#and being viscerally uncomfortable with them lol

[chirpchirplol]

hi! anonymous asker here, I made an account to post about why I initially thought I was Lion. This is going to start off like me trying to argue it's wrong but that's not what it is. It's also long af, sorry for that, I wrote it out for myself to process it then went back and realized there was a literal question it was in response to. longafness after link, tl;dr: I value and rely on my gut feelings heavily, can't make myself ignore them, but I want them to be predictable and it's uncomfortable when they get out of line

So I felt confident about Lion, and with Badger or Snake, it was "I wouldn't like it but I could see it." Like with Snake, I love me some hedonism and struggle with selfishness - had assumed both those characters were huge Snakes lol - but find it as a whole to be a very "fuck you, I got mine" mentality. Sucks for those strangers in need with no one to come through for them! Like I have STRONG feelings about this, I don't understand how people don't find it horrifying. I actually have a weird opposite thing where I can get FURIOUS on behalf of strangers being mistreated, even hypothetical or fictional ones, in a way I don't for people I know well or even myself. Which is why I thought Badger was possible and maybe I just was resistant due to being burned or because I thought it was boring, but the unpersoning group thing creeps me out. "All people matter… except the ones that don't." It's so close to being really beautiful!

With Bird it was more, "who even does this?" Like with the Bird answer on the "lack of objective truth" question, "it's OK, I thought about it and reality is close enough to the model in my head", that is literally incomprehensible to me as a way a person would think. (My answer was "actually there is objective truth." That was my answer before I even got through the question.)

The main reason why I thought Bird was impossible is the "choosing to care about something" part. I can't do that. Caring about things is not something I can turn on or off at will, even if I want to. At least not important things as opposed to say hobbies, but even then I can't just go "ok self, you're gonna like football now because I said so" and then actually do. It's an organic process, I can kick it off but ultimately I either care or don't care, and if I don't then the farthest I'm gonna get is pretending, or lying to myself while knowing it's a lie. Definitely can't talk myself into caring about a job, god knows I've tried lol. My likes and dislikes are so fundamental to who I am as a person, so sacred even, that the idea that they are deliberately malleable for other people is just, whaaaaa?

Where this really kicks in is friends and relationships, I cannot deliberately make myself like someone I dislike or dislike someone I like, people generally don't grow more attractive to me over time. and it'd make me sad, like relationship-foundation-shakingly sad, if I found out my friends/partner felt that way with me. like they had to try to like me rather than just like me.

I'm not really a logical person either. I start with the conclusion, which is generally based on feelings, and then hope I can justify it in case I ever have to talk about it. (because arguing is stressful enough when I do have a defensible stance let alone when I can't explain it) I have this irrational but unshakeable assumption that my feelings and thoughts should just agree completely. When they don't, that feels bad, but my gut has veto power. To fully talk myself into or out of opinions I have to actually feel good about them, they have to not feel viscerally wrong, or else things get into an uncomfortable self-judging place where I know I should believe something but don't actually, truly, deep down, believe it. Or where none of the stances feel right, that's even more "fun".

A good example of that is actually the "past self is a different person" thing. My past self is still me, the things I did or thought in the past do not disappear just because I've changed nor do their permanent effects on me. I absolutely feel guilty about things I used to believe, and sure some of that is just the cringe of people knowing about it, but even if no one else knew I'd know and that's enough. And yet… I also theoretically believe in rehabilitation and think it's wrong not to, but apparently I actually don't, because that sure isn't something a person who believes in rehabilitation would say! I'm being flippant but this legitimately bothers me, especially because the idea of not believing in rehabilitation feels even more bad.

What convinced me ultimately: I'm not a Trump supporter, obviously. I would like to think it is absolutely impossible for me to become a Trump supporter. But that's what they all say, people become the things they would never EVER become all the time. Which led me to this question: Would it be worse to deliberately choose to do something wrong, or to slowly stop believing it's wrong without realizing? Or does that distinction even matter? Feel free to substitute something less extreme, like working for an evil company, bullying, cheating, selling out, betraying a friend, whatever line you would never cross.

And my answer is actually that the latter is wayyy more disturbing. I'm really big on owning and naming your beliefs and desires. It's a great way to get your conscience to kick in, to actually say it out loud then see how good or bad that felt. Same principle as how, if someone makes a racist joke, you act confused and ask them to explain it to you.

So the former would be gross, like fuck any person who would do it; but at least I could be conscious of the fact that I am choosing to do an evil thing for the sake of, I don't know, stonks. I would be engaged in the process, my conscience would be involved despite being ignored, and I would hope I would feel disgusted with myself forever. (Even considering the possibility is kind of disgusting.) But slowly having your beliefs erode over time into something bad… how do you stop that? How do you do ANYTHING about that? Shit what if it's happening right now? Even if the shift was in the opposite direction and I slowly became a better person without trying… I guess that's good? Can't argue with it being a net positive? But it feels unearned and unreliable, if you can sleepwalk forward you can sleepwalk back.

So that's conscious vs. unconscious I guess. Also I wrote and revised a ton of words to answer the question so there's that too.

bird primary + burnt snake secondary

 tl;dr: Fairly sure I'm Lion primary (maybe burned Badger since I sort of envy the idea of close communities, or hedonistic Snake, not sure where that line is)

(the way that divide works out is that basically, Burnt Badgers look like Snakes. They have the Snake's small community, but wish they could cast their net wider. Hedonistic Snakes tend to be more solo, and much more focused on /stuff/. Also, both options make pretty good short-term coping mechanisms.)

but unsure whether my secondary is Bird, Snake/burned Snake, or burned Lion.

I love researching and reverse-engineering and my immediate response to situations is to Google advice, but reactively, not proactively. I am allergic to planning, and prepwork feels stifling and unnatural.

Ooooh, have we got a single-player Environment Snake? (I also think of these as MacGyver Snakes.) Basically just pulling at the things around you in order to solve the problem at hand.

I studied math in college then did a coding bootcamp, and I always felt adrift because both only taught memorizing solutions to individual problems/proofs, not how to solve unfamiliar ones -- i.e., really learning. 

However, I neither consider myself flexible nor want to be, and singleplayer Snake is wayyyyyyyyyyyy more comfortable than stuff involving other people. (Complicating factor: not neurotypical.)

I think I can say, pretty confidently, that this system works just fine if you're not neurotypical. :) There's no reason you have to use the multi-player version if you don't want. The most dramatic single/multi player divide is probably Bookkeeper Badger vs Courtier Badger, and there are lots of people who prefer being just one or the other.

I do the "faces" thing reflexively, in the moment, but it doesn't feel like "shifting" or "becoming" anything: just me, lying.

That's Snake. "Becoming" is more of a word that a Courtier Badger would use, they kinda do have to believe it, or it doesn't work. Snake secondaries are a lot more aware of what they're doing, in the moment.

It's interesting that you are just straight-up using the word lie though. In my experience, Snakes are more likely to conceptualize that particular problem-solving strategy as "say it in a way they'll listen to," or something like that. You might just be super direct (and/or like hanging out in Neutral) buuuut... the negativity of "lie" can sometimes point to a Burnt secondary. No sign of that yet, but I'll keep an eye out for it.

I don't have a moral problem with lying; it's often even right since a) telling the truth often hurts people, and b) people do prefer it: most people want to hear what they want to hear, and if that happens to be the truth that's great.

Hmmm. This is sounding like primary stuff. And it's quite reasoned out, which makes me interested in hearing why you went for Lion primary instead of Bird.

But deep down, I guess I resent it. I wish that when I say what I mean it would convince people rather than create problems. I try to ration that to only things that REALLY matter to me, but tbh many things do. I hate arguing.

What I'm hearing here is the Bird primary fantasy of "If I was only able to explain it exactly right, in precisely the right words, then everyone would agree with me." And as you say earlier, it doesn't actually work like that. It sounds like you're feeling a bit cynical in regards to other people a the moment, and I can't exactly blame you.

I would love to be an inspirational secondary but I am bad at inspiring people.

There is definitely some burnt secondary talk going on here.

Family: I'm not close to my father -- he’s a terrible person, serial cheater, racist, etc. I'm closer to my mother, and don't think she's a bad person, but both parents were hypercritical and have horrible tempers, so my childhood felt horrible to live through since I was always getting yelled at or having corporal punishment used for doing something wrong.

Definitely seeing where the burned secondary energy is coming from, if so many of your formative experiences involved being told that the way you were doing things was wrong. I also see why you might have at least a fascination with the confident, firey, speak-your-truth-and-damn-the-consequences Lion secondary.

(On paper this could be called abusive, and anyone else being subjected to this makes me furious, but I'm not fully comfortable with the label for my situation, even though I know that's inconsistent.) 

I understand, and I appreciate that. I also appreciate your carefully articulated position, and it's slanting me in the direction of Bird primary. Even though this is obviously a topic you are very emotional about, all those emotions are arranged within the framework of thought. You're aware of and okay the fact that you feel all kinds of different ways about what happened.

Any secondary model came from my mom, but I don't know about primary. She always says my sister and I are "the most important things in her life." (One of the reasons I don’t want kids is that I don’t think I could ever believe or promise them that.) She ostensibly also hates my father and their divorce was vicious, but she kept working for him until he retired, goes on trips with him to see my sister or me, and pressured me for years to un-estrange him because “after all, he’s family” until I gave in and now pretend to have a relationship just enough to placate them. I don't have any ethical problems doing this, it's just irritating.

That is very, very unusual family dynamic. Have to get my head around that. Your mom may have some very intense Badger going on, especially with the the whole "after all, he's family" thing. That could fit go with a nasty divorce, especially if she thought his presence was a threat to you and your sister. On the other hand, she might just be able to compartmentalize to an insane degree, which would probably point to Bird secondary.

I don't understand this aspect of my mom; I observe it happening, but I don't understand it. It feels kind of sad, in an existential way. 

Honestly, I agree.

(Another way my dad sucks is that he played favorites with my sister and I, me being the favorite.

Being the Golden Child sucks just as much as being the Problem Child.

The shitty resulting dynamic is I only "care about" his approval to avoid him creating drama that ripples to everyone around him -- he's gotten better but he has literally started shit when I didn't end emails with "love" -- but my sister actually cares about his approval, and it hurts her.)

Secondary-wise, my mom would always harp on me to "pay attention to the people and things around you," and whenever I tell her about solving problems in Snakeish ways she's like "way to go, [me]!" But she also is meticulously planned and scheduled and organized, and hates surprises and not knowing exactly what will happen. She's the kind of person who gets frustrated in April when I haven’t told her my Thanksgiving itinerary, which, like... I don't want to think that far ahead.

She could be either Prep-work secondary, Bird or Badger. If she's a Bird, "pay attention to the people and things around you," points to a a Rapid-Fire Bird (which can look *very* Snakey.) Or it could be a way of describing Courtier Badger. Being that scheduled is more often a Bird thing... but I could also imagine a Badger manifesting like that, especially if she is so concerned with specifically planning holidays.

Low-stakes/high-stakes problem that felt good: This is a high-stakes problem containing a low-stakes problem. I'm rolling them together because they illustrate both aspects of my problem solving.

