#ik i made a similar post to this recently but i feel this one better words what i wanted to say with that one

[redysetdare]

The response to "ace people are just virgins who can't get laid!" Shouldn't be "ace people can still have sex!" but instead " being a virgin isn't a bad thing."

The response to "aro people are just heartless freaks!" Shouldn't be "aro people can still feel love!" And instead be "not feeling love or other emotions doesn't make you a bad person."

Instead of pushing the idea that aspec people can be "normal like allos" we should instead be trying to normalize aspec experiences. Yes aspec people can be normal because aspec identities are normal. Some aros fall in love. some aces have sex. but they should not be the only valid aspec experiences. We should not use these experiences to make the aspec identity more palatable to amatonormativity and allos.

[anadiasmount]

imagine you're a celeb, and jude slides into your dms but you're having none of it because duh he's a football player and you know better than to get yourself involved with guys like that, but then you meet at an event and he's flirting but he's kind of intimidated by and you find it amusing but you still don't bug and he's litterally trying for months, months to get you to go on a date with him, and when you finally agree he's realised he's completely in love with you and you kinda are too but you're still guarding your heart because you don't want to lose him but you guys make it work and you become the it couple, private but not secret.

hii! you should also totally check out the fic @20-th-centurygirl posted, that’s called “work for it” as it’s similar to this anon post! please check it out it’s so so good 😣😋🤍

ik jude has mentioned he’s shy when meeting new people or just is in general, so this is making me think of shy! jude when meeting you.

he’d come across you after overhearing a couple of his england teammates talk about you, how you were this shiny new star that has taken over the internet rapidly. that same day he’d look over your profile completely falling for you. the posts you’d dedicated to friends, to charity, and selfies. he wouldn’t hesitate and quickly follow you. liking a few recent pictures and an old one where he liked by accident as he scrolled through your page.

a couple days later he continues to think about you, whether it was at breakfast with his teammates, during training, recovery, hell even if he was trying to fall asleep! your smile and bright eyes would consume his dreams and the reasons for his zoneouts, “yo jude, you good?”

he’d replied with a nod and quickly takes his phone out to send you a dm. he feels slightly embarrassed and shocked to when you don’t respond or bother following back, making him overthink if he should delete the reply. but instead he would find himself at the club with his mates, reacting to your recent story many weeks later.

you scoffed and laughed showing your friends who was hitting you up. it wasn’t that you weren’t interested, you were, but you knew you couldn’t trust him let alone yourself if you would be around him. you have commitment and trust issues after your very public break up, not being able to make friends easily as you did before.

5 weeks would pass by and you would continue to get notifications from jude, biting your cheek anxiously debating whether you should follow back or not. after a recent dm he’d sent you, you’d made the decision to follow him back and just react to his latest message. jude felt like you were ignoring him, which kinda pained him.

jude felt like you were playing hard to get and this would mess with his head after seeing you at a social event in madrid. he couldn’t take his eyes off you, drinking the last bit of his whiskey before having the courage to go over and introduce himself to you.

he would notice the small tint of pink on your cheeks as you had to look up at him, he felt immediate butterflies in his stomach, a tinge of nervousness now invading his system. “hello, i’d like to introduce myself, i’m jude. jude bellingham,” you would accept his handshake.

jude blinked rapidly, eyes roaming up and down your beautiful figure, becoming intimidated by your beauty and the way you made yourself feel and look confident. “i’m y/n, nice to meet you,” you’d smirk at the small shaky breath he released.

watching him stumble over his words trying to form a sentence. he’d be unable to look you in the eye for more than a couple seconds or he would be a mess.

while you know you shouldn’t get involved with a footballer, it felt right with him. jude would constantly check in with you, to see how you were, what you were up to, discussing his and your plans, wanting and offering to hangout bit you would turn him down at every opportunity.

while he slowly lost hope, he wouldn’t give up until you agreed because he had fallen madly inlove with you, even though you were stubborn to him. months and months later, on a special occasion where you would be in madrid again, you find yourself wanting to see jude after so long, texting him if he was still up for the date he suggested.

his palms grew sweaty and with wide eyes, he agreed without hesitation. he needed to see you, hold you, talk to you, just be close and never let go. even though he could tell you were afraid that night told him that the way he felt for you, was the same towards him.

“can i say something?” you’d ask him, watching as he shifted his full attention towards you. “i’m still kinda new to this whole thing… my last relationship was super public and honestly i don’t want that right now,” jude felt his heart sunk, his stomach wanting to throw up the food he’d just ate.

“if you’re still interested, i would love for us to continue having nights like this. i’m sorry for constantly shutting you out, i just have major trust issues and i don’t want to go through what i did again… i’ve healed…” you offer a small shy smile, jude’s eyes searching for hesitation or something that would hold him back.

“of course i am. and i respect you for telling what you did just now, it takes courage and a lot of healing, but you giving me a chance is making me the happiest man in the world y/n… i like you so much, i will protect you from anyone, okay?” jude grabbed your small hands and kissed them softly, but then quickly attached to his face where you kissed him.

the two of you would become the most talked about pair and couple after making it official, often invited to do interviews and shows together. he would soft launch you for months, driving even his teammates insane, but he was madly inlove you with, you were his adoration from here on out. “i love you jude…”

“i love you, princess.”

[bigkickguy]

Please feel free to judge me - I was working with the made up rule a character can only show up on the board once! Otherwise this board would be 30% Dante 30% Yusei and 30% Lee

out of this board I have put a lot of rotating time into some of these, and basically almost none for others? They all add up in my mind! I am just matching themes or min maxing with what I want for my favs in most of these In descending order of how much I think of them + some notes below:

Yusei x Kaito (5ds x Zexal) - i have thought about them for years, they were just my favs from each series! I have rewritten like 4 crossover stories for them in my mind and have been since i first watched zexal. I just think they should build robots in a garage together, the ultimate romance. They both try to do everything themselves so now they can battle it out over who gets to put more of the world on their shoulders (they still would not share lol)

Dante x Oersted (Devil May Cry x LiveALive) - this one is more recent but i like the idea of this a lot with post game Oersted! Dante is a character very connected to love as a theme, him meeting Oersted who is just sad and needs to know love can be good in his life? Yes. This is just thematic min-maxing and a lot of 'I can fix him'. I also think it would be hilarious if Oersted gets summoned or something and is just like tired and refuses to do evil shit again cause he's growing. Dante got called to get him out of there and is just like, 'uhh you ok dude?' and he becomes Oersted's wacky wahoo dream man.

Kaiji x Akagi (Kaiji x Akagi) - this is somehow in #3, but i also had like a solid year they were all I thought about. It's a grey area of crossover validity because they were in a side gag manga of all of fkmt works crossing over? I think it still counts! A lot of people are into this I don't need to go into detail.

Mob x Gai (mp100 x Buraiden Gai) - buraiden gai is short and fkmt writes people being dehumanized by big rich organizations really well. It was a take on how shit the private juvenile detention centers are and Gai gets falsely accused and then busts out of the Worst one. (Describing that cause I assume more people have watched mob than they've read that!) This is a min-maxing of love and positive vibes because I need good things to happen for Gai. He's also got a very unique thought process and I think him and Mob hanging out would be hilarious. Gai would just be like 'i can punch faster than light' and mob would be like 'oh wow that's cool! I'm psychic!' and levitate something and Gai would lose his shit on the spot.

Luna x Angela (Virtue's Last Reward x Library of Ruina) - I am very emo over both of them and they both deserve good things and to be respected as people and not treated like they're tools or disposable. I think Angela can be angry for Luna and Luna can be soft for Angela. This is mainly a thematic min-max though. I LOVE BOTH OF THEM AND I NEED BOTH OF THEM TO GET TRATED BETTER BY THE WORLDS THEY ARE IN!!! Ultimate for this chart, both 'I can fix her' and 'I can make her worse' at the same time!

Ike x Kalas (Fire Emblem x Baten Kaitos) - I thought about it once cause I just think about crossovers for fun to pass the time when I can't sleep sometimes now it hurts. I feel like this is just a side grade of Ike x Soren, they feel emotionally similar to me. Specifics are pretty different but that's the fun rotating part :)

Akane x Aiba (Zero Escape x Ai the Somnium Files) I'm not going to lie I needed to fill out this board originally, but now I've been cursed with the idea of them hanging out. I want them to be the protagonists of a crossover game so badly!! They could be the ultimate crazy energy team up!

...I am getting tired of typing these out and I have thought about them probably only once or twice past making this chart after this point. I assume no one will read this anyway :)

[homielander]

ik you said in your tags “don’t get me started on homelander” this season but 😭 def do get started. i’m honestly not sure how i feel about his development this season lmao, like he’s still my fave character, but some of these writing choices had me hm. also think ryan should’ve had way more scene time this season if this was the direction they were heading…

i feel you bestie!! i was thinking about writing a very lengthy post on why i didn't like season 3 sometime soon to get it out of my system once and for all (so that i don't keep annoying my followers and mutuals who liked this season.. sorry lol) but i actually have so many issues with homelander this season that it warrants its own post. so thank you for giving me the opportunity!!

anyway, most of my problems with s3 homelander can really be traced back to one thing

like... it's giving nothing

it doesn't make much sense considering their prior worldbuilding — just in terms of how homelander and supes at large have always been perceived by the public. homelander has been wholly unmarred by scandal up until very recently in the world of the boys (butcher says as much in the first episode). yes, some fringe groups idolize him, but homelander has been carefully crafted to be popular across both sides of the political aisle. and he was literally endorsing a democrat this season! he's never been a trump-like figure, but since the writers were hellbent on him becoming more like trump as the mask slips, let’s consider it for a moment.

the problem is you have to make vought profoundly inept to do it. i don't believe that vought wouldn't utilize every resource and PR trick in the book to restore his reputation. they're extremely image-conscious. so for them to not only reluctantly approve but actually encourage inevitable PR disasters such as homelight stretches the limits of the imagination. and they really didn't have a better CEO backup in place than ashley?? seriously? there were so many obvious plot contrivances that had to first occur in order for the trump-homelander comparisons to fully manifest and that just. irks me deeply. and it's not like they did it for groundbreaking commentary either — while this show has featured meaningful satire in the past, the trumpian homelander stuff offers nothing fresh or insightful and is really boring #tome.

i also feel like, in the last two seasons, they've been able to distinguish homelander as a symbol of american nationalism from homelander the person — so there's the obvious political commentary but running parallel to that is homelander himself with completely separate motivations. homelander as a symbol distributing a weapon of mass destruction (compound v) to terrorist cells around the globe checks the political commentary box. whereas homelander himself just wants to fix a bad situation for madelyn (and it's a similar scenario with stormfront in season 2). this season, those two things merged in a forced and unnatural way and it was extremely damaging to the character. (like, why did he offer supersonic mexican food?? there are exactly two scenarios where he’d care about race — if it could negatively impact vought’s ratings, or to make the distinction between regular humans and supes. we’ve been over this!)

one thing that made homelander feel like a fundamentally different person was how openly aggressive he was all of a sudden? he's always threatened people behind closed doors or operated with just enough subtlety that he has plausible deniability in case he's questioned about it later (unless, of course, he plans to kill the other person). think of the scene with the deep in the seven's conference room in 1.02, or him and stormfront on the film set in 2.06. well that went out the window this season! now he's making vulgar comments totally out of line with his wholesome christian image to a prospective member of the seven, or openly threatening milkshake-drinking a-train in plain view of vought employees, or having a meltdown and considering lasering someone when innocently questioned about EBITDA margins. (edit: this all would have been fine if only they'd built up to it, but we saw this behaviour right away! more on that in the next paragraph)

and you may say, "well that's to show he's losing his grip!" but the reason i didn't like it was because it's not really the direction his character was poised to take at the end of season 2. we saw him in an increasingly tightening leash while his ratings were slipping, which i'd say actually makes it much more likely for him to consistently be on his best behaviour. however, we don't get nearly enough of homelander being forced to cooperate except for one scene with stan where he’s already being pissy, or homelander going out of his way to boost his ratings, perhaps by saving people. (and you know, he does do that. that's why he was so popular once upon a time.) i think kripke said something about how each season, he wants to take something away from homelander until he snaps — this season, it seems like one of the things homelander lost was widespread public support, echoing stormfront's "you can't win the whole country anymore" from the last season. but he hated that idea, remember? he's always chased broad appeal, which is why i was a little confused when ashley expressed that he dropped in ratings in so many demographics and he.... brushed it off ?? i think this whole plot falls flat for me since we don't really get to see homelander trying to win the public back (and fail). we can't feel the extent of his loss (and seemingly, neither does he) or the full force of his relief when some nutjobs cheer him on anyway. it should have been a very straightforward arc but they skipped some key steps (it wouldn’t even have taken much time! all they really needed to do was indicate that there had been prior PR efforts) and it made the whole thing incoherent.

