#but i think at least i have parsed that the people looking over me are fiercely in my support

[maraeffect]

also, i recently asked my tarot deck about guardian angels and if i have any. and since then, i've been seeing 444 SO MUCH. over the past year or 2, i've noticed seeing 444 more than any other angel number. really seeing it almost exclusively. but! it's ramped up SO much lately. i really don't think it's a coincidence idk. literally as soon as i start digging deeper into spiritualism, death, and the afterlife...i start seeing little signs from the universe everywhere. it's odd.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Actually, I think this does link in with a wider conversation that I have been thinking for a while Tumblr maybe needs to hear.

There's a common meme on this site now that no one here has any reading comprehension skills. The best one is, of course, the original "No offense but reading comprehension on this site is piss poor/How dare you say we piss on the poor" post, which gave rise to the nickname "pissing-on-the-poor website". There's also the "I like pancakes/How dare you say waffles are terrible" one. Both of these are great, because they're silly jokey ways to show two closely related phenomena that are probably the commonest ways to fail a reading comprehension check.

The first is someone reading certain catchphrases or buzzwords in the post, and based on their own biases or prior experiences or whatever else, their brain simply fills in what it reckons the poster is saying on the topic. Instead of reading the rest of the sentence and digesting it, the reader then just uses their assumption as the interpretation, and reacts to that.

The second is closely related, because it also uses biases and prior experiences to to interpret the post, but rather than ignoring what the OP is actually saying, it instead performs a series of gymnastic leaps to construct a whole new assertion on the OP's behalf that simply isn't there.

There's also a third, of course; that one is people being so eager to feel smug and superior over someone they perceive as Bad that they wilfully assume the OP is stupid or being serious when they're actually joking. And if the reader hadn't been so blinded by their desire to get to look down on someone, they'd have seen the very obvious tells, sometimes even including sentences like "Obviously this is a joke." (I think we have all seen examples of these. Also, in a bid to avoid as many reading comprehension fails here as possible, this does not include misunderstandings borne entirely of neurodiverse struggles to parse intentions; but, neurodiverse people are just as likely as neurotypicals to have ego play a part in their misinterpretation of others, and that is what this point is about.)

And the thing is... actually, we are all capable of any of these. I imagine a sizable chunk of people reading until this point were probably thinking "Lol, yeah, people are so stupid," but na, nage, I'm not having that. Literally everyone does these sometimes. And it becomes a particular risk when the topic under discussion is something that might brush against an issue that is a pressure point for you, like a social justice talking point that you are forever having to argue with internet strangers about, for example. Your brain holds schemas! And sometimes it likes to pattern match things before it deigns to tell you about its findings! And that can hit you right in the emotions, which if they are strong enough, really can shut down all rational thought.

But. This brings me to the real point of the post.

Because the thing is, we have all saddled up and gone to war under these conditions, or at the very least been strongly tempted to. And a vital skill that literally everyone has to learn, sooner or later, is:

Before you hit 'reply', double check the post to make sure you fucking understood it.

And that does not mean "simply re-read, confirm your bias, carry on." It means, "Is it possible to read this post from the point of view of someone who doesn't intend it the way I've taken it? If I put myself in the shoes of an innocent, could they still have written these words? Is there another interpretation for these phrases?"

And you do have to do this step. You simply do have to. Because if your desire is to 'clap back' and call someone a gargling knobskin made of garbage, fuck me sideways but you must see that it is imperative that you check if they actually deserve that kind of treatment first. You cannot spend your time claiming that we must all choose to be kind and then not bother doing your due diligence before screaming a person's various and assorted bigotries at them. If you misread it, and they were innocent - you are the raging aggressive cunt in this situation.

It does not matter that you reacted from an emotional place of normally having to defend yourself either, by the way. Sure, that makes the quality of your human soul better than that of the average Redditor who just enjoys anonymously hurting people, I guess? But it's also irrelevant. If you messaged someone and called them a misogynist because you performed several mental somersaults and landed on your own sore spot when they meant no such thing, you are the attacker. You owe them an apology. And yeah, sure, you can explain your over-reaction as the product of your normal experiences if you like, but that is only an explanation, not an excuse. You are still the asshole here. You still need to apologise and mean it.

And you could have avoided it if you'd done that due diligence, as you should have. If you're going to take a swing, make sure it's the right target. This was once described to me as donkey people - they don't think, they just kick. This is admittedly a little unkind to donkeys, who always do their due diligence, but I feel it's an apt metaphor.

TL;DR: If you feel moved to angrily reply to something, first make sure you've interpreted it right. Don't be a donkey person. And if you ask for clarification, people are innocent until proven guilty. Ask nicely. If they are a bigot, you can then smelt them for parts.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Partners in Crime 1

Warnings: non/dubcon, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Lloyd Hansen, Lee Bodecker

Summary: you're left reeling after your divorce but the chaos has only begun. (short!reader)

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You hate the mall. Too bright. Too loud. Too fast. 

That day isn’t so bad. Tuesday, mid-morning. Most people are at work. Not you. Your part-time gig barely pays the bills, let alone keeps you busy. With that in mind, you shouldn’t be there to spend what little you have.  

It’s for a good cause. It’s your grandmother’s birthday next week and you owe her. After all she’s done, you owe much more than just a measly mall-bough gift but it’s all you can manage right now. One day it will be better. One day you will be able to pay her back. At least you keep telling yourself that. 

She paid for it all. Your way out, your lawyer, your apartment even. You can’t live in the senior’s community with her, that’s against the rules, but she parsed out some of her nest egg for the flat in the old brick building. For you. She’s the only one who ever did so much for you but what did you ever do for her? 

It’s not for lack of trying, only your own poor decisions. 

You enter the sparkling Swarovski store and keep your arms tight to your body, paranoid of breaking any of the numerous crystal pieces. You don’t know what she would like. It isn’t because you don’t know her well, you just don’t think she has much use for any of it. She’s always been painfully practical. That’s why you never wanted to ask her for help. 

An associate startles you as she appears beside you in her sleek black pantsuit. She offers help but you get the sense she’s checking in, making sure your hands aren’t sneaking into your pockets. You make sure to keep them visible and move your satchel across your back. You tell her you’re just looking and blow out between your dry lips. Maybe a hoodie wasn’t the best choice. 

It was meant to be a solution. You wanted to get out of your grandmother’s hair. How long had you been living with her? He was the answer to that. You thought so. You wanted to believe it. For ten years, you tried. He always spoiled it. 

Then she had to bail you out anyway. 

As you come to the sharp corner of a shelf, you’re startled by another customer. You hadn’t seen them when you came in or heard them. You glance at them fleetingly and turn your attention to the shelf of Mickey Mouse decorations. Definitely not those. 

“Excuse me, sweetheart,” the man frightens you again as he nears and presses his hand to your back. He sidles by, and you dodge away from him, coming dangerously close to colliding with the display of birthstone necklaces. 

You shake off the close brush and blink at the glass. You peek over at the man as he seems overly interested in a paper weight shaped like a dove. His mustache and sleek haircut make him look like he’s been plucked out of some gangster period piece.  

The associate shifts from one side of the counter to the other. She’s watching you. You sigh. She still thinks you’re a thief. You shake your head and leave. 

It’s not worth the trouble or the money. You can find something better. You know you could get your grandma a box of chocolates and a card and she’d say she’s happy. You don’t want to get her what works; you want to do something for someone. Something more than just be there. 

You go down to Hallmark. It’s a similar atmosphere with a hint of warmness and more range in price. Still too much Disney and not enough variety. Your grandmother doesn’t need a rustic crate or a door sign with some snarky saying about wine. 

You stop to look at cards. You can at least grab one of those. As you reach for one along the top row, another hand swipes it from your grasp. You back up and look at the culprit. It’s the same man as the Swarovski shop. Strange. 

You recoil and scurry down the aisle towards the door. Is he following you? It could be a coincidence. Two stores. If he’s looking for a gift too, it makes sense. 

You cross your arms and march quickly through the bright mall, the skylight glaring down at you. You walk in and out of a clothes shop. You don’t know where you’re going now. You’re frazzled. 

You find your way to the As Seen on TV shop and meander around without intent. You’re at a loss. You’ll just end up at the bookstore like always. Another book for her birthday. Wowee. 

She might like the salt rock light. You don’t know. Ugh. 

It isn’t the gift. It isn’t her. It’s you. You’re indecisive. You're lost. Even if it was misery, you miss having someone to tell you what to do. Now you have to think and you do too much of that. 

“Those are pretty cool,” a voice slices through your self-pity. 

It’s the same man. Your eyes meet as you look up to see him. You blanch and open and close your mouth. The shop is so small, how hadn’t you heard him? 

You retreat without a word. He must be following you. There’s no other explanation. What do you do? You can’t just lead him out of the mall, back to your building, but how can you divert him? 

You find a bench down the next aisle of the mall, somewhere the associates in the vitamin store can see you. You’re safe there with people around. You look up and down, searching for the man and his mustache. Just a mother with her stroller. 

You’re paranoid. Stupid, just like he said. It’s all in your head. You’re just fucked up. You don’t know how to live in this world. Not alone. 

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the timbre tickles up the back of your spine and you twist to see the figure behind you. It’s an officer in uniform. “Mind if I ask ya something?” 

You nod and blink. You don’t like the cops. You haven’t spoken to them since the night it all came crashing down. The flashing lights, the sirens, the questions. It’s all a haze yet it’s stamped into your psyche. 

“Yes, sir,” you stand. 

He’s got dark brown hair and bright blue eyes. His shoulders bear a slant of authority as he has his hands on his hips. He’s taller than you, but so is everyone. You look across the bench at him as his white shirt pokes out from under his leather jacket, his belly straining the fabric. 

“You don’t gotta trouble yerself,” he shows his palm and reaches with his other hand to his belt, “I’m lookin’ for someone and was wonderin’ if maybe ya saw him.” 

