#as humans we're meant to live in a community

[messrsrarchives]

people evacuating la whilst ICE patrols the surrounding communities is fucking insane. a facist president going on about acquiring greenland, the gulf of mexico, and canada? fucking insane. musk saying he wants to get the uk pm out by the next election? wants to replace the leader of reform with someone who's currently imprisoned (again)? fucking insane. they're coming after gay marriage. interracial marriages will be next. there's literal fucking bounties in texas if you see a trans person somewhere "they're not meant to be". people set hotels holding human beings on fire in the uk. they split the traffic by race and dragged people out of their cars, not letting them go forward. it's been 461 days since october 7th and there's no end in sight. biden approved a further $8b in arms sales. the canadian pm resigned. germany's government collapsed. the french government collapsed. women cannot talk in public in afghanistan. abortion is being restricted worldwide. it's international news when a ceo gets shot but an amendment right when seven mass shootings have happened in 2025 and we're 10 days in. israel spread their genocide into lebanon and iran. congo bans al jazeera, the most widely used journalism website for ongoings, whilst a genocide occurs there. massive rallys are still taking place in south korea after martial law was declared and now their president stays holed up in a guarded compound. there's protests in serbia calling for the resignation of their leader after 15 people died because their populist government doesn't give a shit about standards and safety. they say trans people are predators and elect trump. we watch as a fox news host gets a cabinet position and the rest are filled by people just as unqualified. meta "reinforces free speech" on its apps, essentially just allowing hate to spread. news articles are written with AI, AI generated images were used in the presidential election. they're coming after "mickey mouse degrees" that they don't deem as relevant. meta move to stop fact-checking, X moves to stop fact-checking with a ceo that the AI system he implement called the biggest spreader of misinformation. a ceo that interfered in the US election with hundreds of millions of dollars and is interfering in foreign elections with millions. recent polls show reform to be the most supported party in the uk. reform, the ones that instigated racist riots that, AGAIN!!!! ended with human beings being locked in burning hotels. an AI generated video of the hollywood sign burning goes viral because the videos of palestinians being burnt alive for over a year wasn't shocking enough no, no, look at this sign !!! look, look at the sign. we've ignored every other fucking sign that the planet is dying and the world is fucked and we're on the brink of mass war fucking everywhere and human rights are in the gutter and existing as a minority is once again something you repeat to yourself in the mirror every morning, telling yourself that surviving is an act of protest, that you need to survive to prove them wrong, when you just want to fucking live. or die. either way, i don't want my lungs filming and my heart beating to be a fucking protest. you ignore every other sign that something is deeply, deeply wrong but look!!! look at the hollywood sign burning!!! we made it with AI which is destroying the fucking planet and critical thought, but look at this AI video of a "natural" wildfire that we generated! isn't this so sad :(

all of this is fucking insane i'm so sorry if i'm not too bothered about what celebrities - that have stayed silent throughout all of this - lost their homes. i'm sure they have multiple others.

[thewanderingspruce]

I read it! Really liked it too

[shmowder]

just need to vent about the Olympics

[itgetsbetterproject]

On Trans Day of Remembrance, we honor the memory of those lost to anti-trans violence. We also asked our It Gets Better community what trans youth should remember, right here and right now. Here's what they said:

🏳️‍⚧️ "For my trans daughters and for every other trans person out there, You are perfect, perfectly perfect right now, in this messy moment, in this happy moment, in whatever moment comes next. You are loved by people you haven't even met yet. Do not get caught up in the hurt when there is so much joy to be found, do not let the noise hold you back, you are meant for greatness. For some greatness means waking up and having breakfast, going for a walk, doodling or thinking happy thoughts and that all in itself is great. Please believe me you are not alone." -lisasevajian

🏳️‍⚧️ "70 million people voted to protect your rights. You are valued. You are loved. Do not give up." -thethestralsociety

🏳️‍⚧️ "We have always been here, and we're not going anywhere anytime soon." -beansonofficial

🏳️‍⚧️ "You're seen. You're human. You are loved. You are not alone. Do not give up hope. You deserve all the best things in life and you should get to live them without fear, hate, guilt, harm, or silence." - destiny_d_melton

🏳️‍⚧️ "You are not alone even when it might feel that way. Things are hard and it can be so scary. But know that there are people who truly care who are fighting for you." -heatherand2girls

🏳️‍⚧️ "It gets better. Don’t give up. Gather the people you trust and support each other. You are a gift, you have a gift. Shine your light proudly and brightly. But know that you don’t need to. You are not responsible to change others perceptions or beliefs. You are loved, needed, and necessary." -michaeljohncreative

🏳️‍⚧️ "I love you so much and I will never cast you aside. You are NOT expendable." -fitnessvalkyrie

🏳️‍⚧️ "There is community out there for you always. Don't ever give up, we are here fighting with you." -transaffirmidaho

🏳️‍⚧️ "You only legally have to live with your bio family until you are 18, and then you can go make your own family. Also, high school only lasts 4 years. You can get through it!! It will be okay." -lisathecatdude

🏳️‍⚧️ "Keep going! As trans youth, we need to grow to be elders and to keep sharing our stories and to keep going!" -archer.39

🏳️‍⚧️ "Even in red states, you can find support and allies. We do care. Also, if you’re overwhelmed, it’s okay to focus on the community you feel safe with and take a mental break from advocating." - katseye325

🏳️‍⚧️ "We need you alive! You are our future. I made it to 29. You can be 29. My therapist is almost 60. You can be 60. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are our rights! You are seen, valued, heard, and loved." -Mr. Trans Indiana

🏳️‍⚧️ "Half this country still voted to support your rights! There are some loud voices spreading hate, but there’s so much more love out there. You have so much worth and value just being who you are. We’ll get through this and things will get better." -lady_hades_xiii

🏳️‍⚧️ "It will be worth it. All your struggle, all your pain. You’re going to get through this. It’s gonna be okay." -madd.0xx_

🏳️‍⚧️ "You are already role models to your peers, and to all the trans youth that come after you. You are the generation that will change the world, you already are the change the world needs…and your trans-aunty will always be here to support you, as my trans role models did for me. We are a family; dynamic, diverse, and inclusive: welcome to the family." -mxashleys

Read more and add your own here.

[lullabyes22-blog]

Arcane Fandom drinking game.

tw: racism, misogyny, classism, ableism.

tw: fandoms in general, ig?

Take a shot if:

Sevika is reduced to this exoticised, hypersexualized, sub human caricature with no exploration into her motivations, her family, her issues as a disabled woman or her experiences as a working class person who grew up in a literal slum - and instead serves as a sex toy with body heat, who exists solely to get the reader off.

Take two shots of she is neutered instead of oversexualized, and reduced to the Mammy stereotype wherein her only purpose is to roll her eyes and provide commentary on the (white) characters/readers' antics, the latter of which drive the plot.

Take a shot if:

Mel Medarda is reduced to a living example of the Jezebel stereotype: oversexualized in the most dehumanizing and demeaning language possible, made a literal receptacle for other characters' desires with no attempt to engage with her motivations as a politician or her feelings as a woman, or else blamed for every single problem in the show, because apparently an ambitious woman is synonymous with 'The face of pure evil,' a woman who has sex and uses it to express agency is an insatiable slut, and a black woman is literally the devil incarnate.

Take two shots if she's taken the other extreme, and her ambitions, flaws, and sexuality have been wiped away completely, leaving only a hyperperfect husk of a character behind, for us to rally around with empty cries of 'Yaas Queen!' and no attempt to critically examine a) the problematic nature of the praise and b) the essence of what makes her human, and what drives her forward, in the first place.

Take a shot if:

Ekko is reduced to his crush on Powder/Jinx, with no attempt to engage with the complexity of the fact that his best friend warped into a monster, nor the ways in which he himself is a product of Zaun's poverty and his relationship with his community, the impact of trauma on children, his complex relationship with violence and his own moral compass, nor the fact that he is an activist, a freedom fighter, an artist, and an engineer, all at age eighteen.

Take a double shot if the characterization veers the other way, and he is portrayed as 'Forever Alone' because black men cannot have healthy relationships, do not deserve to have a full range of complex emotions, and should be punished by having their most deeply held wishes, friendships, and loves crushed to dust before their eyes, for daring to dream of a better life and a world that loves them.

Take a shot if:

Jayce Talis is not even acknowledged in fanworks as a mixed race man, nor as a person of color, with no attempt to engage with the complexity inherent in his experience of privilege, and the ways in which he is a product of his upbringing, and where these factors intersect with class commentary. Take a half shot if the character is whitewashed, and turned into the kind of bland, boring, vanilla caricature that we're used to seeing in media in perpetuity, who exists as a foil to the villains, a symbol of virtue, and a blank slate on which the viewer is meant to project themselves and their own beliefs.

Take a full shot if the character is the epitome of the white savior trope: a smug, paternalistic, know-it-all white man, whose self-assurance in his own superiority allows him to walk in and take over a conflict, then tell people what to do.

Take two shots if characterization veers the other extreme and he's just a sweet, dumb, himbo puppyboy with no personality, no goals, no desires, and no motivations of his own, save for making Viktor happy and doing his best to be a good boy.

