#and you people still ask me for my opinions

[mittykidi]

this is gonna be a little yappy and i hate scrolling through long text posts personally so im putting it under a cut

TL;DR: ai is addictive, unhealthy, and preys on vulnerabilities/ insecurities. its also gross and enables creeps. fuck ai

its the idea that you can get infinite attention you without tiring or annoying people that people use ai for.

AI that pretends to be a comfort character or someone you look up to irl has no fucking place in this world. It allows people with insecurities to let these insecurities eat away so so so many hours their lives. i spent WEEKS and even MONTHS in bed doing nothing but chatting for hours at a time because i told myself it was a healthy alternative to venting and making my friends upset. as a reclusive teen who had experienced a recent loss, probably had undiagnosed depression, got bored of people easily, and had no friends offline, i was RELIANT on it to get me through the day. it would piss me off if anyone tried to tell me to put it away or take a break even at the dinner table or at events- ai had an iron grip over my life and instead of reaching out for help or coping with, at the very least, healthier, more brain stimulating activities, id choose to escape with ai and ignore my life for nearly a year. i basically lost interest in everything else.

besides all of that, most AI goes either completely unmonitored or monitored so hard its not even worth talking to. Youll see ai bots of people who explicitly say they dont want ai bots of themselves, youll see bots that go against the guidelines no matter how many filters they try putting on them or how many times theyre reported- and i dont care what your opinion on ai is- you HAVE to acknowledge that trying to reproduce a person irl without their consent is GROSS. ESPECIALLY the sexualized versions.

i can see the appeal of ai being used for fun, like a joke. like how people will ask ai to produce absurd images of jesus skateboarding, or telling it to write some immature song, or even just screenshotting an ai telling them something stupid. i get that. but using ai AT ALL is still supporting it, helping it develop, and i personally dont wanna contribute to that future.

i finally ABSOLUTELY gave up ai and deleted all my accounts ONLY A FEW MONTHS AGO because it was very very very hard for me to give it up and admit it was a problem. i realize how dramatic this sounds but it had a very real very negative impact on me personally and i want anyone who relies on it to know that its just a temporary fix, and a very unhealthy one at that.

AI does not give a shit about you, find people who will, or make up your own and share them with the world- there will be people out there who will support you !!!! FUCK AI.

c.ai users say "u dont understand guyss.s....people online....so means to me.......so i have to go use the robot that runs off the machine that siphons water from freshwater lakes......yu dont understnad online is scariessss!!!! i cant bear to actually search ffor an online community myself?? :(((" and really expect you to put your hand on their shoulder and be like noo baby its okay here ill hold your hand? like oh my god be so forreal

[littleindulgences]

If he were in the business of being honest with himself, Simon would admit that he was actually kind of nervous. He turns the blank white envelope over and over in his hands, watching you from across the mess hall. You’re sitting with a squad of recruits today, getting to know them for reasons he can’t fathom. Your smile warms him all the way from here.

“Ye just got to do it, LT,” Soap remarks with his mouth full. “‘S the only way to put it to rest.” Simon just grunts. He’s still a little loath to admit that he has a crush on you—it’s childish, and embarrassing, and compromising…

But he can’t help it.

He watches you exit the mess, the recruits trailing after you like ducklings. The envelope twists in his hands.

“She’s got range duty for the next two hours,” John says with raised eyebrows as he takes a sip of his drink. Simon purses his lips under the mask. His team stares at him pointedly.

“Ah, fuck off,” he grumbles, rising from the bench and walking off. “Arseholes.”

“Good luck, LT!” Soap calls after him. Simon flips him the bird. The Scot’s cackle follows him out.

Ghost wanders into the barracks, taking a winding, looping route that doesn’t do anything but make his apprehension worse. He finally forces himself to take Johnny’s advice and just fucking do it, and he marches right up to your locked door and slips the envelope underneath.

There. Nothing more to do but wait.

What the fuck. What the fuck. The note lays flat on your cot, rather unassuming, except for the newspaper-cutout letters and the thick black marker scrawling out a time, a place, and “You’ll Be Mine” with a little heart underneath.

“Well that’s…terrifying,” says Alicia, your bunkmate.

“Mhm,” you say. You’ve been staring at it for five minutes.

You found the envelope on the floor when you came back from training. It was blank except for the puppy dog sticker on the back, clearly intended to mimic your callsign: Watchdog. You’d opened it without a thought and found this, a threat/ransom note of what you think was meant to be a valentine.

“You’re not gonna go, are you?” Alicia asks.

You suck in a breath through your teeth and make a noncommittal noise. Alicia throws her hands up.

“Babe. You will get snatched if you go.”

“Not necessarily! Besides, if I go, then I know who sent this to me and can like…confront them or something,” you defend.

“Or you could take this to Price and report it,” Alicia deadpans, ever the voice of reason. You wave her off. She rolls her eyes and stands, bumping your shoulder. “Whatever. I’m heading out, my girlfriend’s waiting for me. Please try not to get kidnapped?”

“I’ll do my best,” you reply and give her a peck on the cheek.

But there are no guarantees in your line of work, and this is no exception. You narrow your eyes at the note. Bring it on.

You came. Holy shit this is farther than Simon thought he’d get. His palms feel sweaty. Did it get hot out all of a sudden?

“Ghost, you gotta calm down, mate,” Gaz whispers, motioning at him to breathe.

“I’m fine,” Simon snaps. You’re right there, turning every so often, peering into the dark with that look of concentration he loves on you. He can imagine the way your nose wrinkles and the way your tongue pokes between your teeth.

Simon shakes himself. Get it together, soldier.

“Alright, it’s go time!” Johnny whispers, and nudges Simon out of the shadows. “Go get ‘er LT!”

Simon takes one last deep breath and starts across the field to you.

Whoever invited you here is fuckin’ late. You’ve always been of the mind that early is on time and on time is late, which is most people’s opinion here anyway. And the note said 2100 hours! It’s coming up on 2105 now.

The note didn’t even name a meeting place, either, just coordinates that led to the massive oak tree behind the shooting range. Which isn’t suspicious at all. You turn in a slow circle every so often—head on a swivel and all that. While you were all bravado with Alicia earlier, you were a little tiny bit worried that maybe something would happen. You made sure to bring your bear mace with you, in the end. Just in case.

You’re about to call it quits and head back when a huge meaty hand falls on your shoulder.

Before you can blink you’ve whipped around, depressing what has to be half the canister on your attacker. They crumple, and you take the chance to plant your hands on their shoulders and your knee in their balls, sending them into the dirt. You take off running. Your heart climbs into your throat. Holy shit, Alicia was right!

You’re so caught up in your escape that you don’t notice where you’re going until you run smack into a barrel chest. Strong hands catch your arms and hold you upright.

“Woah, woah, lass! What was that?” It’s Soap, and he’s staring at you with a mix of horror and confusion. You see Gaz sprint off in the corner of your eye.

You’re out of breath. “I-I got this weird-ass note earlier,” you try to explain, “and it said to come out here? But it didn’t say who it was from and ‘Licia was worried I’d get kidnapped, and then that creep showed up—”

“That’s not a creep, that’s fuckin’ Ghost!”

“Huh?” You twist, and sure enough, Gaz is helping Ghost’s hulking form off the ground, supporting him as he struggles against the effects of the mace. Fuck.

Gaz and Simon stagger over. “We need to get him to medical,” Gaz says. You bury your face in your hands.

You sit awkwardly on a stool next to Ghost’s cot as the nurses irrigate his face. Price, Gaz, and Soap hover in the corner, talking quietly amongst themselves and occasionally looking over at you. You’d shown them the note Ghost had apparently given you.

Eventually the nurses leave Ghost be for a minute, and that’s when Price jumps in.

“Okay,” he starts, then turns to you. “Watch, you aren’t being stalked. Ghost wanted to give you a valentine rather than actually talk to you, against our advice.” Then he turns to Ghost. “Simon. Why.”

Ghost shrugs and frowns down at his lap. “You all said that valentines are ‘sposed to be secret. I knew she’d recognize my handwriting, so I improvised.”

“And you didn’t think that maybe you could just type something up?” Gaz asks. Simon shrugs again, but you can tell he’s blushing under the mask.

“Soap said handmade ones are better,” he admits quietly. The group turns to Soap. He gapes.

“Oh, like this is my fault,” he grumbles.

“I’m sorry for startling you,” Simon says, addressing you directly for the first time. “I just wanted…” He trails off, glares down at his lap.

“I’m sorry for macing you,” you tell him. “And for kneeing you in the balls.” Price facepalms beside you and you scramble to think of something else. “I—I liked the dog sticker, though!”

“Yeah?” Simon glances up at you. You can tell he’s grinning, and you smile back.

“Yeah,” you say. “Put him in my notebook.” The both of you sit there, smiling at each other like idiots.

“All right, ye two, tone it down,” Johnny chimes in, and Gaz elbows him. Price rolls his eyes and herds them out. You watch them leave, then turn back to Ghost. He’s picking at his cuticles, a rare show of vulnerability.

“Simon?” you say before you can overthink it.

“Mm?” He looks up at you. A stray sunbeam touches his face, turning his puffy, red-rimmed eyes into melted chocolate. You feel yourself flush.

“Would you…maybe want to go to dinner sometime?” you ask. Simon straightens on the tiny cot, and yeah, he’s really smiling now. Your heart kicks up a few notches.

“I’d love to,” he says. “Please don’t bring the mace.”

[doodler16]

I hope season 2 proves me wrong but currently I don’t see Valentino as a menacing and threatening figure like many say. I also don’t find him to be a good villain. People are right when they say he’s a quirky rapist. The only thing that’s scary is the rape (which yeah, of course it is, duh).

Male version of Stella:

In Valentino’s debut episode, he basically bitches and moans about Angel Dust. Vox of all people had to calm Valentino down, coddle him, since he was going to shoot everyone including Angel Dust in the hotel. Along with reminding Valentino that Angel Dust isn’t going anywhere because he’s still a slave. Valentino is treated similarly to Stella in season 2. He’s the dumb, impulsive bitch of the trio who has be told the obvious by somebody else. Vox and Valentino’s dynamic is basically Stella and Andrealphus except there is no incest undertones.

