#had to block several blogs i did not notice were following before

[colorfuldragons]

ive been getting a sudden influx of bots in my notes, so im going through my followers list to see if i got followed by a bot and didnt notice.

if your blog is blank – please personalize your blog in some way, even if its just changing the blog's theme color, title, info, icon, or header image

i blocked a few blank blogs that i was unsure if it was a bot or not. sorry if i blocked any real blogs but if your blog has nothing on it – default theme and icon, no info, no posts, or no likes/following – im gonna assume you are a bot and block you

also – i usually dont care too much about who follows this blog, but i will block fans of these:

hаrry pоtter

sоuth pаrk

аttack on titаn

hetаliа

IоIіcon / shоtаcon, іncеst, bеastіaIity (aka "prоshіp")

if you excuse / make light of: tеrfs, rаcіsm, antіsеmіtіsm, chіId аbuse, or аnіmal аbuse – you are not welcome here

[henrioo]

°•*⁀➷ MINE TO SHARE: SHANKS (+???)

꒰ SYNOPSIS ꒱ : "You were Shanks's the moment he laid his eyes on you. But sometimes he needs to remind you that you being his means he can do whatever he wants with you."

꒰ WARNINGS ꒱ : AMAB! READER, CIS MALE! READER, MALE READER! SMUT! MLM, HOMO SEX (I laugh at this) GAY SEX (laugh again), DUB-CON, NON-CONSENSUAL EXHIBITIONISM (Shanks shows the reader sexy photos without him knowing, the reader is watched during sex without being asked) in this story the reader LIKES all the things that are did with him, even the exhibitionism, if you have any trauma or trigger with that don't read. ASSHOLE BOSS (NOT SHANKS) just a mention of a former idiotic boss, hidden romantic relationships, unlabeled relationship, relationship between boss and employee

꒰ CONTAINS ꒱ : Shanks is mean and soft at the same time but probably more mean, Benn and all of Shanks' friends know you two are fucking, you might want to fuck his friends too, office sex, risk of getting caught, getting caught, makeshift handcuffs and a lot of dirty talk.

꒰ WC ꒱ : 2,3k

꒰ NOTES ꒱ : lol o only notice how much warnings I always put, I just want to put everything that can make someone uncomfortable because I hate read a fic when they don't put warning in something and that's get me triggered. Okay so, PLEASE IF YOU ARE A WOMEN DON'T REALLY READ THIS, IT'S NOT ONLY INTERACT DON'T READ, IF I SEE ANY FEM BLOG IN THIS STORY I GONNA BLOCK YOU AND IM SERIOUS

You didn't remember exactly how you got there. Sitting on your boss's lap with his dick so deep in your ass you could feel it reaching your throat. Shanks' hands grabbed your ass hard, squeezing and slapping so hard that made you jump in fright. He used all his strength and the advantage of his size to guide you bouncing on his huge cock, your legs were already wobbly and shaking so all you could do was accept him using you like a toy and fucking you nonstop.

Every time Shanks fucked you he had a different rhythm, which was always decided by his mood that day. Today you weren't sure what the redhead's mood was, but he fucked you with deep and strong thrusts that made you roll your eyes and tremble with each blow, he hit your prostate so accurately and filled your insides so perfectly that you genuinely wondered how you was able to cumming with other partners before Shanks. It seemed impossible for someone to be able to give you pleasure like him.

Of course you were also a mess, thanks to that, you had your head thrown back moaning his name or resting on his shoulder or forehead, moaning breathlessly and begging softly for more. Your hands were dug into his shoulder, scratching so hard that even without big nails you knew there would be marks left for a few days, your head was already hurting and there was a little drool running down the corner of your lips... You looked pathetic, but in the end you liked being humiliated and Shanks liked humiliating you, it was the perfect combination.

You had only entered Shanks' office to give him some reports for the week, he was in his chair with his back to the door facing the huge glass wall that gave him a view of the entire city, advantages of being extremely rich and being able to work on the highest floor of one of the tallest buildings in the city. He was strangely silent and all he asked of you was to come over and deliver the reports... Of course, most of his visits to Shanks' office didn't just end with a conversation between boss and employee.

The truth is that your relationship with the redhead has always been… complicated. It all started when you saw him in person for the first time at a meeting between several city executives disguised as a gala party, at that time you were just an apprentice following your boss and his main secretary like a scared puppy. Your boss was terrible and liked to torture all his employees with the excuse of being an iron training that only the best went through, but he hid this from the spotlight and loved to brag as a boss that no job would leave, taking pride in his loyalty of each of its employees.

Shanks, as always, was a brat at these parties, his social reputation was one of the worst but everyone pretended not to know given how incredible his business empire was, even though he was known for scandals and even visits to countless police stations, the redhead was treated like an angel by everyone the other businessmen who pretended not to know anything about his antics. For some reason you caught his attention, throughout the party where you basically served as a personal waiter for your boss, you felt Shanks staring at you with a predatory gaze ready to grab his prey and run away.

You were still very insecure at that time, you had just left college and your career wasn't going exactly as you planned, maybe that's why you avoided his gaze so much at the beginning. When your boss and Shanks finally spoke, the redhead made no attempt to hide that he was paying attention solely to you and not the ugly old man who was desperate for a business deal. This obviously infuriated his boss who spilled wine on his clothes claiming to have been an oversight. When you kindly excused yourself to go to the bathroom to resolve the situation your boss's secretary simply whispered that you didn't need to go back to the party, when you looked at him confused he just rolled his eyes and said gruffly “you're out”.

This made you swallow deeply and run to the bathroom, you already had a terrible job even if it was in a renowned place and now you had been fired for attracting the attention of a billionaire who you never even dreamed of being in the same room with?! All you could do was rub your wine-stained shirt as you cried and cursed to the tenth generation of your stupid boss and anyone who worked for him. While you were lost in your own world you were unable to notice Shanks entering the bathroom and looking at you with concern.

That night many things happened, you were fired, humiliated, you received a job offer from Shanks who had one of the most successful industries in the country and you also received a small hope that your professional future could work out. The months went by and at some point you and Shanks were already in this arrangement, you weren't even close to being boyfriends, even though he had never had another partner and even though he had never forbidden you from having one, he hated seeing you with anyone else other than him. Your friends joked that Shanks was your sugar daddy since he always gave you money and gifts, but since he never asked for anything in return, not even sex, it didn't seem like the label for you either.

You were something, besides of course friends, but you weren't very determined to find out. You were afraid of falling in love only to find out that Shanks only saw you as a fuck buddy or worse, finding out that Shanks was in love and you only saw him as a fuck buddy! You had sleepless nights thinking about it but little by little you simply gave up making everything difficult. You loved fucking Shanks and Shanks loved fucking you, there was no reason to try to put feelings in or out of this arrangement, as long as it worked for both of you then it was perfect.

Shanks continued fucking you while you faced the office door with your head resting on his shoulder, you lowered your claws to his arm and continued holding him as if you were going to die without his support. He whispered praises and curses every time you leaned into his lap and made his cock all the way inside you, your own cock was twitching on your stomach, your pants were thrown somewhere and your white shirt was open so at least you wouldn't get your clothes dirty. You needed to come so badly, but Shanks' slow pace didn't give you enough stimulation, if he just let you masturbate you could have gotten there, but he liked torturing you.

“Shanks! Please! I! Oh! Shit!" You moaned choppy, disjointed words as you tried to increase your speed, but Shanks' strong hands kept you right where he wanted you.

“Huh? I didn't hear you boy, say it again” He said breathlessly and gave a light bite to your exposed neck “Say how you want my dick to make you see stars, say how you want to be my good boy and cum so much you'll get dirty both of us, tell me” the redhead’s dirty talk always made your belly twitch and your dick leak more, you were losing control and he was loving taking advantage of it.

“Oh! Shanks! Please! I need… Fuck! Faster!" You moaned louder as you felt him slowly increasing his speed, you were ready to beg again when you heard some knocks on the door and Shanks' electronic warning ringing, alerting you that there was someone at the door wanting a meeting with him. “S-Shanks! Stop! There is somebody!"

You tried to get off of him and give him a few pats so he would get the hint and at least he would give you the chance to hide in the bathroom instead of getting caught by someone while fucking your boss. But Shanks didn't seem to care, he quickly turned the chair, turning towards the door and leaving you facing the glass wall, and instead of slowing down or even letting you go, he simply gave your ass a hard slap as he started thrusting into you like the world was ending. He was moving in and out so fast that you became unable to speak, only letting out desperate screams and moans at the sudden increase in stimulation.

“Shit… Don’t squeeze me so much boy… Come in! Come in quickly Benn, I'm kinda busy” He shouted the last part and you tried again to fight Shanks, only to receive an annoyed growl from him as he took off his own tie and used it to tie your wrists behind your back in a clumsy and quick way, but still firm enough for you to be unable to escape. “Stop running away you brat! You came here to get fucked in my office and now you don’t want anyone to see you?” He smiled mischievously when he saw your embarrassed face and the tears of humiliation that were about to fall.

"Stop!" You sniffled at him and hid your face in his neck, you heard the door opening and you knew that soon Benn, the vice CEO and someone who had as much power as Shanks, would be able to see you bouncing on the redhead's dick like a real whore.

"To stop? But I feel you clenching around my cock…” he chuckled at you and stroked your back gently “You're acting like you hate this… But I see how you look at my men, you perverted boy, I'm sure you'd love it getting fucked by all of us at the same time, right? After all, all that’s going on in that stupid little head of yours is being filled with cock in all your holes, right?” He laughed teasingly and when you just whimpered without responding he finally seemed to get angry, so he grabbed your penis tightly, squeezing its sensitive head. “I asked a fucking question.”

You just screamed, feeling the ecstasy overwhelm you to the point where your vision went black and you felt your whole body go limp, you had just cum in Shanks' hand just from his dirty words and tight grip on his sensitive and neglected dick. You fell against him crying and panting, your dick trembled as it continued to leak some more cum, Shanks simply laughed and stopped fucking you, letting you calm down slowly.

“Did you see that Benn? He simply came when I accused him of wanting to be fucked by all of us” Shanks laughed at that as if it were a joke and you almost forgot that the other man had entered the room, but now you could smell his cigarette and his malicious laugh.

“S-Shanks…” you begged whimpering as you tried to hide against his body, you had no idea what you were asking for, but it was clear that Shanks always knew you and your body much better than you knew yourself.

“Hmmm… I would even let it go this time, but you hid this beautiful spectacle of you cumming, didn’t you feel sorry for Benn? He came here and missed the entire show…” he said a little more gently as he rubbed his nose against your hair “Now I can’t just let you go and leave my friend empty handed… Besides, you didn’t even make me cum… No, No, you were really a bad boy…”

You no longer had the strength to argue or fight against the redhead, he quickly grabbed you and turned you around to face Benn. Now you were a complete and pathetic exposure, Shanks' cock was still thrusting deep into you, your own cock was a little soft, already extremely tired after having an intense orgasm, your abdomen was dirty with your cum and your entire body was dripping with sweat. You had a tired and cloudy look, a face that was drunk but kept begging for more and more.

Shanks smiled and grabbed your face with his hand, squeezing your cheek as he whispered in your ear “Open that mouth wide and stick your tongue out my boy… Give them a good look” you did as he said as he was squeezing her cheeks and forcing your mouth open. You hadn't understood what he was planning, your head too tired and confused to try and guess the man's plans.

It was only when you heard the click and flash of your cell phone that you realized, Benn was in front of you with his own cell phone and had just taken a picture of you practically naked being fucked on your boss's lap. The damage and scandals that a photo like that could cause made you feel sick, but luckily Benn's mischievous smile and his hard penis over his dress pants indicated that his goal wasn't to destroy your life.

“How was it?” Shanks asked the gray-haired man playfully.

“Perfect, you weren't lying when you said that his face when he cum was perfect… Huh, Hongo is going to love this…” He quickly placed his cell phone on Shanks' desk and approached you.

“Now… My brat” Shanks kissed your cheek and smiled against you making your whole body shiver “Why don’t I show you that you belong to me completely to the point where I can do whatever I want with you?” He offered with a smile, “And by ‘whatever you want’ I obviously mean sharing… After all, you’re a good pet and you’re not going to let Benn go so hard, are you?”

You didn't need to answer for the two older men to start smiling, everyone knew you never refused an order from Shanks.

[bambinella]

Rumors pt 2

I recently made a post to address the ongoing situation, and I feel like I have to address it yet again, since it’s getting out of hand. 

First of all, I want to apologize to everyone that got involved in this mess, especially the tickle community. I’ve been part of this community for many years now, and I’m enraged by all the hate all of you are receiving by this anon. None of you should be in this situation, and I definitely want to get out of it. I’ve been trying to keep this wildfire contained, but anon is targeting literally anyone right now, be it people who follow me or people who’ve never heard of me before.

In my previous post I mentioned that I suspect ticklee25 to be behind the anon hate, but I didn’t specify or clarify why. Since I still think it’s her, I will explain my thoughts on the why. I’m aware that the messages are still anonymous, so I cannot say with 100% certainty that it’s her, but there are certain details I wish to address.

For starters, the anon hate started on the day I blocked her. ticklee25 and I chatted on discord for a while, and after she became rude, insulted me and my interests and started calling me several times in the middle of the night, knowing of our 5 hour difference, I removed her as a friend. The next day she reached out on tumblr asking me why, yet since I was out all day I hadn’t seen it so I didn’t respond. Then I came back to another message where she was gaslighting me into being a bad friend, which ended with ‘bye’. I removed her as a friend on tumblr too and simply deleted the conversation, since I thought that was gonna be the end of it. Alas, it was not. When she returned with yet another message to insult me some more, I blocked her. That’s when the hateful rumors started spreading. At the time I had no idea I'd have to take screenshots to collect proof, so this is all I have on this matter.

Secondly, some of the anon hate messages had my real name in it. Since my name is not on my tumblr page, you’ll only know my name if you either know me in real life or if we chatted. This indicates that the anon hate is being spread by someone I talked to before. I have no quarrel on tumblr with anyone else, so this points yet again in her direction. Seems a little too suspicious to me to be a coincidence.

The first anonymous message (as far as I know) was sent to my close friend @otomiyaa, which claimed that I was a pedophile. It quite frankly shocked me since I was not prepared for the anonymous hate. I naively thought it would stay with that simple message, and then I thought it would stay with otomiyaa. For a while it did, as she kept receiving several anonymous messages which insulted me. It went from me being a pedophile, to being fat and ugly, to being a shitty writer, which heavily reminded me of the last message I’d received from ticklee25. Then it started spreading to other people, since anon didn’t get the satisfaction of a reply. They first targeted everyone who interacted with me, and when those accounts defended me they moved on to people that don’t follow me and minors.

I have an entire list of rumors being spread about me, from very serious to simply stupid, but it sadly didn’t stay with just rumors. Anon here took it upon themselves to send anonymous messages warning everyone that I spread hate into the tickle community, only to send the hateful anonymous message themselves while tagging me in it. Most people instantly realized that it would be really stupid to send an anonymous message and tag yourself in it, so they knew it wasn’t actually me sending the messages. Here are some examples:

Another thing I have noticed is how, despite me blocking ticklee25, the anonymous hate continued being sent. Some argued that this was a good enough reason for me to change my mind, that it couldn’t be her. However, after looking into it I noticed how several blogs, who were reblogging hate about me, hadn’t even been up for 24 hours, or spammed within mere seconds of each other. Very suspicious again. Some of these blogs are lifeisstrangeenthusiast, swiftlyticklish and ticklelover5.

