#and that had huge negative effects on me

[izzyspussy]

so anyway. headcanon that richie doesn't believe he deserves to be happy, but he makes a concerted effort to live a happy and fulfilling life post derry 2.0 anyway because the kid he used to be still deserves it, and also because all the kids and adults who don't know if it's possible for them or if they deserve it either need to see they can still have it too.

[starkeyisthelastname]

OHHH ANOTHER THOUGHT!!!!!!!

idk how the porn community works HALSJKS but if its a thing to like ….. ship them ig??? … how would rafe react to r’s video with another dude being posted on twitter (maybe the first vid she’s made since her vid with rafe) and everyone’s in the comments being like “omg yas this is so hot!!!” “omg this is so much better than her and rafe!!” BALJEKS IDK

the first time someone’s talked negatively about him and it’s actually effected him 😅 he doesn’t like this ego being bruised

It was rare that Rafe checked social media, he just didn’t care about what people thought. He was pornstar and was used to being judged for his career choice and especially for the brutal way he fucked his costars. It was the Twitter notification he got though, with his name and your name tagged along with someone else’s who he didn’t know that caught his attention.

He opened the video, his blue eyes darkening as soon as he saw what it was. It was some nobody with a dick half the size of his, trying to make you cum. He could tell by the moans you were giving that it was all an act, and it ignited something in him he didn’t like. Watching another man fuck you, even if it was your job wasn’t something he particularly was a fan of. He had always loved pussy and money, and never once thought of ever quitting his rather successful porn career for anyone, until you started occupying his mind all day every day. He just couldn’t bring himself to end it yet, his addiction to sex and money way too deep.

As he went to exit out the app, a comment caught his eye. “Wow. She’s a pro at taking dick.” He scoffed as he read it out loud. What dick were you takin? That clown was the size of a pinky compared to him. It was the next one down that had his head raging in a way he had never experienced. ‘Her and @therafecameron video was weak compared to this. 🤣’ He seethed, these stupid idiots comments getting to him and bruising his extremely high ego. His knee bounced rapidly, thumb at the edge of his mouth as his mind raced wildly.

It was the phone, turned into landscape mode as Rafe’s long arm aimed it down to let it capture you taking dick. His free hand was wrapped in your hair, yanking your head back as he drilled into you at a brutal speed. The makeup you had on was smeared, tears streaming down your sparkly cheeks as he had some point to prove. He didn’t exactly say what, but it was a chance to get fucked by the man you were becoming obsessed with.

“Who’s fucking dick are you takin?” Rafe asked, his voice dripping venom as he yanked your head to make you look at him. His blue eyes, peered down at you in a predatory manner as he forced you to give him an answer.

The answer you gave was incoherent, your words coming out in babbles as an insane amount of pleasure was taking over your body. Your eyes rolled back, his huge dick tearing you apart as he wrapped his fist around your hair even harder. The phone that was recording the raw homemade scene was now shoved in your face, his hand on your head forcing you to look at the lens.

You were still so pretty, completely cock drunk off his monstrous ways as you were being his good personal whore. He leaned down, mustache brushing over your ear as he looked at the camera. It was quite a sexy sight to see his wild hair and striking blue iris’s making eye contact with the phone. “Tell them who’s dick your fuckin takin.” He spoke lowly, eyes watching your face through the screen. “Don’t make me repeat myself, I swear you’ll fucking regret it.” He gritted out, toned hips slapping against yours.

You cried out, his hand removing itself from your head to force your chin to look at the camera. You had no choice but to let out a loud whine, screaming the man’s name that you just wanted as yours. “Rafe Cameron! I’m t-takin Rafe Cameron’s dick!” Your voice cracking as you clamped down onto his cock.

As soon as heard that, a smirk came to his face and his nuts tightened. He tilted your chin towards him, sloppily kissing you with his tongue as the camera caught something Rafe never did with anyone. If the kissing wasn’t enough to make people a little shocked, it was that he posted it to his Twitter account, caption reading ‘The only dick that can get her screaming 😱 remember the fucking name bitches.’

[sixth-light]

I have had these thoughts bubbling away in my head for like...eighteen months or so now (it will become very obvious why shortly) but the discussion in this post has pushed me to write them down: I think societally we HUGELY underestimate how motherhood for primary caregivers, particularly first-time motherhood, can be a source of vulnerability to radicalisation.

There is obviously huge cultural variance here, but for a lot of cis women becoming primary caregiver to an infant in a capitalist Western society represents a time of immense vulnerability because in general you are:

Incredibly sleep-deprived (which has well-documented knock-on effects for your judgement, mental health, etc)

If you gave birth, recovering from a significant challenge to your physical health (even in the best-case scenario)

Isolated from your previous networks and communities of people in full-time work

Completely separated from the context of your prior career goals and achievements

Under huge amounts of stress to learn how to care for an infant (don't get me started on breastfeeding)

And on top of this, you are also be experiencing a huge amount of messaging about how all this is natural, wonderful, something you're meant to do, something you should love doing, and something that you must do for the welfare of their child. It's a huge amount of pressure and life change even when everything goes right and there's very little cultural space to express negative feelings about it.

Any group of people who offer community, support, and affirmation to cis women in this situation are going to have a really good shot at radicalising them into some very weird and dangerous headspaces and in fact we see this happen all the time - think antivaxxers and TERFs. It flies under the radar because of the hazy positive glow that associates with motherhood and babies and also because we don't take the radicalisation of women seriously I guess because they rarely shoot anybody, but...yeah. It is such a vulnerable time!

[janesgms]

Asteroid Industria

✨️ Industria (389) Persona Chart Edition ✨️

Having a 5th house stellium can indicate that you will work in the creative field or with children in general, it can also indicate that your own children will interfere in your career like bringing your children with you to your job (and this can cause problems to you depending on the planets we're talking about).

career examples: being a teacher, a pediatrician, a performer, an artist

Sun conjunct mercury indicates your job has a lot to do with communicating yourself/speaking in general, your job is a lot about languages or just communicating in general.

career examples: being a teacher (again), a singer, a mailman, etc. it reminds me of hermes in greek mythology

Having a 2nd house stellium is a huge indicator of having a job that brings you financial comfort and gains in general, you're probably the "official" supporter of the house financially.

Virgo stellium in this chart shows someone bery hardworker, to the point where it's even obsessive depending on the planets and aspects, people can even take advantage of you because you have no problem with doing the "dirty work".

7th house moon is an indicator you have a soft heart in your job space and a lot of peoole with bad intentions take advantage of your kindness, you need to set your boundaries, seriously.

3rd house venus = gossips about your love life in your job space?? 👀 just a guess

Neptune square moon can indicate that you're very uncertain or lost when it comes to choosing what your heart wants for a profession, you feel like there isn't a dream job for you and you'll just get on with life lol. I think this also applies specially if you have pisces personal placements or a stellium in this chart.

On the other side, and kind of surprisingly, moon conjunct neptune can indicate that you've always dreamt about a certain job and it fits you like a glove.

Mars in the 8th house can mean you like to work alone, secretly, you don't like to be ordered around much and you hate when people invade your privacy in your work space.

Having a libra venus in this chart can indicate your beauty and charm have a huge impact on your job.

celebrity example: Taehyung from BTS

Having a libra midheaven can mean your aesthetic has a huge impact on others, you can influenciate a lot of people from your profession.

celebrity example: Lana Del Rey

I think Taurus stellium is a huge indicator of talent and a gorgeous aura in general that makes people pulled in by you in your job space. You'll probably work in the comestics/fashion area (sometimes people forget that venus also rules taurus but let's give them some credits too here lmao)

Mercury in the 5th house: you communicate yourself so pretty, so beautifully in your job, your words and/or voice let people in awe, this has a siren effect but not necessarily a singing voice. Your words can be hypnotizing and your diction too

7th house venus or stellium can indicate your romantic life impacts on your job immensely, even negatively if you're not careful. Also, it can mean you'll find your significant others in your profession field.

Pluto sextile sun means you impose yourself beautifully in your profession, you have an impact on others in a gracious but unforgettable way.

1st house moon can mean you pour your heart out when you're really trying hard to leave an impression through your job. This can also means you care a lot about how others perceive your appearance and this affects you really personally

5th house venus is so pretty, I wish I had it in my chart lol, this person really knows how to use her creativity to make her job properly, she has a natural talent for what she does.

Having a combo of positive aspects between the moon/venus/asc in this chart can indicate your femininity is very in tune in your profession field, you can come off as really beautiful and "in form"/put together when you're working, you just know how to have the ideal vibes, you know? This is very beautiful.