Higher stakes: That coding bootcamp required being on Zoom 8 hours every day. But I had 3 roommates (part of why I did it was to not have 3 roommates), and they didn't want me there that much. I can't go to coffee shops because either they're loud, or I will make them loud by talking for 8 hours, thus becoming the problem. Coworking spaces are expensive af. I even consider renting a storage unit but I don't think they have power and wifi. The idea I settle on is sneaking onto a nearby college campus: preferably the CS building, to blend in. I scour the college subreddit for posts about what buildings let students in without ID, then scout them out (this is March, the thing doesn't start until May, I'm just high on must-solve-now energy). After ~15 minutes (lol) of walking through campus I decide I've had enough, seems doable. The day of, I leave early in case I have to give up and go home, but that turned out to be completely pointless because tailgating in is shockingly easy. Like it's scary how easy it is. One day a security officer stopped me but even he eventually let me in after I acted increasingly frazzled and panicked -- not ENTIRELY an act but I definitely was playing it up.

I like this story. And I feel good about saying that it is QUITE snakey: what do I have immediately around me, and how can I use it to get what I want in this moment? Even little details like - you're not bothering to come up with a cover story or borrow/forge someone's ID. If you're caught you'll talk your way out of it. You did a little research, then scoped the place out, then were good to go.

Lower stakes: I usually did classes from an empty auditorium (students weren't supposed to be there but no one checked, and also I'm not a student right?). The whiteboard's eraser stand was a few inches away from the wall, and one day I drop my phone in the gap. Shit. The gap's way too high to reach down. I can't ask anyone for help because I'm already 2 layers deep of being somewhere I'm not supposed to be. The stand screws to the wall, but I don't have a screwdriver because who just carries a screwdriver around? (For whatever reason, going to a hardware store didn't occur to me.) I stare at the thing until I realize: I am literally in the ENGINEERING building. I search various offices, ask people for a screwdriver, but no luck. Then I see a board listing the departments. One floor has a "makerspace," and somehow, its door is wide open (the student lounge is locked down but the room with deadly power tools isn't, ???) I grab 5 sizes of screwdriver, then also grab duct tape and a ruler to fish my phone out in case the screwdrivers don't work, which turned out to be a good idea because they didn't

Sounds to me to me like you just MacGyvered a solution :D

One thing I am picking up on is your subtle critique of the existing rules/systems. Getting in via tailgateing is easier than it should be, talking your way past the guard was too easy. The door with the powertools really should be locked, etc. It's making me (again) think Bird primary for you. You've very tuned into the way things run, and how well designed (or not) that is. There's also just a little bit of Birdy rules-lawyer in "Students aren't allowed in this room, but I'm not a student (because I snuck in.)"

Hard decision-making process…. I don’t know. I don’t experience many decisions as hard. I often know what I want to do right away; the difficult part is doing it.

In the language of this system, that's a Burnt secondary.

Or I know what I should do, am obligated to do, have no choice but to do, etc., though sometimes it feels miserable or wrong, like resignation.

Unfortunately that is what it feels like to have a Burnt primary - you just use whatever problem-solving strategy you can at random, since they all feel like a chore and it doesn't really matter.

I can feel proud of making certain "right" choices in an abstract self-congratulatory way, but I never like it or really feel good about it. I either act on something immediately or put it off until the decision makes itself, a drop-dead deadline approaches, I get bored/impulsive enough to do it on the spot, or I suddenly swerve my life toward something I like better.

You're definitely an Improvisational secondary. Which is really fine, even though I know it doesn't feel that way all the time when you come from a family of intense Prep-work people. Just keep an eye on that 'wait until the deadline' impulse. It's very, very common for neurodivergent people to use that last-minute stress adrenaline to kind of hack their brain, and it's not sustainable.

I'd wanted to change careers for years but the actual decision to do the bootcamp was an impulse based on ~3 hours' research the day I encountered it.

That can absolutely work though. You *are* working on the problem and mulling it over in your head long term, even if you are (in the words of another snake secondary) "waiting for the opportune moment."

This is all healthy and well-adjusted, and it definitely has never caused any predictable problems! (Did get a job though.)

Hey, if it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid.

My fantasy: To be successful and well-known in my field; to create the kind of art I want to create and have it be respected/influential. To live the life I want, with the aesthetic I want, and the opportunities from others and follow-through from me to achieve that. The details vary based on the field but that's the general template. 

I'd say that's a very human fantasy, without too many details that slant me one way or the other, in terms of this system. There's definitely a focus on the community around you and how you relate to it/integrate into it. And that makes me think Bird (the external primary) is more likely than Lion (the internal primary.)

Characters: I relate to characters who are flawed in the same ways I am -- they feel like cautionary tales -- or sometimes via empathizing in a way the story doesn’t (Carlotta from Phantom got done DIRTY).

It's interesting that you respond to characters who the narrative framing doesn't support, because the narrative framing doesn't support them. I guess that does fit with your interest in constructed systems, and if they're useful/functional or not. Which points to Bird.

On that big pop culture character test I always get Hannah from Girls and Gaius Baltar from Battlestar Galactica: harsh, but not wrong.

(I always get Inara from Firefly and Céline from Before Sunrise.)

It's been a second since I've seen Girls or Battlestar Galactica, but I do think that both of those characters are Bird Snakes, which is honestly impressive since Bird Snakes are easily the least common fictional archetype.

Baltar is clever, adaptive, reactive, he pulls from around him. He also bluffs and will *act* like he's an expert when he really isn't. A lot of his internal conflict revolves around extremely Bird primary rationalization - is this situation really his fault? and if it is, what is he morally/rationally supposed to do about it (if anything?) "Voice of *a* generation" Hannah also has this way of getting caught in her own feedback loops when trying to figure herself out. One of my favorite moments is the bit where she loses her purse on the way back from the wedding, and then rides the train all the way to Coney Island, sits on the beach and eats the slice of wedding cake while watching the sun rise. I think that's beautiful, and a very Snake secondary response.

I also gravitate toward a specific archetype: Blanche from A Streetcar Named Desire, Madame Bovary, Violetta from La Traviata. People who desire an impossible thing deeply and unshakably, temporarily achieve it, and are taken down dramatically.

Now that, I'm thinking is a story structure that you like. And/or you're drawn to these tragic great ladies, living most of the way in a fantasy world. It's a good, cathartic archetype.

What makes me feel powerful: I don’t really resonate with that framing. The closest is that feeling like I have no options is the same for me as feeling powerless.

Okay, "not feeling powerless," I'll take it. And we're back to that Burnt secondary again. I'm hoping you'll leave your Snake a little more room to breathe and play, because it seems like you're a pretty capable person. You manage to do the things you want to get done, and you have an excellent awareness of what are good and bad situations, both for you and just in general.

Thank you to anonymous for such an excellent submission. If you'd like a Sorting of your very own, commissions are open on my ko-fi. :D

If you'd like to read more about the system I'm using, my explanation is right here.

[bahoreal]

i want to make my stand for aro/arospec ted. i truly believe the creators and writers did not intend for this (possibly because they didnt know its a thing lol) but:

doesnt date for three years in richmond, is completely happy and satisfied with his platonic friendships and his fatherhood

sleeps with sassy multiple times before asking her out (needs some kind of connection to someone before he can think about a romantic entanglement)

wasnt actually offended or upset about sassy saying no, was more upset about her calling him a mess

canonically is not good at romance and michelle felt overwhelmed by him (doesnt know what people actually like in romance just goes overboard with romantic gestures. this isnt common to all aros but i know i get this lol)

i think we should think a little deeper about arospec ted who mistakes intense platonic feelings for romantic feelings

[lesbiansanemi]

Google how to make peace with the fact that you will always be vaguely to extremely uncomfortable (depending on the day) with your body and how others perceive it until the day you die and nothing you do will ever change that

[benjinotes]

𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 - cregan stark

cregan stark x fem reader

summary: to grab your attention, cregan keeps parking his car in your spot. as you deal with his frustrating habit, you both end up clashing and forming a connection you didn’t see coming.

warnings: smut. sub cregan. oral (f receiving). pnv (mentions). breaking celibacy. reader doesn’t have too much patience. cregan likes to test her. fluff. modern au.

wc: +6k (sorry lol), english is not my first language.

The morning sun spread across the horizon, casting a golden glow that gradually enveloped the parking lot where Cregan sat in his Jeep. The light crept across the dashboard and lazily kissed his chiseled features and stubbly beard as he took slow, steady drags from his morning cigarette, the smoke rising in spirals and mingling with the annoyingly warm air filtering through the half-open window.

It was the end of summer, and although the weather had cooled slightly from the peak in July, the heat still lingered, a constant reminder of how much he disapproved of high temperatures and everything they brought. He had a nearly visceral aversion to them—during the summer, clothes would cling uncomfortably to his body, and the constant sweat seemed to eat away at him from within, leaving him restless. Even so, he couldn’t complain too much; autumn was just around the corner, bringing the cold he longed for and the continuation of the new semester.

Truth be told, he wasn't looking forward to going back to college. Far from it, actually. While summer wasn't his favorite season, he appreciated the solitude it offered—the freedom of late-night adventures, the revelry of parties, and the blissful absence of anxiety from procrastination. Yet, as much as he valued these fleeting comforts, they paled in comparison to the almost biting chill of fall and the deep anticipation of seeing you again.

The intense heat of sun seemed to mirror the depth of his desire for you. Just as the relentless sun made each day increasingly stifling and uncomfortable, his longing for you burned with equal intensity. The oppressive warmth was almost a reminder of the consuming passion within him, reflecting his growing sense of desperation and need.

Cregan didn't know how long he had longed for you, for he barely noticed when the desire he felt for you turned into something so deep and intense that it seemed to consume his veins with infernal heat, heating his body to levels that even the incessant heat of the sun could not do. summer could explain. He felt almost suffocated even though he was trapped against his will, but without knowing whether he should give in to frustration or despair with the anxiety he felt.

The last three months without you had been difficult, if not unbearable, for him. It was as if you had vanished from the world, and that left him on the brink of despair. Each day that passed without any word from you widened the hole in his chest a little more, and the fact that you ignored all 20 friend requests he sent you on social media only made things worse.

Being near you, no matter how torturous it could be at times, was a confinement he chose willingly. But being away from you? That was a true prison for him, an unrelenting agony that nearly consumed him from within.

One thing was certain: if it hadn’t been for Jacaerys, his best friend, he probably would have done something reckless and gone after you just to make sure you were okay. It was Jacaerys who held him back and allowed him to see your social media through his account, and although he was upset that you wouldn’t let him follow you, there was a strange comfort in knowing that his best friend did. However, this only made things worse. He was becoming fully aware of just how down bad he was for you—and that was, at the very least, humiliating.

It was humiliating—everything Cregan was doing at this point, and he knew it. His friends knew, and everyone around him knew. After all, he had been on celibate for months simply because he couldn’t imagine being with any woman other than you, even though you seemed more inclined to kick him in the balls than anything else.

And now, he was resorting to the same tactic he used months ago: parking in your spot just to provoke you into getting angry with him before class. Sometimes, he honestly felt that his fixation had reached a point of no return.

