#at LEAST they actually care about facts but

[webzazes]

making this danny phantom teehee ❤️

My family always seemed like the most normal people in the world. But, we're filthy rich. I'm not a fan of it, but it's whatever. At least I have funds for passion projects, and hopefully, in due time, my own greenhouse (I've wanted one for years).

I actually only learned what really made us so successful recently, though. Ever since I was young, I was told over and over again that it was due to an invention, something useful and prominent in everyday life. However, it turns out that we're so wealthy because of black magic.

The thought alone inspired me so much, and I was already into gothic and fantastical things- it practically tripled my obsession. My parents, however, thought I was "too obvious" or "too gloomy" for our happy little family, especially because of my style of dress, but I was dead-set on breaking away from the norm after I learned how, well, not normal we are under wraps.

This made me a loner at school. I was different, and I wasn't a fan of going out of my way for friendships, let alone any unnecessary social interaction. I kept to myself, and became "the weird goth girl". Honestly, I was happy with that.

But, being a loner led me to Danny. And, of course, his friend Tucker. They accepted me- although we did butt heads at times, as is natural. We'd go to Danny's house, hear about his parents' work, and especially, their obsession with ghosts.

As someone getting into the occult, (I was actively training myself with books from our family library) I was interested. Very interested. I knew about souls, zombies, and demons, but not so much about ghosts themselves, the physical representation of a consciousness and soul tied down to Earth.

So, when Danny brought us to his basement to show us the "ghost portal" his parents were working on, I was excited. Really excited. Of course, I didn't let that show, I figured it might be as dumb as all of the other Fenton tech, and I wasn't expecting it to be dangerous, either.

But, when Danny stepped in to try and turn it on, I realized it was, in fact, dangerous. Very much so. The sheer amount of force I felt when the portal opened was almost painful- but never could be as painful as the sight of what happened to Danny because of it. He looked almost burned in places, and practically wilted to the ground.

He was limp. And he didn't look right, either- his hair was a shocking, clear white, and his eyes were green. At the time, I didn't even notice that the protective suit he was wearing had changed. But I could 100 percent tell that he was dead. Stone cold and limp, dead.

Tucker looked to be on the verge of tears, but I didn't care. I had to do something! I could feel some kind of residual energy on Danny's body, and I thought, "a source". A source of power for me to use, something I could heal him with.

Healing was my passion. I've always cared for life. Especially in this instance- Danny wasn't allowed to die. He couldn't die. I don't know what I would've done if he did..

So, in a split second, I was by his side. I was full healer mode, to the point I knew I couldn't let Tucker see my face. If he saw my eyes, well, he certainly wouldn't have been able to forget them any time soon..

I grasped at the energy left on Danny, and I made it mine. My emotions made me strong, determined, and I used that energy to successfully make an offering to Danny's soul. It was like summoning a demon- I'd seen my mom do it before- but more intimate, as I touched his spirit, poured its power into his bloodstream, and pulled at it, as I tied it to his body. I could almost feel the ectoplasm in my hands- and that's when I realized what the residual energy really was. Ectoplasm.

The ghost portal was real.

All in all, the whole process of "fixing" Danny, well.. it felt like nothing. And it really was quick. Thankfully, once I told Tucker that Danny was breathing, he didn't think to question the wait. He said nothing. And I couldn't bring myself to say that Danny was still cold..

So, hurriedly, we took Danny to his room, and told his parents he was tired. We said that he fell asleep while playing games with us. That was it.

That is how it all started.

You always wanted to be a Healer. Unfortunately, your dad was an Necromancer and your mother a Demon Summoner. So your healing was a bit… unconventional to say the least.

[felassanis]

I genuinely think Lavellan is the first relationship Solas has had. Especially an explicitly romantic one.

Veilguard Spoilers ahead. But regardless of what the primary nature of his relationship with Mythal was. There clearly was an infatuation. A dedication so raw back then that I genuinely don't think Solas was looking at anyone else but Mythal. Either because he longed for her in some (arguably unrequited) capacity or the loyalty he had for her trumped any other distractions.

But then. She dies. And he grieves, and he ultimately destroys the world in that grief. And he's spent thousands of years away from Mythal. And while he's still obviously dedicated to her, the rawness of that bond has simmered.

And then he meets Lavellan.

"It's been a long time," he says when you tease him about him using fade tongue. And while yes, you could see this as Solas confirming he has had prior romantic relationships. I actually think it refers to Mythal, to the fact it's been a long time since he's felt so close to somebody.

We know ancient elves felt operated differently than modern-day elves when it came to expression in a relationship. What we think is romantic might not have been as such back then. So I'm NOT saying Solas is inexperienced, but rather, I do think the only bond he's had that consumed him completely, that was loving, was Mythal. Until he meets Lavellan.

There is a genuine...newness to the relationship. There are so many instances where Solas seems so mildly surprised by Lavellan's actions. For the care she puts into their relationship. My favourite being when Lavellan promises to protect him in Haven from anyone looking to hurt him because he's an apostate elf. The way his eyes widen and he says "...thank you," like he's never experienced someone looking out for him so...outwardly. So willing to put his safety as a priority. (And that makes me sob cause oh my god I wonder if anyone cared about Solas's safety ever)

And I genuinely think his bond to Mythal coloured Solas's expectations when it comes to any relationship, especially a romantic one. It's like Solas isn't used to someone reciprocating HIS feelings lmao. And that's doubly apparent in the Solavellan ending, I think. Lavellan and Solas's interactions are so interesting because Solas GENUINELY has not let himself believe for nearly 10 years that Lavellan forgave him. Cannot believes she is even there, willing and wanting to save him from himself.

This does not strike me as someone who's used to relationships. To the give and take. The safety. The sustainability....

I think Solas spent so long yearning for the reciprocation he never received from Mythal only to get it finally with Lavellan. He longed for Mythal to reciprocate, and she didn't. Not until she finally shared the burden of their actions at the end. And there is no comfort in that burden now being acknowledged by her. She releases him from her service and vanishes as he's left to double over by himself.

At least he would be, but lavellan is there to lower herself to his level and comfort him. They're equals where Solas and Mythal were not. Solas is not Lavellan's lapdog. And she is not warped and changed by him as she offered to do so back in Trespasser. He didn't let her come with him to avoid the fate that befell him when he followed Mythal. They're Partners. Lovers.

And even THEN. EVEN THEN. Solas is shocked Lavellan wants to go with him to the Fade. To the point his eyes tear up, he CRIES. Warning her away but you can see in his face he is fucking DESPERATE for her to follow. Because he wants to love and have that love returned at long last.

And it is. It finally is.

[charmac]

I wrote about Charlie and Dennis' paralleled childhood sexual abuse, and how their opposing trauma responses keep them from seeing themselves while they stay stuck in their own cycles of abuse.

// The content under the read more is an in-depth script analysis highlighting and discussing childhood sexual abuse and trauma response. Please read with caution or scroll past this post if these topics are known to affect and/or trigger you. //

Because Sunny walks an extremely fine line between sensitive, if not traumatic, character work and dark comedy, I've found that, in reading the scripts, the trauma being written is always much more blatant. You have to work a little harder to pick up on the underlying intent when watching the episodes (though the more and more we learn about the characters, the more the intent becomes clear), but the scripted versions of these scenes are solid evidence that the clear intent of these storylines is to reveal that these characters have extremely repressed childhood trauma, in-turn explaining to the audience why they have such fucked-up ideas of (and relationships with) love and sex. To put it more blatantly: the purpose of giving and revealing the childhood trauma these characters have is purposeful (if not needed), explaining why they are the predators that they are, and allows us to at least understand where their often psychopathic actions and rationales come from.

The fact that Charlie and Dennis were both sexually abused as children is all but obvious to the audience (and every other member of the Gang), but the extent to which these plots are intended to act as character work as opposed cheap-shot rape jokes is often lost on the casual viewer. In my opinion, the disconnect is not for lack of clear intention in the writing, but by the nature of the show being what it is.

It’s very clearly still there, easy enough to catch if you’re standing more than ankle-deep in the waters, but because Sunny is a dark comedy, it’s unfortunately easy to uncomfortably laugh past a rape joke if you don’t care to look deeper than the surface. Taking a look at the scripts helps paint a clearer picture, making it easier to point out, walk through and explore the CSA lore developed for both Charlie and Dennis, how they parallel and oppose each other, and how this trauma relates to their own predatory behaviours. 

An obvious starting point is Charlie Got Molested, which is, on the surface, an episode in which we learn that Charlie wasn't molested. What is changed from the script to the episode is this first line from Charlie, right at the very end of the episode, on his family’s response to his alleged molestation:

(Charlie's aired line is instead "Now everybody thinks that I've been molested. So, in a way, my life is ruined.")

Whether written with a specific intent at the time or not, this episode sets the stage (literally, lol) for a later building 'reveal' that (1) Charlie was molested as a child, and (2) his Uncle Jack is very much a pedophile, not just a perv (which is hinted at in the actual episode, both in dialogue and visuals), because the next time the show features a plot with Charlie and molestation (Sweet Dee's Dating notwithstanding, though important to mention, as it’s further evidence of the idea that there was clearly a thread being woven early on), it’s via the form of a play.

Charlie wrote The Nightman Cometh as a play about love, which was turned into a 'legible' play by Artemis, in which the Gang all "misinterpreted" his original intent and believed it to be about a child being raped. Charlie gets mad, because he doesn't see it, doesn't believe it, and instead believes everyone is destroying his artistic vision by refusing to let this idea go.

The script for The Nightman Cometh (which, I’d like to point out, RCG chose to make publicly available to everyone) has an alternate ending to the rehearsal of the bed scene between The Boy and The Nightman:

(The aired version shows Charlie more-comedically angry at Mac and Dennis by raising his level of frustration, physically with his hands. The mention of the Nightman taking The Boy face-to-face is never addressed in the aired episode, yet it does take place that way in the actual play scene following the rehearsal featuring doggy-style humping.)

What's heavily implied in the episode (and basically explicitly stated in the script), is that the Gang are not misinterpreting Charlie's art; the play is quite literally built around the idea that a child is attempting to communicate his rape, and Dennis is telling him that’s what it is. Charlie can't accept that, because this is a play about his life, he believes he’s created a play about love, and he is the boy and he was not raped so it can't be rape.

(And, following this, the audience can put the two and two together: Charlie’s clearly repressed CSA and the fact that his Uncle is a pedophile. In every.single.physical.interaction Charlie and Uncle Jack have, in every appearance he makes following Season 4, the fact that Uncle Jack is the Nightman is clear.)

Rolling back a little, it’s interesting that Dennis is the one to be audibly confused by (and frustrated with) the fact that Charlie can't understand his play is a rape play, because it's so very obvious to Dennis. Yet, 7 years later, he's in Charlie's exact shoes.

Because in Dee Makes a Smut Film, Dennis' plot almost directly parallels Charlie’s from The Nightman Cometh:

Dennis wrote his Erotic Memoirs as a tale of his sexual conquests, the first of his encounters turned into a 'film' by Dee, in which Dee "misinterpreted" what happened between Dennis and the Librarian as him being raped as a teen. Dennis gets mad, because he doesn't see how it could possibly be rape, doesn't believe a guy can be raped, and instead believes Dee and Grieco are destroying his artistic vision by refusing to let the idea go.

(In the aired episode, Dennis does not avoid using the word rape, and instead insists you cannot rape a guy, and that he was willing.)

Just like Charlie, Dennis refuses to accept that the people who are acting out his writing at face-value are telling him straight up that it looks like, and most-likey is, rape. Dennis can't accept that, because this is a film about his life, it's about his first sexual conquest, and he is the boy and he was not raped so it can't be rape.

This goes one-step further when Dee airs the 'film' for the rest of the Gang:

(The aired version of the video does not show anything from filming, and only shows a slideshow of photos from when Dennis was a teen, overlay text claiming he was raped, and a photo of Klinsky repeating 'hoser' over and over.)