1° Sun means you can show your ego pretty easily when you're in your job space, unless neptune is aspecting it or it's in pisces, then you can hide it pretty well, but you still can be very certain about your abilities and even your appearance, this can indicate a natural leader.

A Leo or Aquarius MC is the true trendsetter of their professional field, they have the best ideas and they're always ahead of others, they can be really inovative. Leo can do it in a more traditional way that still works and leave an impact, in a big and colorful way, aquarius make it in a standing way that leaves people shocked with their ideas, they do that crazy thought that others are scared. The Leo MC knows that they're the royalty and the Aquarius MC knows that they're the mastermind. This duo can work greatly together, their ideas mix pretty well.

1st house Mars in aries are such fast workers!! they do their job pretty fast

I've talked about virgo stellium, but Capricorn stellium are the TRUE workaholics and they do the hard job without an ounce of laziness, they're down for anything as long as it makes them satisfied with fulfilling a useful meaning to them and with ✨️money✨️ of course lol

Speaking of capricorn, having a Capricorn MC means you have fame of doing your job impeccably, you're not joking in your area lol.

If aries/1st house placements are fast workers, taurus/2nd house placements are the opposite. They appreciate the details very much and they hate doing a job for the "half", they can be slow workers but their talent makes it worth it.

8th house pluto and/or mars can indicate you're pretty envied in your job space 🤫 be careful with gossips, lies and secrets...

Scorpio moons do not put their souls in their jobs, their jobs ARE their souls, they pour everything in their profession. They turn their traumas in art

[headspace-hotel]

dwarf fortress update

an important thing to note about this game is if you embark on an island with no other civilizations on it, this cuts you off from a substantial amount of gameplay, as you won't be able to do missions and you won't be able to trade with or contact other civilizations. It does, however, prevent sieges and other forms of possibly undesirable fun

i don't know if civilizations could arise on islands given enough time passing in game

I decided to start a new fortress to mess with some of the mechanics involving interactions between civilizations.

I embarked close to a necromancer's tower, which thus far has had no effects except giving me a frequently replenishing supply of armor and gear to loot off of zombies killed by my militias. I have also had regular sieges from goblins, which i've fought off pretty easily but the map is so littered with goblin corpses and clothes it's looking like a bit of a mess.

Essential lessons so far:

it doesn't seem to actually matter very much whether bedrooms are enclosed or have doors, and citizens get negative thoughts from sleeping in a dormitory, so it's better to just make a huge room, make the floor of a somewhat valuable material, space beds 1 tile apart and designate each 4-tile square as a separate bedroom.

Dwarves are happy around waterfalls, so if you flood your fortress your dwarves mental health will be great right up to the point that they drown to death.

The wiki says soap making is a low importance industry. This is a dirty rotten lie. You will need to have automated ash production, bucket production, lye production, and soap production to have enough soap ever.

burrows make dwarves STAY in a certain area, however they don't make them GO there. this essentially means they are useless as if you have ordered dwarves to stay within the burrow when a forgotten beast is attacking and causing havoc, they will not go there if they are outside it, however the dwarves inside will not be able to leave the burrow for food, drink, water or any sort of supplies so they will eventually just starve or thirst to death. so basically don't use burrows

limit the fisherdwarf task to one (1) dwarf AT MOST or you will have rotting fish everywhere and nothing will get done because everybody is at the fishery "cleaning raw fish"

you absolutely must go into the labor menu and turn off automatic web collection or else the instant you open a cavern your citizens will run into the furthest deadliest corner of that cavern and die.

you absolutely must dig your mine shaft separately from your main fortress and place multiple tiers of doors that you can forbid as needed to sequester off increasingly deeper levels of the mineshaft. it helps to have a separate still, kitchen and food stockpile within the mineshaft as well. when you designate a mining project, wait for the miners to go in and forbid the door to the surface behind them. place tiers of stone and ore stockpiles feeding into each other within the mine shaft so stones are hauled up to the surface levels and can be easily hauled into the fortress when you unforbid the door for a time. if you don't keep the doors forbidden, citizens will constantly wander in and out of the mineshaft and get killed or starve to death. In particular, they will try to haul objects out of the caverns and will path through the cavern passages instead of the stairwells you dug.

I've been killing all my grazing animals except sheep because babies born in a pen don't "belong" to that pen and will wander down into the fortress, and once underground they will starve to death from lack of grass. having to stop what i'm doing every 10 minutes to return to the pasture, scroll through my animals, and assign the new baby calf or donkey or whatever is such a pain in the ass that it's hardly even worth it to have animals that don't produce fiber.

castrating animals is super unreliable as a means of keeping their populations in check, because migrants and visitors are CONSTANTLY bringing in new pets

Either that, or some animals can reproduce asexually. I keep getting new reindeer calves despite having only one reindeer bull and no reindeer cows

Turning off contaminant tracking doesn't stop contaminants from being tracked everywhere

embark next to a brook, not a river, because with rivers your citizens will constantly fall in and drown. however you will need to dig out the rocks from the bottom of the brook in one spot and place a well above it. do NOT use "water source" zone designation because whatever zone you designate for water collection will get contaminated with vomit within 5 minutes due to above contaminant tracking glitch, and your dwarves will become miserable about being "forced to drink vomit"

even in an overwhelmingly happy and content fortress some dwarves will inevitably go insane and start killing everybody in sight.

The justice system can convict dwarves of disorderly conduct when they attack other dwarves, however if the victim dies of their injuries that isn't a crime and you can't convict the attacking dwarf. When a vampire kills another dwarf it DOES show up as a "murder," however the offender will not be punished

I don't actually know if there is a point in having a justice system, since all it does is chain up random essential workers for "violating production orders." Sentences are much longer for one instance of violating production orders than for 30+ separate counts of disorderly conduct, and there seems to be no way to punish murder.

Every way of producing food wildly overproduces for the needs of the fortress. i have over 1500 muskmelons help

if you don't turn off "forbid death items" the surface will soon be so littered with forbidden gloves and random crap worn by goblins that you can't build anything.

Once you make a tavern (and you should, it really helps dwarf mental health) you will have constant petitions to join your fortress to "entertain visitors and citizens." as far as I can tell you should deny all of them because visitors will steal your stuff, especially masterworks, and sometimes kill your citizens.

Approve all the petitions to stay in the fortress "eradicating monsters" though. When they die you can loot their stuff

if you're having too many migrants you can arrange a fatal accident to happen to the merchant caravan

if you need a fatal accident to happen to one of your dwarves (or need to separate them from everybody else) assign them to a militia by themselves and "station" them in either a dangerous place or a room that you can lock and forbid the door.

It's really disappointing how wrong the wiki is about a lot of things, i've been told incorrectly about game mechanics several times by it.

The bugs i've been dealing with would be less annoying if i didn't have a supposedly good resource telling me "This is how X works" and then it doesn't work that way

[won4kiss]

⋆ ｡⋆୨୧˚— SO HIGH SCHOOL !

𝜗𝜚 ༘⋆ ⋆˙pairing. popular quarterback bf! jake sim x fem! reader synopsis. in which you and jake are complete opposites, but you couldn’t be more in love with each other. he knows how to ball, and you know.. aristotle? genre. fluff ,, 1% angst. wc. 2026. 𝐥u𝐧a notes ⋆.˚ omg i actually love this ☹️. 🫧 — 𝓵𝗂𝖻𝗋𝖺𝗋𝔂

if you enjoyed reading, please like & reblog !! ‹𝟹

THE FINAL BELL RANG, signaling the end of another school day. but today wasn’t just any day—it was the championships game day. the entire school buzzed with excitement, and the air was thick with anticipation and tension.

students hurried through the halls, chattering about the big game and what it meant for the school’s reputation.

banners hung from the walls, declaring support for the football team, and especially for jake sim, the golden boy and star quarterback.

jake was everything a high school hero should be; charming, athletic, handsome, and kind. his perfect, heart fluttering smile and easygoing, honest demeanor won him friends and admirers from each and every corner of the school.

but what set him apart was his relationship with you.

you were jake’s girlfriend, and that fact alone made you a huge target. girls envied you, whispering behind your back, spreading rumors, and sometimes outright insulting you to your face.

it was hard, but jake made it all worth it. his love and support overshadowed all the negativity, and with him by your side, you felt like you could conquer anything just to be by his side forever.

as you walked to the bleachers that evening, you felt a mixture of pride, excitement and anxiety. jake had give you his jersey to wear, and of course you wore it to support jake.

but unfortunately that came with the cost of multiple dirty looks thrown your way, as expected.

you sighed as you told yourself it didn’t matter, you were there to support jake.

the stadium was packed with students, parents, and teachers, all eager to see if the team could win the championship.

you found a seat near the front, your eyes scanning the field for any sign of jake. the game hadn’t started yet, but the players were already warming up, their movements precise and practiced.