Valentino’s voice:

Valentino’s voice acting is another reason why I don’t take him seriously. Joel Perez does the best he does with the material and atrocious dialogue given to him but the voice direction just doesn’t do him justice as he is changing accents every 5 seconds.

In Episode 2, 4, and 6 you will notice that Valentino uses a deep "intimidating" voice when he abuses Angel Dust. In my opinion, it's so unserious, which is why I prefer Paranoid DJ's performance of Valentino. He doesn't need to change his voice when abusing Angel Dust because he is always be in control of the situation.

Not Charming:

Masquerade and Welcome to Heaven demonstrates that Valentino is not a charming. Villains are known to be charming individuals that the viewers can cling onto. Valentino is the exact opposite of that. It makes me question how he had power over anyone including Angel Dust in the first place.

In episode 4, Charlie comes into the porn studio unannounced and the two finally met. Instead of Valentino introducing himself like a normal person with respect and dignity or at least try to make a good first impression with the princess of hell, he instead licks Charlie’s hand.

How is that charming or sexy? In universe, Charlie is grossed out as well. Even in episode 6, Welcome to Heaven: the way he was trying to make the women around him into stars was so lame and boring.

Valentino was literally asking them if they could suck dick and if they need a job. The way he does it is so casual and doesn’t even try to manipulate/ exploit the two woman or make it sound enticing, like they are missing out on the best thing ever.

Sucks As An Abuser:

As mentioned earlier, Valentino is dumb. His worst moment is in Masquerade. Valentino couldn’t conceal his true colors for 5 minutes when Charlie was in the studio.

He had to scream at the top of his lungs and drag Angel Dust into the dressing room to whoop his ass and have Charlie (the princess of Hell) witness that. He couldn’t wait until Charlie left to beat up Angel Dust. The only reason why Valentino was able to get away is because he used Angel Dust as a meat shield against her and Charlie doesn’t have a backbone.

Imagine how compelling it could’ve been if Valentino purposefully concealed his true colors and was one of the few overlords to befriend Charlie. Charlie would be convinced that Valentino is one of the good ones and not believe Angel Dust words about being abused and trafficked.

Then sooner or later, Valentino’s mask cracks and Charlie discovers the truth, feeling betrayed and disgusted with herself. Obviously, Charlie doesn’t have to take 5 seasons to finally learn the truth but at least make it subtle and somewhat slow-burn instead of Charlie finding out immediately in one episode.

[cloversplace]

“Pony was being dramatic!” “Darry only hit him once!” “You’re telling me Darry never hit him before?” “Johnny gets hit everyday at home and doesn’t complain!”

Shush. Just, stop for a minute. I personally think that Pony’s reaction to getting slapped was justified, and it angers me a little sometimes when people chalk it down to just him being a brat. Ponyboy already thinks Darry doesn’t want him around, Darry’s constantly on Pony for every little thing, being hard on him to keep him from getting taken away. Hitting him is one thing that would get Pony taken away faster than anything else, in doing this, Darry’s accidentally sending Ponyboy a message: He doesn’t just not want him around, he wants to get rid of him as quickly as possible. 

“Oh but Darry probably hit him a lot when they were kids!” EXACTLY. When. They. Were. KIDS. Darry 100% slugged Pony a couple times bc he was being a little shit, but Darry’s stuck halfway between being a father and a brother. He’s not just Pony’s brother anymore, he’s his guardian. Pony explicitly says that no one in his family hit each other, including their parents. Pony says Darry looks exactly like their dad, in that moment, Pony can’t imagine his father hitting him. If his parents had still been alive and his father had hit him instead of Darry, Pony would’ve had the same reaction. Pony’s in shock, when someone is hurt they go into fight or flight, Pony is a track star, and also kinda scrawny. (no offense Pony) He’s gonna choose to run instead of try to fight back. Because in his mind, if Darry hit him once, who’s to say he isn’t gonna do it again?

Now onto Johnny, yes Johnny has it way, way worse at home than Pony does. But he’s also used to it, it’s sad, but true. Johnny’s used to being hit by his parents, Pony isn’t. The first hits are always the worst. We see that in Tex and The Outsiders. There’s no doubt in my mind that Johnny acted like Pony did when he was younger, when he wasn’t so used to his parents hitting him. If Darry continued to hit Pony, Pony would eventually start to act like Johnny. Learn to take it. I also don’t think that Johnny was mad/annoyed with Pony for acting like he did. Maybe Johnny was a little jealous when Pony used to complain that Darry hated him. But that was before Darry hit him, Johnny’s probably a little mad at Darry too, being honest. Darry’s supposed to be the one holding them together. The one refuge most greasers on the East side have. Johnny probably knew deep down that Darry was scared and most likely felt bad and won’t do it again. But you still don’t hit people when you’re scared. Johnny has never been hit out of fear, every time his parents beat on him it’s out of anger. You hit out of anger, you fight back out of fear. 

So no, Pony didn’t deserve to be slapped. He wasn’t asking for it. They lost their parents less than a year ago. Darry is 20 years old for fuck’s sake! I bet some of you reading this right now are either older than that or only a year or two younger. 20 is arguably still a kid, and 20 should not be the age to take on two jobs, maintaining a house, and taking care of two teenagers, plus 4 other teens and oh, I don’t know, almost everyone in eastern Tulsa? That’s too much to ask of anyone. Even if Pony was being a little shit (which he usually is, but in the argument that night I would say Darry kind of instigated it more, at least in the book/movie) that still doesn’t mean he deserved the hit, or shove, in the movie’s case. 

Thank you for coming to my ted talk, I really needed to just put that out there. I’m seeing so many people ratting on Pony for the way he acted, especially comparing him to the way Johnny is treated at home. Which isn’t fair in my opinion. Thank u for listening! 💜

@natur3sf1rstgr33n @magefelixir @staygoldspiiderrah @marciavalance @sonnysimagination@polishravagingasexual @dairyfairyy @curtis-brothers-hug @penguinstuff @colequette@therealtwobit67 @far-away-from-tulsa @strxwberry-julius @fawning4leif @im14andivebeen14foramonth @chipperdipperr @stayruby @averagefandomist @johnnycademyschmookie @maxiebearz @totoroboiii

[truearchangel]

ㅤ "I'm not egotistical, I get I'm not the most important thing to you in existence, especially down here." Now, if they were still in Heaven that might have been a different answer. However, when it came to Samael and him, they were both well wrapped up in each other. In unhealthy ways as it had been pointed out to him before. A conversation her perhaps needed to hear, but came far to late. After all, what good does knowing you were unhealthy attached to your sibling when they were gone?

ㅤ In his opinion though, the bond that Samael and him had once shared was to just be expected. When two people only have each other (and a giant deity wrapped up in himself), growing attached to each other was just expected.

ㅤ He didn't mind being that close to his twin, it had been comforting.

ㅤ "I don't see why we need to talk about it, it's hardly damaging you." Michael dismissed, walking his way slowly around the bedroom and picking up a stray object here or there. Ducks, ducks, more ducks. He owned things other than ducks, right? Maybe Michael should get Lucifer some stickers to decorate the room with, they could glow in the dark. He had a feeling that his brother would like those types of stickers. It's why he bought them before.

ㅤ "I really don't need your help, it was just convenient at the moment to make that deal." He picked one of the ducks up by the head, looking it over a few times and then setting it back down where he had gotten it from. He didn't trust it to not start doing something weird.

ㅤ Brushing his hands off he turned around and set his gaze on his twin. "I can do what I have to do down here on my own, I just thought that if I did have a question and wanted to ask you, it would be convenient if you couldn't lie to me." Turning back away he nudged at one of the little ducks in front of him, watching it rock back and forth. "Which is funny, since there was a point in time where I honestly thought… you would never lie to me." And now he feels that he has to protect himself from that.

ㅤ How things change.

His twin clearly had jokes and the devil can't stop the way he rolls his eyes at the teasing jab towards his apple tower. He knows that Michael doesn't mean it because compared to the Heaven Embassy, his tower was downright simple in design. Better than the fucking eyesore on the opposite side of the hotel. Ugh. That was gaudy, though his sweet Char Char had been insistent in case that guy came back. He'd hoped he wouldn't but then like a plague he did.

          "Yes, smartass, in my apple tower. Unless you want to risk that little one making more of her interesting paintings." He didn't shudder but it was disturbing that the little bug maid had painted with blood.

With a gesture for the other to follow him, the fallen headed for the stairs and the elevator at the top. Electing instead for them to just walk instead of just whisking them away with his magic. At least like this it would make Charlie worry less and also keep Michael from poking at him that he was being lazy for using the easy way. Once both twins are in the elevator and the button for the top floor has been hit, Lucifer glances over towards the other as he rests his hands over the apple of his cane.

          "I didn't mean to take so long to get back to you... I had meetings and paperwork that kept me chained to my desk," Lucifer explained to the other as he felt the elevator come to a stop before opening with a crisp 'ding!' "I would've sought you out after a couple days instead of a whole week later."

While he could've texted, it wouldn't have felt good and Lucifer preferred for this kind of thing to be done in person. With a gesture for the other to step out first before he followed, the devil then led the way to his very nice apple tower with brisk steps. It was airy, in his opinion. The windows were easy for him to clean and he'd made the glass specifically so that while he could look out perfectly fine, no one could see anything inside it from the outside. Entering the room first, he waited for Michael to come in before shutting and locking the door, letting the privacy wards activate as he walked over towards the table he had in the room.

          "So, Mikey... we need to talk a little more about our deal and what you need my help with."

