#but I don't want anyone who would associate with people like that anywhere near me

[selfship-confession-void]

What's wrong with being neutral? Your post has a neutral DNI is why I'm asking.

Being neutral is just a middle ground that means they're not taking a stance against pro/comshippers. Which seems harmless, but if the topic at hand is people who support pedophilia, incest, abusive relationships, and more, then going 'eehhh' isn't really a good thing, at least in my opinion. I'm just not comfortable having people interact with me or my posts who would even vaguely consider giving people like proshippers a platform or interact with them in any way. They're a hard DNI for a reason.

[scoriarose]

There's something important I've been wanting to share with fellow snake caretakers, and it's that if you have been sweet to your snake and love them, they have probably told you hundreds of times they love you- but because we speak different languages most won't understand. It makes me a little sad thinking how hard they try to tell us, and some folks just don't recognize that and they hope their serpentine friends love them but never know for sure- or even believe the lie snakes aren't even capable of love at all. They are, they have brain structures similar to birds and not only are physically capable of feeling love, they also regularly display traits associated with love including empathy and self sacrifice to protect others they care about both in captivity and the wild.

Snakes express love through touch. Through cuddling, and vibing (being near someone not touching just happy to be in their company). There's another outdated lie that snakes cannot and will never enjoy being pet - likely this comes from someone seeing cats and dogs lick their young and enjoying being pet because it feels similar to what is natural to them but since snakes do not lick their young it was believed they could not enjoy this sensation outside of their nature.

But that's wrong. It IS their nature! They just don't use their tongue, they use their whole body! Thing is, a lot of people who see them slither over another snake don't realize it's more than just them going somewhere, and they think they're carelessly going over another snake. Sometimes that may be the case, but touch is also how they bond. I read an article detailing how a mother snake was tolerant of her babies climbing all over her. Tolerant? It's like if a toddler hugged their mommy and said they loved her- tolerant would be such a strange word to use. They are telling their mommy they love her through their very limited means of communication.

Isn't it incredibly sweet that a creature who is so so limited in communication made sure to have a way to say, "I love you." I think that's just the best news ever.

If you doubt what I'm saying well, a number of snake keepers can vouch for me they've also accidentally discovered that touch can also be romantic if you touch the wrong place where most wouldn't expect it to be.

But the point I'm trying to make is, I bet there's tons of people with pet snakes who are telling them over and over they love them, hoping their human understands. If your snake doesn't do this action it doesn't need they don't love you- it would come from them not having figured it out. They learn not just from instinct, but from each other. Not having a parent snake to teach them (like some species including rattlesnakes) they have to figure out everything on their own for the most part.

Many figure out how to express, "I love you" through touch. Most snake caretakers I imagine don't recognize the attempt to communicate as anything more than the animal slithering around- but if you look for it you might see your pet telling you! If they are on you and start slithering around but not going anywhere in particular (sometimes back and forth) ESPECIALLY if you pet your snake and they relax/enjoy it- they are probably trying to pet you. And in doing so, show they care about you too, that they love you.

Scoria pets me with her chin, and I've never heard of anyone else's snake do this. She has, however, taught this to her sister who now pets me both ways.

It would be neat to hear if anyone sees their snake doing this and realizing what it really means. (Your snake might have even learned another way if you don't pet them and show them love another way- sometimes they learn by copying us too.)

Hope this helps someone- please share if your snake has a way they show they love you, I see very little on this from other caretakers and would be so happy to hear if others have similar experiences.

[elcor-thespian]

What's your Rooks favourite place to be? Like either in the lighthouse or adventuring. Do they throw everything to the side to go to Arlathan Forrest any chance they get? Do they prefer the music room to the library?

Ok when I tell you that I am generally so touched somebody asked me a question in response to my most recent post. I have been on this site for 10+ years and no one really ever interacts with me. And this is such a great question! Please answer it too and tag me so I can read it!

Answering below because this is going to be long

My canon Rook is Nephele Mercer, and my first thought in response to this was the the market in Traviso. Nephele had a pretty horrific childhood, and once she ran away from home she's been sort of building the bridge out in front of her to make ends meet. Even with the Shadow Dragons she never really felt safe or like she could relax. She is also fascinated by luxury because she's never had anything nice.

It's hard to explain but some combination of the purple lanterns and the warm night air makes her feel like she can finally slow down. It feels homey in a way she doesn't know how to describe. The first time she saw it when they were rushing past with Teia all she wanted to do was stay behind and look around. And the second she got to go back she visited every single stall and talked to everyone she could. Probably also bought more than she could afford.

And fast forward to her being the wife of the First Talon, she absolutely refuses any discounts anyone tries to give her. She pays people what they're worth, and then some.

Now I also have 6 other OCs that while they aren't the protagonist of the game, they are all also present a the Lighthouse and are associates of Varrics. They also all have bird code names because I think I'm cute.

Nasreen "Raven" Aldwir: I actually think that Nasreen's bedroom is the music room. She likes to be alone, and she likes small dark quiet places, so it's a great place for her to hide out in. She also is a musician (a huge inspiration for her character was the elven instrument that you can have in Rook's bedroom). At the beginning of the game she would borrow stacks of books from Emmrich and hide out in her room for hours, occasionally going back to ask questions. Eventually she got more comfortable staying in Emmrich's office and reading on the couch.

Aleksei "Magpie" Laidir: This boy must be near to water at all times. He grew up on an island and now he's a sailor. But literally any body of water will do. Lake in Arlathan, beaches of Rivain, canals of Treviso. He's like a duck.

Konstantin "Wren" Ingellvar: I don't know that Konstantin has ever felt comfortable anywhere, bless him. He probably feels most comfortable in the halls of the Necropolis because at least he understands the rules there, and he can spend a lot of time alone without questions. His life's goal is to not to be noticed, but he's a 7'2" Qunari built like a brick shit house. I think after a few weeks his favorite place to be is the library, because that's where the most people who are happy to see him are likely to be (I'm sobbing. I love him)

Paloma "Dove": Paloma is also a Shadow Dragon (There's 6 backgrounds but 7 romances, so someone's got to be the bonus Jonas). Paloma and Elspeth (below) are the two I've played the least so I don't have them as fleshed out. I think she likes to be around people, but struggles to talk to them. Paloma is an escaped Sarebaas, and she's still not used to talking or other people expecting her to say something. She likes people watching, either in the Shadow Dragon hide out, at bars, marketplaces, or at the docks. She feels very protective of Minrathous, the place that took her in when she needed a place to go, so part of her people watching is being ready to shut shit down if she sees trouble starting.

Elspeth "Crow" de Riva: My first instinct is to say "wherever Harding is", because she is Lace's self elected body guard, but that feels too easy. She's definitely a city kid, and growing up as a Crow means she's a night owl. I actually think she spends a lot of time at home. Or wherever Viago is so that she can annoy him. I wonder what it says about them that I can best describe them in their relationship to other people?

Brenna "Kestral" Thorne: For a long time Brenna would have considered anywhere with a high concentration of Wardens to be her favorite place. Being a Warden means she is constantly shuffled around, so she doesn't get attached to places easily. 6 months after the events of the game, she gets permission to go watch over the griffons in Arlathan, essentially on mental health leave. She ends every day watching the sunset with the griffons on the hillside where she and Davrin had their picnic.

So yeah this was really fun! Would love to answer some more if anyone is interested.

[aspd-culture]

Hey do you have any advice for what to do when you're angry? Not at anything in particular but your just so mad and not doing anything about it makes your feel like it's being ground into dust. I hope I made sense, I don't know if this is an ASPD thing or not but I figured it's worth a try.

I do, though none of it is super effective without a bit of prep outside of the situation and also knowing your particular experience of this because the anger that has no target can come in a few different forms from what I've noticed.

There's true no cause, where nothing triggered you at all and it comes on seemingly out of nowhere. For me, this is usually a part of a symptom flare, either the peak of it or right at the beginning. Either way, this is usually how I notice it. This usually comes with the impulsive desire to break things/hurt people/similar. For this, I have a post where I've gone into it, but basically you want to have prepared some sort of thing you know will help in this situation because having to do any prep in the moment is going to make it fail. For some people, they can go things like go to a wreck room (place where you can break pay usually not too much to break stuff in a space where you don't have to clean it up) and that will be enough for them. For others, it can't be in a sterile room like that that's *made* to have stuff broken or it isn't the same. In that situation, you'll want an impulsive option that can be organic. Some people own cheap plates purely so they can go in a room and break them and worry about cleaning it up later. For that to work, you either have to live alone or live with someone who knows you have ASPD and are okay with this - or who are just super chill and won't be freaked out. Hear me out - that isn't for their sake. It's for yours. It will make it so much worse if during the thing you're doing to calm yourself, someone makes an issue out of it because now that anger *will* be targeted now - at them. That's not going to help bc now there won't be a safe way to get out the anger anywhere near as easily as if it wasn't targeted.

For that type, the biggest thing is allowing yourself to have symptoms and taking a harm reduction approach vs a total control approach. Total control there will not be easily achievable and you'll probably just p*ss yourself off worse n the process. So if you have things around you're okay with taking out anger on and a safe place to do it, then that's okay as long as it's your own property and no one is getting hurt (including intimidated, again just so that it doesn't escalate). I would avoid much external interaction when it's violent urges specifically bc it will upset you having to put in all that effort not to take it out on them.

Then there's the anger that technically had a cause at some point, but has moved past its cause. So kind of the "it's been a terrible day not because of any one thing but because of the combination of everything" situation? Similar to that anyways. For this, it's gonna be your basic symptom management techniques. Interact with violent media if that calms you down - true crime, the news, violent video games, action movies, horror/thriller movies, etc. along those lines. If that doesn't help you, maybe you have a music playlist that helps you feel good. It'll help to have that prepped too, bc the lull of finding another song will probably suck in that mindset. Something I call parallel distraction is helpful for this - where you're distracting yourself, but not forcing your brain to completely ignore it. You're angry and you let yourself feel that, but give it a direction to go in that's through catharsis rather than taking the actions yourself.

Those are the two I can think of at the moment. I know there's probably more but they are escaping me at the moment. If you/anyone has any explanations of the anger you're feeling/what symptoms and feelings are associated with it, I can probably give advice tailored a bit more to that if I've experienced it.

Any anger without a cause or target can acquire a target realllllyyyy easily because that makes more sense to your brain. The human brain doesn't like feeling something and not knowing why, so if it can make up a reason that is exactly what it will do. Your roommate comes in and tells you to turn the music down? "Ah, well I sure was trying to calm down but now? Now this anger is your fault and I'm not gonna waste energy calming down again when you messed that up for me." Because of that, you ideally really want to find coping mechanisms that you can do without having to cause unwanted interactions. For some people, specific people can help but you want to choose that. In general, in an ASPD anger flare - whether it's from something specific or not - you want to keep as much control over the situation as you can because unexpected things can push you over the edge past coping.

I apologize if this isn't as helpful as usual or there are typos; it's very late here at the moment.

Plain text below the cut:

I do, though none of it is super effective without a bit of prep outside of the situation and also knowing your particular experience of this because the anger that has no target can come in a few different forms from what I've noticed.

There's true no cause, where nothing triggered you at all and it comes on seemingly out of nowhere. For me, this is usually a part of a symptom flare, either the peak of it or right at the beginning. Either way, this is usually how I notice it. This usually comes with the impulsive desire to break things/hurt people/similar. For this, I have a post where I've gone into it, but basically you want to have prepared some sort of thing you know will help in this situation because having to do any prep in the moment is going to make it fail. For some people, they can go things like go to a wreck room (place where you can break pay usually not too much to break stuff in a space where you don't have to clean it up) and that will be enough for them. For others, it can't be in a sterile room like that that's *made* to have stuff broken or it isn't the same. In that situation, you'll want an impulsive option that can be organic. Some people own cheap plates purely so they can go in a room and break them and worry about cleaning it up later. For that to work, you either have to live alone or live with someone who knows you have ASPD and are okay with this - or who are just super chill and won't be freaked out. Hear me out - that isn't for their sake. It's for yours. It will make it so much worse if during the thing you're doing to calm yourself, someone makes an issue out of it because now that anger *will* be targeted now - at them. That's not going to help bc now there won't be a safe way to get out the anger anywhere near as easily as if it wasn't targeted.

For that type, the biggest thing is allowing yourself to have symptoms and taking a harm reduction approach vs a total control approach. Total control there will not be easily achievable and you'll probably just p*ss yourself off worse n the process. So if you have things around you're okay with taking out anger on and a safe place to do it, then that's okay as long as it's your own property and no one is getting hurt (including intimidated, again just so that it doesn't escalate). I would avoid much external interaction when it's violent urges specifically bc it will upset you having to put in all that effort not to take it out on them.

Then there's the anger that technically had a cause at some point, but has moved past its cause. So kind of the "it's been a terrible day not because of any one thing but because of the combination of everything" situation? Similar to that anyways. For this, it's gonna be your basic symptom management techniques. Interact with violent media if that calms you down - true crime, the news, violent video games, action movies, horror/thriller movies, etc. along those lines. If that doesn't help you, maybe you have a music playlist that helps you feel good. It'll help to have that prepped too, bc the lull of finding another song will probably suck in that mindset. Something I call parallel distraction is helpful for this - where you're distracting yourself, but not forcing your brain to completely ignore it. You're angry and you let yourself feel that, but give it a direction to go in that's through catharsis rather than taking the actions yourself.

Those are the two I can think of at the moment. I know there's probably more but they are escaping me at the moment. If you/anyone has any explanations of the anger you're feeling/what symptoms and feelings are associated with it, I can probably give advice tailored a bit more to that if I've experienced it.

Any anger without a cause or target can acquire a target realllllyyyy easily because that makes more sense to your brain. The human brain doesn't like feeling something and not knowing why, so if it can make up a reason that is exactly what it will do. Your roommate comes in and tells you to turn the music down? "Ah, well I sure was trying to calm down but now? Now this anger is your fault and I'm not gonna waste energy calming down again when you messed that up for me." Because of that, you ideally really want to find coping mechanisms that you can do without having to cause unwanted interactions. For some people, specific people can help but you want to choose that. In general, in an ASPD anger flare - whether it's from something specific or not - you want to keep as much control over the situation as you can because unexpected things can push you over the edge past coping.