instead of seeing this process, we get #homelight, which we're told is a great PR strategy. i'm not so sure that the optics are favourable here — he's been said to be a mentor figure to her, there's a significant age gap, she visibly cringes when they're standing in close proximity of each other, and worst of all, dating a blonde white girl after his last scandal was due to his involvement with a nazi is..... a choice. i already have a lot of trouble buying it — i think vought would put forth a much safer option for a PR relationship. nevertheless, i suppose this sets up a potentially interesting dynamic... only for it to remain completely unexplored throughout the season.

think about it! the antithesis of a superhero interacting, non-contentiously, with the true superhero of the series!! both raised as products, but ending up wildly different. there's a lot to unpack there from a storytelling pov. i've also always thought that thematically, it would fit best for either hughie or annie (the most likely option based on this season) to take homelander down, so establishing a relationship (i don't mean a romantic one) between them now would have made that future so much more compelling. idk if there's an opportunity anymore given that annie has left the seven. it's incredibly clear that the purpose of that little plot thread was pure shock value to get more conversation going after the first three eps.

[that also highlights larger problems with the season imo. 1. a refusal to give us new, interesting character dynamics (though expanding on the MM/annie dynamic was delightful) 2. a lot of evolution randomly occurring during the time jump so that some characters start s3 super different from how they ended s2 — which is so jarring! 3. annie can have no flaws even though she was learning to embrace the "whatever it takes mentality" during all of s2 and 4. a bunch of scenes existing solely for shock value and nothing more]

in general, s3 homelander was super dumbed down (i wrote a bit more about it here) and imo, lacked the emotional depth of the prior two seasons. apparently antony starr himself asked kripke to tone it down and not write homelander as a bumbling fool, which is when you know the situation is dire😭😭

link to interview

even the one scene i've seen garner a lot of praise (and i liked it a lot too!) — the mirror scene — contributed nothing new to his character (which i really think it should have done if you're going to write something so direct, but that's just me). it only reiterated what we already know: he wants love, is sorely lacking parental figures, can rely on himself and nobody else, and so on. i'll retract this if they plan to do something interesting with mirror!homelander à la black noir in the comics, but that feels too creative for the writers who came up with this season and patted themselves on the back for it. a homelander alter-ego has also not been hinted at prior to that scene, nor after it, so i'm not sure i'd even want them to go there. the point is, if that's the highlight of the character's emotional arc all season then idk... that's not great

there were other opportunities to add some emotional weight, particularly with maeve or noir or soldier boy, but the way those scenes were framed didn't really give the audience any opportunity to feel for him.

when it came to black noir, everyone was obviously far more emotional about his death, and rightfully so. meanwhile there were no allusions to homelander's complicated history with noir, which is a baffling choice considering this is the last we'll see of their onscreen dynamic. based on the last episode of the boys: diabolical (said by show creators to be canon and even dubbed "required viewing" for s3 by kripke), noir was instrumental in turning homelander into one of vought's puppets who kills out of convenience. emphasizing this would have added more depth to their final scene (from homelander's pov) but instead it comes off as him throwing a hissy fit because he was lied to... which we've already seen! at this point it's just played out.

found a screencap of the ep! it was only 20 mins iirc but it was a neat bit of background

then we have homelander's confrontation with soldier boy. one of the core themes of the season has been the downfalls of toxic masculinity, yet we're supposed to cheer for soldier boy calling his son weak and emotional and a pussy (as highlighted by butcher and maeve's satisfied, triumphant smirks in the seconds following). it just made a lot of their prior commentary ring hollow, because there's no reproof of this attitude — it's fine if it's directed towards homelander, apparently. (tw sa i'm not sure this was their intention, but they've been having tonal issues of this nature since season 1. for instance, the creators have expressed amusement at the scene where the deep was sexually assaulted and that episode did not come with appropriate content warnings like 1.01 did — again reinforcing the idea that "this fucked up thing is actually okay if it happens to a fucked up person. you can cheer." and the audience did!)

the one that hurts me the most personally is maeve and homelander, because all of the complexity that made their scenes some of my favourites of the series was sucked away. i talked about it earlier here and here (linking because i don’t want to repeat things). it was most evident during their final fight scene, though, because it was literally just a brawl devoid of feelings on either end. it was supposed to be a moment of epic catharsis for maeve, but she didn't say anything impactful or even express emotions that i could latch on to beyond a couple of smirks. and i didn't get a sense of what homelander felt beyond mild annoyance at the start. the emotional emptiness of their fight sequence is especially glaring when contrasted with their showdown in the season 2 finale, which was so much shorter and yet was packed with soooo many more emotions. 

the only other place they could have added some emotional beats is with ryan. unfortunately their reconciliation felt entirely unearned. ryan in the finale had me scratching my head. i agree with you — we should have had 2 full eps of homelander trying to win ryan back at minimum if that's where they were planning on taking him.

i guess my final complaint is a larger problem with the season, which is that the power-scaling has gone to shit. it was implied in s1 that homelander could take nukes, but maeve punched with enough power to halfway crack the floor or dent a cabinet and that was able to make him bleed. maeve's attacks should have been shown to be a lot more forceful if they were going to write the scene that way. the other problem is that maeve plus one more powerful supe (temp-v butcher, for instance) seems like enough to take homelander on, based on the way that fight was progressing. this destroys the notion they've been parroting all season of homelander being on an entirely different level than everyone else. (further, i feel like it negates the need for soldier boy and paints the main gang’s drastic actions as idiotic and callous.) most importantly, it takes away from the terror of homelander quite significantly, which was such a rich source of tension earlier on in the show.

all in all, i think homelander in s3 was pretty bad, and not in an entertaining way. a lot of people seem to like that he's becoming more batshit, which is cool and all, but that's never been the most captivating part of the character. the largest source of praise i saw for this show going into it was how they managed to revamp comic!homelander into a character that was terrifying in his competence and felt distressingly human despite being the most powerful man alive. at this point, i'm annoyed merely seeing him do progressively crazier things all while most of the elements of the character that drew fans to him in the first place are discarded for the sake of lazy political commentary.

[omegawolverine]

Braid Me a Home

summary:

"Braid my fucking hair, Theseus. Braid it.”

It had sounded like a plea falling from Techno’s chapped lips, blood caked under his nails as he sat in front of Tommy on a tree stump, slowly itching at his wrists.

“Wilbur told me to stop you if you ever started doing that-”

“Wilbur isn’t fucking here. Just...braid, Toms. Braid.” 

or

A story about the Sleepy Bois being family, told through braids.

word count: 2.5k

warnings: child neglect, hurt/no comfort, canonical character death, implied/referenced mental health issues (like it’s obvious but there isn’t much detail to it), brief blood mentions (ik this fic sounds kinda angsty as hell but its not? imo its light angst)

a/n: first dream smp fic and im ALREADY projecting? christ. anyways. go easy on me pls this is far from my best work i just havent written a fic in like 5 months (more if you dont count the fucking chat fics) mm also i may have posted this like a week ago on ao3 just to test the waters and its already gotten way more comments and kudos than any fic of mine usually gets this early on so hopefully tumblr enjoys it too :]

—

When Wilbur Soot was born, he came out crying, as most babies do. Covered in vernix and blood, he weighed just barely above the seven-pound mark, gasping out sharp cries that only a parent could truly stand, or worse—love. Though he was the second baby born into the family that day, he was fussed over far more than he would ever be again.

Technoblade, on the other hand, had barely made a sound when he came out, a trail of blood smeared across his forehead, almost as if it was meant to be there. He made small noises that were more akin to confused mumbles, weakly grasping at his father’s hair when he was eventually passed on for the second child to be welcomed into the world.

Only when both boys were held in their father’s grasp did Wilbur quiet down, his soft head leaning into his father’s beard as he stared wide eyed at the boy across from him. Though they looked similar enough, Technoblade’s nose was squished further back into his face, appearing almost snout-like to Philza. Of course Wilbur noted this, wiggling until their father somehow managed to get them pressed right up against each other with minimal damage done. Though Techno never stopped squinting like an annoyed old man at Wilbur, he allowed the other to press a fist against his nose, his eyebrows unfurrowing just the slightest bit at the touch.

From that day on, Philza was the father of two twin boys—a loud boy who cried easily, but always calmed down for his older brother, and a rather monotone one, who’s face seemed to be permanently stuck in a scowl, unless said face was being smushed around by the younger. And things worked like that for a while. Not forever, but...a while.

—

Philza taught Wilbur to braid on a hot Monday afternoon.

It had been a rough day for the boy, though Phil hadn’t a clue why. Maybe he had just woken up on the wrong side of the bed? Or maybe he hadn’t slept enough between bedtime and the time Tommy had started crying again, the youngest boy’s crib being right beside his head and all. Though it might’ve seemed cruel from an outsider’s perspective, Wilbur had been the one to ask for it. Something about Tommy being his little brother and how he needed to teach the boy the ways of the world in the same way Techno had taught him—because apparently that was all Techno’s doing now, not Phil’s.

Regardless, Wilbur had been a bit too snippy for Phil’s liking that day, complaining about every little thing they did until finally, the day was over.

Well, as over as it could be with Techno leaving mid foam sword fight, an annoyed shout of ‘I quit!’ leaving his mouth before he snatched up Tommy’s carrier and brought him inside for god knows what reason.

It had only been around four P.M. by that time—too early for dinner, yet too late for Phil to really demand the boy stay outside and continue to entertain himself with a brother who was clearly not entertained himself.

Details aside, Phil isn’t really sure how they got to braiding. He just knows at some point they did and by the end of their outside time, just before the clock struck six, Wilbur had made two thick, messy braids in his hair. They stuck out awkwardly, looking all too similar to Pippi Longstocking’s iconic hairdo for his comfort, but he’d be damned if he took out the braids his son had so happily rushed inside to show his older brother before demanding to do his hair as well. After all, Wilbur didn’t have long enough hair for braids, but Technoblade sure as hell did. It was only at his shoulder blades back then, brunette curls wrapping around his narrow shoulders and thin arms like thick vines.

Wilbur had always enjoyed brushing it out with his fingers and putting cute, handmade clips or flowers in it at random, decorating the waves for his brother who was more than happy to let the boy do as he pleased. Though he would never admit it, Technoblade liked how it felt when Will played with his hair. He was always careful not to tug too hard, prioritizing the comfort of his other half more than the beauty of his work, as he so often referred to it.

So when Will had presented him with the mess that was his first two braids, he wasn’t hesitant at all to let the boy practice on him. Instead, he walked to the couch with a small smile, removing his glasses gently and getting comfortable before his brother plopped down into the space behind him. Long legs draped over long legs with no warning, thighs pressed together as if they were meant to be like that all along—and they might as well have been, for how often they did this.

Phil had watched them from the doorway in content silence, Tommy sitting behind him in a wooden high chair looking bored, but not making a fuss for once. And as he left that doorway to begin dinner, he listened to their muffled conversation and soft bursts of laughter with a small smile on his lips, for he knew things wouldn’t always be this way. They would have to grow up eventually, and when they did, things would change. Phil could only hope it was for the better.