“look at her,” a girl behind you whispered, her voice dripping with disdain.

“she thinks she’s special because she’s dating jake!”

“i know, right?” another girl replied.

“she’s so plain. jake could do so much better.”

“right, she looks like such a pick me wearing that jersey, she probably stole it from jake!”

the girl said as her friends nodded in agreement sneering at you.

you tried to ignore them, focusing instead on the field where jake was running drills with his teammates. he looked up and caught your eye, giving you a reassuring smile that made your heart flutter. you waved back, feeling a little better. he always had that effect on you.

the game started with a roar of excitement from the crowd. jake took his position as quarterback, his confidence and skill evident in every single move he made.

the first quarter was intense, with both teams fighting hard for every yard. the tension was thick, and you found yourself gripping the edge of your seat, your eyes never leaving jake.

but the girls behind you didn’t let up.

“she’s probably only with him for the attention,” one of them said.

“i bet she doesn’t even really care about him, unlike me, I could treat him better.”

“yeah,” another girl added.

“she’s probably just using him to become popular.”

their words hurt you deeply, but you tried to focus on the game. jake needed your support, and you couldn’t let these girls get to you. still, their voices echoed in your mind, making you feel smaller and smaller, it was hard to concentrate.

the second quarter was even more intense than the first. jake made some incredible plays, his agility and precision leaving the crowd in awe.

you could see the determination in his eyes, the fire that drove him to be the best. it was one of the qualities you loved most about him.

at halftime, the score was tied, and the tension in the stadium was thick. you got up to stretch your legs, feeling the need to clear your head.

as you walked down the steps, you overheard more whispers.

“she’s so pathetic. look at her, trying to act like she belongs here, walking around like she owns the stadium.”

“i don’t know what jake sees in her. she’s so..average.”

you clenched your fists, trying to hold back the tears. it wasn’t fair. you loved jake, and he loved you. why couldn’t they just be happy for you? why couldn’t they treat you as well as they treated jake?

you found a quiet spot near the concession stand and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm yourself and get yourself back together.

“hey, you okay y/n?” a familiar voice asked.

you turned to see one of jake’s teammates, mark, standing there with a concerned look on his face. he was a good friend of jake’s and had always been the kindest to you.

“yeah, i’m fine,” you said, forcing a smile at the sweet boy.

“just needed a break.”

mark nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. “don’t let those girls get to you. they’re just jealous, you know.”

“i know,” you sighed.

“it’s just hard sometimes.”

he patted your shoulder. “jake’s lucky to have you. we all see how happy you make him.”

“thanks, mark,” you said, feeling yourself cheer up at his sweet words.

“that means a lot.”

you headed back to your seat, feeling more reassured and comforted. you were here for jake, and that was all that mattered.

the third quarter began, and the intensity of the game only increased. both teams were giving it their all, and the crowd was on the edge of their seats.

as the clock ticked down to the final moments of the game, the score was still tied. the tension was almost unbearable, and you found yourself holding your breath with every play. jake was in the zone, his focus unshakable. you knew he could do it. you believed in him.

with less than a minute left on the clock, jake made his move. he dodged the defenders with a grace and agility that left everyone in awe. you could see the hunger in his eyes, the fire that was driving him the entire game.

he threw the ball with perfect precision, and it sailed through the air, seemingly in slow motion. the crowd held its breath as the receiver caught the ball and ran into the end zone.

touchdown.

the stadium erupted in cheers, the noise deafening. you jumped to your feet, your heart pounding with excitement and relief. the team had done it. they had won the championship. you watched as jake was lifted onto his teammates’ shoulders, his face beaming with pure joy.

as the team celebrated, jake’s eyes found yours in the crowd. for a moment, everything else faded away. he broke free from his teammates and ran towards you, his face lighting up with glee.

you met him halfway, running down from the bleachers, your heart racing.

the girls’ voices were still in your head, but they were drowned out by the sound of the cheering crowd and your own pounding heart.

when jake reached you, he didn’t hesitate. he lifted you off your feet, spinning you around before setting you down and cupping your face before kissing you deeply.

the world seemed to stand still as his lips met yours, the intensity of the kiss as the noise of the crowd faded into the background.

when you pulled back, breathless and smiling, jake looked at you with a lovesick look that made your knees weak.

“i love you, y/n!” he shouted, his voice carrying across the field. “i love you so much!”

your face flushed with embarrassment as the crowd erupted in cheers and laughter, spotting mark hooting in the back, making you giggle.

the girls who had been talking badly about you moments ago were now screaming in delight.

“they’re so cute together!”

“i knew they were serious, i told you guys!”

“girl what… you said that she was average-“

“when? they’re like a fairytale couple!”

suddenly, the rain started to fall, a light drizzle that quickly turned into a downpour. people began to scatter, running for shelter, but you and jake stayed where you were, oblivious to everything but each other.

the rain soaked through your clothes, but you didn’t care. all that mattered was the feel of jake’s arms around you, the warmth of his body against yours.

he pulled back slightly, resting his forehead against yours.

“you’re amazing,” he whispered, his voice filled with love and admiration. “no one's ever had me like this, not like you.”

tears mixed with the rain on your cheeks as you nodded, overwhelmed by the intensity of your feelings.

“i love you too, jake,” you replied, your voice barely audible over the sound of the rain.

as you stood there, wrapping your arms around his neck kissing in the middle of the field, the rain pouring down around you, you felt invincible.

it didn’t matter what anyone else thought or said. you and jake were so deeply in love, and that was all that mattered.

eventually, the crowd started to return, umbrellas popping up everywhere. but you and jake stayed in your own little world, holding each other close.

the rain was cold, but being near jake felt like sitting in front of a lit fireplace on a snowy winter day.

the championship game would be remembered for years, not just for the victory, but for the love story that played out in the rain.

you and jake were the high school sweethearts everyone envied, the couple that defied the odds and found happiness in each other.

as you walked off the field hand in hand, you knew that this was only the beginning of your story together.

the days following the game were celebrated with school spirit.

everywhere you went, people congratulated you and jake. the story of your kiss in the rain had spread like wildfire, turning you both into the most talked-about couple in school- and even reaching other schools.

despite the newfound attention on you, jake never wavered in his devotion to you. he held your hand proudly in the hallways, kissed you in front of everyone, and made sure you knew how much he loved you.

the girls who had once whispered cruel things behind your back now looked at you with a mix of envy and admiration.

a week after the game, you and jake found yourselves sitting on the bleachers after school. the field was empty, the stands quiet— a noticeable contrast to the noise and excitement of game night.

jake had his arm around you, and you leaned into him, savoring the peaceful moment.

“do you ever think about the future?” jake asked, breaking the comfortable silence.

you looked up at him, his face serious but his eyes filled with warmth. “all the time,” you replied.

“what do you see?” you say with a gentle grin.

he smiled, a soft, almost wistful smile. “i see us, together. graduating, going to college, living our lives... getting married, i can’t imagine any of it without you.”

your heart swelled with the emotion of pure love.

“i see the same thing,” you whispered, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes.

jake leaned down, kissing you gently. “we’re it for each other, you know? no matter what anyone says to you, you’re it for me.”

you nodded before cupping jake’s face and kissing him softly, as the sunset had faded into a dark field illuminated with the stadium lights,

you knew with your whole heart that jake was it for you as well, even though you two were complete opposites.

© won4kiss 2024

taglist open <3 @luvlyhee @sjyunnsworld @shawnyle

send an ask or lmk in the comments if u wanna be added !! <3

[probablyasocialecologist]

While maintaining that “for some, the best outcome will be transition,” it nevertheless effectively recommended that the N.H.S. abandon the guidelines embraced by major mainstream medical associations and restrict the use of medications that have been offered for decades to adolescents across the globe with vanishingly few negative side effects or regrets. The reason, the report says, is that these treatments are insufficiently supported by reliable, long-term evidence. Then, remarkably, the report recommends treatments — psychological treatment and medications for depression and anxiety — that have even less proof behind them in helping children (or adults) with gender dysphoria, though they may help with other mental health issues, and many children with dysphoria already get these treatments. And for all its insistence of evidence, the report is peppered with mere speculation about the potential causes of gender dysphoria: pornography and the phenomenon of social contagion are invoked, with zero credible evidence to support them. It is a strange document. Social conservatives welcomed the report. But it has also been heralded in some liberal quarters in Britain, where even the Labour Party has supported its conclusions, and around the world as a model of open-minded rationalism, of well-intentioned — progressive, even — unbiased scientific inquiry attempting to provide information in young people’s best interests. This, they declare, is what following the science and the evidence looks like. But is it? In an effort to evaluate the Cass report’s findings and recommendations, I spent the months since it was released poring over the document, researching the history of transgender medicine and interviewing experts in gender-affirming care as well as epidemiologists and research scientists about the role of scientific evidence in determining care standards. What I have come to realize is that this report, for all its claims of impartiality, is fundamentally a subjective, political document.