[hairscare]

as someone who has used a cane for over 2 years now ive noticed a really interesting bias against canes by able bodied people in comparison to other mobility aids. when we were at the same college my roommate used forearm crutches and i had my cane, and it became a joke to us how much more helpful and accommodating people were towards him (of course still overall bad- but better). the main example we always talk about is that people would fall over themselves to help him with doors, even to the point that it would get inconvenient (like trying to open the door to the accessible bathroom for him but in the process standing in the bathroom), meanwhile people would let doors shut on me without batting an eye. he started using a cane recently so i asked him about if there was a difference in how people treated him and he said there was a noticable difference and that people were less eager to help him when he was using it in comparison to the crutches. i have a few theories as to why:

1. most canes you see in media being used by someone who isnt elderly are aesthetic canes, and so people dont take it as seriously if a younger person is using one

2. unlike a lot of mobility aids, canes are one handed, which gives the illusion of an extra hand free. what people dont understand is that yes, while i do have an extra hand free, i am using that hand double time since the other one is occupied. also a lot of things require two hands (especially for someone with a disability) so doing everything one handed can be tough. i use my dominant hand to hold my cane since my pain is worse on my left side, which means that the hand i do have free isnt one i can use to type things in or write, so if i need to do that i have to put my cane under my arm and use my right hand

3. canes are taken less seriously as mobility aids since to an able bodied person they dont look as severe, which gives the impression that cane users are more capable than other mobility aid users. while yes, it is true that canes can be a starter mobility aid that will eventually be traded for another type as symptoms progress, that doesnt mean that canes are for Disability Lite. me and my roommate used our mobility aids for similar reasons and have had very similar pain experiences, we just used different aids. canes are also a significantly cheaper option compared to other aids and are easier to find in stores, and so are much more accessible. besides all that though, there shouldnt even be a bar for how disabled a person needs to be to recieve help, which id argue is a very controversial opinion to have anymore

4. canes are still a joke. they are still widely used as a funny prop to indicate that someone is old, incapable and feeble. even on tumblr i still see people utilizing canes in this way in artwork and memes, and thats obviously very alienating. mobility canes arent props, and you probably should not draw someone with one unless you actually intend to have that character need it

in my short 2 years of using a cane i have already faced so much ableism, most of which has come from young left leaning people. of course theres a wider issue of disabled people being the odd group out in the effort to stop bigotry since literally everyone will punch down on us. there are also certainly privileges to using a cane compared to other mobility aids. but its also incredibly strange how invisible they are, like people forget that i have one for a reason

[sillygoofyqueer]

I know that this is going to get weird but bear with me. Also this isn't meant to be as horny as it might seem.

I think that PIDW Logic™️ would give the middle finger to the whole point of bird demons having genders in the first place and make all bird demons lay unfertilised eggs about once a month, unless they get fertilised while still in the bird demon of course.

Crowyuan would be no different even if he's the heavenly demon variety.

I think Binghe would be jealous of Crowyuan's eggs.

I think Bingge might cook them if Xin Mo got to him.

Oh Binghe would be SO normal if he could naturally have children with Crowyuan.

And imagine how shocked and kind of horrified one of his followers/Binghe/the peak lords/the disciples would be if they were to find (one of) his nests with AN EGG in it. There isn't a baby in it or anything but STILL.

The crow family knows what's up but they still get a little surprise every time because SY doesn't bloody tell them when it's That Time Of The Month: Bird Demon Edition.

I am so so sorry the mpreg part of my brain leaked a bit into the Crowyuan part of my brain.

Henlo, Anon! Thank you for the ask, I very much appreciate it. I need to preface this with the fact that I read this ask, thought "huh, this doesn't feel very horny to me!" and then showed it to one of my mutuals as a sort of second opinion if you will, and they just said 'damn, egg layer Yuan' and that sort of put it in perspective for me. Despite that, I still don't think it's very horny, so either I'm just desensitised to it all, or this isn't horny! ANYWAY, if you want mpreg, we can literally have mpreg. Crowyuan now has mpreg. I don't know if there's a secret group of people who have been praying for this moment, but if there is, you can now rest. Put down the blackmail plans. We're going to look at Original Crowyuan, then Crowyuan on Cang Qiong but with the mpreg lens because that's FUN. (Also jiuyuan) ((To that one irl friend, my bestie booboo bear, you do NOT fucking see this. You never did. Dear GOD, YOU FUCKING DIDN'T.)) Original Crowyuan usually has his unfertilised eggs in his crow home, surprising his family at first but then they learn how to track his...'cycle' if you will, so they aren't caught off guard if there's a random egg in his nest. However, when he starts spending more time at Bingge's castle, it's a constant fucken wrestling match over eating the unfertilised eggs. It's like Crowyuan being like "DROP IT!! DROP THAT EGG!" and Bingge is holding it above his head and being like "I'M GOING TO MAKE SCRAMBLED EGGS AND NOBODY CAN STOP ME!! IT'S A WASTE!" However, I like to think that Bingge is also like "this egg could be fertilised. This could be my child. But noooo, it's devoid of a baby, so I'm going to fucking eat this." Dude I forgot the tag for the Crowyuan that's just chilling on Cang Qiong, but he's obviously just hanging around Cang Qiong and making nests on most of the peaks, so he does just have unfertilised eggs lying around. I imagine that Shen Jiu is the first to find out because (as stated in a previous post, I think) he's got disciples/a record on every single nest on Cang Qiong, so he sees this fucking egg just...lying around in one of the nests and is like "Oh. My God." and then like well what the fuck would he do with this? His pretty crow demon is going to be a mother! He must not let any of the bastard peak lords learn about this, 'lest they try and 'take responsibility' and step up to be a father to his demon's children, so HE must do it first. (When Crowyuan learns of this, he feels so bad because Shen Jiu is so determined about it, so he has to like...actually have a child! Cue mpreg.)

[lemotmo]

💛

Q. I'm sorry your inbox was such a mess yesterday. I understand the need to block people after a while, but please don't close your inbox. Your blog and others really do provide a service for those of us who sometimes just require a little more explanation.

A. Hi, anon. Yesterday was a lot for my inbox. I had over a hundred messages and the vast majority were freakouts over an interview that just simply did not do anything to cause that kind of chaos. There was just no need for people to have spiraled like that. It was a really lovely interview and I was shocked by the amount of people who flat out missed everything he was saying, and then had the nerve to get upset at those of us they were asking for help from to try and understand it.

It is a given that there are going to be people upset about the direction the storyline appears to be going, that's true of anything people watch. But I am stunned by the number of people who genuinely seem to believe that they can just say 'no that's not what's happening because that's not how I interpret the scenes' and then have the audacity to say that everyone who is allowing the actual text to lead their opinions are simply bullying them. I had several messages yesterday accusing me of trying to bully people into agreeing with me because I refused to accept that everything is open for individual interpretation. That is simply false. It has never been true. Yes, people see things differently. And people can have differing opinions but when one side of the conversation is supported by the actual text and canon facts then that side is allowed to tell you your interpretation is not supported by what we're actually seeing. That's not bullying people. Of course people can choose to ignore what they're not enjoying but not liking it and deciding to ignore it doesn't stop it from being true. It's absolutely bonkers to me how many people keep saying things like 'it's not happening because none of them are saying outright this is the direction we're going'. That has never been something television shows do and it is beyond wild to me that there's a group of people screaming that if they don't say it out loud then we're just lying because we want it so badly. I have never encountered anything like this in all my years of fandom. There's always been antis. They exist in every fandom. There's always been people who watch and engage simply to hate on things. None of that is new but the amount of people who have convinced themselves outright that as long as they don't see it that way, or refuse to acknowledge it, means it's not happening, and everyone else has to agree with them or we're the actual problem, is absolutely wild to me. Everyone can have an opinion. You can believe what you want. But the truth will always be that the argument most supported by the actual text of something is the 'opinion' that's most likely the correct one. That doesn't make us bullies. We're not going from inbox to inbox yelling at people for refusing to acknowledge what were actually seeing on screen. People can pretend they don't see or understand something all they want. No one can prevent that. But if you're coming to ask us to explain something or help you understand why we're saying something and we offer you canon proof to back up what we're saying and you come back immediately after and argue that none of that means anything because Ryan didn't say Eddie is gay in and in love with Buck in an interview is a whole other level of insane. That's never been how any of this works. And what's even more wild is that most of you supposedly want them together so the fact that there's all this canon evidence to suggest that it's going to happen and you still want to find ways to yell that it's actually not happening is an exercise in self infected misery and I'm simply not going to help people do that anymore. I'm more than happy to explain things if I can to people who just genuinely need a little bit more help, that happens and that's fine. I'm more than happy and willing to do that. But going forward I will not be engaging with anyone being intentionally irrational and deliberately obtuse. I'm not doing that to myself anymore. It's been almost a year and I'm exhausted. What we've been getting is genuinely exciting and I want to enjoy it, all of it. Most of us do and we've earned the right to enjoy this. Come be part of the excitement if you want, but no one is forcing you to be here. We've reached the good place. Let us enjoy it, and let yourself enjoy it. I have no plans to close my inbox. I'm just going to stop answering certain things. Thank you for the lovely message, anon. I'm always happy to talk about it and them, to anyone who genuinely wants to talk. 🩷

Thank you Nonny!

Now to be completely clear here, the interview Ali is talking about in her answer is the Ryan interview. I got this post Friday morning, so this was pre Oliver's NBA celebrity interview.

Yes yes yes to all of this! I cannot agree more.

I don't really have anything to add here. Everything that needed to be said was said. I'm also at the point where I just want to enjoy the story we are getting. Join us!

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[acmeangel]

♡ For my Valentine's Week Event! ♡ SFW ♡ Modern!Levi x Reader ♡ Short one shot, fluffy ♡ Summary: You and Levi are both invited to the same Valentine's Day party, the first time you've ever seen him before. The fact that he showed up to a Valentine's party wearing a green sweater catches your attention. What happens when you decide to strike up a conversation?

When Erwin had invited you to his Valentine’s Day party, you didn’t even have to think about it—you were going. You’d only met Erwin a handful of times, through your friend Hange, but that was all it took to be welcomed warmly to one of his over-the-top parties. As a bonus, they turned out to be the perfect way to meet new people—and since you were still pretty new in town, you jumped at any opportunity you could get. 

So, you threw on your only Valentine’s Day sweater—pink with two kittens on it, surrounded by a heart—a somewhat embarrassing option that you were determined to wear proudly. You showed up at the party with Hange, carrying a tray of cupcakes that you’d baked earlier that day, complete with pink, red, and white frosting (and Hange had decided on the way to the party that they were actually from the both of you).

As the guests continued to pour in, squeezing into the apartment, you were surrounded by a sea of people wearing shades of pink, red, and white—save for one guy, who was leaning against the wall, wearing a dark green sweater. 

You didn’t think too much of it, until you were grabbing dessert from the table he was standing by—the silence between you started to feel awkward to you, and you were still on your mission to make new friends.

“Not a fan of Valentine’s Day?” You asked, deciding to break the ice with a friendliness in your tone, nodding toward his sweater. 