—

When Tommy turns nine, Wilbur teaches him to braid under circumstances not too different from the ones he had learned under himself.

Well. Not too too different.

Philza and Technoblade had been...busy as of late. In the house for three days, out for a week, in for a week, out for three more, over and over and over again. Wilbur had become more like a father to Tommy in recent months than he should’ve been, his fourteenth birthday fast approaching as their father took Techno out for yet another job, one that Wilbur couldn’t come on because he was too fucking weak to do anything Techno could do, too fucking stupid to learn all the techniques Techno did, lacking all the strength and agility his older sibling possessed, like the useless prick he was-

Right. This is about Tommy.

When Tommy was nine, his hair rested gently against his collarbones in the exact same cut and color as their father wore. If Wilbur was a lesser man, he would’ve hated the kid for it, but it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t see what a selfish git their father truly was yet. All he knew was that their dad was busy a lot and that, for some reason, Techno needed to go with him. Apparently, that was enough for him to keep holding onto the idea that one day, the man would stay longer and maybe, just maybe, show him some of the same care that his older brother did.

If Wilbur was a better man, he would tell Tommy the truth. He would tell him all about the way Philza had called him useless in a fight, forcing him to instead stay home and care for a child while still being one himself. He would mention how Philza had given him no instructions on how to care for a developing child, how he left out key details to parenting on his own as a goddamn thirteen-year-old, yet remembered to tell him things would be better this way because god forbid he does his fucking job as a father for anyone but Technoblade—

Who he missed. He missed Technoblade, his other half, so fucking bad it hurt sometimes—so bad it left him gasping for breath at two A.M., his head pounding in tandem with his uneven heartbeat, lungs burning as his snot and tears soaked into his brother’s cold, cold sheets. And it made him feel fucking pathetic because the truth of the matter was that...Techno had left him behind too. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to hate the older boy, no matter how hard he tried. Couldn’t hate Philza either, if he were to be honest with himself, but it was a lot easier to pretend he did when his father was the one putting them all in this position to begin with.

So, Tommy was nine when he learned how to braid.

Phil had promised him and Techno would be back Tuesday morning.

It was Wednesday afternoon.

Tommy didn’t fucking understand, and as frustrating as it was that the prick decided to take it out on Wilbur, he couldn’t blame him. Who else was he supposed to take this shit out on? Certainly not the man who had yet to return.

Wilbur had started the braid as a way to distract him. It was simple, really—tell him you know something he doesn’t and that he won’t get to know if he doesn’t sit the fuck down and listen.

When he had started tugging the boy’s hair back from his face, his immediate reaction was to jerk away, swatting at the hands that hovered over his shoulders. This only happened once or twice more before he let it happen naturally, his posture stiff as Wilbur ran his fingers through the boy’s hair with practiced ease.

Though it may not have seemed like it, Tommy was significantly more averse to touch than Techno had ever been. The only reason Techno even seemed averse to it was because of his hesitance to initiate, something he and Wilbur had discussed in depth. Rejection was one of the few fears Technoblade truly had and Wilbur held that fact close to his heart, ready to die with it if need be. Tommy, on the other hand? He was very particular about where and when and why someone was touching him, and it had taken Wilbur a long time to get used to that fact. But, he wasn’t about to make his little brother uncomfortable just so he could be happy and, eventually, he learned the ins and outs of how to touch TommyInnit without causing issue.

Pulling a few of the shorter strands towards the front of Tommy’s face loose, Will separated the blonde’s hair into three sections. They were rather small, what with how thin and short his hair was, it just barely being long enough to even have a proper braid in it, but Wilbur knew he could make it work.

“Now, Toms, you gotta listen to me here, because I can’t show you this bit, yeah? Phil and Tech aren’t here, and my hair is too short, so you’ll just have to feel it out for now, but...this is how you braid hair-” Wilbur had said in a soft voice, brushing the pad of his thumb over the boys neck slowly to ease the tension out of his shoulders. The effect was immediate, the boy slouching forward as if he had just noticed he was holding himself so sternly. Smiling softly, Wilbur instructed him on how to weave the strands together, answering questions and pulling lightly at Tommy’s hair so he could feel exactly where everything went. After he was done, Tommy had reached back to feel the bumps in his hair, all his earlier anger seemingly gone as he gave a small smile. And then he tried it himself.

Of course he got a bit of help at first, Wilbur’s larger hands guiding his own with gentle corrections, but after that Tommy worked on it alone, his older brother watching in silence from a patch of grass beside the porch step.

That night, Tommy and Wilbur slept in Techno’s bed, a soft, blue blanket wrapped tightly around them. And if another body woke them up at some point that night, shoving its way into the mess of limbs, their chest pressed right up against the youngest boy’s back, then that was only for them to know.

—

At eleven years old, Tommy takes a pair of scissors to his hair. With flushed cheeks and salty lips, his hands shaking and his eyes foggy, he cuts, cuts, cuts, until he can no longer braid his hair—until he can no longer look like fucking Phil.

Even though Wilbur had once said he hated Tommy’s long hair—hated how similar he and their dad looked—he felt like crying as he ran his fingers through the uneven strands. He didn’t tell his brother this though, instead grabbing his face and planting a wet kiss on his freckled forehead. In a fierce whisper, Wilbur had said, “I’m so fucking proud of you, Tommy. So fucking proud.”

Tommy never forgets the way he felt that day. He doesn’t forget Wilbur’s words either.

—

When Wilbur loses his last life, Technoblade tells Tommy to braid his hair.

It wasn’t a question either, but a demand forced out between gritted teeth, his face red, his nose stuffy and his lashes wet with unshed tears. Still, his words were clear as day.

“Braid my fucking hair, Theseus. Braid it.”

It had sounded like a plea falling from Techno’s chapped lips, blood caked under his nails as he sat in front of Tommy on a tree stump, slowly itching at his wrists.

“Wilbur told me to stop you if you ever started doing that-”

“Wilbur isn’t fucking here. Just...braid, Toms. Braid.”

Tommy sniffled, but did as he was told.

Maybe it was because he was too tired to argue with the only person he even had left. Maybe it was because he could tell Technoblade was mad at their father for the first time in his life, and he knew how bad his first time had felt. Or, maybe, it was just because he knew Techno fucking cared. Nobody else seemed to, but he knew Techno did and...that was enough for him.

As long as someone else cared—as long as it was fucking Technoblade—that was enough for him.

Just as Tommy had finished the braid, curling his finger around the light pink tail that tied the whole thing off, Techno yanked it forward. Before he could even register that the hair had left his hand, the older boy had taken an axe to the top of it, letting the rest of his hair fall around his face in uneven curls. Though it was a good ten minutes of work wasted, Tommy couldn’t say a damn thing as he watched Techno pocket the braid, muttering a thank you and heading in the direction of Wilbur’s unofficial grave.

In that moment, he felt relief for the first time in a long while.

—

Wilbur Soot was born covered in vernix and blood, weighing just barely above the seven-pound mark, and he came into the world much like he left it. Everyone had heard his cries—even if they weren’t there, even if they didn’t know him well—they had saw the way he spiraled, desperate and afraid and paranoid, searching for help, but never receiving enough.

And though he was the second child born, he left the world first, returning in a yellow sweater with a small braid tucked behind his ear. He didn’t really know why he had one, but he remembered braiding Techno’s hair and he remembered teaching Tommy how to do his own and he remembered, he remembered, he remembered the braids.

[leonameowzz]

TW Boys vs Durians

So my dad just bought some durian puffs for the family & that’s what prompted me to write this 😂😂 I personally love durians but ik there are many who can’t stand the smell. Just curious dear readers, but how do you feel about durians?

Scenario: G/N!MC feeling homesick and craving food from home asked Sam if he was able to obtain durians for them. The businessman was glad to oblige, for a decent price of course! How he gets them we will never know, but now MC has a whole bunch of these exotic fruit, so they set out to each dorm wanting to share some and feeling curious about everyone’s reactions.

*Bonus: Grim literally eats suspicious looking black rocks off the ground, so eating a durian is nothing special to him as he wolfs down the fruit hungrily. The Ramshackle dorm will definitely reek of said fruit for many days but neither of the occupants really mind~*

Riddle wrinkles his nose after catching a whiff of the durians. Because of his strict upbringing, he never got to eat too many different types of food unless his mother told him to. However being the dorm leader, he knew he had to set a good example to his dorm members, so he bravely took the first bite. It was definitely a strange flavour but he didn’t seem to mind too much.

Trey has actually heard of durians before given that his family runs a bakery, although he has never tried them. He gets used to the strong smell pretty fast and asks MC if he could keep some to use in baking for the next Unbirthday party. MC happily agrees and recommends making puffs, crepes and even chocolates.

Cater probably has the worst reaction out of all the Heartslabyul guys. He immediately backs up after smelling the fruit, refusing to get closer even with ADeuce constantly teasing him. It’s only when MC remarks that it would make for a pretty popular Magicam post does Cater approach, quickly using his camera’s burst mode to snap multiple photos.

Ace being quite adaptable, also gets used to the strong smell easily. He’s usually up for a little challenge and doesn’t mind trying out this new fruit. It didn’t go as smoothly as he hoped due to the mushy consistency but he managed to swallow his bite by downing it with some water.

Deuce is not the most enthusiastic about trying out this foreign food and the smell definitely didn’t help, but he musters up the courage to try it anyway, since it was MC who brought it. Didn’t help that Ace definitely taunted him to eat it. He actually takes it pretty well (even better than Ace), shyly remarking that he had eaten some pretty nasty stuff during his delinquent days.

Leona picks up on the foul scent of durian from a mile away, and it’s safe to say that this lion is definitely not eating whatever “fruit from hell” as he calls it, that MC had brought. He grumbles to them to remove it immediately as he doesn’t want to stink up the entire dorm, especially his room. MC had anticipated that reaction but comments slyly how lucky they were to be graced by the presence of two kings that day. (Durians are known as the king of fruits & Leona will always be king in my heart)

Jack initially thinks that MC had brewed a potion wrongly or something because they smelt weird. After explaining the situation, Jack apologetically declines trying some due to his sensitive nose and MC totally understands. Though they can’t help pouting slightly since they realized no one from this dorm would want to eat durians because of the off-putting smell.

Ruggie is the only Savanaclaw member who dares approach MC from the mention of food. Are they sure it’s not rotten? He can’t help feel suspicious because of the scent but decides to take MC’s word for it. With his deft hands, he swiftly takes some durian flesh and stuffs it into his mouth, while pinching his nose with his other hand. Secretly he willingly ate it knowing that he would be able to slack off on Leona’s duties since the scent would be stuck on him.

Azul gingerly pokes at the soft durian flesh as it oddly reminds him of his squishy octo-form. This is certainly something you don’t see everyday and he’s contemplating if it would be able to sell well in Mostro Lounge. He urges MC to share their findings regarding everyone’s reactions with him, promising to sign a mutually beneficial contract with them should the majority response be positive.

Floyd exclaims loudly about the durian odour but doesn’t seem too put off by it. He is definitely intrigued and even tries chomping on it in an effort to see which is stronger: his sharp teeth or the durian spikes, much to MC’s horror. He remarks that the texture is similar to the shellfish that he eats, and probably the only reason he’ll eat more is to tease people who hate the smell.

Jade is also intrigued but has a more subdued reaction as compared to Floyd. He’s not one to shy away from questionable food being a mushroom collector. He politely accepts the piece offered to him, thanking them for letting him try something new. Like Trey, he asks MC to let him keep some so that he may try experimenting with it for a new menu item.

Kalim is excited when MC cheerfully offers him some durian to eat as usually it’s the other way around where he throws a huge feast for them instead. He does comment on how it smells funky but doesn’t hesitate to taste it (at least after Jamil tried it first). Kalim has had his fair share of exotic foods so isn’t too bothered by the texture or smell. While the durian could never compare to his favourite coconut, he still enjoys it nonetheless.