Taking the last drag from his cigarette, Cregan leaned further into the front seat of his Jeep, turned on the air conditioning slightly, and closed his eyes, waiting for you to arrive and complain so he could finally escape the sun. Fortunately for Cregan, less than five minutes later, he was startled by a light but furious knock on the Jeep's window. He had to hold back a smile as he saw your irritated expression outside.You looked so hot and so damn pretty.

"Hello, dear," he began, placing both hands behind his head as he looked at you with a smirk, trying to mask the rapid beating of his heart. "Is something wrong?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What the hell are you doing in my car spot?!" You nearly shouted, your cheeks growing redder with anger at his persistence. Cregan, however, didn’t seem at all bothered; if anything, his smile widened with every increase in your voice.

"I thought you’d matured over the summer break," you said through gritted teeth, glancing around at the people who were starting to stare. Despite your frustration, Cregan appeared more amused, clearly enjoying the opportunity to tease you even further.

"First of all, this parking lot is public," he said with a teasing hum, his smirk growing as he slowly opened the window, clearly enjoying your irritated and impatient expression. "Secondly, did you really think I’d matured over these months?" His voice carried a hint of hidden amusement, though you didn’t seem to notice. You let out a deep sigh, trying to mask your frustration.

If you were being honest, no, you didn’t think he had matured. He had always been a bit much since the day you met him—constantly praising you almost directly or irritating you on purpose just to get a reaction. It didn’t help that he kept sending friend requests, which you declined every time, or that Jace was always one of the first to see your posts after Cregan made it clear you two were together.

The truth was, you didn’t think he’d changed at all. If anything, based on the look he was giving you, he was probably the same or even worse. And you weren't sure how much longer you could tolerate him irritating you like this.

"I literally paid for this spot, Cregan!" you hissed in a hushed whisper, trying not to attract even more attention. But you had to look away when you felt his intense gaze on you—the fact that he was so handsome didn’t help at all. "And besides, you don’t even have classes on this campus, so what’s your excuse for being here?" you demanded, already irritated, as you pressed your hand to your forehead a bit too aggressively.

Cregan’s smile widened as he noticed the frustration in your eyes and how you avoided his gaze. He knew you found him attractive—he had overheard you admitting it to a friend a few months ago, and the memory filled him with smug satisfaction. While he was used to attention from other girls, knowing that you, the one person who truly mattered to him, found him appealing was different. You were the only woman he cared about and the only one he wanted to touch.

You drove him insane. It wasn’t just an obsession anymore; it was a madness that consumed him completely. Every thought and every impulse he had was dominated by you, and the distance you kept between the two of you was unbearable. You were a constant in his mind, a presence that refused to let his sanity remain intact. But either way, he liked that, he loved that.

"I just wanted to say hello, dear," Cregan said after a few seconds, blinking with exaggerated fake innocence, his voice almost a teasing melody as he leaned closer to the car window, trying to get as close to you as possible. "I missed you." He continued to hum playfully, but there was something in the way he said it that made you almost certain there was a hint of truth behind the teasing.

Even though you tried to stay composed, you couldn’t stand how easily he got under your skin. A few words from him were enough to make your heart race, and his effortless charm was maddening. Despite your resistance, you couldn’t deny the strange attraction you felt toward him or how annoyingly handsome he was—even with his scruffy beard. And no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t escape his pull. You felt trapped.

"Well, you can say hello from anywhere but my parking spot," you retorted, striving for firmness even though your voice wavered slightly. "So move your Jeep, or I’ll call a tow truck." You took a few steps back, increasing the distance between you, which seemed to disappoint him slightly.

Despite that Cregan’s smile lingered, though now it was tempered with a hint of reluctance. He made no move to move his Jeep; his gaze fixed intently on you as he furrowed his brow, as if evaluating his next move.

"Are you really going to call a tow truck?" he finally asked, his voice carrying the same playful tone. He leaned slightly out of the open window, his heart racing, when he noticed you glancing at his lips for a fleeting moment. He had to work hard to suppress a more genuine smile that threatened to surface.

To you, it was evident that he was deliberately prolonging the situation. The tension between you was palpable, and it was clear that he was savoring the game he was playing with you. Plus the fact his smile widened slightly as he observed you struggling not to look at his lips, made you almost sick. "Come on," he continued, his tone taking on an almost earnest edge as he noticed your hesitation to respond. "Is all this stress really worth it? I’m just trying to say hello." And to stay close to you, he almost said.

"You really haven’t changed, have you?" you asked, frustration evident in your voice as you tightened your grip on your car keys. "I thought you might have matured this semester." Your sharp eyes locked with his playful ones, daring him to defy your words.

Cregan blinked, and his smile grew wider in a flash. "Does that mean you’ve been thinking about me, dear?" He purred, barely containing his amusement as he watched a blush creep up your neck. The idea seemed to delight him, adding an unexpected warmth to his expression.

You opened and closed your mouth, stunned by the audacity of his question. He wasn’t completely off the mark; you had, indeed, thought about him. But admitting that to Cregan was unthinkable. You knew he’d never let it go, relishing every moment of your discomfort. It was as if he shed all pretense of maturity around you, or perhaps he felt most himself when he was with you. Either way, one thing was clear: you weren’t about to give him the satisfaction of an admission.

Swallowing hard, you gave a dry cough, trying to ignore the heat rising in your cheeks as you tightened your grip on the keys in your hand, determined to resist the lazy, piercing gaze that seemed to follow your every move. "Don’t flatter yourself," you shot back, striving for indifference despite his penetrating stare. "I have better things to think about than you."

Cregan’s smile didn’t falter at your bold, if slightly unsteady, retort. If anything, it widened as he leaned further out of the window, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "Better things? Then why do you look so flustered? " he asked, feigning innocence, though his gaze was anything but that. Three months ago, he would have flirted and walked away, but your absence had only drawn him closer, and now, the idea of being with another woman, if it wasn’t you, repulsed him. 

"I’m not flustered," you lied, clenching your jaw, though the tremor in your voice betrayed you. He had to fight the urge to glance at your neck, where the blush was deepening. "I’m just tired of these childish games." You rubbed your forehead in frustration, glaring at him with renewed irritation. 

His expression softened slightly at your tone, but the lazy, teasing smirk on his lips remained. "Childish? Maybe. But you’re still giving me attention, aren’t you?" he teased. 

If there was one thing he enjoyed, it was attempting your patience.

You opened your mouth to protest but found yourself at a loss for words. He wasn’t wrong—you were engaging with his provocations, letting him drag you into this ridiculous game and burrow even deeper under your skin. The fact that he was lingering in your parking spot longer than usual unsettled you, but what bothered you more was that part of you was enjoying it. You were furious at yourself for letting his teasing get to you.

There was something about Cregan that made it impossible for you to walk away, even though you knew you should for your own peace of mind.

"You’re impossible," you finally muttered after a few seconds, struggling to find the right words and shaking your head as if to clear it. "Just move your jeep, Cregan. I don’t have time for this," you insisted, loosening your grip on your car keys.

But he still didn’t move, and the intensity in his gaze made your heart skip a beat—though you didn’t realize his heart was racing just as fast. "You know," he said softly, his voice losing some of its teasing edge. "I’m not just here to annoy you. I actually wanted to see you" He admitted it quietly, as if he didn’t want anyone else in the parking lot to hear it.

The sincerity in his voice caught you off guard, leaving you momentarily at a loss for words. This was a side of him you weren’t used to—a vulnerability typically masked by layers of sarcasm and provocation. And now, that facade was replaced by softness and even a hint of submission, making you hesitate for just a moment.

But then you remembered the situation you were in and how he always seemed to know exactly how to provoke you in the most infuriating way. It steeled you against the pull he had over you. “Well, now you’ve seen me," you replied, your voice firmer than before, though a blush still lingered on your cheeks. "So either move the car, or I’ll have it moved." You threatened, causing Cregan to sigh dramatically as he finally started up his old Jeep, his gaze softer than it had been before.

Without further excuses, Cregan tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, stubbing out his cigarette in the small car ashtray before shifting the Jeep into gear. The engine roared to life as he began to back out of the spot slowly, each movement deliberate, as if he were savoring the final moments of this intense interaction. He kept his eyes on you nearly the entire time, watching for your reaction.

As the Jeep was coming out of the spot, Cregan, with the window already down, leaned out a bit further. "You know," he said, his voice now softer but still playful. "I really appreciate how you keep me on my toes. It makes life a bit more interesting." He teased with his smooth but soft voice, which carried a hint of truth in its tone.

You crossed your arms, attempting to maintain a stern expression, though your irritation waned as you caught sight of his clear eyes. The flush on your cheeks reminded you of how easily he could affect you. "I’m glad I can provide you with some entertainment,” you said sarcastically, your tone less sharp despite the rapid beating of your heart and the previous irritation. "But I have a class to get to."

Cregan nodded, his less playful smile giving way to a more sincere expression. "Alright, alright," he said, his heart racing as he noticed how your t-shirt hugged your waist. "I’ll be on my way. Try not to think too much about me." He offered another small smile, the playful tone now replaced with a softer one.

Raising an eyebrow, you kept your gaze fixed on him, trying to suppress a blush as you noticed how his arm muscles had grown over the summer. "I’ll keep that in mind," you said, before turning back to your car, feeling a touch of satisfaction as you sensed his eyes lingering on you, almost burning a hole through your back.

Cregan cast one last glance at you as he pulled away in his Jeep, his heart still pounding. He bit his lip, recalling your expression and the way he caught you looking at his lips. For a moment, he had forgotten the heat of the day, perhaps because being near you made him feel at ease. But as he drove toward his campus away from you, a feeling of unease began to creep in.

When he arrived at campus, he found the main parking lot completely full. Frustrated, he turned to park the Jeep in a more distant spot near the campus convenience store, muttering small curses under his breath as he maneuvered.

As Cregan stepped out of the car, he noticed Jace emerging from the small store with a carton of chocolate milk in hand. Catching Cregan’s gaze, the shorter guy waved and walked over with a smile. "Hey, Cregan." Jace said as he joined him. "Why’d you park so far away?" he asked lazily, taking a long sip of his drink.

Cregan forced a smile, trying to appear carefree as he hid his sweaty hands behind his back. It was clear, though, that he was still preoccupied with the conversation he’d just had with you. "You know," he replied vaguely, shrugging as he walked alongside his friend, attempting to mask his thoughts.

Jacaerys eyed his friend closely. "You went to bother that poor girl again, didn’t you?" He asked, his knowing expression making it obvious he already knew the answer.

That question prompted a wry smile from Cregan. "You always know everything, don’t you?" he remarked, attempting to keep his tone relaxed. But he couldn’t stop thinking about you and the way your lips had twisted in annoyance as you grumbled at him.

Shaking his head, Jace chuckled softly, briefly coughing when he nearly choked on his chocolate milk. "Well, it’s my job," he said sarcastically. When Cregan didn’t respond, he cleared his throat and continued, "Baela told me your girl is going to the house party on Friday."

