#but my partner encouraged me to post any of the book in the first place because I liked making it so much and thought others might also

[renownedtholianpunctualityyyyy]

From my Star Trek 'scrapbook' thing S02E01 Amok Time

I'll transcribe everything into regular text as best as I can because I know my handwriting is a hot mess. ✨ It's mostly descriptions of my favourite things, things I noticed, or my favourite quotes etc. And there's pleeeenty I love about this episode, but man, I could only fit so much in the book per episode. 🥲

[Page 1]

[1] Amok Time

First episode I saw! ❤️

McCoy being the first to notice something is wrong.

"Very impressive. Very diplomatic."

Kirk pleading with spock to tell him what's going on so he can help in some way. He tells Spock how much he cares for him and needs him without directly saying it. It's so tense and beautiful...

Spock resists telling him but eventually breaks town and tells him about the secret Vulcan "Pon Farr — the time of mating."

This episode is basically 98% gay sexual tension. 🌈

"Why must he die? ... Why MUST he die?!"

"I owe him my life a dozen times over. Isn't that worth a career? He's my friend."

This episode originated the 'fuck or die' trope, apparently.

So much tense eye contact and physicality.

[Page 2]

Kirk gentle, but firm. Spock can barely speak.

"How do Vulcans choose their mates? Haven't you wondered?"

Kirk wondering if he's being propositioned:

So much tension

"...Biology." "What kind of biology?" "VULCAN biology." "You mean the biology... of Vulcans? 'Biology' — as in — reproduction?" "..." "...There's no need to be embarrassed about it, Mister Spock..."

One of my favourite shots in the whole show. [Picture of Kirk and Spock close together, but not too close; Spock with his head bowed and his hands in his lap, ashamed for admitting what he has; and Kirk feeling many emotions, including worry.] ((Shame, guilt, tension, yearning, admission, forbidden.))

The way Spock begs: "Captain— lock me away. I do not wish to be seen. No Vulcan could explain further." "I'm trying to help you, Spock."

Spock's wanting/having speech to T'Pring at the end.

The slashed shirt is Iconique

[Page 3]

Kirk reassuring Spock (and admitting) that he's into his 'madness'. Spock surprised McCoy tired of their endless, shameless flirting.

Spock asking Kirk and McCoy to join him for the ceremony

Everyone watching the boys roll around and fight in the sand

Rolling and basically dry-humping as they fight

Poor Spock's mortified face when he thinks he's killed Kirk

The sand has glitter in it

"CAPTAIN!!"

"J I M !!"

Spock grabs Kirk's shoulders and spins him around ❤️

Look at how happy Kirk is ❤️ McCoy and Chapel happy too

Close up of Kirk not believing Spock's hetero-explanation. ("You're gay for me — we'll figure it out later.")

[iamthatonefangirl]

harvey specter headcanons pt. 3

i'm running out of ideas maybe it's time for me to write an actual fic. i love hiding behind my little one-liners or individual paragraphs i'm too insecure to post real fics. it's okay tho i am loving getting back into writing

part one

part two

~~~

harvey specter, who is subconsciously obsessed with always resting his hand on your back. who does it without even noticing he’s doing it—whether you’re taking a stroll, or he’s holding a door open and ushering you in, or sitting in his lap having sex—he’s always got his hand on the small of your back. 

harvey specter, who never misses an opportunity when he sees it. if you’re bending over or preoccupied with a task, he’s always going to take the chance to smack your ass.

harvey specter, who sees red when he sees you shaking hands with travis tanner in the lobby. who keeps his cool as he walks up to you, wrapping his arm around your waist and questioning tanner, what are you doing here? 

harvey specter, who finally gets the chance to see you in action at work. when confronted by another employee, you stand your ground and don’t take any shit from him. who has never been more proud or turned on by it. 

harvey specter, who joins you in the shower to wash your hair for you after a long day at work, or (and) after an intense gym session. who you return the favor to by massaging his back after his own exhausting days or workouts. 

harvey specter, who finally opens up to you about his issues with his mother. who pulls you closer when you tell him that you agree with him on the matter, that he did the best he could with the cards he was dealt. who sheds a few tears when you tell him it’s not your fault, baby. 

harvey specter, who will forever wish you would have been able to meet his father. who is glad that you get to have the relationship with your mother that he never had with his own. who hopes your father isn’t completely appalled that his daughter’s boyfriend is closer to his age than yours. 

harvey specter, who finally agrees to a vacation. who takes you to all the places you’ve always wanted to travel to but never had the opportunity to go. who lets you pick all the destinations and outings you’ll have, while he makes sure the first class seats and five-star hotels and high-end restaurant dinners are booked far in advance. who would only ever let you travel with such luxury. 

harvey specter, who supports all of your dreams. who knows that not now, but in the next few years, you may be looking for a career change. who is ready to sacrifice whatever is necessary to support you through the schooling you may have to go through to make such a change. 

harvey specter, who knows that you’re not ready to get married. who knows that you’re far too young to get married. but who knows that he’s not getting any younger, and doesn’t know how to respect your youth while planning for his future. who worries that while you might be his happy ending, to you, he might be a stepping stone to where you’ll be in ten years. who thinks that you might pass him by, and who knows he has no choice but to support you if life takes you away from him. who knows he’ll never move on, even if you do. 

harvey specter, who knows that you both work too much. who knows that you spend all your free time and weekends together. between his love of his work, his friendships with his colleagues, and his relationship with you, he is satisfied. but he knows you are far more social than he is, and he will encourage you to go to spa nights and girls trips with friends. who is proud that you have a life that you love, and he will always be there to supplement whatever you need to keep it that way. 

nsfw ones:

harvey specter, who would put your pleasure above his every time. who is happy to service you. who can’t get off until he knows he’s pleased you to your satisfaction. 

harvey specter, who knows that you’re more game to try things out than his other partners. call it a benefit of your youth, if he might. 

harvey specter, who takes off his button-down shirt and dresses you in it. who binds your wrists together with his necktie and teases you for what feels like forever, before fitting his index and middle fingers into your mouth. who finally slips those two fingers into your underwear and ever so faintly begins to touch, whispering into your ear: does that feel good? hmm? just relax… i’m not going anywhere, sweetheart.

~~~

masterlist

tag list

[curseanon]

The Issue with Eden Polycule

So I wanted to articulate my thoughts on a relationship that ive seen in fandom spaces and lots of fan art or fanfiction. I don’t have any opinions or problems with Adam/Eve/Lucifer/Lilith, but I feel like there are some implications and tropes that we should be more careful about when it comes to Eve/Lucifer/Lilith or even just Eve/Lucifer. Before getting into it though, just a disclaimer: this post is not about polycules in general. It’s not my cup of tea personally, but ship whatever you please! This post is just me rambling about my own thoughts. Feel free to have your own interpretations. ALSO! None of this justifies Adam’s behavior. He is responsible for his decisions, including his cruelty towards people, language, and his decision to essentially wage mass genocide each year. And this post isn’t to say that this relationship drama is the sole reason why he ended up doing exterminations.

1. I don’t really like portrayals that have Lucifer/Lilith (L/L) sleeping with Eve and having her cheat on Adam, especially when it takes place in Eden. I’m afraid Vivzie might have this narrative take place in HH, but doing so does a real disservice to Eve’s (and Lucifer’s if he acted alone) character by having her be willing to cheat, and also does a disservice to Adam by having him be cheated on for reasons that are probably not entirely his fault. Not to mention a lot of media where this happens often has the tone of just “haha let’s cuck Adam twice,” which comes off to me as petty and unfair. Not only is it not a funny joke, but it essentially reinforces and justifies Adam’s misogynistic tendencies later. Especially the ideas that women are promiscuous, always willing to cheat and be unfaithful. The narrative would do nothing to disprove this if BOTH of Adam’s wives did in fact cheat on him.

2. Another thing about Eden. Lilith was Adam’s first wife, literally created for the purpose of being his partner. This is also pre-Apple, meaning that Adam has no concept of right vs wrong. The way he acts, if he truly was controlling and mean and the story book wasn’t exaggerating (which I doubt), is entirely the programming of the angels and the way they tolerate or enable his behavior. Assuming we went with the theory that Adam never ate the apple, it’s the same situation with Eve if she left him and/or cheated with L/L. The way I see it, Lilith’s cheating on Adam is not justified, even if she disagreed with Adam on certain things.

3. I also want to note that cheating on one’s partner is not a justifiable punishment for Adam’s behavior. Whether pre or post apple (now assuming he did eat it), I see it as fighting fire with fire, and all it usually does is create even more hostility and problems than if the person just clearly broke off the relationship first. L/L/E runs the risk of inadvertently encouraging unfaithfulness in relationships and marriages as solutions to a problem, but this is rarely the case. As stated earlier, it only makes Adam justified in acting the way he does. And with that justification, is he really in the wrong for how he treats women? What reason does he have to change his behavior if he is right about them? I could probably accept both wives leaving him if the purpose is to justify Adam’s behavior and not just mock him, to show how morality is not just black and white and the villains sometimes have justifiable reasons for thinking the way they do. But it still seems very shallow on Lilith and Eve’s parts.

4. This part is just my opinion on L/L/E, but I don’t find the idea of Eve getting with the people who caused her to lose Eden very convincing. L/L are the reasons her and Adam were cast out of the garden and made to live for centuries laboring to survive, farming cursed ground and painfully delivering several children. Not to mention the bringing of sin and death into the world, losing Abel at the hands of his brother and Cain being cast away to wander the Earth. All the suffering she faced in life and the suffering of all of her descendants, all of humanity. Her sleeping with Lucifer makes no sense to me unless he seduced her (when she was more naive, maybe even pre-apple) intentionally, either for the purpose of hurting Adam or if he did just love her also, which makes him complicit in ruining someone’s marriage. None of this fits with Lucifer’s character, a malewife who adores his Tall Queen and comes off to me as being very loyal. The idea of open marriage is better, but Adam does not seem like the type of guy who likes to share anything, and his marriage is very clearly between Adam and Eve. That controlling personality indicated by the story book leads me to see him as likely having some jealousy and possessiveness (though not in extreme ways).

5. The only other option is Lucifer sleeping with Eve after her death and if she goes to hell, since we know Adam and Eve lived a thousand years married together on Earth, starting humanity. But I don’t see any reason for this. We need much much more information about Adam and Eve’s relationship and all four of their relationships’ to each other in general first before we can talk more about this. But until then, I don’t see any reason to break up Adam and Eve unless there’s some importance to it in the narrative. For me, I see Adam’s womanizing in heaven as a sign that Eve is probably not in heaven. And thinking that he’ll never see her again because “Hell is forever,” he eventually becomes bitter and jaded over thousands of years and decides that his relationship with Eve must be over then. Possibly the same case with Eve in hell, somehow leading up to sleeping with Lucifer. But considering she’s no where to be found with L/L and Lucifer only references her once, there seems to be zero indication of anything between them.

6. To briefly touch on the idea that once in heaven, Eve eventually left Adam because of his horrible personality and womanizing. This is still possible, but it seems like WAY too big of a personality shift to go from married and raising a family for a thousand years to suddenly being a massive asshole and a philanderer. Something must have happened that magnified all the worst aspects of his personality. There’s no way he is the same today as he was in Eden or on Earth. If he is, that’s just shitty lazy writing on Vivzie’s part and Adam is nothing but a one dimensional villain with no depth at all. Massive waste of a character with huge potential.

Tl;dr This post is already too long so I’ll just summarize everything. Although I agree that Adam is definitely an arrogant and annoying villain, Lilith and Eve cheating on adam is unjustified imo, there is no reason for Eve to cheat on Adam or leave him at all from what we can tell now, and her having any relationship with Lucifer also makes no sense considering what his choices turned her life into. But let me know your thoughts on all this, if there’s some point you want to make or a disagreement on something else!

[melorambles]

Tauriel is a creation of studio executives to try and make the hobbit movies more appealing to certain market demographics, but that's really only the spark notes of why she feels so disingenuous as a character in Tolkien's world. Again, they did the elves - especially Thranduil and the Mirkwood elves - so dirty in the films, but that's only the tip of this iceberg.

Tauriel is, first of all, a love interest, not a character in her own right. She's there to provide Kili with Forbidden Love, For Their Peoples Do Not Get Along. It's an attempt at Romeo and Juliet, but it doesn't feel real or deserved. Why is she the one elf in Mirkwood that doesn't have any anti-dwarf prejudice? Legolas (and he feels very out of place in the Hobbit movies, a cameo would have been nice. what we got was very much not) had to work past prejudice and when he and Gimli come to an accord, it is incredibly satisfying. Tauriel just magically has nothing against dwarves. Which is actually, in the context of her culture, insane. Like, legitimately her peers must think something is wrong with her.

Maybe someday I'll make a longer post about the fact that Tolkien's elves and dwarves have a conflict rooted in actual bloodshed, not just the hatred/misinformation/stereotypes/etc that things like racism and homophobia are rooted in. Legolas and Gimli aren't just acting on societal/cultural trauma, this is also generational trauma for them. Their dads were in literal, armed conflict on opposing sides for a little bit there. Legolas and Gimli becoming friends is a combo of the Hatfields and McCoys burying the hatchet and symbolic of an ages old wound between their people finally being encouraged to heal.

But back to Tauriel. So she's definitely culturally insane because everyone else is like, girl, the people who invited a dragon into our backyard (a possibility we explicitly warned them about) and let it torch our only trading partner are looking to kick off the fireworks for dragon bbq part 2: electric boogaloo, except we're the closest option for a main course. And Tauriel is all, are you sure? that one seems so sweet, he's got such a lovely... soul, and he showed me a rock. And everyone else is like, yeah, I'm sure they thought the same about the dwarven craftsmen who used to come to Doriath. Tauriel: oh but that was so long ago. Everyone: I was there/my immediate relative is dead/that trauma formed the foundation of my family. And the dragon is literally toasting our neighbors for appetizers right now. Tauriel: I'm sure he - I mean they! didn't mean for that to happen when he - I mean they! went into the dragon's bedroom to check under the mattress for cash.

I know I referenced her being half a Romeo and Juliet here, and it really should have been obvious they were setting that up as a tragedy given anyone whose read the book knows Kili wasn't going to survive. But that doesn't really feel earned either. Like, she's supposed to be some sort of girlboss elven warrior and she's flirting with a prisoner. She - and the other elves - completely miss an orc incursion basically right into their front door. Part of that is that the hobbit movies are definitely the dwarf propaganda version of this story, but still. She also completely bails on her responsibilities as Mirkwood border patrol (?) captain in order to chase after her crush/prisoner, because... contrived orc plot reasons invented for the movies.

The hollywood girlboss problem hit her hard before it became a noticeable problem throughout the 'strong female character' archetype. She's a powerful warrior, except for that one time her love interest saves her. Most of her questionable decisions pay off in the end without consequence to her. She is right because everyone else was making stupid decisions, even the people much older than her who had more responsibility - especially them, actually.

Where did the Thranduil-is-prejudiced-against-sylvan-elves thing come from? What the heck? I know they were trying to set up a forbidden love triangle thing involving Legolas, but that comes off as painfully weird in it's own right. Either way, it also gives the movies a colonizer subtext if you know the lore, because then you have a ruling class mostly of elves from Doriath, ruling a population of wood/sylvan elves who were there first. Heck, the books call Legolas a woodelf, not Sindar. Either his family is assimilated into their adoptive culture or his mom is a wood elf.