Jamil isn’t too bothered by the smell either since he’s used to the scent of strong spices in their cooking. Besides he knows he will have to try it first regardless, since Kalim would be eating it. He is still thankful towards MC and even brews some refreshing tea to pair with the durian. Jamil chides Kalim who initially suggests throwing a durian party, but wouldn’t be against making some durian chips with MC since it was simple enough.

Vil is surprisingly not bothered by the strong smell, though he does remind MC to stay outside the dorm so as not to frazzle the other students. As a dignified celebrity he must always keep his cool, though he is tempted to eat some after hearing that the fruit is rich in nutrients and promotes healthy skin. Unfortunately he can’t due to having a photoshoot later but he’s definitely down to try some on his off days.

Rook is caught off guard initially, both from the appearance and smell of durian. He’s quick to recover but declines trying some, mentioning how he has to refrain from standing out when stalking his prey. Also MC swears they heard Rook muttering something about turning the spiky shell into a hunting weapon of sorts, though they choose to brush it off for their own safety.

Epel brushes off the smell like it’s nothing, which makes sense given his upbringing (I mean he literally made his own fertilizer and wasn’t fazed by that stench at all!)  He’s eager to try some stating how manly it would make him since even the Savanaclaw people didn’t dare eat it, and ends up really enjoying it.

Idia panics upon seeing MC approaching his room holding the durian, thinking he is about to be attacked. Is this revenge for him beating them during the recent gaming night? And wow the smell was definitely something... He sarcastically remarks that if the spikes weren’t enough to kill anyone, the smell would definitely finish them off. Not to worry though, Idia has a super air filtration system built into his room that nullifies the stench easily.

Ortho is busy scanning this fascinating fruit and updating his already extensive database. Even if he can’t actually taste or smell it, he does want to be knowledgeable about it since MC claimed that it was one of their favourite foods.

Malleus is grateful that MC considers him a close enough friend to let him try something from their home. Humans certainly eat some interesting things don’t they? Still he feels some sort of kinship towards this fruit, perhaps it’s how the exterior seems intimidating to many, in contrast to its soft interior. He teases MC to be careful when handling the fruit so that they don’t prick their finger on the sharp spikes.

Lilia doesn’t hesitate to pluck a piece of durian from MC while hanging down from the ceiling and proceeds to munch on it, not fazed at all. He smugly states that it’s an acquired taste and thanks MC for letting him taste such exquisite food. His eyes twinkle in excitement when MC recounts how delicious durian ice cream is and volunteers to make some for the rest of dorm.

Silver is definitely woken up by the sudden pungent smell but relaxes after seeing his master and father calmly eating away. Lilia encourages him to try some which he accepts, although he falls asleep again not too long after. It is definitely a rare sight as no woodland animals gather near Silver that day, most likely avoiding him due to the smell.

Sebek almost screamed at MC for bringing something so foul-smelling into their dorm but held his tongue after seeing how excited they were. He would be spurred on to try some since Malleus had no problem eating it despite really not liking what he was about to put in his mouth. After all he couldn’t call himself a bodyguard if such a trivial fruit stumped him. 

[katara0524]

Impromptu Ramblings about the NEO:TWEWY Demo

In case y'all weren't aware, I've been a pretty big fan of TWEWY for a couple years now, and with the sequel coming out next month, the excitement I feel for this game is greater than ever :) I played the Demo for the first time yesterday, and following a couple views of some livestreams of others playing it, I felt like sharing my (very ramble-y) thoughts prior to the release of the full game. This post WILL contain spoilers for both TWEWY and NEO:TWEWY, so if you want to avoid those from now on, please block the tags: #twewy spoilers, #ntwewy spoilers, #neo twewy spoilers, #ntwewy, and #neo twewy ^_^ Oh, and if you wanna keep up with any other posts I make about my experience with this game, please refer to the tag "kat plays neo twewy" :)

-First things first: I have not watched the Final Trailer and I don't plan on doing so to avoid spoilers, especially after the pre-release era of KH3 where a lot of the later trailers spoiled a lot of the endgame content. That being said, I've seen some minor screenshots from the final trailer including what many believe to be characters from the original TWEWY, namely Shiki and Joshua. That is all I know about the Final Trailer and I would very much like to remain as blind as possible going into NEO :)

-The very first cutscene was quite ominous in the sense that this game is likely going to be about "changing fate" (a recently common theme in Squeenix games, which I do appreciate), perhaps leading off from the end of A New Day in the OG and trying to stop an Inversion of Shibuya. Also worth noting that A New Day had similar aspects in which the main character experienced "future visions" of tragic events, although in A New Day these events were not able to be changed, while in NEO it seems like one of the main "powers" our protagonist has is specifically to rewrite these events and avoid a "bad ending." Very interesting indeed!

-I really like the revamped comic book style dialogue scenes, it's much more fluid and modern, which is an excellent direction for the series to take!

-I would love to have an actual PokemonGO knockoff of Final Fantasy creatures, please Squeenix that would be incredibleeeeee

-Also the LINE stickers??? Are so cute???

-I would just like to point out that Fret is an absolute treasure throughout this entire demo, he's hilarious and I will protect him with my life

-UHHHH don't like that Fret picked up some Reaper Pins just out of nowhere.....or the fact that they're apparently popular all over Shibuya.............did y'all not learn anything from the OG game or what lmao

-Okay so when I first got the "curry or ramen" scene and heard NPCs talking about the new curry place replacing the old ramen place I became IMMENSELY distressed that Ramen Don was totally cut from the game because....well, Ramen Don is a King okay?? But I'm glad to learn that no, he didn't fall off the face of the earth, he's still in business and he's the one opening the curry restaurant lolol. PHEW, crisis averted!

-.....I don't like the sudden appearance of a Wall Reaper and being able to read NPC thoughts. Wtf happened when they left the ramen place??? Are they playing the Game alive somehow?

-Okay so I have my own theories about this "Swallow" character and what they're up to but considering this is only the Demo and I still Have No Idea What's Happening, I'm just gonna say that I think Swallow intentionally led Rindo and Fret to the Crossing so they could join the Game. I mean, add in the fact that Swallow still communicates with Rindo during the Game and you've got yourself a suspicious character right there lol

-"Hey they're shooting off fireworks!" Fret honey that's not fireworks oof (see also: "*laughs* I'm in danger")

-WOOOOOO way to traumatize Rindo right off the bat like that LMAOO

-The visuals for the intro are VERY GOOD, the song is pretty decent until it gets all "screamo" (which I absolutely cannot stand sorry lol)

-Shoka is every Customer Service employee ever and I respect that

-Susukichi went from being "meh" to "WOW THIS GUY IS FUN" in the span of 10 seconds and I also respect that (he is also built like an Absolute Unit which is hilarious)

-The Wall Reapers (and just Reapers in general) seem.....way nicer and more helpful this time around?? Like in the OG the Wall Reapers were SO RUDE gfhjgjdfkhn and yeah I'm sure we'll get some like that but the juxtaposition of the first Wall Reaper in the OG compared to the first one in NEO is insane.

-The puzzles are quite a bit more entertaining this time around even if it's generally the same "fetch quest" formula lol

-"Rindo's Group" way to go Fret HFKJDGHSDFKJ mans really left the default name in there lmao

-OKAYOKAYOKAY so to those who aren't aware I am a MASSIVE SIMP for Sho Minamimoto, he's my absolute favorite and I think about him daily. HIS INTRODUCTION IS. INCREDIBLE. I LOVE IT SM.

-GOD hearing him actually SPEAK FULL SENTENCES is just SO SURREAL I love this sm

-Also the remix of his theme???? NEO TRANSFORMATION????? IT'S SO GOOD????????? It's like gone from a Boss Theme to a more triumphant sounding theme and I am HERE for it (every version of Transformation is just INCREDIBLE and getting a new one is even better)

-I Love Him, Your Honor

-Also idk how exactly but it's kinda weird seeing Sho in the OG vs NEO, cuz while he's mostly the same Insane Math-Obsessed Catboy, he's.....calmed down quite a bit?? Like OG made a whole point of how poorly he cooperates with others (not to mention just being completely unhinged and trying to kill everyone), whereas here in NEO he's......actually kinda working with others??? HELLO???? Sir what happened to you and Neku during those 3 years I would love to know all about it

-I guarantee you Sho is still probably scheming shite and will likely pull some total insane BS later down the road, and I am very much looking forward to that. Also, is he looking for a certain Pin or something??? Cuz he keeps talking about different Pins and even mentions "this is just another Psych Pin" like he's actively looking for a Pin to do something with. Maybe it also has to do with the "latent powers of Players" thing he mentioned as well??? What is this dude UP TO oml (also is he in contact with Neku at all?? they're both technically fugitives at this point right?? WHAT HAPPENED AFTER A NEW DAY I AM BEGGING YOU)

-I seems like Sho ALSO has an idea of what's going on in this specific game (even if he won't admit it straightforward). Per his quote "The game's 142,857. Factor it out," he's essentially saying, "This game is a neverending cyle, figure out how to get out of it" (or at least that's what I got from his "cyclic number" nonsense lolol)

-I do like how Sho mostly stays out of sight until he's needed for a battle or assisting with a mission, that's kind of on par with his whole "uncooperative" quirk from the OG, plus he might literally have to stay out of sight of other Reapers and Players considering he's likely breaking the rules of the Game (not surprising considering him and Neku broke practically every rule in the book during OG)

-The nicknames for Sho- I can't- They're so FUNNYYYY GFHJSDFKJ

-He goes from being called "Pi-Face" and "Tabooty" in OG to "Mr. Minami" and "M-Teezy" in NEO LMAOO

-(Wowee I just realized I've been mostly talking about Sho oopsies sorry y'all, this is what I meant by thinking about him almost daily he is THAT much of a fav of mine ghfkjsd)

-Okay RIP Fret and Rindo for not getting literally ANY explanation as to how the Game works OOF, that is kinda cringe that whoever gets the Pin earns points, not whoever erases the Noise (which like I understand but also URRRGGHHH I WANNA SEE THE SQUAD SUCCEED)

-"I should be going home now it's getting late" Oh you sweet summer child-

-Also love the mention of parents in this game???? KH you could learn a thing or two from TWEWY (poor Rindo's mom fhgjkdh)

-KUBO IS HILARIOUS I SUPPORT HIM AND HIS GROSS FACE (also thank you Final Trailer thumbnail for spoiling my suspicions about him very cool smh)

-Kaie is a LAD I also support him, go King type those funky texts I believe in you

-FRET PLS STOP SCANNING FHGJKSDHKJFGHFKJ he's like me when I scan in OG during Weeks 2 and 3 and see Taboo Noise coming after me ghfjdshfj

-Also Rindo can you stay off your phone for TWO SECONDS ik you're trying to figure things out but Fret is a jelly boi and I don't want him to be upset with you my guy

-Sho being an actual sorta mentor to the kiddos?? Who are you sir this is so unlike you ghfgskj what happened to the guy who tried shooting children in the face 8 times over LMAO (granted he's probably just using them but it's still nice to see him actually cooperating and sharing knowledge with the kiddos aaaaa)

-EYO EIJI OJI THE TIKTOK INFLUENCER IS BACK LMAO

-hgjkfshgkjf "we aren't glorifying capitalism on my watch" THATS SO FUNNY TO ME GFHJFSDGHJKS (also an all-orange ensemble is disgusting you deserve jail for one thousand years fkn Cheddar Goldfish Cheezit ass woman)

-WICKED TWISTERS NAME DROP EYOOO we love to see it

-gfhsgjf Poor Rindo embarassing himself for the sake of the Game that's incredible

-R e t u r n t o M O N K E. That is all.

