#can't say i agree with her method of choice

[nyxypoo]

the way someone butters their bread says a lot about them

[aux-squiggle]

Daughter or Abortion #1

Conclusions at the bottom

The other week I made a tiktok post about how I will get an abortion if my fetus is male because I will only birth daughters and I found it hilarious how much it pissed off supposed "pro choicers."

And it's made me realize a lot of mainstream pro-choicers reasons for being pro choice isn't because they truly agree with the meat of pro-choicism, but rather because they approve of abortion in more cases than what we consider prolife.

They approve of abortion in cases of rape, poverty, medical necessity, lack of parental skill, career aspirations, unpreparedness etc. But that's not why pro-choicism exists. Pro choice is not about having a good reason to abort, or extending abortion to enough reasons, but because of arbitration.

Whether a woman will carry a fetus to term or not is a complete arbitration. She could decide to flip a coin on whether or not she'll have the baby and that's completely morally neutral. If that makes you uncomfortable, get over it.

Mainstream pro-choicers can justify the above "good reasons to abort" via an array of arguments including the argument that fetuses are not people (which is true). But in their complaint against me saying I will abort a male fetus when I am trying for children (via a separatist method btw I couldn't be caught dead fucking a man), they expose that they have not taken the "fetuses are not people" thought process to its logical end.

Fetuses pre-24 weeks are no better than an organ. They are just rapidly growing cells, that will mostl likely become a baby but is not yet a baby. But until it actually becomes a baby, it is just as "unbaby" as every other organ in your body.

Post 24 weeks fetuses have the brain structures necessary for consciousness (though when this consciousness actually "turns on" for the first time is debated. Let's say it's 24 weeks for the sake of the conversation even though it may be 28 weeks or even later).

Maybe you consider consciousness the start of personhood or maybe you consider being born the start of personhood (I personally consider first consciousness the start of personhood, however fetuses beyond 24 weeks still are at arbitration because the mother has the right to remove it at any time, same way if your body was hooked up to keep someone else alive, you can unhook it anytime).

Therefore I consider first consciousness the time a fetus becomes a baby, and babies are people. Fetuses are not babies, and are also not people.

Discrimination* is only a thing that happens to people.

*In the social sense of treating a group differently and/or unfairly because of their traits. Not the literal meaning of discriminate which is essentially akin to sorting or approaching things differently.

What does this mean? Fetuses cannot be discriminated against.

Abortion typically happens before 24 weeks (and any abortion I have will be pre-24w). Therefore no person is suffering or being treated differently if I abort it for being male, because fetuses aren't people.

Of course people immediately snap "oh what if someone aborts daughters huh?" First of all, a pre-24w abortion is incapable of harming the female fetus because it's not a person. That "potential daughter" did not experience the (presumed) misogyny behind the decision because it can't experience anything. It's not conscious, it was never conscious, and it's a not a person.

If the woman aborted the female fetus because of misogynistic messaging she's received in society, that's still her choice, and I still support her choice to do anything regarding her own pregnancy. The only victim in the situation is her from the misogyny she already experienced in life. An aborted female fetus is the consequence of misogyny and not a method of misogyny in and of itself. Her womb is not real estate for social justice and equality.

Let me say that again. Her womb is not real estate for social justice and equality.

If carrying a female fetus to term would upset her, because misogyny has told her it's better to have sons, then it doesn't matter if she ends up becoming the next Andrea Dworkin ultra feminist 20 years down the line, because the stress and anxiety she experienced from having a pregnancy she didn't want (even if I don't agree with the reason why she didn't want it) will become birth trauma which is one of the deepest forms of trauma someone can have.

It would be better for her to have aborted and be happy than give birth and be sad, even if I think the reason for the happiness and sadness is ridiculous or misogynistic.

Complete arbitration is necessary to be pro choice. If you don't like complete arbitration, then you're not pro choice, you're pro-abortion-for-more-situations-than-typical-pro-lifers. The two are not the same.

Additionally, had the daughter been born to a mom who doesn't want her, she'd be traumatized so it's better to never have known that suffering in the first place.

Inversely, if you are pro-choice it doesn't matter whether you agree or not with me not wanting sons. I don't want a walking liability, I don't want a ticking time bomb who I could feed feminism from the moment he says his first word yet can grow up into a sneako rat or the next Andrew prostate. The most laterally misogynistic daughter is not enabled to do as much harm as a mildly misogynistic son.

We've got to remember that the patriarchy doesn't give a fuck about women's opinions and feelings. The patriarchy only exists to serve men. Women tend to become internally misogynistic and/or laterally misogynistic to ease the cognitive dissonance that occurs from being a human woman, in a system that treats women as subhuman. But the patriarchy does not actually care if you internally agree or not, it just wants to control you. Internalized & lateral misogyny make you easier to control. But you could be a complete anti-patriarchal ultra radical feminist, but as long as you're as easy to control as a believing tradwife, patriarchy doesn't care. Men don't care.

Because the patriarchy doesn't give enough of a shit about you to truly care about your deepest opinions and just wants to control you, no woman in a patriarchal sphere of influence will be elevated to the level of authority and control as a man. Because of the fact she could use her authority to spread anti-patriarchal dissent by hiding her deepest opinions to get that authority in the first place.

This is especially concerning when it comes to intimate relationships and what men can get away with.

An ultra far right laterally misogynistic tradwife daughter posts bs propaganda on the internet and ruins her own life. A casually misogynistic man (on the right or the left) rapes women. Or beats women and calls it kink, or buys sex (another form of rape) and calls it female empowerment. The misogynistic daughter is an embarrassment, the misogynistic son is a targeted nuclear warhead heading for women that I helped fashion. Absolutely not, under no circumstances will I create such a risk to the female class.

A poor person who supports capitalism will never be as bad as an actual capitalist who benefits from labour they did not do, and often makes the material conditions for the proletariat unfair or abusive.

It's funny though because you need a LOT of abuse, social conditioning and often straight up programming to turn a daughter into such a class traitor, which my future daughter(s) will seldom have due to the fact they will grow up without a patriarch and without brothers.

Single sex schools are still fairly common in Ireland too so they'll most likely be going to those (and most of said single sex schools ban makeup for students too, and are uniformed, so way less expensive trends and self consciousness about the face). And Ireland, while not some beam of patriarchy-less sunshine, is one of the best for gender equality and as a woman living here I can attest it is much better Nigeria which I'm originally from. And honestly from what I see my American friends going through it seems to be a lot better than large swathed of the USA.

My future daughter(s) with all that, on top of a radfem GNC separatist mom, will be hard pressed to turn into a misogynistic tradwife, whereas a son only needs an internet connection to become a danger to humanity.

But ultimately it doesn't matter if you dislike my reasons for aborting male fetuses if I have one, because my womb is not real estate for social justice and equality.

Additionally it is majorly disrespectful to me but also any mom/future mom to say "don't have children if you're going to hate your child for their sex." Lol what? Obviously if a stork flew down with my magic male full-term or near-full term baby, that is my child and I will obviously love him and raise him as best as I can to be a feminist ally. A pre-24w fetus is not my child because it's not a person. Even after that, until it's born, it's up to a woman's interpretation when a fetus becomes a baby, and further when the baby becomes HER baby.

Overall wider culture but even people on the left, even so-called pro-choicers, seem to take issue with sacrifice minimization. It makes them uncomfortable that a woman will exercise her liberties to bring about the best and happiest outcomes for her child(ren) with the minimal amount of input.

Like described above, bringing about a son who truly respects women and isn't a misogynist at all, is magnitudes much harder than bringing a daughter who has female class consciousness. Why would I out myself through the stress for a son for the high likelihood of failing, when I could live a much more relaxed life with a daughter who is not only class conscious but happy, with way less stress?

I also find people invoke this kind of shame when they try to guilt women into having more than one baby. "Give your kid a sibling, they'll be lonely otherwise!" meanwhile having a sibling can also be lonely and it can cause actual trauma if the siblings don't get along. A lot of one-and-done moms talk about how much easier and more fun life is compared to their friends with 2+ kids. Not saying it's common for pro-choicers to shame women into having more kids, just saying there is a similarity between their distaste for sacrifice minimization.

The sacrifice minimization concept is also allegorical to the conversation about the ethics of aborting disabled fetuses.

Many people abort fetuses for congenital/antenatal disabilities because they view disabled people as lesser, people who don't belong in their family, invalid, they straight up hate disabled people which is extremely ableist. Which makes having kids contraindicated entirely, as any kid can become disabled or have an indetectable disability.

Issue is, the abortion of disabled fetuses is the culmination of extreme ableism, not an act of ableism in and of itself. Because fetuses aren't people, therefore no person was victimized or discriminated against when aborting.

And like I said before, no one's womb is real estate for social justice and equality. It's no one's place to judge what is or isn't evicted from someone's uterus (or who, if the pregnancy is post-24w).

Additionally, not everyone aborts disabled babies because they hate disabled people. To preface, of course disabled people as a whole are very very much not a privileged group. However within the demographic that is disabled people, most of us activists are privileged in comparison. Frankly any one of us who is able to access the internet is very privileged in comparison to some disabled people's difficulties, and this is the stuff that rarely gets posted.

I used to work as a healthcare assistant (for a short time before I had to quit due to my own disabilities) and without exposing anyone's private life, I can comfortably say that as a childhood torture survivor & ritual abuse survivor, still dealing with the physical injuries of torture, there are antenatal disabilities that cause such pain and suffering (to the disabled person) that makes my worst experiences as painful as bumping into a wall in comparison. And such disabilities are not as rare as we'd like them to be.

