#i think also the longer it goes on the harder it is to accept different interpretations?

[hollowed-theory-hall]

I've been reading your posts for awhile now and I genuinely enjoy reading your takes especially with Harry's characterization. so I've been wondering what are your thoughts on the lupin family? especially with teddy? although I still kinda dislike his parents' relationship i still think he's an interesting character and i wished people talked about him more outside of shipping. What would his relationship with harry be growing up? Also Lyall's death was never really confirmed, only hope's was so do you think he and Andromeda raised teddy instead of harry? It still feels odd that remus chose a 17 year old to be his son's godfather surely there were other suitable candidates than a literal teenager.

Thank you so much 💕

So, this is like entirely in my headcanon space since I did not watch/read Cursed Child and I'm not planning to. I don't consider any of the post-book material canon at all except the Quidditch World Cup in 2014, which I accept since it's fun and doesn't go out of its way to ruin established characters. I enjoyed reading it more than the epilogue, so that's something.

That being said, I often prefer to ignore many aspects of the epilogue and the World Cup article when headcanoning post-books events. I also don't engage much with next-gen stuff since I'm more interested in Harry's generation, but I do have some thoughts about Teddy.

With all this out of the way, let's talk about the Lupins.

So, I like Remadora, I think they're alright for the little we see of them. Tonks just deserves so much better than Lupin in my mind. I mean, he wanted to leave her, after he got her pregnant, for his own sense of inadequacy, guilt, and allergy to taking responsibility. Harry was so justified in ripping Remus a new one.

Now, I mentioned here, how I think Remus didn't make Harry Teddy's godfather because he thought Harry was ready (though Harry is more mature and responsible at 17 than Remus is at 37, so...), but as a way to promise Harry that he isn't going to push him, or Tonks, or anyone who loves him away anymore. It was Remus trying to apologize in a weird way that didn't really land. Especially since he goes and dies right after. (can you tell Remus is my least favorite marauder?)

Now, I find it really hard to imagine Remus as a father for Teddy had he lived. Like, I can see Tonks being a cool mom and her and Teddy matching hair colors when walking together and messing with people (and I think she could become more responsible had she lived longer). Remus is a harder one for me to envision as a parent. I mean, I think he'd be relieved that Teddy wasn't born a werewolf, but whenever he'd look at Teddy and Nymphadora, I think Remus couldn't help but feel sorry for himself and like he doesn't deserve them. While making Harry Teddy's godfather was meant to be a sort of promise, I can't see Remus fixing his habits so quickly. I mean, he'd try. But I can also see him, trying to up and leave a few times only to be talked out of it by various characters.

I think his behavior is going to put a lot of stress on Tonks too. Like, While I think they do love each other, I don't know how well their relationship would work in the long run if Remus doesn't bother to work on himself and get his fucking act together.

But in the books they both died, so Teddy is spared the mess his parents' relationship likely would've been and is instead stuck with a different mess of being an orphan with a 17-year-old caretaker. (This kid cannot win. Maybe because both his parents were kinda irresponsible and didn't quite get a grasp on adulthood when he was born)

So, post-DH, Remus and Tonks are dead, Ted Tonks is dead and we are left with a grieving Andromeda who lost all her family (again), a grieving Harry who just keeps losing people, and a newly orphaned barely a-year-old Teddy Lupin.

I think Teddy is an interesting mirror to baby Harry and Neville in a way. His parents died/couldn't take care of him because of Voldemort/his followers and he was left with only a godfather/grandmother. Teddy got both and his godfather isn't in Azkaban, so he has it a little better.

I like to imagine Harry makes sure to be super involved with Teddy's childhood, but I can't imagine a 17-year-old (almost 18) Harry post-war and maybe going back to Hogwarts for 8th year (depends on headcanon) being in a state to take care of a baby full time. I like to think Andy helps out in that first year a lot. I think Andy needs someone, some family to get her through loss. And I think Harry could enjoy Andy's company too. I'm sure she has plenty of stories about a young Sirius, and maybe even a young James, and in my headcanon, Andy somewhat adopts Harry as an extra son too.

Which means she ends up seeing way more Weasleys than she ever expected to. I think the Weasleys, who just lost Fred would understand a lot. I mean, both Andy and Molly lost a child and other family. I want Andromeda be more involved with all of them post-canon. That's my wish.

So Harry is Teddy's official guardian, but he spends loads of time with his grandma and the Weasleys growing up probably. Like, I don't mind him and Victoire being together, though I wouldn't necessarily have been my preferred choice, but I don't really care. They're probably childhood besties because they grew up together.

As for Teddy's relationship with Harry, I think Harry would end up treating him more like a much younger brother than a son. I mean, when Teddy would be 10, Harry would just be 27. Don't get me wrong, Harry could, technically, be his dad, but I think their dynamic is going to be different than that of Harry with his own children. Just because of how young and traumatized Harry is when he gets Teddy.

So, I think their relationship would have its tense points, but they'd also love each other. Like, you know Harry would do his best. He'd be super protective over Teddy, Andy would be, too. Like, no one messes with this kid.

But I also kinda want Teddy making a: "you're not my dad" joke/comment when Harry tries to send him to his room or something and Harry doesn't know if he wants to laugh or cry the first time it happens. But I think it would become a recurring joke Harry laughs from.

I think the first years would be the roughest. Everyone's grieving and trying to settle back into a semblance of normal life. Harry never really had a "normal life" he's gonna have no idea what to do with himself and I think Teddy could be a purpose he dedicates himself to. I think these two and Andy could all help each other figure their lives out. But as Teddy grows older and things settle down, it becomes easier.

While I think Harry and Teddy would end up really close, it's not going to be exactly the same relationship Harry and Sirius had. Teddy is going to have a happy childhood, Harry and Andy wouldn't let it be any other way, so he won't have the same grief and trauma Harry did as a child. Like, their dynamic would be less desperate, I think. Like, Harry wouldn't need to stay in a cave and eat rats for Teddy, their situation would be way chiller. Like, I think Harry would be constantly confused about how Teddy ended up being such a cool kid/teen because he doesn't think he could've raised him like that and he would joke about it with Teddy who'd be all sarcastic like: "Obviously, I raised myself here,"

Like, I imagine Teddy with his mother's punk fashion sense and goofiness (the goofiness I believe was 100% shared by Ted Tonks), Remus' voice and constant self-doubt, Andromeda's posture (he sits with his back perfectly straight, okay, Andy didn't let him slouch by the table), and Harry's sarcasm. He's like this mix of them and still his own person.

I think Teddy is likely to go through quite a lot of personal phases to try and figure out his own identity and how he portrays himself. Becouse everyone treats him as the godson of the famed boy who lived, but his dead parents were the last Metamorphmagus and a Werewolf. And he is very close to his grandma, who is a disowned daughter of House Black. Like, this is a kid rip for angst about who he is and who people see him as and him being a Metamorphmagus really leans into it.

Like, a young Teddy making sure to look like Harry in public because he's proud of the connection. Or Teddy mimicking Remus or Tonks' appearance from photos when he thinks about them and misses them or wants to remind strangers who his parents actually are becouse they seem to forget. Like, that could be super fun.

I think Harry's kids would really like Teddy. He's like a cool older cousin/brother who lives with them. Like, I can see them really looking up to him and Teddy would complain to Harry about being followed around by a 3-year-old that won't leave him alone and Harry would just find the whole thing amusing.

(I can also see a post-war Andromeda getting back in touch with Narcissa, so you could involve the Malfoys too if you felt like it. Though I feel like Teddy would just, not like Lucius much)

(Also also, I think Lyall is dead. I feel like if he was alive we would know, yk?)

[souliebird]

[[and then I met you || ch. 3]]

Series: Daredevil || Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader || Rating: Explicit

Summary:

A one-night stand years ago gave you a daughter and you are now able to put a name to her father – Matthew Murdock. Everything is about to change again as you navigate trying to integrate your life with that of the handsome and charming blind lawyer’s and Matt realizes he needs to protect his new family from not only Hell's Kitchen but from the world.

pt: 1 | 2 |

words: 9.1k

You change aspects of your outfit about seven times before you finally settle on something you deem acceptable.

You know the meeting isn't about you, but you can't help but want to dress nicely. But not too nicely that this will no longer be a casual lunch. You choose one of your nicer t-shirts with your nice jeans and try to be fancy by doing a French tuck, but kind of ruin the vibe by pairing it all with your walking sneakers. Minnie picked them out and they are obnoxiously neon orange, but they are incredibly comfortable and supportive. It's warm out, so you do something with your hair that is simple and won't get in the way. 

You even dabble in some make-up. Nothing fancy but enough that you no longer look a little too tired. 

Minnie, of course, is perceptive to your nerves and also wants to Dress Up. This, of course, means her Princess dress and you want her in a good mood, so you turn your daughter into a giant pink and yellow cupcake. She is absolutely thrilled to be able to wear it out so getting all packed up and ready to go goes smoothly.  You debate telling her that you are going to meet someone but ultimately decide against it. She's already picked up on how nervous you are. If you tell her she will be meeting a new person, she might start getting upset and you aren't going to chance ruining her mood. So you bundle her into her stroller and start towards the diner at a quarter 'til eleven.

You want to get there early and get all settled before Matt arrives - maybe get a few doodles in on the sketchbook you've packed so Minnie is nice and distracted. It is a pretty day out and you take your time as you walk, not wanting to get all sweaty after dressing up. 

It is a route you've taken many times before, so you let your mind wander as you stroll. 

You had needed a full day to process that you had found Minnie's father and he wanted to be in both of your lives. It recontextualized so much. You had spent your entire evening reading 'how to co-parent' articles and making lists - you now had about three pages filled with your daughter's likes and dislikes, contact information for anyone Matt might need to reach out to, and multiple different schedules. Your plan is to make him a huge binder, filled with whatever he might need to know. 

You don't know if you are going overboard or not but this is how you are dealing with everything. 

You don't exactly have anyone you can reach out to to talk with. You aren't close enough with anyone who you would feel comfortable opening up to about Matt. You know you should probably find a therapist but there is no way you can afford one.

To be fair, you aren't even sure how you feel about everything. You put your emotions aside to deal with all the practical changes and to focus on your daughter's well-being. Despite all your anxieties, everything has been going as well as you think it should go. You've only had two conversations, but you are hoping the trend continues. You desperately want Minnie to smothered with people who adore her because you never had that and you pray Matt wants the same. 

As you cross into Hell's Kitchen, your heart starts beating a little harder in your chest. You can't fight your nerves, so you try to channel them into something productive. 

"Do you know where we're going, Mouse?" You ask as you wait at a corner.

"Chicky waffles!" is the excited response, making you chuckle.

"Exactly, we're gonna go have some chicky waffles," you say with a little smile. Chicken and waffles is a featured menu item at the diner and for some reason considered your daughter's Celebration Meal. "And if you aren't too sleepy afterwards, we can do something fun."

Minnie gives an excited wiggle in her stroller, "I wanna see the duckies!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay, we can go see the duckies after lunch." You are hoping the promise of something she wants to do will come with the desire to behave, even if she starts to get fussy. You know you can't stop a tantrum if meeting Matt does truly upset her, but you can try your best to deter them. 

You are being overly precautious. You know you are, but you couldn't turn your mind off if you tried. 

You've long accepted your fate and just try to navigate your anxiety the best you can.

As Minnie lists off what she's named all the ducks, you debate coming up with some talking points for her and Matt. You doubt they have similar interests, though you know that doesn't mean much - as you don't have similar interests as your daughter - but animals and food are easy discussions. You worry when it comes to art, things may get a little harder.

You have no idea how to explain blindness to Minnie. You are really hoping that Matt has that experience and can help her understand. After all, you don't actually know how much he can see. You know he needs Braille - his flirting at the holiday party all those years ago had been to ask you to read the drink menu to him - and uses a cane, but that doesn't mean he can't see shapes and such. You definitely do not want to speak for him about his abilities.

Maybe afterwards you can look up some videos to help Minnie understand better. There's a plethora of resources online, you just need to know what to look for - a jumping off point. Blind parents with Seeing children are not a new thing and you bet you can find a bunch of tactile art projects beyond folding paper that would suit Minnie's age. 

The diner comes into view and you sigh in relief over the lack of a crowd. Maybe the Fates had smiled on you and everyone else would find somewhere else to have lunch. There is no one standing around outside, so you use the space to take Minnie out of her stroller. Instantly she tries to help you unpack, dragging her backpack out of the little storage area under the seat. You grab your purse and a collapsible booster seat, then start to fold up the stroller while she patiently waits.

She's still too small to pull open the heavy glass door of the diner, but that doesn't stop her from trying. She tugs on it twice before you are able to help her. She beams up at you and you return your little girl's smile as you enter the diner.

"Oh, well don't you look special," the waitress, Linda, says as she comes around the counter with some menus. You are convinced she must live above the diner because she is always there - but it also means Minnie is comfortable with her, so your daughter does a little twirl to show off her dress.

"We're gonna see the ducks!" 

"I see," Linda coos, "Well in that case, you're going to need a nice lunch to fill you up. Lemme see now, it looks like your booth is all open, so why don't we get you all settled in?"

Minnie takes off across the diner to the booth while you lean the stroller in the corner where you've been told you can store it. Once that is done, you head over to the booth. 

Linda places a menu where you will be sitting and as you slide into the seat next to Minnie, you ask for an additional menu in Braille. She looks a little surprised at the request, but doesn't question it and the menu is quickly placed across from you.

Minnie doesn't pay attention to the second menu at all, focused on pulling out her crayons and paper. She knows as long as she doesn't make a mess she's allowed to play on the table here and she doesn't waste any time getting right to it. 

"What do you want to drink, sweet pea?" Linda asks. 

"Lemonade, please, thank you!" Minnie answers like a little princess. Linda smiles at the response and asks the same to you, without the term of endearment. 

"An iced tea, please," you reply. You wait until she turns to go back behind the counter to pop open the booster seat. You set it on the seat beside Minnie and she carefully climbs into it before going back to laying out her crayons. 

"Do you want chicky waffles?" You ask Minnie. She shakes her head, ignoring you in favor of starting to scribble. You wait a few moments, giving her a chance to think and reply but that doesn't happen. You say her name, then repeat the question.

"No, I want grilled cheese," she says, looking up, "with fruit. Please. Thank you."

"With fruit?" You confirm, a little amused at the declaration. She nods and goes back to her work. 

You refuse to check the time. You know as soon as you do you'll spiral into an anxiety attack, so instead, you drag the menu over to you and start reading it over. You don't really know what you want - your stomach is more nerves than hunger. 