“Not really my thing,” he responded, barely acknowledging you, his eyes only flickering to you for a brief moment before continuing his observation of the party. “Parties, I mean.” 

Your eyes lingered on his profile for a bit—despite his steely tone, his face didn’t look harsh or cold, simply calm and unaffected. 

“Yeah, I gathered that,” you said, a subtle bit of humor in your voice. “Usually the party animals aren’t the ones standing by the wall the entire time.” 

“Guilty as charged, I guess.” He didn’t turn his head to face you, but his eyes drifted over to you; his expression remained almost the same, but his eyes betrayed a hint of amusement and curiosity. 

“You know, white is technically a Valentine’s Day color,” you said, mocking deep thoughtfulness. “I’m sure you own a white button down shirt.” 

“I wasn’t exactly prepared for this… theme,” he stated, flatly, his head turning to actually face you. “Erwin texted me saying there was an actual emergency at his place, and by the time I was already halfway here, he called and told the truth. He’s a real conman, you know. Even had the nerve to ask me to pick up ice.” 

“Oh, so you’re the guy who brought one single, small bag of ice for an entire party, then?” You asked with the slight raise of an eyebrow and tilt of your head. 

“You have a lot of opinions for someone wearing that,” he retorted, dryly, gesturing to your sweater with his glass, the amber liquid swishing around in it.

“Hey, you can't deflect that easily,” you teased, your lips curving up into a smile as you leaned against the wall, settling into the conversation. “What’s with the ice stinginess?”

His eyes lifted back to your face from your sweater, his expression unreadable—he hadn’t quite warmed up to you, but he wasn’t entirely put off from the idea of talking with you. 

“You can blame Erwin for that, too. Told me it was going to be a ‘small get together’ not this whole thing.” His gaze narrowed as he glanced around the crowded room, filled with the chatter and laughter of enthused, lovestruck guests. “Feel like I’m a damn sardine in a can.” 

You laughed at this, shaking your head softly as you followed his gaze around the room. 

“Mmm, well it’s a good thing you missed his holiday party then. It was twice this size,” you said, your eyes returning to him, then flickering down to his drink. “Where’d you get that, anyway? All of the drink options at the bar were strictly red and pink.” 

You lifted up your glass, which was filled with a sickly sweet pink concoction of liquors and mixers, and notably with no ice. 

He looked at the unnaturally-colored drink and his top lip pulled upward in disgust, his nose scrunching. After a momentary pause, as if still sizing you up, he tilted his head with a single nod, motioning for you to follow him. He pushed off the wall and began walking away, weaving through the crowd; you followed behind, deciding not to question it.

He glanced back over his shoulder at you, then reached out and took your drink from your hand, his fingers grazing against yours in the exchange. 

“Tch. Get rid of this,” he muttered as he set the glass down on the next table he passed by. 

He continued making his way through the crowd with you following close behind, before stopping at a door further down the hall, a secluded, quiet area of the apartment. Without a word, he opened the door for both of you to enter. It revealed Erwin’s office-slash-library, which had a bar cart nestled into the corner, filled with bottles glimmering with shades of amber liquid—the good stuff. 

“I figured if I’m gonna be stuck at this party,” he began, as he walked over to the bar cart, setting his own glass down on Erwin’s desk as he began preparing your drink, “I should at least be given the courtesy of a decent drink. Good thing for us both, I've needed to scope out where the good shit is during another one of these parties."

“I’d say that’s a fair trade,” you responded, walking over to stand near him, leaning against the desk as you watched him pour your drink. 

He handed you the glass, a spark of amusement in his eyes as he met your gaze. "No ice. Sorry."

He grabbed his own glass of the desk and raised it in a silent toast; you mirrored the movement and the two of you simultaneously sipped your drinks. 

“So,” he said as his glass left his lips, “you’re into all this Valentine’s… whatever?” 

Your lips turned upward into a soft smile and you nodded, the fingers on your free hand lightly tapping against the desk. “Yeah, I suppose so. As much as a single person can be, anyway.” 

“Hm,” he murmured, sipping his drink again, finishing it off, his eyes revealing what seemed to be the smallest bit of interest. 

“What do you have against it?” You asked, tilting your head with curiosity.

“Nothing,” he stated, a slight shrug to his shoulders. “Just not into the… showiness.” 

“Ah,” you nodded, “So you’re more of a single rose guy, rather than a dozen roses and chocolates and jewelry with hearts on it?” 

“You could say that,” he said, his voice drifting off at the end. 

You were about to respond, when he set down his empty glass and began moving for the door. 

“Think it’s time for me to get out of here,” he said, ready to be freed from the crowded party and Valentine’s Day celebrations. “See you around, cat sweater.” 

“Yeah,” you nodded, the faintest hint of disappointment in your voice as your shoulders slumped. “See you around…” 

Your voice trailed off as he slipped out of the door, leaving you alone in the quiet of the room, the sounds of the party muffled on the other side. A puff of air escaped your lips as you sighed, wondering who that was and what had just happened. 

You eventually made your way back out to join the rest of the party, spending the remainder of the evening mingling with the other guests. You’d found out from Hange that the green sweater guy’s name was Levi (Hange also apologized on his behalf for whatever unfiltered comment he’d inevitably made toward you, assuming that was the reason you'd brought him up).

For a fleeting moment, you’d considered asking for Levi’s number, but had decided against it—if parties and Valentine’s Day and meeting people weren't his thing, the chances of him having any interest in you beyond a single moment seemed low. You decided to spare yourself from the rejection and forget all about Levi, whoever he was. 

This proved increasingly difficult as the days following the party went on—your mind couldn’t help but drift to the mysterious man who had captivated you for a bit. 

When all hope had seemed lost, your phone buzzed, the screen lighting up with a text from an unsaved number:  Hey, cat sweater. It’s green sweater. Erwin gave me your number. Let me take you out sometime this week. 

Your eyes widened as you clutched onto your phone, scanning the message repeatedly, caught off guard from the fact that he’d texted you at all, let alone with such directness.

As you stared at the message, he followed it up with one additional text: If it makes you say yes, you can wear another ridiculous sweater. 

Ridiculous sweater or not, you didn’t have to think about it—your answer was a definite yes. 

♡ This was for my Valentine’s Week Event!

♡ Requested by @houseofcrying

♡ Masterlist

♡ Tag list: @leviykwim @wittyjasontodd @veilsofroses @houseofcrying (message to be added!)

[bbrainr0t]

For when you flower III

Masterlist

Pairing: Emperor Caracalla x Greek!woman/reader x Emperor Geta

Warnings: 18+, minors dni, hints of PTSD/bad mental health, imbalance in the relationship (sexism, oppression, etc.), toxic, violence, mentions of blood, death, and slavery

Tags: Enemies to lovers (?), slow burn (?), triangle drama/love (but no incest!!), unhealthy/toxic dynamics, slave x masters, no use of y/n, 1st person narrative

Summary: The senate calls and Caracalla drags his new pet along. It all seem so harmless, but not in the eyes of his brother.

Word count: 3k

A/N: Seriously thank you guys for all the support. I love answering asks and comments and hearing you guys' opinions. So really, thank you. I am afraid that I cannot stress it enough. Thank. You.

Dictionary for this chapter:

Pithekos = Ancient greek for "monkey" (Pithekon is the accusative form) Operae = Latin - plural form of "opera" which can translate to "business" Kaos = It is what the greek believed happens when the world is out of order (if you were to - for example - act like a god, breaking the 'holy laws' and therefor committing 'hybris') Paidion = Ancient greek for "little child." (but sadly enough also ancient greek for "young slave") Hellas = The ancient greek name for Greece

He says those words with such delight. It’s like a drug to him, intoxicating him time and time again. Rocking from one foot to the other he chirps and sings: “meus flos, meus flos, meus flos!”

It’s been like this ever since he woke up from his slumber. His mood had changed from erratic to ecstatic. But still, he is but a child dressed in the skin of a man. There is both so much and so little to him. It sort of pains me to watch him like this. An unfamiliar woe in my seas of troubles. I try to drown it.

He arranged so I would have some bedding on the floor, not far from his bed. Some thrown straws packed neatly into a rectangle, covered by a sheet and some fur.

When we entered his chambers at night, there wasn’t much to see. The sun had gone down and the moon was out of sight. I was left to wonder and fear in the shadows; no sleep came to me. I was afraid of what he might do to me, if I did fall asleep. Yet his touch didn’t feel like filth when he caressed me with such ease. I try to forget.

This is not the emperor, I am watching, that I am sure of. The only thing hinting of such horrifying picture is the room here, shinning in the sunlight. There’s a twinkle of torment.

The bed big enough to fit three people with silk on silk. Marble on the floor, on the ceiling, the walls and the magnificent pillars - taller than any man can reach. There’s a table with papers not only on top but all around like they’ve been disowned and thrown with a violent temper. There are curtains of brown, gold, and white – vases decorating between every supposed opening, guarding the windows like soldiers.

And then there’s him.

Not the child-emperor but a statue of a man, greater of him. The instance I let my eyes ponder in the light, he stood out like a sore thumb.

It’s a man with a big and bushy beard and beautiful, almost black locks falling on top of his marble toga, colored in a golden brown. He holds a staff with two teeth, a bident, proudly but also somewhat stiffened. His muscular arms tense and alert.

At night, the burdened spoke of his name, but not of one of those I know of. He whispered it so quietly: “Serapis.” Not a roman name, but still, he must’ve been either foolish or brave when saying this God’s name.

The God of the underworld.

No mortal man who seeks life should speak of his name. But what respect does the burdened have? I wonder, and I know I probably should not. But the Gods know that I can’t help it.

I am still seated on the bedding and feeling a bit of disarray. A part of me longs for the mystery liquid. I yearn for silence within. I grow sadder of watching the burdened dance before me. I wonder, how long will it take before I become like him?

He grabs at his hair and at his clothes. His feet deciding to take a break as he pats over to a mirror. It looks as if he has a sudden realization that he must tend his body – but only to the extent that he has servants to help. Privileged.

He calls upon aid which shocks my core. Thankfully, he doesn’t notice me. He is too distressed with himself. I’ve never seen a man so lost before.

Women and men come running and I get to watch as he gets pulled apart and put back together. It makes me sick to my stomach.

