#and like this affects people in so many ways

[seobinghard]

₊‧ʚ・ gullible ⊹ ̟˖ ʚ

── ★ ˙ 18+ MDNI ̟ !!

dom!yunho, dom!mingi x fem!sub!reader. tw: corruption kink, size kink, slight cnc, somnophilia, praising, unprotected sex (pls use protection). lmk if i missed anything. summary: you should've known better.

best friends!yunho and mingi love having you sit between them. whether you're on the subway, at the club or on the couch binge watching old hollywood movies, you just look so small and fragile with your cute glossy eyes and pouty lips, they can't help but feel the urge to protect and be close to you all the time. sometimes, they'll sneak their arms around your waist or slip their hands between your thighs, large palms gently caressing your bare skin, but that's only because the movie is scary and they want to help you relax. right?

when you've had one too many drinks at hongjoong's after parties, yunho would beckon you to come over and sit on his lap. "y/n, c'mere." you'll snuggle up to him like a little kitten and lay your legs on mingi's as he absentmindedly fiddles with the straps of your heels, hooded eyes flitting from your lips to the curve of your breasts. from afar, people are staring and whispering but you don't care. because yunho and mingi always tells you "they don't know us, baby."

and you believe them. you believe them completely because best friends always tell the truth, right?

yunho and mingi are always there to catch you when you fall.

flat tire? calling yunho. "i'm on my way, angel." bad day? facetiming mingi. "talk to me, pretty girl." every time there's a minor inconvenience in your life, you're running straight to your favourite boys because they just know how to handle anything and everything with such ease and responsibility. problems fixed. cheque signed. "it's okay, angel, we got this."

no one loves you like yunho and mingi.

they love you so much.

so when mingi tells you to wear his t-shirt and only your panties to bed, you happily nod "okay!" with no second thoughts because he only wants you to feel comfortable when they cuddle you to sleep, right? that must be it.

i mean, you do this all the time; cuddling. it's a way for them to feel closer to you; 'bond' with you, as they put it.

you love cuddling sessions with yunho and mingi, they're always so gentle with you. your petite frame a perfect fit between their broad chests, legs the perfect length for mingi to slide his knee in between as he spoons you. your skin is so soft he could tear you open like a present but he wouldn't do that. no, not to his sweet angel girl. so instead, he snakes his arm under your shirt and pulls you closer to his body so you can feel how much he loves you.

"mhm, so perfect for me," he whispers in your hair, fingers playing with the thin lace of your panties. you smell like fresh cut roses.

"you like it when we touch you, angel?" yunho asks calmly, tracing his finger along your jaw and down your neck. face propped on his elbow, he watches with a smile as you soften under his touch, nodding and purring at the affection you're receiving from both men.

"i like it, yuyu."

"you'll do anything for me and mingi, right, baby?"

"mhm, anything for yuyu and mingi," you slur, fatigue creeping up your spine.

you feel mingi smile against the nape of your neck.

something about the air feels tight and different tonight but you don't question it. you don't want to question it. especially when yunho stares at you with so much tenderness, it leaves your heart grasping for more. it's intoxicating; their scents—clean and musky like the faint trace of skin.

as the night unfolds, your eyes flutter shut as sleep takes over you.

you love best friends!yunho and mingi. nothing in the world comes even close to the euphoria of being the object of their adoration.

so when you wake up to soft pants in your ear and an aching pain between your legs, would you still love them?

"f-fuck."

mingi's groan snaps you out of your haze as you gradually slip back into your senses only to find your panties slid to the side and your best friend's sloppy wet dick inside your barely stretched-out cunt.

the sound of skin on skin cuts through the quiet of the room as mingi slams his hip into your ass at a pace so desperate, so rough it leaves you clawing at yunho's sweater with tears in your eyes. "y-yuyu? what's happening?"

yunho looks at you with eyes you've never seen on him before—chilling and dark with lust. he's quiet, eyes trailing the way your breasts bounce with every hard thrust you're forced to take from behind. soft moans slip past your lips, melding with his best friend's strained groans and the squelchy sound of your sobbing cunt.

"told you she likes it," mingi chuckles, voice crazed and raspy, one hand sliding up to grab at your neck. "yeah, you like that, baby? tell yunho you like being woken up to my dick inside you."

"i– ngnhh– i like–" your mewls are cut off when mingi slips two fingers between your folds, toying at your clit like it belongs to him. like you belong to him.

"oh, my angel," yunho coos, caressing your cheek before slipping his thumb inside your mouth. "you're so naughty."

you want to tell him 'no'—no, you didn't ask for this. but who are you to act like you're not enjoying it when you're a spluttering mess in your best friend's bed.

"shh, why're you crying?" his words are so sweet yet mockery drips from every syllable. "now, now, don't cry, my angel. be good for mingi."

yunho revels in the sight of your teary cheeks as your tongue laps around his thumb, drool leaking onto your pillow. god, you're fucking beautiful, yunho thinks, feeling his dick swell with every helpless whimper you make. he grabs your jaw and slips his tongue in your pretty little mouth, sucking at your bottom lip, and swallowing any confusion you're still harbouring, because you're not meant to have any.

the rules have been clear from the start; you belong to them. not their fault you're too gullible to see what's in front of you all this time.

"you said you'll do anything for us, remember?" yunho breaths.

"y-yes— nngh—" you whimper, feeling the knot tighten in your stomach. "mingi, i can't—"

you're close and mingi can sense it from the way you're clenching around him.

"fuck– cum for me, baby. that's it ... that's it."

it only takes you digging your nails in his hair and letting out a scream of his name for mingi to cum. he empties inside you and drops his head on the pillow, letting out a guttural groan against the back of your neck as you both come down from your high.

"such a good girl," yunho smiles, stroking your hair lovingly, "always so good for us."

his smile quickly fades.

"now turn around."

[thedreadvampy]

The (133k 💀) notes on this post are FULL of people referencing 1984. Like I would guess about every third reblog with tags/comments mentions 1984.

And I'm not saying 1984 doesn't have relevance but I'm actually genuinely interested that in like 60k reblogs, I'm not sure anyone's made the literary comparison I would make, which is Farenheit 451.

See, cause 1984 is about state suppression of information. But Farenheit 451 is about the idea that, as the state of the world gets more distressing, people become increasingly hostile to the idea of discomfort, and refuse to acknowledge or speak about things that affect them. The first event of the story is the main character's wife attempting suicide, but when he tries to talk to her about what's wrong, she reacts as if the only problem is that he's talking about something negative.

So I kinda wonder why so many reblogs agree that 1984 is the reference point for this

maybe some of it is the role 1984 plays in the cultural canon and some of it is that, while it's a good book, a non-zero amount of F451 is also based on 'political correctness gone mad! shakespeare is cancelled because of Woke!'

but also

I think it speaks to the difference between what I was thinking of when I made this post (that people tend to a) confuse discomfort with harm and b) treat the word for a subject as the source of discomfort about the subject) to how the majority of people seem to read the post (social media censorship is stealing our language)

cause 1984 is about imposed censorship. and the majority of discussions mentioning 1984 on this post are referencing social media companies and occasionally governments legislating against certain language or topics. language is Taken From You by others, with the deliberate purpose of silencing dissent.

but Farenheit 451, while it includes very similar types of state suppression and manufactured consent, doesn't really frame the problem as originating from a dictatorial state but from our own communities' fear, looking for a target and for ways to feel comfortably innocent. That's not necessarily a more complete read than the 1984 one but it's closer to what I was originally thinking of.

Not talking about rape doesn't protect people from the effects of rape, just like not taking about depression or war or pain doesn't stop the characters in F451 trying to kill themselves to the degree there's a special emergency service devoted to undoing suicides. But people react as if it does.

And there's a whole lot I could also get into about how I think both this problem and the literary comparison connects to things like cosy fandom culture, and the proliferation of blockbuster franchises, and the fact that people are more up in arms about ship wars than actual genocide, and the Sex Scenes In Media discourse, and the discomfort around public expressions of 'deviant' sexualities or gender, and how we discuss discomfort as if it was harm, but those are different posts and this post is about language.

and 1984 is a perfectly apt (or doubleplus good) comparison, I just think it has the potential for fully externalising something which we need to also take some direct community responsibility for. It isn't just about what you're Allowed to say or what people say to you, it's about what role discomfort plays in our own minds and whether we feel it's an inherent evil to be uncomfortable.

you gotta be able to say "die"

you gotta be able to say "suicide"

you gotta be able to talk about "sex"

they're uncomfortable topics, YEAH for SURE

because LIFE is uncomfortable. Death and suicide and sex and pain are straight up going to happen. not having words for the way it discomforts you doesn't make it more comfortable, it just makes you less able to reach out about it.

even more vital, you gotta be able to say words like "rape", "abuse", "queer" or "racist". cause we fought fucking hard to name those experiences. to identify "rape" as distinct from "sex" and "racism" as distinct from "acceptable behaviour" and "queer" as distinct from "invert"

like the function of communication is not to minimise immediate discomfort. we gotta be able to talk about stuff that's hard or sucks or causes difficult conversations.

[sage-nebula]

The more I've thought about it over the past several days, the more disappointed I am with Mel's arc in season 2 of Arcane. Aside from how she was sidelined for most of the season (given that she spent most of it imprisoned), I feel like her magical abilities are actually a step down for her in terms of power -- that they're flashy and bright and meant to impress, meant to say "look, she can hold her own in battle now!" but that they exist at the expense of taking away the strength and power that Mel did have previously.