Linda drops off your drinks with a little smile, "I'll be back for your orders."

"Thank you," both you and Minnie say. 

You fall into a silence, half looking over the menu and half watching Minnie drag her crayon over the page. She's got the yellow one in her little fist and you wonder what could be going on in that head of hers. You hope her thoughts are good ones - all about ducks and cupcakes and magical things and no worries exist.

The bell above the door to the diner chimes after about two minutes and you look up as Matt walks in. Your breath catches in your throat and your heart pounds hard. 

There is no argument about whether or not Matt is physically attractive - he's gorgeous and could easily be a model if he wanted to be - but you can tell that Effort was put in that morning. 

His scruff is trimmed down to a neat five o'clock shadow and his hair is a little fluffy like he's run his hand through it a few times. He's sporting a leather jacket, black tee shirt, slacks, and wing tips - he looks casual but cool. He's so incredibly handsome and for a moment you question if you're right about him being Minnie's father.

There is no way this man took you to bed. You think you're pass-ibly attractive, but he's on a whole other level of hot. 

You are so busy ogling him it doesn't register right away you need to alert him to your whereabouts. Linda makes a bee line right for him, exchanging words you can't hear. She turns to look at you, one brow raising up in question. In response, you raise your hand in acknowledgement. She nods then leads Matt over to your booth. You finally notice he is holding a pink medium sized gift bag and you can't help but wonder what is inside.

He stops at the edge of the table, brushing his fingers over it to find the boundaries. You speak first, to let him know where you are.

"Hi." 

It comes out far shyer than you mean and Linda gives a pointed 'are you serious' face.

It doesn't matter because he replies just as shyly, "Hi." 

"Um, the seat to your right is empty, with a menu in the middle of the table," you direct. Minnie looks up at him and you watch her watch him fold his cane and slip into the seat. You can tell she is curious, but cautious. 

"Can I get you anything to drink?" The elderly waitress asks and Matt asks for coffee. She then turns to go fetch that, leaving your new little family to finally meet each other.

You clear your throat and start the introductions, "Minnie, this is Matt. He is going to be our new friend. Can you say hi?"

She's quiet for a few seconds before mumbling out, "Hello."

Matt completely lights up at the greeting. His smile gets so big and boyishly happy you have to bite your lip so you don't break out into your own smile. 

"Hi, Minnie. It's…it's so nice to meet you." 

Your daughter presses the fist clutching the crayon to her mouth as she looks Matt over. Her little eyes dart all over his features before she turns her head to look up at you. Her brow scrunches up in a way you know means she wants to ask something, so you gently prompt her.

"Do you want to ask something, Mouse?"

She gives a barely there nod. 

"Okay. You can take your time. Is that okay, Matt?" You say, gently redirecting the conversation back to him.

"Take your time," Matt tells her, his voice so soft and sweet. Encouraging.

She squirms in her seat and you quickly offer up your hand so she can hold onto it. She grabs your hand with her non-dominant one and squeezes tightly, needing the anchor to know everything will be okay - only then does she talk, her mouth hidden behind fist and crayon. 

"You're Mommy's friend?" 

Matt nods, smile still on his face, "I am. Or I hope to be. I'd like to be your friend, too."

Minnie rocks side to side in her booster seat, still looking over Matt like she's trying to parse out his motive. Despite not being able to see her contemplating, Matt waits patiently until the next question comes.

"Is it…your Birthday?" She asks after about ten seconds.

Matt shakes his head, his smile going from bright to a little softer, "No, it's not. This," he picks up the gift bag and places it in front of Minnie on the table, "is for you."

Her head automatically turns to look up at you with big questioning eyes, silently seeking permission. You gently squeeze her hand, "You can open it."

She pulls away from you and reaches out to pull the bag closer. It's too tall on the table for her to see into, so she very very gently, like she's scared it will break, tips it over onto its side. The packing tissue matches the bag and your little one gets distracted by that for a moment. She scrunches paper so it crinkles and folds before pulling it out and handing it off to you to hold. You assume that means she wants to keep it, as she knows wrapping paper gets thrown out. To your surprise, the tissue is thicker than what you are used to - it won't rip to shreds if you look at it too hard. That must be why she wants it - it's something to play with later.

A delighted shriek rips through the diner making you and Matt and everyone else in vicinity visibly wince.

"It's Scooby!" Minnie absolutely screams, revealing what is in the bag. It is indeed a Scooby Doo plushie - one of the good quality ones that looks extremely soft to the touch. He's seated and you can tell he has weighted paws to keep him upright and he looks more like a puppy Scooby than the one from the old show, but you know that doesn't matter. 

Mouse loves him. 

She practically shoves the plush in your face to show you. "Mommy, it's Scooby!"

Her excitement makes you laugh and rub at her back, "I see. Do you like him?" She nods before smashing the plush into her chest and hugging it tightly. You smile more, "What do you say to Matt?"

Matt has the biggest smile on his face and that, plus the gift, seems to soothe Minnie's anxiety. She looks right at him, matching his smile with her own beaming one, "Thank you, Mister Matt!"

"You're welcome, sweetheart." 

You can hear the emotion in Matt's voice and it touches your heart. He looks just so happy. You get the feeling he would have been crushed if she hadn't liked the toy.

Minnie holds Scooby up and out to Matt and wiggles him back and forth, "Do you like Scooby? I love Scooby. He's my favorite - he solves mysteries! With Shaggy!"

"I haven't watched cartoons in a long time, but I remember Scooby Doo. I liked the girl with the glasses," Matt replies gently. You give a pleased hum at his response.

"Velma! That's Mommy's favorite!" Minnie exclaims, hugging her new toy again. She's so excited and wiggling with delight. You can't fight your smile as you watch her - and how could you? Matt's own smile is infectious. 

"Oh, is she?" He asks and your little girl gives another eager nod. 

"Uh-huh. 'Cause she's not scared of the monsters!"

That earns a little chuckle from both you and Matt, and he asks, "Are the monsters scary?"

"Yeah! But - but they are really just People," she screws up her face and emphasizes the word, pausing before starting again, "so they aren't Really scary." 

"Ah, I see. Velma must be pretty brave to not be scared of the monsters."

"Mommy's braver," Mouse says proudly, puffing up her chest. She puts emphasis between each word,  "Mommy's not scared of anything." 

Your cheeks burn at her declaration. 

"Is that so?" Matt asks, tilting his head a little towards you, his smile turning amused. You can tell he knows it's not true, but he won't break her illusion.

"I try to be," you say, rubbing Minnie's back again,  trying to get her to calm down just a little bit. She's too happy over the new play thing to be nervous. Matt's done good - she's going to want to talk about cartoons - at least until food comes. 

Linda has been eyeing your table and finally breaks away from the counter to come over to you, dropping off Matt's coffee then taking out her order pad. 

"Can I get y'all started on some food?"

Minnie's attention is ripped away from Scooby and she looks up at the waitress. She squirms in her seat to sit up even taller and proclaims, "I want grilled cheese. With fruit. Please. Thank you."  

She's ordered her own food from Linda before, though usually with not such confidence. You think this is part of her push to be a Big Girl. She's gotten to the age where she's started telling you she's not a baby anymore, even if you disagree, and you wonder if she's trying to impress Matt by showing that. You think it's absolutely adorable. 

You can tell Linda does, too.

"One grilled cheese with fruit for the cupcake. How about Mom?"

You consider your options and decide quickly what you want, "Let's go with a grilled cheese with french fries."

Linda jots down the order and turns her attention to Matt, "and the sir?"

"I think I'll have to round it out and get a grilled cheese with fries."

Linda laughs to herself like she's very much enjoying the free reality show she is getting. "Three grilled cheese, two fry, and one fruit coming right up. Think about what y'all want for dessert." 

You duck your head in embarrassment, knowing you are turning pink at the tease. You know she knows Matt is Minnie's father. She looks just like him and sitting there smiling together, there is no denying it. You don't need a DNA test. 

One hundred percent, Matt Murdock fathered your precious little angel.

And Linda seems to think this is the Best Thing in the World. She is absolutely thrilled and you know she's going to gossip with the cooks. 

Matt's got a blush to his cheeks as well, licking his lips shyly.

That makes you blush even more.

Minnie is totally unaware of the implications and declares she wants a sundae.

"Okay, then, I'll go get your order in so you can get that faster," Linda tells her before going to check on the next table. 

"Cupcake?" Matt questions once she steps away, raising his brow over his glasses as he does. His smile is turning into a smirk and you think he's over being shy now. At least towards you. 

"Minnie is sporting her Princess dress," you advise. You don't think his smile can get any bigger.

"A princess dress? Am I under dressed?"

You gently nudge your daughter, "Can you tell Matt about your dress?"

Minnie hugs Scooby to her chest before happily launching into a description of her dress, "It's pink! And yellow! And puffy! It has sparkles! And I can run in it."

"You can run in it?" He clarifies. The answer is a vigorous nod, so you jump in to help.

"The bottom is kind of like a tutu - lots of tulle. It only goes to her calves, so it won't drag on the ground. She looks like an upside down cupcake." You don't know if that helps at all, but he doesn't push for more information. 

"It sounds like a really good Princess dress. Does that make you the Queen?" He teases. It gets a giggle from your daughter, which only makes you blush more. He directs his next inquiry to Minnie, once she's done laughing at you.

"Can you tell me what your Mommy is wearing?"

Your little one doesn't question why Matt needs things described to him and jumps right in, always so eager to please, "Mommy's wearing her fancy pants and a pretty top and she's got pretty hair. She looks pretty." Matt makes a pleased little noise over her description, encouraging her to continue on.

You resist the urge to hide your face in your hands. Your pants aren't fancy - she just rarely sees you outside leggings and sweatpants. You are going to have to take her to nicer places so she doesn't think jeans are formal wear. And pretty? Well, Mouse thinks everything is pretty.

"Do you think Mommy's pretty?" Minnie boldly asks instead of describing you more and you feel like you are going to die. You'd much rather prefer if she was being shy right now.

"I do," he says gently and of course it makes your blush even harder. This meeting should be about him meeting Minnie, but it is apparently about them ganging up on you to explode your heart out of your chest. "My eyes got hurt when I was a kid, so I can't see through them anymore. I see things through hearing and touching. I think you're Mommy has a very pretty voice. I like how she says different words. I can't see you're Mommy rubbing your back, but if I listen I can hear it. I can't see that your Mommy is wearing a pretty shirt, but now that you told me, I know. I use my hands to find out what shapes things are and where things are around me." He demonstrates by gently, and exaggeratedly, patting the table until he finds the menu. Mouse watches in fascination as he pushes it to be between them. 

"I can't read like your Mommy can anymore with my eyes, so instead I use my fingers. Each set of bumps is a letter. It's called Braille and it's the English alphabet for people who use their fingers to read instead of their eyes."

You watch as your daughter listens to the explanation. She scrunches up her face as she processes the information, before looking down at her hands. She flexes her fingers a few times before looking back up at Matt. 

"You got hurt?" She asks. Matt nods and gives an affirmative, pulling the menu back towards him. Part of you wonders if he's explained being Blind to a child before - his words and the concepts are simple enough for your little one to grasp. You're glad you left this to him.

"Something bad got in my eyes and made them not work anymore." You know this is something your daughter understands - she's gotten things in her eyes before that made it hard for her to see. You can see the dots connecting in Mouse's mind - she rubs a little fist into her left eye like it's irritated.

"Do you need a band-aid?" Minnie asks before dropping her arm with a little gasp, "or a kissy? Mommy gives me a kissy when I get hurt." Her concern is adorable and before Matt can answer her, she's jutting her new toy out towards him again, "Scooby can give you a kissy."

You can't see Matt's eyes behind his red glasses, but you can totally tell Minnie has already got him completely wrapped around her little fingers. You don't know if it's instinct to love her or he's just charmed by her sweetness. 

"Thank you, sweetheart. I don't need one right now, it happened a long time ago. They've healed, they just don't work anymore. But if you could help tell me what things look like, I would very much appreciate that." His words are gentle and your daughter absolutely lights up over being asked to help. She loves to help.

"I can do that! I know what lots of things are!" She's practically bouncing in her seat, and deciding this is something you need to practice as well, tell Matt as such. 

He tilts his head towards you, and it might be a trick of your mind, but for a moment his smile looks a bit softer before his attention is pulled back to Minnie. She's holding up Scooby again - you think she's not going to let go of the toy for the rest of the day - and once both you and Matt are focused on her, she starts describing him the best she can. 

"He's brown and he's got a big head and he's a dog!" She turns the toy so it's back is facing Matt before telling him Scooby has black spots, "But not like Pongo. Only a little bit of spots. Pongo has.. Pongo has ten spots." She nods with authority over her assessment and you smile down at her, pride warming your heart. 

"Thank you for telling me what he looks like," Matt says gently, making your little one just beam back at him. "You're very good at it."

You lean on your fist and watch her giggle and hide her face against Scooby. You don't want her to get too embarrassed and not want to talk, so you guide the conversation to something easy for her. 

"Do you want to tell Matt about what we're going to do after lunch?" You ask, knowing it's a topic that excites her and she won't be shy, but it's also something he can relate to. 

Across the table from you, Matt leans forward a little, clearly giving all his attention to Minnie, "Are you going to do something fun after lunch?"

The question gets her to look up from trying to hide away and she nods. She pushes her drawing, which has been ignored since Matt arrived, across the table towards him. You think she doesn't fully understand the concept that Matt cannot see yet, but she'll figure it out. 

"She's sliding you her drawing," you say to try and help. You don't know if he needs more description than that - you can't remember how assistive you were during your night together. You're hoping it's another conversation you can have so you can adapt better to his life. 

Matt feels around the table in front of him until he finds the notepad and he pulls it towards him. Minnie presses her face back into her plushie as she watches him run his fingers around the paper. You are all silent as he locates one of the circles Minnie has scribbled and begins to trace it. His lips begin to twitch at the corners and you wonder what he is thinking - what he is feeling.  You hope this isn't a cruel thing - Minnie trying to show him her art. 

You can tell he can feel the indentation of the crayon being pushed into the paper and you hope it is enough. You are definitely going to look into tactile art when you get home. You don't want to risk being this cruel and embarrassing again. 

"We're gonna see the duckies," Minnie says after a beat and much to your surprise, she pushes herself up so she can reach across the table and places her finger on a circle Matt's not touching. "That's Quack." 

Matt moves his finger to brush against hers, grounding where he is then begins to trace that circle, "This one is Quack?"

"Yeah! He's yellow. And this one," she pushes her finger to the third scribble, which is more square than circle, "is Moose. He's mean." 

