#but i'm learning to ask myself why i think that and where the shame comes from

[willowser]

okay last thing and i know this is easier said than done and i think it's less of final end point and more of a continuous journey but once you let go of your shame and embarrassment over the things that make you happy, you'll have a lot more fun

[lxkeee]

HEAVEN AND BACK!

—PART TWO

Pairing: Lucifer Morningstar x Alastor's Mom! Angel! Reader

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Genre: Romance, love at first sight.

Warnings: none.

Notes: this one is comparably shorter than chapter one.

PART ONE | PART THREE

Lucifer was absolutely baffled, so many things happened in one day. First, a very gorgeous and tall seraphim angel decided to come and stay at the hotel to oversee its progress and on top of all that, the said angel is that damn radio demon's mother.

Lucifer watches as the angel, who he learned that goes by the name [y/n] is still currently scolding her son. Him, Charlie, Vaggie, Angel Dust, and Husk are at the bar area just watching it unfold.

Alastor sitting on the couch, head hung low in shame but there's still a smile on his face.

“So... You killed your father and many more? And also ate them....?” [y/n] asked, disappointed in her voice. Alastor's deer ears lay flat as he remained seated as he listened to his mother.

“Oh god, my son is a cannibal!” [y/n] cries, Niffty wiping away her tears as [y/n] carried the smaller girl in her arms—how did it happen? She just somehow was raising her arms for uppies while the taller woman was scolding her boss and the older woman just did so without thinking and carried her and then resumed to scolding Alastor.

“But they deserved it, mother! He deserved it for—” Alastor tried to defend himself, his smile strained.

[Y/n]'s own smile widened, eye twitching, “Who said you could speak? My own son is talking back to me!” she cries, smiling through the tears, her wings puffed up in anger and Alastor shuts up his mouth immediately.

“Where did I go wrong in raising you? I didn't raise you like this.” [y/n] sobs, Niffty handing her a handkerchief where the taller woman accepted and used it to blow her nose.

“Yikes.” Lucifer muttered in amusement as he sipped his dry martini while watching the angelic woman continuing to scold Alastor. Now that's my kind of woman. He thought before almost choking his drink. Hold up. What is wrong with him today? He barely knew the woman and he is already thinking like this.

“You okay there pal? I'm pretty sure you almost choked on your drink.” Angel Dust laughs and Lucifer just glares at him.

Charlie giggles beside him excitedly, “Isn't it amazing? Alastor reunited with his mom! And heaven finally decided to help us!” Charlie squeals and Vaggie hums in agreement.

“Well... It surely isn't a happy one as smile's is getting scolded even more.” Angel Dusts laughs and Husk chuckles behind the counter.

Back to the mother and son, Alastor is finally done with seeing his mother cry. He hugged her in which the older woman was weakly hitting his chest while she sniffled. Niffty being pressed in-between the two. She's just glad to be there.

“I am sorry, mother. I'm still your son.“ Alastor says softly and [y/n] sniffled against her son's embrace.

“I'm still mad at you.” she says, and Alastor's smile widens every slightly, “I know.” he says with a grin before getting his forehead flicked once more by his mother, making him winced in pain. [Y/n] gently lowering Niffty down to the floor. Lucifer and Husk snickering at the bar area.

[Y/n] pouted as she finally left her son's embrace, “And here I was waiting in heaven for so long wondering what's taking you so long and only for you to be here in hell? My goodness...” [y/n] sighs, pinching her own nose, her other hand on her hip.

“My bad.” Alastor says with a grin and [y/n] sighs, wiping the tears away from her eyes then clapping her hands together and a smile is back on her face as she turns around to look at the other hotel crew.

“Well, I suppose that is over. I am sorry for the scene I've caused, this young man right here is to blame.” [y/n] deadpans, pointing her arms towards Alastor who was lounging on the couch, he just gave a thumbs up.

[Y/n] sighs, shaking her head. “Back to business, I myself am not really sure why Sera decided to change her mind but she's my boss so... I don't really have a choice.” [y/n] says with a shrug, smoothly lying to them and the others just look at her with a slight deadpanned expression.

“I will be staying here for the time being, Sera didn't exactly say for how long...” She says before her eyes widened, Sera really didn't tell her how long she'll be here.

“I am starting to wonder if I accidentally got myself kicked out of heaven.” She muttered and Lucifer snickered slightly, looking at her with an amused smile on his face.

“Well if that's the case, there's a space made just for you in hell.” Lucifer says smoothly and [y/n] smirked, “My... Special treatment for lil' ol' me by the king of hell himself? It would be an honor.” she says with a small smirk, approaching the bar area and standing in front of the sitting man, looking down on him.

“I feel like they're each other's types.” Angel Dust whispers to Vaggie in which he gets elbowed to the side by the fallen exorcist.

Alastor's eye twitched in annoyance as he watched the scene unfold, not my mother. Speed walking to the two, Alastor held his mother's shoulders protectively and slid her away from the king of hell.

“Alastor, dear... I can handle myself.” [y/n] chuckles and Alastor just smiled, though his smile strained a little bit. Clearly annoyed how the king of hell is getting smooth with his mother.

“I'll be showing my mother around and show her to her room. Please excuse us.” Alastor says as he gently drags [y/n] with him upstairs with Niffty following the two.

The others just watched in amusement, still hearing the two's slowly muffling voices as they left the room.

“Mama please, he's the king of hell. Why are you already getting so chummy with him?” Alastor's muffled voice can be heard as they walk away.

“Have you seen him, Alastor? Heaven's scrolls didn't do him any justice, he's gorgeous!” [y/n] says with a laugh and a followed groan from Alastor. Their voices can no longer be heard as they were getting farther and farther away.

Angel Dust nudges Lucifer and wiggles his eyebrows at the short king, the arachnid teasing the man as he can really see Lucifer's flustered cheeks.

“You two looked nice together, you better shoot your shot.” Angel Dust says with a smirk which prompted Lucifer to stammer.

“Huh? What? I just met her for God's sake!” Lucifer says, pulling his collar away from his throat as he awkwardly chuckles.

“Please... Everyone can see you were eyeing her like a piece of candy.” Husk says gruffly behind the counter, scoffing.

Lucifer blushed, nervous that he wasn't slicked at all.

“Can't blame him to be honest.” Charlie says with a chuckle as she sipped her wine. Vaggie just rolls her eyes playfully, “Still, she's suspicious.” she says and Angel Dust scoffs, “Please, when are you not? Besides, if you ever end up right, I'm sure short king over here can handle her.” He says with a shrug before smirking at Lucifer, “Just admit you were admiring the sexy angel lady, couldn't blame ya toots!” he giggles.

“I wasn't... You guys are just seeing things.” he deadpans, his ears tinted pink. His daughter, Maggie, Angel Dust, and Husk just gave him a raised eyebrow. Clearly not believing him in the slightest.

“Whatever you say, short king.” Angel Dust says in amusement.

TAGLIST:

@adaizel @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @thedarkkitten @selvyyr @froggybich @brithedemonspawn @kottenox @totallymitya @many-fandoms-lover @dou-dou @mezzyb0nb0n @n1chxyaaenthusiast @cherry-4200 @koirb @galaxyj3lly @crystalplays28 @luleck @scootinonyourmom @rory-cakes @mixplara @crescent-z @bitchyzombienacho @kalisha2004 @altervex @nehy019 @napbatata @kouyoumarryme @sxgacxbe @kooidoom @yukichan67 @apple-pop @akiralovespenguins @storydays @kaurochika @amphiroxx @lil-writer-523 @punching-pentagrams @moonlovers34 @h3110kitty0 @bethleeham @hcneyiced @ashleygryffindor @ghostdoodlen @sleepdeprived-barelyalive @cupidsgift @shilladodo

[adventuringblind]

Stash

Oscar Piastri x Autistic Reader

Genre: hurt/comfort

Summary: Oscar confronts his lovers' weird habits for food storing.

Warnings: talks of eating disorders and past abuse

Notes: based on personal experience. My therapist says she's glad that I have an outlet. Apparently, writing myself into scenarios like this is healing. Who would've ever thunk it??

Masterlist

Oscar was prepared for a great many things when his girlfriend moved in with him. Things they had already talked about extensively. Like how she has her own routine that she follows, even if it doesn't feel like it. Or how she has sleeps on top of the duvet instead of under it.

Things that seem very minor to him. Apparently, other people have said it's weird, and she felt the need to warn him about her habits before moving in. She likes to communicate like that. Another thing he loves about her.

What he was not expecting was to find food stashed away in the most random places.

He didn't confront her about it at first. Maybe this is just a way she feels safe or a reminder to herself to eat something when she sees it. But then he started getting concerned when he wasn't seeing her eat at home.

She followed him around to races and could eat at restaurants, given she was with safe people who didn't tease her for being so plain. She ate snacks when she felt the need.

While she was out one day, he asked Lando over. The Brit was mildly confused as to why he was helping search the depths of the flat for food.

"You litterally have stocked cupboards."

"It's not for me! My girlfriend is stashing food around the house, and I'm trying to see if there is a pattern and maybe figure out why."

"Have you considered asking?"

"Not after she joked about her relationship with food."

Lando, who knows very well how hard eating can be sometimes, comes to the realization that there may be more to this then just sensory issues. Insecurity and scrutiny are hard things to deal with. He wouldn't be shocked if that's the reason she has foods she loves in places Oscar wouldn't find them.

Eventually they do find a pattern. It's not about where they are hidden, it's about what is hidden. It feels as if a child thought they were going to get in trouble for not asking to eat first. It's saddening to Oscar that his lover doesn't feel she can just eat normally around him.

"Do you know if she grew up doing this?"