Also, the wood elves are supposed to be way more fun. Like, the minute the company enter the woods, they've got woodelves singing mocking limericks at them. They have parties so wild and drinking so intense they go through over 13 barrels of wine in one night and everyone down to the dude in the storage area is blacked out. Outsiders describe them as 'less wise, more dangerous' but they're also the only elves not constantly mourning the end of their era. They are literally living their best life.

tldr: the studio added Tauriel so they could say they had a strong female character but they pulled her romance from Romeo and Juliet and torched all the woodelves' brain cells so she could be right about... whatever it was?

[gingervitus]

6, 11, 12 for the rook and their partner ask thingy!

YAAAAAAS. LET'S GOOOOO.

(I am a certified yapper and Ella and Lucanis are constantly in my mind rent free)

6. What is their favorite thing to do together? Do they share any hobbies? Does your Rook teach their partner their own hobbies? Does the partner teach Rook theirs?

I think, genuinely, they talk a lot. About anything and everything. Sometimes all night even after years have passed. I know it's not a hobby or something terribly difficult to do, but there's something about an introvert opening up to their person and being able to just go on and on and on that's really beautiful to me.

Lucanis though tries everything because oddly enough the man whose life wasn't really his own has more hobbies than the woman who was traipsing about hunting for treasure. He attempts to get her interested in cooking or baking. Ella takes more to cooking because it's more "measure with your heart" than scientific exact amounts, but after one late night when she burns the garlic for a red sauce and breaks the pasta, she's banned from any kitchen until further notice. He even gives her book recommendations. Each and every romance novel annoys her, though. "Lucanis, they're horribly unrealistic, and there's certainly no way anyone could do that with only four limbs."

Eventually, Emmrich recommends some tomes on certain regions of Thedas, which Lucanis immediately sets out to find. She eats them up and actually finds herself interested in map making drawing out all the places she's been. Everywhere she wants to go. Little markers on where she'd like to go with Lucanis.

Post-Veilguard, Ella is really lost and has to search a lot for herself or rather find out who she is when she isn't Rook. Hunting treasure and drinking excessive amounts of liquor aren't really... giving her much. She's got the gold and found the glory and still feels unfulfilled.

She does take up the harp at some point and can pluck out a few songs. Not very well. Certainly not well enough to teach much of anyone else, but she and Lucanis do spend at least one evening weaving a tale about her bardic tour around Antiva over slices of lava cake.

11. Who says "I love you" first? What is the other's reaction? Who thinks it first?

Ella says it first. 10000% in the middle of the Tearstone Island battle because Lucanis won't let her say it before. Superstition gets the best of him often I think, and I LIVE for that. She pulls him out of his blight tendrils, makes sure he's okay, says she loves him, and then she's off. There's no time to think in the moment because everything is happening.

And then she's gone.

(delicious, delicious angst)

As far as thinking it goes, that's our sweet Crow. Everyone on the team is kind to him eventually in ways he doesn't expect, but Ella goes out of her way for him. Trusts his judgments. Trusts him with her life. Also the first time he thinks it is when she goes with him to talk to Teia about planning Caterina's funeral, but it's more like 'wow, I could love this person' rather than a hard declaration of love. He does lock himself inside the pantry for the rest of the night after that one while Spite loses his mind about being stuck in the mind Ossuary while Lucanis is falling in love with Rook.

12. Any inside jokes?

I had to think a lot about this one because they both laugh a lot around each other and Ella really encourages Lucanis to lean into the humor he very naturally wields since she is all jokes all day. Specific jokes, though, were tough to think of.

They definitely like to quote Taash and their really absurd questions about the Crows. Often and fondly, because my LoF babies stick together. I feel like Ella likes to feed them inaccurate information about the Crows for them to ask Lucanis about at later dates, too. In part because Taash will take it in stride, but also it's so fun to watch Lucanis very calmly and thoroughly explain what is incorrect while also frustrated with her for facilitating the discussion to begin with.

Also there is a lot of theorizing that goes on about whether Teia and Viago are on or off. Quietly hunched into each other observing them from afar, genuinely unable to tell. Usually, it ends with Lucanis saying something like, "I do not know which is worse."

Idiots in love being idiots in love for reference:

[inolienkiki]

sit down, I'm going to talk about how expressing interests and preferences and opinions is viewed as inherently childish and therefore societally unacceptable

--

First, for clarification: by interests, and preferences, and opinions, I am referring to several related concepts.

Interests include: Media! A TV show, a book, a toy line, a video game, a comic that is particularly meaningful to you. A subject or field of study that just gets you excited. A species you know loads about, or a machine that you could take apart and put back together. A holiday, a craft, a sport. Literally anything that makes you spark.

Preferences include: A way you prefer to manage your surroundings or stimuli. Maybe you don't like crowded places, or hearing something loud makes you uncomfortable. Maybe you feel comfortable only in specific clothes, whether because of their texture or just their look. Maybe you need a particular set of conditions in order to sleep. Maybe you don't want a romantic partner, maybe you find it helpful to listen to music while you work, maybe you don't like certain foods. Hell, maybe you just don't like someone. Literally anything that you can improve your life by having some control over.

Opinions include: Well, by opinions, I'm mostly talking about attention to detail, talkativeness, or anything that can be vaguely construed as idealism. For a great example of all three, there's that really long post about ageism and youthlib that you're five paragraphs deep in right now

--

Yes, all these things are more likely to be encountered by neurodivergent people. Interests- particularly strong, persistent ones- can manifest as autistic special interests, ADHD hyperfixations, or the comfort media of highly sensitive people. Preferences often stem from over- or understimulation. Opinions are more likely to manifest for any number of reasons: talking through feelings helps some people understand them better; sometimes, the only way to curate your surroundings is by explaining why it's helpful; and, to put it frankly, neurodivergent people have a lot of things they need to talk about. Of course we're more likely to voice our concerns about ableism, infantilization, and the ways the world is more difficult for us. [Also... and this is me... my ADHD makes me TALK. When I'm understimulated, the way I stimulate myself is often to start rambling, or explaining something, or writing a very long Tumblr post.]

Despite this, they're much more common than they're given credit for. Interests, preferences, and opinions are something everyone experiences. My mom- who I very recently made a post about probably being neurotypical- has an unusually intense interest in the Donner Party, a thorough preference for organization, and absolutely cannot sleep when exposed to any light or noise or the smell of somebody making food. My friend, who (to be fair) cannot get a psych evaluation if he wants to keep his job, is so fascinated with planes and flying and space that he's dedicated his life to it. My dad, a bird biologist by degree who works for the Fish and Wildlife Service- as you might predict- really likes birds. So much so that his entire front yard and backyard and various locations he's volunteered at around the city are explicitly cultivated to provide habitat for native birds and other species. You don't hear people assuming that sports fans or cat people or feminists must be neurodivergent because they express natural human variation.

These interests, preferences, and opinions tend to pop up in kids... for all kinds of reasons. Children are encouraged from a young age to figure out what they're interested in. They're presented with various subjects and fields of study in school to develop tastes for, pushed and often required to read books and write essays and fiction, and highly encouraged to "entertain themselves" with TV, video games, and other media to lighten the load on their caretakers. Kids are also more likely to have preferences, or voice those preferences: they're more likely to have fears of places or situations they're not familiar with, especially if they've been led to believe they're incapable or naive; their boundaries are crossed way more often when they're exposed to things they don't like or aren't comfortable with, and have no way out; and their senses are literally more sensitive than adults'. Of course a child will be uncomfortable in a room with a loud noise playing at a frequency adults can't hear, whether due to electronic noise or purposeful "teenager repellent" speakers. Of course a child will be upset if someone says something hurtful to them, because confidence and self-assuredness are considered negative and "disrespectful" traits in children, and so aren't encouraged. Of course a kid won't like the food they're being forced to eat, because up until a certain age, children actually can't taste certain flavors. And in many cases because of these more intense preferences, kids HAVE to understand, and voice, their opinions. Any situation that might make an adult feel uncomfortable could also make a child feel uncomfortable... but that child cannot leave that situation. A kid who is hurt by a classmate, a teacher, or a family member doesn't have the option to cut that person out of their life- no matter how little that relationship is worth. A kid who is eating something chosen for them that really doesn't agree with them doesn't have the option to stop eating that thing, because in many cases it's their only opportunity to eat. A child who is overwhelmed or being made to feel ashamed at a party- whether for children or adults- cannot just walk out and drive away. When kids are in a bad situation, talking about it is the only option. Like neurodivergent people, kids' opinions are also strengthened and exacerbated by their interests and their unique, forgotten marginalization. Kids are stereotyped as "whiny" when they talk about small issues and "naive" or "idealistic" when they talk about big ones. That is, until they reach a certain age, when it becomes "hormones" and "teenage rebellion". (News flash: All emotions are caused by hormones and neurotransmitters which vary in abundance when people are exposed to stimuli. Saying teenagers are emotional "because of hormones" is like saying your dog is wet because it's raining. Yeah, that's how water works... but it's only happening in the first place because you locked your dog outdoors.)

So, what? Neurodivergent people and children have a lot in common? Big surprise, some of you are saying, but you're missing the point.

I am talking about how the things that are regularly construed as shameful, or weird, or not worthy of respect, in adults... are viewed this way because they're affiliated with children, a marginalized group. A lot of the ableism that neurodivergent adults face is misdirected ageism. And no, I'm not even faintly saying that ableism isn't real, nor am I saying that neurodivergent adults are basically children or deserve to be treated like children do. (Nobody deserves that, including children.) Just like many people who perpetuate aphobia and amatonormativity probably don't know that aroace people even exist; just like gender nonconforming people and people with gender expression that strays outside of norms are misidentified, and insulted, for some perceived "gayness"; ableism can be so uninformed it's mistargeted.

--

The only other thing I want to mention here: how do neurotypical kids, with lots of interests, preferences, and opinions, lose those with time? Answer is: well, first, they don't always. My friend who really likes planes was dismissed as "overly optimistic" and "naive" by many of his friends and mentors. He's doing great in navy flight school... I think the words they were looking for are something more like "ambitious", or "determined". Turns out he's been cool this whole time. In this way, traits which are dismissed or misidentified in kids actually become VALUED in adults. My dad and his volunteering, my mom and her cleanliness, my old PI and his dedication to mentoring, etc. etc. As adults gain more influence over their surroundings, their preferences begin to be considered valid. And of course people get quieter when they aren't forced to speak out.

Yet... obviously this isn't it. I think the missing element is internalized ageism. I can only speak to this as someone who was assigned female at birth, but one way this manifests is clear enough to me: "I'm not like other girls!" This is common enough that lots of people seem to see teenage women's experiences and their individuality as immature in and of themselves. But it seems clear enough to me that, more than anything, this is a desperate demand for maturity. As a teenager, I felt incredibly pressured to shed my previously "childish" interests and preferences and change them for more societally acceptable, "adult-like" ones. I can't tell you how many times I was about to drop my lego hyperfixation, but every time I came close, they came out with something so much better. But, up until I was sixteen, I felt shame over it- and shame over my continued interest in Warrior Cats, over the kids' cartoons I still like to watch, over a fox hat that I wore to one class, one time, that I was legitimately very scared would impact everyone's perception of me- and the truth is, it probably did. Everyone seems to think this kind of thing is because of peer pressure, but the nature of that claim as a misguided assumption is so much clearer to me because I didn't go to middle or high school. I was partially homeschooled, and I partially had an incomplete patchwork education that drew from various online and in-person classes. This is fine and not actually a negative thing and genuinely was not a bad experience at all. (I'm completely, 100% serious. Educational freedom, tailoring to kids' interests, and acceleration/skipping grades is often extremely beneficial and doesn't hurt the kid. My ADHD wasn't diagnosed until recently because, as a kid, I was almost never put in a situation where it held me back.) Of course girls put on makeup and revealing dresses and get into relationships very early, because they're trying to show their maturity, and female maturity is often societally equivalent to sexual maturity and romantic entanglement. (I could talk about this all day... the intersectionality of so many different types of specific, inconsistent, and misdirected marginalization is fascinating and horrifying.) Because of this, for most women, internalized ageism seems to manifest as "I'm not like other girls, because I'm a woman, and I deserve independence and respect." For me, without the "peer pressure" (but more relevantly, without the peers) it was just the last half. It's so easy to blame kids' problems on peer pressure when 99% of kids are forced to constantly be surrounded by their peers. asjdflksjlasdhkg

I don't actually know very much about what internalized ageism is like for people who were assigned male at birth, but bravado, insecurity, and toxic masculinity seem like pretty obvious outcomes.

--

Ok, lesson from this extremely long post: if someone is telling you that something about your interests, preferences, opinions, or personality is childish, you may be inclined to pull your age. Adult or kid, the "that's for babies" response is a natural defense, but kinda misses the point: the person saying that already thinks you're a baby! Correct, productive response: Do you think that's a bad thing? Why?

If you're an adult who's part of a group that is stereotyped as "childish" or "immature"- which covers a hell of a lot of marginalized groups- know when you're seeing misdirected ageism. Once you start paying attention to it, it'll help you understand kids' experiences so much better.

Don't be ashamed of yourself for acting, or feeling, like a kid. That's valid. It's not hurting anyone. And it's not even uncommon.

Definitely don't be ashamed of yourself for being a kid. You're cool. Trust in yourself, and keep speaking out.

[faulty-writes]

Bit of a heavy request so feel free to turn it down if you don't feel comfortable writing for it. How would the BNHA boys react to finding their trans partner has self inflicted scars on their chest? You can choose the characters 🙂

[ In my last post, I had actually mentioned that I was a psychology student and as such, I know some people may dislike these kinds of requests. But I mean...they're real issues and I enjoy, in a way, helping promote awareness of them. I also love it when I get to choose the characters. So I picked some of our underrated boys. I hope you enjoy it. ]

Eijirou initially acts with concern and care when he sees the scars on your chest. "Who made you feel this way!? That's not manly at all, your body is beautiful babe!" He tries to use positive words when talking to you because he knows this is a sensitive issue and a little physical affection never hurts, so he doesn't hesitate to embrace you in his arms.

"You don't have to worry about that! This is a non-judgmental zone. You can just tell me as little or as much as you want!" Eijirou gave an encouraging smile as he sat in front of you on the floor of his bedroom or "safe zone" as he called it and remained understanding even as you explained the reason behind your self-inflicted scars and the possible body dysphoria issues you were experiencing.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't think of them as scars and more like manly marks! After all, we heroes get scars all the time from the dangerous battles we face! Yours is no different and you're just another brave hero!" He hoped his words would help you embrace a sense of worth just as he embraced you in another hug.

While Eijirou doesn't have the best book smarts, he tries to educate himself on the matter of transgender persons and self-harm behavior. But he ultimately finds it too confusing and settles for being your emotional support partner instead. After all, with skin as tough as his, he'd happily be your rock.

Whenever he noticed you were getting antsy or looking in the mirror too much, he'd try to distract you by suggesting the two of you do activities you enjoyed, or he'd start doing random things like lifting weights to gain your attention and make you laugh.