Hearing this, Cregan’s interest was immediately piqued, and he looked sharply at his friend. Yet he couldn’t ignore the confusion stirred by Jace’s tone. "And what’s your point?" he asked, his curiosity showing as he pulled another cigarette from his pocket.

"Well," Jace began thoughtfully, though Cregan suspected he already knew the advice he was about to give. "If you really want a chance with her, maybe it’s better to give her some space until the party. That way, you can approach her in a more relaxed way and, you know…" Jace trailed off, letting his words hang. Cregan raised an eyebrow. "Be less… you," Jace finally said. The taller man shrugged, mulling over the advice as it began to make sense.

Jacaerys was almost certain he could see the gears turning in his friend’s head.

He was almost certain that meeting in that environment could help forge a connection between the two of you, and he was willing to take the risk. "I’ll take your advice and see how things go at the party," Cregan said, taking a long drag from his cigarette as he followed his best friend into the campus building.

─────── ─────── ───────

Friday had arrived, and the party was in full swing. The old, two-story house near campus was packed with students eager to unwind after the first week of college. Music boomed, vibrating through the walls, and the scent of cheap beer mixed with sweat and perfume. Laughter and shouts echoed through the crowded hallways, where people were so tightly packed it was a wonder anyone could move.

Cregan stood at the edge of the living room, scanning the crowd. His usual confident demeanor was subdued by a palpable tension, the kind that comes with anticipation. He hadn't seen or spoken to you since his conversation with Jace, and he was starting to regret it.

His mood had worsened over the past few days since he stopped parking in your spot. Even though he was so close to you, well, at the same college, he couldn’t see you, and it was starting to weigh on him on an extreme level. During the summer break, he had a legitimate reason not to see you—after all, you seemed to be avoiding him, or maybe it was just in his head—but now, having made the decision to stay away from you on his own, he was growing frustrated with himself. He felt stupid, to say the least.

Sometimes, he wanted to kick himself for listening to Jace.

Suddenly, he was pulled from his thoughts—thoughts that kept drifting to you, despite his best efforts—by a girl who approached with a sly smile on her lips. She was attractive—the kind of girl who would normally catch Cregan's attention without even trying. But tonight, he was distracted, and her presence only heightened the desire he felt for you and the satisfaction he took in choosing celibacy because of you.

"You’re Cregan, aren’t you?" the girl asked as she got close enough, and he nodded with little interest, trying to resist the urge to wrinkle his nose at her approach as the strong scent of her perfume filled the space between them. It wasn’t unpleasant, but he found himself longing for something lighter, sweeter—like the refreshing aroma he associated with you. "What are you doing just standing here?" she continued, her smile never fading.

Cregan turned his gaze from the girl to the door, shrugging slightly as he tried to maintain a polite demeanor. "I’m just taking a break," he said, his voice flat and distant. He cleared his throat, realizing his tone was more curt than he intended. If he was honest with himself, he didn’t care much; his mind was focused on finding you, and the girl’s presence was a minor distraction he could barely tolerate.

From the corner of his eye, Cregan noticed the girl’s surprise at his lack of enthusiasm, but he couldn’t have cared less. His mind was entirely consumed by thoughts of you, and the growing urgency to find you made every other interaction feel like an unwelcome distraction. The intensity of his desire for you made the presence of any other girl and their attempts at conversation seem utterly insignificant.

"You’re not really in the mood for company, are you?" she asked, her voice wavering slightly. Cregan gave her a brief, indifferent glance before nodding. With a resigned sigh, she took a step back, clearly uncertain about what to do next.

"Okay, I understand," she said once more, but he remained focused on the floor, ignoring her. "Look for me if you need company," she added, her voice trailing off as she noticed his disinterest. With a final, frustrated sigh, she turned and walked away, leaving him to continue his search for you, oblivious to her departure.

After a few minutes of waiting, growing increasingly restless, Cregan sighed and decided to search for you himself, diving into the dense crowd of sweaty and inebriated students. The music blared around him, mingling with the chaotic hum of conversations, making it difficult to focus. Despite the overwhelming noise and heat, he moved with determination, pushing through the crowd in pursuit of finding you.

He scanned every face and every group, hoping to catch a glimpse of you amid the chaos. The heat and noise of the party only heightened his anxiety, but he pressed on, driven by the urgent need to find you. He needed to see you, even if it was just for another exchange of barbs or the flirtatious remarks you used to make. He just wanted to be near you, and all his rational thoughts seemed to disappear when it came to you.

Cregan’s search felt endless, each moment blending into the next as he navigated the throng of bodies. His gaze flitted from face to face, his mind consumed by the one person who dominated his thoughts: you.

Then, through a gap in the crowd, he caught sight of you in a small room downstairs. You were laughing with Baela and Rhaena, a cup of beer in hand. Cregan's heart raced at the sight of you, his gaze lingering on the way your clothes accentuated your curves. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants, feeling a surge of nervous anticipation.

Without waiting too long, he took a deep breath and moved toward you, once again carefully navigating through the sea of people, his heart racing as he approached. As he got closer, he couldn't help but let out a quiet laugh at your soft yet somehow scandalous laughter, which made him quicken his pace. 

Summoning his courage, he stepped closer, his eyes locked on your face as he fought to keep his gaze steady. He cleared his throat, hoping to get your attention without startling you. "Hi," he said, his voice betraying only a hint of the nerves he felt. You looked up at him, surprised. "How’s it going, dear?" he asked, trying to sound casual as he used the tone that was uniquely his with you.

You blinked slowly, not noticing how the twins giggled and moved away to another part of the room, giving you privacy with Cregan. The truth was, you were surprised. Cregan hadn’t been occupying your parking spot for the past three days, which was unsettling since, for the last seven months—on the days you had classes—he was always there with his Jeep, waiting to exchange sarcastic remarks or even flirt with you.

And although you didn’t want to admit it, his absence made you more uncomfortable than you had anticipated.

"Oh, hi, Cregan," you replied, immediately regretting the brevity and dryness of your response when you saw his expression falter slightly. "I haven’t seen you the last few days. Are you okay?" you asked, trying to steady your breath as he moved closer. Despite your efforts to stay composed, he seemed entirely focused on you, his eyes locked onto yours.

He could smell your refreshing scent, and it was already making him a bit dizzy and thirsting for more.

"I am." Cregan replied in a softer voice, stopping in front of you, and you had to lift your head to look into his eyes. "Why do you want to know? Did you miss me?" He hummed lightly, not taking his gaze off your lips, which made you blush visibly.

You blinked at his question, momentarily caught off guard by the intensity of his gaze. You tried to maintain your composure, but the way he looked at you made it difficult. "Maybe," you said, your voice softer than you intended. For a moment, you saw his eyes widen before he quickly regained his composure.

To say he was surprised was an understatement. He was astonished, to say the least. You had always seemed indifferent to his advances and flirtations, so the softness in your voice now was unexpected. Despite his enjoyment of your acidic responses, he couldn't help but feel pleased. For a moment, he was grateful he had followed Jacaerys's advice, realizing that this moment might never have happened otherwise.

Cregan stepped closer, his breath hitching as he watched your expression. The air between you buzzed with a tension that sent his heart racing, and he was almost sure you felt it too when he saw the rise and fall of your chest. Maybe it was how your breaths seemed to sync or how you were both so engrossed in each other that the surrounding noise faded into the background. Either way, he was content, sensing that you were as well.

"Good," he murmured, his voice low as his face hovered just inches from yours."Because I missed you too." He sighed, his voice devoid of its usual playful tone, filled instead with genuine and almost desperate sincerity.

Then, before he could say anything else, you rose onto your tiptoes and pressed your lips to his in a way so possessive and sudden that his eyes widened in surprise, momentarily stunned by what was happening. But it didn’t take long for him to close his eyes and wrap a strong arm around your waist, returning the kiss with a desperation that made you briefly question if this was the same Cregan who used to tease you every morning.

The kiss was intense, and he let you take the lead, too lost in your lips to even think about taking control of the kiss. He nearly groaned when your tongue met his, massaging it in a rough yet gentle way. He was almost drunk, so lost in the kiss that when your hips brushed lightly against him, he pulled back, his gaze roaming over your hody, filled with desire.

"Please, let’s get out of here," he murmured, his voice almost desperate, arms still wrapped firmly around your waist as he gazed at you with intense, pleading eyes. "Please," he repeated, the word laced with urgency. Though his sudden vulnerability caught you off guard, you gave a slight nod, and without wasting another moment, he gently took your arm, eager to continue what had just begun.

─────── ─────── ───────

You weren’t sure exactly what made you pull him close or kiss him with such intensity and need. Maybe it was the fear of him leaving you and the uncertainty of how you would cope without him after becoming so accustomed to his presence. Perhaps it was the way he embodied chaos, or maybe it was the fact that he looked so captivating under the soft party lights, just a short distance from his place. Whatever the reason, you found yourself lost in the moment, and you didn’t regret your decision.

You didn’t regret letting go of your pride, because if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have been able to kiss him with such intensity the moment you reached his room. Nor would you have been able to ride his cock with such slow, deliberate movements that it brought tears to his eyes as he begged and cried for more. 

It was an exhilarating thrill to have a man of his size pleading for your body and pleasure, and you embraced every moment. Each desperate cry he made and every whispered plea and praise as he lavished kisses and worshipped you heightened your satisfaction and inflated your ego.

You couldn’t deny that you enjoyed his devoted attention, especially as he eagerly explored every inch of you between your legs with the same tongue he used to provoke you.

Cregan's tongue worked your pussy with expert skill; his desperation was so intense that it was as if he were drunk on your taste. Each frantic suck on your clit had you murmuring incoherent words as you pressed your hips closer to his face. And grinned, moaning with each movement, holding your legs open firmly to keep devouring you.

"Cregan!" you tried to say between breaths, but he seemed to be lost between your legs, too focused on pleasing you. He just continued his relentless movements, his moans muffled against you as he rubbed his hips against his sheets, desperately seeking his own release while he devoured you.

"You have to stay still," he said against your pussy, sending jolts of pleasure through your body. "Please?" he begged, and you nodded, glancing down to see his desperate eyes, glistening with tears at the corners.

You couldn't resist saying yes to him when he looked at you with those expectant eyes and spoke to you in a voice so soft and different from what you were used to, and you almost broke when he returned to licking your clit in a desperate and subtle way, almost as if he were desperate for more.

What you didn't know was how truly desperate Cregan was. This was the most intense thing he'd done in months, and his long period of celibacy only made him savor every moment more. He was so immersed in the pleasure of the moment that he felt if he were to die right there between your legs, he'd die utterly satisfied. And damn, he was on the brink of bliss, completely overwhelmed by you. Just you.

Your moans grew louder as Cregan continued to savour every inch of your clit. His movements became increasingly frantic and so desperate, as your pleasure mounted, you felt your body on the brink of climax. The pressure built up, making you shiver.

The way he licked and sucked at you with such urgency was overwhelming. Each touch of his tongue provided an intense stimulus that made you writhe. Despite your escalating pleasure, Cregan seemed even more satisfied. Your moans grew louder as Cregan continued to explore every inch of your clit. His movements became increasingly frantic and desperate, and as your pleasure mounted, you felt your body on the brink of climax. The pressure built up, making you shiver.

