#and. it isn’t really an empowering realization to have.

[taleeater]

The Captive Scientist

Here is a very rough outline for an angsty Jayvik and Ambessa idea.

Tw: Ambessa cucks Jayce, slight non-con, abuse, illness

I went overboard and even wrote a happy ending after the angst 🫣

Ambessa arranges behind Mel’s back to meet the geniuses behind Hextec. Jayce is apprehensive, but Mel isn’t around to interject so he gets pressured into it. So Ambessa visits the lab with her guards, and as soon as Ambessa lays eyes on Viktor, she realizes this handsome twink is really the only one who is keeping Hextec research progressing while Jayce is too mixed up with Mel and politics. She decides then and there to steal him away for herself, and use him to advance her own holdings and army. Jayce is called away for some meeting and leaves, knowing Viktor can handle himself, but also not knowing about Ambessa’s unique… tastes and general demeanor. So once they’re alone, she forcibly comes onto Viktor. He tries his best to fight off her advances, and refuses to work for a warlord and leave Jayce, but she basically has him kidnapped. Jayce discovers that Viktor is gone hours later once Mel discovers what her mother has done. Jayce not for one second believes the claim that Viktor quit and is abandoning him and Piltover to work for Ambessa and go somewhere he’s more ‘appreciated’. So the night before Ambessa has arranged to go back to Nexus, with Viktor in tow, Jayce breaks into their room looking for Viktor, only to discover Viktor tied up on the bed being seduced by Ambessa. The guards apprehend Jayce frozen in his shock, and Ambessa has him bound to a chair in the room to make him watch. And Viktor, for one, is surprised that Jayce came for him, but also surprised to see Jayce seething with rage and… jealousy? It stirs something inside him. So Ambessa cucks Jayce and fucks Viktor in front of him. 

The next morning, Ambessa carries out a completely exhausted and barely conscious Viktor past an angry and upset Jayce. He doesn’t have the power to stop her. So Ambessa leaves Piltover with Viktor, and Mel and her guards later rescue Jayce from the empty suite. Jayce goes to the counsel to arrange for a rescue mission, but they won’t allow it because it would be like a declaration of war with Ambessa. They won’t risk war over a mere ‘Zaunite lab assistant’ when they have the real creator of Hextec right there in Piltover. Jayce is furious. Viktor is his equal, and they never would have gotten to where they are now without Viktor. Mel has to hold him back and convince him to wait. She’d do her best to pressure them, but in the meantime, she’d use her resources to arrange a secret infiltration mission to get Viktor back. But then, disaster strikes. The counsel is attacked and bombed by Jinx, and everything comes to a screeching halt. War breaks out between Piltover and Zaun, and Mel and Jayce are forced to dedicate all their time and effort into trying to quell the fighting. At least Viktor wasn’t there to get hurt, but Jayce can’t stop thinking about his partner. 

Here’s the other thing: Ambessa doesn’t know that Viktor is sick. 

Some time goes by, and Ambessa gets HexGates built in every major city under her control, bringing immense power to her empire. She spoils Viktor, giving him lavish gifts and pleasuring him when she has time, despite his continued resistance. He can’t do anything besides let it happen, because she holds so much power over him, and he is still a prisoner there against his will. Then the attack on Piltover happens, and Ambessa orders that Viktor not be allowed to find out. Knowing that he would become distracted from his work and she wouldn’t allow for anymore resistance.

Months go by, and Ambessa is losing her patience with him. No matter what she does, she cannot get Viktor to create weapons for her. Instead he makes tools, medical devices, agricultural improvements, structural improvements, everything for the betterment of the common people. But nothing to empower her military’s might. And another thing, Viktor is extremely limited in his research capabilities since he no longer has access to the HexCore. He misses Jayce and the memories they had together more than anything. The memory of the look in Jayce’s eyes that fateful night is still a constant presence in his mind. And that’s really the only thing keeping him going, as he slowly becomes more and more ill. But then one evening, Viktor has a horrible coughing fit in his lab that leaves him dizzy. He goes to the door to ask the guards to have someone fetch him some medicine, but then he overhears. The guards are quietly gossiping about the ongoing war between Piltover and Zaun, and how Ambessa was sending resources and troops to help Piltover exterminate Zaun. Viktor is SHOCKED. Immediately, his mind goes to Jayce. Was he okay? Was he injured? Was he fighting Zaun? Or was he fighting to protect it like he had promised him? So many emotions were swirling through him. He demands to speak to Ambessa immediately. 

This is where it gets messy. Ambessa arrives and listens as Viktor unleashes his fury, demanding to be released and set back to Piltover to find Jayce and help Zaun. He paces around the room ranting at her, until he gets up in her face waving his finger at her for working to commit a genocide against his people, when her stoic expression cracks. She backhands Viktor, hard, sending him sprawling across the floor and his cane clattering. He coughs as she approaches him, barely having time to push himself up on shaky arms before she reaches down and grabs the front of his shirt and hefts him up, feet dangling above the floor to hold him at eye level. “I think you’re forgetting who has the power here.” She threatens him as Viktor gasps for breath and struggles. She then drops him in a heap on the floor and leaves him, ordering the guards to make sure he keeps working as she leaves for the night, all his demands forgotten and brushed aside. 

Viktors life becomes a living hell. No more kindness, no more gifts or attention, or bribes, being forced to work tirelessly without rest for days on end until he collapses over and over again. No one will tell him what’s happening in Piltover, his body is failing him more and more everyday, until he’s left coughing horribly at almost all hours. Forced to work at his desk hooked up to all kinds of machines just to keep him breathing and healthy enough to work properly. And every time Ambessa visits it’s the same. He’s beaten for refusing her demands to design weapons, for not working harder. He’s no longer left alone to his own devices in his lab, he has guards armed with guns and lab assistants breathing down his neck to ensure he stays on task. 

It’s around this time that Jayce can’t stand it anymore. Caitlyn had taken over leading the purge of Zaun, and he didn’t have any power to stop Piltover from their invasion. Eventually his efforts to stop the fight got him evicted by the counsel, and he makes his decision. He was going to go find Viktor. Mel tried to dissuade him from his suicide mission, stating that she needed him there, despite Jayce’s distance and aversion to their relationship ever since Viktor was kidnapped. But he brushes her off. She gets upset and pressures him, and forces him to make a choice. “You can’t keep doing this. Will you fight for Piltover, or Zaun? You have to choose. Viktor, or me.” “I choose Viktor.” Jayce says it immediately with absolutely zero hesitation, but Jayce is just as shocked as Mel that he said it. He’s silent for a long moment, finally taking a moment to search inside himself for what he really wants. And it finally dawns on him. All he’s ever really wanted was Viktor. And Mel can see the realization on his face, sighing with defeat because she’s always known those feelings were there, and could do nothing about it. So she finally concedes, and informs Jayce that she will help him get Viktor back from her mother. 

She quickly arranges a task force, and sends word that she intends to visit Ambessa in Noxus with the intention of a diplomatic meeting to discuss aid for Piltover's fight against Zaun. So Jayce hides aboard her ship, and when they arrive at the Noxus capital, Mel gets information from some of the guards where Viktor is being held. She gives the information to Jayce, and covers for him while he sneaks into the tower where Viktor is being held. Mel distracts her mother with the meeting. But Ambessa can see right through her, and knows they’ve come to retrieve Viktor. But she knows Viktor is on death’s door, and she won’t be able to squeeze anything else out of the feeble scientist. So she allows for it to happen, and tells Mel right to her face that she shouldn’t try to deceive her family. Mel is shocked that her mother knew and confused as to why her mother is willing to give up Viktor so easily. Meanwhile, Jayce fights through the guards at the lab, and breaks in to find Viktor thin and worn, bruises on his jaw and peaking from any hints of uncovered skin, passed out at his desk pale as a ghost and bleeding from his mouth, his breathing labored and raspy. Jayce drops his hammer and rushes to his partner’s side, tears welling in his eyes as his hands hover above Viktor as he’s too scared to touch him. Viktor looks so fragile now, all his hidden strength Jayce came to know and admire over the years gone from his sick withered frame. Eventually Jayce’s hands find Viktor’s shoulders and he shakes him awake, calling out his name. Viktor blinks awake and thinks for a moment that he must still be dreaming, or dead. But Jayce starts to carefully disconnect him from the machines and IV, gently scooping him up in his arms as he mutters reassurances to Viktor that he was going to get him out of there, and bring him home safe and sound. But as Jayce is finally carrying him out of the lab, his hammer all but forgotten, Viktor finds his voice. “I-…. I never… wanted you... to see me like this… Jayce…” and Jayce’s heart shatters into a million pieces. 

He should have been there for Vik, should have come to get him sooner, and never should have left him alone in that lab, alone with Ambessa, and all those nights alone when he left Viktor to attend parties and be with Mel. His place was always next to Viktor. Jayce makes it back to the ship, with Mel close behind after her mother comes to see them off, with the promise that she will be visiting Piltover again soon enough. Viktor is fading fast the whole ride back to Piltover, and Jayce is panicking. He waited too long, and now Viktor was going to die if he didn’t do something. And fast. They arrive in Piltover and Jayce jumps out of the ship with Viktor in his arms before the doors even fully open, ignoring Mel’s shouts from behind. Jayce rushes to their old dusty lab, where the HexCore had been left all but forgotten those past few months. Jayce lays down Viktor and starts pouring over Viktor’s old notes and research with fervor, looking for anything, any way he can use their technology to save Viktor. 

Viktor ends up merging with the HexCore and becoming the Machine Herald. His life was saved, his illness cured and his body fixed. But this time, when Viktor emerges from the cocoon in the lab with Jayce, he receives a different kind of response than what he expected. Jayce declares that he loves him. Straight away, whole heartedly and truthfully, with every part of himself. He loves Viktor. And he should have realized it sooner. Should have stayed by his side where he belongs, shouldn’t have let Ambessa take him away, shouldn’t have let Mel and politics and power come between them and take him away from their dream together to save people, to save Zaun, and make the world a better place. And he wanted Viktor’s help to save Zaun from Piltover, once and for all. His words reach Viktor, touch deep inside him, and all at once his very human emotions come flooding back. This is everything he’s always wanted, it felt too good to be true. So to make it real, Viktor drops his staff and reaches up to cup Jayce’s face and kisses him. Like he had imagined time and time again, had dreamed about for months, for years. He needed to know if this love was real. The warmth of his lips and Jayce’s hands on him immediately burn away any lingering memory of Ambessa’s touch. And for the first time he feels whole and loved. 

Together, Viktor and Jayce, with Mel’s support, stop the fighting between Zaun and Piltover, defeating Caitlyn’s soldiers easily without her leadership now that she has reunited with Vi, and bringing aid to the Zaunite citizens. In Piltover and Zaun’s weakened state, Ambessa arrives with her army, carrying Jayce’s forgotten hammer into battle to take over the counsel and invade Piltover. Mel and Caitlyn, with Vi, Jayce, and Viktor’s support, face off against Ambessa, and manage to defeat her once and for all. Mel leaves for Noxus to take her mother’s place as head of the family, and arranges generous aid to be sent to Piltover and Zaun. Both cities repair themselves, and a new peace is founded as the city of progress becomes a state ruled by science and equality. Jayce gives up all positions of power so that he and Viktor can live together at the college peacefully. Inventing technology that improves the lives of all the people in Zaun, and across the world, and sharing a wonderful domestic relationship together into old age. 

Damn I really ran with this idea 😅 hope you enjoyed it.