Dennis goes on a spiel and reiterates that he was not raped. The rest of the Gang are not convinced.

And at this point, Charlie and Dennis probably should relate to each other, or at the very least intentionally give each other a pass/miss whenever the topic of childhood sexual abuse emerges, but instead they continue to have no issue believing and pointing out that the other was raped while continuing to deny their own trauma. 

In PTSDee, this paralleled-refusal is made clear. Very clear. In the script, it's even clearer:

(In the aired scene, Dennis' line is clearly cut after he mentions Charlie's mom, and it picks up with Charlie's line at "the father thing")

They see it so clearly in each other, but don't see themselves mirrored—and there's no doubt that's intentional. Because while they were both sexually abused as children, their current relationships with love and sex (as portrayed from basically episode one) are opposing, and the circumstances of their individual rape and immediate repression are extremely illustrative as to why they behave the way they do:

Charlie's trauma response is typical of pre-pubescent, forced rape. Not mature enough to even recognise what happened to him (as Uncle Jack's abuse was likely his first exposure to sexual acts), he regresses and represses, subsequently developing a repulsion toward sex into his adult life (in Season 5, Mac and Charlie Write a Movie, there's a deleted scene that makes it evident that he's disgusted by and avoidant of sex decades later), and, clearly by the depictions in The Nightman Cometh play and the lyrics of Nightman in Sweet Dee’s Dating, believing that the harassment he faced was love. 

For the run of the show, Charlie’s interest in love and sex is almost exclusively highlighted by his relentless pursuit of the Waitress. In so far as the idea that every member of the Gang is a sexual predator, Charlie is depicted as a sexual harasser, unable to recognize that disinterest, avoidance, the word "no," and stalking that leads to legal action to restrain him from the person he's pursuing is inappropriate and predatory.

While his CSA results in a repulsion toward sex (in most instances), Charlie clearly associates the concept of love with the early harassment he faced, brought on him in his own home by a "loved one," he truly believes that his own relentless pursuit will end up buying him love. Charlie is stuck in an abstinent cycle (at least, until Dennis’ Double Life) of his own abuse.

Dennis' trauma response is typical of coercive rape and grooming. He was old enough to believe that sex is something that should be seen as cool, and therefore obsesses and brags about his experience(s), resulting in his hypersexuality. In Season 5, The D.E.N.N.I.S. System, it's firmly established that Dennis' pursuit of women is something outside of genuine attraction; in fact, it's almost devoid of it. Clearly by the plot of PTSDee, he sees a woman’s sexuality as a weapon he needs to fight against. 

For the run of the show, Dennis' interest in sex is deeply entwined with the fact that he gets off on having power over his "sexual conquests". In so far as the idea that every member of the Gang is a sexual predator, Dennis is depicted as a date rapist, having an aversion to recognising (if not an inability to understand) consent, he pursues sex exclusively for his own physical pleasure, with little care for the other party, getting off on the knowledge that he’s orchestrated the situation he’s in.

While his CSA results in an obsession with sex, Dennis clearly does not associate the concept of love with the act, truly believing that sex is used to overpower someone, most enjoyable when obtained via coercion, exactly as his virginity was taken from him. Dennis is stuck in a loveless cycle of his own abuse.

Charlie and Dennis meet after their own traumas; their clearly disordered relationships with love and sex is how they've always known the other to be. When there are hints of the other's abuse, they're able to easy recognise what it is, for they sense the paralleled familiarity of their own CSA—yet their polar opposite trauma responses result in an inability to reflect:

To Dennis, Charlie was clearly raped, and Charlie fears sex and Dennis loves sex, so he can't have been raped; To Charlie, Dennis was clearly raped, and Dennis doesn't pursue love and Charlie loves the Waitress, so he can't have been raped.

Their reflections being mirrored causes them to harp on the other's trauma and keeps them from being able to truly recognise their own abuse. Call the other out and deny what’s shot back, stuff it down and continue spiralling in their own cycle of abuse.

[crimsoncandy04]

If you haven't made a part 2 of Scaramouche's pre remembering where he was back to Kabukimono, please make one I'm begging 🙏 Thank you

You stand by a small pond somewhere in Sumeru, it's hot outside and as you cautiously remove your shoes and prepare to at least submerge your feet for the time being in the cool waters, you suddenly feel someone tap on your shoulder.

You turn around and are face to face with Kabukimono. Or...? He had a familiar dead look in his eyes...was this?

"So you actually were attracted to me when I was that ignorant? " He asked in his old expected flat tone that you were used to. Crossing his arms as he looked you over.

"it's not like it was a different person. Besides even if your personality was off, I was still just spending time with someone I care about." You turn back around to grab your shoes from where you tossed them, Scaramouche catches you off guard and suddenly wraps his arms around your waist. Pulling you against him as you gasp, feeling his hand move down quickly to cup your clothed mound underneath your skirt. His fingers traced your slit through your panties, his cool breath against your ear sending shivers down your spine as you whimpered.

"oh I'm sure we did spend quite a lot of time together. In fact I remember our most recent encounter lasting at least an hour, maybe more." Scara squeezes the softness of your breasts with his other hand, his forefinger and thumb pinching one of your tender nipples as he gives you a gentle kiss on the neck.

"and? Maybe I didn't mind. Maybe I liked being with you in that mindset. You were rather... attentive." You admit reluctantly as you suddenly feel him slide past your underwear and plunge two fingers deep into your cunt. Wiggling them around and teasing you before immediately going to rub against your sweet spot almost roughly. You can't help but moan softly as you take the sudden intrusion easily. Just like he had always trained you to do before in the past.

"so that was it huh? You wanted attention." He murmured as he continued to casually bring you to orgasm with his fingers as if it were nothing.

"as annoying as these attention seeking tendencies of yours are, I'm glad that at least you were smart enough to seek me out even considering my...state." he let you ride his palm as you began to rock your hips a little. A small reward on his part you supposed. Usually he got upset if you tried to make yourself finish without his permission.

"of course I would find you! I wouldn't ever let-ah! I wouldn't ever let someone else touch me like this!" You whined pitifully as you struggled to stay upright now.

You leaned back against Scaramouche as you felt your insides flutter. He chuckled lightly as he felt your warmth suddenly coat his hand.

He brings his fingers to your mouth then.

"don't make me ask. You know what to do." His usual authoritative tone gave you butterflies as you obediently began to lick and suck your own pussy juices off of his fingers.

You could feel how hard he was from behind as you did too.

You knew what would come next.

And sure enough, slowly Scara began to tug at your skirt. His fingers sliding into the waistband and pulling the clothing article down past your thighs and quickly to your ankles. You step out of the fabric and watch as he tosses it aside. Getting back to his feet and giving you a look you immediately recognized. You turned around and slowly began to remove your soaking wet panties next.

Scaramouche was someone who definitely had an eye for beautiful things. He often enjoyed it when you gave him a little show and knowing this, you wiggled your hips a little as you slid your underwear to your knees. Lifting your ass up for his viewing as you finally made yourself completely vulnerable from the waist down. Slowly you turn your head to look at him as you remain in your bent over position.

He eyed your glistening sex with a dark sort of hunger in his indigo eyes.

"you learn well. I always did like that about you. It seems even after being unnecessarily spoiled by a former version of myself, you know your true place still." He rasps as you suddenly feel him slap his hand across your ass cheek rather hard. Making you only get wetter for him. He does it again.

"I should reward you for your loyalty. You had the opportunity to run off and easily never see me again, yet you sought me out." He began to untie his belt and undo the layers of his own clothing as he gave your ass another spank.

"but I've had a rather rough past twenty four hours. And I need to relieve myself a little." He frees his cock from his shorts as they fall to the ground. Scara rubs his soft pink tip against your wet slit as he grabs your hips and holds you in place. He notices as you flinch a little at his words.

"heh, you never did like when I used you for stress relief. But I'm afraid that this time it's necessary." He pushes past your folds and into your pussy. You let out a breathy and shaky sigh, making yourself get used to him quickly as he immediately begins to thrust.

"you still take my cock so well you know? It almost makes me feel a little bad for what I'm about to do." He suddenly begins to move faster. You keep your palms firmly planted against the grass beneath you as scara fucks you deep. Making your entire body shake with pleasure as you hear him groan and comment in a sultry tone about how tight you are still.

It's then that you feel him let go of one of your hips and instead grab a fistful of your long hair. You wince as you feel your scalp being yanked on but that's nothing compared to what happens next. Scara begins to thrust faster than he practically ever had before. Harder too. You want to both scream and moan as you struggle not to lose your balance.

"S-Scara please! too fast!" You mewl sweetly and breathily. Barely able to form full sentences as your g spot was assaulted relentlessly and almost brutally. You felt your body being forced into another orgasm quickly.

He slaps your ass HARD.

"don't call me that." He commands.

Not this again.

"well what the hell-ah!"

"watch your tone slut." He slapped your ass painfully yet again. You knew it was gonna hurt to sit later if he kept this up. So you chose to play nice.

"Sorry... please forgive me!" He slams his dick so deeply into you that you swear he actually fucked into your womb for a second at your plea.

"that's more like it. Now since you asked nicely, you shall call me Wanderer from now on. Understand?" He yanks your head back by your hair. Forcing you to arch uncomfortably and make eye contact with him as he continues to fuck you mercilessly.

"yes Wanderer, I understand. "

"good girl."

He continues to use your cunt to get himself off after that. You feel your pussy squeezing his thick length and squirting now and then yet Wanderer doesn't slow down or stop until he's finished deep inside of you at least 7 times. By then, you're a teary and sweaty mess and he finally seems to remember your fragile nature as a mortal. Finishing in you one last time before finally pulling out of your used cunt with a loud *POP* as he supports your entire body with one arm wrapped around your middle.

You tremble as you feel him pull you against him again and this time into his lap as he collapses to the ground in a sitting position.

Wanderer uses his knees to pull yours apart again as he quickly finds your clit. He plays with it rather gently, almost like he did before as Kabukimono.

"you did well. As usual. Perhaps I should give you something in return hmm?" Your head rolls to the side a little as you prepare to let him continue to do whatever he has planned next but for some reason, once he sees your unenthusiasm, Wanderer suddenly stops. Removing his hand completely before tearing off a small part of his cape and using it to... clean the area between your legs.

You were stunned.

Why was he being so nice? Scara never cared before if you were tired what happened to him?

He seemed to almost read your mind.

"don't think about it too much. I've just come to the realization lately that not taking your fragile vessel into consideration during our... encounters may cause your body to experience damage and exhaustion over time. I want to keep you around for a while, so I'm going to make sure that you are in the right condition to leave from now on after we meet." He gets up and goes over to the waters edge close by and cleans the piece of blue fabric before returning and helping you clean up a little more. After that he orders you to drink some water too and sit for a bit before heading off.

He stays with you this time too. Watching you almost protectively as you catch your breath and lay against a tree not too far away from him.

This man was different.

He wasn't Kabukimono.

But he also wasn't Scaramouche.

If anything he seemed to be a mix of both.

You liked Wanderer.

Even if you weren't used to him yet.

And you honestly didn't want there to be a next meetup.

You wanted to stay with him forever.

And for some reason you had a feeling that he wanted the same this time.

[gossipgurlingursht]

@nagillim79

In the UK we used to call this theoretical leftist activism "sixth form politics", ie politics as conceived of by 16-18 year olds who have never had to be self-supporting and have an overly rose-tinted view of human nature because they've been protected from reality by parents and teachers all their lives. Generally it tends to shatter when it bashes up against reality and the fact that most humans don't give a damn about each other and can't be forced to care. Not even by socialist governments. What you're asking about is praxis but the left in the west avoids praxis. They prefer utopian delusions and theories to actually having to sacrifice their personal comfort on the altar of getting things done.