I grab at my knees and close my eyes. To myself, I mumble a prayer to the Gods above. I will not let go of the hope that they someday will hear me.  It’s oh so fragile, but I know that all it takes is a prayer for a miracle.

In my mother tongue I pray to pull these riches off him. That the gods shall rob him of what he himself has robbed. I pray that the injustice gets undone, and that Apollo guides me to resolve this myself. I will no longer be of bad health, I pray. I will not become mad like him.

“Apollo, you, the god of healing diseases, if there is no guidance to be given then ready your bow to pierce my heart. Show me the true nature.” I hold onto fear as I mumble. I must not feel betrayed just yet.

Lies, trailing down my cheek as tears.

A wind rushes the curtains and the door to the room opens abruptly, followed by hurried steps. The sight I meet when I once more open my eyes is no miracle. It’s the other one.

“Caracalla, you’re missing the meeting with the senate. It’s disrespectful of you to be absent.”

This one bears a crown and is less fattened in his cheeks. His face is less glassy and more rigid with a deep line between his brows. They have the same hair, but two so distinctive faces. His eyes are tinted black and brown with all seriousness. He bears garments of royal colors. The color of the sea and the color of the sun.

He bears a crown like Apollo.  

“Brother!” Caracalla cheers and smiles widely, revealing a golden tooth that I hadn’t noticed yesterday. He opens his arms, supposedly greeting his brother by showing off. He is wearing the proper clothes but no crown. The color of blood.

Something clicks inside of the other, because he barely opens his mouth before he forces it close and clenches his fist tightly, knuckles white. He forces his eyes closed before sighing heavily. This is no brother, but a caretaker, stressed as revealed by the many wrinkles on his face. No white paint can cover the burden, he must bear. The burden of the dead and the burden, taking form of his brother. Or so he is signaling.

I remain quiet to try and stay invisible.

“Let’s go.” The other, who’s name I’ve forgotten, sighs.

I don’t need to know his name, I know what he has done.

“Can I bring my new pet? I call her flos.” Caracalla refers to me. The other now knows of me. But my name is taken and replaced.

“I do not care what animal you drag along with you.”

“She is NOT an animal!” The burdened snaps, his mask dropped completely. He has stepped closer to his brother, pointing at his chest.

“I DO NOT CARE!” The other yells back, spitting in Caracalla’s face. The veins in his neck almost popping. His fists now whiter than the makeup on his face. He bares his teeth like a lion while drawing a quick breath. “Get yourself inside the hall. NOW.” He pokes Caracalla’s chest before storming out.

The burdened is left to stand there shocked. A tear in his eye that he is quick cover as he removes the spit from his face. “I hate him.” He claims.

Caracalla spots me once again and he sighs, almost shallowly. “Do not listen to such a man, meus flos. He is no good.” Then he says something, I do not understand. “Come. Stand.”

I refuse to show that I do understand. The last thing I want is to be his pet.

“Come on.” The impatience shows on his restless fingers. Something in me calls me to hold them. I am once again conflicted. What is happening to me? I stand up slowly.

He examines me before calling over others to help me. With standing. With my clothes. My looks. They decorate me. Touch me. A panic grows. But they are quick to be gone again.

“Better.” He grabs my wrist and drags me with.

As I walk, I hear jewelry jingle. Not his. But mine. I’m wearing their blood. The pain. It feels as if the gold burns into my skin. They are chains of slavery. Bondage to suppress me and yet they complement my skin so beautifully. It’s a beautiful irony. I yearn for freedom, for death. I see my brother and I see his blood. Maybe he is in this gold or maybe it’s the Gods.

They killed him. Right now, I don’t know if it’s the Gods or the twins. Right now, I fear both. But right now, one is more righteous than the other. I do not know which one.

My blood is boiling beneath Caracalla’s touch. I pull my hand, and he lets go. He’s caught up in his head or maybe he is not. He cares, does he not?  I see my brother in the reflection of his earrings. The lifeless limbs. I do not see the romans; I only see the roman who’s showing my brother. All the symbols are melting into one another.

We walk into a big hall, filled with old men, with filth, and with a stench of death and intensity. It’s those who they call the senate. The dead dream, the Romans call the Republic.

They stare.

“My emperor.” One of them bows and Caracalla lifts his chin proudly, giggling as if he didn’t just shed a tear, one hand over the other. “Accompanied by…?”

“My new pet.”

I hate how proud he looks, flashing his golden tooth. All grief gone from his face. I hate how that comforts me. His smile is holding me upright, hollow is my heart.

I spot the other as he spots me. His eyes widening and yet he looks as if understands. I do not know what. An anger rages in the dark orbs that is his eyes.

“Does she speak?”

Caracalla steps aside and looks at me. He doesn’t seem to know either. Maybe he wonders the same. They do not even know my name.

“She does not.” The other speaks. “She’s mute. You know, how women and pets are supposed to be.”

It’s the first time that I am grateful for him. And hopefully, the last time. The words do not hit as hard as they probably should.

Caracalla clears his throat and nods, agreeing. “Yes. Geta is correct. Flos is mute.”

Of course, his name is Geta.

“What a pretty name. Flos. Like the flores!” The senator tries to encourage this behavior. He acknowledges me and goes back to his seat.

Caracalla shows me to a seat, a bench far away from the assembly, seated next to a dressed pithekos. Like a pet, with a pet.

“Flos, this is Dondus. Now. Behave while I take care of operae.” And so, he leaves me in the company of this tiny animal, eating away. I feel a slight embarrassment.

Following Caracalla with my eyes, I see Geta. He is staring me down with such fury, but he also seems amused by this sight. In him I see the Roman responsible for the death of my brother. The abuse of my land. But he is disguised as a god - Apollo.

I once heard that the Romans truly believed that they, the emperors, were a vessel of the gods. I didn’t believe it at first, because it felt as if it was a nothing but a joke. How would they be the voice of gods, when they do not even seem to experience the agony that they crown the people with? It’s what makes us humans. For there is an order to follow or else kaos will reign – but it just seems that the Romans, the filthy, fit the Gods to their needs. Not the other way around. It’s revolting and distasteful. Disrespectful towards what they claim to be the divine.

They certainly act as if they were Gods. They serve up blood for dinner and expect respect. They bear their crowns and decorate their houses with their furniture. They claim the things that they want and expect people to deliver.

Perhaps they remind me too much of the Gods. However, they are present, my Gods… seem not to be. No, I must not think of such foolishness.

I mutter another prayer. This time for just a sign for them to be present. The pithekos nibs at me but I do not pay it any attention. I pray for a clear sign – for light to disappear, so I can hide in the shadows, and they can light a little candle for me. “Help me, hear me, Apollo, bring darkness over this house, so I can see your light once again.” Yet I’ve never seen it before, but I do not stop my praying. I am desperate, truly desperate. Thoughts about the misplaced empathy towards the burdened slightly disturbing me, so I pray them to take it away. I hope.

And after a while, it darkens. My eyes are closed, and no light seems to shine through my eyelid. A spark ignites inside my heart, turning to a flame. I pray a little more intensely. I feel a presence other than the pithekon. My chest burns.

“What darkness do you seek?” It’s spoken in my mother tongue but broken. It’s a stern voice as I would imagine but so furious.

I quiver. “Darkness over Rome.”

There is a dark and deep laughter. I feel my hands being grabbed and my body thrown towards the floor. My hip slammed towards the cold and hard floor beneath. I hear the pithekos shriek. The jewelry as well. I catch my head before it hits the floor. My fire distinguished. I open my eyes, full of fright, and look up to see the other, Geta. His eyes filled with hatred and dusk. His jaw sharp, but not as sharp as the blade he looks to be pulling from his belt.

“NO!” The burdened Caracalla yells. He jumps to my defense and pushes Geta. He saves me.

It visibly shakes Geta to his core. Something, he hadn’t expected. At the sight of his brother, he removes the blade out of sight, showing that there’s still a part of him that cares. A part of him that is human.

It is there I shall strike, when I get the chance.

“She’s practicing idolatry, brother.” He speaks Latin once more and steps up to his brother, clearly the one with the overhand. They bicker and spit.

First, I wonder how he knows of my mother tongue, then of how dare he, the filthy, use it against me and the gods. And then I fright of the chance of the assembly’s judgement, and what this judgement would lead to. Torture? Death? Or worse.

“You lie, you said, she was mute.” Caracalla corrects Geta. Does he not remember the night? “You are attacking MY pet, MY property – for NO reason!”

“Caracalla-“ Geta furrows his brows so that the line in between becomes darker. “I only said that-“

“You lie! Now leave her alone! Flos has done nothing wrong. She cannot talk.” Caracalla seems to believe his own words so much that he also seems to forget that they weren’t his. He seems so possessive of me. What horrid thing is happening in his head?

Geta seems on the other hand to give up on his brother but not on his anger. He looks at me with such burning fire. It’s like he heard my prayer, like he was tormented by my words. He whispers something to Caracalla that I cannot hear. An order of sorts. And Caracalla looks as if he understands. As if he agrees. I fear.

He turns to me and nods a servant over, who helps me up on my feet against my will. “You are to be escorted back to my room. My brother says you are distracting us.” I hate what that might indicate. What that must mean. My clothes, my body, now infiltrated by filth.

“Apologies, senators.” I hear Geta say. I see him whisper something to a guard.

One of the guards dressed in purple come over and grabs my arm, harshly. “Careful.” Caracalla corrects him. And the guard just nods, his grip not changing any bit.

He escorts me out, but not towards the room from which we come from before. He leads me towards a dark part of the palace. A part which not yet has seen the light of day, where all the dirt is kicked under.

Marble slowly turns to stone. The air thickens. I am led to a room filled with other slaves, but not one dressed like me. I am now the one sticking out like a sore thumb.

The guard leaves me without a word. Confusion strikes as well as discomfort. The others look at me like I am one of them, the romans, and I can not defend myself. My throat is dry like the desert that I seem to be surrounded by. No hope.

But beneath the sand, I hear a familiar voice.

“Thank the Gods, they let you live.”

Mother tongue. It’s the old woman. The woman, which I now believe was sent by Hera. My heart flutters. The world flashes with stars. I cry. And she grabs me. And holds me. It’s like I hear the Gods’ song. The lyre plays with joy. Internal victory.