He tries to respect the fact that you refuse to see professional help and that your scars are embarrassing to you. "Well, what if I go with you? After all, I could never let anyone, not even a therapist talk about you the wrong way. Whaddya say?" He'd do anything for you, and if the two of you had to go through therapy together, so be it.

Being a student of medical welfare, he immediately examines the damage of the self-inflicted scars on your chest much like a doctor would. After ensuring they were clean and stable, he demands "Why the hell did you do this to yourself?" While his words come off as insensitive you know he tends to get emotional and that his anger came out of the concern he felt for you.

After his initial anger wears off, he grows determined to understand the reason behind your self-harm. "So...how long have you felt like you needed to do this?" He tried to be considerate and gentle with his questions like any healthcare professional would.

He understood more than anyone how exhausting it could be to try and handle your emotions by yourself and what happened when they were finally released. "You can stay here as long as you want, I just want to hold you until everything is okay," he said, embracing you tightly in his lap but the truth was, he didn't trust what you'd do once you were alone.

He knew that your position wasn't easy, being transgender had its own set of problems just like anything else. Since finding out about your self-harm tendencies, he tried to remind you every day how much he loved you and how terrible he'd feel if he lost you.

He didn't want to come off as overbearing, but he also didn't want to avoid setting precautions in place in case you engaged in self-harm behavior. So, he uses a bit of first aid to encircle medical wraps around your chest, just loose enough for you to breathe and serve as a reminder. If by chance, you did engage in self-injury, at least the wraps could absorb the mess to some degree until he could clean it.

While he wouldn't push you to get help, he did research about the challenges of transgender individuals and sought out resources and support groups for you. "Some of these groups are anonymous and they may help," he suggested, but if not. He would continue to assist and support you the best he could.

"This is quite an injustice that such beauty and perfection is damaged by these scars," Neito's reaction was more lackluster when he saw the self-inflicted scars on your chest by accident. Yes, it seemed he was a little too impatient waiting for you to change and as such, he walked in on you topless.

"There's no need to worry, your dear Phantom Thief will never allow anyone to so wrongfully judge you if they happen to find out what lays underneath that shirt, etched into that still perfect skin of yours," he stated, embracing you. The fact he treated your self-injurious behavior and your transgender status with such acceptance was certainly comforting.

"You may step in now," he instructed, and you were bewildered that he had transformed his room into some sort of makeshift therapy office. "Heh, heh. Do you truly think I trust anyone but myself to aid you in this dilemma? Why go through the hassle of therapy when I can provide it to you," he insisted and while this was unusual, you did find yourself exploring the debts of your emotions and issues with him.

"My, my. Don't squirm now, else you're going to make me miss one," Neito in a word, was bold and he thought that pinning you against the bed and exposing your scarred chest and kissing every scar was some type of radical new method to help you. While overwhelming, you couldn't help but feel embarrassed at the amount of attention he was giving you.

"There you are! Don't try to sneak off now! We have things to do!" Neito took extreme methods to engage in activities that had everything to do with self-care and mindfulness. Usually, this meant the two of you would have a spa day or participate in another relaxing activity to promote your self-esteem.

"Now, now, don't be ashamed. You look beautiful, ravaging even!" His positive affirmations never ceased to amaze you and his overall effort to make you feel beautiful even when your scars were exposed only proved his undying dedication to you.

[kaladinstorms]

spoilers under the cut because no-one I know has even started this book yet let alone finished it and I need to let this out

okay let's try and go in order. first of all:

shallan/adolin shower sex scene??!!!! LOVE

however the first day or so did feel like a lot of... fan service? idk. don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, these thoughts will be net positive, it just felt a bit weird in a few places and like brando was adding bits in because of fan reactions. like after the shower sex, shallan and pattern continuing the "no mating" joke (pattern being deadly serious that it's kinda encouraged now). I found it funny, but it did feel out of place. and maya calling adolin a slut??!! that was too much for me. also between how vorin everyone is and how sunshine adolin is I just assumed he didn't sleep with any of the noble women he dated. and "dating" is such a modern word, that also felt weird, like "courted" or "stepped out with" or something would have sounded better to me. idk.

anyway shallan being preggo at the end had me gasping like that was why we had the sex scene!!! I bet you anything that was the conception. also if it's a boy I think it should be named for kaladin. kalador or something.

I did get a little worried about how almost flirty kaladin and syl seemed to get at urithiru and during the road trip, and was relieved when nothing ended up happening there. no hate to the shippers, it's just not my ship and I'm happy for them to stay friends.

and speaking of shipping..... RENARIN/RLAIN BECAME CANON IS NOT SOMETHING I WAS EVER EXPECTING like I thought it would forever be a cool rarepair but no, brando went there. and with the full "rlain lightweaves and accidentally makes a scene of them kissing" too??? I adored it. so happy for them.

cannot wait for the result of vasher training lift. that was not a pair up I saw coming and I love it and I want to see what chaos and headaches she gives him. and I hope her chicken recovers, poor parrot.

the whole fourth moon thing had me making that meme with the guy and the red string on the wall. like, there are 3 moons and 3 shards and the moons are even blue, green and red, right? so honor, cultivation, odium?? which means a fourth moon must mean a secret fourth shard!!! but it fell, so it was one of the shards odium splintered? but maybe the remnants of its power are under the shattered plains! nope, that's just odiums pool, and we're gonna have to wait to here anything more about this fourth moon and the weird metal in it. I really thought it was gonna come through like a deus ex machina.

I desperately want to know what the metal inside braize is though. it explains why all their souls go there even though none of them come from there (I got the planets mixed up and previously thought they all went to their home, because of Connection and shit) but WHAT IS IT???

another revelation from this book: it sounds like tanavast's name used to be tanner. he loved kor, korellium avast, and what if they did the yolish equivalent of getting married and taking a partners name? tanner + avast = tanavast.

um. cusicesh the protector showing up at the wrong time and leading the iriali people away through shadesmar? WHAT???!!! why now? who is cusicesh?? did he arrive with them? is he actually a spren? is he a spren of a different shard? WHAT DOES HE KNOW??? also where do the iriali originally come from and will we see them again?? I want to. I want answers.

I feel like so much happened in this book that I'm skipping (it's huge, so much DID happen in this book) but my short attention span is can't keep writing this post much longer so let's just skip to the end

I agreed with the ending. I find it so weird seeing that so many people didn't like it, but there was literally no way for dalinar and the gang to win. odium had them cornered, and everything they did would either serve him or just delay the inevitable by repeating the past. reforging the oathpact with new, fresh heralds, even if they could get rid of the everstorm to keep the fused on braize, would just kick the problem down the road another few thousand years until this batch of heralds grew tired of torture and needed a break. would the plan have been to continually replace the heralds every millenia? dalinar couldn't have held honor and fought odium because it would destroy roshar (and I did like that we got the loophole that let preservation and ruin do it, as well as all the references to vin and sazed) and dalinar couldn't have held odium himself. pulling a sunmaker's gambit on taravangian means that even if he is now freed, he's distracted by needing to prepare for the other shards coming for him, and all the while the power of honor is (hopefully) going to learn and grow. man, it sure would be nice if there were something powerful with an Intent for Growth around here huh... maybe.... a shard?

anyway. good end to the third arc. and it sounds like shards can be held in groups of 1, 2, 4 or 8, so we won't see cultivation in the taravangian party until someone else shows up. valor? reason? both sound like good (and necessary) additions to this particular combo...

AND FINALLY..... KALADIN IS A HERALD NOW!!!! THEIR RESIDENT THERAPIST!!!!! so happy for him. and I really hope that one of the first PoVs of SA6 is him, simply because we'll have had that time jump and his will be the perfect perspective to see how shallan, adolin, jasnah, renarin and the others have changed, and what the who knows will be going on with navani and the sibling and the singers/fused/unmade and everyone else.

okay those are my overflowing thoughts. brain feels less full now. might add more later who knows.

finished wind and truth this morning. not sure what to do with myself now.

[ladynestaarcheron]

Eat or Bed - Part 3

ao3 master post

so first and foremost thanks to @skychild29/@that-golden-lyre (the same dadrie in two different accounts) for beta-ing.

second thanks to all of you for support and encouragement!!

now. as i have mentioned this is my first time writing smut and i'm the girl who wrote a whole-ass nessian novel where they have three kids and no sex scene so this is like a big deal for me. so as a fair trade if you like it please let me know!!

okay enjoy!!

---

The thing about Cassian, Nesta learns, is that he is the most brilliant person in the world, but sometimes he acts like an idiot. Not because he is one, but because he likes to. Enjoys driving her absolutely spare with her antics. A quiet place to regain some sense of self the House of Wind is not.

Almost everything he says to her, he says to infuriate. She's constantly lashing out at him, and he bites right back, taunting her to decibels she's never reached in her life before. And when it's not to turn her mad, it's teasing. Nesta picks up on his pattern quickly: when she is quiet and distant, when he fears she will fade into her pain and memory and drift away, he attacks. Anything to draw her out. But the teasing, the sexual inneundos and too-lingering gazes...those are when she is better. When she has enough presence of mind to focus on a book, when she comes back from a peaceful luncheon with her sisters.

It's entirely unnerving, to learn just how clever he is. To have all of that military strategy focused on her. She feels him clock her every move, file away hesitations and stammers and hisses and quietudes to dissect. So it does not take her long to find a house of her own.

It's in a small neighborhood outside the city proper, closer to the sea than the river. There aren't any families at all, mostly people living on their own, a handful with a partner, content in their solitude. The shops are all in the city, but Nesta can pay for delivery so she doesn't have to venture out if she doesn't feel like it.

Feyre helps her design it to her liking, picking mostly blues, reds, and purples to decorate. She paints her a landscape of the view from the house they grew up in as a housewarming gift. It hangs over Nesta's living room couch, across from the fireplace she never lights.

When she opens the window and the breeze is strong enough, Nesta can smell the sea. It's quiet and comfortable and wouldn't be too bad a place to call home for forever but Nesta's had a taste of what else is out there. So most nights, Cassian comes over.

She's gotten a bit farther in her progression. She orders lacy nightgowns to Feyre's house and sneaks them out in a bookbag to her house. Cassian's favorite is burgundy. The first night she wears that one, it stays on, but he keeps his hands on her rear instead of her thighs. Even later, when she remembers what he had whispered to her, she turns red. He has next to no decorum, and it's only to torment her.

He never leaves without telling her, kissing her gently at dawn and whispering that he has to go. Rare are the occasions when he can stay with her till late, and he rouses her the same way, and they spend longer in bed. Sometimes the nightgown comes off.

So it's good.

Too good, sometimes.

Like when he tells her he wants to take a bath with her. She panics each time anew, choosing different tactics--I'll wash your hair or you wash mine or picking a fight so he leaves, but the problem with Cassian is that he's smart. And he realizes, he knows, she knows he knows, that she won't sit in the tub.

He wasn't there when she told Feyre. He doesn't know. And her sister is too busy or distracted or...well, she has forgotten. So Nesta remains with her buckets and washcloths and honestly, it would be fine, if not for Cassian.

He doesn't say anything. But he notices. He's too brilliant not to.

One morning he knocks on her door at the unholy hour of seven.

"I think I let you sleep in late enough," he snaps at her when she rips open the door, snarling.

Well, I didn't sleep well, she does not say, because it is her fault. She didn't sleep well because he was not there. Because she picked a fight.

He makes her dress quickly, ignoring all her further attempts to fight some more--and ushers her outside. They take off flying before she is settled fully into his arms.

"Are you trying to kill me?" she demands.

But he doesn't answer, jaw locked. That's Cassian's determined face. He's on a mission. She knows that face well--she's generally the target.

They do not fly east to the city, though. They fly north-west, and he doesn't stop until the sea comes into view again.

"It's too cold for the sea," she hisses at him, trying, for the umpteenth time, to bait him.

This time he does answer her--but Nesta wouldn't go so far as to say it works. For he only grins down at her, and says, "Trust me, sweetheart, it'll be plenty warm we're going."

There's a short walk. Inland, and not towards the sea, as he said, but Nesta is still irritated. He could have dropped them off exactly where he wants them. Why bother with the walk?

"You could use the exercise. It's not healthy for you to sit and read all the time. Plus, I want you to work up a sweat." He winks at her.

It's a good-natured wink. It's to tease, not to anger. Nesta pauses. Is he not angry anymore? What is he planning?

"Not far now," Cassian says loudly, over the rush of freshwater. Quite loud, actually, but Nesta can't see a river past the crags and copses. "Here," he says, holding out hand, to help her walk through a thicket.

Nesta gasps as he leads her into the clearing. It isn't a river at all--it's waterfall. She's never seen one before, only read about them. It falls in a white streak from about fifty feet up, but rather small, only five or six feet across, and falls into a pool not big enough to be called a lake, but perhaps too big to be called a pond.

"Come on," he says, grinning at her.

"Oh...I...can't swim."

"You're not going to," he says, pulling her along. They stand next to a boulder that might've fallen off the side of the mountain once, and he grins at her again before reaching over his head and pulling his shirt off.

Nesta glances around. They're hidden in this clearing, trees and rocks surrounding to give them something of a wall, but he can't possibly expect...they're outside, for goodness' sake!

"It's far too cold--"

"It's a hot spring."

She knows he's right, she can feel the steam coming off the fall.

"We're in public. Anyone could show up."

"No one will," he says, confident.

"You don't know that."

"I've been coming here for centuries. Never seen anyone here."

"Well, I'm not..." she trails off.

He only shrugs at her, kicking off his boots. "Suit yourself," he says, hands going to his belt buckle.

He can't be serious. He can't be serious. Nesta turns away, cheeks burning. He's incorrigible. They're outside.

He tosses his pants onto the boulder, next to where she stands. Nesta keeps her back to him, waiting until she hears the splash, but it doesn't come. After a few seconds, she allows herself a look.

He's standing under the waterfall, eyes closed and head tilted upwards. His wings are spread wide open, droplets sliding off them and hitting the pool like rain.

She's never seen him like this before. He nearly never wears shirts to bed, but he always keeps on pants or underthings--probably more for her comfort than his. But he's entirely nude now, and she's...it's so she can look at him. That's why he's--he's waiting for her to join him. And she's so distracted by her mess of thoughts of if she should look and where that she can't waste any of her head on the fact that he's probably figured out she won't sit in water.

Slowly, giving her ample time to turn away, Cassian tilts his head down and opens his eyes.

Her hands move to the clasps on her dress before her brain tells them to. She lays it on the boulder where Cassian had carelessly slung his clothes, takes off her shoes, rolls down her stockings, and despite the cold, takes her time with her bustier. She likes to tease him like that. It's not scary and makes her feel powerful.

Nesta swallows as she inches towards the waterfall. Her body craves the warmth of it, craves Cassian, too, but the water...

She takes a deep breath. She can do this. She can do this. She can at least try.

Another deep breath, and one step. She keeps her eyes wide open, and--

Nothing.

There's no fear, no panic. It's...it doesn't terrify her. It just...doesn't. It's not sitting in the bath.

But now she's standing naked with Cassian--in public. Is she out of her mind?

"Glad you decided to join me," Cassian says, voice lower than usual.

He does not, she notices, share her qualms about looking over the other. But it's different for him. He's seen her undressed before. Seen a lot of people undressed before. And she's...

