#and im doing my normal process for this so like

[kedreeva]

i have an odd animal husbandry question you seem like you might know the answer to, your comment about stan reminded me - ive been thinking about getting into backyard chickens for a couple years and the thing that makes me hesitate most is hard culling. im confident in my ability to put down an animal thats sick, or infirm, or for food, but for like, temperament? or for poor egg layers? just sticks on me for some reason. i think it would feel like telling them theyre not a good enough chicken for me. how to you process this part of animal husbandry?

This will be a little long, so bear with me.

If you want to keep use animals (animals bred for a purpose, to be used for a purpose instead of kept as a companion), you gotta get good with the idea that they are here for you under the agreement that you will only keep them as long as you need to. When you take them on, you are agreeing that you will release them to whatever their next life holds for them as soon as you do not need (or they've completed) their service. Maybe for some people that's just release to the biological cycle of life, for others maybe there's an eternal rest, for others maybe it's reincarnation. For soft culling that's just moving to the next household. Whatever it is, you are allowing them to pass to it in as humane a way as you can, and ultimately it is the single greatest kindness and gratitude you can show to them, to give them proper care while they are here and allow them to end with little to no pain- something animals outside of our care rarely get. You are thanking them for their service, and letting them go. Worth does not even begin to factor into it.

It is not easy to take a life. It is NEVER easy, regardless of reason, regardless of excuse, regardless of anything. It is ALWAYS heavy, and it will always hurt you. And it should. I am grateful for the weight of taking a life, because it reminds me that it is serious, and reminds me to take the production of life seriously, because at some point any life I cause to come into existence via breeding animals will have to end.

On top of that, some things ARE heath related that do not seem health related. Aggression in domestic animals IS A HEALTH ISSUE. A cock is aggressive because he is stressed about intruders, containment, mating threats, resource guarding, etc. Even with the best of care this can be true, and unfortunately for you both, this means the animal is not suited for domestic keeping. The same goes for animals (in any stripe of use, but particularly private care) that display repetitive stress behaviors from normal, proper captive care (for example, mice that are food chewing are stressed and should be culled from lines where possible because they are not having a good time). You are doing them a disservice to keep them in a stressful situation you cannot change because of their biology. It has nothing to do with not being good enough for you, and everything to do with producing/keeping animals that do not experience that stress in captive care and releasing the rest from duty because they will not be okay in any captive care.

For some issues (poor egg laying, for example) you CAN pet-home culls instead of hard culling. It's harder to do, you will spend time finding people who just want pets that don't intend to breed or don't care, but it can be done. However!! Is the bird just slow at producing eggs because her genetics say that's how fast eggs get produced, or is she producing slowly because there's a health problem that isn't immediately evident? Is her ovary damaged, is her reproductive tract infected, does she have a disorder that prevents her from processing food correctly so she can't get what she needs to produce eggs as fast as normal? Are you setting the bird up for failure (and someone else for heartbreak/money troubles) sending them to a pet home? Is it something which could lead to pain/suffering down the road if she's allowed to continue? Hard to say without spending a lot of money. Are you willing to risk your reputation, if someone takes a surprise illness/genetic issue down the road badly ("Oh THAT breeder sold me a sick/unhealthy bird/bird with bad genetics"), and compromise your ability to find homes for healthy birds down the road?

You are okay with culling a bird for food- there's nothing that says you cannot eat the bad temperaments, the poor egg layers, the one with genetic issues, and so on. And if you can tell early enough that you, personally, can't make use of the meat, there are plenty of folks with other animals that would LOVE feed for those animals. Take yourself down to a local reptile expo, grab the business cards for a few people who have big snake babies (retics, burmese, anaconda, redtail boa, even BP) that say they'd be interested in taking culls, OR look up local bird of prey rescues in your area (or reptile rescues or big cat rescues if there are any) and ask if they'd be interested in culls. There is ALWAYS someone that can use what you can't/won't. You may have to jump through some hoops to donate to some kinds of rescues (health testing for example), but it's an option you can look into if you want to combat the feelings you're talking about.

As a last note- and I am saying this gently and holding your face in both hands: do not anthropomorphize animals in reality.

In YOUR eyes, you are culling them an illness or an injury or for food or for temperament or for poor quality or or or---- it does not matter to the animal why you are culling them. A death is a death, to them. They are here, and then a thing happens, and they are no longer. They do not understand life or death or afterlife or reincarnation or that they are here for a purpose or not a purpose or literally anything you as a human might impose upon them in your head. They live while they are alive, and then they are not. They do not "want to live" in the "avoid death" sense because they do not necessarily understand "death" as a future concept. Instincts that have worked well to preserve life have been encoded in their DNA to one degree or another, they can and do respond to avoid pain, but with little exception (like... maybe elephants and dolphins and a crows and a few others), it's unlikely that they understand the connection between doing those things and being alive/avoiding death.