[...]

A great deal of the media coverage of gender-affirming care in the West has painted a picture of huge numbers of children, some of them suffering from profound mental illness, rushed into medical transition, practically force-fed puberty blockers and hormones, then fast-tracked to surgery once they turned 18, based on unproven treatment and perhaps bogus science. But the report itself not only fails to show any evidence of significant regret among patients or other forms of harm; its own data also contradicts the notion of rushed transition. Of the more than 3,300 medical records examined as part of the review, about a quarter of children and adolescents were referred to an endocrinologist, which suggests a significant screening process. Indeed, on average, patients had more than a half dozen consultations before being referred. If anything, the evidence suggests a lack of care bordering on neglect, which is not surprising considering that millions of people are on waiting lists for treatment of all kinds by Britain’s crumbling health system. One of the most common pieces of feedback was that young people lingered on waiting lists, sometimes for years. A number of participants in focus groups convened for the purpose of the report said they felt that they had to “prove” to clinicians that they were transgender.

[...]

At one point the report posits that because a child has never had the experience of growing up in their assigned sex, they would have no way to know whether they might regret transition. “They may have had a different outcome without medical intervention and would not have needed to take lifelong hormones,” the report says, referring to children assigned female at birth. It is hard to know what to make of a statement like that. A person gets only one life; waiting to see how it works out isn’t really an option. To a queer woman like me, this is an ominous echo of something many of us have heard many times in our lives: Maybe you just haven’t met the right man yet. The wish — whether expressed by a parent, a teacher, a therapist or a suitor — is a wish for a child not to be queer. It is hard to find a satisfying explanation for these kinds of conjectures and conclusions in the report other than this one: Many people find transgender people at best unsettling and possibly deluded or mentally ill, or at worst immoral and unnatural. They appear to believe it would be better not to be trans. As much as Cass’s report insists that all lives — trans lives, cis lives, nonbinary lives — have equal value, taken in full it seems to have a clear, paramount goal: making living life in the sex you are assigned at birth as attractive and likely as possible. Whether Cass wants to acknowledge it or not, that is a value judgment: It is better to learn to live with your assigned sex than try to change it. If this is what Cass personally believes is right, fair enough. It can charitably be called a cultural, political or religious belief. But it is not a medical or scientific judgment.

13 Aug 2024 | Link

[transmutationisms]

when you say “positive / negative right”, what do those mean?

thanks for the good posts :)

a negative right is a claim to protection from some sort of interference; a positive right is a claim that the other party has an obligation to act in some way beyond just refraining from causing harm. for example, the right to free speech is generally spoken about as a negative right: it guarantees me the freedom from state intervention into what i can say. a right to health, on the other hand, would be a positive claim that i should be guaranteed access to things like clean air and water, health care, sick leave, &c.

in practice this distinction is actually much messier than i'm making it sound, and most 'negative rights' are basically meaningless without positive interventions, except in the fantasyland of libertarian political discourse. for example, the united states prohibits one human being from enslaving another (a negative right to legal and bodily freedom) but simultaneously engages in, and permits, incarceration with & without forced and un(der)-compensated labour requirements. the state is not actually granting freedom, and slavery has only been outlawed on a very limited and technical basis. another example is the right to abortion, which, prior to the dobbs decision, was legal in the us on the basis of a 'right to privacy' as established in roe v wade—a freedom from specific interventions in one's medical decisions. however, for decades the actual right to abortion was eroded by the us's lack of universal health care and paid time off, and by laws that became progressively more restrictive in terms of when in a pregnancy abortions were allowed, what clinics had to do in order to be allowed to operate, and what requirements patients had to satisfy first (waiting periods, ultrasounds, &c). in practice this meant that fewer and fewer people could actually access abortion, despite having, technically, legal protection from government interference in its provision. even freedom of speech falls apart as a purely negative right, because, as i've said before, most enforcement of speech limitations actually happens via economic mechanisms like the threat of losing your job—meaning, the operative issue here is not usually whether the state can directly censor me but whether i risk starving to death if a corporation disliked what i said. in other words, what makes my speech vulnerable is the fact that i live in a society that does not guarantee me food, shelter, and basic necessities as positive rights.

negative rights appeal to liberals and other reactionaries because they're framed as maximising everybody's freedom: your actions are only constrained if they risk impinging on me. however, in actuality what this means is that a right defended on 'negative' grounds is basically incapable of redressing existing social and political inequities, and instead upholds or even exacerbates the power dynamics already in effect. i am actually not a huge fan of 'rights' as a legal framework period, and i think a well-defended 'positive right' is really moving beyond the construal of 'rights' and into a more materialist and socially contextualist framework, but that's a different post.

[cambriancrew]

Trauma is not just "anything negative you experience".

The psychological term for THAT is stress.

Trauma is OVERWHELMING negative experiences, that you can't handle with your level of support, that leave a lasting effect on you.

Watering it down to mean "anything unpleasant or stressful" is unhelpful in discussions of trauma.

My biomom and favorite uncle both dying horrifically one right after the other when I was 10 was trauma. I didn't have a good support system to help me handle that. I was pulled out of school counseling by my dad and stepmom after a couple months because they thought I was becoming too dependent on it. (Like wtf seriously.)

Divorcing my ex was stressful, but not traumatic. I had an outpouring of support from so many dear friends, even as I lost a huge group of friends that were mostly my ex's friends simultaneously. It was tough, it was very stressful indeed, but I was able to handle it.

Can divorce be traumatic? Of course it can. It isn't INHERENTLY traumatic though.

Please stop watering down the meaning of trauma. Lots of things can be traumatic. Doesn't mean that all stressful, unpleasant, even horrible, things are inherently so.

Lots of stressful things can also even actually be pleasant - the psychological term for that is eustress.

[jojo-schmo]

hi jojo! im just wondering but ive been wanting to make a comic for a little while but im not too sure where to start 😅. i really love your style of art and your forgotten land roleswap, and i was wondering if you had any tips for beginners?

Hello, hello! Thank you for enjoying my Forgotten Land Roleswap comic, it means a lot! <3

I'm very honored that people have been asking me for tips and advice. All of this is coming from a hobbyist who draws these comics purely for fun outside of my regular day job. Some of my methods would probably deal psychic damage to a professional, LOL. But I'm more than happy to share some things I've personally learned! :)

First of all, the book, "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud ROCKS. It literally gave me a new dimension to understand the medium of comics and how it presents ideas and emotions to readers! And I haven't even had the chance to finish it all the way! I'm very happy I own a copy and I recommend having one of your own if you can, but it's archived here if you want to read it :D

I also like analyzing other comics and thinking about how they get information across to me as a reader. It's helped me learn more effective ways to visually tell a story, like what to include in a frame, how zooming in or out affects the feeling from the panel, maybe building a scene by focusing on other stuff if someone is talking a lot... etc.

ANYWAYS-! Some other tips I've learned through my personal experience-

I had to overcome a lot of negative self-talk in order to tackle a huge comic project like this and stay committed. I was a pretty severe self-deprecator for most of my life so far, and getting help has allowed me to catch myself when I'm slipping back into those habits, look in the mirror, and go, "NO, JOJO! You pour your heart into what you make and that is a wonderful thing! You are appreciated and loved and you deserve to have fun making something you are passionate about!!" Some examples of the negative self-talk I catch myself in....

"I'm a noob at writing and making a story interesting... What's the point of even trying?"

When it comes to starting a project, whether it's 2 pages or 2000 pages, is to just jump in and start! It's okay to be a little insecure or nervous about your technical art skills, writing skills, etc... But writing a "bad" scene is better than no scene- because you can always edit a "bad" scene down the line, but what can you do with nothing? Nothing!! I also put "bad" in quotation marks because I am trying to use that term less, and instead call them "early drafts." or "works in progress."