So, I simply want to clarify some things. I am not a pedophile. I have not been sending hate to people from the tickle community. I have not been sending hate towards minors. I have never forced someone to do something they’re uncomfortable with. I am not a groomer. I am not trying to steal your partner. There may be more rumors, but these are the ones I wanted to address. And to be perfectly clear, I am not the jesus anon.

If you get messages like these, please know that it’s not me. I literally have no reason to spread hate, and I don’t want to stoop to this level. Like I said before, I’m only here for fanart, fanfics and da gays. 

I turn myself directly to the anon now. I suspect you've created multiple accounts to keep spreading hateful messages, no matter how many times I’ve blocked you. You could have reached out to me and spared everyone the pain, but you wanted to cancel me so badly so instead you decided to make it everyone’s problem, even going as far as targeting minors. You’re pathetic. I’ve taken the next step, and unlike you I do have screenshots to back me up.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone who has backed me up over these past 6 weeks. You’ve all helped me more than you realize, and I love each and every one of you. I'm super grateful.

@otomiyaa @rach-amber @thebest-medicine @whatsjulietslastname @amazingmsme @turtlee-rockin @toweroftickles @wild-lee-ticklish @softleesam @fluffomatic @ticklerfluff @atlaslunacozycorner @a-ticklish-banshee @objectfromthesky @kaseylovesbayley @knizmokat @wheezylee-jay

Longest post of my life, but it had to happen. I hope we can end the bs now, because I'm honestly done with it.

Update: I didn't have to wait long, as suspected, until someone was getting pissy about my post. @ticklelover5 decided to spread screenshots of random conversation with ticklee25 before the drama started, which only confirmed my suspicions that they're the same account and same person. Thing is, all her replies somehow have mysteriously disappeared! Shocker. So it looks like I'm just talking to myself like a fool. And this somehow adds to her cancel campaign? Proving that I'm horrible because I was talking? I'm confused and pissed, but I kinda expected this when I made this post. I'll post them here too, so you can see what I'm talking about.

Not gonna lie, the fact that she's been blocked back in december and somehow still has my conversation is kind of sickening to me. The fact that it's my current pfp and not the one from my screenshot means she just screenshotted these to try and get some dirt on me. I'm glad I got out of this friendship just in time, and I would have left sooner if I knew the level of psycho I'd be dealing with.

[linkspooky]

ON MADELYNE PRYOR

Shout out to all the comic book stans who follow my blog.

So X-Men 97 inspired me to do a re-read of X-Men from the beginning. My previous read of X-Men jumped all over the place, it was basically X-Men up to Dark Phoenix and then I jumped all the way to the 2000s to 2010s. In my current read I just got to Inferno and holy fuck mom, I never thought I'd like an X-Men arc more than Dark Phoenix but here we are.

This is an entirely personal opinion which I'm not as good at expressing because I prefer over-intellectualizing my feelings, but Inferno is the only other comic book arc to make me feel the way that Judas Cotract did in how tightly and perfectly written as a tragedy it is especially for the female at its center.

Are there any women in all of fiction more doomed by the narrative than Terra Markov and Madelyne Pryor?

I mean I've written about Judas Contract before but what makes that arc so special to me is how it's about a character, a victim, a girl named Terra who by all rights should have been saved by the heroes, but not only fails every step of the way but at every point in her life really. Terra is someone how manifests her victimhood in completely unsympathetic ways but the fact that she basically had no chance in life makes her sympathetic nonetheless.

This comes from the decision that Perez and Wolfram made right from the start to kill her off and never offer her any redemption, which while incredibly callous on the author's part just makes the tragedy even stronger. That's what tragedy is, it's meat to reflect the cruelty and unfairness of life, it's kind of like reality bleeding into fiction.

George’s strength was he also understood the characters 100 percent as I did so there was never any question. He knew. We had talked enough about the characters to know we were exactly on the same page with them. So I said, “Everyone keeps complaining that we’re like the X-Men” and the X-Men had just gotten Kitty Pryde. I said, “Why don’t we really screw around with them completely?” — this is the fans — “…and make them think we’re stealing Kitty Pryde only she’s gonna be bad from Day One.” You always had characters pop up, certainly at Marvel, who were bad that get redeemed. But this character would never get redeemed. She was insane. In fact, she was the catalyst for everything. She wasn’t working for Deathstroke. He was working for her in many ways and she was leading him because she’s crazy. She’s a total psychopath… and she’d be 15. 

Terra's a total psychopath and she's fifteen and that's the tragedy. Was there really any other way that Terra could have turned out? A girl who has been abandoned, who was given incredible powers but no love, support, or nurturing and clearly doesn't have a home or any stability in her life if she's working as a mercenary at that young. A girl who thinks herself a villain and a player in the game but is clearly being manipulated by a fifty plus year old man who is smarter, more mature, and a serial user and abuser of people.

Terra's not just the villain, she's the protagonist of the tragedy walking through the play unknowing that her every single decision will lead to her inevitable end.

Judas Cotract and Inferno are two arcs that most evoke the feel of the Tower in Tarot to me. The Tower is just, ruin and destruction, a complete loss of control, the realization that everything you thought was wrong and in fact the world doesn't care much about what you think. It's a reminder that life isn't even cruel, it's nothing, it's random.

However, first you have to build up the tower before you start pulling the jenga blocks out one by one. Terra spends several arcs with the Teen Titans showing disturbing unchildlike behavior, but one of the so-called Heroes even notice that there's something wrong. When she does get close to blowing her cover, a violent incident where she nearly badly hurts Beast Boy after he comes onto her way too hard which is an understandable reaction as a victim of SA that gets brushed under the rug too.

It makes the heroes look worse as well. If they were heroes dedicated to saving people at all costs shouldn't they have noticed the trouble of someone right next to them? Yet, they all kind of collectively remain oblivious the same way that most victims in real life especially of Terra's kind of trauma are left to suffer in silence. Not to say the Teen Titans are bad, they are kids, and therefore it makes sense they don't have the emotional maturity to notice - it just makes them look more human.

So to summarize my point above what makes Judas Contract is a good tragedy and why Inferno makes me feel the same way narrows down to two reasons.

Madelyne and Terra are both doomed by the narrative, there was no saving them right from the beginning.

However, the fact that the heroes failed to save them reflects poorly on them.

Finally, Madelyne Pryor.

Oh Madelyne the world did you so dirty. I'm partially to blame because I skipped right to the 2000s in my first read, but before this point I'd known nothing about Madelyne other than that she was a clone of Jean Grey who died.

My first impressions of her when she was introduced shortly after Dark Phoenix weren't all that great either. Chris Claremont writes good female characters, that's not really a hot take. I'm sure you've heard of Storm, Rogue, Mystique, Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost etc.

However, I've noticed there are like two tiers of female characters he tends to write. There are the first stringers which are your storms, your rogues, these are characters who are meant to be independent and have arcs. Then there are the second stringers who are just meat to serve a role in the story. This isn't a criticism on the way Claremont writes women, I mean all stories have major and minor characters.

Madelyne Pryor was never meant to be a main character. There wasn't anything about her character that I disliked per se, she is independent, she seemed to have a life outside of Cyclops, she tries really hard to separate herself from the image of Jean Grey. However, she was clearly written to give Cyclops a wife and child in the aftermath of Jean's death and a reason to retire.

While the editorial mandate that made Claremont pull Cyclops out of his happy ending so he could rejoin a team with the original five x-men for the sake of nostalgia sucks, it is also the best thing to happen to Madelyne's character.

Madelyne before that point was a perfectly functional character for her role but she wasn't all that dynamic, she liked planes, she didn't like Jean's ghost hanging over her, she's pretty spunky and headstrong but she was at most a good supporting character but that's all she was. Claremont just decided to double down on that, Scott actually treats his wife like she exists to do nothing but support him and his emotional issues. Madelyne gives all the support that she can give and then Scott just up and leaves anyway. The woman who only existed to be a love interest to give Scott a happy ending, now has no other reason to exist without the man she's supposed to love and her happy ending turns to ash in her mouth.

This is the same feeling I was talking about with Terra, this is a person who was basically failed at every step of the way. A person who has no family. no support, it's almost worse in this case because Madelyne thought she did only for that person to toss her aside.

There's no saving Madelyne, and the fact that Scott didn't save her, that he didn't both trying until he was too late makes him the villain.

If anything Inferno is better than Judas Contract at dragging the heroes down to their lowest points, because The Teen Titans failing to save Terra is understandable because of how young they are but there's no excusing Scott's actions. Madelyne may run around in a skimpy outfit calling herself the goblin queen but the villain of this story is named Scott Summers. He had a responsibility and obligation towards Madelyne to save her and he failed, and it makes him a bad hero and an even worse person.

One of the key components of a tragedy is also agency. Agency is basically the freedom a character has to choose and how much their choices matter in the grand scheme of things and impact their narratives.

Tragedies are often defined by how little agency the characters are shown to have, and how limited their range of choices are. One of the biggest themes of tragedy is fate and inevitability at all. For example one of my favorite tragedies antigone is about a girl with very little power in the ancient greek city of Thebes who still makes a choice to give her brother a proper burial even though she knows she'll be executed for it.

Dark Phoenix is all about agency. Jean Grey is dealing with three different forces trying to take her mind, her agency. There's the corrupting influence of Phoenix, there's the Hellfire Club who wants to make her into a puppet, and then there's Charles Xavier who wants to put a lid on her tremendous powers. Everyone trying to take agency away from Jean eventually leads her to snap and try to take all of that agency back by embracing godhood because who has more agency, more control than a god? Even Jean's act of killing herself at the end was reclaiming her agency, it's her choice to die as a human rather than be executed, or to lose herself to the phoenix.

What breaks Madelyne is not Scott leaving her. Which made me like her character a lot, like the moment Scott left Madelyne was shown just how stubborn and determined she was. Madelyne stood out as the only normal human amongst the x-men who still held her own like Moira did (i guess Moira is a mutant now but I'm still in the 80s so w/e).

What breaks her is the revelation that she never had any agency in her life to begin with. Scott was always meant to fall in love with her, he was always meant to leave her, because she was nothing more than a womb for Sinister's breeding project. Once again it's masterful how Scott looks equally as villainous as Sinister in this scenario in how neither of them regards Madelyne as a person, just an object to project their desires upon.

(Honestly Jean Grey doesn't come out looking all that great either considering how little sympathy she has for Madelyne because she just sees her as an obstacle to getting back together with Scott. If anyone Jean should sympathize with Madelyne the most because they've both been toyed with cosmic forces out of their control, but I guess it goes to show how selfish and destructive Jean and Scott's love for each can be).

Is there any sequence more tragic in all of comics than this series of panels?

The symbolism in these panels too and how it relates to the themes of agency with Madelyne's character. Madelyne was a free and self-driven woman (or at least she thought she was) living out her dream of being a pilot which to her the ability to fly her wings represents her freedom and indepedence. The only thing she thought that could make her happier was Scott, but in the end not only did Scott take her wings away, he took away her everything and gave it to someone else.

"Time to lose those wings, Maddie. You can't really fly, anyway. You're not special like us."

If there's any words to express the inherent tragedy of Maddie's character is this, she's a person who thought she was free to fly, that she was real, that her life mattered only to have all that taken away from her. Maddie like Terra thinks she has agency that she's making decisions but she had no real choices from the beginning.

That's also a good way to express what makes tragedies hit as hard as they do. Tragedies slap you with the realization that you're not special. The hero is not a hero, they don't have plot armor, they're not immune to consequences, they're human and just like all humans they fail.

Even the act that Madelyne thinks is reclaiming her agency by gaining power as the Goblin Queen is in fact, not her choice. She doesn't choose to sell her soul, she's tricked into doing it by a rebellious demon that wants to kick Illyana out and reclaim limbo for himself. In Madelyne's one act of trying to steal back her power and freedom she is still just a pawn in another person's scheme.

There's also Madelyne going through literal hell itself to reclaim her son, only to make the decision to sacrifice him along with several other infants which seems to make her usympathetic but ironically makes her more sympathetic to me.

There's the obvious reference to Medea there. If all the parallels aren't obvious enough already, Jason and the Argonauts gets namedropped during the arc.

One of my favorite things about Medea the tragedy by Euripedes is that Medea is not just a girlboss who gets revenge on Jason and then walks away. Straightforward revenge narratives are bad because revenge is... bad actually. The decision to inflict more pain and suffering in the world doesn't break the chain of suffering.

Medea kills her children to show that Jason is not entirely in the wrong, and Medea is not entirely in the right. They are two human beings who's relationship is blowing up in the worst way possible. I mean Jason himself does have some points in the play, he's making a political marriage to save both of them, the only reason he's exiling Medea is because Medea made loud death threats at Jason's new bride. It's not just the heartbreak of being abandoned that drives Medea, it's her pride, the whole play started because Medea didn't want to settle for being a side chick.

Medea wants revenge against Jason but she doesn't take her revenge on Jason, she takes revenge on everyone around him for the purpose of making him feel as alone and lost as he did her. She'll kill her own children, even if it kills her to do so, just to spite him a little more.

Which leads to one of my favorite scenes in all of fiction, Medea holding the knife over her own child's throat, bargaining with herself trying to convince herself to do something she objectively knows is wrong.

MEDEA I’ve made up my mind, my friends. I’ll do it—kill my children now, without delay, and flee this land. I must not hesitate. That would hand them over to someone else to be slaughtered by a hand less loving.                                      No matter what, the children have to die. Since that’s the case, then I, who gave them life,                                will kill them. Arm yourself for this, my heart. Why do I put off doing this dreadful act, since it must be done? Come, pick up the sword, wretched hand of mine. Pick up the sword, move to where your life of misery begins. Don’t play the coward. Don’t remember now how much you love them, how you gave them life. For this short day forget they are your children                          and mourn them later. Although you kill them, still you loved them. As a woman, I’m so sad.     

Why would Madelyne after going through all that trouble to find her son, instead choose to give him to the fire? It's because for a person who was given so little choice over her own life, the choice to self-destruct is still a choice. The choice to destroy something with your own hands rather than let it be destroyed for someone else is still a choice.

That would hand them over to someone else to be slaughtered by a hand less loving.                                      No matter what, the children have to die. Since that’s the case, then I, who gave them life,                                will kill them.

I think I may like Madelyne more than Jean at this point?

The same way I like Terra more than Raven. They're very similiar characters, but it takes possession by Trigon to get Raven to attack the titans. Terra just tries to kill them by her own free will. She's willing to bury herself if it gives her one last chance at burying the titans to too. Madelyne on the other hand is willing to walk barefoot into hell, if it means she can drag Scott and the X-Men with her. Jean does things under the influence of the Phoenix, but she chose to die as a human being at the end of Dark Phoenix. Madelyne however made the opposite choice, throwing all her humanity away she gave herself wholly and unreservedly to the fire.

Also damn, x-men 97 did this arc so dirty by speedrunning through it in one episode. This is also one of the most well set-up arcs in the X-Men comics with so many threads like X-Factor, X-Men and New Mutants all coming together. It really deserved its own season not like 2 episodes, and then Madelyne dying halfway through this season.