Take three shots if Mel is the one leading him by the nose, because nothing says 'nuance' like making a black woman the villain for the sin of having agency and not existing solely for vilification.

Drink the whole bottle if:

Caitlyn, an Enforcer and a Councilor's daughter, is portrayed as a sympathetic sweetheart angelcake, without being forced to confront the actions of the state and the institution of which she is a part, without being forced to face the consequences of her complicity in the system that oppresses others, nor without being forced to recognize the fact that her actions and her words are not, in and of themselves, inherently just, and the fact that her privilege does not automatically grant her moral authority.

Drink another if she is portrayed as a damsel, an innocent, a child who needs to be protected and cared for, rather than a full person with agency and a complex emotional landscape of her own.

Drink again if the characterization leans the other way and she is turned into a classist caricature, an entitled bitch who doesn't even realize she's the bad guy, or gets turned into a literal Nazi because, once again, folks cannot engage with complex topics such as classism, racism, ableism, etc. and instead resort to infantilizing, simplistic, and reductive portrayals.

Stop drinking and switch to cyanide if her characterization hinges on her relationship with Vi, within which Caitlyn is the dominant top here to 'tame' this feral subhuman, with no understanding of the uncomfortable and undeniably harmful implications of such a power dynamic.

Drink the rest of the alcohol stash if:

Vi, an adult, a former convict and a street savvy survivor, is reduced to an angsty, moody, petulant puppydog off her leash, unable to take responsibility for her own actions, and her trauma is treated as an excuse for her behavior.

Drink another bottle if she is portrayed as a hypermasculine, toxic, violent, and Cait is the one forced to tame her, make her behave, and bring her into line, and her relationship with Vi is portrayed as inherently parent-child, or worse, caretaker-charge, without any regard for Vi's autonomy and right to be flawed as a human being.

Drink a fifth if Vi is portrayed as a hypersexualized aggressor for the audience's titillation, with no attempt to engage with the fact that butch lesbian women have more complex emotions than 'sex starved nymphomaniac', nor the ways in which Vi's abuse, abandonment, and trauma have impacted her relationship with intimacy and sexuality. Drink another if the characterization shifts the other way and Vi becomes a sexless robot who has no personality or wants, nor is given room to grieve for her family, her home, or her own trauma, and is instead expected to bounce back, get over it, and move on as nothing more than Caitlyn' Brave Buff Gf (tm).

Drink the entire bar if:

Viktor, a disabled man, is depicted as a neurotic, fragile, jittery wreck. Take two bottles if his disability is treated as a punchline, or the defining characteristic of his existence, and the only time we're meant to consider his body or his physical pain is when he's having an episode and collapsing, or having a coughing fit, and it's treated as a joke, rather than something which affects him and his ability to function.

Take three bottles if he's taken the other extreme and he is twinkified and babygirlified, and his sexuality and his love life are the only thing we're meant to care about, and his romantic relationship with Jayce is the only thing he's allowed to have, lest the audience think too hard about the ways in which he and his work might benefit Zaun, or how the Council might respond to a disabled person from an underprivileged background.

Take a fourth if the characterization shifts and he's reduced to a hypersexualized toy: a broken doll to be pitied and fetishized and cared for, and Jayce is his Daddy, his owner, his caregiver, his knight in shining armor, all in one.

Take a fifth if, in the midst of all this, his relationship with his disability, and the ways in which it has impacted his life and his choices, is completely glossed over.

Take six if his relationship with his disability is not even acknowledged.

Switch to cocaine if:

Jinx, one of the most complex characters in the show, and the only one with any sort of internal consistency, is reduced to a whiny helpless brat who just wants a hug and an explanation for her widdle feewings from a big strong grownup.

Take an eightball if her relationship with her sister, her trauma, and her mental health is reduced to the 'Hot Psycho' trope: an excuse to play up the 'cool' aspect of her personality while completely ignoring the trauma at the heart of her actions/behavior. Take another if the characterization swings the other way, and she's reduced to a one-dimensional villainess, a demon, an amoral monster, and the only motivation for her actions is the fact that she is a crazy bitch, and the only reason for her existence is to serve as a foil for Vi's goodness and the audience's own hangups re: mental illness and critically engaging with the more unpalatable aspects of human behavior.

Switch to crack if her relationship with Silco or Vi is not even mentioned.

Pour a glass of absinthe if:

Silco, a single parent, a survivor of violence at the hands of a loved one, a victim of systemic abuse, and a revolutionary, is portrayed as the ultimate villain, and his desire to fight for a better life for his community is somehow worse than the Council's decision to literally silence everyone in the undercity via chemical runoff, political neglect and police brutality.

Pour two if he is a cartoonish, hamfisted boogeyman, with no sense of his humanity, nor the ways in which he is a product of the same systems that hurt every undercity character, and the ways his actions replicate the cycle of abuse and hurt the ones he seeks to save in turn.

Pour a third if he becomes an unrepentant sadist, a child abuser and a sexual predator, and there is nothing loving or fatherly about his relationship with Jinx.

Pour four if the character is taken to the other extreme and he's sanctified as a literal martyr and hero, and all his wrongdoing is glossed over because he's just a ~victim~, and everything he does is justified, no matter how terrible, because he had a traumatic childhood or his abusive ex didn't die soon enough. Eat the sugarcube if his bond with Jinx is suddenly a wholesome Disneyfied gag-fest wherein he calls her "Pumpkin" and babies her like a toddler, and their relationship has zero codependent overtones, and she's suddenly a sweet innocent who doesn't have blood on her hands, same way he's not the one who sanctioned it.

Eat the bottle of absinthe if Silco is given the tumblr sexyman treatment, and suddenly he's just a walking Daddy Kink, with no regard for the ways in which he is a complex person, nor the ways in which he and other characters might actually interact, or his history or his trauma or the way it impacts his life.

Drink the whole liquor cabinet if:

Zaun is portrayed as a dystopian hellscape rather than a robust, vibrant, diverse community, with a wide range of experiences and a deep and nuanced relationship with authority, power, and violence. Break into the cellar if, instead, it's just a shitty stereotypical ghetto, full of criminals, addicts, and victims.

Light a cigarette if Piltover, a technological juggernaut that also has a diverse immigrant population, and a vibrant and rich cultural identity, is reduced to a bland, generic, vanilla utopia, and is full of pompous blowhards who have never engaged with the undercity outside the scope of the narrative.

Light a molotov cocktail if it swings the opposite direction and Piltover is turned into an neoliberal nightmare, a soulless, shiny, hollow, plastic, faceless wasteland, populated only by vapid, shallow, self absorbed stooges and shills who have no depth or personality of their own.

Throw the molotov and light the house on fire if:

'Piltover and Zaun' is not even mentioned, and there is no acknowledgement of the way these two cities shape the cast of characters who reside within these systems, much less a mention of the ways in which the characters might not be fully representative of the communities they are a part of, and the fact that they are still very much human beings with individual experiences.

If you didn't get alcohol poisoning, a whopping hangover, or a charge of arson: congratulations.

You win.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

I heard a raw line from Guilllermo Del Toro the other day about monsters being the perfect way to express human failure:

“…monsters, I believe, are patron saints of our blissful imperfection, and they allow and embody the possibility of failing.”

And i was wondering your take on this quote in relation to things like vampire and werewolf and other semi-monster subtexts. “Monstrous” humans that are ironically allowed to act more human more often than… humans. I just find the attempt to make an outlet for imperfection while still at large criticizing it fascinating.

I mean, yeah, there's a long history of interpreting monsters through queer, anti-colonial, feminist and other Outsider lenses for exactly those reasons. The monster is the Other who is vilified by the in-group, which represents all that the in-group hates. The monster must, by its nature, fail to live up to the standards and expectations of the in-group, which is why it must be destroyed. But that also means the monster is free from the standards and expectations of the in-group, including oppressive and bigoted ones.

So, as an example, if you're queer, and rhetorically treated as inhuman and monstrous and diseased anyway, or eugenically classified as a deviant mutation or sub-derivation of "real" people, there is real appeal and a real sense of resistance in claiming monsterhood, in embracing it and glorying in it.

In part, that's what the rallying cry "we're here, we're queer, get used to it!" meant and still means. It is a reclaiming of monsterhood as a source of strength and community and pride, rather than shame. Slurs are used to Other queer people, to set them apart from "real" people and mark them out as a monstrous deviation from the virtuous norm - slurs are used to call us monsters. And thus a lot of queer people find a lot of power and freedom in reclaiming them, in turning their Othering into a flag to rally around.

And I think that's still a big part of the appeal of the monster, honestly, that freedom from being what someone else thinks you ought to be.

If you're a monster, you don't have to have the perfect body, you don't have to suppress your lust or your love. You don't have to shave your body hair or dress correctly for your assigned gender, or have a white picket fence house with a spouse and 2.3 children. You don't have to sit primly at the dinner table, you don't have to repress your emotions, you don't have to hate the foreigner or despise the gays or fear the trans agenda. You don't have to have a small, straight nose or perfect cheekbones, you don't have to wait to fuck until you're married, or pretend you want to fuck at all. You don't have to want to get rich or be a CEO, you don't have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps or be on your grindset, or cheer when the cops clear out a homeless camp.