But this is Cassian. He wants her. She's allowed to look. There's nothing dirty about seeing him or touching him or wanting him--well, they're not married, so perhaps that--no, no, they're not getting married, she doesn't want to get married, not yet, maybe not at all, well, maybe one day, but she shouldn't think about that--

Cassian breaks her train of thought, pulling her towards him and kissing her deeply.

"How do you always manage to think about other things when you're with me?" he says in her ear when they break apart.

"I can multitask," she says calmly. She is not calm. She and Cassian are entirely bare before each other, he is holding her against him--she is anything but calm.

Cassian snickers and kisses her again. As usual, his hands stay on her waist until hers move.

His chest first. Always his chest, and each of his tattoos. Standing under the water makes her feel different--maybe braver, maybe hidden--and her hands go to his nipples. She runs her fingers over them lightly, unsure of what he'll like--but he huffs against lips, so she takes it as a good sign.

He moves his hands then, far more sure of his path than she is. First to her rear and then to her breasts, fingers dancing all across the flesh there. Laying his hands against her ribcage, he pushes her against the cliffside, and she moves an arm to his shoulder, hooking her leg at his waist. She makes a small sound as he shifts and she scratches her back against a rock jutting out, and he breaks apart. He opens his mouth--to ask her if she's all right--but he still has a wild look in eyes, a look that she put there, and he's hardening against her bare body, and his muscles and wings in tattoos under the water, and all of this comes over Nesta, and she leans forward and does what she's been fantasizing about for months now: she licks her way from a tattoo on his left pec and swirls around his nipple.

Cassian swears loudly, making her jerk her head back and look up at him.

"What the fuck was that?" he says, unchecked delight in his voice and eyes thrown open in shock.

She blushes. It's a little ridiculous to blush, she thinks, when he's the one who brought them to a public place to--to cavort under a waterfall, but she can't help it.

"I wanted to," she says, tinging redder.

Cassian loves this response, the evidence of his feelings pressed into her thigh. "Well, when is it my turn?"

"I wasn't aware you were that gifted a contortionist," she says, snide.

Cassian does not waste time smirking. He grabs both her thighs, lifts her back is straight against the wall and legs wrapped at his waist, and he does take his time in working his mouth at her breast.

Nesta gasps aloud at this and her legs go limp. Limp, like some kind of...oh, she can't think of a word. She can't think of anything. Just Cassian's mouth on her breast and his tongue, his tongue, his tongue, and she wishes they were lying down so he could use his hands, too, but instead he has to hold her up so she doesn't slip and fall into the--his tongue.

It's too good then, and she lifts a hand to push his head back. He looks up at her wildly, ferally, grinning like something of a madman, and says in a rush of air, "Nesta."

"Cassian," she answers automatically, and he is at her other breast before she can say anything else. He splays his tongue on the underside, pulling his head up and closing his lips so her nipple is inside his mouth. With his tongue rolled around it, he strokes and strokes and then sucks and she has never wanted anything so terribly in her life, him, Cassian--"Cassian, Cassian--"

He pulls his head back to laugh at her--of course he does--and she blurts out, "You have to stop."

"Why?" he demands. "You like it." He shifts against her again, drawing attention to her arousal, as though proving his point. "And so do I," he adds, grinding himself into her.

She bites her lip to keep from making a sound, but surely he can see the look upon her face as she shudders. Still, while this was a fun experiment, it's over now. She grips onto his shoulders as she lowers her legs off of him and regains solid ground. Oh, she can feel the absence of him like an ache. She clenches her fingers to keep from reaching out to him, but there's no cure for that delicious lightness fading away, leaving reality in its place. No cure but him--and she can't have that now.

"We should go back now," she says, crossing her legs and awkwardly shifting her arms to cover her breasts. She doesn't want to make it look like she's hiding herself from him, but there isn't a way to cover one's breasts unassertively, is there? She tries crossing her arms, but that only pushes them up and frames them, so she drops them to her sides.

"Why, Nesta?" he asks, and he's--ugh--disappointed and sad. Like a kicked puppy. He's not even doing it on purpose, that's just how wide his eyes are. "Did I do something...I thought you liked it."

"I did," she says, turning her head slightly--but, no, he deserves for her to look at him head on. "I do. I just...don't think I can continue."

"Why not?" he asks, not letting this go. "I...did I make you uncomfortable?"

Nesta almost laughs. As though she'd allow the impropriety of stripping down with a male in a public place, licking each other, and then be made uncomfortable by...the manner he licked her in? But he's caring at his core, and can't bare the thought of having hurt her, so she takes a deep breath and says, "IlikewhatyoudidtomebutIcan'tgomuchfurtherwithyou."

He blinks. Frowns. "You're saying," he says, bringing a hand to run it through his dripping hair, "that you...don't want...oh! You don't...Nesta, you don't have to...touch me...if you don't want--"

"We can just go," she says, flushing crimson again. She turns to leave, but he holds out his arms to keep her against the wall.

"Now, hang on," he says, teasing back in his voice. "You were saying you were enjoying it when I used my tongue on you, weren't you?"

"Yes," she snaps at him, not yet returning to her natural color. She crosses her arms--she knows it only draws attention to her breasts, but it's out of habit, and she can't drop them now. She'd look weak.

"And you're just," he continues, clearly enjoying himself with his faux-nonchalance, "not yet comfortable enough to get me off."

"Yes," she hisses. Why does he have to torture her like this?

"Well, that doesn't mean we have to stop." He draws his hands closer, till they both hit her waist. Leans in close. "I can take care of myself." His fingers dance up her side, tilting her head back so he can kiss her. "We'll stay a while longer," he says against her mouth. "It's what we both want."

Oh, gracious, but she wants to. She desperately wants to. And it's not like she thinks Cassian's going to be upset if she doesn't--ah--touch him after he touches her--but it doesn't seem very...friendly. To act that way.

But if it's what they both want...

(Pathetic, she knows, but giving into temptation is only too easy when the temptation is Cassian, naked and flush against her, pleading with her to let him make her come.)

"All right," she breathes back.

He exhales sharply, victory brightening his hazel eyes. He makes quick work of her, kissing her neck like he knows she loves, like he did the first time. With his tongue and his teeth and it's even better when his hands are at her breasts, at her thighs. He's taking care not push his hardness into her now, she notices--she's never going to be able to say anything other than hardness, no matter how many romance books she reads, at least, not until she...is comfortable enough to get him off, as he said--and she wishes he would. But maybe it's...uncomfortable for him? If she's not going to...so she stays where he keeps her, content with his hands.

"Nesta," he says, when he's kissed his way up her neck. Then again, quieter, more reverent. "Nesta, Nesta, Nesta." His right hand slips down as he says her name, down and in, to her thigh, then her sex. "Nesta," he says again, thumbing her folds. He says her name again, this time with a groan. "Remember all those times I wasn't graphic?"

Nesta can hardly speak, her pulse is so fast. "Yes," she manages.

"How're you feeling about that?"

How is she feeling about--his thumb.

"You can be...a little graphic," she gasps.

It's as though she pulls a stop out of his mouth. "You're so fucking wet."

Nesta wrinkles her nose. "Well, that's what you wasted it on. And it wasn't even that graphic." She curses mentally for saying that.

"Well, how's this for graphic?" he asks, sliding another finger next to thumb. "I'm going to make you come so hard you see stars."

She tries to keep herself emotionless. "That was fine."

He snickers--she must not do a very good job.

But then his finger slides into her, and she doesn't care to snap back at him. Her hands clutch his shoulders tightly, holding on in case her legs give out again. He moves slowly, slowly slowly, and he's only about halfway in before he glides his thumb upwards and brushes against her clit.

"Cassian," she blurts out, unable to stop herself.

But he doesn't laugh or even smile. "Good?" he says, somewhat quiet.

"Yes."

"Good," he says again. He moves his finger back, then in again, working together with his thumb. Deeper, with a brush, then out, and then again.

After a few sounds break their way out of Nesta's mouth, Cassian curls his finger inside her, and she can't quell the moan-gasp that comes out.

"More, Nesta?" he asks her.

"Yes," she says, voice a hideous whine she might one day again have the presence of mind to hate, but not now. Not while Cassian has his fingers inside her.

For he moves in a second finger, and it stretches her farther apart than she's ever been before. And for a second, it might be too much, but just then he brushes against her clit and that's all she can feel.

They lean in to kiss each other at the same time, and she hitches her leg at his waist to give him more room and oh, gracious, she can feel him, she can feel his finger inside her, she can feel his tongue in her mouth, she can feel the muscles in his shoulders, and his thumb, and--

"Yes," she says, in that same gasping moan.

Cassian curls his fingers again, and drawing the same sound from her, completely out of her control. "Like that?"

Now there is a smile in his voice.

"Yes," she says again. "Like--yes."

"Perfect, sweetheart," he says, but she can barely hear him. He speeds his pace, going just above that spot, just below, and then curling into it. His thumb moves in circles around her clit now, and--and--

"Please," she says, barely recognizing her own voice, shifting herself upwards. "Cassian, please--I want--"

"Good, Nesta," he says, and she can't tell if he means it as a question or in praise. He doesn't stop his push and pull of his fingers, brushes against her clit again, finally, but it's not when his fingers curl and that's what she wants, that's what she needs--

"No--yes, I do--just--like that, please, and with your thumb--"

But he knows, he knows what she wants and that's why he's laughing.

"Is now when I make you come, sweetheart?" he purrs.

"Yes," she says, in a full moan now.

He laughs again. "Well, you asked so nicely." He kisses her again, deeply, hungrily, moving his fingers inside her and not quite touching her clit the right way--again--and then again--

He breaks apart, eyes boring right into hers, right into her soul, as he curls his fingers exactly how she wants, and then teases her clit, and then again, and then--together, once, twice, again, again, again--

Her orgasm hits her as though she has not been expecting it, as though she hasn't been moving herself on Cassian, begging him for more. The world disappears, but he remains, all around her, inside her. As he promised, she loses sight, loses everything except the feel of his hand as she comes onto him. They both moan this time. Cassian doesn't stop with his thumb or his fingers, them against her, inside her, and it's--oh, it's so good, to feel herself coming have him keep drawing it out, until her chest is heaving and she can see clearly again.

He is looking at her like he never has before. It's a new kind of want, now, now that he's had a taste. She imagines she's looking at him the same way. They are silent as he slips his hand out of her, only taking each other in--he's just so beautiful and he felt so good and she wants more.

He speaks first, and it is only when he does that she hears the waterfall, that she realizes the world has not stopped while they had their moment.

"That was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life."

He holds her gaze, and she doesn't even want to shy away. She only wants to kiss him--and she can. So she does.

His hand wraps around her waist, the hand that was inside her, that brought her to orgasm so completely. He pulls her closer, closer, but it is not close enough. Nothing will be close enough, now that she has come with his hand inside her.

And Nesta feels something she's used to feeling just then: rage. Such strong, overpowering, violent rage, that even Cassian breaks apart from her.

It takes her a moment, so lost in her ire, to realize what she is mad about.

Not Cassian. Not...of course not. Not after he...how can she ever--sex is not everything, she knows, but perhaps it is more than she thought. Perhaps touching someone...perhaps for Nesta...but that is not what she is thinking about.

She is mad at herself. And Hybern. And--that man--though she will not think his name when Cassian has brought her to her brink, when he is flush against her. And everyone, everyone, everyone but Cassian, because she wants him so badly and this body and mind and life have limited the ways in which she can have him and it's not fair--

"Hey," he says, hands now upon her face. "What's...the angry tears are not nearly as sexy as the orgasm tears."

Nesta brings her hands to her face. Then she looks through her fingers. "I...what?"

He grins, despite himself. "It was so fucking beautiful, Nesta. I hope you tear every time."

Every time. How confident.

"Come on, sweetheart, what happened?"

Nesta bites her lip, wiping away her tears. Angry tears, apparently. She hadn't even noticed that she had...but no matter. "I," she says, struggling with her words. "I want...to go faster."

It's pathetic. She knows that. But he doesn't look at her with pity. Only...care. Something stronger.

"Hey," he says again. He kisses her. Sweetly this time, not deeply. "I happen to like our pace. I don't want you to be mad at yourself for it."

She looks up at him. It's hard not to cry, but she does her best to keep her voice from breaking. "I want...to be in control of my own body."

He studies her. "You will," he says finally. "It'll take patience. But I promise you, you will. I can help you learn it. I promise it'll happen."

He's strong and beautiful and sure and everything in the world, so she believes him even though she thinks it can't be true. It's Cassian. He's always true.

---

The next day, he tells her to meet her sisters for lunch.

When she arrives back home, water is running in her bathroom.

Cassian stands there, under a newly-installed...waterfall. Spilling out from overhead, into the bathtub, dropping like rain.

He gives her an easy grin. "Join me?"

She does.

[annibtj]

26th august 2022

hello! how have you all been? i know it’s back to school season for a lot of you - i hope you’re taking care of yourselves and enjoying the start of a new semester!

i wanted to come on here and just have a chat, it’s been a while...

i feel like, while i may have posted the occasional photo here and there, i haven’t actually been very present, and while i post on instagram and youtube a decent amount, i always find myself missing this space.

i do feel like it’s hard for me to post here, a place where i used to document my studies and my productivity, now that i am no longer studying/a student/being productive in the ways that i used to. 

in case you missed it - i graduated end of 2020 and started a masters in the first half of 2021, but dropped out because it wasn’t the course for me (my advisor literally told me to drop out and save myself the money. lol)

while i do think i still want my masters (maybe in english, instead of creative writing specifically) and so i hope to return to academia at some point, you might be wondering what i’ve been up to for the past year.