In season one, Mel's establishing character moment is when she's looking over a selection of items, and ends up choosing one that she is told is nothing more than a children's toy. In her next scene, she presents it to a fellow councilor as a birthday gift, and he is delighted, thinking that it is an intricate and complex puzzle that only the most brilliant minds can solve. This is such, such a strong characterization moment for Mel; it shows us that she is not only intelligent, but clever, able to work the people around her to her advantage without them noticing it.

And while the fandom has been nasty to her ever since season one aired, I don't think Mel being manipulative in this vein is at all a negative character trait. I think it is a strength. It shows how competent she is in her field, which is politics. And what's more, it's necessary for someone like her, who is a.) a foreigner, given that she only came to Piltover after being exiled from Noxus, and b.) quite young by political standards, given that she's only in her early 20s in act 1 of season 1.

We see this strength of Mel's continuously in season one, though not in the way her most ardent haters (and Jayce in act 3 of season 2, because of bad writing) believe. No, she did not pull the wool over Jayce's eyes and force him to make any decisions. He was a grown man who made choices all on his own, and choices that Mel supported him in making, at that. But she was able to see the potential in hextech, and help both Jayce and Viktor navigate and clear road blocks that would have otherwise impeded their progress. Jayce comes to her complaining that Heimerdinger is blocking progress of their research using the power of the council, and so she gets him on the council, for instance. And this was a feat; Jayce was seen as the "man of progress," but being a scientific innovator does not a politician make. But Mel was able to put him there, in a place where he (of his own volition!) called for the vote and made the speech that got Heimerdinger ousted from the council. Not that Mel was going for that -- she is clearly shocked in the scene and only raises her hand after Jayce nods at her for her support -- but still, it goes to show how Mel was able to influence situations around her, and navigate a political field that, by many measures, was set against her.

(Because while Mel was obviously not sent to Piltover with nothing, and therefore was undoubtedly housed in the luxury part of Piltover even in the early days of her exile, let's not make any mistake: she was still a foreigner to Piltover, and a child at that, when she arrived. Though her wealth gave her a leg up, she still had to work to get to where she was, and work hard; she had to shed whatever childhood innocence she still had in order to be able to navigate the political landscape of Piltover to get herself onto the council. No doubt Piltovan natives on the council wouldn't have wanted a foreigner sat among them, but she still managed it. And she managed it due to her own intelligence and inner strength.)

So in season one, we see that Mel is a powerful character in the narrative. She may not be participating in combat, but that is far from the only type of strength. Mel affects how things in the narrative go; she has agency in her own decisions, and she can move the narrative along due to the choices she makes and the actions she takes. She's one of the strongest pieces on the board in this respect.

Season two . . . takes that away from her.

Before her kidnapping, she's still in a position of power, albeit one that is slipping due to Ambessa partnering up with Salo in order to fight against Mel on the council. It doesn't help that a good chunk of the council is dead, and Piltover is shaking after Jinx's attack on the council building. Mel's position, of still wanting peace between Piltover and Zaun, is precarious. But she is still holding it. She holds against sending hextech weaponry against Zaunites (in order to protect Jayce's dream, of which he himself betrays not too long after). She stands against her mother and Salo. She's doing the best she can in the position she has and is still, however diminished her position may be from people (including her own boyfriend!) undermining her, affecting change.

But this changes after she gets kidnapped. Not only is she completely removed from the Piltover and Zaun plot for at least half the season (if not more), after she finally gets free and returns to Piltover in season three, it's as if all of her political savvy and sway has been stripped from her. We don't see her making any meaningful decisions regarding the future of Piltover. We don't see any indication that she has anything to do with Piltover's reconstruction and reformation of the council following the big battle. In said battle, she does fight (and kill) her mother using her shiny new magical abilities -- but that makes her just like any other combat-ready character on the show, able to kick ass in the physical arena. Yes, her abilities themselves are different, but the effect? Particularly when the abilities themselves strip Mel of not only the life she built for herself, but her home since her childhood, I can't be happy about them.

Because that's the crux of it. Yes, Noxus is where she was born, and where she spent early childhood. Yes, it's where her family is from. But your home is not necessarily where you were born. Mel was exiled to Piltover as a child, and she built a life there. She had her home, she had friends, she had a boyfriend. And while Elora, Jayce, and Viktor all died, I find it hard to believe that Mel had no other friends, even if we didn't see them. At the very least, she was friends with Caitlyn. At the very least, I believe she would have been an ally to Sevika on the council, given that she knows how it is to be a foreigner on that stage (Zaun is treated as foreign -- look at the way the other councilors glared at Sevika when she took her seat). And hell, her work on that council was dedicated into making Piltover a better place to live. It isn't as if she was just passively living in Piltover as her home; she was actively working to make it better.

But that is taken away from her at the end of the season, because she got these shiny magical powers that allowed her to kill her mother, and that means she has to return to Noxus. She has to return to a country that is as foreign to her now as Piltover was when she was exiled, completely alone, expected to lead a military when that isn't where her strength was. Her strength was in politics, not military command. But none of that matters now, because Mel was completely ousted from the position where she held her strength and power, with the show claiming it's okay because look, she can fight now!

(Also, side note, but I hate that fucking body suit she's in after she unlocks her mage powers. It feels grossly sexualized. Anyone who knows me knows that I fawn over Mel's beauty, because I am a lesbian and she is drop dead gorgeous, not to mention I love color contrasts and that gold with her dark skin and hair? OHKO on me. But although Mel was always designed to be gorgeous, I never felt she was designed in a sexualized way until that body suit. Something about the way that the implication is that it's just grafted onto her skin after she awakens her mage powers (because she wasn't wearing it before, but now she's wearing something so skin tight it looks painted on) makes it feel like she would be naked if the TV-14 rating would allow it. The way it exposes parts of her breast and her back don't help this. It feels like a, yeah, Mel has these incredibly strong new magic powers, but she also looks like more of a sexual object to take gratification in. Like they're "powering her up," but also powering her down at the same time. It feels very video game character design of them, compared to how beautiful and empowering all of her previous outfits were. Maybe I'm the only one to feel this way, but I just really hate it.)

This isn't a formal essay and so I'm sure my thoughts are all over the place, but ultimately, I just can't be satisfied with Mel's arc. I can't be satisfied that she was removed from the plot and allowed to affect so little of it after that was her greatest strength (and made her a truly standout character!) in season one. I can't be happy that she loses the life and home she built for herself in Piltover, to be sent back to a country she didn't want to return to alone. I can't be happy that the excuse for removing her from the plot was to give her magic powers so She Can Fight Now, when plenty of other characters already fight and so it doesn't make her stand out. I can't be happy that Jayce was made to spew anti-Mel talking points that the fandom had been putting out for years, none of which were true. And I really can't be happy that they put her in that ugly fucking body suit, which feels really demeaning for reasons I don't think I explained properly.

Mel deserved better. Point of fact, she deserved better. I'm happy she didn't die, but god, she was still done dirty.

[rootspiral]

Agatha All Along deep dive: episode 5 part 3

(Wandavision entries: [1][2][3])

(AAA entries: ep1 [1][2][3][4] ep2 [1][2][3][4] ep3 [1][2][3] ep4 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][+1] ep5 [1][2][3][4])

when I first watched this I reallllllly hoped sharon was about to come back. but she wouldn't have ever called herself mrs. hart, that was an obvious giveaway

I know I'm repeating myself but - THIS MOTHERFUCKER

aw of course alice is immediately protective. that's so hot of her.

rio you'll have to stop being delighted at her antics, you're only enabling her at this point

agatha you fucker. and kudos for the excellent debra jo rupp impression, kathryn.

it's sweet and so sad that lilia fell for it. she consistently loses her seer abilities when dealing with the guilt for the people she couldn't save

jen is so done

rio is dismissive but also soft when she says this. and then she raises her eyebrows at agatha, as if dating her to deny it.

you can literally see her mask falling off.

billy shakes his head, disappointed. this is the first time he sees agatha fall so low

rio is like, come back here and face the music, my darling. she's really not letting her off the hook anymore

rio laughing in delight when death is mentioned, like yes! that's me! I'm here! just happy to be included!

agatha's panic is so overwhelming she's already at the point when she bolts. but there's no running this time. billy, like wanda, is merciless.

screaming so awful that lilia jumps back to episode 2 to escape it. meanwhile, rio.

(is jen wearing bunny slippers lolll)

yes, yes, it's hilarious that she had to spit out her retainer. but dear god evanora getting to jen first because she's the one agatha hurt the most.

now rio is casually modeling. she's making a great show of not caring about what agatha is going through

her coven turning her back on her. again.

sorry for always pointing out what rio is doing, but aubrey is killing me. now she's going oh well! you heard what the lady said! looks like I'm not the only one who thinks you're a piece of shit!

and despite it all rio (who, once again, is not allowed to kill a fly) is not doing what everybody else is doing. she's just being butthurt at agatha

the essays I could write about agatha's internalized misogyny

oh billy, no. you didn't ever realize all the shit you were stirring.

wow this particular line coming from jen really hurts

rio is trying to decide if she's into zombie agatha, lol. it's like she's always in a different show than everybody else. or rather, she's transcending genres, she's always doing her own thing because the Road doesn't affect her. while the others see real danger, she sees painted sets she can cut through with her knife.

but look what happens next. rio suddenly turns serious, and there's even a hint of panic in her voice. it's as if she realized this is not all tricks and smoke.

and finally, she fully comprehends how dangerous billy is. like, the staggering scale of it. chaos magic creates life in an artificial way that goes against everything rio stands for. wanda did not create an illusion of Vision, she made a real, alive vision out of thin air. billy himself was created the same way. and now he has effectively brought back evanora - not a pale imitation, a ghost Evanora functionally indistinguishable from the real thing, just as full of hatred and just as capable of hurting agatha. if it wasn't personal before!

you know, I didn't like this episode as much as the others on first watch, but I was wrong. there is a lot to unpack here. like many things on AAA, it's all in the subtleties.

go to episode 5 part 4

[night-night-stories-before-bed]

Surprising love.