-Dialogue during boss battles is HELLA cool i love that

-HHHHH THE KANON SCENE MADE ME A N G E R Y FRET STOP SIMPING MY GUY says the girl with a Literal Simp Encyclopedia and simps for pixels on a screen daily

-Can't wait to see the other Reapers :eyes emoji:

-CAN'T WAIT TO SEE NAGI MY BELOVED YEAHHHH WOOOOOO AAAAND that's about it for the demo lolol, I absolutely CANNOT wait for next month, this game is gonna be INCREDIBLE holy hell Prepare for more simping, more screaming, and more vibing from Yours Truly :) I fully intend on sharing more general thoughts like this on both Tumblr and Twitter so it's not just reblog-retweet-reblog-retweet with the occasional comment fhgskjd

If you wanna witness my insanity up close and personal I have a Square Enix Discord server called Sea Side Dreamers! You can look it up on Disboard, or you can add me on Discord @Katara0524#9244 for a direct link :) We have topics about Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, NieR, and ofc TWEWY (as well as other topics!), so if you want some good ol' chaos and chitchat, you're more than welcome to join!

[the---hermit]

so sorry to dump this all on you, i just dont know who to talk to.

recently, ive been going through awful imposter syndrome. ive belittled all of my accomplishments and hyperbolized every single failure. it doesnt help that im in my senior year of high school and will be going to university in a few months and i have no idea what i’ll do. it sucks constantly feeling like the dumbest person in the room. this was all made worse when i heard back from one of the universities i applied to, and I got waitlisted. ik im stupid to be so upset over this since it’s not a rejection, but i just see it as a confirmation of everything my imposter syndrome tells me. my friends are all so brilliant and were accepted. i want to feel happy for them, i really do, but i just feel so jealous of them. they are such good friends of mine and want the best for me, but now every time i see them i feel so insecure and horrible about myself because i feel less than. ive been avoiding them and i feel so guilty and like such an awful friend because they did nothing wrong and i should be happy for them. i just cant help it, i feel so upset. any advice ? :( thank you so much for letting me rant

Hello there 💜🌿

Firstly take a deep breath and make yourself a cup of tea, because I can feel the nervous tention you have in your head and body just by reading your words. It's going to be a long post I imagine, but bear with me my friend cause one way or another we'll get you at least into a slightly better headspace which would be a good start.

I want to tell you that I feel everything you just said so much. I am in a very similar situation atm, with my last exam to give, my degree probably being later than I had planned, generally seeing everyone moving "faster" than I in life. So you are not alone, amd I have a strange feeling that there's way more people having similar feelings to us out there.

What I gather from your message is that you have A LOT going on both acutally in your life, but most importantly inside your head. Lots and lots of thoughts and anxieties and so on. But in all this bas stuff there's one very clear thing in your words, you are incredibly aware of yourself. This is not a small deal, you are aware of where these messy feelings come from AND you are also aware of the reasons behind bad feelings regarding other people and so on. This is great, because it's an amazing starting point to get to a better place. It's not going to be easy, but you have all you need to get there. This awareness is going to help you because at the very least you have an idea of what is happening, it's a sort of outline of all these messy feelings you are feeling.

There are so many things I want to say to you, I honestly don't know where to start. Other people having (or seeming to have) a clearer plan does not in amy way make you a failure. People move in life differently, in all aspects. You might not notice it, but it is so true. There's a lot of pressure on you right now, which is probably what made all these feelings explode onto you. The end of high school is a hige deal, you are closing a big chapter of your life and many many differences will happen in your life not only school wise, which is terrifying. The fact that society seems to expect that at this point of your life you MUST know what you want to do and have everything perfectly planned doesn't mean you should. Acutally it's almost impossible to, and even if you did how says you might not change your mind in the future? Also I don't want you to call yourself stupid, you are not, look at yourself feeling all this stuff and understanding the reasons behind it at the point of knowing that the jelousy you naturally feel for people who seem to be in the "ideal" position shouldn't be there. (Shouldn't be there of course in an ideal world where feelings do not exist or at least bad feelings. This stuff is natural it's what makes you human, amd you are feeling it for a reason). My point is you are not stupid my friend, you are scared. Scared of the changes that have to inevitably happen, scared of not making it, scared to make the wrong choice, and so on. Let me tell you a secret. Changes happen no matter what you do, and for how difficult it might be once you, or better we (cause i am in the mix mate, I deal with change awfully), accept it, everything will be way smooter. You cannot overcome change, time moves and you ha e to move with it even when you don't want to, if you use all your strenght in trying to stop it, everything else will be exhaustin. Secondly you will make it, no matter what happens, you will figure a way out of any situation, because as a creature on Earth that is what we do, no matter how scared you are you'll face it in the end and you'll prove your insecurities wrong. Thirdly you will make mistakes, you will pick the wrong option in your life, it happens, it would be impossible not to. Does this mean you are failing? No, it means you are living your very human life, falling and getting back up, checking if your old scars will tell you what is the better path to take, and even then you might regret your choice. By making mistakes you learn more both about life and yourself. Embrace mistakes, they are not failure they are like the little coins that you collect in video games ( I have no idea what I am talking about but preten I do, it's the best image that got in my head to get the point across, I swear I normally do better). Once you have all your coins you get stronger and smarter.

I know it is not easy to avoid but comparing yourself to others or even to the "ideal" society has presented to you, is going to destroy you. I say it is not easy because no matter what we all end up in that spiral. I do to, there are situations, even people that pressure you to do so, but when you catch youself try to stop it. You are you, and no other people could be you, you'll do a great job at being you, I know it for sure. Other people might look like they have everything perfectly under control, but believe me we all have those things in which we feel behind, and not good enough. It's a nightmare, you are told for your whole life you have to reach a standard which is unreachable, it's fictional. Perfect does only exist in our heads. You have nothing to prove, to anyone.

Try to talk to your friends be open and honest as you were here with me. I am an awfully direct person, I know some people find it weird, but being simple and direct you will get your point across. Be honest, you can be vulnerable, it doesn't make you weak ( I will also take note on this one, cause again I also have things to work on). But talk to them about these feeling explain it to them, if they are truly your friends they will understan and help you, amd shere things of their own. Also have conversation about this with yourself. I know journaling can be intimidating, but sitting down and dumping everything that is in your brain on paper is so liberating, plus you get a chance to understand yourself even better than you already do. Ask youself questions, why you feel certain things? How you feel them? What you can do to feel better? And so on. And then go easy on yourself kid, you can do it, you will do it, but you have to take care of yourself in the meantime okay? You already have all this weight from the outside world, support yourself be your best ally, do not add up on this weight. You must have your own back.

I really really hope that I could be a tiny bit helpful and I wish you all the luck in the world. Keep me updated on how things develop, and take care of yourself. Actually take up a day to treat yourself, buy yourself something, idk eat your favourite food, do something fancy, buy yourself flowers.

(Also I know I am super annoying and I have talked about this in a million posts but if you are in the mood for reading something I would totally recommed to read The Humans by Matt Haig. It's my comfort book, in never fails to make me feel more at peace and to make me feel calm about being alive. I find it very reassuring.)

With all this said I wish you the best of luck and I really hope you'll have a good day and that things will get better 💜🌿

( I have not reread what I wrote so there will probably be a lot of mistakes, and my English might be a bit messy so I am very sorry about that)

[hajimine]

LEX’S 2020 APPRECIATION POST PT. II !

— to the lovely moots & followers who i talk to quite often (or pretty much everyday), this one’s for you.

thank u for being in my life, you made my 2020 so so much better. i’m so grateful october lex decided to make a tumblr acc 🥲

i’ll try my best to keep it kinda short 🥲👍

in alphabetical order:

@4fterh0urs — my omega phoebe 😩‼️ ily so much bc you’re both extremely stupid n extremely smart at the same time. u mean so much to me and i love talking to u even if u call me such weird as nicknames every damn day 😃 you’re so sexy n hella intimidating smfh idk how i was able to make u my bitch (JK PLS DONT KILL MEE) anyways, thanks for being a real one bae + you’re the person i block the most, so you’re special ig 😹👍 ily you’re actually such a sap but u pretend to be all tough heh <33

@archivednikes — my solar system, my wh*re (lovingly) hi bae 😣 ok yk how much i love u but. im gonna tell u again: ILYSM!! OKAY??? please know that you’re such an amazing human being and you’re SO incredibly talented. god i love u so much please take care of yourself baby, you’re always so kind to other people and i hope you can do the same to yourself. once again, i am so fucking glad you decided to slide into my inbox that day, because now i look forward to talking to you every single morning. insert grabby hands ilysm <33

@boosyboo9206 — onyx hi babes! i’m so so grateful for you omg u dont even know it. you always manage to cheer me up with your antics and you’re always here to support me 🥺 whenever i’m down you somehow aways manage to make me feel a lil better. i love talking to u whether it’s about sth as mundane as the weather or even your obsession with the word peepers. thank you for being you, please take care of yourself and stop sleeping so damn late. ilysm <33

@ch4jime — chloe bae!! 😁 hi omg ilysm you’re so cute and cool and nice urghh thanks for always checking up on me! i love love seeing you in my asks, you’re such a lovely person to be around. i seriously need to be better at dropping in other people’s inbox, so just know that i’ll work on hanging out on your blog more often this year bc ily! i wish u all the best and please never stop being you baby mwah <33

@fairyoomi — hi bae 😣😣 how are u?? i know we don’t talk much anymore, and that’s okie, but i still wanna write u this lil note because i’m so thankful i met you here on tumblr. you’re an amazing writer and u were so sweet to me even when i was a teeny blog who didn’t know anyone. i admire u a lot, yknow? thanks for being such a friendly and welcoming person, ily <33

@gu3to — mochi bestieo 🙀 idk if you’ll even see this smh so i’m just gonna text u after this (if i don’t forget to rip) okay so. hello?! you’re so mf cool and you’re a trendsetter 🤩 yes yes im fueling your god complex it’s bc ily smh. you’re so dumb i wanna choke u sometimes but i won’t bc i’m also just as dumb 😁 pls stop disappearing from the face of the Earth okay ilysm you always keep it real and i know i can always count on u to listen to uh... my shit. okay so when are we gonna make out? 🤨 oki bye <33

@hoekageyama — wifey!! maddie baby urghh yk how much i love you, you’re one of my earliest moots im pretty sure? and aaaaa i’m so so glad i decided to be weird as hell and slide into your asks that day (pancreas. sighs. iconic.) you’re my numero uno whenever i wanna bark about hot 2d boys and what i’d let em do to me coughs err yea hehe. please take care of yourself baby you’re such a sweet and kind and loving person and i’m so glad to have you in my life. smh we text each other lovey dovey texts anyway but i still wanna do this for u 😋 ilysm!!! <33

@honeyskawa — lani baby hi! i know you haven’t been super active lately, but i just wanna tell u that i appreciate u so so much!! you honestly made my goddamn week when u sent me that ask about how i inspired you bc what the heck?? never in my life have i expected to have such an impact on someone. you’re a wonderful writer honestly. i love u so much and i hope everything’s going well baby, i’m excited talk to u more whenever you decide to be active on tumblr again <33

@jougogo — kaybae hi!!! you haven’t been on tumblr much lately but hi sexc it’s me lex lol i’ve moved accs hehe 😎 i hope u see this whenever u get your phone back cries. you’re such an amazing person to be around, always so cheerful and friendly, you exude so much positive vibes and ilysm. you always manage to lift up the mood with your sexc self and i admire u for that. you’re so incredibly chaotic and fun to be around ahrgehxhh i appreciate u sm and i hope you’re taking care of yourself bby ily <33

@kemochie — my waluigi, my favorite f*rry, hi 😝 urghhh god we just started talking everyday pretty recently but god. you’re so funny??? and i love bullying u bc u give me so much material to bully u with (ok jkjk i love u that’s why i bully u smh) also, you’re so incredibly supportive and u were actually the one who pushed me to finally post that atsumu fic, even tho stupid me accidentally deleted it LMAOBSBD anw, u bring sm joy in my life, so thank u for that. we’re a small lil filf and you’re the milf to my dilf LMAO ilysm mwah!! <33