The first Roleswap scene I fleshed-out was the first Bandee boss fight, in May 2022. I made this drawing on an impulse, getting my ideas down on the page without thinking about the technical stuff like comic panel borders. I consider it like a "pilot episode" almost, haha. The final project is going to be very different from how things play out here. But it got me interested in the concept and excited to see where I could take it, and I made the decision to commit to an entire game plot's worth of AU comics!!

Also, what's the point in trying you ask? The point is to have fun! Making a fan comic in my free time means I don't have restrictions like deadlines, nobody's telling me what I can and can't write, and I can make the story as long or as short as I want! I have full control, which means the world I'm writing is all mine to create! Yes, with a fan comic there is a pre-established world with existing characters. But a universe like Kirby has enough open-ended concepts for people to take basic concepts in the world and take them to whole new levels! I think that's why there are so many amazing fan interpretations of Kirby characters and OCs. The rules are so vague, you can just make up your own a lot of the time!! And it's a wonderful exercise to learn skills for someday building an original world with all original characters from scratch! Magical!!!

"I'm not good enough to make a comic. I don't understand perspective or color and other stuff. Anything I make will look bad.

I once read a two panel comic on here. I can't find it anymore but I remember most of it. First panel showed the artist looking at what they're drawing on their tablet, looking defeated and sad. "Man, I don't even know how to draw this....."The next panel was like them smiling and shrugging, I think rainbows and sparkles were coming out of their tablet, ".....I GUESS I'LL JUST HAVE TO DRAW IT SHITTY!! :D "

IF ANYONE KNOWS THIS COMIC I'M REFERENCING, PLEASE TELL ME AND I'LL LINK IT!!! Because it permanently and positively changed my brain chemistry.

No kidding, making the decision to just do my best even if it's not perfect, helped me a LOT. I was always waiting to "reach a certain level" to tackle a huge project because I felt like I'd never do it justice at my current state. Except I had been telling myself that kind of stuff for years and I still didn't start any projects!!

So the day I said, "Oh well! If I draw backgrounds shitty, then it is what it is! I'll learn from it and draw the next background a little better," Was the day I could commit fully to the project. I'll keep studying how to draw them better for my own benefit, but I won't let my skill issues stop me from even trying!

And for my limited confidence in full-color art, I solved that by making the comic in black and white with no-to-minimal shading lolol. Because I can only address one skill issue at a time before it takes me 25 years to finish this HAHAHA.

It saves a BUNCH of time to work with skill issues rather than against them! Because at least experience is gained in other ways, and who knows, maybe that new knowledge will help address the skill issues someday! So identifying your personal skill issues and deciding which one to try to grow stronger, and which one to work around, could help with big projects!

"Nobody will read this. I'm going to put months or years of my life into a dumb little thing nobody will even care about."

Learning how to draw for my own enjoyment instead of somebody else's was one of the biggest breakthroughs I ever made. Enjoying the feeling of being challenged artistically and just doing my best, even if it's not technically perfect, is the reason why I was even able to start this!

And just because someone doesn't directly like, comment or whatever on a post doesn't mean nobody saw it! I used to get really down on myself for the lack of engagement on my art on other websites.

I was a lurker for pretty much my entire teenage years and never posted my own stuff or commented much. But that didn't take away the fact that I really enjoyed the things I saw online. Those positive feelings were real to me, even when I didn't know how to articulate it in words. Granted, I grew up into a Words of Affirmation main, and I use words to tell people the positive things I think about them as much as I can! But I know not everyone prefers words to express themselves. So I think about the people that I don't know enjoy my work- that just because I don't see it doesn't mean I didn't make a positive impact on someone by sharing my stories.

THIS IS GETTING LONG-- UHHH, STORY TIPS!!

If you work best on technology, start building the story in a Notes app, or a Google Doc! If you work best with pen and paper, start a notebook and rearrange stuff as you need to!

Or if you're chaotic like me, a mix of tech and paper!! I bought a notebook with ring binding so I can remove and rearrange pages of drafts as much as I wanted to! Like here's two very rough concept pages of one Chapter 1 scene made months apart.

I'd say planning out the biggest basic plot points and then filling in between as I went was most helpful! I also have separate notes for character motivations, important story-changing events, etc... So I can have my own reference when I'm writing new scenes!

Okay this was a lot, sorry about the yapping! Hopefully it helps even a tiny bit. If you have any specific questions I'm happy to talk about my experience in the creation process! Or elaborate on anything I said above.

And finally, because I'm not a professional there are probably plenty of other tactics that could work better for some people. My ADHD probably doesn't help with the chaos of my process either, HAHA. But thank you for reading this far and enjoying the peek into the rainbow glitter and soap bubbles that inhabit the right side of my brain, heehee.

[creedslove]

JOEL TAKING CARE OF YOU WHEN YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH YOUR MOM 🍓 - HEADCANONS

No outbreak!Joel Miller x f!reader

A/N: this is so personal it hurts, my relationship with my mother is terrible and today was one of the days she pushed me to the edge and I thought I was going to explode with negative feelings until I broke down and I sobbed. Also, just proving my point that my life problems would decrease by half if I were married to Joel Miller 😢

TW: Shitty mom

• Joel knows damn well the reason why people often tell mean mother-in-law jokes or why their reputation is so bad; and the truth is that it is not even because of the way your mom treats him, but because of how she treats you

• it just infuriates Joel at the same time it breaks his heart to see what she does to you; the way she's so manipulative and mean, the way she acts innocent after saying the worst things a mom could say to a daughter and pretend she didn't really mean that way, or you are overreacting

• and it absolutely shatters his heart to see that even after all the emotional pain she puts you through, he sees how you somehow look for her approval affection, no matter if he has already told you to ignore her, he knows it's deeper than that, it's just the result of a lifetime of emotional damage she's done

• being unable to help you more effectively, he does what he can: he holds you, he soothes you, dries your tears and reminds you you are more than what your mom says, he reminds you he knows you are telling the truth and that you aren't just overreacting, he knows that whenever she says "it wasn't that bad" it was indeed that bad and whenever she insists on saying that whatever traumatic experience she caused you she doesn't remember because it never happened, he is aware it left a deep scar on your mental health

• and even if Joel thinks this is not very effective at all, he has no idea of how precious and important this is to you, because it validates your feelings, it shows you you aren't alone, it shows that you are respected as an adult and overall as a person, it shows you that he loves you, the good kind of love, not the supposed kind of love that burns your mom insists on giving you

• Joel doesn't give a shit if your mom says she has anxiety or whatever other crap she uses as an excuse, no mental problem in the world gives anyone the right to treat another person, let alone a daughter, the way she treats you; it doesn't matter if she wants to pass as mentally unstable, he can see right through it, she is only unstable when it's convenient for her, so that leaves Joel with another adjective for her: cruel

• he knows your relationship with her has ups and downs, sometimes you are able to spend the whole day together shopping or just hanging out and having fun, but there are days she makes a living hell out of your mind

• and even if Joel isn't the most educated guy in psychology, he knew it wasn't healthy to bottle up these feelings like you often did, because sometimes you would explode

• and today was one of those days: something small suddenly became a huge thing and before you knew it, your mom was already screaming at you as if you were a child, making you feel worse and worse and all that rage you had bottled up exploded, because you were so tired of having to walk on eggshells, never knowing if you would have an easy day or if you'd have your mental health ruined again

• so when Joel got home from work, he immediately noticed something was off; you were sniffling and trying to hide your red puffy eyes, you were so sad and you'd completely lost your appetite and the moment he questioned you what had happened - having a pretty good idea of what you were going to say, you simply broke down and sobbed

• and at that moment he didn't think of anything else other than holding you into his arms, his body was so warm and comfortable and you felt relieved to have a grip on him, to feel his muscles, his beard, to smell his scent, everything reminding you of what a loving person really was

"shh it's okay darling, you'll be fine, you don't have to tell me what happened, it's gonna be okay, I'm here and I believe you"

• Joel whispered against your ear and simply didn't move until you broke the hug, seemingly to calm down for a while; and not only that, while you took the relaxing shower he suggested you to, he made you tea, because cooking might not be his strongest suit, but you take such good care of him, he wants to at least pay you back a small portion of it

• even after shower, he can tell the tears are easily going to spill at any minute, so he decides not to talk about it, instead, he suggests watching something to distract you, it doesn't matter to him if it's a movie, a tv show or that low quality soap opera you found on Netflix you swear you only watch it ironically but you got too invested in it, he just wants to see you smile for a bit

• cuddles all the way while you both watch tv, even if you're not paying attention because honestly why does he like to watch cars exploding so much? but the important thing is that you love Joel and you're so thankful for everything he does for you