“Oh?” You crinkle your forehead. 

“Got a pic somewhere,” he frees his phone from the clip on his belt and flicks his thumb over the screen, “here we are.” 

He turns the cell toward you and you can’t help but make a face. The image is blurry but it’s definitely that same man. You look back the way you came and gulp. 

“Reckon by that, you’ve seen him,” the officer says. “Sheriff Bodecker,” he introduces as he retracts his hand, “I’m doing an investigation. Mind if I ask some more questions?" 

“Well, I... didn’t talk to him.” 

“That’s fine,” he peers down in the same direction you did. The infant in its stroller begins to yawl and his cheek ticks, “how about you come out to my cruiser and we’ll do it there? Less ruckus?” 

You purse your lips. You can’t really say no, he might think you know that guy, whoever he is, whatever he’s done. You shrug. You don’t have much to say. You’re sure it won’t be much of an interview. 

“Okay,” you agree.” 

[hillbillyoracle]

So you want to print and distribute a free zine...

I wanted to throw together a short tutorial on how I print zines using this excellent COVID safety zine by @newlevant as an example.

Printing

First make sure you are clicking on the printable file. When you open it, it should look slightly jumbled. I always look for seeing the front cover and the back cover on the same page.

Then click "print" (usually a printer icon) and open "more settings".

The key things people tend to get wrong when they try printing zines is they forget to make sure that it is double sided and flips on the short edge. If you tried printing one and it came out looking wonky, make sure to check this.

Also, it will make your life infinitely easier if you use the collate option should you have it available to you.

Fit to printable area is a helpful setting to have on if you're printing zines who use a different paper standard than you. This zine didn't for me but I leave this on out of habit.

When you've got this all set up - print as many copies as you want to assemble.

Assembling

When you get them out of the printer they'll look like this. Just a big old stack. I highly recommend parsing out each individual copy before you try assembling any. I have made that mistake before.

This is how I stack mine.

I like to leave the cover side up as it makes for a clearer division as I'm assembling.

As you're flipping through these to parse and stack them, check them over for any issues with printing. I ran out of printer toner on the first three so I'm glad I checked.

Imperfections are fine but you're looking for anything that makes critical information unreadable.

To assemble a copy, get them lined up by tapping them on the table along a short and a long edge.

Both hands is a lot easier but I was trying to take a picture lol

Then fold them hamburger style and smooth down the spine as best you can. If you have a bone folder or similar use that.

Again, let go of perfection. We are looking for good enough here. Minor errors here should not make info unreadable so don't sweat the small stuff.

I recommend doing all your folding in one go to prevent errors. Or at least it really helps me.

Now it's time to staple. You will see my fancy stapler in the background - you do not require it and I would not recommend it. Unhinging a normal stapler is way easier to use in my opinion and this one gets jammed fairly easy. Use what you've got.

If you don't have staples, but you do have sewing supplies - check out this tutorial for a way to bind it with thread.

If you have no staples and no thread, you don't have to staple every zine. Smaller ones (~5 pages or less) do fine with no staple. They can be a little tougher for some people to use and don't hold up as well being taken in and out of places so I would consider that when thinking of where to leave them. They're still well worth printing and putting out.

This zine is small enough that one staple in the center should be enough to keep it together.

I opted to staple in two places - one about an inch in from either edge - mostly out of habit. It does add a little stability and will make them a little better for putting in Little Free Libraries and other places where they'll be removed and placed back.

Here is my partner looking over the zines to make sure my stapling didn't cut off any important information in each copy. It's a little tedious but it's pretty important. A quick flip through can mean the difference between someone getting the info you want them to have or not.

And here's the finished product

I made 15. I'm pretty privileged and have been making zines for over a decade now so it's almost like knitting or crochet for me. Feel free to make fewer copies or just one for yourself. It still counts.

I will stick some in each car and my bag. I have some medical appointments coming up so I will for sure be leaving some of these in the waiting room.

I'm also going to keep an eye out for Little Free Libraries and other place where people are looking for something to read. I might also toss some on the tables of a coffee shop I pop into sometimes (masked, take out only) and the library to pick up books (also masked).

I tend not to give them to specific people, even people I know, because people are way more open to information they've picked up themself than something it feels like someone is pressuring them to read. But if people bring it up in conversation, I'll be sure to offer a copy to anyone who is interested.

Hope this is helpful!

Go out there and print!

[artbyblastweave]

If youre still doing it, heroify Lex Luthor

The fish-in-a-barrel answer is Tony Stark, but the intuitive answer, not to mention the version I've actually seen executed at least twice- is that you ask the question- what if he's right, about Superman being bad news?- and then you go from there.

I'm actually going to take this opportunity to talk up one of the few Mark Millar comics that I recommend wholeheartedly, Jupiter's Circle, which is interesting in that the setting's Luthor analogue, Jack Hobbes, is essentially playing Luthor's cope-and-seethe angle completely straight, as a thing which he legitimately believes and which he's ultimately basically correct to believe in spite of most superheroes being at least decent people.

What was interesting to me about this portrayal is that Hobbes eventually decides that he miscalculated, that he can do more good by working with the Utopian as his friend and confidant than by fighting him every step of the way. It's a straight-up Lex Luthor redemption story. But the thing is that the setting of the comic as a whole is predicated on the idea that he was actually completely correct- although he doesn't live to see it, although he dies thinking he was initially misguided, the long-term trajectory of the setting is that superheroes eat the world, politics and activism alike subordinated to their petty grievances and soap opera idiocy. A major plot point of the second volume of this was that Not!Batman's turn towards militant leftism gets completely written off by his 1960s contemporaries because they're so used to reading his behavior through the lens of whiny rich-kid superhero interpersonal drama that they just can't parse it correctly. The comic advances that there's a self-centeredness and egotism inherent to the superhero that makes them suck ass at effecting long term positive change, but they also aren't going away, and they can blow up skyscrapers. At the point where I stopped reading, the setting was implied to be caught in a kind of boom-and-bust doom cycle where the superheroes gradually create a singular hegemony, then collapse into hyperdestructive infighting over what to do with that hegemony once they run out of conventional supervillains to fight- the aftermath of which clears the board for a new wave of the classic silver age cops-and-robbers game, which then gradually hegemonizes, ad infinitum. (This is a line of thinking that crops up in a lot of Millar's capepunk work once you know what to look for- Wanted, Old Man Logan, and to some extent The Ultimates all being examples.)

Another example of Heroic Lex Luthor, which I've written about before, is the comic Edison Rex, a comic whose pitchline is that the setting's Luthor analogue, the titular Edison Rex, turns out to have been completely correct that the setting's Superman analogue was an unwitting sleeper agent for an alien invasion, and steps up to replace him as Earth's foremost protector after finally neutralizing him- but since all he really knows how to be is a supervillain, his management style and problem-solving methodology from his time as an ends-justify-the-means anti-superman crusader translate to the new job with extremely mixed results. The comic ran 18 issues and remains unfinished, but it was pretty good.

[max1461]

I'm terminally humanities brained, but I am kind of interested in pure mathematics and POM and generally just more mathematics oriented philosophy stuff/mathematics in general, I haven't studied any kind of maths since Highschool, how should I get into it? Should I read Quine?

Oh, this is a great question and I am very happy you have decided to send it to me! My answer reflects my particular views on mathematics and what it is all about, of course, so keep that in mind.

The number one thing I would like to convey about mathematics to someone coming from the humanities is that mathematics, far more than most fields, is something you do in addition to something you learn. Mathematical thinking has to be practiced, it is a skill that you train. If your primary interest is in philosophy of math, I'm afraid I haven't read very deeply on the subject and probably can't recommend a good starting place. Maybe... Russell? Look into Hilbert's program, and why it failed? But if you want to understand math "from the inside" instead of "from the outside", then you have to do math, and to that end I think "who to read" is the wrong question.

This might sound a bit scary, but I don't think it needs to be. Math is not so hard to do, although it is a very foreign type of thinking to those who are not practiced at it. In fact, this is why I think doing math is important even if your interests are primarily in POM; math is ultimately a human activity, regardless of e.g. what you believe about the ontology of mathematical abstractions, and I believe that in order to understand it fully (to have a picture of it beyond just its ontology) it must be understood as a human activity. Thus, one must do it, at least a little bit. It is, if nothing else, a whole realm of human experience all its own, and I think just about anyone would profit intellectually from spinning their mental gears in a mathematical way here and there.

Thankfully, there are many great places to start if this is your aim. I assume that what we're talking about here is "proof based" math rather than just calculation. To that end, a great introductory book is Velleman's How to Prove It, which will give you some guiding principles and many examples of how to approach a mathematical proof. Beyond that, I think you'll want to pick up an "entry level" introductory text (that is, an introductory text aimed at undergrads, etc.) on any math topic that strikes your fancy, and work through it—making sure that you understand the structure of the arguments (proofs), and attempting as many of the exercises as you can. The exercises are really the most important part. You cannot learn math without the exercises. You cannot learn math by reading it. The only way to learn is to try your hand at it yourself.

Expect your reading speed to be slow, and new concepts to be confusing. Expect to read things over and over, and fiddle with them in your head, before they make sense. Well, I mean, if you're anything like me or like most people. I think one of the biggest reasons people get turned off to math is that most of it just doesn't make any sense the first time you encounter it; it won't make sense until you've thought about it a lot.

One way or another, if you have a background in philosophy and are used to parsing and evaluating careful arguments, you will have a leg up on many people getting their introduction to proofs.

As for what topic to start with... you could always start with Euclid's elements, which is still a perfectly solid introduction to Euclidean geometry even after 2500 years. It does not quite meet modern standards of mathematical rigor (in other words, its proofs have gaps by modern standards), but realistically this is not a big deal: the basic thinking style is the same, and the gaps are somewhat subtle and technical IIRC, so I don't think it will really affect the beginner experience. On the other hand I believe at least a couple of Euclid's proofs are genuinely flawed (that is to say, they aren't just uncareful in their presentation, but are actually invalid in their structure), so maybe it's better to start with a modern work first.