@kenmaki — gabbae! virgo bestie!! hi hi !! you’re such a talented person and you’re an amazing writer, and i hope one day u can get past your insecurities and see yourself as the wonderful person u truly are. i love how we were able to relate to each from how similar virgos think + our initial conversation of dick measurements and such will forever be seared into my memory. and congrats on getting a daily railing on the dash HSBDH i don’t look at em i promise lol 🤩🤩 jdbdhdh ilysm bby <33

@miyams — ren sweet babie hi! you’re so incredibly talented please don’t listen to stupid hate anons. i’ll stab them with a serrated knife if i have to 😠🔪 you’re so flippin cute and sweet i love talking to you, and i love love love whenever u come by my inbox to say hi. i hope we can talk even more in 2021, my dms and asks are always open for u bby (even though i suck at replying right away, sorry abt that huhu) i love u sm baby please take care of yourself <33

@miyasangel — ardie bae 😜 hi sexc!! i still cant believe we talk like everyday now lmaoo i used to think you’re so freaking cool (i still do) and now i’m friends w u whattaheck 🥲 you’re such an amazing writer wtf. i hate that we had to start our friendship on such a sour note (ehem discord ehem) but i’m really glad it brought us closer together. ily cockarden i’ll be sure to bully u even more HAHAGS IM JK makes out w u so hard bc you’re so damn hot ily 😣‼️ <33

@owlywrites — owly baby hello! ily so so much and you’re so talented, you deserve so much recognition. i hope i can read more of your fics soon bc they’re so well written ugh 😣 thanks for always checking up on me and always being so incredibly sweet. i love u so so muchhh huhu i wanna give u the biggest hug in the world :( please take care of yourself and never stop being your genuine self kith kith <33

@rilacry — milfy gorlillola 😜😜‼️ hi sexc. omfg i was so intimidated by u wtf (and i still kinda am smh) bc you’re so cool?? and your writing n carrd making skills are amazing as hell wtf. u just exude BDE bc you’re hella hot AND bc u wanna peg everyone. anyways,, i’m glad we got closer recently, even if it was out of really wack circumstances. ily bae pls stop sticking your memojis everywhere mwah <33

@rintaroll — my kue tete ☹️☹️ ilysm smh bye i can’t believe we’re close now wtf you’ve always been so cool and sexc 😩‼️ oh god i rmb when u were still on your old acc and u seemed so out of reach and i was a lil intimidated ANDBDJD SHHH but yea now ik you’re just a big h word dork and i love u for that 😣 i wish u all the best for your singing career bby you’re such a talented writer AND singer wtf. also you’re so pretty???? wtf how rude 😠 JKJK HAHHSBD ilysm kithes u so hard <33

@tetsoleil — geegee!! hi baby 😣 thanks for being such a sweet human being ily! it’s been a while since we actually talked yeah? but i still want u to know that i love u a lot and i appreciate u so much. i’m so so grateful you’re in my life because you’re such a joy to be around. you’re an amazing writer bby and i hope you get the recognition u deserve. i’m always here for u if u need anything. ilysm bby <33

@velvetfireworks — rachie bae 🤩 my bakso goreng, my golden kiwi!!! ily!! hehe im so glad i decided to slide in your dms when u asked me if i was indo. but ahhhh you’re ao sweet and cute and supportive ilysm. an amaaazing writer and i admire your work so much, but i think you’ve heard me say that multiple times before. i’m so glad we became closer recently through our love for greasy food and wonky lil faces 👁💋👁 kith kith ilysm <33

@yato-o — yato baby hi!! urgh honestly i appreciate u so so much?? i feel so lucky to be able to get to know you. i don’t even remember how we met but ahhh thank u for always stopping by and have a chat with me even though i know you’re a busy person. please take care of yourself and get some rest whenever u need to! don’t feel pressured to come on here if you’re tired baby, im so grateful to have u in my life, i luv youu <33

HAPPY NEW YEAR YOU SEXY BAES!

kisses, lex

[luvdetroit]

Hey! I 've just read the first chapter of the dbh series you wanted to start, and I really like the plot 🥺 Do you plan on continuing it? 👉🏻👈🏻

hey, sorry for the late reply! i actually do have it planned out a bit differently than i originally wrote it in the first chapter. i think this planned version is better than the one i posted. there are many other ideas that i have in my drafts, i just haven’t released them yet.

thank you for reading it! i'm happy you enjoyed it and i'm sorry for saying this but i think i'll just scrap this idea and go with my new one (VOW). it will be somewhat similar, just more complex? and hopefully interesting!

not sure if you are even interested in hearing about them but i’ll drop them here! maybe if you or anyone is interested, i will follow through with posting them (have been feeling very bad about my writing recently).

for anyone who does read my ideas, please do not steal! i really worked hard on thinking about these and would be really hurt if anyone took them. they aren’t super original or anything, but i still created them 😩

these are really roughly written so please don’t judge 🚶🏼‍♀️🚶🏼‍♀️

please do comment or send me a message in my inbox about which idea you like more, if i should do a specific one or all of them even! 💞💞💞

1. TITLE: VOW

pairings: various! x fem!reader

genre: meta (?), angst, fluff, etc

plot: metafiction. mc surfs the web to buy d:bh and finds a seller who is willing to sell the game for cheap (suspiciously). mc contacts the user and a deal has been made.

we will flesh out the seller later, he ain’t all that important rn. so mc gets the game after maybe two days? and in the packaging the seller wrote a letter to her, it is pretty cryptic. we can get into detail on the letter and stuff later.

so mc starts the game up right away because she is excited to play it. on her first play though everything is pretty normal. there are a few differences/odd occurrences but mc doesn’t bat an eye because it’s her first time playing so she wouldn’t know.

gradually as she plays, the characters (connor and markus) are more aware of them being in a game. (sense they are in the same series and are prototypes it only makes sense for them to be able to sync themselves/go beyond their coding).

connor and markus have broken the fourth wall/have become aware with other players. they grow a deep hatred for the player. sense they can’t throw their anger at the creators of the game, they can do so with the player.

at first, connor and markus only did minor things that didn’t really stand out to the player. when connor/markus breaks the fourth wall and directly talks about the player, the player thinks it’s apart of the game.

but when connor/markus mentions the player’s name that is when they freak out a bit, but assumes the characters got their names from their playstation.

it’s only when connor/markus states some personal stuff about them do they feel fear. (connor/markus can sync with the smart tv that also contains all their info).

connor/markus have tried to sync with the game/tv enough to transport the player in the game so the player can experience first hand what it’s like to live in their world. but their connection weakens each time the player resets. their memories are also wiped out.

over time connor/markus are able to retain their memories a lot faster but forget the previous players of the game. even if they don’t remember the previous players they still think of one goal. transport the player into their world, let them suffer, seeing first hand how THEY feel.

connor/markus will be slightly oc. they will have somewhat of a dark side.

i didn’t explain this in the summary bcus i’m dumb but the game can’t be destroyed (it’s like a possessed object). even if you throw it out or something it will still go back to you bcus you own it. the only way to get rid of it is selling it.

ik some wack logic but sjakwkw

sam is the seller of the game. (his username is GAMER BOY 69). the game is sold for $10 with free shipping and no tax.

mc: does this really only cost $10? why is this so cheap?

sam: i’m just being generous

sam: are you willing to buy it?

mc: can you show proof that you actually have it and it isn’t broken?

sam: sure, hold on a second

[sam sends a video of him filming the game packaging and saying his username (in a bit of embarrassment) and mc’s. he reassured her that it isn’t broken and works perfectly fine. he tells her he didn’t like the game so that’s why he’s selling it.]

sam’s letter is in a white envelope, his writing is slightly messy, almost jittery (from nerves). he feared he was being watched by, ‘them’ so he wrote cryptically.

sam’s note: i’m sorry i did this to you. i really am. i just didn’t have any other choice. don’t play the game, please.

2. TITLE: PARESTHESIA

pairings: various! x fem! reader

genre: dark au, cult au, angst, fluff, etc

plot: in this au kamski doesn’t publicly make androids n stuff

so amanda stern is still kamski’s mentor in this au

she, ‘disappears’ at some point and is listed as a missing person

kamski knows she isn’t gone though bcus she told him her plan

basically amanda is very manipulative and warped kamski’s young mind into thinking humans being lesser beings and that kamski can really create something even more superior, androids.

kamski and amanda are humans but they are excused because of them being intelligent and having that sort of mindset- humans being filth on this planet

instead of kamski making cyberlife public

he instead also disappears after a few years later (once he’s done w college)

it’s a gap between amanda and his disappearance to not completely draw suspicion

cyberlife is created in secret, hidden from the public

belief: humans are disgusting and should be replaced by something far superior, androids.

rules: only those who have the same mindset as kamski and amanda can join the cause and contribute. (so human co workers of amanda and such help gather material and thirium (blue blood) to create more androids in secret).

practices: a member has to willingly be able to sacrifice any body part kamski chooses to replace for an android part or partake in any experiment kamski may have. if not, they aren’t fully in the cause and should be ridden of.

kamski wants to take a oblivious civilian in for a secret test of his

he wants to test out how human his androids can be and if it can blend in with humans in normal day to day life.

so he releases one of his androids, connor (rk800) out into the world. his mission is to find a human he can initiate a relationship with. once he finds that human, he slowly grows a relationship with them over time- kamski is studying all of this through connor’s eyes.

kamski is amazed by this new discovery- his androids do blend in with humans well.

the last secret test for mc is connor telling her his true nature. (telling her he isn’t human, he’s an android). connor breaks this to mc at his, ‘house’ which is connected to their secret compound/underground base.

kamski wants to know how mc will react to this news because her actions depends on whether she’s just another piece of human scum or not. this will validate whether she can join their, ‘organization’ or not.

mc will be confused by connor’s sudden news at first. she won’t believe him until he pulls back his skin to show his porcelain interior.

she’ll be surprised then and question whether their relationship was all real or not.

connor reassures her that he does share her feelings. he admits that at first this was a mission but he truly does feel for her. he asks her if she still has feelings for him even after knowing he isn’t human and mc (after a bit of thinking) says that she does.

this makes connor happy as well as kamski bcus mc got through the test. this is the first android-human relationship too.

a few days pass just to really make sure mc doesn’t act any different and really is telling the truth about having feelings for connor still- when connor informs mc that his creator wants to meet her in person one day.

connor and mc go to his place and he leads her downstairs to his normal looking basement- and there is this really intricate hidden puzzle/door that opens to their underground compound.

connor leads mc to a room and meets kamski. kamski comments on mc- on how he was surprised that mc quickly took a liking to connor and how she still has feelings for connor even after finding out the truth. he’s impressed and approves of the relationship.

he tells her he hopes she keeps her word about this organization being a secret because he wouldn’t want anything bad happening to her so soon.

after that connor and mc go about their relationship like normal. although, connor has been experiencing these odd feelings lately. he’s also been oddly wanting to act out violently towards the most smallest things. like mc talking to someone else, smiling at someone else, touching someone else, even if it was platonic.

it didn’t sit right with him. he never voiced these new feelings to kamski though. he was too afraid kamski might tell him he has something wrong with his software. he doesn’t want kamski to call him defective and replace him for another connor. he doesn’t want to be seen as not good enough for mc.

connor doesn’t act on any of his thoughts. he doesn’t let his emotions control him.

after about two weeks kamski calls connor and tells him he wants him to meet someone (rk900) and that he should bring mc.

so connor visits the compound and meets kamski in a lounge area with mc. they both enter the room with kamski casually laying on a lush couch. a small smile is brought on his face when he noticed connor and mc’s presence. he greets them both and tells them that he’s happy they could make it.

connor opens his mouth, about to ask who the person kamski wants him to meet when rk900 walks in with two cups of tea + thirium in his hands.

rk900 places a tea down in front of kamski, the other tea and thirium on the opposite side of kamski’s before returning his attention to connor and mc. his eyes scrutinizing connor and mc.