When it comes to the topic of sacrifice minimization, it's not about whether or not people think such people "deserve" to live or not or if aborting them "saves them from misery," let's put that aside. It is utterly ridiculous to tell a hopeful mom that she SHOULD go through the level of grief, stress, depression, and anxiety to a) go through the more dangerous pregnancy as these in-utero disabilities tend to come with higher risks and b) actively know her entire life will be changed to care for a child with such a high level of need, and then purposefully go through with that, and have that weight and guilt on her shoulders.

Mothers already deal with guilt when it comes to health issues completely unrelated to them, like freak accidents they weren't even present for or had any control over. That (misplaced) guilt is magnified an indescribable amount of times when she has a test showing fetal abnormality and she chooses to keep. That choice to keep, if it occurs, should not be egged on by detached so called pro-choice telling her aborting over this is somehow creating cruelty and hate. It's nobody's business to be swaying her either way.

On top of that, while one should prepare for one's child to be disabled, those possible disabilities often stack onto whatever congenital disability is under scrutiny in the first place. It's not like you get a set of illnesses and that's it, disability parking slots booked out for the future. Many disabled people are at higher risks for other disabilities too. Using one's given medical information to abort disabled fetuses also means only birthing babies with a relatively decreased risk of further disability as well, which means higher potential quality of life (depending on the disability, QoL varies a LOT, and some measurements of QoL are ableist in and of themselves and assume disabled ways of living are inherently worse. I mean QoL in the abstract here).

Babies without many certain antenatal disabilities have not only a far higher chance of survival, but also the mom has a lot more available resources to secure that child's wellbeing, safety and happiness, and are in a better position to address disabilities that appear later while the adults are still caring for the child (or even at birth conditions such as CP). Aborting disabled fetuses is often a form of sacrifice minimization (and probably the most common form of said minimization amongst selective abortions), not always from ableism (although I agree it often is both or just ableism). And mainstream pro-choice left clearly takes issue with sacrifice minimization to some degree.

—

Conclusion: 1) Fetuses (at the very least pre-24 week fetuses) are not people. Fetuses cannot suffer from being aborted. Fetuses that would grow to belong to certain demographics don't experience discrimination for being aborted because they're not people.

2) Abortions based on the future demographic of a fetus is not an act of discrimination in and of itself but is often a culmination of pre-existing discrimination.

3) People's uteruses are not the places for social justice or moralisms. There's no "wrong" thing to do with the contents of one's womb.

4) It is perfectly fine for women to use abortion to minimize their sacrifices in raising children, while still working for the best possible outcomes for the children they do decide to birth.

5) Some people who call themselves pro-choice don't understand point 1 or point 3 and need to work on that stat.

6) If you don't agree with the underlying principles of pro-choice, you're not pro-choice, you're just abortion-permissive to more situations than pro-lifers.

Note: Edited some sentences for clarity. Message of the post is the same

[decayofroses]

Succession war Kurapika

I've completed all the available HXH chapters (400), and there were a few scenes that really stood out to me with Kurapika.

I love and adore him as the main character of this arc, and we've seen his perspective and his downward spiral in yorknew.

Seeing him now, and how far he's strayed definitely makes his POV the most interesting to me.

I wanted to point out/ talk about some of the panels throughout the SW.

This panel especially stood out to me, and it's one of my favorites out of the entire manga. He mentions how every time he got a part of his brethren back- he lost something. While I think it could be a physical presence, I think he's talking about himself here more than anything.

Each time he's threatened, coaxed, paid people off, he's lost a part of himself.

Kurapika strays away from his relationships, while to protect them- and also what I believe is out of guilt (and the other which I'll go over in a moment). I think he knows what he's doing to himself, and I don't think he can handle facing it head on, or risking harming his friends physically or emotionally.

And again, when Kurapika agrees to join the zodiacs.

Straying even from Leorio, it's clear he'd rather face things alone, and without distractions. Which is exactly what they are, distractions.

His quest to collect his family is coming to an end. "Where would I go?" I think he means this in a literal, and metaphorical sense. Where will he end up by the end of this? Which path will he go down? He has no place to call home, and he truly believes he has nothing left, and nobody to welcome him back.

Despite having allies, and who quickly became close friends.

He didn't realize it at the time, but shortly after teaming up with Bill and others- he understood the importance of allies.

"Things didn't proceed so simply", things weren't as simple as gathering pawns, and walking the path of revenge alone.

He formed genuine bonds that mean more to him than simple pawns for his quest. He's now torn between his isolation, and his care for his friends. Despite this, he will continue to punish himself and walk this path alone- it's much harder than he'd originally intended. Pushing his friends away to complete his goal, because it serves as his only purpose in his eyes. Even if he knows it's wrong.

Oito asks if spying on the 4th prince is for his convenience. Kurapika takes a moment, and tells her this is simply a strategic choice. I don't think he's lying, but I do think he wants to protect her, and wobble- while still keeping contact with the Prince.

At the moment, he will prioritize protecting the two of them. I think it happens to align with his goal, but it isn't necessarily for his convenience.

The reason I bring this up is to highlight that despite the fact he wants to push his friends away, and work towards his goal- he won't risk the lives of others.

He says he will repeat it as many times as needed, that they are there to protect her and the prince. To trust him.

He tries to be someone who will risk everything for the sake of recovering the eyes, but deep down he can't. Much like how he cannot truly abandon his friends, only isolate himself.

Kurapika is loyal, and unwilling to sacrifice others for the sake of his goal. He forced a stalemate, and took advantage of his nen knowledge to level out the playing field. A stalemate buys them more time, making it so it won't be as easy for experienced nen users to take advantage of non nen users.

It was a brilliant idea that may be risky, but also offers protection for him, and the queen.

During this conversation with Mizaistom, it's clear that Kurapika has not abandoned all of his morals, he wants to avoid killing the Prince despite having the remaining eyes. He would rather try other methods, and is opposed to killing.

Mizaistom and Kurapikas dynamic is one of my favorites, but that's for another time.

That's all I have to talk about, for now. I wanted to go over my favorite panels, and his relationships in the succession war.

[coffin-ramblings]

Ashley is "very not good" and "in fact very bad". That is what the promo card tells us.

The flippant attitude to cannibalism and murder, the abuse and manipulation of Andrew, and constant death threats to Julia prove that, so why do they need to say that? Isn't that enough to prove that she's a bad person? On the same promo, we are told Andrew "exists" and is a "doormat extraordinaire", which while true, is a lot more complicated than it looks. He does not just "exists", he was the one who raised Ashley thus one of her "creators", and he is not that much of (if he ever was) a doormat extraordinaire, he lets Ashley make the choices because it's what he wants, and has asserted power several times throughout the game for his and Ashley's benefit. So is what the promo says about Ashley completely true in light of that? Is the truth perhaps a lot more complicated, as it was with Andrew?

Furthermore, it's quite odd how Ashley is quick to accept being called a "tar soul" and how she implies she's a bad person too when she and Andy buried Nina's body.

And in Decay vision, if she kills Andrew, she goes on a rant about how she's glad he's dead, despite it clearly being the worst thing she has ever experienced.

While it's easy to think that she's having a mental breakdown and saying stuff out of madness, I have seen someone (can't find the post though) argue that this is Ashley's attempt to continue her self-narrative that she is a "bad person". She believes no one likes her because she's a bad person. She thinks not even Andrew likes her, and she "has to" drag him the "good person" to be her level of the "bad person" to keep him stuck with her. And when she kills her brother, her parent, her best friend, her soulmate, her everything, she immediately jumps to the justification that she is glad that he died instead of being devastated that he tried to kill her, because bad people can't feel remorse and heartbreak from having to kill someone they love, right?

And I'm inclined to agree with them. Ashley's thought process of pranking Nina is that she'll have her back as a friend after she learns her "lesson", even though she isn't happy being constantly left out or avoided by her.

She didn't hate Nina then, she was afraid of being even more lonely than before if Nina takes Andrew's attention away from her. And her initial reactions to Nina's death was to go "oops", try to justify why she died, cover it up by burying her, and after she's buried, Ashley says that she can just forget about her by not thinking about her for a long time.

That is not the reaction of someone "bad" reveling in their victory of an innocent person's death and trying to get away with it, that is the reaction of a kid who went through something traumatic, not want to get in trouble for it, and trying to rationalize it with something that sounds like an adult in their life (Renee?) would say. Then their brain triggers dissociative amnesia because remembering it would cause great stress and PTSD. Given how stressful Leyley's life was and still is, it makes sense that's her brain's main coping method, and Nina's death was just another instance of it shunting trauma away in an attempt to keep PTSD from happening. It is likely that amnesia made Ashley quite forgetful, as dissociative amnesia does not affect just one singular event, it also affects other memories as an overprotective measure. This also may be why she develops such a flippant attitude to their crimes: joking about them helps her not have to confront the weight of what they just did. Thus, even that attitude being a marker of her being a "bad person" is more questionable. Really, her actions that have the intent to directly harm people are what her make a bad person, but I digress.

The idea that her flippant attitude is perhaps not a good marker of her being a "bad person" is best shown in Episode 1 after they eat the neighbor. Ashley is made aware that her devil-may-care attitude is quite abnormal and worrying for Andrew, which worries her. If she talks before going to bed, she gets visibly confused and worried at Andrew saying she needs to see a professional.

When he later asks how she's so unbothered by the cannibalism, she replies she says she compartmentalizes nervously, which she then follows up afterwards with a joke to not have to dwell on it.

That specific coping method of compartmentalization is the same thing Andrew's brain does in his dream in Episode 2, where it ends with him having a flashback of burying Nina.

In fact, it's interesting how we never get to see adult Ashley's every day psyche. This is not the same as seeing her thoughts and perspectives in the waking world, nor is it the same as the Burial vision where it's Ashley's self-narrative of her life from childhood to adulthood and how she potentially changes it. We never get to see her dream without it being a vision, a glimpse of what her mind looks like in the present processing her experiences in the every day and the past.