[eoieopda]

Congrats on 2k!!🥳💋✨

As for the request- for the love of God, 𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 do a Seokjin + fake dating au where he realises he is falling for reader😭

i gotchu, boo!

the one with seokjin and without complaints

pairing: kim seokjin x gn!reader type: drabble | type: fluff | wc: 973 summary: you don’t want to arrive dateless to a wedding your ex is also attending. enter friend and local hero, kim seokjin. au: fake dating, drunken confession. cw: alcohol use & moderate tipsiness, blatant inspo. by “leonard cohen” — boygenius, not proofread tbh 🤪 rating: pg15 *regardless, my content is not for minors. minors or ageless blogs who interact with my content will be blocked.

When you pulled up outside Seokjin’s apartment building to find him waiting on the sidewalk, you were all smiles. He’d hopped in the passenger seat, did his best not to stare at you in all your satin-wrapped glory, and asked one last time if you were sure you didn’t want him to drive. You, despite your absolutely abysmal sense of direction, declined.

And then you were off, headed for the highway with only the faintest hint of anxiety vibrating through you. As you drove, you’d thanked him for his service — for the thousandth time — and he’d reminded you — for the thousandth time — that it wasn’t necessary. He’d meant it he said he’d do anything for you, up to and including spending too much money on a new suit just to make your shithead ex feel slightly worse.

After a few minutes of easy conversation, you reached the on-ramp and stopped at the red light. Noticing the song that shuffled to the top of the queue, he’d moved to change it to something that wasn’t garbage. With a flexed brow and all the emphasis in the world, you hit him with a challenge he couldn’t turn down:

“Seokjin-ah, if you love me, you will listen to this song.”

So, he’d let you enjoy your own questionable taste in music without complaint. Of course, he’d realized a long time ago that you were headed in the wrong direction, but Seokjin would’ve rather died than interrupt the full-blown performance you were giving within the confines of your seatbelt. 

He couldn’t tell what prompted the butterflies to appear en masse in his stomach: the way you’d blushed when the song ended and he clued you into your mistake, or the prospect of more time to swap embarrassing stories the other somehow hadn’t heard yet. The unintentional detour had added an hour to the drive, but Seokjin had no complaints about that, either.

Eventually, you’d reached your destination and whipped into the venue’s parking lot at a rate of speed Seokjin could only describe as criminal. Claiming the last remaining space before some other straggler could snag it, you’d turned and shot him a wink that made him go a little bit stupid.

It suddenly made sense why you’d never been hit with a moving violation. Nobody on the receiving end of that smile could have the strength of will to ticket you.

“Ready?” He’d asked once he joined you on the pavement, glancing at the entrance before his eyes flicked over to you.

You didn’t look it, but you’d swallowed hard and said, “Ready.”

Like it was the hundredth time and not the first, your hand slipped into his and squeezed tight. Distinctly not ready, you’d followed his lead as he headed towards the front doors. Seokjin caught sight of your joint reflection in the glass pane as he pulled the door open. Your ruse would’ve fooled him if he wasn’t in on it, he’d realized. It looked right, you holding onto him.

The ceremony was exactly as boring as he’d expected it would be, but your head resting lightly against his shoulder was a sufficient distraction. Completely ignoring the vows being exchanged several meters ahead of him, Seokjin had spent a minimum of ten minutes trying to figure out what the scent of your shampoo was, and why it was giving him heart palpitations. When the newlyweds paraded past him on the way back down the aisle, he’d ignored that, too, and wiped the sentimental tear off your cheek with the side of his thumb.

Thankfully, the reception was proving to be infinitely more exciting than its predecessor.

Despite scanning the area several times, Seokjin still couldn’t spot your ex in the crowd of guests. You still danced as if that clown was watching, touched Seokjin’s arm whenever you laughed at one of his jokes with your whole chest. He was dizzy, kind of, but maybe that was the champagne.

No, he ultimately concluded. The champagne was currently working it’s magic on you, sloshing lightly in your flute as you set it back down on the table.

“I have a confession to make,” You whispered at full volume, smiling sheepishly. “Promise you won’t get mad?”

You reached across the table to take his hand and knocked over the aforementioned flute in the process. With reflexes shockingly quick for someone as tipsy as he was, Seokjin managed to steady the glass before it could empty onto the table cloth. Eyebrows raised, he smirked expectantly back at you.

“They aren’t here.”

Seokjin wasn’t following, and that was definitely the champagne. You squeezed your eyes shut and proceeded to spill your secret at a shocking pace.

“Chan told me a few weeks ago that their RSVP said no.” Your blush licked up your cheekbones like a wild fire. “I may have known that when I asked you to come with me. I just didn’t…”

Your voice petered out at the end of that sentence. You cracked one eye open to look at him in anticipation of a reaction.

“I didn’t know if you’d want to come with me if I asked you outright,” You sighed. “I just — I really wanted you here. You know, with me.”

Inside Seokjin’s head, there were no thoughts, only bells and sirens and whistles and fireworks exploding, sending sparks down to put themselves out on the smooth surface of his brain. He didn’t have words, but he did have hands; so, he cupped your face between them and kissed you with all the emphasis in the world.

You kissed him back with vigor until you eventually pulled back breathless. Shock evident in your whisper — and this time, it really was one — you asked, “You’re not mad?”

Like it was the hundredth time and not the second, Seokjin kissed you with a smile.

“No complaints.”

[peach-cream-enmu-archive]

Demon slayer breeding program au. Enmu

AFAB, if I use fem pronouns I apologize, I would like to try not to but I may slip up. Plus size reader, body descriptions. Long. Demons aren’t evil, just wild, so there will be soft ‘out of character’ behavior. Blood. You’re wearing someone similar to what Hinatsuru, Makio, and Suma wear in canon, but I don’t describe it much. Just that your new uniform provided by the 3 women who work in your department supplied to you is short and revealing. Smut was supposed to be included but this got long and I have major brain block right now and am failing to write much, so here’s the beginning. I hope you like it. Tagging this demon slayer smut to keep it out of the main tag, smut will come in later parts.

I’m a dark fiction blog, please read my pinned before following. There is no dark content in this entry, and the au should be void of it as well

“Its not a bad suggestion. We have enough resources and demons to do this safely. Maybe we should try…” Mitsuri hesitated to finish her statement.

“Making them fuck?” Sanemi said harshly. Giyuu’s face fell in disappointment at his crassness, obanai scoffed, and uzui barked out a laugh. “It could be good for the research, and maybe change the way demons behave. I say we do it.” He says.

Ubuyashiki nodded his head with a hum. He sifted through documents and set certain ones aside. “You are correct in thinking this could change the future existence of demons, but now the question is, who do you suppose will take up the responsibility of carrying the young?”

No one looked to Mitsuri or Shinobu. They were high ranking researchers, working under the head researcher himself. But just as the question was asked, you knock on the door. You’re permitted entry and come in warily. “My apologies for the interruption. I have the venom samples and web residue from the spider son. I was told it was important that I deliver it right away, but no one was in the ‘wet specimens’ room. I assumed you might be here.”

Ubuyashiki smiled warmly and thanked you. Shinobu walked over to you and took them with a closed eyed smile and a tilt of her head. You bow before shutting the door again and making your way off.

There’s silence among them as Mitsuri gives the overseer the samples. No one says anything for a moment, though they all think the same thing.

“So…” Tengen begins, “…they’d work.”

Shinobu slaps his arm lightly and he raises his hands. “What? Don’t look at me like that, you saw them! They’re definitely built for it.”

As she throws a genuine punch, the others think back to you. He wasn’t wrong, you did have a good physique. You were on the heavier side, and many of the men noticed you had…very nice hips.

As he watched his researchers Ubuyashiki thought about it. It wouldn’t hurt to introduce you to the demons they would plan to include in the program. If you were compatible, then they could bring the idea to your attention.

____________

You weren’t told of the breeding program, not fully. You were told your job was to engage with and interact with demons in their own dwellings within the facilities, rather than behind glass and heavy doors made of nichirin metal and floors embedded with it, preventing demons from crossing the threshold.

Your introduction to the “swamp demon” was observed intently, with several head researchers on hand ready to intervene if needed. This demon had a tendency to try and drown researchers in its inky pools. You hadn’t taken more than a few steps inside his containment before one opened below you. You heard the door slide open behind you but shooed them off in a hurry.

“Please don’t! I’m alright! I’m safe, everything is alright…” you spoke mainly to the demon now, and your sinking slowed. He slowly emerged from the dark depths before you, dark hair, horn, then deep red eyes. They scowled curiously at you as you smiled softly at him. He sank back out of sight once more before rising fully from a pool a few feet away. He walked to you and grabbed your hand, pulling you up and out of floor.

He quickly got to work investigating you. Touching your face, moving your hair, smelling you. His hands moved lower, squeezing and prodding your sides and stomach while he circled you. He squeezed your upper arms and elbows tightly, as if feeling for muscles. Your skin was left greatly exposed in the new ‘uniform’ provided by the three women in charge of the collections division, where you had previously worked most of the time.

His mouth came close to your arm as he raised it to his face, looking at your skin closely before baring his fangs. Your heart began to race but you kept still. You hoped he would stop and pull away but he continued. His fangs pierced you gently, almost experimentally, and though you couldn’t truly tell with his all red eyes, you knew he was looking up at you as he pulled away, fangs leaving your skin. He watched your face, what he was looking for you were unsure, so you just smiled.

He pulled away and sank into the depths again, and didn’t come back out. You sat patiently to see if he would, but he never did, so the other researchers came in and let you out.

Ubuyashiki was present, praising your handling of the situation. What he didn’t tell you, was that the demons bite was almost a mating claim. When you were looked over briefly to assess the injury, he noticed the lack of raised veins. A mating bite usually irritates the surrounding veins, causing them to visibly rise and pulse.

Ubuyashiki deemed the experiment safe to continue.

Your proceeding visits helped make great strides in the research into this demons abilities. He eventually began showing you more about his powers as you displayed your interest. He even took you down into the depths of his swamp, showing you it’s true form. He always had a hand on you in some way. Keeping you upright and from sinking too far, and keeping you within arms reach during visits.

Researchers noted that the behavior was possessive, but the demon showed no intent to mate. At this, you were told to say your goodbyes, not that the demon may fully understand, and you would move on to engage with the next.

The more tame of the demons deemed too dangerous for close observation. Contact had been initiated but each time they’d succumb to the thralls of sleep, as was the nature of the demons power. They’d be removed from the unit for fear of harm, making observations difficult.

You’d been instructed to wait after sliding open the door, allowing the demon to fully sense you. No one stood behind you to catch and retrieve you once the demon made its move. You were told to be prepared for bruising and minor scrapes from your fall. The higher ups did not, however, expect the outcome they witnessed.

You’d passed the doorway to the enclosure and as expected were put to sleep immediately. But instead of falling to the ground, the demon had swept in and caught you. He stood looking down at you, observing you, before picking you up and bringing you further into his enclosure. Doctor Shinobu raised a hand as the retrieval team moved to enter, halting the group.

The demon laid you down, touching your face, playing with your hands, stroking your hair, before lowering himself and pressing his forehead to yours. All of this behavior was new, and the doctors present waited with baited breath for his next move. After a long quiet, motionless moment, the demon sprung up with a wide grin. He sat waiting, visibly failing to contain himself as he watched your eyelids flutter open.

The microphones inside picked up his ‘talking’ loud and clear, though it was merely trills, chirps, and whines to them. The demon allowed you to sit up before kneeling above your lap. He looked down at you with curious eyes as his hands moved to your face. He squished and rubbed your cheeks, giggling as your lips pursed and your skin grew warm.

He played with you, ‘talked’ to you, and was very affectionate. You were honestly a little dazed by the time your session was over. The dream demon didn’t want to let you go it seemed, but he relented when Doctor Gyomei entered when the retrieval team had no success. As you walked out, he giggled and waved lazily at you.

Outside, you were met with doctor shinobu and the nurses. As you were checked over she began mentioning findings. “It seemed he was looking into your dream. Whatever it was he found he was very pleased.” Doctor Gyomei spoke up, “What did you dream about?” At this question you felt yourself fluster. “I-I don’t remember…” Doctor shinobu was quiet for a moment before giggling knowingly.

Truthfully, you did remember. It was a heated dream, involving the demon himself. You were enamored by his beauty and he seemed pleased, touching you and trying to undress you. You have no idea what brought on this dream. You tried to draw your mind away from it, but it kept wandering back. As the doctors and assistants packed up and left, the demon sat and waited excitedly for your return.

Every session continued along this vein. The demon was affectionate, he reacted to you well, he allowed you to deliver food without attempting to attack you as he had every researcher before you. After being able to deliver food, you were allowed to feed. It started with handing the food over bare handed, but it seemed the demon wanted more than that, and began waiting with his mouth open instead.

Several feeding sessions in, he’d pulled you down closer, taking the bloodied meat from your hand with his mouth, and licking up blood that had trailed down your wrist. You tried to calm yourself as your face grew warm. You smiled and offered more, to which his tail wagged quickly, and he messily ate from your hand.

Ubuyashiki had you meet with this demon once a week, then twice, for a few weeks. That grew to three times a week, then four, for a month or so. And then, out of the blue, the demon had bit you.

It startled everyone, even you. The session had been going well, he’d cuddled up to you as he often did, watching as you worked inside of his enclosure. You’d begun to take work with you during sessions for convenience sake, and he seemed very interested in it. It was known that demons could read to some extent, but he’d shown that demons, or at least he, were fully capable of reading in the human language. He would sit with you on his lap and read over your shoulder. This time, he’d nuzzled his face into your neck and you paid it no mind. Until you felt a sharp pain.

The noise that left you was stuck between a yelp and a whine. His teeth sank into your flesh and he held tightly to you, both with his arms and his mouth. When he didn’t let go you tried pulling away, wriggling and quickly escalating to light thrashing. He let go when your nails began to dig into his hands that lay around your waist.

He let go with a shocked trill, and when you turned to look at him he looked…worried. The retrieval team was quick to enter, pulling you to your feet and carrying you out. He scrambled to his feet to go after you, he’d recoiled as he tried to pass the threshold of the door, the nichirin in the walls and floor burning him lightly.

Doctor Shinobu approached calmly, collecting blood that leaked from your neck before beginning to clean. Her fingers had felt the quickly rising veins, and she quickened her work. She bandaged you and sent you to the infirmary to be check by Mitsuri.

Then, she made her way to the head of research. After announcing herself and sliding open the door, she entered.

“Doctor Ubuyashiki, sir.” He lifted his head from his papers, fingers pausing in their reading.

“They’ve been claimed.”

————————

The demon cried for you. Pacing his room, whining, crying his throat sore. He even began to push against the door, weakening by the burn and pain of the nichirin each time. You started to worry, not truly understanding what was happening.

Ubuyashiki waited to make sure everything was in place to do this safely in case you do agree before approaching you. Shinobu greeted you in the collections lab, ready to retrieve you. She found you worriedly tapping you pen to the table, fingers on your other hand dancing around the bandage on your neck. She could see you were upset as she brought you to the head of research.

She entered with you when you arrived and stayed by the door when Ubuyashiki beckoned you forward to sit.