So while TO YOU it may feel like telling the bird they are not good enough, and TO ME it feels like allowing the bird to move on in peace... the bird doesn't know either way, and honestly the reason hardly matters. It is alive in the present, and one way or another it will not be alive someday, and you are responsible for making sure that the one way under your control is so peaceful or quick that the bird hardly knows it is no longer alive. The bird doesn't care about (and cannot understand) the why of their death, any more than they understand their pain/stress and how it relates medical assistance; it's why animals often freak out, refuse meds, etc. They don't hate the vet or the car or the carrier or anything- they just simply don't understand human stuff and react according to instincts/what they do understand. If you treat an animal like the animal it IS rather than the person you imagine it to be, you will find yourself with a lot better relationship with them during life, and be able to frame their passing a bit better later on.

[angiethewitch]

things I did thinking I was being spiritual but it was actually a severe psychotic episode

to preface i am a pagan but let's be honest here this was straight up a mental health crisis

okay let's go

convinced myself there was a very angry poltergeist in my loft after I found out there was an old bed frame up there and it needed my help to move on but instead I threw salt up there and refused to let anyone walk underneath the loft opening

decided I had mastered the art of astral projection and I was travelling to astral planes and I could fly around the world while I was actually just lying there vividly hallucinating

straight up told people that my spiritual guides were gonna kill them like how did I expect them to do anything but laugh in my face

blood magic. like really dangerous stuff. thought I could bring my dead mother back to life by exchanging my life force for her own. hello?

vividly hallucinated my dead mother talking to me and fully believed she was a trapped spirit but nobody else could hear her and it was up to me to save her. all through her funeral she talked to me, she spoke to me for months. took me nearly a year to start dealing with her death and actually begin the grieving process

decided my husband was cursed and made him stand in the kitchen while I walked in a circle around him boiling herbs. poor bloke has dealt with so much

became convinced if I could just cast the right glamour spell at the right time I could breathe underwater and tested this out in the ocean like a very normal and sane individual

thought the wind was actually terrible forces speaking to me and delivering messages just for me so I became terrified of wind because I would have to sit outside and decipher the words that were clearly just for me

sewed a load of crystals onto a t shirt to protect myself from bad energies and called myself "the high priestess" and got very upset when people couldn't understand my power

understood that my cat was not actually a cat and was in fact the spirit of a 2500 year old druid priest sent to guide me in the form of a cat. Still called him Jinx though

started a journal where I detailed all the signs that the end of the world was coming

Read online that the colour red means angry so I desperately avoided the colour red because that meant the world was angry with me

tried to summon satan to terrorise my neighbour who was mean to me and fully believed it would work

decided I was immortal and imbued with the powers of ancient gods which led to some very risky and dangerous situations which I will obviously not detail here

there are many more examples but these are the most ridiculous ones

if you followed me for the witchcraft posts, im sorry. ive had to take a step back from it all for the sake of my own mental wellbeing. spirituality is a huge trigger for me. I tried practicing in moderation, I tried practicing just a little, but it is too much now. I had to unfollow a lot of witchcraft blogs because 1) they all seemed to collectively devolve into conspiracy theories and 2) i had to remove myself from the online witchcraft space. if you were wondering why I don't post about witchcraft anymore, this is why. I barely practice anymore, and when I do, I keep it private so im not encouraged by online validation.

please practice safely. always consider the mundane explanations first.

[rodrickrulezz]

HIIIIII

First I wanna say that your first fix is like INCREDIBLE and that I support you as HELL

So I was thinking a Rodrick x reader were Susan and Frank want to have « the talk » with them yk ? Because they are scared af that Rodrick impregnate reader.

Tell me if you need more details

Happy new year love ya kiss kiss 💗💗🫶

thankyou sm for the support and happy new year!! (*´Д`*) I'll try my best with this request ( ´Α` )

rodrick heffley × fem!reader mentions of sex, pregnancy

┈♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.♫⋆┈

"Rodrick!" Susan called for what seemed hours, "Rodrick!" she calls out once more as if Rodricks's music will magically turn off by itself for her to be heard. With a huff, she comes to terms with her having to stomp up the stairs as she did yesterday and the day before and the day before that..

Making her way up the stairs, the music becomes more obnoxious up close than downstairs. With a push, Rodrick's door flies open, entering a frustrated mother now shocked mother as she stares at the sight of her son lying down with his girlfriend on his lap. She exits as quick as she entered only being able to exclaim, "Rodrick! Music!" Now more panicked than angry now.

Susan raced down the stairs, eager to hear what Frank had to say about his teenage son's girlfriend nestled a bit too close to him. Probably, "They're teenagers, hun. Doing teenager stuff " but she wouldn't allow anyone getting pregnant under her roof.