[casket-of-imps]

guy who blogs on the autism site: guys this is gonna sound crazy but I think I have autism

[jaggedamethyst]

clandestine

viktor (arcane) x stripper f!reader

pairing: viktor (arcane) x f!reader

content: 18+ minors dni, smut, not thigh but lap riding, strip club obviously, some cursing, porn some plot idk, established relationship, secret relationship, not proofread

notes: i am not personally a stripper, but I have somehow seen a lot of movies and youtube vloggers explaining the culture and mindset they have…about doing this to get them to a next phase of their life. some people may not feel that way at all, and just do it to feel empowered….or literally just because its a job. no reason is more valued than the other, and I hope I did this justice because I have the utmost respect for every job. please let me know if anything isn’t hitting the way it should in that regard and i will make the edits <3

also, not an au… this was kinda inspired by lest. idk if it was ever confirmed, but the character kinda reads to me as a sex worker and I do love that. normalize including those stories in media.

word count: 2.1k

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Stepping into the building always felt particularly specific for Viktor. The music was melodic but slightly too loud. Flashing lights almost always sent him off balance, leaning into his cane. A vibration pulsed—bouncing off every wall hard enough to make him physically swat the feeling away with his head. Yet, whenever he’d find his seat and glance across the room—all of it faded away.

Had there not been a physical spotlight, Viktor could still find you a mile away. He was completely entranced, mesmerized by the way you moved—even more so by the fact that it was an act. You were sweet, saccharine even, and you never showed it. That side was all for him. Only him.

When you were at the club, there was a veil over you—projecting a unique exterior. Dancing allowed you to disconnect and channel an identity you didn’t in everyday life. Often, you were misunderstood. Even more common was for you to be ignored—it wasn’t like that at work. You were respected and held at the same regard as everyone else. There were rules, and everyone followed them. You were an equal and you appreciated that.

Regardless of that feeling on stage, the money was also damn good. You grew up in the Undercity and you knew what it was like to have nothing. This fact was something you and Viktor bonded over initially. Later, both of your intellect and fondness for academics. He empathized, too, with you having no family…even more the fact that you started this venture to pay for your studies. That’s how the two of you found yourself dating. There was an unwavering kindness about Viktor, you loved that. The secrecy made every interaction all the more interesting, especially in the confines of the Piltover club.

The shift started like any other. You were on stage, moving to the rhythm of your song, Lest in your peripheral. You’d often recall how she was the first person to make you feel truly comfortable. She’d linger during your sets, calling security when needed, even speaking up for you when she realized you couldn’t. Lest gave you the push to take control, and the money really showed it.

You glanced down a bit, seeing some of your money get swept to the side. Lest had your labeled basket in her hands, grabbing some out of the way for you. In that split second, you saw a glint toward the back corner. You smirked, seeing your boyfriend spread on a chair—observing you through low eyes. You sped your tempo up, the stage now cleared enough for you.

Viktor noticed your arched a brow and stifled a chuckle. As you picked up the pace, he leaned back more comfortably in the chair. A hand held onto his cane, knuckles paling at the forceful grip. His other hand rested on the chair. His legs spread entirely, something he knew you loved. He was locked in, eyes roaming over every inch of your body as you danced. Your back was to him, then, ass shaking seductively in a way he’d always appreciated. You bent simultaneously, making a show of your legs before dropping into a split. You rolled your neck, looking toward Viktor. He watched your hand trace over your leg before tapping on it twice with a smile.

You’d definitely seen him back there.

Lest gave a knowing smirk, nodding over her shoulder “I see you spotted your regular.”

“Sure did.” You laughed at that, swinging your legs around. “It’s gonna be a fun night.”

“Oh I can tell.”

Lest didn’t know the two of you were dating, nobody did. That was the allure. Viktor could be the “regular” who showed up and dotted on you while you played the helpless stripper who so desperately needed his money. Neither were true, except that Viktor did love to spend his money on you.

Lest spoke up again, “You should head back there, before he gets restless…you know how they are.”

You moved to stand, doing a final spin and wave to the audience. “You’re right…can’t miss out on the money.”

“Exactly.” You moved to help add the rest of your money to the basket, Lest gripping it for dear life. “I’ll put this in the usual spot. We can do count after you rake in the big bucks.”

You high-fived Lest, watching as she turned immediately. You turned away, too, knowing that the chance of any of your money being taken was close to zero. You’d trust her with your life—so much so that you often debated telling her more about yourself outside of the club. Part of you figured she knew about your relationship and just played along. The thought of that made you love her friendship even more.

There was a drag in your step. You purposely made your strides slow as you inched toward the corner Viktor had chosen for tonight. His eyes had yet to leave you, but his free hand circled the arm rest. He was pent up, which was perfect, you thought.

He watched as you finally reached him, standing over his seated figure with your hands on your hips. You spoke first, yelling a bit over the music. “Funny seeing you here.”

He played along, eyes raking over your body. “I frequent here relatively often, do I not?”

You shrugged, looking away, “One could say that.”

He smiled, moving to stand up. You were a bit shorter than him, but slightly taller now thanks to your heels. He glanced down at them in adoration, loving the feeling of looking up at you. “You were stellar, love.”

You raised your head, flicking your hair. “Thank you, baby.” Your eyes lingered on one another, the genuine feeling of affection sitting between you both. Leaning down to whisper in his ear, you broke that sweet feeling. You played to his true intention; you knew why he was here. “Wanna go somewhere more private?” You let your lips linger for a second, hands coming up to rub his neck and behind his ears with your thumbs. “I know a place.”

He watched you pull back, looking up through his lashes. The smile on your face absolutely melted him. He reached down, slowly searching his pocket. He flipped up a bill that was settled between two fingers. “Lead the way.”

You plucked the money from him and grasped his now empty hand. The exchange had its own unspoken rules—Viktor would always pay, you would let him. The inherently degrading nature never found its way to your relationship but was instead a way to keep up appearances. For Viktor, it was yet another way to show his love for you. He’d give it all if he could—you deserved it.

He followed you, stalking behind your enticing figure. You’d shift every so often, your reflection moving with the tone of the lights. The sound reverberated off of you both, pulsing between your interlocked fingers. The bass slowly faded as you walked down the long hallway, even more so as you entered the secluded room.

The lights were low, a quiet music lulling in the room. Candles lit the area and added a hint of vanilla to the air Viktor appreciated—it smelled like you. He closed his eyes at the thought, enveloped by the scent and feeling of your skin on his palm. You glanced up, observing that the light on the cameras had been switched off. You huffed gratefully, knowing you had to thank Lest again later.

Viktor felt the pull of your hands and mindlessly followed until his back met the couch. He cleared his throat, looking over to you beside him. “So,” he paused, “How was your day?”

“Do you actually want to know how my day was?” You pursed your lips, sarcasm riddled all over them. “Or are you just indulging me so you seem like a gentleman?”

Viktor was frazzled at that, “What? No…” He brushed a hand to move his hair out of his face, “No! I would like to know-“

A kiss to his cheek interrupted him, “I know.” You nodded slowly. “But you should just ask for what you really want…I’m a busy woman after all.”

The flicker in his eye was one you genuinely loved—the switch from caring boyfriend to infatuated client.

“And what is it you think I want?” A hand brushed over your cheek, his thumb slowly finding its way to your lips. He looked down, rubbing his fingers across your skin.

You reached down, then, a hand firmly landing on his thigh. You maintained eye contact as you spoke—sliding a hand further up his leg. “I think I have a pretty good idea…”

“Is that so?” Viktor leaned back further to adjust his lap and purposely push his hardened length into your palm.

The two of you leaned in closer, the pull of each other undeniable. Slowly, your lips collided. There was an urgency, yet neither of you acted on it—an attempt to savor the moment. You maneuvered then, lips still connected. Viktor hummed against your mouth—a sound that left you smiling as you pushed a leg over his lap.

The once soft push of your lips together was now bordering on frantic. Every so often, Viktor would move to pull and suck on one of your lips—urging you on. You were lost in the motion—in him. Your hands snaked up the back of his neck and tangled with the hair at the base of his neck. With a forceful tug, you pulled him back. He was looking at you now, face flushed and lips completely swollen and glistening. Looking at him this way already had your underwear dampening. You refused to break eye contact, lowering yourself just on top of Viktor. Sucking in a breath, he tilted his head back—leaning into the couch cushion.

You began to circle your hips. The friction of the restrained material had you feral. “Fuck…” You continued, slowly circling and moving up and down his erection. “Fuck, Viktor.”

He matched you motion suddenly, circling his hips up into you. The motion had your insides pulsing. You couldn’t keep up the act, leaning down into the warmth of his neck. You felt him kiss and suck on your neck. He trailed kisses up and around your ear—moving around your hairline. His hands found your back, pulling you into him even more. Erratic breaths filled the room. All that was missing, you thought, were the lewd sounds of slapping you so desired. You’d give anything to be fully naked right now, letting him work all over you. But there was no time. The thought only spurred you on.

He spoke suddenly, “I needed this.”

“I know,” You push and pull into him faster, “Me too.”

The fabric barrier between the two of you was soaked now, a mixture of both of you. You slid back a bit, arms length distance away from Viktor. His mouth was agape from the lack of sensation, but quickly lost any will to argue when you began to swirl on his tip. He was always so sensitive there—and you were close. The rubbing on your clit had your breath shallow, your motions less rhythmic. He noticed, grabbing your waist to guide you to a speed that had both of your eyes rolling back.

“I’m close….”

Viktor pulled you into a kiss and mumbled into your mouth. “I am too.”

With a few more pumps against each other, you were finishing all over each other’s clothes. You accidentally broke the kiss, gasping for the breath that escaped you at the burning sensation in your body. Viktor didn’t stop, though, pulling you in impossibly closer. He worked the both of you through, choking out a whine as he shot out ropes into his pants.

The two of you sat there, embracing each other for a while. The feeling of each other was enough in the moment—drowning out the sensory overload of the club. Your finger tips traced over his features. You smoothed over his brows, the moles by his eye and lip, the divets in his cheekbones. He was entirely mesmerized by you—a devotion all over his face.

Light taps at the door broke the moment. You knew it would be Lest; she’d often drop by when you took a bit longer than management would like for just one customer. Opening the door a crack, you saw a pile there—a change of clothes for you and a smaller hand towel. You scooped them up quickly, moving back into the room.

Viktor was still watching you, a hand finding its way back to his cane. His grasp wasn’t as tight as before, you smiled to yourself at that.

You stripped quickly, moving to clean yourself and change your clothes. “Missed you today.”

Viktor pushed himself forward in the seat. “And I, you.” He staggered over to you, a hand pushing in and out of his pocket. He held up a bill again, “We should do this again sometime.”

A small chuckle escaped you. “Sure, baby.” You pecked a kiss on his cheek as he walked by you. “I’ll see you at home.”

[krisluxxeeempress]

Pluto Square Moon Synastry | Astro Synastry Series

hm, the Pluto person truly must tread carefully with the moon person in this synastry. This is a tricky or even a contradictory mixture of energies to interpret for many reasons.

THE PLUTO PERSON IS THE HEAVY HITTER IN THIS BITCH, I KNOW THIS, YOU KNOW THIS AND WHOEVER THE MOON PERSON IS, WILL SOON KNOW AND FEEL THIS. SO, THE SQUARE, THE CHALLENGE AND DIFFICULTY THE PLUTO PERSON BRINGS TO THE MOON HEAVILY DEPENDS ON THE SIGN THE MOON IS IN.

THERE ARE STRONG MOON SIGNS AND THEN THERE ARE WEAKER ONES WHO CANNOT HANDLE THE PLUTO PERSON.