2022 has been more crazy than 2021, where i was working a hospitality job trying desperately to recover from academic burnout and my anxiety that had been running mostly unchecked while i was studying. my anxiety has got significantly worse before getting better (and i still think i have a ways to go before i have somewhat of a handle on it) and my hospitality job demanded way too much of me physically, actually.

really, i’ve spent the first half of this year riddled with anxiety attacks and back pain, which hasn’t been that great.

but in june i moved house, quit my job, and have been focusing on building my mental and physical strength back up since then - i am so lucky to have a partner who not only has a well paying job but who is willing to support me and in fact, encouraged me to quit my job and focus on myself for a bit. words cannot describe how blessed i have felt to take this break and kind of ‘sort’ my life out.

but as i’ve said, i’ve been missing this blog, i’ve been missing ‘being productive’ in an odd sense, and most of all, i’ve missed writing. if you’ve followed me since i was studying for my undergraduate degree you would know i majored in creative writing and also got a minor in english studies. and while i obviously am no longer studying, i have always wanted to talk about what i love - books, and writing, and writing my own books.

essentially, when i dropped out of my masters last year, my academic burnout was creative writing burnout. i have barely done any writing over the past year. and i’ve been patient with myself, even though the itch to be doing something, the itch to get back to what i love, has been hovering over me for months, i am finally feeling up to scratching that itch, and getting back to it. and not only that, but sharing my work as well.

i would love to write for a living - novels are my dream, and will probably be what i talk about the most, but there isn’t really an income in novel writing (if you’re like me, with no signed book deal to go off) but my partner has been pushing me to start a patreon, which is something i would honestly love to look into, a way to share my writing with you all but not totally fall into the starving artist stereotype. patreon is something i need to plan more, and will probably be something i talk more about, but in the mean time, i’m excited to start sharing more writing related content with y’all. this is how i’m going to be being productive, this is what’s going to be taking up my time, and this is going to be my future. 

i’m looking forward to bringing y’all along with me x

[adorerdraco]

It’s Only Quidditch ✧ Draco x Slytherin!Reader

Request: can i please request you and draco being in slytherin and dating for a while and you two are on the quidditch team with him so maybe you two are in a match together but you get hurt and he gets worried and has to win the game and visits you after and maybe even wrecks the person who hurt you hehe just fluff and angst

AU AROUND 6TH YEAR NO VOLDY

Warnings: angry!draco, vengeful!draco, VIOLENCE, kinda graphic details like blood and injuries, lil bit of angst

Words: 3.9K (love making these long for no reason)

A/N: ANGRY DRACO IS SO HOT IM SORRY WOW BUT I HOPE THIS IS GOOOOD PLEASE ENJOY MY MADE UP CHARACTER AND MY SUPER LONG QUIDDITCH GAME THAT CONFUSED ME AFTER A WHILE OF TRYING TO WRITE LMAO and i made gif :)

November had begun and with it came the new season of quidditch at Hogwarts along with very poor weather and over-bundling nerves. Tensions had always gotten high around this time of the year amongst the teams and all animosity between the house’s respective players was on the forefront as the competition was building. It was like clockwork every year; captain’s starting strenuous training schedules, begging Snape to help book the stadium even if it was already occupied, spying on other teams to figure out their strengths and weaknesses. Not to mention the arguments that would happen regularly in between the first couple of games when you and your teammates would be accused of cheating or using dangerous and illegal moves. Which did happen to be true most of the time.

It was safe to say that it was the most eventful time of the year, and as suffocating as it sometimes got - you looked forward to it every time the new term started. It was in quidditch that you found yourself feeling the freest in, zipping around the stadium in a flash of green with the wind blowing through your hair and crisp autumn air biting at your cheeks. But most notably, it was in quidditch that you met Draco Malfoy and had quickly evolved from teammates to friends, to him now being your boyfriend.

You made Slytherin’s team your second year as a Chaser, a shiny new broom being given to you on the first day of scheduled training when Lucius Malfoy had made a generous donation that came along with a new platinum blond seeker. With the two of you being the latest additions to the teams, your captain, Marcus Flint, had decided to leave the dirty work for the two of you to do in the downtime every one else was able to enjoy. Marcus never changed that as the years went on.

So you and Draco would be sent off to other teams’ practices nearly every other day or week, depending on how secure Flint was feeling, both of you huddling closely together for sometimes hours behind the thick wooden benches as you watched and studied tactics with conversations in between. You would joke around a lot and call him your partner in crime which he would always roll his eyes to and make a snide and playful comment about even if he secretly loved hearing it. And the two of you stayed partners in crime for a while, neither of you ever making any move towards the other besides lingering touches and longing looks, and very rarely, a shy compliment.

It wasn’t until last year when you were hiding behind the bleachers, bored out of your mind watching Ravenclaw have a flawless run through around the stadium when you were graced with the dumbest idea.

“They’re playing good today,” you drawled out, “too good that it’s boring.”

“You reckon they studied so hard and found the key to quidditch?” He snickered as he played around with a pebble on the ground with his wand.

“We should help them out,” you suggested as Draco turned to raise a puzzled eyebrow at you. “Prepare them for the unexpected, nothing too crazy.”

You took out your wand from your pocket and pointed it towards one of their Beaters that was sitting idly by on their broom, a faint “confundus” leaving your lips that caused the broom to jerk swiftly to the side and nearly topple over its rider.

“You’re a genius,” Draco laughed quietly, repositioning himself so that he was right beside you with his wand directed out into the field. He spotted one of the bludgers flying towards the same Beater and instead of colliding with the bat, he used a charm to direct it into the back of their broom and then doubled it back around to try and hit one of the passing by Chaser’s that moved at the very last minute. 

You were a giggling mess, gripping tightly onto Draco’s arm as you watched everyone begin to look around wildly for the wild bludger with panicked expressions. What either of you didn’t realize in the middle of your joyed hysterics and Draco’s smugness for causing the angelic sounds, was that the bludger was flying idly still in front of the bleacher’s as his wand was still trained on it without moving it around anymore, his focus completely gone and concentrated on you.

It wasn’t until you heard someone yell out a, “Is that Malfoy and Y/L/N back there again?!” That made you get up with a sudden jolt, grabbing onto your accomplice’s hand as you ran towards the set of stairs that descended out of the stands. All you heard was distant angry insults and threats quickly fading out of ear-shot while you ran, laughing uncontrollably alongside Draco with his hand still tightly gripped in yours. 

When you finally reached the entrance of the empty courtyard of the castle with flustered cheeks and wheezing chuckles, you looked down at your joined hands at the same time he did and after a few seconds of realization and lingering adrenaline, you quickly moved into each other with a yearning kiss that changed everything from that day forward.

Draco stood beside you while you sat on a bench outside the locker room, your head resting lazily on the side of his leg while his fingers carded soothingly through your hair. Marcus was pacing in front of you, using his broom as a walking and pointing stick whenever he wanted to add any calculated words to his very hostile pep-talks that left everyone feeling more irritated and stressed.

Today was the last game of the season and the most important, it was the game that ended the season with a shimmering Inter-House Quidditch Cup and it just so happened to be against Gryffindor, making the stakes much higher than they already were. The matches against Gryffindor were by far, the most dangerous as they weren't afraid to play roughly either if push came to shove. The determination to beat each other and to win was critical on both sides and the day always ended with some sort of injuries.

“I don’t care how dirty we have to play today,” Flint fumed to the team, “I don’t care how many fouls we get, as long as we win.”

“Relax, Flint,” you sighed deeply. “We have the best players on our team and we’ve been working our arses off all season, we’ll be fine.”

“Still, I want to see blood out there,” he muttered back, walking towards the entrance of the field as Madam Hooch started calling your team out to start.

You stood up with a huff, Draco frowning when he noticed how tense you looked when your eyes worriedly met his.

“All right, love?”

“I'm just nervous,” you shrug, “I don’t want to mess up.”

The silver-haired boy moved to stand in front of you, placing two strong hands on either side of your arms to stand you in place so that he would be the only thing your wandering eyes were able to focus on.

“You are the best Chaser that Slytherin has ever had, no, that Hogwarts has ever had and I know for a fact you’re going to do amazing out there,” he cups your face with care, brushing a few stray hairs out of your face as he spoke. “You’ve got this.”

He pressed an encouraging kiss onto your forehead and then your lips, smiling at you supportively before taking your hand and hurriedly walking the two of you out into the field where the match was about to start.

Almost the whole school had shown up in an overcrowded sea of red and gold for Gryffindor. There were red sparks and small fireworks of lions that were charmed to roar when the animal would open its mouth. On one end of the stands, however, was the entire student body of Slytherin that was throwing green and silver ribbons and sparklers from their wands, yelling loudly in support as if their life depended on it. Over the rails, they had thrown down a large poster of a snake that moved around sleekly over large green words that read, “SLYTHERIN FOR THE WIN.”

Rain was lightly drizzling from the grayed dense clouds above, a sharp chill in the air from an approaching winter that always seemed to give the worst weather during the last couple of games of the year. You didn’t mind it since the cold had always felt nice against your sweaty skin during the game and it served like a small revitalizing shock that gave you a surge of energy to push forward with. 

Madam Hooch quickly went over the rules, set free the bludgers, and the snitch, forced the two captains, Wood and Flint, to shake hands and by the time she had counted down from three to one - brooms were soared into the sky with such speed it looked like a tornado had formed as she threw the quaffle up into the air.

A roar of cheers erupted from beside you as you got ahold of the quaffle, dashing past your House while you headed straight towards the Gryffindor’s goal post and managed to make the first shot in within the first five minutes of the game putting you at 10-0. You spotted Draco flying around above, smiling down brightly at you with triumph that only fueled your confidence as you darted forward to catch the ball again. You were, just as Draco had said, the best Chaser on the team and in all of the school. You were fast, agile, and smart when it came down to it and you were the reason why your team had easily wracked up 40 points with thirty minutes down in the match. Marcus was always trailing behind you with focus, shoving anyone who tried to get to you or pulling them back by their robes that landed Slytherin a couple of fouls throughout. 

You didn’t like to play dirty, but when Katie Bell had rammed into your side either accidentally or on purpose, it knocked the quaffle out of your hands and into one of their other Chaser’s, Rowan Rees, a muscular and tall seventh-year boy that had made the team that same year. With Katie still closely trying to cut you off, you veered sharply into her with your shoulder before breaking away from her and heading towards your goal post where they were trying to shoot. 

“ILLEGAL PUSHING FROM Y/L/N, FOUL AGAINST SLYTHERIN!” 

You rolled your eyes at the announcer, completely ignoring the boo’s that had filled the air as you whizzed past the other houses even though it was you who got hit first. Just as Rees had raised his arm to score, you flew over him, swooping your arm underneath your broom until you felt the quaffle back in your palm and ripped it from his grasp. The match was becoming more intense by the second, Gryffindor was promptly catching up in points because of the penalties they were awarded from the illegal moves your team was making and it left you feeling more pressured that it was nearly a tie now, Flint reminded you of that every chance he zoomed past you.

Unbeknownst to you, Draco was watching you cautiously from across the field most of the game when he noticed how close everyone was trying to get to you. You didn’t see the way you were almost tugged back multiple times or were missed by inches when someone was about to push you. Or how the Beaters were deliberately directing the bludgers in your direction. You also didn’t see how irked you had made Rees with your constant scoring and with the sporadic few times you had cut him off or almost bumped into him - but your boyfriend did, and he was much more focused on your safety now than the Golden Snitch he or Potter hasn’t spotted yet. Instead of searching for it, he was purposefully maneuvering himself around in front of the other Chasers to throw them off their focal point towards you so that you would have a clearer path to fly through.

He watched as you pulled your broom upwards to try and twist away from the area but Rees had reached out and pulled at your ankle, sending you out of your seat as the quaffle fell while you tried to rebalance yourself. That was all the encouragement the blond needed when he hurtled down into the mess, kicking at the back of Rees’ broom and sending him quickly spinning on a dive before he could try and move any further. 

“FOUL AGAINST REES AND MALFOY FOR KICKING AND TUGGING!”

“MALFOY!” Flint roared as he flew past, “Potter’s spotted the snitch! This isn’t your place, get out of here, NOW!”

And when he looked up, sure enough, Harry was going around desperately with an arm outstretched towards the small glint of gold that was moving too fast. 

“Go, I’m fine!” You shouted out to him when you flew back up with the ball back in your arms.

It was like slow motion when he forced himself to leave your surroundings, everything around him was moving fast and intensely with everyone screaming wildly that he couldn’t think straight. In a daze, he haphazardly sped towards Harry but noticed the panicked look on the seeker’s face when he had lost sight of it again which directed his attention right back to you. You were right in front of the Gryffindor goal post, arm stretched over your head and releasing the quaffle with a harsh throw.

“Y/L/N MAKES THE GOAL, TEAMS ARE AT A TIE-”

It wasn’t until the very last minute that everyone, including you, had realized the flash of red that came hurtling into your side at full speed, Rees colliding so loudly with you that it echoed around the stadium in a powerful clang and crack.

Draco watched in horror as you were thrown off your broom, your now unconscious body falling like a rag doll with a speed that sent his stress levels into overdrive. He had never pushed down on his broom so fast, immediately abandoning his spot to bolt towards you even as Marcus was screaming at him to not go. 

A few feet above the ground and before you met it, he managed to loop his arm around your waist and heave you onto the front of his broom with a slight struggle as it was now raining hard and clouding his vision. He saw Madam Pomfrey and Mcgonagall rushing into the field, hands holding tightly onto their hats as they worriedly rushed towards the area where your broom had fallen and where Draco was hovering over with you. 

“TEAMS ARE TAKING A 10 MINUTE TIME OUT!”

Marcus had flown down towards him, face twisted in fury and annoyance as he approached. 

“Is there a reason you’re not being a seeker, today?” He spits, “because I’ve been seeing you do everything but your job.”

“My bloody girlfriend just got knocked out!” Draco seethed at him. “I’m not going back into the game, I’m going with her to the hospital wing.”

“Like hell you are,” Flint scowled, “if you leave, you'll forfeit us the game. If you stay and let Potter catch that Snitch so it’ll be over quicker, I will personally make sure that this is your last year on the team. You’re going to win this for us.”

“Mr. Malfoy!” McGonagall called up to him, waving her arms hastily. “She needs to go to the infirmary, immediately!”

The two Slytherins were staring each other down aggressively as Draco contemplated the threat he was just given. There was nothing more he wanted to do than to throw a hex at Flint and leave with you, but he just swallowed thickly and nodded at him before descending towards the ground and letting you off carefully into the hands of Madam Pomfrey. A surge of fear ran through his body when he finally saw you clearly; a harsh red mark was making its way up to your neck, the corner of your bottom lip had split and doubled in size, there was a small scratch on your cheekbone. It made him feel queasy, but he tore his eyes away from you and hopped back onto his broom while glaring angrily at Marcus and the distant group of huddled Gryffindor’s. 

He was blinded in rage when the match resumed and even more enraged when Flint had cheered loudly when the announcer granted Slytherin a penalty for the injury Rees gave you, allowing them basically to get a free score in against Gryffindor. Draco let his eyes wander around for the snitch for the first time that day and he could hear his heart thundering in his eardrums in distress as the rain continued to make his search worse. All he wanted was to get out of the game to check up on you, and then he'd come back to the stadium to throw his fists into Rees’ face with maybe a few hits in on Marcus.

Just as he was losing hope, he saw a flash of gold whiz past him with a loud buzzing that shocked him into alertness. He didn’t care that catching the snitch would win the game, or the cup, or give him all the glory, no - this was his ticket out. He dived towards it with his arm outstretched, hand thrashing around in the wind as he tried to eagerly catch it. In seconds, Harry was right beside him, bumping him with his shoulder to try and throw him off the path but Draco only pushed back harder. There was a flurry of shouting as everyone watched, the announcer was yelling into the mic about the seekers going head-to-head, bludgers were flying past him. 

It was pure chaos and urgency, Draco could feel the fluttering of its wings beneath his palm and when Harry pushed into him one more time, he felt the coldness of the Snitch get trapped into his enclosed hand, the vibration of its wings sending a current of relief up his arm that spread throughout his whole body as he soared up into the sky while brandishing it to the schools’ painfully watchful eyes.

“MALFOY HAS CAUGHT THE SNITCH, WINNING SLYTHERIN THIS YEAR’S INTER-HOUSE QUIDDITCH CUP!”

Draco hurriedly made his way down to the field where the rest of his house was pooling into, celebrating proudly and calling out for him to praise, but when he landed on the ground and was met with half of the Gryffindor team including Rowan Rees - all his wrath came flooding back into him. 

Angelina, another Gryffindor Chaser, had nudged Rowan with her shoulder, pointing towards the Slytherin Prince that was stalking towards them.

“Malfoy,” Rees started bitterly, “sorry about the girlfriend, I was only trying to knock the quaffle out her hands.”