"No clue."

~~~~~

When she got home that night, she found Oscar setting the table for dinner. Which is already odd considering they don't eat at the table. She hates eating at the table. It feels like she's being judged while she eats and makes her unable to think clearly.

But she would suffer through it. Why? because Oscar has made her comfort food, and it would be a crime not to eat with him after he did such a thing.

"What's all this for?" She asks while setting her things down.

"Well, I know you hate the dinner table, but we need to talk about something, and I thought comfort food and dim lighting might help the anxiety."

She takes her seat and thanks him for the gesture. The pit in her stomach aching with the thought of what he may want to talk about.

"So, your food stashing habits...."

Oh. Oh no. She'd been found out. She is going to get lectured just like she did at home. The one thing she was trying to desperately to avoid.

She drops her head in shame. "I'm so sorry."

"You didn't do anything wrong, alright?" I just need to know why and if I can help. You're not eating full meals when we're home and the food your hiding makes me think your self-conscious. I just want you to feel safe here, with me."

She sighs. The female knew she would have to confront this eventually. It's not that she doesn't feel safe eating here, it's that these are learned habits that she has yet to unlearn.

"My parents would often get upset when I didn't eat what they made. It's not that I was being ungrateful, I just couldn't keep it in my mouth without gagging. Textures and things."

Oscar hums as he listens. He knows textures are hard for her. Food, clothing, even certain blankets are hard for her to feel.

"My parents were also always talking about my eating habits. So, to avoid being scrutinized, I would hide food in my room to eat when nobody was around."

Oscar is a soft person. Easygoing, quiet, and according to Lando, boring. In this moment he is none of those things. He feels for his lover that she doesn't feel safe eating at home because of her parents.

Thus enters a time of Oscar warming her up to eating in the house. Not just small things, real meals and snacks and simply whenever she's hungry.

It's definitely a slow process. Oscar still finds food in strange places occasionally, but he leaves it and reminds her that it's okay to put her food in the cabinet.

He never makes a mention of what she's eating. Even if he's just curious. He never talks about it.

Eventually, she starts putting her food in the cupboard. conversations about food become a little easier and doesn't send her into a flurry of insecurity.

Every little step counts, and Oscar is proud of her for every single one she takes.

[swappedandtrapped]

Rent Help - Part 3

As always, character consistency is hard for me. Just go with it.

I wake up again. Every time I wake up, I have about a minute of peace before my brain starts to boot and realizes where it is. That minute of bliss is what has kept me going recently. It's the only part of the day when I don't feel so… Wrong.

Waking up unwillingly, I go to the bathroom to wash my face. When I arrive, I realize it's been about a week after the car crash and I still can't get used to seeing Roy when I look in the mirror.

I study my new reflection. I stare at my skin blemishes on Roy's dark skin. My big Brown eyes underneath my thick eyebrows. My nose in the middle of the face that is now mine… When I open my mouth to brush my teeth, I see a crooked array of yellowish rectangles. I cringe realizing I'm actually tasting Roy's mouth and teeth 24/7. Roy didn't have a spare toothbrush, so I had to use his old one. Disgusting. I hate this so much. Why doesn't he take care of himself?

When I return to his room to get dressed, I sigh in frustration. During the last few days, I finally understood why Roy felt comfortable walking around without his shirt on. I was just too hot. ALL THE TIME. The meat and fat of his stocky body type kept the heat trapped within me. If I had a shirt on for more than 5 minutes I would start sweating and smell Roy's scent even more.

So just like he did, I elected to spend the day shirtless again. It's not like anyone would see me. Well except for… Me.

After trying to explain to Roy in my body what happened, he's gotten cold. I mean, I would too. I was practically begging him to remember, but when I'm in Roy's body, it's pretty hard to convince someone who he really is.

"I'm coming back late." He states in a premeditatedly cold intonation. "Ok," I reply in the same manner. I didn't see the point to initiate another argument. convincing him is impossible. "I might bring someone back with me. Please don't be weird when she's here." "Ok. I reply again. But missing any sense of my old self, I ask: "Someone I know?" "None of your business Roy." I cringe at the sound of that name. "And also, you don't know any of my friends. They're MY friends. Even if you… Think otherwise…" He goes out, leaving me alone in the flat.

Like a punch in the fucking gut.

Which reminded me, I'm hungry. I order an extra-large Pizza so Roy's stomach would leave me alone. Roy had an apatite I couldn't ignore easily. At first, I fought off his habits, unwilling to accept the new situation. But as the days went on, I gave in to most of Roy's habits. Like eating too much of this junk. I look at my body and feel shame as I admit I lost the battle against Roy's needs.

Later, I lay on the sofa, investigating Roy's phone. Thankfully, he locked his phone with Face ID, so I didn't have to guess any passwords and was able to unlock it. Every time I have some time off, I study his phone and learn a bit more about Roy's schedule and connections.

You see, I did swap bodies with him, but I didn't acquire his memories. So, I try to avoid all contact until I get the hang of whatever relationships he had in his life. "Yes, it's me. I'm Roy." I say to myself, trying to fake his tone. Even though I hear his voice, it still feels fake.

But today, after going through all his texts, I began looking through his notes app. I find there grocery lists, names of bands he wanted to check out, some foreign language I still can't read, and also something with the title… "Research"? What's this?

I open the file and my eyes widen. It's a long note, riddled with an assortment of semi-related bullet points regarding… "POWERS"!?

POWERS

possible timed cooldown? variable? Tested times: 5 days (17/05) 8 days (15/09) 6 days (12/11)

only post 24h mark???

ignore. no cooldown. instance of instant swap back. There's another condition.

Note the eye glow at optional swap time. Starts fading. Possible relation to condition?

Ignore. Doesn't fade.

Best swap triggers: visualize face, focus on identity

He was researching his swapping power. I guess Roy didn't receive a handbook with this ability, so he tried to mark the triggers and limitations he confirmed to be true. This was a goldmine. Maybe there's a limit on how long we can stay swapped?

Wait. If I'm Roy… I have his powers! I can swap us back!

I read the whole file, attempting to figure out exactly what conclusions Roy had and what I needed to do to return to my body. It looks like he could just will the swaps to make them happen, but there was some sort of condition that prevented swapping back at some times. Roy named it "The Condition", and going by his note, he didn't figure out what it was.

I immediately try to follow his technique and will the swap to come. I visualize my body, focus on my identity, but 20 minutes later, I'm still stuck in Roy's flesh. When I looked in the mirror, I still see his regular brown eyes. No glow or anything.

Does this 'condition' he mentioned apply to my situation? Am I just a moment away from retrieving my life back? I need to figure out what it is.

Going over Roy's notes I began piecing together a picture of Roy's swapping experiences. Some were willing, some were not. Some were functional, but some were for no reason at all other than to swap. But after a few hours of going over the cases, I started noticing a pattern.

While swaps were able to occur at any time, reverse swaps would never work on days of a full moon or new moon! That's the only explanation! It fits in every swap Roy documented in this file. This must be it!

But then I stop. Wait, today isn't a full or new moon. Why am I not able to swap us back?

A new fear rushes in as I hear the apartment door open. "Yeah, and then we… Oh, hey Roy," says Roy in my body accompanied by a girl I used to know. She waves politely at me with a certain reservation. I guess he warned her about me… "So it's the last door on the left." He points to the bathroom. "Thanks. It'll be just a minute." She says, closing the door after her.

Roy in my body leans silently on the wall, checking his phone for messages while he waits for her to finish. I look at him with envy.

But then I see it. His eyes. That Glow. It was subtle, but it was definitely there.

I don't have Roy's swapping power.

He does.

It swapped along with his body.

Tears start forming in my eyes as I realize the only hope I had of getting back was never an option. Roy looks up from his phone to me. Seeing my pathetic face in ruin. He makes an expression I can't decipher. Maybe empathy, but probably pity.

My friend exits the bathroom. "Hey," Roy turns to her. "Wait for me in the car, ok? I need to close a small thing with Roy. "Sure. Don't be long." She said going out the door. "I won't." He answers.

We look at each other for a few quiet moments. "Listen, are you gay or something?" "What?" I ask confused. Still in tears. "You want to be me. You cry when you see me with girls. I can add 2 plus 2 you know." "Fucking ass." I spit out. He duped me into this mess. He should rot in hell. "Don't be a bitch man. This can't-" "Bitch!??" I cut him off. "This is all your fault! I'm like this because of you!"

I charge towards him. I'm stuck like this because of him! I needed him to know how much I suffer because of his recklessness! But Roy was quick enough to get out of the way.

"Ok Roy. Fine. You started this." "Fuck off!"

I charge again, and Roy slips to the side again. I stumble and crash onto the living room floor and feel great pain in my back. I scream in pain and frustration. This fucking weight. I start sweating again and smell Roy's body stench, but I can't concentrate on it. I feel my body grounded by another body.

"That's IT Roy!" He yells at me from above. He prevents me from getting up. God dammit why didn't Roy ever go to the gym? "Get off of me!" I shout. "Say your name." He commands me as I struggle. "Say your name Roy." "I'm telling you! I'm not Roy!" I cry out. "It's the deal man, it's the swap deal!"

My face explodes with massive pain. Roy punched me in the fucking face.

"SAY YOUR NAME." "You can still have it! You can still swap us back! Please! Remember!"

Bam. Another one. I hear my nose crack and start feeling the blood.

"This is going to keep happening until you say your fucking name Roy." "You're hurting me! Please! Your eyes! I can tell you have your power!"

This time it was a punch from the right. My head is spinning.

"You know what? Even if I did have this power, I would never swap with you!" He shouts at me. "You are PATHETIC." Punch. "You stay to slob at home. You have no friends. You're an ugly motherfucker that can't even accept who he is!" Another punch.

But he's right. This is me now. I can say whatever I want but the fact remains. I'm in his body, and I'm here. Permanently. And even if he could swap us, he will never do it after this."

"For the last time. Say. Your. Name." "Roy." I whimper. "Louder." "Roy." "Now the whole sentence. Shithead" "My name is Roy."

He lifts me and pushes me in front of a full-length mirror.

"Now say it like you mean it. Tell it to yourself"

I look at my pathetic excuse for a body. I see a chubby guy with a bloody face. I see black hair all over covering a dark skin.

"My name is Roy Alamin." "And don't you fucking forget it."

[mswritingthings]

Big Prompt List 2

"There are a lot of things that I didn't think were possible before you."

"Please don't overwork yourself, please."

"I'll take care of you until you learn to take care of yourself."

"What? I don't have a crush on (name)!"

"Take your time, it's okay."

"That is no excuse for the way they treated you."

"Crying isn't going to solve anything, I need to toughen up."

"Relationships aren't supposed to be problems that you need to solve."

"Every single time that I close my eyes, I see your face staring back at me."

"Always the romantic."

"Where are we going so late?"

"I'll always answer when you call."

"It's getting late, come on to bed. This will all be here in the morning."

"I've never wanted to be with someone like I want to be with you."

"You can't win them all."

"Slow down, we've got all night."

"I love the way that you make me feel. I've never been wanted like this before."

"Can I touch you?"

"Please."

"My mom used to tell me what it was like to fall in love. Even in my wildest dreams, I never thought it'd be this good."

"I should have known that you hadn't changed."

"Come on (name) would do anything to make you smile, absolutely anything."

"Sometimes, I wonder why I put up with you."

"Hey! You love me."

"Don't listen to them, you're beautiful."

"I just can't believe that you really chose me, that's all."

"Who has you smiling like that?"

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to mess things up for you, I swear."

"When is the last time you saw (name) smile like that?"

"I feel like myself when I'm around you."

"It gets lonely at night, maybe you should stay over."

"We were cuddling, that's all."

"Did you lock the door?"

"I swear it might not be what it looks like!"

"Are you kissing my (brother/sister)?"

"Oh the horrors! I have to bleach my eyes."

"Stop being dramatic."

"Can I have a kiss too please?"

"Who do you think you are treating this precious angel so badly?"

"I think I might die if you don't get over here and hug me."

"Don't be ridiculous, we are not in love."

"If I asked you to stay, would you?"

"It's only for a few months, and then we'll be right back here together again."

"I don't think I could bear to be without you for even a day."

"Shh, (name) just fell asleep."

"It has been so hard without you."

"Please come back. I'm sorry."

"What do you want from me? I swear I've given you everything."

"You don't love me, and that's okay because I can pretend that you do for now."

"Just let go, it's not worth the pain."

"It's fine, you can just sit on my lap."

"God, you two are disgustingly cute together."

"One day I want to have something like that."

"Babies? Like, more than one?"

"I'd love to get to know you properly if you'd let me."

"You'd think they put the stars in the sky from the way everybody constantly fawns over them."

"Drop it, okay? I'm done talking about this."

"They made you feel small, but you aren't. You matter so much to everybody, especially me."

"Holy shit, I'm in love."

"Come back to bed, it's cold."

"Stop squirming or I'll get the ropes out again."

"Open up for me like a good (boy/girl)."

"Tell me what you want, and I'll do it for you."

"It looks to me like you've got enough holes to go around."

"I know it looks like a lot, but I'll go slow."

"If you need to stop, let me know."

"Take it off. I want to see all of you."

"All of that teasing, just for you to cum so quickly? What a shame, I had much more planned for tonight."