"He's mean?" Matt asks as he follows her finger with his own. The drawing is not very big, so he easily finds her finger again, bumping up against hers. All the yellow circles and shapes look the same to you but you know that isn't the case to your daughter and listening to her explain to Matt makes you want to pull out your camera and record the breathtaking smile he has right now.

You're sure there's plenty of time for that later. You're not going to break the moment getting out your phone.

"He bites," Minnie says wisely, like it's a warning. Matt takes it as such and nods in understanding as he follows her finger around the drawing.

"That is mean. You shouldn't bite people," Matt replies, taking in the shape of Moose. "What color is he?"

"He's yellow too," she answers, "but he's only got one feets. That's why he's mean." She carefully moves herself back so she can plop down in her seat. "Mommy says…Mommy says he can't runs away so he bites."

You turn your head a little so you can smile into your hand. Hearing her repeat something you have previously told her always makes your heart melt - she's learning and retaining and growing up. Soon, she won't be your little baby girl. 

"That's right, sweetie," you praise. "He can't run away like the other ducks, so to tell people to stay away, he bites. How do you keep from being bitten?"

Minnie screws up her face in thought and you glance at Matt to gauge his reaction. He still has his hand on the drawings, though he's stopped tracing them since she sat down, and he looks so enraptured by your daughter - his daughter. 

As if he senses you looking at him, he sends a soft smile your way. You return it, not caring that he can't see it. This happy little moment is perfect in your eyes.

"You can only pet the duckies at the zoo," Minnie says after a few moments of thinking. She looks up to you to make sure that is the correct answer and you nod, smiling down at her.

"Exactly, we can only pet the ducks at the zoo. Those ducks like to be pet. The ducks in the park don't want to be pet, so we don't touch them," you gently reinforce. 

"That is a good way to keep everyone happy," Matt agrees, moving his hand away from the notepad so he can take a drink of his coffee. 

Minnie quickly moves to mimic him and you watch as she carefully brings her glass of lemonade closer. Linda already provided a straw, so you don't need to worry about her trying to pick up the glass so you'll let her do this herself unless she asks for help. She has to sit up straight, but Mouse is able to wrap her lips around the straw and take a few sips.

Then of course, as soon as she's done she holds Scooby up to the straw and pushes his muzzle against it a little too hard. Your hand flies out to stabilize the glass before it can wobble too much. You don't chastise her, as she did nothing wrong, and simply hold the lemonade while she plays.

"Slurp slurp slurp," Minnie whispers to herself before 'walking' the toy back into her lap. 

"Do you like watching the ducks?" Matt asks once she's done, bringing her focus back, and instead of nodding, your little one makes Scooby nod for her before she turns him over and starts messing with his weighted paws.

"They're funny. They have lots of fights. And put their butts up in the water." You try to not huff at her description, as she is not exactly wrong. Part of you wants to jump in and explain what she means, but you want her to bond with Matt. You don't want her to rely on you as a go-between for explaining things to one another. They need to learn each other's language. 

"They put their butts up?" Matt asks bewildered and you don't know if it's genuine or played up for Minnie. 

Either way, your little girl giggles, "When they go down in the water. They go butt up!" She looks up at Matt then turns her plush over so his tail is pointed towards the ceiling, "like this!"

You do decide to intervene at this point, tapping on Minnie's shoulder so she looks up to you, "Matt can't see with his eyes, remember? You need to tell him what it looks like or let him feel."

You can see the little wheels turning behind her eyes as she mentally puts the pieces together. She looks back to him then plonks Scooby face down, ass up on her notepad. 

"Like this," she repeats before patting the sides of the plushie. She then leans back in her seat and smiles at Matt, proud of herself. You bite your lip, waiting to see what Matt does. 

He doesn't push for or request more description, instead quickly finding the edge of the notepad, then feeling over Scooby. You're pretty sure he's putting on a show of patting over the toy by the way it's making Minnie giggle. 

"Do you know why they put their butts up?" He asks and you wonder how much longer you will be talking of duck butts. It's cute, but you are also in public. Matt seems to not care at all so you push aside any embarrassment creeping at the edge of your psyche. 

They both absolutely deserve this.

Your little one shakes her head with a 'not-uh' at Matt's question. You've told her why before, but you are sure she's forgotten - it is not useful information to her three year old brain. 

"It's so they can get food underwater," he says as he flips Scooby over so he's sitting properly again. "They float on the water, but their food is underneath them." He bounces Scooby lightly, like he's floating in water. As she watches and listens, Mouse sticks her little hands into her mouth. "They have to dive down to get it, because they don't have hands to pick it up," he demonstrates by tipping the stuffed dog forward, so he's once again face down ass up. "So they end up sticking their butts out of the water. They look for food like this."

As he finishes his explanation, he pushes Scooby towards Minnie, pretending to make him snuffle and sniff for her, including making the sound himself. She hides her face behind her hands, giggling loudly, "There's no food here!"

"Oh no, there's not?" Matt asks in an overly dejected voice, tilting Scooby back up so he's sitting. He lets go of the plush and to keep up the fun atmosphere, you quickly pick it up instead.

You bounce the toy towards your daughter, teasing lightly, "is he going to have to gobble you up instead?"

"No!" She mock wails, lightly kicking her feet and still hiding her face, "I'm not food!"

"Are you sure?" Matt asks, leaning forward a little bit. "You look like food to me."

"Nom nom nom," you say in a deep voice, having Scooby's muzzle bump into her arm repeatedly. His pun doesn't dawn on you until Mouse starts squirming around and giggling.

"Noooo!"

"Well, looks like I'm here right in time," Linda declares as she very suddenly appears at the end of the table holding a tray with your orders. You flush in embarrassment, instinctively moving to sit up straight and behave and pulling Scooby into your lap. You feel like a misbehaving kid who got caught playing in class.

Matt has the most shit eating grin on his face, like he doesn't care who saw him playing with Minnie. He probably doesn't - this is his first time meeting her and it's going so well. 

Your meals are placed in front of you, with Linda narrating to Matt where his plate is and where the food is on the plate when she sets it in front of him as she collects the menus.

"Thank you, Linda," Matt says from across the booth, managing to look and sound boyishly charming.

Again, almost instantly, Minnie copies him, giving her biggest and brightest, "Thank you, Miss Linda!" 

"Thank you, Linda," you echo with your own little smile because you don't want to be rude and because you know she'll fucking love it. 

"Well isn't that just the sweetest thing you've ever seen," she coos at you and you have to bite your lip so you don't laugh. You just know she is going to corner you at some point and demand answers. But that is for later, right now you are in your own bubble.

Beside you, Minnie helpfully pipes up, "Mister Matt can't see, you have to tell him what you see. Or let him feel." 

You close your eyes tightly so you don't cringe or laugh. Your little Mouse is trying her best to do what she has been taught and you can't fault her at all. Linda gives a surprised yet amused laugh while Matt addresses your daughter. You can hear the smile in his voice.

"Thank you, Minnie, that's right. She's talking about us and I know that, so she doesn't need to explain. I appreciate your help in telling her, though." You look over to your daughter to gauge her reaction and she is still all smiles and Love.

"You're welcome!" She brightly replies then turns her attention to you and the toy in your lap, "Mommy, can I have Scooby?"

Linda gently taps the edge of the table with her knuckles as she steps away from the table, "Y'all enjoy your food and let me know if y'all need anything else." Her grin is enormous, and you'll have to give a nice tip for not completely embarrassing you.

You thank her again and once she's left, you pass Scooby back to Minnie, with a gentle reminder, "Put him to the side, so he won't get dirty." She nods in understanding, taking him and plopping him on the other side of her booster seat. Then she leans on the table and stretches her little arms until she can grab the napkin holder on the other end of the booth. Before you realize what she's doing, she yanks a handful of napkins free and falls back into her seat with an "oof".

"Are you alright?" Matt quickly asks, reaching his hand out over the table towards her like he can actually catch her from there if she falls. 

His instinct to protect her makes your heart sing as you answer, "she's okay. Mouse, if you can't reach, you can ask for help." You still pat over her to make sure she's completely okay and it causes her to squirm in her seat.

"I can reach," is her slightly pouty reply. You don't want to get her cranky when she's been doing so well, so you let this pass and pull your hands away.

"Okay, sweetheart, just be careful, okay?" 

Instead of answering, she ignores you and slowly she starts to unfold the napkins one by one. You have no idea what she is doing so you just watch. For a moment - then you remember Matt has no idea what is going on and you try your hand at narrating, "She grabbed napkins and now she is unfolding them."

"Why are you doing that, sweetheart?" He asks your daughter, brow knitting up and mouth turning into a frown. 

She looks up at him as she pulls open another napkin and lays it flat on the table, saying like it's the most obvious thing, "Scooby doesn't have a lap."

"Scooby…doesn't have a lap?" Matt clarifies, clearly confused. You are as well until Minnie turns and starts draping the napkins over the plushie, covering him with them like a patchwork ghost. 

Then you get it. "He doesn't have a lap to hold his napkin." 

Realization dawns on Matt's face and he huffs in delight, "Of course." He makes a big show of taking the napkin around the silverware of his place set and putting it in his lap, even though your little one barely looks up at him. "We don't want to get dirty while eating."

"No crumbs," you agree, taking your napkin and putting it into your lap. You are constantly amazed by what your little girl retains - usually you have to put the napkin on her lap or remind her. Big Girl table manners is something you've only just started working on and pride swells in your chest at her actions. Even if she's just trying to impress Matt you are thrilled your lessons are working.

Once Scooby is hidden under napkins, Minnie puts one still folded napkin into her own lap. She pats it carefully so it's flat. As she does that, you check her plate to make sure everything is ready for her. Her kid's grilled cheese is already cut into four triangles, so you don't need to make anything smaller for her, and the fruit cup doesn't require any help. She's big enough to be able to stab the cut fruit with a fork and eat it on her own. You don't need to fuss with anything on her plate, so you start picking at your french fries. Matt has the same idea as you, going for his side instead of the main, but your daughter picks up the closest quarter of her sandwich and starts to nibble at it, like the Mouse she is.

A comfortable silence falls over your booth as you all start to eat. 

You're still a little hesitant to trust everything is really going so well. You've conditioned yourself to believe that eventually everything will always fall apart - you just need to give it time. People leave and things go wrong, and you're left hurt and alone to pick up the pieces. You pray and hope and wish this curse the universe has put on you doesn't get passed down to your daughter. As long as you are breathing you won't leave her - and maybe if you believe hard enough Matt has come into Minnie's life and you are only there by extension, things won't come crashing down around her. 

You'll fight tooth and nail for her well-being if it comes down to it, but it's something you don't want to have to do. She deserves a good, easy life.

Matt breaks you from your depressing thoughts, tilting his head and that handsome sweet smile towards Minnie, "How is your grilled cheese, Minnie?"

She looks up at him from behind her food, eyes going wide at being addressed, like she forgot Matt was even there. She sets down her half-eaten slice before answering, in a shy little mumble, "...it's yummy." 

"Yeah?"

You duck your head with a fond smile. After the brief excitement of playing, of course she reverts back to being shy. You can sense she wants to start squirming and hiding at the direct attention, so you try to redirect the energy. It's amazing how bold you can be when trying to comfort your daughter. You can let yourself be uncomfortable until the cows come home, but you don't want her to experience that.

"Matt, can you tell Minnie a little about yourself?" You ask, maybe a little bit louder than you intended to.

He tilts his head towards you just slightly, his lips parting slightly and brow furrowing like he doesn't quite get why you asked that now. But he doesn't question you, instead leaning back into his seat to think over the question. 

You want Minnie to know more about Matt to get more comfortable with him but you are also curious. Hearing what someone says about themselves is more telling than reading about them in online news articles.

"Let's see, I first met your Mommy a few years ago at a party. That's how we became friends.  My other friends and I run a law firm where we help people when they get in trouble," He pokes at his fries while he talks and that seems to help Minnie relax more. She picks up her grilled cheese triangle and resumes eating while she listens. "I grew up here in Hell's Kitchen and want to help all my neighbors the best I can, because they are good people who don't have a lot of people to help them. I am able to help them, so my friends and I do the best we can to help them if they need it. I want to live in a happy place where people help each other." 

You have no idea if he has experience talking to three year olds, but you think he'll have no problems with Minnie. Even if she doesn't understand exactly what he's saying, she watches him with interested eyes and you can tell she's taking in the information the best she can. Even if she's getting shy again, it's obvious Matt doesn't scare her. 

"You help people?" your little one asks as Matt eats another fry. "Like a police man?"

He shakes his head, "No, after the police man comes. Like, if a police man thinks someone did something bad, but they didn't. They need someone to come tell the policeman they are innocent. That means they didn't do the bad thing." 

Mouse pauses her chewing, sandwich still partly in her mouth. You haven't really discussed the topic of police with her - she's just three after all, but you know from the shows she watches the police are viewed in a good light. Personally, you've seen the bad side and know very well Matt helped clearing out the corrupt cops in Hell's Kitchen, but the concept the police might get something wrong seems to be a big one for her. Her little nose and brow scrunch up as things roll around in her head. 

Matt seems to realize she's processing, as he continues to eat his fries and wait for the next question. 

Finally, she puts her sandwich back down and looks up at Matt with slightly narrowed eyes.

"Are you Spidey-man?"

You try very hard to not laugh at the series of emotions that fly across Matt's face. First, he looks confused, then he makes this face like he smelled something bad, curling up his lips a little, before forcing it back into a smile with the help of a deep breath. 

"No, sweetheart, I'm not Spider-Man, I'm a lawyer." 

Minnie visibly deflates with a tiny 'oh', picking up a new sandwich triangle to start eating while looking like she's been told Christmas has been canceled. You suck on your bottom lip so you won't laugh. Across from you, Matt looks like he's angry at himself for not being Spider-Man and for disappointing Mouse over the fact - like how dare he not be the spunky superhero. 

You feel the need to intervene before the mood shifts into something negative.

You pick up one of your french fries and wave it a little at Minnie to get her attention, "Matt can't be Spider-Man, Mouse. He's too tall." That gets her to look up at him again and he offers her this tiny hopeful smile. You feel like he's silently begging her to not be upset at him over something he can't control. "Remember? The balloon lady said he was as tall as her and Matt's taller than that." 

You have no idea if she even registered how tall Matt is or if she can even mentally compare his height to the height of someone she's never seen in person, but you know pointing out how things are different in the past has worked.

She screws up her face at your words, carefully considering them, then finally nods and declares, "He's too tall to be Spidey-man." And just like that, everything is fine and she goes back to eating. 