Some books that I think are good for a beginner:

Graham, Knuth, & Patashnik, Concrete Mathematics — The focus of this book is on mathematical tools for computer science, but even if that is not your interest it's still a great book. It deals mostly with familiar concepts such as whole numbers and sequences (you might have encountered, e.g., the Fibonacci sequence), but is great for learning to problem solve and think mathematically.

Rudin, Principals of Mathematical Analysis, ("Baby Rudin") — If you want trial-by-fire. A lot of math undergrads have this as the textbook for their first proof-based math class, and it's notoriously challenging. Its topic is the field of real analysis, the rigorous foundations of calculus. I... wouldn't start here if I were you, honestly, but it's definitely a classic.

Some graph theory text. Some people seem to be recommending Wilson's, which has the convenient feature of being available online here. I haven't read it, but looking over it, it seems fairly gentle. There are a lot of pictures, and proofs don't enter the picture until a couple of sections in. Graph theory has the advantage of being very visual and having basically no prerequisites, so this might be a nice place to start.

Some abstract algebra book. If you're looking for a really clear presentation of the way mathematics is done today, starting with axioms and proving theorems deductively from them, etc., there is probably no place where it is more straightforwardly visible than in abstract algebra. The first math book I ever attempted was Herstein's Topics in Algebra; not the most beginner oriented, but certainly not inaccessible, and hey, it worked out for me! If this one is not to your liking there are a million books on e.g. introductory group theory you could look into, or the very canonical Dummit & Foote, or so on.

Uh yeah I think that's all I got. Anyone else feel free to put any more thoughts or recommendations in the reblogs!

[alexanderwales]

(content warning: clinical discussion of suicide)

The "suicide paradox" is the observation that women report suicidal thoughts at a much greater rate than men, but commit suicide at a much lower rate (though this is culturally dependent). Women attempt suicide more often, but there's some quibbling in the literature over the distinction between "parasuicide" where someone does something that looks like suicide for whatever reason and "attempt" which implies that it was an unsuccessful effort. Depending on the assumptions that you make, women are more likely to engage in "parasuicide", at least according to the studies that I've been reading.

So there's a lot of speculation within different fields of science about why this might be the case. My pet theory is that part of it is that men are simply less likely to report suicidal thoughts, but I haven't actually seen this mentioned in the papers that I've read, not even to rule it out.

One of the theories from early in the history of modern psychology is that women have a much higher rate of suicide attempts than men but a lower rate of completion because ... they're incompetent. I find this really darkly hilarious, because it feels like such a 50s doctor conclusion to draw. The more I try to steelman it, the more I can see it sort of making sense, at least if I try to put myself in the shoes of e.g. a housewife who has never had much education and has never learned that much about anything outside of housework and child rearing. But then you wouldn't expect that the so-called paradox would have survived into the modern day through many many changes in society and gender, and it very much has. Even some of the more modern explanations seem a little sexist to me, rooted more in preconceptions of the genders than actual data, but my survey of the literature isn't complete.

The suicide paradox is something that people argue about a lot, sometimes indirectly. People engaging in the gender war use either side of it to argue that men or women "have it worse", which I think is sort of a dumb thing to argue about. The ratios seem extreme enough that it's obviously pretty clinically important, since men and women will present differently and have different needs. But it's got me diving into some of the other gender research, particularly about how we parse differences in survey responses given different socialization. It kind of seems like most researchers just ... take answers at face value, and I guess if you suspect that one gender is underreporting or overreporting (or just that there's a gender difference in reporting that's not based in ground truth) there's not much you can do about that aside from changing some of the questions to avoid it (and this is hard). It does seem like something I would have thought would get more thought put into it, so I guess it's just a matter of reading the right study.

[atsadi-shenanigans]

FSBE 3 - No Strings to Bind Your Hands

You have a crucial conversation. You like to think you learn from your mistakes.

On AO3.

It takes you a long few seconds to parse out the fuck he just said. You end up squinting at him and saying, “The fuck?”

Astarion steps away from the pillar he’d draped himself against. Uncrosses his arms so his right can flit around as he talks.

“You and Wyll, darling,” he says. “You seemed awfully close just now. I only wondered if this wasn’t the end of our late night trysts? Or tryst, rather.”

Which makes even less sense.

Y’all been busy. That thought itself is a wild fucking understatement. He had his fingers all up your cooch, then left you cold, then flirted, then basically told you to go fuck yourself over them enslaved gnomes. Then he helped you kill the fuck outta that cultist sonuvabitch who killed that poor gnome girl once y’all dug his ass out.

You ain’t shared a tent since that beach in the cave.

“Lots’a stuff going on,” you say.

“But not now, and you seem more inclined to spend your newly freed time with our dear, despondent Blade.”

“Because he just got blackmailed by a goddamn devil.”

Astarion waves his hand. “He’s a warlock; it’s part of the territory. If that’s what you’d rather do, far be it from me to stop you. I only wondered.”

He’s making a real show outta checking his nails, his other hand now propped on his hip. The wikipedia picture of “unbothered.”

Except people don’t lurk around in the dark like a creeper if they’re actually unbothered.

“Astarion,” you say. Ain’t no real way to be subtle or delicate about this, and you got the social skills of an unbaked potato on your best day. Now? Flagging and half dead? “You are the only person I have ever kissed and I’d rather keep it that way.”

There. You said it. The weird eggshell-dance y’all have been doing, the both of you so carefully Not Talking about his fingers up your cooch, and you just cracked them shells with your full weight.

Fuck them eggs.

Astarion blinks. “What? Why?”

And there is something to that. A flash of the man behind all the smirking and the smarm. There is the man you caught glimpses of down there in them caves.

“I mean, I obviously understand,” he says, totally not trying to cover himself. Not at all. “We did have a lot of fun. It’s just…you don’t want something, well, more with Wyll?”

One: he used the man’s name.

Two: the fuck does “more” mean?

The rest of the group putters around. Most have disappeared into their respective tents, except for Shadowheart, who kneels in front of hers with her head bowed and eyes closed.

“I was only trying to make him feel better. Getting outta a devil contract? That shit’s gotta weird him the fuck out. It’s called social bonding, jackass. You know, like friends?”

“Friends,” he says, all flat.

“Yeah.”

“And, you don’t mean friends?”

Jesus lord, you dealt with the version of this double-speak “he looked at you” on the farmstead when you was fourteen.

“I ain’t gonna go sticking my tongue into his mouth, if that’s what you’re implying. That…that’s something I only done with you.”

Kill you dead. Rip the soul jar off your neck and smash that bitch with a hammer and let you go full ringwraith. Anything but this horror show.

The sultry slips back over him like an old coat. Fucking goblin man. “Oh darling, we’ve done more than that.”

Astarion is infuriating. You clocked that early on. Started to change your opinion down in the dark, him blinded, you clueless. You both would’a died (you definitely would’a died) without each other. And he’s still a massive, massive dick (what the fuck is his deal with gnomes, anyway) (at least he stopped the sniping after you started the fight with that cultist fuck) (fucking bare goddamn minimum).

You could handle his regular, everyday, mean girl bullshit. Or you thought you could. But now his fingers have been all up in your cooch, and that feels like it should change things. Only things have gotten worse and weirder with him ever since.

And you are drowning.

You ain’t gonna be able to swim along with this. Can’t even see land, much less aim for it.

Y’all have been drifting around, not touching (you are abusing these swimming metaphors) and you…are done. Not talking made things stupid last time. Hurt you in a way you ain’t been hurt before.

You like to think you learn pretty quick.

“What do you mean, ‘more?’” you say.

Fuck subtlety. Fuck whatever y’all have been doing or not doing.

Astarion’s mouth opens for a second before he can recover. “Beg pardon?”

He knows what you mean. Man can hear a pulse at five hundred feet.

“I could have more with Wyll. What does that mean?”

What are y’all.

He blinks all rapid. “I…you…you were fun. Are a lot of fun. I didn’t, ah, expect much more than that.”

You ain’t never hated being right so much in your whole life, as you do right now.

Casual sex ain’t a sin, cause sin ain’t real (Mother). People do that. He offered you that before. And okay, you might’a read something else into it after all the mutual ass-saving and his heated looks and the way he wrapped his arms around you on that lizard. The way he kissed your cheek with drow blood on his lips (gross).

But that wasn’t never discussed. Then you got all swept up in your head in that tent. You were so close. Ain’t used to being touched, and it felt so goddamn nice. Like gulping water after noonday chores in the summer heat (his fingers cradling your cheeks) and you hadn't realized how heat-stroked you been (the sweep of his lips and tongue over you) until you took that drink of cool water and gasped (into his mouth, legs splayed wide over his thighs as he held you).

Oh hey, you wasn’t actually ready for this conversation. Neat.

You’re attracted to the man, for some godforsaken reason. Even now, you look at him and your gaze catches on his goddamn lips. And that means you got feelings. Goddamnit.

But that don’t mean he do.

So now you gotta have this conversation. Because if he’s in this for the casual and you ain’t, you gotta figure that out. Before y’all go further. Before you let him any further in (that’s what she said) (god fucking damnit).

“What’s…” you try. Have to clear your throat. Glance over to Shadowheart who ain’t moved from her prayers or whatever. “What’s more, to you?”

Would he want that, you mean. Do you? Can you do this if he says no, can you have casual fooling around.

When you finally drag your gaze back to him, Astarion looks…adrift. Like you just asked him about the weather in Ancient Greek (except he’d be the sort to know Ancient Greek, wouldn’t he).

The disappointment curls sour and sharp in your gut. Squeezes your throat and prickles your eyes. You knew this was a possibility. Knew it, even if you didn’t want to admit it, when you lowered yourself over his lap.