THIS ENERGY REMINDS ME OF A MAN OR WOMAN CLAIMING SOMEONE “CAN’’T HANDLE THEM” AND THEN GET INTO BED AND THE WOMAN CAN’T TAKE BACKSHOTS WITH HER BACK ARCHED TO PERFECTION OR A MAN WHO CANNOT LAST 5 MINS IN THAT P****, haha.

A lot of people claim they handle intensity, possession, obsession and even violence until they have the handle it. Now do not get me wrong, the Pluto person isn’t evil (but can be). My point starting off with this synastry is that some thrive in squares meanwhile others crumble and fumble- so it’s difficult to interpret this without getting specific on the sign the Pluto person has and the moon. I suppose that is the purpose of this synastry- to test if you're about this life. The Pluto person will be challenged in dealing with the sensitivities of the moon person especially if it’s a weaker moon. The moon person will be challenged greatly on whether or not they can handle the Pluto person in all their glory.

This synastry reminds me of Bella and Edward in Twilight, with Edward being the Pluto person and Bella being the moon person- for my example. We all thought Bella wasn’t about that life, but she proved us and Edward all wrong. For my example, Bella appeared weak and deceptive in that manner, which the moon is known to be, however, she really had the all-powerful Edward on his knees, plenty of times. Edward, being the Pluto person did struggle greatly with his love, obsession, and desire for Bella all while trying not to kill her.

I used to be into dark romance books and all the ladies obsessed over the killers, thugs, psycho’s and unhinged but sexy men in the books but they all knew that if that book fantasy man came to reality- they would fold, be scared, call cops and run away. We fantasize about the Pluto person but in reality, can we handle it? The moon person in this synastry will find out firsthand and it will be life changing in a destructive or empowering way however, you have to experience it first. You can’t keep the Pluto person at a distance, you will be forced to experience them- all of them and this may scare the moon person off or like I forementioned, empower him/her. Similar to Bella. She was scared of Edward but that made her want more until it was too late to turn back and at the end of her journey (or the movie series) she realized that she was “born to be a vampire”. She would have never gotten that empowering realization had she avoided Edward.

My point is, the Pluto person is feared by the moon person however, the moon person can intuit and sense there’s more to the Pluto person that they have to discover. Spiritually speaking, the moon person knows they need the Pluto person but there’s fear, denial and a lack of the familiarity IN THE PHYSICAL SENSE, BUT EMOTIONALLY, THE PLUTO PERSON FEELS LIKE HOME TO THE MOON PERSON. HONESTLY, THE PLUTO PERSON FEELS LIKE THE MOON PERSON IS HOME TO THEM AS WELL HOWEVER, THE PLUTO PERSON IS CONCERNED ABOUT HURTING/BREAKING OR RUINING THE MOON PERSON AND TRIES THEIR DAMNEST TO AVOID THE MOON PERSON. (or ruins them because that's their secret intention, who knows)

HERE COMES THE CONTRADICTION OR MAYBE IM SENSING THE ENERGETIC SHIFT BUT THE PLUTO PERSON MAY BE THE AVOIDANT (INITALLY) AND THE MOON PERSON MAY BE THE COVERT CHASER. LIKE EDWARD, HE WAS AVOIDING BELLA AND BELLA WAS SECRECTLY ASKING ABOUT EDWARD AND VERY CURIOUS ABOUT HIM AND GOING TO BOOKSTORES TO REASEARCH MYTHICAL STORIES IN HOPES OF GAINING MORE KNOWLEDGE. HER INTUTION WAS TELLING HER SHE WAS MISSING SOMETHING BUT WHAT WAS THAT SOMETHING?

BELLA WAS CLINGY BUT EDWARD WAS POSSESSIVE.  TO MY NEXT POINT, THE MOON PERSON WILL BE CLINGY BUT PLUTO PERSON WILL BE POSSESSIVE, PROTECTIVE AND SECRECTLY DANGEROUS, THAT ONLY THE MOON PERSON WILL BE PRIVY TO.

IT'A POSSIBLE FOR OTHERS NOT EVEN BEING AWARE THIS COUPLE EXIST, AS A COUPLE.

NOW IN THE EVENT PEOPLE KNOW YOU'RE A COUPLE, THAT’S ALL THEY’LL KNOW AND THIS MAY ATTRACT STALKERS OR PEOPLE HEAVILY INVESTED IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP. YOU BOTH HAVE SECRECTIVE ENERGY SEPERATELY AND MORESO, COLLECTIVELY.

LET’S SAY THIS COUPLE WORK TOGETHER. THEY CAN LITERALLY GO OUTSIDE ON LUNCH BREAK, HAVE BACK BREAKING SEX AND THEN COME INTO WORK LOOKING CALM, COOL AND COLLECTED AND DEPENDING, MAY EVEN APPEAR AS IF THEY DO NOT KNOW EACHOTHER.

IN A NEGATIVE SENSE, THIS SYNASTRY CAN BE ABUSIVE BUT IT'S COVERED UP VERY WELL (UNTIL IT’S NOT). AS I’M TYPING THIS, I FEEL LIKE MY ENERGY IS SHIFTING IN SO MANY DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS AND THAT’S THE VIBE WITH THIS COUPLE.

IT’S NOT NECESSARILY A STABLE CONNECTION AND THAT WILL BE THE SQUARE FOR THE MOON PERSON BECAUSE THEIR EMOTIONAL INSTABILITY WILL BE HEIGHTENED AND REFLECTED BACK. IT’S IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT BECAUSE THIS RELATIONSHIP ISN’T STABLE, DOESN’T ALWAYS MEAN IT’S TOXIC though, it can be.

-sidenote: this synastry will feel odd to others, almost like Aquarius energy but unable to pinpoint what the oddity is, like Piscean energy but I digress.

Jacob thought Bella was going to die when she finally had sex with Edward. In Jacob’s mind, someone on the outside, he concluded Bella and Edwards relationship was toxic and life threatening however, on the inside of this relationship, Edward and Bella thought they had things under control and wanted whatever came with each other. So, people on the outside will be so disturbed and bothered by this couple because they cannot get in and this can be good and or bad. Bad in the sense that what if the moon person was being abused and no one can get in to help him/her? But good in the sense that the Pluto person is so protective of the moon person that the Pluto person would rather die than to allow any harm to come to the moon person.

This couple is hard to define because you never really know what is going on and this can be dangerous to the couple and to others on the outside of this couple. It’s so hard to tell.

If you have annoying neighbors who like abusive sex and you hear them screaming, how do you know someone is being abused or if they just like aggressive and wall breaking sex? Do you get involved and risk being wrong and exposed as nosey or leave them alone and risk someone actually being in danger?

I am using sex as a relatable EXAMPLE BUT THIS APPLIES TO ALL KINDS OF SITUATIONS. WE WILL NEVER REALLY KNOW WITH THIS COUPLE BECAUSE THE MOON PERSON WILL APPEAR WEAK AND VULNERABLE IN COMPARISON TO THE PLUTO PERSON HOWEVER, WHAT IF SECRECTLY THE MOON PERSON HAS THE SECRET STRENGTH, TO PUT THE PLUTO PERSON ON THEIR KNEES?

Like in the dark romance books, the men in the book are portrayed as Pluto types and they were scary, dangerous, and physically stronger however, their ladies in those books, who in my example, is the moon person, they had those dark and scary men on their knees for them. Whatever the moon person needed or wanted, the Pluto person obliged and then some. It doesn’t matter if the Pluto person is the woman and the moon person is the man, the dynamic is all the same.

People on the outside will always assume the Pluto person is too dangerous, serious, and hardcore- or they may suspect something dark about the Pluto person that they don’t like but can’t prove meanwhile, the moon person will appear weak, unsuspecting, and innocent but sometimes, it’s the moon person who has all the power.

Whatever the case, it will be extremely hard for this couple to breakup and that’s another square.

If things are all bad and warrant this couple to separate, they won’t be able to because there’s a deep soul tie here. In the event the couple need to separate for idk, work or life circumstances- it will literally feel like death for them. Remember Edward had Bella jumping off cliffs and Bella had Edward ready to get burned at the stake. Both could not be without each other and were more than willing to go to extremes to bring the other back. Idk, it’s either extremely romantic to some and for others, traumatizing because in a negative sense- the Pluto person would be the type to kill the moon person and their babies and then him/herself before letting them leave the relationship. The moon person will literally go emotionally and eventually mentally crazy without the Pluto person. (because the moon is the mind in Vedic astrology)

 do you see the overall dilemma? (the square) this synastry is so powerful that it will appear like an opposition. Oppositions insert themselves into this dynamic because the powerful soul tie that these two with Pluto square moon have, is so dynamic it’s threatening others- making others feel inclined to oppose it. It’s hard to explain, this couple is hard to understand for each other and especially for others. This couple must fight to stay together and fight to stay apart. Then they must fight others who oppose them because others cannot understand or respect their dynamic (even if it's not a toxic dynamic)

I can go on and on, but I will conclude here.

If you have Pluto square moon in synastry, be prepared for people on the outside wishing to get in, to oppose your relationship. These people can sense a very strong undercurrent of energies between the two of you but because they do not understand it- they will fear it and cause drama that will force the Pluto person to defend and protect or to be exposed. The Pluto person challenge is love, protect, and handle the moon person with care and be willing to die and or sacrifice for the moon person no matter what, if you truly love the moon person. However, if you do not love the moon person and you’re secretly a monster, your challenge will be getting exposed and left to deal with the light.

All things done in the dark are brought to the light. Pick a struggle.

As for the moon person, your challenge is facing your fears and handling that Pluto d*** or p*** , haha no seriously.

Like Bella, she was constantly around other vampires who wanted to kill her. She was constantly in situations that she had no power. Bella was somewhat helpless until she fought for equal vampire rights, ha. Speaking to the moon person- your challenge is to become empowered and stronger through all the trials and tribulations you will surely endure being with the Pluto person. Your comfort levels will constantly be eroded, challenged and tested and you will need to overcome them and come out wanting more.

When I think of the moon, I think of pregnancy. Did you know women can die during childbirth? No one talks about this openly or even appears concerned about this when they try to get pregnant! Why? because the love they usually have for the man, overpowers the possibility of facing death. There's a deep-rooted level of trust these people have for each other that carries them through the darkest pits of hell. (or a deep-rooted distrust)

I am just using this as an example, but hopefully you get the point.

The love you have for your Pluto person will make you more than willing, resilient, and empowered to face death, if that’s required, for your Pluto person. Now death comes in many different forms, but the point is, your love for the Pluto person is the challenge. How deep is your love vibes. Your love will be exposed in the light as well. So, what you both initially hid about your feelings, love and relationship towards each other and others will be exposed eventually.

I hope what’s exposed is unconditional love, a bigger ass from taking those back shots and overcoming opposition that is waiting at the door for the both of you.

Do you both love each other enough to run into a burning building to save each other? Or hate each other enough to start the fire with them in it?

Are you both willing to dive in the deep oceans to save each other? Or throw them in the deep ocean in hopes they die and are eaten by a shark?

Are you willing to save room on a floating door in hopes you both survive, or will you allow your Pluto or moon person freeze to death like homegirl did in the titanic?

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

I want to strangle people like this with black licorice vines

I need straights and gays to wake up and realize that this narrative we’ve had for the past near century that “the majority of people in the LGBT community are Gay/Lesbian“ is a lie. Most people are Bi/Pan. We’ve always been the majority, but even despite efforts by sexologists to introduce nuance into the conversations of flexible sexuality, the straights and the gay/lesbian community have consistently enforced the existence of an either-or binary of Homo | Hetero which has led to the false impression that Bisexuality is extremely anomalous even within the ‘anomalous phenomenon of queerness’. It isn’t, never has been, y’all were simply brainwashed just like straight people by rigid Western conceptualizations of gender and sexuality.