Warning ⚠️; None, just fluff for once

Pairing; Alastor/Deer!Demon!Male!Reader

Summary; To everyone's shock and surprise, Alastor introduced you as his husband after the hotel was rebuilt. Chaos follow.

~~~~~~~~~

The hotel was more beautiful and grandiose than you imagined. Well, it was true that it had been rebuilt since the attack from Adam and his Angels, maybe for the better. Your eyes admired the place, wondering if your husband had had a say in some of the ideas. Like the radio tower clearly visible.

Holding a bag of food you just made, you walked inside the hotel. The first thing you saw Charlie hunched over the desk, writing on some papers with concentration painted all over her face. Poor princess didn't even hear you approaching even with your hooves clopping on the floor. You stopped in front of the desk, an amused smile on your lips as you slowly leaned down until you were at the same height as her.

- “Excuse me, princess. May I have your attention for a second?” You asked, resulting in poor Charlie almost jumping out if her skin and screaming.

You held back a laugh as she looked at you up and down, her hand resting on her chest as she calmed herself. You stood back, standing straight as you heard footsteps running toward you. You turned your head, seeing her father and girlfriend arrive first.

- “It's alright dad, Vaggie, he just scared me. Sorry! I didn't hear you coming in.” She excused herself, her breath short and you waved your hand as if it was nothing.

- “Do not worry yourself for so little, princess. I am used to scaring people.” You chuckled. “I was just wondering if my husband was around, I got him his favourite meal.”

Jambalaya made with angel’s meat as you knew he wanted to know what they tasted like. And Jambalaya had always been one of his favorites. Naturally, you didn't tell Charlie what it was made of.

She blinked, looking at you curiously.

- “Your husband?” She asked, slightly tilting her head as you wore no ring. “Who is he? I’ll look if he is registered!”

- “Oh, he definitely is.” You laughed before hearing familiar footsteps.

You turned your head only to see Alastor coming your way. Your smile grew, toothy, as Alastor stopped and smiled as well.

- “Oh Love! You came!” He said, rushing toward you.

Everyone stood frozen, eyes round with surprise as you embraced Alastor, planting a kiss on his hair. The radio demon wrapped his arms around you, his microphone resting against your back. You plunged your gaze in his and chuckled, showing the bag of food.

- “I made your favourite. Jambalaya.” You said and you saw excitation and joy in his eyes as he snatched the bag from your hand, giving your his microphone.

- “Wait, wait, wait! You and that freak? Alastor is married?” Vaggie asked, pointing at Alastor, than you.

- “Been for almost a century, darling. Nothing new there except that Jambalaya! You made a new recipe, didn't you?” He asked, smelling the bag.

- “Made it just for you.” You said, winking at him and Alastor got it instantly.

His smile grew as he kept the bag against his chest even if all eyes were on you. You almost felt uncomfortable, but decided to ignore them. They didn't truly know Alastor and your husband had the habit of keeping you a secret for your safety. After all, as an Overlord, he had many enemies.

You weren't powerless, but if it made Alastor feel better, then you didn't mind not existing. But now that he had invited you here and weren't denying your bond, even showing physical affection, you wondered who they all were to him.

You gently replaced his hair before turning your attention toward Charlie. She almost had stars in her eyes as she looked at you two, unlike her father who seemed to still be in shock.

- “Do you think it would be possible for me to join your Hotel? Of course, I will share the same room as Alastor.” You said, tilting your head while Alastor nodded as if you had asked him.

- “O-of course! It'll be a pleasure to have you around.” Charlie said, waving at you while Alastor took your hand, pulling you away.

You laughed, allowing Alastor to do as he pleased. In the elevator, you kissed your husband on the temple and he hummed, fingers playing on the bag. You could tell he was impatient to taste it.

- “Fresh angels from the battle. I got some in the freezer if you love it, so Incan makes you more meal.” You said, twinkles in your eyes.

- “Why? Thank you! It sweet of you dearest.” Alastor replied, looking at you with a true smile as you squeezed his hand gently.

Alastor took you to his room and you both made sure the door was locked before you got comfortable. Alastor immediately went to the dining table, putting the table and getting ready to eat as you took off your coat.

You joined him as he served the both of you a generous portion of Jambalaya. You ate and made small talk, asking him how his stay was and if his wound still bothered him. Alastor was honest, pointing out how bored he had been without you and that, in fact, yes the wound on his chest still bothered him sometimes.

After dinner, you took a look at his chest, finger brushing through his fur. Alastor stood still on his chair, a bit tense as you examined the healed wound. Still a bit reddish and swollen, it had healed properly.

- “Let’s put on some cream, but I don't see any sign of infection.” You said and Alastor nodded.

He stayed shirtless after you put on some cream and bandaged on his chest. You sat together on the sofa, your arms around him while he nuzzled himself against you. You turned on the radio and just enjoyed the music, cuddling with Alastor.

You felt your husband slowly fall asleep against you and you realized that he had truly missed you. Those small domestic moments were a joy to do again. You leaned down, kissing his forehead. You chuckled when Alastor grabbed your antler and lightly shook it.

No kissing, you got it. He had gotten enough and you knew he wasn't a fan of them, unlike you. You smiled, lifting your head, forcing his arm up, which had Alastor opening his eyes as he didn't let go of your antler.

- “You are falling asleep, let's just go to bed.” You offered and Alastor agreed.

You found yourself quickly in bed, Alastor in your arms and already fast asleep. Your fingers brushed his fur, your nose buried in his hair as you took in his smell. It had been months since the last time you slept next to your spouse and you had almost lost him recently. You felt that if you closed your eyes, he would disappear before you woke up. You fought sleep as long as you could, but finally gave in after a few hours.

You woke up to someone trying to get in the room, but the door was locked. Groaning, you opened your eyes and were greeted by the sight of Alastor nuzzled fully against you. His arms were wrapped tightly around you, his head rested under your chin and his breath tickled you while his legs tangled with yours. Alastor was still deeply asleep, unbothered by the stranger trying to break into your room.

Sighing, you caressed Alastor’s face before untangling yourself from his embrace. Alastor whined and groaned before turning around in almost a ball. You smiled and pulled the blankets over him before putting on a dressing gown and going to the door.

When you opened it you got face-to-face with a spider-like sinner. The man looked at you with big surprised eyes, as if he didn't expect you to open the door.

- “May I help you?” You asked, voice a bit cold.

- “Holy shit, it's true? Alastor is actually married?”

You groaned and rolled your eyes before pinching your nose. Were you really forced out of bed for that?

- “Yes, we are married.” You sighed, leaning your shoulder against the doorframe. “And you are a nosy spider, young man, coming here so early and forcing me out of bed. So is there something I can help you with or can I go back to sleep?”

- “How is Alastor in bed?” He asked with a big smile making you grunt in disgust.

- “Sleeping and that is none of your concern.” You pointed out.

- “Oh come on! Everyone is curious about how he is sexually speaking!”

- “Alastor had no interest in it neither do I. After the time he passed around you that most be clear.” You said with a sigh, shaking your head.

- “You gotta be kidding me. No sex?” he exclaimed, almost not believing it.

- “You know sex isn't the base of a healthy relationship, right? Not everyone needs it to be happy.”

It had taken you a few moments, but you recognized the man in front of you as a pornstar, Angel Dust if your memory was good. Of course, asexuality might be an alien concept for him, but you decided to not judge him for it.

You closed the door after making it clear the conversation was over and went back to bed. Naturally, Alastor had woken up by then and sat in the bed, waiting for you. You sat by his side, shaking your head.

- “Your friend Angel Dust came to see if it was true that you were married and decided it was the perfect time to ask about our sex life.”

You laughed seeing the disgust painting itself on Alastor’s face. You took his hand and kissed his knuckles before resting your cheek against them and smiled to him.

- “I told him a healthy relationship doesn't need sex, but I think it's a concept he doesn't understand yet.” You said and Alastor shook his head before resting it on your shoulder.

- “He really woke us for that?” He asked yawning as you nuzzled your nose in his hair. “I might beat his ass later today.”

- “Hush now. He is just a kid lost and who still has a lot to learn. I highly doubt he was raised properly in a loving family.” You whispered before laying back down. Alastor did the same, resting his head on your chest as you wrapped your arms around him. “Let’s forget about your friend, I’m still tired.”

Alastor hummed in agreement and you wrapped your arms tighter around him, making sure to not hurt him. You closed your eyes and were lured to sleep by your husband’s slow breath. As you fell asleep, you also felt at home. You were back where you belonged, by Alastor’s side and he was by yours once more. Seeing how clingy he was, you knew the feeling was reciprocal and you knew he would never leave you alone again.

[ugf-viridis]

I'm actually gonna chime in right quick on this, if that's alright.

As someone who has been impersonated many times on socials, across multiple personas, it does suck. It can have negative consequences, for sure. But you can't be everywhere, and you shouldn't place yourself in crappy online environments just because you're afraid that someone is going to pretend to be you and start trouble. 'Oh no, I better make an appearance on 8chan or someone will pretend to be me....' No.

As others have said, delete the profiles in toxic spaces. Your friends (and your enemies) will ask you what's up if someone's doing a good enough job impersonating you. And if they don't, then it's not really affecting you, so don't worry about it. And if you don't have people you can count on to do that (not everybody has a 'network,' or even wants to have one online) there are ways around the fuckery.

Easiest way is to link all of your profiles of the same type / persona and network those. Put 'em in your bio. That way, if someone sees something awful everyone knows where to find you to complain / dogpile about it. Over on main I crosspost. All accounts are basically clones of one another (partially for the aforementioned reason that people have impersonated me before, and caused trouble). But you don't even need to do that.

If someone wants to frame you up, they will find a way. It's a big internet and there's lots of mean people with lots of spare time on it. Don't worry about it. You're not gonna starve if you go a week without as many likes or replies. You'll live. You do you, and get out of toxic spaces, because, honestly, being in those toxic spaces reflects more poorly on you than the occasional episodic nonsense. And being in crappy communities is just bad for your outlook and your mental health. No worry. Just be a stand-up person and you'll be fine.