"Frank!" Her sudden proclaim disrupted the bite of his sandwich, "Huh, what?" Susan leaned in as if she was uttering government official secrets, "I went up to Rodrick's room to say to turn down the music as I normally do but-" Inbetween bites Frank hums in acknowledgement, Susan continues "I saw (reader) sitting on his lap! Rodrick touching her hips!"

Frank blinks. Processing all the train of fast words she spewed out to him after a swallow he says "So...you want me to talk 'im? Tell them to keep it in their pants?" He receives a light slap on his shoulder, "Frank! No! They're far too young to be having sex. Unprotected sex at that! I don't know if Rodrick has condoms.." Frank blankly watches her spiral thinking of hypotheticals that all result in teen pregnancy.

Frank knowing his munch of his sandwich won't be peaceful until he talks to his teenage son about safe sex. With a sigh he nods and makes his way up the stairs, an anxious Susan trailing behind him.

"Rod?" He cautiously says before opening the door peering over it to see reader snug against rodrick watching him playing on his phone.

"Yeah, dad?" Rodrick mirrors the panicked expression of his now timid mother "Everything alright?" You say, your eyes bounce between the contrasting faces. One panicked the other hesitant.

You both sit up, expecting that there's a man holding Greg captive from the suddenly cumbersome atmosphere.

"Uh..rod..your mother and I are worried that you're going to make some stupid..unprotected decisions..and..I know you two love eachother but..even though it feels right in the moment..it may lead to-" Frank mumbling anything that came to his mind that would please Susan and keep his son from doing anything stupid. He went to go on but the bewildered faces of the two of you, he paused for an ounce of an answer.

"Huh?" Rodrick broke the uncomfortable silence. Susan butted in, "Frank and I love you both love you and we don't won't (reader) getting pregnant. We know you're experiencing urges-"

Rodrick, sheepishly pipes up covering his face with a pillow, "Why are you telling us this?? " You mirror Rodrick's awkward face, your cheeks heat up at the mention of urges.

Frank scratches his head, reluctant to say it, "Your mother saw (reader) on top of you and.. well..thought.."

"Mom! What the hell!" He rips the pillow off of his face. Defensive, Susan shoots back, "Rodrick! Language!"

Frank in attempt to difuse the new tension of the room he adds unnecessarily," Rod..it's nothing to be ashamed of..I remember when I was your age..there was this girl-"

"Dad!" Rodrick whines, desperate for this uncomfortable situation to be over already. "(Reader) and I weren't having sex."

Now, their faces weren't contrasting, the both of them having questioning looks. "You weren't? What else -"

"I have cramps.. bad ones..and uhm.." You feel the heat cementing itself onto your cheeks as you explain, "Rodrick was massaging me for some relief.."

The air becomes unbearably still, and wide eyes stare back at you and Rodrick. Frank, the only one who spoke up after what seemed a century of silence, "Oh well..that's sweet rod..attaboy..I'm going to go.." Frank disappears from the doorway. Faint footsteps trail down the stairs. Leaving a lingering figure, Susan, after mumbling rushed words she blurts out, "Make good decisions!"

┈♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.┈

this is so bad I apologise!!! I didn't know how else to construct this (((￣へ￣井)

hope you enjoyed this!! I'm open to kind constructive criticism and tell me what you liked so I can improve :33

[bogor-o]

Please share the rambles about how Lana eventually kills Ovidia? Pretty please?

ORGEHRTGRT i love that pretty please oerghag u got it lemme gather my garbled thoughts,,,

im super wishy-washy on whether i want that to commit to that being the end, but it certain is an end. Because theres a build up that leads into lana being ovidias end that i feel needs to be mentioned first

as i think more on ovidia as a person and their history, a lot of it shapes their perception on a perfect life including a "perfect" family and i think they end up subconsciously projecting a lot of it onto Lana and she does try to mold herself into this image of a perfect child for her Baba

but because ovidia isnt being truthful about even to themself about why they do what they "have to" whether its leading their followers the way they with a lot of manipulation and making them believe in this image of a perfect Mother and family that they've carefully curated, or even how they specifically talk to and treat their children and why there is almost a clear sense of favoritism that is kind of always there

this denial is also the reason their ascension is slow and unpleasant, because a process that would not normally take more than maybe a century or two to even begin is being stretched out because theyre actively fighting the crown against it. it isnt apart of their plan, of ovidias plan. so any changes that come from ascending are painful and slow and its entirely because ovidia is so deep in denial of their true self

they dont want to think theyre playing favorites, and its not obvious to anyone but Narinder at first that they view the kids very differently from each other and while hes tries to talk about it ovidia just has a way of icing him out because they just flat out will not admit it.