This is particularly crucial because while Nina appears while Andrew's brain is doing its standard compartmentalizing of Andrew's current stresses, the only times Nina appears in Ashley's head (outside of Burial vision) were flashbacks of when she is doing this as a child. While it's framed as the moment when Andrew "proves" his devotion to her, flashbacks similar to PTSD ones can happen alongside dissociative amnesia, and they do occur in dreams. Even though Ashley has forgotten Nina's name and eyes, she is always there, haunting her dreams.

This all suggests that the plot twist of our perceptions of the characters in episode 3 is that when we finally get to play Ashley in her normal dreams or see her mental breakdown (maybe if she kills Andrew?), we find out that she feels some sort of guilt for Nina's death and perhaps their other crimes. Even though she insists to herself she doesn't feel guilt about that because she is a "bad person", it is all a lie that she manages to convince to herself and the audience. This would be very shocking as we're in her head a lot of the time, so we'd assume she can't lie to us. But she has all along, just like how Andrew has to us.

[bokettochild]

writing female characters is stupid

As if it wasn't hard enough being a woman! Living up to expectations! If I want to write a character of my same gender, than I can't make her two characteristics without people saying "that is all women are in media these days, so sad!" I cannot write her cringe or edgy, because all I ever hear is "that's a badly written woman, because she is NOT _______"

Just as women in society are expected to be so many things, women in writing must as well. They cannot be flawed or else they're considered to be nothing more than a negative depitcion, yet an unflawd female is "a Mary Sue" or too perfect and unachievable.

Every time I try to write a female character, it feels as though the whole world is watching to judge he every facet, her every feature, her every choice and motivation. There are so many things she must e and so many things she cannot be. Yet, if I write a man, I can do whatever I want, and there is no issue. I can make him flawed and he will still be adored. I can make him pathetic and he will be cradled like teh wet cat of a character he is. And good for them! Good for those male characters to get love! But my girls? My girls are too harsh or too gentle or too pathetic or just not Good Enough.

The pressure to write a Good female Character is too much, so I don't. I write men. And then I don't get better, and there aren't as many female characters.

Let girl characters be whatever! They can be stupid ditsy teenagers! They can be hyper-competent spy ladies! Let them be tropy and predictable, laughable or over-serious. Let them be imperfect, bad role models, unachievable standards, or without growth. They're just characters, just like the men. The gender of the character shouldn't matter to the writer, and every character should be fine however the writer wants to write them. No one can agree on what makes a Good Female Character anyway, so why not remove that pressure and just write them as Characters? All of them? Men and woman? The gender shouldn't alter the method of writing them.

[russellshaws]

What do you make of Tim's behavior in the last few episodes? I feel like he's a totally different person and it's making me sad to see him disrespecting Lucy so much.

just up front: it feels v clear to me that we do not share an opinion on this storyline from the tone of this ask, and so i am going to discuss this but would just like to preface that this is only my opinion and i respect that you/anyone else engaging with this post may have a different one. i am allowed to feel the way i feel, as are you. i am not trying to change or discredit anyone's opinions just because they're different than mine.

that being said - i will be honest with you, i don't really see where he's disrespected lucy. before you (and whoever else is reading this) jump me, let me explain myself.

tim went through something very difficult and traumatic with the resurgence of his wartime trauma and he made the decision not to involve lucy as he navigated said trauma. while it may not have been the best choice for their relationship, tim made the choice he felt was right in the moment. though we may not agree with it as viewers and lucy may not agree with it as tim's partner, he had the right to do that, and he explained to the best of his ability in the moment that he was keeping her out of the situation to ensure she didn't get hurt/her career wasn't impacted.

to me, that didn't feel disrespectful - it felt like tim relying on his tried and true methods of keeping the people he loves safe from him/the potential danger surrounding him. he was working with the tools he had available, even if they may not be the "right" tools for the job.

like, was it fucked that he ignored her for 36 hours? absolutely! that was disrespectful in some ways - but i think if you zoom out a little, it's not right, but it's understandable.

in the end of 5x07, lucy stops tim in the hallway at the station and asks him to talk to her - and i have seen a bunch of people who are really angry about the way tim handled that convo, so i wonder if that's what you mean by disrespect. generally, a few thoughts about that scene:

lucy approached tim hot - which, let me be clear: she had every right to. she was in her feels all day, she had something she wanted to say to him, and she was already a bit revved up coming to him. but she came into that conversation already looking for something specific, where tim was just...guard down, a little goofily happy to see her, probably a little nervous to talk to her at all.

tim wasn't given the opportunity to say much of anything. lucy asked if they could have "an adult conversation" (patronizing, but i don't blame her for it - he deserved that) and when tim explained he "couldn't give her what she wanted", lucy snapped. i understand the snap - i would've done the same - but tim had no space to continue talking there. that wasn't a conversation. lucy got her opportunity to unload on him a bit, which i think she needed. think about the breakup - lucy didn't get the chance to argue a side there, and tim didn't get the chance to argue a side here. they're equal on that kind of convo now, which i find fascinating.

so, is tim being honest with her and saying he can't give her what she needs right now disrespectful? i don't really think so. i think lucy is looking for something that tim can't give her right now - himself. tim has to sort through all his shit before he can be the best version of himself for lucy - in his tim brain, he doesn't think he can support her fully without working on himself first...and honestly? i think that's noble. lucy is far too close to the picture to see that tim has some really big issues he needs to work on outside of the scope of their relationship. i don't blame her for that, but it's just...true.

she can't be the person to help tim find himself at this point in his life. that's not fair to her or their relationship - so i think he's made the right choice here, as much as it hurts both of them.

i would also be remiss if i didn't mention that i think there's a huge part of this situation that lucy still needs to realize is on her. she has problems of her own, too! girl knows she's not perfect - but she has yet to address her own problems, and i think that's such an issue. tim is taking initiative to resolve his problems, even if it's not in a way that she agrees with. lucy isn't. just like their relationship already had issues, lucy has her own set. this wasn't the defining problem - this was just the straw that broke the camel's back in a lot of ways.

i hope this answers your question tbh bc i feel like i just rambled a bunch - but i'm always up to chat about this kind of stuff, so feel free to come back to me with more if i haven't annoyed you too much 😂

[guns-blazing]

ive been posting about luckypatch but havent brought up something i find interesting and something i find other people havent brought up either: flowey's manipulation.

other people have talked about him trying to get clover to fight the king. that's what he's been doing reset after reset. grim dreamer has a good video that discusses that here that i recommend if you're curious since i won't dwell on the "getting them to fight the king" bit.

i'm talking about one method he uses for this goal: he tries to plant in clover's mind that he's their only friend and the monsters around them can't be trusted. this happens throughout the entire game, but just gets more and more obvious as it progresses.

one of his earlier acts is painting martlet as a guard who ruined clover's plan and then ditched them...

and he progresses onto saying "Cowboy roleplaying's a stupid roadblock! You're better than everyone here and shouldn't spend time around them." that leads onto...

Good lord this part! "It's awful that fox lady is around you because it means you can't talk to ME! She ROPED you into a detour, hahaa like you'd WANT to go with her! Your non-friend is crazy!"

the most blatant one yet is actually in a different route from that, in neutral:

here he comes and says it outright: "You don't need anyone but me."

i don't know if i'm in a position to call this relationship abusive, but i think it at least ticks some of the boxes. flowey's trying to isolate clover from people who can and would help them, protect them, and lead them away from what he wants them to do. it's obvious he separated clover from toriel, even in timelines before he started tampering with the switch, but it's less obvious that he never stopped.

not only that, but clover cannot leave this relationship.

clover knows they die a lot, and flowey's the only reason they're alive. flowey repeats this a lot, but i doubt he needs to. it's apparent to clover that they need flowey to reach the king. (what clover doesn't know: when they try to abandon their mission to live out a life where they won't constantly die... yeah.) flowey holds power over clover, so they just have to deal with it. they have to listen to him shit-talk their friends.

there's so many other things he does along with this.

flowey paints many of the opinions he voices as things clover not only knows, but agrees with, while never asking their thoughts. (EXTRA fascinating when you consider flowey never gives clover a choice in any of his dialogue, while clover's other friends at least have some things they can say yes or no to.) clover never speaks out against flowey and only picks a fight when they know they can win (vengeance end) or know he's against them (neutral pre-final boss fight). this is probably a combination of flowey being in a position of power and flowey never giving them the chance to talk.

and then there's how he avoids calling any of their friends by name, favoring saying "that guard" or "fox lady"; and how he says opinions that the player knows is him lying, like saying there's nothing in the Lab; and how up until the ending he always paints what he's doing as looking out for clover or keeping clover's eyes on their mission...

i love luckypatch, but god is flowey such an asshole.

[asherloki]

supp :) im the person that requested the 12 & 35 prompts a bit ago

ofc u can do fluff and/or dom sherlock omg!

dom!reader is just my pref and idk the prompts were low-key giving beginning of smut to me, but i fr dont mind, u have full creative freedom and u obviously kno more than me bc of ur previous (amazing) writing :)

tysm for considering my request and have a great day/night! <3

My saviour

Bbc Sherlock x reader

Word count:- 3k

Warning:- light smut, but mostly fluff.

Prompt list here !

A/n:- ah finally I'm back! And I hope you like it!

" I'll take it" I said entering detective inspector lestrade's office. He and his whole team was clueless when it came to the mysterious disappearance of Mr Hazelwood. Even though I wasn't the first choice for the case, one can never be, when the greatest detective of the world is inspector's closest acquaintance. Well, acquaintance is past, now he's closest friend. Can you even imagine, the brilliant genius being his friend meant, almost no case for me to solve. I don't even have an assistant, there's definitely less opportunity for me to show I'm capable of solving mysteries too. Maybe not as brilliant as him, the one who stood infront of the inspector as I walked in, he turned to me and I must say, being a detective myself, it always made me like the wise people, and that meant... I fancied the detective, yes the one who's my professional rival.