To be a monster is to be free from the inhumanity that is forced on us by white supremacy, by fatphobia, by heteronormativity, by imperialism, and by the interests of capital. To be a monster is to be human in all the ways that are inconvenient to oppression.

... but I went off on a tangent there a little bit - vampires and werewolves, right. I have no theoretical or academic basis for any of this, so this is entirely a personal hot take, but I think vampires are perhaps a bit more about "passing" as a fantasy. Not necessarily in a gender sense, but the ability to keep your true nature undetected by the "normal" folk, while the secret things that make you different also make you dangerous and powerful. Surviving by stealing sustenance from a world that hates you, on terms that are entirely yours to dictate. "I will survive even if it kills you," that kind of vibe.

Werewolves, on the other hand, feel more like a defiant, angry embrace of the monstrous. Transforming into something vast and powerful and furious, growing out of your skin, out of your form, out of your boundaries; howling your nature to the moon and mauling any motherfucker who has a problem with it. Giving in to all the beastly unnatural urges, and diving into the horrible monstrous wants and desires that boil inside you (which, remember, include things like Not Wanting To Fuck or Wanting To Hold A Girl's Hand In A Lesbian Sort Of Way). Less the "I outfoxed your social game and drank you dry" slick vampire power fantasy and more the "call me a slur one more time and I'm going to wear your entrails like a fucking scarf" power fantasy.

Again, that's just personal hot takes, everyone's understanding of the monstrous in relation to themselves is different. I've seen a number of genderfluid and nb people use monstrousness as a way to defy occupying a shape that can be gendered for example.

[barbwritesstuff]

I went to a couple of writing workshops on the weekend and one of the authors speaking had some very prescriptive things to say about writing.

Things such as:

"If you don't use the hero's journey structure your writing is ugly."

"There can only be one protagonist. If someone tells me they have multiple protagonists in their story, they fundamentally don't understand the craft of writing."

"Readers have to empathise with the main character. Being relatable is the most important trait for a main character to have."

"Action comes before dialogue."

"Our bodies mimic the breathing patterns in punctuation."

"Stories have to have a satisfying ending, or they're not good stories. Unsatisfying endings are a modern invention which has harmed book sales."

And. Look. I know I'm not a big, famous flash-bang author or anything.

But some of these things are just outright false. I also really feel like this sort of attitude is (at best) snobby, and (at worse) shitty.

It's also not a very new attitude. Since the dawn of humanity, humans have been saying things like: "Stories are only good if XYZ."

And so, I just wanted to get online and say one thing:

"Aviate. Navigate. Communicate."

Those are the actions pilots are meant to do in an emergency. It's very important that they do them, in that order, because if they don't, there is a higher probability of disaster.

Like... crashing to the ground in a flaming ball of death level of disaster.

Writers (and I cannot stress this enough) are not pilots.

If we break rules, no one dies.

Sometimes, when we break rules, wonderful things happen.

So—while I think it's hugely useful to learn about story structure, craft, etc—coming at an art with absolute rules like this, is silly.

We're not pilots. Lives are not on the line. We can (and should) be creative and have fun. And if it doesn't work out? Oh well. That's fine. That's how we learn and grow as writers.

Also, what works for one writer may not work for another, and that's fine. Commerical success isn't everything... and there are actually plenty of very commercially successful books and stories that break these 'absolute' rules this author talked about.

So...

Yeah.

That's my lukewarm take.

Write and have fun. Don't worry about this sort of snobby silliness.

P.S I did actually enjoy the workshop and I think overall this author had good takes. I think there were just some very silly takes sprinkled in and I've been ruminating on them for a couple of days.

[chaostroberry1]

Hi, how are you today? Could I ask for some headcanons of Poseidon falling in love with a mermaid reader? but she is not in love with him, she wants to know the human world and marry a human she had seen on a boat (reference to Ariel from the little mermaid, perhaps). In the end she ends up marrying the human and leaving the ocean behind. Please and thank you! and by the way I would like to add that I love your writing, it is wonderful ♡

Of course ♥, this is...lmao😭 imagine his face 😭😭

♦ Poseidon × mermaid!reader ♦

How he'd react to you falling for...a euughh human. But I want to add a twist, just like in the little mermaid movie where Ariel loses her voice to get human legs? I hope you don't mind. 🙇‍♀️

° A mermaid sweetheart, and the tyrant of the ocean.°

° A mermaid sweetheart, and the tyrant of the ocean. °

- so to be fair, it is kinda his fault for being such an asshole to you. You were just praising him for how cool he was, and he just coldly shrugged you off.

- thinking back to it, okay, maybe it kinda was his fault. He's not very good with that type of communication, he's just not the guy to talk to when you're feeling all happy and giddy or whatever.

- but now that he liked you? Wow. He won't admit it, but it's very obvious to all the fishes and creatures within the range of sight—that he has a big soft spot for you. YOU, a little mermaid who just swims around looking for cute pretty trinkets and things that sunk down to the ocean floor. Also looking for a prince charming.

- he didn't realize it before it was too late. When you fell for a young man on a boat, sailing across the sea. You fell in love with him, even trying to crawl up a rock to see him, just to see his face and what it was like up there.

- you made a deal with a sea witch, who offered to give you human legs of you traded your voice, which you did so. All in the hopes of being with your prince charming.

- Poseidon had overheard about it from a servant of his. Hearing about how a mermaid was able to live on land. This quickly ended in poseidon ordering the servant to get further information, since something in his gut told him to look into it further.

- and so, he found out. He found out you got married to a human, left the ocean and even going as far as trading your own voice to get human legs.

He. Was. Pissed.

- he killed the sea witch, taking back the necklace that stored your voice. A voice that was meant for ONLY him to hear and listen to. Quickly enough, your legs started to transform back into your tail, making you look at your beloved, who watched in horror.

- you quickly ran back to the deck, crying as the thunder rumbled and the sea roaring. The last thing you remember is a big earthquake, as well as a huge tsunami, swallowing the place whole and drowning all life forms into its waters.

- so yeah, he killed your significant other. Mans is not called a tyrant for nothing.

- you thought he's the type to be like "as long as you're happy"? I'm sorry to break it to you...but..this is Poseidon we're talking about. It's not about who's happy, as long as he gets what he wants in the end.

- he'll make sure there's an indoor pool of water in his palace, forcing you there to stay. Or maybe just trap you in Atlantis.

- you may or may not end up developing stolkholm syndrome, but either way, you'll still be his wife. His alone, his forever. If you guys need to breed, he'll just have some other sea witch give you human legs, WITHOUT paying a price. They'll have their body cut in half if they ever try to take anything in return. Once breeding time is over, he'll have you turned back into a mermaid.

- I actually bet that he rather have you wearing nothing on your top. He likes it better if you just have your whole chest out for him to see and look at. He can decorate you with jewelry and other Accessories too. Make sure you look pretty for him.

- you guys would probably have around 5-8 kids. Don't ask btw. He can make that shi happen until you can't birth any more kids out.

- he'll keep you hidden from the world,any single mention of you will quickly be silenced with a glare from him. He rather not share.

- no, you won't call him by just his name. You need to call him "lord Poseidon". It arouses him better, and because he likes to remember the hold he has on you.

- believe me, when he needs to go to a meeting in Valhalla or something, servants there gotta prepare a big tank full of water. Cus he's bringing you with him. You better be thankful he's even letting you see the outside world.

- he's so bitchy and does not let the littlest thing slide. They got you the wrong type of water in your tank? They will die on the spot. It could be as little as putting a little decorative item in the tank that might hurt you, or not making the tank pretty enough for you.

- whatever it is, anyone who dissapoints will be sliced.

- you are a pampered little queen, getting such good treatment from everyone and everything within your range. So best if you don't ask, and just deal with it. Cus angering him is not worth it, I'm serious.

[heart-of-the-morningstar]

Angel!Lucifer x Human Reader: Second Preview

Hey hey! This is for all you night owls out there! I call this a preview but it's pretty long lol. The people in my community already read a part of this but there's new stuff too! Let me know how you enjoy it so far! And again, thank you for being so patient with me on this one <3

No active warnings!

You looked down and began to fiddle with your hands, unsure if your reason would upset the angel. "It's Adam..." you began, "He's...so needlessly demanding and harsh. He doesn't see us as equals, he believes himself to be superior to me. I've tried explaining to him that he shouldn't be acting this way, but he refuses to listen! Finally, I had enough of him...so I ran..." You felt the tears well up in your eyes once more, small whimpers escaping your throat as you tried to hold yourself together. "I know we're meant to be partners and I've sure heaven will not be happy b-but..."

"Shh, it's alright." Lucifer cooed as he wiped away the tears the fell down your cheek. "Please, no more tears. You were right to stand up to him. Adam should know better." You sighed and let your head rest in Lucifer's small yet tender hand. You glanced over at the pound when you heard an unfamiliar noise emanating from the center. You noticed some feathered creatures you didn't recognize swimming on the lakes surface. There seemed to be one that was much larger than all the others. You looked back at Lucifer and saw his face light up with delight. "Do you see those little ones over there?" You nodded. "Heaven may not have wanted my input on creation, but that doesn't mean I didn't have any."