and this is the point i realized that there are two diverging paths for them, and if they accept and realize where it comes from and why theyre doing this they have the capacity to at least start to mend the damage theyve made which at that point wouldnt be until Lana is already an older child (like 10-12)

or they never address it and never change, they stagnate in their ability to ascend and unbeknownst to them, the crown had always taken a liking to Lana and her innate interest in death and murder, and naturally has been putting thoughts into that childs head for longer than ovidia would have guessed

(wip of something i might finish eventually but u kno, just 2 emphasize that lana adores the crown)

and it wouldnt be until lana is older, and is acknowledged by her baba to be a grown and capable person that its basically the final nail in the coffin. Lanas mental check list is finished for the developmental part of her own life, now all thats left is to become an usurper, just like their idol!

because shes always wanted to be just like Mother.

the method of murder would involve the years of honing in all the inherited abilities that come with being the kid of a god, but them still being a god it'd be hard wouldnt it? not if the crown is so willing to betray its master, and when its got a guaranteed new head to sit on its not that hard to imagine itd turn coat and reveal the secret to killing a god huh

[winxbutbetterimo-ovo]

In my own little brain. We all know that the timeline in the show makes no sense so: My thought process is that daphne has spent a few centuries as a ghost at lake roccoluce. Bloom, when sent away as a baby thru a portal (which likely is daphne trying to send her as far away from the witches as possible), spent a few centuries in a permafrost coma state within the “wormhole” of the portal until she drops onto earth (into the building thats on fire until Mike finds her)

The nymphs then are kinda ancient protectors of the magical universe kind of like how the company of light are protectors. ALL OF THIS IS HEADCANON. But i think that nymphs are chosen since birth based on what powers you have and what is needed at the time. They should be called mostly the Nymphs of Magix as a group, individually there are other titles for them. Only the Nymph of Domino (daphne) is in charge of taking care of the flame, which of course she gives to bloom fully.

I would assume in my hadcannon that nymphs live n die like how normal fairies do, but in special cases they are kind of “promoted” to sticking around for even longer than usual. I think this mostly happens when there is no successor. And all nymphs get sirenix as a prerequisite so they can basicaly fast travel around Magix, which is why daphne was the last to get sirenix before most other nymphs were destroyed and sirenix was cursed. Also we can assume that the ancestral witches ravaged other planets before absolutely desecrating domino, during which i assumed they killed of most other nymphs. then MORE nymphs keep coming so they decided to curse sirenix (making the nymphs unable to even fully become nymphs and making it backfire so they dont even have to lift another finger to kill any more coming). Also i want to add daphne is definitely dead because of this. She is a GHOST. But im gonna use ghost rules i have heard which is, we dont see other dead nymph ghosts because they have moved on. Daphne choses to stay because her sister is out there, still alive (she definitely can sense this). and this she takes refuge in lake roccoluche and just kinda waits it out.

Who decides on who becomes nymphs? (This is my own very unhinged theory) THE DRAGON DOES DUN DUN DUNNN. It is in a dormant state, but every now and then babies born will have a certain glow to them that will tell their parents they were meant to be nymphs. Why no more nymphs after daphne? I think its because parents started to view this glow as a bad thing, as a “of my kid glows she is essentially a lamb to slaughter and i dont want that” so they just havent been training (or sending their kids to the special nymph training ON DOMINO). And over time the knowledge is lost and nymphs are just “legendary protectors”

(Additionally, daphne is carved on the building front and centre because she was the most current nymph and the one that technicaly lasted the longest. So people still have records of how she looked and thus they made her central and biggest while the other nymphs look about the same and are smaller)

Winx Club Lore Confusion

Can anyone explain the nymphs of magic to me lol? Like I legit don't understand them, the wiki says that they were technically called the nymphs of domino bc that's where they were all from and were the protectors of the Dragon Flame. But it also says that the nymph of the infinite ocean and Politea were one of them. But this makes no sense bc they weren't guardians of the flame. Then it also says that there were 3 generations of nymphs each with 9 of them until Daphne's generation. This also doesn't make sense bc where are the rest of Daphne's generation? They're not shown in the fight with Valtor or mentioned beyond their statues in the temple. Winx lore doesn't make any sense.

[dualmessiahs]

First week of actually tracking again (I tried again last year-ish and tracked a few weeks, but I ended up just deleting that data). I wrote over 6,600 words this week, all on my current sm/tiv project. That's almost twice the weekly goal I set, so definitely a good start.

I'm hoping to continue this strength and focus, at least until I get through the SM/TIV ideas I have. I have five current premises, and I want to get four of them completed. The fifth one would be a bit too long, so I just want to get it rolling.

[puppppppppy]

horrible truth bomb dropped on my head 20 min ago

[ghost-proofbaby]

It's summer for you, winter for me. Warm me up with strawberry fluff! As always, my muse, your muse, the one and only, Eddie.