I apologize if this isn't as helpful as usual or there are typos; it's very late here at the moment.

[aevallare]

I fell out of love with Sarah J Maas books a while back, but watching her descent into madness and watching the fanbase build, then turn toxic, has been the most interesting thing to me. I guess you could say I grew as a reader alongside her as a writer, but keep in mind, I’m old now.

She started out as one of us, an online poster. I’m about to show my age here but she wrote Queen of glass, which would later become throne of glass series, on fictionpress in the mid 2000s. She definitely would have been a watpad girlie. I remember her responding and engaging with those of us who followed her and really taking feedback to heart. She was so excited when her book, eventually, got picked up and was especially keen on it being available on the kindle store. She would release novellas for kindle exclusives and was so proud it. I remember her so exited to write for DC comics at one point. She even made a little YouTube video with cat ears on asking us to read it. (she fumbled that so hard btw)

When the first few TOG books first came out remember there being no fanbase, no fan art, no online discussions on theories. Ghost town. As someone who had followed since the beginning it was just nice to see someone get flowers for their hard work. She still engaged with her followers, she loved specific fan artists and spreading their work on socials, and eventually started having her favourite fan artists make art for the physical copies of her books. Still a woman of the people. Still taking notes.

THEN ACOTAR, and something shifted in the wind. It’s odd to see a woman so keen on the YA genre just decide one day…. Nah I’m good. I think that’s the appeal. She was writing YA for the people who were beginning to age out of YA at the time. Since then the books exploded, and in my opinion, dropped in quality with every release. I can’t say when it was but at one point she just… removed her self. Stopped getting involved in discussions and engaging with people. Which professionally, smart move. Creatively though, keep in mind this woman THRIVED on online feedback at one point.

Ironically Sarah has since built her self a new reputation in the last 12 years of publishing. With hit after hit She’s a gatekeeper and a hater, who is mean to new and upcoming authors, won’t play well others, and won’t take an editors advice to save her life. I hear editors flat out refuse to work with her now which is so ironic.

I was once so happy to see her get popular, but now it’s just embarrassing to be associated with her new fans. Fans who bully an actress and fat shame her while gushing about their “kind of” feminist “icon” love interest… it’s not the group I want to be associated with anymore.

Anyway thanks for coming to the ted talk of a former SJM fan.

Love your work! Keep being you!

i admit, i'm not very dialed in to SJM as a sort of... institution. in my experience, this attitude toward editing is very common, especially in people who found success in the past. i don't edit on anywhere near this scale, but it's just so. who do you think helped you put the good in it. obviously this is your baby but i want your baby to blossom into a beautiful adult someday. please listen to me. please.

more power to her for success and clearly it's working for her. i'm throwing stones from the sewer up at mount olympus. i don't begrudge anyone liking her books. they're just not for me.

[spectralarchers]

2 soap/ghost

“If I ever see you anywhere near her/him, you’ll have to deal with me.”

//

(ghost is a boxer, soap is an artist for quick AU context + under a read more, because this took off, lol)

The gym is quiet - well not in the natural sense of the word, because Ghost's phone is blasting a generated playlist on the gym's loudspeakers, but there are no other people in at the moment. They've all left.

Last training session started at 1900, lasted for an hour, and everyone has cleaned up, washed up and gone to each their own and gone home. That was three hours ago. Ghost has been closing up shop, sweeping the floor, cleaning the bags and disinfecting the gym's gloves which have been borrowed tonight.

It's hard work, but it's good work - the tight schedule allows him to keep his daily life together and composed. It's not the same as the military, but it is something close enough. Some of the kids that come in are just like recruits, punks who need some sense of dignity and some routine knocked into him. They like him as a coach because he's rough on them. He usually gets the kids who no other sports association wants because they're too rowdy and too loud or too agitated.

With the right focus, they tend to change and grow more responsible. Some of them who were on their way down the path of the streets change their trajectory and remain here. Gaz had been one of those, and he'd send him forward to Price, who had helped him enlist. Something about potential.

One song merges into the other, and Ghost is putting the last cleaning supplies away when the door suddenly bursts open. "We're closed, sorry," he says absently, loudly enough to break over the music.

He hears footsteps and turns around, dropping the bucket on the ground with a sigh. "I said we're- oh."

His walking goes to a slight jog as he reaches the shaking body of the young man he keeps bumping into in the mornings at the coffee shop on the other side of the road. He's bloodied, his left eye has been busted open, and he looks like he's been in a scuffle.

"What the hell happened?" he growls, helping the man on his feet - he only knows him as Soap, as that's what the barista writes on the man's cup when he orders to go. He's cute, blue eyes that would knock anyone off their feet.

The doors swing open again and four men walk in, lead by a sandy blonde haired man whose face is twisted in a grin. "Give him to us, we're not done with him yet," the man says, and Ghost frowns.

"Don't- don't-" Soap says, as he moves backwards on his elbows, dragging himself back, further away from the intruders.

"The gym is closed, gentlemen, you'll have to come back during opening hours if you want to do business here," Ghost says, loud enough to cover the sound of the music still blasting. The three men standing behind the first one - probably the leader of this pathetic posse - snicker.

One of them even calls at him with a, "Yeah, what are you going to do about it?"

Ghost rolls his eyes. Thankfully, he's warmed up from all the scrubbing and cleaning he's been doing for the past hour, so this will probably be easier than he thought.

"We're closed. Get out."

"Doesn't that count for him too?" the blond man asks, and Ghost lets his arms fall to his sides.

"Get out," he says, dryly. He knows they're going to start swinging soon, if they're not going to pull a firearm out from somewhere, or worse, a knife. Thankfully, he's used to all three.

The leader snickers again. "Saw your sketchbook, by the way," he says, to Soap, who's still on his ass, bleeding from his eyebrow, "I don't think he's aware of what you draw-"

"Shut up," Ghost interrupts. "Get out. I won't say it again."

The next couple of seconds pass by fast enough to remind Ghost of hand to hand combat in the field - one of the three stooges lunges at him with a knife, manages to catch his bicep with the blade before he knocks him out with an uppercut. The second one lunges at his knee, trying to get him off his footing, but quick footwork allows him to dismiss the first stooge, then to drop an elbow and a headbutt to the second one. The third one runs past him and his two friends at Soap, but when Ghost has dismissed the two first stooges, he turns around, pulls the knife from the hand of the first one and throws it at the third one's calf, knocking him off his feet.

"Get out."

The three men are moaning, now the owners of broken noses, a bleeding thigh and a broken clavicle.

"See, that wasn't so smart," the leader says, his eyes now dark like those of a snake. "Do you know who we are?"

"Don't care," Ghost mutters, wiping his mouth.

"We're the Shadows, we own this street, hell, this whole neighborhood. We know you been taking some of our young boys under your wing, right out of our grip. That's not too smart, now, is it?"

Ghost's fists close, and he feels his knuckles grind. God, he wants the man to shut up.

"You really sure you want to risk your business and the safe place of your kids for this-"

"Don't finish that sentence-"

"Or what? You're going to make me?"

The leader and Ghost meet each other face to face, having both crossed the little distance between each other, their foreheads almost knocking against each other - Ghost towers over him, but that doesn't seem to deter this snake.

“If I ever see you anywhere near him, you’ll have to deal with me,” Ghost growls, under his breath. The man smiles.

"I'll see you soon, then, Riley. Boys, let's go. Let these two lovebirds figure shit out," he says, whistling his stooges back on their feet. They groan as they do, and when they've made it out of the front door, the leader turns on his heels to look at Ghost, still standing there.

"Hope you've got insurance on this pretty gym of yours. Would be a shame if something happened to it."

send me a character & a prompt

[cyborg-squid]

saw a video thumbnail, with a picture of Molar Boatwork Ishmael of course cause it's talking about Vellmori's harassment and departure, wih the text "Gender War" over it

like. no. it's no "Gender War" (and it's not about Molar!Ishmael not being "fanservice" enough either), it's violent misogyny pure and simple. and while these Korean instances of it (dating back to well before PMoon was involved) are super shocking to some of us because it may be the first we've heard of the situation over there, it's not like a unique thing either. there's shit like this all over the globe, it's not uniquely Korean or Chinese (see the Black Myth Wukong stuff) or anywhere else, some people are just noticing it in those places when it affects the media (mostly games) from there they consume, but you can find it here in America or in the UK or across Europe, we just tend to be more desensitized to it in our 'homes'. cuz the PMoon thing led me to looking up some of the history prior, and wow, the levels of misogyny in Korea are super high and super scary! and then you can go look at another country, and maybe the forms it takes are different cuz of socio/political/economic/cultural/etc reasons and the ways it manifests may look different, but it's scary bad there too! and you remember that misogyny is a global force that is nowhere near done being fought.

that was a long digression. but anyway it makes me mad when people say that the PMoon situation was part of a "Gender War" when it really was. not. One, things in Korea is not a "War" it is feminists getting beat into the ground (metaphorically and literally) at any sign of resistance and using alternative methods to push back, that is not a "War". and Two. well i almost said that, in the case of the PMoon stuff, misogynist "fans" were jumping at shadows or seeing things where there was none, but that's not the right way to put it actually. it's that some men will find any excuse to use violence against women (and those who associate themselves with them) and if they can't find a "reason", they will make one. because there was no "reason" to go after Vellmori and PMoon, and hell it's even unlikely that any of them knew enough about her to dislike her as a person, and it was not like she was a female in a position of power they were striking at yadda yadda, but they were able to take out their hate for women as a whole on her because she was one they were able to reach, and almost wholesale fabricated "justification" for doing so.

and while i'm willing to cut PMoon a lot of slack, and I truly believe their views and intents are in no ways aligned with the harassers, they really really fucked up with how they handled things. for now i believe what they said about Vell leaving voluntarily, I don't think she was 'fired' and I imagine being on the receiving end of such harassment, specifically because she is more 'visible' as one of PM's artists, would make anyone inclined to leave a position. but then I can also imagine that a legal/PR department/whoever at PM breathed a sigh of relief when she did because "Whew, she's leaving voluntarily, saves us the trouble of firing her". not that they were planning too, idk who knows, but her leaving on her own (IF! IF that is what happened) removes that option from the table. but then any goodwill they could have earned by not!firing goes out the window with their vague statements and long delays and threatening legal action against some fans who just wanted the truth. like i said, i don't think PM was a bad faith actor in this or trying to acquiesce to harasser's demands, i am willing to chalk some of their response up to just. idiot management in a time of crisis, bumbling and focused on appearances but not actively malicious, which is again understandable, but still a really fuckin bad look. and i guess while leaping to Vell's defense and really pushing back against the misogyny would have been the right thing to do, it probably woulda made the harasser crowd even more mad at them, and would confuse more normal fans who hadn't heard about what was happening (which explains a lot of PMoons long silences, "If people don't know, why bring it up?". Roosterteeth did a lot of the same thing and, i mean, it's not a dumb move. just a shitty one)

Anyway. It's not a "Gender War", it makes me mad when people call it that, especially when people Youtubers are only talking about it in respect to their/our vidya games. It is misogyny and violence.

[peninkwrites]

Karl and Quackity (don't) Date - Ch 14 of ?

Tubbo wants to eat, Quackity doesn't, and both of Quackity's partners wish he would stop lying to them.

[CW: abuse, violence, eating disorders, stalking, neglect]

crossposted to ao3

Ch 1

Ch 13

Ch 15

Mafia AU

~

It’s not a total 180, it’s not like Schlatt crosses one line and decides it’s open season, it’s more like Schlatt has simply remembered violence isn’t off the table.  Part of it seems to stem from this unsettling resentment Schlatt has garnered for him.  Quackity has gone over it in his mind perhaps too many times.  Schlatt had assumed Quackity was going to hurt him that night.  That seems, to Quackity, fucking insane considering Schlatt’s deadly track record, but undeniably, Schlatt had assumed the man he trusted to sleep beside him would be prepared to take him out at the first sign of weakness.

Not to say that’s totally baseless, but Quackity knows killing Schlatt himself is only feasible as a suicide mission, if not from Schlatt, then in the aftermath of chaos to follow.

So, one moment Schlatt remains doting and romantic, other moments Quackity gets on his nerves enough Schlatt shoves him into a wall before storming off which, annoyingly, is still better behavior than before.  Schlatt simply pushing him before leaving to calm himself is downright emotionally mature for Schlatt.  It’s other little things, Schlatt holding on too tight to his wrist, Schlatt dragging him across the room, physically moving him when he gets stubborn, it’s the snide comments returning on occasion that bother Quackity more than anything else.  Sure, Schlatt sometimes still treats him with a modicum of respect, complimenting his appearance and when he’s clever, but other times it’s sly degradation about his body, it’s dismissal of his complaints, treating him like a whiny brat.  Schlatt hasn’t flat out hit him in ages, but he’s certainly reminded Quackity how to tread lightly, always waiting for the tension to snap.

He hasn’t told Karl.  Thus far he’s had no need to, Schlatt’s backward slide from progress has yet to control his movements.  Quackity can still spend an evening living his own life, as long as when he comes back to Schlatt he acts devoted.  A few times Quackity got nervous, he had to be quick on his feet, going to the townhouse after a quiet dinner with Karl and being grilled for an explanation of where he had been.

“Dinner?  Oh yeah?  Where?”

“Uh, Marco’s, that shithole diner on the West side.  I dunno if you know it.  It was just near the office.”

“Who were you with?”

“A few boys from work.  Boring as shit, honestly–”

“Who?  What’re their fucking names?”

“McKeller?  Jackson McKeller?  He’s a paralegal–”

“Just him?”