You can’t force a relationship on somebody. That’s toxic as hell, and ain’t never gonna hold. Not without breaking stuff. But he ain’t the type, is he? Never pretended to be the type. Made it real clear he was, well, a vagabond. Either cause he’s a vampire, or that just his preference, some people ain’t into…whatever it is you’re looking for.

Fuck, you don’t even know what you’re looking for.

You try to smile. Cause you don’t blame him, and however much it feels like trying to carve your heart out by jamming a rusty spoon down your throat, it’s better to do this now. End it amicably. Like a goddamn adult.

“I, uh,” you say. Have to clear your bitch ass throat, who is a traitor. “I don’t know the rules here. About, um. Any of this.”

He watches you intently, gaze flitting back and forth between your eyes.

You take a breath. Like a goddamn adult. “Are we just…just fuck buddies? Is that what you’re interested in? Because, um. I.” A goddamn adult. Gonna tear these words outta you like ripping off whole fingernails, but by god, you’re going to do it. “I do. Uh. Want. You know. Tobewithyou.”

God help you. You did it. Put the whole thing out there. Your actual, beating heart held out in the open air, your chest a gaping, hollow wound, waiting to see what he’ll do as you lock every muscle in your body to keep from running the fuck away.

Man stands straight. His weight shifts to his back foot, and he did that the night he got exposed as a vampire, didn’t he? He wants to run. He always wants to run, you’re starting to realize.

You went and did it. You fucked this up. Wrapped your hands around this thing’s delicate neck and strangled the fuck outta it in its crib.

“It’s okay—” you start.

“We—” Astarion says.

The both of you shut the fuck up.

It’s Astarion who opens his mouth again. “If you want more with me. If…if that’s truly what you want?”

It ain’t fucking about what you want. It’s about not forcing him into it. Not leading him on, until he wises up that you’re weird and damaged and all messed up. Cold. Frigid. That’s what happened with Ryan fucking Meadows. You learn from your mistakes. You have to.

You should turn around and dive into your tent. Hide behind Sweetums. If you were home, you’d put your phone on airplane mode, shut all the curtains, and curl up under three blankets with a whole jar of forty-proof sippin cream (and ultimately stop drinking it like, three sips in, but it’s the thought that counts). Not stand here, all open and exposed and hideously vulnerable, longing for the sweet embrace of death.

“I. Do you?” you say.

Holy fuck, this shit is so nerve wracking. And fucking tenuous. He’s a vampire with a fuckface puppet master y’all gotta kill, and you’re a weirdo alien with no goddamn idea what you’re even doing here.

“We could try?” Astarion says. Soft. Cautious.

You stare.

A relationship. Of some kind. That involves fingerbanging.

On a quest to curb stomp a brainworm cult, and fuck knows what else. And you decide, for the first time in your life, to let yourself tumble into a relationship with someone you wouldn’t’ve trusted as far as you could throw him a month ago.

This is a bad, bad idea.

He looks all uncertain. Quivering around the edges, though his face has gone all stiff like he’s trying to hide it.

If this shit goes south, tentacles are gonna sprout outta your face as your skin sloughs off. So, y’know, why the fuck not.

“Trying sounds good?” you say. You don’t mean it to come out a question, but it does anyway.

Astarion cocks his head. His whole posture loosens and his eyes reshine with their usual gleam. “I suppose that means you’ll need to consider yourself well and truly taken.”

Oh huh. You still can blush in these trying times. What a mortifying discovery.

Then the man brings his fingers to his lips, cups his hand under his jaw. His eyes fucking glitter as he gives you a long, slow once-over. “You know, darling, this has been a surprisingly delightful conversation.”

It’s been nine layers of hell, each one peeling off a layer of skin leaving you emotionally flayed and naked. And in a goddamn relationship.

But maybe, possibly, you wasn’t sinking down through hell. Maybe, possibly, you was going the other way. Maybe there’s a shine up there, a glimmer of light and something that ain’t shit at the end of this. Whatever that end is. That you ain’t really been thinking about cause it’s easier to deal with bad things you assumed was coming, than trying to scoop shattered hope into a sad, crunching little pile.

Astarion makes a soft sound (that lifts the almost invisible hairs on your arms) and steps closer. “Does that mean I’ll be following you to your bed tonight?”

Oh.

Um.

“I…I think Sweetums beat you to that,” you say. And lift up the tent flap so he can peer in. The furry feather-baby is curled into a beach ball of snoring owlbear cub. His ear tufts twitch as he raises his head to blink them huge eyes at you. Gives a sleepy, trilly little chirp.

“Well,” Astarion says. “Shit.”

[nicecrumbart]

"you have any specific scenarios w/ c!scott etc I'm 99% sure I could explain my viewpoint 😭😭 so please send them over" plsss 🥺 can i have ur interpretation on dl axe-critting tradition? i feel like the 'abandonment' at the beginning was pretty justifably bc like. my guy felt betrayed, he didn't feel safe in a relationship anymore, he had a right to walk away from it. even IF his logic was skewed by his own abandonment issues and bias and his reasoning wasn't totally sound, at its' core, he shouldnt be villainised for just deciding to walk away from something he didn't want....

something thats always been hard for me to unravel w/ his pysche was the axe-critting tradition tho. like it IS fucked up no matter what, im not looking for a defence, just help parsing what pyschological decisions led to him deciding to make the tradition bc it seemed VERY out-of-the-blue for me. maybe the initial axe-crit as a punishment for what he thought was pearl intentionally hurting him in the first session, just once, but why do you think he made it a tradition for EVERY session before pearl started with the powdered snow?

Now THIS is a good question

(Bear in mind I haven't watched double life in a while and I have patchy memory at best

Also this is ALL c! Analysis, the CCs are just having a silly goofy time)

I will say I really appreciate you saying that Scott had every right to not want to be in a relationship with pearl because I feel like that is lost to a lot of people ... Like no one should be forced to be paired up, the season was just making it heavily implied. And if you've ever seen Scott's pov he will twist whatever rules/mechanics there are into his desire.

Anyways-

The way I see it, he's still bitter at pearl for leaving, and the longer they don't resolve the issue the more irrational that anger becomes. I agree the first time could've been a response to pearls actions, but I think it's interesting to consider it becoming a way for pearl (and Martyn in conjunction) to have harsh reminder that they DO have a bond and their separation doesn't mean they're just gone but also that they're not forgiven. (Also the damage an axe crit gives might scare them enough to start considering taking more care for their shared lives - but that feels like to much of an extrapolation for this post)

I also think it's important to remember that those axe crits ALSO hurt the people inciting it. When you think about it that way the action does still feel very irrational and emotion driven - but also self destructive (c!Scott's speciality). Like thinking about it from that perspective and it feels very in character for him, it's just unusual for him to want to consistently hurt another player. But when your lives are linked so directly to another person, any way for him to be self destructive or internalise any actions is an attack on someone else. And because of this, his lines of morality get verrry blurry.

I think a way he could rationalise this is the fact that it is also hurting him too, so the violence feels minimised to him (most likely not seen the same way on pearls end).

Obviously this is a BIIG amount of (probably over)extrapolating on an action. I'm not sure I'm even 100% certain on my understanding of it, but at the very least it's makes the narrative and character actions much more interesting. Which I'd honestly my goal in everything I make 😭

TLDR: C!Scotts double life season is intrinsically linked to his abandonment/rejection issues - the twist being when they get ugly he can't just keep them to himself anymore.

(also his ass is very petty)

[bambiraptorx]

[insert prompt here] — Leo is kidnapped

Admittedly this took a while to think of something, but I finally figured it out so this is gonna be about my fantasy au. Enjoy.

(For a little extra context, Big Mama is called Mother in this AU.)

Content warnings for abusive relationship, implied abuse/child abuse.

———

Leo knows the kind of situation he's in as soon as he inhales: the scent of roses and berries with a nearly imperceptible tang, carefully balanced in an artificial ratio that can only indicate perfume. Then again, the blindfold over his eyes—a familiar, delicate silk—could have told him as much. From the gentle rocking and creaking of wood, he's somewhere on a boat. The exact location would be harder to parse without being able to look around the ship itself, but the circumstances are clear.

Mother found him again, and she's bringing him home.

A door opening, a familiar skittering sound slowly approaching, and he can't help but press back against the chair he's chained to. As if by its own will the blindfold lifts from its place again his skin, leaving him face to face with... her.

A spider-woman towers over him, the cut of her fine dress elegantly framing her torso. It's something of a sharp contrast to her lower body; a spider's abdomen, the legs decorated with delicate gold bracelets. Her face could almost pass for human, were it not for the large fangs protruding from her mouth and the extra two pairs of eyes, but Mother's never needed to look like anything but herself.

She reaches out a hand and cups his face, the delicate hairs that cover her fingers itching ever so slightly. "My, my, little turtly-boo, you've taken yourself on quite the rollicking adventure, haven't you?"

Okay, she sounds amused. That could be good, that could be very, very bad. He'll assume it's the second.

"Heyyyy, Mother! Was wondering when you'd catch up with me!" He pastes on a cheerful smile, hoping this time it reaches his eyes. She's going to make it very clear if it doesn't. Mother always seems disappointed when his mask isn't good enough.

But right now, she smiles benignly as she withdraws her hand and steps away. "Of course, dearie, you know I'll always be able to find you. My people are simply everywhere, isn't it malutacious? But I must say, as entertaining as this little fizzacle of ours has been, it's gotten rather tiresome."

His heart sinks. If the song and dance of these meetings is coming to an end... he must have been right to assume Option Two. Good old, not quite reliable but always a possibility, Option Two. His least favorite for a reason.

"Really, all these meetings with mages and sorcerers and two-penny alchemists and what-have-you? Absolutely shameful, dearie." Mother arches an eyebrow. "But then you had to go and bring my name into it. Such a poor decisi-doo, love, I thought I'd raised you better."