“After she had already thrown it?” He glowered, walking closer up to the boy that was beginning to straighten himself out and flex. “Looked a little personal seeing how she was dragging you through the dust the whole game.”

“Accidents happen, mate,” Rees shrugged, “it’s only quidditch, you won didn’t you? Maybe you should be thanking me for giving you that extra push to win the game.”

A clear line had been crossed and everyone who was listening knew it. But before Rowan could say anything to try and drag himself out of the hole he had just dug himself into, he was being tackled into the ground with Draco above him throwing punches wherever he could land them. There was loud hooting and laughing coming from the Slytherins that gathered around the fight, cheering loudly for their House superior.

Rees was thrashing around on the ground, trying frantically to throw off the extremely infuriated boy that was repeatedly pounding into his face with bloodied and bruised fists. Oliver Wood ran up to the sudden brawl, Fred and George following closely behind him as they all started trying to rip the fighting boy’s apart from each other. Oliver had gotten Draco off briefly, allowing Rees to try and get a hit in but it was dodged at the last second as the blond quickly leaped up to his feet. The fight immediately ended when a muddy shoe had collided with Rowan’s jaw and Draco stepped back satisfied with the damage he had done, roughly shrugging off the grip Oliver still had on his arm.

“It’s only quidditch, right?” He spat venomously from above the Gryffindor who was holding his now battered face in pain. “That’ll teach you from putting your hands on a woman too.”

“Mr. Malfoy!” Madam Hooch bellowed as she broke through the crowd in a frenzy. “50 points from Slytherin, go wait outside Professor Snape’s office for further punishment, go right now!”

Draco did go, and instantly, but he didn’t go down to the dungeons to hear about the lengthy detention that he knew he was going to get and the scolding for being reckless and stupid. His feet carried his sore body up the many stairs that led to the hospital wing, his pace picking up swiftly when he saw the large double doors of the infirmary ajar and he was able to hear a faint and familiar voice speaking indistinctly. 

He threw open the doors, walking straight in as if he owned the place and ignored Pomfrey’s requests for him to leave as he made a beeline towards your hunched figure that was facing away from him. 

“I need to see her,” he said to the nurse quickly when she stopped in front of him. “I’ll leave soon, please.”

At the sound of his voice, you hastily turned around in your spot to face him, a yelp escaping your lips for moving too quickly through your injuries. Pomfrey stepped out of the way with a sigh allowing Draco to jog over to you.

“I’m going to kill him,” he scowled when he reached you. You were wearing a sling, a deep purple and yellowed bruise quickly set itself over the side of your arm and the same cuts he saw from earlier were still scattered over your features. His fingers ghosted over your skin and he let out a deep shaky exhale of anxiousness before moving his thumb up to graze your cheek tenderly.

“What happened to you?” You asked quietly in shock when you noticed his mud-splattered clothes and tattered fists. 

“Long story,” he drawled. “Don’t worry about me, are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” you muttered with a slight shrug that made you whimper lightly. “Did we win?”

He nodded quietly, his eyes still scanning sadly over your face with a frown. “I swear, I’m going to kill him.”

“Only if I can help,” you sniggered faintly, trying to make light of the situation and succeeding in doing so when you saw he had cracked a small smile. With his hand still on your cheek, he bent down to press a firm kiss on the top of your hair and then warmly on the side of your mouth that wasn’t bleeding.

“I’ll just let you finish him off then,” he mulled amusingly when he pulled away.

“Finish him off?”

The doors of the hospital wing were thrown open again, a sea of red flowing inside as they carried in a pummeled Rowan with a busted lip, bloodied nose, black eye, and deeply bruised jaw. You looked briskly between Rees and Draco, both of them staring daggers at each other and it rapidly clicked in your mind why your boyfriend had looked like he just walked through a battlefield in your absence.

“Oh.”

[meatheadosis-sf]

Hypnocon 2021

The 22nd annual North American convention/conference for men into men into erotic and recreational hypnosis will return to San Francisco this year. It's free to attend (with donations welcome).

$139/night event room rates for the Con weekend (and the day before and after, if you'd like to enjoy the rest of the city while you're here). Locals, or people making other arrangements, can of course attend without booking a room.

Enthusiastic informed consent is required for any hypnotic play (or other play, for that matter) at the Con. There will be presentations about negotiating consent early Saturday morning and before each play party.

Check out http://Hypnocon.com for more details and the group rate hotel booking info.

____________________________

SCHEDULE

October 15th - 17th at the Hotel Spero in San Francisco CA

At past Hypnocons, because they're free, many people were able wander in at will, to see only the events they were interested in. Because of this year's vaccination requirement, that won't be true this year. Once you've registered, you can certainly come and go as you please (hang on to those name tags!), but you must register!

Proof of vaccination is REQUIRED by the city of San Francisco and the hotel itself, and will be checked at registration. A digital photo of your vaccination card is sufficient, assuming the name on it matches your photo ID. To the best of my knowledge, no one planning to attend will be crossing any borders to do so. If you are coming from a different country, please let me know before you come, so we can figure out what works as proof for you.

Friday:

Registration 2p - 6p in Jarvis's Corner (the desk will direct you to it). Hypnocon is completely FREE (donations are welcome), but you do need to register so that we can check your proof of vaccination (including photo ID), and give you your name tag. Name tags will be created with both scene/screen name and the name you want to be called at the Con, color coded to distinguish hypnotists, subjects, switches, and observers from each other. Feel free to add preferred pronouns.

After 6p, you may be able to find someone to register you at the hospitality suite, but we're all here to enjoy the Con ourselves. You'll have to gamble. You MUST register, show proof of vaccination, and wear your name tag to attend!

If you would like to be notified via text when things happen that aren't on the schedule (e.g. where people are going for dinner; when the play parties start, etc.) you can choose to put your name and phone number on the Text List. We'll also be posting news to the Discord server.

Several people volunteered on the survey to be part of a Welcome Team, to introduce newbies to people, break the ice and help everyone get comfortable.

Friday and Saturday nights, VisibleRestraint and their partner will host a Kinky Hypno Play Party in their suite.

Flanelbear will host the Hospitality Suite, which is a great place to socialize, meet a hypno partner to play with, and see impromptu demos.

Unscheduled social time for the rest of Friday. We won't have the meeting room until Saturday, but the hospitality suite will be open (though limited in seating). Jarvis's Corner might sit another small group at the table, and there's a small restaurant inside the hotel.

This might be an excellent time for out of towners to visit Mr. S (in-store shopping has returned), since it closes at 6p. And of course all of the Tenderloin restaurants are nearby. Impromptu groups of people go out for dinner together based on food preferences, and maybe one place will draw a big group - it's a great way to get to know each other.

After dinner, you can join the play party, hang out in the hospitality suite socializing, or hit the SOMA or Castro bars. The SF Eagle will be within a 30 minute walk, or about 17-20 minutes on the Muni 9 bus, and I know there'll be a Hypnocon contingent there Friday evening. Or maybe you'll find a hypnotist or subject to play with privately in one of your rooms.

Saturday:

8:00a - 9:00a Registration in Jarvis's Corner (see above). You MUST register, show proof of vaccination, and get a name tag in order to attend! There's a brief window for latecomers, but it's important to get here in time for the first presentation:

9:00a - 9:50a Negotiation And Consent by VisibleRestraint [50] Enthusiastic, informed consent is required BEFORE engaging in any hypnosis at the Con, so everyone is encouraged to attend this workshop. There are nuances to hypnotic negotiation that might not be familiar to those of you who are old hands at BDSM consent negotiations.

10:00a - 10:50a Hypnosis 101 by JohnBear [50]

11:00a - 11:25a JoshSF will give a "Pre-Talk" [25]

11:30a - 12:20p Hypnovices: Sharing The Kink, And Onramps For Hypnocurious Doms by MindFoxxx Muscle [50]

12:20p Just before we break for lunch, we'll have the traditional (and optional) Group Photo taken [10]

LUNCH BREAK

1:30p - 2:20p The Awakenings Project: Preliminary Results Of A Formal Study Of The Erotic Hypnosis Community by SamHypnosis [50]

2:30p - 2:55p Hypnosis And Rope Bondage by VisibleRestraint and their partner [25]

(! No gap, in order to get one ten minute break instead of two five minute breaks)

2:55p - 3:20p Hypnosis And Working Out/Muscle Growth by GreyMuscleBear [25]

3:30p - 4:20p Kinesthesia Bootcamp - Wondertushy will awaken, develop and enhance our somesthetic (aka kinesthetic) sense. [50]

4:30p - 5:15p Horny, Tranced, And Stupid - a panel discussion by RicktheTist, VisibleRestraint, and Visible Restraint's partner (open to others who'd like to join in) [45]

6:00p (?) Group Dinner - location TBD

8:00p Kinky Comedy Stage Hypnosis Show performed by The Dominicator. A separate donation bucket will be there specifically for him, and we encourage people to enjoy this show even if they're not staying for the rest of Hypnocon.

Sunday:

9:00a - 9:55a Jarvis's Corner will again be manned briefly for latecomers needing to Register for the day.

10:00a - 10:50a Hypnosis And Neuro-Linguistic Programming by JoshSF

11:00a - 11:30a Hypno And Pup Play - Further Down And In by AnimalJSmith

11:40 - 2:00p SpiralBear will facilitate group participation hypno games. Fractionation Station and Speed Trance will involve everyone as either hypnotist or sub.

Checkout time at the Hotel Spero is 12p noon. You'll be able to store your bags in the hospitality suite, the meeting room, or with the front desk, so that you miss as little as possible Sunday morning/afternoon. We have the meeting room until 2:00p, and the Hospitality Suite for the rest of the day.

Many attendees are booked through Monday checkout, so the fun doesn't have to end - but we won't have the meeting room after 2p, so anything else will be completely informal.

[ashdumpsterpile]

Ohmygod YES Susan Pevensie is awesome please talk to me about Susan i want to know everything you have to say

Literally THANK YOU for asking me this bc Susan Pevensie is a character I never get asked about and I have So Many Opinions.

I'm going to start by saying that Susan used to be my least favorite character in the series. This goes for the books and the movies. Some of it was for personal reasons--she reminds me of a couple of annoying ppl I know irl--but it was also bc I watched Prince Caspian which shoehorned her into a relationship with Caspian which I hated.

HOWEVER. I ended up rethinking this position after interacting with Susan fans and realizing that there are so many wonderful things to love about her!

(putting under the cut bc this got long)

Things Ash Loves About Susan Pevensie

Aight I'm not going to do a formal analysis yet on her, but instead rant about some of the unrelated things I adore about Susan Pevensie.

Susan the Archer

Look we all love archery here. I don't have anything more to say.

Okay, I actually do have more to say. I love the fact that Susan is a complete badass with the bow. You get the general impression that she's one of the royals in charge of public relations, traditions, foreign policy, etc. and yet she's the most competent archer in the series. One of the few things I liked about the movies is how they didn't downplay this. They actually let her be a badass and show off her skills.

Also the part where she kicks Trumpkin's ass was awesome.

Susan the Gentle

Susan being the most passive Pevensie was something I definitely underappreciated as a teenager. I think my non-ability to see past "I'm not like other girls" narrative and the combination of Susan being described as the most traditionally feminine woman in the Narnia series is what initially turned me off from her.

HOWEVER, now it's one of my favorite attributes! I love that Susan is a badass and the most beautiful woman in Narnia. She has hair down to her feet, every man and woman in the kingdom want to fuck her, and she's still a fucking badass who will not hesitate to kick your ass.

Susan the Sister

Most of my thoughts of Susan as an older sister mostly stem from my own personal headcanons, but she is an awesome sister to her siblings. She's Peter's voice of reason, Edmund's sass partner, and Lucy's big sister.

Susan the Mom-Friend

She is a literal mother-figure for Corin.

"[...] the most beautiful lady he had ever seen rose from her place and threw her arms round him and kissed him, saying: "Oh Corin, Corin, how could you? And thou and I such close friends ever since thy mother died. [...]"

-The Horse and His Boy, 33-34

Most everything I have to say about this ventures into headcanon territory, but I love the idea of Susan basically adopting Corin after his mom dies. The way she trusts Cor--who she thinks is Corin in this chapter--is really sweet and I wish we could've seen more of that relationship.

Susan the Flawed

Something I notice from the fandom is a lot of people who hate Susan tend to because of her flaws. On the other hand, most Susan stans like to wave away these flaws and blame C.S. Lewis for being misogynistic or Aslan for being a "cruel god" and ignore the fact that she is a deeply flawed person.

Susan gets something of a "reverse redemption arc" in The Chronicles of Narnia. This makes her not only a fascinating foil to Edmund--as both are analytical, logical people--but an interesting character by herself.

She starts out in TWW as very skeptical of Narnia and it's whole deal and also very condescending to Lucy throughout. She ultimately does admit that Lucy was right and does get on board with the whole prophecy at the same time Peter does, and ends the book being crowned "the Gentle Queen."

In The Horse and His Boy, she has a very interesting dynamic with Edmund and in even more interesting relationship with Rabadash. They don't even interact on-page with each other, but it's highly implied that she was interested in him when he was a guest in Narnia. His behavior obviously changed when she visited him in Tashbaan, but you have to wonder what their dynamic was like before for her to travel all the way to his home when relations between the countries were strained at best.

Prince Caspian is where the cracks start showing through. Susan has lived an entire life as an adult in Narnia, gets thrown back to England with her siblings, and is yet again in Narnia as a child. This book is what really emphasizes her one fatal flaw: convenience.

(Put a pin in that thought, I'll get back to it.)

Susan denies once again that Lucy saw something that the rest of them can't seen. She continues this narrative until every other sibling finally acknowledges Lucy in the right and only then does she apologize.

The last mention of Susan is in The Last Battle, where all of her flaws rise up against her in the worst way possible. I have a lot of controversial opinions on this that I'm going to address later, but I just want to say that Susan's reverse-redemption arc is something I actually like about her.

(There is also evidence that Susan does get a full redemption arc, just as Edmund and Eustace did, but C.S. Lewis was pretty much done with The Chronicles of Narnia at the point and instead encouraged fans to write their own version of how that went down.)

Okay, back to convenience being Susan's fatal flaw. So the one thing that comes up time and time again in the series is that Susan is very focused on material comforts. I believe it's implied that she's vain, and it's canonical that her own personal comfort spurs her to make decisions.

"[...] I really believed it was him — he, I mean — yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and — and — oh, I don't know [...]"

Prince Caspian, 81

Prince Caspian has the strongest examples of Susan doing this, but certainly there's evidence elsewhere. There are a lot of fans who are distressed by this, claiming that Aslan and the others are too hard on her and shouldn't judge.

Honestly, I like that she's written with this flaw. Not only is it very relatable--(my own personal comfort and convenience is something I highly prioritize too)--but it humanizes a character who otherwise is ridiculously op and basically the Helen of Troy of the series. It may sound like I'm using this as an excuse to rant, but I really wouldn't have her any other way.

Susan As Portrayed by Anna Popplewell

Movie!Susan is a fucking delight.

She's sarcastic and badass and awesome and I could spend hours heaping praise on Anna's acting and her portrayal of Susan, but I can already tell that this post is going to be long so, I'll just stop here.

(10/10 want to be stabbed by her tho.)