should you delete twitter and get bluesky? (or just get a bluesky in general)? here's what i've found:

yes. my answer was no before bc the former CEO of twitter who also sucked, jack dorsey, was on the board, but he left as of may 2024, and things have gotten a lot better. also a lot of japanese and korean artists have joined

don't delete your twitter. lock your account, use a service to delete all your tweets, delete the app off of your phone, and keep your account/handle so you can't be impersonated.

get a bluesky with the same handle, even if you won't use it, also so you won't be impersonated.

get the sky follower bridge extension for chrome or firefox. you can find everyone you follow on twitter AND everyone you blocked so you don't have to start fresh: https://skyfollowerbridge.com/

learn how to use its moderation tools (labelers, block lists, NSFW settings) so you can immediately cut out the grifters, fascists, t*rfs, AI freaks, have the NSFW content you want to see if you so choose, and moderate for triggers. here's a helpful thread with a lot of tools.

the bluesky phone app is pretty good, but there is also tweetdeck for bluesky, called https://deck.blue/ on desktop, if you miss tweetdeck.

bluesky has explicitly stated they do not use your data to train generative AI, which is nice to hear from an up and coming startup. obviously we can’t trust these companies and please use nightshade and glaze, but it’s good to hear.

[derinwrites]

Do you have any advice for writing in a web serial format?

Let’s look at this in two sections – the business part, and the actual writing part.

The Business Part

1. Consistency. Consistency in updates. Have a schedule and STICK TO IT.

If your schedule is too hectic and starts affecting your health or otherwise adversely affecting your life, change the schedule; update less often. Don’t update in spurts and then randomly stop. The audience will far more easily tolerate a slow schedule than an inconsistent one; an inconsistent one will lose many readers. You’re not Andrew Hussie and you can’t get away with that bullshit.

There may be times where you need to take a hiatus due to some emergency, life event, or health condition. This is fine – your wellbeing is more important than your story. But you need to be up-front with your audience about this; tell them you’re taking a hiatus and tell them exactly how long it’s going to be. If you can, you should tell them in advance (this isn’t possible for things like a car accident, but is very possible if you’re planning to, say, move house in a month). If you’re taking too many hiatuses, then it’s better to slow down your schedule and update less often. Audiences prefer fast and consistent, but if they have to choose, slow is better than inconsistent.

The #1 helper to consistency is having a big buffer – that is, have several weeks’ worth of unpublished chapters. The length of your buffer is personal taste, but I like to keep mine as long as possible so that if there’s some problem that stops me from writing for several weeks, it won’t upset the schedule. It keeps my stress down to know that I have that leeway. Other writers prefer to only write a week or two ahead, though, so different things work for different people.

2. Decide on your monetisation system early and prioritise it.

The most popular and most effective method for monetising a web serial seems to be the patronage method, which is the one I use. You set up a patreon, ko-fi, or whatever sponsorship system you prefer, and offer rewards to those who support you. Having their names in a credit list and getting access to advance chapters are very common rewards. Some people also lock access to their discord behind a paywall, or offer extra stories or let supporters name story characters.

This model is not the only way to make money from web serials. Some people make money via advertising, or selling merchandise, or use the web serial itself to advertise stories that they sell. You can of course use several revenue streams – you can have both a patreon/ko-fi and run ads on your website (I don’t because I hate ads, but you can), or start selling merch related to your story once there’s a demand for it. Many web serial authors (including myself) sell their completed works as books. But the important thing here is that one of these systems will be your main system, and you need to know what it is and behave accordingly. If you run ads AND have a patreon, are you more focused on ad revenue or patreon revenue? You’re going to have to put your time and attention into one of them over the other. You’re going to have to make decisions that will help one and harm the other. So know in advance which one is most important to you.

You don’t have to monetise your story at all, of course. Plenty of people write fiction on the internet for free every day with no thought to making an income at all. But if you’re serious about this, I would recommend monetising it, because that makes a better and more consistent product. The reason I’m still able to keep writing these year after year is that my supporters pay my mortgage; without Patreon and ko-fi, I’d have to get a different job, and wouldn’t have time or energy to write consistently. Also, the reason I can write and update even when I don’t feel like it, and the reason I always push to make my stories as good as possible even when I’m not interested, is because I owe it to my supporters who are paying me real actual money to read my work. If I didn’t owe my readers anything, none of these stories would ever get finished, because writing is only fun about half of the time.

3. Don’t expect to be able to turn this into a career.

This advice sounds silly coming from me, who has through sheer luck, as well as the generosity and passion of my readers, somehow turned this into a career. But I need to emphasise that that luck is not typical. Most web serial writers will not be able to support themselves solely with their writing. It can make a good side hustle, but if your primary goal is “low barrier to entry work-from-home career where I don’t have to answer to a boss and can support myself comfortably,” then web serial writing is usually all of those things except the last one. There’s no harm in trying to turn this into a career – I did it, as have many other web serial authors – but don’t expect that result, is all I’m saying.

Still, if you can do it, it does have a lot of advantages.

4. Don’t expect to make money fast.

I remember when I finally started making an entire $100/month on Patreon. It was a fantastic day.

It was when I’d been writing web serials for four years.

5. Your most valuable resource is your readership.

Your readership will grow and gather momentum over time. The best business decisions you can make are those that grow your readership and allow your readers to participate in community, even if you have to give up opportunities to make money to do it.

A good example of this is discord. Some people have private discords that only their patrons can access; while this is a useful anti-spam and anti-harassment tool, I don’t recommend doing this if you don’t have a major spam or harassment problem. Some people will pay for discord access, yes, so you might get a handful of extra dollars per month that way – however, you will also get a far less active discord. When it comes to readers, population density is critically important; the more activity, the more people talking about your work together (or talking about anything and bonding with each other), the better. Plenty of people have joined my free discord just because it was there and only read my stories after seeing people talk about them there. Then they go and get their friends to read the stories. Enthusiastic readers are inherently valuable, and the best thing you can do is give them the resources they need to talk to each other and share their interest.

This principle applies to a lot of things. I have a lot of free stories on my website that aren’t the usual web serials, and more than once I’ve considered whether they should be paywalled. The answer I always land on is ‘no’; I couldn’t tell you how many readers have been roped into my web serials because they liked Copy <|> Paste, or The Void Princess, or Drops of Blood. These readers may or may not then become monetary supporters, but even the ones who don’t will increase activity and discussion about the stories, have fun and tell jokes in the discord, and may even produce fanart. A thriving community is always going to be more valuable to you than a few extra dollars; make sure to support them accordingly.

Your readership will start very small. In terms of marketing, this is your hardest time. A big readership does the majority of the marketing for you, but when you’re on your own, it takes a lot to convince anyone to give your stories a shot. It helps if you have an existing readership to leverage, which is what I did – I’d been writing Animorphs fanfiction on AO3 for years, and many of my first readers followed me over from there. If you have such a community that already has faith in your writing, leverage it. If you don’t, you can gain one my writing in a place where people go to read stories similar to your work, such as an appropriate subreddit, or a web serial site like Royal Road or Scribblehub. You are looking to gain as high a number of enthusiastic, engaged readers as possible.

And now, the fun part – the actual craft!

The Writing Part

1. Always remember that you are writing for two audiences

A web serial author has to keep two audiences in mind; the serial readers, and the bingers. You are writing a story that needs to be fun and engaging when read very slowly, at the pace of whatever your update schedule is, but that also needs to be interesting when read all at once.

This is not an easy task.

It’s something I fucked up pretty significantly with Curse Words, which was my first attempt at this. Curse Words has a lot of complicated political stuff happening throughout pretty much the whole story, as well as a complex save-the-world plot that’s reliant on a lot of secrets, mysteries and extremely speculative information. With so many wheels spinning, I decided to make the protagonist not particularly smart and move him very slowly through the plot to make sure that the reader would be able to keep up.

This was a mistake.

‘Pretty slow and simple’ at a novel reader’s pace is torturous at a web serial pace. Readers got a full week to discuss the mysteries and implications of each chapter with each other, doing the detective work of ten chapters between each one. The frustration with Kayden’s slow pace was clear, and he came across as an outright idiot rather than an average teen. Personally, I think this lesson was one of the biggest reasons for the difference in quality between Curse Words and Time to Orbit. Don’t slow down for your audience; they’re already slowed down by your update schedule.

At the same time, though, you don’t want to move so fast that you lose the bingers. You can’t assume that your readers will have time between chapters, or that they will discuss each chapter with other readers, or that they will go back over previous chapters looking for clues. Interested people reading update by update will do this, but bingers absolutely will not. So you still need to make sure that everything is comprehensible on a binge read with no backchecking or outside investigation.