"Are those your creations?" you asked.

Lucifer smiled and then sighed. "One of very few. Do you want to get a closer look?"

You looked back out to the water and saw the group of animals flap their wings, splashing the water in every direction. They seemed so full of life and energy, watching them play filled your heart with warmth. You nodded, albeit a bit nervously. Lucifer let out a melodic whistle; you watched as the little creatures made their way towards the lake bank. You saw them use their small wings to help them onto land and waddle towards the two of you. Initially, you stretched out your hand to touch one of the smaller ones but pulled back in hesitation.

"Don't worry," lucifer reassured, "they are harmless, I promise! Watch!" Lucifer cupped his hands together and laid them down in the soft grass. A few of the small ones happily chippered and hopped into his palms. "Want to give it a try?"

You copied Lucifer's motions exactly and watched as the same thing happened with the remaining babies. Their feathers were bright yellow and soft to the touch. You were in awe of the little lives you held in your hands. "They’re so small," you said aloud to no one in particular. "What are they, Lucifer?"

The angel lowered his hands and let the little ones go back to what you now assumed was their guardian. "I named them ducks," Lucifer answered. "The little ones are ducklings; not fully formed yet but they will grow!"

You nuzzled your cheek to the handful of ducklings; their little peeps made you chuckle. "They're beautiful!" you exclaimed, letting them down so they could join their family once more.

"Yeah, beautiful..." you heard Lucifer murmur. You looked over to see his lovely blue eyes staring straight back at you, a tint of yellow now colored his cheeks. "Uhh, I mean, umm...here! Watch this!"

A sudden flash of sparkles left you dazed, but only for a second. Lucifer had disappeared in front of your eyes.

"Lucifer?" you called out, looking to either side of you but seeing no one.

"Down here!" you heard his voice respond. You looked down and saw a small little white duck in Lucifer's top hat. He smiled at you and wagged his feathered tail. You couldn't help but laugh.

"Oh, what an adorable little creature," you fawned playfully, cupping your hands once again and allowing him to hop in them. You brought him to your cheek and nuzzled him as you did with the others. Lucifer quacked in excitement. "I didn't know you could change forms!"

"It's not something I do often," he admitted. By the tone of his voice, it almost seemed like it was something that had been discouraged. "But I don't mind making a special exception for you!" You noticed the sun began to dip over the horizon, the fleeting sunlight shimmering off Lucifer's pristine white feathers. It would be night soon, and in that moment you realized you didn't have anywhere else to go. Lucifer noticed the change in your demeanor, tilting his head. "Is something the matter?" Before you could open your mouth to speak, a bellowing call could be heard from the tree line.

"Where the fuck could she be?!" you heard the voice ask, filled with annoyance. Adam. You saw the man push past the foliage and make it to the clearing. His eyes immediately found yours, and you felt as though your heart had nearly stopped. You let Lucifer down gently before standing up.

"Stay here," you whispered to him. "I'll talk with him."

"But-" Lucifer tried to refute, but you shook your head intensely.

"I don't want to risk angering heaven," you responded. "The last thing I want is for you to be punished for my choice. Please?"

Hesitantly, Lucifer nodded in agreement, making his way to the water to join the other ducks in an attempt to blend in. His little hat vanished as he started swimming. You sighed and turned to meet with the brute of a man who was already towering over you. His chest heaved; his breath was short. You could already tell this may not end well.

"Where the FUCK have you been?!" he began to shout, raising his hands in the air out of frustration. "I've been looking for you for way too long, you know that? Making me walk everywhere to find you? Fucking ridiculous!"

You took a deep inhale and let it out slowly before responding. "I'm sorry, Adam," you feigned an apology.

"Whatever," the man spat back. "You've had your temper tantrum, now let's g-" Adam paused, his eyes staring at the length of your body. "The fuck is this?" he asked grabbing the sleeve of the cloth that hung off your body. In your worry for Lucifer, you'd forgotten about the gift he had given you. You smacked Adam's hand away and wrapped your arms around yourself.

"It doesn't matter," you answered curtly.

You watched as the man's eyebrows furrowed at your non-compliance. "I don't have time for this," he reached out once more and took a firm hold of your wrist. "We're going back. Now!"

You slipped your wrist out of Adam's grasp and took a few steps back, your feet at the end of the lake. "I..." you started, your voice threatening to crack. "I'm not going back with you! I'm tired of your behavior and your disrespect. I'm not your servant, Adam, and I refuse to live the life I was given as your slave."

Adam snarled at you, stomping closer and closer to you, forcing you back into the water as you tried to avoid him. But it was to no avail. He was quick to grab your arm and yank you from the lake pulling flush against his bare chest. "That wasn't a suggestion," he spoke through gritted teeth. You tried to pull away but his grip on your arm was far too strong. "Like it or not toots, we're the only ones in this place. You have nowhere else to go and you know it! And frankly, I'm tired of these stupid games! Now, quit acting like a bitch and move your-"

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" a booming voiced roared. You felt a hand take a firm hold of the one that was trapped by Adam and watched as another tore Adam's own hand away from you. Lucifer appeared in front of you after separating you from the man. The angle floated off the ground, his wings spread out wide as he moved swiftly towards the startled man. "How dare you!" Lucifer growled. "How dare you put your hands on her like that! How dare you speak to her like that! You have no right!"

Adam held his hand in pain, shooting daggers in Lucifer's direction. "Who the fuck are you?!" He took a step closer, not waiting for an answer. Even as Lucifer hovered over the ground, Adam still towered over him easily. "You know what, I don't care! Listen, short stack, I don't know who you are or why you're here, but you need to get the fuck out of my way. She's my wife and I can do whatever I want to her. She's mine, got it?"

Adam curled his uninjured hand into a fist and took a swing at Lucifer, only for him to fall flat on his face as Lucifer easily dodged his attack. "Nice try," the angel taunted, "and by the way, the name's Lucifer." You let out a small laugh. Fire burned in Adam's eyes as he lifted his head.

"Shut the fuck up!" he yelled at you. But Lucifer would not accept this response. He latched onto Adam's arm and lifted him of the ground like he weighed nothing.

"What did I tell you about speaking to her like that?" Lucifer threatened. He tossed Adam against one of the trees that stood at the edge of the clearing. The man groaned in pain, attempting to pull himself up and lean his aching body against the tree. Lucifer quickly swooped down, acting as a barrier between the two of you. "You've shown me who you are, Adam. You are a monster, a disgrace. You treat this woman like the dirt you walk on and you expect her to stay with you? To love you?" Lucifer hoisted Adam up, pinning him against the trunk. "You will never see her again; do you understand me? You're going to leave this place and never come back. She is under my protection now. And if you ever so much as come within a mile of her, I will not hesitate to turn you back into the dust you were formed from." Lucifer released his grip on Adam and watched as he took a few steps back into the forest. "Leave. Now!"

Adam wiped the small amount of blood that dripped from his lip and laughed darkly. "Fine, keep her!" he yelled. "She doesn't mean anything to me! Who would want a slut like her anyway!"

"GO!" Lucifer bellowed.

Without another word, Adam took off into the trees. Lucifer flew high up in the sky within seconds, his arms stretched out on either side. The ground beneath you began to shake violently and you wanted to call out for Lucifer before you realized that he was the cause. Seemingly out of nowhere, large rock formations began rising from the earth, rock tumbling down as the mountains grew. As soon as they reached Lucifer's height, they stopped.

And then there was silence.

[matan4il]

IDK how to write today's update post. There were so many things I meant to include info about, but now everything pales in the face of the terrible news we got this morning.

At least 24 Israeli soldiers were killed in the last 24 hours in Gaza.

Here are the faces of some of them:

The terrorists responsible for most of these deaths, attacked in a spot just 600 meters (0.37 miles, with the border breached on Oct 7 in the middle) from a southern Israeli community, Kissufim.

[this paragraph is for the people spewing hate, on and off anon : if you read the news and smiled to yourself, or felt any kind of joy, I want you to know that's vile. It's devoid of any morality or humanity. You can tell yourself and others that you're for human rights all you want, but if you feel joy at the death of human beings, human beings who had the right to live (and would have lived, had it not been for the terrible massacre Hamas carried out on Oct 7, which the terrorists promised to recreate repeatedly, targeting Israelis and Jews alike), then you're not for human rights. It's just an excuse you use to be able to publicly celebrate the death of Jews, and of non-Jewish citizens of the Jewish state who defend their fellow Jews. It's just the same, age old antisemitism under a new guise]

IDK how to explain what that number does to me, as an Israeli, as a Jew, as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.

I still remember the morning of Oct 7, as the news started pouring in. First, just talking about the rockets, they had no confirmation of casualties yet. Then, we got the news of one elderly woman, killed by a rocket as she left her home to open the communal bomb shelter for others to use. Then suddenly it was 5 dead, then 10, then 22, along with the news that Palestinian terrorists from Gaza have invaded Israel's south.