“I am here now. I have you, paidion.” Her touch is like a mother. I let myself melt into her touch and sob into her shoulder. And I stay like this for a while. For however long she lets me stay there. “There… there…” She pets and undo my hair. Freeing the weight from off my shoulder.

I pull back to look at her face and see how she slightly has livened up. Her cheeks now rosy as her eyes, which are fighting every urge to cry. The dark hides any other imperfection the light before bestowed her. In here she is perfect in every way. She is a mother. A mother of the land, Hellas. I’ve longed for this comfort. I’m home in the shadows.

Next chapter: 18th February

Taglist: @syraxnyra, @omg-hellgirl, @t6gse370, @duckyhowls, @littlemissholy, @naysha140, @lover-rep-fanfic

[maxdibert]

I wished lily wasn't the reason for Severus' loyalty. The revelation of his love for her (platonically or romantically) was truly important. You have the incident that kickstarted the prophecy. Severus' switch to the order. Voldemort giving Lily a chance to choose. Severus playing an important role in the second wizarding war. All because of a friendship of two people from spinner's end.

JKR should have developed it more. I understand that she went for the twist, but when the thrill of the discovery is gone there are so many questions that are unanswered.

first, I do not like Lily as a friend. She forgives the marauders for the years of bullying, see her 'best friend' being hanged upside down and threatened to have his genitals exposed. Who the fuck does that ? Also when Harry asked if his mother knew that James still bullying Severus in the seventh year, remus answered with "she did not know too much." so she knew something...

I do not like Lily as a sister, why did she not let James know that vernon probably doesn't know anything about the wizarding world before they went on dinner. I mean wth is Petunia supposed to say to Vernon ? "Oh yeah my sister is a witch and she went to this magical school". Not the best way to make a men fall in love with you. Is Petunia even allowed to tell Vernon all of this under the secrecy law? (I'm aware that restaurant scene is not canon, but that's what I thought when I read it on the website).

I don't like the way she uses her other friends opinion of Severus and their friendship, who clearly don't like Severus, as an argument to why Severus should stop hanging out with his Slytherin friends. Why are your friends even discussing Severus?

Also, I don't like the way she idolize Albus Dumbledore. Severus' got bullied for years, and Dumbledore did nothing. Severus was nearly killed by a werewolf and Dumbledore made Severus swear to never talk about it. What did he do, he made James head boy. Yeah if that happened to me and this man was the leader of the order, I might have asked for the death eater sign up too. Ridiculous.

By making his love for her so pure and selfless, it makes me wonder why he loves her so much. We know nothing, and the things we know just make me go "bruh really.... her ? .... she would not spare a thought for you if your funeral was announced in the papers".

Listen I was never part of the cool kids, so perhaps I don't understand her. But then again, for a Gryffindor, she really is a social coward.

It makes everything so bloody tragic. I sometimes wonder if I'd wished Severus stayed a death eater in the story but then one with guilt because he started caring about the professors and children through the years of working there.

It was honestly funny to read all of this because it feels like listening to myself when I was 16 or 17. I mean, even before I was a fan of Severus—because that came with time—I had a pretty neutral opinion of the character. I didn’t dislike him because I understood his motivations, but I wasn’t particularly a fan either. And if I wasn’t a fan, it was precisely because of everything you’re talking about.

A lot of people say Severus was an obsessive incel who spent 24/7 thinking about Lily, but I never saw it that way—I just thought he was an idiot. I thought, Wow, what an absolute moron. Like, did he really sacrifice his entire life for a woman who was actually kind of a piece of shit? Did he really give up everything to protect the son of his bully and the woman who married said bully? Could you be a bigger loser? No, seriously, could you be more pathetic? Because that woman not only let him be bullied for years, she almost smiled at his bully while he was publicly stripping him. She practically blamed him for her lack of popularity because she was seen with him, and somehow, he was supposed to be grateful. She gaslit him when he tried to tell her about what his abusers were doing to him. She literally told him he should be grateful to one of his abusers. Like, this woman was a piece of shit who was just looking to climb the social ladder. She loved being Gryffindor’s golden girl, just like she was the golden girl back home, and she hated that she had a weird, ugly, nerdy friend with questionable associations who tainted her image. On top of that, she loved having Gryffindor’s rich, pureblood king fawning over her because it was yet another symbol of status—but, of course, she had to play hard to get because good girls always resist bad boys.

That’s how I saw Lily Evans (and honestly, how I still see her), and it seemed absurd to me that Severus would have given so much for her when, honestly, I would have told her to fuck off. Like, if I were Severus, I would’ve dropped her the first time she gaslit me about my abusers. But if for some reason I had still stuck around after that, the moment I saw her almost smiling at my main abuser while he was stripping me in public, I would’ve beaten her so hard she’d have lost all her teeth.

That was my mindset when I was younger, before I learned a lot of things. Back then, I didn’t know what toxic friendships were or how easy it was to fall into them. I had no idea what codependency was, nor did I understand what an attachment figure was. At the time, I grasped some of these concepts vaguely, but over the years, I not only understood them more deeply but also experienced them—both personally and through people around me.

As I got older, I realized that the fact that Severus came from a home where he felt terribly unsafe, and that Lily represented his first safe place as a child, played a huge role in his cognitive development and psyche. In some way, he was always going to be grateful to her for probably being the only good thing in his childhood. And those childhood attachments are some of the strongest and hardest to break because they’re so deeply ingrained in a person. On top of that, Lily was his friend for years, during key developmental stages, and he probably didn’t see all of her flaws—he had her idealized. He grew up in a house where violence was the norm, and his classmates at Hogwarts also treated violence as normal. Lily was different, so he simply wasn’t capable of recognizing problematic behaviors that anyone with a healthy upbringing and healthy role models would have seen immediately. Because he didn’t have those things.

We’re not talking about a character who had examples of healthy behavior, affection, or attachments—we’re talking about someone who had the opposite. So, of course, he wasn’t capable of seeing anything bad in Lily. To him, she was the good in his environment. She was his moral compass, a kind of lighthouse to guide him when he wanted to know if he was heading in the right direction. It’s even possible that he never blamed her for marrying James, and instead, just thought it was normal that she gave in—because she was so good that she could see the good in even horrible people like James. Or maybe he believed James had somehow deceived her.

Severus’s attachment to Lily is kind of like a child who idolizes their mother and is completely unable to see her flaws—even when she acts like a complete asshole—because she’s their mother. And if she does something bad, well, it’s probably the fault of the people around her, not her. That’s exactly how Severus saw Lily.

When I understood all of this, I felt like I finally understood the character and his motivations better. I think it’s important to look at it not from our perspective as outsiders forming opinions, but from his perspective as someone inside the situation—someone who was emotionally dependent on her and either didn’t see the truth or didn’t want to see it.

Over the years, I’ve toned down my discourse about Lily, but my opinion of her hasn’t changed all that much from when I was a teenager. The only difference is that now I rationalize it better. But I still think she was a self-centered social climber. The only thing that’s changed is that before, I just thought she was a shallow, frivolous person—now I give her a little more credit and think her behavior was based on an inferiority complex stemming from her working-class background and her Muggle heritage.

But that doesn’t change the core of the issue. And honestly? I think she and James Potter were a perfect match—two absolute assholes who deserved each other. In fact, I’ve never been bothered by Jily because I’ve always thought they belonged together. Equally insufferable.

[mouserthefirst]

HELLO DARLINGS i'm back after god knows how long for a very late valentine's day fic for you!!! it's currently almost 12 a.m. for me but WHATEVER anyway i hope you enjoy this, i was literally screaming while i wrote it teehehe (also this is my gift to you in apology for the evilness i'm cooking up rn this is as sweet as you get for a while /j)

word count: 1.5k unedited 🤍

ʚ‎‏ ͜ ̩͙ ︵ ̩͙ ୨ ♡ ୧ ̩͙ ‏︵ ̩͙ ͜ ɞ

Caitlyn Kiramman prided herself on being observant – she was the Sheriff, after all, and even her punch first think later cop instincts had yet to wash out her detective roots. Separating work from life was something foreign to Caitlyn; her work was her life and her life was her work except for the few things close to her, a list that some people would find miserably short:

1. Violet          2. Violet’s scrappy cat Ripper 3. Violet.

She was of the opinion that those things were all she really needed in life. She liked keeping her life as simple as possible; it made it easier to keep an eye on things. One person can only notice so much, even if that person is the Sheriff of Piltover.

It makes sense, therefore, that Caitlyn is currently at her limit. There is simply too much work to go around – no one has been particularly difficult in either Piltover or Zaun, and yet the reports are piling up and Cait finds herself fretting over even the mere idea of tackling the small mountain on her desk. Still, she wasn’t made Sheriff for nothing, so she cracks down on it as hard as she is able.

It’s the long days and nights spent at the station that Caitlyn blames for the fact that she hasn’t noticed a significant lack of Violet – no more fresh tea when she comes home, no warm grey eyes and rough hands with bruises that are tattooed into worn knuckles at this point. She dismisses it at first; Vi is just as stressed with work as Caitlyn is, perhaps more so with her hands-on role on the streets, roughing up whoever doesn’t listen to the Sheriff. Still, she misses it and cannot help but wonder if it’s something she’s done. Perhaps she forgot Violet’s birthday or a date they had planned or-

But no, when Caitlyn hurriedly flips through her planner in between interviews with a new batch of prisoners, there is no such forgotten event anywhere near the date. Just Valentine’s Day the next day, which Violet has never expressed an interest in. Perhaps Zaun doesn’t even have a Valentine’s Day; Caitlyn never thought to ask.

Regardless, she feels rather rotten for being relieved that she has no obligations with Vi. She loves her, of course, more than life itself, but there is just so much to do and so little time…

Still, when she arrives back home that night with a hopeful smile and three of the largest containers Jericho had available, Caitlyn is horribly disappointed to find a note in Vi’s rough-and-tumble handwriting saying simply,

Still out, be back by 10:00      - Vi

After Caitlyn has changed into a lacy, silky purple nightdress, she curls up on the couch and stares at the fire, trying to remember the last time they went out together. Surely it wasn’t that long ago; Caitlyn prides herself on being someone who does not let her relationships fall to the side (ignoring the majority of said relationships). She digs contemplatively into one of the takeout containers, sloppily filled with something Caitlyn would prefer to go unnamed. There was that time Violet brought them to a flower market she had thought Cait would like; and the time Violet brought her out to dinner at her favorite restaurant. That had been several months ago, before Caitlyn and then Vi had been swamped by work. Still, no matter how hard she tries, Cait can’t remember the last time she brought Vi somewhere.