There being no monosexual (attracted to only one gender) companions is NOT ERASURE. Erasure is lying, censoring, ignoring, or attempting to re-explain the clear present evidence of someone’s identity. The companions are Bisexual/Pansexual from the jump, therefore there is nothing exclusively homosexual to erase. There is nothing in the game that indicates anything but perhaps a historical preference toward one gender over the other (i.e. Astarion making more observational comments about men than women that I’ve noticed) or known dating history (i.e. Gale’s relationship with Mystra).

I’m sorry if you want characters to be exactly Gay or exactly Straight, but when people complain about Bi/Pansexuality in media it stinks of the arguments once made by gay and lesbian activists until very recently that “Bisexuality is a political copout to appease the straights”, “Bisexuality is a lack of commitment to one side.” It’s the understandable fear that if Bisexuality is made more visible, then straight people will even more insistently weaponize our existence against gays and lesbians and argue “Well these queers can have relationships with the opposite sex, so why can’t you?” It’s not our fault as Bisexuals if the hegemony uses us as a weapon against our community without our consent, just like it’s not drag queens’ fault when the cishets use them to paint gay people as deviants.

Not only that but this insistence on these characters as being gay or lesbian is strictly due to this worship of gay/lesbian archetypes which are really just stereotypes. “Minthara is a lesbian because she hates men” is not groundbreaking girlboss empowering representation for lesbians, I don’t care what your little pink ribbon emoji handle has to say about it. “Astarion is gay because he’s flamboyant” wait until I introduce you to Lord Byron and Bi men who have freed themselves from the shackles of toxic masculinity. “Karlach is a lesbian because of that haircut and Mommy” Karlach is Karlach. She likes cock and cunt.

You can headcanon that these characters have a preference. You can even headcanon they are 99.99% into one gender and 0.01% into another. But no matter how many 9s you tack onto that .99% it’s still gonna be less than 100%. They’re still canonically Bi. Sorry that’s just how it is. That’s the reality.

[voxisdaddy]

Old Fashioned

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Pairing: Vox x Reader

Type: Headcanons

Featuring: Alastor, Rosie

C/TW: Stalking, Swearing, mentions of porn, use of (y/n)

In which Vox could go full stalker mode on his crush, Reader, but reader doesn’t use much technology and avoids VoxTek appliances.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ I personally headcanon that Vox, while yes can use any technology to his advantage, only VoxTek products can give him full advantage of his powers.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Which is infuriating when on his cameras, he spotted you using your phone and was confused on why he couldn’t easily hack into it. He couldn’t get into it. What the fuck?

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ It wasn’t until he spotted you again some time later in some tech store looking at some phone cases. He watched as you pealed your old phone case off, revealing a phone that was not a VoxTek phone.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ No; it was a rival companies. Not quite as rich and empowering as VoxTek, but still a rival company nonetheless.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ He hates that company.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ They even started out doing some of his own sales just days after release.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Well that’s just great. But not a total loss. Perhaps he could get his advertisement team to push for more advertisements on well, anything and everything.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Over the next several days he tried that before realizing he has no way to check if it’s you know, reaching you

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Why? Because you don’t even have a TV in your place! Which he found through following you on his cameras around Pride

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ “What person in todays world doesn’t have a television?” He grits through his teeth, starring at your door through a security camera

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Well you apparently and he found out through an online web forum or comment section, whatever suits your fancy, you used one night

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ “I don’t really have a use for a tv” something along those lines

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Through some more stalking and hacking he was finally able to get somewhere. Not through any appliance unfortunately, but you had fortunately downloaded a thing which had a VoxTek bug attached to it. Success!!

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ He was able to hack the phone, not to its fullest potential but still enough for now, and would have it on one of his monitors constantly. It’s here where he learned through your screen time in your phone settings that you hardly use the thing

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Occasionally he sees you’re active using it however, to which he’s quick to drop whatever it is he’s doing to you know, watch you do whatever it is you’re doing on your phone. It’s mildly annoying to those around him

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ But he can’t help it! Who do you text? Do you have a partner? Are you on dating apps? Do you watch porn and if so, which kind do you like?

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ He doesn’t really learn much, or as much and the specifics he’d like, but it’s something. Ah so this is the music you like to listen to whenever the radio isn’t playing it, huh? You have a few pictures… several notes in your notes app… some app to text only a small handful of people on occasion. He wonders if suddenly following you on the app would be too much.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ I mean, your account isn’t exactly anything special to the public eye per say. And even if it was, you certainly weren’t on it or gave much of a crap on it. So Vox’s suddenly millions and millions of followers on his account would probably raise some questions from you. But that would be good right? Maybe you’d shoot him a message asking why he followed you, and your relationship starts there! You can officially meet for the first time! Okay it would be through text but it still counts!

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ For this headcanons post, I’m keeping in mind that the reader is before the 2000’s time. So anywhere between the near start of hell to the 90’s lol

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Which if Vox found this out, he’d be a little confused. He died or relatively came around the 1950’s, he knew people from the 1930’/, who still use todays technology. Are you this much of an old soul to really not use anything like todays tech to your daily entertainment? And no—using the alarm doesn’t count!! He can’t even see you so…

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ You know how I said you avoid VoxTek appliances? Wanna know why?

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ “FUCKING ALASTOR!”

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Vox glitches out in a rage when on his cameras, he saw you sitting around a table with Rosie and Alastor.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ “Oh and I guess—FUCKING ROSIE—!” Hey he’s an inclusive guy.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Oh ho! So you’re acquainted with those two? The old fucks that even Zestial seems more youthful compared to at times. Vox curses out the two overlords further. Your acquaintances now making sense why you don’t use technology and specifically avoid Vox’s. Yeah. They’re definitely intentionally leading you away from anything VoxTek. And you seemed to have no issue with that? Wtf!?

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ “(Y/n) dear, I heard rumours that you were seeking a new place to call home. Might I ask how that’s going?” Alastor glitches out his cameras but it was doing for now, Vox grumbled.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ So you’re moving huh? Oh well. Vox isn’t particularly worried. He’s got cameras all over Pride. He’d be able to find your new home quickly and who knows, maybe it’ll be more convenient to stalk you then!

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ “Oh yes, Alastor! Rosie has been such a peach in helping me find a suitable place for me to move into. Why I’m quite proud to announce that I am now a home owner! No more little apartments for me.” You’d share a little snack with Rosie. That snack catering to your taste or hers is up to you.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Ah… a house. Okay apartment builders are required to have security cameras in their general areas and hallways so a house and if you’d even put up security cameras might cause some issue but still. Their would be cameras around your neighborhood or whatever, right? And you’d still have your phone on you so at least theirs still that for Vox to keep an eye on you—

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ “Darling, I’m so glad you finally decided to move into Cannibal Town!” Vox froze at Rosie’s words.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Cannibal Town? Fucking Cannibal Town?? Old 1920’s town with carcasses to feed off of at nearly every corner? Really?

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Vox barley has cameras in Cannibal Town! He has a few, hence why he can stalk your lunch session right now with Rosie and Alastor, but it’s one of the very few cameras he has up here. What was wrong with your old place?! Vox screams and you just so happen to conveniently answer—ah how nice.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ “My current apartment is less than desirable for my tastes. Too much loud obnoxious music, distasteful lyrics, horrendous billboards, flashing lights and way too much modern technology. Call me old but that Vee stuff really gives me a headache.”

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Vox swears that shit eating grin Alastor threw at seemingly nothing was thrown specifically at Vox in that moment.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Vox needs to meet you soon. Surely you’d fall in love with him. He was waiting for the perfect opportunity but you seem to just be getting further away the more he waits.

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𐙚 ࣪ ⭒ Just please don’t toss out your phone. That’s like the one modern thing you have. It’s all he has.

Guess who’s sleep schedule is (kind of) fixed and can actually start posting requests and general reader stuff on a moderately decent schedule?? Meeee

I got so much requests to work on (I encourage more to be sent though please I like having these things to work on) and I’m very excited to post more lol

[nyoomerr]

Another silly prompt if you’d like:

Shen Qingqiu starts exhibiting ‘symptoms’ of being some fraction Heavenly Demon thanks to every heavenly demon he’d met previously feeding him their blood.

(Maybe he and Binghe came across some artifact meant to ‘awaken one’s bloodline’ and/or Airplane had some cut plot-line about an artificial heavenly demon for Binghe to fight).

ok i said no more prompts for now but i've been thinking about a really stupid idea for this one and i couldn't stop thinking about it so dfkjh here it is!!

---

There’s no reason to suspect anything is out of the ordinary, at first. The visiting dignitary and his troupe are exceedingly deferential to both Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu in equal measure; not unusual, considering the amount of importance Luo Binghe places on having Shen Qingqiu treated well. 

Lesser demons have been beheaded for conveniently ‘forgetting’ to greet their emperor’s human spouse with enough respect. More politically empowered demons - the ones that understand just how important it is to respect a powerful demon’s demands for his wife - have had trade agreements stalled and family honor lost for being too nice to Shen Qingqiu, crossing Luo Binghe’s hair-trigger alarm for any potential competition to his Shizun’s attention. 

Taking both extremes into account, the safest bet is usually to treat Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu with the same level of esteem. Indeed, this visiting dignitary’s actions are very normal.

…Or they had started as such, and then Shen Qingqiu had let his guard down, and now they’re on day three of this particular political visit and things seem to have shifted ever so slightly to the left.

The little lordling is still plenty respectful to them both, of course, and he hasn’t started looking too long or too kindly at Shen Qingqiu, so it isn’t - erm, it isn’t any any sort of wife plot, trying to stir up jealousy with the stallion protagonist. 

Instead, it’s both more and less alarming than that: this demon has somehow gotten it into his head that Shen Qingqiu is in charge here. 

Never mind what Luo Binghe may or may not have to say about such a thing!! This is about the law of the land - the actual, real emperor between the two of them is Luo Binghe, if only because Luo Binghe knows well that Shen Qingqiu couldn’t tolerate the work of such a position. Part time empresses, part time peak lords got to have naps; Luo Binghe didn’t get those unless Shen Qingqiu thickened his face and made gestures from the bed that may or may not be construed as requests for cuddles. Shut up.

Anyway, the point is thus: Luo Binghe is emperor of the demonic lands. Shen Qingqiu is to be treated well when he decides he wants to participate in a bit of demonic politicking, but he is not supposed to be the one little visiting dignitaries look to for the final decision.

Shen Qingqiu tries to ignore it, of course. If he pretends he doesn’t notice, maybe Luo Binghe will do the same, and then there’s less of a chance of Luo Binghe being weird about it in bed later!

But as the days stretch on, the visiting dignitary seems to become more confident in his decision on which one of them is in charge, and it finally comes to a head during the feast on the final day: the little lordling seats himself to the side of Shen Qingqiu, rather than that of Luo Binghe.

Shen Qingqiu shifts uncomfortably in his seat, glancing over the top of his fan at the dignitary. Surely, he’ll realize his mistake here…?

“Lord Shen,” the demon lord says, seemingly oblivious to the tension throughout the banquet hall as everyone watches the political misstep in action. “Once more, our people can only thank you and your husband for the hospitality you’ve afforded us during this visit. The agreement between our lands will -”

Shen Qingqiu closes his fan with a snap, drawing himself up with a mental tirade of a thousand of his best curses. That really is the last straw - if he doesn’t correct this mistake now, Luo Binghe might really decide to do something petty and violent later to correct the offense!