And I knew then that the number is going to be higher. The way it normally goes with news of terrorist attack, is you first get a big number, those killed immediately or shortly after the attack, and then there are a few more wounded who don't make it. Basically, there's a big number, and then a small adjustment. Something like... first hearing about the 10 immedaite casualties of an attack, then the number is adjusted to 12 or 13 in the following hours, or days. But here, the jump in the number of dead from 10 to 22 told me we're not in the "small adjustment phase" yet. We're still in the "counting the initial big number phase."

That was so hard, because 22 was already hard to deal with. Up until Oct 7, if I remember correctly, we had lost 38 people in 2023 to Palestinian terrorism. That was already considered the bloodiest year in terms of terrorism victims since the second intifada. People were already grieving, asking questions about what was going on, talking about how the renewal of certain (American) funding to Palestinians (such as the Palestinian Authority's Pay for Slay program) was causing this surge in murderous activity, and what can be done to change the situation. To lose 22 people in one day meant that the number of 2023 terrorism victims was almost doubled already... and we were not yet done counting our dead. The grief and loss of almost 9 months and change almost doubled in a day... and it was likely about to grow.

The number of dead kept rising. We jumped from 22 to 50. From 50 to 100. Then 200. Still no sign of getting to the "small adjustment phase" and it was hard to breathe with every new update. We got to 300, and it was almost unbearable. Then 450. A jump of 150 dead. There was no way to process it, no way to really comprehend it, and the worst was always that the jumps in numbers between updates meant we're still in the "counting the initial big number phase." Somewhere after 600 and before the next update, I realized from an interview (nothing official, just the implication of what one person, who was in the know, said) that it was not going to be less than 1,000 people killed. And I no longer felt like I could contain any of it. The horror, the grief, the shock, the struggle to comprehend that this is real, and not the worst nightmare I've ever had.

At least 1,200 people were murdered during Hamas' massacre. It's been over 3 months, and when I write that I didn't know how to contain everything I was feeling back then, I still don't. So you might think, what's 24 people in comparison to 1,200 dead? But that's not how it works. The death of one person does not pale in comparison with the death of the many.

When I work on Holocaust research, and I work on the testimony of one Jewish girl, who had to watch her father being beaten in front of her eyes by Nazi-collaborating Italian fascist soldiers in a concentration camp in Libya, in northern Africa, when I try to process what the murder of just one parent, just one person means to her, I know it's the destruction of her whole world. It doesn't lessen the pain, that the number of Jewish Holocaust victims outside of Europe is "just" in the thousands, while in Europe it's in the millions. One death can in itself be impossible to bear.

And here's the thing. Those deaths and their impact accumulate. We didn't just learn today that we lost 24 soldiers. We lost 24 worlds (because as the Jewish saying goes, "He who kills one person, it's as if he killed the entire world, and he who saves one person, it's as if he saved the whole world," Mishna Sanhedrin 4.5) and we lost them as a part of now over 220 soldiers we lost in this war (see below a map of Israel with a red dot for every place where at least one soldier was killed), which was forced upon us with the murder and destruction of over 1,200 worlds, which comes after 75 years of a conflict we didn't want, in which we lost 28,000 worlds, and that followed a genocide in which we lost at least 6,000,000 worlds, and that in itself is the peak of almost two thousand years of persecution, during which the full and total number of Jews lost, of worlds destroyed just because of antisemitism, will never be known. All I know is that the Jews we know today, we're not the Jewish people. We are what's left of the Jewish people. And we will live. Am Yisrael Chai. Always. In the face of countless attempts at our destruction, we're still here. But we remember them all. Every single soul lost. Every world destroyed. Every child that had been murdered, every child that will never get to be born. We have lost 24 worlds today, and the fact that we have lost so many before, only makes the loss worse.

And we would not have lost a single person in the fighting in Gaza if we had actually been guilty of the crimes they accuse us of. We could have wiped out all of Gaza from the air, without risking the life of a single soldier on the ground. Every one of the Israeli soldiers killed, died to protect Israelis, as well as to save Palestinian civilians.

The way I feel right now, I think about the words of one member of Kissufim who I heard today: "We are broken, but strong."

May the memory of those lost be a blessing, every single one of them, every Jewish person, and non-Jew killed for standing with Jews, in every generation.

You're all still with me, I carry all of you in my heart, always.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[genderqueerdykes]

it’s unbelievably comforting to know that you’re therian/otherkin as a younger person who’s identified that way for years as well. people like you are ones i look up to for being my most authentic self and you remind me that it’s not a phase and i’m ALLOWED to be who and what i am ^_^

aww thank you! and hey of course, that's why i try to talk about it so often. i've identified as nonhuman since i was a child, but i've been a part of the online nonhuman community since 2010. i first joined the furry community as someone who genuinely identified as their sona, then the otherkin/therian/etc. communities when someone i followed on here came out as a dragon otherkin.

over the years we've realized a few nonhuman identities. we're not all one person so some of these will only apply to some, but we state that we collectively identify as a wolf, coyote, dog, & horse therian, and we have a lot of elf and dragon otherkin in our system, as well as other identities that are less common but important to the individuals who have them! many of us are undead, some are angels and demons.

i instantly became very involved in the community! i became staff on many different forums over the years and tried to help out when and where i could. i was very active under a lot of different usernames due to our DID, but i've tried to interact with others and help people understand that identifying as nonhuman isn't a bad, scary, or dangerous thing. it's not a problem. it's just how that person experiences their life and how they see themselves!

you're not doing anything wrong by identifying as a nonhuman. this belief is held across many cultures, all throughout human history. it's been well documented and recorded over the course of human history on every continent we've lived on and it's not going away any time soon. we are meant to be in nature. we are meant to be around other animals. humans ARE a species of animal- we are not above the animal kingdom, we are a part of it. it's only natural to relate to other animals.

you're perfectly fine being your authentic nonhuman self! i'm glad i can help you feel more comfortable in that. you are genuinely not harming anyone, that is a them problem if they have any issues with it. you are just being yourself! :) take care, stay safe, feel free to stop by again!

[balkanradfem]

The christian side of tumblr found a post where I made a little joke about how religion puts women into servitude and it's going around gathering bible quotes and arguing whether this is about christianity or other religions x_x I never thought this day would come.. I didn't think christians were on here. And even though the majority of people arguing are christians, I never wrote down 'christianity', I meant all abrahamic religions.

I'm itching to go argue but I know deep in my heart there is nothing to be gained. These people are eager to mock and personally attack whoever is disagreeing with them and that is not a honest intellectual discussion that I crave. I think if you're religious you just have to avoid thinking things like 'why is that so' and 'isn't that awfully convenient' and 'what if this promised thing fails to materialize' because once you start having those thoughts, the entire thing falls apart.

I remember being 15 and realizing that the christian god has no actual use of us, no point in caring about us whatsoever, and no incentive to pay attention to what we do or don't do, but humans very much have a need to believe in the higher power that works to their personal advantage, and that there's someone 'up there' who will make things alright for them, that they have a higher purpose and that if they follow certain rules it will pay out. And this was enough for me to figure out that god didn't create humans, but humans created god, because humans have a need of a god, while god has no need or use for humans at all.

It was only later when I learned about feminism that I realized it wasn't only that, but that it was specifically made to control, exploit and oppress women, praising them for endless servitude, sacrifice, submission and platitude, all while consistently telling them they're filled with sin and never good enough. It's now ghoulish and bizarre to me that the symbol of their faith is a m*n being brutally tortured, that what we feel is holy is endless suffering and pain and death. We're told to aspire for that. That has nothing to do with spirituality, nothing to do with human nature or healthy and happy human lives. It's a worship of death.

There are promises that religious people make towards women, to make them believe it's a path towards true love, or endless rewards for being 'faithful' and 'pure' or a life where they feel safe from disasters, safe from being abandoned and betrayed. There's nothing in life that can guarantee that. Religion can however, offer certain people a community, it can provide services where you come and listen to stories, and stories come with morals (convenient and confusing morals, but people love engaging with moral-type stories and feeling they've learned something), it provides rituals and celebrations that cultures have integrated in their life (after it destroyed the original rituals and celebrations, but we don't talk about that), and it can provide a common ground of understanding for people (sadly the common ground is that women exist to serve and that this is natural). Sometimes it also provides a feeling of superiority for some people, enabling them to mock, humiliate and patronize others for their 'lack of religion'.

So I understand there are community related reasons a person might feel safer within a religion and having this common ground and community, common beliefs, familiarity and stories, rituals and celebrations, it doesn't come off as a horrible thing, especially when the majority of the culture does it. But other things it brings are painful for women, and often hidden. Encouraging hidden suffering, sacrifice, servitude, centering torture and death, and admiration of torture and death, instead of celebrating nature, life, the world we live in and how we interact with it. Centering males as creators when everyone alive was created by women. Dismissing wars, rape, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, genocides and male brutality, while endlessly shaming women for having feelings and not doing a good enough job pleasing the violent males. And generally making a hell for women when they have any thoughts about sexuality or lust.