My advice on this matter is to move as fast as possible, but take care to make sure that readers are reminded of everything important a few chapters before it comes into play. That way, both audiences can keep up. If you have to make a decision, it’s best to favour your update readers; they’re your most active community. They’re doing the up-to-date discussion, and probably doing the most word-of-mouth and fanart, although binge readers will do that too (I have plenty of dedicated readers who wait five or six weeks to binge a bunch of chapters on purpose, just because that’s their preferred reading style, and they’re still very engaged). But if you plan to publish your story later as a complete work, you also need to keep in mind how it’s going to read as a binge – and also, new readers will binge the earlier chapters of your story to catch up to the current one, so make sure it’s a good experience for them or they won’t get a chance to become update readers.

Two audiences. Mind your pacing and information reveals accordingly.

2. Chapter length

The general rule of web serials is that the more often you update, the shorter your chapters should be. The generally agreed ‘sweet spot’ is 1-1.5k words, 3 times a week, but this depends heavily on individual style. I update once or twice a week (depending on what stories I’ve got going) and try to keep my chapters between 2 and 2.5k words. If you update once a month, your sweet spot is probably about 10k words.

Don’t hold religiously to what other people tell you the ideal word count is – this will vary drastically with genre and personal style – but it’s best to try to stay fairly consistent. It’s not always possible to stay exactly on target because the best break points between chapters will vary (I’ve got 1.8k chapters and 3.5k chapters), but readers like to be able to predict about how long an update will be and they like it to not vary too wildly too often. As with choosing your update schedule, choosing your chapter length will depend on what suits your personal schedule, and what suits the story you’re writing.

“The shorter the chapter, the more frequent the updates” is a good rule for attracting the widest audience. Short, infrequent chapters will have a lot of readers losing interest between updates; long, frequent ones will have a lot of readers feeling overwhelmed. But the most important thing is finding something that you can consistently output year after year (remember, it took me 4 years to make $100/month; this is a long game).

3. It’s a TV show, not a movie

This advice is less useful in our age of Marvel movie franchises and made-to-binge Netflix series, so pretend I’m talking to you in the year 2010 or earlier. If a novel is a movie, a web serial is a TV show. What I mean by that is that a novel is shaped primarily as a complete experience, whereas a web serial is shaped as a chapter-by-chapter experience.

It’s best, in both cases, to have a well structures and paced story that is made of well structured and paced chapters. But sometimes you have to choose between the structure or a chapter and the structure of the story as a whole; making one better will cheapen the other. When you’re writing a novel, you should choose the structure of the whole, but when you’re writing a web serial, you should choose the structure of the chapter. Web serial readers will prefer a chained series of excellent chapters, over a beautiful story of chapters with mediocre individual structure.

In fact, whether you want a structure to the overall story at all is personal taste. My stories have strong overall structure and move towards a planned conclusion because that’s how I prefer to write (and it also makes the story bingeable, since it’s basically a novel being released really slowly), but plenty of web serials out there have no real planned ending and will wander about for years and years in no obviously consistent direction, occasionally throwing in a big twist or major change to freshen things up. These would make absolutely horrible novels, but make very popular web serials. Whether you write like me or like them, the rule is the same – the experience of each individual chapter takes priority.

Come to think of it, this might be why people call my stories “ADHD crack”…

4. Okay, so how do I structure a good chapter?

I generally try to do three things in every chapter.

- Hit the ground running

- Give them something new

- End on an open question

Hit the ground running – Unless it’s the very first chapter of the story, you don’t have to be coy getting into the action. Open the chapter as if it’s the middle of the chapter; start at full momentum. Catch the high point of the last chapter before it falls. It your last chapter ended with “We checked the fingerprints on the candlestick. It’s Colonel Mustard.” then you can start this one with “But he was in the library at the time!”, you don’t need to recap or slow down or anything.

Give them something new – Every chapter should give the reader at least one thing to talk and think about. A new choice, some new information, a shift in perspective, whatever. People are reading these updates one at a time so it is vital that they feel like they got something out of the experience. A chapter in which nothing is learned will make readers feel like their time was wasted, and they have all the time until next update to reflect on that.

This is also true of a novel, but it’s much more critical in a web serial. A novel with nothing chapters in it is just frustratingly slow-paced; a web serial with nothing chapters in it leaves the reader feeling cheated for long stretches of time.

The thing to talk about doesn’t necessarily have to be a big plot reveal or major advancement. An incredibly cute scene, or sad scene, or funny scene will work just as well. But you have to give them SOMETHING. If you’re giving them nothing, consider cutting the chapter entirely and integrating any important foreshadowing or whatever into the next chapter.

One major hurdle of mine with this rule is recap chapters. If you’re writing a very complex plot over a long period of time, you need ways to occasionally take stock and make sure everyone is on the same page and nobody’s forgotten or misinterpreted anything important. This information can be recapped or conveyed in the middle of an action sequence or something, but I personally find that putting other stuff in the scene makes it too distracting and therefore less effective. I like to literally just sit the heroes down in a room and have them go, “okay, we’re spinning a lot of threads at once right now; what do we know, what are we trying to figure out, and what are our next steps?” This is the literary equivalent of the save point or room full of health packs right before a boss battle. Game designers don’t put that room there to be nice; they do it so that they know exactly how much health you’re going to have going into the battle, and can structure it accordingly.

You can make these chapters entertaining with character banter, but you can’t really introduce new threads to talk about, except possibly as a twist right at the end. Introducing new information mid-recap distracts from the recap and makes it pointless. You might have something similar in your stories, chapters that are essential but don’t give the reader anything new to work with.

My advice for these is to just bite the bullet on this one. Release the chapter with nothing new to talk about. You can get away with doing this occasionally, if the chapter has a clear purpose (I get a lot of readers tell me that they appreciate my recap chapters). Readers who get nothing out of the chapter will shrug and talk about older stuff instead, so long as you only do this occasionally. But a chapter with no new information has a cost in opportunity and in reader patience, so only pay it if the chapter’s worth it.

End on an open question– End the chapter with a reason for the reader to come back. You want them to think about the story afterward and be eager to read the next chapter when it comes out. Adhering to this principle is probably why I have such a reputation for cliffhangers, although truth be told I don’t use nearly as many actual cliffhangers as people say, I just try to end by opening a question. By that I mean, the audience should always end a chapter asking a question, which can be something that will span dozens of chapters (“How can Colonel Mustard’s fignerprints be on the candlestick? Is he being framed? Does this mean that the candlestick was in the library and isn’t even the murder weapon?”) or span a single paragraph (“How will the narrator react to learning that Colonel Mustard lied about never touchign the candlestick?”) This could be the emotional height of a scene, or the point at which new information recontextualises everything. It could be the moment where the stakes are raised or an important assumption turns out to be false. Anything that makes the audience eager to learn what happens next will do.

There should always be at least one open question in your story, more if it’s thematically appropriate. You know how mmorpgs and crafting games and suchlike keep you playing for hours and hours by making sure you’re always near the end of an activity – keep playing til you reach the next level, oh but now we’re nearly at the end of this quest so we should complete that, oh but now we’re just 20 gold short of being able to buy that cool new armour so we should just… same trick. Readers should always have at least one ‘quest’, an open question that they’re following, and should always be close to an answer.

You don’t have to dramatically introduce an entirely new question each time; you can end a chapter by reminding the reader of an existing open question. I tend to be a fan of the Big Dramatic Reveal On The Last Line method (cliffhanger reputation), but you don’t have to do it that way. Indeed, it’s a good idea not to do it that way every single time, lest you get stuck in a rut; every chapter ending doesn’t have to be incredibly tense and snappy. Somebody mentioning that they wish they knew how they could get enough food to make it through the winter before a full paragraph of cuddling and falling asleep in their mother’s arms works just as well.

5. It will help if your story is good, but it isn’t required.

You don’t have to be very good at writing to do this.

It helps to be good at writing, of course, and I assume that since you’re asking me for tips, you’re the sort of person who wants to be as good at writing as you can. But there is some true hack garbage out there doing absolute numbers in the web serial circuit. I try not to harp on about this too much because Curse Words fans get really upset at me when I do, but I think most of us can agree that Curse Words kind of sucks. And that just sucks in an ‘author is still learning how to do this’ kind of way; there’s much worse writing, real bullshit Ready Player One-level writing, trucking along out there brilliantly.

The point I’m trying to make here is that this isn’t an industry where there’s any value in hesitating and wringing your hands and asking yourself if you’re a good enough writer to do it yet. You are. You can just start writing a web serial right now and so long as you consistently update, you’re probably already above average for the market. And your first one probably will suck (mine did), but it’ll teach you how to make a better one. I think that Time to Orbit: Unknown is passably okay, and it absolutely would not be passably okay if I hadn’t written Curse Words first. Just go for it. Try to write a quality story if you can, but if you can’t, it’s honestly not that big of a deal. What matters, truly matters, is that you are committed to improving your craft. And that means actually practicing your craft. Which means writing some chapters and setting up a release schedule.