“I want to thank you for your efforts thus far. You’ve helped us learned a great deal about the demons in our care, and for that we are truly grateful.” He then pulled a file from beside him. “I would like to apologize as well. We have not told you everything about why we chose you to begin this program.”

You were confused. Program? You thought it was just hands on interaction.

“I had hoped to let you know at a better time, but the dream demon has changed things.” At the mention of him, your hand came up to the bandage. “There is much that can be learned about demons, but only so much can be gathered with our current means. So it had been decided to look into how demons breed, and how powers and abilities pass to their young.”

Your breath hitched, and his brows creased sympathetically for just a moment. “The plan was to have you interact with them, and gather information from those sessions before anything else. We would then propose the next phase of the program to you at our own pace. However,” he paused, allowing you to think about what he’d said. “The demon has claimed you as his mate.”

He passed the file to you, and when you opened it resumed speaking. “The file you have in your hands is his. I’d like you to look it over on your way to his enclosure. If you still would like to continue with the interactions, doctor shinobu will let you inside.” There was a lot of information inside that you’d never known. Things about the demons behavior that you had never seen. He was supposedly violent, and seemed to take pleasure in toying with researchers.

“Should you decide that you feel safe enough to continue, you will be informed of the specifics of the next step of the program. You will be allowed to decide if we continue forward.” He stands and you follow, walking back to the door to be escorted by shinobu. As you pass through the doorway, the doctor calls out to you.

“(Y/n), you’re allowed to say no. It is up to you whether we continue. We won’t proceed if we do not have your full consent.”

You have much to think about as you make your way to the enclosure. You glance down at the file on your hands every few steps, reading over more of his information. When you arrive, Dr. Shinobu allows you to collect yourself. After several moments you hand her the file. You nod your head and fidget with the tight hem of your uniform.

You hear the telltale beep of the doors opening, and take a breath. You just barely pass the gap between the outside and the enclosure when a pair of arms grabs you tightly.

He’s shaking, holding you so tight you struggle to move your arms to soothe him. He pulls away only slightly and you can finally see his face. His eyes are puffy, his cheeks are rubbed near raw, and his lip clearly swollen from being bitten in worry. He’s hurriedly speaking at you, chirps and whines choked out from a sore throat. His hands shake as he touches your face and your neck, your shoulders and arms, flitting about as if checking to see if you’d been hurt.

You don’t know if it was just an urge to calm him, or something new, something instinctual, inside you that has you reaching for his face. His worried words die on his lips as you gently take his cheeks. You rub your thumbs on the apples of his cheeks, feeling that the skin was in fact heavily irritated. The unique markings on his cheeks now blushed red.

You request medicine, creams and drinks, as well as food. You’d been kept away from him for a short while after the biting incident, and you’d heard in passing that he’d stopped eating. Now you know why.

As you clean and apply medicine to his cheeks he eats. The soft massaging of his cheeks has him purring almost, and his short tail swaying and skimming the ground as he sits. He eats as if he’s starved, which you suppose he is. You don’t know when he stopped eating. You think back to everything that happened in the last week.

The sounds he made, the lack of interest in eating, how scared he looked when you came in. Your thumbs slowed their soft circling on his cheeks. He continued to eat, looking up at you where you were knelt in front of him. You took a breath and caught how his eyes searched yours. “Were you…worried…about me?”

He nodded slowly as he chewed. You had known he could read but he’d never answered you so clearly before when you’d talk with him. You spoke again. “Did you…do you want me as your mate?” His eyes widened, and his hands lowered slowly, dropping the meat to the plate it had come in on, before rising to his knees. He looked in your eyes as he nodded again. He looked to the bandage on your neck, hand slowly rising to it.

The demon was gentle, lifting the edge of the bandage slowly while looking between your eyes and your neck. Your breath shuddered, but you tilted your head, wordlessly giving him permission to remove it. When it was fully removed from your skin, his fingers traced the veins, less prominent than before, with a certain look on his face. His hands trembled as they lowered to your shoulders.

He looked at you pleadingly as he brought his head close to your neck. He stopped, and waited. You hesitated. Did you want to do this? This was a huge commitment. You weren’t certain.

But as the demons nose brushed along your jaw so tenderly, your hands crept their way up his arms and around his shoulders. You let him nudge your head enough to expose your neck to him fully. He placed a soft kiss to the bite, a touch barely there, before sinking his teeth into your skin.

Your chest tightened, your muscles tensed, and your nails dug into the bare skin of his back. He whined as you did, moaning into your neck before pulling away and panting. His tongue slowly savoring your blood as it rushed. His hands drifted from your shoulders, brushing your ribs and caressing your sides before settling low on your hips.

His fingers trailed lower, to the exposed sides of your thighs, tracing the marks and dips in your skin. Your neck tingled as the veins grew more prominent again, having gone down in the days away from him. When his thumbs began to sneak under the fabric slits of your uniform and approach the fabric covering the places you weren’t ready to reveal yet, you quickly sat down in embarrassment. But your arms were still around his neck.

He stumbled, quickly pulling away from your neck as the change in posture sent him falling atop you, though he reacted quickly and cupped a hand behind your head. It left you in a rather strange position, legs bent beneath yourself, demon knelt between them and hovering over you. His eyes were wide, and when his mouth opened, among the chirps and clicks, you heard small words.

“…sorry…………ok?…” In your nervousness, you shifted your hips, trying to sit up, only to gasp when your pelvis brushed the prominent tent in the already tight shorts the demons are provided upon capture. The demons eyes flutter shut, he groans, he shudders, and reluctantly pulls away and allows you to sit up.

His chest was rising and falling as he breathed heavily, and you’re sure yours was as well. The speaker above you let out a short sound and you stood, knowing it was time to go. The demon grabbed your sides and wrapped his arms around you, looking up at you worriedly. Your mouth spoke before your brain could prepare its answer. “I’ll come back…” He slowly let go of you, letting you walk to the door, staring at you softly when you turned back to look at him as the door shut.

You breathe sharply when you noticed all of the eyes on you. During all of it, you’d momentarily forgot you were being watched. Before you could get too anxious, Dr. Shinobu walked over to you, gesturing you to follow her into the next room. It was private, and just the two of you. As she began blotting your neck of the blood that had begun to slow, you calmed down. Your heart was still racing, but her gentleness was welcome.

She bandaged the bite once more before moving her fingers into your hair, feeling for a bump at the back of your head from when you’d fallen. She had seen the demon catch you, but it was best to be certain there was no injury. “May I check here?” She brought her hand close to your thigh but didn’t touch you. You nodded. She shifted aside the fabric only slightly, feeling for scratches and looking for marks then moving on to the other, and repeating the actions.

She stood again and smiled, picking up the file she’d brought with her and nodding towards the door. You both exited, and as you made your way back to the collections department she went over some of the things they’d recorded this session. “He seemed to not just be marking you, but also drinking your blood. Do you feel faint at all?” You shook your head. “Was it painful?” You mumble that it was, but only a little. She marks off in the file. As you approach the door to your department, she asks one last question.

“Were you uncomfortable?” Your eyes shifted to the floor. You already had trouble meeting her gaze, or any of your superiors for that matter. “…No.” She marked in the file again, with a quiet but reassuring ‘ok’ and turned to leave. But you’d forgotten something.

“Dr. Shinobu?” She turned back with a hum. “The demon…he…I heard him speak. In our language…” Her brows raised, she hummed again, and tapped her pen on the folder in her hands. She smiled, and gave a wave.

“I’ll let them know.”

[astercontrol]

Callout post for myself

I'm writing this to clear the air about some things. Feel free to ignore if random vague fandom drama is not your thing.

At this moment, I'm not even sure if, or how much, anyone else is even thinking about these issues.

I do not know if, or how much, I may have inadvertently hurt others with the way I was doing things...

Basically...

I'm in a situation where I feel there' s been a conflict with some people. But none of the usual ways of trying to open communication with them feel… right, to me. It would be either DMing without consent, or addressing a post to them in public, and at the moment I don't feel they would be comfortable with either.

(This vagueposting approach is also… not good.)

(But it feels like the least bad option at this point. It won't force anyone to read these thoughts who's already decided they don't want contact with me. But I'll feel a bit more peace of mind knowing these thoughts are, sort of, in the open.)

Anyway.

...Until recently, this is what I had in the "About Me" post on my Tumblr blog:

DNI if: you don't wanna interact. (if I got any problem with the interaction I'll handle it, I'm a mature program with a block button)

I will block you:

… if your views are clearly so incompatible with mine that I don't feel we could ever have any positive interaction

…if we have already had interactions that I, for any reason, found too uncomfortable to handle

…if I see your posts on my dash a lot, but I notice that your blog says "NSFW blogs Do Not Interact" (or any DNI applying to me). I will do this because you don't want interaction from me, and I want to be sure I respect your boundaries and don't slip up and interact.

…(If you have already been choosing to interact with my posts, despite having me on your DNI list… then there's the additional problem that at this point I have NO IDEA how your boundaries work or what's the best way for me to respect them. So, again, I'll block.)

I've taken those words down and am considering something new to replace them. Because… I am trying to make some changes in how I handle these things.

I have enacted this "block people whose boundaries I don't understand" protocol. A couple of times, I think. Once that I remember clearly. Very early in my time on this tumblr account. It was somebody who had liked and reblogged several of my posts, and when I went to their blog, I saw "NSFW blogs DNI" prominently displayed.

This, of course, confused me. I freely admit to being a NSFW blog-- or at least, that I post pretty often about sexual attraction and sexual acts. If this person wanted to interact with me, why did they have a prominent post saying they didn't want interaction with blogs like mine? (And if they just hadn't seen the "NSFW" on my own blog before interacting, why would they expect others to check and see the "NSFW DNI" their blog before interacting with them?)

For the time being, I just... chose not to follow them, and not to go out of my way to interact. It was all I could think of to do.

But the status quo went on for a while: continuing to receive occasional likes and RBs from this stranger, and feeling increasingly uncomfortable about it… anxious that I might accidentally overstep a boundary.

Because… what even were this person's boundaries? How did they define NSFW, and in what circumstances did it actually bother them?

They had no problem sharing my tamer posts, so clearly their taboo didn't include "non-sexual interaction with a blog that sometimes posts about sexual topics." I felt pretty sure they'd be uncomfortable if I tagged them in any of those sexual posts or sent them a sex-related ask, which of course I had no plans to do... But their boundary must be somewhere in between, and it bothered me not to know where.

Eventually, I found it. A mutual of mine (someone else whose blog also openly admits to posting on NSFW topics) had reblogged a post from them.

It was a fandom post, an observation about a fictional character. My mutual had added commentary, but nothing sexually suggestive. I reblogged… and I made the mistake of putting something suggestive in my own additions.

The original poster-- in a move that somehow managed to take me by surprise-- reblogged it back from me, commenting something to the effect of "Don't add horny things to my posts."

And then I …well, I essentially panicked. And made the further mistake (at least, I now feel it was a mistake) of letting my panic response express itself with the block button.

At the time this made sense to me, for the reasons described in the About Me post that I quoted above. I had always agreed with those posts that sometimes go around, saying that it's perfectly valid to block others for your own mental health; that your online experience is there to be pleasant and relaxing, and there's no guilt in cutting off people who don't contribute to those feelings for you.

But later on (as things do sometimes go, over the course of gaining online social experience) I had an occasion to experience this from the other side. And it changed my feelings somewhat.

It wasn't an exact mirroring from the other side of what I'd done. The situation was different in a few big ways. But it did involve a person who blocked me without explanation.

Not a stranger or recent acquaintance. Someone who, up to that moment, had been treating me like one of their best friends-- including me in their private Discord server, replying to nearly everything I said, showing constant enthusiasm for every fan project I was working on. So, the sudden loss of contact felt to me like a totally unexpected double blow. Losing a close friend, and at the same time being implicitly accused of something, with no hint as to what.

What had I done? How had I hurt this person, badly enough to go overnight from friendship to complete non-interaction? What had I done that was so terrible that I was blocked from every avenue of even being able to reach out and ask this person what I'd done?

Since then, through conversations with others, I've been able to glean a general idea that this friend was experiencing a sort of crisis in their attempts to maintain an online social life that was beyond what they could deal with. It seemed they'd cut contact with a number of people, just for being part of certain social circles they no longer had the capacity to handle.

The patterns to which people they'd blocked were a bit confusing to me, but I imagine that my own… sometimes-overly-overt sexuality… might have contributed to why I was among them.

Unlike the stranger I'd blocked before, this person didn't have "NSFW DNI" on their blog; they were okay with talking about sexual topics in some circumstances. But not in all circumstances. And that boundary was never quite clear, to me or to several others who'd been in Discord servers and chats with them.

It's entirely possible that my own discussions of NSFW topics had overstepped the boundary and made this person uncomfortable, and that had been part of the reason for the block. It could also have been some other aspect of how I post (I do post about a pretty vast range of things, from silly and smutty to dark and depressing). Understandable, I guess, that anyone with certain mental health needs would need distance from that.

So... even though this all hurt a whole lot, I have been trying to understand or at least accept these other perspectives. I've been giving a lot more thought to how different people can have different ideas of what's a reasonable boundary to set.

And while there are some practical constraints on what one can realistically expect strangers on a huge online platform to adhere to... that doesn't change how individual people personally feel about their own boundaries, or whether I personally can feel some sympathy and some willingness to try and meet them where they are.

I've also been thinking about some things (which I discussed in the March followup to my February KOSA post) …some thoughts about communities that are built for mutual support in survival situations, and how their standards will differ when it comes to what's a dealbreaker for friendship. And how much effort people will put into trying to resolve conflicts when a group is smaller, less replaceable, and more necessary to one's life.

I mean, I'm not actually in that type of survival situation at the moment. But I'm becoming increasingly aware of how important communities are. And the community I've joined most recently through shared fandom interest is… a small, cult-classic sort of fandom, so the rareness and preciousness of good friends is kind of being hammered home to me at the moment.

And I have become more motivated to make some effort to heal what is broken, whenever I can.

I've never been good with conflict. Often my reflexive reaction to it is to isolate myself, to cut off interaction so I don't have to face what may have been wrong with it.

But I am trying to fight that response, because it's not healthy.

I've unblocked some people I blocked during those early conflict-phobic moments of panic. But of course I don't expect or feel entitled to be unblocked by anyone who has blocked me. As I've tried to express here, their reasons are their own... and while I may try my best to understand them, I acknowledge that I can't fully, and only the people who made the choices truly can. So I won't judge or expect anything in particular; only try to be open to whatever happens.

And I'm writing this post… not to try and argue against anyone, or convince anyone to do anything, but just to try and make clear what has happened from my end, and how I feel about it.

Like I said before, I don't know if others are even thinking or talking about any of this.

But my anxieties sometimes fear that they are, and that there may be people out there forming opinions about me, entirely from the other viewpoint in these conflicts.

And the only thing that eases that anxiety a little is… for me to communicate what I can, so that my viewpoint on what happened is at least out there.

Again, I know this was all vague... but, well, it's more info than was out there before, and I feel it would be wrong to go into much more detail. So, do with this information what you will. It's just me trying to make things a little less vague than real life seems to have made them.