You grin to yourself and pop your fry into your mouth. Matt sits there, like he needs his own moment to process what happened. You are used to toddler wild mood swings and how to deal with them - you speak fluent Minnie logic. It will take him time to learn and you are sure there will be plenty of chances for it. He will be a master of it in no time if his fancy law degree is any indication.

Matt clears his throat after a long pause before picking up half of his sandwich, "Is he your favorite superhero?"

You wonder if he is really ready for this conversation. Minnie is part of the first generation to grow up with Super Heroes being a Real thing and not from war stories and comic books. You've tried to keep her away from all the news stories about all the horrible world events that keep happening, but capitalism sure loves to sell the idea and you can't fight capitalism. You're half convinced the Avengers are funded by their merchandise sales alone. Spider-Man isn't a part of all that, as far as you know, but New York loves the guy and you can get bootleg Spider merch on most street corners. Which you have, because Mouse thinks he's Cool. 

"He saved a kitty," she says with lots of pride in her voice. "I saw on TV." 

You remember the news segment from a few weeks prior: someone had filmed Spider-Man rescuing a cat that had gotten stuck in some construction equipment. It was heartwarming.

"He saved a kitty?" He asks, pretending to be in awe. Minnie gives a vigorous nod before shoving more of her grilled cheese into her mouth.

"She's nodding," you narrate, finally moving to eat your sandwich. "It was a daring rescue. I had to save the video on my phone so we can rewatch it. It was on top of a crane."

"Do you like Spidey-man?" Mouse asks as soon as she swallows her food. You know he can't see you, but you still look at Matt with raised eyebrows, wanting to know his answer as well.  

"Well, based off what you said, he sounds like a good man. He wasn't around when I was growing up, so I'm partial to Captain America. I used to read his comics when I was little like you." It's a very diplomatic and lawyer-y answer and it makes you wonder if Matt even likes the topic. Hell's Kitchen did get the short end of the stick in the Battle of New York and the whole thing might be a touchy subject, especially considering his career. You know developers tried to take advantage of all the destruction and that must have caused a tonne of legal trouble. 

Not that Minnie knows any of that, so you try to divert the conversation with the first thought that comes to mind, "what about ducks, Mr. Murdock, are you a fan of ducks?" 

Your question throws him for a moment, but eventually he hums at the inquiry before nodding, "I do like ducks. Even ones who bite." He shoots you a little smile, something charming that makes your heart stutter. So instead of continuing to look at him, you turn to your daughter.

"Do you think we should invite Matt to visit the ducks?" You ask, wanting to make sure she is comfortable with the idea before properly asking Matt if he would like to come along. You have no idea if he has plans after this or not, but it is worth a shot.

Minnie looks from you to Matt and back again, pursing her lips in thought before lowering her voice into an unintentional stage whisper, "Mommy, he can't touch the duckies."

You try your best to not coo at her concern. You want to wrap her up in your arms and never let anything bad happen because how can your little angel be so thoughtful after only knowing him for half an hour?

"It's okay, sweetie," Matt softly says, and you turn your gaze to him. You swear you can feel the emotion coming off of him in waves - the desire to spend more time with his daughter, to learn more about her and bond. "You can help describe them to me, if you want. If you want me to come with you." 

The last part hits home - you are very familiar with that way of speech. The want and ache to be included but knowing you'll most likely be denied the opportunity. 

It feels like an infinity passes before she looks away from both of you and shyly admits, "I can help." She was so enthusiastic with her new toy and you do want to try to get that energy back. The park is one of the places she forgets to be a timid little mouse and you are hoping once she's not trapped in the booth, it will be easier for her to express herself.

"May I go with you to visit the ducks, Minnie?" He asks so proper and politely and it makes your stomach do funny things. You really do not understand how this wonderful man picked you of all people to sleep with.

Mouse squirms then pushes her wrist against her mouth, mumbling into it, "I wanna see the duckies. With Mister Matt. And Mommy."

You lean in and gently kiss the top of her head, rubbing at her back to silently tell her she did such a good job. "We'll all go see the duckies after we finish eating. All together."

Minnie peeks up at you, that shy sweet smile brightening to a look only reserved for Mommy, "We're gonna see the duckies. All together."

From the other side of the booth you hear Matt confirm in the softest voice, like you weren't meant to hear it.

 "All together."

tags list:

@midnightreids @cloudroomblog @yeonalie @thychuvaluswife 

@dorothleah @mattmurdocksstarlight @mars-on-vinyl @mywellspringoflife @sleepdeprived-barelyalive @simmilarly @soupyspence @darkened-writer @akila-twt

@murc0ckmurc0ck @groovycass @sumo-b98 @just3rowsing @tongueofcat @zoom1374

@theclassicvinyldragon @aoi-targaryen @lunaticgurly @nikitawolfxo @shireentapestry @snakevyro @yondiii @echos-muses @honeybug-victoria @the-bisaster @ristare @mrs-bellingham @eugene-emt-roe @cometenthusiast @stevenknightmarc @hunnybelha @Specialagentjackbauer @yarrystyleeza 

[basicwhitewitchy]

How i think HoO should go.

The lost hero is fine it just needed a little polishing. Make it slightly more of a mystery of the roman camp rather than being beaten over the head about roman gods and then going i wonder the gods were talking about. (Paraphrased line from leo during his talk with hepheastus.)

Slim down the background characters. Mitchell and lacy are the exact same character font with a different gender and never appear again in HoO. The hepheastus cabin head (the one in a full body cast i can't remember his name) should be replaced by Nyssa, who gets a limb taken out by the dragon and that's why the camp is trying to remove it rather than a camper who gets mostly healed by the end of the.

The monsters fights were hard (arguably, Piper failed her fight since her charmspeak couldn't overpower medeas, and medea was alive after the fight)

Son of Neptune is the start of most of the changes.

MAJOR CHANGES

Remove Octavian as a villian. The book spent so much time on trying to establish him as a villian that Gaias plot was left lacking.

Keep him as an antagonist similar to drew or make him a reluctant but distrustful ally like Clarisse and use the other scenes to set up different Gaia plots or the approaching army.

Let camp jupiter reflect how we were introduced via jason. A place where they brand children, use child soldiers despite having adults, and crush people's personalities so they fit an outdated, homogenous persona.

Percy shouldn't feel comfortable in Camp Jupiter. The whole sea doesn't like to be restrained thing.

Make the minor monster fights harder and compliment the person fighting. Percy taking down Phineas via plot armor (despite Gaia never having a plot that needed Percy, her rising just needed the blood of 2 demigods one male one female) was stupid.

MINOR CHANGES

When Percy and co. is about to leave CJ, instead of percy dreaming about Grover he should dream about either Gaia or the impending army.

The hierarchy should have years of service requirements for ranks. Sort of like an actual military does. Percy should not be able to become praetor after 1.5-2 days in camp, 1 week as a member of Camp, and skip 3 entire ranks.

Hazel should start using her gold as shields after Frank goes into Hazel's flashback. Give a bit of variety to the fighting styles of the 7.

Frank should use his bow in combination with his shapeshifting. Maybe he gets sent on scouting out enemy's and is the ranger part of the group.

Sammy is no longer related to Leo and instead the drama comes from the frank and Leo tension comes from Leo's personality. Frank gets over it as he gets to know leo better.

THING I AM IFFY ON

Who become praetor because I refuse to accept percy winning the praetorship. He also has 4 really big things that should have made it harder for him: his time at CJ, him being a rumored greek, CJ believing him to be neptune kid, and him being from the fifth cohort (honestly 5 if u consider he showed up with a goddess who literally said theirs an invasion coming).

On one hand, i think Gwen should have been made praetor and not killed off to develop octavian as a character and to move frank up through the ranks.

On the other, it would have made perfect sense to make the final battle a lot harder and have the rest of the Seven help out towards the end.

Although none of this really matters since the praetorship election isn't super important since octavian isn't a main villian anymore.

Mark of Athena is only really needs a couple of changes

BIG CHANGES

removing the roman vs greek war and having Nemesis be the one to help during the battle between ephialtis and otis.

The war didn't actually hinder the 7 in any real way. They fled camp jupiter, had a minor skirmish in Charleston, and then the war proceeded to slowly progress hell almost come to a halt until the middle of HoH (it took them i think half of MoA to get to the east coast and then another whole book and a half to actually do something vaguely plot progressing. Thx octavian).

Nemesis giving Leo the fortune cookie was great but how it was used so stupidly. Instead he should have used it to summon her during the final battle and have it actually correlate to Annabeth falling into Tartarus.

Baccus' meeting with piper, Jason, and Leo isn't needed anymore since the war isn't going on.

Makes it so his guilt doesn't feel weirdly out of place in HoH.

We're destroying both camps. Yes including camp half-blood. MoA needs to up the stakes to show how much of a threat Gaia is and what better way is for her to succeed where the titans didn't. (Luke and/or Kronos failed to destroy the camps twice once during SoM and the other during BoLT (hehe the acronym is bolt))

How, by using the fauns of course. Rick either unintentionally established that nature deities and spirits were joining Gaia (the gods of wind, goddesses of snow and the rainbow, the barley spirits, lycaons wolf pack).

It wouldn't have been hard. Coach Hedge sets it off, he goes down with the 7, meets don, and starts boasting of all the shit he claims to do.

We know what happens when inexperienced Satyrs use nature magic. It can accidentally hurt people (grover leading percy straight into some thick branches in TLT)

Imagine what would happen if Don and some other fauns tried to do nature magic. Combine that with Gaia doing some whispering about them being literally homeless beggers (also side not describing Don as having an afro and literally begging feels wrong to me).

This leads to the group splitting into people wanting to rescue romans, people wanting to check on camp half-blood, and Annabeth who makes the final decision to continue with the quest.

SMALL CHANGES

Piper is the one sent to Calypso's island. Leo will be remaining single and will get his on time later.

Your telling me that a goddess forcibly sent onto a island was more than willing to leave despite it being millennium since she was free. Yes it was a punishment but it felt like the punishment was the gods sending men who was her type

Also pair it narratively with Piper, a girl who was given false memories of a boy she fell in love with, to Calypso, a goddess who is sent people she can't help fall in love with, and it adds some depth to Piper and Jason's relationship if Piper sees this, compared it to how she met Jason, and still decides at the end of BoO to stay together.

Maybe let the gods keep that oath but Calypso finds the island home and stays despite being allowed to leave.

And quite frankly, with how Khione acted in TLH I don't think she would understand platonic romances (I couldn't think of the word)

Another thing is that it kinda felt that rescuing nico and the mark of Athena quests were kinda separate despite having the same prophecy.

Maybe have the Annabeths quest lead to the building Nico is being held in, have a mechanical contraption leo solves as the doorway, and then have Annabeth split from the group.

Percy and Annabeth are not going to go on a date with all this going on.

House of Hades is mostly a rewrite of the non-tartarus scenes. The rest of the 7 were doing side quests while Percy and Annabeth were doing plot stuff.

BIG CHANGES

The quest should be finding a way to open the doors of death on the mortal side. Maybe using diocletians staff so it actually has a plot purpose rather than just a character purpose.

Frank can still get his vent session but instead of it being at the end of the series its during one the times they split into smaller groups. Maybe during their time with triptolemus, trip was gifted as a way to make up for persephones abduction but he is still salty and has his canon interaction with hazel.

Nico is not going to be a main character. He can be a secondary character but it felt like he took over some scenes that someone from the Seven should have filled.

Like the cupid scene. Leo should have been the one their confessing how he flirts with people as a way of distracting others and as a way of disconnecting from people rather than the awful coming out that nico got.

Nico is still gay though.

Only really change in Tartarus is going to be the Alkys and Nyx scenes. Since Calypso isn't unreasonably angry at percy for something he never promised, Nyx can take over the Annabeth not being able to find Percy.

Make it a real orpheus and eurydice retelling and make the escape from Nyx a trust fall type situation rather than them jumping twenty feet.

We keep Bob as the actual eurydice like he was in canon (i refuse to acknowledge The sun and the star as a continuation of this plot)

Small Bob does escape with them though.

At the very end instead of just Reyna meeting up with the 7, a group CHB and CJ meet up.

The group contains Octavian, Rachel, Reyna, Nyssa, Will, Michael Kahille, Drew, and a few background characters.

They are the ones to take the statue of Athena to Athens because the heart of the gods being in New York was not good.

Athens is where the new camp will be set up.

MINOR CHANGES

Make the fights harder. It felt like nobody every really got injured. Jason gets knocked out a lot but other than bring stabbed in the back in BoO but the rest never seemed to get majorly taken out or even felt human.

Everyone got of fights easily, nobody was really injured in a way that actually made it harder for them plot wise.

Maybe Hazel's fainting spells start coming back since that's a medical condition that normally doesn't get fixed via the power of love. Leo or Piper could have fainted from exhaustion by overusing their powrrs since they'd only learned about demigods less than a year ago.

Switch of the pairing and allow the SoN trio and TLH trio to actually bond outside of their introductory books.

Show Hazel attempting and failing to use the mist during a couple of the minor encounters with monsters.

Add in a few throwaway lines of the earth behaving erratically like we got in the original series. News anchors talking about how tectonic plates were shifting in drastic ways or how extreme weather patterns were forming out of nowhere

Blood of Olympus needs the most work done

MAJOR CHANGES

Reyna and Nico arent povs.They were the best out of this book and it took away from the 7.

Their povs aren't needed since the war doesn't exist and we don't need him to get the statue back to long island.

The 7 give the Parthenos to the mixed groups of romans and greeks that met up with them at the end of HoH and we only hear about it in the rare occasional Annabeth chapter.

The original journey took away from the whole Gaia rising thing and the whole fixing the split between roman and greek personality thing the gods had going on was never really an issue for the 7 so fixing it never really mattered.

Also just returning the statue never made much sense because the split was caused by the romans syncretyzing (spelling is probably wrong) their gods with the greeks so the parthenos shouldn't have fixed that.

The final battle with Gaia should happen near the original olympus like she said it would (rip the gods roots out at their beginning or something along those lines) or it shouldn't happen at all.

Kinda torn on this because if its the 7 and gods stalling until the 1st of August is over than it kinda ends anticlimactic but if Gaia does rise then we have to go the canon route of "killing" her in the sky.

With the canon option, she needs to be a bigger threat. Maybe she slowly rising from the earth and attacking her seems to do nothing.

Give her a physical looking body rather than the formless cloud of dirt she was in canon. Can get a funny but terrifying scene of Gaia stretching as soon as she wakes up.