"you don't understand," lestrade said looking at me, "I want Sherlock to solve it". This stupid comment made my blood boil, again, another oppertunity lost, ofcourse he can't let this interesting case go.

"no, I'm not taking it" I was stunned as Sherlock Holmes stated this, 'why not' I wondered but lestrade said it out loud,

"and why not?"

Sherlock sighed in response and rubbed his forehead with his fingers as if he was disturbed with lestrade constantly urging him to solve a case he doesn't want to, "it's too boring, rather easy for me Gavin".

'Same old genius' I thought as he mis pronounced lestrade's name again, I must say lestrade's frustration made me kinda giggle but I controlled it.

"If it's that easy then solve it" he still requested, almost begged him.

"you must use some of your brain too inspector" replied Sherlock and I agreed, "or" he said turning to me and my heart started to beat faster I could hear it in my ear, "this young lady is willing to take it, give her a chance".

What did I just heard, Sherlock siding me?

"ugh fine" saying so lestrade turned to me, "I assigne you, for the case now I want it to be solved in two weeks".

"TWO WEEKS?" I asked loudly enough for my voice to echo through the office, "isn't it too.. less inspector?" I asked as calmly as I could, you have to when you're still struggling to get known.

"yes, it's easy as Sherlock said, solve it, and if you need help I bet he can, he's already solved it in his fucking mind palace". I see where the anger was coming from, it was inspector being frustrated by the rejection of Mr brilliant.

"here you go" said Sherlock as he was about to pass by me, I wanted to thank him, or say something sweet infact nice but me being me, I regretted what I said, "scared?"

He raised his brows at my comment, I deserved it, then shaking his head he said, "we'll see how you solve it in two weeks without my help young lady".

I squinted my eyes at his challenge. But he went out of the office. I took the challenge in my mind, however I was unsure, I knew it's gonna be difficult, but I can't lose. It's my only chance.

_________________________________________

As I checked my progress after one week, I knew I'm gonna lose this challenge terribly. First, I had this rush which messed up my method and second, this Mr brilliant challenging me, that I can't do it on my own. Which was slowly turning out to be true. I got up from my sofa where I was lying and thinking, and grabbed my coat, my intention was to go to spot from where Mr Hazelwood was missing and inspect it thoroughly. So I took the bus, I know, poor little detective and went to the spot. While inspecting I felt someone watching over me. You know the feeling you get when you're being watched. I turned around and there were no one looking at me, yet again there was this feeling,

"told you, you need my help". I was startled as the heavy (sexy) voice said it, from behind. And no wonder I found Mr brilliant standing.

"what are you doing here, it's my case to solve" I knew I should've been a bit nice but it just came out to be very..

"rude" he replied, "very rude, I'm trying to help you".

"and why the fu..."

"gosh, kids these days" he said shaking his head.

"did you just called me a kid?"

"have you seen your height?"

"I'm sorry I'm not as tall as you and that doesn't mean.."

"as me? you're not even tall..AT ALL" his face remained expression less.

"who's being rude now, and how come you found me?"

"tracked your phone."

He said what? "you're spying on me?"

"a little girl, solving mystery on her own and at night, I must take care.."

"why do you care?" I might've said that but in my head I asked, 'you care? about me? why? who am I to you, genius?'.

"nothing," he got frustrated with me I knew, "if you change your mind, then... Baker Street" he pointed to the way he headed off to, leaving me on the street, alone, rather I pushed him away. I didn't want to, but it's me, why do you think I don't have an assistant? I work alone, so I don't look weak. Yet my phone's calendar told me it's one week to go, and if I can't solve.... No no I can and I have to... alone.

________________________________________

And then there left three days, till now I've matched some dots and it confirmed, he wasn't kidnapped, no one conspired against him, so whatever happened to him he was involved. Now this second part of the mystery held lots of troubles, and to solve them in three days was near impossible. My mind kept telling me to reach to him, you know, Mr brilliant. But it was embarrassing, however I had no other way,

"okay, time to throw my self respect" I said to myself gesturing with my hand as if throwing trash bag, "here I come, Sherlock Holmes".

All my way I just wished, "please stay at the flat, please stay at home, please detective" and there I was at his door.

I inhaled a deep breath and tapped my knuckles on his door.

"it's unlocked" replied a different voice, from inside.

'Oh no, John watson is there, I'm fucked' now I had to be embarrassed to both of these men, anyway I have threw my self respect away.

I opened the door and entered, the scene was... well... interesting I believe, John Watson was on his laptop and detective was sitting on his sofa, eyes closed, hands clasped.

"may I?" I asked Dr watson, because he looked a little sane.

"yes" he replied me and turned to Sherlock, "she came".

"who?" he enquired, his deep voice even deeper, eyes still closed and hands still clasped together, touching his chin.

"young lady". Replied John watson and Sherlock's eyes were flung open.

"is that what you call me?" I couldn't help but ask him.

"any problem?" he asked.

"I'm not here to argue with you, I want.." shit! now the embarrassing part, "I need, your help".

"oh I see, Mr Hazelwood?" I nodded, "still on it? wasn't it easy?"

"if it were then why would I ask your help?" he was getting on my nerves I tell you.

"fine sit" he said and I checked around me.

"where?" there wasn't any place near him but a sofa far in the other end of the living room.

"oh there?" I said pointing to it.

"no here" he brought out a rusty chair for me to sit.

"but it's for the clients" objected Dr watson, he's really sane.

"you know what? I'm fine just help me out". I need help from him and nothing else. Well sometimes I think if I could have something else but hey, professionalism.

"yes now let me explain, before that tell me how far you've got". I explained him everything and out of my utter surprise he got up from his sofa to his work board and offered me to sit there. Why's he being so... kind?

"now let me tell you what exactly happened" and he explained it was all Mr Hazelwood's plan, he intentionally disappeared, he's not dead but roaming around disguised.

"woah!" I couldn't help but praise him, it's not like I don't admire him. I do more than that, I respect him and perhaps... I like him a little too, "so how do we catch him?".

"it's not your duty to do so, you give all the evidence and theories to Scotland yard and order them to find him" he suggested.

"order them? me?" I am not very... influencial am I?

"yes, look they insulted you by not respecting your potential, now it's your time".

His motivational speech filled me with self respect again, the one I threw for him.

"yes" I said with such confidence and then I lost it again, "would you come with me... please?" now still cringe at the thought of me actually giving him puppy eyes and pleading but he agreed.

We entered lestrade's office, one day left till the deadline for me and I explained everything to him.

"seems like Sherlock helped you" said sally, stupid bi... no control yourself.

"I didn't, we met at the gate, I came here for the case I'm taking care of" lied the detective, I must admit, his lying skill was pretty good.

"anyway " said lestrade, "if you really did it on your own then.."

It felt so bad, to be taking credit of Sherlock's work, I didn't solve it all, I don't lie, so I,

"Sally is right" I admitted.

"no she isn't " Sherlock warned me.

"she is, she is lestrade. I solved half of it, it was solved by Sherlock Holmes himself. Yes he helped me, but I could've done it on my own, if I had some more time."

They were all silent for some time, I feared looking at Sherlock, he'd be fuming at me by now.

"I guess we were putting unnecessary pressure on you" said the inspector softly, "fine, you'll solve another one for us".

This second chance made my lips curve into a smile and Sherlock approved with a nod.

We both went out of there, and we laughed and talked all our way to his house, why was I going there? I don't know, I kept on walking with him and he never pushed me away. In between he'd often brush hair off my forehead or take my hand while crossing the road. I wonder why, not that I mind though.

We even went straight to his living room and it was awfully quiet.

"where is Dr watson?" I enquired.

"he's out, he messaged me, he's picking Rosie from school". Then he told me everything about john and his daughter, even his deceased wife Mary.

"Mary sounds like a wonderful, brave, strong woman" I replied.

"she was, she was strongest and absolute boss of us" he spoke in way that showed how much he admired her and how much John Watson and Rosie means to him.

"if only I were capable of doing things on my own" I didn't want to say so but it just came out, it sounded sad.

"why not? if you were weak you would've been living with your parents, you have family, house, friends in here yet you chose be on your own, you don't have any assistant, you solve cases by yourself too, how much more strong do you wanna be?" his words felt good didn't they?

"you helped me" I reminded him.

"only this time" accompanied by his beautiful smile.

"if I need help again in solving mystery? will you help me?" I was starting to let my guards down, I may have started to trust him.

"if you want me to, ofcourse" His smile never left his lips but my phone rang and it indicated it was time to leave his flat, for now.

"I have to go" I kind of asked his permission before going.

"if you have to then... be careful okay?" ain't he little too careful for me? I liked it, I like being taken care of, perhaps he's not wrong I really am a kid.

___________________________________

Days turned to months and one case turned to three. I took his help for three cases, call me dumb but I enjoy his company, for some reason I've noticed he does too.

After solving the third one I first went to his flat with him, both of us giggling at the fact that sally was so disappointed that I actually got recognised for my consecutive three wins, ofcourse with Mr brilliant by my side.

"it's late Sherlock, I have to go home" I said checking my watch.

"John's gonna be out tonight he has some patients to take care of, Rosie is with molly, so you can stay here tonight."

He might've said casually but it's HIM saying to ME. I already liked him, after these eight months of solving cases together I think I can say I... I'm in love with him. He's so caring for me, or maybe for all but I liked it.

"will you?" he asked again, popping my thought bubble.

"oh no nothing I was just ... fine I'll stay" I agreed, with my heart in my hand, he might spare his room for me but I wanted something else, a little kiss maybe... I think I fell in love, with the great detective.