The way he licked and sucked at you with such urgency was overwhelming. Each touch of his tongue provided an intense stimulus that made you writhe. Despite your escalating pleasure, he seemed even more satisfied. His hips ground against the sheets, his restless movements intensifying the pleasure and causing him to moan against your pussy.

As the tension reached its peak, waves of intense pleasure overwhelmed you, your body writhing and trembling as you tried to hold on just a little longer, savoring the almost pathetic pleas of Cregan. But it was impossible to delay your orgasm, which hit you with a force that made your legs wrap around his head.

And, realizing that you had climaxed, Cregan lost control, letting out a moan as he licked up your release. His hips ground even harder against the sheets, desperately seeking his own orgasm. His moans grew louder and more intense, making you smile through your heavy breaths. Soon, he too reached his peak, his body trembling as he clutched at your waist.

Still holding your waist, Cregan managed to rise with effort, kicking the sheet aside and grabbing another to cover both of you. He lay down beside you and couldn’t resist planting one last soft kiss on your lips when he saw how beautiful you looked. Pulling you closer to his chest, he gently stroked your hair and placed tender kisses on your forehead, making you smile with contentment at this new side of him you had discovered.

After a few minutes, as the mood softened, he turned to you with a satisfied, playful grin, the same grin you were familiar with. "It’s time for you to accept my friend request," he said with a hint of sarcasm, tucking a few stray strands of your hair behind your ear.

You looked at him with a tired, lazy smile, raising an eyebrow playfully. "Shut up," you replied cheekily. He laughed one last time, clearly pleased with your response.

You might not be the sweetest person he knew, but it’s you who he wants.

2024 © do not repost or translate my work anywhere else.

— likes, comments and reblogs are appreciated!

i deleted a really big part of this smut because it was 4 a.m., and I was kind of ‘😵‍💫😵‍💫’. i really disliked this smut and tried to save as much as i could.

cregan tag list (open): @jacaerysgf @hobis-hope95 @velaryonbastard @throughgoeshamilton @housetargaryenloyalist

[lunarcrystaldraws]

AxoBill (Bill Cipher x The Axolotl) Personal Headcannons cuz I’m am obsessed with these goobers.

TW// Self Harm mention. Lots of angst too.

(This list is subject to grow and change a lot lol just like you and I.)

Bill Cipher (He/They/It)

(Figuring out his real gender would take too much paperwork.)

Fluff:

Would never admit out loud, but he likes to be embraced. It makes him feel more in control of his thoughts and emotions.

“Yeah! I wooed The Frilly Guy Upstairs with my unfathomable charisma and my unique sense of humor! B)”

Was pleasantly surprised at Ax’s sense of humor. The first time they laughed at one of his weird jokes, the sound of their laughter… caught him off guard… and he wanted to hear it more.

He used to call them “Frills” or “Axxy” in a condescending way, but now calls them that affectionately.

Loves to look at Ax’s starry eyes.

He used to find Ax's voice terrifying at first, but soothing later on.

Angst:

He genuinely thought Ax was going to either let him die or revive him just to kill him again. He believes he is unredeemable, and that Ax made a mistake by saving him and letting him live.

Bill doesn't know of Ax’s dark past. Everything involving that time happened before he was even born. As far as he knows, Ax has always been this goody-two-shoes, preachy know-it-all since the beginning.

Prone to self harm when stressed (Ripping out eyelashes, and damaging his eyelids via, scratching, picking, pulling, etc.)

After an especially bad episode, he is uncomfortable by the sight of his own reflection.

Genuinely has no idea how or why The Axolotl fell in love with his headass. He thought at first that Ax was playing a cruel joke on him.

Bill is just extremely cynical. (He is working on it.)

The Axolotl (Any Pronouns)

(Genderless cuz... why would god itself be tied down to the tight constrains of binary gender 'n shit???)

Fluff:

Very physically affectionate and gentle. Likes to hold Bill and to be held.

The only being in the universe patient enough to put up with Bill’s bullshit and witness his healing journey.

The only being in the universe that can see past all of Bill’s lies, bluffs, and manipulation attempts.

“Seriously! What do you even see in that guy?” “He makes me laugh!”

Has a weird sense of humor somewhat similar to Bill’s that could be considered “uncharacteristic” of them.

Calls Bill star-based nicknames. Ex: “My Star,” “My Starlight.”

During their time as “Frilliam,” they witnessed first-hand humanity’s capability to love and cherish an animal companion, especially one that is a gift from a loved one. They think back fondly to their time under Stanford Pines’ care.

Angst:

Is upset by the fact that Bill was terrified of them. Ax doesn’t want to be seen as terrifying at all.

When their chest is exposed in the air, they wrap their arms around it by habit. They have a visceral reaction if someone touches their chest or tries to restrain their limbs.

Understands Bill’s pain quite well.

A very long time ago, they cried so hard, their eyes fell out. They regenerated after.

May or may not has erased their own memories a few times before.

Wants to tell Bill of their past, but doesn’t know if they should.

Had a twin and Had someone they loved dearly. Someone they used to call “Their little bunny.” Ax would do anything to hold them again, even if just one last time. A time wish cannot bring them back.

Bill’s humor and his more harmless shenanigans reminds them of “Their Bunny.”

Their name is actually pronounced a-sho-loht, but they’d rather separate themselves from that name.

Cosmic Immortality… (See: Sucker For Love 2)

Extras:

Bill’s petty insults do not upset Ax. They have better shit to worry about lol.

Ax can speak every language. Their native tongue is Nahuatl but written in the theraprism’s cryptogram alphabet. (Idk what that specific cryptogram is called smh.)

Ax wouldn’t speak Bill’s native tongue (the color code) in front of him.

Bill’s and Ax’s encounter after his deletion was… emotionally charged, specially for Bill.

Ax’s voice is similar to Satan’s from Adventures of Mark Twain, but less sinister sounding. A male and a female voice overlapping each other, so gender ✨️

Ax was unaware of a lot of the things that went on the Therapism. Something or someone found a loophole to The Axolotl’s all seeing eyes.

Ax does NOT like their gills being touched at all. Bill learnt that the hard way.

Ax can also read people's minds but avoids to do so. They find it distasteful. (They still detect lies all the time though.)

@ ing people who need some nourishment lol.

@skyiiskyii @vimzu @bluecroc29

/hj /Ref sorta

I totally did NOT edit this picture after i posted this cringe ��️

[grasshopperdoingdogpaddle]

How would you rank the characters living under Jack's reign in the bad future from who's having the "best" time vs who's having the worst? (excluding Jack himself obv he's having a good time lol)

6-Hannibal Roy Bean

Being stuck in this undersized, undignified cage and blown up to a size where you can't even move, and labeled as "The Musical Fruit" are all humiliating.

But Hannibal's been locked up for centuries before, so this is hardly going to break his spirit, especially Jack is mortal and getting very old, so it feels like the immortals in the dungeon have this mindset that they can sort of just wait it out.

Granted, Hannibal does look weirdly mishappen and... mushy? So I wonder what exactly Jack has done to his body to make him end up like this.

With how distended and full his lower body looks now, and with the suspicious absence of Hannibal's only companion, I sort of suspect that Jack somehow forcefed Ying-Ying to Hannibal...? But even if that's not the case, the absence of Ying-Ying is another form of torture for him, since that's the only other being who he truly likes.

5-Master Fung

Master Fung is as skilled and untouchable as ever. Moreso in fact, because he seems like he doesn't really get winded by battles anymore. His mind may have dulled somewhat, but his physical form and skill has sharpened with age during the time skip.

The gladiator shows they're forced to put on are miserable for everyone, but none of Jack's bots are able to even scratch Master Fung, and he beats them without a sweat.

He has an easier time against Jack's lion-bots than he did against the real jungle cats, who he also handily beat.

And Master Fung's confusion and memory problems seem to stave off despair, at least. Though he's still having an awful time here.

4-Wuya

Hers is mostly another humiliation thing, but unlike Hannibal's, Wuya's also has this visceral, creepy factor to it. Jack apparently forcibly changed her clothes and did up her hair in accordance to his own taste for cheerleaders, complete with pigtails and his initial.

In addition to that, she's also suspended over a pit of boiled lava. The rising heat from that is probably the physical torture, along with just how uncomfortable the chains are.

But the worst part for Wuya is probably that Jack has somehow stolen the powers that were sealed away from her and is in control of her stone golems now, to add insult to injury. That probably stings more than any aspect of this setup.

3-Le Mime

Also in this gladiatorial thing, but Le Mime's never really been shown to be able to fight and he can't even take a hit from his own scrawny arm. And since he's just cowering here, the lion bots apparently have some way of getting past his Miming, so he can't protect himself behind his invisible walls.

He's got nothing he can do but weather the humiliations and pain of these losing battles.

2- Chase Young

His torture devices is definitely the most intricate.

Water drop torture, stripped of his clothes (including his underwear because those boxers notably aren't Chase's), suspended in this metal contraption with a paintbrush spreading something over his abdomen.

Chase's is also the only torture device that is surrounded by bloodstains.

And he's in a dungeon with Wuya and Hannibal, the people who he'd least want to be trapped with. None of them are gagged, so they both could at least take as many pot-shots at Chase as they wanted to. Those two are better at getting under Chase skin than anyone else, and even though Chase probably shot insults back, it was 2-against-1 there.

And the first and only line we get from Chase implies that he's been on the edge of hope waiting to see Omi again after all this time with no word on his fate. Despite everything that's been happening, Omi's still been on his mind this whole time with no answers for 80 years.

So he had quite a bit of both physical and psychological torture to deal with.

1-The Monks

They have frequent gladiatorial matches and an awful living situation. Old age has definitely slowed them down, so their matches probably don't end without injury like Master Fung's do.

And they still never found out what happened to Omi and Dojo, after all this time. They're all mentally beating themselves up over that, and over the state of the world. They're crushed by this feeling that they've failed in their duty towards it, and they don't know if their friends are dead or alive.

And the end, minutes after they find their first spark of hope in decades, where they're all brutally murdered. They're extremely painful deaths, too. Clay is shot by lasers, Raimundo is crushed, Kimiko is pulled apart limb-from-limb.

Taking that into consideration definitely makes them number one on this list. Can't have a much worse time than that.

Honorable Mention: Omi

He was only there for a little bit, so I can't really rank him anywhere on the list. But watching all his friends be brutally murdered in front of him certainly left an impression.

And Omi's the only one who will have any impression of all this at all. Whether you think the space-time merging of the alternate timeline left ripples of memories in the others or not, this is just a bad future of the main timeline, so no one's actually experienced it. Omi's the only one who'll remember this nightmare. It's seared into his memory for good.

[edenfenixblogs]

Hey, I came from your post about Night. I’ve been wanting to read it for a while now, but I’ve heard that the English version is very watered down and stripped of the original emotions that are in the Yiddish version. Do you know if there are any more accurate English translations, or if the Hebrew one is more like the original? Sorry if you’re not the right person to ask about this, you just seem quite knowledgeable

(also coming from my vent account so I don’t get any hate on main for being a Jew lol)

No worries at all, @nonbinary-vents:

I want to be clear about something: My post was aimed at goyim.