The gods attack while the demigods deal with the remaining giants that are approaching. They realize that they are barely doing anything since Gaia is both healing them and they can't kill them since they gods are distracted trying to prevent Gaias rise.

This is where the whole gods and mortals working together thing happens. Instead of pairing up with their parents though they pair up with the god most different from their parents.

Piper and Annabeth with Ares and vise versa with Frank, Hazel and Percy swap (Pluto being very rigid in how he runs his domain vs Poseidon being relaxed and laid back), Leo works with Zeus and Jason Hepheaustus.

This way the demigod can fill in the gaps where the god isn't able to.

If the fight is to a stalement the battle ends when Reyna and Annabeth get the statue back to its original place in Athens and the pathenos sets up a new barrier for a new camp.

If its not, then frank is dying in this battle. I mean frank is dying anyway since he is the one I'm going to choose to defeat Gaia since he's both storm and fire (legacy of Poseidon and the whole lifeline stick thing of his).

MINOR CHANGES

Orion hunting Reyna is shown on page rather than only showing the end of the encounter. Makes the journey rougher since Octavian isn't an issue anymore.

The 7 going to Ithaca has an actual plot reason now. It being they need to learn where Gaia intends to rise from since they're are so many important places in Greece.

The physicians cure does not exist and the trip to Delos to meet Apollo doesn't happen because we aren't doing the trials of Apollo.

We are doing trials of Hera instead.

A couple of minor myths Rick didn't touch on for some reason make an appearance, like Hypolyta, that one male hunter whose name is can't remember, or the story of Cadmus.

Make the fights more dangerous. I feel like I put this on every single book.

AT THE END OF THE SERIES

Hera was already cast out of Olympus in an earlier book so their is no need for Apollo to be turned mortals. Also no Octavian being a villian helps.

The gods help build up a new camp for both the romans and greeks. Maybe the romans get a camp near troy while the greeks get Athens or they both share one single camp.

The Parthenos replace Thalias tree and the romans no longer have to post guards outside their tunnel.

The greeks should help lighten up the remaining romans attitudes while the romans help the greeks build up a safe city for the demigods to live in.

Make use of the whole Romans are good at building things quickly that got established during the war games.

The oracle thing still happened so Hera is fixing that. Octavian, Rachel, and Ella are working on deciphering the few remaining pieces off the temple of Jupiter alongside what Ella remembers of the original Sybilline books.

[bunnakit]

last twilight e2 thoughts feelings etc

As always, I'm just some dude on the internet. I could be way off base with some of this but I just think it's fun to think about. Night asking Mhok to make him a cup of coffee was very interesting. Mhok is not there as a general staff, cook, etc. He's there to help Day and only Day and Night is fully capable of making himself a cup of coffee. Curious if this is a hint at Night helping himself to things intended for Day, coveting things Day has, etc. It definitely didn't feel like a throw away action.

I appreciate Porjai very, very gently reprimanding Mhok for being nosy in cleaning up Day's room. It was a bit of a misstep for Mhok and he needed to know that. It's important to let us disabled people ask for help when we need it and not assume we always need help. While the state of Day's room was very likely a concern for safety reasons and general health he should have been asked at the very least if it should or could be cleaned. It's not unlike grabbing the handles of someone's wheelchair and pushing them when they didn't ask to - You don't know what Day has a system for, you don't know what paths he's memorized, or even what obstacles he may have set up for himself intentionally to guide himself to different parts of the room. While it seems difficult for Day to ask for help it is something he's going to have to get accustomed to and he will with time, jumping in and making changes without his consent robs him of more of his already so very scarce agency he's been allowed.

Aon telling Day he needs to be patient and learn to talk to sighted people is huge. I made a post last week about my favorite thing being Day's anger and this is absolutely true, however, it can be so very easy to wallow in your grief and anger if you let yourself. It's important for Day to be angry, it's important for him to be impatient, but it's also important for him to push past those things and grow. Day needs to reevaluate his interpersonal interactions, he needs to relearn how to socialize especially without social queues from body language (something we often process subconsciously and take for granted.) All Day has now to go off of is voice inflection and his own critical thinking skills. He's going to have to be patient with people, he's going to have to adjust, and he's going to have to give Mhok a genuine chance. It's easy to isolate yourself when you're disabled, far too easy, and it's so much harder and scarier to try.

In the same vein as my first comment, the fumbled eye drops scene is so important, I loved it so much. It's Day realizing his limitations, coming to terms with them, and accepting that he needs help - he can't do everything on his own and that's okay, there are people there to help him if he just asks. And Mhok just does it. He doesn't make him feel silly or stupid or feeble, he just looks for the eye drops and hands them over. It's not A Thing, it's not anything more than just helping someone. It's easy, and it should be.

The Boob Grab sure is something. I did not know Jimmy was built like that. I'll talk more about this later.

"Living alone in a small fish tank is lonely, right?"

Oh fuck me UP. Living alone in this tiny bedroom is lonely, isn't it Day?

"Goldfish have a short memory. It can't be lonely."

Perhaps the goldfish's memory is so short because no one has ever taken the time to stick around. No one was worth remembering. And maybe the goldfish wishes he remembered some things less.

The fish is dying, suffocating in it's own filth and loneliness, suffocating from a lack of consideration and care. But suddenly the goldfish goes outside, it breathes fresh air, smells the blooming jasmine, and suddenly it doesn't feel like it's suffocating anymore. Things are a little clearer - not literally but it no longer feels like it's swimming through a miasma. (The goldfish is Day, btw.)

FUCK. ME. UP. I'm eating all of this like the delicious anniversary dinner I had tonight.

So lunch. I noticed this at the beginning of the episode but it's really driven home here. Zero accommodations have been made for Day in the span of a fucking year. There's been no safety measures made, no pathways made more accessible, and even more frustrating they've reorganized the fucking kitchen. It's like they sealed Day in a tomb and are just waiting for him to die so they can move on with business as usual. I would ask 'how is Day supposed to do anything for himself' but it's very clear no one thought of that. They all thought of him as this shambling shell of a man that couldn't possibly do basic tasks like find the soy sauce for himself, they didn't consider him even as an afterthought when rearranging everything. It shows Day's fall from grace within his own family in such a brutal way and it makes me so angry with his family.

The scene with Night and his friends is a lot. Day's anxiety is so palpable and the comments made make me wonder if Day's condition has been kept under wraps as some sort of shameful secret. I would be interested to see if there was an NDA in Mhok's contract.

And then we get Mhok's anxiety and raw fear. Mhok's worst nightmares came to fruition and he knows what hopelessness, frustration, and despair can do to a person. He knows it only takes the smallest thing to push someone into the unthinkable and he can't allow that to happen again. He failed to see it last time, failed to answer a call for help. He won't ever miss that call again.

Here's where we're going to come back to the boob grab and here's where I could be WAY FUCKING OFF BASE. I know we all love it, Jimmy boobie stress ball teehee, but there's also a moment of shock on Day's face when it happens. He's alarmed and taken aback and rightfully so because what the fuck this man is half naked in his room??? Then we come to this point where Mhok has just burst into his room while Day is naked and vulnerable and he knows Mhok has seen him. His reaction might seem harsh or impulsive but here's the tragic thing - A painful, horrible amount of caretakers in the world take advantage of their charges monetarily, sexually, or otherwise. (It's something I've personally seen happen to friends and family.)It's not the rule, but it happens enough to be notable.

It would not be difficult for Day to be taken advantage of and this is only his.. third? fourth? day with Mhok who is still very much a stranger to him. Mhok was completely justified in his reaction (and realistically should have a key for Day's room for emergencies only because God forbid Day fall in the bath or something) but Day's reaction is every bit justified as well. But I don't blame Day for his reaction because he very likely was afraid and his emotions were already so heightened from the mess with his brother, and I applaud Mhok for just leaving and leaving it at that. They both needed to calm down and Mhok leaves. He respects Day's decision, his agency, etc. He walks away from a job that could change his life.

Once again The Little Prince narrates the lives of these two perfectly. No notes, perfect, beautiful, muah.

The fucking slippers. Finally, someone has taken the time to understand. It was a simple solution to a large part of Day's frustration and pain. It has given him some of his agency back, taken away some of his fear. These stupid ugly goldfish slippers have given him so much and perhaps Mhok understands far more than Day gave him credit for because finally someone is listening to him, listening without him having to beg.

And Day going to see Mhok? That's huge. He could've asked Porjai to bring Mhok or ask him to come by but no; like The Prince he approaches the untamed fox.

And Mhok's desperation to understand. Fucking hell. He's gone above and beyond just being a caretaker and the way he says 'the way people look at us.' Because it's an us now, he wants to stand right by Day's side and shoulder this journey with him, to hold his hand and tell Day 'I'm here with you, you aren't alone.' I'm gonna chew my fucking upholstery.

This is only solidified with the addition of Big Mhok. Little Day isn't alone anymore and Big Mhok might be scary and intimidating but not for Little Day, never for Little Day. And then Day uses some of his precious ten fleeting seconds to see Mhok, to put a face to this insane, caring, brusque, ridiculous man that would live his days blindfolded just to understand someone else's perspective. Because Mhok is worth seeing.

Anyway they make me fucking insane, your honor. I don't know if I'll do this for every episode (if people like it enough, sure) but this one in particular had me feeling a lot of things.

[alatabouleau]

I just kinda need to get this off my chest because I've kinda been falling down a rabbithole on the wrong side of the internet... So, it all started with me watching the BBC documentary about the Burning-Sun-case that was randomly recommended to me...

And it just makes me sooo mad! That Seungri, JJY and all the others have now all served their sentence already, they just continue as before, no lessons learned, and there are STILL people who support them!!!?? And I am so desolated because it shows how deep our impressions of patriarchy and internalised misogyny goes that we would let them off the hook that easily. Meanwhile, two women unalived themselves in relation to the crimes of these people. More still are scarred for live by their actions. And the worst of all? That this is nothing new. This has happened before almost all around the world and how often were women even denied to speak the truth?

Rammstein's investigation was just dropped.

Nicky from Backstreet Boys got out pretty unbothered.

And even if they are convicted, many people scream "death of the author" and continue in their ignorance.

And I do not know how to deal with that. I don't have the answer to solve this. But I do not want to stop being bothered by this. Because the moment we become numb because of how often this has already occurred, the more normal this will be.

And I never want to accept this horrendous violence against women as normal. This has to stop.

And in that same breath, I do NOT understand why people keep bringing up T.O.P.'s drug thing WHEN SEUNGRI WAS LITERALLY HIS FELLOW BAND MEMBER. How does this compare, even come remotely close? Yes, not everything that man did was healthy, but like... how does this concern you? FAMOUS. PEOPLE. DON'T. OWE. YOU. ANYTHING.

I haven't seen Squid game 2 in its entirety simply because that series is not my vibe, but from what I've seen from his performance, he did pretty alright imo. At least, not in a way that would justify the hate towards him. Also, I am so annoyed by the uncharitable interpretations of his actions that I've seen all around. So he left Big Bang. So he blocked G-Dragon on Instagram. What is it to you? After that whole sh*t show, how can you blame him? In Germany, we had a pretty famous a-capella-group called Wise Guys. After their 25 year-anniversary, suddenly (so it seemed) the group disbanded. Through this, two of the band members who always seemed the closest fell completely out of touch and as far as the public knows, are still not on speaking terms even after 8 years. I made the mistake of telling one of them as I met him at the Protestant church convention that I always loved Wise Guys and got a pretty cold response. Does that mean that everything the Wise Guys ever did was fake? No. Neither that either of those people are a-holes per se. We simply do not know what happened behind the curtains. And those were middle-aged men that hadn't HALF of the scandals and sh*t going on that BigBang had to deal with. Add to this mental health problems and different coping mechanisms and you got a fine molotov cocktail of relationship complications. I think why this discourse hits me so much is because I relate in two points to T.O.P.'s story as far as I know it(!)

I, too, left a toxic environment for myself a little over a year ago. I left my church. I still struggle with this because this used to be such a HUGE part of my identity. Also, my family still belongs to it. That's exactly why, on some days I cannot STAND it when people still call me newapostolic. Yes sometimes, I still do that myself but I would probably make a harder cut if I could. So I understand perfectly if he wants no longer be associated with the name BigBang after leaving the K-Pop-industry. On the other hand, I had a friend who went to the same church. A best friend. Ride-or-die. And we had a comeplete fall-out. Not because we did not care for each other anymore, not because we hated each other. But because we both had so many similar issues and our coping mechanisms started to make us hurt each other.

Deeply.

And even to this day, I cannot really talk to her anymore. Because our friendship reminds me of that time that felt so horrendously bad for me.

Because of these two things, I understand the need for a hard-cut oh-so-well. And I would wish for T.O.P. to get it. Is that interpretation the absolute truth of what happened? No. Because no one of us outside knows it. I just wanted to show that there are interpretations where you don't have to make anyone involved The Bad Guy(tm). I wish Choi Seunghyun all the best.

And those mentioned in the first part of this post... having to grasp and live with the whole amount of pain they caused others.