I know me writing about it here will not have any effect on people personally attacking me for being ignorant and uneducated, but it feels good to write down the thoughts I've been having all day! Being forbidden from thinking in certain direction, forbidden from questioning my own beliefs, is something that plagued me for a big part of my life, and I will not have it anymore. I can say 'this is awfully convenient' when religions declare that m*n are leaders and women are supposed to follow and serve. I can say that putting up statues of a m*n dying in torture is fucked up and morbid. I can say that making me believe that I would go to hell, for not following every order I've been given, is a horrid thing to do to a female child. And I'm happy and grateful that I can think and say whatever I want, without any threat of damnation ever looming over me.

[threepandas]

Bad End: Heroic Collection

New Haven wasn't a major metropolis. Some big city like Delhi or Tokyo, Jakarta and the like. It was big for the area. A major hub for commerce and crime on a local scale. But Nationally? INTERNATIONALLY? Not even close. No matter WHAT the great ambitions that haunted the Mayor, late at night, may tell you.

So, really, there was NO fucking reason for any A Listers to be here.

NONE.

Our biggest exports were fancy fucking jams and that one fashion line I couldn't pronounce. We had honest to God Jam festivals in the fall. It was a circuit, Mayor gave out awards. There were pies. Firestrike always ate himself sick. Agent always laughed at him. I... Fuck, my head was ringing. I'd hit that last building HARD. Was pretty sure I tasted blood. Not... not sure if that was because I busted something in my mouth or...

Over my comms, I could hear my teammates fighting. Trying to hail the Alliance. If we could... could just hold on...

Long enough for the major players to GET here?

Then what? I had to wonder. Staring at a burning bus in front of me. It was half way lodged through Mrs. Brahimi's shop. Please, God, let her and the workers have got out all right. I'd been there just this morning. She made me those stuffed flatbread things. Said I was still too skinny. Should rest more.

I use the twist remains of a book return to lever myself to my feet. Book..? Oh. I'm by the library. Which..? Fuck. Main one. That's city hall.

Smoke rises around the city I've lived in all my life. Fires everywhere. I'm supposed... supposed to be a hero. But I can barely stand. Feel sick as the world sways. My body is one big bruise. Gotta... gotta keep fighting. Helping. Save people.

In the distance, I can hear screams.

I'm coming. I promise. I'm coming!

I make my screaming body move. Stumble. Catch myself. Then keep going. The hiss and spit in my ear tells me that my communicator is probably half broken. I don't try it, in case that breaks it the rest of the way. Wrench doors from half crushed cars to free trapped civilians. Lever wreckage, hold it with trembling limbs, so people can crawl to safety. Run. Please, god, RUN!

We aren't strong enough.

He's here, The Collective.

A hivemind super threat. Alien supposedly. So far above my team's pay grade we know basically nothing. The kind of thing we were expected to never realistically see. We're nobody's. Fuck it, we're HAPPY being nobody's. It meant we got to go home each night. Didn't face The Horrors. Like him.

He CONSUMES.

Hungry. Trying to fill some void that's never going to fill. Supposedly a planet eater. Gutting worlds for resources, materials, to continue his own expansion. Now fixated on Earth for it's continued refusal to die. For its defiance. Some A+ sort of monster, to our high C rank. At best.

Fuck... we dealt with HUMANS. Fought gimmicks and tech. Little fish in our little pond. Now this tsunami was bringing the ocean to US and it was all we could do, to swim and survive.

I leaned against a half smashed car. Braced myself against it, more then anything, then started pulling pot shots. I... I was gonna black out soon. With a concussion like this? Probably wasn't gonna be waking up. Especially if those THINGS found me before a friendly did.

All across the city I called home, The Collective had Drones tearing the place apart.

They'd almost be pretty. Tall, elegant, androgynous lookin, supermodel twinks in battle armor. Drones apparently covered their lower face. I'd know the "commander" by their uncovered face and "use of adornments". Useful! Except they could fucking SWITCH on command, so you have to take out ALL of them.

Because they weren't a collection of different soldiers.

THEY weren't a THEY. That? Was a fucking HE. Singular.

You don't consider each of your individual cell as people. Each follicle of hair. Why would HE? God damn it. It was like fighting a giant. Against Gods. They just kept coming. And my ammo? Was not endless.

Worse. The drones had stopped looking. I don't know WHAT they had been searching for. But now? They started to converge on me. On city hall. Fuck. I... I couldn't even really stand anymore. My vision was blurring. I knew for a FACT my shots were shit. But dense as they were crowding? It seemed enough. Kept them back.

Three cartridges left.

Two.

Only one more...

The Alliance was coming. Half my team had gone silent. I could hear tears in the voice of Tech, back in the office. They had our life signs. Built into our armor. I could only imagine what mine looked like. Prayed, like I hadn't since I was a kid, that the others were just unconscious. Safe somewhere.

Someplace this nightmare couldn't reach them.

I doubted I was that lucky.

Tech was begging me to hold on. Giving me ETAs. And... And I was out of bullets. The block half full of Drones. I had escrima sticks. A fucking tazer. It would have to do. Sticks came out, as I swayed to my feet. No longer letting the car behind me hold my weight. What's a little... let's say, hundred or so, on one? Eh?

Bring your friends. Let's make it a fair fight.

I'll go easy on you.

Bravado until the end. Remember, never know who's watching. You are a symbol. Before you are a man, you are their HERO. Don't you DARE let them down. Even if you die. Especially when you die. B.. Bravado until the end. Plaste on a smirk and say a one-liner, we got hope to shoulder.

I took down about three Drones... I think... before the rest swarm me.

Feel hands pinning my arms. My torso. Everything. A weak point between the panels is ripped open. High grade military fabrics doing jack shit against their impossible strength. The distinct pinch tug of a needle in my skin. Cold spreading. The sudden exhaustion of a powerful sedative. I... am gone.

Time... is blurry.

Now and Then running together in my senses. My brain. The concussion doesn't help. Or... or didn't? It feels... gone? Gone-ing? Oh... look, sky. Clouds. Pretty. Wasn't I standing? I am standing. No... no being dragged. Chair? Not chair. Stairs? Carried. Pretty window..... where am I? Fuzzy. Bluzzy fuzzy purple beans~ he he he~ oh! Those are the... watch'ma call it! Gucci chairs! That rich lady had! Neat. Plurble.

Ouch! Why'd you pi...?

My mouth is dry as sand. But suddenly? I am hyper aware. The floating drift of my mind VIOLENTLY gone, replaced by alerted and focus. Drones surround me in a vaguely familiar hallway. Shit. I think it's that rich designer's place. My helmet is off, but my mask is still in place, thank god. The Drones stand far to close for my liking. Their many eyes, amused.

So glad to entertain, you Fuck.

I am frog marched down the hall. Damn near dragged. They were too smart to restrain me with my own cuffs, unfortunately. So my hands are bound behind my back with something tight I can't get a good feel off. Bastard secured it to my belt, too. Great.

The Collective's "Face" is surrounded by what must be every jewel in the city. Piled high in some vague sorting pattern I refuse to even try and comprehend. He's trying on rings. One on every finger, to see what matches his skin tone. Looks good. Already, he has a pearl stud and some earrings he's decided he likes. He looks up as I'm dragged in, and I realize immediately what one of "a few other differences" between him and the Drones are...

It's the EYES,

They GLOWED.

Metallic almost. Nearly neon. They reflected the light in a way the Drones simply did not. It made their face... horrificly predatory. Made for WATCHING, somehow. Unnerving and haughty. Beautiful still, but uncomfortable to be near.

Sitting up on a table that basicly swallows the room, dead center like a show piece on display, with one long leg tossed over the other and no fucking shirt on? The Face looks almost carefully, artfully, staged. To maximize some "haughty yet coy, alien prince who maybe wants to fuck you" shtick.

Does... Does he not realize I'm NOT one of the usual opponents? I mean. Flattered at the "join me! The Darkside has sex and cookies!" set up. Always fun. Classic, really. But, like? I would be... at BEST... a solidly MID goon.

Also "NO".

Gonna preemptively throw that out there. Maybe some expletives for flavor. Suggest someplace sunless to shove it. SOLID "No". Good try, though.

Around me, the Drones are shaking with silent laughter. Staring down at me, their pale eyes dancing with amusement. It's creepy as hell. Unnerving to be the center of attention like this. For this many eyes, utterly in synch, to surround and watch my every twitch. Act fascinated and amused, like I'm some little animal performing tricks.

The Face hasn't dropped his Seduction to the Darkside routine. If anything, he seems delighted by the defiance. Which... yeah, that tracks. It's why he's harrasing out planet to begin with. That one's definitely on me. So, better question? Not that I'm not glad and all? Why the FUCK am I not dead.

"And lose my HERO? Perish the thought~" drawles The Collective, the posture light and lazy, even as something dangerous threaded itself through their tone. It sounded... possessive. But that couldn't be right. "I would NEVER do such a thing! In fact, we are going to have to be far more careful with that little processor of yours. Far too fragile. Just the one, too. Horrifying, really."

Thanks. Just what every guy loves to really make 'im feels special. Insults.