Pointing out that she didn't actually raise him is a glaringly obvious trap and one he refuses to fall into. "What can I say, Mama, it got us out of a jam or two." He tugs furtively at the chains holding his wrists to the arms of the chair. No luck, the restraints are solid.

The lands ruled by the Three Heads were much stricter about things like soul magic than he'd imagined, and even just asking questions had quickly got him wanted posters in half the towns he stopped in. As much as he'd hated using her name to get out of the odd arrest warrant that would pop up, it was way better in the long run than rotting in jail. He couldn't save Mikey if he was rotting in jail.

Mother steps closer, looming above him. Her smile is just a shade off, a few muscles unflexed, from genuine. "Yes, my dear turtle, you made good use of your concatenation to me. You don't always appreciate it, do you?" Her eyes, decorated with makeup as they are, are cold and ugly as they bore into him.

His mind races. "Mama, please, you know we just—"

"Enough. Don't think I haven't noticed you banging your hollydoos at those chains, my ungrateful little escapee." The smile disappears as she cups his face once more. Oh, so he's fucked fucked.

"I believe you'll need a little more time to yourself. We've got quite some time before this ship reaches my capital, you know." She turns away, pausing just before the doorway. "And keep an eye out for the riddly-rats, dearie. I've been told they nibble."

With that the door slams, and he is alone.

———

Y'all are free to ask questions about this if anything doesn't make sense, it's been a hot second since I mentioned this AU at all and there's some new stuff going on with it now lol.

ask game

[women-of-malevolent]

I genuinely don’t mean this from a place of malice, and do think the podcast both has a history of handling its women characters poorly and would like if it were better in that aspect. But I don’t understand the specific criticism of the work having a running theme of “male characters uncritically sacrificing their daughters.” (Key word uncritically.)

The titular Bella episode directly forces Arthur to confront the idea that him and Larson are similar, that the callousness they showed to their loved ones is intentionally paralleled. I don’t think it’s something the story is unaware of, and I’d hesitate to argue that Arthur (or Daniel, later) is presented as being in the definitive right. (In this regard.)

I don’t think you have to love the prevalence of the concept in the narrative, but I do think some of your critique feels like you’re taking the worst interpretation you could from the story and arguing that because the characters themselves don’t actively stop the plot to condemn it (and honestly, they do sometimes) it means the actions are presented as wholly value neutral. Some of your analysis feels like you’re starting from a conclusion and working your way back.

I want to reiterate: I really enjoy most of your critiques, and it’s refreshing to have someone in the fandom both document female presence in the podcast and speak candidly about its flaws. I’d honestly love to know if/why you disagree, either with regards to intentionality or necessity of inclusion.

Hello! Thanks for writing in!

I'm not sure which post you're referencing where I said the daughter-sacrifice theme was uncritically portrayed? Because I don't think it is. The story portrays daughter-sacrifice as varying shades of terrible, graded according to intent. These less-than-ideal men keep hurting the women they should have protected.

My problem with the daughter-sacrifice theme is the same as my problem the rest of the show: it's exclusively about men. Daughters aren't people, they're glass sculptures for men to carry for 18 years, and what those men do with that piece of glass in that time tells you about the character of that man.

Who are Addison, Faroe, Emily, Samantha, Murdered Daughter Of A Senator, fuck even Sarah, if you take away the men who hurt them? Looking at just the text of Malevolent, none of the liveplay games lore or headcanons etc, there's little to nothing to these girls.

You're not invited to spend time inhabiting any woman's life like you are with Arthur (or John, to a significantly lesser extent). You can, and I do, but it feels like reading against the text because their lives are boring, horrible, difficult to parse, and they usually end in childbirth or femicide. It's fucking miserable!

The men are trapped in the same bleak, violent story, and a lot of them die graphically and onscreen, but most of them also get some combo of moments of triumph, personalities, voices, independence, quirks that narratively make that violence go down smoother. (Also smoother because there are so many fun and fascinating male characters)

Also, honestly, I don't enjoy how the theme is explored. It feels shallow and lame to me. I personally, as a listener, don't feel like this specific story has ~earned~ (in my personal, idiosyncratic, things-I-like-in-fiction, subjective assessment) exploring the horror of femicide when 1) there are zero normal, living female characters (Marie is very close, but no cigar); 2) all it seems to really say is basically… murder is bad (sometimes) (usually?) (sometimes, at least), and it's extra bad when men kill their dependent women?

Standard disclaimer that it ain't over 'til it's over, what we got is not great so far but it ain't over

Thank you again and I'd be so happy to continue this conversation if you want!

[lailoken]

Hello Lailoken! how can someone who's 'new to all this' tell if the entities they’re contacting in visions, dreams or any other 'otherworldly journey' are, indeed, fae to be trusted, or if it's just 'tricksters' and they’re being intentionally misled, or meant for harm? Are there any signs? what's your experience with discerning spirits' intentions? (divination aside, I feel any divination done by myself to try to unravel this would be 'tainted' or come untrue, but do correct me if I'm wrong! I also don’t want to depend on other people’s skills on divination to be able to do this safely...)

This is honestly a rather dense subject, but I will do my best to respond to some points you brought up here.

Firstly, here are some tips to keep in mind when attempting this kind of work:

— Learn to identify when and how you are experiencing legitimate numinous communications to begin with. Once you feel confident that you're dealing with real contact, then you can begin to work on parsing out what feels hinky and what feels trustworthy. Working on meditation, dream recall, divination, and other such techniques can do a lot to help you strengthen these skills.

— Use/develop wards that can be put in place when attempting to interact with spirits. Someone could write a whole monograph just on warding techniques, but suffice it to say that you're going to want to be proficient in warding before attempting to work with most spirits. At the least, I think it's important to have wards in place against physical harm, psychological contamination, and deception, as these are the main things one generally has to worry about if interacting with a dangerous spirit. Learning to employ these wards when divining is also an important part of how you learn to trust more in divination for looking into this sort of matter.

— Keep close track of your interactions and suspected interactions with spirits. Doing this helps to give a more "fleshed out" sense of the Wight in question, by allowing you to look over the record of their behavior. This also helps with identifying any possible lies or inconsistencies put forward by the spirit.

— Set clear boundaries with any spirits, and be wary of wights who disregard or consistently push those boundaries. Sometimes, spirits can help push us to grow and evolve, even if it's not always comfortable. But just like mundane relationships, numinous relationships that demonstrate a consistent pattern of forceful and/or manipulative behavior are troubling.

There are also certain red flags I think are worth watching out for when attempting to work with spirits:

— Have caution if a spirit always seems to say exactly what you want to hear. Having a good relationship with your Spirit Kith is a wonderful thing, but I tend to be untrusting of a spirit who consistently reflects back exactly what I'm hoping to see—particularly if said spirit is always clamoring for my attentions.

— Beware of consistently confusing or contradictory communications. Spirits can be coy or even downright confusing, but that isn't a red flag in and of itself. After all, numinous wights experience the world very differently from us, and their attempts to communicate can become "jumbled" when passing through the lens of our conscious understanding. Whats more, they sometimes speak in riddles for their own reasons. But if a spirit tells outright lies, or if they seem to pull you every which way based on cold whims, that's something worth being concerned over.

— Be on guard if a spirit starts out by acting very gentle and affable with you, but becomes progressively controlling and aggressive over time. Abusive humans have a tendency to show their true colors gradually as a way to draw in and then trap potential victims, and this same tactic is often seen with spirits as well.

— Suspicion is in order if you tend to become fatigued, dizzy, and/or confused when/after interacting with a spirit. To be fair, these experiences can be a normal part of spirit work, in general, for many people—especially if you're new to it. But if it's pervasive or extreme, or if you start to also experience pain, then it's usually worth being wary. The same goes for other troubling physical symptomology, but these are the most common symptoms I've come across.

— Something isn't right if bad things frequently happen in relation to the spirit. If you've been having terrible nightmares ever since the spirit came into your life, that's concerning. If you or your loved ones always seem to become sick or injured when you do something to displease the spirit, then that's worrisome. If you've been experiencing continual hardships or traumas since the arrival of a spirit, that's alarming. Especially when these things somehow funnel back into you giving the spirit more attention and energy (asking them for solace and protection, for instance.)

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hey I dunno if you’ve gotten this before but. Do you have anything on autism and DID/OSDD? Specifically resources or accounts and such (since I’ve seen the positivity post)

I struggle with emotional dysregulation, big memory issues (huge chunks of childhood and adolescence missing, forgetting things constantly, dissociating emotions from memories, etc,) frequent daydreaming/spacing out/dissociation, that type of thing (and a bit more that’s a little too complicated to explain in an ask lol)

I’ve always kind of figured it was just part of me being autistic (I’m professionally diagnosed and definitely very autistic regardless lol), but I’ve recently gone down a bit of a rabbit hole relating to plurality and now I’m wondering if it could be a symptom of DID/OSDD instead/as well (I was originally looking at something else and stumbled into the tags somehow. The original thing that led me here was foxes. I think. And then I had a bit of a panic as I realized how some of the symptoms were VERY close to some of my experiences. Especially the memories.) but i also can’t tell if it’s just some sort of brain fog(???? Is that the correct term?) / alexithymia / Unknown Autism Trait 3 that nobody ever talks about and is difficult to find any sort of explanation or resources for. And my brain protested and had the equivalent of being on the verge of a sobbing meltdown or mental overload of some sort when I tried to think about stuff relevant to the topic so I don’t think it’s going to be of much help to me right now.

obviously not asking for diagnosis or to self diagnose at all (since. I understand you cant really do either of those /lh /nm) but I’m curious if any of you know of any resources relating to this specific type of stuff? I feel like I’d go insane trying to find any info on it. (And also I don’t think my brain would want to cooperate if I asked it to because it basically shuts down, gives me a headache, and turns to a pathetic wet sobbing cat whenever I try to think about the possibility so I doubt I’ll be identifying as anything anytime soon but. I want some stuff to think over at least.)

hey, we also are autistic and have dissociative identity disorder. unfortunately, there isn’t really too much research on the overlap between autism and complex dissociative disorder diagnoses at this time, that we know of, but we do think that autistic people may have a higher likelihood of dissociating and developing a cdd than neurotypical people.

we really love mike lloyd’s work at the ctad clinic, and he has an insightful video on the intersection of autism and dissociation here:

here is an open access paper by katherine e. reuben and ayden parish on dissociation as a symptom in autism - it’s an interesting read and wasn’t too difficult for us to parse:

also, here are a couple life experience pieces by folks with both did and autism:

our own autism has contributed to our trauma history in how we were treated, formed attachment, and understood the world as a child. for our own system, our autism and our did are inextricably linked. we are certain that many other autistic systems feel the same.

if exploring this possibility for yourself is causing you great distress, it may be for the best to put this off to the side for now until you have reached a point with more stability or a greater support system in your life. please don’t overwhelm or cause yourself harm by looking into this possibility on your own, if it is unhealthy for you.

if you are in therapy or have a mental health professional in your life who you trust, this would be an excellent thing to bring up to them. though hopefully these resources can help you get started learning about this topic if you have the spoons/ability to do so.

we are no medical expert or research professional, but we are happy to talk more about our personal experience of being both autistic and a did system if anyone would be interested. best of luck to you, anon, with figuring this out. we know how confusing and challenging it can be!