[worth-this-and-more]

my speculations on how bree's purple power would be like: which majorly stems from when i was wondering how bree's power smells like and half the post is just that

[spoilers for legendborn and bloodmarked, read at your own caution ;)]

so there are a few...things related to magic in the legendborn series; it's abilities, specialties, weaknesses, aftereffects, smells, color, common form etc etc so i wanted to make some headcanons which may or may not be true but yeah these are my thoughts;

so now that we are here, let us begin;

her power is purple as everybody and their mamas know but just let's get into this?? purple has been like a symbol of yk rarity and royalty in literature since ages before, which goes perfectly with the fact that bree is our king. now since it is so rare her powers will have the usual and added benefits, which i have headcanoned before but i just wanted to put them in one place.

firstly, aether was usually used to cast hard constructs, harder than diamond if needed, but selwyn has proved that aether could be forged into practically anything you wish to as long as you're capable and willing. so bree's power can surely be used like an all-encompassing building block to forge everything from weapons to mundane things like i said here. so this is aspect one.

secondly, rootcrafting is mainly for healing and perseverance. so bree could now possibly have the ability to heal herself, and because she is seen to have at least some knowledge of medical field or can like basically guess which part is hurting and which one is not, i mean isn't it possible now she has her own unlimited (debatable since she collapsed after jessie healed alice but i have a point for that too??) healing powers?? surely she will be able to heal herself pretty fine, yk like a quick break between things because rootcraftng doesn't allow use of much power because it is borrowed but like now she has her own furnace so yeah.

about the collapsing part, it is possible that because in legendborn she hadn't completely unlocked and accepted her powers yet, she was running on a limited-time root that was supposed to be an "emergency" supply. and also that it was used by someone else through her, she did not willingly give it like she did in bloodmarked (she wouldn't have refused to, just that she didn't realize quick enough what jessie meant when she said you'll have todo from your side so like kind of different from when she gave her root to selwyn) and in bloodmarked she also had like yk 70% set unlocked ig.

thirdly, because these powers are now merged, it would be so badass if she is able to actively defend herself and heal herself at the same time, after mastering her control over powers now that arthur is no longer manipulating her with his "too much aether, too fast" strategy.

along with this, we saw that bree's healing gave alice like permanent immunity from mesmer, either triggered by pain or just not able to stick properly in the head, but either ways mesmers don't work now. so after they all reunite, one task in her to-do list could be to have sel or anyone mesmer everyone and then to reverse the mesmer so that everybody now has immunity from mesmer. yk for future reference or relevance to the plot perhaps. and ofc you can't forget anna (nick's mom) i strongly believe her mesmer is gonna be broken by bree.

also, THE DAGONNN. so the question is about her fuel and sustenance, so like if she's in her dragon form can she eat what dragons eat (obviously meat i don't think vegetarian dragons exist?? and also does bree eat meat is this ever mentioned?? if not then i hope she eats meat she gonna need that protein to fly) will it affect her?? like in her human form ofc she wouldn't want to eat uncooked meat but like become a dragon breathe fire and you have your medium rare steak ready. is this possible. same question for selwyn btw, can he eat worms in his owl form or does he like throw up after turning human or have food poisoning like is this a thing guys.

anyways, back to topic, so these are like her abilities, but what about the physical descriptions?? now her rootcraft was mage flames, and aether was the solid armor construct. so her new powers could either be something in between or a combination that she can wield in whichever way she needs. technically it should be a combination, harder constructs for weapons and armor, flames for large defense and flowy to make her own wards (i mean she would need them sometime?? ig?? after they reunite and shit so yeah)

and the smell, her new power should have different smells and purple is the rare royal color and hella nostalgic vibes there don't ask me why so here are my guesses;

petrichor; the smell of earth after the first rain. not exactly rare, but it is kind of a nostalgic smell that has been on earth hundreds of years even before humanity. like it ties with the fact that bree's power was more from the shadow king so the smell is also like yk ancient af.

i don't know the name but the smell of salt on the beach, waves rolling in and the sprayed misty scent. correspondence to, again, it has been here since ages and is one of the smells that has a different type of nostalgia. anybody who has ever been to a beach or water body will know but it just smells different.

now this one a kind of hard to explain but yk when you go to your grandparent's house, maternal grandparents, and it has like this distinct smell that is different for every family?? the smell of generations of mothers growing up in the same house, like their childhood, puberty, old age everything in one place. (yes i thought of this while i was at my own grandma's house and i wondered what it would be like if bree also had the chance to be in a house which had all the memories and elements of her line of mothers lives). it will be a difficult smell to explain because i do not have the proper vocabulary to say it but it is a guess of mine and probably possible.

yk that very powdery smell of silk?? the one that doesn't go away even after washing the cloth many many times, its very hard to explain but silk has been a major symbol of royalty in history (yk the silk road?? yeahhh) so it could also be one of the scents, depending on which type of royalty you mean.

i ran out of scents but you get the point now.

now, weaknesses. i am hoping she doesnt have to like yk collapse after every fight, at least not until the adrenaline wears off. i hope her powerhouse can heal her and replenish her energy levels. at least for short term, like yk coffee makes you forget you're tired. not exactly good but will be good while she's on the run. may or may not happen but hey I'm just making theories.

this is all ig?? could make a pt.2 or add something here but yeah this is all i guess.

[vivaciouscynner]

Contingency Plan

I am hopeful that we will miraculously be smart enough to not allow a fascist to be elected president again.

I am hopeful that people will realize everything will be worse under Republican rule - read up on project 2025 to give you a clearer idea what that looks like. Listen to the awful rally at MSG last weekend.

I am hopeful the arrogance of the privileged that are aiming to "protest" by not voting will change their mind as they will be the reason for more blood to be shed. Not just in Palestine, but also right here. School shootings will increase. Deaths among women, be it by abuse or being forced to carry to term. Deaths among minorities.

I am hopeful, however.

But if this election turns to shit, you're going to need to understand how to stay safe - as safe as you are able.

There are many things you need to change regarding your online and offline life.

Online:

If you feel you are a target of republican policies, you'll want to purge or just simply stop posting data about yourself regarding your online presence.

selfies

pictures of your home inside or out

pictures of trips you've been on and posted online

any reference to your real name

any reference to your real home address or general area

jobs (where you work or what you do)

Privacy is REALLY important to me.

update your DNS settings, preferably on the router you use, but you can also do it on your PC, to use cloudflare dns 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 Updating the DNS to cloudflare will prevent your ISP seeing some traffic and will actually improve website response times too)

please use a VPN like NordVPN or something. There's a lot of them out there. Using a VPN will not only encrypt data, it will also hide your ip.

Use a more secure browser - Tor Browser is good for that given it goes through the onion network - but it can make websites harder to use because of how strict it is. You can use LibreWolf as an alternative which comes with pretty secure settings "right out of the box".

Use offline Password Managers (don't use or let your browser remember them). I use KeePass

Get off any app that tracks anything. This includes but not limited to period trackers, fitness trackers, anything that tracks your location and uploads it to the app developers. An app that says "We don't track your data" today does NOT mean that they won't update and start tracking you tomorrow. Be VERY wary of all app privacy policies. You will need to literally read them now. If they share your data, don't use it. Because these companies sell your data to not only advertisers but also law enforcement.

[Please take some time to search and understand the above by yourself, otherwise this will be a gargantuan post if I have to explain it all.]

Offline

You're going to have to accept that convenience is no longer possible or feasible. Everyone's situation is different and I can only recommend looking to the people you trust the most for help in any which way you can. Even crossing state boarders is dangerous for some people.

Breathe. Think it through. Ask for help.

Please also provide resources if you have any to this post so we can send it around.

[bearsinpotatosacks]

Fic idea where Richie fully tries to reconnect with life

First chapter is Richie being invited to go dress shopping with Frank and Tiff as she's their flower girl. He gets along with them and thinks he could be friends

Second chapter is him reaching out to his parents, who he cut off contact with since he left home. He tells them what they missed, how they were partially right by their suspicion of the Berzattos because Richie feels like he keeps getting drawn in only to be pushed out when things get tough, he feels like their caretaker and the one putting them back together. It's rocky but it's a start. His dad apologises for the hard, neglectful way he treated him, and that he missed having him in his life a lot more than he cared about the rules he put in place. He shows them the Bear and his mother apologises then.

Third chapter is Richie applying for jobs. He's realised how this is another sinking ship and he can't go down with another Berzatto. I think it would be interesting if Carmy started to improve, he talks with Sydney and she ends up staying but Richie ends up leaving. He's spent most of his career in the same place and he's grown more than that. I think it would be a nice end to his character arc to have him leave the Bear, and in some ways the Berzatto family or at least him putting boundaries in place, while Sydney gets accepted in and let's herself be accepted.

This could also have him having some interviews that don't go well. Him being rejected, perhaps mirror Tina's episode with him putting so much time in at the Beef that's now the Bear but not being good enough for the same role elsewhere as he's not educated and doesn't have enough experience.

Fifth chapter is him getting a job. I can see him working somewhere not Michelin star as he doesn't care for them, but somewhere that cares about the food and the people. I can also see him working in a hotel, or, controversially (?) leaving the hospitality industry as a whole and taking his passion for people and working somewhere else.

Can anyone else see Richie as a good nurse or is it just me? Him seeing the same faces, having a rapour with them, making them smile and helping them, I can see him flirting with elderly ladies to make them smile (yes I'm thinking of him being a palliative care/geriatric nurse

He hands in his notice at the Bear and when asked why he goes into how it's heartless. He's trying so hard to improve himself but how can he when there's so much tension and he's not respected, he's earning the same wage as he did at the Beef but is working so much harder and longer and is still relying on tips even though people pay $175 a head. He also tells them, trying to be respectful, how they've all collectively failed at making the Beef better by wrapping their dysfunctions in a different jacket, so to speak. Syd wanted things to be better, for people not to feel and act shitty but now it's even worse because there's no fun. They've got more debt and everyone's unhappy and he can't put another Berzatto back together, he can't go down with another sinking ship and he respects himself more than that.

Sixth chapter could be a time skip. Think 2 years later, Richie’s finished his associates degree in nursing and is starting as a nurse for a carer company. He goes out to celebrate, someone books the Bear, he's heard that things are better, not Michelin star but not shitty quality like the Beef, somewhere in the middle.

It's strange for everyone else, seeing Richie as the customer. He kept in touch, but life's busy, he became more like a true cousin, one you see more at family functions than day in day out. He’s on good terms with his parents, good friends with Tiff and Frank, Eva’s growing up, turning 8 now. They stay close to closing, he leaves a big tip but waves through the window before going.

[my-castles-crumbling]

so like after a period of some not so healthy communication my bsf and I are no longer friends I guess and honestly? all my other friends think its for the best and ig yeah but I guess its kind of hard to fix that void. its not something we can just TALK about, we've tried and always ended up in the same place and we cant really be friends again. not in "this timeline" which ironically is a concept she firmly believes in (of things not happening again in "this timeline") and she has tumblr (she's the one who introduced me to tumblr and your blog though I'm often inactive) and I KNOW she'll see this and I guess that's okay. I'm glad for our times together but its just not possible for us to be friends anymore. we've hurt each other too much, mutually, and we're just very different people compared to those 9 year old peas in a pod that we once were. I don't believe that ill find someone else who's anything like her and I guess I'm glad. she'd be special in my memories like that. being friends again is not an option. my other friends will definitely kill me because every time our friendship has reached a breaking point we've always temporarily resolved it until a new issue arises and the cycle repeats. and they just think its really unhealthy and I get it. I. get. it. but finding no one like her is also a challenge because I've gotten so accustomed to needing someone who gives me comfort like she does. im not that accustomed to other peoples comfort but I guess I'll learn. its only 3 and a half more years until I get out of this hellhole and make genuine friends for life anyway.

it sounds so incredibly petty if I tell you I removed her from all my socials but I did. so that I don't get the urge to reach out, not like she'd talk to me anyway. its. unhealthy. my brain knows that but my heart doesn't. my heart longs to be embraced by her. my heart wants to cry about this problem to her even though its literally about her. my heart just cant accept that it wont be us anymore.

my brain wants to move the fuck on. im becoming a different person and I don't have the same life I once did. I don't need her because she isn't a part of my new persona.

so my brain and my heart are at constant war with eachother. I guess she was my first real female friendship. the first one that went downhill. the other friendships I lost were over petty things and I'm on talking terms with them all. this one is different. it goes deeper than anything else. it makes me want to laugh and sob and tear out my hair in frustration all at once. its the first proper gruesome betrayal because we betrayed younger us. younger us who would've been neighbours and live to see eachother with grey hair. I have an ex who I was IN LOVE with and when we broke up I never cried as much as I'm crying for this friend. of course the circumstances were a bit different but I haven't cried so hard for ANYONE leaving. and now I guess I'm scared they'll all leave.

ill get over it just like I get over everything else but its just so much harder.

...................et tu, brute?

Hi!

I'm so sorry this happened to you.

I think the really sad truth is that some people just...bring out the worst in each other. Like they have an unhealthy relationship, no matter what type and what they do. And it doesn't make them bad people, it just doesn't work.

Friendship breakups are AWFUL too because I feel like people are less likely to take them seriously. But you have to go through a mourning period, just like a relationship breakup. It's hard, and it takes time, and it's okay to have all sorts of feelings about it. But it sounds like you know that this is what's best for both of you, at least for now.

Remember thought that just because friendship didn't work with one person, it doesn't mean it's the same for everyone. Everyone is different, and not everyone will leave <3

Naming you timeline anon

[vyunok-obyknovenniy]

A little analysis of this part in the Odyssey:

Reading time: ~10 minutes

Book 23, The Great Rooted Bed, Fagles' tr-n There he sat, leaning against the great central column, eyes fixed on the ground, waiting, poised for whatever words his hardy wife might say when she caught sight of him. A long while she sat in silence … numbing wonder filled her heart as her eyes explored his face. One moment he seemed … Odysseus, to the life— the next, no, he was not the man she knew, a huddled mass of rags was all she saw.

“Oh mother,” Telemachus reproached her, “cruel mother, you with your hard heart! Why do you spurn my father so—why don’t you sit beside him, engage him, ask him questions? What other wife could have a spirit so unbending? Holding back from her husband, home at last for her after bearing twenty years of brutal struggle— your heart was always harder than a rock!” “My child,” Penelope, well-aware, explained, “I’m stunned with wonder, powerless. Cannot speak to him, ask him questions, look him in the eyes … But if he is truly Odysseus, home at last, make no mistake: we two will know each other, even better— we two have secret signs, known to us both but hidden from the world.”

Odysseus, long-enduring, broke into a smile and turned to his son with pointed, winging words: “Leave your mother here in the hall to test me as she will. She soon will know me better. Now because I am filthy, wear such grimy rags, she spurns me—your mother still can’t bring herself to believe I am her husband.<...>

Telemachus is a precious baby, we've established that.

But he does act a bit like a brat with Penelope a couple times. Of course I don't think that any of that is malicious or that he doesn't love her, but he's still being a bit of a brat.

They both suffered, their pain was similar, but also very different, their experiences and the way they processed it were different as well.

Moreover, at this moment Telemachus has already spent some time with Odysseus. They already had their meeting/reunion and they already cried it out (to an extent. I'm sure there's more crying they'll do afterwards). They even had a father-son bonding activity (a.k.a. the slaughter of the suitors). Telemachus got to know his father at least a little bit over the past couple of days and at this point he processed and accepted the idea of Odysseus being back.

Penelope, on the other hand, was told about it just a moment ago. She can't immediately go "oh, you're saying Odysseus is back? Wonderful, let me greet him", no. Odysseus wasn't away on a short hunting trip or something, he was away for two whole decades, half of that time he was pretty much thought to be dead by most people (the first half wasn't that much better, as he could've still died any time during the war, but at least he wasn't lost, Penelope knew where he was).

Now she needs time to wrap her head around what is happening. We even see her thoughts as she goes to meet Odysseus:

Penelope started down from her lofty room, her heart in turmoil, torn … should she keep her distance, probe her husband? Or rush up to the man at once and kiss his head and cling to both his hands?