Ignoring what any movements are currently doing, I think these unrealistic expectations can be held by any age group or ideology. I think on average, people just don't understand how democratic politics works, at least in the US. People get mad that Democrats don't fix everything immediately after winning a razor-thin majority, but

They've never gone to a meeting of their local party. They don't understand how freaking hard it is just to get a room full of people WHO SUPPOSEDLY ARE ON THE SAME SIDE to agree about literally anything.

They don't like when politicians take speaking fees or donations from companies. But they've never donated themselves, and don't have any idea how much it costs to run a campaign.

They don't canvass. They don't understand that the average American A. doesn't want to talk to ANYONE B. doesn't want to talk to anyone who calls themself a Democrat C. just wants to know how jesus fits into all of this.

They don't like when politicians "lie" to them (and some straight-up do). But they don't want to vote for someone who tells them a realistic goal of making incremental to moderate change within the limits of the current political climate & with (or against) the other democratically elected reps.

They've never READ and advocated for a bill or policy proposal before. They think medicare for all (which I support!) is as simple as "$2000 < $8000". They don't think about what to do with all the people currently working in the health insurance industry, how employers will act when their contribution is removed, how this affects the tax system, and how to build an entire freaking government agency. "It doesn't matter, M4A is about saving peoples lives!" Yeah, so we need to make sure we're smart about it & do a good job.

To be very very clear, I don't hate leftists, we agree on a lot of points, and I don't think they were responsible for 2024. I am just begging, BEGGING, Americans to do something, ANYTHING, to get involved. Never tell me you're bored if you've never volunteered in politics!

The left SUCKS at recruiting people. And so many of you are part of the problem.

The talk about centrists and moderates being the literal devil I see constantly in online leftist spaces is one great example of the left's failure. Yes, it sucks when the people don't see how horrible the right is. But centrists are some of the most open people to discussion- and some already lean left!!

You can't demonize moderates to such an extent that you close yourself off to them and then wonder why you're losing swing states.

Centrists aren't even always people with all the privileges- you will find plenty of people who are part of marginalized groups who are concerned about politicians on all sides.

You can be a smol radical leftist bean all you want who only talks to other smol socialist and communist beans, but you're never going to make the difference you want to in the world that way. It's the cold, hard truth. It doesn't mean you have to engage in discourse with everyone- some people have no real hope of changing and are emotionally draining- just more than your bubble.

I am tired of the left eating itself alive and deranged people like Trump winning.

[youhavethesun]

saw a tiktok on pinterest (because I don’t have tiktok lol) about how annoyed someone was that Rory had given up all her hopes and dreams ‘because of one comment from a man’. and I know this was meant as a joke but honestly I wonder if this is how a lot of people view this plot line. I’ve seen so many people talking about Rory’s ‘downfall’ and how she was so unable to handle criticism/that she fell apart from a single comment etc.. and I just honestly can’t see how people continue to view it this way.

I think there are honestly a lot of factors that influenced Rory’s breakdown after Mitchum’s comment, but first of all I quickly want to say that (I know this is controversial but I genuinely do not care) I don’t think her leaving Yale was a bad thing!!! It was treated as this ultimate sin, (maybe this is for another post idk) but honestly I think Rory made the right decision. I don’t think the right decision was obviously her giving in to the lifestyle Emily wanted for her/joining the dar and so on, but actually taking a break from formal education I think could have been positive, all through season 4 we see how much of a toll college is taking on Rory, and I think taking a year out if she knew she was going back and using that year to rest and learn more about herself could have been really beneficial.

anyway sorry for the tangent, okay so the first thing is that a lot of people seem to view Rory’s conversation with Mitchum as a single interaction which caused her ‘downfall’, and everything was a domino effect from then on, instead of looking at it as the straw that broke the camels back. like I said, Rory was not in a good place at Yale even during s4, she had a terrible breakdown when she was slipping in her grades, and the impact of having to drop a single class was huge for her, she was desperately anxious about disappointing especially her grandfather’s expectations, but she was also at risk of at least somewhat disappointing all her immediate family. In season 2 (in my beloved car scene in teach me tonight) we can see hints of it too! Jess is just chatting casually when he says he didn’t expect her to dream about becoming an overseas correspondent, but this immediately rattles Rory, with direct dialogue being:

“well, it's not a little too rough for me. I hope it's not a little too rough for me, I've been talking about this forever. I mean, I don't even know what I would do if –-“

and this is in response to a comment from a friend.

the prospect of failing at her goal but also very importantly what Rory has ‘talked about forever’ is incredibly frightening. I think it’s so interesting that she doesn’t say ‘I’ve wanted this forever’, but rather implies that the expectations of those who have watched her grow up, who have heard her talk about this for so long, would be shattered because she has shared this with them. so much of Rory as a character is someone who is afraid to disappoint in every way possible, I think that is such a core element of her personality, and as the child prodigy who was (to some extent) raised to achieve what lorelai couldn’t, the pressure she is under not to disappoint is massive.

anyway, back to Mitchum. I think honestly to some degree it could have been anyone to criticise Rory’s capability and she would be considerably affected, seen not just when talking to Jess but even in season 1 after getting lower grades when she transferred to Chilton - Rory immediately questions whether she is even good enough to be at private school, whether she could just be disappointing those around her if she stays.

The fact that it’s Mitchum Huntzberger who says she ‘doesn’t have it’ in my opinion is kind of just the icing on the cake. Whether or not Rory had even taken the internship I think the pressure of it all would have led to a larger breakdown at some point or other, this was really just the final straw for what Rory could take at the time. Imagine one of the most successful people in the world in your chosen field telling you that everything you’ve worked for isn’t enough, that in three short words every expectation you’ve set for yourself (and more importantly every expectation everyone around you has held you accountable to) has been torn apart. Imagine believing you had let down everyone who had sacrificed something for you, who had put their faith in you, and tell me you could just bounce back from that.

Anyway the tiktok was not that serious but my thoughts just kind of spun out from there so if you read all of this I love you <3 and also I love you later season Rory you’re flawed and you’re lovely<33

[letteredlettered]

I'm disturbed by the number of de-aging fics I've read where the adult caretaker of the one who is de-aged feels the need to discipline the de-aged one, or "teach them manners," or "make them" do things like clean up their toys or eat their vegetables or go to bed on time, or help them understand that they should apologize if they are "naughty."

This never seems to be a commentary on the fact that the adult caretaker is in fact a bad caretaker who is unable to assess what a child needs in a given situation. The texts always seems to imply, heavily, that this is in fact a good caretaker because they are setting boundaries and providing the child with necessary lessons. It always comes across as though we the readers are meant to feel "look at this responsible adult!"

Instead it reads like the adult doesn't understand children and doesn't know what to do with them. It reads as though the writer thinks disciplining children and making them clean up and making them apologize is just something you do with children; it's just what children need; it's just what children are for.

No.

We do those things with children because it can help them be healthy, develop good habits, and get along with others in life. In a de-aging fic, the de-aged person is already an adult. They've either learned these lessons or they haven't, so there is no reason to teach them now. If the adult caretaker has a problem with the adult version of the de-aged character, they should be taking that up with the adult version and not the child. Taking it up with the child is pointless, since it's the adult version that's the problem; it also feels manipulative, since people consider children malleable while they think adults aren't. It sounds like you're trying to change the child because you couldn't change the adult, which I find kind of disgusting.

An adult de-aged to a child is a fantasy/sci fi concept that cannot happen in real life as far as we know it. They don't have the same needs as children. They wouldn't need life lessons or to learn how to function in an adult world.

When you think about what he only thing a de-aged child would need is the same comfort and safety anyone would need in an unfamiliar situation in which they might not be able to care for themselves. So in those situation there are physical needs--safety, food, shelter, etc--and emotional needs. As far as emotional needs, most kids would be feeling alone and scared at suddenly being thrust into a world with which their not familiar; they need someone who makes them feel safe, whom they feel they can trust. Building trust with a kid is hard, but you don't do it by making them go to bed on time; you do it by listening to what they say and taking them seriously; you do it by not acting like you know best because you actually don't, unless a kid wants to do something that will literally risk their physical safety.

So no. The adult caretaker in such a fic does not need to make a kid take a bath, even if they are filthy. If the kid wants to go to bed filthy they can, and the adult caretaker can wash the sheets. If the kid doesn't sleep well because the dirt irritates them, they'll get up and want to wash or they will be grumpy the next day. If they are grumpy ask them what would make them feel better and try to give it to them. If that doesn't make them less grumpy that is also fine; at least they don't have some random adult trying to put them in their place because that's where children belong.

tl;dr children do not exist to be controlled they should be loved. put it in your de-aging fics pass it on

[moghedien]

Anyway I finished rereading Wicked today (for the sixth time? at least sixth) and what I actually can't stop thinking about is during the scene after Elphaba "kills" Madame Morrible and she goes to Avaric's house to tell him about it and they get drunk and rowdy, and Avaric tells her that after she didn't come back from the Emerald City, Glinda went through "another slide" like the one she went through after Dr. Dillamond's death

and Dr. Dillamond's death, the illness of Ama Clutch, and the realization that Madame Morrible is a whole lot worse than she knew was the most traumatic thing that Galinda had ever gone through, to the point where she had to literally change her name and become a new person just to cope with it. like it was HUGE personality shift for Glinda.

and Avaric just said that Elphaba leaving caused her to go through that again to an extent that its noticeable to someone who barely seemed to care about Glinda in the first place and for him to remember it decades after the fact

[volturissideslut]

𝕮𝖆𝖎𝖚𝖘 𝖁𝖔𝖑𝖙𝖚𝖗𝖎

I actually really enjoyed making the nsfw alphabet for Marcus in my last request (Here), so here's Caius too and i'll be doing one for Aro later

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

While Caius is still attentive after sex, it really depends on how it went down. If it was a frustration fuck then he's giving you a long kiss in thanks and making sure you're okay, probably drawing a shared bath and finding a 'snack' to share. But if it was a quickie then he'll quickly pat your hair back down and make sure you look presentable again with a quick kiss and he's off.

B = Body part (their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Caius loves his own torso. This goes from his shoulders and chest, down to his lower abdomen. He's an artist at heart and something about the way your hand looks pushing on his torso while you ride him is picturesque. And that leads me to his favourite feature on you: your hands. He loves them so much, your hands are his obsession. From kissing the back of them, to watching them wrapper around his cock. From your nails digging into his neck, to you playing gently with his hair.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

When Caius cums there isn't much of it, but it's thick and a pearlescent white. He loves cumming in you plain and simple. Theres just something about the fact that part of him is in you that gets to him.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He really really really wants you to secretly cockwarm him in court. Just sit there with him fully sheathed inside of you and have nobody any the wiser. To claim you as his in from of these fools and have them be so beneath him they don't even know. It's a power move. And insanely fucking hot.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Before he met you Caius was a little bit of a manwhore in my professional opinion, and so i think that he has plenty of experience in bed. Of course none of that compares to you in his eyes, but his past... encounters... with humans and vampires alike all still happened.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Cowgirl!!! Enough said. The knowledge that he is in total control and still gets to make you do all the work is a bonus, but it's really about the fact he gets to watch you - oh so jaw dropping you - have your way with him. He get's to watch all your little reactions when you change the tempo, or how wide eyed and flustered you get when he unexpectedly bucks his hips up.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Nah, I can see him finding the moment relatively serious. Maybe not so much if you're having a giggly and fun little day but this grumpy bum has appearances to keep up. At least, thats what you'll say if anyone ever asks. Because in reality giggly soft sex makes his heart go all ooey gooey and soft. He could pepper your face with kisses and make bad jokes in bed all day, but shhh thats for your ears only.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He's a well groomed man, not much else to say about that. He'd also prefer if you were too, but he is not afraid in the slightest to get his hands dirty and face the bush

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Again it depends on of he's in one of his many mood swings. He can be, especially of you hint at it. He'll beckon to your will any day. But he probably won't think to set it up all romantically unless it's near a special date for the two of you. And no, he doesn't care that the years all blurr together when you live for eternity. He'll celebrate an anniversary every year over the millennia's if it gives him an excuse to spoil you.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