Midsummer's night, because I don't have a lot to inspire you with. I'm thinking something cute but weird? Maybe some human body softness where Eddie is a bit of a freak and we love him for it. And we're told our bodies are lovely, even when they're doing weird shit.

I lalalove youuuuu. xo Rhi

RHI!!!! <3 i adore you. thank you for this prompt - i had far too many ideas for it, but ended up on settling for this one, which coincidentally feels like the most subtle of them all? either way, it definitely turned out being the softest. give me an eddie munson who just wants to sniff me like a dog. this definitely got a bit long but i hope you enjoy, my dear <3

the smell of you

warnings: weirdos in love? idk. i have a skewed sense of what is actually weird i think. mentions of death and coffins jokingly. eddie 'manhandles' reader sort of. not edited.

wc: 2.2k+

come enjoy a sweet summer treat with me <3

“Eddie?”

The entire apartment is quiet – too quiet – as you drop your keys into the old crystal bowl on the counter. The clink resonates through the air, louder than the soft murmur of the stereo static you can hear from down the hall. 

“You dead?” you call out again, slipping off your running shoes and tossing down your headphones onto the counter as well now, “Do I need to call the coroner?” 

Your tone is lilted, teasing with airiness as you continue to wander deeper into the apartment and head straight for the room you know Eddie has to be in. Like the waves pulled by the moon, there’s an incessant string tied around one end of your soul that connects you to his, and you follow it all the way down the hallway. The bedroom door is wide open, and you can hear his mumbled yell of a response without clarity before you even cross the threshold. 

You wouldn’t have even needed him to verbally respond to find him in this tiny apartment. You two could get separated on the streets of a bustling city, of a buzzing New York sidewalk, and you still wouldn’t properly lose him. It’s more than just soul ties and his gravity that keeps you pulled to him. 

Something unspoken. Something homely. 

“Sorry, what was that?” you hum as you spy him face-down in the bed, pillow muting him by the mouthful, “Say it one more time, and this time not into the pillow.” 

When he finally properly turns over, he’s a vision. Sleep lines folded into his skin and a bit of drool in the corner of his mouth, eyes squinting in irritation not at you but the sunlight flooding in through the bedroom window. Messy hair, messy shirt, messy everything. A kind of mess you just want to collapse into currently, curling up in all that he is from the day’s exhaustion. 

He’d mentioned wanting to take a nap before you’d left for the gym. Something about the summer heat draining him, trailing off as he’d rambled about how he’d probably thrive as a vampire. 

“I said,” he huffs, sitting up, the frizz of his hair becoming a makeshift halo, “If you call the coroner, request the comfiest coffin possible.”

“Why do you need a comfy coffin if you’re already dead?” 

“You dare deny me of being buried in tempurpedic memory foam? In my hour of need?” 

You roll your eyes as you huff out a little laugh, forcing yourself to turn away from him long enough to strip out of your socks. But just as you reach down for the pieces of clothing, you catch sight of the source of that stereo static flooding the room. 

Your shared record player, spinning a blood red pressing of one of your more recent vinyl purchases. The album has been played through, but the player no longer had an automatic stop mechanism, probably from years of use. 

The center of the record is probably scratched, and Eddie knows it, from how sheepish he looks when you glance over your shoulder at him. 

“Speaking of death,” you walk over quickly, purposefully, before carefully lifting the needle and cutting the static finally, “Care to explain why you’re burning scratches into my Momento Mori vinyl?” 

“I’m sorry,” he quickly apologizes, nearly flinging himself off the bed as he scooches quickly to the end, clearly fully awake now, “I put it on and thought I’d just lay down for a quick second, but then the bed was so comfy, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick nap, and then…” he trails off, looking up at you through his lashes with big eyes already pleading for forgiveness, “I’ll buy you a new one. Swear it.” 

It’s impossible to be mad at him when he’s looking like this, inhumanely soft and easily forgiven, “You’re lucky you’re cute, or you really would be dead.” 

He doesn’t respond with words, but instead the outstretch of his hands, fingers flexing as he beckons to you. The needle rests on its perch, the vinyl left behind to gather dust for a few extra moments, as you go straight to him. 

When his palms slip beneath your old t-shirt and meet your skin, they’re pleasantly warm. 

“You were right,” you admit as his knees spread, delegating even more room for you to stand in front of him as your hand wanders to cradle the side of his face, fingers tangling in sweaty curls from his rest. Your thumb mimics his on your own skin instinctively, tracing a large arch right up over his cheekbone, “It’s hot as balls outside.” 

“Told you so,” he murmurs, smiling softly in satisfaction as he leans lazily into your touch. 

“You did,” you agree quietly, half-entranced by his relaxed face, no sight of pride in the room currently. 

He resembles a cat as he continues to preen under your gentle hand, and you almost expect him to start purring right before you find the strength to pull away, removing his hands from where they'd wandered to your lower back. 