“No, no not just him,” Quackity says quickly.  He’d rather not condemn some random associate to death so flippantly.  “Also Nelson Thompson, Judy Eager, and, uh, I think Craig who works the front desk was supposed to join us, but he had to leave early.  Kid had a fever or something.”  A little detail, but not too much.  Nothing worth questioning.

Schlatt always looks for some lie, something he can dig into, and Quackity always remains calm.

“Really, Schlatt, you don’t know these people, why does it matter?  They’re just stupid white collar assholes that I gotta get a little chummy with if I wanna cash in favors, you know how it is.”

And Schlatt always smiles like he’s not a paranoid wreck and says, “I know, sweetheart, I worry, y’know?  Just let me fuss over you a bit.  You know if any of ‘em make a move on you, you tell me right away, and I’ll get it taken care of.”  He ends this threat with a kiss pressed to his forehead, hand brushing through his hair, both a shred of kindness and yes, a claim staked on him, but Quackity cannot deny the kindness is there too.

Thus far, it seems Schlatt hasn’t had anyone follow him from work to verify what he says, Quackity is always thorough to check for a tail before he meets Karl anywhere, and some nights he does go out with coworkers so his lies are always based on old truths, but he knows it’s only a matter of time.

So, Quackity hasn’t told Karl.  As far as he’s aware, Schlatt is still treating him better and Quackity is all the better for it.  If Karl notices some of his old stress returning, he has yet to comment on it.  Quackity doesn’t plan on telling him.  There’s no reason for Karl to worry about him, especially considering Schlatt hasn’t really done anything, save the whole holding a knife to his throat incident, but otherwise, it’s not bad, it’s just not the fucking bullshit honeymoon phase Schlatt had briefly tried to return to.  That was never going to end well.  Better this easy middle ground to let off some of the pressure instead of Schlatt getting so fed up with acting like a Saint he snaps in a way worse type of breakdown.  Again, Schlatt not flat out hitting him has been useful.  He doesn’t show up with a busted lip, there’s nothing for Karl to find out about.  It’s better that way.

Quackity’s practicality doesn’t magically make it easier to hide things from his boyfriend.  No, he doesn’t turn up with bruises ringing his throat or any broken bones, but he’s not infallible.

It’s one of the better evenings of the week, an evening which started with watching a movie curled on the couch together––with Karl, not Schlatt––until during one of the commercials they got distracted by far more interesting things.

However cheesy it sounds, Quackity’s relationship with Karl is just so sweet.  It’s always gentle and giggly and easy.  Quackity doesn’t mind when Karl is on top of him, trailing kisses up his neck, hands ghosting over Quackity’s hips, lifting his shirt and coming to rest on his waist–

“Ow–” Quackity hisses.

Karl sits back, “you okay?”

“I’m fine, Karl,” Quackity rolls his eyes, sitting up to follow his boyfriend and pull him back into a kiss.

Karl isn’t so easily distracted.  Goddamn asexuality.  He gently takes Quackity’s hands from cupping his cheeks.  “Hold on, did I hurt you?”

“No,” Quackity scoffs.  “No, Karl, you didn’t hurt me, I just– It’s nothing, I wasn’t expecting it.”

Karl, grave and serious, goes to lift up Quackity’s shirt, but Quackity grabs onto it and pulls it back down, hoping his flushed cheeks make Karl think he’s bashful rather than ashamed.

“Karl,” Quackity says, trying to sound scolding and lighthearted.

“Q,” Karl says with a far more earnest admonishment, but he stops trying to lift up his shirt.  Karl is looking at him so intently.  Quackity hates it when he does that.  It always feels like Karl is looking at more than just his face.

“Look, I’m fine, I’d be… I’d be more fine if you were kissing me right now,” Quackity says pointedly.

“Yeah, I know,” Karl smiles, but it’s not the usual silly, giggly grin that Quackity so adores.  It’s smaller, sadder.  “Can I… can I just see?  Before we go back to kissing?”  Karl waits for Quackity’s permission.

Quackity feels a lump in his throat, he feels unsteady, even as he nods.  He holds his breath when Karl’s hands brush so delicately against him, lifting his shirt just a little.  Karl stares at the line of bruising just above his hip, Quackity is pretty sure it’s from being shoved against the corner of a table.

“It’s– It’s nothing.  I was just… clumsy.  Stumbled into something.”

Karl looks crestfallen.

“What?” Quackity says defensively, sitting up, once more holding onto the hem of his shirt, like that doesn’t make it obvious he has something to hide, and Karl just keeps looking at him like that.  “Karl, what?”

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to lie to me.”

Quackity grins in a way that radiates insincerity.  “Who says I’m lying?”

Quackity’s face falls, guilt piercing, as Karl gently places his hands on Quackity’s hips, barely touching him, as if afraid to break him.  He’s ghosting over bruises in a way that takes Quackity’s breath away.

“He’s gotten bad again?” Karl asks.

“No, no not bad,” Quackity shakes his head sharply.  “Not bad by a fucking mile, he just, y’know, he gets drunk and– and clumsy, and that’s how I end up… y’know, knocking into shit, but it’s not a big deal.”

Karl is so gentle with him, but that look in his eyes, colder and maybe just a shred calculating.  “How long?”

“What?”

“How long has it been…” Karl trails off, a deep frown unnatural on his face.  “Bad again?  I dunno how else to say it.”  A weighted pause, Karl still staring at the line of bruising.  “Was he ever actually better?”

“No, he was,” Quackity sees a lifeline and clings to it.  “So better it scared me, honestly.  This is… this is better.  Better than before, and better than the bullshit of the past few weeks where he tried to act like a fucking saint.  At least this is… this is reliable bullshit, you know?  And I did mean it.  He… he pushes me around a little, but he hasn’t been kicking the shit out of me or anything like that.  Like, when he gets pissed off, if he starts to come at me, he makes himself like, walk it off.  It’s… it’s pretty mature for Schlatt, if I’m being honest,” Quackity tries to say it like a joke.  Karl refuses to lighten up, strange for him.  “Karl, what?” Quackity forces another laugh, nudging him.

Karl isn’t looking at him.  He’s staring at the bruises.  “Better it scared you.”

“What?”

“You said he was acting better so it scared you,” Karl says.

Quackity can’t help but lose some of that forced humor.  “And what of it, Karl?” He turns cold, like somehow that will be easier.  “What the fuck could you say to me right now that changes anything?  Why do you gotta know so bad, when you can’t actually do shit?  You can’t do shit, Karl.  So why bother?”

Karl shrugs.  “I guess… I dunno.  I mean, if we both know I can’t do anything, why wouldn’t you have… have told me?” Karl looks at him with those big eyes and Quackity is so fond it makes him weak.

“I feel like it’s pretty obvious,” Quackity says wearily.  Karl is still waiting.  Quackity sighs.  “I… I didn’t want you to worry about something you couldn't do shit about, alright?  Like, why the hell would I make this your problem?”

“Our problem,” Karl says insistently.  “I’m always gonna worry, Q.  You can’t stop me.”

Our problem.  Quackity is both endeared and hurt.  He knows what Karl meant, but the idea that this is our problem when Karl has spent all of five minutes in the same room as that man and Quackity has spent… a lot more.  Quackity brushes gently against Karl’s cheek.  He sighs, but it’s lighter than before.

“Right… thanks, Karl,” Quackity means it, mostly.

Karl’s hand covers Quackity’s, pressing it to his cheek.  “Y’know I love you, don’t you?”

“Karl,” Quackity is surprised.  “Of course I do.”  Like always, Quackity doesn’t say it back, and he feels awful for it, but he thinks he’d feel worse saying that to Karl knowing that their relationship will hang by a thread until Schlatt is dead in the ground.  

Karl never faults him for it, he just kisses Quackity’s knuckles and lets sleeping dogs lie.

~

Quackity continues to get by, to do his work, to appease Schlatt, and see Karl when he can.  Usually weeknights are okay.  He can avoid going back to Schlatt’s with the excuse that he works late and just wants to rest.  Quackity never rests.  Instead, he uses that precious time for Karl.

Quackity leaves work a little after five on a week day.  It’s relatively early, and he’s excited to spend the night with Karl.

So he gets in his car.  He starts driving.  And a block before the bridge back over to the East side, he spots them.  A fucked up black Ford Capri he doesn’t recognize in general, but he does recognize it from a few blocks back, from the lot across the street from his office.

“Fuck,” Quackity mutters, glancing at his rearview mirror.  He does not turn toward Karl’s place, nor his own apartment, instead, he turns right, and heads South.  The sedan follows.  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Quackity snaps, hitting his steering wheel.

This in and of itself is not an emergency.  He’s always careful, always looking out just in case he has a tail, but it’s never actually happened before.  Now, this means it’s an option, that Quackity was right to be paranoid, and that Schlatt must have some suspicion.  Quackity doubts it’s any other party.  It has to be Schlatt sending someone after him.  Quackity pulls up along the beach, near the boardwalk.  He’d briefly hoped to lose them when he crossed into Badlands territory, but whoever Schlatt sent isn’t that much of a pussy.  The Ford passes where he’s parked, but Quackity follows them in the mirror, watching as they park just down the lot.

“God fucking damnit…” Quackity mutters.  He gets out of the car, slamming the door behind him, and walks up to the front of the car, leaning against the hood.  He digs in his pockets for a cigarette, scanning the area with a semi-casual glance, and there he sees a man get out of the other car.  He walks over to a payphone, still with Quackity in his sights, either pretending to make a call to explain his presence, or currently calling Schlatt to let him know what Quackity is up to.

Fuck, it was so much easier when he thought he was just being paranoid.  He can’t call Karl to tell him not to go to his apartment, and if Quackity goes there now, god forbid Karl is seen outside, or maybe Schlatt’s insecurities will have rooted in deep enough that man will follow him upstairs and search the place before running back to snitch to the Boss.

So what the fuck does he do?!

Karl was supposed to meet him at his place, so Quackity cannot safely go back there tonight.  Quackity almost worries if he goes to Schlatt tonight, Schlatt will expect him to make time for him on weeknights.  

He’s overthinking this.  Schlatt has let up a lot over the past months.   Yeah, let up enough to send some guy following you all over.

Quackity takes a long drag from his cigarette, irritable and anxious.  He’s going to chain smoke a whole fucking pack and then give Schlatt a disgusting fucking kiss, with tongue.

Does he acknowledge the tail?!  Give him a little wave to let him know he knows?  Or will that just incentivize Schlatt to be sneakier somehow?

Quackity already is misbehaving–– misbehaving, what, like he’s a fucking child?––Schlatt wouldn’t want him in Badlands, and he wouldn’t want him smoking.  Is that enough Schlatt will give up the ruse and admit to having him followed so he can corner him?

Quackity just keeps smoking.  He watches the sunset with a vehemence.  He hopes that stupid fucking tail is bored out of his skull.  Quackity looks over his shoulder.  The man still lurks at a payphone.  Quackity almost wants to shout at him snidely, “what, are you made of dimes?!” but he doesn’t.

Quackity throws the cigarette butt into the gutter, lighting another with petty passion, in his irritation he ends up coughing like he’s still 11 with virgin lungs.  “Fucking bullshit…” Quacky wheezes.

He wonders if he can make it out of sight before the spy extraordinaire gets in his car to follow.  Quackity puts out the remaining cigarette on the sole of his shoe before slipping back into the driver’s side.  In the mirror, he sees the man hang up the phone and walk back to his car.  Right.  Real subtle.

Quackity backs out of his spot in time to see the man start his car.  Quackity drives past him, unable to resist flicking him off, and rounds a corner.  He turns down a side street quickly, before cutting onto the adjacent road.  He glances at the rearview mirror almost enough to wreck.  The black ford doesn’t appear behind him.  “Ha! Get fucked you little dicked motherfucker!”  Quackity at least gets to feel smug, but this doesn’t mean he can go back to his apartment.  It’s too risky knowing there’s some prick prowling around looking for him.

So, with more than a little irritation, he heads toward Schlatt’s place.

“No point having a guy follow me to your own goddamn house, right?” Quackity mutters.

Quackity parks outside the townhouse and lets himself in.  He’s lucky in that Schlatt isn’t home, because he’d seriously been about to go throwing accusations at him and asking him what the fuck that was about.  Instead, he’s forced to settle into his agitation in an empty house.  Well, not entirely empty.

“Oh, hey, Big Q,” Tubbo is, reasonably, surprised to see him as he peeks his head over the landing to see who had arrived.

“Hey, Tubbo,” Quackity tries to take the edge out of his voice, he knows Tubbo gets nervous whenever someone seems irritated around him.  “Schlatt’s not home, I take it?”

“No, he’s not.  No clue where he’s gone off to, though,” Tubbo joins him at the bottom of the stairs.  “Are you… are you alright?”

“Me?  Fine,” Quackity smiles.  “I’m fine, Tubbo.  As usual.”

“...right.”

“So,” Quackity sighs.  “What’re you up to this evening?”

“I… I dunno, really.  I was gonna go look for food.  We haven’t had groceries in a bit, so right now the gameplan is toast,” Tubbo says, concerningly blasé.

“Seriously?” Quackity laughs halfheartedly.

“What?”

Quackity shakes his head.  “Nah, nah you’re not doing that.  Come on.  I haven’t eaten yet either.  Let’s go some place,” he nods back to the front door.

“Oh,” Tubbo sounds surprised, hesitating.  “Okay, sure.”

They get in the car, Quackity driving without a set destination in mind.

Quackity once more forgets how to talk to this kid.  “So.  How’s, uh… the… the thing you were working on?  The potato?”

“Oh, I finished that ages ago!  I set up the circuit no problem, I honestly didn’t think it was going to work,” Tubbo laughs.  “But no, seriously.  The potato did it.  Powered a tiny lightbulb.  It has to do with the zinc, see?  It reacts with the acids in the potato and that’s what creates power.”

“Huh,” Quackity tries to sound interested, even as he’s distracted by the rearview mirror, and any sign of the black car following them.  Nothing yet.  “So… so you’ve moved on from the bio-weapons, huh?”