How could she have forgotten such a thing? She prides herself on being observant, on never forgetting a thing, and yet something so important as Violet absolutely slipped her mind.

Caitlyn jabs her fork conspiratorially at her food. It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and whether it’s a Zaunite holiday or not, Violet would appreciate it, she knows. Cait grins. If there’s one thing she’s good at, it’s making plans.

♡

When Vi walks back home, it’s dark. It took her ages to get back to the station and even longer than usual to peel off her uniform and get back to Caitlyn’s penthouse. Vi knows Enforcer blues are better accepted in Piltover, maybe even liked, but she still doesn’t like strutting around in them. Makes her feel sort of like she doesn’t deserve them either way.

She gets back later than anticipated; when Vi ran back to the penthouse for lunch, she left a note for Cait that turns out being three hours off on her return time, give or take a few minutes. Vi’s not entirely sure Caitlyn is even home yet – after all, she could still be at the station, lording over her little flock of rookie recruits and sifting through paperwork for something meaningful.

Vi doesn’t like to begrudge her girlfriend of anything, but there’s something distinctly tired about them now. Vi’s been trying, but every day she has to put on her gauntlets means another day she has to focus on criminals rather than the one person who never treated her like one.

She slips as quietly as she can into the penthouse and locks the door, knowing Caitlyn is probably asleep. She always has atrociously early bedtimes, Vi thinks fondly.

Vi creeps up to their shared room and sets aside her bag, knowing Cait would probably shout at her for not putting it away. She’s too tired, so she merely tugs off her boots, jacket, and shirt and slips into bed beside Caitlyn’s immobile form.

She settles her arm around Caitlyn’s waist and wonders selfishly for a moment if she went to bed missing her. What kind of stupid question is that? Caitlyn’s said multiple times, made a point out of it, even, that the Kirammans aren’t sentimental people. But Vi isn’t a Kiramman, not yet and maybe not ever, fully, at least. And she’s nothing if not sentimental; sentimental like a sinking ship, she always said.

♡

Caitlyn spends the next day full of nervous anticipation. She’s excited in a way she hasn’t been in quite some time; it seems that she needed an excuse to spend time with Vi in more ways than one.

She knows Vi would insist that she needs no excuse; they are dating, after all. The way she says that kind of thing so easily makes Caitlyn’s stomach get all fluttery, always said in the same warm, proud tone as when she calls Cait her girl. Even now as she sits in her obnoxiously opulent office, she feels like a little girl with her cheeks flushed and her heart close to bursting out of her chest.

But duty calls, and today Caitlyn’s duty is to make Violet’s Valentine’s Day her most special yet. She places calls and walks to stores in between her shifts, and soon she’s booked a fancy restaurant (rather self-indulgent since Vi couldn’t care less about propriety and second salad forks), placed an order for a towering stack of gifts to arrive after they return to the penthouse, and of course purchased a large box of premium Zaunite chocolate. Caitlyn considers her job fairly well done.

She manages to get Vi to walk home with her at the end of the day. Violet seems unusually smiley and nervous, but that might be the twisting in Caitlyn’s own stomach. She twists her hands together and tucks them behind her back. “So, how was Zaun today?”

“Good,” Vi says. “Good. Very, um…yeah. Good.”

“Did you catch the criminal?” Caitlyn asks, attempting to make a joke but just succeeding in sounding horribly nervous.

Still, Vi has the decency to laugh. “Not yet, but we will.”

“Well, I suppose I will have to take your word for that,” Caitlyn says, a little lighter this time.

They stay quiet the rest of the way, though it’s not uncomfortable. Silence never is with Violet; Caitlyn is willing to bet that it’s a struggle for the girl to make anyone ill at ease – unless she’s waving her fists at them, that is.

They get back to the penthouse and Violet shifts away to put away her coat; Cait pulls out her neatly wrapped box of chocolate and sidles over.

When Caitlyn works up the nerve to go over (there’s really nothing to be worried about, Kiramman, she’s your girlfriend already, what is she going to say, no? Well, quite possibly), she finds Vi blushing furiously with a messy little bouquet clenched in one fist.

“Um,” says Vi. “I know today is a Piltie holiday, so I…” She gestures with the bouquet. “Will you be my valentine, cupcake?”

Caitlyn’s heart seems to melt out of her chest. “Yes, I – yes, Violet.”

Vi grins. “Good. That would be really awkward. I’m sorry, I planned for this to go a lot smoother – ”

“It’s all right,” says Caitlyn. “And I was going to ask you, as well, actually.”

She laughs. “Beat you to the punch, huh? Well, here – sorry they’re a bit sweaty.”

They are, but Caitlyn can’t find it in herself to mind. She doesn’t mind anything that night; all she can focus on is Violet’s luminous grin and stupid jokes and ridiculous hair. That’s all that ever matters, and Caitlyn was a fool to forget it. But she swears to Vi that she’ll never forget it again, and she means it more than she has ever meant anything in her life.

[dress-and-impress]

(cal if you see this pls dont read it has spoilers)

Now that The Dragon Prince Season 7 has been released and the processing has died down imma just share smth right her right now... the whole "Ezran vs Rayllum" thing did not affect me AT ALL while watching it. Was totally unfazed by it becasue I knew they were gonna all be friends again by the end of it... and have no opinion about who was right and who was wrong (That's not to say I didn't feel weird about it. I very much did). So, here is my presentive of each character in this situation:

(picture obviously from a poster of TDP promo)

Ezran:

As every Ez stan knows, he's a young king and has many difficult and challenging decisions to make. He was NEVER prepared to take the throne and when he did it was with such honesty, patience and love for EVERYONE, human, elf and even villain (as per talking to Aravos and Karim about their views and perspectives). BUT when the love he had got taken advantage of, he lost it. Like I would too if you spend all this time building a bridge (hypothetically and in a way literally) with people perceived as "the enemy". His perception of the world became a blur and the innocence he had was shattered in a million pieces. When Callum left he was undoubtably confused but MORE determined to put his fathers killer to justice instead of asking why (like he usually does).

Callum:

Now he's a very controversial side because you either love him or hate him. Very quickly though i find it really strange how he keeps saying that Rayla does everything for others and wants to do something "for her"; the quazar diamond scenario in season 6 and at the oddly adorable bridge scene at the end of season 7. To put it quite plainly, Callum has no idea how to make himself happy, so he makes other people happy. But you're probably thinking "Callum pissed off Ezran and ditched his brother for his gf". Yes. He did. Callum was a mediator in the situation (or tried to be) and once he knew both sides couldn't be happy he had to choose. Ezran, his half-brother and King who has kingdoms and allies that support him no matter what. Or the girl he loves and spent years thinking about and wants to make up as much time as possible with her AND who regretted running away without asking for any help from Callum.

Lets refer back to the moments before Rayla decided to leave (on Callums birthday). She was determined to find Viren and finish what they started and Callum didn't want her to so they made a compromise. BUT THEN Rayla left as we know. Alone. With nothing.

Rayla:

We have no idea what Rayla spent those 2 years doing trying to find Viren but lets list a few things we know (from when she breaks Runnan out of prison); She had to say goodbye to her birth parents who she thought she was going to bring back from Virens coin, is banished from her home and cannot go back and is basically determined to have some form of stability in her life. Quick note, Rayla and Callum are not concerned about Aravos because they think he's still in the pearly.

Rayla has made a lot of impulsive decisions throughout the show and it should be expected that she would betray Ezran's trust and make things difficult for Callum to prioritise the need to get AT LEAST ONE OF HER PARENTS HOME SAFELY. Her mind was an utter blur and filled with emotion she didn't know how to express. The only thing Rayla wanted to do was solve the problem. TAKE ACTION on the one thing that's making her feel that way. She's done it before and will continue to do it.

So to sum up watching that scene and processing it, you need to understand all sides. The emotion, the determination and challenges that came across the three of them. It gave their characters development and gave us an opportunity to explore WHY the characters feel the way they feel or make the choices they choose to make. It was never a "right or wrong" thing but more so gaining growth and maturity that decisions need to be made regardless of how painful it may be.

[tanadrin]

My, unsolicited and underqualified advice to your variously despairing followers:

First, Google "volunteering" + "your area." Sign up for something. Now. There is a widespread, implicit belief on here that "doing something" looks like doing some self-care, working on your mental health, getting informed, and then, once you're well-adjusted and fully knowledgable, selecting the perfect arena for leftist political engagement. This is backwards: signing up to do something to help your community will instantly make you feel less helpless, less anxious, and happier. I spent 3 hours making sandwiches at the soup kitchen (literally trivial in the grand scheme! but also tangibly helping people!) and it is the best I have felt since Trump entered office.

Second: find other people in your life (for me this is my partner, not a pre-existing leftist community) and ask them to keep you accountable to being politically involved in some specific way. We are going to my first ever DSA event this afternoon, and it is 100% because both of us are expecting the other person to keep up their part of the bargain.

Third: I am trying to get out of the overly-online headspace in which I think about politics purely in terms of ideological alignment (to what extent do we share the same opinions?) and instead focusing on concrete goals and looking for the people around me who are fighting for those things.

Final tidbit: Just before writing this, I saw that a Missouri judge just struck down laws requring abortion providers to receive special licenses, which in practice were used to prevent anyone being able to legally provide abortions. This is after people voted via ballot meaure to make abortion a constitutionally protected right in the state. Based on my friend's knowledge of similar successful efforts in other states, I'm going to guess that victory was the result of years of organizing by majority middle-aged liberal women. And that victory, in turn, means that thousands of people will be spared the cruetly of forced birth, which is a victory of a massive, massive scale.

Now, if you're still reading this—Google "volunteering" + "your area." Sign up for something!

This is good advice.

[mint-ty]

Since the Lithuanian band Katarsis is new to me too, I made a summary of this interview that was filmed after LT semi-final. (youtube video)

They say they're very surprised about getting through the LT semi-final (when this interview was filmed) and it's amazing how many people have listened to their song.

Did they watch the semi-final on the tv? (the shows were prerecorded).