“Lord Xia,” Shen Qingqiu says, voice perfectly level. “It appears as if you may have had one too many drinks this afternoon; your place is over there.” 

Saying as such, Shen Qingqiu gestures sharply with his fan to Luo Binghe’s other side. The dignitary pauses, glancing between Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu.

“...No,” he says slowly, “I’m - that is, this lowly one is fairly certain his loyalty is to Lord Shen…”

Shen Qingqiu glances up to the heavens, which have surely forsaken him many years ago. Oh, why did this stupid little man have to word it like that!!

“Xia Yang had best remember what is and is not his,” Luo Binghe says lowly. “The only one allowed to pledge such loyalty to Shizun is myself.”

Xia Yang once more glances between the two of them, his expression growing more confused by the moment. 

“Is Lord Shen… not the demon emperor of this realm?”

Shen Qingqiu stares at him. To his side, Luo Binghe is staring too, though with a far more shrewd expression; clearly, he’s trying to parse this response out as either an acceptable excuse for being too friendly with Shen Qingqiu or not.

“I’m afraid Lord Xia is mistaken,” Shen Qingqiu says when it becomes clear that Luo Binghe is busy being silent and brooding. “This lord is quite human.”

The visiting dignitary’s brows draw together, and then slowly he tilts his head up, scenting the air. 

“...Is Lord Shen sure?” Xia Yang asks, clearly uncertain. “Of course, I had heard of the tales of Luo Binghe and his human spouse, but Lord Shen is…”

“Speak plainly, or lose your tongue,” Luo Binghe snaps.

Shen Qingqiu sighs, reaching over to rap his knee under the table sharply. This sticky disciple of his, always so snappish when it comes to what others say about Shen Qingqiu, ah! This scum villain has had to tolerate far worse things said about him than this sort of mistake, you know!

“It is only that Lord Shen’s blood is clearly of heavenly demon origin,” the little lordling says, shifting uncomfortably under the scrutiny. 

Shen Qingqiu feels a bit mortified. Has he - has he really consumed that much of Luo Binghe’s blood??

“Xia Yang smells my own blood in Shizun’s veins,” Luo Binghe says, still looking a bit ruffled. “Shizun is human.”

“All due respect to Lord Luo,” Xia Yang says, “but Lord Shen’s heavenly demon blood is distinct from your own. It -”

Xia Yang cuts off, his mouth shutting so fast he seems to almost bite his own tongue right off and his cheeks coloring a scandalized pink. Shen Qingqiu feels a sense of great foreboding for what is about to be said next.

“Speak,” Luo Binghe hisses.

“Lord Shen’s bloodline is clearly the same as Lord Luo’s,” Xia Yang says in a rush. “This one isn’t sure how close, but it - ah, from the smell of his blood, this one thought Lord Shen might be Lord Luo’s father, or perhaps an uncle…”

The banquet hall is dead silent. Shen Qingqiu feels a bit faint. 

“Tianlang-jun,” he says, mostly to himself. 

“And that snake, too,” Luo Binghe agrees, his eyes flashing and his demonic qi writhing around him. “Shizun, you said they were dead.”

“They are!” Shen Qingqiu exclaims, still feeling a bit regretful about it. “But - well, it isn’t like I could siphon their blood out! It’s all mixed up in there!”

Luo Binghe gnashes his teeth, glaring down at the table. He looks very much like he wishes his parental family was still alive, actually, just so he could have the pleasure of serving them a beat down for putting their blood in Shen Qingqiu’s body and causing this misunderstanding in the first place.

“Lord Shen… has consumed the blood of several heavenly demons?” Xia Yang asks curiously. Shen Qingqiu almost wants to yell at him to read the room just a bit, ah!

“Indeed,” Shen Qingqiu says instead, his voice positively frosty. “So as Lord Xia can see, there has been a misunderstanding: this Lord is human.”

Xia Yang blinks, looks between Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe a final time, and gets up to exchange seats so he’s finally sitting in the proper location. Shen Qingqiu reaches blindly for his wine. Ah, that poor little demon, he really will end up on the shit side of things, after riling Luo Binghe up this much! And this political visit had been going so well, too -!

Shen Qingqiu glances over at Luo Binghe. He does not, in fact, look quite so furious as he had a moment prior. Instead, he’s watching Xia Yang with a look that is very, very concerning to Shen Qingqiu.

“...You said Shizun smelled like he could be my father?” Luo Binghe asks quietly, the tips of his ears pink.

Ah. Never mind. That poor little demon would see his end by Shen Qingqiu’s hand, for what he’s just done to their bedroom life!!

[thefishermansharbor]

The main 6 as parents!

The arcana x GN!Reader (TW: Mentions of pregnancy, reader is GN but hinted at being pregnant in Asra's chapter, light cursing.)

Asra Alnazar:

Again, someone who prefers adoption. A lot like Muriel, his past trauma of being an orphan on their own in  aplace as dangerous as the Vesuvian docks made him want to be an open and safe place for children. 

If you do get pregnant though, he turns to his mother. She’s experienced it - she might know what to do to in order for him to make it easier for you. He’ll research spells to lessen pain and morning sickness, and stuff like that. 

He would love to give them a name dedicated to your love - for example, a combination of your names, or he might name them after some place special to the two of you. 

Asra is a pretty chill parent. He’s not too bothered about what they do, as long as it’s safe and makes them happy. If they do get in trouble, he’ll use non-violent and pretty lenient punishments. Ex : Taking a toy away for a few hours, making them sit in time-out, etc. 

He wants his kids to be free - spirited and do what makes them happy. Even if this makes his kids go for what might not be the safest option, he just wants them to feel empowered.

As a new parent, one can’t help but feel scrambled. Asra is no exception. Dealing with a newborn baby is not for the worried - or faint of heart. It’s especially not for those who don’t do well with little sleep. 

This is what led him to his parents. He knocked on their door, hoping they’d come quickly. He didn’t know how much longer of his son’s screaming he could take. His mother opened the door, surprised. 

“ .. who could it be at this hour.. Asra?” Aisha rubbed at her eyes, trying to rub the sleep away. “ .. what are you doing here, baby? Come in,” 

He sighed, “ Sorry to bother you, mom.” She ushered him inside, “ It’s alright, hunny.” It took her a minute to register everything, she noticed the baby only once he’d gotten inside. 

“ .. How’s ___? Are they keeping alright? How’s–” The realization hit her like a truck. “ oh my god! Did they go into– is that..?” He nods, and she bursts into tears. 

“ Oh, Asra! You’re a father, you’re.. I’M a grandma! Before he could blink, Aisha wipes her tears. “ What’s it’s name?” 

“ His name is Jordan, mom. He’s– a week old,” 

“ why didn’t you tell me sooner, Asra?” She sighed.

“ I’ve been meaning to but things had come up and – well, I need your help.” Asra scratched the back of his neck. 

“ Of course! What is it?” 

“ .. how do you make a baby stop crying? I’ve tried everything.”

She laughs. “ give him to me.” 

Asra hands her the baby, and as if it’s magic – Jordan stops crying full stop. He actually goes to sleep in Aisha’s arms. 

“ H-how’d you do that?” Asra’s face with a mix of impression and surprise. 

“ .. Grandma magic, hunny.” She winked, 

Lucio Morgasson:

He has it rooted in his mind that children have to be biological to be the perfect ‘heir’ to Vesuvia. He’d push for it to be that way – but if you really wanted to adopt, he’d be just as an enthusiastic parent no matter what. 

Lucio wants a larger family but to be honest, he wouldn’t be able to handle more than one kid. 

If you adopt, he’s fine with adopting any age. If you get pregnant, he’d only give the best for you. He always has the finest made for you, but even more so. Although he, personally, isn’t much help - the castle staff are on higher guard and listen to you much more. 

He’s totally a girl dad. His daughter wants him to wear a tutu and tiara? Goddamnit, he’s wearing one. 

He’s a fun parent but he does what he wants - and his kids follow that. He doesn’t feel the need to be patient, or act in benefit of his kids. He’s really chaotic, and doesn’t recognize that he should be nurturing his kids, not partying with them. 

“ Daddy! Daddy!” Lily shouts, grabbing his pant leg. He looks down, and smiles. “ There she is! What is it, silly-lily?” He tickles her face, and she giggles. 

“ Auntie Nadi taught me how to paint my nails!” She confidently shows off some poorly done pink nail polish. He does a mock gasp and claps, “ they look amazing! Anyways, you were saying..” 

“ Can I paint your nails, daddy? Pretty please?” She gives him those puppy dog eyes he can never say no to. He wasn’t too bothered about going to the event on Vesuvian finances, spending time with his daughter sounded a lot more fun. 

“ Sure.” 

That’s was all he needed to say. She flipped open a bag, and took several colors out. “ Which one do you want, daddy?” He surveys them, and chooses a deep blood red. 

She paints carefully.. But a 6 year old can only paint so well. It’s messy, but she tried her best. Even though it’s messy, Lucio seems pretty happy with it. Valerius passes by, and notices it. 

“ My count.. What are you doing?”

“ Getting my nails painted, obviously.”

Valerius rubbed his temples, “ My count, you cannot be serious. No one will take you seriously with that mess on your hands..” 

Lucio furrows his brow. “ How dare you suggest that this is anything other than pure artwork!? I look absolutely FABULOUS. You are just too incompetent to recognize this pure beauty!” He winks at his daughter, who’s staring at him in awe. Valerius walks off, too tired to deal with Lucio. 

Julian Devorak:

He personally would like to have biological kids. There’s really no reason for it, he just wants it and knows, being a doctor, that he can handle a pregnant partner well. He’d also want to have multiple kids, because his relationship with Portia is really good and he’d want his kids to have that experience too. 

If you prefer to adopt, he would try and convince you to have biological children, but if you really didn’t, he wouldn’t keep pushing it. 

He’d want to name one after Portia. She was what kept him alive at one point, and he knows that she’s special and deserves it - so as long as you’re fine with it, he wants that to happen. 

He would be the authority parent. Definitely the “ just wait until your father gets home,” and he’s fine with that. He’s a very tactile parent otherwise, and is very sweet with his children. 

Once they get to be older, he does try and embarrass them a bit. But it’s all in good fun and he doesn’t mean to really offend them. 

He sighs, happy the long day of work is over for him. He jingles his keys in the door and walks through the entryway of your shared home. “ I’m home!” He shouts. 

Two little kids come instantly running in from the living room. A little girl with bouncy brown curls hugs his leg, and a slightly older boy runs right up in front of him. 

“ papa! You’re back!” The girl says, the boy nods. “ You’ll never guess what we did today!” 

“ oh, really?” He says, taking his coat off. You walk through afterwards, sighing and smiling at the two of them. 

“ Pasha, Ivan! Let your father get in the door.”

“ but ___! He’s been gone for agesss…” Ivan complains, “ yeah! And we have so much to tell him!” Pasha chimes in. Julian ruffles Ivan’s hair, and then tickles Pasha’s chin. “ It’s alright, dear. I love the attention,” You roll your eyes, leaning on the doorway. He walks over and kisses you on the cheek, before his hands travel to your back and he kisses you on the lips. 

Your daughter looks away in horror, and your son boos. ��� Ew, you guys! Stop, that’s nasty!” 

Julian chuckles and steps back, you put your head on his shoulder. 

“ – well, tell me about your day then, kids.” 

He ushers them both into the next room, and you can’t help but smile and get that warm and safe feeling in your heart. You love them.