She wants to reunite with him, she wants this to be true, but she can't be sure of anything now. They have been apar for longer than they knew each other. Does he still love her like he used to? Is he the man she loved? Is it even the real Odysseus in the first place? She needs to process everything, as well as confirm all the information herself, and Telemachus, at least at this moment, doesn't comprehend that. He's acting quite immature, scolding his mother for not immediately believing and accepting that Odysseus is back.

This is a very interesting detail. First it once again shows us that Telemachus still lacks a lot of maturity, despite having been on his coming of age trip. He's still very young.

Yes, he definitely grew a lot in that short time, but it would've been impossible for him to learn everything at once, he still has a lot of that immaturity left in him, there's still a lot of room to grow and that's completely understandable. We, as people, grow for our whole lives and Tele is doing remarkably well, especially considering his circumstances.

Another interesting thing about this part is that it shows Telemachus', perhaps a bit childish, impatience. He is a kid, who finally met his dad (and his biggest hero), he knows that his mother was suffering and grieving for pretty much his whole life (with things getting a lot worse over the past decade). From Telemachus' perspective Odysseus' return is supposed to solve all their problems, especially since their biggest problem, a.k.a. the suitors, was just taken care of and it wouldn't have happened without Odysseus.

Telemachus just wants a happy family. His dad is back and seems to love him, the suitors are gone, now his parents should reunite, his mother will stop grieving and everything will be perfect. This is something he dreamt of his whole life and it's finally so close, but his mother doesn't immediately believe him. She doesn't immediately accept Odysseus and Telemachus doesn't understand why. He is too preoccupied with wanting things finally to be okay, that he doesn't take time to think about what Penelope must be feeling. It doesn't even occur to him. Perhaps it's also partially the need to be believed and listened to, which is also something he lacked growing up around suitors and being treated as a child, but I'm not diving into that right now.

Odysseus, on the other hand, understands what's going on. He assures his son, that everything will be okay. He pretty much does a more adult version of "mom and dad will take care of this, you go play for a bit". Odysseus understands Penelope's reaction and goes from there. Of course he wants to be in her embrace as soon as possible, but considering everything she has been through, he definitely can't just suddenly grab her and do what he wants. This is his dearly beloved wife and he wants her to take on that role voluntarily, like she did before, he wants her to accept him as her dear husband, like she did before, and for that he has to let her do it at her own pace. He tries to meet her where she's at, to do this reunion on her terms, to assure her, that he is, who he says he is and who others tell her he is.

This is just so amazing and I love their relationship so much (T▿T)♡

I also love Penelope's reaction to Telemachus' words. She doesn't react negatively, she is remarkably calm and part of it is probably the shock from what's happening, but still, she is "well-aware". I think that she knows Telemachus really well, because even though he has surprised her with how much he matured, he's still the same boy, he's still her kid. She most likely understands where Telemachus' outburst is coming from and doesn't get angry, doesn't scold him for his impatience, she reassures him. She lets him know, that he doesn't need to be scared of things falling apart and that she isn't looking to reject Odysseus. She's looking for Odysseus and she hopes she can find him in that familiar and strange man before her. She just needs time, but she will be taking the effort to search for what she's looking for, now that she has a way (she wouldn't have been able to go searching for Odysseus at sea, but now he's, supposedly, right here and she will handle it like the queen that she is).

[borathae]

https://www.tumblr.com/anikore/718515947758026752

Honestly, this has been plaguing my mind for days. I’ve recently fallen back in love with your writing again, particularly kookie and Yoongi.

This scenario has just been running wild. Imagine if, either (or both) have decided with their girl (I’m thinking ceo au and witch au) that they’re going to dedicate a full day to kink. Specifically a (consensual of course) free use day?

I’m obsessed with groping by the way so imagine for the entirety of the day, neither are fucked, only pseudo-banged. So, they’re being bent over a counter and thrusted into over and over and their balls are being played with as well. Or, their domme(/ partner) has them grind against a counter (that’s a far fetched idea but 🥵) and just working them up. Until eventually, in the evening she just puts them into the best really sensual sun space and shows them truly how much she loves them.

Honestly, this was just a thot dump, really, but I hope you enjoy 😭

CONSENSUAL FREE USE DAY OMFMGM *barks* 😩😩 this is so these couples coded 🥴🥴 and why do I feel like either would have such a different approach to it

Sanguis Yoongi x OC

he'd be cool about it

because he knows the goal of that day is to rile him up, he'd want to pretend that he isn’t into it

the first time she comes up to him with the intent to hump, he'd be all like

"okay this is happening. Fine. This isn’t gonna work, princess."

then by the tenth time she bends him over something, he'd be all like laughing fondly

"Again? I’m telling you this isn’t working."

while his fingers are secretly twisting the pillows of the sofa she bent him over and his ass is secretly chasing her movements

but the thing is? the more often she pulls away again the cuddlier he gets

like he'd begin wanting to randomly hug her or just give her hand a little squeeze or play with her hair

and he'd get unnaturally chatty

and she'd know that it IS working

because he is so obviously trying to pretend not to be affected with all the talking he is doing

I can also see them never getting naked during the day and her doing all the groping over his clothes

also lots of kisses because Yoongi goes crazy for them

one time she slipped her hands in hid pants and Yoongi let out a small breathy moan accidentally

she stopped with a smirk and left with a "see?"

while he is all 🥴 trying to regulate himself in the small corner she pushed him in

so by the time it’s night, Yoongi practically rips off his clothes so he can finally feel her fingers on his skin

and he will finally beg and whine and squirm just for her

Aaol Kook x OC:

he'd be an openly needy boy from the beginning

he'd moan with the first touch

and those moans will only grow in volume the longer the day drags out

he'd also writhe and squirm with the first touch

and become squirmier the older the day gets

he will also very proudly accept that he is getting hard each time she humps him

and that those boners become harder (pun intented) and harder to get rid of afterwards

by the end of the day, Kook will run around wtih a constant semi so sensitive that the sensation of taking off his pants is already enough to turn it into a leaking hard on

I can also see them being a lot more kinkier

I feel like next to excessive humping, there'd also be some examination play involved where she makes him take off a certain parts of clothing so she could "check up on how he is doing"

you know for example he takes off his shirt because she is "worried that his nipples are rubbing against his shirt too much and she needs to make sure he's okay"

or he has to take off his pants and bend over so she could make sure that she isn’t "rubbing too much against his hole and therefore hurt it"

just very obvious bullshit excuses so she can play with his sensitive spots without ever going further than feeling them up

and like one time, the play is cleaning out for later and then her taking a shower with him so she can "make sure his dick is also clean enough"

while Kookie is basically sobbing cause he's so needy for her as she gives him a soapy handjob "to get him clean"

okay bestie I gotta stop because this is going to escalate into me becoming feral

Consensual free use is so hot to me omfg 😩

[bringerofplagues]

Daddy Issues Of The Kraken: An Analysis of Theon and Asha Greyjoy

 Daddy issues a recurring theme in ASOIAF. The most famous examples are probably Jon Snow with his tendency to bond with many male authority figures and Tyrion Lannister with the entirety of his relationship with Tywin. However i think one of the most interesting executions of this theme are Theon and Asha Greyjoy. Specifically i belive that Theon and Ashas relationship to their dad Balon Greyjoy and their respective surrogate father figures acts as a microcosm of their entire characterization, especially in regards to their relationship with Ironborn culture.

I will start by examining Theon as i believe his daddy issues are more obvious than Ashas. Theon has obviously been greatly impacted by growing up with the Starks. While he never seems to think of Eddard Stark as a father he does consider Robb Stark a brother. The tension between his love for his stark family and his desire to be accepted by his Ironborn family is the central element to Theons character. It gets illustrated very well in a short passage in ADWD where Theon is in the crypts of Winterfell. Theon sees a statue of Theon Stark, a king winter known as the hungry wolves who acclaimed fame by fighting the Andals and kicking the Ironborn out of Bear Island. When seeing the statue Theon thinks to himself that Theon Stark is his namesake.This is interesting as him being named after a Stark king and not a Greyjoy symbolically ties him to the Starks, especially considering that Theon Stark was an enemy to the Ironborn. One must also remember that the Ironborn claim to be a completely different race than the peoples of mainland Westeros and take great pride in this difference. As such Theon being named after a main lander also differentiates him from Ironborn culture. There is also the option that Theon is wrong in this belief and that he is actually named after some other historical figure named Theon. If this is the case it shows us that Theon thinks of himself as more of a Stark than a Greyjoy, at least after all of the rejections and torture he had gone through during the series. Earlier in the series when Theon goes to the Iron Islands to meet with his father it is clear from the start that he no longer fits into the culture nor his own family. His father rejects him based on his clothing and he is constantly met with mistrust as people are concerned with the time he spent on the mainland. Whats worse for Theon is the fact that most people seem to expect Asha to follow Balon and not Theon. Asha also ends up tricking and humiliating him, thus showing that she is above him in Ironborn society. This is where his surrogate father Dagmer Cleftjaw becomes interesting. Dagmer is in many ways an archetypical Ironborn, he enjoys reaving, songs about reaving, drinking, and has his characteristic cleft jaw. Dagmer thus acts as a symbol of Ironborn culture to Theon, and unlike his father Dagmer is willing to accept Theon.I believe this is why Theon cares so deeply about Dagmer as he is the only Ironbron who truly accepts him and cares about him, at least from Theons point of view. With this i will now move on to discussing Asha.

Ashas problems with her family and the Ironborn are a lot harder to notice. This is partly due to us first meeting her through Theons POV. As such our first perception of Asha is colored by how Theon sees her. Specifically Theon sees Asha getting much of the acceptance that he desires for himself. Theon is very jealous of Asha and this impacts how we see her. It is only once we starts Ashas POV that this perception of her starts getting torn down. For one Asha is not as happy with her father as Theons chapters would leave you to believe, as she mentions that the she considers Ten Towers her true home, not Pyke. We don’t know why this is, but we see that Asha rejects Balon, despite being his preferred heir. If we contiue with the theory that Balon represents traditional ironborn culture / the old way this would symbolise Asha rejecting those ideals. And we do see this in Ashas POV chapters at the Kingsmoot, she even at one point claims that the old way is dead due to Aegons unification of the seven kingdoms. Asha instead proposes a much more pragmatic world view in which the ironborn should focus on achieving whatever gains they can most realistically achieve. Specifally she proposes that the Ironborn should exit the war and consolidate their gains along the stony shore. If we now look at Ashas father figure Rodrik Harlaw we see that he is a highly atypical member of ironborn culture who also seems very pragmatic. We know he used to hire septons to tend to his books despite not being a follower of the faith of the seven. Meanwhile many people on the Iron Islands outright hate the faith and would never hire a septon. Other than Rodrik, those who are okay with septons are usually worshipers of the faith. We also see his pragmatic nature after the kingsmoot when he gives Asha a way to reverse the kingsmoot and escape her arranged/forced marriage, since Theon would be able to overturn the kingsmoot. The kingsmoot is also interesting as Ashas status as Balons preffered heir is suddenly ignored due to her gender. This shows us that while ironborn culture is willing to accept Asha and give her power when the alternative is an outsider, as a woman she will still always be seen as lesser than the men from her culture. This may be part of the reason why she rejects the Old way, and again it is interesting as Rodrik never rejects her based on her gender, seemingly not caring about it at all. It is worth to note that Asha doesn’t fully agree with Rodrik as she enjoys the idea of going out and seeking glory while seeing Rodrik as a craven since he would rather stay in his tower and read

To summarize, Theons character is centered around the conflict of his love towards, at the very least, Robb Stark and his desire to be accepted by an Ironbron family who constantly rejects him, this is what leads him to making the many bad decisions he does throughout the series. The latter part of this conflict is reflected in his relationship to his two father figures. Balon rejects Theon while Dagmer gives him the acceptance he craves. Meanwhile Asha seems to be accepted by Ironborn society, at least when compared to Theon who is seen as an outsider. However she rejects her father in favour of the more pragmatic Rodrik Harlaw. In the same vein she rejects the old way in favour of a more pragmatic new way of thinking. We also see that Asha is seen as lesser than her uncles due to her gender by many ironborn but not by Rodrik. As thus their relationships with their respective father figures acts as a microcosm of their relationships with ironborn culture.

[eowynstwin]

stargazer and cool dice! also if you’re inclined to answer and if it isn’t too invasive/personal, I relate a little to well to reader in your fic and it’s insinuated that finishing can feel better like hello???(!) it’s not supposed to feel like that or is that not actually finishing??? what do I need to research to get on the next level - not even asking for a friend, I’m asking for myself (again feel free to just delete this - I don’t want to be disrespectful or cross any boundaries. I’d been praying one day you’d turn anon back on so I can ask)

Hmm, that's a tough one, because I feel like I can't give you any advice that you haven't heard--you just need to experiment more and try different things.

I know, I KNOW, that's such a vague answer lol. So here's some more concrete advice, on the assumption that you have a vagina and all its accessories (EXPLICIT SEX ED UNDER THE CUT FOLKS):

Find a dildo or other penetrative instrument with a clitoral attachment, make sure they both vibrate, and use it in different positions for longer than you would normally go. Try on your back, your stomach, your side, or even sitting up. What you're looking for is twofold: a too-much feeling on your clit, like, when you feel it positioned just right you'll want to JUMP out of your skin, and a tightening feeling around the penetrating part of the toy.

You're probably used to that really fast, intense wave that happens somewhere near the start--I don't honestly know if that's a climax or not, but I do know there's way more beyond it. You've just got to stick it out and dedicate some time to this, and don't be shy about moving the toy around. Try different angles on your clit, try different depths with the dildo (if you get one that's wide in the middle but tapers at the end you might have some great success with that). There's a sweet spot--you just have to find it.

You'll know you're there when it feels like you're about to shoot the damn thing out of your pussy by pressure alone. You might stop breathing (I do), because asphyxiation just helps to prolong it for some reason. I'm no expert lol I just know it helps.

Oh, and it's important to note, orgasm is way harder to achieve, I think, when you don't start out physically aroused. Yeah, you might feel it mentally, but when you feel it in your body it will feel like you're tightening up around nothing, like you're honestly a little bit sore. So spend some time on some sexy fanfiction, erotica, audio porn, or even real porn (although I tend not to find real porn arousing, because I'm usually uncomfortable witnessing other people being intimate--ymmv).

Overall don't be too hard on yourself and try to enjoy the experience. Accept also that it might not happen, and there's nothing wrong with you if it doesn't. It's really hard, when life is the way it is right now, when maybe you've been raised to believe that pleasure is a terrible thing for you to pursue, when you've been taught that your sexual experience is destined to be disappointing. Be patient and be the lover to yourself that you wish you had.