Another laugh from Tubbo.  “It was… it was a household mold, Big Q, I wouldn’t call them bio-weapons,” he sounds undeniably proud.  That at least makes Quackity feel a little better.

“What’re you hungry for, huh?  Wherever you wanna go, I don’t care,” Quackity nods along the Riverside strip.

“I mean…” Tubbo trails off.

“Come on, what d’you want?” Quackity pushes lightly.

“Could we get like, breakfast stuff?  Pancakes?”

“Yeah!  Hell yeah, dude.  That’s easy,” Quackity turns a corner until they’re outside one of those 24 hour diners that will definitely still be serving pancakes.

They settle in at a booth, and Quackity doesn’t bother with the laminated menu in front of him; he’s busy scanning the darkened windows.

“Get whatever you want, Tubbo,” Quackity says offhandedly.  He requests black coffee, and Tubbo gets his pancakes.

“Are you not eating?”

“Huh?” Quackity looks back over at the kid.  “No, no I’m good.  I’ve got coffee.”

“That’s not exactly dinner, though, is it?”

“Don’t have much of an appetite,” Quackity says dryly.  It’s true, probably in part due to the two cigarettes.

“Alright,” Tubbo shrugs, he doesn’t argue.  “Thanks.”

“Thanks?”

“For getting me food.  I didn’t… I dunno, my dinner plans didn’t feel that weird to me until you said something,” an unsure laugh.

“No problem, man.”

“Are you alright?”

Quackity once more looks away from the darkened window.  “Huh?”

“You’re just a little… distracted?”

Quackity debates telling Tubbo.  What good will it do him?  Although, it’s not like he’s tainting his fucking image of his father.  “I’m pretty sure Schlatt had some guy follow me.  After I left the office,” Quackity reaches for a cigarette that isn’t there and pulls himself back.  He won’t start smoking while the kid is trying to eat.

“He… He had someone follow you?” Tubbo being appropriately surprised and disturbed is oddly vindicating to Quackity.  “Why… why would he do that?”

“I dunno, man, I guess because he’s a paranoid fucking bastard,” Quackity laughs harshly, leg bouncing under the table; another glance out the window.

“Weird…” Tubbo stares out the darkened window too.

Their somber conversation is paused by the arrival of pancakes, as well as bacon, which Tubbo slides to the middle of the table, inviting Quackity to eat something.  Quackity, more for Tubbo’s sake than his own, takes a piece.

“Do you… do you like my dad?  Sometimes?” Tubbo breaks the lull and deigns to blindside Quackity with that.

“Do I what?”

“Like, sometimes you seem… okay with him.  And other times you really don’t.”  Tubbo isn’t looking at him, focused on his plate.

“Huh,” Quackity mulls it over.  It’s not quite like when he’d not-so-subtly asked Tubbo if he would kill his father given the chance, it’s lighter, more delicate, but no easier to answer.  Quackity should lie.  He should say the easy thing.  Of course not, he’s a fucked up bastard, what’s to like?  “Sometimes, I guess.  Sometimes…” Quackity trails off, uneasy.

“But…” Tubbo hesitates, glancing around the deserted diner.  “You like Karl more, surely?”

Quackity ignores the instinctive pang of panic that comes with Tubbo saying that name.  They’re not in the house.  It’s different out here.  “Yeah.  Like, a million times more.”

“Good!  That’s good,” Tubbo almost sounds like he’s trying to reassure him.  He’s clearly thinking over what to say next; Quackity gives him his time.  “My dad won’t let you leave.”

Once more, ignoring this would be easier.  Quackity doesn’t know why he doesn’t.  “No.  He won’t,” Quackity says stiffly; his efforts to sound unbothered are probably obvious to Tubbo, but he doesn’t show it.

“That’s why… that’s part of why he had someone follow you, d’you think?”

“Yeah.  Probably not even part of why, probably the whole reason, actually,” Quackity scoffs.  “Why’re you asking this shit, Tubbo?”

Tubbo shrugs, resuming his focus on his pancakes.  “Just curious,” he says mildly, keeping whatever calculations are going on in his brain to himself.  Quackity knows there’s some other thought process going on there, even if Tubbo chooses not to share.  Quackity sort of wishes he would.  He feels like he’s just bared his soul a bit by giving Tubbo even that small dredge of truth, but Tubbo keeps his silence.

Quackity buries the urge to ask to use the diner’s phone to call Karl, to explain why he won’t show up tonight, because part of him is convinced someone must be watching through the glass, out there in the dark.  Getting up and using the phone, calling someone besides Schlatt after business hours, that’s dangerous.  So he pays for the kid’s pancakes and heads back to Schlatt’s place.

Quackity had planned on dropping Tubbo off and heading back to his apartment; there he could finally call Karl and explain why he’d ditched him.  As with most things in Quackity’s miserable fucking life, it doesn’t go as he’d planned.

“Quackity,” Schlatt is surprised to see him.  “What were you doing with the kid?”

“Took him to get food.  Did you know you don’t have shit here?” Quackity says with more than a little edge to his voice.  He can’t yell at Schlatt for having someone follow him, but he can at least get a little self righteous on Tubbo’s behalf.

Schlatt reaches out and stops Tubbo from hurrying away upstairs.  “Did you ask him to do that?  What, are you fucking begging now?  He’s not your step mommy, alright?  Do you not have two good fucking legs to go get food yourself?”

Tubbo is frozen and unsure of how to defend himself, always so wide-eyed and scared like a petrified rabbit.  Quackity has got to teach this kid how to have a poker face before it gets him seriously fucked up.

“I offered, Schlatt.  Jesus, give the kid a break,” Quackity cuts in.

“Aw, you offered,” Schlatt lets go of Tubbo’s arm, but Tubbo doesn’t go upstairs, now he has to wait to be dismissed.  “That’s cute, you gonna start tying his shoelaces next?  Should I get you a station wagon so you can take him to soccer practice?” He sneers.

“What, so you trying to be better and take him out to dinner and shit is fine, but for some reason it’s weird when I do it?” Quackity says sharply.

“Yeah, because he’s my fucking kid,” Schlatt gets sharper, my kid is staking a claim on him.  It has nothing to do with family.

“Jeez, I thought you wanted us to get all fucking brady bunch or whatever, and now you’re throwing a bitch fit?” Quackity folds his arms over his chest, calm and defiant.  He braces, but the blow never comes.

“And that’s what you feel like you’re doing, huh?  Sneaking around behind my back?” Schlatt is still calculating, more focused on interrogating him than making sure Quackity doesn’t get mouthy.

Quackity grins.  “It was just pancakes, Schlatt.  What’re you implying?”  Quackity dares him to say it, to admit it.  Schlatt says nothing, so Quackity decides to rescue Tubbo.  “Are you just gonna keep Tubbo standing around by the front door or what?”

Schlatt doesn’t look at Tubbo, still watching Quackity, waiting for a lie to appear.  “Get out of here.  Next time don’t be a fucking nuisance.”

Tubbo nods and quickly flees upstairs.

Schlatt smiles, mild-tempered once more.  “I’m not implying anything, honeybun.  Why don’t I make you a drink, and then I gotta step out for a work call real quick, alright?”

“Fine with me, Boss,” Quackity replies coolly.  Work call.  Is the man really so paranoid he’s got to check in with his little stalker right away?

Quackity couldn’t care less at this point.  The guy has got nothing on him, besides smoking a few cigarettes, and Schlatt could sniff that out for himself.  Quackity will just need to keep playing things very fucking carefully.

So the following day, he does not sneak off to Karl’s apartment, despite that being what he desperately wants to do, instead he goes to work, he settles in at his desk, and then he makes a call.

“Q?” Karl answers immediately, and Quackity can hear the anxiety in his voice.

“Hey, Karl,” Quackity speaks softly.  He’s in his place of work, surrounded by the noise of other cubicles, but he’s still nervous, he still keeps his voice down.

“You’re okay!  Oh my god, you scared me, dude!  Where the heck were you?!  You can’t just fall off the map like that, I was about to lose it!”

Quackity sighs, a hand going to his temples.  He hates making Karl worry like this.  “I got… I got a tail.”

Static, as Karl tries to process his words.  “Like… a cat?”

Quackity laughs.  “No, no.  Like a guy following my car to see where I go.”

“Oh,” Karl’s concern is still evident.

“Yeah, so. Nowhere near as fun…”

“Shoot.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry for being all freaked, I guess I shoulda known you’d have a good reason…”

“No, no it’s okay, Karl.  I think we just gotta reestablish ground rules, y’know?  I think––especially now––sometimes I might disappear for a day or so, but you can’t let yourself get too stressed if I do, okay?  There’s good reason for it.”  Quackity hates that he has to have this conversation over the fucking phone, but he has no idea what else he could do.

“Right.  Ground rules.  So, if you disappear for 24 hours, that’s no biggie.”

“Threshold should be more like 48,” Quackity grimaces.  Quackity is also aware that if he’s being honest, he could end up stuck or out of contact for even longer than that, but those instances tend to mean Karl should be concerned.  Not that he’s offered explanation for what Karl is meant to do in those instances besides wait in terror.  “And I will always try and get ahold of you soon as I can, alright?”

“I know you will, Q.  I just…” Karl grumbles.  “It’s just scary.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Quackity mutters.  “We’re just gonna have to be extra… conservative, until I get this tail thing figured out.”

“Um, do you think I’m voting Red in this next election?” Karl gasps, as if scandalized.

Quackity laughs.  “Oh my god, shut up.”

“I won’t be silenced!”

Quackity rests his forehead against his desk, holding the receiver tightly, the pause of static feels so gentle, like he can hear Karl breathing beside him.  “Miss you,” he sighs.

“Miss you too, babe,” Karl sounds as wistful as Quackity feels.

~

Quackity hasn’t seen Karl in almost a week.  Every time he leaves work, he sees that black ford down the block.  He doesn’t know how this fucking idiot thinks he’s being subtle.  Maybe some poor civilian wouldn’t have noticed they’re being followed after all this, but Quackity’s vigilance feels ordinary.  He’s getting absolutely fed up with this shit.  So he heads for the boardwalk again, not to park outside and smoke, but to head somewhere the guy can’t follow in his car.  Originally he thought Niki’s, that would’ve constituted as safe, but for what he plans to do he can’t have Niki shooting this guy in the balls for daring to cross her doorstep.  This way, though, he’ll be somewhere innocuous, but public.  Somewhere the guy will have to get out of his car and follow him on foot.

Quackity walks quickly through the spring crowds, he doesn’t look back to see if the man is following, he knows he will be.  Quackity turns a corner, waiting behind a stand smelling strongly of fried food, and as he’d expected, a man walking at a quick pace steps past and pauses, looking around frantically for his charge.  Quackity whistles at him, offering a little wave when the man sharply looks his way.

The man looks quite startled, clearly unsure of what to do now that he’s been caught.

“Smoke?” Quackity offers the guy a cigarette.

“N-No, I– I was just looking for–”

“For me,” Quackity says dryly.  “You’re not seriously gonna keep pretending you’re not, are you?”

The man seems to debate it for about five seconds, before conceding.  “Guess not.”  The guy is way bigger than Quackity, and probably around Schlatt’s age, which makes it feel all the more absurd he’s been given the juvenile task of following him around.  The man doesn’t yet join him.  “How… how long have you..?”

“Known you were following me?” Quackity says for him, lighting his own cigarette.  “Four days?”

The man looks surprised, perhaps offended.

“Let me guess.  You started following me four days ago?” Quackity scoffs.  “I’ll ask again, cigarette?”

The man nods, joining him beside the cheap wooden wall of the pier’s food stalls.

“Look, uh, following you around, sitting outside your office, that’s the last thing I wanna be doing, but you know how the Boss is,” he says awkwardly, before taking a nervous drag from his cigarette.

“Right,” Quackity gives him a look.  “What’s your name?”

The man grimaces, clearly reluctant to share.

“I’m not a fucking snitch.  I have no intention of running back to the boss and telling him I caught you.  Trust me, throwing around accusations like that won’t go over well for me either.”

“So, why’re you..?”

“A name?”

One more reluctant pause.  “Morelli.”

“I haven’t seen you around.”

“I’m… back from vacation, let’s say.”

“By choice?”

“What?”

“Are you back by choice?” Quackity takes a drag from his cigarette, staring at the man.

Morelli frowns, solemn.  “Guess not.”

“Right,” Quackity huffs.  “You know, this could work out for both of us.”

“Is that right?”

“You stop following me, no one has to know.  Keep reporting to him, make up boring shit.  I went to work, I went to my apartment, plain and simple.  Doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.”

The man laughs.  “If I get found out, I’m a dead man–”

“Fine! Fuck,” Quackity rolls his eyes.  “Then… then call me and I’ll tell you what I’ve actually been doing, so if Schlatt asks, our stories match up, right?”

The man is clearly still reluctant.

“Do you have any idea how much of a creep this fucking makes you?  What happens when Schlatt asks what I’ve been doing, and saying I went home isn’t good enough anymore?  You gonna crawl in my fucking window?”

“No–”

“So, I’m giving you a way out.”

“I’m not choosing to follow you just to fuck around–”

“But you’re still doing it.”

He doesn’t have a retort.

“So, do we have a deal?”

Morelli is still just staring at him, calculating.  “You doing something the Boss shouldn’t be knowing about?”

Quackity laughs.  “If I was, you think I’d tell you?”

“Guess not,” the man is clearly still thinking it over.  “Fine.  You said… you said I should call you?”

Quackity holds out a business card.  “Yep.  Sometime before I leave work.  If that’s a problem, I can give you my home number too.”

“Nah, that’s… not a problem,” he accepts it reluctantly.

“Good to hear it,” Quackity grins and takes another drag from his cigarette.  He loves it when he talks his way out of things.