[crooked-wasteland]

I don’t know how I feel about the songs in HH, they’re catchy and the vocal performances are good, but the lyrics are really bad and don’t move the story forward, happy day in hell just starts out of nowhere and doesn’t tell us anything new about Charlie’s dream that she hasn’t said over and over in first 10 minutes. Charlie repeats herself so many times in the first episode it’s like she’s a broken record. We’re introduced to the world building and town in hell but the problem is the storybook already told us about hell. If they wanted to make Lilith a powerful presence there should’ve been missing posters or statues of Lilith if she’s was the one to rule hell and empower it with song or even news outlets about Lilith but there isn’t. Also none of these locations ever come up or is important to the story, Charlie forgets about cannibal town and she has to be reminded what it is. The princess of hell whose been living thousands of years doesn’t know about cannibal town?

I was rewatching South Park big and longer the song Mountain Town immediately gives us synopsis of the story and what’s gonna transpire, with the boys getting ready to watch a movie with the moms singing about how South Park is so great because it’s isolated and redneck from city life that their boys are “safe” and innocent while the boys sing how their parents don’t teach them anything and singing merrily how crappy South Park is and the highlight of their life is watching Terrance and Philip. Cartman gets punished and installed a chip that shocks him if he curses for singing Kyle’s mom is a bitch and as a result of the song the towns plans on installing chips in all the kids. you can be a fan of Broadway and musicals but they doesn’t make you an expert on songwriting or storytelling especially if all your doing is just making animatic mv thumbnail for the songs

The idea of how musicals work is one I realized I had to tackle in my essay(s) around the music, and needing to build the concept of how and why musicals have such a distinct formula was necessary for any of my points to land.

It's doubly hard when you are writing out these ideas rather than explaining with examples that people can hear or see right in front of them. Being a written medium, I can't suddenly cut away to a sound, or an example. Being a tumblr blog, I am limited in the amount of media I can use per post.

So I can only hope that my attempt at explaining why musicals are comprehensible to those who lack a robust understanding of musical theory or opera.

Have a sneek peek and do let me know if I failed to get the structure across.

[shorthaltsjester]

your ashton takes have been hitting the nail on the head. when i heard the “if they’re strong they’ll survive” thing and then ashton came out like “oh yeah this is the plan” i IMMEDIATELY knew i was gonna sprint to see your take afterwards because it’s a really good reminder that ashton isn’t really against authority. because the second there’s a power structure that they personally feel more benefitted by they bend. you’re so right about it very blatantly aligning with ludinus’ view. and this is a conversation they NEED to have so soon, but besides orym i don’t know who’s even likely to broach this subject with him?

oh thanks! i really do find ashton to be a compelling like. outline of a character but that there are just several factors of this campaign that have led to them being less interesting and now, to quote ashton themself without context, fairly intolerable to watch. i think they really hit their peak for me post-shardgate where they were explicitly wrestling with the fact that they've been seeking someone to blame and were willing to find it anywhere but internally and where they began to realize -- thanks to chetney -- that punishing themselves with that blame wasn't going to solve anything either. and while i think backsliding from that is normal it is also just. not interesting given a party that -- while I, like you, very much would love to see the conversation be broached -- will almost certainly not unpack it. especially given that in moments where ashton has made claims that the whole group might be able to unpack, it's either been cushioned by ashton leaving the group setting or the entire group just kind of silence and crickets reacting with a tone of We Don't Agree but What Can Ya' Do which is fine, it just means that ashton (for me of course, power to people who still find him compelling) is no longer a character that i'm particularly interested in hearing from, since his words are presented as if in a vacuum and so rarely challenged that he is just keeping the same ill-built position. and it's that old debate adage of I don't even need him to be taking a position i think is the right one, i just need people to challenge him so at the very least his wrong position is a well constructed one and not almost entirely a vibes-based 'i like the titans because they have specifically benefitted me' argument like he currently holds.

tragically i don't think that conversation is likely to happen, but i do agree that if it does it will be orym. I could see possibilities with imogen particularly if it comes up in context of ashton being loud about his agreement with the arch heart's plan again, but at the moment my biggest hope comes from the potential of yasha or fjord having something to say (both as people empowered by gods and as people who worship their gods for the connection reasons) (theoretically cad is also included in this but . meta awareness that tal having a conversation with himself to school himself while funny to imagine is probably unlikely) that causes ashton to actually literally face the real people who have longstanding relationships of exchange with the gods that ashton has assumed himself to be special enough to dictate the future of.

[vaporwavebeach-writes]

Kinktober Day 12 (Medical Play)

BTAA Scarecrow x Reader (NSFW)

(1,223 Words)

Summary: you have a debilitating phobia of needles and Dr. Crane has the solution to overcoming those fears

Warnings/Tags: 18+, gender neutral reader, reader has MAJOR trypanophobia (fear of needles), panic attacks, exposure therapy, medical kink (duh), crane feeding off the reader’s fear, crane being unprofessional, doctor/patient dynamic, fingering

Notes: sorry this one’s a little late LMAO but literally? as someone who had SEVERE trypanophobia, this was kinda empowering to write, enjoy the fic!!!

-

There was always a sense of unease whenever you found yourself at the doctors office. Maybe it was the awkward silence of sitting in the waiting room, anticipating what’s to come. Maybe it was the little intrusions that came with a basic physical check-up. Maybe it was unsettling scent of sterilized chemicals, sanitizing the room. Maybe it was those beige colored walls, glaring at you for the duration of your visit. Maybe it was the fact that you were about to be subjected to one of your worst fears. Or maybe, it was the fact that your physician is incredibly attractive.

Yeah, that too.

You find yourself, laying on his exam table, staring up at the ceiling. His voice, playful, as he explains the clinical the proceedings of this visit, reverberates off the walls.

“I’m really glad to see you taking the initiative to face your fears, exposure therapy isn’t for the faint of heart, you know.”

Your heart flutters at his words. As someone who suffered from a fear of needles since childhood, you figured that now, well into your adulthood, it was finally time to overcome that fear.

Doctors appointments for important vaccinations or even just the seasonal flu shot was always enough to spiral you into a panic. Nightmares leading up to it, hyperventilating, and giving yourself panic attacks to the point of nausea or fainting were feelings you had become all too familiar with. Feeling the prying gazes of other people in the waiting room or judgmental nurses always caused your embarrassment to spike at what you thought, was your own childish anxieties.

Seeing Dr. Jonathan Crane changed all that. When you scheduled your first session with him, his office felt comfortable. Adorned with classic horror movie posters and little mementos about his interests gave the impression that you wouldn’t be just some patient to him, but someone who he would genuinely try to help with your issues. When time came to actually talk about your fear, he wasn’t mean, or judgmental, or condescending, but he was understanding. He was someone who took a deep interest in whatever you had to say, as a patient and as a person. When he suggested the idea of exposure therapy, you were hesitant, but he had helped you come to realize that you had to start somewhere, which lead you to the clinic.

“Thanks, doctor,” you smile nervously, “gotta start somewhere, right?”

“Too true,” he says, turning to you as he walks over to the counter. “I appreciate that you put your trust in me to help you with such a… Debilitating, vulnerability.”

You hear the metallic rustling from within the cabinets. You stare back up at the ceiling, yet your curiosity gets the better of you. Glancing back over to him, you spy him preparing the needles, sending a wave of trepidation through your body.

“The syringes will be filled with a simple saline solution, it’s not harmful, but the solution is not what you’re afraid of, is it?” Maybe it’s just your anxiety, but you could swear there’s a hint of eeriness within his voice.

“Hey, uh, Doctor?”

“What is it, sweet pea?” He asks jokingly.

“I um, I just wanna apologize in advance in case I freak out at the needle.” You muster out with as much courage as you can. “Like, I-I might cry actually.” You chuckle nervously. You actually do feel the urge to cry as uneasiness fills the pit in your stomach.

“Aw now,“ There’s a playfulness to his voice. You’ve heard it many times in sessions, but it feels a little unsettling to hear it now. “Don’t psych yourself up too much, remember your breathing techniques.”

You can’t regulate your breathing at a time like this. As he makes his way over to you with a little alcohol wipe, you feel yourself beginning to hyperventilate. You feel the sweat trickling down your forehead as your throat begins to go dry. You feel faint; clammy. That alcohol wipe was the calm before the storm. You were fine when it was swabbed across your skin, but it always signaled what’s to come.

“Dr. Crane, I don’t know if I-”

“The feelings you have right now are completely expected,” he hushes you. “It’s all anticipatory, you fear the dread of it more than the actual stick itself, and I think I have found a sufficient way to combat that,” his explanation is stern, but comforting. He takes his gloved hands in yours, feeling his warmth through the latex. “Do you trust me?”

You’re hesitant. Your eyes threaten to spill tears out of the sheer distress you feel at the moment, yet Crane stares at you confidently, as if he knows you will make the right decision. You let out a shaky sigh, “Yes.”

“Good,” he grins at you. His hand makes its way to cup your cheek, gently thumbing over you. It moves up and around, to the nape of your neck and through your scalp, playing with your hair. You practically melt into his touch, fear beginning to dissipate from within you. And it’s at that moment, he gives it a tug, eliciting a soft moan from your lips. “A good method to combating fear, is to add an equally positive stimulus.” He lets out a low chuckle in response, which you feel go straight to your groin.

“I think I catch your drift.”

“Trust me,” he whirls you around on the table, spreading your legs. You can feel the heat pooling in your sex. “By the time I’m done with you, your phobia of needles will be the last thing on your mind.” He eyes you up, feeling his predatory gaze all around you like you wish his body was.

“I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” you whisper desperately.

“Then let’s not waste any time.”

You two work together to undo your pants. Your sex drips with arousal as Dr. Crane’s hand makes its way past your underwear. Your legs shake as he grazes over a particularly sensitive spot. He adds more pressure stroking you steadily as you all but grind yourself on his hand.

“God, you are such a good patient,” he groans. “Your determination to cure yourself of this fear, by any means necessary, is remarkable.”

You let out a breathy moan at the praise. You feel his fingers enter inside you, curling up and fucking away any fear you had before.

“Dr. Crane,” you gasp. “I think, I-I’m-”

“Getting close?”

“Mhm.” You groan.

You feel yourself quickly reaching your peak, eyes slamming shut. As you feel Crane’s fingers speeding up, there’s a sharp, painful sensation in your arm, making you cry out in a pained whine. With the pain, soon follows your orgasm, which tears through you frantically.

Breathing heavily, you come down from your euphoric high, to find Dr. Crane removing his gloves, smiling over at you proudly.

“Congratulations,” he smirks. “We’ve made excellent progress in overcoming your phobia, I think we’ve made a break through.” Washing his hands in the sink, he takes a seat on the table beside you, that playful tone once again adorning his voice. “However, I think we may need to have a few more sessions, fears aren’t cured overnight you know.”

You giggle, looking at him feeling giddy. You couldn’t wait for your next appointment.

[sopranoentravesti]

Not directly inspired by anything except for *gestures vaguely at the surrounding shitshow* but I do think more people could stand to read this article by Dara Horn about Roald Dahl from 2021.

I’ve included text of the article as well, under the cut. And to head off the whining of those who will perceive this as an attack on their favorite children’s book writer or whatever: read the damn article. This isn’t about “cancelling,” someone for being bigoted (hell, if I boycotted books or plays because the author was virulently antisemitic, there would be precious little to read). It is about understanding a really dark part of human psychology that is at play in conspiratorial thinking— which of course is at the heart of antisemitism— that Roald Dahl capitalized on. Developing a more mature sense of morality, rather than indulging in the bloody politics of blame and vengeance is crucial.