As i previously said, Caius was a manwhore back in the day. I think this cheeky fucker has a high sex drive, and so it really depends on you. If you match his high drive then no, because he's too busy giving you the night of your life instead. But if your sex drive is on the lower side he'll have some alone time happily.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

BONDAGE AND WAXPLAY does this even need explaining? I can't decide if this kinky fucker is more of a masochist or sadist to be completely honest with you... Might also let you peg him

L = Location (favourite places to do the do)

His throne. It's such a rush to him to have you there on the symbol of his power and leaving him powerless with the way you're fucking him. Moreover, having you whimpering and begging for him feels like pure adrenaline going through his vains, as if he's gorging himself on blood and getting blood-high or something

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Any form of you initiating really, he's always ready to head back to his chamber and get freaky. Once you wore lingerie and smeared yourself in blood so he could lick it off you and he's never been more excited in his life.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Somebody else seeing you in a vulnerable state. Caius is incredibly possessive but he's even more protective. It's all fun and games playing it risky in the throne room until someone actually walks in and he tears their throat out. Could have this all have been avoided if you just did it in a secure location? Yes. Will he still rip off the head of whoever walks in? Also yes.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

I feel like he much prefers to give oral and instead of receiving oral he likes to receive handjobs. Please stroke his cock painstakingly slow with a fresh set of sharp nails on you, he mighty combust or, y'know, bust.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Hard and rough, it's sloppy toppy and animalistic. It's hedonistic fucking until you feel so good it's like you've ascended. And yes, he can switch to something more passionate and gentle and often will on anniversaries or if the mood presents itself, but dirty fucking is is fave

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

He loves them, and they happen all the time. A quickie before his next trial? Yes please. A quickie before his next meeting with Aro and Marcus? It would be wrong to refuse. A quickie before he heads out to battle? It'll help him think straight. You get the gist

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

He's all game, ready to risk it all for a good time with you. Well, almost anything. You tried temperature play once but now that's banned because vampires and fire don't exactly mix well together. But don't get me wrong, he would totally walk through fire for that pussy, but he once again had that protective side of him flare up and you are now banner from being within 3 metres of open flames.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Is this even a question? He'd spend the rest of his eternity fucking you with little breaks to feed or paint if he could. Actually, maybe he should bring that up in his next meeting... nah, he enjoys ruling and the feel of power too much. Though he would appreciate some more free time for some quality time. In all honesty, he's just a horny bastard.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Yeah, it's not like he's got a collection or anything but he definitely has his fare share for you to use on him or his to use on you

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Caius is such a massive tease. If Marcus is the advocate for overstim then Caius is the advocate for edging. Theres something that really ignites in him when you're begging him to just let you cum already

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a grunter. Booo! But wait, don't throw your tomatoes yet. If you just tell him that you think the sound of him moaning is incredibly attractive and sexy he'll make it a point to be vocal for you.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

He likes when you get all dressed up and dolled up for him. Like a lot. Is willing to spend half the budget on nails, shoes, dresses, and lingerie for you because... wow

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Baby, Sweetie, Darling, oh, sweet child of mine. Good luck

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Even through vampires can't sleep, he feels so relaxed afterward. It's a 50/50 shot really, either he want's to be babied and needs affection or is pumped up enough to go slaughter a whole village

Marcus vers.

[genshingorlsrevengeance]

feixiao. M16A1. Need drunk women who love rambling on about their S/O

(H:SR/GFL) Feixiao and M16A1 drunk rambling on about their S/O

Feixiao is very open with her love about S/O.

Very VERY open as a matter of fact. And that volume only increases when she's drinking.

Whatever S/O wants her to do, they have zero say because Feixiao is not home right now.

And unfortunately(??? Idk I think it's probably safe to assume we'll be into it) for them, PDA conduct goes out the window.

Not that there was much there to begin with it, but now Feixiao is now actively peppering S/O with kisses.

(Feixiao) "You're...so pretty! Have I ever told you how pretty you are?"

(S/O) "C-CAN'T BREATHE!"

If there was someone in the room with them, she'd essentially drag them over and point at them.

(Feixiao) "S-SEE THIS PERSON?! THIS PERSON IS THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!"

And who exactly is going to have the balls to tell the General this is the 30th time they've shown S/O to them?

Well, plenty of people actually, but there's the question of whether or not she's sober enough to hear or cares enough.

The answer to both is no.

Absolutely no one is going to pry her off of them if she has an arm around S/O. Moze, Jiaoqiu, The Trailblazer, and more are powerless before the General.

Thankfully in her drunken state, she doesn't get TOO handsy in public. At least nothing that'd require them to get a room.

That would be when S/O gets her home.

The moment Feixiao sees the main focus of her affection snuggle into bed with her, seeing them smile and laugh because of her?

(M16A1) "S/OOOOOO!~"

(S/O) "Oh good god..."

M16A1 has once again drank herself to near system shutdown with Jack Daniels, and is somehow coherent enough to see S/O.

If they don't respond to her, she'll stumble over to them, both arms wrapped around them before she nuzzles her head into their neck.

(M16A1) "Hmmmmm...warm! You humans are really cozy to get close to!"

(S/O) "Sixteen, please lower your volume a li-"

(M16A1) "Mwah!~"

M16A1 plants a firm kiss on their neck making S/O shudder before almost collapsing on top of them, shouting loudly enough for everyone in the bar to hear, much to S/O's horror.

(M16A1) "IF ANYONE TOUCHES MY S/O! I'LL...I'LL...Uh..."

(M4 SOPMOD II's Voice) "KICK THEIR BUTT!"

(M4A1's Voice) "SOPMOD, don't encourage her!-"

(M16A1) "YEAH! KICK YOUR ASS!"

It's up to S/O to carry M16A1 out of the bar and back to their dorm, due to the noise complaints she gets.

Though at this point, the bartender is well aware of M16A1, and that's not even because of S/O. It's just everything else about her in general.

And in the hallways, she's still going on.

(M16A1) "And the way you frown is- hic! ...S-Super hot!"

S/O can only blush in retaliation, as no words will actually reach her.

M4A1 is with S/O and her sister, helping pry M16A1 off them.

(S/O) "Thanks."

(M16A1) "Nooooo!~ Bring them back to me!"

(M4A1) "Hush, you. I thought I told you not to drink so much tonight!"

(S/O) sigh "...M4, can you help me carry her to my room? I'm sorry to ask you-"

(M16A1) "YEAAAAH!-"

M16A1 nearly falls on her face before her sister catches her.

(M4A1) "Hah, I guess I'd be struggling to wrangle her otherwise..."

(M16A1) "Only thing I'm wrangling around is-"

(S/O & M4A1) "SIXTEEN!"

[morlock-holmes]

Been reading the replies and thinking more about this.

Specifically, one thing I wanted to get across is that there is a certain "type" of conspiracy theorist where, I'm not sure how to put this, the fact that they believe in a hidden conspiracy that most people don't credit is not necessarily the most interesting or important part of their thought process.

The goal of using the term "High Control Group" rather than "Cult" is to highlight that in many cases the fact that members express unusual religious beliefs not in keeping with the majority is *not* the most socially interesting or dubious part, but that common methods of control are just as worth pointing out.

And I feel the same way about "Conspiracy theories" and "Conspiracism", that the belief in a hidden malicious conspiracy is not necessarily the most interesting or salient feature.

I was thinking of the clips of depositions of various Infowar people in the Sandy Hook defamation trials, and, to paraphrase, their own explanation of their thinking basically boiled down to,

"We knew that the Democrats would use this incident to try to take away our gun rights, and so we started to look into how it might have been faked."

I think believing that Sandy Hook is a conspiracy gives these people an out for the discomfort they would feel if their political enemies had a point, and possibly just the discomfort that comes from, well, kind of making this tragedy all about them.

If it's an actual tragic massacre, then the people who want to stop future massacres are... well... kind of understandable and they have some compelling points, at least emotionally.

If, on the other hand, it's a false flag, the people who want to take away our gun rights are just bad people and you don't have to have any complex feelings about fighting them.

Alex Jones and the Infowars people also tend to have a high tolerance for bullshit, in what I understand to be Frankfurt sense of the term, as in "Not caring whether the things they say are true or false."

One other thing I've noticed about conspiracy theorists is that they will often ally themselves with people who have entirely incompatible conspiracy theories, as long as they all share the same enemy.

The Conspiratorial Mindset

So, I've always had a bit of an interest in scams and hokum, and what people call "Cults".

One of the common refrains when you talk about religious Cults is, "If you think about it all religions have beliefs that seem odd to outsiders" and this is true, but as I read more about cults I started to think,

"Wait, a lot of these groups aren't united just by having unusual religious or supernatural views; a lot of them also seem to have matching patterns of behaviors that have nothing to do with belief in psychic space aliens"

I'm talking about things like,

Having a leadership structure which is absolute, where the top leaders cannot be disciplined or even openly criticized by lower members;

Exerting tremendous control over the dress and behavior of adherents;

Telling adherents that outsiders are untrustworthy and that contact with outsiders should be strictly limited and heavily monitored by organizational leadership;

The extensive and common use of shunning and reprogramming in response to violation of any of the above rules.

In some groups, failing to adhere to the dress code and spending a lot of time with outsiders is, at worst, the subject of a few little jabs at family gatherings. In other groups, those same behaviors are treated as Defcon one crises and become the central issue of the adherent's relationship with everybody else in the organization until they can be bullied back into doing the organization's bidding.

It was gratifying to learn that other people have noticed these patterns (Some people prefer the term "High Control Group" to "Cult" because it highlights what the actual problem is)

I am starting to notice similar dynamics in what are commonly called "Conspiracy theories".

The thing about conspiracy theories is... Well, conspiracies exist, and sometimes groups of powerful people get together to do something in secret which would get them in big trouble if they were to do it openly.

But I am starting to notice a particular, I don't know, a particular way of conceptualizing the organization and purpose of conspiracies which is unique to some people and which characterizes the kind of conspiracy theorist who takes Alex Jones seriously.

I kind of think of it as a "Witch-Hunting mentality".

For certain people in more primitive times and places, if they, say, slipped off a ladder and hurt themselves, their first thought would be, "That must have happened because a witch cursed me. We need to find and punish the witch who cursed me."

And this isn't just the attribution of malice that characterizes this idea:

One malicious conspiracy that might make you fall off a ladder is a manufacturer who doesn't care about safety ratings. Imagine that the manufacturer is really deliberately malicious here. A subordinate comes to him and says, "Our ladders can't reliably hold the weight of a person and a lot of them will probably break and cause people to fall and hurt themselves." and he says, "I know that but who cares, by the time people figure it out it'll be too late to get their money back."

That's a malicious conspiracy, but, importantly, if Bob buys a faulty ladder and falls off, the conspiracy wasn't trying to hurt Bob; it merely didn't care whether Bob got hurt.

Now, this distinction doesn't take away the malice and hostility towards Bob, but if you go to the ladder manufacturer and say, "Hey boss, Bob bought one of our faulty ladders, but he's really skinny so the ladder didn't break" the manufacturer will go, "Who the fuck is Bob? And good, that's one less angry person."

Whereas imagine Bob's ladder has been cursed to break by a witch. The witch did it because she hates Bob, and wants him to fall, and if she finds out he didn't fall, she'll go, "Curses, I'll have to find some other way to hurt Bob."

Conspiracy theorists, it seems to me, are far more inclined to conceptualize conspiracies as acts of deliberate malice aimed at them rather than acts of negligent malice.

@loving-n0t-heyting posted this article from the New York Post which contains a good example of what I mean:

“I thought I was on the cutting edge of promoting rights for gay people,” Yang said. “But then I started looking deeper into where this was coming from and who was paying for it, and I started to get very disillusioned...

I assume the people paying for it are LGBT advocacy groups? Did you, uh, not know that the people you were working for were paying you to work for them?