Good luck.

[saladoffruitcolored]

Yandere omegaverse X neglected beta reader

Prologue

Your story begins years before you were born, it begins with your parents and what theoretically should have been their happy story, perhaps it began as something sweet, like a juicy and tempting apple, ended up rotting, spilling a rotten juice through the fingers of those who still dared to hold such neglected fruit.

Love must be cared for and consumed daily because just looking at it with desire from afar will only guarantee you the dissatisfaction of knowing that you wasted precious time, it will give you a feeling of frustration when you realize that that juicy feeling was within your arms' reach but that due to your own foolishness what was once a breath away is now meters away. A feeling of hunger and bitterness will surely haunt those who missed such an opportunity, these people will be haunted for their entire lives by the whispers of “what if”

The best alternative in this situation is to always choose to make the best of the situation by counting the gains and abandoning the losses, but sometimes love is so toxic and rotten that even when trying to run, it finds a way to drag back those who try to run away, situations like these always end in tragedy for the main characters who go through a true odyssey as they try to find a light of happiness in the midst of a sea of ​​violence.

Usually the protagonists are the only ones to suffer, but sometimes it can happen that the rottenness leaks out and stains the souls of innocent bystanders like you

It's so sad when the hatred between parents splashes onto their children. Like a poisoned tree whose roots are deep and thorny sucking all life from the soil around it, despite sucking so much from the environment no nutrients are passed on to the fruits that slowly become malnourished until they finally rot

In the midst of all these problems who are you?

A child in the middle of a dispute between parents who may have loved each other but now hate each other? A child in the middle of a dispute between a woman who always had everything but never what she wanted and a father who always had what he wanted but never had everything? A teenager in the middle of a dispute between an alpha who needs to win and an omega who cannot lose? Are you really someone?

A beta witnessing firsthand the changes in the gender society that remained stable for years. The decadence of a golden age and the beginning of a new society with new dominant secondary gender roles. Society is changing and whether it is for better or worse will be up to those who are living in it to decide, all you can do is try to adapt but honestly you hardly feel like a human

Despite being the object of affection of many, sometimes it seems that is all you are: an object to be desired and admired. Despite being the center of everything you seem to be nothing more than a submissive doll to the strings that bind your joints, your own choices are not taken into consideration by those who claim to love you.

Will you be able to escape the wants and desires of those around you and be able to be happy or will you remain static in the face of the possessive feelings of those around you?

You have no choice but to try to find out, the option of going back to the beginning does not exist and all you can do is walk forward praying that you have not chosen the wrong path

[ir-abelas-vhenan]

Losing My Mind over Veilguard 8/??

See, I waited a perfectly reasonable amount of time before coming in swinging again but I actually cannot get over how dead the game is. Literally. (Me ranting about an early game quest in Minrathous incoming)

Spoilers below the break

So. The first time you go to dock town? And Neve says in one of seventy different ways "no you don't have to come with me, this is my home not yours, I can handle this myself if you want to stay back" ?(but the showing not telling argument is for another day so I'll refocus and conserve energy for another day). Anyways.

This quest. The one where you go into the chantry in Minrathous and surprise!

Dead bodies absolutely EVERYWHERE.

I took a screenshot and then lost it, but it's worth mentioning that in my game, Neve's line of dialogue above about tracking down family and friends of the deceased didn't even trigger. If it had, however, I still would have lost my mind.

Why, you might ask?

Because after counting, losing count because I was counting so high, and then recounting about seven thousand times I can confidently tell you that plus or minus two to three more corpses, there are EIGHTY SIX dead bodies in the CHANTRY. The holy center of an incredibly popular religion! And even if it weren't that! It is a massive grounds with EIGHTY SIX DEAD PEOPLE who were KILLED HORRIFICALLY BY THE VENATORI AND DEMONS. How are you going to have the time to track down next of kin for that many people? And WHY are we acting like this is NORMAL?!

Dock Town is played very one-note already as a neighborhood where sketchy things happen and people go missing and it's best to just keep your head down if you're not in a position to do something about it.

But oh my sweet baby Maker come onnnnnnn.

You aren't going to recover from this if you're this branch of the Chantry. Presumably, you've just taken a massive hit across all levels of your religious hierarchy and that takes time and training to fill. And dock town is poor as hell, so where are you going to get the funding to fix this sudden staffing issue?

How does this affect (per @housederiva's iconic posts) Viper? Ya know, the guy we have found out through datamining is literally the Black Divine?? All we see (in the scenario where Treviso is saved) is him sadly sitting outside the chantry going "we remember the fallen" and that's presumably for the people lost when the dragon attacked, with nothing spared for the (again, I can't not lose my mind over this) eighty six dead people who were devoted to the same cause he is!

A whole smattering of holy women have just been yeeted off the mortal coil and it means absolutely nothing to your immediate party save for some of the emptiest lines ever, the city as a whole, or in the larger lore of the game. At all.

There are so many moments like this that had me rapidly oscilating between screaming at my ceiling and looking exactly like this:

And this isn't even something they can pass off as being too tied to the source material and wanting to start "fresh". This is just lazy, empty, disappointing storytelling and it's why I lose my mind a little more every time I see an ardent defender of the game tell an older fan to "get over it" or "let go of your expectations."

Because having something like (so sorry) EIGHTY SIX DEATHS go down with actually NO ripples throughout the rest of the game coming from ANY studio, let alone one that used to kill this kind of thing, is crazy to me. And I will die on that hill, even if it means Neve just kind of skips over my body on her way to find my next of kin only to never spare me another thought again.

[goldencithaerias]

Young Silco x Reader - Modern School AU (not proofread but the Silco brainrot is too real to ignore <333)

CW: SFW, tad bit suggestive near the end.

You two were classmates in high school; one shitty group project together where only the two of you were doing the work was all it took for you and Silco to bond together, mainly from talking shit about the other kids in your group who didn’t do anything.

You visit his house almost every Friday after school, mostly alongside Vander and the two younger siblings down the block. Sometimes, Powder would get you to play house with her, and she’d always coincidentally make you and Silco the parents.

It was awkward at first, but you were too fond of the little prodigy to deny her the joy of seeing you and your friend hold hands.

When it’s just the two of you in his somewhat rundown room, however, it’s much more intimate, in a sense. Just two teenagers geeking off about their hobbies and theories for the upcoming episodes on the show you both were illegally watching off of some shady website.

You had accidentally turned those short hangouts into sleepovers on multiple occasions, having fallen asleep on his bed after spending too many hours yapping about the rumored messy breakup between the class president and vice president. Silco isn’t too keen on sharing his personal space, but he never had the heart to wake you up.

Other times, it’d just be the two of you falling asleep together on the couch while watching Mean Girls, stacked on top of one another like pancakes with abs.

(Vander took a picture once and teased him about it later the next morning, and suddenly Silco was very interested in creating pillow forts between the two of you whenever you went over to continue watching Dexter. Said pillow forts never worked in separating you from his arms, unfortunately.)

During the summer of junior year, after successfully obtaining your driver's license, you drove the group downtown to an arcade you used to frequent as a child.

Powder beat the absolute shit out of everyone at Target Terror, and Vi got an all-time new high score that caused the boxer machine to almost malfunction. Vander managed to talk the staff out of kicking all of you out after that incident.

You tried out the claw machines after a cute whale shark plushie caught your eye, but ultimately failed to obtain the thing (since all claw machines are nothing but scams.) Silco saw how disappointed you were, and attempted at said claw machine, before being let down as well from his failures.

(He bought you a shark keychain for your car keys a week later. Said it was a congratulatory gift and definitely not because seeing you mopey and sad tugged at his heartstrings in a bad way.)

Silco invited you to homecoming during your senior year. It wasn’t a straight-up confession, but honestly, people were surprised that you idiots aren’t already dating in the first place.

You showed up, of course. Seeing Silco without his iconic side bang was sad, but you’d be lying if you said him with slicked-back hair wasn’t hot as hell.

The two of you spent approximately twenty minutes in the poorly decorated cafeteria room before sneaking off somewhere else. Ended up sloppily making out in the bathroom before you got caught by some poor freshman.

You giggled like a maniac during the entirety of the drive home, while he cringed and grumble for you to shut up. You continued said messy make-out session the moment your foot went past his bedroom door.

Definitely let you wear his jacket during the school day!!! Even if your styles were opposites or otherwise, he’d always leave his cherished leather coat inside your locker first thing in the morning. It smells a whole lot like ink and newspaper.

Silco isn’t the best with PDA, nor is he comfortable showcasing his affection for you or vice versa in any public space, period. Even around your little group, the most he’d do is hold your hands, and even so it is kept to a minimum.

In the privacy of his or your room, however? Better be prepared for a shower of kisses and gentle caresses all over your body.

A forehead kiss a day keeps the sadness away, they say.

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

being visibly disabled not make you more understood.

you’re visibly tragic. visibly upsetting.

it make people uncomfortable “for” you—they think they know what you need n that is to get rid of all ways your disability visible. by any means necessary.

uncomfortable by you—but ultimately their efforts not for you. they constantly reminded by visibility of your disability n that make them uncomfortable. they try ignore it & plausible deniability & cognitive dissonance, n they do, but it take more effort n they hate you for it.