• and to finally finish a terrible day, you both make love, not fucking, but making love. It's slow, gentle, sexy and intimate. Exactly what you needed, a full dose of Joel to make you feel better ❤️

____

[major-comet]

one of the things that’s most interesting to me about red vs blue

[and this is true of a lot of the shows i’ve watched over the years (here’s looking at you, star trek and rwby volumes 1-3), but i find it particularly true for rvb]

is that the writers seem to have very little grasp on what some of the most interesting and compelling parts of the show actually are, especially from a character perspective

so much stuff only gets kind of brought up, or honestly never even really touched on that would fully be enough to compel me as a character plot for an entire season At Least

like the whole “sarge is apparently some kind of robotics/surgery Wizard because not only did all of simmons’ cyborg parts not get rejected, none of the bits of simmons that grif now has rejected either. this is a medical miracle and it’s something about the pair that is almost Never brought up” thing. they barely even acknowledged that simmons has a whole ass robot arm, much less that grif is physically almost as much simmons as simmons himself is

or the “hey actually epsilon kind of just taking over as “church” actually has a lot of potential for body snatchers-esque horror that they never ever lean into” that i was talking about the other day

or how they only really explore the deeper effects of ai-human integration from a negative aspect - o’malley and the meta and such, but don’t *really* dive in on the effects it might have on a pair that works really well together. epsilon and carolina kind of get the closest to that, but even then it’s still pretty surface level. where’s the weird shit about a pair slowly becoming more of a *we* and those boundaries of human and ai blurring into human&ai in a way that feels not parasitic, but symbiotic? where both parties are not only aware of what’s happening, but perfectly content with it? like maybe i just have venom on the brain, but the ai are like the coolest shit burnie ever wrote and i feel like even though they drive the plot for huge chunks of the show they were barely explored. (i’m saying that delta and york should have had weird freaky mind sex. hello is this thing on-)

or the implication (confirmation? idk man it’s been a long time) that sarge may have been an ODST is actually a Massive addition to rvb’s underlying (and i think sometimes only dubiously intentional) themes of “once a soldier has outweighed their perceived usefulness, the government will not hesitate to cast them aside completely, no matter what they sacrificed for the cause, and this has negative lasting effects not just on that veteran but on society as a whole” that they do kind of sort of explore with locus a bit, but the implication that sarge was highly specialized and did a lot of particularly risky shit for the unsc only for him to, unbeknownst to him, wind up as a training dummy for soldiers perceived as “better” than him (and not even really that, picked explicitly because florida thought he would be totally harmless to the alpha) is INSANE and “sarge was an odst” mostly exists in rvb canon just as a joke but Jesus H Christ, man

there’s so much great material here that just got totally ditched for something else and it makes me SAD sometimes

[cdroloisms]

been thinking about post-prison c!dream again and i feel like ... characterizations of him after pandora smtimes can lean vindictive. and it's not like there's no proof for this being the case, lol, this man has quite a few angry speeches post-prison about getting his Revenge! and such, and obviously has Feelings about the whole being left to rot and be tortured thing. that being said, i think it's worth pointing out how what a character thinks they believe and what their actions show can have some...pretty apparent discrepancies, and i think that c!dream's stated desires to take his revenge as well as a "us against them, you're either with me or against me" viewpoint of the server as a whole don't necessarily match up with his behavior post-prison

for one, i think it's worth pointing out how often c!dream's anger in these cases is obviously emotional to the point of incoherence--it's often been stated that his speech in the logstedshire chase scene screams of projection in the midst of a panic attack, which, i mean? yeah? he's making assumptions about what c!tommy thinks and basically repeating what c!quackity said in that cell almost word for word and making the kill-and-revive-you-over-and-over-and-over threat that he definitely wasn't going to go through with (though, is kind of interesting retrospectively considering we know that he literally did that to himself). then there's his rant to c!sam in daedalus one which literally includes his threatening c!sam with c!quackity, a claim so absurd that c!sam himself points it out as making no sense. and then there's his speech with c!quackity where he says he's going to torture...las nevadas? as in, the country? dream that's. dream it's a country. it can't feel pain. dream.

in this, a clear pattern is established where a lot of these angry threats are...bluffs. hot air. even if c!dream is genuine when he makes these threats, they're really not plausible (like, uh, please tell me how youre gonna convince quackity to torture sam for you king.) and it's not like c!dream doesn't have a pattern of being A Whole Lotta Bark when you have him in a position where he feels cornered, either. but with this, there's a precedent that's established where c!dream's threats, particularly threats where he's literally just listing shit out like that, should be taken with a grain of salt. less evidence of true plans and more an attempt to bare his teeth at you until you back the fuck away.

of course, this in itself isn't enough to claim that all of his claims of more vindictive actions should be dismissed. that being said, across the board, when you look at c!dream's actual actions post-prison...well, the amount of actual revenge this guy gets is. very small. very small. in fact, contrary to what one might think due to his paranoia and the huge breach of trust that had happened as a result of the prison, c!dream actually seems quite willing to establish connections with other people--friendly interactions, even alliances to a certain degree. looking at the following list of interactions w/ people post-prison:

He immediately gives the axe of peace to c!Techno in Snowchester after they part ways at the Arctic Commune--though the lack of favors between them indicates that there's no real explicit reason to call on each other in the immediate future, he does show very clearly that their parting hasn't made himself unwilling to cooperate with c!Techno at all.

Punz is self-evident--he speaks with his ally and reaffirms that the plan is still on track (a plan made before the negative effects that prison had on his. uh .everything)

The aforementioned conflict with c!Tommy, where he makes a lot of threats in ways that seem like a pretty damn deliberate mirror of c!Quackity and makes no effort to follow through on, particularly in tems of the killing-and-reviving shit and keeping tommy in exile and whatever else he was saying there

The interaction with Sapnap, where he is clearly gauging c!Sapnap's reaction and flees shortly after things appear to grow in hostility, once again making overtures at a threat that he will never follow up on (even considering he could very easily follow Sapnap to find Kinoko and could as such attack it quite simply even with just, a couple flint & steels tbh)

An interaction with Eryn where he makes no effort to be hostile at any point, hiding behind his shield and then exchanging items when Eryn offers them. The entire time, c!Dream's actions are defensive and purposefully nonthreatening and at no point does he attempt to engage a fight--even when not asked for payment, he gives a valuable item in exchange. Clearly more an attempt to be friendly than any outright hostility, though he is also obviously wary.

Daedalus also quite self-explanatory--again, it should be emphasized that letting Sam go in any capacity with any lives is explicitly an act of mercy. Left alone, Sam would have died in the prison for good; he set his spawn in the prison, a fact Dream would've known when he escorted him out. He makes a lot of threats, including some that are quite incoherent, and at the end he kills Sam once and then escorts him out of the prison grounds alive. Interestingly enough, conversations in Daedalus also seem pretty explicitly from a perspective of trying to get c!Sam to understand him in some respects--like, c!Dream isn't seeking division here. Even in consideration of the fact that he needed to get the keycards, c!Dream's continued emphasis on trying to get c!Sam to see him is...interesting, in view of how much of what went wrong being explicitly because of c!Sam's betrayal.

He warns Bad and Skeppy away from the prison shortly after beginning to reside there on a permanent basis. He gives them quite a sum of gifts (iirc, a block of netherite and a totem of undying) despite firing arrows at them; even though he has a reason to be aggressive towards c!Bad as one of the prison guards (something both c!Bad and c!Skeppy point out) he makes no effort to kill them and outright gives them valuable items while warning them to stay away from the prison

scrapped lore, whenever it was meant to happen, was an obvious "revenge" attempt against quackity...which goes, badly. a clue into the State that he was in in terms of his revenge quests. also, whatever interaction he has with c!wilbur later, obviously c!Wilbur doesn't end up worse for wear physically from it.

In inconsolable differences, c!Dream is more preoccupied with keeping a "feeling" of power over c!Wilbur over taking outright control over the room and therefore complies with c!Wilbur's orders. He does attack, but despite having more than the necessary means to kill both c!Wilbur and c!Tommy while he's there, does not do so. Neither does he manage to keep them trapped in the prison, something that he absolutely could've done if he so chose. Instead, he values a (imaginary) symbol of his continued alliance with c!Wilbur over any kind of hostile action, imprisonment, or killing of either person (and explicitly values c!Wilbur's life over just about everything, there.)