“When you really dig down you can see how much of this comes from documents and plans at the United Nations,” Yang said, referring in part to the UN’s “Gender Equality” initiative. “It’s part of a global agenda to restructure society, re-structure our social norms and the economy,” Yang claimed. “They are undermining the sexually dimorphic nature of reality and breaking down the differences between the sexes to break down our identity. They are constructing identities for us and they want us to adopt them.”

Oh, I see.

This is exactly what I mean. LGBT rights efforts make Yang and others feel disoriented, like society is being restructured and that they are being left behind, like they aren't quite in control of social norms and that stable identity categories can't be relied on anymore.

Now, one kind of conservative might look at that and say, "These are bad second order effects of LGBT people trying to assert their lifestyle in public and that's why we should oppose them."

But another kind says, "These changes make me feel unstable. Therefore, the main purpose of the changes is to make me feel unstable. In order to understand these changes, I need to figure out who wants me to feel unstable and what they would gain from making me feel unstable."

The idea that Yang's feeling of instability is simply a side effect of a series of efforts mainly focused on LGBT rights is incomprehensible. Instead, she believes that there is a series of efforts focused mainly on making her feel unstable, with LGBT rights as a kind of side effect to the main goal of making her feel unstable.

This kind of thing is, to me, a big red flag that indicates that we are starting to float away from reasonable conspiracy thinking into crazy town.

I am particularly curious if folks can recommend any writers or researchers who have noticed this dynamic.

[the-crooked-library]

Human vs Vampire Violence in Nosferatu

I've talked about this in the tags of another post already but i can't stop thinking about this so here it goes:

The majority of Ellen's suffering is due to mundane and socially acceptable forms of violence (e.g. medical) and that is not an accident. The script intends this. It is the primary underlying theme of Nosferatu (2024), it is the undercurrent to all her motivations, and the film wants the viewers to be aware of this, at least on some level.

Over the course of the story, Ellen Hutter is forcibly isolated by her father, dismissed and infantilized by her husband, drugged and tied to her bed by a doctor and her husband's friends, pierced through the arm by another doctor just to demonstrate that her soul "isn't there," insulted and kicked out from the Hardings' house (while still having psychic fits nightly), left to care for her sick husband alone without any support, never listened to - and all these things are excused!..

There's always some sort of justification, and it's usually either misogynistic or medical or both.

Her father isolated her because her psychic abilities frightened him, because she was too abnormal, and he thought that she wasn't fit to be around other people. Thomas dismissed her nightmares and ignored her emotional needs because he thought her anxieties were childish, that she prioritized the wrong things in life (love over financial advancement), and that she was incapable of good judgement; it's also the reason he is unaware that she doesn't like cut flowers, or that Harding hates her (even though she is very well aware of that, she evidently didn't feel like she could tell her husband). Similarly, Dr. Sievers believed that he had to do what he did, because Ellen was mad and had to be controlled. Harding, naturally, let him do it, and then did worse, and justified it all with “logic” and family values.

The point is that every single character harms Ellen on some level, despite what they might consider best intentions; and I think that a significant drive behind some of the more vitriolic online responses to this film is that many people are uncomfortable with that aspect of the story. Nosferatu demands that the viewer confront a fundamental truth of human imperfection - that someone who looks soft and Normal is, in fact, capable of causing pain regardless; and that invites a deeper sort of self-reflection. Perhaps, even accountability.

Our recently-resurgent purity culture shares this discomfort with Ellen's societal setting. For Thomas, for Sievers, for Harding, for us, it is much easier to blame harm and sin on a Monster From Somewhere Else, and pretend that a witch-hunt would entirely eradicate the problem.

However, the film demonstrates the inherent falseness behind this assumption. Even if Ellen had not followed Orlok into death, she would not have suddenly become happy with her human life - because his destruction would not have changed how she is perceived. She would have continued to endure far more insidious, systemic, violent abuse as a disabled, arguably queer wife and woman.

This is why the sensuality of her death/wedding is so crucial to the presentation of the film.

in Orlok, she embraces her own perceived "darkness," the aspects of her that her society believes are harmful and grotesque - her lack of deference to her husband (he terrorizes Thomas), her queerness (he drains Anna and destroys Harding's family), her psychic disability (he kisses Ellen's heart and drinks from her, reverent and tender). it is a scene steeped in both terror and ecstasy. She is joining Orlok in sin and in death - a twisted version of his proposed eternity; and in doing so, she is ascended.

It is incredibly poignant that, when her power over him is actually shown, it is far more emotional and commonplace than could be expected. There are no torches or stakes, no physical explicit battle; Ellen's unique, magnificent, holy power is merely the ability to ask for "more!.. More!" - and be granted that wish without question. Here, in a monster's embrace, she is valued more than a promotion, or propriety, or even Orlok's own life.

All that to say - Ellen's personal journey through the film does not culminate in a straightforward battle of "victim vs abuser." Despite what a cursory overview might imply, the Final Struggle is a minor aspect; instead, the overwhelming majority of her story revolves around a build-up to a Final Choice. Similar to I Saw The TV Glow, or NBC's Hannibal, or a multitude of other narratives, it explores the balance between the horror of transformation and the horror of staying the same. A monster might grant the first one if you ask, and it will feel like dying - but society's already forced you into the second.

All there is left to do is make damn sure it kills you.

[dragonsoulage]

Jaws

feat. Gyutaro

When he got those jaws that making you so afraid, suddenly feel like the safest place on earth. Gyutaro grew so obsessed with you, trying to act against his destructive nature. He hated and loved it at the same time.

Hello guys, I just felt like I wanted to write something about my favorite demon man. It’s angsty and a little toxic perhaps. Like girl, he is obsessing over you. But sometimes this is what we want right? No matter how toxic it is he is my baby demon 🥺🤌🏻 but this is fiction and this is fine, when you struggle with these things in real life I hope you get all the help you deserve ✨💕

Wordcount: 5k

Warnings: obsessiv behavior, kinda toxic and twisted dynamics, mentions of ab*se and r*pe (other people toward you not Gyutaro), stalking, over all angst

You were a cute little thing, delicate even. A sweet girl, always modest, and you always tried not to draw any kind of attention. You worked in the entertainment district. Indeed, working in the house where this dark haired Oiren was feared by every girl. The beautiful woman with these sharp eyes that didn't stop to lecture you with the backside of her hand when you forgot to clean a spot.

You didn't work as a whore, you didn't sell your body. But you were there to clean, to made sure the girls there had everything they needed. Fresh clothing, make up and over all a clean place.

You made sure everything was in place, as you always did.

Yourself trying to hide behind a curtain of your hair, to not make any men who visited the establishment to not look at you.

When they wanted you, they would get you. These were the rules in this house. When they paid, they would get what they desire.

And who would want a shy, little mouse trying to hide behind dust and handmaid works?

Usually you simply were overlooked, and this had been fine with you.

Although in the meantime, you always felt like someone watched you. That some intense eyes would bore in the back of your head, just waiting you would look around.

That someone was trying to catch a glimpse of you. But even when you turned your head, you never saw anything.

Just a feeling, you tried to brush off as annoying paranoia, since some girls got missing.

Little did you know that a pair of bloodshot, yellow eyes followed your every move.  

At least when he could, every time Gyutaro was able to separate from his sister Daki. Since the one time she spoke to you, lectured you, made you cry. He grew curious.

The demon grew a little obsessed. Who were you?

A girl trying to hold in her tears when Daki punished you with a sharp slap across your cheek.

You tried to be so strong, but after all you were just a little, pathetic human, weren't you not? It was not the first time he saw someone like you.

Sweet, but everyone overlooked you.

Caring and everyone took it for granted

Modest never meant to shine.

And the weird thing, instead of being disappointed no one saw you, you seemed to be quite fine with it.

Liked being for yourself, being alone. Maybe because you gave up on the fact that there could be people that actually liked you. That were honest enough to not hide their cruel intentions.

Life kicked you with feet, and you seemed to just hold it in.

He liked it, observed it wanting to consume, the very reason why you were acting like it.

Trying to find happiness although everything around you crumbled.

And every time he was outside Dakis body, he went looking for you. Actually following you around. Watching how you did your duties.

Even right now, from across the window, he sat on another roof, his eyes scanning your form over and over again.

He grew familiar with the feeling to see the enticing sway of your hips in that simple kimono you wore. The way you brushed back a strand of your hair from your forehead when you changed the sheets of a bed. 

He crouched on the edge of the roof, his nail of his thumb put between his sharp teeth. Was he nervous? Nah, trying to hold himself back.

"So pure, it's disgusting." he mumbled to himself, watching the dim light on your face, made you glow. Made his heart jump. Did he ever have a heart? Not that he knew about it.

Gyutaro was obsessed, with that little mouse he wanted to catch so bad in his trap.

Torn between the feeling that he wanted to touch you, without ripping your skin off. And yet degrading you in his thoughts.

Himself confused, so confused he not even told Daki about it.

Then you bend over, grabbing the dirty sheets from the ground to put in a basket. And even when this didn't reveal your body, he felt how he bowed forward, as if he could pass the chance to see everything in detail. You had such a lovely figure, he adored it, he hated it. Everything that he couldn't describe.

Maybe this was the day of days? Maybe he should simply jump down, crawl into this window and ogle you, before he would try to figure out what he should do to you.

Not that he ever would know what he wanted to do. His desire perverse and yet for some reason Gyutaro didn't want you to be afraid. Not so fast, at least. Because he tends to kill someone before he spoke with them.

And he didn't want to ruin this pretty smooth skin, he yearned to touch.

Then he could watch how you went to take the dirty laundry, and after this how your steps took you to your own small chamber. How you opened the window wide to let in some fresh air.

The demon loved to watch when you opened your hair, when you started brushing it.

"Disgusting, so disgusting." he spoke to himself, like a reminder, even when everything he saw was anything but that.

"Always being so pretty, so anxious to be seen. But I see you, I see you little mouse." he whispered under his breath. Grotesque body jumping finally down, stepping to the window.

Your chamber was on the floor. He decided to stand right beside the wide opened window frame.   

And there was this feeling again, as if you were being watched. It unsettled you so deeply, every time. And yet you never could understand where it was coming from.

It was nearly cute how your brow pulled together, how you looked so lost around. With fear, you would find something and yet with the hope you finally could discover what made you feel like this.

You went over to the window, Gyutaro not even moving, he stood in the shadow of the wall, as if humans ever would take a closer look? That never happened, so he just smiled wide with the knowledge of how much he unsettled you. The demon was twisted, he wanted to make you uncomfortable but also not...he couldn't put this in place.

You walked over, looking outside for a moment, the cool air making your cheeks flush a little. When you didn't see anything, you went to the mirror again, taking the brush before you settled into the seat. Brushing your hair with so much care.

You started humming, maybe to calm yourself. He adored this part so much, listen to the gentle hum of your voice. He always imagined you would hum it for him. And this was the moment he stopped thinking about making you scared. This was the weird part of him, that remembered how it was being human. Not that it came back, but Gyutaro felt like he would have forgotten something, and this humming brought back feelings he couldn't explain.

His sharp teeth that had been grinning now closed, indeed his eyes looked to the ground as he leaned his tall body against the wall. Just listening to your voice.

You hummed so beautifully, one of the fewer things he wanted to appreciate, even when his demonic nature didn't let him.

After some short while, he decided to stalk a little from the window.

Looking inside, his fingers laid on the frame. You braided your hair so neatly now, had dressed yourself in some shorter sleeping robe, exposing your legs and thighs.

Creamy skin, so innocent, so alluring. It was weird he didn't want to draw blood, he wanted to touch you, feeling this smoothness under his own fingertips.

You were such an eyesore, when only people would take a closer look.

But he, he took a close look, every time he could. Even when the normal customers overlooked you, as you wanted...not Gyutaro. He draws even closer, risking that you might see him.   

Would you scream? Maybe, maybe, he would be able to listen to that cute yell your throat would let out.