You are a Jewish person, and reading this book (especially if you haven't read any other accounts of experiences in concentration camps) may be an important thing for you to do. And I'd cautiously encourage you to do so if you feel emotionally stable. But you do not need to worry about the experience of this book feeling watered down.

If you are Jewish and not in a very stable emotional state, do not read this book. Do not cause yourself harm.

(If you are goyiscshe, you should challenge yourself and force yourself to read this book. Obviously if you are in an actual emotional/psychological crisis or dealing with the death or illness of a loved one, then you are the only goyim who has an excuse not to read this book. No matter who you are, do not read this book if it will cause you actual mental harm or drive you to somehow cause yourself physical harm. But if it will make you upset, depressed, panicked at your own failings, or other extremely unpleasant but ultimately human discomfort, then you should read this book. Jews don't get a choice about knowing this shit, because knowing this shit is how we survive. And you NOT knowing this shit is what makes it so easy for you to dismiss and target us over and over and over again. You should be uncomfortable. You should feel guilty. Because unless you're actively learning how to disentangle yourself from the antisemitism that led to The Holocaust, then you are actively participating in thee fomentation of another. And that should horrify you.)

Sure, I bet this book is even more haunting and visceral in the original Yiddish. I've spoken recently about how hard Jewish language is to translate to English.

But there is no world in which this book will feel watered down to you.

@nonbinary-vents This book will haunt you. This book will change you. This book will challenge your faith and your ability to trust people.

Remember going in that Judaism asks us not to separate ourselves from our community--not just our Jewish community, but any community in which we find ourselves. Resist the urge this book may stir within you to become insular and fearful of goyim. That is not our way. We are a part of the communities and cultures and nations in which we find ourselves. And we must do good for those communities, because that is what we are called to do. The lesson of this book for Jews is different than the lesson of this book for goyim.

The lesson of this book for Jews -- in fact, the lesson of "Never Again" for Jews -- is that we cannot ever allow this to happen to ourselves again. No, of course, I am not blaming Jews for the Holocaust and if anyone thinks that's what I'm arguing here, then they can fuck off.

The lesson of this book for Jews is that we must never again let fear hold us back from fighting for ourselves. If he world calls upon us to die, we must refuse. Refuse to put ourselves on a list. Refuse to follow our oppressors' directions to the ghetto. Refusal to get on the train or to enter the gas chamber. And we must refuse to be silent for other people's comfort. While it is a Jewish imperative to believe that every human being is capable of kindness and has inherent goodness within them, we can never again trust that the kindness and goodness they possess will ever be directed at us. There was the very understandable thought back when this all started that if we just complied--if we were just willing to suffer a little bit by moving to the ghettos or registering on the lists of Jews the Nazis demanded or carried our papers with us at all time and wore our stars just as they said --then they would eventually realize we were good citizens. They would eventually realize we were just people like them doing their best to live quiet lives and follow the rules. People believed that, if we just complied, they'd remember their humanity and our own. If we just complied and let ourselves suffer, hen maybe our friends and loved one would be safe.

But that was a lie we told ourselves.

No amount of compliance or agree-ability or self-sacrifice will ever make someone who sees Jews as evil and subhuman realize that Jews are actually just human beings like everyone else. Compliance will never ensure our safety; it will just make us easier to kill. Compliance won't make antisemites see us as human; it will only ever make them see us -- at best -- as agreeable livestock.

(although I doubt any farmer would treat their animals as cruelly as Nazis and their supporters treated us).

I am not advocating for violence. But I advocating for discomfort and defense. That is why I am on here every day writing the things I write. I will not shut up for the comfort of people who don't care about my life or my safety. And neither should you. Neither should any of us. I will not allow antisemites to co-opt our own tragedies to demonize us further while casting themselves as warriors for justice.

No, we should not take to the streets and start harming goyim. But if the day comes that they once again start to round us up, I for one will tear those Nazis a-fucking-part with my bare hands. And if they live to have children and grandchildren of their own, they will have to explain to their children and grandchildren that they got the scars on their face and the missing eyeball because the Jew they were trying to murder wouldn't submit quietly.

And if this seems like a hyperbolic and absurd hypothetical to anyone reading this? Well, yeah. It seemed like one back then, too.

(And if any goyim chose to read "Night" by Elie Wiesel because of my post, please tell me. Please engage. I cannot be emphatic enough about this. If you are willing to read night in the way I asked of you in my post, then please do reach out to me with your experience and thoughts. Because that's the whole point. Jews need you to listen and engage with us about our own suffering. We need you to consider your impact on us and to not run away from that guilt or from us. If any of you are willing to read this book in the way that I have asked of you, please please please don't keep your experience to yourself. A lot of Jews desperately need to see goysiche growth in understanding antisemitism and its affects. I don't think you can even imagine how scared and lonely we are right now)

[kaiju-krew]

Hey there! Firstly, big big fan of your art and headcanons, ty for your cool and awesome big brain ❤️ Now that you’ve seen the movie, I’m wondering what your thoughts are on Shimo??? I’ve just seen impressions of her so scattered. (I saw your post on how she will NOT be treated as a pet, and I so appreciate that.)

I will say, for me the ‘old gal’ vibes are so strong and I’m here for it. Like when Goji blasts his atomic breath into the sky at the end and she’s looking at it with such awe and her cute super gummy smile, it reminds me of when a grandma gets shown some common piece of technology that the rest of us are used to, but she just can’t heckin believe it because she lives in a damn cave??? I loved that.

hi hi! omg u think i have a big brain...... compliment of the century.... i must have ppl fooled bcuz i am viscerally dumb most of the time

anywAYS. gxk spoilers below (and a lot of ranting)

shimo my beloved💙 i appreciate most interpretations of her, besides people who are just straight up caling her a dog. and like, not in the way i’d compare goji to a cat? for me it's more mannerisms based, so for goji my main expression/mannerism inspirations are cats, wolves, and komodo dragons (obviously), and for mosu it's owls and cats, with a crumb of horses because of their 'ear' communication so i use that with her antennae.

sorry for tangent but anyways. i dont need someone barking at me that i call goji a cat/draw him acting like a cat so calling shimo ‘kong’s pet dog’ is fine. i think its the difference between goji having the personality i characterize him with + mannerisms inspired by other animals, vs. him having no personality besides Being A Cat. like, he’s a dumbfuck but he’s clearly an intelligent creature capable of communication and understanding. i make a lot of shitposts but truly in my personal hc i’d never reduce him to ‘pet level intelligence’

i think i’m extra touchy about people calling her ‘kong’s pet’ because like. dawg. did you watch the movie? she was JUST freed from being skar’s slave/beast of burden/abused pet whatever you wanna call it. why would you want her to become another creature’s pet again?(obviously minus the abuse) idk mannn it just feels…. reductive somehow. she clearly shows intelligence and understanding when she realizes what’s happening during the fight and helps to kill skar. i just refuse to reduce her entire character to kong’s pet status bcuz that makes me uncomfortable asf.

as a disclaimer, you’re welcome to have whatever hc you enjoy. me expressing my personal thoughts on the matter isn’t an attack on anyone who characterizes her that way, i’m just not interested in engaging with it in the slightest.

DOUBLE ANYWAYS i just needed to get that outta my system. TIME FOR CUTE FUN IDEAS YAHOOO

i’m seeing mixed info about her age so idk where she actually sits there?? i remember seeing something like she’s the First Titan but i also think the novelization of the movie said she’s only 3 million years old?? when im p sure they’ve said goji is 250+ million years old so…. i have no clue there lol. personally she feels less jaded and grumpy than goji does to me so my brain automatically sees her as similar or younger bcuz of my Grumpy Old Man bias.

i’m still workin out my ideas for her but based on how the movie ends i like to think she helps kong with relocating the apes to a better home, and they mostly live in HE. her n kong venture up for surface dates bcuz she gets what she fucking deserves 💙

goji nearly has an aneurysm the first time they come up, since mosu literally takes them for a lil tour of monster island. bro standing there clenching his fist like the arthur meme, he begrudgingly knows she’s right and eventually he gets used to it

i got more ideas cookin for her but this post is already too damn long cuz of my ranting time to stfu

SHIMO BEST GIRL 10/10

[i-am-the-oyster]

The total insanity of the Mills years and their immediate fallout is highly underrated - possibly Paul's most unhinged period, or second-most after 1968. Engagement ring hurling. Putin! Sporadic relationship cuteness that results in some certified bops but overall incredibly bizarre vibes. Celebrity Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? still completely blows my mind. He is charming, competitive, and viscerally uncomfortable with the whole enterprise. David Blaine being a cunt in a box!! Agreeing to aver on her website that it is 100% his own decision to dye his hair and that nothing has ever been HM's fault ever in her entire life. Unsatisfactory office space!! Paul randomly whipping For No One, Fixing a Hole, and Too Many People out of the vault while touring in '05! Whatever the fuck was going on with Riding to Vanity Fair!! Arguing about seal pups with the premier of Newfoundland on Larry King Live and then almost immediately afterwards bailing on the Entire Marriage!! Alleged Paul inexplicably being annoyed about breast-feeding. (Don't buy that one - largely bc I think Linda would have punted him directly into the sun if he'd tried that shit with her and it seems weird that he'd Forget how such things worked.) Alleged wine bottle shiv. (Again, I don't believe that actually happened, but Insane notwithstanding!!) That summer in the Hamptons when he got together with Nancy but first apparently shagged - or at least dated - every other available woman there. Rosanna Arquette clearly not holding anything against him for this, so I guess that ended well. HM's total meltdown live on British television that happens to coincide with the Nancy relationship getting serious, though no one put that together at the time. The mysterious "box of evidence" whose existence fluctuates, seemingly, with HM's moods. The entire divorce judgment (not a self-plug I swear it). HM attempting to defraud MPL via phony mortgage??? Exorbitant flower budgets!! HM insisting she only guest-hosted Larry King Live once and trying to gaslight me specifically, I guess!! (It was three times. I swear to god it was three. I watched them all out of an attempt at loyalty.) Lavatory Lil suddenly manifesting a decade later!!

It was relentlessly cuckoo bananas! No one remembers it! No one talks about it! I alone, seemingly, must bear all this cursed knowledge!!

Ahem. Sorry. The Fidelity advert triggered something in me. I'll hush now, lol.

This poetry requires no additions from me.

[nerves-nebula]

I had such a visceral reaction to the Slash uno comic. Like it so perfectly captured the experience of someone calling out people on your behalf. Like yes they are defending you but also it’s uncomfortable and you’re feeling great and terrible all at once. Anyway great comic 10/10

reminds me of how in the psych ward they got my food wrong and i was like lol. i hate to ask for my food to be changed cuz thats annoying and i'm shy so i guess i'll starve. and the guy across from me got really serious and was like "I'm not letting you fucking starve in here" and asked them to get me different food.

and it was like really genuinely nice but also sent me into ashamed fight or flight mode where i got incredibly sweaty and embarrassed and wanted to die. anyway it made me suddenly realize that the reason i'm terrified of people standing up for me is probably because whenever my sister did that for me or anyone else, someone got hurt. and i prefer to just suffer in silence rather than go through all that.

like i will get genuinely mad if people try to defend me without my permission cuz they could make things so much worse for no reason- which i still think is reasonable. I just think its less reasonable when that extends to like, being so stressed at the idea of someone standing up for me that i wont let them ask the waiter a question for me or something afsdfsdfadf.

which is to say: i think im picking up what you're putting down.