your disability reduced to parts that visible. or specifically, visible parts that they undeniably have to see as disability.

you’re them but with disability aid. you’re person with no mobility issues trapped in body forced to confine to wheelchair. wheelchair is evil symbol of your disability. wheelchair become origin of & houses all your symptom. without wheelchair you’re free. because without wheelchair they’re free. because for average person with no mobility issues like them, wheelchair is trap is confinement, & unnecessary.

but you’re not them. you’re not person with no mobility issues confined to wheelchair. actually without wheelchair you’re even more trapped than you with it. (you left with two choices: 100% agree with them or 100% oppose them. there no middle ground, no nuance: fact that you do feel wheelchair as confinement but in different way than they think, they going see as evidence for them viewing your life as misery.)

if give choice of mediocre life with wheelchair and no quality of life without wheelchair, you expected choose second.

wheelchair just most often talked about example of many.

the visible part of your disability also become invisible. disability that affect cognitive abilities, change your personality, affect way you think, act, behave, in way that make you visibly different than you before, or visibly act different than other people, that not disability. that evidence of you be terrible person, angry person, do it on purpose, shy person, annoying person, “normal” person with personality flaws of own choosing own fault. if you walk different talk different use muscle different, you not disabled (excuse) you just not trying hard enough. if you visibly different, facial different, limb different, visibly body different, you just person without [leg, hand, arm, eye, etc] but functionally same as person with it, with no different experience or needs or work arounds. or you evil & grotesque, but it because punishment of own evil morality. you did something. or both.

even visible disability aid like wheelchair become invisible. “if you need ramp to go up these stairs into shop, go into shop n ask someone for help.”

have visible disability aid erase you of your disability. visible disability & visible disability aid become entirety of your disability. if you use wheelchair then that all there is. you can’t walk. end of story. things relate to it—pain, spasm, rigidity, weakness, not exist. things unrelated to it, or seemingly unrelated to it—if you have breathing issues, urinary, bowel, GI, cognitive, etc. even less so.

you not have anything that unrelated to your walking, even if caused by same source. or all your visibleness because of one thing, it cannot be multiple things at once. if you can’t walk & can’t talk then two must be related, even with known evidence that it not.

suddenly center of attention is visible part of your disability n that all there is. it your entirety of symptoms, you not have anything that invisible or hidden. if you miserable then fact that visible part of your disability exist must be reason, you must be self hating. it can’t be another reason. you must not just hate yourself but hate your visible disability.

at same time visible part of your disability is all that you are, but also none that you are.

[fallenrocket]

My god, Cassian is just so young in season 1 of Andor. On this last rewatch, it kept jumping out at me everywhere. Especially at the start of the show, which makes sense--he goes through a pretty intense education over the course of the season and transforms before our eyes. But there's just so much in Cassian that comes from being young, traumatized, and desperate.

We see it in his moments of unabashed fear, like when he's stopped by the two corpos in the pilot, the first time he sees the TIE fighter fly past on Aldhani, or as the prison transport takes off for Narkina 5. Even when he tries to hide it, we can see it in his eyes, the parts of him that are still that scared kid from Kenari.

We see it in the chip he has on his shoulder, like the attitude he cops with Luthen in their first meeting: "I don't know you." He's not just guarded and distrustful, he kind of actively resents this guy trying to get too familiar with him. When he's scared, uncertain, or guilty, he tends to push others away, a product of having to fight most of his life and of losing many of the things and people he's cared about. I also think of him coldly telling Bix, "You won't have to worry about me anymore," at the end of their argument in "Announcement."

And yet, by the same token, he can also be surprisingly open and earnest in his affections. For me, this is most apparent in his scenes with Maarva in "Announcement." There, we see his naive optimism that the money he got from Aldhani can solve all their problems. He's so buoyant and hopeful and loving as he suggests running away, saying, "What do we need but the three of us?" Later in the episode, we see that same naivety when he insists, "We'll find a place they haven't ruined yet." But it crops up in other places too. On Aldhani, he chooses Clem's name as his pseudonym, even though he already realizes Luthen has a lot of intel on him and will probably recognize it--in that moment, his distrust of Luthen is outweighed by his desire to go into this dangerous mission carrying a small piece of his dad with him. Then there's that beautiful hug with Brasso in "Rix Road," especially those few extra beats past when you'd expect them to part. When he hugs Melshi in the previous episode, Cassian is rushed, on the brink of falling apart and not wanting Melshi to see. But with Brasso, Cassian needs that touch for a few extra seconds, and he's not afraid to hold on a little longer.

Most of Cassian's dumbest mistakes in the season are very youthful ones. He's an incredibly smart and observant guy, so he's not dumb very often, but when he is, it tends to come back to being young, traumatized, and desperate. We see this especially in the opening Ferrix arc: insisting on bringing an unsecured comm to his meeting with Luthen (oh my god, the way he bickers with B2EMO about them beforehand!) and trying to go back for the starpath unit when the shit hits the fan, even after Luthen repeatedly tells him to leave it. With the starpath unit, part of it is naivety--"What if it's just one guy left?"--and part of it is growing up poor and scrappy. This box represents more money than he's ever had at any one time, and he simply can't process the idea that his buyer would just leave it behind.

Finally, every now and then, Cassian has this subtle but impeccable "little shit" energy. We definitely see it when he messes with Timm in the pilot, deliberately goading him instead of trying to defuse the situation when he sees that Timm is jealous. It's a dumb, petty moment of cheap satisfaction that winds up with some intense blowback when Timm IDs him to Pre-Mor. And I love Cassian's refusal to give up on Kino on Narkina 5, always believing he can be brought into the fold no matter how many times Kino tells him to forget about it. It's a great reflection of how Cassian rejects the Empire's attempts to divide the inmates by pitting them against each other, but part of why he's able to keep at it is his annoying-kid tenacity. I love the scene where Kino brushes him off by saying how many shifts he has left and Cassian immediately responds with, "So...tell me what you know before you go."

It's simply wild to compare the Cassian we see in "Kassa" to the one in "Rix Road." He goes through so much in twelve episodes and really comes into his own, and it's fantastic to see some of the qualities he displays in Rogue One starting to peek through. He's already come so far in his character growth--I cannot wait to see how season 2 gets us from "Rix Road" to Rogue One!

Oh yeah, and Diego Luna is simply stunning. You can really feel how he traced Cassian's life backwards to this point, see how different the Cassian of "Kassa" is from the Cassian of Rogue One and yet still fully believe that this is the same character. All the little hints he drops, all the tiny moments where you can see Rogue One Cassian starting to gestate. It's such beautiful, brilliant work!

[cesarorka]

Alterhuman questions again!!!

1/ I am a nonhuman transspecies (kinda theriomythic) therian and fictionkin!

2/ My theriotype is an elk that is also kinda a peryton when it's convenient and my fictiontype is Lust Sans

3/ I experienced phantom limbs all the time, have some occasional mental and sensory shifts and never experienced a cameo shift (at least I don't remember it)

4/ My alterhumanity has a big impact on my daily life... It is something that is always present, even if I'm not really thinking about it. It affects my perception of life, people, my own gender and sexuality. It defines me as a being. I wouldn't be who I am without alterhumanity.

5/ I love the alterhuman community. It has been the place I've felt the most comfortable in my whole life. Although it has its problems (cough tik tok cough) it is still creative and unique.

6/ I like when people around me recognize me as an animal a lot. At the moment not so many of my friends do so, but the small part of them that does make my day. I use tails and antlers a lot too and have been planning on tattooing a deer hoof on my hand and starting testosterone to get more hair on my body.

7/ Yes, I experience species dysphoria q lot... Since I'm also a clinical zoanthrope it can get really bad and aggressive sometimes.

8/ Study. Stay nights awake reading books on nonhumanity. You think you know everything when you search the basic definition on Google, that it is simple, but it is not. The worlds of different experiences are facing!

9/ I do have gear! I wanted to have more too, and I'm working on getting it.

10/ For me, it is heavily trauma and psychologically based. I experienced being 'inhuman' by the way society treated me when I was a autistic kid, I've always been an outsider of the European based definition of humanity, and it just got worse with me developing clinical zoanthropy.

If you are a alterhuman, reblog and answer these questions!

(don't be afraid to write a lot, do what you want ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯)

1/ Which category of alterhumanity do you belong to?

2/ What/who is/are your type(s)? (if you have any)

3/ Do you experience shifts? If so, can you tell us your most common shifts and your strangest cameo shift (if you've ever had a cameo shift)?

4/ How do you experience your alterhumanity in everyday life?

5/ What do you think of the community?

6/ What are the things that make you most comfortable and euphoric in your alterhumanity?

7/ Are you experiencing species dysphoria?

8/ What advice would you like to say to a young alterhuman who has just awakened?

9/ Do you have/want to have gears?

10/ Do you know/have any theories about the origin of your alterhumanity? If so, tell us! (all beliefs are legitimate)

11/ Tag someone/a creature to answer these questions!ㅤᵕ̈

[isak-dot-gov]

Accidental Reveal - Part Two: Under Pressure

Pairing: Inȇs Bettencourt

Word count: 1393

My Masterlist :)

..............................................................................

It had been a few days since the accidental slip-up on KK Arnold’s livestream, and the buzz around Inȇs’ relationship had only intensified. What had started as a handful of curious comments had snowballed into a full-on internet frenzy. Social media was ablaze with speculation about who Ines's mysterious "girlfriend" could be. While Ines had been hoping the storm would pass, it seemed that every new post or video only fueled the fire.