[evethedestroyerr]

Good evening!!! So I much prefer to be a pictures-only blog. I never write posts or engage with people or answer asks I get because I like my blog to be a peaceful space for me to unwind and just focus on curating my little collection of beautiful images. AND I CANT BELIEVE I HAVE TO MAKE THIS POST!!!!!!

I just unfollowed SEVERAL MUTUALS FOR REBLOGGING NAZI CONTENT!!! So now I feel the need to make a g**d*** PSA THAT if you 1) are a Nazi 2) romanticize Nazi Germany 3) see nothing wrong with reblogging photos of Nazi soldiers, Nazi art/propaganda, Nazi couples, etc etc etc for your Tumblr aesthetic- PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR AND BLOCK ME!!!!! Absolutely despicable and I know that being a trad/cottagecore/Pagan blog there is insidious s*** I need to watch out for, but seeing SEVERAL mutuals reposting this content absolutely shocked me.

My husband is from the Netherlands and his great grandparents on both sides were Holocaust survivors. They had parents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles killed in the Holocaust. If you search mine and my husbands rare last name on the database of Holocaust victims, it shows you pages and pages and pages of names. Those names are my husbands extended family, now mine too, someday our children’s. His great-grandparents made scrapbooks with photos, copies of their IDs/documentation they had to carry, and typewritten pages telling their stories. The strength that these people had to go through what they did is astonishing. I’m so honored to be part of a family with such an inspiring history and it gives me perspective when I’m feeling low about my first world problems how lucky I am to be safe and free in such a beautiful country.

Nazi romanticizers make my blood boil. S**t is absolutely disgusting and if you are willing to shrug off the horrors of the Holocaust and the Nazi regime and reblog a picture of a Nazi couple with the caption “goals!!!!” or heart emojis- which were the posts that I just saw on my dashboard- you literally need f****ing psychotherapy and I don’t say that lightly. I don’t know if it’s these extremist niche corners of the internet and some people being just so terminally online and unable to think critically beyond these pretty pictures that they’re fed. But actually get help. Before you block me save this link and spend some time learning about what those pretty pictures you reblog really symbolize.

I post from a queue only and up until now I had THOUGHT I did a pretty good job of vetting the blogs and tags that I follow. But if anyone notices me accidentally engaging with nazis please be a doll and shoot me a message. AND once again if you are one of those accounts (if there were several that I just noticed then there are probably more I’m unaware of) BLOCK ME!!! You are f***ing sick and I despise you!!

[draftmare]

Some of you may have noticed the sudden lack of pony on the blog lately, and it’s because unfortunately we have been working through some soundness issues that cropped up while I was off for my surgery. Vet has been out twice now. First time around we did a full lameness eval and imaging on her left stifle. Imaging showed not a huge difference between the left and right, but vet recommended we go ahead with injecting the stifle to see if we could get the lameness under control. At that point the lameness eval was showing a bit of a “chicken and egg” relationship between her being sore in her loin and lame in her stifle.

After 10-ish days she was looking just as lame as she had looked at the eval, so I reached out to the vet again. 10 days was when I was told I would start to know if the injection was going to be the “magic cure” we were hoping for. Vet recommended we x-ray the hock and go from there, so we set that up. On Saturday (three-weeks post injection) I noticed a significant improvement in soundness on the lunge line, but still not 100%. Monday the vet came out. Hock x-rays showed fairly normal hocks for a 14 year old. There were some minor changes, but no smoking gun, and nothing worth injecting. We also ruled out soft tissue injury based on other clinical presentations/signs. Vet noted that she felt Sydney was significantly more sore in her loin area than she has been at the initial lameness eval and suggested chiropractic adjustment and acupuncture treatment. She then gave me her blessing to ride the following day to see if things had progressed at all.

The ride on Tuesday (yesterday) Sydney felt great walk/trot (she had looked and felt great this entire time at the walk and trot), but canter still felt like garbage, so obviously still not sound. Not that I was expecting one chiro adjustment to fix all of our problems. Vet wants me to get a massage therapist involved and to also have my saddle triple checked by my saddle fitter. We think my swap to the Bates dressage saddle (it has now been side lined and I am back in the County for any test riding/light riding) may be our smoking gun, maybe, or maybe we are both just grasping at straws because the imaging for the entire leg is coming back squeaky clean. Our only other option, really, is to start blocking that leg and Sydney HATES needles near that leg. Like, has to be stoned out of her mind before a needle can get near that leg, and horses have to be fully awake during blocking procedures (she partially degloved that leg several years ago, and then re-injured it in THE EXACT SAME SPOT because WTF HOW two more times that required stitches and is now a pill about needles near her hind legs).

[oonajaeadira]

I am not stealing anything. I have removed/ changed everything I've been asked to remove. I voiced my opinion. This post by @stealyourblorbos is unwarranted, nasty, and untrue. If y'all would give me a chance, then maybe this can be worked out without hard feelings and people being blocked.

Come sit next to me, kitkat. Let me love on you. Gonna say some things that you might not like all the way, but I see that you're angry and hopefully I can help you see where I'm at.

Listen. Jules is a good friend of mine and I trust her. With my life. Every interaction I've had with her has been genuine and while I don't know everything about her life, I know enough that having her work stolen can be not only demoralizing, but damaging to her profits. She is a working artist. And while, yes, she does post stuff very generously online for free, those posts can bring her commissions and work. So to have someone pass them off as their own can be severely heartbreaking and damaging.

I didn't see the posts in question, so I have to imagine what the situation was. I truly believe that you didn't mean to pass the work off as your own. You may have just seen something beautiful and posted it because you're curating your blog. But if you don't credit the artist or reblog from the original source, that is basically you claiming yourself as the OG poster, and that is a kind of theft. It's better if you post a link to the artist. But it's best if you reblog from the original post itself. That's how the artist intended the work to be shown and it also directs people back to their blog so they can gain interest and therefore work.

You already know all of this and I'm sorry if this comes off as condescending. I don't want to condescend. At all. I asked you to sit by me for a reason.

If you noticed, I did NOT block you. In fact, the post led me to follow you. Because as much as I trust Jules, I also love her a hell of a lot and I know myself enough to know that emotions can do things to judgment. I wanted to make sure I wasn't just blocking you blindly out of my love for her. I always want to give people the benefit of the doubt and see their side of things before I bring out the pitchfork.

So I took a look at your page. Did I see anything that was stolen and passed off as your own? No. Did I see a few pieces of reposted artwork that wasn't credited? I did. Hmm. So there's some improvement that could happen there. But. I appreciate that you have done your best to remedy the situation. I'm glad you ultimately respected the wishes of the artist to remove a piece when it was asked you do so. Thank you.

Now then, let's get to my actions. Did I reblog Jules' post? You bet I did. She was hurt, she's my friend, and she's a fellow creator. As a creator myself I would feel horrible if someone reposted my work without crediting me. I felt that hurt in my soul. And whether you apologized or took down the posts, that hurt remains and distrust will linger. Righting a wrong does not instantly warrant forgiveness. That must be earned.

If you did something to hurt and you're sorry for it, then you'll do what you can to show that you truly appreciate the art that you put on your blog. In this case, you could do your best to credit and support the artists whose art you love. Follow a few of them and get to know them. Tell your followers who they are and why you love their art. Become a friend to artists.

However, if you believe you weren't in the wrong, that others are overreacting, then I stand by my reblog of Jules' post. You'll notice my tags were something along the line of "don't do this." And I mean that. This is a cautionary tale for others. "Please, fandom friends, don't treat creators this way. It hurts, and we'll get angry about it."

So know that while I listen to my friend--someone who has been nothing but good to me and deserves my support--I'm also listening to you. I hear you. I am 100% giving you a chance. I don't want to block you, because in this fandom we've all been through enough mistaken conduct and finger-pointing and really, all we all wanna do is love a really nice man and the work he does. I know that's what Jules wants, it's what I want, and taking the time to peek at your blog, now I think that's probably what you want too.

But just to be sure, I'll give you a follow and get to understand you better. While I must support my friend's feelings, I hope in time I can come to trust that your intentions are well-meaning.

(gif by dieter-bravo)

[pavvo20]

The Spark - Chapter 15: Down They Go - Poe Dameron/OC

Summary: When her childhood best friend recruits her during an undercover mission for the Resistance, Captain Kara Embers embraces her family legacy and joins the fight against the First Order. As the secrets of her past come to light, Kara never expects to be training with her mom’s best friend, flying her father’s ship, and falling in love with the Yavin-4 boy who always said he’d be the galaxy’s best pilot.

A/N: Work, writer's block, migraines, family non-sense...here we are with yet another twist in our evolving story. I actually have a few chapters in the bank here but I'm working getting it all to be cohesive and back to some of my better prose. We'll see where that ends up.

Warnings: violence, language, sarcasm, moodiness, whump, fluff, kissing, ya know.. all that stuff. and well, ghosts.

Links: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4| Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10| Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13

Masterlist on my blog!

Word Count - 5.2K (going shorter this run.. but the long one's will be back!)

"Embers! Dameron!" Connix sounded frightened from the other side of the durasteel door to their quarters. "General Organa needs you in the command center now!"

Poe was still half asleep when he felt Kara roll herself out of bed. They'd just passed out, especially after their overwhelmingly productive night in the hanger. If he had a guess, he'd been asleep for barely an hour.

Nightwatch must have found something on the radar. Something big.

He caught the glow of her data pad in her tired eyes, there weren't any notifications. At least not from Leia.

"Must be Luke." He groaned, easing his tired body from the thin mattress to get dressed. "But this isn't what I thought he meant when he said early."

"It's not." Kara huffed, as she pulled a hooded duster over her tank top. "Something's wrong."

She handed him his belt and blaster as she unwrapped her lightsaber and clipped it to her hip. Poe could feel her concern before he noticed it on her face. She was feeling something that he wasn't...something that made her wildly uncomfortable.

He caught her bicep as she turned to the door, "Hey...what is it? You are never this anxious."

Kara sighed, "I'll tell you after this ok?"

Poe simply nodded, biting back the desire to press her for more information as she led them both out the door and down the hall. His gut twisted as he noticed Kara didn't tie her hair back in it's usual 'all business' braid and she let the hood of her duster remain on her head. It broke every military rule that was ever engrained in her being... especially given the urgency of Leia's call.

When they entered the command center, he felt Kara's heart stop beating as three high-ranking New Republic officials turned to follow Leia's gaze. All but one were relatively unfamiliar to Poe, as he knew Senior Admiral Sinclair, the current leader of the second largest military in the galaxy.

"Admirals, for what do we owe the pleasure?" Poe shook each of their hands, noticing the battered and beaten appearance of their uniforms and surface injuries. They'd been attacked on their way to them...likely narrowly escaping with the only ship they could manage to get out of First Order airspace without being spotted.

"The New Republic is no more..." The Senior Admiral lamented, his eyes darting to Kara's hooded form as his words weighed heavily on the room. "The First Order has infiltrated and taken over from the inside."

"We had several moles who orchestrated the attack in concert with Kylo Ren's arrival on Coruscant." The younger of the two vice admirals said, locking eyes with Poe and glancing quickly at Leia. "If there's anyone who is choosing to fight against them, they likely are already dead."

"How did you all avoid capture?" Poe inquired, "I am shocked we aren't getting a galaxy wide holo reporting your deaths."

"We were off-planet for a conference with several senators." The older of the vice admirals spoke this time, looking at his comrades before making eye contact with anyone in a Resistance uniform. "Sinclair and West were brought in for strategic support and I am glad they were."

"If Vice Admiral Jenkins hadn't called us in, I fear we would have been killed." Sinclair looked to Leia, "Publically. By Kylo Ren."

There was an obvious pang of guilt in Leia's chest as she glanced at Kara and Poe. Ren went looking for them, hoping they'd be there negotiating supplies, only to come up short. It wouldn't take too long for him to realize his mistake... and take it out on anyone who got in the way of his continued search.

She saw Kara blink as her hand brushed the hood of her duster back off her head, revealing herself more formally to the room. The New Republic brass recognized her immediately, especially one Vice Admiral West.

The younger man leaned against the holotable, a smirk playing on his lips as Kara's piercing green eyes met his gaze. "You faked your death for this?"

"I didn't fake my death for anyone." She quipped, "In fact, I defected in complete adherence to New Republic code."

Poe immediately put the pieces together. Kara's anxiety wasn't tied to the fact that Kylo Ren had taken over the New Republic or even that this had warranted waking them both from a dead sleep. She was used to the chaos that the war tended to bring to her life, hell she created a lot of it. But running into her ex-fiance in the middle of the night, on the Resistance's secret new base, with a lightsaber on her hip... well, this was uncharted territory.

"And to be clear, Vice Admiral West, you have defected from your own military due to a hostile takeover of your very own command. I think the last thing we want to get into right now is the details of my choice to leave the New Republic."

Leia let a smile tug at her lips as Kara cocked an eyebrow at her ex. He immediately blushed.

"Fair enough...Cap-" He stumbled over her former rank.

"Commander." She said cooly, sensing his discomfort. "Commander Embers of Black Squadron."

All eyes immediately fell to Poe, who was known galaxy-wide as the one and only infamous leader of the Resistance's Black Squadron. They figured it would have been a warm day on Hoth before he'd ever share the role with someone else.

Poe smiled, "You guys lost a good one."

"Well, we hope you'll be willing to give us a place to organize our next steps, General." Sinclair said, "And maybe lend us our former strategy officer for a few hours while we figure out how to get out from underneath this mess?"

Leia could feel the tension in the room subsiding a little bit but not too much, "We will happily give you the protection you need. It's Commander Embers' call on her time."

Kara's eyes flickered to Leia before catching a micro-expression of shock cross the faces of New Republic leadership. Leia could have ordered Kara to help them...and they were surprised that she didn't. Sure, Kara was a trusted officer but that rarely meant she called any of her own shots...especially when one considered the fact that she was sharing a squadron with a pilot like Dameron.

"I should have some time I can share with you, Admiral." She said, sounding as close to her old military self as she could. "That's barring any major Resistance needs of course. My duty is to my own people first. I would assume you understand that."

"Of course, Commander. That's no problem."

The room fell silent for a moment as Leia motioned for Connix to warn the medical staff of their new arrivals and send for keys to 3 vacant rooms. The general then turned back to the group, a more serious look gracing her kind features. "Now, a few ground rules gentlemen."

She popped up a map of their base on the holotable, pointing out their new living quarters, the mess, the hanger, and anywhere that would require an escort or someone with a security clearance. She also pointed out the medical bay, supply hangers, and communications tower, just in case they became relevant.

"I hope I make myself clear when I say that while we respect your military service, your ranks do not hold any weight here. You are basically civilians in our care unless otherwise noted. It's to ensure that our people do not get confused...but also, for our own protection."

"We are far from war criminals, General." Jenkins interrupted, sounding a bit irritated.

"I know that, Vice Admiral...but given you were infiltrated by your own people, I have to do what's best for the Resistance. Ren wants the galaxy to himself...and I have some of the best fighters this revolution has ever seen. I cannot afford to lose them because I chose to blindly trust an old friend."

They smiled at each other, Jenkins hiding the pink that seemed to dust his cheeks, "You haven't changed at all, General Organa...My sincerest apologies for my tone. I understand completely."

"Also, consider everything that you see on this base to be classified. Anyone's identity, physical appearance, rank, skillset... all of it. Not a peep to the outside world or we will prosecute you under our own code."