In his interaction with c!Foolish, he's outright trying to get c!Foolish to consider him beyond what other people have said about him. He's trying to establish some form of an alliance and offers...well, quite a lot in order to have one (in order to have a five minute warning of c!Quackity's location. like, he's putting himself in c!Foolish's service quite explicitly here, offering to become his hitman or bodyguard). He's obviously wary, but also obviously trying to be friendly and largely interacts with c!Foolish by trying to establish a rapport, not by trying to threaten him into something or attack him in any way. Even with c!Sam, the amount of outright threatening behavior from c!Dream isn't all that large--mostly, he's being petty? You could make an argument about c!Dream's vague threat to c!Sam's island, but clearly Sam loses no lives from Dream in any interaction they might have after they leave the summer home.

I consider the whole interaction with c!Aimsey canon bc literally everyone was playing as their characters there--c!Dream outright goes out of his way to try and protect a total stranger here with no obvious personal benefit. He literally inserts himself into the conflict to try and prevent c!Aimsey's death, which is kinda wild for someone to do as someone who allegedly wants people to die on the server. He attacks (and even kills c!George) c!snf here, but it's all in a scene where they get distracted from their whole "blowing shit up" moment because they want to chase c!Dream, and c!Dream specifically uses very little melee combat here--a lot of ranged stuff, which is far from his specific specialty. Further, there's a scene in this fight where c!Dream is acting entirely defensively, backed up against a wall with his shield in front of him as c!snf attack, and at the end he just runs away--all behavior that doesn't seem to be about killing anyone or profiting from anyone's deaths in any way.

LN5, threats similarly nonsensical, and he dips as soon as things start going south. For all of his seeming confidence, he's not the one that continues the chase in an attempt to kill c!Quackity, and the fight evidently freaks him out considering how he ends up not realizing he's being stalked by c!Tommy and then hides in the prison for a solid while (while still being stalked by c!Tommy)

Despite apparently wanting them to decide who to die in the saw trap (which had a premise that is frankly, quite hard to believe), c!clingy are given the exact items that could've facilitated their escape. He certainly could've killed both or one at any point in time, even if he wanted a message to be spread to the server (something easily done with one guy)--instead, he monologues at them, then conveniently leaves so that they can get away (and they could've with the literal items he gave them if tommy didn't burn their food.) When c!Tommy returns the following day, c!Dream makes it clear he expected both of them to have gotten out

Despite being clearly unable to stand c!Tommy, blaming him for most if not all of his problems on the server, and outright saying to c!Tommy that c!Tommy would never agree to help him (after they had a shouting match literally one day ago), gives quite the sales pitch to get c!Tommy on the same page as them.

I'm probably missing stuff, but you get my point--even when presented golden opportunities to kill off a player post-prison, c!Dream doesn't take it. He outright spares c!Sam when he could've easily died from the Revengers' tactic. When meeting with strangers, he prioritizes establishing a friendly rapport with them through things like gifts over, in his distrust, treating them badly so that they're scared of him and therefore don't fuck with him yadayada. His behavior, instead of exuding an aura of anger and vengeance and vying for destruction, tends to send a message of trying to be outright unthreatening, please-don't-attack-me. He's not going everywhere holding his big fuck off axe, he's seeing a new person and ducking behind his shield.

Oftentimes, I feel like this quote is pulled or paraphrased from No Way Home to show how c!Dream has become distrusting of people, vindictive, post-prison

And if that means we have to kill everybody— and ev— everybody that doesn't wanna go along with what me and Punz have to say? Everyone that doesn't want to figure it out? Then, fine! You can be simple-minded and you can die simple-minded. But! If you wanna actually know what's going on in this world, and you wanna fix it, and make it the best that we can be, and live forever? Then they can join us.

And while I'm not saying we should dismiss the whole quote as just being disingenous bluffing, I think when taken into the context of post-prison c!Dream's actions (or, well, c!Dream's actions as a whole) as well as his actions in the finale itself (such as his appealing to c!Tommy in the next stream), rather than putting the emphasis on the idea of "everyone who disagrees with me should die," c!Dream seems far more preoccupied with the idea of trying to find people who are willing to work with him to "fix" everything. People who will help him make it so that they can "live forever"--a desire he expresses in the fourth finale stream as well.

like, it's not to say that c!dream isn't vengeful. he is. i mean, i'd say moreso than vengeful, he's angry--just like how a lot of his overtures at friendliness are so deeply rooted in fear. the prison made him angry and the prison made him scared, and the anger has to be repurposed into revenge because revenge is power that he certainly didn't have when he was on his knees begging for mercy. but far from being closed off and unwilling to work with other people post-prison due to his experiences in Pandora (which. would make sense. i mean. like, he was left in there, and tortured, and betrayed. anger and revenge and a general distrust towards everyone and a desire to destroy a world that condemned him would be very easy to understand in this scenario), i'd say c!dream's interactions with people post-prison scream of a general lack of a desire to actually go through with killing people. hell, he even revives c!tommy--c!tommy! who just killed him! who c!dream outright blames for like, basically ruining his life! when revivals are literally apparently destabilizing the universe!--shortly after killing him. generally, he meets people who are dealing with him aggressively with a desire to flee moreso than with murderous intent (in genuine finale 2, for example, this guy was sure more focused on running the fuck away than he was on killing either of c!clingy), and even moreso deals with other people on the server by acting defensively and even in a manner that seems deliberately designed to get them to be more willing to work with him, or at least deal with him in a friendly way. despite his paranoia and how deeply pandora cut as a betrayal and his obvious wariness towards all people as a result (there's hardly a single interaction on the list above, after all, that doesn't have c!dream's obvious fear of people leaking all over the damn carpet), he seems to be much more focused on the idea of finding possible allies than he is on the idea of killing everyone possible.

which, i mean, makes sense. as he himself states:

[hwnglx]

he had so much to say, and has such self-degrading tendencies that even his green flags came out tainted in this negative light.. so the lines were a little blurred ㅜ

wonbin's real personality behind the scenes

based on tarot. i do not know these idols personally. energies are always changing. what i say is NOT straight fact. pls take it with a grain of salt!

+ so, very early into the reading, i got this vibe of a “protected child” who's been thrown out into the real world, and is trying his best to find his way and place. wonbin has quite pure energy, he's someone who's kinda obsessed about constantly doing what people expect of him, or want him to do. he's so incredibly focused on always meeting people's expectations, that he's still not entirely sure of who he is beyond that; his “true” self persé. his personality is basically the result of what others want him to be, need him to be or see him as. (his energy somewhat reminds me of a more emotional young jk) he sees his own self in the eyes of others, meaning people's opinions have a huge effect on his self-image, which can become a little unhealthy for someone in the public eye, who's out there left vulnerable to be criticized by the audience left and right. he has so so much pisces and libra energy in him, it's crazy. if you asked wonbin “what are your strengths?” it's likely he'd ask what you think his strengths are, and nod his head saying “yeah, that's probably right.”

interesting thing is, he has an abundance of drive and determination. a lot of achievements he's aiming for, so much ambition. but he's very worried about coming off too strong to people. his own “selfish” desires, which basically everyone has, can weigh on him because of this. he doesn't wanna overwhelm anyone, or have anyone think he's too greedy.

wonbin is honestly, one of the few energies i've read for now, who seems to genuinely care for the people around him, which is why he has the tendency to adjust his behavior according to other people's needs. i remember in the reading i did about riize's feelings towards seunghan, wonbin was one of the members who felt sincerely sad about the situation, and it made him look back on himself a lot. this seems to be a pretty good depiction of the type of person he is. i could see the members in this reading here as well, i just think he bases so much of himself on what he can do for the people that depend on him. he wants to be this figure of generosity and kindness, but he's still so.. scared of doing too much, people being bothered by him. i'm in his energy, and he's just nervous.

i'm also getting a lot of voices telling him how he should behave, how he has to be this star and main character in the group, how he has to be the stan attractor, and wonbin just suffers under that pressure, because it doesn't exactly suit his personality. he's very charming and attracts people easily, but he isn't boisterous, or someone who loves being the center of attention all the time. he wants to be comfortable giving others the spotlight sometimes. however, he doesn't wanna disappoint anyone, and truly thrives off of public validation, so.. it's just difficult for him to navigate it, i can feel him being caught up in a dilemma here.

he just seems like this young and clueless guy not even sure of who he is yet, being thrown out into an industry that basically forces a certain image on him, so now he's just running with that. he's like “oh, you want me to be the attractive and flirty guy? okay, i'll act like him then. oh, you want me to be the mysterious and quiet guy? okay, i'll become him then.” that's the energy he seems to be in right now. but, i can truthfully see this changing as he matures. his energy is very young still.