Worse, many fans had started connecting dots that led straight to you. You, the rising singer whose tour was lighting up stages across the country. Your fans were rabid, and every move you made was closely monitored by the media and dedicated stans. The coincidence of your performance that same night, paired with Inȇs’ comment about watching her "girlfriend’s tour," had everyone buzzing. Your names were suddenly being thrown around together in forums, TikTok breakdowns, and Twitter threads. There were fan theories, edits, and endless speculation—all centred on the idea that you and Ines were secretly dating.

At first, Inȇs tried to stay calm. She told herself it would blow over. After all, no one had definitive proof, and neither of you had made a public statement. But the pressure was mounting. Every time she opened her phone, there were hundreds of notifications—DMs from strangers, comments on her photos, even private messages from people she barely knew, asking if the rumours were true. 

And it was wearing her down.

She was barely sleeping, her mind racing with worst-case scenarios. What if the media hounded you? What if the extra attention hurts your career? What if all of this stress started affecting her performance on the court? Ines felt like she was spiralling, the weight of it all pressing down on her chest every second of the day.

It didn’t take long for her teammates to notice.

“Yo, you good?” Paige asked, nudging Inȇs gently with her elbow as they walked to practise one morning. Paige had a way of reading people, and Ines had been off for days now.

Inȇs forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired, I guess.”

But Paige wasn’t buying it. Neither was Azz, who was walking alongside them, watching Inȇs with a concerned frown.

“You haven’t been yourself lately,” Azzi said softly. “Is it all the stuff online?”

Inȇs’ stomach twisted, her hands tightening around her phone. She had been trying so hard to act like it wasn’t getting to her, but the truth was, she felt like she was drowning. Every time she scrolled through social media, there was another wave of speculation, another surge of people guessing that it was you.

“It’s just…” she swallowed, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s a lot.”

“You need to stop looking at your phone,” Nika chimed in, joining the conversation as they reached the locker room. “That stuff will drive you crazy.”

“I know,” Inȇs muttered, but she couldn’t help it. It was like a car crash—she couldn’t look away. She was so anxious about what people were saying, about how it was all spiralling out of control.

KK, who had been silent for most of the walk, finally spoke up as they sat down to change into their practice gear. “This is my fault,” she said, her voice full of guilt. “If I hadn’t gone live…”

Inȇs shook her head quickly. “No, KK, this isn’t your fault. I’m the one who slipped up. I just… I don’t know how to deal with it.”

Paige, ever the leader, exchanged a look with Azzi, Nika, and KK. “Maybe it’s time we step in,” Paige said, her voice firm. She turned to Ines, her expression serious but kind. “Give us your phone.”

“What?” Inȇs blinked, startled.

“Give us your phone,” Azzi repeated, holding out her hand. “You’re obsessing over it, and it’s making things worse. Let us handle it for a bit.”

Inȇs hesitated. Her phone was her lifeline to you, and part of her felt like if she could just keep checking, she could somehow control the situation. But the other part of her—the part that was tired, stressed, and overwhelmed—knew her friends were right.

Reluctantly, she handed her phone over.

Nika immediately took it and began scrolling through the messages and comments. “This is nuts,” she muttered. “These people have way too much time on their hands.”

Paige sighed. “Welcome to the internet.”

KK, feeling guilty and responsible for the whole thing, took a deep breath. “We should call her.”

Inȇs blinked. “Call who?”

“You know who,” KK said, raising her eyebrows. “Her. You’re not dealing with this alone anymore. We’re going to figure this out together. Maybe it’s time for her to come out here and be with you for a bit. You need her.”

Inȇs felt her heart race at the thought. You hadn’t seen each other in weeks, and she desperately missed you. But with everything going on, would it really help? Or would it make things worse?

“Just trust us, okay?” Azzi said gently, as KK hit the call button on your contact.

---

You had just wrapped up a meeting with your team when your phone buzzed. Seeing KK’s name pop up was a surprise, especially since you hadn’t expected her to call you directly. You quickly excused yourself and answered the call.

“Hey, KK? What’s up?” you asked, wondering if something had happened.

“Hey, sorry to bother you,” KK said, her voice a little hesitant. “We’ve got a situation here with Inȇs, and, well… we think you should come visit.”

There was a shuffle on the other end, and suddenly Paige’s voice came through. “She’s not doing great. The whole internet thing—it’s getting to her, and she’s stressed out of her mind. It’s affecting her, and we don’t know what else to do, so we thought maybe you could help.”

Your heart sank. You had sensed something was off in Ines’s recent texts and calls, but you didn’t realise how bad it had gotten. “She didn’t tell me it was this bad.”

“She didn’t want to worry you,” Nika chimed in. “But it’s affecting her—big time.”

Azzi’s voice was calm but insistent. “She misses you. And honestly, I think having you here, even for a day, would make a huge difference. You don’t have to do anything—just be here.”

You didn’t hesitate. “I’ll make it work. I can fly to Connecticut during her next off day.”

KK sighed in relief. “Perfect. We’ll figure out the details and surprise her. I think she really needs this.”

You nodded, even though they couldn’t see you. “Thank you, guys. I’ll text you my schedule, and we can plan it out.”

The call ended, and you quickly started rearranging your plans. Inȇs needed you, and that was all that mattered.

---

A few days later, it was a rare off day for the team. Inȇs had spent most of the morning in her dorm room, trying to relax, but her mind was still buzzing with anxiety. She had barely touched her phone, following her teammates' advice to disconnect, but it wasn’t helping as much as she’d hoped.

She didn’t expect the knock on her door.

When she opened it, there you were—standing in front of her with a soft smile, your eyes filled with love and concern. For a moment, Ines just stared, frozen in shock.

“Surprise,” you said gently, stepping forward to wrap your arms around her.

The second your arms were around her, the dam broke. Ines buried her face in your shoulder, the weight of everything finally crashing down on her. Tears spilled from her eyes, and she clung to you as though you were her lifeline.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Shh,” you soothed, rubbing her back. “You don’t have to apologise. I’m here now. We’ll get through this together.”

Inȇs nodded, her tears slowly subsiding as she leaned into your warmth. For the first time in days, she felt a sense of calm wash over her.

From down the hall, Paige, Azzi, KK, and Nika watched with satisfied smiles.

“I knew this would help,” KK whispered.

Paige grinned. “She’s going to be okay now.”

With you by her side, Inȇs knew that no matter what the internet threw at her, she’d be okay too. Together, you’d face the world—one step at a time.

..................................................

[youareatragedy]

People are so angry at Nesta. They’re constantly upset about the audacity of Nesta for not fawning over Cassian immediately and for making him work for her affection. They’re mad and say she doesn’t deserve Cassian because she made him work for her attention. As if, because Cassian is male (and a hot one at that) it’s absurd that Nesta doesn’t just fall on her knees and offer him her submission immediately.

All their hatred toward Nesta, who just wants to set her boundaries… All their hatred toward a woman who at the very least, obviously needs time to heal after facing never ending trauma in her very young life.

All that hatred from these people for her suffering in an “inconvenient and unpleasant way” only for the same people to frantically defend Cassian when in a book so thick, he never once says, “I love you” to his mate. In a book so thick, he lets his mate get berated by his brother again... and again... and again. In a book SO THICK, by the end of it his mate still feels like she has to prove herself worthy of his love. And after a book so thick, the next time we see this so called “MATE” he again lets his brother make her feel like she’s going to be murdered.

Nesta offended them so much just by being an FMC who isn’t immediately nice to Cassian and Rhysand. They attack her for something so human while foaming at the mouth if anyone says one bad thing about Cassian.

Cassian (the male who is 500 years older than her) can’t even say “I love you” to his own mate. And according to some, Cassian “knows the difference in her expressions” and because of that ridiculous example, it’s somehow supposed to make up for his inability to say the actual words. They twist themselves into knots trying to claim this is proof he loves her through his “actions” when in reality, it’s just more bullshit to excuse his lack of affection and mate-ism toward Nesta. Honestly, anyone who lives in the same house and spends enough time with Nesta would probably pick up on her expressions. I bet even Azriel, who’s supposedly a good “spymaster” could identify her expressions too.

Here’s something people know, but I just want to say it again: Cassian is a BAD MATE. A HORRID MATE. While I don’t want him to die because Nesta has already dealt with enough bullshit from SJM and the fandom, I do hope Cassian gets humiliated by so many people in the next book. I want him to realize how bad of a mate he’s been, beat Rhysand to a pulp, weep and sob for Nesta’s forgiveness, and leave the IC FOR GOOD.

[shadyr4m]

not to just completely start rambling in your askbox but powder having made peace with and forgiven Ekko for giving them the tip abt Jayce's apartment as kids even though it led to vi dying and having the support system to be able to do so,,, like she had gander and silco who had prob forgiven each other before and she had people who were there for her and it wasn't an immediate thing but they had the time to grow and accept the past and make peace,,, jjfmidkmc I am so normal about them (lie)

This!!You read my mind. I love how this episode deals with mental illness. I have a few complaints about the ending overall, but that's neither here nor there. Powder being able to accept Vi's death fully is something that I don't think the Jinx that we know could do. Like you said, I don't think it's a matter of Powder just not being mentally ill, but rather the support systems that she was surrounded with and positive influences. As much as I don't like Silco's character being reduced to just "forgive and forget", him saying that to Ekko is one of the many things I think lead him to convincing Jinx to join him in the final battle against Ekko. If it affected Ekko it definitely affected Powder too. Especially since those are her father figures, seeing that is definitely a good example for her to learn and grow off of. I think this whole alternate universe taught Ekko that you can be forgiven for your past mistakes. Prior to this he only thought of Jinx as Jinx and her actions, but after we see that change. This is a result of seeing Powder, Silco, hell the whole undercity, be able to grow and forgive the mistakes that Ekko, Vander, and piltover did.

I don't think we'll ever see this universe again, I would love to see the events that led to that universe being the way it is, but alas I must only ponder.