~

Quackity doesn’t know what to make of it when he comes over to Schlatt’s the next night to find Schlatt has dinner prepared for him.  His first thought is that Morelli snitched on him, but he knows he needs to stop assuming every time Schlatt spoils him there’s something dangerous underneath.  Usually, Schlatt doesn’t waste time with pretenses to punish him.  Quackity’s curiosity wanes into disappointment when he sees the two steaks at either end of the table.  If Schlatt took his steak any more raw it would get up and walk away from the table, hence, Quackity would eat the same thing.

“This is… this is nice,” Quackity says anyway.

“Glad you think so, pumpkin,” Schlatt pours him a glass of red wine, kissing his head before circling to the head of the table.  “It’s been a second since we’ve had dinner, just the two of us, hasn’t it?”

“Right.  So, no kid tonight?” Quackity asks, feeling the need to ease the anxiety that there’s worse reasons Tubbo isn’t joining them.

“For… for steak?  And wine?  Nah, the brat is probably having mac and cheese and watching cartoons or some shit,” Schlatt scoffs.  “So, how was your day, sugarplum?” Schlatt takes a heavy draft from his wine, watching him across the table.

Right.  Probably confirming what he told Morelli.  “Good, y’know?  Just had work, finished up some paperwork for a case I was helping on.  Boring shit, insider trading type deal, but it was good to get it done.” Quackity avoids his steak with his own sip of wine.  “What about you?  Anything exciting here while I was gone?”

“Yeah, yeah a bit,” Schlatt smiles, cutting into his own steak.  “We’ve got another hostage exchange coming up.  That’ll make us a hefty chunk of change, eh?” 

“Right,” Quackity tries to force enthusiasm instead of disgust.

“Would you want to be there?”

Quackity can tell that it’s a loaded question, something prodding there that he hasn’t quite grasped.  “At the… at the hostage exchange?”

“Yeah.  I get it if it’s… uh, if it’s a sore subject, y’know?”

Quackity is still surprised by Schlatt being anything like considerate, but he knows it’s a double-edged sentiment.  “Oh.  I mean, if you don’t want me there, that’s okay, Schlatt.”

“I don’t mind the company, sweetheart,” Schlatt says with a wry smile.  “Maybe I just don’t wanna risk a repeat of last time, eh?”

Quackity laughs, with a slight note of anxiety he hopes Schlatt doesn’t notice.  “Yeah, I don’t think you need to worry about that.  That’s not… that’s not going to be a problem.”

Schlatt nods, and stops cutting his steak, frozen with the knife halfway through the bloody meat, not looking at Quackity, only at the plate.  “You… you didn’t actually know that moron with the ratty coat that night, did you?”  It’s clear that Schlatt isn’t voicing these insecurities easily, but that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.  “You weren’t… you weren’t seeing him, right?” Schlatt asks, tone carefully and unsettlingly neutral.

Right.  Surely, this is what all of this had been building up to.  Schlatt’s paranoia, having him followed, it had been because of this nagging at him all this time.  Quackity doesn’t reply at first, thinking, knowing the longer he waits to answer the more dangerous it gets.  Already, his heart is pounding a little harder, and dinner seems far less appealing.

Schlatt continues when the pause extends beyond a few seconds.  “You can tell me, Quackity.  If you were at the time.  I can understand, clearly things were complicated and not going well between us back then, but I’d like to know.”  Schlatt takes a bite, sparing him a glance, but otherwise an awful mask of calm and mild-mannered interest.

Quackity processes this carefully and buries his nausea.  It’s clear Schlatt has been thinking about this for a long time, maybe just waiting for the right moment to spring it on him, but that’s too much time for Schlatt to talk himself into getting even more paranoid.  Schlatt, even if he has doubts in general, is confident there’s no way Quackity is currently cheating on him, probably has faith in his whole “if I see you with him again, I kill him” threat along with Morelli confirming he only goes to work and home.  He’s also inviting a confession, with the implication of him being understanding.  Not fucking likely.  Quackity doesn’t know what’s more suspicious, saying he truly barely knew the guy, or saying that yes, at the time they maybe had met up a couple of times, nothing excessive, just boring stuff, getting coffee, and then Quackity stopped it.  That wouldn’t exactly explain Quackity shelling out almost a thousand fucking dollars on the guy.  He doesn’t know where the line is, what Schlatt will believe but won’t kill him over.  There’s got to be a better story to get out of this one.  Quackity is good at telling stories, when he has to be.  It’s no different than a courtroom.

“Okay, the truth is, I lost the cash in a game of cards.  Same card game I won the information on Mr. Beast.  We only really knew each other through a group of students I used to hang out with sometimes,” Quackity’s voice remains steady, if a bit nervous, but Quackity can imagine Schlatt would expect that from him.  Schlatt doesn’t reply immediately, clearly thinking, so Quackity continues, wildly aware that despite the calm of this conversation he might as well be begging for his life.  “I’m sorry I lied, Schlatt.  I didn’t want you to think I was irresponsible like that, I… I gambled away all my savings.  I didn’t realize how it would seem to you, like, you know I’d never.   I’d never do that to you, Schlatt.  I– I didn’t even realize that was an option you could consider.  I’d be ruining my own life.”  Ending it.  Quackity is looking at Schlatt, waiting, praying, and the man is just still picking at his steak.

Schlatt nods, but he doesn’t look at him.

“Schlatt?” Quackity tries to get a response, voice a little shakier.

Schlatt chuckles.  “Gambled away all your savings. That’s… that’s good to know.  You’re the same pathetic broke bitch I pulled off the streets, aren’t you?  You got the law degree and the arrogance,” Schlatt says mockingly, “but you’re still the same, eh?  Just as weak, just as stupid, just as… just as fucking helpless,” he takes another bite of his steak, teeth scraping against the fork.

Quackity has no idea how to respond to that; cruel insults he wants to retort to, he wants to get angry, but he has bigger concerns at present, largely for Karl.  It sounds like Schlatt is buying it, but Quackity is still waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Schlatt hasn’t gotten mean like that in a while, that targeted, that petty, at least not toward him.  So Quackity says nothing, he’ll wait for Schlatt to continue.  There’s a lump in the back of his throat, and he feels cold sweat begin to chill his skin.  Alarm bells are going off in the back of his mind, but that warning doesn’t show him the way out.

Schlatt laughs, and Quackity almost jumps.  Schlatt gestures with his fork, looking up at the ceiling, as if lost in thought.  “Although, huh.  Embarrassing or not, in what fucking world do you get to lie to me?” Schlatt leans forward, fist hitting the dining table so the dishes clatter sharply and Quackity does jump.

“Hey, I said I was sorry!  It’s– It’s not gonna happen again, it-it hasn’t happened again,” Quackity’s nails are digging into his palms, anything to keep his composure.  “I’ve– I’ve quit the card games for good, y’know?”

Schlatt points at him accusingly with his steak knife.  “You don’t get to go fucking sleep around behind my back and get away with it with some bullshit excuse about you having a fucking gambling problem,” Schlatt sneers.

Schlatt is not buying it.  Fuck, fuck, fuck he isn’t buying it.

What else is Quackity meant to do but dig his heels in?

“Do I look fucking suicidal to you?!  In what fucking world would I be sleeping around behind your back, huh?  I’m here almost every goddamn night!” Quackity laughs, voice high and sharp.  “When I’m not running myself into the ground in that goddamn office!  You don’t have a shred of fucking proof, and I know that for a fact because there isn’t any, because it isn’t fucking happening.”   A pause which unsettles Quackity further.  He’d expected Schlatt to shout back.  He’d hoped he would shout back.  That would have at least had some predictability with it.

Schlatt raises his eyebrows, now fiddling with the steak knife between his hands.  “Huh… suicidal, big word there, pumpkin… big word…” Schlatt seems to be mulling something over.  He glances down at his plate, and Quackity makes the mistake of glancing down too, at the blood pooled there.  Maybe it was a good thing, because he sees Schlatt throw the plate at his head and has the good sense to get out of the fucking way.

It still grazes his cheek, definitely enough to bruise, damn near enough to knock him unconscious from how his teeth clatter together and his vision goes white from the sharp, sudden pain.  He hears it shatter against the wall behind him and refocuses on Schlatt now circling the table toward him.  Quackity scrambles out of his seat.

“Schlatt, Schlatt come on–” Quackity isn’t sure where he’s planning on fucking running to.  Then he sees the steak knife still in Schlatt’s fist.  “Schlatt, wait!” Quackity screams, holding his chair between himself and the knife.

“All I asked for was some fucking honesty, Quackity!  I already know what you’ve been up to, so, only thing downright suicidal, is you thinking you can continue to fucking lie to me!” Schlatt yanks the chair aside and slashes wildly with the knife in Quackity’s direction.  Quackity throws himself back, barely catching himself against the wall, one hand raised to try and shield his face from the knife, but all Schlatt has done is backed him into a corner.

“I’m not!  I’m not!” Quackity’s face hurts as he pleads, a bitter ache deepening in his cheek and he almost wants to close his eyes.  It doesn’t make any fucking sense.  Schlatt shouldn’t know shit.  If he does, Quackity knows confessing won’t save Karl, so all he can do is hold on while this man finally kills him.

Quackity braces himself, backed against the wall, as Schlatt presses the blade of the knife against his stomach, inches away from spilling organs.  Quackity tries to recede even deeper within himself.  “Honesty is the only way out for you, sweetheart, like… like going to confession!  Right?” Schlatt presses the knife closer and Quackity holds his breath.  Schlatt pulls away, still raising the knife, as if debating stabbing Quackity in the fucking neck, but instead he keeps talking, his eerie smile doing nothing to disguise rage.

“So why don’t you say it?  You’re a shit liar and a pathetic fucking whore, so say it,” Schlatt snarls, raising the knife, and Quackity shuts his eyes.

“Fine!  F-Fine–” Quackity laughs, hysterics blending into terror.  “If you don’t fucking believe me, do it then!  Do it!  I-If you really think I– I did that, if you really think that’s worth losing me forever, then fucking do it.  Do it!”

Nothing happens.  Quackity is not gutted by a dirty knife, he’s still alive.  Quackity opens his eyes.

Schlatt has stopped.  He’d lowered the steak knife.  Quackity flinches when Schlatt reaches toward him, just as tense when he feels Schlatt run a hand through his hair, wrapping his other arm around him, pulling him closer, hugging him tightly even as Quackity raises his arms to try and keep a few more inches between them.  The tension extends, a few seconds passing in agonizing silence, and Quackity waits for Schlatt to snap his neck.  Schlatt kisses the top of his head, exhaling a laugh.  “Good.  Had me a little worried there, honeybun.  Good, I’m glad that’s the case, Quackity.  Worried I was… I was gonna have to Rosemary Kennedy your ass or somethin’,” he laughs.  “Classier than keeping you on a leash, eh?”

Quackity doesn’t move, barely daring to breathe.  He’s shivering, but he certainly doesn’t feel cold, Schlatt’s presence hot and stifling.  Schlatt’s grip loosens and Quackity starts to lean away but Schlatt doesn’t let him get very far.

“Hey,” Schlatt says softly, a hand under Quackity’s chin, forcing him to look up at him.  Quackity knows he’s whimpering, shaking like a fucking leaf, but he doesn’t have the strength left for shame as he looks up at Schlatt and waits for pain.  “You know how this goes, you don’t gotta act so shocked,” Schlatt is patronizing, and dauntingly tender, words soft and crooning.  “You try to leave me, I get even a whiff of you thinking you can jump ship, I’ll..?” He waits.

Lobotomize me?  Bash my fucking face in until I’m so ugly no one else could want me?  Quackity’s head is spinning, he can’t decide if the danger is passed or not.  He thinks he might throw up even though that is the worst thing he could fucking do right now.

“Quackity?” Schlatt tuts him.  “Come on, I know you know the answer to this one, we’ve been over this.  Hell, there are multiple right answers!  I know you can do it, sugarplum.”

He swallows back bile, he balls his hands into fists and tenses his whole body to try and stave off the trembling.  He manages to speak, but not when he’s looking at Schlatt.  He has to look away.  Quackity goes with the old staple.  “You’ll… you’ll chain me to the radiator,” Quackity says numbly, staring at the ground, his voice coming out far steadier than he might’ve imagined.  “Keep me there until I remember my place.”  It’s not just fear fueling the buckets of adrenaline now dumped into his veins, it’s rage too.  Rage is no good to him.

“Oh! That’s a good one, didn’t even think about that,” Schlatt pats his cheek none too gently, ignoring the way Quackity flinches.  “You know I don’t want things to be this way, don’t you?” Schlatt still has a hand tangled in Quackity’s hair, forcing him to look him in the eye.  “You gotta realize that.”

“What way?” Quackity says, that soft mixture of rage and fear still useless to him.

Schlatt seems to debate over his answer, and the one he chooses unsettles Quackity more than a little.  “I can be soft, baby,” Schlatt murmurs.  “You know I can be,” that hand running through his hair, not tugging at tangles, but not quite gentle, “it just… it just gets a little hard to be that way when you fucking lie to me.”

“I mean, if this is how you react, can you fucking blame me?” Quackity says, hoarse and sharp, stunned at his own daring, but Schlatt doesn’t hold onto Quackity’s throat, he doesn’t slam his head back against the wall, he just laughs, almost teasing.

“Maybe we’ll both learn a thing or two from this.  I mean, I would’ve preferred if you hadn’t fucked up in the first place, but next time, eh?  Next time, we’ll both do better, right?” Schlatt waits for an answer.  “Right?”

“Right,” Quackity forces the words out like pulling teeth.

“You doing okay, baby?  Does… does all this make sense?” Schlatt refuses to step back, not until Quackity is the one to reassure him.

“Yes.”  At this point Quackity will do whatever it takes to get Schlatt to let go and back off.

“Good,” Schlatt kisses his forehead.  “Sorry about the mess, honeybun.  You know I’d rather play nice.”

Schlatt finally lets go of him, he pulls away to cough harshly into his sleeve.  “Fuck… come on, sit back down,” Schlatt supports his own weight against the dining table, apparently attacking him has taken a lot out of him, but he makes his way back to his seat, gesturing with the steak knife back at Quackity’s place.  “Eat.”

