to give the ghost a pseudonym (ghosts deserve privacy too). And in trying to think of a good replacement, we both came up with "Rebecca."

CJ: so how did you know the [original] name?

MS: Ouija board with [best friend, redacted] in the playroom when I was like 13. She cried the whole time. We both thought the other was moving [the planchette].

You'll remember the weird, windowless, sky-blue playroom with the scary door from the previous post.

MS: But she was crying so she wouldn’t have been. And I would have never pulled out the name [Not Actually Rebecca]

MS: There was part of me that wonders if I did it but I would have NEVER chosen Rebecca

CJ: So did I bring Rebecca up first in this conversation [at dinner in 2019], or did you? I did?

MS: You said it first. I would have never [told you first] cuz I would have thought you were placating me. Like I’d never really know if you weren’t just agreeing with me

And that's when my sister had "stared at me, saucer-eyed, pale. Like I'm not sure I had ever seen anyone 'go white' until that moment." And I had told her about getting up at midnight and going to color in the weird playroom, and someone else being in there with me, no big deal.

After all this discussion, we do think that Rebecca was briefly my "imaginary friend," but our mom told me to stop talking about that. Not because our mom was spooked, but because she felt like it was rude for me to talk about someone I was presumably making up in front of company. So that stopped. Thinking back on it, I just felt like someone was sitting next to me on the couch. I didn't feel anyone next to me; when I looked, I felt like I could see where... someone was not? The space that someone invisible was taking up? It felt like something reasonably friendly. "Chill" is the word I keep using. Not super eager or possessive, just like a girl who was a bit older, maybe a teenager, a babysitter age, who liked me well enough. There was some dark shit in the attic, apparently—it did feel very oppressive in there—but I would get a sense that a metaphorical desk lamp had been turned on. A presence that stayed back, relaxed, but emanated "hey, I'm here."

What my sister and I agreed on was that we remembered how these "feelings" were both vague and memorable. I can't remember events or chronology accurately, but I remember the actual sensations and presences very, very clearly. They resist reinterpretation. I can't sit here and say, "Oh, Rebecca was totally a guardian angel, I see that now." The Something Dark sounds functionally demonic, but my sister doesn't feel like that's accurate. (If anything, she gets a sense that this could have been a malicious uncle—not father—of some kind to Rebecca, if the two beings were related: particular in their vagueness.) These two presences just... were. My sister says she primarily sensed Rebecca outdoors in our backyard, when we were pretending (were we?) to play with fairies. I didn't sense Rebecca there—but then, I wasn't aware that what I sensed was a someone, not for another thirty years or so. My oblivious ass was up at midnight filling in my She-Ra coloring book with a ghost like, "Yeah, I'm alone in the dark for no reason, this is normal." It's only in retrospect that I recognize atmospheric feelings as things that actually took up space, and I don't know how I didn't see it at the time. I can't explain that, and I can't ask you to believe it. All I know is that my sister still feels very traumatized by her experience of it—and I can't explain why I don't.

I think one of the reasons paranormal investigation shows don't scare me a whole lot is because so much of the "evidence" is random knocks and creaks and movements and vibes, and I'm like, yeah, I've lived in two houses now like that. The door of my current bedroom opens and closes on its own all the time. It's probably a draft from the ventilation system (which does not have CO leaks anymore) (probably). I've seen something at this house that a lot of people might call a shadow person, but I was probably imagining it. So many of these ghost shows just have things that I grew up with and didn't even think a whole lot of at the time; I seem to be protected by a +3 Sphere of Sure, That's Fine. Is my current house also haunted? I honestly don't know. Would I notice if it was?

[chiangyorange]

Do you have any LoZ/LU fic recs?

i have many! they wont be organized in any particular way tho

i started just hucking links at this until i realized, oh this is gettin really long actually, so im going to shove everything under the cut with the link to the fic itself and some personal notes from me to hopefully get you to read them!!

for Linked Universe;

Two Moon Pearls and the Master Sword by serbii

the chain get sent to the dark world and literally everyone but four, sky, and legend get to turn into animals about it. also baby legend is there <3 this also has an in progress sequel!!! its so fucking good!!!!!!

Absence by Anonymous

wild forgets he has to TELL PEOPLE that he has amnesia. this has consequences. i love wild and warriors dynamic so much theyre such a duo. if i believe in my heart other people can see the vision too.... sobs. WAILS EVEN.

Dearly, Departed by boo_boo_thefool

a series of post-lu oneshots revolving around each of the heroes!! hasnt reached all 9 of the chain yet but still a damn good read. if i think too hard about this one i can and will cry. on command even.