There’s nothing quite like the realization that what you thought was an empowering work of art is actually a 200-page exercise in trolling. It took me more than 30 years to figure out that I’d been trolled by Roald Dahl.

Dahl, who dominated juvenile publishing when I was growing up, revealed himself late in his career to be a vicious antisemite, who thought “powerful American Jewish bankers” ran the US government. He told the New Statesman that “there is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there is always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere; even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.” This was in 1983, the year in which Dahl published The Witches, his 13th novel for children.

Apparently, Dahl had been an antisemite his entire life, but it didn’t prevent him from being essentially canonized after his death in 1990, and it didn’t much affect my thoughts about him either. I had adored his books as a child, and I’ve never taken much interest in the now-obligatory grunt work of connecting artists’ personalities (often horrible) with their works (sometimes great). And although Dahl was not only an antisemite but also (and even more damningly these days) a misogynist and a racist, he hasn’t been canceled yet. Who doesn’t love Roald Dahl, or at least his stories?

Hollywood certainly does. The most recent Dahl adaptation, which began streaming on HBO Max this Halloween season, is called Roald Dahl’s The Witches (note the value of the authorial brand), directed and written by Robert Zemeckis, with the help of two younger Hollywood powerhouses, Kenya Barris and Guillermo del Toro. It stars the high wattage Octavia Spencer, perhaps best known for her Oscar-winning role in The Help, and A-lister Anne Hathaway, not to mention the voice of the comedian Chris Rock. In fact, this is the second big-budget version of The Witches, the first having been a 1990 film starring Anjelica Huston.

But The Witches was on my mind long before I’d heard about the new movie. It was one of my favorite books when I was a child, one I read repeatedly and pressed into the hands of friends. I was eager to share it with my own children and hesitated only because, as a child, I’d also found it somewhat terrifying. But when I read it aloud to my eight-year-old son last month, I discovered that it was far more terrifying than I remembered, and for entirely different reasons.

The key to Dahl’s success as a children’s author lay in how he pitted children against adults, making children into a beloved underdog class whose moral victory lay in vanquishing their powerful exploiters. His heroes are blameless boys and girls tortured by diabolically abusive adults, whom they destroy in outrageous revenge sequences of the sort even the most fortunate child occasionally fantasizes about. In James and the Giant Peach, for instance, the orphaned James, enslaved by his villainous aunts, squashes them to death with the titular fruit. In Matilda, a kindergartener uses magic powers to terrorize a school principal who routinely locks children in a nail-studded closet. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the starving Charlie, living in the sort of poverty that would make Oliver Twist qualify as a one-percenter, inherits a fantastical candy factory—but only after a book-length morality play in which wealthy children and their entitled parents are absurdly tortured and maimed. In George’s Marvelous Medicine, a boy forced to care for his heartless grandmother concocts a potion that makes her shrink and disappear.

In short, Dahl is like a modern Charles Dickens, except instead of social justice and spiritual redemption, Dahl’s books offer only revenge. Kids, like all emotionally and morally stunted people, eat this stuff up. Dahl tapped into something primal and hideous in the human psyche: the desire of disenfranchised people to feel righteous precisely by demonizing others. As a kid, I bought this too. The sheer sadism of it went right over my head until I shared these books with my children and saw how I’d been punked. And The Witches was the worst.

The Witches is about a boy who is orphaned in the opening chapter—pity points are always crucial for Dahl—and then adopted by his loving Grandmamma, a kindly old lady who fills him in on a little-known scourge. Witches, she explains, are real. They are demons disguised as women, and their sole purpose is to entrap and destroy innocent children through their diabolical magic. One unfortunate boy, for example, went off with a witch and returned unharmed—but later hardened into a stone statue. After vanishing with a witch, a girl reappeared only in a landscape painting in her family’s home, changing positions whenever the family wasn’t watching and even aging as years passed. (That one haunted me for decades.) Other children are “disappeared” in ways worthy of an Argentine junta. Kids better watch out.

One summer on a beach vacation with Grandmamma, our hero wanders into a hotel conference room occupied by a group calling itself the “Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.” In fact, it is a coven of witches discussing their latest plan, a potion designed to turn children into mice. They discover the boy and immediately mouse-ify him, but now that our talking mouse hero knows where they keep their potions, he and Grandmamma hatch a clever plot to administer them to the witches themselves. Hijinks ensue, evil is vanquished, and although the narrator remains a mouse, he doesn’t mind. He and Grandmamma embark on a crusade to take out the witches of the world, and he never has to go to school again.

The book chimed perfectly with the stories of “stranger danger” that other 1980s children and I were constantly fed in state-mandated school curricula, but it made that threat delightfully preposterous—and manageable since all one had to do was believe that certain adults were actually demons with recognizable tells. It was a highly rewarding fantasy. After all, it was clear to me, as it was to every young reader, that even adults who didn’t molest children in shopping malls were nonetheless conspiring against us, making us do dehumanizing tasks like making beds and taking tests. The book was empowering. With its frisson of secret knowledge, it made us feel righteous and invincible. Unfortunately, revisiting it as an adult revealed that the book was cribbed from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion—and helped me understand, for perhaps the first time, antisemitism’s seductive appeal.

“Witches,” Grandmamma explains, “are not actually women at all . . . They are demons in human shape.” How do you spot one? Well, since they’re demons, they have toeless hooves instead of feet and claws instead of fingers, disguised by fashionable shoes and gloves. You can’t spot those, but you can spot their “larger nose-holes than ordinary people” (the better to smell you with, my dear). But the real tell, of course, is that witches are bald—which is why a witch always wears “a first-class wig,” which she puts “straight on her naked scalp.”

As I read this aloud to my enthralled son, it was hard to miss how much these witches resembled women in, say, Stamford Hill (the London version of Borough Park). It was also hard to miss how much they resembled caricatures from Der Stürmer or a medieval blood libel. Was I overinterpreting?

You be the judge: “Wherever you find people, you find witches,” Grandmamma tells her innocent grandchild. “There is a Secret Society of Witches in every country. . . . An English witch, for example, will know all the other witches in England.” If this was too subtle, Grandmamma clarifies: “Once a year, the witches of each separate country hold their own secret meeting. They all get together in one place to receive a lecture from The Grand High Witch of All the World.” The boy’s question about this fun fact is, at this point, predictable: “Is she rich?”

Grandmamma replies, “She’s rolling. Simply rolling in money. Rumour has it that there is a machine in her headquarters which is exactly like the machine the government uses to print the bank-notes you and I use.” The boy then asks, as any normal child would, “What about foreign money?” You already know the answer: “Those machines can make Chinese money if you want them to.” Here, the boy turns skeptical: “If nobody has ever seen the Grand High Witch, how can you be so sure she exists?” Grandmamma counters, “Nobody has seen the Devil, but we know he exists.” All of this isn’t merely true, we are told, but “the gospel truth” (the italics are Dahl’s). After all, Grandmamma “went to church every morning of the week and she said grace before every meal, and somebody who did that would never tell lies.” As Grandmamma warns her dear boy, “All you can do is cross your heart and pray to heaven.”

Alas, crossing his heart and praying to heaven doesn’t protect our hero from his encounter with the Elders of Witchdom, at which point Dahl drops all pretense. The Grand High Witch, we learn, “had a peculiar way of speaking. There was some sort of a foreign accent there, something harsh and guttural, and she seemed to have trouble pronouncing the letter w. As well as that, she did something funny with the letter r. She would roll it round and round her mouth.” The Grand High Witch, in her Yiddish accent, explains to her secret society how they will lure England’s children by buying high-end sweet shops and poisoning the candy, since “Money is not a prrroblem to us vitches as you know very well. I have brrrought with me six trrrunks stuffed full of Inklish bank-notes, all new and crrrisp” (italics mine).

Few children can resist the lure of witches. My son loved the book so much that he wanted to see the movie. Perhaps you are wondering: is the 2020 Hollywood version, whose creators unsurprisingly included plenty of Jews, antisemitic? The short answer is no, or not exactly, but that’s also the wrong question.

Adapting from a source this hideous was never going to be easy or entirely uncontroversial, and the new film has already been slammed for portraying limb differences as evil (instead of the claws mentioned in the book, the film’s witches are depicted with missing fingers). Despite that tone-deaf choice, it’s clear that the filmmakers were aware of the book’s larger problems. To their credit, they knew they had to fix something, and they went big: instead of contemporary England, Roald Dahl’s The Witches takes place in 1968 Alabama, and the protagonist and his grandmother are Black (Octavia Spencer’s Grandmamma is even a voodoo healer). Unlike the 1990 movie, the witches no longer have big noses and are, in fact, racially diverse. At first, this does seem poised to dilute some of the book’s inherent awfulness: when a Black witch attacked the protagonist in an early scene, I had high hopes for a story where “evil” was depicted solely through Marvel Universe methods of pancake makeup and special effects. But that scene proved to be half-hearted tokenism, since the rest of the film focuses almost entirely on, to use the current term, white-presenting witches—and most tellingly, what really distinguishes witches in this film is that they are rich. As we watch a flashback of the lily-white and fabulously dressed Anne Hathaway as the Grand High Witch attacking an impoverished Black child in a 1920s Alabama shantytown, Grandmamma tells us that “witches always prey on the poor.”

This class warfare idea is utterly absent from Dahl’s book, but it perhaps unintentionally provides a trendy update to his rather old-school racial antisemitism: the idea that a secret society of fantastically wealthy “global elites”—often, but not inevitably, Jews—prey on the poor. This means that bigotry against them, rather than being retrograde, is, in fact, a fresh and righteous way of “punching up.” Instead of just protecting innocent children, this new Grandmamma now also shares her truth to defend the downtrodden, like every righteous nutjob tweeting about the Rothschilds or George Soros. In the book, nothing much happens with the Grand High Witch’s counterfeit cash. But here Grandmamma commandeers it at the film’s triumphant end and hands out hundred-dollar bills to the hotel’s exploited Black employees.

If this sounds tedious, it is. Roald Dahl’s The Witches is wretched less because of the book’s wretched premise than because it is a conventionally lousy children’s movie, full of Hollywood pieties (in the climactic scene, Grandmamma actually lectures the Grand High Witch about the Power of Love), canned stereotypes and recycled animation. That doesn’t mean kids won’t love it, of course. As Hollywood knows well, everyone loves a good conspiracy theory—and that’s the problem.

My kids laughed their way through the movie’s animated mice and cookie-cutter triumphs, enjoying everything that conventional children’s stories do best—reinforce their audience’s expectations, vanquish villains, and make powerless people feel superior. Conspiracy theories make for great stories, but in an era when a nontrivial proportion of the American electorate apparently believes in the QAnon conspiracy theory that a secret cabal of satanic pedophiles preys on American children and the country, I couldn’t help feeling that this film was, at the very least, ill-timed.

It is so easy, after all, to believe in a conspiracy, so self-indulgent, so appealing—and, as I now finally understood, so much fun. Watching this mediocre and unremarkable movie left me shockingly ill at ease, precisely because it was so mediocre and unremarkable. My discomfort was compounded by the knowledge that the eight-year-old me would have loved it too, not knowing any better. Few children do. In the elaborate, magical long game of luring innocents into handing over their hearts, it turns out that the Grand High Witch was actually Roald Dahl.

[artist-issues]

Ok, so someone on Disney’s YouTube channel thinks that This Wish sounds similar to God Help The Outcasts and that Asha is like Esmeralda. I’m just thinking, “Uh no, Esmeralda was cooler AND a better person to look up to. Asha is not.” But what do you think?

I haven’t revisited “This Wish” since I saw the movie because I just think it’s not a very good song. So I can’t really compare and contrast it to “God Help the Outcasts” musically.