"Shh, that's it, cum for me."

"I think you can take a little more than this, don't you?"

[zeherili-ankhein]

For some reason I actually don't like Bengali culture 'cause they mostly prioritize 'non-veg' when it comes to food. Even Brahmans are eating non-veg and Vaishnavs (with tulsi kanthi around their neck!)

How shameful it is! Sanatan Dharma never taught us to cause harm to any innocent living being! My family's forcing me to eat non-veg, stopping from chanting hari-nam (which mentally, physically and spiritually gives me peace) And being a Brahmin I have to consume meat and other non-veg items. I feel extreme guilt and pray to god and ask for forgiveness, idk what's happening to the people nowadays. Such an animal-like life we're living!

💀 LMAO YOU'RE SO STUPID FOR SENDING THIS

Just stop eating nonveg if you don't want to, why attack a perticular group of people who have been eating meat for the past thousands of years??

Also don't forget all human beings used to be carnivorous in the beginning XD

“Sanatan Dharma never taught us to cause harm to any innocent living beings”

My dear in Maa Kali maybe read or do a bit research. Earlier Vedic era people very much consumed meat, I'm not saying this there are evidences too. (I think @randomx123 can explain this subject better if you are down to know more)

And Indians have been consuming meat for very long time, it's not a sudden 100-200 years ago thing.

Yes, not every part of India have similar diet I agree, but if you had the guts to learn a little bit maybe you'd know, how geography and other factors matter in the food habits of people.

My family's forcing me to eat non-veg, stopping from chanting hari-nam

That's a your family problem darling~ I know enough people and friends who don't eat any fish or certain meat like Mutton or Chicken or have went completely Vegetarian, while their family still eat their regular diet.

I myself don't eat fish (mostly), because the smell makes me nausea but that's not making me shit on my family's eating habits or going on random people's asks and hating on their entire jati (very demure very mindful of me see)

Also it's a your family issue if they are stopping you from doing Hari-naam

Because most of the families I know, loves to go to any and every Kirtan and listen to Hari-naam. It truly does gives peace to anyone who listens... I loved sitting at Mayapur and listening to Hari-naam.

And being a Brahmin I have to consume meat and other non-veg items. I feel extreme guilt and pray to god and ask for forgiveness, idk what's happening to the people nowadays. Such an animal-like life we're living!

Just... Stop consuming meat..?? Also Idk why you'd bring in the fact that you are a Brahmin because most Bangali Brahmins consume meat and fish just like any others here. And them being “Brahmin” have nothing to do with it.

Also don't be too proud of being a “Brahmin” because according to Sanatan Dharma only those who have acquired “Brahman Gyaan” or “Supreme Self-knowledge” are called Brahmin. And you clearly have not done any of that...

I pray to God for you so that you can get a little bit more education to not hate other humans for what they eat and instead focus on your own self and bhakti.

Shaktism have practices and traditions of offering meat and alcohol to different Gods and even Bali Pratha, and that's also in Sanatan Dharma.

It's ok if you don't like Bengali culture nobody forced you to be a Bangali or like our culture, just don't hate like a fool, or say things that makes no sense to people. You'll just sound dumb instead.

Also what are you talking about??? There are places where Vaishnavs are strictly vegetarian, they don't even consume garlic or onions. Maybe you have seen some people consuming meat, but don't generalize like that...

And let me tell you something, Idk how many families have this, but in my own family, on anyone's birthday you are supposed to wear a Tulsi mala during ashirbad, and we consume our birthday lunch (which usually consists of meat) wearing that mala. So not everyone who wears a Tusli mala is a Vaishnav or vegetarian.

Lastly just because I'm feeling a bit evil, I'll just tell you... Do you know Deer meat used to be delicacy in ancient Bengal?? Or it's mentioned in Manasa Mangal, about the different food items like Goat intestines and all... Or they fact some people still consume snails or turtle (that's illegal now, but I've seen my family eat) or different birds like pigeons.

Bengalis consuming meat is not something recent it's been for ages, get over it.

While I do agree, we shouldn't be too brutal on other creatures, they too have the right to live their lives in peace without getting killed for someone's food or personal pleasure.

Bit there's a thing called food chain, and that's scientifically and naturally VERY normal.

Lastly have a happy life, and I genuinely hope, you find peace in what you do, and can genuinely stop eating things you don't want to...

[agirlwithglam]

Hi!! I hope I'm not disturbing you but I wanted to ask how do I work hard. Because when I was younger I got really good marks without trying and now the subjects are hard and social media is distracting but I can't seem to delete it. This is also why my grades are even low then before and I'm really afraid to disappoint my parents (being the eldest daughter doesn't help). So can you please just give me some pointers on how can I actually study and not just cry because I don't know how to. Have a great day!! <3

literally omg. is this past me asking me a question?? like actually u have no idea how much i relate and understand this. the "gifted child" who always got good grades without needing to study now finds things more difficult. i know many people have said this, but i actually have been through this not too long ago. i hope these tips help <3

how to work hard + actually study (realistic)

forget hard work. at least do the work! (its so funny because i literally had a post about this all ready in my drafts about to get posted, so i'll keep this short and link the post.) stop focussing on doing hard work like studying 24/7. just put in the basic necessities you need to get a better grade. hard work post link

use the disappointment and embarrassment as fuel. (basically find a very strong why) (mini story-ish thing coming up, skip to the blue text for the actual advice) i still remember the day i got such a bad score on my math and science test, i was FURIOUS at myself and i cried about it! telling it to my parents was one of the hardest things i had to do and feeling their disappointment was even worse. but that became my turning point. i was so ashamed of myself and i resented me so much that i basically just told myself "i dont freaking care what you feel *with distaste*. you brought this on yourself you failure" (a bit very harsh, yes i know) but the way i studied that week- i studied more than i every had before! also doing this doesnt really lower my self esteem a whole lot, but if it does with you, please be gentle with yourself. : so what i'm trying to say it; use that feeling of shame and disapointment as a fuel, a motivation. The big “why”.

ALTER EGOOOSSSS. this helps SOOOO MUCH its so underrated. embody the energy of your fav people who are the academic inspiration you wanna be! example: rory gilmore, paris geller, elle woods, blair waldorf, etc etc! not only is this so helpful but it also makes it so much more fun and easier!!

parent yourself. i used to tell myself to do stuff like "go study now!" or "get up lazy-butt" but in my mind. but what if you tried to say those stuff out loud to yourself? it just creates a whole new level of real. So start telling yourself to do stuff out loud.

honestly just start. stop letting yourself think about how "uncomfortable" and how "annoying" it will be. All you need to know is that you need to get it done. Right? Ok. So now what’s the next smallest step you can take to getting to do the unwanted task? It may be taking out your material, opening your book, etc.

( !! tough love, but very important rant coming up)

You privileged brat. Your parents gave up EVERYTHING so you could have the education that you are having. They worked so so hard for YOU. So YOU can have the life you want. And all for what? Just for you to throw it all away and say “oh im lazy”. HELL NAH.

And also, do you realise how fortunate you are to be even living in such a time/ era where you have access to basically EVERYTHING? You’re stuck on something? You could easily search it up!! And whats more is that you can further learn. You can search up and find out more about the thing that you’re studying, become the smartest person in your class, get so ahead in life. I hope you realise that if you do use all the resources and materials and help that’s been given to you, just imagine how far you could go! Further than Albert Einstine, Elon Musk, etc. you may be like “what! No that’s gonna be too hard!” But did they have the tools that you have right at your hand? No! They made it all the way with just simple stuff and having to work super hard. But you live in a time where you can do TWICE as much without working as hard!!

And one more thing, QUIT WHINING. “Oh school is so hard!” “Oh school is so boring!” Like whattt???? You are so FORTUNATE and LUCKY to be even getting access to such education! MILLIONS of kids out there would kill to be able to learn what you are so easily dismissing right now. So TAKE ADVANTAGE OF WHAT YOU HAVE. Put your ALL, your very BEST into studying and getting good grades because THAT is whats gonna take you so SO far in life.

Thank you very much, *mic drop*. (i still ly pookie)

dealing with social media:

put the screen time widget on your phone home screen. i did this, and i became so embarrassed by the amount of screen time i had in one day (*cough* 12 hours *cough*) that i made certain to stop using it as much.

screen time limits. this may or may not help you, bc i know that when i knew the screen time password, it didn't do a lot of help but when someone else did (like parents or someone you trust), then it definitely worked. this is probably only best if you're a child around under 14 ish bc thats around the age when most parents put screen time limits + after that age you're gonna be a lot more independent.

more *extremely* helpful resourses:

tips to decrease your phone screen time by @imbusystudying

how to reduce your screen time in the digital age? (an article)

studying tips from a straight-A student by @universalitgirlsblog2

how to study like paris geller by @4theitgirls

more blogs i recomend:

@elonomhblog @mindfulstudyquest @study-diaries @thatbitchery

xoxo, vanilla

[h-sleepingirl]

Milton Erickson and a Rabbi Walk into a Bar... (Essay)

Finally, I've finished this essay about connections I'm finding between hypnosis, Judaism, magic, and intimacy. It's ~4.5k words, extremely "me," and I'm really thrilled to share it. Enjoy!

--

My weakness is getting deeply invested in very niche topics.

Hypnosis was my first and most lifelong obsession. It was my confusing, shameful sexual fetish that I eventually took by the horns and -- through my desire to learn as much about it as humanly possible -- turned into a job. But not a normal sex work job where I do hypnosis for money -- a weird job where I just teach about it. The kink community, and the further-specific niche where people want to hypnotize each other during intimate experiences, became my home.

But the value of study doesn't really come from the quantity of people I'm able to engage with. It comes from the way it enriches my life. It creates and benefits from the capability to see overlaps between all of my various interests.

On the surface, it may appear that two skills have no relationship. But the deeper you get into each one, a synthesis appears.

At a certain point when you are learning hypnosis, all seemingly-unrelated information seems to fit effortlessly into your hypnotic knowledge. You can listen to a song and suddenly you learn something new about how to hypnotize someone. Maybe it was a lyric that gave you an evocative emotional response; maybe it was a pattern in the music that you thought about replicating with the rhythm of your hypnotic language.

Over a decade into my own hypnosis learning, I got very lucky and found a second passionate home in communities of Jewish text study about a year ago. I started from almost zero there and found myself again to be a greedy novice, obsessed with digging into it.

Of course, as I got further, it became that I read a page of Talmud (a text of rabbinical law and conversation) and suddenly I learned something new about how to hypnotize someone. And as I progress, it is starting to go the other way: I learn about Torah study by reading about hypnosis and intimacy.

There are two directions this essay can be read. “How can intimacy and hypnosis teach us about Jewish text?” And, “How can Jewish text teach us about intimacy and hypnosis?” One half is of each part written by me as an authority, and the other half is by me as an avid novice. The synthesis of these two parts of me -- just like any synthesis between concepts -- may perhaps create something new.

Models

I’m sure most communities have a version of the idiom, “Ask three people a question and get five answers.” For a long time, this was a source of frustration for me in the hypnosis community. Is hypnosis a state of relaxation and suggestibility? Kind of, but also no. Is it more accurate to say it is based on unconscious behaviors and thoughts? Well -- kind of, but also no. 

So what is it? Well, it’s probably somewhere in the overlap of about 20-30 semi-accurate definitions and frameworks for techniques -- what we’d call “models.” Good luck!

Why is hypnosis so impossible to define and teach? How have we not found a model that we can all agree upon yet? I think many people share this confusion, and it's complicated by the fact that most sources for hypnosis education teach their model as the model. It makes sense -- it would be difficult to teach a complete beginner a handful of complex frameworks with which to understand hypnosis when that person is just trying to muddle through learning “how to hypnotize someone” on a practical, basic level.

…Or would it be? By the time I got involved with Jewish study, I had long given up on chasing the white whale of some unified theory of hypnosis. I was firmly happy with the concept that all ways to describe hypnosis are simply models -- and all models are flawed, while some models are useful. I was delighted, when entering Jewish community spaces, to hear the idiom, “Three Jews, five opinions.”

This concept is baked into Jewish text study, in my experience. You can look at any single line in Torah and find innumerable pieces of commentary on it, ancient and modern, with conflicting interpretations. Torah and other texts are studied over and over -- often on a schedule -- with the idea that there is always something new to learn. And this happens partially by the synthesis of multiple people's perspectives adding to and challenging each other, developing new models. My Torah study group teacher always starts us with a famous line from Pirkei Avot, a text of ethical teachings from early rabbis: “If two sit together and share words of Torah, the Shekhinah [feminine presence of God] abides among them.”