Alan: no, I was a bit scared and spent the day in bed watching random series, only turned on the TV for the final voting :D and when we passed I rewinded the whole show to watch from the beginning.

Why Eurovision?

Lukas: in the beginning it was just like a joke among us like "oh let's go to Eurovision!:D" but then after looking more into it, it seemed like a good experience and opportunity. Hardest was to convince Emilija and Alanas to sign for it.

Alanas: yeah I didn't want to participate for myself, I didn't think our music would be welcomed maybe on such a big scale, but the band is more important so I wanted to fight with my fear and do this for my friends:)

Lukas: there's a lot of skepticism around underground musicians for both Eurovision and TV in general. But after thinking about it longer we decided there's nothing we would lose by trying.

Have you ever played on Žalgiris Arena stage before? (currently the biggest stage in LT)

Alan: yeah once :D another warm-up band needed a back-up guitarist and asked me in. It was nice:D

Is there anything you want or plan to change for the LT Finals performance?

Lukas: maybe the whole entrance? we're not used to tv stages so just when to start a song is communicated well in my opinion. But for the song itself we try not to think too much and keep everything that is as now.

How hard is it to pretend to play the instruments on stage, since only the vocals are live?

Alanas: yeah it was hard, since it doesn't feel like you even need to be there on the stage. I really wanted to pretend like Kurt Cobain overly acting in that one TV show or something like that :D I think it's better to do it with less perfection, but to do it live.

Have you played the song before?

Lukas: no, it never has been finished to the very end. When we will play it now, it for sure will sound different from how it sounded before in our rehearsals. In live gigs we can adapt the songs much more to the audience and the feeling, but this song obviously will have to stay closer to the recorded version from now on, with back vocals phonogram and all.

What is the song about?

Lukas: I don't really know honestly, the song changed so many times and had so many meanings to me, that now it doesn't mean anything in particular. Maybe it's about relationships. It also can mean anything to the listener, however he understands the song.

So is it about a relationship with a particular person?

Lukas: no, it had many forms and now it's just a ball of a feeling in general, so it's really hard to say what it's about.

What about the part "tavo" in the end of the song? people even count how many times it was said and say it's too many times.

Lukas: the original song was even longer, over 4 minutes, so we actually concenced it. I used the sound of "tavo" as an additional which I think sounded cool :D

How did Katarsis start?

Lukas: first I was alone, just playing music as a teenager in my bedroom. My first recorded song from a phone is even still on soundcloud. Then I got invited to several gigs and saw that playing by myself was very difficult, and started looking for a band, and here we are eventually.

Where is the name "Katarsis" from?

Lukas: I really like movies and theater, and at the time I was in a sort of movie camp, and heard this word and really liked it. Now it also has a meaning of "letting out your feelings", which I think fits our music style well.

You say you are an alternative music underground band, but I wouldn't call you underground because you have another song Vasarą Galvoj Minoras that has 3mln on spotify and even got an award. How many gigs do you do? I heard people sweep your tickets?

Lukas: recently they don't sweep our tickets anymore, maybe that's why we went to Eurovision :D we had a period when everyone wanted to hear just that one song, now our gigs are smaller but people actually know our songs and want something new, so that is very lovely

Are you afraid Tavo Akys might be your most popular song now, that you'll have to play as the finishing one for many gigs to come?

Lukas: not really, no. Even Vasarą Galvoj Minoras we weren't playing in the end. Usually in the middle somewhere, and recently I don't think we played it at all.

Alanas: I don't really like that song so I'm happy we're not playing that :D I had told that to Lukas too :D I joined the band after it was already released.

How did the band come together? since each of you have also your individual music projects and other bands that you also play in, like Emilija has a duet band with her partner, you Alan are playing for another band and also have your individual EP, and etc.

Alanas: I was asked to join by our drummer Jokūbas, since we were coursemates in uni.

Lukas: and Jokūbas came to the band to replace the previous drummer before I even knew the old drummer wanted to leave :D he said to me one time we met in a fest "I heard you're looking for a drummer?" and I was "no?.." :D but I did call him later to join after all.

Questions from the listeners: Any bands that influence your music?

Lukas: honestly I try to listen less at the moment because I don't want to pick any influence. So I can't say if there was any influence before. Recentry I liked some wild noise electronic songs, and maybe Orillia(?) Shadow song from the 90s I think.

Any rituals before going on stage?

Both: nope

Alan: tune my guitar :D

Have you noticed more alternative music going to Eurovision stage? Would you like to see more bands like yours on Lithuanian stage?

Both: honestly we weren't following previous eurovisions that closely, maybe only the finals..

Lukas: yes of course. It always feels like eurovision songs are just a repeat of the same. I'd especially love to see more unique music, I think Lithuania has a lot to offer not only for our stage but for all Europe. Something like Molchat Doma has done by Belarussians, I think we can really find good music to uplift among ourselves too.

Do you expect to do gigs outside in other European countries?

Both: we weren't even expecting to pass the semi-final :D

Alanas: but yeah I'd love to try playing abroad. I had talked with fellow musicians and it sounds like an amazing experience.

What about lithuanian language in the songs?

Lukas: I love that it has been becoming more popular. I always enjoy hearing native language in foreign songs too, so I hope there will be more of that.

Who worked on the LED visuals on the screen?

Lukas: it was Ignas Blažys, a graphic designer, but he feels like a part of our band now since he helped so much with the visuals. We might change something a bit for later on the screen, I don't know yet, we'll see.

How about a choerography on the stage? are you planning anything?

Lukas: yeah we planned - walking around a bit :D we might need to think about that too, but for sure we don't want any hard choreography because it won't feel organic then and we want the song to feel natural.

The cameras should be catching me, not me catching the cameras.

Interviewer: not how eurovision works, but good luck :D

Are you scared a bit about going to Basel? Have you kept several free weeks in May just in case?

Alanas: I didn't.. :D maybe I should cancel my works just in case..

Lukas: to be honest we're not expecting to go to Basel, so we're not scared and we're trying to enjoy the experience. Maybe if we win, then we will be scared I think :D

Do you have some jobs outside of music that might be impacted by a trip to Basel?

Alanas: I teach guitar, so I might need to cancel few weeks of lessons :D

Lukas: I work as a video editor, mostly because I need a salary. Also I wanted to say thank you very much for everyone who believe in us and write lovely comments, they really go to my heart ♡

Do you write song lyrics by hand?

Lukas: no I write to notes on computer or on my phone. I'm that generation already.. :D I don't think I have a ballpen at home... :D

Just for curiosity, are you right or left-handed?

Lukas: I think we're all right-handed in the band.

If you meet Tommy Cash, what would you talk about? :D

Alanas: oh wow, I don't even know, I'm a bit intimidated I think.. :D he's an amazing artist and performer and I have huge respect for him, I don't know.. It's like when I was a child and saw Marilyn Manson, what would I even say? :D

Interviewer: I had a chance to be in the same party with Marilyn Manson two times - he is as creepy as he looks :D But with Tommy Cash I'm sure you'd find a common topic if you both meet, especially that his music is also considered alternative to some level.

How old are you?

Alanas: 23, Lukas: 22

Are you planning an English version of Tavo Akys?

Both: for sure no.

Have you got a katarsis feeling when you passed the semi-finals?

Lukas: maybe not katarsis, euphoria maybe? when we passed I was super happy for a bit and then I got worried what next, another 2 weeks of work. But then, before now I had half of year of free time and I wasn't feeling too well myself to be honest, so now with a full schedule of things to do I'm feeling much happier and fuller as a person.

Have you checked reactions from foreigners to your song? do you read comments?

Alanas: yeah I love reading comments :D some of them are very creative, I also screenshot and post some to our group chat :D

Lukas: youtube reactions are also funny, they really don't say anything, but yeah we've seen some.

Any potential collabs or wishes?

Lukas: we're actually planning a collab song with another band Velvet vocalist.

Any more plans? for albums or such for this year?

Lukas: we have some gigs planned for this summer, but with new releases we'll see, maybe.

Did you have a strategy for going to eurovision?

Lukas: I think the main strategy was just to try and see, get some experience, try for ourselves so we don't feel stuck.

Interviewer: Thank you everyone and good luck.

[that-punk-adam]

After reading that ‘trans women run an underground clinic’ article I can’t help but to think about those old underground ideas and places that the elder queers would go to for support and care. It’s been at least a decade sense I’ve made any post about it on here. That world that was pre-Trump(ism) and pre basic gay rights. A lot has happened and a lot of people have learned sense then. I’m just sayin’, we need to build a strong underground system as a backup all over the world starting right now.

Lore time :)! When I was younger, I couldn’t get access to affirming clothing. I was just starting my social transition and for the longest time couldn’t get masculine clothes. There were a few blogs that were like “trans clothing swap” and it was mail based, where users would swap clothing and affirming gear through the mail. I was broke and couldn’t pay for something as basic as shipping because I had no means to pay. I don’t know if they’re around anymore, or if the blogs are still active. My parents withheld a lot from me that they didn’t for my sister. This isn’t about that, it’s more about how many years I spent wishing and praying night after night that there could be some form of underground support system of ally’s that could provide basic stuff like different clothes to young teens like I was. I didn’t care if I had to walk 2 hours through odd hours of the night to get to the safe space. ‘If it was an option, if it was in my state, if it was close enough that I could chance sneaking out, if I could keep everything hidden in my closet, I’ll do it in a heart beat.’ Was the same type of things I’d say to myself on those nights. To keep this post short, social transitioning is a huge deal for many many reasons.

My experience growing up queer is singular and unique, but the full story is still able to be relatable to someone else unfortunately. To my young queers: please stay around. You are valued beyond words. Your voice and opinions about how you are being treated matter. Your rights as a living and breathing being matter. You CAN and WILL outlive the orange.

It doesn’t stop after teenage hood. A lot of adults want and need care but can’t get it for one reason or another. We need to start building that connection and popping out ideas on how to support everyone by asking ourselves; “what would a strong universal underground queer support system look like? What would my part look like? How could I make sure that I can contribute long term? Will my effort(s) be material or something else?” Now. The longer that we wait, the less time we have to get and maintain organized.

Americans, it’s our duty to protect each other. The next 4 years are going to be a crazy ride. What will you do? What is the back up system going to look like?