One swipe of his finger along your sweaty spine, and you’d remembered what your original intentions had been immediately upon getting home. 

“Wai- Where are you going?” he’s seemingly brought back down to Earth the moment he loses the pattern your thumb had been tracing, the press of your fingertips into his scalp. When he reaches back out to latch onto you again, you take a step back, “Get back here-”

“I need to shower,” you laugh, shaking your head and smacking his hands away as he continues to barter, “I’m all sweaty and smelly, let me go clean up and then we can nap togeth-” 

“You can shower after we nap,” he nearly whines, finally catching your shirt between his fingers and tugging, uncaring for if he stretches the fabric. A small price to pay to have you close to him, “C’mon, sweetheart. I know you’re just as exhausted as I am.” 

You swear you meant to take another step backwards, but somehow, you end up back between his knees, “Did you not hear me, Munson? I stink.”

“Good.” 

He doesn’t give you any time to react – in an instant, he’s throwing his face forward, burying it against your stomach as you let out a gasp and immediately try to pry him away with far too gentle of hands in his hair. 

“Eddie!”

If it were anyone else, you’d probably be mortified. But Eddie just takes a dramatic deep breath in, nose buried just shy of your belly button, and when his shoulders start to shake with muted laughter, you can’t stop the smile from breaking. Your fingers are still twisted in his hair, still pulling back in an attempt to get him away from you, but he’s resilient. 

And all your faux resistance is weak in comparison. Soon enough, you’re back to melting into him. 

Only once you’re relaxed once more, no sign of trying to pull away again any time soon as his hands once more evade the space beneath your shirt to wander up and down your sticky skin without a care in the world, does he lift his face away from you long enough to breathe and speak, “I’ll have you know – I love your stink.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious.” 

“You’re an idiot.” 

“I’m your idiot.” 

The game of banter is cut short when he goes back to pressing his nose into your clothes that surely can’t smell good. No amount of deodorant or perfume could erase that underlying stench of sweat. Hell, the shirt is still a bit moist from it all: from the walk to the gym, from your workout itself, from the walk home. It’d been through the ringer, and you’re back to tugging him away from you. 

“I refuse to believe you like how gross I smell right now,” you reinforce, eyes darting towards the bathroom connected to your master bedroom, “I promise I’ll be quick with the shower.” 

“Baby,” he fights back, wrapping his arms around you securely, no intention of losing this battle, “You remember that time we went to the fair, and you were complaining about how you were sweating, so I tried to lick your face?” 

Your nose scrunches quickly at the memory, “I do, unfortunately.”

“You really think I’d be willing to lick the sweat off your body but be afraid of you smelling a little bad while we cuddle?” his shoulders drop as he looks up at you, head tilted, almost as if amused with the conversation, “What kind of man do you take me for?” 

“The kind that gets off on annoying me.” 

His jaw drops, putting on a fake look of offense before he dramatically throws himself back onto the bed, laying flat as he makes a fist to mimic stabbing his chest, “You wound me.”

You’ve heard those words a thousand times in a hundred different ridiculous voices. You’ve seen this scene enough to have it mesmerized at this point, down to the over-exaggerated pout of his lips and the lingering of the fist against his sternum. 

You never grow tired of it. You never will. 

“Need me to kiss it better?” you joke as you prop a knee up on the bed, following the same script as always. 

And he hits his queue perfectly when he lifts his head eagerly at the expected response, wiggling his brows a bit. “Absolutely. Doctor’s orders, in fact.” 

“Great,” you see an opportunity, and take it, “I’ll get right to it, after my showe-” 

You don’t even get the final syllable of the word off your tongue before he’s clenching his thighs around your own, knees pressing hard before he wraps his legs the rest of the way around your waist to pull you in. A squeak of surprise leaves your lips as you begin to fall forward, but Eddie is quick to break the fall with ease. Catching you with his eager hands, maneuvering for you to half drop to the mattress while some of you still lands atop of him. 

He has you right where he wants you, turning his head to be face to face with you, noses nearly brushing, “Unfortunately, the doc said you have to kiss it better now, or else you’ll be comfy coffin shopping.” 

“A fatal wound?” you gasp, nearly mocking him. It doesn’t offend him – if anything, his boyish grin only grows wider, “First, I’m smelly-”

“Again, I like when you’re smelly.”

“-And then I inflict a fatal wound upon my lover? Oh, how dare I.”

Slowly, all your insecurity of how you currently smell is simply fading. The entire ordeal has become an art of childlike, whimsical jokes – and Eddie is an artist. A professional at the dance, locked and loaded with his incomparable skill set equipped for disarming you this way. The ability to make someone feel loved, imperfections and weirdness aside. 

He likes you, even when you claim you don’t smell your best. And you like him, even when his hair is tangled beyond recognition and one of his socks is half-hanging off his foot from a nap.