The capacity to develop and hold multiple interpretations at once enriches your relationship with the text. So too do I believe that being able to hold multiple interpretations of what hypnosis is and how it works enhances your skill with it. It is not a failure of the system -- it is the best thing about it.

Intimacy

It is intentional to make the distinction of “relationship with the text” -- not “relationship to the text.”

My job on the surface is to teach hypnosis, but the meta goal is to simply teach something that helps people develop profound intimacy with others. I think that hypnosis is a kind of beautiful magic that is well-suited to this, but it’s not the only path to take.

One of my favorite educators, Georg Barkas, describes themselves as an intimacy educator who teaches rope bondage. Their classes and writings are highly philosophical and align closely with my own ideas about intimacy -- as well as my partner’s, MrDream, from whom I’ve learned so much. I frequently cite Barkas when I talk about hypnosis because I feel the underlying ideas they have about rope bondage are extremely applicable to all kink and intimacy -- and I will continue that trend here.

Barkas recently published an excellent essay looking in detail at the concept of intimacy itself. They posit that our first thought of intimacy is usually about a kind of comfort-seeking and familiarity. That’s contained within the etymology of the word, and socially it’s what many of us think of when we define our relationships as “intimate”: settling in to engage with a partner who we love, know, and understand.

But, Barkas asks, what if we place this word into a different context? They talk of how in scientific endeavors, the goal of “becoming familiar with” is unpredictability and discovering things that are surprising and unexpected. This perhaps offers a different view of intimacy: intimacy where you do not engage with your partner as though you know everything about them; intimacy where being surprised by them and learning something new is the goal.

My partner MrDream teaches about this often in hypnosis education: approaching a partner with genuine curiosity and interest -- “curiosity” implying that you don’t know what to expect, with a positive connotation. There is a kind of delicate balance between being able to anticipate some aspects of what is going to happen hypnotically -- to have a general grasp on psychology and hypnosis theory -- versus holding tight to a philosophy that neither you nor the hypnotic subject really knows how they are going to respond. The unexpected is not to be feared, but celebrated and held as core to our practice. Hypnotic “subjects” (those being hypnotized) who can relax their expectations will often have more intense experiences.

Thus we come to the first time in this essay where I mention Milton Erickson, my favorite forefather of modern hypnosis. Erickson was a hypnotherapist active through the 1900s and is famous (among many things) for presenting a model of hypnosis that wasn’t necessarily an authoritative action done to a person, but a collaborative and guiding action done with a person.

In his book “Hypnotic Realities,” he talks about how his view of clinical hypnosis is defined by how the therapist is able to observe each individual client and directly use those observations to continually develop a unique hypnotic approach with them. The client’s history, interests, and modes of thinking are utilized for the trance, as well as any observable responses they have in the moment. For example, a client with chronic pain may have the frustration they express over that pain incorporated into the trance. This is in deep contrast to hypnosis where the therapist comes in with any kind of “script” or formula to recite ahead of time.

It’s important to Erickson’s model that the therapist doesn’t know exactly what to anticipate, and it’s also important hypnotically that the same is true for the client. A common “Ericksonian” suggestion is, “You don’t have to know what is going to happen, and I don’t know either.” In order to develop the most effective approach with each patient, Erickson would enter into a session with some presumed knowledge, but ultimately learning -- not assuming -- how to best hypnotize each individual person.

We circle back to the phrase, “a relationship with Jewish text.” In my opinion, engaging with Torah is exactly this kind of intimacy. Torah is something we come into in order to poke and prod at it, to interact with it and to see how it interacts back at us. The teacher of my study group always cites a model where Torah itself is a participant in our partnered learning and group discussions. We ask it questions, we push its boundaries, we strive to glean something new and yet unseen. A line that may seem simple on the surface can reveal much more when we explore its context or put it into a different context entirely. 

This is easier for me to say as someone who is coming into learning Torah for the first time, but I am able to look ahead to when I will be fully familiar with the text and still be able to take this expanded definition of intimacy with it. Not coming to it without a sense of comfort, but still engaging with curiosity. MrDream teaches a model for hypnosis that is based on the idea of exploration -- exploring your partner no matter how long you have been with them. You are always coming to them as a different person, shaped by your ever-growing experiences and identity, and your partner changes as a human as well. I believe Torah is also dynamic in this way, as the context within which it exists -- and the way we interpret it -- is constantly shifting.

Ritual

I have been engaging with spiritual ritual on and off for as long as I’ve been learning hypnosis. The concept of magic has always been alluring to me -- not from a motivation to meet specific goals, but for something more difficult to pin down. I like that ritual, in an esoteric framework, is about looking at various metaphors between ingredients and actions; a candle representing an element of fire which may in turn represent intensity, or purity, or something else. Drawing meaningful connections between concepts like this is a skill I’ve developed in parallel with hypnosis, as well.

I was recently talking with a friend of mine who is also interested in esotericism -- we were sharing our frustrations with various books on magic and ritual. We wondered why so many sources would go on to teach prescriptivist formulas and associations, and not much else. Do this, and that will happen. This symbol represents that. My friend and I agreed that the ritual value of ingredients comes from how you personally assign meaning to them -- but why was everything always trying to teach us their meaning, as opposed to teaching us how to cultivate our own associations?

A week or so later, I happened to go to an excellent class that explored whether or not there was a place for smudging and smoke use in modern Jewish ritual. The teacher first took a careful, measured approach towards looking at indigenous smudging practices and the concept of appropriation. What followed was 30 minutes of history and text exploring examples of smoke in early Judaism, and then 30 minutes of a handful of interpretations of what “smoke” could mean and represent with relation to Jewish ideas -- directly practical to modern ritual. It was utterly excellent and immediately profound for me, as someone who has been yearning to blend my experience with esoteric ritual with my relationship with Judaism.

Observant readers will note that through this essay I speak passively about Judaism -- I am a patrilineal Jew, which for better or worse means that it is not a simple matter to say, “I am ‘fully’ (or ‘not’) Jewish.” (I am in the beginnings of working with a Conservative rabbi -- who affirms that I’m Jewish -- to make my status halachic [lawful], which is deeply exciting.) Opinions on that aside, a relevant piece of information is that the Jewish holiday we celebrated most consistently when I was growing up was Chanukah. While a lot of Jewish practice has been something I’ve been striving towards as an adult, Chanukah has always been “mine.” It was fast approaching after this class, and I felt motivated to use my newfound knowledge to make more ritual out of lighting the candles.

I was deeply surprised when all I did was light a stick of incense before saying the blessings over lighting the menorah, and my experience transformed into something intense. I smelled the incense and couldn’t help but think about what I’d learned about the Rambam’s commentary that incense in the time of the Temple was about making the Temple smell sweet to pray in after the burning of sacrifices. I thought about what I’d learned about the presence of God being smoke and clouds to the ancient Israelites. I thought about things I’d learned from other places -- hiddur mitzvah (the value of beautifying a practice), and a midrash (parable) about God loving the light and rituals we do in a very personal way simply because they are from us.

Esoteric ritual has often felt to me like exerting effort in making the associations of ingredients work for me. But this was effortless. I was doing something that was entirely my own, solidly founded by the broad and deep study I’d done, by my personal relationship with the concepts, by my identity.

In other words, the power behind this ritual came from knowledge, and the knowledge came from my intimacy with it. And that intimacy was not just with the study I had done -- it was also the process of being surprised in real time by what I was learning through the ritual itself.

Hypnosis gains “power,” in so much as we let ourselves use the term, through these same acts of intimacy towards knowledge. It operates directly based on various ingredients: how much we know about hypnosis theory itself, general psychology, the person we are working with, and ourselves. Hypnosis is a ritual -- it is setting aside special time to do something with a collection of ingredients that you have personal associated meanings with. If you can’t connect to those deeply enough, it won’t reach its full potency.

Knowledge, Perception, and Unconsciousness

One of my favorite concepts to teach in hypnosis is, “A change in perception equates to a change in reality.” This is derived from Erickson by MrDream, and it���s something he and I have had a lot of conversations about to refine. The implication of this is not something as trite as hypnosis having the power to change a person’s perceived reality. It is the concept that if you look at something from a different perspective, you gain various different capabilities.

For example, when you are feeling stuck in a situation and you think about what a close friend of yours would do if they were in your shoes, you gain the capability to see more options, to change your actual view of the reality of the problem and therefore change your actions towards it. In hypnosis, this could be the difference between simply telling someone to relax their legs versus another perspective of telling them to imagine what it would be like if their legs just started relaxing. It could be the idea that when a person does feel relaxation from a simple suggestion, their perception changes on what is happening -- they build more belief in hypnosis, and that belief in turn makes the next suggestions easier to buy into.

Erickson’s model of hypnosis is predicated on the idea that hypnosis itself matters, that hypnosis is a time within which someone’s reality changes. In his ideal hypnotic context, the subject feels like they no longer can expect things to behave as they usually do in their “waking” reality. They are thus opened to many different kinds of new experiences and capabilities. To Erickson, perception matters -- by itself, it’s a primary driving force behind literal change and response.

This ties back to our idea of intimacy -- just as I aim to approach my partners with this profound curiosity, just as I aim to approach Torah, I want to have this intimacy of the unexpected with trance itself. I want to allow myself to be surprised by hypnosis, by the things I don’t yet know about it even after more than a decade and thousands of hours of trance. But more than this, in an Ericksonian sense, simply changing my perspective to this motivation is one of the things that lets me get there.

I went through a guided study class about Shabbat (Judaism’s weekly sabbath of rest) with a partner, and so much of the class was in the abstract that it at times felt difficult for me to latch onto. We were learning all of this background context about a view of Shabbat where instead of spiritually striving and reaching on that day, you come in acting as though your spiritual work -- like your other work -- is “finished.”

In one session, we spent a chunk of time parsing through how we could interpret that as actionable. It felt like it just wasn’t clicking for me -- the midrashic texts weren’t offering enough for me to feel like I could make judgments on questions like, “Does this imply I shouldn’t meditate on Shabbat in this context?”

It wasn’t until I slept on it that I found a very simple piece of the puzzle: putting aside the questions of concrete actions, in an Ericksonian sense, the internal act of shifting my perspective would absolutely change the way I behaved and interacted with the day. It would become more indirect and unconscious -- instead of carefully analyzing my actions as I might with other Shabbat prohibitions on work, I could simply let myself act in ways that fit that perspective of “spiritually resting.”

The abstraction of the class made more sense -- perhaps it wasn’t trying to give us direct answers, but rather create a psychological environment for us that was well-suited to this more unconscious processing. Or rather, in addition to the sort of typical conscious halachic interpretation. If I allow myself an opinion here, I’d say that I care about halacha as actionable, but as always, I tend to care more about feelings and what’s internal.

This also lent credence to ways this class and the class on smoke and ritual changed my experiences. I was not given a set of actions to take, but rather a variety of perspectives that unconsciously made me think and behave differently. The concept of “knowledge is power” is both true and alluring in many different contexts, and yet had often fallen through for me in most ritualistic frameworks. The way that it succeeds, I believe, is when you develop a relationship with knowledge that actually changes your internal perspective and perceptions.

Limitation

With this we return to the concept of models and interpretations. It is serendipitous to be going through these experiences at a time where I am avidly working on my next book -- the thesis of which is that in order for us to progress as hypnotists, we must get comfortable moving fluidly between many differing definitions and frameworks (models) of what hypnosis is and how it works.

It is as the Ericksonian principle would say: If you take a perspective on hypnosis that boils down to “hypnosis is about relaxing the conscious mind,” you will do hypnosis according to that perspective. You will use relaxation-based techniques and make an effort to get someone to think “less consciously.” If you instead take a perspective that is “hypnosis operates based on activation of the conscious mind,” you may do hypnosis that causes someone to think and process in a more stimulating way.