And you could feel your body trembling, so uncomfortable when you thought about the fact. After you were done braiding your hair, you still hummed a song from your childhood. But when you turned around and stood up, what you saw made your blood run cold.

Some sharp nails that draw away from the window. You ran over to the window again, so hasty. Gyutaro could just make it to the rooftop across. Somehow he wanted you to see him.

But this what you saw, a shadow on the roof, and the two yellow eyes staring back at you, right into your very soul. The soul he wanted to possess so fucking badly.

Your breath stopped, so your feeling was not just paranoia, it was real. Every time you felt it, it was this shadow watching you.

Yellow, droopy and haunting eyes staring right at you.

You felt as if you could die on the spot, hoping it was just a bad dream. Not even able to close the window as you watched how this shadowy figure sat on top of the roof from across.

Wavy hair waving in the wind as he crouched there. "Finally you know I am there. Curious little thing and so stupid." again he spoke to himself, as he watched how shocked your cute face looked up into the sky. He cocked his head to the side.

"How fast I could kill her when she is standing there and looking with that sweet scowl in her face. Foolish baby." he muttered and chuckled to himself. And just then you closed the window....

The next day wasn't any better for you, you had this sick gut feeling something would happen.

Your thoughts always by this shadowy, grotesque figure you had seen.

But well, this was just the start.

As the good girl you were, you still did your duties, but always looking around with that irritated expression on your face.

But in the late night...there he came. Not out of the shadow, but he came to startle you.

Just the moment you put away a broom in a closet, this gut feeling came back. You were like frozen in place, not even dared to turn around.   

"Look at that...stupid, stupid, little girl finally noticed me." you heard his creaky voice, you gasped in fear. Just then, you slowly wanted to turn your head.

"Nah, don't turn around, pretty angel. Not when I don't tell you to." he spoke, before he draws closer. Feeling his lean and tall frame looming over your smaller one. You stood right in his shadow that covered you.

You could smell a faint smell of blood. And it made you shiver, nearly some small tears collected in your pretty orbs. He would have love to see it, even when he would hate it. But he decided just to talk, not to touch.

And as on command you didn't turn around. Felt how he stood right behind you.

"Who are you?" the question just came out of your mouth so fast, he could listen to the fear in your voice.

"Perhaps a shadow observing you." he answered, watched how your delicate shoulders rose and fell with every breath.

"You always hide behind that shiny hair, behind this handmaiden duties. Hope no one sees you. But I do." it was like a little confession, it didn't sound so unkind how he wanted it.

You probably felt so soft, he was so twisted to want to see your suffering and yet to have this sweet smile on your lips.

"I don't want to draw attention." you replied, looking right to the shadow that was on the wall. You weren't sure if he was a monster, or if he was just a tall man.

"Oh, I know, but you can't escape from my eyes, sweet thing. You make me crazy, do you know that?" he said, stepping closer so you could feel his body heat, it was making you shift.

"The damn way you do everything so neatly, being so modest. And so fucking...good. Makes me want to destroy it..." Gyutaro meant, and at the end you could listen to the refrainment. His clawed hand reached out, wanting to touch that flawless skin.

Destroying and killing was in his nature. And yet he tried to not do it.   

"And yet I won't." he added, and this was the moment he couldn't hold it back. His finger brushed away a strand of your hair. Caressing your cheek, oh you started crying he felt the wet streaks of your salty tears run down your cheek.

"And what is it what you want, when you don't want to kill me? Is it worse?" question over question.

"Oh, I love a good kill, the way that humans are just a bag of blood. How the life fades from their eyes. But I want to see more than just life fading from yours." Gyutaro made his point clearer now, himself surprised, he caught a drop of your tears, wiping it away. Surprisingly gentle.

"You watch me since months, I felt it. And now you speak in riddles. Tell me what you want?" you were so afraid and yet so curious.

"What I want, foolish girl? When I do what I want, you already would be pressed against the wall and my teeth would sink in your flesh, these are my instincts..." he said to you with a low growl and his eyes glowing in the dimly lit light. But what he truly wanted...he wanted your adoration.

"Tell me, little human. Why is that....that I want to hear you hum for me? That I don't want to rip out your throat? That it is to die for when you would look at me?" he asked, then cocking his head to the side. This was the moment when you again tried to turn your head, but he grabbed it with a splayed out hand.

"I said do not turn around." he repeated firm, not ready that you saw him quite yet. He was aware of his ugliness.

And even as a demon, he felt insecure about it, toward you. "Sorry." you whispered and trembled, felt how his fingers stroked through your locks. So silky and smooth, his eyes wandering over your hair. "Maybe this what you really want is...not just a brutal kill? I-I can hum for you." you spoke, and he could listen to the fear in your voice. What you did now, was to survive, at least for you. Although, this demon would never kill you. He felt these urges, but somehow he was strong enough to not do it. You just offered it because you were afraid.

"Hum for me? Hm? Cute, but pathetic. Let me tell you something..." he answered and he leaned in. His breath ghosting over your ear.

"I crave you, I want to devour you, but I don't want to kill you. Get under your skin, without ripping it off. I want something I don't even know that it exist for something like me. It runs so deep in my being, makes me less murderous for you." he said to you, it was a cruel confession laced with words that were too sweet for him. And then...then he finally left.   

This went on for weeks, every now, and then he caught you off guard, sometimes leaving gifts for you. And what gifts were these? Well, surprisingly thoughtful, for a demon like him.

A rose, the petals white with some blood sprinkles on it from his latest victim. But the special thing about it? He removed every thorn of this rose so it wouldn't hurt you, so your delicate skin couldn't draw any blood. The thing was, what should you do about it? No one would believe you when you say a demon wanted your attention, but you didn't know what he looked like?

Although, it was not only uncomfortable. When he wanted to talk with you, always so you were facing away from him. Still not ready that you saw him, that you could take in his ugly visage.

He was convinced you would think he was unappealing. Besides this, sometimes you still trembled when he was close.

And right now he was in your room, like a predator stalking his prey. Every resource of light he blew out. So the only thing you saw were his eyes.

When you two talked, well as twisted as he was...you could gather left emotions on him. The way he, wanted to be seen, wanted to be cherished, although this was not something that a demon should want right?

Underneath that brutal exterior you could see a sad person, a lot of hate but also a lot of injustice.

Maybe he was never a saint as human, and far away from this as demon, but he...he never hurt you. Yes he looked and yearned but he never hurt you. So there was something, where this was coming from, right?

"I never see you, but you always see me." you stated then, sitting on your bed, on the edge as you felt how he knelt before it, his head laid in your lap. Oh, how he loved this warmth of your thighs, the soft skin his fingers dug in. He took a hand of you, wanted a soothing touch of you against his head and hair. This is what he had seen by other human couples. He wanted it.

"There is no point in seeing me." he answered you, your fingers went through his hair.   

It was like you would caress a wild predator and hoped it wouldn't bite off your hand. But behind all of that, a monster that was made to it. That barely could remember any humanity left. And yet he found it when he was with you to a certain degree.

"Well, there is one. You are the only one that sees me, really me. Maybe I just want to know who is looking at me. It would be a fair point, wouldn't it?" you asked him, still careful, but you managed to figure out how to talk with him.

"You don't even need to discuss this with me. Just keep doing your thing here, before I leave." he spoke to you, pushing his head more into your head. He seemed more depressed than usual. Less bloodthirsty.

"I-what is it what makes your heart heavy?" you then asked, brave enough to finally do, your fingers messaging his scalp as you felt how his large hands splayed out on the sides of your thighs. Before his grip went tighter. He was so conflicted.

"Gyutaro?" you spoke his name, it nearly hurt him. He liked you, really did, and he hated everything about it. He felt as he would get lost in something he couldn't control nor could he destroy.

"While you are being so soft, so pretty, have this sweet smile.... I have these jaws, crushing anyone who comes my way." he said before he let out an irritated chuckle because of his twisted nature. Nails dug in our skin, but not hard enough to draw blood.

"You did not crush me." you replied faster than you wanted, even for you, it was weird.

You never wanted to be seen, and yet he saw you, and it felt...good, actually. Maybe not healthy because of his obsession. But someone who saw you and was honest from the start with you.   

"Come on...show me, show me your pretty white jaws." you whispered, your voice innocent, yearning for a reveal so lovingly. Did he deserve to get treated so tender? Probably not. And then you felt him shift from your lap. Hands still on your thighs, he was still so large even when he knelt, and you sat on the bed, on eyesight with you. You could feel the breath from him on your skin.

"Jaws bite, they tear apart. I don't want to tear you apart." he said to you, simply being honest with himself now. He did not want to see you hurt. Not from him. Although his nature forbid that. He simply forgot he was more than just a demon. More than an upper moon rank. Underneath of all that blood, there was a soul. Just a glimpse of it. And he was reminded so painfully of it. He deserved to go to hell, although he did not regret for killing people. Taking innocent lives. But he regrets being a gruesome monster that could tear the one girl apart he wanted so bad.

You then took a deep breath, it was new for you, these things. Your small hands found the way to the shape of his face. Delicate fingers stroking over his skin. Nearly making him turn away. Still everything was dark, the only thing you always clearly saw were his eyes.

"Jaws...are sharp. But they don't have to bite when they don't want." your voice ringed in his ear. Made him stop for a moment to consider to leave.

You pulled his face just a little closer. "You are indeed stupid, aren't you? I am a demon, girl. I take what I want, not caring for feelings." he said to you, but he did not pull away. As if he wanted to make you to stop, for your sake.

"When you wouldn't care, would you not already just let me see you, before you take what you want? You care...in your way. I don't say it's good, but underneath all of that...there isn't just blood and gore." your words sounded so nice, made his breath just hitch a little.

"The line between delicate and harsh aren't always that big, even when you got these jaws." you added then and leaned in. Your soft lips brushing against his.

"Show me then where the delicate starts and the harsh stops." he whispered, yearning for this moment so long now. 

Before you kissed him in the dark. And it took him a good moment to realize. This time it was the demon who jumped nearly out of his skin. Not used to a gentle behavior towards him. Just a second, he allowed himself to feel this. Your soft lips against his, kissing him, although you were shaking. Out of fear, out of feeling? Probably both, it was creepy, but it was unique.

After this moment...it was like he was consumed. As he always wanted to consume you. Lips getting harsher, sloppier. Hands of him grabbing your waist. Before he pinned you in speed down the bed, hovering over you.

You heard a growl before he captured your lips again. Hungry and starving, for love no one ever showed him until now.

"Gyutaro." you let out, although you felt his hand on your throat then, creeping up, squeezing gently. It was not like he wanted to go far, not even knowing what he did. Not aware how consumed he was. Differently than before.   

The other large hand of him grabbed your wrist, pinned it down on the bed. So helpless, so soft. All his, finally his. All he did was going after instinct now. "So pretty... just feeling you." he murmured, squeezing your throat tighter, earning a helpless gasp from you.

Your free hand that wasn't pinned grabbed his wrist, is iron grip around your neck, was too tight. "Gyu-" you tried to say. And this was just the moment when he noticed what happened, he choked you so much he stopped your breathing. So all consumed and taking, he didn't realize.

And this was a moment...a moment he shattered by the fact he hurt you. He always resists doing this, but now? This kiss, you granted him...and he destroyed it. For him, a testament that a monster like him couldn't change. Even things he didn't want to destroy would have been slipping through his hands.

With quick movements, he let you go out of his grasp. And before you could say anything, he was gone...

He was always the one who lost, lost his life, lost his feeling, lost his control and now losing the one thing he wanted to keep so badly. Just because he couldn't comprehend. After this moment...you didn't see him for a long time.

Gyutaro decided it was best, before he even would kill you. It was sad, more than that, actually.

Making him angry. Twisted and cursed was his being...

So pure made him want to tear you apart, and the other made him want to caress your soft skin. Drying salty tears from your cheeks.