[emberfrostlovesloki]

Love is a Maze [Hotch x Reader]

Prompt: The character gets lost in a corn maze… meant for children. They begrudgingly ask a total stranger for help; aka the reader gets stuck in a corn maze and has to ask a total stranger (Aaron) to help her get out. 

Category: Fluff/Comfort 

Word Count: 3.7K

Content Warning: Mentions of drinking and alcohol. If you are not 21 this is a reminder that I do not condone underage drinking (in the U.S. I am 26 fyi). Please use sound judgment when drinking and never drink and drive. Nothing is worth you or someone else getting hurt. Language (fuck and damn). These are minor things that some might find triggering as well: Mentioning the legal system and online childhood safety. 

A/N: This is another @imagining-in-the-margins prompt for her Meet Cute September/October writing Challenge! I have been loving these prompts. I have three more fics planned. Thank you for all the engagement, it means a lot to me. I think this fic is great to have with a cup of tea or a glass of cider. I had to change my paragraph formatting because Tumblr was being weird. Sorry if there seems to be some odd paragraph spacing in this one. I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, likes and reblogs are appreciated. 

P.S. The reader uses she/her pronouns. 

List with all stories 

y/n = your name 

l/g/s = local grocery store 

p/g = parent or guardian 

y/a = your age 

y/l/n = your last name 

t/o/l type of law 

y/b/f = your best friend 

f/s/f/d = favorite spiked fall drink 

e/c = eye color (i.e. green eyes, brown eyes, hazel eyes etc.) 

y/n looked at the three-way intersection. There was a thirty-three point three percent chance that one of the dusty paths would lead her to the exit in the corn maze, but at this point, she had tried all three of them at least twice and she was starting to give up. She knew about dyslexia and dysgraphia, and she was wondering if dys-mapia was a thing? She put her head in her hands for a moment. All of her life she had been told that she was ‘directionally challenged,’ and those people had been proved right again, and again, and again.

Her first memory in fact was one of her getting lost. It had happened when she was in _l/g/s_ with her p/g. She had been five and her _p/g_ had told her multiple times that if she ever got lost to ask an employee for help. As many times as she had been told this, when it happened in real life she had frozen. She really believed that she would never find her mom again. A kind stranger had found her in the produce aisle crying her eyes out. The elderly woman took her to the front of the store and her very concerned p/g rushed forward and gave her a big hug.

y/n’s p/g had bought her an ice cream cone after they had finished shopping. Unfortunately for y/n, this had only been the first of many times she would get lost. Only last month one of her friends at law school had joked at the intern networking social that “y/n would get lost on a one-way street in a small town.” Everyone had laughed, and it would be funny if it wasn’t true. And this was why her being stuck, trying to make her way out of a corn maze was so fucking frustrating.

She knew she had been at this intersection before because it was only one of two three-way intersections she had come across so far, and the clue at the start of the estuary was the one she had read six times now. She looked at the map in her hands and tried to parse the right path out of the maze but became frustrated almost immediately, crumpling the paper tightly in her hands.

The entrance of the maze had said that it should take about half an hour to complete, and she had now spent double that in the dusty maze. More insulting than this was the fact that the age disclaimer at the start of the maze read: This maze is appropriate for all ages, however children under 12 should be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Essentially this meant that the maze could be completed by someone over 13, by themselves, and here she was y/a, unable to escape. 

y/n realized now that playing Truth or Drink, essentially Truth or Dare, except every dare meant drowning a shot was a mistake before trying to do a corn maze had been a mistake on her part given how bad she was with direction. She thought about her poor choices while waiting to find someone nice to ask to follow out of the maze. There was no avoiding it at this point. She needed help, and she knew it. As it turned out she did still value her dignity, so she had to wait awhile to find someone that seemed nice and normal.

The first group that she didn’t ask was a group of three teenage boys. There was simply no way that she was going to ask them. They were laughing and looking at their phones and she let them pass undisturbed. The next people who didn’t pass her dignity test were two moms with strollers holding sleeping toddlers inside. y/n could only imagine the passive judgment of the middle-aged women in Lulu Lemon yoga pants and Gucci handbags would pass on to her. Her rather haggard appearance and evidence of imbibing before five o’clock were sure to elicit a few “tut-tut’s” from the moms and whispered words of disapproval just loud enough for her to hear. The last group she let go was a couple. She found it bad enough third wheeling with all her friends in relationships, doing that with total strangers didn’t bear thinking about.

y/n was wondering if an employee might come around every now and then to see if people or children more likely had gotten lost. Her thought process was interrupted when she heard someone coming close to where she was standing. It sounded. It was the voice of a man. As she listened she realized that his voice was actually quite nice sounding. There was a second voice, clearly from a child. From what y/n was hearing, this sounded like the best option she’s got, and she crossed her fingers hoping that the man that rounded the corner looked and seemed safe and normal.

She had spent way too many mediocre Tinder and Bumble dates with guys her age asking her overly personal questions, and oddly why she hadn’t watched the live-action One Piece yet. This always stumped her. She had seen Attack on Titan back in the day -- didn’t that count for anything anymore? It’s not like she asked them if they had seen the 2005 Kiera Knightly Pride and Prejudice or the 1996 Collin Firth adaptation. Again she was pulled from her thoughts when the man rounded the corner with a little boy trailing closely behind him.

She attempted to look at him without gawking. This was harder to do than she had expected because not only did the man have a nice voice, he was attractive as well. He was tall and wore blue jeans and a navy Patagonia jacket. His brown hair was cut short and neat with just a tinge of grey at his temples. y/n turned away from him and gently tapped her head, thinking, ‘You idiot. You’re not here to flirt, you’re here to get out of this damn corn maze. She turned back again to be able to see the man. He had picked up the boy she assumed was his son and they were both looking at the clue near the three-way path.

The man was reading the clue aloud saying, “All right buddy, here’s what it says: Paths for three but only one for me. One of these paths leads to a dead end, one takes you to the center again, the last is the hardest as you will see, it had a tree of a sort, and when you see that you are nearly free.” The man looked down at the boy and asked, “What do you think Jack? Which of the paths would you like to try first?” y/n wanted to say, “Well the path on the right is the dead end,” but she held her tongue, knowing that if she said anything it would ruin the fun for the boy. After a second the little boy pointed to the middle path and the man let him down saying, “Alright middle it is.” 

It was clear the pair was about to venture forward into the maze and y/n finally gave up her pride and said, “Hey. um, sorry, could you wait a minute please?” The little boy was moving forward, but with a deft move he was able to get the boy’s hand in his and said, “Wait just a minute, son.” The boy stopped and the man turned to look at whoever had mentioned him. Now that the man was actually looking at her, she felt the flush of embarrassment course through her. y/n cleared her throat once and said, “Sorry, this is so embarrassing, but I’ve been stuck in this maze for about an hour and I’ve tried to get out. I’m just not cut out for this. Could I possibly follow you out? I’m y/n _y/l/n_, by the way?”

y/n thought she might burst into flames for a few moments of silence as the man glanced at her. There was a ghost of a smile at the corners of his mouth as he said, “Yes, of course you can.” He extended his hand adding, “Aaron, Hotchner.” y/n took his hand and shook it, saying, “Thank you so much. Sorry, I’m just… just bad at these things.”  His grip was firm, but not uncomfortable. As they dropped the handshake, Aaron turned back to his son and said, “Alright Jack, let’s go. We’re going to help someone out of here, so we have to think really hard about what paths we choose!” Jack beamed and turned to look at y/n. She gave him a small wave and a smile. 

The trio moved forward along the center path, and much to y/n’s relief even Aaron, Jack, and she had to double back once to find the right path. The weather was nice and now that _y/n_ wasn’t as stressed out about being lost, it felt nice to be having a break from her busy life. There was a comfortable silence for a few minutes, but as they continued moving the silence became a bit awkward and Aaron turned his gaze toward the woman next to him, asking, “So, are you local?” y/n nodded no, replying, “No, I’m visiting some friends for the weekend. I’m living in New York.”

Hotch nodded trying to keep the conversation going by saying, “What’s in New York, work, family…?” The team had been in New York last month for a string of brutal murders. He wondered if she was aware of them. y/n’s eyes flicked to him and she replied, “Columbia Law. This is the first chance I’ve had to take a break all semester, so I thought I should take it.” Hotch looked at her more closely once she brought up Law School. Having gone through it himself many years ago, he knew it wasn’t for the faint of heart.

y/n then asked, “And you? Do you live around here?” Aaron replied to her question saying, “I’m local. My son looks forward to this every year. It’s kind of a tradition I suppose.” This was the first year without Hailey coming along. The divorce had changed a lot of things, and this was one of them. Hotch looked forward to Jack, who was a few feet in front of him and y/n. After a moment, Aaron added, “I went to Law School a long time ago. What year are you in? Have you decided on a specialty yet?” y/n’s lit up at the questions. She was excited to have something in common with Aaron. She wasn’t great at starting conversations, but now that they had a touchpoint she could easily be an equal speaking partner.