Both and neither are true, and they can coexist. I believe that most models can be useful -- some more useful than others. But the best thing you can do is to not assume that one model is the most correct one -- instead, it is to develop the capacity to work within many at once even while being aware of their boundaries.

Jewish text, in my experience, provides models -- perspectives that themselves give guidance on how to understand things and act. I think especially about midrash and stories that are explicitly intended to fill in the gaps or give an alternate view on something. The question of, “Is there one correct way to do/see things” is more complicated here, but there are areas -- especially in those subtle shifts of mindset for ritual or interpreting text -- where the answer is still “no.”

My time so far in Jewish study supports this in a different way. There is a human element of collaboration and challenge. Learning as we do with a chevruta (study partner) adds another person to the relationship -- it is no longer just between you and the text. There is another human who you are building something with, and it is “intimate” according to our exploratory definition in an even clearer way.

The purpose of a “scene” inside of kink (a “session” of kink play) is to operate in a semi-limited framework -- limitations exist on who is involved, where it begins and ends, how partners communicate, and what themes/topics/activities are involved. These limitations -- though they may be quite broad -- are partially what allow for intense experiences. A scene needs to exist in a different “space” than our daily lives, and it needs to operate by different rules and involve different ingredients. Here, we also see overlaps with the definition of a “ritual.”

This doesn’t just facilitate intensity (and safety) -- it facilitates learning something new about your partner. By taking your relationship and putting it into a limited context, it allows you to observe it in a more careful way, where novel changes can be more obvious.

Studying with a chevruta is much like this. I have had study sessions where my chevruta and I are meeting for the first time and the only thing we are aware of sharing is our desire to dive into a piece of text. I’ve also had chevrutas where we know each other outside of study, and some of our time is schmoozing and catching up. But in all cases, we are limited in scope, and that limitation creates ease of access towards the common goal of expanding our knowledge and relationship with the text. We are focused; we are motivated. We are creating something that we can only create through who we are as individuals and what we are doing as avid learners.

This has surprised me at times with its tenderness and intensity. Building well-founded interpretations with someone is in and of itself very intimate -- not sensually, but humanly. It has given me something I have always wanted -- an intimacy that is pervasive not just in application of knowledge, but in the development of it. A feeling of sacredness and joy from being able to see so many different perspectives.

I long for this connection, this alchemy. Yes, all models are limited. But within those tight, restricting limits is the potential energy of creation.

“And I Must Learn”

There is an infamous story in the Talmud, in Berakhot 62a, where Rav Kahana hides under the bed of his friend Rav Abba. Rav Kahana hears Abba and his wife giggling and starting to have sex, and remarks out loud that Rav Abba is acting like someone who is famished. Rav Abba, mid-sex, understandably says, “Kahana, why the fuck are you under my bed listening to me fuck my wife?” Rav Kahana replies, “It is Torah, and I must learn.”

There was a version of this essay that began with this tale. I am enamored with the vast overlaps I can derive from its briefness: that intimacy can be studied sacredly both as a general concept and specifically with your partner; that we are obligated to learn ourselves, our partners, and general human desire; that there can be a thread of wholeness in every action of your life if you give every action sacred attention.

Even this, though, is a limited-context interpretation. The rabbis of the Talmud were certainly not sex-positive, especially not as we currently use the term. The surrounding triptych of conversations is similarly humorous but seems to comparatively describe sex as dirty or gross, and this bit of text cannot really exist separately from all of the places where there is halacha derived about sex that is about controlling women’s bodies or preventing queer and trans people from being able to live authentically.

But -- we are allowed to interpret like this. We are allowed to play with context and see what we discover.

For me, this is about finding the connections between my actions and my interests; parts of me that synthesize the whole. It is about developing intimacy with Torah, with my learning partners, with my romantic partners; with the people within the writings, with the authors, and with the readers.

Reading Torah is the same as hypnotizing someone is the same being intimate with someone is the same as doing a ritual. All things on a broad enough scale overlap this closely. There is value in this “zooming out” to a wide enough context to see the connections that exist -- just as there is value in celebrating the limitations that arise, models nestled alongside each other, when you “zoom in.”

We need both to be able to treat our learning -- all forms of it -- as something special.

[pinkrangermemes]

EPIC: THE MUSICAL, WISDOM SAGA

feel free to change pronouns and such when needed.

"It's just me, myself, and I."

"I'm stuck with your stories, but no clue who you are."

"If I fight those monsters, is it you I'll find?"

"I know life and fate are scary, but I wanna be legendary."

"I'll fight the harpies and chimeras!"

"There are strangers in our halls."

"They keep taking space and it's not much longer we can stall."

"They're getting impatient. Dangerous, too."

"I would fight them if I was half as strong as you."

"Somebody help me, come and give me the strength."

"Can I do whatever it takes to keep ____ safe?"

"It's been twenty years and we still have no king."

"Give me a chance, a single opportunity."

"When's your tramp of a mother gonna choose a new husband?"

"Don't you dare call my mother a tramp!"

"What'cha gonna do about it, champ?"

"Fight, little wolf, fight."

"Wanna entertain me?"

"Wanna be a man then fight, little wolf, fight."

"You've made your worst mistake here."

"You'll have run out of bones to break when you and I are through."

"I'll teach you all the lessons your daddy never could."

"This cruel world doesn't give out presents just for being good."

"Need some help?"

"Is your plan to stand around?"

"'Cause I suggest you fight back."

"Uppercut him. Now."

"Alright now, let's try this again."

"I've no respect for bullies, those who impose their will."

"I've seen plenty enough to truly understand this kind of filth."

"Let's teach this dog a lesson."

"One young wolf has a larger heart than all these men combined."

"Show them that you've got some bite, ____!"

"Take advantage now and strike, ____-!"

"Don't go down without a fight, ____!"

"Oh, maybe I pushed you a bit too hard."

"I had a friend before, and he was a lot like you."

"I helped him fight through war, but he had his demons, too."

"Then we grew apart."

"Then his light went dark."

"I don't know who your friend is, I don't know what he's like, but my time with you has been splendid."

"'Cause I got in a fight, and I didn't die!"

"I've never felt strong before."

"You're my friend, I couldn't ask for more."

"Maybe to fall is to learn one way."

"Maybe it's all gonna turn out great."

"I know we'll be fine."

"I know it's light you'll find."

"You're a good kid."

"Old friend, it's been ten years since I last saw you."

"____, where did you go?"

"Morning, sleepy head, you've been resting for a while."

"I swore that you were dead when you washed up on my isle."

"Did you know you talk in your sleep?"

"Tell me, though, who's ____?"

"I'm not your man."

"I'm what you want here."

"I'm what you need here."

"From here on out, you're mine, all mine."

"Hell no!"

"I could kill you where you stand!"

"I'm not pet, I'm a married man!"

"Last I checked, goddesses can't die."

"You're adorable."

"Bow down to the might ____, here to entertain, but fear not, I bring no pain."

"Under my spell, we're stuck in paradise."

"No one can come or go."

"I don't belong here!"

"There's something wrong here!"

"I wont' be drawn to live in paradise."

"Time can take a heavy toll."

"All I hear are screams..."

"____, get away from the ledge."

"You don't know what I've gone through!"

"You don't know what I've sacrificed!"

"Every comrade I long knew, every friend, I saw them die."

"It will be fine, dear."

"Come back inside, dear."

"Let me close my eyes."

"I know your life's been hard."

"I'll stay inside your heart."

"I love you, my dear."

"I love our time here."

"Life would be so much worse if you had died."

"Just let me close my eyes."

"Please stay away from harm."

"Stay in my open arms."

"He needs my help."

"Father, ____, rarely do I ask for favors."

"You are playing with thunder for a man full of shame."

"If he's worth the risk of going under, why not make it a game?"

"You all know I'm a fan of catchy songs."

"I think ____'s in the wrong."

"They were trying to do him worse!"

"Now they'll tread with caution first."

"Trust is not given, it's forged."

"Why should I give him my support?"

"He sacrificed his own cohort."

"Did you forget they failed to listen?"

"He was betrayed and then imprisoned."

"He was busy fighting!"

"More like busy spiting."

"Let him feel the pain that his ____ felt and rot."

"Please reconsider this."

"Really, ____? These old tricks?"

"What kind of sick coward holds back his power while he friends get devoured?"

"He didn't even fight ____!"

"Pathetic and weak like his ____!"

"Hold your tongue now!"

"His ____'s my friend!"

"Tell your lover that a broken heart can mend."

"You want more bloodshed?"

"He's got the mind of a genius."

"Try harder."

"He's pretty skilled with words."

"Can do better than that."

"He's kinda funny?"

"Never once has he cheated on his wife."

"I played your game and won!"

"You dare to defy me?"

"No one beats me, no one wins my game!"

"Is she dead?"

"Let him go, please."

[princesspastel8]

Chapter 8: Finally

Dipper POV

Once we appear not to fair from the shack, I notice the trace of unicorn hair glued to the base around the shack. "Damnit..." I mubble, also noticing those two idiotic police officers.

"....I remember that one..." Bill said, pointing at the tall one. "Can I kill him after all of this?"

I shrug, not understanding why he asked. "Sure. I don't care... just how are we -....oh." When I begin to think of a plan, the two began to make out.

"I've seen a lot of things pinetree...but that's a first." Bill said in a disgusted tone.

I chuckle, watching the back door of the shack open. To my luck, it's Mable. I smirk, looking at Bill. "You know what to do."

Bill smiles wickedly as he floats. "Now, this is going to get interesting." He said before disappearing.

Bill POV

I appear behind a tree, not too fair, from shooting star. I hear her mubble sorrow filled wishes. How hilarious.

"Wh-Why....it was one mistake....r-right?....I just want my old life back... I want mom and dad back.. I want Pacifica back! H-how can I see them again?" She questions out loud. Well, that's my cue.

I grace my presence in front of shooting star with a wicked smile. "I think I might know a way."

Her eyes widen in fear. She quickly stands, trying to run back into that dusty shack, but I stop her. I grab her wrist, squeezing it tightly. "Why in such a rush shooting star? Thought you'll be glad to see me!"

She opens her mouth to scream, but I snap my fingers, her lips turning into a zipper. I grab the end, zipping up her lips as I laugh. "Shhhhhhh, wouldn't want to let everyone know I'm here, right? Scream, and I'll rip your tongue out. We clear?"

She quickly nods her head. I snap my fingers, making the zipper disappear. "Great! Now, I'm sure that little brain of yours understands why I'm here."

"Th-the rift..." She stutters, trying to pull away, but I tighten my grip even more.

"Ding ding ding! I'm not an unreasonable dream demon, so I offer you a deal. You provide me your vessel to get the rift, and I'll grant you a way to see all of your dead loved ones."

Mable stares at me hesitantly. "B-but if I give you the rift you'll-"

"Weirdmageddon for the second time? Take over this world? Yes, and yes! But why do you care? You lost everything! Do you think your old farts are getting any younger? Give it a few weeks, and I'm sure they'll both be dead. But you don't have to worry, right? You'll be able to see them once they past and the ones that gave birth to you! So shooting star, it's a deal?" I said, letting go of her wrist as my hand arups into blue flames.

She lowers her head in shame as she sobs. She shakes my hand as I begin to laugh maniacally. I rip her soul out of her body, my form turning into one as well. I enter her body, taking one step and then another. "Wow, shooting star, your body is weird! What are these things on your chest?" I question.

"Wait, no! Bill, I change my mind! G-give me back my body!" She begs, but I laugh.

"A deal's a deal shooting star. Catch you later!" I said, walking towards the door. I grab the handle and laugh. I quickly pull back and frown. "Ah! Pain! It's hilarious to be safe! Well, pinetree was smart for having a backup plan."

"What?! Dipper is here with you? Where is he?!" She shouts as I smile.

I didn't respond. I walk back to pinetree with a heavy sigh. "Soooooo....phase two?"

Dipper POV

"Well, would you look at that. I was right. Never make fun of my plans again."

"Ok, ok! So snappy..." Bill said and pouts.

I roll my eyes, flipping through my journal. I come across a spell I learned not too long ago. "Here it is." I point to the writing. "I'll use this to summon that printer, I'm sure they didn't throw it out. I'll make a clone of myself and cause a distraction while I sneak into the back door of the lab. You just stand by. With Mable out of the way, our chances of getting caught went down."

Bill begins to laugh as I raise an eyebrow. "What's funny?"

"You're sister. She won't stop crying and yelling your name. She's right next to you trying to get your attention! Ahahahaha!"

I look up and see nothing. I smirk, "Now she knows what it feels like to be invisible and worthless. Anyways, let me get the printer here." I close my eyes, taking in a deep breath. "I summon the object in need. To carry out the objective at hand. In order to complete my diabolical task. Bring forth the printer to place on my mask!"

Nothing happened until I hear something crash down behind us. I take a peek at the two officers and roll my eyes. The two are still enjoying their heavy make-out session. "How did they not hear that?" I question to myself. I look at Bill, tossing him my journal.

He holds his hand to grab it, but it hits him in the face. Bill laughs, "Oh pain! Shooting star, your reflexes are so slow!"

I roll my eyes and open up the busted down printer. I lay myself down, closing my eyes. "Close it, Bill." I said, and he closes it.

The green neon light scans over my body twice. I push the top up and lower myself down. I watch the paper come out the other end as my clone emerges from the paper. "Alright, Tyrone. You know the plan, don't you?"