Weeks went over, many weeks you missed him in some way. Aware that this what happened didn't happened because he wanted to choke you, more because he just didn't know how to handle it. You saw a person under this, and you were sad because if this person under the demon. The man he had been. Although he was gruff, actually more than that, ready to draw blood, but he was still a person.

Right now, you were outside, walking down an alley for some errands. Although it was quite late for that. And of course something happened, a group of men, starting to follow you. No matter how much you had tried to hide yourself, they were men. They didn't care how you look or who you were, they wanted to do something bad.

And when you were around the next corner...you cried for help.

"Please..." laying on the ground, being pushed against the wall with your back. Already a fist had landed in your pretty face.

"Yeah, go on, girl. Beg us, hm?" one of them said to you while the other one hold your legs down. Your heart pounding, feeling actually lost and this time the fear you felt...it was shattering, when you met Gyutaro a real monster, you were afraid too, but just because it was a normal reaction to the unknown. This time? This was anxiety on a level, you would rather die then to endure this. Your limbs tried to break free, as one of the men opened your kimono, baring your torso to their amusement. Torment you, when they degraded you. Salty tears streamed down your face.

"Such a pretty face, with even more pretty assesses." one of them said to you, and you heard how he opened his pants. Crying and trying to break free.

It was heartbreaking to listen to the way you were hold down.

But before anything further could happen, you heard a slash and then felt a warm fluid rain on you.

A tall figure throwing the men on your right away with ease, against the next wall, this man died on the spot with a broken skull.   

Before the last man could run away, a scythe ended his life, with an easy slice through his torso, splitting him apart. You sat there against the wall, clothes torn apart. And your big eyes watched the scene with horror. What you saw was Gyutaro, finally seeing him, fully him in the lights of a streetlamp. Seeing his bony structure, the black blotches on his face and body.

He had withdrawn from you that one time. Afraid he could hurt you...you weren't even able to say anything. Still so in shock after the events.

He couldn't let this happened, when he heard your cries for help, your voice. The way your tears streamed down your face. No matter how twisted he was...for you now he would kill, and he didn't kill for humans. Just for you.

He came closer, he saw your torn open kimono, decided to grab the fabric and tug it gently back into place. The blood sprinkled on your face...and this was the moment where it broke you.

You started crying and sobbing. Too much going on. Arms of you threw around him as you hid your face in his chest. "No one draws breath again, when they touch you. Not as long as I exist." he then said, insecure a hand of him laid against the back of your head.

"I am sorry."he added, probably more because of this what he had done, when he had choked you that one time, obsessing over you. Even when he couldn't help it. But for you, in your eyes, this demon was still more human than actual people were. He saw you, when others don't.

He drew away because he didn't want anything bad to happen to you, turned against his twisted nature for once. And yet he came back to kill for you. You just shook your head, pressed your face more against him. You saw him now, and no matter how grotesque and ugly he thought he looked, for you, it was now the face that saved your life. That saved you from being an empty shell, after these men would have committed a crime to you. Who ever knows if you hadn't ended up dead.

This was the start, of a relationship, rather you, nor he really would understand. But alone, the way you clung to him now. Made him forget about the insecurity that you saw him.

"Don't be sorry. Not for that." you said your voice breaking a little, you wanted to say more, but you couldn't for now, needed to take in what had happened first.

He then gently picked you, like the fragile little thing you were. Probably you were the safest girl in the world now. No one could harm you, when Gyutaro was the one loving you, no matter how twisted and obsessed it was. You were his priority.

[venus-ratt]

Can we take a moment to appreciate how genuinely kind Pomni is?

Most interpretations of her often focus more on the anxious side of her personality, forgetting this part of her character.

In ep 4 she notices that Gangle isn’t doing ok and does her best to help, despite having only like one interaction with her up to that point.

Some people found this specific line rude, but I actually think it’s just meant as a meta-joke about the show’s formula, where Pomni has a heart-to-heart with a specific character at some point in previous episodes.

There’s also the fact that, at least to me, comforting others doesn’t come naturally to her. In this scene, and even back in episode 2, she sounds unsure of herself, taking long pauses like she’s trying to find the right words. She’s awkward, but you can tell she really means well. It’s clear she genuinely wants to help and is doing her best. I also think she doesn’t see herself as someone qualified to give advice, which is probably why she suggests Gangle talk to Ragatha instead.

Then there’s this scene. If she had only comforted Gangle earlier because she happened to find her crying, she wouldn’t have gone out of her way to do this. She doesn’t push Gangle to open up, she knows that won't help. She just sees her struggling and chooses to help, showing through her actions that she cares. Honestly, it’s not a stretch to say Pomni might be the reason Gangle is still there, but you probably already know that.

It’s also worth mentioning that Gangle wasn’t exactly nice to Pomni earlier. She had at least some idea of how important Gummigoo was to Pomni (she saw her reaction to his death) but still got upset with her for trying to talk to him. Of course, that wasn’t gangle being mean for the sake of being mean. She was afraid of losing the authority she had finally achieved after being walked all over for so long. I think Pomni realized it wasn’t personal and that her reaction was related to Gangle’s own issues, which is why she didn't brought up the interaction later.

That’s something I’ve noticed about Pomni, she’s really compassionate and doesn’t hold grudges.

You can also see this in episode 3. Kinger was the reason she got dragged into the scariest adventure after explicitly saying she can't handle horror well. But she never blamed him for it. She was clearly terrified and miserable the whole time, but she didn't get mad at Kinger for putting her in that situation. Instead, she redirected her frustration at Caine and the adventure itself. The closest she came to blaming Kinger was just not denying he was the reason they ended up there when he pointed it out.

Honestly, Pomni being so nice was such a pleasant surprise. Before episode 2, I thought her character would go in a completely different direction. I’m so glad I was wrong.

[fewsystemsinonebody]

haha we just had this conversation twice in the last few days if not more

we usually say we're transmasc because it's easier for singlets to understand but we would love them to see us individually so one host who's a girl but dislikes it to be pointed out, AFAB body and 30+ male alters - every single one of us has their own gender and slightly different sexuality, we dislike to call ourselves collectively anyhow and labelling ourselves when it comes to attraction is even worse (on dating apps for example) so we prefer to just say - we only date women

sure! we do have gays in our system, we have many more bisexuals but because we were born a girl and our host (and some other alters) are afraid of man if they simply not dislike them (trauma, type, stereotypes, the fact they don't treat us as a man and more) makes us choose only gal pals for safety and comfort

when it comes to dealing with the fact we have boobs and period? we learned to cope, have our own ways I might share personally, not publicly, we have dysphoria but with time we don't notice it that much and parts of our look we even seem to enjoy

Gru (blurry?)

TW SA

... what am I even talking about actually, they were never safe nor comfy but at least SA didn't make us pregnant, right? still they were toxic af

those days we basically are against love (or at least non believers) so we don't have to care much about dating but still all people are horrible regardless of sex it seems

DID is fucking with my gender rlly bad and my friend said I should reach out so. Trans systems with complicated genders reblog so I know ur out there???

I would love to hear ur experiences bc I’m getting my ass kicked by gender

[fluffyficsanddreams]

Softening

A/N: AAA YAY POOLVERINE!! i absolutely adore these two and have wanted to write them for months now, just now getting around to it. i really want to get into writing consistently again, so i hope there'll be more soon (i really wanna write one with Logan and Laura, so we'll see if i get around to that) <3

Summary: Wade learns about the best way to comfort a Logan stuck in his mind, and also learns that Logan doesn't mind said comfort very much.

this is a sfw tickle fic and features implied romantic Wade/Logan, plus a decent amount of language. if you don't like it, don't read it. 🫶

also spoilers for the movie lol

Logan was tired.

Okay, tired was a very very large understatement. He was absolutely exhausted.

Now, granted, he wasn't nearly as exhausted as he had been before a certain merc showed up at the bar and dragged him on the weirdest journey of his entire 200-year-long existence. Wade was actually a good person at heart underneath his constant quips and innuendos, and was now someone that Logan considered a good friend (perhaps he felt something more, but he hadn't decided on that yet.)

But right now, he didn't feel like debating on his feelings about Wade. His mind was filled with memories that he'd tried so desperately to bury and forget, memories of those he had once cared for, those that had died because of his negligence.

He leaned back against the couch cushions in the living room of Wade's apartment, taking another swig of the alcohol from the bottle in his hand, trying to drink his feelings away as he had done since the incident.

Wade, however, was not going to allow that to happen.

The merc walked into the room in a Hello Kitty t-shirt and shorts, carrying his best-dog-buddy in his arms. He let out a slight huff at the sight of Logan chugging booze like there was no tomorrow, setting Dogpool down on her overly-large dog bed.

"Hey, peanut, put down the bottle for at least two seconds, would you?" He asked with an undertone of sarcasm, walking over and flopping down onto the couch next to him, just slightly too close as usual.

Logan, not exactly being in the mood to deal with Wade's jokes and nonstop rambling, ignored him for a second to take another sip. "I don't feel like puttin' up with you right now. Go away, I needa be alone." He grumbled, gazing down at nothing in particular, his expression contorted with irritation and suppressed emotion.

Wade, of course, didn't listen. He was able to read the other mutant very easily by now—it wasn't like Logan bothered to hide it very much, anyway, so it didn't take much to see that he was being weighed down by something. Despite his tendency to turn everything into a joke, he knew when something was important.

Although he knew that the grumpy man usually didn't allow Wade to touch him, he reached out and gently placed a hand on his shoulder, inwardly celebrating when Logan allowed it to stay there. "Hey, what's on your mind?"

Logan didn't answer at first, having a mental battle with himself within his head. He trusted Wade, genuinely, but sharing his thoughts and feelings was something he'd never been good at. Pushing people away was what he was good at.

But... look where that had gotten him last time.

Deciding that he would have to do this eventually anyway, he let out a sigh before speaking up in a grumble.

"I jus'... miss 'em. I wasn't there to protect 'em, and now..."

Logan's voice trailed off, his gaze troubled as he avoided looking at his roommate. He felt pathetic, talking about this—it was something he'd only shared with a couple people (one of which was manipulating him), but... for some reason, he found himself trusting Wade with it, despite the fact that he was the most annoying person he'd ever known.

Wade, on the other hand, didn't think it was pathetic in the slightest. He was absolutely thrilled that Logan was being so vulnerable with him, and he wasn't about to let it go to waste. Besides, he understood how he felt, in a way—not protecting the ones you love, and feeling the guilt destroy you from the inside out.

The merc leaned forward so that he was in Logan's line of vision, offering him a small smile.

"Thanks for telling me, peanut. Really. I'm sorry about all that."

Wade said, nodding his chin a little. He hadn't been this genuine or sincere with Logan since their talk before the whole creating-a-matter-antimatter-circuit extravaganza.

But, of course, he was still Deadpool, the Merc with the Mouth.

"Come on, bud, I gotta get you to cheer up a bit. Ya can't brood forever, as hot as you look doing it." He joked, giving Logan a light poke to the side, trying to get him to loosen up a little. He did not, however, expect the reaction that the poke got him.

Logan flinched at the unexpected poke, his eyes widening briefly, drawing in a quick breath at the sensation. He hadn't felt that in so many years, and... fuck.

Wade was definitely not going to let this go.

A shit-eating grin spread across the mischevious Deadpool's face, multiple thoughts popping into his mind, but one was able to be heard above all—Logan was ticklish.

"Actually, Wolvie, I think I have the perfect idea to help you cheer up..." Wade said slowly, leaning closer and closer to his now inwardly panicking friend-maybe-more.

Logan was definitely not about to let himself get tickled of all things by the most insane person he'd ever met, for he knew that Wade would take forever to drop it.

The man shifted uneasily toward the arm of the couch, scooting backward and keeping an eye on his roommate at all times. "Absolutely not, motherfucker. You better not touch me or I swear to god I'll—AHCK!"