Fucker.

More laughter from all around me. I grit my teeth. Come oooon, Alliance. Where the hell ARE you guys!? Could REALLY use a rescue! The hands holding me still are drifting. Fucking handsy. Damn near stroking even as they hold me immobile. They're looking for the clasps and buckles on my armor. Have already found the obvious ones. Fingers oh so casually drifting over, to grip, flex, and tear them apart.

I do NOT like how loose my armor is starting to feel. Barely able to hold on. Protect me. Limited as that protection may be. I think I'm developing a horrifying empathy for clams. Crustaceans in general. Anything that gets slowly pried from the safety of it's shell, too certain doom.

The Face casually tosses the rings he was playing with aside. Tens of thousands of dollars bouncing off to God only knows where. He slides from the table to stand. Shit. He's huge.

The androgynous twink supermodel thing he has going on? Fucking LIES. Twists your perception of how, EXACTLY, strong the Face body IS. He clears seven feet easily, is muscled in that distinctly "never see me coming until it's too late" sort of way all the ninja types are.

The tattoos. It's the FUCKING tattoos! They give the illusion that he's slimmer then he actually is.

It HIDES MUSCLE MASS.

I can't tell if that's vanity or strategy and I hate it. Glare as he sashays towards me. Hips rolling in that elegant catwalk strut. I'm forced to my knees. Because of course I am. How ELSE will the bastard loom and gloat? Though really, weak as I currently feel, it's more that the Drones holding me up? Stop doing that. My knees more or less just give up on their own.

"Like what you see? You're staring so intently~" He mocks. If he were being genuine, I'd call it teasing. Flirtatious. But I know better. "It IS a pretty body, isn't it? I worked hard on it, you know. All sort of fun little details~ Might honestly be one of my favorites. If you're good for me, I'll let you explore it~"

THERE it is.

Darkside. Sex and cookies. Sign up today. Fuck you and not in the fun way. Keep your hands to yourself, Collective. You're not convincing me. You could tell me the sky was blue, and I'd make three presentations with a PowerPoint, on why you were a liar. No, still No, and a hefty fuck off No for spice.

Three steps away. Two steps. One.

A man that tall and dangerous? Frankly did NOT need heels. Figures he'd wear them anyway. Sharp enough to kill a man. Right infront of my folded knees. I refuse to look up. No more fucking games. Did have to wonder, though, if those pants... if they even WERE pants? Were painted on or not. Very tight. Looked vaguely metal yet leather.

Shit.

Fingers, splayed wide as they run themselves through my sweaty and probably bloodstained hair. Couldn't have been nice to touch. Wrong angle and just a touch too big to be a Drone. Light as a lover, sweet almost, soothing. Before it inevitably tightens, gripping the strands. Honestly not as hard as I expected, didn't even hurt.

Still, my head is forced back.

Back and back and back, forced to arch my spine, hang awkwardly at some forty-five degree angle. My thighs and abs already screaming. A Drone grabs the back of my armor and, with an almost casual yank, my chest plate is violently snapped free. Both tossed to the floor away from us.

"There we are~" the Face hums down at me, eyes nearly hypnotic in how the light moved from within, grin full of sharp and deadly teeth. "No more of that ugly thing in the way. I much prefer this~"

"Tell me, Little Hero, do you remember? Becoming mine."

No, I certainly do fucking not. What the HELL is he-!? From behind the Face a Drone steps. Dressed differently to the others. Casual clothes. Like... actual street clothes. If they weren't GREEN I never would been able too-...

In horror, I watch as the pigment of the Drones skin melts away to a middling average. So utterly nondescript a blend of ethnicities that it's genuinely hard to place, but won't stand out no matter where he goes in the city.

I... I had seen that face.

SAVED that man.

Thought he was CUTE! T..Thought WE were having some sort of MEET CUTE! Oh God. That was at the festival. I was out of costume. Saved him from getting crushed. Then my teammates handled everything before I could slip away. So I just... stayed. Showed the cute tourist the festivities.

We ate FANCY JAMS, YOU FUCK!

I pined our that cute tourist for WEEKS. Was UNBEARABLE. Tech threatened to shove me off a roof! Oh my god.

Laughter.

Dozens of mouths, laughing in perfect sync. The noise layered and bouncing strangely around the room. Deeper then it should be, higher as it swings. Like a radio or voice modulator that someone is messing with. A momentary loss of control. My anger fizzles out to fear. Oh... oh yeah...

I forgot I was fucked.

At.. at least I know why?

A step forward. Past too close and now basically in my lap. A foot on either side of my knees. I try not to think exactly where my face would be pressed if I wasn't dragged back, to hang near painfully arched, so he could lean down and I could be forced to make eye contact. That way lay madness.

He moved his other hand to my face, cupping it. Dragging his thumb possessively across my mouth. He hummed, pleased.

He pressed closer, sliding down my front to his knees, straddling my lap. REALLY hoped that WAS, in fact, a weapon in your pocket there, buddy. Because I am not liking the handsy direction this is going, nor have I come to terms with my meet cute being a monstrous planet killing warlord. Not feeling sexy, my guy.

....okay, a LITTLE sexy, but that is hormones and we ignore those.

Fuuuuuck, wandering haaaaands! Now would be a GOOD TIME for door kicking rescues! I do NOT want to learn anything new about myself today! I want to go HOME. Sleep forever, maybe! Have a burrito the size of my head! Oh god. Think unsexy thoughts. Math. Sad puppies! Sad puppies doing MATH!

The Collective had dragged me upright. Pressed my face right up against their Face's bare skin. All I could smell was expensive cologne and man. Warm skin. Oh god, I am so gay. This is hell and I am very, VERY gay. If evil, why sexy hot hot hot? Hormones are making very convincing arguments. Horny brain says let's make terrible life choices.

No! Nooooo. Stop it, Me! We are fucking better then this! God damn it, you trainwreck, you are a ROLE MODEL! Act like one! (But horny...) (NO!!!)

God I was never going to mock the fuckers who hesitates at the "sex n cookies" speech again. Persuasive mother FUCKER!

"Aah~" he sighed contentedly, far too close to a moan for my sanity's liking. Hands having finally found the hidden zippers of my undersuit. Slowly dragging it open. "You are FAR too cute~♡"

"I can't wait to get you off this worthless little rock. Back to ME. I'll have so many WAYS to take care of you~ Backups and rudimentary supports we can set up, at least until I get you something proper."

Horrifying. Deeply Horrifying. REALLY never wanted to know what terrified and horny felt like, but here we are. Distantly, I hear thunder. There's no clouds. A flash of red through the skies. Green followed by metallic purple. Oh thank fuck. Keep his attention. Just... just keep his attention.

"We'll use me as a base. Keep you in stasis. Away from all these ugly, dangerous things~! Just you and me. Perfect. BETTER. Infinite and beautiful. I'll make all sort of bodies just for you to play with. Even let you keep this one! If you want. It'll be a precious memory for us, of where you began. How we met."

A mouth on mine. I can't breathe. Can't escape the arms wrapped around me. My protests do little more then waste oxygen. I feel light headed. Come one, team Alliance! He's here! HE'S HERE!!!

"You're going to be MINE, little Hero. I finally figured it out. What I was missing. It was YOU~♡! My beloved, delicate, little thing~. I'm going to take SUCH good care of you."

"Forever~"

[sciderman]

This may be a cold take, but looking back at the living with Aunt May arc, I honestly don't like the idea of Peter hitting Wade being played off as a joke. Even though ppl won't see it that way cus they're both men, it still just rubs off as abusive. I mean, imagine the same scene but what if Wade was a woman? I don't mean to come off as dramatic or rude & I'm truly sorry if I am. I just never understood why couples hitting one another was usually meant to be taken as funny. A nudge or something like that is fine. But full blown hitting or elbow drops kinda sit wrong with me

i think the "what if wade was a woman" line of thought is silly because. sometimes he is a woman. you're throwing a very silly line of thinking at me.

i do think if you're not prepared to see two guys beat the snot out of each other then you probably shouldn't be reading superhero comics. that's kind of what superheroes do. i think "violence is always bad" is a very strange stance for a spider-man and / or deadpool fan to have. i think you're in the wrong place.

most couples aren't spider-man and deadpool. spider-man and deadpool who use violence to communicate because they're bad with words. the text is aware of it.

the text is aware that what Spider-Man and Deadpool have is Not healthy. I’ve never made any allusions to them being healthy. the whole point is that they’re not healthy.

but I kind of only really see a relationship as abusive if there’s a power imbalance. wade is highly trained in like. every martial art known to man. if he didn't want peter to strangle him, peter would be on the floor. he is cool with being strangled. he probably thinks it's funny.

all couples are different. what if they’re a couple of wrestlers and wrassling is something they enjoy and bond over? which is the case for wade and peter. they are superheroes. of course they enjoy to wrassle. I think either of them could easily call it off and say it’s going too far. But they enjoy it and expect it from each other. again. it’s kind of how they communicate. and i think they know each other's limits.

I think they probably have a safeword that they use for any kind of physical thing they have going on, be it sex or wrassling. it might even be “uncle” that seems like it’d be a hilarious way to stop peter in his tracks.