"Uh... yeah. I'm you, Dipper." Tyrone said with a chuckle at the end. He looks at Bill. "Let's go, dorito." He said while walking towards the shack.

Bill looks at Tyrone then at me. "Really pinetree? Tyrone? Of all names?" He questions with a raised eyebrow.

I shrug. "It's a name I always wanted. Now go put on a little show so this world can be ours."

Bill smiles. "Sir, yes, sir!" He said before saluting me.

Tyrone runs up to the police officers and knocks both of them out with a punch to the back of their heads. He grabs Bill, who's still inside Mable's body. "Some protection you have grunkle Stan and Ford!"

I quickly run to the other side of the shack, hiding behind a tree close to the back door. I see Stan and Ford rush out of the shack, but I don't see Wendy. I'll have to be mindful of her.

"Grunkles! Help me, please!" I hear Bill beg through mable's voice, making me chuckle. It's pretty good acting.

I rush inside, closing the door as quietly as I can. I glance around while speed walking to the vending machine. Right when I'm about to punch in the code, I hear footsteps behind me. I pretend to not notice before turning around and punching whoever it was. Not to my surprise, it's Wendy.

She steps back and coughs, glaring at me. "What are you doing here, Dipper?"

"My my, you lost your skills over the years, huh? You used to take punches and still fight. Anyways, be a good little red head and - "

She cuts me off by trying to throw a punch to my face. I grab her fist, twisting her wrist. I pull her towards me, letting go of her fist. I use my elbow to hit her in the back of her head, knocking her out. Her body falls to the ground with a loud 'tub'. I look towards the front, making sure those two idiots are still outside and they are.

I smirk, quickly punching in the code. I wait for the doors to open before running down. I stop, noticing a faint glow of red on the ground and the walls. "Security system? Nice one, Ford...nice." I said in annoyance. "My bag isn't here.....I'm sure there's flower in the kitchen. I need to see the lines better." I said while rushing back inside the kitchen.

I grab a bag of flower and walk back down. I reach in for a hand full and throw it at the dim red lines. Slowly, the red lines on the ground becomes more clear. "Now the next step....being as flexible as possible."

I place my journal in the back of my pants, slowly walking under and around the red lines. "damnit, this is hard!" I shout in frustration.

I notice a sheet of paper tapped to the wall next to a drawing of Bill. "How to...turn a human into a dream demon? Wow, Ford, I think your age is finally affecting your brain. That will be extremely useful to me..." I said, slowly reaching for the paper.

I didn't notice a red line barely shining in front of the paper. My eyes widened, but it's too late. My finger touched the line, causing a loud horn to go off all over the shake. "Fuck this!" I shout, grabbing the paper and quickly running towards the rift.

Before I cad get to it, I hear a gun go off. I turn around, and my eyes widen slightly. "Tyrone!" I shout.

"I'm fine, Dipper. Just hurry up and get the rift! Before Ford does something to Bill!"

"But you -"

He cuts me off. "You know my weakness! A bullet won't kill me! Now hurry up!" He orders.

I nod my head, running further down the lab. "When did this lab get so huge?!" I come across a steal door with a key code. Damnit, Ford! I left the flower in the front. I have to find something similar to it!" I rush around, trying to find any type of white dust to use.

I notice a small bag labled 'fairy dust'. I quickly grab the bag, running back to the door. I throw the dust onto the keypad, fingerprints appearing on four different numbers. "Now for the hard part." I said, trying different patterns of the four numbers.

"Dipper, hurry up! He's coming!" I hear Tyrone shout in pain along with more gun shots.

I take in a deep breath, the screen over the key pad telling me I only have one more try. "This time...will be different." I said, keying in the last pattern I haven't tried.

My eyes widen, hearing the lock to the door come undone. I pull the door open quickly, not wasting any time to grab the rift. I turn around, greeted by Stanley. My eyes widen, but I smile nonetheless. "You're too late, grunkle Stan!" I see Tyrone standing behind Stan.

"I can't believe you, Dipper...why would you do something like this?! That damn triangle is only using you!"

I laugh, shaking my head. "Oh Stanley... you shouldn't have let your guard down....now!" I shout at Tyrone.

I watch as he jumps on Stan back, pushing him down to the ground. I hear a crack, "Ah! My metal hip!" He said in pain.

"Hope you brought enough gold to last you the rest of your lifetime." I said, walking over the two. "Because when Bill and I reform this planet, gold will be the last thing you'll get your hands on." I laugh while slowly walking out of the lab and towards the front of the shack.

I walk outside with a bright smile, chuckling at Bill flying around and Ford chasing after him. "Darn, you Bill!"

"Enough fooling around Bill. Turn back into yourself." I said loud enough to gain their attention.

"Great work, pinetree!" Bill cheers, leaving Mable's body to fall to the ground.

"Bill could've given you the world, Ford. Infinite power, fame, and riches. But you would rather play hero. Tsk tsk tsk. It's too bad for you, but it's great for me!" I said, dropping the rift onto the ground, enjoying the sound of it breaking.

"Dipper no! Do you have any idea what you've done!"

"Uh yeah, become one step closer to ruling the world. While you take big steps towards your grave."

I watch as gravity falls transform into a world straight out of the weirdest side of hell. I begin to float alongside Bill, who has the biggest smile stretched across his face. "Oh, pinetree! It's finally happening!"

I chuckle, holding onto him as his demon friends fall from the sky. "Yeah, for the second and last time."

"Dipper! You foolish child! He's only using you! You're just his puppet!"

"Puppet? PUPPET?!" I burst into a fit of cackles. "Oh, Ford. Don't lump me in the same pile of fools' Bill used over his lifetime. The only difference is that I'm able to give Bill what he wants. And you unintentionally gave me something I wanted." I hum while pulling the sheet of paper from my pocket. "Thank you so much for the instructions on how to become an unstoppable dream demon!"

Bill raised an eyebrow in interest. "Oh wow, sixxter. Nice going!" He laughs mockingly.

Ford eyes widen in fear. "No...." He looks at Mable, her face covered in shame.

"This is....a-all my fault!" She cries.

"For once, you're right about something. Take my thanks, it'll be the only time you hear me say it. Thanks Mable, for being a complete selfish bitch and giving me a chance at true happiness!" I cheer.

Bill snaps his fingers as the confetti appears over the two. "CONGRATULATIONS!! For being stupid meatsacks! Here, have deer teeth as my thanks." Bill said while pulling teeth from a deer's mouth and throwing it at them.

I roll my eyes and smirk. "Let's go have some fun."

"Gladly." He said as we begin floating towards his castle.

He places me down at the doorstep as he flies in, greeted by his demon friends. I smile softly, turning around to look down at gravity falls now covered in complete weirdness.

I close my eyes, taking a deep breath in, enjoying the smell of blood and sadness. I blow the breath I'm holding out as I open my eyes. "There's no place like home..."

[p0rk-guts]

waitt but what's different about your ocified velvette... i like her a little but find myself wanting more substance from her in canon tbh

TEEHEE WHAT A GOOD QUESTION I TOTALLY DIDN'T SET PPL UP TO ASK ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay sew me and @ajistorpid were talking and they inspired a good chunk of my ideas so you can blame them for feeding my sick delusions.

Read more just like last time bc I talk too much sorry but there's art in there too oooo you should look u should read my ramblings

As far as I know, Velvette has no canon age at death, cause of death, or death date so based on what we know we just crafted our own headcanons. AJ proposed she might've had parents who ran one of those family vlog channels with her as the face of it, becoming a child influencer under her parents' control. I was thinking she could've been a child model- yk like. dance moms or something. Idk I don't remember what was happening on that show— anyways. Yea

Either way she grew up constantly controled and perfection was her standard. All of her outside thoughts and feelings and interests and opinions were constantly dismissed in favor of what made her more marketable. She never did get that popular in life tho, and her mentors always shamed and blamed her for it.

Idk if this is canon or not, but the idea of the sinners designs reflecting their vices or things they regreted or hated in life is an untapped gold mine to me so that could explain where Velvette's supposed doll and clown themes come from. Became a toy dressed up and paraded around for the entertainment of others + joke never taken seriously. She'd hate that

(As for how that ties into my redesign…. me and AJ were thinking she could be a vampire doll, but I'm not sure IDK I wanna sketch that out and see what it's giving)

In hell she easilly fell back into this warped facsimile of her old life bc it was all she knew. "she feels some form of pseudo control and enjoyment because she has no one pulling her strings now" (<-AJ) SHE'S running things!!! Who's the puppet now!!!!!!

Then THAT had me thinking too because now that I think about it. Why Is she the backbone of the V's?? She's like. An undergrad student in my mind at the MOST and Vox and Val are two men pushing 40 I'm sure. I think a big part of it is the fact that those two are almost complete and utter buffoons who let their emotions cloud their actions constantly, Valentino most obviously but even tho Vox seems more composed like when he's talking Val down from his outburst and when he was talking to the press, we can still see he's a total mess—especially where Alastor is concerned. He lost it so bad during their duet HE SHORTED PENTAGRAM CITY'S POWER.

Now out of all the V's we've seen the least of Velvette (I'd call it what it is but yall gon get real mad at me), The most we really got out of her character was the overlord meeting (and despite her huge ego and unruly behavior she did end up speaking facts), so maybe she Is just as unstable as them in canon but canon is SHIT and this isn't about canon anymore. In my mind she's very much in charge of the back end of their work. Vox is obviously the head of the operation—or at least he seems like it to me—what with the tech company having his name and with him answering the interviews, but I think that's all he is. The figure head. Velvette is the brain behind it all. When Vox proposes new buisness endeavors off the cuff she's the one who goes back and makes sure they're getting handled properly because he doesn't really dig into the backend of how things happen. Vox goes to most of the conferences or whatever (Vel's too busy running her shows and serving cunt after all) but Vel follows up on what was learned.

(also yeah all that makes this very much an au of an au bc it'd take a lot of radical changes for the two of them to be friends I think. It's fun to imagine anyway)

Quoting AJ here bc I'm bad at paraphrasing and they said it well:

"And if we're going to make her sympathetic, (obviously not excusing her enabling a rapist) Val and Vox are grown ass men and she never got to experience the world outside a camera

Velvette is easily malleable with no real relationships!! Some victims tend to gravitate towards people who are similar to their abusers the only exception is that she feels like she has control this time"

THIS this. THIS! Okay uhh vague personal experience w/ abuse cw ig. skip this paragraph if you don't wanna hear it. But It kinda reminds me of my relationship with my parents- NOT THAT I SEE THEM AS TWO DADS AND A DAUGHTER I DO NOT BELIEVE IN THAT NOTION IN A POST PILOT WORLD If future content proves me wrong it proves me wrong but at this moment they're all equals in my mind (…and I hc them as poly BUT WE'LL GET THERE) but In my situation it's like. I hate my parents for the abuse they've caused me, my mom more than my dad bc she's satan incarnate, but there are still things I like about my dad and. Tolerate. About my mother. We still can talk cordialy and spend time together, have fun together even, and I show affection to them, but deep down I know I wanna cut my mom off later and maybe my dad too depending. Additionally my mom is completely Incompatent and pulls none of her weight so despite it all I've been forced to pick up the slack and become half the brains of this family. I do chores she should take care of. Handle money. Make important decisions about our health and safety she doesn't care about.

AAAny ways. This is so my version of Velvette. No I'm not projecting (I am). She pulls a big chunk of the weight around there (some of it being carried by Vox and virtually none by Val). She's very close with the two of them but isn't a fan of everything they do (Cares more for Vox than Val in my mind). Speaking of, she definitely isn't some saint now, she still makes the love potions and is Impassive to both Val and Vox's behavior, but part of that Is her just seeing it as part of the business. Shady practices and exploitation are par for the course in any business to her. She never truly grew out of the harmful mindsets ingrained into her by whoever her enabling caretakers were in life and they're still apparent in hell. (Maybe she even experienced some of the darker sides of exploitation in life but was groomed into thinking it was okay contributing to why she doesn't see Valentino's actions as heinous. Idk. thinking on it)

Circling back to my poly V's idea. Idk it just seems plausible to me. Vox and Val already have their whole thing going on, they all live together, and they all have nicknames for each other (Vox calling her my dear, Val calling her baby doll, Vel calling Vox darling). Ik that could just be their personalities and the pet names don't have to mean anything more but this is MY au and my word is gospel hope this helps. It just makes sense

I could go on and ON about the toxic insanity of the Poly V's in my mind— particularly between Vox and Valentino— but this is NOT their post so maybe next time. As for Velvette, I get the vibe that she'd be intimate with both of them and enjoy it but she's never the one to initiate anything. Sometimes they're all like this 🤞🏾 and others the boys are a complete turn off to her (main example being the difference in her attitude towards Vox in episode 3 vs episode 8). Her tolerance of them flips on a dime depending on how they're acting. She also prefers to be a casually entertained observer to VoxVal more often then not (ex. end of episode 8 imo)

Boys aside. My Velvette is still a social media influencer and she's all about advertising. advertising products (like the love potion), clothing looks, technology... Heck even herself. "You're nobody if you don't wear this or use this or look like this ^ - ^". Projecting on her even further by making her have a love/hate relationship with her profession aka the modeling aspect of it: she's always had a genuine love for fashion and dressing up but the internal pressure for perfection she's placed on herself makes it hard for her. She's very hard on her models and designers bc of this