"good" and with this he went inside, and came with his dressing gown draped over him, if I were a cat I would've drooled visibly, but I drooled, just no one could see it. He looked incredibly... domestic and it was hot. I just wanted to cuddle him, play with his hair, kiss him... oh! that was hot.

"Sherlock?" I asked.

"yes?" he answered, offering me something. It was a chocolate, I rolled my eyes.

"I'm not a kid" I complaint "I'm a grown up adult in my early twenties."

"I know, but I thought you may like it." well I do like chocolates, so unwrapping it I took a bite. And it was a bad idea told by Mr brilliant's laughter, the chocolate melted and it covered my mouth.

"funny?" I teased.

"very" he said between laughters.

"don't laugh, I bite people" I joked, yet I do have this tendency to bite my close ones,

"oh do you? that's... unique". he replied.

"I'm gonna wash my lips wait" as I got up, I felt his arm catching me by wrist. My heart gave me a signal, it's your chance.

"what?" turning to him I said, I little seductively.

He said nothing but took some of the chocolate from my lips with his finger and put it in his mouth, licking his finger clean.

My senses went wild. I stood frozen.

"you know what?" he asked me, and my mind told me, 'say something, don't look dumb'.

"wh-what?" I said.

"I've always wanted you this close. Never knew if I'd ever have you. I'm.." he trailed off " you're young and beautiful, I'm just an old detective"

'youre anything but old, actually even if you are older than me, I like it, I love it, you're older and sexier, caring as well" I thought.

"I just wanted to make sure you're taken care of. and I..." he trailed off.

"say it" I wanted to hear the words he couldn't let himself speak.

"I love you, with all my heart, have always loved you, and will always do, I sometimes went to Scotland yard casually for maybe to get a glimpse of you, coming to the office, smiling, all jolly, like a ray of sunshine " his lips curved into a smile reminiscing it perhaps, "since the day your eyes fell on me I have loved you, for who you are, you never had to be anything you're not, I love for all the things you are and all the things you're not, I'd see you noticing me too and you're disgust was clear".

"Sherlock" I started, "it wasn't disgust, a pretence, so you don't find out I like you too, infact now I can say I love you and not for your intelligence I admire that but I love you for being a good human to me, I can see, you love me, you care, you protect and you even adore me."

"you know?" he was surprised, "well then, I'm glad, may I kiss you?"

I nodded, and he crashed his lips on mine, letting the kiss go hungrier until he pulled away and asked,

"should we? you want to? with me?"

I understood what he meant,

"yes, I do"

"I'm not that experienced" he replied.

"neither am I"

we giggled at our lesser experience, we both are so engulfed into mystery solving that sex or love barely crossed our mind. I know not how he pulled me and I wrapped my legs around his waist, but we did and we went to his room kissing still.

One can say I was nervous and I knew so was he but he didn't seem so. The way he marked my neck and the way his fingers worked the buttons of my shirt. I was all red being naked infront of him but it melted as he put off his shirt too, I couldn't help but run my hand all over his chest, bringing him closer to me.

"bite me" he ordered.

"I thought you'd never ask" with a smirk I pecked his bottom lip, his moan said he liked it. That hour of him being inside of me was wonderful. He was sweet, gentle, he knew I was absolutely inexperienced. And my first time turned out to be the beautiful one. "I can stay like this forever" I said in between whimpers.

"I wouldn't mind" he replied, fastening his pace and us reaching our climax together. As we layed down on his bed I kept on thinking about how he said he loved me, and he always will.

"what's the matter?" he asked seeing me lost in my thoughts. I knew he cannot actually let himself love someone, maybe it was a moment of weakness for him, but if only he knew it was more than that for me. It was not just sex for me, I made love with him.

“You’re all talk. Why don’t you show me what you really mean?”

I said getting up a little aggressively. He looked confused at my behaviour.

"But It was the truth, why do you think I'd help you, care for you, love you?"

I think he does have a point.

"and sex never amazed me, I don't bother about it, and my past experience was no strings attached kind of sex but now..." he trailed off, "now after you came, I resisted as long as I could the urge to kiss your pretty face, because I know what people could think, that the great detective found a young girl to sleep with, the young lady detective slept with Sherlock Holmes to get recognised, that's why I never opened up about it". His eyes were teary and so were mine, he cared about me as much as he cared about himself.

"if I say" I spoke, "I don't care, and that I love you, I want to be with you Sherlock, then?"

Sherlock came a little closer to me, trying hard not to cry, "then you're gonna get me as your assistant all my life."

Saying this he hugged me and we both cried, tears of joy I'd like to think. But since then I moved in with him, and john and Rosie, I love this family and our parents may have thought this marriage is a little... never mind, they accepted, the age gap wasn't a barrier at all. And we lived happily ever after.

[bestworstcase]

do you think it will be significantly harder for oz to reconcile with salem’s cause than the rest of rwbyjnor? with the way things are going i can see how the kids could get there but i’m so curious to see how oz will react. even if he is opening up more now, it’s a whole other thing to go back on the mandate and shift his view of salem after how long it’s been.

honestly i think the hardest part is already over in that none of it is buried anymore. for thousands of years ozma wore himself deeper and deeper into this rut, methodically cutting salem out of history until he had nearly absolute control over the fact of her existence. and then he locked the proverbial tower and threw away the key.

he had no plan.

like, prior to the fall of beacon, ozpin was just rotting. he dissociates through all of V1 and only wakes up when qrow alerts him that salem has "pawns" at beacon. and���look.

beacon academy—the school ozma built—is modeled after salem's father's castle. the headmaster's office is in her tower.

what does that tell us about how ozma conceives of himself, how he feels about his task, about what he really wants?

then the lost fable happens. ruby asks what ozpin is hiding, and jinn tells his whole story. he's made to relive it all over again, see himself make these choices once more. (he sees himself tell the god of light no. he hears himself say "that world just isn't as dear to me without her." he sees her tell him the truth—the gods ended the world—and he sees himself choose to tell her nothing, because he didn't trust her, and keep making that choice for years.)

thennn he spends months boiling in self-hatred and guilt before finding the wherewithal to climb back up and try again. he returns with a narrative monologue about fear, and rising above fear:

"fear of growing closer to someone; a subsequent fear of loss. fear of failure. and, as more people depend on you, those fears can take on greater power. but... fear itself is not worthy of concern; it is who we become while in its clutches. will you be proud of that person? will you forgive them? will you understand why they felt the need to do the things they did? will you even recognize them? ...or will the person staring back at you be the very thing you should have feared from the start?"

i wonder

what he might be thinking about, there.

anyways, consider the lyrics of 'until the end':

To live free or die, it’s all the same The enemy was right, there’s no reclaiming In waves of shame We’re desperate to make amends But through a simple soul we lie complacent Love brings us dreams But grief makes the heart burst at the seams As light fills my eyes I’ll picture me beside her And pray that I’ll inspire I promise I’ll be here until the end I promise I’ll be here until… ...Our story has been told Til our bodies break down every door Til we find what we’ve been looking for And stare with pride into the face of fear In our finest hour, I’ll be standing here

and also consider the way 'fear' lists his, er, fears:

We live in fear that we might fail Fear that we'll succeed Fear that we may not provide The things our loved ones need

in waves of shame, we're desperate to make amends.

and, we live in fear that we'll succeed.

ozma believes that the only way to save the world is to destroy salem. the only reason he agreed to return to the world at all was because salem was in it. that world just isn't as dear to me without her.

he's been stuck and stagnating all this time because: 1. he believes everything the god of light told him. 2. he, like salem, believes that the gods will rule against humanity. 3. he's terrified of the world ending. 4. he believes the only way to avoid that is to destroy salem. 5. salem is, and has always been, his reason for living.

he cannot destroy salem because she can't be destroyed. but he also cannot destroy her because given the choice between losing her and losing the world, he would choose her. he already did choose her.

he's afraid to fail. but he's even more afraid to succeed.

the point of contention between him and salem, fundamentally—the reason they're in conflict and the reason they haven't been able to reconcile up to this point—is #1. ozma has faith in the god of light, regards him as the supreme creator, and does not believe that there is any possibility outside of the binary given by the mandate. salem rejects that, utterly.

shatter ozma's faith, and reconciliation becomes possible very quickly, because that is what he wants. it's less that he needs to be persuaded to reconcile with her and more that he needs permission, because right now he has it carved into his bones that doing what he wants will doom the world.

i think salem will actually be the one much more reluctant to reconcile, as opposed to striking a truce with the vacuo coalition, because ozma abused her trust in such a profoundly horrible way and she is very obviously not over it. like... as things stand right now, ozma is straight up pining for her while salem desperately just wants him gone. "why do you keep. coming. back."

[totally-not-here-for-the-smut]

Hello- just finished reading your main 6 with baby fever post- wanna know ho you think they’d react if MC has fertility issues or are just infertile

AT LAST I'm back. And I'm down

For

Some

Angst

I'd consider natural concieving, since implying some magical methods would make the whole fertility issue... well, not an issue at all. Still, will try to write it as gn as I can :)

Disclaimer: this is a serious matter for lots of people. It's not something I faced myself, so it may be widely inaccurate. Some of them will be dark and sad, so beware. Please remember that this is purely fictional and written for fun. A distorted disgraced twisted form of fun.