The Missing Link by SparklingWonderQueen

ongoing fic about if the chain met wild riiiiight at the beginning of totk when hes still missing!

willow bark and chamomile by schrodingers__cat

a REALLY fucking good read. like oh my god i just got SUCKED into this from start to finish. if ur a legend fan yes the fuck you are. get in there. go.

Dawn of the Fourth by LazuliQuetzal

also a damn good read!!! time gets de-aged and wind goes "haha im the big brother now. ... OH NO IM THE BIG BROTHER NOW!!!!!!" fucking hilarious. absolutely heart wrenching. these things are both true at the same time

ageless quest by fandomsandshit

OOOOOOOH YOU WANNA READ ABOUT THE CHAIN SEEING THE LIGHT DRAGON AND CONTEMPLATING THEIR OWN ADVENTURES SO BAD OOOOOHHH (theres three installments so far and if i think about THIS ONE i will ALSO cry on command about it. man i fucking love totk zelda so much why did they do that to her poor girl)

To Share, to Speak, and to Hear by NajikaSun

i cannot explain to you how much i love the knights trio. i have many feelings about them and they will sit riiiight here. its about the weight of legacy its about the weight of trying to fulfill your duties. you get it.

darning the threads as they fray by Ammo_Writes

this ones not done but bow howdy does it get my brain CHUGGING!! the tone... the haunting feeling.... augh... AUGH !!!! WHERES MY BOY I MISS HIM SO MUCH.

sorrow, immortality, and hope by virtualpng

READING THIS MADE ME WANT TO TEAR MY FURNITURE APART WITH MY TEETH!!! OHHHH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDD ITS SO GOOOOOOOOOODDDDDD this author's other fics within the series also fucking slap. hard. god. the chain (who havent met wild yet) meet a stranger in ordon

Applejuice Stains on the Past by MjsKindaHere

HEY REMEMBER WHAT I SAID ABOUT THE KNIGHTS TRIO??> sky gets de-aged and wild is NOT normal about it. legacies and expectations and burdens etce etc. you get it

Young volcanoes by jelly_dragons

wild is incredibly fussy about how he was forced to wear the big clunky ass flamebreaker set in his journey meanwhile sky just gets some fancy shmancy earrings about it. the duo go into a volcano. hilarity ensues.

The Ruin They've Made Me by CluelessMoose

botw link's last battle did NOT go well with calamity ganon and leaves him possessed by the damn thing. and then the chain pop in. (owwwww OWWWWWWWWWWW)

Twin Quasar by StrixEye

written before totk released and its still unfinished but MAN AM I A SUCKER FOR GOOD COMPELLING TIMETRAVEL.

hold on, reaper by virtualpng

the chain before they ever meet wild but they pop into his hyrule anyway while hes in the shrine of resurrection. wind meets a ghost at fort hateno. god i fucking lost ghost stories.

steady going under by rebornofstars

the boys.... theyre sleepy.... specifically on top of twilight...

I'm A Riddle In Nine Syllables by SilverheartSP

GOD i fucking love ghost stories. pre-lu in botw where wild meets the chain as ghosts first, and THEN actually meets them

The Legacies You Leave Behind by Eureka5215

flora-centric study about her interactions with the chain. because she cant ever escape the overwhelming weight of a legacy like me too girl so real. yes this is part of my fixation on the knight trio. their haunted sadwoman air surrounding all four of them have captivated me mind and soul

Untarnished by Tashacee

MAN I FUCKING LOVE GHOST STORIES!!!! lovelovelove tash's hero's aspect au obvs the 2nd piece of fanart i did for this fandom was FOR heros aspect but man... MANNNNNNN UNTARNISHED HITS ME DIFFERENT!!!!! first..... ily king <3<3<3

In Flux by zippe

FUUUUUCKCKCKCKKCKC I LOVE FUCKY ASS TIME TRAVEL it can be to heartwrenching and this one is exactly thattttttt augh. AUGH!!!!!! i lose it ever time remembering this one

~~~

LOZ in general, but mainly botw/totk(and some aoc);

For The People by myfairstarlight

hey girl where did the divine beasts go. sidon is NOT having a good time about it hes EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED to that thing!!!!

That Brilliant Blue (A Bittersweet Goodbye) by myfairstarlight

hey. what do you mean sidon and mipha are doomed siblings. ill cry.

VIRTUE IS DROWNED, WITH HOLY HANDS, BY SORROW by lizandre

totk zelda in her time in the past. she is. not doing well!!!!

Again by Drich (drich147)

botw timeloop fic. yeah. theres this one scene where its revealed that guardians have a fuckign partymode???? thats hilarious.

so i'll never die when i'm dead by arashi_the_pancake

OW. FUCK. au where after turning into the light dragon zelda keeps her consciousness about it. shes not doing well!!!