Quackity, still shaky, still pissed off, still undeniably scared out of his mind, sits back down across from him.  He wipes his cheek when he feels a drop trailing down it, thinking he broke down enough to cry, but his hand comes away smeared with blood instead.  Quackity is convinced, had he confessed to any extent, he would be dead on the ground right now with a steak knife in his gut.  Well, that’s not quite true.  He’d be dying on the ground right now, nice and slow.

Schlatt has already ruined his own plate by throwing it at Quackity’s head, but he remains seated at the dining table, watching him.  “Go on, fucking eat.  What, how much clearer can I be?  Finish your fucking food.  Christ, it’s like you’ve got an eating disorder or something.”

Quackity isn’t used to Schlatt encouraging him to eat, especially after a bout of adrenaline.  The thought of taking another bite of this stupid bloody steak, always too raw, always cooked to Schlatt’s liking, leaves him with the taste of bile rising in the back of his throat.  He does it anyway.  He cuts off a piece with his own steak knife, and he pretends he can’t see his hands still trembling.  He does not look up at Schlatt watching him, he chews and ignores the taste of iron from biting his own tongue and he ignores the feeling of something caught in his throat.  Inexplicably, Quackity thinks of an old story from his brief stint in a hyper-religious foster home run by some old nun, where Quackity had been taught about God and Quackity had naively believed there might be someone out there who gave a shit about him.  He thinks of Adam and Eve, of Adam forever stuck with an apple caught in his throat because the person he got his ribs ripped out for told him to eat.

Quackity takes another bite.

[mamamittens]

You know, June is a really strange time for me.

As part of pride month, it kinda makes me reflect on my own very weird journey about my own sexuality and identity. Even now, I'm not entirely sure I have it all figured out. I just kinda ended up sliding in pieces that make the most sense.

Pieces I didn't even pick up until way later than most of my peers, though I know it's not nearly as late as many others.

I literally didn't even consider my sexuality until college as part of a preparation for possibly talking to a guy about if I was interested like I suspected he was. He was and I very much was not. Literally didn't occur to me that it was odd I'd never initiated romance or had crushes before that point. I mean, I had one. In kindergarten with my then best friend because I thought he was cute and funny.

I still remember him fondly but we didn't talk after first grade lol, so that didn't go anywhere.

Then there was the introspection and research as I realized my experience wasn't normal but also was? Like, demi sexuality isn't the norm by any means, but it's hardly crazy. Some part of me was always this way, just compounded by my asocial nature in such a way it literally never came up until one dude on the verge of taking the red pill tried smoozing me for two whole months.

And I didn't realize until near the end of that time. I just liked talking to someone new. It was nice.

Bullet dodged, he was convicted with DV charges a few years after, yikes.

Then again, summer tends to be when I do the most introspection.

Had an ongoing panic attack for June and July a few years back, which was... Something.

Realized I was very likely autistic about two years ago now, like, RAD-S score of 163 kinda likely lmao (thanks for not telling me you opted to not get me tested, mom, I appreciate the sentiment but damn would I have approached certain things differently if I knew from the start my baseline wasn't the norm).

I've come a long way from the little girl on the swings who liked the boy she considered her best friend for maybe a month. The very lost but well intentioned young college student baffled by the void of interest compared to her peers. Someone more comfortable associating with an alien avatar cause my body didn't feel right in a way I couldn't explain. It's mine, I've grown in it for so long, but I hated so much of it. It took so long to appreciate what I have. To really look in the mirror and think "that's me. It's me. Despite everything... It's still me".

I'm still not sure how much I identify with feminine aspects. I feel "female" simply because that's what I've got. And I do think I'd be a bit thrown if I suddenly was physically male (dicks sound like more trouble than they're worth, honestly). I don't think I'd hate it beyond inconveniences though.

It's just so... Casual for me? Not serious? Apathetic. If you called me sir irl I'd laugh cause it's hard to not notice my tits, but I wouldn't be offended.

As for sexuality... I like the idea of romance. Of a partner. But I've never hung my hat on an ideal partner, really. Partly because for the longest time I could never imagine anyone wanting me like that. Why would they? I'm not hideous but I'm hardly worth the trouble in any aspect. Better fish out there and all that.

Just a weird little alien looking at the stars.

But I'm working on that.

Still tooling the words to describe what it's like being "me".

It's not been smooth, this journey. I've felt silly, and stupid, and unwanted. I've hated my reflection and the numbers on a scale. Wondered what I was missing that others had and let them experience all these crucial steps to growing up.

Sometimes I still do.

But I've begun to settle in my skin like I never could before. Even the ugly parts.

Pride months is a time to celebrate and reflect on the LGBTQ+

The people, the struggles, the victories.

I'm ill prepared to do an event at this time, but I hope that you all take a moment to appreciate how far into your own journeys you are. And I hope that you all find peace in your reflections and names and labels (should you use them, change them, or even come back to them after a time), no matter how different they are from the start.

The only one who can decide what you are, what kind of person you are, is yourself. You're the one who will have to wear and walk in those shoes.

And I hope you travel far in them, and see many beautiful, wonderful things.

"...It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul."

William Ernest Henley, "Invictus", 1888

[juszar2]

When I say I get Sick.... At the thought and there is no going back. I just may have seen indescribable lowliness, depravity and sick.

Because I know that people are detrimental and I have made herculean efforts to avoid any Judas types or just any low. I literally gave it my life effort. This person was supposed to ensure that no sickos could get anywhere near, just like I did when I defended him up against those three men, his enemy came to tear his ass up... and two of his friends when I was pregnant..especially if I was gonna be having his children. I do not mingle nor associate with low or anything like it Ever. Yes, there would always be the chance of sick following my life in some way and always schemes and treachery, but to see anyone near my life as boundaried and sheltered it is, to see anyone be unmasked is way too much, it's a lot I must say.

The same stalker sick low enemies from childhood that I don't even care to see in passing as an adult, now found to be homosexual and still low, turned out even lower deploying the exact same schemes and using it on those around me. Pursuing me like a car chase or something... Instead of the little girls-it is trying to persuade, it is now adults these days. It's the Exact same script too. At almost fucking 50. I'd say that qualifies as Severe Obsession... The homosexual wants to know how long my natural hair is now, I've worn it for years and I guess it wants to know... How long now? Jealous little girls do this... And this homosexual had. It is a measuring stick for them to gage your beauty. They want to measure to see what you have that they don't. They do this when they are already aggrieved at the deficit. This one has pined for 30 years over me and it has got to know what the measures are! Urgently! Meanwhile if I shaved my head and wore it that way, beauty! If I close my eyes and you can't see my eye colored Still, Beauty!!! It's usually....Are my eyes fake? The homosexual is likely pretty settled on that inquiry by now -very real...after years of asking, seeking. What does her body look like? 3 kids, zero correction and STILL! Busty petite and "a whole lot of Texas" is what I've been told and " a Goddess" per the toilet for 30 years. What is her sexual history (counted ALL on one One Single Hand with fingers left! And I'm 47. This homosexual would need all of its special needs fingers, hooves, and the fingers and toes of so many others to count those male, female, (maybe animals) that it has been with since yes, middle school if not Elementary. Now it asked the weakest trashiest low if I'd ever had encounters with females over the years since 7the grade where this homosexual became obsessed with me. It asks what my relationships are like? Who has familial or friendly relationships with me (this is testing the waters to see how weak and if it can use it's regular programming of sowing division and sowing discord, to get close and wipe it's feet and ass using any. Satan is good at this.

It gets furious when it encountered those "bragging on" me and it publicly ruminated in posts... When I didn't know it was Single White Female-ing me. I'm also sure it asked about my children that I had with Weak and Trashy lowlife bitchable personified. I am certain of that. Jesus....(each time I want to throw the baby out with the bath water and tear up the tub in spectacular fashion I call on Jesus. Because he knows well about-Judas and Peter, and I ask him to go to his father for me and keep this vessel on track -If - that's his will and he certainly Told Me it had been his will- I'll digress right there). It is really remarkable the stupidity and weakness... And liability. I really needed to relocate right after high school and with no weak, trashy or Judas near me. It is like Satan sent him and then followed and its the door to Rot. An open door to those low kind that like to draw an audience and get some "shine" and even the language I cannot be OK with. I Never and I mean never want to be considered by the element. Do not even consider me. If anyone near was even acquainted with the low element I would not let that person in my life, if I knew it was even possible. This is just common sense and understood. The ignorance and low level... I just wow. So to see this Judas situation is sick. I'd like warning to pick and choose who would even see my face or anything of me. I would always want to be very discriminant where trashy is concerned. That is a problem waiting to happen, and not my brand.

[dirtytransmasc]

Vance Hopper HC's part 2

part 1 here

he's not quick to trust, but once he does, he shows it by leaving his back towards you, relaxing with his eyes closed, leaving his resources* out around you. that's how he's learned to read trust in animals and his lack of social understanding has lead to some animalistic traits

* he has bad resource guarding, like it's one of the things he is most aggressive about. it's mostly with food and people, but also the pinball machine and a few personal items. he doesn't like people near his room or his body (there are multiple reasons for this, resource guarding is just one of them) he is possessive over the boys and even if he tries not to, he gets snappy when people he doesn't know are around them. (I don't want this interpreted as the type of possessiveness associated with abusive relationships. I honestly don't know if nuerotypical people experience [not limiting or gatekeeping, I've just never met an NT person who understood this feeling] but it's the type of possessiveness you feel when your scared of losing something. it isn't a greed type control thing, it's a fear of abandonment/loss/sudden change type control thing. I only say this cause I see a lot of people trying to HC him as possessive and abusive)

He gets really bad nightmares, most of the time he doesn't even remember them, just wakes up terrified, covered in sweat, sobbing with no recollection of what triggered him.

robin watches his back when he falls asleep or has a shutdown anywhere other than home. it's something that just sorta started happening, but Robin takes his job insanely seriously, making sure he never breaks Vance's trust.

part of the reason he likes pinball so much is because of the sounds

he's super good at math, like he can do that shit in his head, but panics under pressure/time constraints which is why he would normally flunk all of his tests. he also has some memory and time management issues, so homework was always hard to remember. he was never dumb, he wasn't held back because he couldn't do it, he just couldn't do it the way they wanted him to.

he's actually wicked smart, when given the proper accommodations (at home, since y'know it was the 70s, and non disabled people hated us disabled people with a passion) he was genius, and he actually loves reading and writing, loves when the boys give him complex math problems to work through.

I cannot specify how much I think this boy loves to read. it's becoming an all consuming thought. I know he would eat up a pile of books in a month, and he would remember it so vividly, talking to the boys about it non stop until he decided to read it again. When he got tired of that he taught himself how to type so he could write his own. especially if he were to be formally diagnosed with dyslexia, he would do it all out of spite just to prove that even with a learning disability he could be as good as anyone else. he just needs to do it his way at his own pace. (the gifted kid that never got accommodated in me is crying, I just want my boy to be happy)

he hates bugs, but, eventually Griffin will win him over bug by bug. and slowly he has gone from wanting to burn every spider he sees to being spider neutral, a more 'you stay over there and I'll stay over here' type approach. and he won't let people kill them anymore, hell carefully take it out side. and if the other boys aren't looking and Griffin is offering one for him to hold, he'll allow it to crawl on his hand till he physically can't take it anymore and Griffin has to take it back. he's getting there.

he loves honey bees though, Griffin told him how friendly they are when you're friendly and now they're very chill (imagine him just chilling with honey bees, just like holding one, or sitting in a flower field just kinda watching them)

can't really do movies, but will put up with it for a chance to lay on the couch with all the boys.

terrified of the doctor, hates it with a passion, but not even the 'toughs it through any sickness, ops to do what he can at home' way, like he hates being sick, he's not the home surgery type. he just needs someone to hold his hand, and to talk to the doctor for him. also needles of any kind can get fucked.

he doesn't get sick often, but when he does he gets it bad, really really bad. he has to be hospitalized like once or twice a year cause since he gets something it either spreads through his whole body (a throat infection turns into pneumonia, an ear infection, and a sinus infection) or it just hits him like a freight train and lingers (stomach bugs lasting nearly a weak and getting him so dehydrated he's convinced he's dying).

he can cook, his mama taught him well. he has a handwritten copy of her cook book he spent days on.

he is such a Mama's boy, and he specifically calls her mama.

his handwriting shifts between what I call faux cursive (all the letters are connected and kinda curvey and twirly, but it's not cursive) and chicken scratch, depends on the day.

I can't decide if he's a bass or guitar guy, but I know that he has to be at least slightly supervised when he plays because he will play until his fingers are raw. Finney found him with blood all down his arm because he was just having a really bad day. he hates playing with a pick so his fingers are always at the mercy of his strings.

he knows how to play the drums, and they're his second choice.

is a surprisingly good driver, he just gets really bad road rage. he's pretty level on the gas, definitely going above the speed limit but in a safe controlled manner.

definitely becomes more and more of a teenage dirt bag as he gets older, if it weren't for his hair and reputation he would float in the back. any and all party surfing is against his will.

definitely drags kids out of parties they shouldn't be at, telling them they'll thank him later. he's good at reading a party in a second, knowing who is and isn't safe there and immediately getting them out.

he loves to be out in the sun, but doesn't like the heat, so he's a late spring early fall boy. the summer gets too hot sometimes. he hates the cold though, so winters are rough for him.

[cellophaine]

Scarred Skins

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Reader

Word Count: 1958

Warnings: Injuries, death (or near death) of one character, angst.

Author's Note: Disclaimer - I'm not familiar with soulmate trope at all. I don't read, nor have I ever written this trope, so I'm not sure if I got this right. Please comment if you think something could be improved! I hope you will enjoy this nevertheless!

I'm early this time aha.