••○ That Empty Crib ○••

Nadia

Even though everybody agrees she'd make a great mother, having kids is not her nr.1 desire. She would consider the idea, but motherhood wasn't a part of her life plan she would actively put an effort in. Yet, as the time passes month by month and nothing happens even though you're -well, not exactly careful by now-, you start to see a shadow in her eyes. She seems bothered by something she wouldn't tell -until one night, after a party. She's taking off her headpieces and earrings and out of the blue she says: "I think I might be infertile". You freeze. What...? Oh. Oh. "And... well, you never told me you wanted wanted kids. So... is this a problem?". She collects herself an instant. "No. Of course not", she says, but her voice is strangely hard. That night, she slips away from your arms. By the morning, she's on the other side of the bed. You didn't talk again about it, but you find out she's seeing Juian. Well, she always used to see Julian, but from that night you noticed the lack of the doctor's laugh when they meet. One day, he awkwardly mentions a fertility screening program, "To check any long term plague effects, you know. For science". He's a bad liar, but you comply. And it turns out, you're the sterile one... and considering where your body comes from, maybe is not that strange. When you talk about it with Nadia, she seems... relieved? And you can't help but notice how comforting she is toward you... even though you weren't planning any kids. So much more comforting than you had been with her, actually. And so, you apologize. Istantly, Nadia smiles. "You know, what bothered me was the fact that the choice wasn't up to me. Being robbed of the right to choose... that hurt. It doesn't matter whether I wanted it or not". Now you understand. And apologize, again. She has never slipped away from your embrace since.

[alicepao13]

Hudson and Rex S03E07 - All In the Litter

This is the only acceptable "I have a twin" plot unless you're a fantasy show. Crime shows, take notes and stop making a fool of yourselves. Twin/Doppeganger storylines do not belong in crime shows, unless the show is supposed to be a comedy.

Oh no, the date!

Already mildly horrified. Or, "Why would you go on a date when we have a perfectly good Sarah?"

"It's purple. Purple shirt". Charlie, you beautiful himbo, dogs can't see purple. They see it the same as blue.

"You haven't told her that I live here too?!?!"

I don't have anything against the lady, I mean she's clearly the "date gone wrong" plot. It's no one's fault that she's allergic to Rex.

"Hi, I'm here to ruin your date."

"I didn't know that police dogs live with their masters". MASTERS. Listen, lady, if anyone is in charge of this partnership, that's Rex.

Don't you dare pin this on him! And what had you two been talking about on these coffee dates, anyway?

Average Greek police precinct at night.

I'm not saying that Carl made it too hard to decrypt what he meant but he also didn't make it easy either.

Well, that shirt's now ruined.

"Are you wearing cologne?" You should have seen his purple shirt, Sarah. I don't know how long that man has gone without sex but he's desperate.

"I'm sure one day I'll find the perfect woman. She'll walk into my apartment and, you know, immediately connect with Rex". No, you won't. Because you've already found her.

They definitely have a moment when Sarah says, "Could happen". Also, you could make it happen.

Why does she exhale and then as he leaves she bites her lips? Why does she look at him like that? Those were all choices.

This guy is Joe's white whale? Come on, Joe, you can do better than that.

"I'm innocent! I haven't killed anyone!"

Joe: "The optics of this are not good". So, are we truly considering that Rex might have actually done it? What?

Sidelined due to dog fur is certainly a first.

"Who's gonna take over the case?" Well, we don't have any other detectives, sadly.

Joe: "Take some time". Charlie: "No, this is my worst nightmare!"

Sarah: "I thought you were taking some time off." Charlie: "This is me taking time off." By delving deeper into the forensics of the case.

Did they actually boop noses?

"I'm sure one day I'll find the perfect woman. She'll walk into my apartment and, you know, immediately connect with Rex". Subtle, this show is not. Which is why I don't get that there are people out there still claiming that the Charlie/Sarah romance came out of the blue. Also, damn Charlie, what else do you need? The universe is dropping signs, pay attention.

I will always consider this moment as the moment Charlie's feelings deepened and he fell in love. I could go for earlier but not later. I don't care what canon says but since canon is vague then I'm fine with it. You can't drop such oh looks of realization and then strike them out.

Rex: "So I have an evil twin? He better not be cuter than me."

What would they be called? Septaplets?

Guys, stop littering.

Sherri Davis!

It really is family day.

Contrary to other twin stories in other shows, it makes more sense that Rex had siblings that were raised in the same city, even though they were separated.

"For the record, I knew he was innocent". That's good because anything else would be considered delusional.

"I don't know what I'd do if something happened to Rex". Don't put it out there.

That's a pretty shot.

"More Rex is never a bad thing". I agree.

And there's the real reason Charlie never made contact with Randy and it was all Joe. So he could be sent undercover.

Joe: "Here we go, Charlie". Charlie: "My name's Trent and the dog's Bucky. What part of method acting don't you understand?" This is why people hate method actors.

And then we get to play 20 questions. Not that it matters in the end.

The sudden redecoration is not concerning at all.

That's not fair, we answered so many questions correct!

"Nice try, copper"? What year is this?

I'm not claustrophobic but I'd refuse to film this. This is one step before becoming a pancake, what if something went wrong?

Rex, you're definitely not helping with Charlie's emotional instability.

Love me some feral Charlie. Go on, let it out.

I can tell apart the dogs by their barks. Is that weird?

"Am I seeing double?" How are you a supposed criminal mastermind?

Get his ass, Joe. He almost turned Charlie into a pancake.

Joe really doesn't seem worried about what happened to Charlie, though. It's a good thing he was only stuck between the containers.

I think he tired himself out. Actually, since this is before Grave Matters and all, maybe we could squeeze in a bit of claustrophobia for Charlie. Headcanon?

"You okay?" "Yeah. Just like Han Solo in the trash compactor". Charlie Hudson, I swear to god...

Aw they hugged.

"Kinda feeling like pancakes". It took like five rewatches to get that one and now I just can't stop using it. Stupid gallows humor.

"Family complete". I'll say it again, he's a big softie.

Love this. More dogs!

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

He is a villain who thinks he is a hero in a believable way which i think a lot of authors can't do properly. I can see his thought process AND I can see that it is fucked.

Also he does do a lot of work in ruling the country? Like before Alina came along he was almost always working, at least that is what is implied idk.

Also this probably you might not agree with but I think he was loyal to his goal till the end i.e. he genuinely did want to make the world safer for grisha till the end. He sucked at it and his methods would have failed and everything but i think that's what he WANTED most of all.

Your "kicking puppy" line made me remember the statement Leigh gave when she said that if she wanted everyone to just purely hate the Darkling, she would have made him kick puppies and kill children. So she changed her mind later i suppose lmao. Because he most certainly was killing children.

I think he’s pretty consistent through the story tbqh! I feel like people say he’s OOC evil by the end, but he’s about as cruel, and if anything, more humanized by the third book. That’s when we get the name reveal, when we get the few scenes of genuine vulnerability he has with Alina. Whereas any positive scene they had in S&B was based in manipulation, like they are actually connecting by that last book. I just really don’t think there was any sudden shift.

But yeah, I have to say I partially agree? Partially disagree? Like I do think it’s integral to the plot, the series’ themes, and Alina’s own arc, that he did genuinely start out with values close to her own. That he meant well, but just took means to an end morality so far, and became so corrupt in his old age and isolation, that his views became warped over time. That that is something Alina might herself fear turning into.

The series’ main point is the corruption inherent to power. I wish it did more with it! It’s clumsily handled lol. But I think that is like the very heart of the story. And so the Darkling, as a foil to Alina, must start out as someone genuinely attempting to act towards the greater good. But then, similarly, I think he must completely lose sight of his morals by the end, and be only concerned with self interest and simply accumulating more power.

I see the argument a lot that, by canon, he’s still primarily concerned with protecting Grisha, but we don’t really see him work towards that beyond claiming he’s going to? Like sure, the Little Palace exists, and he’s made Ravka into a relative safe haven. But those are past choices. In the present, what does he actually do?

If his main motivation was from a genuine desire to protect, then I just think he’d be less focused on killing anyone who does not immediately side with him lol. Like I think he was probably still telling himself that he must have more power *for the greater good* just because that’s what he’s thought for so long. The real desire is just for power.

Anyway yeah, he’s complex! I don’t think either side of the fandom really acknowledge that depth because they have particular biases and preferences for what the story should have been about.

[haystarlight]

Okay but I can't stop thinking about this

Obviously, back in Ancient Greece, there were no options like we have today. Sex resulting in a child was unpreventable. So the gods really couldn't do anything about the demigod children because goodness knows they're not gonna stop falling in love with mortals.

But things are different now and I wonder about how the invention of contraceptives and the facilitation/legalization of abortion (in some places, at least) would affect the gods.

(longer discussion under the "keep reading", content warning for talk of abortion, sex and how shitty some male gods are)

(Athena doesn't facture in because her method of making demigods is batshit, this is for the demigods that were made with sex) (and for The Big Three, more specifically)

Like I talked with my partner the other day and he says he thinks it's totally possible to abort a demigod fetus and I agreed with him. Because, even though they're stronger than normal humans, half-bloods can definitely die. So, if you were pregnant with a half-blood fetus, I think you *could* abort it like a normal human one.

HOWEVER

What would the god dad think about that. Would they be, like, offended that a mere mortal would have the gall to reject a gift from a god? would they try to punish the mortal for not wanting the demigod fetus? would they see it as "impertinent"?

Or would they be relieved like "oh nice! one less half-blood child to worry about!"?

I'm especially thinking about Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. Obviously. Because they're the ones that made a promise not to have more babies. The others made no such promises but, in their case, you'd think preventing the birth would be in their best interest, right? because you're helping them keep their promise? they should be happy, right?

But, then again, the gods are irrational a lot of the time.

Also, condoms.

Idk if god sperm would be stronger than human sperm. Like, maybe there's a chance the condom wouldn't work to stop it (they do sometimes fail, after all, "only 97% effective" and all that). But this is assuming condoms can stop even god sperm.

Again, you think The Big Three would be like "awesome! a way to keep my promise of no more kids and still have sex!" or would they be like those dude bros that don't like wearing condoms cause "they're too small for me!!!" (shut up they're not)

I'm thinking Zeus at least gives definitely the "I would never wear a condom how dare you" vibe.