kamski’s smile widens at connor’s reaction and stands up, clasping rk900’s shoulder with one hand. he prompts rk900 to introduce himself.

rk900 introduces himself somewhat stiffly in a monotone voice.

rk900: my name is conan.

it was short and to the point. he offers an open hand for a handshake.

connor looks over conan, completely ignoring the hand offered to him, then at kamski with all sorts of emotions. the main ones being confusion and fear. at this point connor is wondering if conan is going to replace him for a reason connor does not know.

kamski breaks the awkward silence/tension in the room.

kamski: “well, connor? aren’t you going to greet your brother?”

connor takes a few moments to process this information and absentmindedly inquires, “brother?” in a small voice. his brows furrow slightly and his gaze draws towards his look alike. from up close, conan looks exactly like connor with a few differences. he was slightly taller than connor and had cool greyish blue eyes. why would kamski decide to make me a brother? i didn’t ask for one.

kamski: “yes, brother. i just thought it might be lonely to live alone in that big house of yours so i have gifted you with your own brother.”

at this point connor is having a mental breakdown. kamski doesn’t do things without a logical reason. he’s not telling me the full truth.

connor finally breaks out of his thoughts, his eyes darting back to kamski and he nods shortly, ignoring conan’s still outstretched hand and his presence altogether.

connor: [in a stony voice] okay, is that all?

conan drops his hand.

the corners of kamski’s lips twitch, threatening to split into a menacing smirk at connor’s cold reaction. kamski clicks his tongue mockingly and sits back down, grabbing his tea.

kamski: “that���s not how you should treat your brother. [sighs] that will be all, but you have to teach conan how things work around here. that’s what a big brother should do, after all.”

connor bites back a disgruntled sigh of his own and settles for a slight frown.

connor: “why wasn’t he informed before meeting me? didn’t he go through the same test runs as me?”

it took everything in connor to not let his irritation show through his tone.

kamski pins connor with an annoyed glare, a small bit of amusement shining through.

kamski: “why are you testing my patience connor? are you not happy with my gift?”

kamski’s words were light mockery, with a dark undertone to them. connor knew better than to irritate his creator further. he bows his head slightly to him.

connor: “i apologize for causing you further inconvenience. i..am just surprised by the new addition, that’s all.”

kamski simply nods lazily. waving a hand, he tells them they are dismissed.

connor turns away from his creator and him to the exit with you following right beside him silently. he places his hand on the small of your back and presses you close to him possessively. the slight tapping of a pair of shoes follow behind connor and you. connor ignores it.

connor walks through the maze of hallways without pause, part of him hoping his, ‘brother’ would get lost and never return.

he knew better though. without even looking, he knew conan wasn’t even a step behind and it irritated connor to no end.

once the three enter the, ‘main area’ which was basically the center of the compound, connor turns around to face conan.

connor: [monotonously] “give me your hand, i’ll transfer the data so this all can be over with.”

connor outstretches his hand. part of him wants to pull it back because he doesn’t want to touch him.

conan looks at connor’s outstretched hand to connor’s face.

conan: “no, i can’t do that. kamski specifically told me to get the information from you the, ‘human’ way. he wishes for us to talk to each other like brothers.”

connor looks even more bewildered at that bit of information..why would kamski do this without his consent? this..has to be some sort of test. maybe conan is just playing the role as his brother to spy on him and catch him doing something that may incriminate him? does kamski know about his odd..’glitches’? did he make rk900 just to dispose of him and replace him?

no, he couldn’t have known..the cameras in his opticals were shut off weeks ago. so why was rk900 here? what is kamski getting at?

connor also took notice of how..machine like conan is. conan walks stiffly and has a rigid stance. in that sentence he brings up what kamski wants rather than his. he follows kamski’s orders as if they were law without question.

connor still has his hand in front of him and ignores what conan says

he’s like, “it would be easier if we just did this.” (he’s irritated and is insistent)

and conan refuses, again repeating, “we have to follow kamski’s orders.”

and connor taunts conan

he’s like, “can you not think for yourself? i thought you were supposed to be alive.”

at that, mc finally speaks, telling connor off, “that’s enough, connor. i think you should just follow what kamski says. conan is just as alive as you and needs some of your guidance.”

connor’s eyes slightly widen as well as conan’s. connor’s frown deepens at your words. you’re defending him. why? you should be on his side, not him.

conan still has a blank face but his eyes are now trained on mc, curiosity being one of the emotions flickering in his eyes.

connor notices conan looking at mc and narrows his eyes in disgust.

connor: fine..we can discuss everything at my place.

connor turns and places his hand back on mc’s lower back, pressing her as close to him and far from conan as possible.

conan follows on without question.

3. TITLE: DARK EXTERIOR

pairings: various! x fem! reader

genre: dark au, angst, fluff, etc

plot: the main plot is androids taking over and humans as pets

so mc is obviously gonna be a human, she is like in one of those sort of adoption places but it’s more like a buy your pet thing

and mc is gonna be 18 y/o because yes

- mc and her parents live in a house that is located in a rather secluded area in the woods

- when word gets out about androids dominating humans and turning them into slaves- mc’s parents decide to live underground. mc is 3 y/o during this time. (the father is an artist/architect, this was originally just a project for himself). years pass with them being undetected. (it was 2038 when androids dominated humans)

- 15 years passed without them being detected and mc is 18 y/o (year is 2053)

- mc’s father scavenges for food and such once a month

- underground they still have a tv, tablet, and phones to keep up with how everything is going in detroit

- mc feels trapped after living underground for basically her entire life and learning second hand about androids, the revolution, etc

- mc starts doubting her parents and their reasons. she questions whether if there are bad androids out there who will snatch her up.

- mc asks her father if she can help him scavenge one day but he along with her mother are against that (this is on her birthday when she turns 18 y/o bcus she thinks she’s mature enough to)

- this causes a big argument between her parents and her and she voices her doubts to them- this ends with mc locking herself in her room. after awhile when it’s night time, her father visits her and apologizes for yelling but tells her she still can’t go up there because it’s too dangerous.

- mc hides her anger and lies to her father about her understanding. when it’s about midnight mc decides to sneak out and go above ground.

- mc is wandering in the woods mindlessly basking in everything- she kind of becomes careless (she doesn’t act cautious when wandering around). she maybe follows a bird she sees (owl) out of curiosity and nears markus and his crew (simon, north, and josh). they were having a picnic or just stargazing.

- simon hears rustling and light footsteps coming towards them so he alerts the others, he’s like, ‘do you guys hear that?’

- the others listen and do hear the footsteps and rustling coming rather close and quickly. all of them are tense (because they have experienced a lot of..attacks in the past so obviously they got their bars raised)

- so mc bumps into markus and everyone is surprised by mc’s sudden appearance

- mc stops in her tracks and looks at markus, it takes her a minute to really look at him bcus it’s dark and her human eyes are very poor at catching details

- she recognizes markus and is frozen. she also faintly recognizes his friends because they are also a big part of the android revolution (or so she’s been told by her parents).

- after a beat of silence north says, ‘a human?’ in a rather disgusted tone.

- josh observes you and asks out loud, ‘how can a human be this far out of the city?’

- north: ‘maybe it escaped from it’s owner or something.’

- after observing you, markus reaches out to you (you are still frozen and too scared to move) and places his hand on the nape of your neck. he realizes you don’t have a chip installed there to tell him who your owner is. (let’s say every human at birth has a chip installed to their nape to identify them and their owner)

- markus informs the others that mc doesn’t have a chip which startles them.

- north: ‘wait..it’s a fucking wild?’

- josh: ‘how could it live this long on it’s own if it is a wild?’

- (markus had his eyes on you the whole time) he asks you if there are more of you in the forest and you slowly shake your head no. they all know you are lying though.

- north: ‘there are more like it in the forest..how come we didn’t know about this?’

- josh: ‘this is pretty bad..if there are more wilds out here hiding this could damage the trust we built with the others. everyone will be outraged if they find out we let wilds slip under our noses.’

- simon approaches you slowly and asks again if there are more people like you out there

- when you shake your head again markus holds your chin between his thumb and index finger, tilting your head up so that you can look at him in the eyes.

- with a dark look in his eyes markus says, ‘don’t lie to us again kitten because i’m not in the mood to play nice. now, tell us the truth. are there more of you out there?’

- you are scared now and regret ever leaving the hideout. knowing it would be futile to lie again, you nod. (you are unable to say anything because your throat feels constricted).

- north: ‘where are they?’

- you don’t say anything because you don’t want to give your parents away. you continue to berate yourself for your stupid decisions.

- north sighs (clearly irritated by you not answering their questions immediately), ‘well? aren’t you going to speak? or can you not speak?’

- josh tries to calm north down, ‘intimidating it isn’t going to make it talk’

- north: why are you defending it? have you gone soft now?

- josh: [sighs] are we really going to do this? i’m just trying to tell you that yelling at it won’t get us anywhere-

- north: babying it isn’t getting us anywhere and i don’t see /you/ doing anything.

- simon steps in before the argument could get even more heated and pushes the two away from each other, “that’s enough. can you both not argue for once? now is not the time.”

- a little bit of pressure on your chin directs your attention from the two arguing to markus.

- markus: show us and i promise we won’t hurt you.

- mc thinks about this, ‘deal’ and realizes at that moment she doesn’t know what the hideout even looks like from the outside bcus she was so caught up on other things.

- mc makes a half baked plan to pretend to know where her hide out is, lead them, then find an opening to escape

- mc responds after a bit of pondering, (in a feeble voice), “okay.”

- north: [annoyed and slightly surprised] that’s it? that’s all it took?

- markus lets go of mc’s chin and gives mc a slight nod, telling her to show them the way

- before mc could take any step north butts in

- north: shouldn’t we restrain it first? tie it’s hands so it doesn’t do anything stupid?

- mc really dislikes north and is pretty scared of north out of all of them.

- markus notices your discomfort and shakes his head at north, “no. we don’t need to."

- north: [irritated] but she is a fucking wild- she’s dangerous-

- markus: [interrupts north + raises one of his hands up] i said, we don’t need to.

- north huffs in annoyance but doesn’t say anything else. part of you is satisfied by seeing north being put in her place.

- markus returns his attention to you and silently tells you w his eyes to lead the way.

- you turn your back towards markus and observe the vast amount of trees before you and walk in the direction you remember vaguely running from.