As always, any likes, comments, reblogs, feedbacks and ask submissions are greatly appreciated :)

Prompt requested by: @psychedelic-star <3

------

Even the gentle, calming music in this coffee shop could not help calm your nerves. You looked through your resume and cover letter once more, making sure everything was there. You sighed as your eyes settled on your work experience. The section was smaller than the $7 piece of tiramisu you ate earlier to silent your empty stomach. You didn't want to go in there and embarrass yourself in front of your potential employers with the thundering sound emitting from your belly, in case the three lines of experience hadn't done the job already. Being fresh out of law school was not your fault. At least the guy who you talked to on the phone was very eager to meet you. He asked you to come to their office for an interview with him and his associate. At this point, that would be all you need.

Sipping on your cup of tea, you let your mind wander. Anywhere, anything but the interview. Your eyes drifted to your right hand, staring at the tiny white scar that was close to your thumb. It resulted from a biking accident that happened when you were younger, along with the small patch of uneven skin on your right side. There were broken bones too, but they healed. The scar and rough skin, however, stayed. You wondered how they would look like on your 'the other person'. You wondered if they were close.

Your phone chimed, pulling you out of your thoughts. You rushed to get your papers back in your bag and made your way to the meeting.

Nelson and Murdock. Here it was. Lining along the wall outside stood several people, talking among themselves. They didn't look like they were there for an interview based on their attires. Knocking on the door, you straightened your clothes, smoothing your clammy hands over your trousers. A guy with long hair opened the door, saying your name for confirmation at the same time you said his.

"Franklin Nelson?"

He nodded enthusiastically.

"The one and only. You can call me Foggy."

He ushered you in, closing the door behind him. You looked around the quaint space, at the empty desk before you.

"This is the place, in all its glory. Would you like coffee, tea, anything?"

You shook your head, offering him a friendly smile.

"I'm quite alright. Thank you for the offer."

"Then we can get started. Right this way."

You walked in what you assumed was a conference room, with another man sitting at the desk, fixing his tie. He stood up at the sound of Foggy announcing your arrival. He stood up, extended a hand for you to shake. You always looked into people's eyes when you shook their hands, and even though there was no point in doing that in this situation with the man's red glasses in the way, you did it anyway. His hand was big and warm, and you couldn't help but blush a little at the bright smile he gave you.

"Matt Murdock."

His voice was just as warm as his hand; each consonant seemed to linger in your head, sending a pleasant chill down your spine. You sat down, putting your bag at your feet.

Foggy was the first to speak.

"I have to be honest. When I put that job posting up, I didn't expect anyone to respond to it. And I was right; there were only three people who replied to it, you included. But my associate here was being optimistic, which wasn't like him at all. So, here we are."

Matt intervened, a soft smile pulled at the corner of his lips.

"I think what my friend would like to know is why do you want to work for us?"

You cleared your throat.

"I followed your cases, especially one made against Wilson Fisk, even though your firm had a considerable disadvantage in financial and human resources. As cheesy as it sounds, I want to do good things and help people who need it the most. Which is exactly what both of you are doing here."

Foggy looked satisfied with your answer, while Matt seemed impassive, or … displease? You couldn't tell. You pulled out the folder in your bag, flipping it open to get your files.

"Here is my resume. One for Mr. Nelson."

You put the printed copy in front of Foggy and a Braille one in front of …

"… Mr. Mudock."

"You have a Braille printer?"

The amusement in his voice was unmistakable.

"No, I don't. I have it printed off from a person on the Facebook marketplace. I hope it's my actual resume on there and not gibberish, or worse, something like 'eat my ass'."

As soon as the words left your mouth, you sealed your lips shut, horrified by your crass mouth. You thought you were doomed until a wholeheartedly chuckle escaped Matt's lips. Foggy snickered, too. Matt ran his fingers on the document, giving you a lopsided grin.

"I can assure you these are correct information. You came prepared."

"Yes, I did. This is an example of why I can be of good use to your firm. I'm always prepared, and I have a keen attention for little details, which makes me an excellent paralegal, despite my lack of experience."

Foggy looked over your resume, nodding.

"Everyone has to start somewhere."

Matt laced his hands on the desk.

"We have to be upfront. We can't pay you much. We're struggling ourselves, that's why I was surprised to see anyone reply to our ad at all. However, we are in desperate need of a paralegal because we have a long list of clients."

You nodded.

"I understand. I would love to work for your firm, gaining experience and getting paid however you can afford."

"That's good to know. I want to discuss this with my associate, if you don't mind?"

They walked out of the room, leaving you in the room. You tapped nervously on the desk, tuning in the sound of the air conditioning running. They came back several moments later, with Foggy looking bright with a broad smile on his face. You stood up, your heart pounding in your chest.

"Welcome on board!"

Foggy extended a hand for you to shake. Matt encased your hand in his, and you could see a flash of a white line on his right hand.

"Please, call me Matt—"

— just as a woman burst into the office, clearly in distress. Foggy looked at you pointedly, and the look implored for help.

"Can you start right now?"

A few months had passed since you started working for Nelson and Murdock. In the days, you fell into an effortless flow with your employers. They considered you their friends, and you had never been treated anything less than that. You were their companion on court days and nights after work at Josie's.

Your inner self was probably shaking their head at your oh-so-predictable attraction to Matt. You couldn't do anything but bow your head in acceptance. You couldn't help it. Matt had a way of pulling people to him, even without his knowledge. So you let yourself indulge in this little crush, thinking as soon as he didn't know, it would be fine.

Your attraction to Matt felt natural. Way too natural. It felt like slipping in an old habit, like putting on a cozy cardigan on a cold day, curling up with your favourite book. You took your time because you had nothing to rush to, with nowhere to go, which made you think about your 'other half'.

At nights, you could feel the pull of your muscles; sometimes, it was barely noticeable. Other times, it woke you up in the middle of the night, sweating, with your heart racing. You would see the mark of scars and bruises on your body the following day. Your skin had become a canvas adorned with white lines. The white patches of bruises never stayed long enough. But the scars were always there.

Tonight was one of those nights. The sharp tug on your skin was too much, and you couldn't go back to sleep. Standing in front of the mirror, you watched as a jagged scar appeared in front of your eyes, spreading itself along your left rib cage, then stopped. You blew out a relieved breath. It didn't look too bad, compared to the other two on your chest. They were close to your collarbones, one slightly higher than the other. There were even more white marks blossoming across your body. You couldn't help but wince, for you only felt a tiny fraction of the pain. You couldn't imagine how it would be for them on the other side.

'Who are you? What have you done?'

You went to work the morning after, sitting at your desk, fact-checking all the critical data for the case due next week. Then, all of a sudden, a dull pain abruptly surfaced at your left side, causing you to gasp in shock. Foggy immediately put down the folder in his hands.

"Are you okay?"

"Yea, I'm fine. Just a little cramp."

You rubbed your hand over the spot to help relieve the ache. You didn't see how Matt grimaced in the other room, putting his hand against his abdomen, at the place where the stitches from the night before had pulled themselves free. The blood was now soaked through his shirt, dampening the thin material. And Matt pulled his suit jacket close to cover it up.

Days went by with new bruises and occasionally wound scars. They didn't bother you at this point. Still, you couldn't help but worry. And hope. What else could you do?

One day, Matt didn't show up at the office, and Foggy seemed exceptionally fidgeting. You two went to his apartment and knocked on his door. No one answered. Foggy quickly led you up to the roof, where you found Matt lying motionless in a red suit. From that moment on, everything seemed to be a blur, of motions, of scrambled thoughts with anxiety. All of your logical thoughts flew off the building as you helped carry Matt inside. The fact that he was the Devil's of Hell's Kitchen still tangled up with the throbbing pain on your belly, but you couldn't afford to get distracted now.

You helped him out of the suit, stripping him down to his boxer briefs, while Foggy made a call to Claire. You put a blanket over his lower half, your eyes fleeted over his skin. Red, purple, white. The colours stood out on his pale skin. They looked painful and … familiar. You traced your hand over the scars on his chest, on his left side, and what looked like a print of jagged lines on the other side. You pulled your shirt up just enough to see the uneven patch of your own scarred flesh. They looked identical, just like all the other marks on his body and yours.

You couldn't think straight anymore. Was this fate? Or some kind of sick joke?

You knew what you would find there, yet you lifted his right hand anyway, angling it where a white line showed, and put yours next to it. It was a perfect match. You pulled Matt's head onto your lap, caressing his face, listening to the jagged rhythm of his breathing. You felt a violent tug at your heart as Matt's life force was being drained right in front of your eyes with each dip and rise of his chest. Even though you had never sought comfort in prayers, you found yourself calling on an unknown force, praying for the life of your soulmate that you only knew now.

"Please be okay."

[zooptseyt]

מיר וועלן זיי איבערלבן

We will outlive them

This year I had one of the greatest honors of my professional career, and frankly a high point in my life in general, in being asked to present to sophomore English classes about Jews and Judaism as part of their unit on the book Night. I made a point of talking very little on the Holocaust itself. Instead I divided it into three main sections: (1) Jewish practice, culture, and belief; (2) Ashkenazi Jewish history pre-Holocaust, with special focus on Jew hatred; (3) what we should take away from the lessons of the Holocaust today.

In this last part, I explained how the Nazis' hatred was aimed at many aspects of society—foreigners, LGBTQ+ people, leftists—and that Jews were hated both for being Jews and for being associated with these groups.

Because of this especially, I spent the weeks in which I presented waiting anxiously, worried that I might get an email or a phone call letting me know a parent or student complained. Fortunately, this didn't happen. I wish that made me feel more like the fear was misguided.

I have faced, in some form or another, antisemitism at every job I have worked (other than Baskin Robbins, credit where it's due). I have had a coworker at Jimmy John's lecture me on how the Holocaust is a myth and Jews run the world and, upon me letting management know this, they promised to move us to different shifts. That was all. No disciplinary action.

Before that, Menards was the first time I got called a kike. Had another guy complain about what I was doing in Israel (to clarify, I have done nothing in Israel, as I have never set foot anywhere near it). Had a coworker who, in a moment of being overly familiar, called me "you fucking jew" the literal first time he met me (we did not become close and I don't believe I ever learned his name). Had others, upon learning I was Jewish, compliment me for looking normal, and not having an ugly nose.

The students are mostly great. I have heard some students murmur things about Jews upon seeing me enter the classroom, but only once. I accept the possibility that comments happen behind my back. I had one student start chanting "Jew" at me directly when we went over a story about a kid making a bunch of money through their wise business decisions. When I shot him a look and told him to stop, he looked genuinely upset to see I was mad. That stuck with me. He was a nice boy who very clearly liked me a lot, and he thought chanting "Jew, Jew, Jew, Jew" at me as a joke about getting rich was fine. Oy.

Neither of those events took place during my presentations for Night. Aside from the usual few kids sleeping, they were all very respectful and engaged. I'm deeply grateful for this.

And yet I spent a month expecting to get called in. We as a nation have had two notable instances in the news where someone in authority said educators need to be fair to the Nazis. Thankfully, both instances were met with backlash. Maus just got pulled in Tennessee. People are regularly making comparisons between public health ordinances and being dehumanized, rounded up into camps, and murdered for being Jewish.

אוי.

I have become slightly more visibly Jewish lately. You could call me baal teshuvah, which I would, but this usually comes with the assumption of an orthodox affiliation (I am Reform). Part of this is because I believe firmly in my religion and want to act on it, but this was true for years before I was willing to wear a yarmulke out in public. At some point I realized that frankly the only reason I wasn't wearing a yarmulke was that I didn't want people to think I was weird. Without a yarmulke, even people who know I'm Jewish see me as a person first. With a yarmulke, I realized that even many of those who don't hate Jews will see my Jewishness first and then, hopefully, my humanity. At some point I realized two things: firstly, that I was happy with being seen as a Jew first. Secondly, that I want anyone who may hate me for being a Jew to hate me. I would rather be spit on for being a Jew than accepted under false pretenses.

But, as seems fitting, my religious baal teshuvah was part of a larger returning to Jewish culture. I've started cooking kasha varnishkes, (vegetarian) kishka, matzoh balls, latkes, kugel, baking challah, etc. I'm studying Yiddish on duolingo, reading Yiddish literature in translation, and so on. I'm not a perfect Jew, I am decidedly not good about Shabbos, but I light the candles. I try to daven. I do the holidays, big and small. I eat bagels.

A major part of this whole thing for me comes from the way Jews view time and history. It is said that every Jew should see themselves as leaving Egypt every day. It is said that every Jew was present at Sinai. We aren't merely to see ourselves as the descendents of our history, but active participants who feel these events as their personal experiences rather than historical.

I understood this conceptually, but only recently did I actually start to feel it, to actually really get it myself. I think this shapes how we look at the Holocaust, especially as we move closer to a point where there are no survivors left. It certainly shapes how I view it. The impact of the Holocaust has shaped in some form every Jew alive today.

I was reading just the other day a book that mentioned the idea that to dance at a Jewish wedding is to dance on Hitler's grave. We should view our lives as such, as acts of defiance, and as acts of triumph. We as Jews should live every day knowing that our moments of joy and safety are an act of triumph hard won.

As an educator, I obviously value education as a means of doing good. Education is vital to honoring the lives, history, and culture stolen from us by the Nazis. Obviously, educating on the Holocaust is important, and we must ensure we combat the decline in knowledge about what happened. But I think we should do more. Engaging today with that which they tried to destroy—our literature, our practices, Yiddish, our food—is a way to both honor and remember, and an act of triumph and defiance against those who wanted and want us dead.

To my fellow Jews, I have no interest in preaching how to be a Jew. Whether it's secular and atheistic or growing payos and studying Talmud, I just suggest passionately that you be a Jew with pride.

To everyone, Jewish or not, I would suggest studying Jewish history outside of the Holocaust, as told by Jews. Read Jewish literature that isn't about the Holocaust. Understand us as artists, poets, thinkers, families, as fully human, rather than a tragic moment.