Personal Headcanons

Let's talk about my fanon thoughts. I have many.

Susan is Aro

There's canonical evidence for this! Susan is a character who is heavily pursued by suitors everywhere, and even lets herself be courted by many of them, but chooses not to settle down. Even when she gets back to England and is described as only having interest in parties and material things, boys aren't mentioned.

I like to think that in The Horse in His Boy Susan was interested in Rabadash at first because he was a brilliant conversationalist. Nothing she says about him implies romantic interest, before and after she realizes the truth of his intentions.

Susan and Edmund Were Best Friends

This might be my love for The Horse and His Boy showing itself, but I think Susan and Edmund were thrown into circumstances where they interacted the most with each other.

Edmund is the ruler in charge of politics. Susan is the ruler in charge of Cair Paravel's public image. I imagine they spent time as ambassadors to other countries and planning royal functions.

They're also the most level-headed and logical out of their siblings, so they probably found a lot in common.

Susan Fancast

I literally just said I loved Anna's potrayal of Susan's (and I love what they gave us of older Susan too in LWW!), but I read the books in 2008 and my parents didn't let me see the movies bc I was like...nine years old and they thought it would be too scary.

So I had to headcanon my own interpretations.

Queen Susan the Gentle:

For some reason Merlin wasn't too scary for me to watch and I fell in love with Katie McGrath in like. Two episodes so. (On an unrelated note, I also fancast Bradley James as Peter at the time.)

Anyway, fanon Susan is basically Morgana Pendragon pre-evil arc. Sassy as hell, hot as fuck, and can kick your ass.

Unpopular Opinions

Yeah, feel free to skip this part if having controversial fandom opinions is a deal breaker for you.

The Problem With Susan Isn't Actually A Problem

I'm about to start so much discourse in the Narnia fandom, but C.S. Lewis's choices with her in The Last Battle weren't misogynistic. Bear in mind, I'm not saying that all of his writing choices in the series were A++ or excusing away certain racist/sexiest bits, but it's honestly baffling to me that people are so up in arms over Susan's exclusion in the final book.

So the part that everyone loses their shit over is as follows:

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

The Last Battle, 83-84

There's a lot to unpack here and I first want to say that everyone's opinion on this part, no matter how different than mine, is valid. I'm going to be quoting some other ppl's opinions on here and by no means am I bashing them. I just want to address my feelings on the matter and the best way to do that is to cite the thoughts of ppl who have opposing ideas.

Here are some arguments on Tumblr I've heard regarding "The Problem of Susan":

"How about we talk about what might have happened if Narnia hadn't deserted Susan? [...] What if we didn't tell Susan she had to go grow up in her own world and then shame and punish her for doing just that? She was told to walk away and she went. She did not try to stay a child all her life, wishing for something she had been told she couldn't have again."

"Narnia is filled with metaphors (often not very subtle ones) that are supposed to teach us how to be, and the most glaring one for any young girl to absorb is that it's okay to be a girl like Lucy, unthreatening and cheerful and valiant and faithful, but to be a girl like Susan gets you punished - in fact, you aren't just punished, you're destroyed."

"why do we call it ‘the problem’ where’s the problem about a young woman dealing with her trauma and choosing her own path, actively making the choice to keep living and to stay and to carve a life out in England when her siblings couldn’t? what is the problem about susan forgetting to somehow cope with what she’s experienced? why is it ‘the problem of susan’ that she recontextualised her faith?"

And then there's JK Rowling who said this:

There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.

It's weird how I'm still finding new ways to hate JKR in the year 2021. Again, there is absolutely zero implication that Susan had sex when she came back to England. ZERO. Did she actually read the books? IDK. If someone shares this opinion pls reply with actual canonical evidence.

Back on topic, I'm a firm believer of death of the author and interpreting art via your own experiences. Which is why I'm also going to share my own interpretation by saying y'all are wrong.

Susan Pevensie was not abandoned by Narnia. She was not barred from Narnia because she is traditionally feminine or because she "owned her sexuality" (another opinion I didn't have time to condense down for this post) or because she recontextualized her faith or even because she deserved to be punished.

I also fail to see how Susan recontexualized her faith, as the entire point of it all is that she has none. Bringing this back to Susan's fatal flaw (personal convenience/material comforts), her prioritizing herself over her own faith is the reason she is "no longer a friend of Narnia." Not...whatever fanon y'all are imposing on her character.

Susan is not being punished for liking lipstick and looking pretty. Susan's not even being punished. Y'all read Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan and forgot it wasn't canon.

There are many reasons Susan is not in Aslan's Country (one of them being that she's not actually dead yet), but the main one has to do with this:

"[...] But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 215-216

Yeah, okay that's why Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia. The implication when the Pevensies are told that they can no longer enter Narnia is that they are to find Aslan in other places. Susan doesn't do this, instead choosing to focus her life on material things. It isn't the lipstick, it's that she only wants the lipstick.

Susan Had Sex In The Books

Oh and not in the context y'all are thinking. (Again, there are no implications that Susan was barred from Narnia for having sex or that she had sex when she came back to England.)

So there's actual canonical evidence that Susan and Rabadash had a sexual relationship. Sort of.

"What think you? We have been in this city fully three weeks. Have you yet settled in your mind whether you will marry this dark-faced lover of yours, this Prince Rabadash, or no?"

-The Horse and His Boy, 35

Edmund calls Rabadash her lover. Not her suitor. I don't know if the word had a different meaning in 1954, but it feels like C.S. Lewis is saying that they're fucking. I'm not really happy with the idea of Susan sleeping with an abuser, but really proud of her for Getting Some as a woman born in a time period where having premarital sex was a big no-no.

This also invalidates the weird opinion going on that Susan was barred from Narnia because she had sex.

Suspian Is The Worst

I haven't really talked about Movie!Susan much, but as long as we're talking unpopular opinions, it's worth noting that I hate Suspian. Some of it is the "Susan is Aro" headcanon screaming inside of me, but it's also the fact that it's written poorly, does nothing interesting for either character and generally comes across as awkward.

I feel like they were trying to make Prince Caspian sexy and relevant to teens. It came across as super heteronormative and unnecessary.

It also gets really really weird bc the next movie then gives Caspian and Edmund mad chemistry and we're all just like........ok.

Final Thoughts

Susan may not be my favorite character in the series, but she's grown on me over the years. I have many issues with fanon interpretations of her--which definately fueled some of my disdain for her initally--and I don't identify as a Susan Apologist.

I do however adore Susan and have many headcanons for her not mentioned here. I love reading fanfic, writing fanfic and meta, and generally having conversations about her and would love to talk more about it.

I welcome criticism (CONSTRUCTIVE) and conversation on all of my opinions and observations. Please drop into my inbox. <3

[sunnysviolin]

God I love your blog I spent all day just looking at it and I’m like yes more Omori brain worms

Also, what do you think the Omori gang’s jobs would be when they’re adults? I kinda meta’d and thought Sunny would be a little comic book artist with the character Omoriboy but I’m curious on your thoughts

Awww thank you! Also you have given me the perfect excuse to show off my happiest AU aka the ‘everyone stays in town together, and lowkey they all live at Hero’s house’  I have a lot of different ideas for what they could end up being, so if this isn’t your cup of tea it’s not my firm canon haha! I actually do have an artist sunny series which would probably be up your alley if you were interested in hearing about that too! Alsooooo this got long again it’s under a read more. I’m calling it Come Home series and I really like it if you guys are interested in hearing more 0-0 I only talk about Basil Sunny and Kel here haha because it got long long, but there’s defintiely another part coming to this if you guys want it! 

Basil starts going back to school post-canon, and he ends up doing pretty good for his last two years, but it’s still a struggle considering he missed so much school over the last four years. The idea of going to college is particularly stressful to him, so Polly doesn’t push it on him. She didn’t end up finishing college, and she turned out alright. 

Polly does want Basil to be thinking about his future though, and so she encourages him to find something related to what he’s passionate about. Which leads to Basil working part time at Fix-It in the gardening section. 

He quickly branches out of just gardening, although that is still his favorite. There’s something deeply gratifying about seeing what he’s created with his own two hands, and having people ask for his help only with simple things he can fix for them. 

Basil starts up a deep mentoring relationship with the couple who owns  Fix-It. They like to hear his passionate rambles about the flowers, and they like the ideas he has. Basil starts to lead flower arrangement classes, and they end up being a big hit. 

When he’s in the spring of his senior year, they ask him about his plans. When they find out he isn’t really all that interested in college, they ask if he could come on full time, and maybe even apprentice. They have a son of their own, but he is a lawyer and has no interest in the shop. Basil is excited by this, and he almost immediately agrees. 

There’s a lot more to running the shop then he thought, but he loves it. He’s content just to be the manager for now, but the couple has assured him that within the next five years they plan to retire and the shop will be his for good.

Kel does end up getting a scholarship for basketball. It’s to a good school (not quite Hero’s level, but better than his parents expected). It’s a big state school compared to Hero’s tiny private, but his parents are happy and they have a winning basketball team. The problem is that Kel has no idea what he would want to do. 

He had some ideas, but I think that learning the truth really affected him. He had thought he wanted to be a basketball star, or something to do with the sports industry, but that all feels so juvenile now. Now Kel wants to do something real and good. He wants to work with people, but he isn’t sure what that might mean. 

Kel goes to school as an undecided major, and they stick him in a bunch of different types of classes. Most of them are painfully boring, hard, and he just isn’t interested. He briefly considers dropping out, but he knows how disappointed his mom and dad would be. They didn’t get the opportunity to get a college degree, so it kind of feels like slapping them in the face if he gave back all the money he got just because he didn’t have any passion. 

There is one class that Kel really enjoys. The class is called Child’s Play and it’s a psychology course. Specifically a class on the influence of play children’s lives. It’s still hard for him, and he struggles to fully comprehend the material, but it’s something he’s passionate about. 

He talks with his advisor about it, and the man suggests combining all of the things he’s been passionate about so far. He wants to do good for other people, he is interested in sports, and he liked learning about how children work. His advisor puts him in an education couse and a few physical health courses, and Kel enters his sophomore year with a physical education major. 

Kel doesn’t graduate with honors like Hero, but he does graduate with a plan. He does his student teaching at Faraway High, his connections with his coach and the school helping to grease the wheels. (It doesn’t hurt that he’s living with Sunny by this point, and Sunny got a job offer in Faraway that he’s going to accept...but more on that later)

They offer him a tentative position at the end of the year, and he accepts it. He also takes on the basketball team, and they win the playoffs for the first time since he graduated, which cinches his job in tight.

Sunny also doesn’t end up going to college. Not only did he not have the grades, it just wasn’t something he thought he would be very good at. He doesn’t really have a plan, just that he wants to still be by his friends. Hero is far from them now, and Aubrey is planning on going away too, but Basil and Kel are staying close by

He ends up talking to Kel about it late one night, and Kel proposes a great idea. They’ll get an apartment together off campus instead of him living in the dorms, and Sunny can figure his life out while Kel gets a friend and study partner. 

Sunny’s mother is very happy with this idea, and Kel’s parents are satisfied that he won’t be off partying every night if he has Sunny with him, so they agree as well. What Sunny’s mother isn’t excited about is the idea of her baby not getting any degree or anything. So she makes a compromise. She and Sunny will find a good trade school near Kel’s college, and Sunny will take classes in something he enjoys

She assumes he will pick art classes or something that she knows he likes, but Sunny surprisingly picks veterinary certification. It feels out of left field, but if it makes Sunny happy and he’s going to go to his internships and his classes then so be it. 

Sunny is never top of the class, but he is serious about doing well. There are aspects of the job that he does not do well with, but he manages. He gets his vet tech certification and finds a starting position near where he lives with Kel

Living with Kel is a breath of fresh air. It feels good to have a partner in life who doesn’t expect him to talk or to act like everyone else. Kel is a master at reading Sunny, and it’s a bone deep relaxation to not have to try and express himself. Most of the time Sunny can just listen and let Kel talk to him. They work well with chores and food and generally everything. Every day feels like a sleepover honestly, and Sunny starts to smile a bit more and reach just a little father out of his comfort zone. 

Kel loves living with Sunny. Every night they get to just spend time together and enjoy each others presence, and sometimes Basil will come up and they all get to eat dinner together in their little shoebox apartment. One of their windowsills is full of plants that Basil has brought them. 

At the end of their four years Kel knows that he wants to go back to Faraway to work. He has been commuting there for student teaching, and while it’s only an hour, it’s still pretty far. The problem is that he can’t imagine leaving Sunny alone. Not after four years of them being together every single day. Then Sunny reveals that he found a job in the town next to Faraway that he wants to take. He doesn’t want to leave Kel though, and he’s not sure what to do. 

They have a long conversation that night, and they both agree that they want to stay together. It’s been an unspoken thing, but neither of them ended up having any long term partner in the last four years. They don’t have romantic feelings for one another, but they want to continue what they have. It’s safe, it’s lovely, and they feel secure in their bond. Whatever happens they want to decide as a team, as a partnership. 

With Kel and Sunny both coming back to Faraway they assume that they’re going to have to try and find a place to live closer. They’re going to stay with Kel’s parents until they do, but Basil has a better idea. 

Polly loves Basil a lot. She has adored getting to raise him and helping him and guiding him the last six years. But now her quiet sweet boy is a grown man, and his parents stopped paying her for caring for him over a year ago. She knows that the best thing to do would be to detach herself and to let him continue to grow without her constant presence. 

Basil isn’t sure he’s ready to be all by himself, and when he finds out Kel and Sunny are coming back to Faraway, he offers to let them stay at his house. It might be a bit cramped all three of them, and they don’t have to, but it could be nice. They say yes before he can even begin to second guess himself

So as bright and bushy 21/22 year olds, Kel, Basil, and Sunny all have Come Home. 

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

You don't have to answer this if it's too heavy or difficult or a question, but is it weird if I'm kind of afraid of heaven? I'm not scared of hell because I believe that even if it exists, hardly anybody goes there, but I'm just really scared of an afterlife where the things I love about this life are gone. The thought of things like not having a physical body, all of our flaws being gone, never feeling any negative emotions (because I don't think slight flaws or negative emotions are always harmful and they're part of what makes us individuals), animals not being there, or marriage not existing just feel terrifying instead of freeing. The last one especially because my mom died relatively young and I hate thinking that my dad can't be with her again in the afterlife someday. Or that even in heaven my family would never be able to do the things we missed out on doing together. And life is so short and I know that, for example, I'll never have time to play all the video games I wanna play, read all the books I wanna read, or visit all the places I dream about visiting before I die. Idk I guess I just wish heaven would be the same as earth but without all the oppression and destruction, but thinking like this makes me feel like a bad Christian.

cw parent death mention, fear of heaven, existential fear

Hey anon, you are not a bad Christian for having these fears. A lot of us have the same or similar fears!  

Over time, conceptions of heaven have been whitewashed and simplified and completely severed from our current world. But the Bible’s various descriptions of “heaven” / the last day / the world to come / the Kin(g)dom of God by & large envision what you name near the end of your ask: the world not destroyed and replaced, but restored. A world where God’s will is fulfilled, which brings justice, peace, and abundant life to all -- all humans, all life.

What is Good now, will be Good then -- not wiped away. What is unjust now, will be transformed to justice. 