Sinclair, West and Jenkins looked to each other before glancing back at Leia and her contingency, noticing her receiving their new keys from a passing Connix as she rested a hand on both Kara and Poe's shoulders. General Organa ran a tight operation, one that seemed to defy all the odds considering it was still afloat. All three considered themselves lucky that they had found them at all. Stealing a supply ship whose computer was never security wiped was one thing. They just went to wherever the autopilot had taken them...and at that second, they were overwhelmingly thankful it was Leia.

They stood a chance at giving the New Republic the hope it so desperately needed with Leia on their side... so, they could play by her rules until they recovered from this blow. At least that was the initial plan.

She handed each of them a card to their respective rooms, "Go ahead and get some rest, we can reconvene on a few other matters in the morning."

The two older admirals nodded appreciatively and headed out. Vice Admiral West turned to the door and hesitated. Poe glanced at Kara, silently directing her attention to the other man with a look. A second later, West locked eyes with her. "Can we.."

She nodded, and followed him briefly to the hallway. Leia could see the apprehension rippling across the girl's features. Kara wanted nothing more than to go back to bed, curled up tight with the man whose family ring hung from her neck, but this was a good test for her. West wanted closure... and deep down, so did she.

Vice Admiral West stepped just beyond the door to the command center, giving them a little more light in the dimly lit durasteel hall as his ex-fiance turned to face him. Kara looked tired but that wasn't unusual for her. West couldn't remember the last time he had seen her hair down, let alone the freckles that dusted her nose. She was also thinner than he remembered her being, clearly still skilled enough to take him to his knees but the war had worn her down a bit.

"You could have at least told me that you were thinking of defecting." He started, "I mean, we were only a few weeks from getting married."

"And listen to you order me to stay and guilt me into marrying you sooner?" Kara was firm and emotionless. "Hayden, don't do this."

The man sighed, an exasperated hand running through his sweaty blonde locks. "Kara...what happened to us?"

"I'm not answering that question." He swore her tone had gotten colder. Her eyes showed him the pain she was doing her damndest to hide. "And I didn't fake my death. I got on Dameron's ship the night I ditched Matt and he reported me dead on his own accord. I can't prove it but I'm certain that he thought he would have gotten a promotion."

"I'm sure he'll tell you one day that the days of interrogations were not worth it."

"You court-martialed him?"

"Of course I did. He was the so-called lone witness to the death of the love of my life and insisted he saw nothing?" Hayden snapped, getting rather defensive at Kara's surprise. "It was bantha shit and I knew it but it wasn't like I could just call you and prove it."

Kara bit her lip, remembering just how quickly she dumped all her trackers and comms devices before jumping on the freighter with Poe. She had fallen off everyone's radar for a month before Leia had arranged for her to formally defect.

It didn't matter. She didn't regret her choice. "If you are expecting an apology from me... it's not coming."

Hayden cocked an eyebrow, inspecting the woman in front of him as if she had slapped him in the face. She had always been stubborn, but this was a bit beyond her usual bullheadedness. He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, reevaluating what he thought he knew about her. This wasn't the same woman he'd fallen for after she saved his life.

She could feel his mind raking her over, looking for a sign of the woman he'd proposed to. Hayden West was an admiral, his parents were high-ranking Galactic officials, with generational wealth and power. He had graduated with the same high honors that she had. There were women all over the galaxy, let alone the New Republic ranks, falling all over him – and yet he had picked her.

Kara remembered allowing herself to fall for him...only to realize a few years later that he was just as jaded as the rest of the high-ranking officers of the New Republic. He passed on writing her a letter of recommendation for promotion, claiming conflict of interest, but proceeded to control each and every mission she'd get after that. He was the reason they'd commissioned her air operations to someone else – just to make sure she was available to be present for all his formal political lunches.

He wanted her to be a traditional admiral's wife – and when he'd taken liberty to have her shifted out of special forces, he woke up to find her engagement ring on his desk and any trace of her in their shared apartment wiped clean.

It was only a few hours after that, Matt had found her on Tatooine and drawn her back in. He had given her back her phone, commlink, and insisted she help him find their mark and come home to Coracuant. They'd gotten close until Dameron had sat down next to her at the bar...

"You could at least apologize for not saying goodbye."

Kara rolled her eyes. "How about I'm sorry for bruising your fragile ego?"

She could sense him trying to reign in a snarl. He was hoping she was going to be a little happier to see him. Especially after hearing about what happened to the New Republic as a whole. The last thing he had anticipated was her indifference.

"I left you for a number of reasons, Hayden. You know what most of them are." She said, her arms crossing over her chest. "I left the New Republic because I believe in a peaceful, fair, and diplomatic galaxy... Leia was the reason I pursued the Academy in the first place, it made too much sense for me to serve under her, especially when the republic started to play more and more into the hands of imperial lobbyists."

He balked. Kara waved a hand to stop him from interrupting.

"What I could have done politically would have never made me happy Hayden... and you know that better than anyone. I was far from the stoic and silent admiral's wife you wanted me to be."

"So, you went back to the front lines?" He murmured, "You are better than this, Kara."

"No one person is better than the next. Not in life, and especially not in war. You are only as good as your weakest man."

"And you understand your weakest man is a farmer from Ferrik?" Hayden quipped, seeing her emotions flare in her eyes. "You guys can barely keep your squadrons in the air."

"Yet, we took out a dreadnought."

"What happened to you?" He questioned again, taking a step into her space. Kara stiffened a second, letting her right hand drift to her hip. Hayden liked to intimidate...and he'd more likely yell at her before he'd ever lay a hand on her but she wasn't taking any chances. Especially with his emotions running as wild as they were.

His voice softened as he reached a hand up and brushed stray hair away from her face. "You were always a fighter, Kara but this is insanity and you know it."

"Not nearly as insane as the entirety of the New Republic falling to the First Order from the inside."

He chuckled as a bit of embarrassment flushed his cheeks, causing the arrogance to fade from his features. It was the first time he had seen a smile he recognized from her as the warmth returned to her gaze. She was right. As per usual.

"You need to rest." She whispered as she let her hand drift down his arm, her fingers recognizing the singed fabric of dodged blaster fire. "Get a few hours before the nightmares start."

Hayden could hear the sincerity in her tone. "I take it you have some experience with this."

"You could say that." Kara sighed, "Loss is a pretty regular thing around here."

Hayden nodded as he closed his eyes apologetically. "I'm sorry, Kara. For everything."

Kara felt her heart ache as those five words hit her ears, the man had finally cauterized her bleeding heart. Even if he had no idea he had. It would take an interrogation droid to get him to admit to the pain he'd caused her, but she didn't need that. All she ever wanted to hear from him was I'm sorry.

The door to the command center slid open and Hayden instinctively stepped back, his muscles going rigid until he realized that it was only Poe Dameron, heading back to his own bed for the night.

"General suggested heading to bed, as we've all got a lot on our plates for tomorrow." He said, trying his best to sound more like a thoughtful commander than a simply nosey friend. He wanted to know what the man had said to Kara to shift her aura back to normal... especially after the tension he'd felt within her before. "I'll show you your quarters, Admiral."

"Yea - Thanks Commander." Hayden said, trying his best to appear polite. "Goodnight Commander Embers."

"Goodnight Admiral." Kara said, feeling Poe's protective hand press against her back as he passed her. She'd bring him up to speed when they got back to their room.

************************************************************************

The men had walked to the other side of the base in silence until Hayden simply couldn't take it anymore. "So, how long have you both known each other?"

Poe cocked an eyebrow at the other man, it was an innocent question. One he knew that the admiral had the answer to.... "Our parents were friends and we were born a few weeks apart... so, pretty sure that counts as our entire lives."

"Your parents helped raise her then?"

"Kinda. We both lost our moms when we were 8...and Kara lost her dad a few years later so Leia and Han took her in after that. It was only a couple years though, then she left for the Academy."

Hayden could see a flicker of curiosity in the pilot's eyes, "and that night on Tatooine was the first time you'd had contact with her since then?"

"Something like that... but I'd stopped keeping track." He unlocked the man's door, handing him the key as he stepped away from the frame. "She was looking for a way out, Admiral. I simply presented her with an opportunity."

Poe watched West nod, "She's changed a lot since then."

"We all have." The pilot leaned against the wall, glancing down at his datapad once before looking back to the man in the doorway in front of him. "There aren't too many people that have endured as much as she has and come out exactly the same as they once were."

"I guess that's fair."

"You'll see more of the girl you knew as you get settled in." Poe said, giving the man a reassuring smile. "It's hard for anyone to be themselves when you're startled out of a good night's sleep."

As Poe headed back to his room, he could feel another headache brewing behind his eyes. He was exhausted, and knowing that it would take him easily several more hours now to fall asleep was not helping his cause.

He sensed Luke in the common area before he saw him, "My mom mentioned that you could help with these migraines."

The older Jedi let a smile play on his lips, "I can...but you aren't going to like how I have to do it."

Poe gritted his teeth as his mind assaulted him again. "Pretty sure I don't care anymore."

Luke chuckled a bit, putting his hand on the man's shoulder as he felt him wrestle with the pain. It was definitely a trauma induced migraine, one that had been encouraged out of hiding by their latest batch of visitors. "Sit."

Poe compiled, almost too willingly as the man seemed to study each of his grimaces.Luke could see him hesitating already, "I am going to need you to be completely vulnerable with me, Poe. Any kind of resistance is going to only make it worse."

"Shit." The young man growled, closing his eyes tightly as he tried to convince himself he could do this. He had built up so many walls against the Jedi, it was going to take more than just asking him to let go to get him to give in.

"Take your time. Deep breaths." Luke soothed, seeing the frustration beading in the sweat forming on Poe's forehead. "Contrary to popular belief, you can trust me."

"He's not wrong Sparkplug, in and out." His mother's voice echoed in his ears, "You can do this..."

He found a rhythm in his breathing as he pushed himself to relax, trying to remember the trees and breeze on Yavin or the feeling of his mother's arms wrapped around his shoulders again. It wasn't a foolproof strategy, but it was starting to cause him to nod off.

"There ya go... don't be afraid to let yourself fall asleep." Luke coached, seeing the tension leaving the pilot's face. "All you have to do is let me in, Poe."

It only took a few more minutes - and the peaceful reminder of only a few hours before where he had Kara pressed against his chest as a rare cool Ajan Kloss breeze rolled past them in the hanger - when he barely felt Luke slip into his mind.

The Jedi's presence was overwhelmingly different from when Ren forced himself in, and even lighter than the times when he didn't have the strength to fight to keep the Supreme Leader out. His inherently good aura didn't burn as it wound itself in between his memories, looking for the ones that had become a bit too dark.

Luke was surprised to see just how many times Poe had warded off the temptation to give in to the dark side of the Force. It was a surprise to see just how many times the man had been beaten within inches of his life or robbed of those he loved. The memory of his brutal interrogation at the hands of Kylo Ren remained at the front of Poe's mind, pulsing as the fears the Dark Jedi had projected into his head seemed to hint at coming to life before his eyes. What scared Skywalker was just how deep the tendrils of the dark thought had spread into Dameron's otherwise spirited soul.

It was hard to believe that something so sinister had been executed by his own nephew, who was once soft, empathetic and understanding like his mother. The power he used to push Shara's boy to break or die resisting his intrusion was ancient, angry, and aggressive. Poe's torture scarred his mind in ways that Luke wasn't sure he could mend... but he had to try.

"Poe, I need you to think about Kara." He instructed, feeling Poe instinctively start to build up his defenses. "Just let her wander into your thoughts..."

It didn't take long for Dameron's memories to shift, his defenses falling away as love took over. The dark memory of Ren's interrogation faded from view, only to be replaced with the sight of the two of them sitting on the front porch of his fathers ranch, the Yavin stars shining brighter than they had in decades.

Luke had truly underestimated their bond, sensing Kara's own mind quieting down as she picked up on her partner's relaxation. They were intimately familiar with each other's ticks, even having memorized the changes in each other's heartbeats when they couldn't find the words to express what they were feeling. The Force pulsed through them in ways the master Jedi had only read about, giving them the ability to transfer power, protection, and even - if necessary - life.

That's when it hit him... he couldn't heal Poe's scars. He didn't have the connection necessary, but Kara could.

He gradually brought himself out of the younger man's head, seeing him wince in pain once the connection was severed. Poe blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit area, seeing the almost father-like concern and curiosity in the blue eyes directly in front of him. Luke tried to pretend like he wasn't already feeling Poe's pain subside, even if it was temporary.

"Believe it or not..." The master Jedi started, "I don't have a connection powerful enough to heal the damage that Ren has done to you."

Poe wanted to be frustrated with the man, he really did, but couldn't find the strength to be angry. He sighed heavily, letting himself sink even further into the chair.

"But Kara does."

The pilot, drained from their exploration of his thoughts, simply smiled. "Of course she does."

"I know what I said when I got here, kid... but I haven't seen power like hers in my lifetime." Luke reflected, "And I have never seen a bond as strong as yours."

"I imagine that just puts a bigger target on our backs." Poe murmured, gazing weakly at Skywalker as his body wrestled with the idea of going back to sleep. Maker, all he wanted to do was rest.

"It could... but we can deal with that tomorrow." Luke helped Poe to his feet, wrapping his almost limp arm around his shoulders, "For now, you should definitely get back to bed."

Kara greeted them at the door to their quarters, looking exhausted herself as she took her barely conscious best friend against her own frame. "Thanks..."

"Don't worry about training in the morning...I'll page you both later in the day." Luke winked, seeing the relief cross Kara's features. "You've both had a long night."

She smiled once more at the older Skywalker as her door slid shut and she eased Poe's body into their bunk. He didn't even stir, his system succumbing to the exhaustion of their eventful night and general lack of recovery time as she tugged off his boots and slipped his blaster off his hip. He'd most likely wake suddenly, in the middle of the afternoon, after his mind realized that he was probably late for something.

Kara pulled a light blanket over them as she settled down beside him , listening to her pilot's calm heart knock softly in his chest. She had felt Luke probe him to try and ease some of his pain. It had worked temporarily... and she had only ever heard Luke talk about how he may be able to help repair some of the damage Ren had inflicted as Poe battled to keep him out.

She let herself focus on Poe's steady breaths, counting them as she allowed herself to finally unwind. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she played back the day. It was hard to imagine that she had started her evening with navigation repairs and dancing with Jess and Kare to a song they hadn't heard since they were kids to being face to face with the very past that she'd run away from. The war was cruel before this point... but she wasn't sure how many more times her emotions could be tossed around like they were nothing.

"What a throwback!" Jess cheered as she passed by the X-wing Kara had been working on. The stereo was blaring a sugary pop track with a few dance moves they used to bust out when they were just pre-teens. "Kara, you remember this right?"

Jess twirled around at the bottom of the ship's ladder when Kara popped down for a new targeting chip. She smiled hard as her squad mate seemed to effortlessly remember the moves, tugging the sleeve of her shirt in hopes she'd join in. "Come on! You know it!"

Kara set down her tools and joined Jess for a brief second, stepping left and right before spinning in a circle. She could hear Poe and Snap laughing from the next ship bay over, obviously recognizing the song but enjoying the sight of their two more serious female friends letting loose for once.