You like him when he’s embarrassing you in public, tongue chasing after you with the threat of licking your sweat away, and he likes you when all you can do in response is a weak palm to his chest (that isn’t even making an effort to push him away) as you giggle relentlessly. 

You like each other on the good days, the bad days, the weird days. 

Disarmed entirely, you don’t even notice when his face conveniently slots itself far too close to your armpit as you two scooch further up into the bed. You’re more occupied with the way your legs tangle up, toeing each other’s socks off properly as he slings a heavy arm across your torso. 

“We’re gonna have to wash the sheets,” you mumble, exhaustion catching up as the two of you finally settle. 

He hums absentmindedly, nuzzling into your skin a bit further as he makes himself comfortable. “And wash away your sweet, sweet stink? I don’t think so, sweetheart.” 

“Oh, fuck off,” you laugh, unbothered as your fingers start to trail up and down his back over the t-shirt, smoothing out wrinkles along the way, “I’m serious. We need to change them soon anyways, I think I got crumbs in the bed the other night with those crackers.” 

“Bury me in the crumbs of all your midnight snacks,” he almost slurs, clearly drifting back off. 

You snort in response, relaxing and letting your own eyes shut. Matching all your deep breaths with his own, a million different last words crossing your mind to whisper to the boy you’re sure is once again asleep. 

I love you.

I adore you. 

I would like to spend the rest of my life with you, if you’ll have me. 

And maybe some of those unspoken thoughts slip out without you realizing, because he squeezes you just a little bit tighter, presses his face just a little bit deeper into your skin as his scruff tickles you. 

The only actual thought you can know for certain that you say, though, is, “Do you think they actually make coffins with memory foam inside?” 

To your surprise, even despite the almost-snores that had been escaping him, he answers in a heartbeat. 

“Oh, definitely. We’ll order two.”

[intertexts]

biting the bullet and saying this is a fine place to talk about ashe winters also. because i have a lot of thoughts on that headcanon & i know other people do too & it's been long enough that i feel that it would be disingenuous not to at least, like, talk myself through it here so u guys can hear my thought process. prefacing this by saying hey! please don't make any assumptions about me based on one headcanon i don't love!

anyway i deliberately watched pd almost entirely in a vacuum because i didn't want spoilers or fanon to affect my perception of it. transfem ashe & her ubiquity was like. not what i was expecting? it's a headcanon that's Everywhere, & when i heard about & noted this i was like, okay, cool, there's going to be so much thoughtful analysis out there of ashe & their relationship with their dead mom & mark & the pd & that freedom and liberation they bring ashe &grief & guilt & trying to figure out what it means to have something for yourself when it's haunted! of course that's the core of this! of course canon analysis will still recognize that this is fanon and not canon!

to be clear, the reason i even still find the headcanon compelling and am not just bitter on it is because seraphex has been doing this (the thoughtful analysis) since the beginning n a couple others r doing this, & actively engaging with ashe's narrative as a trans narrative, & i hold affection for the way i would write & think abt her. but, like. for the most part, that's not what people are doing. it feels to me like at this point a lot of the ashe i see is girl ashe, like... just so there's a Girl Prime Defender? which is, y'know, necessarily not bad in and of itself, do whatever u want. and certainly no one's obligated to engage in fandom critically. but i do think we should, and that it's a good thing to do! but, like, effectively "girl ashe winters but im never going to touch on transness or anything and she's just a normal girl with a demon book" is different!! than "transfem ashe winters" which assumes and begs a different and more thoughtful type of relationship With gender. please for the love of god don't take this as me saying "well trans girls aren't real girls" please. this is not what i'm saying. "cassie sandsmark but she's just a boy who does all that instead" and "transmasc cassie sandsmark" are, narratively speaking, two entirely different things. same goes for ashe. this is what i was saying. with genderswapping.

anyway, the thing that does irk me is when people make canon pd analysis while using feminine pronouns for ashe and assume like yeah yeah obviously canon is stupid we all know ashe is a girl!!!! of course i can just treat that as canon. like, i dont know how to clearly articulate this in a polite way, but like-- she/her ashe is a headcanon. if you want to write meta specifically about or in relationship to your headcanon-- sure! but if you're trying to make genuine points about canon while intentionally blurring the lines between fanon and canon like that. i'm not going to really respect what you say about canon? again, this isn't just a pd thing. jane crocker he/him butch lesbian to me but i've never liked, like... canon-alpha-kids non-gender-related analysis where they're he/him ing her. like, like it or not-- if ashe winters Was canonically a girl, transfem or cis-- the story would be different!! similar, sure, but not the same!! things would hold different meaning!! things DO hold different meaning!! if you genuinely think that gender makes no meaningful difference when talking abt media im like going ahaha ok and scrolling on.