I just realized you asked for research advice and I just straight up told you directly what to do. I'm not sure where to send you for any other advice, because I truly never found any that helped. I figured this stuff out by experimenting, and that's really the best advice I can give you too. Try this out, and spend some quality time with yourself and learn about your own body. Hope that helps!

EDIT: @captainjamster reminded me of the book Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski and I CANNOT recommend it enough. If you’re AFAB it is a great place to start. Nagoski goes into minute detail explaining the architecture of the vulva and the myriad issues that need addressing in order to achieve female pleasure.

[outofangband]

daegred-winsterhand asked:

for the headcanon game, 🖤🐣 for Aerin or Morwen

From this headcanon ask game here! Still accepting them!

I went a bit lighter for the dark headcanons because I recently posted a really intense piece about Aerin (to ao3 not here) and it took a lot out of me…I still had some dark ones but I’ll compile a few more really dark ones later

I did most of these for Aerin, im going to make a separate post for Morwen, but I did include a couple for her tooo

Happy HCs (all my happy HCs for Aerin inevitably make me sad because most of them involve things she loses either completely or mostly, post Nírnaeth)

-Aerin learned to swim in the deeper pools of Nen Lalaith. She loves the water and is a strong swimmer. She also loved to watch the minnows and other tiny fish dart through the stream. When she was little she would take longer and longer walks trying to reach the source of the stream. When she got older and was able to ride longer distances she eventually got there, taking a three day trip with Húrin and another one of their cousins. It’s one of her happiest memories

-Aerin is one or two centimeters taller than Húrin and was absolutely delighted when this happened, when she was fourteen and him a couple years older. I headcanon that Indor was one of Galdor’s liege lords and one of his most trusted kinsmen and their children grew up close.)

-When Húrin was home him and Morwen would often spend evenings in the day room of their house. They would read or work on individual projects or they would play a chess like game. Sometimes they would have long debates. These peaceful evenings she almost felt completely at home.

Dark HCs (post Nírnaeth Aerin related warnings)

-Every time Aerin is punished for helping Morwen or some other transgression it makes the next time harder. She still does but it takes so much out of her to the point where leaving the house becomes panic inducing.

-Aerin is so grateful she never has children. She could not bear to bring someone else into this. And it brings her a grim satisfaction that Brodda will have no heir, no legacy, something the Narn specifically says he wanted and which was part of his reasons for what he did (I actually have a separate post about this, if you’re interested, that goes into my thoughts about this and why and the significance and the different possibilities)

-No matter how much Aerin may hate and fear Brodda, she has to know him on such a personal level; she has to learn his habits and moods and preferences because she has to, the alternative is dangerous. This is definitely something I want to work more with but the effect it has on her is profound. Just thinking about the level of very unwanted casual familiarity and closeness(?) unsure of wording here

(Will post more dark HCs for Morwen later but)

-It gets to Morwen, knowing that some people want to violently hurt her because in their minds that would make them powerful because they’ve decided you’re a scary witch and that if they tried, there’s very little she can do to defend herself or Niënor. Even when she’s in Doriath, that fear never fully leaves her

-Morwen will never admit this but she has had a fear of fire since the Bragollach. Lighting candles is usually fine, lighting a contained fire in the hearth gets easier over time. But when she can feel smoke in her lungs and feel the heat of the flames? It can be panic inducing. Of course as this is Morwen her panic tends to show as her being sharper and more brusque with others or isolating.

Rían on the other hand has a morbid fascination with fire.

On a semi related note I headcanon that several Hadorian festivals include bonfires including the celebration for the new year as I think I’ve talked about. Morwen is displeased by this.

[kwaggysshardmindemporium]

Behold, WotC making a move so braindead you'd think Hasbro made them fire a ton of people for no reason or something. Long post, so I'm putting a page break for those of you who don't care about MtG drama.

For reference so you know where I'm coming at this from, I'm an idiot whale buyer of these things. Secret Lair is deeply flawed, but I do love the shit out of the alt treatments and they do on rare occasion take an expensive card and torpedo the price.

So, first, the article says that a consistent bit of feedback about Secret Lairs is people want them to ship faster. Not personally a significant grievance of mine, but I get that at least. I wish the average buyer had some patience, but i just kind of have to accept they don't because this isn't something I can change. Okay, so how are they gonna fix this? Well, they're gonna use their market research from 4 years of this program to pre-print based on anticipated demand. And then that's gonna be the whole product run. No more print-to-demand. Or more specifically, the default is now limited print runs on everything and if it's print-to-demand you'll know. (A quick definition of terms here since most of my mutuals aren't into MtG: "print-to-demand/PTD" should here be interpreted as they collect an unbounded number of orders for these products ahead of time then print the total amount sold plus a little extra for replacing defectives and shit, so supply is effectively unlimited since it's going to be definitionally equal to the number of people who want and can afford it. "Limited print run" is there's a fixed amount they already made ahead of time and they aren't making any more after that, so supply CAN run out.)

So, who benefits from this change? Not you, that's for fucking sure.

The obvious MAIN benefactor is scalpers. People who have a bot that refreshes the page 10 times per second until the drop goes live then auto-buys a max cart full of everything. This wasn't a problem with most Secret Lairs before now, because it was print-to-demand. But now, supply is limited, meaning scalpers are going to become a huge problem immediately. WotC's existing market research on Secret Lair would be predominantly for products that DIDN'T have a maximum amount for sale and thus wouldn't attract many scalpers. They've had a few hundred Secret Lairs go out since they started. There's been I believe three that were limited print run previously, one of which was a total disaster due at least in parts to scalpers.

Also, a huge foundational appeal of Secret Lair IS that they're print-to-demand. You want one and have the money at the time? You get one. Period. I have a LOT of criticisms about that "and have the money" part, but those go WAY beyond the scope of a rambly complaint about Wizards of the Coast's distribution decisions. Short version is that if you were interested in getting these products, you could simply do that. No longer!

Now, I do have some faith in WotC. A tiny bit. They said their intent is to print about the sams amount ler drop as demand would've been so that the average buyer won't see a difference. I do absolutely believe their marketing people have enough competence to have factored in that scalpers will increase. I do think that most Secret Lairs will reach the end of their sale period with a little left over. However, I think that any Secret Lair with anything notably GOOD in it gets obliterated by scalpers from here on. That box that had a First Sliver and a Food Chain for $30 regular/$40 foil from a few months ago? Yeah, you're never getting your hands on a box that good ever again.

So I'm gonna ask a serious question: is this change good for WotC? I do think the answer is unfortunately yes, but it's worth noting that any flops from now on flop *even harder* because if a PTD Secret Lair flops then at least they only had to make 3,000 units or whatever and it definitionally still makes money. If a limited run Secret Lair flops... well now they have unsold inventory.

Now, I've complained at length about this. So do I have any suggestions? Yeah, actually. I do. And it's so close to their existing plan that there's no way it didn't come up as an option. I have a decent guess as to why they didn't, but here's my proposal:

The stated problem is that many buyers of Secret Lairs complain their product takes too long to arrive and WotC wants to change this. Their current solution is to switch to limited print runs based off market research projections of how desirable any given box is gonna be. Why not, instead of that, print something like 80% of the projection ahead of time, then if and only if sales go above that pre-sale print run you do print-to-demand for any excess? The vast majority of buyers receive their product lightning fast, the rest will still get theirs faster than before because late buyers aren't gonna be waiting for theirs to print behind everyone else. AND you can make some marketing hay out of it by making a big deal of "buy early, and it'll ship sooner than if you waited." It also insulates against flops a little bit because if something underperforms way below market projection, hey at least you only made 80% of the projected amount instead of all of it?

And I suspect the reason this idea isn't the one they're going with is because some asshole in a board room countered this idea with a sentence containing the word "streamlined," and I will grudgingly admit this idea isn't streamlined. The logistics of making my suggestion work are, indeed, a fair bit harder than the alternative since my idea is two print runs and their idea is one bigger one. Economy of scale is also an issue. They would probably get a slightly better bulk price per card printed if they ordered everything at once. I do, in fact, understand that my alternative is by no means flawless and there's obvious appeal on the corporate side of things to doing it the way they chose to do it. I also sincerely think that, unless that bulk rate is so massively different for doing an 80-"20" split printing that it's just plain not an option, my solution is better.

[izzysarchivedblogs]

So what are Clint's thoughts on the various members of his thunderbolts team?

ANONYMOUSLY ASK ANYTHING -> Accepting All Anons, Asks, & Memes

So this needs a little preface that I personally thing that T-Bolts / the writers fundamentally misunderstand Clint's character, as well as I think T-Bolts is a poor follow up on the Freefall storyline, which I do think was an interesting turn for Clint's character and than there was no continuation or pay-off, or more there should have been more.

There should have been a longer run for Freefall, or a Hawkeye book or run that explores how exactly Clint goes from end of Freefall, to making his way back to being included in greater superhero society.

I just think it's a poor handling, or there could have been a lot more. There's also the fact that it doesn't acknowledge that Clint is a good leader to most degrees; that he had for the most part done well with the WCA and than the original Thunderbolts? It's good, I'm reading that right now, and I feel like the very short T-Bolts run sucks for content, because it's just too short and not building up anything, besides the next big world ending arc event.

That and when I say it misunderstands Clint's character, they needed to show more of the aftermath of Freefall and see Clint having perhaps legal struggles, or see that something happened in those years between, to explain why he wouldn't be riding on Luke Cage a lot harder, cause Clint hates PR, hates marketing, and Tbolts feels corporate, like Clint made it clear if he had been alive during Civil War 1, than he'd have stopped the Superhero Registration act with A BULLET, and even in Civil War 2, he was again removed from that action; and he's the one who gave Carol this unknown to the readers deux ex machina to end the second one; like Clint to his core, would be against what is happening in the current canon of NYC in Marvel comics; like everything that we have based on this character that builds his personality, would be against this, like his last major character arc; we literally see him go against these laws, and be ronin, and like. . .

at the core, when he is presented with everything by Luke and the "PR" manager of the Thunderbolts "project", he should have been more against it based on what we have decades on his character; and he just agrees so quickly. like it just. made no sense. should have been handled differently. like clint was literally thinking about leaving new york, to start a team, because outside new york there weren't legally sanctioned teams / all these extra laws on superheroes, it's just in NYC. LIKE. he was going to leave, start somewhere else, where he wouldn't have these rules and things.

So just to preface, the mun's own bias about the 2022 run, and that will affect how i respond to this and what clint's thoughts are; and to be honest, I did not know most of the characters (i know one of them is new/created for this comic) before literally they appeared in thunderbolts.

like i don't know a lot about the others, so some of this is affected by the fact, that i know nothing of the others beyodn their tbolts appearance and my feelings of 2022 run is very poor.

But to preface a well, that I don't think there is anyone that Clint dislikes on the team. He likes the team, sees that roaster is good, but there's again in the really the issues lie with the fact that I don't think this Tbolts run understands Clint, or goes into the depth of why he would take on this team; like it doesn't recall on the fact that Clint was part of the original Tbolts team, as their leader in their attempt redeem themselve and turn their lives around.

LIKE I'm giving all this preface, cause like, I am a bias human, and thus this colors how I react and view things, and that to go into how Clint feels, which is generally he likes them, and respects them. wee gotta go into why i don't have much of an opinion or more to say there.

also just the way that no one really respects or listens to clint's lead or orders, as the leader. and like they do have moments where they allow him to be written as competent and doing a good job.

it's also why for my blog canon to explain why clint is not super good in this, or why he kind of seems to be a doofus that fumbles (which have we not established that's a bit of an act for clint), is the alcoholism and that he is an alcoholic ("functional") and that perhaps that's playing on clint more and affecting him

ANYWAYS TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION UNDER THE CUT

MONICA RAMBEAU

This is who Clint knows the most about; they have been on teams together and been in the same sphere of each other plenty of times before as superheroes. Monica was on the East Coast Avengers team for a team, when Clint was running the West Coast Avengers; and worked together due to WCA Annual #1 (read it im not going into the plot of that).

He knows Monica, likes Monica, and trusts her. Clint knows what she was capable of, and is glad to have her on the team because they go years back at this point, before any of the other team members.

Clint has a great deal of respect for her and has known her from all her alias, from her being Captain Marvel, to Photon, to Pulsar, and now Spectrum. He is definitely glad to have her on the team, because he's old guard and she's old guard; and there's solidarity and understanding found there.

AMERICA CHAVEZ

This is the next person that Clint knows, personally knows. That's Kate's best friend, so he knows about her. Knows her deal, and has personal opinion formed on her. He likes her, he finds her dependable and knows she's a good kid, a good person. Why wouldn't she be?

They've worked together, were both there for Kate's West Coast team, and there's enough a history there to know how she operates and how to work with her. He respects her and he's glad that she's on his team.

VICTOR ALVAREZ

The new Power Man. Clint would know Victor from the Avengers Academy, although he was not a teacher there for long; but he would know at the least that he's a good kid, and than he would have known from through the extension that he was on the Young Avengers, which was Kate's original team.

He also gets that this is the personal tie in for Luke, because Luke's the original Power Man, and now Victor bears that title. SO Clint comes from Luke's side of view, in knowing what it's like to have a legacy and share a title. So he knows that there is some pressure on his shoulders, and tries to really give Victor some slack on that.

KARA KILLGRAVE

Clint knows that she has been around, may as well be counted as old guard as well, but he's never ran much over lap with her. He knows of her, doesn't have too much of an opinion, besides knowing what its like to be worried about being their own father, about being in their fathers' shadow. He knows to give her the benefit of the doubt. There's respect there, knows that she's got to live up to and redeem herself against.

He's still getting to know who she is, since Clint's rarely ran in the same circles as Alpha flight, even if he did run in the same circles as Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau.

Terrible taste in sports team though.

GUTSEN GLORY & EEGRO

Who the fuck are these guys? What the fuck are their deals? What's Gutsen's powers?

Clint's gives people the benefit of the doubt; and he doesn't really get the say on who is on his team or not. So he can't say anything more on that, would he have these two on his team if he had control of that?

Probably not, because Clint would need to know them a little better; he would need someone to vouch for them. and that someone, sure can't be the government to vouch for them. The government's word can mean shit-all to Clint. Just look at US Agent coming into the West Coast Avengers.

He doesn't like unknown entities or trust government-vouched for individuals.

NOW He doesn't dislike either of these two; but he doesn't have a good enough read on them. He'll trust them, cause he has to; give them the benefit of thde doubt and extend trust first before judging them harshly (if earned or deserved).