Poe jogged over to them, bumping Kara's arm as they repeated the movements, trying to follow along with their pace. He had that infectiously dopey smile on his face, the one that made it hard to feel anything but sheer joy in its presence. "Like this right?"

He mirrored their movements, laughing along as Kara caught him singing the words to himself in order to keep up. She couldn't remember the last time they'd all had a second to just be kids again... even if it was in the middle of a warzone.

Kara's heart ached as she yearned for another moment like that. A night surrounded by the people that meant the most to her, finding the joy in what they had, and reminiscing about a simpler time. They were all barely out of their 20s, a time in their lives where they should have all been exploring the galaxy...finding themselves...or starting families. Instead, they were all engaged in the same seemingly endless fight. The one that she supposedly had the power to finally end.

She felt Poe's arm slip over her torso, briefly snapping her out of her spiraling thoughts.

"There you are..." He mumbled, his nose pressingly lightly into her hair as he turned to gather her closer to his frame. "My beautiful Stargirl..."

Kara giggled, feeling his drowsy lips grazing her neck. "Hello my sleepy Flyboy."

She would never say it out loud, but Poe, all half asleep, dopey, and affectionate was one of her favorite variations of his personality. It complimented his intensity in a way that made him almost too human at times, exposing the compassionate, empathic, and romantic soul underneath the battle-born leader he chose to show everyone else.

"Ya know..." He lulled, "You are the only one allowed to call me that."

She snorted, letting her hands run down the muscles in his back. "Oh, I know...though I think Sparkplug should have caught on."

His laugh rumbled in his chest, a sound as comforting to Kara as the man's heartbeat, "No...it's much better that it didn't."

"Too embarrassing?" She teased, catching the playful spark returning to his gaze. "What would your mother say?"

"I'm certain she'd agree." Poe said, "And then she'd make a compelling argument for why everyone should be allowed to call me 'Flyboy' - which is not happening."

Kara smirked, "They already do it behind your back..."

"And it should stay that way." He quipped playfully, tickling her a bit to bring her close enough to steal a kiss. "That's an order."

She hummed as their lips met, "An order? When exactly did someone make you a general?"

"Alright, alright..." Poe surrendered, "A highly favorable suggestion then."

Kara cocked an eyebrow at him just as she shifted to settle against his chest again, "You know what else is a highly favorable suggestion?."

Poe played coy.

"Sleep."

The pilot kissed her forehead as she closed her eyes with a smile. Their room fell silent again as they allowed themselves to doze off, the sound of a light jungle rain tapping on their window.

"I love you." Poe whispered, feeling the surge of contentment in her aura.

"I love you too."

[salt-volk]

V10 anon here to clarify some things

Because it seems like there's some miscommunication or misunderstandings going on, and I'd like to clear them up.

i sent the original anon, which is now deleted, wherein I reminded people that there is proof of V10 block evading on this very blog in his tag. When I noticed my ask was gone, I sent a follow-up asking where it was (I was angry, and I regret adding a snarky question asking if the mods here support block evasion... I know they don't, but I truly couldn't fathom why else my ask would be deleted, because I didn't recall anything rule-breaking about it). I sent an ask that was posted out of order, only posted today, saying that my first ask hadn't been "wrongful," because there was proof of V10 block evading. I then sent a calmer ask about feeling like I had to walk on eggshells and word everything delicately to be allowed to submit salt, which Mod Egg responded to, and seems to have contributed to the mod decision to pin new rules here. I would like to clarify my side of the story and why I submitted the things I submitted, since some people appear to have missed parts of things and may have misunderstood my intentions or accidentally defended things they didn't want to defend along the way.

I want to add I did NOT send the ask accusing Has30 and Ch1 of being pro-block evasion. I am not sure if that was sent by someone who agreed with me that my original ask should not have been deleted or by someone who DISagreed and wanted to post bait by using similar wording to one of my asks to make my points look ridiculous. However, my ask about walking on eggshells was partially prompted by things commenters here have said, including Ch1, so I wanted to say I appreciate your input on both posts, and I would like to respond with my side of the story here.

Starting from the beginning: I have not been following V10's auction and didn't send any of the anons about the proceedings. But I began to notice commenters questioning why people seemed to have such a strong dislike of V10 and why they were such a topic on this blog. First of all, I don't think criticizing someone's decision to auction their custom is out of line - distribution methods are fair snark game, y'all. But second of all, I decided to send an ask reminding people that V10 had block evaded in the past. My point was essentially that people did not have the impression that V10 was a snark-worthy asshole for no reason, as several anons and commenters implied.

I honestly don't remember exactly what I said in my ask, but I suspect it was something like that. I know I directed people to check V10's tag for proof of block evasion. According to several commenters, the deleted ask called V10 an "asshole," so I suppose I must have said something to the effect of "People think V10 is an asshole because they block evaded, check their tag here" (paraphrasing). 

I can assure you that I would never threaten another user, call them a slur, or wish irl harm upon them. I am confident nothing of that sort was in the ask. But I have called people assholes before, to no issue from the mods (or at least Mod Egg), so I don't dispute that I probably used that word in the ask. Again, this has never been an issue anywhere on this blog, and I fail to see how calling asshole behavior asshole behavior is unnecessarily offensive (we all agree that block evasion is asshole behavior regardless of who does it, yes?).

I checked the blog and saw that my ask was posted. Some time later (I don't really remember, how often I check in here varies), I returned and, as I was scrolling through the new asks, realized that mine was gone. I immediately felt a wave of frustration because I couldn't think of anything rule-breaking about the ask. I didn't link proof because I was on mobile, but I directed people to the tag where the proof could be found. So I sent an ask about where my post went. Like I said, I regret even snarkily accusing the mods of supporting block evasion. I was just angry and I couldn't think of a single rule I broke.

Mod Yoshi claimed that they approved the post, but Mod Egg logged on and deleted the post for "wrongful language targeted towards someone else." This appears to be untrue for the following reason:

Immediately after reading Mod Yoshi's reply, I sent a follow-up stating verbatim: "It wasn’t wrongful though, it was all true. V10 was literally caught block-evading F0r3ll3 to continue to yell at them about a suggestion. The proof is already on this blog." For whatever reason - perhaps they didn't see it, perhaps they were stressed out by the drama and not submitting much of anything about it, perhaps the queue just got entered backwards - this was posted out of order and only went through today. 

Anyway, the reason I suspect Yoshi lied is that Egg tagged my post "yall what did i miss." If Mod Egg was the one who deleted the post and considered it to have wrongful language, why would they be confused?

Back to chronological order: I was pretty upset, because I don't see how "this person exhibited asshole behavior, here's proof" is "wrongful language." That has never been how this blog functioned, and I felt extremely disappointed that we were now heading down a road where you couldn't even post proof of someone doing something wrong without being accused by both commenters and mods themselves of being too mean, too harsh, having an obsessive grudge. So I sent an ask saying as much, which you all have probably read.

Mod Egg, I appreciate your support and I appreciate the rule clarification.

Ch1, I appreciate your clarification that you didn't see the original ask. But if I can be honest, and this isn't just towards you, but towards all frequent commenters, this is why I think users should try to look at the full story before accusing anons of "harassment," which is the word you used to describe my ask (that you hadn't even seen! based only on the fact that you knew it contained the word "asshole!"). Like I said, I'm not the anon you were replying to with that post, but I do have to admit that it was frustrating and hurtful to be accused of "harassment" based off of one true post, that you had not read, and no one could go back and read, because Mod Yoshi deleted it.

And most of my real point centers around that: I am tired of this blog descending into an era where no one can say anything true about anyone without saying it with the utmost delicacy. And this phenomenon goes beyond the users, with Mod Yoshi caving to pressure to delete true and rule-abiding asks from what appears to have been just one anon (I didn't see those posts and I admit that, so can anyone back this up?) who found them sort of rude. I am not a fan of genuine harassment or of watching a user's every move to complain about things that are not problems. But I am also very tired of salted-upon users being made into perpetual victims, with even people who were there when the users committed whatever wrongs made them so unpopular plugging their ears and claiming they have no idea whatever could make people dislike them so much! I don't even hate V10, have never spoken to them in my life, but come on. People do not see V10 as a jerk for no reason; V10 has earned that reputation by behaving like a jerk.

I am sorry this situation got out of hand. I am sorry for falsely accusing Mod Egg of supporting block evasion, and I am sorry anons have roped commenters into the situation. I appreciate the insight other users have offered, 

But I am frankly not sorry for calling a block-evader an asshole, and I guess I would invite all other anons, commenters, and mods themselves to look in the mirror and ask themselves exactly why I should be.  

[Anon I was the one to delete the post, not yoshi. I was pretty much on auto pilot. I usually check the blog after a lot class and work to where i'm not mentally thinking because I'm exhausted which caused to me delete a totally normal ask because an anon was outraged. No blame on Yoshi there at all.

I cant speak on the block evasion because I never got to see the actual block evasion go down, but it's happened before, so I don't doubt it. If the block evasion really did happen on the post I deleted, then honestly shame on me, and Im terribly sorry about that.

The ask shouldn't have been deleted, end of story. It was a completely fine ask, I guess I kind of caved in to the random anon before thinking first. I'll do better . I've been checking on asks in the morning instead so my sleep deprivation wont get the better of me anymore. If I do anything wrong again, anon, just let me know. Now that theres a hard-set of rules set up there shouldnt be any problems for me,yoshi, or anons. ]

[devilfic]

so @jangofctts blocked me

alright, I didn’t think that I would have to even make a post like this, but as of about ~10 minutes ago, I noticed that I could no longer send messages to keida and her blog was showing up as unavailable for me. so, here’s the situation.

around midnight last night for me, I received an anon from someone saying that someone was accusing me of plagiarism. when I responded to this ask, they told me the name of the user and to “go talk to her before it gets messy”. before I answered this ask, I went to @jangofctts blog and I saw that they had made an initial post saying that someone “apparently” plagiarized their battinson fic. someone had sent her my fic claiming this and she posted about it. this resulted in people replying to the post and sending her asks afterwards asking who the person in question was, and if they should come after me. in the tags of one of these asks, she dropped my url and the name of the fic in question, “right place, right time”.

I don’t have screenshots for any of these posts because she deleted them after I messaged her clearing up the situation and at the time, I was really shocked it was even happening. I do, however, recall her clarifying in another ask that I didn’t necessarily plagiarize, which led to another anon telling her “paraphrasing? that’s still plagiarizing” and her confirming that was the word she was looking for.

I was very anxious and sent her some messages clarifying the situation.

sure enough, she had deleted all of them. she then sent me a message confirming this and letting me know that she didn’t handle it well and had freaked out initially.

still, because keida did talk about me and my fic plagiarizing her publicly in several posts, I asked her if she could also make a formal post just clearing up for her followers once and for all that it had been a big misunderstanding, which is when I sent the initial message after hers. it’s important to note that I don’t nor have I ever followed her, and I’ve also never interacted with her in any capacity before this situation. I was anxious and I had no guarantee that her followers who had seen my name and my fic wouldn’t double check and would run with this, even if the posts were gone. I just wanted a solid confirmation that her followers could see.

when she didn’t reply for a while, I answered this ask clarifying on my own blog as a safety net. I let her know this and again, asked her if she could make the post so we could be done with it. she did not reply for the rest of the night.

this afternoon, I logged back on and checked her blog as I saw the activity bubble at the bottom letting me know she’d been on recently. sure enough, she was reblogging posts but still hadn’t responded to me. at this point, I got frustrated and sent my last message to her to get her attention. she didn’t reply to this either.

finally, about an hour or so later, I thought that I could try to explain to her one more time why I was asking this of her. I felt that making several public posts on her blog about me plagiarizing her was a serious issue, and the fact that she seemed to have not checked if our fics were even remotely the same before answering those asks was upsetting. again, she recognizes this. she tells me straight up she didn’t handle it well. I get that. being plagiarized sucks. I’ve been through it before.

I still know to double check when accusations like that come up, and if I were in her shoes and had jumped to conclusions, I would have also made a post clarifying that she did not in fact plagiarize me. especially if my followers were rallying behind me thinking I had been scorned. keida, from what I could see, is 22 years old, only a year younger than me. I thought this would be a reasonable ask.

I go back to explain myself and see this

I am disappointed but I kind of expected as much after she went completely silent. I legitimately did not care anymore about her making a mistake. people do that all the time. I do that all the time. I’m protective of my writing just like she is. funnily enough, I was in this exact same situation back when I was 16 where someone had actually plagiarized me, and I’m thankful I had the clearness of mind to message them first before any further action was taken.

we’re both adults, both pretty much the same age. I don’t know why keida thought it’d be a good idea to block me over this. even though she didn’t make the initial accusation, she spread it and continued to talk about it up until I messaged her first. she did not message me. I wouldn’t have even known she was talking about me if I hadn’t been told by someone else and also if I hadn’t looked up my username in the tumblr search where one of her asks about me plagiarizing her was.

the claim being spread on her blog was that I had “paraphrased” her “premise”. if you read our fics, they couldn’t be any more different.

anyway, not cool keida. I honestly wouldn’t have even minded if you’d just reblogged the ask I made (that I even tagged you in!) to your blog and left it at that. blocking me makes you look pretty fucking weird. but whatever

[my-insanity-is-an-artform]

So idk why but I forgot you did requests. Now im suffering at the poly Sky and Warriors stuff-

Insanity what did you do to me I hate this.

My lovely Enno! Happy 100 and I hope the summer goes well for you! This has been sitting in my drafts for ages but I hope you enjoy what I have to offer you! Also please go follow Enno's wonderful LU x Reader blog, @cafecourage

The guys had been having fun and taking a moment to spar with each other while you decided to sit on a nearby log, sweating from your own lesson with Twilight who had been remarkably patient with you as he led you through some basic drills.

You took a long swig of the water you'd been handed and absently watched as Sky and Warriors traded barbs and blows. Both of them looked as if they were thoroughly enjoying themselves with wide grins, bright eyes and sweaty faces.

Warriors made eye contact with you and winked.

Letting out a low giggle, you didn’t notice Sky’s eyes dart towards you then back to his opponent and narrowed in on him. Warriors twirled his sword with a flourish and smirked.

You watched with ever wider eyes as the blows got more and more powerful and quick. You could barely keep up as Sky swiped at Warriors who backflipped out of the way.

The spar between them got more and more extravagant, with each of them pulling moves you had never seen before.

Next to you, Twilight snorted lightly with an amused tone. “Show-offs.”

“What do you mean?” You asked without taking your eyes off the way Sky easily slide to the side, his hair shining in the sun, and the way Warriors pulled some fancy footwork to block his retaliation, a loud laugh breaking his composure.

Twilight laughed again then ruffled his hand in your hair causing you to finally break eye contact with the fight and bat him off. He left you on the log to join Time and Four who were focused on Wind.

That was the third time this week one of the group had made a comment about Sky and Warriors before refusing to explain and it was starting to get on your nerves.

You turned back to the spar and saw Sky do something that made Warriors unable to block a strike before the point of the sword was held to his neck.

There was a beat of silence before they both grinned and shook hands, panting from the exertion. You quickly gathered up the water skins and trotted over to them with a wide grin.

“That was amazing!” You couldn’t help but gush.

Sky took the water first and took several sips while Warriors turned to you.

“And you, my dear, are a goddess-sent. Thank you.” He took the offered water and sipped it as well.