this also vaguely loops back around into the uncritical girl ashe so there's a Girl In The Crew thing earlier because like, you know, there's a lot of folks who only use this headcanon who aren't transfem & aren't engaging with her in a personal projection (if you're doing this extremely valid i love u) or transfem narrative way, and Only Ever Hitting Ashe with the Girl Beam, and i cannot lie to you folks-- hey. why's the shy, quieter, level-headed, awkward pc who Keeps All The Boys In Line And Thinks They're Silly and also has Long Hair the Only One you're Ever calling a girl? why is that? what are the biases you might be reinforcing or unconsciously leaning into? earlier i was saying how things. mean things!!! this is like. i don't love it. on the face of it it feels bad and shitty. crazy how only the soft spoken healer guy is ever a girl. it sucks and i hate it. if you're doing this i think you should stop and at least like fucking think about it.

&, y'know, this is certainly a little bit, like. gnc guy staring at vaguely gnc guy character: holy shit hes just like me. trans girl staring at same vaguely gnc guy character: holy shit she's just like me. there's no One Correct Answer here because headcanon & the way we think about characters is!!! personal!! they're both good if they bring both people joy!!! [obviously there is frequently erasure of transfem subtext in fandom i am aware of this it is not what i am talking about in this specific instance] & frequently they both bump up against each others sore spots through no fault of their own. what is crucial is being like. respectful of that & civil & allowing space for both readings to exist simultaneously.

anyway. i don't particularly have any great conclusion to wrap this up. i think if you're she/hering ashe because u think that it's Fucked Up that there are No Girls In PD and you want Girl Characters, you should maybe try getting into actual play shows by and with girls in them. i have recommendations. i have so many recommendations. trying to headcanon your way out of what the show fundamentally is-- four white guys on a discord call-- is not going to make you happy. please. please. god. if you're genuinely engaging with transfem ashe as a trans narrative i think that's cool and its not what im into but i see where ur comin from. keep doing ur thing have fun etc. if you just think Ashe should be Girl u should simply consider cisswapping/genderswapping its awesome it's fun also u should tag it so that people who do not particularly want!! to see girl ashe winters & like the canon character as he is!! or people who are uncomfortable with "hey what if soft spoken long haired boy was Girl, Actually" (for what should be obvious reasons) can curate their experience and won't get frustrated and miserable!!!!

i think that genderbend/cisswap aus have sifted out of popular fandom consciousness for lots of reasons with varying levels of validity & have instead been replaced with "well literally just trans ur character then". which is fine obviously, im transgener, etc. but the thing is, right, that being trans is a thing in real life, which actually means something, and carries weight, and like, very much says something about you. everyone can do fandom however they want forever, its a free country, but for me personally & the way i engage with media & the way i do think it is Good to engage with media, it feels.... disingenuous at best to just. say "well this character's trans now because i want them to be!!!" with zero thinking about characterization and narrative context and the weight which being trans would carry. and, you know, obviously there's narrative worlds where being gaytrans Doesn't actually mean shit or carry weight and shifting genders is as easy and common as making pancakes, this isn't me making any massive generalizing statement, but for the most part, transitioning is, like. that says something!! both diegetically (in-world), in how characters think of and interact w/ their transness and non-diegetically (outside-the-world), in what you are saying, either intentionally or accidentally, by making them trans. if you're interested in just.... having alt gender versions of those characters, genderswapping is free, easy, and fun!!!

[dizzybizz]

raghh

[spaciebabie]

at first getting diagnosed with cptsd was like, "yay my trauma has been validated (it always was valid)!" and i really thought that was going to be it, but then i started to do research as i do whenever i realize i have something and learned that!! the way i experience socialization is!! quite horrid actually!!

[romeoslaughter]

lemon yellow sun/ arms raised in a v

[bowsbar]

pillowbook thoughts because ive been thinking about them all day!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Just popping in to say i LOVE UR ART SO MUCH WAUGH!!!! Its soooooooo exoressive and u get across emotion and movement SO WELL!! I love ...littlr apple ...so much.....u imbue this donkey with Such Chaos

I love this little chaos creature, we should all forfeit our mortal possessions to her.

[luck-of-the-drawings]

OOH YEAH BABY! PARTY TIME BABY! MUSIC! DRINKS! SOCIAL PRESSURE & A PSYCHEDELIC BREAK DOWN! WELCOME TO VAMPIRE SOCIETY MOTHERFUCKER! ARE YOU SCARED? DO YOU UNDERSTAND YET? ITS OKAY IF NOT. FIRE DISSOLVED IT! ITS ALL GONE NOW. HAVE FUN!

[cheesomancer]

COME BACK

who's here?? anyhoo thank you for these intent and powerful asks (i took a wild guess those were sent by the same person), I feel wanted. i'm cooking at the moment and hope you won't be disappointed...