Couldn't think of a segway for this but also WHAT HAPPENED TO VELVETTE WANTING TO FIGHT THE ANGELS??? The "full assault plan" against the angels??? And then when the fight actually came they were all just lounging around watching it go down like it was afternoon tv????? This isn't even a "we'll get to it in season 2" thing did they honest to god forget? Did that line not mean anything??

Well I didn't forget and it's pissed me off since my first rewatch of that meeting scene. Don't think we don't know how the V's got the angel head, but In my head Velvette was the one who initially proposed the idea for an assault against heaven and her insatiable need to feel respected and feared only spurred this plan on, incredible risk be damned.

It also felt weird to me that Velvette just. Let it go when Carmilla said the meeting was over. Just. "Oh ok! Plan cancelled no more attacking heaven ^ - ^ I'm gonna go scroll for the rest of the show!" Hu h. My au-ified Velvette would definitely fight her on it— if she thought killing angels would change the game and Carmilla held the secrets behind it she would pry! Blow up at her about it until she wasn't getting results and bitterly storming off with as much composure as she could muster. Not wanting to team up with Carmilla but find some way to use her for all she was worth and get her way in the end, use the power and resources the V's had to actually make a plan. Would it have worked without the Morningstars? Eh. Either way I'm sure she could delude herself into thinking they were the most powerful people in hell. Ugh I don't wanna make an au rewrite of the show and I that was never my plan so idk where that'd go but. Yea

ANYWAYS anyways. wow you made it to the end somehow! Here's your treat :3

Context u didn't ask for: Some days Velvette overwhelms herself with her own impossible expectations. Nothing she creates or puts out is good enough. She gets extra anxious about her following; nothing's happened to them, but what if they see the miniscule flaw in her latest clothing that she sees? What if she's no longer perfect? (Even worse in the vamp Velvette redesign of her bc she literally feeds off their attention and admiration)

She'll snap at everyone and disapprove of every look and then hole herself away somewhere where she crashes and is just. So. Tired. But she'll be out of it the next day, ready to keep the conveyor rolling.

[otdiaftg]

The King's Men - Chapter Three

Day: Thursday, January 4th Time: 7:20 PM EST

"What did I say yesterday?" Neil asked her. "Why did you react like that?" It didn't take her long to remember. "About the knives, you mean." When Neil nodded, she turned her hands over and considered her palms. "You remember I told you I used to be in a gang? There was a man there who went out of his way to hurt me. He liked knives and kept a half-dozen on him at all times. I couldn't defend myself by normal means, so I learned to fight with knives, too. I practiced for a year before I finally bested him. "'Bested'." Renee contemplated the word choice for a few moments before saying, "He didn't survive the fight. Boss helped stage the body so we could pin it on a rival gang and I was promoted. I kept the knives through my trial and my adoption. I wanted to remember what darkness I'm capable of—and what darkness I'm capable of surviving." "You did what you had to do," Neil said. "If he lived he would have come back for you." "I know," Renee said, soft. "There were other girls before I caught his eye; there would be girls after I left. But I didn't do it for the greater good. I did it because he wronged me personally and I didn't want to be afraid of him anymore. I regret what it did to me more than I regret the necessity of his death. I felt no horror when I watched him die. I was proud of what I'd done to him. "I told Andrew what I did," Renee said. "The next day while I was at class he broke into my room and took my knives. When I asked for them back, he said I was lying to myself. If I wanted to remember, I wouldn't hide the knives in my closet like a shameful secret I couldn't revisit or let go of. They weren't doing me any good, so he said he would carry them until I needed them again. "I let him have them because I trusted him not to use them," Renee said. "I thought he understood what they were supposed to be: not weapons anymore but a symbol of what we've overcome. I didn't ask him for his reasons. I knew he would tell me if he wanted me to know." The obvious answer was Drake, but it didn't add up quite right. Neil turned it over in his head, working his way through it, and thought about the scars on Andrew's forearms. Who had Andrew survived: Drake or himself? Neil wasn't going to share that idea with Renee, so he said, "So those knives he brings everywhere are yours?" "Were mine," Renee said. "He was right; I don't need them anymore. If you need them, he will give them to you, and I will teach you how to use them." She wasn't smiling anymore. Neil studied her calm expression and knew she meant it. She'd put her faith in mankind and her Christian piety on hold and show him how to cut a man open throat to groin if he asked her to. Neil was starting to understand why Andrew liked her. She was crazy enough to be interesting. "Thank you," Neil said, "but no. I don't want to be like—him." He didn't say he'd used knives before; one couldn't grow up a Wesninski without having a blade pushed into his hand. Nathan didn't have the time or patience to teach his son but he'd put two of his people to the task. Luckily Neil left home before he progressed past cutting up hunks of dead animals. "Of course," Renee agreed. She waited a moment to see if anything else was forthcoming, then got to her feet. "I shouldn't keep Allison waiting, but if you want to talk more later you know where to find me." "Okay," Neil said.

Art used with permission by Aymmidumps. Thank you @aymmidumps

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Hi Shalom, I am the anon who sent an ask about calling a shul last week. Before giving updates I would like to apologise for vomiting my anxiety all over the ask. We're strangers and you didn't ask for the job of calming my anxieties. I apologise for that.

Also, thank you for your faith in me, it gave me strength, because I did go to the shul. I was incredulous at myself, but I did do it. I had to go back to my home during the day as I had forgotten my ID but I still went back instead of giving up (the journey was one hour and a half total, next time I will remember).

The security literally used interrogator techniques on me, which I realised only later. I totally understand, I didn't know anyone there, I was not Jewish by my own confession, I could have been anyone. Anyway, I said if I shouldn't be here that evening it was fine (I didn't want to pose a security risk) he said "No! You can go tonight we talked about you."

What can I say about the experience but that it was- so much better than I expected. First, everyone was so opened and relaxed. I talked with two women behind me. I said it was my first time and asked some questions, and one of them was so nice. Said she couldn't read either the first time, that she had learned. Turns out she was a convert. I hesitated to tell her I wasn't Jewish, but I did. One thing I want to be is honest. Those people are literally putting themselves in danger, opening their space to a stranger, I owe them at least three time my honesty.

At one point during the office, I got teary eyes. The emotion of being there, honestly it surprised me, I don't really now what got me so emotional. Another moment, I felt like I was flying, wrapped in the singing of everyone around me.

Another thing is I was finally hearing people say Hashem, and Shma Israel and Shabbat Shalom and talking about the destruction of the Temple. It was as if I had finally found the correct dimension, you know?

It was so good. At the end the lady gave me her number told me I could text and we could drink coffee this week so that she could answer my questions.

The guy at the entrance told me to call the secretary to begin the procedure of conversion. I never said I wanted to, but apparently me wanting to assist to an office count as wanting to convert.

So, this has been a wonderful experience. I still I'm not sure if I want to convert or not. I will contact the lady. What I know is I want to learn everything, I want to go back to shul. What I don't know is, what level of observance can I sustain realistically over the term of my life? am I ready to confront my relatives reaction to this? And am I ready to put my children in danger over my calling to Judaism?

I will reflect and ask questions and think.

Thank you for reading, have a great day!

I want to start with: I am, genuinely, very proud of you. It might sound odd, but it is such an intimidating first step to take, and I can empathize with how scary it is. Additionally, I understand where you were coming from, and understood that these anxieties are hard to talk about with, really, anyone, but they need to go somewhere. Every step of the conversion process is a community project, even questioning if judaism is right will take a community to address. We can't survive alone in this, and I think part of exploring conversion is learning how to be in community. I think many of us grew up in hyper-individualistic communities to the point where we internalize shame by "stooping down" to seeking help. I don't want to assume what your situation is, but it's definitely been something I personally have had to contend with (and frankly, I still am contending with). So I truly understand why you went about your feelings the way you did - you didn't cause harm to me, I didn't feel like a therapist, and you it seemed like you needed community. That's nothing to be ashamed or guilty for. So long as we all remember that I am not an expert, I think we can at least have a heart-to-heart. My overall point is: I don't want for you to feel ashamed of needing community and asking for support, and I hope you don't feel that way. I'm glad you contacted me, and feel honored that you chose me to speak about it with. That's crazy to think about (in a good way, of course)!

I truly have so much faith in your path, and I found myself relating heavily in what you've expressed. I absolutely don't want to tell you what you ought to do, but I really hope you continue this journey no matter where it leads you. Keep asking those big questions - learning about what your needs are is so important. I can't answer them for you, and I don't want to assume that you want me to answer those for me, but if you ever want to talk, know that this blog is an option if you want it to be. All of this is a community effort. Chase the happiness. You deserve that, literally, at the very least

[timidxtempted]

breathe, he says.

let the feelings wash over you...

ok. it's just

I DON'T FUCKING KNOW HOW.

i mean, i'm trying. i'm learning. but i don't feel my feelings, ok? i think them. i think them, then i decide if they are valid to feel, then (since i decide they are rarely valid enough to feel) i think them away.

it's a system i've used for a long time and it works perfectly well and i don't know why i have to change it now, thankyouverymuch.

(i do know)

except he forces me feel things because he takes away the thinking part and all i'm left with is the feeling part and i don't know what the feelings are at first but i'm learning what each feeling feels like as it comes but sometimes i am very confused and i can't recognize it right away and how can i learn what a feeling feels like until i identify it and then can tell him and properly communucate to him what i'm feeling when he asks me?

i've only ever known what anxiety and fear and doubt and shame feel like, because they all feel like fists. anxiety is the fist just below my solar plexus squeezing until it tries to kill me. fear and panic is the fist in my chest beating it's way out. shame is the fist at the back of my head. doubt is the icky fist in the pit of my stomach. i'm very aware of those.

but now i have other feelings GOOD feelings and i know what they feel like. i know how they feel inside me without thinking about them, i just feel them. i know them now! i do! i recognize them!

i know that happy feels like warmth in my chest and tingles in my pussy that are different from aroused and happy feels like fingers trailing down the back of my neck or across my cheek. i know that happy feels like if sunshine came from somewhere in my chest and that it feels like my chest isn't big enough to contain it but not in a painful way, in the way that makes me feel like it glows so much other people can see it.

i know what unbridled silly joy feels like! it feels like an ache in my cheeks from smiling and a tickle in my throat from the laughter and the prickle of tears in my eyes that feel like the happy in my chest overflowing.

i know what fun fear feels like now too! it does not feel like a fist. it feels like a breath blown over my lower neck, the hairs standing up and electrifiying my senses and it feels like a half smile tugging at my lips the same time my heartbeat hitches up, and my body becomes sensitized all over and my cunt twitches if it's daddy scaring me

i know what peaceful feels like! that one took me longer. it took me a lot of tries to figure it out, but i did! peaceful feels like nothing and everything all at the same time. peace feels like hearing my heartbeat and feeling it steady and strong in my chest but feeling it because i am listening for it, not because i'm trying to escape it. peace feels like blue. it feels like my oldest warmest softest sweater, except i'm wearing it on the inside.

i know what safe feels like. safe feels like peace and happy together but it also feels a little like awe. it feels like looking out over the most beautiful sunrise and feeling the colours in my heart, the warmth spreading out just like the hues split the sky.

and today i know what relief feels like. i know what it feels like to have the weight of something lifted from me and i know that relief might mean tears too and that's ok, especially if i didn't know how heavy it had been weighing on me. relief feels like that deep breath i take where it seems like my lungs shouldn't be able to hold that much air, and relief feels like stepping out of wet socks into thick, dry carpet and relief feels a little like joy and peace, too.

but i didn't know that until today.

but next time i will know it. and i will feel it, instead of think it. and i will be able to let that feeling wash over me and be proud because i've learned to bypass the part of this where i tell myself that i don't get to feel those things.

i can add one more thing to the list of things i don't have to over-think or only-think about any more. and it's scary sometimes not having any idea what i'm actually feeling versus what i think i should be feeling, and it's frustrating and i'm such a fucking pain in the ass TRUST i know

but i'm trying so hard

honest i am

but damn.

patience is as fucking hard for me as words sometimes.

this was not easy to write and it was written as a diary entry.

i am choosing to share it because reasons.

if you have negative things to say, i implore you to keep that shit to yourself.

thank you.