Your eyes caught on his throat swallowing the water before Sky caught your attention as he licked a couple of drops from his lips.

“How’d the lesson go? We saw a bit and you were doing really well!”

You couldn’t help but soften at the praise. “Well, I won’t be fighting alongside you guys any time soon, but I think it went well.”

A hand held your shoulder and you turned to see Warriors smiling softly at you. “We mean it. You are improving very quickly and we'd be happy to give you any pointers if you'd like."

Your stomach fluttered and a strange warmth passed over your cheeks. A feeling that had been reoccurring very frequently over the past couple of weeks.

"Thanks."

"Of course." Sky nudged you companionably before turning back to Warriors. "Best out of three?"

Warriors smirked and your heart swooped. He flourished his sword again. "I'm going to need to redeem myself."

Sky also smirked and your breath caught. "I guess that means our lovely friend here will just have to judge it for themselves."

Warriors brushed a hand over your burning cheek. "Will you judge for us?"

Sky brushed a small errant strand of hair away from your face. "It'll be good to have someone watching."

Dazedly, you nodded absently and stepped aside as the two took up stances.

With a flash of steel and twin grunts, the two launched themselves at each other again.

You could barely pay attention to the way Warriors nearly danced out of reach and the way Sky showed his deep skill.

Your heart was thudding so loudly in your chest, you were surprised the others couldn't hear it and your face was burning from where the two had touched you.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh no.

[syscurse]

This is my extremely convoluted experienced with syscourse and why I don’t align with any “side”. This turned into a very heavy trauma dump... Yes this is about discourse, but it’s not an invitation for anyone to discourse about my trauma/lived experience. If this post somehow upsets you, please just block and move along.

TW for pro/anti-endo stuff, trauma, abuse, cults, ableism, csa, doxxing, stalking, fakeclaiming

🌻 🌻 🌻

So, I joined the online plural community maybe 6 or 7 years ago. I was a teen at the time. I’ve talked about my experience before a little bit. I started out thinking I was a spiritual endogenic DID system. I didn’t think DID was a mental disorder. Like, the plural community explicitly led me to believe that DID wasn’t a mental disorder. I thought it was something spiritual. This lasted for probably a year. It’s hard to remember.

Eventually, some trauma memories resurfaced and this kinda flipped everything upside down. This is when i started thinking more critically about the information i was getting online and discovered that DID was a mental disorder. It was like a snowball effect. I realized my system was severely unstable and hurting and desperately needed help. Seeking help eventually led to me getting diagnosed with PTSD and then eventually DID. I finally started to recognize the trauma and abuse. Found a therapist who simultaneously kept my abusers appeased while also helped me build up the strength and resources to be able to escape them, all behind their backs. I finally started recovery.

Yet, as soon as I realized I was DID…you know, the trauma-disordered kind…the plural community’s attitude towards me changed. Back then, DID was kinda seen as something inherently problematic. Like a dirty word or something. Like I’m an attack on their identity. You don’t notice it until you have DID. I certainly didn’t notice it when I thought I was endogenic. Then, suddenly, when I realized I had trauma and a disorder and started operating under that understanding—boom. Isolation. I was outcasted by the community.

I’m sure most of my followers know, but there’s probably some who don’t, I used to be EXTREMELY anti-endo. My main blog name was actually endo-equals-ableism before it was subsystems. I’ve grown and changed. I don’t consider myself anti-endo anymore.

Part of my anti-endo opinions came from the pain of being outcasted from the plural community. The pain of being stepped on, silenced, ignored, and spoken over ONLY when I was traumagenic DID. Not when I was endogenic. The anti-survivor nature of the community was so clear and painful and traumatizing, that it was so easy to believe the people who were claiming endogenics were appropriating and roleplaying mental disorders. It made sense to me at the time, especially because the anti-endo side of the syscourse had SO MANY SOURCES and INFORMATION and just seemed to genuinely CARE ABOUT ME and other survivors. The pro-endo side only seemed to want to push me away.

Furthermore, the anti-endos were survivors, themselves. Their entire community was made up of survivors…survivors who were HURT by the plural community. God, that was me! I felt accepted and nobody treated me like an attack on their identity.

Another part of me just desperately wanted people to not experience what I experienced. Syscourse convinced me that the endogenic community had purposefully mislead me. I told myself that other people were going to fall into the same trap as me if I didn’t do anything. I didn’t want anyone to experience same pain I went through.

When my opinions grew more and more exclusive, the aggression and hatred pro-endo syscoursers showed towards me only amplified. The harassment got to such a bad degree that I got traumatized by it. Like, I actually I have PTSD symptoms from it.

But the anti-endos weren’t much better, to be honest. While, sure, nearly all of the anti-endos I met participated in syscourse because they felt like it would help the DID community, I also realized that a large amount of them also kinda just enjoyed harassing pro-endos. Pro-endos also enjoyed harassing anti-endos too. That’s what syscourse is. That’s what online discourse is. 

It’s a fight.

You know what? As a system who grew up with shitty and abusive parents, I felt DRAWN to syscourse. You think I’m not used to people screaming at other people, refusing to understand or give a shit, trying to assert their reality as the only reality? Goddamn that’s the only thing I knew at the time! That was normalized to me so syscourse didn’t seem unusual or weird at all. That was just another fucking day for me, going from offline screaming matches to online screaming matches.

Syscourse is honestly just a great place for abusers to fly under the radar.

Seriously, I saw some dark and dirty stuff. I saw harassment campaigns from both sides, time and time again. I saw endogenic cult leaders be exposed. Then I saw traumagenic cult leaders be exposed. Pedophiles being exposed…on both sides, numerous times. I witnessed a pro-endo openly doxxing people and, like, never get any shit for it. 

I was stalked and harassed by pro-endos. I witnessed other people being stalked and harassed by pro-endos. I witnessed people raiding servers purely to screenshot and ridicule other people because syscourse (I guess that was the thing people did before stuff like f.kedisordercr.nge. Yes both anti and pro endos did this). I also witnessed anti-endos egging on uncritically inclusive blogs purely with the intention of making endogenics look bad (like submitting offensive or ridiculous plural labels. or saying things like “I took a shit and now I’m a system. Am I valid?” and OF COURSE the uncritically inclusive blogs would always say yes). 

Oh, and you know how there’s been syscourse drama over blocklists? It just reminds me of the time that one endogenic cult leader made a “blocklist” of anti-endos and blogs who just didn’t want endogenic interaction. Then after they got exposed, it was revealed that the “blocklist” was actually a hitlist of people they were purposefully siccing harassment campaigns on.

I was even bullied and coerced into making my own blog by an anti-endo who was later exposed as a serial abuser with multiple blogs calling him out.

I feel like I’ve honestly seen everything the syscourse has to offer.

...

A funny thing is that I’ve never been fakeclaimed by anti-endos??? Only pro-endos have fakeclaimed me. 

One of the reasons why I’m so paranoid about sharing my trauma even now is because one of them would pick apart everything I said and especially loved to fakeclaim my trauma, especially especially anything related to the plural community. News flash: my negative experiences with a community that I was literally once a member of and am supposedly still included in (actually fuck this I’m interrupting myself here to say that I was actually recently outcasted by the plural community AGAIN because the way I talk about & experience my own system - saying parts instead of people, and experiencing fusions - is apparently enough to make radical inclusionists just a little less radical.) should not be read as an attack on that community.

I grew up not being believed. People didn’t believe that I was in chronic pain. People didn’t believe that I was being abused. When that pro-endo fakeclaimed my trauma with the plural community, I realized that people didn’t believe that the plural community had harmed me. Hearing this dumbass on the Internet say my trauma was fake, as a teen, just made me do the same thing I did all throughout my childhood. I shut up and stop talking about it.

The thing is I don’t care if people don’t believe me anymore. I know what happened to me. I know what happened to my friends and ex-friends. My trauma is my trauma. I’ve been fakeclaimed and my trauma has been fakeclaimed too many times by pro-endos for me to give a shit.

I’m not anti-endo anymore, though. I don’t think I ever truly was.

I was confused because the concept of plurality was confusing, and it didn’t help that everyone was using the same goddamn terminology for everything. I was also curious. I’ve always been curious about plurality, how different people experience it, how their experiences are different from my own experiences. That honest confusion and curiosity was taken advantage of, and I was groomed into a mentality that harmed other people. It took years to unlearn that. 

Deep down I wish that we could just acknowledge our differences. Celebrate them. And then have discussions about them. Instead, we just got screaming matches and people trying to assert their views over other people. We got namecalling and harassment. We have abuse everywhere.

...reminds me of my childhood home. But I left that ages ago.

- Sunflower

[zhenjun]

white people, your cosplay is yellowface

Content warning: images of yellowface that may be upsetting below

Note: I have made the decision to remove the images of modern-day cosplayers. I stand by my initial choice to include them, as I believe actually seeing images of modern cosplay side by side with “real” yellowface was essential to understanding the point. However, this post has gotten much more attention than I ever anticipated. I had, at the time of making it, fewer than 30 followers.

In addition to harassment from sockpuppet accounts, assertions that my opinion on racism is less important because I am in the diaspora, misinterpretation about what this post was initially about (several people claimed cultural appropriation), threats to report and suspend me, and, apparently, discussion on twitter, for my own mental health, I am taking these images down.

I will no longer be responding to criticism or questions on the post, but I will happily answer DMs or asks on the subject. If you disrespect this or try to start more discourse, you are getting blocked, not because I want to silence your voice, but because I am a real person who can choose not to engage with people for reasons as seemingly unfair as my mental health and not wanting to continue filling my blog with the same post that honestly is upsetting for me to look at (as I already stated within the post).

If you have been blocked by me it is either due to disrespect and/or some form of unrelated drama due to how I like to interact with fandoms (i.e. ships like Ch*ngxian, Xu*xiao), not because I am trying to silence you. As I have so few followers, I am sure you can make your own post and gain even more traction than I did.

If you are white, please stop cosplaying MDZS/TGCF characters. It often looks like/is yellowface, and honestly there’s no way to respectfully do it when these media are based so heavily on Chinese culture. I’ll try to sum up why these fandoms need to be more mindful. You can find links and citations at the bottom that read best on my desktop blog theme.

The goal of yellow face in the past wasn’t always to look “authentically Asian;” white directors, actors, set designers, and playwrights set out to use what pieces of East Asian culture they found most inspiring, fun, cool, violent, or backward. Sometimes, white people had "good" intentions" with their use of yellowface and were not "trying" to demean our cultures, but the practice itself did so regardless.

To summarize, white people of the past did yellowface to erase our identities, take aspects of our culture that they liked, or ridicule us. Most modern-day cosplayers are doing the first two.

Below are examples of early Hollywood yellowface and modern-day theater, as well as modern-day cosplay:

[Previously pictured was a white Xie Lian cosplayer who was very receptive after seeing this post and has since removed these images from their social media. If you happen upon any of their cosplay or other social media, please do not send them any hate.]

As you can see actress Katharine Hepburn in “Dragon Seed”[1][2] is in very traditionally inspired Chinese clothing. The previously pictured Xie Lian cosplayer was in a similar hat and wearing white robes. They both had some sort of eye makeup; Katharine Hepburn darkened her hair for the role while the cosplayer was wearing a dark-brown/black wig.

Of note, the character Katharine Hepburn plays in "Dragon Seed" is supposed to be positive; an adaption from (white) author Pearl S. Buck's novel about a brave Chinese woman who stands up to Japanese imperialism. Like modern day cosplayers of Chinese media, just because the white people creating this film did not intend to be harmful does not change that it was yellowface and racist.

[Previously pictured was a before and after picture of a white Xue Yang cosplayer with blue eyes, brown hair, half of which was dyed blonde in the before image. In the after, they were wearing a long black wig, heavy eye makeup, newly shaped and darkened eyebrows, and robes made to emulate CQL in warm lighting]

Here are before and after pictures of actress Katharine Hepburn in 1944[3] and, previously, was a white Xue Yang cosplayer in 2020. Both had altered their eyes and eyebrows as well as donned black wigs or darkened hair.

[Previously pictured was a Jiang Yanli cosplayer in a black wig and robes meant to emulate the donghua]

Yellowface does not always involve modification to the eyes. In these two images, neither Mary Pickford in Madame Butterfly[4] nor the previously shown modern Jiang Yanli cosplayer have done anything noticeable to shape their eyes. They were, however, both wearing black wigs with traditionally inspired outfits. Jiang Yanli wore a modified version of Tang Dynasty fashion.[5]

[previously pictured was an image of a Wei Wuxian cosplayer with face powdered white and rouge around the eyes. Their eyes were still blue as the Madame Butterfly’s were on the left, and they were wearing a long black wig as well as robes designed to emulate his. This image has been replaced and amended with an additional example of modern theater; the production of The Mikado where one actor is wearing a black wig, the other a Japanese inspired hat, and both are wearing Japanese robes]

The final comparison was an example of a stage actress from the 2015 Fargo-Moorehead Opera production for Madame Butterfly[6] on the left (the earlier movie is an adaptation of the play). [This image was previously erroneously attributed to the Knoxville Opera which faced backlash for their production as they had an all-white cast depicting actors in yellowface in 2019.][7]

Honestly, these images just had a strange similarity to me so that’s why I chose to put these two together. Most importantly, was the similarity in makeup, hair, and East Asian clothing. Though the image is not there any longer, but just google Mo Xuanyu cosplays and ask yourself, if you didn’t know the fandom, would you be able to spot the difference of which one is supposed to be worse?

The new image is just another example of modern yellowface in theater, where the actors do not necessarily wear extensive eye makeup to emulate East Asians but, much like modern cosplayers, nonetheless are trying to look like the Asian characters they play in a Seattle production of The Mikado.[8]

As you can see, it’s pretty sad and disturbing to see how the rise of East Asian media is creating a new modern wave of yellowface. I think white people tend to think that black/brown/yellowface is only about darkening the skin, but that is just not what many depictions of yellowface have been for East and Southeast Asian people.

I know a lot of people recognize this is wrong and I appreciate those of you that do, but if you didn’t recognize the past parallels, please read up on the links below! Researching this was honestly triggering and emotionally taxing and caused a mild breakdown, so if you clown on this post you’re getting blocked.

Despite the post losing effectiveness to an extent from taking down the modern day photos, I suggest a quick google search of cosplays from the series during/after reading this. And if you don't agree with me, feel free to block and don't send more hate to me! I'm not trying to get into fights. I just wanna feel like I have a semi-safe space in the fandom but if this annoys you, it's better to just block me.

HISTORY, Casting White People in Asian Roles Goes Back Centuries[↩︎]︎

Youtube, Dragon Seed (1944) Trailer [↩︎]︎

NBC News, 'Correcting Yellowface': One Woman's Project to Fix Whitewashing[↩︎]︎

IMDB[↩︎]

Stony Brook University, The Influence of Chang-An Culture to Korea and Japan: Cultural Diffusion in the Glorious Age of Tang Dynasty[↩︎]

Howard Sherman, Yellowface Bait-And-Switch With ‘Madama Butterfly’ In Fargo[↩︎]︎

OnStage Blog, Knoxville Opera Forgets It's 2019 and Opts for Yellowface for "Madame Butterfly"[↩︎]︎

Seattle Times, The yellowface of “The Mikado” in your face[↩︎]︎