A note I ended my presentations on was the humanity of others. It is so vital to truly realize that the person you hate most in life is as fully human as yourself. This isn't only necessary in remembering those lost in the Holocaust. It is also essential to how we view the Nazis. Every guard, every officer, was a human with a full inner life and friends. You may well have gotten along with some. It's easy for people to see themselves in the Jews—just ask an anti-vaxxer—but harder to be willing to recognize that same humanity in the Nazis, in Hitler. We must not see these people as mere historical monsters, for it creates a fiction that prevents us from honestly confronting what happened and ensuring we never let it happen again. Nazism was both deeply inhumane and unfortunately human. We cannot afford to dehumanize this enemy, as it creates a fictitious line between our present and our past. We must actively work to flush the faintest hint of the Nazism from each other, ourselves, and our society. We must actively confront hatred and violence, by the state and by individuals. It did not exist in a vacuum, killed by time. Confront hate when you see it in others. Confront yourself on the people you don't really see as people first. Maybe it's Muslims. Maybe it's prisoners. Maybe the homeless. Maybe it's Jews. Maybe it's Palestinians. Maybe illegal immigrants. Maybe the disabled. Maybe it's people you disagree with politically. Whoever it may be, recognize within yourself the potential to hate, and then act tirelessly to remove it. Empathy is an act of love and defiance.

Never Again.

[artstorieshusbandos]

Tale of Two Tragedies-Theo's route (Ikemen Vampire) **spoilers**

Tragedy #1 Exhibit A

I honestly half expected him to haul off and draw a masterpiece in the tavern notebook. Not because he's a Van Gogh but because there's almost no way someone with his appreciation for art , his eye for it and his hardcore determination wouldn't have managed to at least be drawing on the side for enjoyment.

This scene would have gone down a little differently if I had actually been in MC's place. MC, it seems, doesn't do art. I've been at least scribbling since I was a kid that figured out I could rub the paint off my toys onto the wall. I would not have noticed the notebook on the counter, but ever since we left the private gallery earlier I'd been dying to ask him if he'd ever done any art. I daydreamed about asking while I was waiting for my tickets to replenish Why?

This isn't the voice of someone who doesn't want to do art.

Usually when someone tells me they can't draw I find out one of 3 things. They either don't really want to draw or at least they have other things they'd much rather put their time into which is fair. They actually can draw but have fallen into the trap of undervaluing their own work which may or may not be a result of comparing their work to the work of others. Then there's the third crowd that has the desire to do it, puts in the time but can't get anywhere because they are trying to draw from their left brain.

What am I talking about? I'm sure you may have heard that our brains have two halves and that the left half is connected to logic, mathematics, language, symbolism, ect, and the right brain is associated with imagination, creativity, music, spatial relations, distances, ect. Most of us don't know how that actually relates to someone's ability to draw or paint. The truth is art is something all humans can do to some degree. How good you manage to get is one part the desire to do it, one part putting in the practice and one part how well you can get your left brain to give over control to the right brain.

Vincent and Theo are such wonderful examples of what I'm getting at here with the whole left brain/right brain thing. Vincent is right brain dominant and I know this not because he's a talented artist but because it's a fact that Vincent Van Gogh is left handed. Our dominant hands are opposite our dominant brains. Theo is clearly left brain dominant not only because we can see it in his organizational and business skills we can see how he's talking in the second image where he's trying to draw King. He's thinking about drawing fur and eyes and the components of the dog not the forms. The parts are all named and labeled....this is left brain thinking. Compare it to how he talks when he is observing paintings and pushing the technical aside to just let it speak to him. This is the mode he needs to be in to create but he's trying to attack it with his stronger mode which is his left brain mode. It doesn't matter how much you practice if you are practicing the wrong thing.

The other pitfall he's hit is comparing himself to Vincent. As an artist never ever ever ever compare yourself to anyone but the you from yesterday. There will always be someone "better" than you and "better" will always be subjective. Vincent got a head start being right brained. When his brain reaches for it's stronger side it's going to pull from the correct one automatically.

Maybe at this point you're wondering why I spent so much time analyzing a fictional character in this manner? Honestly it breaks my heart to see him like this and though I know he's fictional I also know there are many many Theo's in this world who have given up because they don't know what's holding them back or that it can be conquered. I wrote this for them.

If this is you and you'd like to see what you're truly capable of do this one really easy exercise. Find a picture of something you'd like to draw. Draw it as best you can. If all you can do is draw a stick then draw that stick. Then take that same image and flip it upside down and draw it again. The reason for doing this is to force the left brain to let the right brain work. The left brain doesn't like to work with anything it can't define and slap a label on. When you flip the image upside down it makes it so the left brain can't properly identify the subject. It has no choice but to shut up and let the right brain work. Compare your two drawings. I was astonished the first time I did this. I no longer have my original upright drawing from the first time I tried this technique but I do have the first drawing I ever did upside down. Here it is.

Granted I had been drawing for years upright already but if you need a point of reference as to where I was in my skill when I started training my left brain to sit down here's another drawing from the same year.

Quite a bit of technical difference.

If this exercise worked for you and you're interested in learning more about how to train your brain for better art this is the book that taught me.

I recommend this book to any artist that hasn't read it. It's been the biggest help I've ever gotten on my journey. I don't know if Amazon is the best place to get a copy or not I didn't price match I just put up the first link I came to so you might want to shop around.

Tragedy #2 Exhibit B

Here is one of the last pieces I completed.

It was done in 2012. That's right.....it's been damn near a decade since I've turned out a completed art piece. It would probably break Theo's heart even more to know that there are people out here like me that have talent and aren't using it while he would love to do it and can't seem to. In fact he'd probably dump my ass if we were actually dating before he found out. I felt guilty before but now it's guilt x 1000. Are any of you out there in the same boat as me? Anyone out there that managed to get out of the rut that might have some tips for me? Maybe I should take some requests? What would you all like to see me draw?

Also if you're interested in seeing more of my stuff my gallery is collecting dust here

Theo has everything he needs to be a great artist. He has the eye for aesthetics, he has the desire and commits himself to everything. In his time psychology is in it's infancy. He doesn't even know yet what he doesn't know. If I was wrong about this and he still couldn't draw after a few training sessions I guess I'd have to start making him paint by number kits. He can pick the subject and the colors I'll map out the design and we'll do it together.

[tsukidrama]

j anon ♡

the coolest mf on the planet sent me a review of my most favorite fic i've ever written. i ended up breaking it up for ease of reading as we both ramble more than usual (this is not an issue, you know how i love to talk)

links:

cold hands, cold heart part 2 [nsfw]

(and also part 1 too just in case)

i didn't want the ask to leave my inbox because i've been rereading this every day recently 🥺 you're amazing, can i just say that?

IM LITERALLY SOO GAYY FOR WRITING THAT QLDHEKSJ AND SO ARE YOU FOR THOSE BEIN UR FAVORITE PARTS IWLEUKJDS. seriously though, thank you!! i don't even know how to properly respond to this i just start kicking my little legs happily. the imagery rly is what pulls you into the story 😩 ngl i wrote this so that i would know what it felt like to be there with her in that moment but it's sooo endearing and sweet to hear other people's reactions to reading it, especially for the emotional aspects and not just the steamy bits. omg j, the experience of being understood 💕

oh damn yeah i see why you say that! it's the heavy visual imagery and the association with the moon, too. it makes me feel so 🥰 to know that somebody is out there and making connections between my different works 🥺 that's so personal and i love you so much for it holy shit.

and thank you for the validation too, i feel so seen!! exactly! all the details are essential to the plot and to the experience i'm describing, it literally could not have been shorter. hell, if anything, i could have made it longer.

NONO ITS NOT DUMB AT ALL OMFG THIS IS HONESTLY ONE OF MY FAVORITE COMMENTS YOUVE EVER MADE! LMAO I HAD TO GIVE IT IT'S OWN SPOTLIGHT WLKEJHWKDJF I AGREE SO HARD! in canon there is no way in hell that they'd have the time or care to make sure their pubes are shaved. i dont like when people give them hairless pussies, i know it's not that deep but i feel strongly about it qjsnemmddn

in my humble personal opinion, Annie would TOTALLY have a bush anyway. always, even in modern AUs. lmao she doesn't give a fuck, and anybody that would take issue with that just wouldn't get anywhere near her pussy to begin with! also pubes are sexy, i said what i said. it's like a welcome mat yknow? soft and inviting.... honey,, i'm home!

YEP THATS IT THATS THE FIC. that's the best way anyone has ever summed up the central point as well as "Annie opened up and gave herself to reader while still holding back deep down". yowch! my heart hurts.

hnmng... yeah. hehe. wouldn't you just die? every single time i reread that scene it still has the same effect of like, needing to hide and bury my face away lololol. why thank you! i do my best to try to do realistic smut in general, it makes me feel closer to them.

GIRL.... you're over here like "does this make sense???" and i'm over here shrieking and dancing because this is like,,, what i've always thought about the fic. nobody but one other friend and my literal wife has ever pointed out to me that they don't think the story is just about sex. like yeah obv they fuck so in that regard it is, but it's not about getting laid. it's about a genuine moment of connection between Annie and somebody who has a very pure love for her, even if it is to the point of naievity. especially if it's to the point of naievity.

they care about each other so much :') it takes a lot to make her cold heart melt (pun intended)... i guess i got you too! aHA caught you slippin ;))

thank you 🥺💕💕 like yeah it's just fanfic but it was also a character study, and my only way of giving a fictional character the love and gentleness that i feel she deserves 💕 I LOVE HER SOOO MUCCHHH 🥺😵

girl stoppp that's such a mood. you should see my drafts. recently i wrote the phrase "in the barn" three times all in the same sentence, it made me cackle. while writing I jus let the spirit flow thru me...... and then i edit like a madwoman to make sure that it's not chickenscratch gobbledygook because it often is at first. lmao i'm not always as well-spoken as people seem to think.

i think that the awkwardness is actually essential! especially since it's their first time. but like i was saying earlier about liking things to be realistic: when having sex, soemtimes you accidentally get trapped in an awkward angle, or slip and smack your partner in the face. it's messy and wet and sweet and funny, and my goal is for my writing to reflect that.

drljlakjdfh like a wwe match 😂 positions are important and worth describing in my opinion! i'm glad you don't think it's too much though, sometimes i worry that it is.

yesssssss kldjfhkaj thank you!!! for the millionth time thank you! hheheh i love the gentle and sweet talking during smut, it means everything to my soft heart. shockingly i haven't written more smut for Annie (it's because i loooooove her it's so EMBARRASSING actually! I used to be smut queen) but i swear to god just u wait until i post more and you see how consistent i am with reader doing things that she likes.... reader remembers.... and do i seem like the kind of person who is going leave my beloved princess and the queen of my LIFE unsatisfied??? i'd die first

I LOVED IT!! sorry i took a while to post my response though! i went back and forth between not wanting to publish it at all (literally i want it in my ask box forever i can never let go) and then being too overwhelmed by my feels to respond coherently akljfdhlasjd I just have a lot to say and so many feelings, I MISS YOU BTW

[ocdhuacheng]

I saw that post yesterday and it reminded me of that twt phase where you had these hardcore "canon" stans (yk, the ones who don't get ppl like anything outside of the main couple/romance and call switching bed dynamics "ooc" and "disrespectful to the author") making a big issue out of fans giving HC friends and I was ???? It was so bizarre 😭 I have never seen anyone make Mu Qing his friend, wtf (but denying that their dynamic can and should be explored is stupid; it's Fan content???). But He Xuan is literally implied? HC praises him in front of XL, makes a point about Qi Rong being awful cause even HX thinks so, he defends him (saying that HX didn't drag the sailors into the storm and also saying that he doubts/isn't sure if HX killed Ming Yi) and - the most important - he lied to XL for HX and kept his secret until the very end. I'm not sure how ppl see this and buy HC's nonchalance about their relationship (and considering that XL never sees them interact, it's no surprise that XL doesn't have a concrete grasp of their dynamic, especially since HC insists on being blasé about it). There's also Yin Yu whom HC seems to be fond of in his own way (always remember that when YY tried to dig XL out of the Heavenly Capital and they thought about rescuing others, HC warned YY against that because he might die; and the soul thing). And the whole Ghost City that quite obviously loves their Chengzu and I doubt they would if he were genuinely cruel and unjust to them. Outside of that, he does (begrudgingly? Obviously?) respect some other characters too - he has lived 800 years without XL (even if for him...), he has other ppl even if no one is anywhere near XL for him, obviously. We don't get his thoughts, so I guess it's hard for ppl to grasp things if they aren't spoon-fed every little detail.

[On a side note, maybe it's just me, but it’s a pet peeve of mine if fan content makes HX XL's friend and protective similar to FengQing. I love XL, but I also enjoyed that HX was one of the few characters who didn't give af about him in canon - and one of the only few associated with HC. But ppl are free to enjoy whatever!]

Re: mxtx. Wasn't there a post-script in which she admitted that in the past, she used to believe that you needed to have your own life outside of your romantic partner but changed those views with time and hualian is supposed to be this (fictional) all-compassing love yada, yada, yada. Honestly, I don't care much about what authors/creators have to say if the text doesn't support it (and even if, canon can be wrong :p). Though mxtx did HC dirty, no doubt about that :( Anyway, HC deserves his own friends and to be cared for and anyone who draws issues with this (like, wow, fans wanting their fav character to be treated right? Color me shocked) is a weirdo.

yeah all of this

and yeah the thing about people having to be spoonfed, like i said in my post that we never see hua cheng learn to value others as friends but that doesnt mean that it DOESNT happen. i just wish mxtx gave his perspective -_- I Would Like To See It. like people who say he doesnt actually give a shit about yin yu or he xuan outside of business are dumb as fuck. and i dont know why they are against him making friends, or love him being so dictatorial or whatever over yin yu. its so weird. (i want him to be friends with yushi huang especially, and shi qingxuan)

i dont remember that post script note bc i dont care about what mxtx has to say either lol but it really is so obvious she doesnt give a shit about hua cheng. if she did she would actually have given him development, and a backstory. what i wouldnt give for 1) hua cheng pov, and 2) for xie lian to talk to him about how hua cheng devalues himself/only lives for him. instead we got. whatever the fuck those extras were