Tbh, maybe the gods should try seeking out mortals that already have their tubes tied. That sounds like a plan.

Also for not-maiden goddesses like Aphrodite and Demeter, for example. You think they can just, you know, decide not to get pregnant? cause they're goddesses, maybe they can just do that? tho, since they don't have an oath that tells them not to, they probably don't care enough to decide to not get pregnant anyway?

Also, wild to think the kids whose godly parent is their mom get recognized as demigods from birth, that's crazy.

Also also, I think I remember one character in the books that's a child of Apollo with another man. Which it's cool for the queer representation but also HOW. Like... Rick, is Apollo mpreg canon in the books?! RICK?!

(I'm sure if you ask Rick all this, he just says "I write these books for kids, please leave me alone" but THE WORLD NEEDS TO KNOW)

(I'm pro choice, in case that wasn't totally clear. I'm not saying mortals should be punished for not wanting demigod kids (which is a fictional thing anyways). Of course not. I was just wondering what would the gods think of that)

[dreamingon-forever]

Current WIP Levihan Fics

Just wanted to give a little update on the fanfics and drabbles I'm currently working on. I don't have a set date on when to release them, but I do have them mostly done so I should at least release a few in the next couple of days or weeks.

I've been finding it difficult to put a timeline to my writing as it makes me feel rushed and as if my work is more of a deadline instead of something I enjoy for myself. Sorry if I let anyone down or disappointed anyone because of that. I'll try to make up for it with the works I'm working on.

Here's a list and small description of the works I'm writing currently:

Royalty AU: Levi and Hange are the crown royals of their respective nations. But because of a treaty set by their ancestors, they're forced to marry each other as a sign of peace. Only problem being, they absolutely hate each other.

Tea Shop AU: Levi is a co-owner of a tea shop with his friend Erwin. Thanks to Erwin, Hange had been hired to work with them due to her financial strains as she awaits a research position at the nearby university. It becomes a daily thing where Hange flirts up Levi, trying to get him to accept a date from her, but Levi thinks it's just Hange trying to annoy him and rejects her every time. And it becomes too late when he realizes Hange had been honest about her feelings the whole time.

Childhood Friends Turned Strangers: Where neighborhood best friends Levi and Hange become estranged after Hange overhears Levi saying he wished he didn't become friends with Hange.

Memory Loss: After a fight between Levi and Hange, and a very bad expedition outside the walls, Hange ends up losing her memories, and specially those revolving around Levi, who she doesn't recall meeting at all. Levi tries to figure out his new place in Hange's life when she doesn't hold the same sentiments towards him as before.

Marley Suits: The origin story of Hange's suit worn in Marley. The idea that Levi was actually the one who chose it for her, and their backstory revolving his choice.

Writing Lessons: After Levi came into the Survey Corps, Hange was tasked with teaching him to read and write. They start communicating through diaries and develop a deep connection through them.

Tea Company: Levi is the vice president of a tea company. He hires Hange as a researcher to further their tea leaves production but can't seem to get along with the brunette. Hange eventually teaches him that his methods of treating employees and prioritizing monetary gains is not the best way to live life.

Black Tea is Fine Chapter 14: Hange and Levi finally express their feelings for each other. Only problem is, not everyone agrees with their happiness.

Truth be told, I have so many ideas but neither my schedule nor my my mind have the capacity to sit down and work through it all. I'm really hoping to at least put some out soon. Thank you for all the love and hope you'll enjoy the stories once they're out.

[cosmermaid]

God I'm so fucking weak willed.

I don't think I can ever save Orpheus in Baldur's Gate 3 if it means the Emperor siding with the Nether Brain. I get that it's the right thing to do but Orpheus just isn't as interesting of a character.

The Emperor has the morality of a question mark. He's a manipulative bastard, and I don't really think his ends truly justify the means. But at the same time, he's honest about what his goals are. He doesn't betray you at the end to take over the world, or forcibly turn you into a mind flayer at the end (though he can threaten to at some point.) He's genuine in his desires to protect Baldur's Gate and put an end to the cult of the Absolute and the Netherbrain. He doesn't do anything evil when given the opportunity to do so unless you the player pass a persuasion check to convince him to do so.

I don't fully understand why he switches sides so easily if you decide to free Orpheus, save for maybe he genuinely believes that Orpheus is going to slaughter all Ilithids. (He says as much earlier on when asked.)

I've seen people bring up his past with that dragon as an indication that the Emperor was evil even as Balduran, when the dragon tried to kill him for being infected with a tadpole. But I don't see how that's any different from the player defending themselves from Nettie in act one.

The Emperor wants to live. He has done questionable shit during his time as a mind flayer, but he is also trying to improve his methods of convincing people. So far, he has gone from outright brainwashing people to just... being a manipulative prick about it. But I can't fault his motivations. He wants to live. He wants to protect the city he founded. He wants to have allies rather than be killed for what he is. I don't agree with his methods, but I get it.

Freeing Orpheus can give you an objectively good ending. Probably the best variant being freeing him and turning Karlach into a mind flayer. But Orpheus is so weak as a character. He spends most of the game as a damsel in distress, chastises you for not rescuing him quickly enough, and depending on your choices, kills himself instead of leading his people to freedom.

Honestly, I think the Githyanki can probably revolt against their queen without his help. Lae'zel was able to turn on her queen with only a handful of istik friends while Orpheus was still imprisoned.

It's probably just a me thing, but I don't find him compelling. I don't think a "prince that was promised" is the solution that leads to the liberation of an entire culture. I'd rather side with my questionable mind flayer buddy than some monk prince that is likely to die even if you help him.

[avelera]

Giving Sanctuary Behind-the-Scenes: Destiny

Who is Destiny in Giving Sanctuary, how does he differ from his canon counterpart, and what lesson was he trying to teach his siblings in Ch. 18 of Giving Sanctuary?

So I've answered this in a few places, but I thought I'd post somewhere more publicly about what lessons Destiny had for his siblings during the events of Ch. 18 of Giving Sanctuary.

First of all I will note, readers are not expected to agree with Destiny's methods. He is an eldritch being and I try to do him justice at such. It was an interesting thought exercise to try to operate as someone with absolute knowledge but who lacks absolute power. Which is to say, Destiny can see all the choices his siblings have made and and branching paths of varying probability of choices they will make, but he can't compel their actions, he can only guide them by inserting himself into the process, which he does sparingly.

Below the cut, I will go into an exploration of Destiny's personality, goals, and lessons as I wrote them in "Giving Sanctuary", which is a deliberate canon divergence AU that originates from a choice Destiny made long before the events of the story begin.

There will be spoilers up to Ch. 18 of the fic, so be warned if you're not caught up:

To begin, a quick disclaimer: the Destiny of Giving Sanctuary is not meant to be 1-to-1 exactly the Destiny of the comic canon, though I do my best to cleave to his overall vibe while also engaging in the Butterfly Effect - one choice made long ago has impacted all of the Endless, which I use as blanket cover in the fic for why some actions by characters in the story might be mildly OOC or not agree perfectly with comic canon. However, it is a privilege I claim as a transformative works author. That said, having characters be in-character is very important to me, so by and large, points of divergence are carefully considered when they occur.

The Background - where Giving Sanctuary diverges from canon

The original point of divergence in this story began at least around the time of Orpheus's death (though its first stirrings may have been earlier) when Destiny made the calculated decision to save Dream's life 2,500+ years into the future by advising Death not to grant Orpheus's request for "super immortality".

(Side note: Orpheus in Giving Sanctuary is already "immortal" in the same way Calliope and Dream are, ie, immortal but they can be killed if extreme measures are taken to destroy them by beings of equal or greater power, because I find the comic canon idea of him being purely mortal when having an Endless father and a Muse as a mother to be completely baffling, and I believe it's more emotionally resonant if Dream expected his son to live for many thousands of years. It also better and more sympathetically explains why Dream was so cruel and detached at his son's wedding in the comic: he saw the entire Eurydice episode as a phase, a spat of youthful rebellion that would fade as his then 18 year old (of potentially thousands) son matured and lived beyond a single mortal lifetime to see just how painful it would be to love a mortal woman.)

To get back to Destiny: the Giving Sanctuary Destiny saw that Orpheus's fate was inevitable, that he was doomed from the moment he fell in love with Eurydice because as a child of the Endless, he too was bound by the restriction that loving mortals only brought doom, and Destiny did his best to make sure Dream would not be destroyed by his son's desire to die and that Orpheus would be granted the mercy of a quick death that returned his soul to the cycle of living and dying without spending 2,500+ years in a fate worse than death as a living severed head, largely abandoned by his friends and family, until Dream is forced to kill him in Brief Lives, and thus seals his own fate due to the restriction against the Endless spilling family blood.

Dream learned from Death after that Destiny had advised her against granting Orpheus his wish (the wish she, by the way, granted to Hob). While Dream eventually forgave Death because she is his favorite sibling (currently) and because she too was grief-stricken and apologized to him after she saw the results of following that advice, ie, Orpheus's death, however there are still some traces of bitterness and lost trust by Dream towards Death, Destruction, and Destiny, because Destruction sent Orpheus to Death for help (just as he did in the comic), she denied it based on Destiny's advice, and Destiny gave the advice, and none of them warned Dream that his son was taking on a suicide mission to save Eurydice.

Now, the mission itself did not kill Orpheus, but when he failed, according to the myth and canon, he played a song so sorrowful that the maenads (divine servants of Dionysus) descended upon him to tear him limb from limb, and his dismembered body washed up upon the shores of Naxos and was collected by Calliope and Dream (once found) and buried there. Unlike in canon, his severed head did not live on. Is Dream hypocritical to blame his siblings? Yes, absolutely, he missed the signs that Orpheus was in danger because he was deliberately giving Orpheus the silent treatment and had stopped listening to his dreams or checking in on him. He is also grieving and looking for others to blame, irrationally if realistically.