[crimsonbits]

This might be very petty and might ruffle some feathers but the Number One Touhou Fandom Sin I'll never ever forgive is the amount of content (which thankfully is much, much rarer these days) that takes characters whose appeal is that they are confident and egotistical loveable jerks, with as many flaws as unearned bravado, and turns them into lobotomized submissive and/or "moe" versions of themselves.

And honestly maybe it's because I'm not even attracted to women to begin with, but I feel like this is motivated by Very Specific reasons. And, let's be clear, there isn't really anything morally wrong with that or anything (maybe besides the weird sexist undertones of this being done to female characters all the time. Also we're assuming the characters are coded as adults to begin with, obviously) but damn if it doesn't make me viscerally uncomfortable. Especially when it's clearly done outside of NSFW content/not meant to be that. I do think it plays on very sexist tropes most of the time.

Like, taking away these traits from these women and not allowing them to exist as actual characters outside of the "anime girl" trope box. Reduced to an unrecognisable mirage of their canon self. Let them be the overly-confident pathetic assholes with a heart of gold that they already are, instead of just waifubait. I know the absurdity of saying that to Touhou fans is like speaking to wall, but I was put on this earth to complain so, lol.

[smiledoggy]

Idk I really hope that panic attacks in kids films don't become the next big eye-roll "modern movie slop" trope that a lot of incredibly cynical people are trying to make it. Like, hell I remember people mocking how "annoying" other people were when they praised the panic attack scene in Puss in Boots 2.

I've lived with a panic disorder for about as long as I can remember (I got diagnosed with anxiety around 7 to 8 years old) and I have never, in my life until PiB2, actually seen a piece of media aimed at children handle panic attacks in a way that wasn't an outright joke or just an understandable response to a scary ass situation. These are things that I've had to live with about as early as preschool and I've never had a show or movie represent that. I felt isolated as a result because none of my peers understood it and the adults around me refused to even consider it, even at my parents' behest.

I spent a good 7 to 8 years of my life believing something was fundamentally wrong with me and that I was the only person like this.

Nothing I liked or watched ever showed a character struggle with the same thing I did. The closest I could get would be just a general "worrier" character, and they were often the butt of jokes. And idk seeing characters that are the closest thing to being like you repeatedly get made fun of for just being the way they are leaves a pretty sour impression on a kid's mind.

So watching Puss in Boots 2 in theaters as an adult and being viscerally uncomfortable as he lies on the ground his heart pounding his breathing quick unable to calm himself down.. and just kind of processing that this is our protagonist, this is our hero, and this scene isn't ending in a slap to his face and a "get ahold of yourself man!" was like. Legitimately eye-opening. It made me realize that I had never seen something that I've dealt with, I've been through, I've struggled to cope with, my whole life just... exist in media. Be there on the big screen as something that happens to people and something that needs to be handled gently.

Idk. It's been nice. I really hope that no anxious kid has to go through the levels of isolation and social outcasting that I did when I was younger because media aimed toward them is getting more ballsy about representing the ugly sides of life too. And even though I'm not a kid anymore I'm just comforted to finally see something I've had to deal with my whole life be treated with respect, and open the doors to more discussions about it.

The "realistic depiction of a panic attack" jokes were funny for about 5 minutes until I realized that a lot of the people spouting them just wanted to make fun of me and people like me for existing. Please god we already make fun of people we don't like with "you can't even make a phone call/order your own food!" can we not turn something as debilitating as panic attacks into the next big "lol cringe" insult.

[just-a-trans-nerd]

was saying this on twitter but the first scene of act 3 in baldurs gate made me so viscerally uncomfortable i had to stop playing and go to bed lol

Idk, something about a guy being a liar about who they really were this whole time, saying it was all to get you to trust them, and then in the same breath they go "Hey do you wanna ~evolve?~ Wanna be a more powerful creature than you are now? Have this crazy tadpole and Become Better" its so weird because it feels like this is what he expects as thanks for protecting us, so therefore, you obviously gotta do it right? It'll help make you stronger, right???

It takes a pretty high DC (21) to resist the tadpole (I had to reroll so many times to get a nat 20 bc I only had plus 1 to wisdom and I was Not going to fucking use that thing). When you do take it, your veins and eyes become sickly black. This is so obviously Not good for you, but this Fucking Guy is convincing you. Yes. You definitely, absolutely want this. Like your thoughts aren't your own. That they dont matter. What makes it worse is that when you return to camp, all the dialogue options about what happened to you all involve convincing your party to do the same. Most of them are so viscerally uncomfortable but are trying So Hard to be nice about it.

Guy claims he respects you, but when you resist the offer, he pushes and pushes and KEEPS PUSHING no matter what you say. If you manage to make the dc check hes like "dont worry, you'll come around :)" It just makes my skin crawl 😭

[super-paper]

in the bnha story fantasy is used to reject and ignore someone else like Tenkos family, who rejected the reality of the situation in favor of the fantasy of a happy family. if they admitted that it wasn’t a happy family it would be like challenging the fantasy of a happy family that they created for themselves and admitting their complacency in the abuse. they ignored reality in favor of fantasy in turn ignored Tenko who was hurting  Afo has control over the narrative and likes being in control by reducing people to roles and archetypes instead of people. he likes to lose himself as a character and doesn’t want to be understood as a human he rejects reality in favor of his fantasy but when his control of the narrative and fantasy is being challenged he becomes aggressive he loses control of the narrative he was piling up, for example, ofa is the only quirk that can not be controlled he is technically is eating his own words “reality doesn’t follow the old playbook” with the same reality he used to reject is now turning on him in the form of ofa.  izuku has been given a quirk and now attends ua he got to live his dreams as a hero he gets to live out his fantasy but while he was using his quirk he constantly gets injured due to his lack of control when izuku lived out his fantasy, in turn, ignored his mother's feelings as a consequence. which comes to a head when she was discussing after being back in school

Ye!!!!!!

MHA acknowledges that fantasy is not inherently a bad thing-- It can inspire people and give them the strength they need to get through their lives! It can give them hope for their future! It helps people dream of becoming better and becoming happier! It can be a wonderful and healing force! It can save people! Fantasy has value and that value deserves to be acknowledged and respected! But, fantasy should never be used to ignore or cover up pain instead of healing it. Pretending that everything is all right when it's not or pretending that the problem will just go away if you refuse to acknowledge it is where fantasy starts to segue into escapism.

Like, to clarify I don't think every issue in MHA falls under the banner of "fantasy as escapism" (in the case of Tenko's household, there were a looooot of complex factors at play and I don't want to diminish or oversimplify any of them)-- but a lot of the core plots in MHA do involve fantasy/escapism in some capacity, so like, it's hard not to think of it as one of the main themes in the series lol.

Outside of AFO's whole deal (and Tomura's) (and Toshi's) (& Izuku's), one of my favorite examples of "Fantasy as escapism" vs "Fantasy as healing" in mha actually comes from the Todoroki plot:

The anime adds a scene of Endeavor sitting in a dark room and wallowing in anger/self-pity as he watches All Might be lauded as the ~*~ultimate superhero~*~ on TV, while Rei watches on in horror-- it's an absolutely horrifying scene, and I do understand why some ppl are mad the anime added it because it's framed in a very..... viscerally uncomfortable way. But, I like the scene purely from a narrative standpoint because I feel we're meant to draw comparisons to an early-MHA scene between Shouto and Rei:

In this scene, Shouto associates watching All Might on TV with a tender, happy memory. Everything is framed in a warm and bright way, and Shouto takes what All Might and Rei are saying to heart-- That he must be able to recognize who he is and appreciate himself independently of his quirk, and that he isn't bound by blood. It's ok for him to want to be a hero because HE wants to, and not because Endeavor tells him he has to be one. This memory, combined with Izuku telling him that "his quirk belongs to him and he alone gets to decide how to use it," allows Shouto to finally start healing.

"And that's the despicable truth!"

Meanwhile, Enji uses fantasy purely as escapism from a wound he wont allow to heal and as a way to mask his own ugliness as a person. He projects all his fantasies about "All Might" being this invincible, unbeatable, undying superman onto Toshinori-- and he's spent his entire life madly chasing after a vision of All Might that only exists in his head. He chases after the fantasy of becoming the ultimate superhuman because supermen don't have to worry about pesky human limitations like, say, dying. Or death. Or being killed. After all, if his father had been a "true superhuman," then SURELY he wouldn't have died and SURELY he would have been able to save that girl and NOTHING bad would ever happen ever, right?? ...... Right??????

Enji's long laundry list of sins starts with him treating his own sons as an extension of his fantasies and placing that absolutely impossible, unreasonable dream on their shoulders. The literal moment Enji is confronted with Touya's humanity-- that is, the moment he's confronted with his son's inevitable mortality-- Enji's immersion is broken. He immediately clams up and retreats as deeply as he can into his Endeavor persona, shutting Touya out and prioritizing sparing his own heart from injury over the heart of his son. Touya simply can't understand where his father went and spends his entire childhood trying to get him back. Mentally, Enji went out for a carton of milk and then never came back-- and Touya, a literal child, was left behind and expected to make sense of this abandonment.

To Touya, Enji and Endeavor were the same person: His dad. To Enji, Endeavor was an alter-ego-- just a mask he wore to feel better about himself and play pretend. All Touya wanted was for Enji be his father-- but being a father of course meant remembering that he is mortal, and that Touya is also mortal. So, Enji ran and continued to chase after his fantasies through Shouto while becoming more and more abusive towards his family for refusing to play along.

*AFO Voice*"This body is just a proooooooop what you're actually fighting doesn't have a tangible foooorm lol rofl lmfao 😂🤣🤣"

Endeavor is AFO's main foil for a reason. Like AFO, he uses fantasy as a form of toxic escapism-- both men essentially cannibalized their own families in their attempts to escape "humanity, weakness, pain, and death" and achieve their idea of "godhood," and both men attempt to live out their dreams through their children (AFO just takes this one to a literal extreme 💀💀💀). AFO and Endeavor are quite the pair, and Endeavor choosing to keep playing hero over confronting the realities of his responsibility as a father only enables AFO to also keep playing out his own comic book fantasies.

Speaking of fantasy.........!

When the clock strikes midnight and All Might turns back into Cindertoshi in front of the entire world, Endeavor's immediate reaction is to fly into an impotent rage and scream at him. As if to say "How dare you be human. How dare you be human when the entire basis for my whole fantasy specifically hinged on dehumanizing you. How dare you be a human, just like me!" Endeavor never understood what made Toshinori an actual hero and spent his life treating Toshi as an unreachable, unattainable "other"-- And now that dream is over. Toshinori's just a regular human, and supermen don't exist. The cold, hard, cruel reality of what he did to his family finally sets in.