[goodluckclove]

So apparently when I drink enough to start posing real questions (such as "what spec fiction author would be the most fun to party with"), my body reacts poorly and I end up with insomnia. I've been lying in bed for about four and a half hours just pondering before I realized I'm an adult and I can just change locations.

I'm in the living room now. Bob seems happy for the attention. And I'd like to share my central ponder of the night, centered around how much of a bummer it is that like most of the online queer centered spaces I've seen consist of rampant in-fighting.

Stay with me here. Seriously this is a long one I'm very tired.

I'm not coming from some nonsense centrist place of no conflict ever. I just feel like so much queer conversation I see is either vague blanket support, or a massive thread that somehow starts in the middle of an argument. And as someone who is not necessarily old, but definitely not active online, this is super isolating.

I think it's a really interesting anthropological concept that as queer culture develops it becomes more niche and simultaneously more vague. That's cool. The downside is that I am now the human embodiment of that Griffin Mcelroy meme about not knowing what something is and being too afraid to ask. And every time I see someone who is clearly super passionate about some queer take, I really want to ask why they think what they do or how they came to that conclusion, but holy shit that feels dangerous.

Like it's not an immediate invalidation to ask why. More modern queer identities are so varied there's a very good chance two people experiencing the same circumstances might have two radically different reasons and ways to get there. I am at the point where I no longer think anyone can speak for our collective queer experience unless they use the broadest of terms. I'm genuinely just grieving that we're immediately giving each other shit over variations instead of getting together and comparing notes.

Oh but Google is free - fuck off. Like straight up. That shit flies for the surface level information and it's crazy to me that more people don't acknowledge that. Google is free for people who think there's only one intersex variation. Google is free for people who really want to know if scissoring is real. At this point in society there are multiple generations of queer people (or people in general) with multiple senses of online validity. Someone who grew up in the 90s might trust a more traditional source for information rather than a google doc or Tumblr post or reddit thread or tiktok, and by that logic they aren't really going to be convinced by any Googling they do for a lot of new cultural shifts.

Like I was a teen with shit opinions. I was snarky about "transtrenders" who used neopronouns. Not online or to anyone - I wasn't a complete dipshit - but I definitely thought it. If I posted about it online I'd say all the regular arguments and the opposing side would say all their regular arguments and we'd block each other and accomplish nothing.

Which would be a massive shame because one of my shining qualities is my ability to admit when I'm wrong. There's a much better alternate reality in which I did post about how people who think you don't need dysphoria to be trans are cringe, and some kind trans person asked why I thought that. Because then I'd say something like because everyone wants to be trans that doesn't mean you're just allowed to say you are.

And then they'd probably be like yeah maybe you should talk to more people about this and consider where you're coming from, saving me like ten years of gatekeeping myself from my own identity.

Like I tried the Googling thing for something niche that I'm curious about. I learned about aplatonicism recently and was like huh. New info. But every post I see in the aplatonic tag is already angry about being aplatonic so I'm not about to take space with my own curiosity.

But after scrolling a Reddit thread I am more confused than ever. I don't know what a squish is, friends. I mean, I know the definition - but my brain doesn't think of human relationships like that. People were talking about having friends that they love but they don't have squish love or friend love, also aplatonic describes some autistic people, also also aplatonic is a word specifically used for aromantic people who don't want QPRs. I don't think any of this is wrong. I do think that it is so much information that it cancels out in my brain, and now I kind of just think aplatonic is a word that means things sometimes. And that's not what I want.

I'm being self indulgent because I don't think anyone is reading this far and I'm feeling relaxed because I took an Adderall earlier today and I feel like I can actually think for the first time in months. I want to ask some aplatonic people what they think "friend love" is supposed to be compared to what they feel for their friends, if they have them. If they don't have a need for friends, I am very curious to know what they think about the friend list function on virtually every social media website and game. Like this is not a bit. I've been awake in bed for almost five hours and it occurred to me that might be a bummer. Maybe some people use them out of convenience, but I think it would be interesting to meet a person who's so staunch in their philosophy that they just don't. I feel like there's probably a lot of aplatonic people who are like just straight up not online and don't even know that's their vibe.

I want to ask some loveless aros what they consider to be positive emotions or motivations in their lives. Like I'm so full of love for virtually anything that the concept of not having that emotion across the board makes me wonder if something else fills the space. Like do loveless aros love ideas? Do they love their hobbies? I don't think aromantics are sociopaths at all, I've just seen people who both say that loveless is reclaiming a slur and also defining a lack of love and I'd like to know more about both.

I saw a post on my feed about how anyone should be allowed to get gender affirming surgery even if they aren't trans. I don't disagree. That argument has honestly never occured to me and I really wish I could've asked why someone would want that. Because "a cis man might want a vagina" is valid, but doesn't fly in terms of actual logistics. You have to make so many appointments and wait for so long and answer so many questions. I'm aware my opinion on this is heavily biased by being Agender and actively ridding my body of as many secondary sexual characteristics as quickly as possible. I am not immune to the propaganda of my own identity. I would just like to have an in-depth conversation with a cis man that wants a vagina and ask why and also if they think it's worth the maintenance. Because, like, there IS maintenance.

I'm not doing it to judge. If this hypothetical man is like "yeah I know I'd have to keep up with the upkeep and maybe wear hormone patches from now on, but structurally it makes sense for my view of my own manhood", I'd be like "that's really interesting, I considered adding a penis to my architecture but then decided that it would probably be a sensory nightmare for me. I'm surprised so many cis men can ride a bike."

And then maybe he'd say "where do you think cis men put their pensises when they ride a bike?" To which I would say "I don't know the mechanics of a penis and at this point the thought of learning in which direction I'd have to stick my hypothetical one makes me anxious."

And then he'd kind of scoff bemusedly, and we'd go out together for banh mis.

I think at this point in my rant I'm realizing that my major issue here is that the world as a whole is not friendly to genuine curiosity. I also get triggered by hate bait, and it bothers me that I can't pull the subject of the cringe fuel aside and be like what are you doing? Like, not judgementally. I want you to explain to me what you are doing and why it's important to you.

I don't think it'll convince me every time, but I'm pretty sure I'd be like "ah, okay. Makes sense." And then move on with a greater understanding of the growth of humanity.

And also we can get banh mis.

I really want a bahn mi but I can't bike to get one or else my guts will fall out. Gender affirming surgery is a mistake for the sole reason that it prevents me from yummy Vietnamese sandwiches.

Kidding. I'm kidding, not having a uterus anymore has been pretty cool.

The sun came up.

Fuck.

[shortpplfedup]

Only Friends Character Rankings Episode 10

We're in the final act now, as Jojo n'em focus on 'Redemption'. Last week y'all tapped Nick as the most honest in reckoning with himself, and now it's everybody else's turn for a reckoning.

🔺1. Boeing (2)

You're totally his type. Like an upgraded version of me.

Walk in, fuck shit up, that's the Boeing way, and I am GAGGING for it. I don't have a clue who the target is or what his game is or exactly but he is playing it EXPERTLY. Is he trying to get Top back? Is he trying to get back at Top? Where does next week's Sand diversion fit in? DID HE AND MEW REVENGE FUCK I NEED TO KNOW?! (I ALSO NEED TO SEE!).

🔻2. Nick (1)

Don't we deserve each other?

Nikolai my stalker baby, why did my heart swell three sizes when you got your man? Honesty remains the best policy, and owning your own shit is a fast track to understanding and accepting others. Nick tried, he genuinely gave Daddy Dan an honest and fair chance, and it COULD have been something, but the heart wants what it wants and Nick's heart wants Boston. The look on his face when he saw his photo as Boston's lockscreen, the way he BAWLED when Boston admitted he missed him...peak romance I tell you.

🔺3. Boston (4)

I don't usually take good care of what I own.

I'm not really meta-ing about this show, but the PRECISION with which Jojo n'em sliced and diced the audience's slut-shaming ways via this character got me. I am INCANDESCENT on Boston's behalf that his so-called friends were so willing to believe Atom's nasty little lies. Because Boston might be a slut, and he might have gone a little Top crazy, and he might stir up some drama when he's feeling some typa way, but he's not a sexual predator, and HE DOESN'T LIE. And despite it all people who call themselves friends to him SHOULD know that. He shouldn't have fucked Atom yes, but Atom straight up asked to get fucked. Boston DOES have lessons to learn about controlling his impulses and filtering the things that come out of his mouth, but these hypocrites ain't the ones to teach him. I'm glad that Nick got over himself last week just in time to be there when Boston truly needed him, and I hope that if they decide to try a relationship that Nick keeps the letting-Boston-be-Boston energy he's discovered.

⭐4. Ray's Dad

Ray's Dad in his one prior appearance seemed like a man at the end of his rope, and I'm glad my thinking was borne out. This story keeps telling us that nobody is a monster, nobody is a villain, everybody is just a person, and Ray's dad is a person like all the rest of them: he cared about his wife, he's watched helplessly and increasingly angrily as his son went down the same path, but he didn't know how to get through to him because he's limited, as we all are, so he did a lot of the wrong thing. I don't think paying Sand to get Ray into rehab was the wrong thing though, that was the act of a desperate man. Him giving Ray the straight dope about how to treat people was a long overdue fatherly lesson. Has he been neglectful? Indubitably. But I'm rooting for him.

🔻5. Sand (3)

Do you think I’m a man with no dignity?

Sand is the beneficiary of me being salty about Mew and Ray joining the 'I saw Goodie Proctor with the devil' mini-mob, but I could have TOLD him that a man who continuously and repeatedly calls you a whore is going to believe the absolute worst about you when the chips are down. I'm lowkey mad he gave back the money, because Ray is gonna call him a whore whether or not he's getting paid. I know Sand lives for the drama sparkle Ray brings to his otherwise dull life, but come ON dude.

🔺6. Mew (7)

If you blow it again this time, I'll blame myself for being dumb enough to trust you.

Mew joining in the fun with Boeing is probably gonna bite him somehow but right now I am LIVINGGGGG. Mew keeping Top up at night staring at the ceiling on a regular basis is the only way I'm gonna truly enjoy them being together, because game recognising game is my favourite brand of toxic relationship. If these two spend the next 50 years trying to get one over on each other I will be so satisfied.

🔻7. Ray (5)

I'm not addicted to alcohol. I can stop whenever I want.

Ray spending the entire episode in various stages of denial, his irritation with the idea of rehab and refusal to take it seriously, that explosion that was ALWAYS coming at Sand, and his final, quiet realisation that he has a fucking problem and he needs to fix it to stop hurting the people around him was phenomenal television, anchored by a bravura performance by Khaotung. Ray is gonna have a lot of amends to make once he starts drying out, including saying everything he said to his therapist directly to Sand. Can he truly change? Let's see.

🔻8. Top (6)

I'm sure if he stops being mad at me, we can make it long-term.

I finally figured out why no matter what I'll NEVER like Top and he doesn't pass the vibe check: his instincts and reactions are to lie, hide and cheat when he doesn't feel on top of things. He and Boeing may not be fuckin', but whatever is going on there smells like deceit and mendacity, and he is DESPERATE to hide it from Mew. The look on his face when Boeing is around is exactly how he looked around Boston after that car. Give me an honest slut over whatever this is any day of the week and twice on Sundays. I keep saying that Mew is part of Top's self-actualization, and the way he talks about him with Boeing in this ep just adds fuel to my fire. Is that enough to sustain a long-lasting and successful relationship, absolutely, so many couples are JUST like this.

🔺9. Cheum (12)

Find your own way to graduate. And we will forget we were once friends with you.

OOH this girl pisses me off. Having finally decided to mind the business that pays her, mostly because she's annoyed Atom seems to prefer talking to Boston than talking to her, she's all too willing to believe Atom's lies about Boston and run up pointing her j'accuse finger. I genuinely can't get over how UGLY that scene at Boston's was, how Cheum pulled out some of the same shit that gets levelled at queer men, promiscuous or not, and threw it all at Boston. When she said she didn't believe that Atom was the aggressor because he likes girls, that hit me in the fucking chest. Boston must have done something to Atom. He must have coerced him, blackmailed him, forced him, right? It's so grotesque.

🔻10. Atom (9)

Getting my heart broken by a girl won't kill me.

Speaking of grotesque, what a nasty bit of business this was. Hurt people hurt people, that's kind of the whole ethos of this show, and the lies Atom told were designed to ruin Boston's life like he feels Boston ruined his by GIVING HIM EXACTLY WHAT HE ASKED FOR. I very much doubt Atom is gonna stop at Cheum too, he's out to destroy, and spreading around this kind of shit about somebody who's already judged for being 1) queer and 2) promiscuous is absolutely destructive. This shit was the vilest thing anybody has done on this show by a country mile.