Ultimately, Destiny's choice set us upon a timeline where Dream fully lost his son that day, there is no lingering sense of guilt because the severed head of Orpheus is still dubiously alive somewhere. However, this on the one hand deepened a rift between Dream and his siblings but on the other, allowed him to fully open up to Hob in 1689 in this 'verse because Orpheus was fully dead and he could without reservation open up about his grief to Hob, as he could not/did not in canon, which allowed both of them to find healing with each other.

Who is Destiny in Giving Sanctuary?

All of this is to say: we are starting from a 'verse where Destiny is A-OK with allowing short-term grief in order to allow long-term healing and more importantly, the survival of Dream and his other siblings.

Destiny's siblings are stubborn, competitive, and infinitely powerful beings. This means in order to guide their actions, Destiny when he does intervene in this 'verse, often relies on reverse psychology and "spite as motivation". He also has his own personality, so while other methods might work, like being a nicer person, Destiny is his own entity and operates through that lens. He is not, as I view and write him, a very touchy-feely person.

Destiny's task requires him to keep a certain emotional distance, one might say he loves his siblings but he does not necessarily like them or feel particularly bothered if he sees less of them from day to day. He is an introvert and a workaholic, think Dream but on steroids. He is also the eldest and therefore the most powerful of the seven.

Given the emotional absence and cruelty of their father, Time, and their mother, Night, Destiny has taken on some of what he sees to be the responsibility to look after his siblings as a second father. However, like his siblings, he too is the victim of Time and Night's cruelty and neglect, so his vision of what a good father would do is limited by his experiences. Unlike Death, who interacts regularly with mortals and therefore has developed a more sophisticated view of what a caring relationship looks like, Destiny is emotionally underdeveloped and direct. As he sees it, simply being less cruel than Time is an improvement. He sees himself as a protector on the macro level of his siblings, but not responsible or overly concerned with their short term happiness. Keeping them alive is his priority, though that does include making sure they're not suicidally miserable.

Destiny's Lessons for His Siblings

Destruction: As I mentioned, Destiny's goal is to keep his siblings alive and if the point of divergence was his awareness of how Orpheus's death would lead to Dream's self-destruction one day. As such, "Why didn't he stop Destruction from leaving?" is a question that has arisen and it's a good place to clarify: letting Destruction go was saving him, and so Destiny "allowed it" or rather, did not prevent it by intervening sooner. With 6 strong personalities to balance, he does not have the omnipotence of simply aiming for a universe where all the siblings are mentally stable, happy, and industriously working at their designated roles. There's no universe where all of those are possible at once. While Destiny personally disapproves of Destruction leaving, he prefers that his brother is alive. When Destiny said reality would be wounded by the loss of an Endless, he was in his own, indirect way, talking about his own heart. That's about as close as Destiny ever gets to saying, "I would be sad if any of you died." Yeah, he's that repressed.

Dream: Many readers were struck by how Destiny's actions seemed designed to drive Dream away from the family, to which I answered: yeah, isn't that interesting?

Destiny is, as mentioned, by necessity a master of reverse psychology and spite-as-motivation, because of how stubborn his siblings are, particularly Dream. So let's walk through the takeaway from this dinner arc, starting from Ch. 15, and what Dream has learned, because we are dealing with Destiny having complete knowledge of how to nudge branching paths, which means everything that has happened since Jessamy showed up, including Jessamy showing up, is guided by his choices of when and how to intervene for maximum benefit.

1 ) If Destiny had called a conclave, Dream would have gone immediately, resentfully, and returned to the status quo in which he and Hob were dancing around each other, refusing to use their words, for who knows how long.

2 ) Sending Jessamy instead means a messenger Dream will listen to, it also inserts Jessamy's 3rd person perspective into the relationship between Dream and Hob, breaking the logjam of miscommunication. Dream learned that Jessamy approves of Hob, Hob learned that Dream isn't keeping him a secret from the other people in his life and indeed, values him. Hob was slowly introduced to the how the Dreaming works, even if he didn't totally get it right away, the fact he doesn't get it was introduced to Dream and to Jessamy. (Ch. 15)

3 ) Jessamy was there to interrupt the morning of panic following Dream and Hob's first, *ahem*, "tryst* shall we say. Without a friendly 3rd party to interrupt the panic they were both experiencing, Dream would have done anything to make Hob happy, including answering Hob's request to use the boon to "go back to the way things were". Dream interpreted that as, "Go back to being friends" which would have effectively mind-wiped Hob as badly as Dream did Ric Madoc years later. Dream having a healing relationship like the one that was blooming between him and Hob end after a week because he permanently lobotomized his lover by trying to return them to a state of "friendship" that never existed because Hob never saw Dream as just a friend, totally uncolored by romantic or sexual interest, would have broken Dream, undone all the healing he'd done and worse, confirming all his worst views of himself as incapable of being loved or loving others without destroying them. I cannot express just how dark Dream would have gotten if that had happened. This was averted by the dinner.

4 ) Dream (thanks to his interactions with Hob) learned how to stand up for himself without blowing up at the Endless family dinner, so it was important he attend. He learned through his siblings that Hob does desire him, and always will, that Hob has been literally haunted by Despair these past 80 years and more, and he had a valuable heart-to-heart with Death, who added her voice to the loved ones in his life like Jessamy who pointed out that the misunderstanding might not be what it appears and Hob doesn't really understand the Dreaming yet. Dream was able to calm down and was in a good place to gain perspective. He is now armed with this knowledge and resolved to do better, communicate better, and has been talked out of some of his worst instincts (such as abandoning Hob out of guilt) and learned the truth about why he and Hob were introduced at the time he needed it most: after that first disastrous tryst nearly ended the relationship before it started.

5 ) Dream made an overture of peace to Desire. Granted, it was framed as something he should do not something he would when he said he should ask for mercy and for them to knock it off with the grudge match, but it was a step in the right direction of voicing his weariness with the fight, even if Desire wasn't ready to hear it in the moment.

6 ) Dream saw Destruction's note, something that never would have happened if Destiny did not collect it for him, because Dream was never going to go to Destruction's realm before the note dissolved. Thus, the idea was introduced to him before the Brief Lives canonical arc that he could retire instead of destroying himself, something that in this universe he also would never learn because it took talking to Orpheus's severed oracular head for Dream and Delirium to find Destruction, which is no longer possible now because he's dead.

7 ) Dream swore off his family, or at least, all family except Death and possibly Delirium. This is not necessarily counter to Destiny's intentions. Every interaction Dream was having with Desire was only driving their feud deeper, and Destiny is at peace with not seeing his siblings as often. He sees them all the time anyway since he Knows All and he's an introvert who thinks in terms of eons. If anything, it's a relief. But more importantly, Dream finally makes the break from his sense of family duty that he must subject his mental health to the battering it takes mostly from Desire. He is now more purposeful in who he chooses to interact with, his found family of loved ones like Hob, Jessamy, and Lucienne, and his favorite sister Death (with an exception made for Delirium).

8 ) Dream is now returning to Hob, restored with hope that the relationship between them is possible and indeed, desired, with the revelation that he has not told Hob enough about his existence, and most importantly, resolved to do better and make his feelings known clearly rather than dancing around them forever. He returns to seeing just how badly a month without him left Hob, unequivocal proof of Hob's love and devotion towards him, his fidelity that he stayed during that absence (just like being at the New Inn in 2022), and without any possibility of lingering illusions that he means anything less than the world to Hob.

Whew, that was a long one, I'm amazed if you're still reading but, ONWARD!

Death:

Death began the dinner by saying she was nervous about leaving her job for four (4) hours after presumably not taking any other break. I know "Sound of Her Wings" doesn't make this point explicitly, but that is deeply messed up and unhealthy. Destiny made the point that as Endless, they are shaped by their forms in return and thus certain allowances must be made for the fact that they are not emotionally impervious concepts. They are people-shaped so they have people-shaped needs. Including the need for rest and some sort of work/life balance. (Destiny is being a hypocrite in this respect, but he is trying to get his siblings to have work/life balance even if he does not.)

The assumption from most readers was that a month away from her task was meant to show Death she can't take a break but as Desire pointed out, Destruction's realm is still there years later. If Death delegated more, perhaps to other psychopomps of other religions, the personal touch would be maintained and she could take a break on occasion.

This might be the most obscure of the lessons taught by Destiny, since canon doesn't show us Death breaking down, per se, when her duties get to be too much. But this is something that could/would happen in a few eons, and Destiny is taking steps to avert it now by showing her that hey, actually, a month away wasn't as catastrophic as you feared! Life (and death) goes on without you! You need to reevaluate how you approach your task before you break and then existence is super screwed because you leaving or self-destructing totally is catastrophically worse than you learning to take occasional breaks before that.

Desire:

Desire's is a bit more of a slow-roll, but as mentioned above, Dream finally used his words to say he's tired of this fight with Desire, setting into motion the possibility of it drawing to a close at some point in the distant future, or at least reaching a mutually agreed cease-fire.

Also worth noting that Desire was introduced to the idea that maybe some of the things they blamed Dream for were not entirely his fault like Destiny slowing time to punish Dream but punishing all the rest of them too is Destiny's fault, not Dream's and Destiny is A-OK with Desire blaming him if it stops the destructive bickering with Dream, because Desire would never dare take him on.

This will have a long-term impact of not necessarily stopping but perhaps reducing the severity of some of Desire's later plans for revenge against Dream.

Despair:

Despair had an absolutely fabulous time throughout the dinner and did not need convincing to be there. Family time on its own, dinner and a show, was more than enough. ;)

Delirium:

Delirium also got family time with Death and received the message she would have received at the end of Brief Lives from Destruction that he loves her, but he will not return.