- he's just walking emotion. soooo so emotional. he can give off the impression of being emotionless, but there's an actual turmoil in his head. he takes things personally a lot, even constructive criticism can hurt his heart, which can make him insecure. he deals with a lot of insecurities behind the scenes, many thoughts and concerns about not being enough for people, not meeting expectations. he's an overthinker who's stuck in his head a lot, and can, as a result, make things worse for himself. create problems out of trivial things and dramatize situations in his mind, when from an outsider's perspective, it isn't nearly as bad. very anxious energy.

he can blame himself for many things, especially not living up to the person he himself wishes he was. he has this exact idea of the man he'd like to be (emotionally mature and intelligent, stable and dependable, grown up) and he has problems accepting his journey for what it is. like he wants himself to be at level 100 already, when it's a process, and only natural for him to be at like.. 20, considering he's still so young.

this seems to be a common trait of libra placements, but wonbin also has a habit of pushing down his thoughts and emotions a lot, avoiding negative situations. he doesn't always enjoy expressing himself. he's worried of it coming off wrong and people misunderstanding him. he is the type of person who can sound way more forceful than he actually wants to, just because he keeps bottling everything up and keeps trying to approach every situation peacefully, up until his emotions just come bubbling out of him in this aggressive manner. he doesn't have any bad intentions, but can give a wrong impression to others in this way.

i can also sense a certain struggle with fame he could be experiencing at this moment. it feels like the rose-colored glasses are fading, and fame is starting to become less appealing and “glamorous” as before, the harsh realities of it are making him a little uneasy. he might've expected and imagined it to be different, and is beginning to realize the shallowness behind the concept of fame. it can feel fake and superficial to him, not as fulfilling as its made out to be.

[underbootsociety]

RAMBLING ABOUT WHITEPINE:

I've had to stop watching this several times bc I was terrified of what's gonna happen next! Nothing scary even happens!

Spoilers under cut, if you haven't please please please do yrself a favour and watch this. It's well- shot, well- paced, well- scored. It's stressful, and has no jumpscares. (And also the main character is gd autism rep imo)

I'll use the term wp!Ivory to refer to her character, and just Ivory to refer to Ivory the creator.

Watching this video I stressed out alot, often I found myself thinking: oh god what if wp!ivory screws up oh god what if someone finds out she screws up oh god i don't anyone to shout at her and throw her out- [mostly me projecting my own autistic anxieties onto wp!ivory lol]

And this sense of stress and horror is enhanced by the artistry behind this video:

1. Shots are often wide with a lot of negative space, making the characters seem tiny, this sense of small-ness further enhanced by the high ceilings of the house.

2. The show is comfortable holding shots for a long time without cutting, giving a sense of anticipation by forcing you to pay attention to the details in the set design and sound design. These long shots usually have minimal dialog which makes it easier to notice:

3. The constant white noise in the background. It adds an uncanny disconnect from the world of whitepine, by subtly reminding you that you're watching a video. It also adds a sense of anticipation- an auditory darkness of sorts, where it's harder to hear other background sounds because of the white noise. And where there isn't white noise, we get Ivory's soundtrack [incredibly effective, fits the vibes so well.]

And of course there's the set design that enhances the above points 1 and 2- it's absolutely gorgeous, filling in as much detail into the interior shots as possible in (mostly) vanilla Minecraft [no small feat! Making small interior design details using Minecraft's huge block sizes is hard!]

And finally, the ending of the episode. Woof. The close- up tracking shot with a shaking camera following the staff all rushing out, the audio design, the voice acting... guh. Really excited to see how the rest of this plays out. Really hope Ivory continues this! or other creative endeavors!

TLDR: Whitepine is really good. It is thrilling, subtle, well- made art.

[mysicklove]

𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐌 // 𝐒𝐔𝐁! 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐀 𝐱 𝐃𝐎𝐌! 𝐆𝐍! 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

Warnings: Brat taming, biting/marking, fingering

Toga, for how adorable she is, is an absolute nightmare to dominate. But you should have know that the second you got involved with her.

She loves to push every button, loves to see how far you will go, loves to see your face contort when she's gone too far. She wants every ounce of your attention to be on her, no matter if its positive or negative.

Thus, you have to be strict. She needs someone who will watch her every move. Almost every word that falls from your mouth is command. “Stop.” “Keep going Himiko.” “Enough. Hey! I said enough.” “Cmon love, beg for it.” 

She doesn't have any room for leeway. You give her an inch and she goes a mile. So, it's easier for her to sit back and obey, her mind seems to wander if she doesn't. Goes back to ways to get more and more attention.

She bites. It's a huge problem the two of you are working on. Marking problem, she's too possessive for her own good. Even with the commands she somehow always manages to get you covered with hickies and bite marks. The league always made fun of you for it.

You wince as she digs her teeth into your shoulder while she sits on your lap. For the last couple of minute you have been ramming your fingers into her cunt. Moans and high pitches whiles escape her lips, and she's stares at you with hearts in her eyes. She had that look in her eyes, you should have known something was coming. 

“Himiko, did I say you could bite me?” You pull your fingers out and she whines, loud and dramatic.

“But it's so pretty! I love seeing my things all marked up!” She squeals with a massive grin on her face, a blush coating her cheeks. She begins rocking her hips to try to find your fingers again.

You sigh and run your other hand over the mark. Another scar most likely, but at least there was no blood this time. You look away from her, not giving her the satisfaction of your watchful gaze. “Did I say you could bite me?” You repeat, your tone more stern.

Silence. She shakes her head, smile dropping ever so slightly as she tries to make eye contact with you. She craves it. 

“Speak, Himiko.” You scold, instead focusing your attention on your fingers caressing her neck.

“No…But-” At the hint of complaint you begin to slide her off your lap and her smile falls completely. This has happened many times before, but everytime it plays a massive effect on her.

She tries to scramble back into it, but you stand up completely, not looking at her. She kneels naked on the couch, eyes wide and panicked. “I don't play with girls who whine and complain. Who dont listen to simple commands.” 

When you begin to walk away she clutches at your wrist. “Sorry! I’ll be good. I won’t whine and complain, I'll listen! Please just touch me!” You raise your eyebrows and turn back to her. 

She has to hide her smile when she meets your eyes again, the blush is not hidden though. You can see right through her.

But even so, you can't be upset. She always seems to be improving. The first time you turned your back on her she tackled you and threatened to murder you with a knife pressed to your throat. She realized very quickly that this tactic doesn't work, considering you aren't scared of her and are just as strong as she is. You refused to touch her for a couple of weeks after that.

Begging and apologies work. You give her a second chance, and that's it. She can toy and press your buttons, but after the first warning, she learns quickly that if she wants to feel good she has to listen.

So, you sit back down. Giggles and squeals come from the girl, which you don't even question anymore, as she crawls back into your lap. Your finger finds her hole again, and begins the repetitive motion of moving in and out. Maybe you were too forgiving, maybe you should have made her beg for it. But alas, you were feeling nice.

She shivers and rubs her forehead against yours with that wide almost eerie smile. You bring your other hand to her mouth, and she opens it for you. You run your thumb over her two sharp canines. “You are a lot of work, you know that darling?”

She giggles, knowing your teasing always is affectionate. “You love me,” She murmurs whimsically, her speech distorted with the thumb still running over her teeth. She licks the digit and you pull away with a small disgusted frown, while she laughs again.

You other thumb fingers her clit and the laugh turns into a whimper. You continue the ruthless pace and she gasps, a feral smile still plastered on her face. Her gaze falls back to the bite mark and you sigh knowing what's to come. “Can I? Can I please?” She whines, pushing her hips back into your fingers.

In this state, it was hard to say no to her. She was so cute like this, only chasing her own pleasure. “No biting, no blood. Only hickies, do you understand Himiko?”

“Yes!” She exclaims with a moan, before latching onto your neck, sucking and kissing the skin until it's red and bruised. You shut your eyes and take the girls ruthless mouth, used to this..

“I thought we were going to work on the marking thing.” You sigh, rubbing her hair affectionately, while continuing the pace that makes her whine and cry.

“B-But you are mine!”

“Yeah I know, but does the whole world have to know?” You mumble, trying to hold back a wince when her canines accidentally (or purposefully) graze your skin.

She tears away from the skin, face flushed and sweaty from the antics of your fingers. She has that look again, the look of a pure villain. Her eyes hazy and dilated, her mouth spread wide as she brings her hands to her face like a schoolgirl. You pause your motions.

“Yes! Should show the whole world that you belong to me! All mine!”

You can't help but smile back at that strange grin, that seems to draw you in. You lean forward and press your lips to hers. 

“All yours, my love," You mumble against her lips. She opens her mouth, and giggles.