She replied, “I’m in 2L trying to decide between t/o/l and t/o/l. Where did you study and are you still in practice?” The conversation stopped for a moment and _y/n_ stepped back and Aaron and Jack looked over the next clue together. Once Jack had made his choice they continued onward. She and Aaron fell into step again and he said, “I went to George Washington University. I was a criminal prosecutor, but I don’t practice anymore.” y/n nodded and asked, “What made you stop practicing?” Aaron let out a sigh at the question and crossed his arms as he considered how to phrase his response. For a moment y/n she had hit a sensitive subject and said, “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”

Aaron chuckled but said, “No, it’s a valid question. Listen, please don’t take this as a bad omen for your career, it’s just in criminal prosecution I saw so many bad cases. People committed heinous acts against humanity and half of the time it would be a hung jury, or the system allowed bad people to walk free and innocent people to be put away for crimes that they didn’t commit. Eventually, I had to step away for my own health.” That wasn’t exactly what y/n had been imagining his answer would be, but she could see the weight of such a flawed and crushing system deteriorating the morale and faith in the people who work in it. That feeling hadn’t hit her yet, but she wondered now if it would.

She pushed her personal feelings aside for a second and took a better look at the man. Yes, he had a few years on her, but there was something in her that wanted to know more about him. Was he happy? Did he have other profound things to say about the legal system, on life? Instead of asking those questions she simply inquired, “Are you working somewhere else, or are you retired?” He looked young to be retired, y/n thought, but it was still an option.

That small smile returned to Hotch’s face as he said, “I work for the F.B.I now as a profiler.” y/n nodded taking in the information before asking, “Is the stuff you see in the F.B.I. better than what you saw in prosecution?” Hotch looked to the ground and said, “Often it’s worse.” He looked over to y/n taking in her optimistic face before saying, “But that’s life you know. We have to do the best we can with where we’re at. That can be the courtroom, the interrogation room, or maybe helping a stranger out in a corn maze.”

Hotch gave her a wink and y/n almost fell flat on her face. Thankfully she saved herself and it wasn’t too obvious that his wink had nearly left her sprawling in the dirt. She was sure she was flushed now as the heat came back to her face. She was about to say something, but shockingly they had made it to the end of the maze and Aaron moved forward to walk out with Jack. y/n stood back for a second. Could she possibly find the courage to ask this man who had somehow magically slipped into her life for half an hour out? She hadn’t looked for a ring. He had a kid. Her thoughts were swirling around her head. She decided she would regroup with her friends, and get another drink, and if Aaron was still around by that point, she would approach him again. 

As she stepped outside back into the bright autumn light Aaron was slightly to the left of the exit retying Jack’s shoe. As she stepped out she raised her hand in the light and didn’t notice her friends snapping a photo of her. However, there was loud laughing and comments of, “What took you so long y/n? Did you get lost?” y/n lowered her hand and in joking exasperation replied, “Oh come on guys, it only took me twice as long as the sign at the front said it would. That’s gotta be a record for me!”

She smiled slightly embarrassed and looked over to Aaron to see if he was still there and if he had heard any of that conversation. Her eyes met his and he looked a little upset. She tilted her head in confusion and his eyes moved over the her friend who had taken the picture of her, to Jack, and then back to her. It took a second but everything clicked and she mouthed, “Oh,” silently. y/n smiled at Aaron and said, “I got you. Sorry, and thanks again for your help.” Aaron’s face went back to its happier look. He and Jack moved toward the pumpkin patch set up near the food stands and y/n moved closer to her friends.

y/b/f asked, “Why were you talking to that guy? He was pretty cute by the way.”  y/n swatted at her friend and said, “Oh my gosh are we back in high school again? No, um, as per usual, I got really lost in the stupid maze and I asked him to help me out. He was surprisingly chill about it. And he’s a lawyer.” y/n stopped talking, realizing she was rambling, and her friend said, “Well it sounds like I’m not the only one who’s taken an interest in him. What’s his name?” y/n let out a long breath, realizing that her friend was right, and replied, “Aaron Hotchner.”

After a moment she remembered her unspoken promise to Aaron and asked her friend, “Hey can you delete that photo of me coming out of the maze?” y/b/f_ laughed, saying, “Why, it’s funny. Are you too embarrassed for me to post it or something?” y/n rolled her eyes and replied, “No you silly. It’s just that Aaron’s kid might be in it? You know internet safely and all.” y/n’s friend replied jokingly, “When did you become such a worry wart?” y/n’s demeanor shifted to a more serious nature and she said, “Come on y/b/f if the kid’s in it, delete the picture. You know there are bad people online just as much as I do. If you need a reminder of that the guy that helped me get out of that damn maze and whose son you potentially photographed is in the F.B.I. I’m sure he could tell you a few stories if you like.”

At this, y/b/f sobered and said, “You’re right. I’ll delete the pic.” After a moment, _y/b/f_ held out their phone with the camera roll pulled up, displaying that only photos from before the corn maze remained.” y/n smiled and said, “Thanks,” y/n sincerely replied. Now that the mood was lightened, y/b/f said, “Damn, that guy’s in the F.B.I. he keeps adding points to his score.” y/n laughed again saying, “You’re hopeless. You have a boyfriend already.” y/b/f nodded and said, “I do, but you don’t. You should go talk to him or give him your number or something. I mean you at least have to think he’s cute, right?”

y/n looked away for a moment before saying, “He is very attractive. I actually told myself that I’d grab a drink after we got out and if I still saw him around after that, that I’d go talk to him.” At hearing this, y/b/f said, well what are we waiting for? Let’s get that drink!” They both headed toward the food stands. y/n ordered a f/s/f/d. They sat at a table and started sipping the warm drinks appreciating the atmosphere and charm of the cool afternoon while catching up on gossip they had missed in their time apart. 

y/n finished her drink and y/b/f said, “Right, time to find Mr. Hotchner and ask him on out.” y/n sighed and got up. She grabbed another drink to give her time to think about what she would say if she did see Aaron still around. A tiny part of her hoped he had gone, so she wouldn’t have to ask him out and most likely get rejected. However, Aaron was still at the corn maze. Jack had played in the pumpkin patch and seen the baby goats and pigs in the petting zoo. Now they were going to get Jack a hot chocolate for the car ride home.

Jack had gotten sleepy and Aaron carried him on his hip, with one arm firmly holding him in place. As they waited in line he saw y/n apparently scanning the crowd for someone. She hadn’t seen him yet, but he was planning to go over and ask her something because she seemed like a nice person and he wanted to make sure she made smart choices. He wasn’t a narc, but he had noticed her drinking before and she had another in her hand now. Aaron didn’t want her behind the wheel anytime soon. He had seen far too many promising young people lose their chance at a future because they had made that choice. Aaron realized he was sounding like Reid as the statistics popped up in his head.

He pushed the mental numbers aside as he got to the front of the line and ordered. He stepped next to y/n softly calling her name, not wanting to wake Jack. y/n turned around and immediately her skin flushed pink. Now that he was in better light he could see her _e/c_’s were beginning to dilate. He was flattered by her silent tells. He took a second to look her over once quickly. He spent such little time out in normal society that it was strange for him to be with strangers who might or might not fancy him.

Finally, he said, “Hey again. I’m heading out and thought I’d just check in on you. Um… not to be weird, but you’re not planning on driving soon are you?” y/n smiled and said, “Thanks for saying hi, and no. Our friend is picking us up in half an hour - I’ve got a designated driver Agent.” She said the last word in a joking tone and he laughed softly. Aaron responded saying, “Good to know. Good luck in school, and I hope you have a nice rest of your break.” Aaron wanted to say more but couldn't figure out how. Thankfully for him, he didn’t have to because as he started to turn, y/n called after him.

Once he was facing her again, she said, “Aaron, would you like to get a drink together tomorrow? I catch a red eye at one AM, but I’d like to see you again before I go. If you’d be interested that is.” Now it was Aaron’s turn to flush slightly and he replied, “That sounds nice.” They quietly exchanged numbers and set up a preliminary time and place. As Aaron walked toward the car with Jack, y/n turned to face her friend who had gotten close to try and overhear the conversation, but due to the subdued volume and others talking around them, they hadn’t been able to listen in. When y/n turned, the beaming smile on her face told y/b/f everything they needed to know. They squealed in excitement and rushed forward, ready to get all the details. 

As y/n shared the information and plans for tomorrow, she realized that maybe corn mazes weren’t the worst place in the world to get lost after all.

Text Break Banner by @cafekitsune

Want to be added to my tag list? Please check out this post (linked) 

Want to send in a request? Please check out this post, CM Request Post (linked)

[tgmsunmontue]

Life is too short to waste time matching socks... (3/5)

Hangster and Bob/Javy/Nat - set post mission with the Dagger Squad having been made a permanent squad.

PART ONE PART TWO

CHAPTER THREE

              “Rooster! Hey, can I have a quick word? Maybe bring that lunch date forward?” Hangman asks, and his hand is on Bradley’s arm and Bradley raises an eyebrow at the phrasing but nods, follows him and ignores the waggling eyebrows Phoenix is making when he glances back over his shoulder to where she is still standing and watching him walk away. At least the interrogation about last night’s dinner is over.

              “What?”

              “Last night when I got home both Trace and Bob were there, and they were all cuddled up on the sofa, looked like Bob was about to take Javy’s shirt off but I interrupted.”

              “Holy shit.”

              “I know.”

              “How do we let them know we’re okay with the three of them being together?”