God created the earth and delighted in it, calling it Good! Concepts of “heaven” that sweep all of Creation except humans away are...anthropocentric, to say the least. 

God created us as embodied creatures. Concepts of “heaven” that strip us of embodiment seem overly dualistic, a Greco-Roman / post-Enlightenment / Western favoring of the immaterial over the material, rationality over emotion, in a way that doesn’t ring true to biblical cultures, particularly in the Hebrew Bible (”Old Testament”). (This post links to verses that envision physicality in heaven.)

God created us to be co-creators, also capable of dreaming up new things! From the very start, God invites the first human (in Genesis 2) to join in on God’s creative activity by choosing names for every animal. I believe God will continue to bless and delight in our creativity in the world to come -- and indeed, we will be more free than ever to create! 

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To address your fear about marriage no longer existing in heaven (as Jesus does comment that no one will be married or given in marriage) -- this is one that troubles me, too. i love being married to my wife! will my unique relationship with her blur into a more general love for all humans?? i don’t think so. 

Maybe Jesus was speaking of the institutional aspects of marriage -- of daughters being traded to new husbands as an economic agreement; of legal benefits to marriage that exclude anyone who can’t or doesn’t want to get legally married (such as LGBTQA+ folks in certain times and places, interracial partners in certain times and places, disabled folks, and others). These aspects of marriage are unjust -- they will not continue in God’s Kin(g)dom.

Without those aspects that are so embedded in our marriages now, will what remains still fit the term “marriage”? Probably not -- hence the idea that marriage is no more. But that doesn’t mean that the good relationships we’ve built here on earth are all wiped away: they’ll be restored, transformed. 

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you might find encouragement in some of the posts in my #heaven tag that muse on heaven as a place that’s not, like, some sad uniform expanse of nothing but humans in a faceless mass -- but instead, the world restored, redeemed, blossomed into true Life.

Some of those posts:

my poem that envisions a heaven green and lively 

will our pets be in heaven?

thoughts on forms of human art and creativity remaining

similarly -- will we be able to read in heaven?

similarly -- will other things we love now cease then?

will we have free will in heaven? will we be forced to worship nonstop (and what “counts” as worship anyway)?

will we no longer recognize the people we love?

In the end, there’s not anything any of us can say with certainty about heaven -- and uncertainty of that kind is kinda terrifying. But we can trust that what God loves and sustains now, God will love and sustain then; and that whatever heaven is like, it will be good beyond our imagining.

[haravath0t]

A Step Into The Light

Pairing: Loki x Reader (female reader)

Word Count: 2.8K

Warning(s): angst, fluff, a comforting Loki! 

Hello, everyone! We are going to kick off the 200 followers celebration with our first fics from gifs prompt sent in by the lovely @tomholland-96 !! This is my second Loki work so forgive me, as I’m trying my best to emulate my characterization of him! If you want to take part in the 200 followers celebration, please take a look at the pinned post on my page so that you can see the details! It may be slow until the 20th because the Spring Semester is becoming close to its end, so we are grinding till we reach the finish line folks! Enjoy reading my lovelies! HERE WE GO!

(Gif used not mine)

Prompt: “Loki listens to reader rambling about something and realizes that he loves her.”

Loki spends most of his days and nights to himself, burying his nose into the pages of old books whenever he possibly can. He would sneak off in the middle of the night in order to place himself near shelves of books, finding solace in the simple calm of the night that came alongside the pleasing sounds of pages being turned. The night he had first talked to you was no different, as the beams coming from the moon shone through the glass window and into the room, reminding him of the same nights that he had done this back on Asgard. 

This quick remembrance of his old home was then pushed aside as he made himself comfortable, wanting to delve into the work of the highly recommended William Shakespeare. Tonight he had opted to read Romeo and Juliet, a recommendation from the brooding super soldier with the metal arm. Bucky, he remembered. Halfway through Act 1, his gaze averted from the page for the first time tonight, hearing the sound of a book dropping, a book that surely was not from his pile beside him. He heard a tiny curse from the next room, causing his eyes to furrow before he stands up cautiously, quietly walking towards the direction of the voice. 

“Sorry, that was all me,” you say, popping up from the wall next door, eyes tightly shut in humiliation that you were easily discovered by the god. “I… I was just on my way to return some books, that's all.” You managed to squeak out, opening your eyes and immediately keeping your gaze onto the floor. 

Loki had seen you around the compound before. You were quiet, shy to new people, yet he was also able to see how you were through familiar friends which had caused him to take a quiet interest in you. Despite your fiery persona during missions, he had seen you to be quite the opposite in the compound. He saw the extra care that you had put in everyone, as if you knew what they all needed. He’d see the way you’d bring coffee to Tony while he worked away in his lab, or how you would wake up in the morning to run with Steve, Bucky, and Sam (despite your tired state coming back). He’d also see how you would willingly cook meals for everyone during the times when you were available, surprisingly even remembering him. Thor had brought him a plateful of dinner his first night in, saying that you had offered this to him in case he felt hungry. Much to his surprise, he quite enjoyed it. Despite his unwillingness to join the team for times such as these, he would often consider to go against his usual routine for the sake of seeing just how you would act towards him. However, it secretly had hurt him to see your current state, your gaze towards the ground as your back was slightly hunched in intimidation. It reminded him of the image that had been held by him. 

“Are you going to return the books or not?” He hears himself say. He immediately regrets the tone he had spoken in, watching as you slightly twitch at the tone. 

“Oh, yeah… mmm… sorry. I’ll make this quick.” You quickly squeak before you shyly go around him, unaware of the way he watches you carefully put away the handful of books that were in your arms. Regret had hit him harder as your eyes met, for your eyes were not filled with hatred as he suspected, but guilt and embarrassment instead. Why could you be so embarrassed, he wondered. You offered him a slight smile when you spotted Romeo and Juliet open on the chair where he sat. 

“Oooh, Romeo and Juliet… it’s a nice read. I hope you enjoy,” you softly say, the last part of your sentence slowly trailing off before you make your way at the door. However, before you head out, you freeze. “Oh, I also want to apologize. I didn’t wanna give you too much trouble, I didn’t realize you were still here.” You blurt out, embarrassed once again at your awkwardness. 

Loki only raised an eyebrow at you, his body now facing yours. “That I’m still here? What makes you come to this reasoning?”

You point to the clock, your tiny attempt to justify your reasoning. “Oh, this is the normal time I come to read. I know you like to read alone, so I tend to go in after you that’s all. It’s okay though! Romeo and Juliet is a nice read! It was a nice introduction to Shakespeare-“ 

Loki couldn’t help the small smirk that appeared on his face hearing you talk about your experience on reading Romeo and Juliet. However, you quickly stop yourself, smiling shyly as you straighten yourself up. “Well, I don’t wanna end up spoiling you, but it’s actually good! I promise!” He did not have any time to respond as you quickly bolted out of the sitting area without looking  back. He concluded to himself to come in later than his usual time.

It took a few months before you loosened up around the god of mischief, finding yourselves meeting up at night to stay in each other’s company. From reading the same books, to taking night walks around the compound, Loki had begun to slowly ease into your company. Thor had taken notice of his brother becoming less tense, more tolerable, and even more present in the compound. Thor’s suspicions have been answered when he heard a laugh outside his window. As his curiosity had led him to peek out the window, he saw his own brother walking beside you. He was carrying a soft smile on his lips as you and him conversed. Thor had not let go of it since that night. 

“Is there something about you and Y/N that I should know, brother?” He asks Loki, a wide grin on his face as he walks with his brother from sparring in the gym. Loki’s eyes widen at the bold question, his eyebrows immediately furrowing. 

“I know you two hang out and all, I assumed that there’s something going on between the both of you that’s all.”

“Bold assumption, brother. Even for me. No, there is nothing going on, just being friendly that’s all.”

Thor scoffed at this, shaking his head as he lets out a chuckle. “I don’t think whatever I saw you both doing was just friendly.” 

Loki cocked an eyebrow, visibly lost at the words of his brother. “I don’t understand. We walk, talk, and read. Like any normal friend would. How is that past friendly?” 

“Don’t talk like that, brother. I know what you are trying to do. Have you seen yourself around us? You avoid the team so often, yet when she invites you to do something with her, you do it willing-” 

“How do you even know this?” Loki hisses, interrupting the blond from his statement and taking a step backwards. “There is nothing, absolutely nothing going on. Her and I are merely partners in reading. You don’t understand at all. There will be nothing more than what we have.” 

Loki only looked at Thor in surprise when he let out a boisterous laugh, brows furrowing as the god had an even wider grin than before. “You listen, brother, listen well. I think you are in denial. You are afraid to get your feelings hurt because of her. You are afraid anything more than this will drive you away.” Thor starts, pointing a finger at the confused god. Before he interrupts, Thor continues. “You shouldn’t have to fret brother. We both know that even a mischievous god like yourself deserves someone like her. I think she’s a fine lady. Balances you out quite well. One day, I know you’ll realize this, and I’ll tell you ‘I told you so.’ ”

Loki can only watch his brother retreat back to his room that night, standing in bewilderment before opting to end the night. 

Loki had stirred the next morning to a gentle knock, wondering who could wake him up at the crack of dawn. He padded his way to the door, surprised at the sight of you, hair messy, baggy pajamas, and a notably tired face. 

“Why, isn’t this a surprise,” He starts, his form visibly relaxing at the familiar face, his voice also softening. “What is it, my dear?” 

“Sorry, I know you don’t like company, but you’re the only person I really trust at this point.” You say with a shy smile, your bed voice apparent. 

“Surely Rogers or Barnes and all may be better help-”

He stops the moment you shake your head, tears immediately welling up as you hug yourself, his heart breaking at the sight. “Oh petal…” he sighs, not hesitating to wrap a protective arm around you to lead you inside. 

You had begun to burst into tears as he led you to his bed, Loki sitting the two of you down as your emotions ran free. Loki silently encouraged you as you let your tears fall, showing no signs in wanting you to stop. He hesitantly raised a hand, slowly bringing strands of your hair out of your face and tucking them behind your hair as he watched. His heart broke once again that morning, not used to seeing your normally upbeat and optimistic self broken and helpless. It felt like he was seeing a part of himself in you, a part he hated to see and recognize. However, seeing this in a person like you made him all the more closer to you. There possibly was a place where you two understood each other more. 

It had led him to gently wiping your tears with a gentle touch of his thumb. It was hesitant, but the touch alone made you relax, reminding you of the reality that there was someone beside you who could possibly ground you, who could possibly offer you some perspective. The god continued to wipe your tears as the wave of emotions had died down to sniffles and a quiet thank you. 

Why of all people did you come to him? What had concerned you so much to have led yourself to his room? He couldn’t help but ask the question. “If I may, what has happened to have brought you here to me?” 

You sighed and leaned into his body, your body tired from the crying. “Bad dream…” you start off. “Loki… what do you do when... When you feel like you’re not enough? When you feel like you don’t really have earned your place into this team?” 

Loki furrowed his eyebrows and nodded in understanding, very familiar with the new condition she had provided him. “Well, from what Thor tells me, I should be aware that I am more than what that part of me thinks I am. More than what other label that others have put on me,” he starts, looking at the floor in thought. “But…. we don’t truly move on from that easily, don’t we?” He questions, his eyes now directed to yours, surprised that they’ve been attentive, as if holding onto his every move, every word that has slipped from his lips. You shake your head. 

“No… it’s been a little while since I’ve felt this way, but this time it came back in my sleep. I can’t help but feel doubtful. There are more capable agents out there in our facility. Why me? What have I done to earn this place?” You confess, shifting your weight on the bed side to side nervously, afraid that you are slowly driving the god away. Afraid you are saying more than he wanted to say. However, the reassurance you were having is his attentive gaze as well as the hand that was now holding yours. 

“Petal, I assure you, from what I have seen of you, your work ethic exceeds all others. You are talented and gifted. One thing that had taken me a while to realize… I still struggle with it as well… it is not only the advantages that we hold that define who we are, but it is also our struggles, what we do with these struggles and hardships… those have equal value into defining who we are. And from how the team sees you? I believe they know that you have used it for the good and the betterment of others. It doesn’t go unappreciated.” A small beat of pause fills the air before he continues. 

“I…. personally am grateful for your company. I am grateful that you have been good to me. I’m glad to be...friends… friends with you.” 

He had tried his best to ignore the feeling of his heart leaping when the hint of a smile had graced your face. 

“You think so?”

Loki’s lips tempt to curl up into a smile as he nods. “I know so. Now, what do you do to relieve yourself from your troubles?” He inquires, having this urge to keep taking part in making you feel better. It grants him a sense of satisfaction when your smile widens. 

“Snacks in bed while I watch some videos of my favorite place.” You reply, which made Loki immediately sit you both in his emerald green blankets, adjusting the pillows as they become a makeshift headrest for your heads. You gasp in surprise as he had made ice cream appear with a green glow beside you both as you set up the TV. 

“Gee, my favorite flavor,” you gasped in awe, looking at Loki gratefully. “Thank you.” 

Loki can only chuckle and shrug as you resume your search on YouTube. “I have taken note of it one night. I’m glad I was correct.” 

You pulled up a video of a ride from Disneyland, smiling as you ate ice cream and watched the familiar ride take its course. 

“So what’s special about this place?” You hear the god question. You didn’t hold back the smile that graced your face. 

“Oh, it’s the most amazing place! You see, Disneyland is this theme park- oh I want to ask Tony so bad, but there you-” 

It made Loki smile, watching your eyes light up as you went on talking about something you took interest in. He managed to make you do it again. It was a refreshing sight.  

Loki never really appealed to many people in the compound. He hated watching Stark’s prideful personality take the reins of meetings or even dinner. He hated how Rogers’ surge of righteousness always oozed out, whether it was from his little “monologues” or even from the way he had walked around the facility. He’d easily find a way to block their voices out of his head. However, you were a different case. 

He admired how often you rambled. He found it amusing that you found so much love and passion for almost anything and everything you saw or heard. He found it pure that someone who had an excellent ethic out in the battlefield had this love for living. It made him think that perhaps living on Midgard would not be the worst thing. However, he realized one thing as you paused to eat some ice cream before rambling on. He could not be able to step into Midgard with this mindset without you. In fact, he wouldn’t be able to fully discover what Midgard can hold without you. He was proud to admit to himself that he knew you on a level that was different from how others knew you. He saw you as a quiet, yet powerful force to have walked on Midgard. Yes you were quiet and shy, even self-cautious, but your empathy towards everyone, even to a person like himself, had made him realize, maybe he wasn’t so bad. Maybe there was a chance to be out of this dark corner that he had been placed in. He felt like it would only happen if you were willing to hold his hand through it all. 

You blushed when you realized you were rambling, immediately halting your thoughts and words. “Sorry, I must have bored you.” 

He smiled at your consideration for his side. “Not at all, petal.” 

“Hey… you think we can go there one day together? I’d love to have you as a riding buddy.”  

The way your eyes lit in excitement and expectation alongside your joyful smile made him reciprocate your joy with his own lips. 

“It would be a great honor, petal.” 

Thor was right. Maybe indeed there was something more that Loki had yearned for when it came to you. He was uncertain of how it would turn out, but he was willing to see how it would unfold as long as it meant you would be around.

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