Just as Touya's constant burns forced Enji to confront the reality of Touya's and his own mortality, All Might's true form again forces Enji to confront the "human" part of the superhuman ideal-- he is forced to admit that there is no such thing as a "true superhuman" and that he was always chasing after a fantasy that never existed.

Side Note: Enji looking at All Might and basically saying "YEAH YEAH COOL COOL I'M SURE EVERYTHING WOULD'VE BEEN FINE AND I NEVER WOULD'VE HAD TO EXPERIENCE ANY PAIN IF *YOU* WERE MY DAD. WATCH ME FATHER FOUR CHILDREN TO SHOW YOU JUST HOW FINE I WOULD BE IF *I* WERE YOU AND YOU WERE ALSO MY DAD AND ALSO IF YOU WERE MY SON (???) :)" is like next level unhinged and I don't think the fandom talks about it enough lmfao. Dadmight game so strong it created a generation of deadbeat fathers who would rather fantasize about ~All Might takin' them to the ball game~ than raise their own damn kids.

Another aside....!!! Bakugo's reaction in particular always gets me during the Toshirella reveal, bc Bakugo n' Endvr are so often foiled with each other-- but their reactions are like night and day.

Like Endeavor, Bakugo is witnessing the moment his untouchable, unconquerable fantasy "falls to earth" and gets exposed as someone who as just as human as him, just as human as anyone else, and just as capable of getting hurt and discouraged as anyone else. Unlike Endeavor, though, Bakugo's reaction is neither scorn nor blame-- he instead chooses to cheer for Toshinori harder and louder than ever:

Another day, another instance of Endeavor getting absolutely owned in some vague capacity by a teenager lol. I should turn this into a drinking game and just get, like, completely smashed. I mean I would probably definitely die by the time we reach the part where he starting gets verbally browbeat by horribly bitchy visions of his teenaged self, but at least I would go out doing what I love: bullying fictional middle-aged men.

^ The above is another good example of how fantasy isn't always harmful when you're still willing to accept the reality underneath it. When the chips are down, one of the things that really defines you in this series is how you react when that layer of "fiction" gets violently ripped away and you see what's underneath:

-VERSUS-

god DAMN IT ENJI--

/end

[gendercriticalthinking]

hi, agender non-binary person here interested in gender critical feminism! i was wondering what your take was on people being uncomfortable with certain pronouns (he/him, she/her).

how do you feel about they/them pronouns, or neopronouns?

Hello there! I apologize so much for not answering your ask in a timely manner!! Responding to people on social media still makes me a bit anxious and stressed so I usually ignore my notifs even though I really shouldn't haha

Thank you for your question, and for being open to listening to gender critical people!!! It's an important and admirable quality to have, and especially worth praising when you and others have outright been told to not interact with gc people/radfems at any cost! So yes, thank you for that! :)

As for your question (which is a good one!) I originally wrote this very long rambly reply and saved it to my drafts hoping to make it coherent one day. But then recently something happened that made me realize something about human nature in general that directly ties into how gender identities and discomfort/enjoyment of certain pronouns came about:

My brother has always loved nature, especially animals. The reason his favorite color is green is because it's the color of plants: trees, jungles, the places animals live and eat and get to be free in. He's so obsessed with green that seeing something green, anything green, compels him to go " :O !!!! Green!!!"

Because he loves nature and animals so much, he's also a vegetarian. And not just in a "eating animals is bad for the environment" way, but a "it disturbs me on a visceral level to see, smell, or be near meat" way. I have to clean up my bowls and plates that I eat meals that have meat on (I mean, I'd do it anyway because you should pick up after yourself but you get what I mean) because the thought of touching a utensil that once came into contact with meat, even if I ate that meat and it's gone now, carnally disgusts him.

He loves animals, and he wants pets. He'd never ever malnourish a pet just because he has a problem with meat, but it'd be a real emotional challenge for him to feed a carnivore wet meaty food and/or live prey every day. (The token family dog was always fed by our parents or me; he'd be okay if our dog liked dry food but he doesn't lol.)

So I researched the options out there for herbivorous pets, and I found a couple species of lizards (he loves lizards in particular, partially because they're often... green) that eat an exclusively plant-based diet! I showed them to him and he was definitely on board... but alongside the herbivores we found a species of lizard that's a bright, vibrant green and makes a great pet, but they need to eat (preferably live) insects.

He's over the moon about the green insectivore lizards. Once he learned they existed it was over for him. They're all he wants, he's 100% sure. And it's for a lot of other reasons besides the fact that they're green, but... they're green. There are no herbivorous green lizards that make good/easy-to-care-for pets. On some level, he cares more about the green-ness than the vegetarianism.

Why is that?

It's because humans are obsessed with creating symbols to represent ideas. So much so that they often get more attached to the symbol itself than the thing it's supposed to be a reminder of. It's like a self-made Cloth Mother that's built to look like the Wire Mother, but comes with none of the substance or nourishment.

Green represents nature and animals coexisting peacefully to my brother. The emotion the color green instills in him as it reminds him of the things he loves is so powerful it surpasses his enjoyment of the literal thing that the color represents to him.

I'm just using him as an example, but everyone does this. Your favorite childhood shows make you happy because they're nostalgic and reminds you of being a kid first and foremost. They can be well-written and artistic and enjoyable underneath that feeling, but the simpler time they mentally take you back to is what you love about them. Your favorite characters, the "he's just like me fr" ones you read fanfic of, are ones that remind you of yourself and/or ones that you're attracted to. They can also be fun to analyze and have interesting personalities and be great meme fodder, but at the end of the day they represent something to you beyond their objective qualities.

.

So. If we live in a world where women are treated as lesser to men, not fully human, accessories to the actual thinkers, and we use "she/her" to refer to women, is it possible your hatred of hearing those pronouns is because they represent the idea that the person saying them to you sees you as inferior, vapid, incomplex?

If you're in a community where being a female who goes by "they/them" or "it/its" or "he/they" means you get to be who you want to be, who you truly are, enjoying everything life has to offer instead of being restricted to a role someone else made up for you, why wouldn't you like to be called something other than "she"?

When the majority of people who go by "she/her" in your spaces are amab people who constantly, vocally fetishize and dehumanize people with your biological body type (with a few afab people who don't seem to act like you or share your interests sprinkled in) why would anyone as smart and complex and kind to yourself as you ever like being called "she"?

Do you have an innate discomfort with certain pronouns because of dysphoria, or do you hate what the sound of them represents, reminds you of, that they're telling you what other people think of you? Do you enjoy being called certain pronouns because of euphoria, or do you like what the sound of them represents, reminds you of, that they're telling you the people who use them must listen to you and care what you think and support you being who you are?

What's my take on pronouns? They're symbols that represent the type of person you are and want to be. They mean something important. They tell a lot about a person. They're not something to play around with and try out for fun like they're clothes. They're not something you can make up out of thin air and pretend they have no connotations attached to them other than an Aesthetic TM you like.

Nor are they an escape from the problems of the world: the baggage comes with them, I'm afraid. It's a lot easier to change your bio and Discord server role than to change people's minds, especially ones belonging to those who hate you. That doesn't mean it's better or it works, just because it's feasible for you to do.

Whenever you feel a certain way about hearing "she," know that countless other women feel the same way as you. And know that leaving "she/her" behind doesn't mean you've found a cheat code out of being victimized and belittled, you've only left women like you behind instead.

[doctorodyssey]

okay cool hi lol let's be haters together <3

so my post earlier was abt 3x01 and specifically the pregnant woman gets attacked and has her baby stolen from her body call. it annoyed me on my first watch and then REALLY annoyed me on my second bc that is such a racialized form of violence mostly perpetuated by white women (or a couple) against black and/or indigenous women.

important context i am indigenous and 2s (usamerican specifically mohawk) which is why i feel like maybe i'm overreacting a bit but also fuck that lmao

and we know that sometimes the calls on 911 are inspired by real events right (the milky way call and also maddie telling that dv caller to pretend to order pizza come to mind)? and considering it is such a visceral crime i can't help but assume that they were inspired by one of the real life women that it's happened to. or any number of them. and they're mostly indigenous or black or other women of color!!

and like there's a reason bipoc are targeted for those types of crimes! so to tell a story like that and choose to victimize a white woman... idk leaves a bad taste in my mouth

and this is kinda an ongoing thing in 911 where they either completely avoid racial stuff while still using those stories or make the most milquetoast liberal statement that boils down to "racism bad". the whole michael and may and harry getting stopped and almost being brutalized thing comes to mind!

I know I shouldn't have high expectations for a copaganda show and I wouldn't even want them to touch the topic of racialized violence against bipoc bc they will fuck it up but also. I'm pissed bc violence against native women is PERVASIVE and also never fucking acknowledged by society at large.

Idk I'm salty about it and no one probably even noticed bc it's a small moment overall and maybe I'm being sensitive but also I feel like I deserve to be sensitive about this kind of thing. all I could think of while watching were those indigenous women who probably inspired that call and it sucks

anyway thoughts? LMAO

second part:

oh also to add on to the essay i dropped in your inbox yesterday i don't think the writers were in any way being malicious or bad writers or anything like that. they didn't anything wrong per se, it just made me uncomfortable to watch bc of my perspective as an ndn so i'm being a hater abt it to feel better lol obviously i still love the show

thank you so much for these thoughts!! i've never considered this but i think it makes total sense. you're 100% right that they base calls on real life stories, like a LOT of the calls. (random but i think it's cute that in the blackout episode, the call maddie takes from someone seeing the milky way in the sky is based on real calls from the LA blackouts in the 90s)

i actually just went and rewatched the scenes from 3x01 with the kidnapped mother & stolen baby. you are absolutely not wrong to be frustrated/uncomfortable w this portrayal. they really did it in the most viscerally disturbing way too, with the kidnapper literally removing the baby from the mother herself...definitely trying to play up the sensation in a situation where they could have addressed a deeper issue. instead they just did like "haha this crazy lady is so mentally ill and insane! let's use it as an opportunity for everyone to reflect!" (which, side note - this show does not handle certain mental health issues well either, despite being all pro-therapy for the characters when they're going through stuff....). and then they just used it as a way for chim & maddie to reflect on their own want for kids (and set up the possibility of maddie getting pregnant). the story did not need to be set up that way. like it was all for shock value...but marginalized/vulnerable people's babies being stolen is a real thing that happens (both by individuals and by the state/CPS/etc).

a better way for them to address this would be like, they have a sinister CPS worker who goes rogue and uses their power to take kids away from parents when it's not needed - this would be more interesting/hard-hitting IMO bc it puts the focus more on state-sponsored violence instead of individual harm committed by 1 person, but we do still have one person who is the villain (probably a "sweet" middle-aged white lady).

that said i also completely agree that they would...not do a good job if they tried to address racialized violence against Indigenous women. i feel like we would get one offhand comment about MMIW and maybe like a 10-second black screen at the end with a hotline you can call or something. i'm just thinking about how horrifically anti-Black the Mara/abused dog comparison storyline was...the writers on this show need to be punished tbfh

and also, i totally get you - the writers aren't being malicious, but they CLEEEEEEEAAARLY have blind spots and it shows.