              “Well, I think I’ll just ask Javy. We’re pretty upfront about shit like that. I’ll tell him it’s cool.”

              “And what if he denies it?”

              “Then we have to catch them in the act.”

              Bradley pulls a face, because while he is supportive and wants his friends to be happy, he also doesn’t want to walk in on anyone while they think they’re having a private moment.

              “You don’t want to see three hot people getting freaky Bradshaw?”

              “No. Voyeurism is not something I get off on. Makes me feel… bad for intruding.”

              “Ugh. I’m not talking about ambushing them. Like last night, I was walking into my own house and they were just all sitting there, out in the open. They weren’t trying to hide.”

              “Maybe they’re not trying to hide? Maybe they’re just waiting for us to get a clue?”

              “Maybe…” Bradley offers, but he doesn’t think it’s quite right.

…           …           …

              “Hey, sorry about interrupting the three of you last night.”

              “What?” Javy asks, looking up from his book, the words Jake just said running through his head and he still can’t parse them.

              “You and Bob and Phoenix. Happy for you bro.”

              “Uh… what?”

              “You can stop pretending or hiding, I’m okay with you being in a relationship with both Bob and Phoenix.”

              “Not that I need your permission or blessing for a relationship, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

              “That’s okay, it’s fine if you’re not ready to share yet, but I just wanted to let you know I won’t have a problem with it.”

              Javy isn’t sure what to say, mumbles thanks as Jake punches his shoulder and saunters off and he feels like he definitely came off worse in that exchange, because not only did he not get any information about how Jake feels about his dinner with Rooster, but Jake thinks he’s… what? With both Bob and Phoenix?

              He hasn’t thought about it before. Well. He’s had sex with both Bob and Natasha, but not both of them together at the same time. His brain sparks with images, able to provide plenty of evidence of his time with both of them and he’s imagining being with them both and it would be, could only be, better. Oh god. Is this where their friendship is headed? Does he want it to? Do either of the other two think that’s where they’re heading? He looks around the empty break room, wonders if this is a suitable place to maybe have a little baby freak out. Of course that’s when the door opens and one of the subjects of said freak out walks in.

              “Hey Bob…”

              “Coyote. Javy. You okay?”

              “Yeah. Uh. Yeah.”

              He’s slept with friends before. Hell. He’s slept with Jake, and if that wasn’t the biggest fucking realization he ever had about what he wanted and didn’t want in a sexual partner. He’s also slept with strangers, and he knows he prefers sex with people he knows and likes. Bob and Phoenix were both fantastic and okay, he may have fantasized about both of them, but not seriously. Not considered an actual relationship with both of them.

              “You ever had a threesome Bob?”

              Bob’s head whips around so fast, eyes wide and he looks shocked by the question, but Javy knows better, knows it’s totally a front.

              “I don’t usually kiss and tell. Why do you ask?”

              “Yeah, sorry. Just. I wasn’t talking about sex though. Well. Not just sex. I meant like a relationship with three people. You and two others.”

              “A polyamorous relationship you mean? Where everyone knows everyone?”

              “Yeah.”

              “I haven’t been in one. I wouldn’t rule it out though.”

              Javy meets his gaze and it’s serious, contemplative and he swallows, wonders, hopes, that maybe he’s reading into this right.

…           …           …

              He settles himself opposite Hangman, stretches his legs out and apologizes when he bumps his legs. The apology is waved away.

              “Has Bob talked to you yet? He wants to go for a drink and do an escape room thing. He was talking about how he was going to talk to you about it,” Bradley says, ordering a bowl of fries and a beer from the hovering server. Hangman hasn’t moved his legs and he can feel the warmth from them seeping into his own legs.

              “He hasn’t yet. Do you think they’ve nominated him to break the news to us in a place where we can’t just run away?”

              “I don’t think they actually lock you in the room,” Bradley snorts.

              “No, I know that. But Bob will think it’s a way of making us work together and communicate better… but we’re already doing that because we’re trying to figure out what him and Javy and Phoenix are up to.”

              “You seriously think that they’ve together?”

              “Javy looked completely poleaxed when I confronted him, like he hadn’t realized that other people might realize they were together.”

              “Well, Phoenix denied that they’re together, but she was lying when I asked if she’d had sex with them.”

              “You can tell when she’s lying?”

              “Yep. So I think that they’re maybe not together together yet. I think they’re figuring things out.”

              “Huh. Okay then. I guess we’re doing an escape room with Bob then.”

              “Yeah. I guess so.”

FOUR

[mynamesaplant]

It Changes, like Water (CH. 1)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary: Akari has just met Gaeric for the first time and is still a little rattled by the experience. Ingo tries to reassure her by telling her a story.

Content Warning: Blood, bodily injury, and wild animal attack

Notes: I've made this in honor of Monsoon-of-Art and their PLA mer au (and just a touch from a different au where Gaeric acts as Irida's guardian). Many of the scenes in this fic are directly inspired by their work, there mer stuff more specifically. I've been a big fan of them since I started playing PLA and I've only grown to love all their characterizations of some of my favorite characters in all of Pokemon. Don't like to read on Tumblr? Read it here on AO3.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey Ingo?”

The large mer was studying the near microscopic flute that Akari had, humming in acknowledgement but still absorbed in his observations. The light wasn’t the best for looking it over in the tidal cavern, but this was the only place he felt safe meeting Akari so close to shore, the cavern offered some protection from any would be outside observers of the clans or the humans. Ingo was trying to think of any mention of a flute quite like this before in the time he had been with the clan, but nothing seemed to jump to mind.

Akari was in the process of reorganizing her bag before returning to the settlement, how it always got to be such a mess was always a mystery to her but her efforts were thwarted by events of the day. The teenager’s mind was still on her earlier encounter with the not quite so large but infinitely more terrifying Warden Gaeric. He was instantly suspicious of her, commenting on her small size and color of her coat after a brief interrogation, ears pinned back and a snarl on his face as he looked at her uniform like he was trying to place it but couldn’t, that was just before Ingo came to her rescue.

“Gaeric’s the one messing with all the supply ships, isn’t he?”

That caught Ingo’s attention, looking away from his open palm to her. Akari was squinting up at him, trying to parse any subtle emotions in his expression. He knew eventually she would ask; it wasn’t hard to put two and two together given Gaeric’s attitude. Despite knowing this question was inevitable, Ingo felt a cold spike of guilt lance his spine and his ears droop even lower. That was answer enough for her.

“He wouldn’t hesitate to hurt me if he knew for sure, would he?”

“Gaeric doesn’t hurt pups.”

His answer was swift, but it wasn’t quite a satisfactory one and they both knew it. Ingo was certain that, even if anyone else other than himself knew the truth about Akari and her mysterious flute, they couldn’t bring themselves to hurt her. Akari was a child – the magical white coat helped with the illusion, at least at first. It made everyone pause in complete befuddlement. Was she sick? Why was her growth so stunted for someone her age? It was hard to see Akari as anything but a sick, stunted pup with that pale coat. Although she was representing herself illegitimately and she was part of the exploration team that was causing irreparable harm to the fisheries of both clans with their presence, Ingo didn’t think a single member of either clan could bring harm upon her… especially not with how close he was tailing her.

“But I’m not a pup!”

She protested, her stomach souring when she considered how close her call with Gaeric could have been. They both knew the truth and Akari had the sneaking suspicion that Ingo was softening the truth to spare her from the dangers of her situation.

“He wouldn’t hurt you. Gaeric attacks vessels, he doesn’t hurt the people on those vessels.”

“Ingo, he leaves them in ice cold water for hours on end after destroying those supply ships. Some of them don’t make it. They die from hypothermia. We don’t have thick fur like you guys do!”

He flinched, turning his head away and tugging his cap over his eyes to obscure the pain in them. He could see it from both points of view. Gaeric’s priority was the clan, protecting them and their territory, and he saw the Galaxy Team as a threat – which they were. They were horning in on their territory, taking away from their primary food source, and potentially endangering their vulnerable pups. The team’s presence was a threat that no one in the clans knew what to do about. Gaeric, never one for subtly or decorum, did what he thought was best to dissuade the Galaxy Team from settling there. Ingo knew it was too late for that, but there was no point explaining that to Gaeric. It wouldn’t stop him, and it would already make Ingo seem stranger that he was defending humans.

Akari and her team were explorers and researchers, their interests lie in the sea, so of course they were going to butt heads frequently with the elusive mers, whether intentionally or not. Galaxy Team thought of them as monsters, huge moving shadows beneath the water that would destroy all they had built in an instant – Gaeric was certainly not helping in that regard. These people were mostly curious, and he could sympathize with innocent curiosity.

“Gaeric is concerned for the wellbeing of Pearl Clan, Akari. I understand his methods seem drastic, but-”

“Seem drastic? Ingo, they are drastic!”

Ingo’s frown deepened. He wasn’t trying to justify his fellow warden’s actions, but that was certainly how he made it sound. He knew why Gaeric was the way he was. His love for his clan ran deep. The mer glanced toward the sun sinking steadily toward the horizon from the exposed mouth of the cavern, soon to be swallowed up by the sea. He looked back at Akari, jaw set and mouth quirked like she was trying hard not to cry in front of him.

“I apologize.”

Ingo said gently, sinking lower in the water to be more on her level. Akari quickly spun away from him on the rock on which she was perched, her arms folded over her chest.

“I’m not trying to minimize the damage Gaeric has done and the people he has hurt. Gaeric doesn’t feel as though anyone is being proactive in the case of the hu – Galaxy Team. So, he takes it upon himself to be proactive, and takes it too far. He has a lot of misplaced guilt when it comes to protecting the clan… May I tell you a story before you return to your settlement? It might help you understand where he’s coming from.”

Although she was not facing him, he could tell he had caught her interest and he folded his arms over the large rock, resting his head on his forearms. He did his best to recall all the details.

Next Chapter >>