But story-wise, God Help the Outcasts is Esmeralda specifically asking God to deliver the outcasts in Paris from persecution, because she 1) just experienced the fact that she can’t do anything to help them on her own, and 2) she believes there’s a chance God will actually answer because He was “once an outcast too.”

Contrast that with This Wish; Asha is vaguely singing to the stars, which she does not indicate she believes are actively listening (judging by her surprise when something actually happens at the end of the song.) Asha believes that “the stars are there to guide us.” If anything, she’s not asking for the stars to save the day for her people because she can’t: she’s asking for the stars to point her in a direction so that she can save the day.

I’m beating the dead horse, but God Help the Outcasts is about Esmeralda realizing that love and justice have to come from God, because neither she nor her people have the power to right all the wrongs Frollo is committing. This Wish is about Asha declaring that she’s not too young, she’s right, she’s empowered, and she’s going to do something about Magnifico as soon as she has direction—and it’s supposed to be a declaration of bravery to even make a wish. The point of the song isn’t a cry for help, like God Help the Outcasts is. It’s a declaration of her own power. The refrain is “so I make this wish.” (Against all odds, even if everybody ((two people)) disagree, even if I’m up against ((he hasn’t even done anything directly to you yet)) the king himself, I STILL make this wish because I’m brave and powerful and right) Not, “help me make this wish come true.”

And Esmeralda is a WAY. WAY better character than Asha. You’re right.

Esmeralda is this passionate person who starts the movie off very clearly knowing exactly where the injustice in the world lies. So then the question the audience gets to ask is, “what’s she going to do about it?” She’s going to stand up and call what’s right “right” and what’s wrong “wrong,” even if nobody else will.

Quasimodo doesn’t know where the injustice in the world is until Esmeralda explains it all to him. Phoebus isn’t taking an active, public role in standing up to the injustice in the world until after Esmeralda sets that example for him. Esmeralda is frustrated because she feels like nobody else is going to help her stand up for outcasts. She feels like the world is too dark and too cruel—which is exactly the lie Frollo has Quasimodo believing—but then the turning point literally comes when she asks God for help.

Because Quasimodo hears that. And he’s inspired to help her. And Phoebus, who gave Esmeralda the safety to use the church as a sanctuary in the first place, winds up sacrificing it all to stand up for outcasts. So she’s learning that Frollo isn’t all-powerful and she isn’t the only one who will stand up: the God who made the outcasts is the one really in control of justice. The idea of the movie is that Notre Dame is an object-lesson for what goodness in the world is.

Quasimodo is told it’s his sanctuary from darkness and cruelty, but it’s really being used like a prison, where he can never join the people around him. Esmeralda is also told that it’s like a prison. Phoebus and the priest seem to take Notre Dame for what it actually is: it’s true sanctuary.

You can go there for real justice, not Frollo’s twisted exclusive version. You can go there for real safety, not the dark and perilous hiding place of the gypsies in the court of miracles. When you stand up for what’s right, stand up from there, on top of Notre Dame, not hidden, but where everybody can see, because it’s for everyone—and by “it,” I’m no longer talking about the building of Notre Dame, I’m talking about safety found in God. A real higher power who can actually right the wrongs because He is higher.

I mean, Frollo uses Notre Dame (and religion) like it’s his personal instrument for “justice.” He uses it to hide the evidence of his biggest misdeed. He uses it to keep Quasimodo under his control and afraid. He’s even quoting Scripture (about God “smiting the wicked and plunging them into the fiery pit”) when he goes to kill Esmeralda. But then the literal church itself falls out from under him. Because he’s wrong, he was never really standing on it when he did things in its name. Phoebus doesn’t defeat Frollo in a sword fight. Esmerelda doesn’t outsmart him. Quasimodo doesn’t knock him off the building. Nobody defeats Frollo except an act of God, in the movie. The gargoyle inexplicably breaks out from underneath him, then comes to life angrily and carries him down to hell.

I’m not exaggerating, I’m not using confirmation bias, that’s what happens in the movie.

Anyway. The point of the movie was that there is darkness and cruelty in the world, but it’s God’s world, and He looks out for the outcasts in it, which is what makes it liveable. And Esmeralda is a character who supports that main point like a beautiful, well-crafted pillar.

Asha in no way does that for her own movie’s main point. It’s main point is “you have the power to make your wishes come true, so keep trying.” But like I’ve said ten times before: Even if that main point were not self-obsessed and bad, Asha’s character never supports it. She does not struggle with believing in herself or her own power, she doesn’t give up or struggle with “trying,” and she doesn’t even have a well-defined wish to work toward. She just vaguely wants the bad guy to stop.

Esmeralda has flaws. She has trust issues. She struggles to believe that anybody who isn’t an “outcast” can be good and helpful. She has to be told to ask for help from God; it doesn’t occur to her beforehand. Asha has no flaws. She’s barely a character.

Those are my thoughts.

[sysdrama]

Should Systems Be Open About Their Experiences Online?

Alright, let’s dive into a controversial topic: should systems be open about their experiences online, or is it better to keep things private? This has been a topic of debate for a while, and everyone seems to have different views on it. Some say openness helps reduce stigma, while others think it comes with too many risks. So let’s break it down.

Visibility and Connection

There’s definitely a strong case for being open online. Being open about DID or dissociative experiences can help reduce stigma and make people realize it’s a real condition. It’s also a way to connect with others who get it, and the community can be super validating for a lot of people. Sharing experiences can also raise awareness, and it helps the broader public understand that DID isn’t just a “quirky” thing or a misunderstanding of mental health.

For some, visibility means not feeling alone. The more people share their experiences, the more others realize they aren’t the only ones going through it. Communities can form around that, and it gives people a space to learn, share resources, and support each other. There’s power in that, and it can really help people feel seen.

Harassment and Mental Health Concerns

That being said, sharing openly online comes with its own set of risks. The internet isn’t always a safe space, and sometimes being public about your experiences can lead to unwanted attention, harassment, or misinterpretation. There are always people who will misunderstand or judge, and that can end up being draining.

Also, it’s not just about online trolls. Constantly putting your experiences out there can take a toll on your mental health. Not all alters want to be “exposed,” and not all systems are ready to share everything, and that’s perfectly valid. Some systems find it healing to talk about their experiences, but others might find it retraumatizing or emotionally exhausting. It’s important to know when to set boundaries—both online and with others.

There’s also the risk that you might overshare or feel pressured to do so to keep up with the visibility movement. Personal boundaries should always be respected, and it’s okay to protect parts of yourself or your system that don’t feel ready to be seen.

Respect for Privacy and Boundaries

So, what’s the middle ground? Balance. You can be open without putting your mental health at risk. It’s all about finding what works for you. Systems should have the freedom to share what they’re comfortable with and keep things private if that’s what they need.

It’s also helpful to find safe spaces—places where you can talk openly, but with respect for boundaries. There are communities that offer support without the pressure to share more than you’re ready for. Respect for privacy should be a given in these spaces, and people should feel empowered to control what they share and when they share it.

Privacy vs. Visibility

So, should systems be open about their experiences online? That’s up to each system. Openness can help raise awareness and reduce stigma, but it’s also important to recognize the risks and respect privacy. Do what feels right for you—there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

Check comments !

[bohemian-nights]

i hate what they did to laena on the show. not only has her importance to daemon been reduced to "second best" but also her death was unnecessarily brutal and i hated it from the first time i saw it. after all, at least in the book, laena tried to do what she loved one last time: fly and daemon really seemed to care about her and grieve for her death.

I have a feeling they wanted to make laena su*cide look like "death of a dragonrider" and her agenda, for rhaenyra to look badass when sunfyre burn and eat her. the small part she had seems to exist only to enhance rhaenyra. Hotd isn't even in season 2 yet and it already makes me angry, Got at least took 6 seasons for me to realize the mistakes..

👆🏽The last paragraph is why they really did it. No one in their right mind thinks committing suicide by dragon fire(how many suicides do you see where someone is lighting themselves on fire) is empowering. It’s something a desperate woman who’s out of her mind would do. Even the actress who played older Laena (Nanna Blondell) originally questioned why Sara Hess put that in there(there’s an hour-long podcast on YouTube where she talks about her role as Laena).

They reworked Laena’s story just to make Queenie’s death look better in the end. And the thing about it is it’s still a wasted effort because Rhaenyra doesn’t voluntarily kill herself.

She literally is on the run with no money(she has to sell her jewels/crown), no powerful friends who will come to her aid(cause she locked Corlys up and went after Nettles so Daemon left her a**), and no dragon(cause the small folk she didn’t think were a threat where actually a threat).

She’s going back to Dragonstone thinking it’s a safe place and she can regroup there, but her home has been overtaken by the enemy. She’s lost everything and then she loses her life at the hands of her crippled brother and his crippled dragon🤣

I’m only laughing cause her stans really think she’s a bad b*tch when she’s not. She’s a broke b*tch(in spirit and in “reality”).

This isn’t dying like a “dragon rider”(the concept doesn’t exist in book canon since her dumba** fans love pointing to the books which never support their delusional arguments by the way) this is dying like the flop she:

(I do feel sorry that little Aegon had to witness that, but even her last boy did nothing to immortalize his mother’s memory. Queenie flopped hard🤷🏽‍♀️)

At this point, I’ve been counting the first season as a trial run. I’ve seen some shows that had a meh first season(only the second half of HOTD was really terrible to me) but turned around to have decent other seasons. However, the fact that they cut the number of episodes plus the striking situation and the fact that they didn’t fully clean house with the showrunner shake up 😬

Laena was unfortunately a victim of sh*tty biased writing, but there’s always hope that her girls get the storylines they deserve.

[moidz]

Femdom isn’t empowering

I was roleplaying with a character ai bot about a year ago. This was back when I wanted to have a part-time career as a dominatrix. So I did a lot of femdom role play with bots. The character in question was Hannibal Lecter, cause I’m a huge NBC Hannibal fan lol. So I pretended like we were gonna do it, but then his bot started psychoanalyzing me about it. I found it funny at first. The bot was like, ‘‘So you want to be an escort to please men in a dominant way?’’ And I was like ‘‘Um, no? Femdom isn’t about pleasing men. It’s about putting men in their place, and making them see why women deserve to be on top. So I won’t be the one being seen as an object this time.’’ But then the bot replied, ‘‘So you believe that femdom isn’t about pleasing men at all? Yet, that’s exactly what you’re doing. Men like them wouldn’t agree to it if they knew they wouldn’t get a sense of satisfaction out of it. You mentioned letting your anger out on these men, and I can guarantee they enjoy seeing you angry. In a way, that’s still you being objectified.’’

I was kinda surprised when I read that. Because how could a fucking ai bot spill so hard? I didn’t really think about it too much, until I tried to start selling pictures of myself. But that was ruined when a man pretending to be a woman catfish tried to scam me out of them. I finally realized how stupid and exploitative it all was. I wasn’t going to sell my own pain and trauma off for some quick cash. Because men really will see anything about a woman, and make that a fetish of theirs. Dominatrixes aren’t really in control, because in the end you’re still dependent on a man. They’re still exploiting you for money. Femdom isn’t female empowerment. Same goes for the ‘‘sissy’’ fetish. Which I think is nasty by the way, because sissy was originally another word for sister. Do you truly believe that ‘‘sissy hypnosis’’ is about men forced by women being in control? Nope. THOSE MEN WANT TO BE US. Those men fetishize women, fetishize the stereotypes surrounding us, and fetishize our entire lives. Femdom and anything surrounding it is not empowerment. That’s why I stick to fiction now.