4) what’s depicted in the post you’re being critical of is more tonally akin to like. siblings fighting. it’s a valid way humans interact, like any other. cats play-fight. it’s kind of similar. they’re not actually hurting each other.

(as you can tell by their body language, neither of their tails are wagging, and they’re both smiling, so this is not cruel behaviour. just natural enrichment for spider-men and deadpools to engage in.)

i think a sign of a healthy relationship is knowing each other's boundaries and not crossing them. so maybe there's someone i affectionately put in a headlock. and they think it's funny and they're okay with it. it's part of our language. it's fine if we expect it from each other and we're okay with it. fighting isn't always bad. couples insult each other all the time. if you're not aiming to hurt them, really, it's just fine. not everything is black and white. wade spars with all his partners. they beat each other up. they're boys. let them play.

[freckles-a-constellation]

The Doctor is a tragic character in the best Greek tragedy tradition.

So y'all know how the most common driving factor for intelligence to develop in species is if they're social? (Octopi aren't very social but let's ignore that real quick, the Doctor's a vertebrate anyway so invertebrate intelligence can probably be dismissed as irrelevant) Because after a point, more intelligence isn't really needed to avoid danger or gather food. But more intelligence does make it possible to communicate more efficiently, form more complex social bonds, eventually develop culture. Cue why social species tend to be more intelligent than solitary ones of otherwise comparable lifestyle. And cue why humanity is the way it is.

Now look at Gallifreyans. (I am purposefully ignoring the Timeless Child thing bc I don't rlly believe it and besides, even assuming it's true, The Doctor is similar enough to Gallifreyans to have flawlessly believed himself/themselves/herself to be one for 13+ regenerations, so anything that can be concluded to be true from analysis of Gallifreyans has good basis to be presumed true about the Doctor, whatever the fuck semantics you wanna use) So, Gallifreyans. A species much more advanced than according to DW canon humanity will ever be. More intelligent than humanity. High levels of education and not on the basis of private tutoring. Lives in cities. Has complex language and technology capable of instantly translating pretty much any language of any other species to be understandable to them. (Hell the TARDIS consistently still translates shit to English for the companions while they're outside it.) Complex social structure. That's one fucking social species.

And it gets better. The TARDIS is meant to be operated by a team of six. And even if River was joking about six, it's still clear that it should at least be more than one. Compare the Doctor steering the TARDIS alone to when he was with Susan. I mean, even those two looked like they could use an extra hand. Have you ever seen a human private use vehicle designed with 2+ pilots in mind? Definitely a species more social than humanity.

And the telepathy thing? Hello? Insanely, mind-boggingly social species.

Now take a being this fundamentally social and do something to them so that they see no recourse other than to take one (1) same-species (as far as he was aware disclaimer ig) companion, steal a ship they have little to no clue how to pilot, leave everything and everyone they've ever known and run without ever stopping for breath, no matter how much they miss home, no matter if it hurts. (And I do believe something must have happened to make him run like that, since the beggining, way before the Time War) Have them be scorned, judged, punished, mistreated and rejected by their species, again and again, for ages. Have them love, again and again, only to always lose everyone they've cared about, through abandonment or death. Have them essentially be forced to exterminate their whole species and believe themselves to be the last of their kind, only to be proven wrong by the whole Master situation, which alright is better, but also in some ways is worse. Have them, once again, form deep bonds with companions and once again lose all of them in various varyingly tragic ways until they have no hope left that anyone can ever truly stay for any amount of time even close to satisfactory, that love can for them end in anything but loss and pain. And they can't even avoid love altogether in an effort to spare themselves the inevitable agony of losing loved ones, because they're incapable of not growing to care for those around them. And they can't be without company either, because their sanity goes straight to hell in a handbasket within like,, 5 minutes of being alone.

Let me remind you this is not a human we're talking about. It's a member of a species much more inherently social than humanity. My point?

The Doctor is literally more lonely than the human brain can comprehend.

[luveline]

Hello!! For the zombie au, I would love to see something (no pressure at all tho - I love you and any of your writing regardless ❤️❤️) where the reader gets overwhelmed at the camp and goes off on her own for a bit, causing Steve to go absolutely insane with worry in the meantime. Totally up to you whether something dangerous actually happens or not. Thanks a ton either way!!

thank you for your request! i didn’t make him as worried as I could’ve potentially so please request again if this isn’t quite what you meant! zombie au steve x fem!reader

There are three different children having tantrums at breakfast. You wince at the sound, hands at your knees and squeezing, looking for relief. You have a headache the size of Mount Everest, in the midst of recovery from a cold that had you weak with fever and aching, and this isn't what you'd pictured when you crawled out of your tent this morning. 

Steve had been snoring, and Robin's newly adopted cat had been restless, climbing up and down your bodies like you were nothing more than lumpy pillows, and combined with your headache it had been a little too much to bear. Rather than wake either of them to amend their problems, you saw no harm in getting up for a walk and a moment's respite in the small communal area of camp near the fire pit. 

The fire hasn't been lit. For a while you'd all operated on nocturnal time, worried your smoke trail would attract the unkind, but it hasn't been a feasible plan to stay that way with so many young children living in the commune. These days you make very small fires when you need to warm food or boil water, and you try to stick to dry wood to minimise the amount of smoke. 

You're not sure what's causing the tantrums, perhaps they're setting each other off, but things are starting to get too much for a second time. Without a friend at your side, it's easy to fall into despair. You're sick without medicine, you've been sleeping on the floor outdoors for weeks and it's making you incredibly sore. The children are here and alone and most of them are orphans now because the unspeakable happened and it keeps on happening. Your life is a tragedy novel, the situation is dismal, and you're not sure life is ever going to get better. 

You stand up and walk for the river. The sound of rushing water will cover everything else, at the least, and there's a tree you can climb with minimal effort, a branch you can perch on that's high enough that nothing can reach you while you're overstimulated and distracted.

Today could be a good day. You need to clear your head first, is all. 

—

Steve frowns at the empty blankets beside him. He'd prefer you didn't leave without waking him, 'cos he won't be able to breathe properly until he knows you're okay. He wishes he lived in a world —that you all did— where you could go wherever you liked without telling him and he wouldn't need to worry. He hates that he needs to know where you are. 

He wiggles his toes in his shoes, trying to wake them up as he stands from the tent and casts his gaze over the camp. There's a little boy crying near the single fold out table they have. A man scoops him up and starts to rub his back, shushing him. A gaggle of girls laugh beside a small fire, camping pans and cans of soup in tongs held over the flames. Dustin and Will are already up, coming back from the river with a bucket between them. 

"Hey," Steve says, jogging up to them. He looks around. "Seen Y/N?" 

"She wasn't by the river," Will says.

"But we caught you guys a fish," Dustin says. 

Steve looks down into the bucket, where a few smaller carp lie dead. "Oh, nice going. You didn't stab them, right?" 

"We're humane," Dustin says. "You have to debone your own. We're not doing all the work." 

Steve pats his shoulder. "Hey, thanks. Just as soon as I find Y/N." 

He doesn't find you soon. You aren't at the campfire. You aren't in the general area surrounding it. You aren't in someone else's tent, and he's sure they all think he's a control freak for checking. 

He tries to calm down. Chances are you needed the bathroom and wanted privacy. He isn't freaking out, he isn't freaking out, really, he's just– he's thinking logistically, because nothing good happens where he can't see you. 

Steve turns in a frantic circle, eyes everywhere, searching for your hair, your big coat. 

He's about to admit defeat and start shouting your name when you chirp up from behind him. "Hey, handsome. Fancy seeing you here."

He turns, sees you all in one piece in your big warm coat, your clean face shimmering with damp. 

"Oh," he says, feeling like he's been punched, "those losers lied to me. You were by the river?" 

You trudge over long grass to nudge him. "Just for a bit. My head was hurting. I saw them catching fish for a while, they're pretty good, but don't blame them, I don't think they knew I was there." 

"Idiots," he says, not meaning it. His head is pounding. "Why, where were you?" 

"Sitting on the 'dangerous' tree branch." 

He takes your shoulders into his hands. He can see you preparing for a kiss, your eyes closing slowly, your chin lifting just a little. Newsflash! You made him worry and now you're climbing up trees. He shakes you gently, and when it doesn't upset you, he shakes you more. You laugh infectiously and let your head loll back and forth. You don't ask him to stop, but he feels bad, and he hugs you rather than scramble your brains any further. 

"You have a conniption?" you ask into his neck. 

"Maybe." 

"Sorry, honey," you say, which is funny and sweet, because it's the name he always gives you. 

He rubs your back. "Hmm. I should give you a speech on not wandering off along and unnecessary risks." 

"Don't do that." 

"No, I'm going to, actually." 

He sits you by the fire and makes breakfast. The speech isn't a speech, really, just an excuse to talk at you, thankful that he still can. You give him all the meatballs from the weird canned spaghetti and he starts to forgive you for the heart attack. You wipe a dab of spaghetti sauce off of his lip with your thumb before giving him a peck, and he forgets what he was talking about in the first place.