Logan's threat (that he didn't really actually mean) was cut off as Wade tackled him down, pinning him to the couch and straddling his thighs so that he couldn't go anywhere. The merc grinned like a Cheshire cat, a few fantasies playing out in his head now that he had the Wolverine pinned underneath him—

Nope, we're not going there. Besides, Wade had different plans right now.

He placed his hands on Logan's abdomen, just resting them there for now, smiling broadly as he felt the mutant tense up underneath his touch.

"Ooh, I didn't peg you to be the sensitive type, but you learn something new every day, huh? Now, let's see here. Since Marvel Jesus is merciful, I'm gonna let you pick out a safeword! Whaddya think of that, peanut? What do you want it to be?"

Logan felt his sanity slowly deteriorating as Wade blabbered on and on, and frankly, he didn't really know what the fuck he was even talking about (although he'd gotten used to that by now.) He was currently clenching his fists at his sides, using every last ounce of self control he had to not stab Wade through his arms.

"The only reason I'm not cuttin' your fucking hands off right now is because Althea doesn't want blood gettin' everywhere. Get the fuck offa me and find someone else to bother." Logan snarled up at Wade, shooting him a glare sharper than a piece of shrapnel—but, of course, Deadpool was not deterred in the slightest. In fact, Logan's mild panic masked by anger only egged him on further.

"Well, that isn't a safeword, is it? I guess you're just gonna have to go without. Sorry not sorry!"

Wade declared with a joyous smile, curling his fingers and starting to scribble up and down both of Logan's sides over his shirt, his fingertips climbing up to his ribcage and digging into the muscles there. Being the dexterous mercenary he was, quick movements like this were a piece of cake for him—and came in handy when tickling, apparently.

However, it proved to be a death sentence for Logan.

The Wolverine was now squirming and bending away from Wade's hands as much as possible, although that didn't exactly prove helpful, considering his currently pinned position. His lips were stubbornly clamped shut, forcing back the laughs that he felt were quickly bubbling up in his chest.

"Fuckin' piece of—grrrgghh! Wilson! I'm gonna—" Logan began to threaten through clenched teeth, falling silent again when he realized he was growing closer and closer to breaking with every word. He hadn't been tickled in literal decades, and he found himself reacting to the feeling way more than he expected.

The thing was, he had long ago grown accustomed to violence and an otherwise lack of physical touch in his life. The only times he was touched was when he was fighting, in danger, things along those same lines of violence. To be touched in a gentle way at all felt incredibly foreign, and he frankly didn't know how to feel about it. The idea that he wasn't in danger, and that he could allow this to happen without any harm to anything aside from maybe his ego, was a surprisingly comforting thought.

That thought sort of helped (or hindered, depending on how you looked at it) Logan loosen up a little, and caused him to break a little sooner than he would normally have allowed himself to—especially when Wade's mischevious fingers crawled their way up to his upper ribs, near to his underarms.

"Pfffuhuhuhuck! Dahahamnit, you dihihick! Stahahap it!"

In that moment, Wade definitely fell in love. Whether it was with Logan himself or his laughter, he didn't know. What he did know was that he needed to do this more often.

"Aww, listen to those sweet little laughs! C'mon, Logie, I know you've got more in you! I think I've just gotta find the right spot, huh? Wanna tell me where that is?"

"Fuhuhuck yohou!"

"Now, while that does sound quite enticing, I'm afraid that's not what we're doing right now. If you're gonna be a stubborn little asshole, I guess I'm just gonna have to find that spot myself. How terrible..." Wade beamed, his expression filled with pure glee.

So, now, Wade went on a new mission: find Logan's worst spots and then proceed to exploit the shit out of them. The mischevious merc's fingers crawled up from Logan's upper ribs into his underarms, digging his wiggling digits deep into the soft muscle.

Logan let out a loud snort before dissolving into wheezy laughter, clamping his large arms to his sides reflexively while simultaneously punching and smacking at his roommate's arms in a feeble attempt to get him to stop.

"Wihihihilsohohon! Gehehet the fuhuhuhuck out of thehehere, ya mohohohoron!" He managed to snort out, hating himself for being unable to hold back the wide grin he knew was on his face at the moment.

Wade cocked his head to the side, his devilish grin widening even further. "Oh, not there, huh? That's okay, I've got plenty of other options here..."

After giving one last scribble to Logan's underarms for good measure, Wade brought his hands down to those stupidly attractive abs that he was hiding underneath that shirt, kneading them with both hands on either side while drilling his thumbs into the flesh around his navel.

Yet another snort was ripped from Logan's throat before he erupted into a fit of hearty laughter, the sound a little more wild and frantic than it was a second ago. Of course Wade had managed to find the spot that practically made him explode as soon as it was touched.

Except, as he writhed around underneath his roommate, another thought occurred to him amidst his persistent giggling. He didn't really mind this as much as he thought he would. In fact, he found himself secretly enjoying it, in a sense. It allowed him to let go, giving him a reason to laugh, which was something that Wade said he didn't do nearly enough. Perhaps he should take his advice, just this once.

However, Logan was forcibly ripped out of his thoughts when he felt Wade's hands sneaking their way underneath his shirt, pushing it up before he began scratching at his abdomen rather than kneading.

"Ooh, now I can really get in here. Look at those gorgeous abs, how could you possibly go around hiding these?" Wade beamed, admiring his muscles as he kept up his attack.

Logan, meanwhile, was laughing so hard he could barely form thoughts, pounding his heels against the couch cushions while he grasped desperately at Wade's wrists, trying to wrench his hands away from his stomach—but the mercenary was freakishly strong.

"WahahAHAhade! You're suhuhuch a—ahahEEK! Fuhuhuhuuuck, nohohot thehere!"

Logan had been about to threaten Wade with the usual decapitation (which he never meant), but it had been cut off by his own squeal when Wade's finger dug right into his navel. He was losing his mind by now, and he wasn’t sure how much more laughing he could muster. The answer was a lot, but he didn't know that.

He was probably about to find out, though, because Wade had yet another mischievous idea. It seemed he was never short of those, and Logan was often the person who ended up the victim... see the pattern?

The merc leaned forward to get a better look at Logan's smiling, red face, a smile of his own spreading across his features. It was devilish, but it had a bit of genuine warmth behind it—this was the first time he'd ever seen Logan smile so much, and he looked so relaxed, even if he was laughing his ass off. He definitely wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste.

And so, he set his idea in motion, even though he knew he probably would get stabbed for it. (It wasn't like he hadn't gotten stabbed by Logan a million times already, what was one more?)

"Y'know, Wolvie, I'm feeling a little hungry. Whaddya say I just take a big ol' bite of these sexy abs?"

Logan didn't even know what the hell Wade was talking about, but he barely had time to process his question before his insane roommate came forward and planted his mouth right above his navel, nibbling at his skin—not nearly hard enough to hurt, but definitely enough to tickle the poor guy out of his mind.

Logan let out a shriek he didn't even know he was capable of producing, the wildest laughter ever exploding from his chest, snorts and squeals erupting from him in between—much to his own dismay. Wade, however, didn't think it was as bad as Logan did. In fact, he found it adorable more than anything else.

He wished he could hear Logan laugh like this more often—he was always so tense, never able to relax fully due to his own mind. If Wade was able to take his mind off of the thoughts that plagued him, even if for just a few minutes through something as silly as tickling, he would definitely do it.

...Which was why he continued to nibble at Logan's abs, making exaggerated eating noises as he did so, loud "OMNOMNOMNOM"s filling the space in the room that wasn't already filled with Logan's hysterical laughter.

"Ahahahahaa, Wahade, for fuck's sahahAHAke! Thahahahat's enoUGH! Seriously! Pleheheheheeeease!"

Wade blinked, pulling back for just a second to make a theatrical flabbergasted expression down at Logan.

"Do my ears decieve me? Was that... dare I say it... a 'please'?! You're begging? Oh, man, I must be dreaming. I'd ask you to pinch me, but seeing as you can't right now, I think I'll just pinch you instead."

Wade didn't give Logan time to process the blabbering that was coming out of his mouth before he started pinching at the mutant's ribs, going one at a time as he slowly made his way upward, leaning forward again to nibble at his abdomen simultaneously. Logan lost his shit, between the little pinches that tickled way more than he thought it would and the unbearable nibbling of his ridiculously ticklish stomach, he was going insane.

"Ehehehahahah—c'mohOHOhon! Stahahap it, no mohohohORE!" Logan managed through his hysterical laughter, slapping at Wade's arms, seemingly endless snorts being torn from his throat every few seconds due to how hard and how much he was laughing. His roommate simply smiled down at him and continued, expression filled with glee and pure delight.

"No can do, honey badger. This fic still isn't long enough, so I've gotta do a little more... unless I stop now and we hug it out for a few paragraphs..."

"Hehehell no, fuhuHUcker!"

"Well, then it seems like you're just gonna be stuck here for a while longer. Such a shame—y'know, I wonder how often I can do this without you stabbing me. Does daily sound good to you? I think that sounds wonderful, I wanna hear your cute little piggy snorts—"

Logan felt a burning warmth rising up his cheeks and at the tips of his ears at Wade's words, managing an annoyed (embarrassed) groan through his giggles, which were growing louder and more frantic as Wade made his way back up toward his armpits.

"Shuhuhut uhuhup! Gohod, I hahahahate you..." He retorted, letting out a squeak when Wade give a firm prod to his underarm in response.

"Now, now, my little honey pie, I know for a fact that's not true. People who hold hands while listening to Madonna can't hate each other. See, your problem is—AACK!"

Wade had been about to dive into a deeply comprehensive list about the reasons why Logan could never possibly hate him when he was promptly bucked off and onto the floor, rubbing at his head as he picked himself up. He was about to pounce on Logan and attack him with revenge tickles for throwing him off when the sight before him made his heart melt into mush.

The feral man was lying on back still, a smile still on his lips, a red color having bloomed across his cheeks, spreading up to his ears and down his neck. There was a sparkle in his tired eyes that hadn't been there previously, his hair all messed up from how much he'd been squirming.

Honestly, Wade thought it was adorable.

The merc sat down on the edge of the couch next to the still-panting Logan and gave him a little smile and tilt of his head, deciding to keep all his quips to himself for the moment.

"Feeling better, peanut?"

When Wade asked that question, Logan blinked and realized that yes, actually, he did feel better. A lot better, at that. He didn't think something so stupid could manage to take his mind completely off of what had been haunting him, but... he wasn't really complaining.

He sat up and tried to regain his bearings, pushing his shirt back down and running a hand through his hair, gazing down at his lap for a few moments before he looked over at Wade, not holding eye contact with him for longer than a few seconds.

"Uh... yeah. Um... thanks. For that. I didn't realize I needed it, but... you seem to know me better than I do." Logan said quietly, letting out a slight huff of air as a lopsided smirk made its way to his face.

Wade smiled at him, simply giving him a nod of acknowledgment for his thanks. Honestly, he didn't need to thank him—he would so tickle the shit out of him every day if Logan let him, which he wouldn't, but hey, a man can dream!

He wrapped one arm around Logan's shoulders, expecting the former X-Man to push him away, but found himself surprised when he didn't. He gave another internal celebration before he pulled him close to his side, giving friendly pats to his shoulder (this was probably about the non-gayest thing they'd ever done: the bro side-hug.)

"Anytime, peanut. Cures something in my soul to see ya smile, really, so I'd do it again."

Logan shivered a little at that idea, instead opting to just not think about it and instead relaxing into the gentle physical contact that Wade was slowly training him to become more used to. Hesitantly, after a few moments, he rested his head on his roommate's shoulder, expecting to be poked fun at for his action.

However, the silence that followed genuinely surprised him. Wade was too busy being completely enamored with Logan and how vulnerable he was allowing himself to be right now to say anything for once.

After a long while of silence, Logan was considering letting himself drift off here since the after effects of the tickle session Wade had put him through was hitting him, but the merc broke the silence before he could do so.

"...So we did end up hugging it out for a few paragraphs."

"Motherfucker—!"