[ibelonginthepast]

okay I need your klance fic recs(i feel like you have really good taste)(i mean your icon is literally THE keith of course you have god tier taste)

okay so the thing is.. that when i say am kinda messed up and disgusting sometimes... and becoming a madwoman... am not over exaggerating or saying it in a funky way.. i actually am getting like that .. and that's how i got into the klance fandom initially. i project through lance and read really langsty fics.. and they are messed messed with like violent nsfw, gore, horror, serious mental health issues etc? so if u want those... i'll only send them if u want?

yeah tho i entered with this thingy that klance is gonna be like my guilty pleasure or some shit but them i inevitably fell in love with some GORGEOUS fanfictions out there and KEITH KOGANE in all shapes sizes genders and ages so lol...

but they aren't flowery. that's just not my taste. Some of them might be "problematic"? it's in quotes because i don't agree with it. it's not going to be problematic in plain ignorant sense like racial issues or blatant sexism or mental abuse.... but they might have like stuff which people dont always agree with like drugs. most of them would have nsfw it's just something that i need to have for feels and that's why i asked if u minded it. some things are like more subjective,, characterizations for example, cause like some people dont think keith is a skirt guy cause he isnt in fashion but i think he is petty and rebellious so he will defo do that? some of them would have like physical fights and stuff.. or keith and lance being mean to each other.. some ugly habits which aren't necessarily condemned like anger or drugs.? but with how i see it, it's not glorified, so i see them as human. i love the raw and ugly in these or idk its just human to me (but some people dont like which is completely valid cause we are all different from different environments and think different and resonate with different stuff.)

wait addition: i think some of them will have sexist themes? which i have complained about a lot before. i dont know why authors feel the need to somehow put women down to show how a mlm relationship without any women is superior or some shit it's annoying as fuck i hate it. i dont think i would have any especially sexist fics here, but there might be some with lowkey themes and bad handling of those issues. some of them mau have that subtext of disgusting heteronormative standards, but in subtext uk like bottom lance having a small waist and being giggly and all in contrast to big bulk keith.

here are some that i had bookmarked... but i may remember some more and then send them to u and or add them here...

a heads up.. i dont remember all of them very well. its been a while and i read fanfictions A LOT so yeah.. incase one slips up here which isnt very good am sorry dont judge me

the bold ones are the ones u should really check out if our taste is similar.

to begin with plain f l u f f,, my first klance bookmark was How Could I Say No? by Padfoots_Pawprint. tws for violence, bullying, injury BUT it's not actually gory or something like that it's just keith being keith and getting hurt and lance helping my boi like he should. it made me feeeeeeeel ksksk

this was one that kinda really touched me,, Wasted youth, Cryptids, and Waterboys by Baea THIS HAS EXPLICIT NSFW in it, the first chapter kicks off with it.. its a good fuck buddies to lovers in my opinion.. i love the writing style, the choice of how it's just a couple entries of random days in their lives. i love keith's characterization.. he is a hobo and a conspiracy nerd.. i love how down for him lance is, very dedicated. i love their growth.. i love how they help each other grow,, and it's so like real and usual day to day and human and down to earth idk how else to express it. this is INCOMPLETE. it's 12 chapters and discontinued as of now,, but it's not a deadly cliffhanger

similar in style and approach to the above. tho i think here is where it gets dubious. Easy, Tiger. by @/WhatTheBodyGraspsNot ... this is INCOMPLETE too and as of now discontinued. this has that sorta murky vibe with it's drug usage, them being teenagers in school and engaging in stuff like this, bad boy keith and all. this has nsfw too. i just remember really liking it and its very raw and unfiltered. tho it's incomplete it's not an open ending for now.

okay so i am restarting this but am upset as fuck that it all got deleted so i am gonna be lazy and not put as much effort as i did.

i have also Crowd Pleaser bookmarked by the same author,, this one's complete and it has some serious issues around gaslighting if i remember correctly... i really liked it then. keith is literally an angel here, i want to kidnap him and marry him literally. the s h w ee t e s t shit ,, and i like how lance gives him all the support and space to get his shit together

Drummer boy by klancekorner,, i think it's similar to the prev one, but lance's pov(which is what i prefer ngl). this authors fanfics are all just wholesome. i had put links to all their fics before, but imma now just say that u should go and check all their fics out. i have them all bookmarked, i must have seen something in them (can't remember what now tho and i cant be bothered to skim through them like last time *rolls eyes*)

War of hearts? idk why honestly, just ik keira has made me gay, and lesbian rejection angst? garrison? yes :) it's incomplete, conveniently left at the point where lance's heart is broken lol

Fuck buddies with benefits. THE NAME IS BAD I KNOW but i just love the idea of a dedicated mess of a keith and lance taking care of him. that's it that's the fic if i remember correctly. oh wait yeah u might think keith is not treating lance right, but i think it's fine if lance is treated a bit stupid. this is a bit too sex driven tho i dont like it but just SLEEPDEPRIVED KEITH TO TAKE CARE OF IMMA SIGN UP (ik this maybe coming off toxic but lol look at me)

Rambling: THIS WAS ME.

Last Defense: TW SUICIDE this is literally the langst i have for canon lance

I want something else: bad boy keith can break my limbs and cut my face and i will thank him

A thank you would be nice: keira damn

game-set-match: b a d b o y

I swear to go the devil made me do it: my typically fav trop, hardcore pining lance, literally perfect angsty keith. very similar to the top ones ig? idk also this one is one of my comparatively recent sane bookmarks so that's something. it starts off weird, u think it gon be subtly sexist but it turns out better so hold on

you've got me locked up: i think it's delinquent keith,, its floofy

Dad lance and tattoo artist keith: the name says it

damn while going through my bookmarks i realized that there are a lot of things i never bookmarked? i am pretty sure i loved a lot of long fanfictions, flower shop aus and tattoo artists shit wtf-

wait here's one, it's not complete: Blood jumps in the sun: it's very heavy has a lot of growth and kinda wholesome,, tags and summary will give u an idea what u getting in.

The lessons we learned: can't remember much other than florist keith, sad keith, smart keith, really long, pining

damn i think i have a lot of happy ones i didn't bookmark cause my brain was like u dont deserve the serotonin :( i'll add if i have more)

some actually angsty, detailed nsfw and messy (according to the way u interpret these) ones... lemoninagin.. they have some very detailed and explicit nsfw stuff but i am not there for it. some of it has the kind of angst i like? an actual one that i love and they recently posted and the reason am putting them here is infinitesimal. best friends to lovers and tho usually it's not my cup of tea.. it's a character study, an interpretation of klance in a modern world i dare say,, which is very similar to mine. the thing about them is that i like their characterization a lot, and in no love in this, i like what kind of background stories they give to klance in their aus. i haven't read many by them, so if u want u can check them out.

i just realized i have put some lowkey sad/fucked fics here... i did remove 5 rn... i hope its all good damn why am i doing this i feel like am putting myself naked out there when i recommend my favs

[izzehz]

tw // vent

wonder if i can vent here without anyone knowing about it,, if so that would be so cool and pog. i dont want any of my friends to see these since idk,, i just dont want them to. anyway,, if ik you pls dont read/interact this,, i dont want to deal with your questions and shit,, no offense. recently ive been struggling with my emotions with a certain friend. I’ve liked her for a bit,, i confessed to her recently, which she said she liked me too, but i dont believe her,, i just kinda feel down? she left really quickly once she did,, i think i made her really uncomfy when i confessed and i regret that. we havent really talked since then and i feel like shit. I tried to talk to her on sunday, but it was short-lived and i just,, struggled lol. I hate how ive gained these feelings for her. i feel like i ruined our entire friendship since she doesn’t really talk to me anymore. we dont have the convos we had months ago,, where we would talk for hours. and i feel like we dont since i fucking ruined it. she also texts dryly and sends short messages, which fucks with my head since that tells me that shes not interesting in talking to me. even if it isnt true, i just get insecure and turned off. ever since i started to get these feelings i just ruined everything. i wanna ask her out,, but im afraid of being in a relationship,, plus we don’t talk that much, which kinda turns me off from it. im afraid that she’ll breakup with me too really quickly, since she isn’t ready or something. which is valid, but if thats the case, i dont want to risk my feelings hurting even more. and i recently became friends with this one person,, and theyre super cool,, i can tease the fuck out of them and they can do the same to me,, but i feel like i annoy them. recently they’ve been using more puncuation and smaller and dryer messages and i feel like im just annoying them. and it sucks, since i really like and care for them. i,, just feel like ive been ruining all the friendships/relationships i have because,, im me. i so badly just want to drink alcohol and forget everything. literally everything. i just want to forget myself and become a new person. i want to leave everything behind. im so sick of having to deal with these emotions. school is so fucking hard now and i have no motivation to even continue it. i want to communicate my feelings so badly to people, but i can never do it. due to past experiences,, i just get so anxious and afraid that they’ll shut me down. maybe this is why im posting this post. so i can finally get this shit off of my chest, without, at least hoping, that none of my friends see this since i can’t actually bring it up to them lol. im such a pussy. i hate myself so much and regret every second that i live. this is getting really long lmao but oh well. ive been holding this shit in for weeks and its so strong. i so badly want to cry and just isolate myself from everyone. i want to forget everyone. watch me lose my friends, and her. god,, she has me so fucked up. i love her but,, damn it hurts too. i dont hate her or anything,, i just wish my emotions weren’t like this. theres so much more i could vent about when it comes to my feelings about her, but i wont. in case she does see this i dont want her to think she ruined my life or something. shes made it so much better,, its just the negative things are really consuming my head. if anything, ive noticed this crush is a lot like the crush i had back in 5th grade, for this boy that i loved. he was my bsf too at the time and the timing and situations are way too fucking similar. i never confessed to him tho,, which im sad i didn’t. we probably couldve had something, but i was too much of a pussy to say shit. same with him. at least i wasn’t too much of a pussy with her. but,, the one thing i was afraid of ruining back in the day might be happening now. why is this shit so hard and confusing. wish i could just never get feelings. ive talked a lot about her in this post huh,, jufejf i guess its just been bothering me recently. why do i think everyone hates me? or at least, why do i think that? its so stupid. no matter how much reassurance people give me,, my brain just refuses to believe them. my brain never fucking does. it probably will never either. im hoping that since this post is really long that this will turn people off from reading it. im so afraid of hurting the people i care about in this post,, this is probably another reason why i never vent. i dont want to hurt peoples feelings. i always manage on doing that tho. intentional or not. sorry if my grammar and structure is bad. im stupid lol. lets hope nothing goes to shit when i post this <3

[rcl-stan]

my (probably controversial) opinions on ships

Canon:

percabeth: their relationship set the bar so damn high i want what they have 😔 10/10

jasiper: i say jasiper bc everyone argues whether or not it's jasper or jiper and it's a solid combination of the two. tbh their relationship wasn't good. like good while it lasted but if they never broke up i would've been surprised. it was also hella fake, and piper is probably gay let my girl live hera 4/10

frazel: ✨no✨ first of all (here's a side controversial opinion) i don't like frank. don't worry, i absolutely love hazel. second, that age gap? um, chile anyways 👀 sorry if you think that an eighth grader dating a junior in high school is okay, but it's a definite no for me ❤️✨ 0/10

caleo: it's cute, i like how they were a whole "destined to be together" thing and how they both believed they could never find love, but it was rushed. i have a whole long ass headcanon about how i would've done leo and calypso and their love lives better, but that's a post for another day. tbh leo's probably gay tho. the gods were nice to cal 5/10

gruniper: tbh this was the beginning of rickald sticking literally every character in a relationship but i'm happy for grover and they're really cute 7/10

charlena: they're so cute they make my heart soft 🥺 10/10

chrisse: tbh they're also super cute and i really love clarisse not being "just an asshole" like everyone can be loving and compassionate and that's sweet <3 and her saving him from insanity after the labyrinth?? and her getting dating advice she loved him so much?? 🥺👉👈 also i was simping over both of them watching sea of monsters sooo 10/10

solangelo: they're cute but i ship nico w someone else peep the non canon portion. bonus point because i love will solace more than anything and he should be known more than just being nico's bf 8/10

tysella: cute and i like how even monsters can find love but once again just ricks attempt to stick as many characters together as possible like it was so out of the blue PSA it's okay to not feel/want/find love <3 don't let fiction bring you down ily and you're doing fantastic sweetie <3 anyways 5/10

zarter: yes yes yes just YES ugh they're real cute and let me just say the red pyramid/the throne of fire broke my heart but we got back on it 10/10

saltnubus: i- just- what the fAwk 😃 they're the same person ?? i, gIrl eye- chicas it's- ugh let's just get to the rating because words can't describe this ship but numbers can 2/10 (extra points for effort and not dead walt)

Not Canon:

tratie: YES V GOOD SHIP they're adorable please make this canon we have one more book pull some strings. i remember in my most recent reread of pjo i was waiting for tratie and there was nothing and i realized it isn't canon my mind was blown. loss of a point because it's been around for so long and still hasn't been made canon, like, around for so long most people forget it's fanon until it's brought up every once in a while. 9/10

jercy: tbh i don't ship it. like they'd make good friends, but even then they'd both have multiple people they'd put over each other. 0/10

jasico: once again a hard no for me. i just don't see it. like def bros and i think jason being the ultimate good friend to nico, yeah that's cool, but no romance just bromance 1/10

pernico: ✨no✨ 0/10

pipabeth: v cute ship but once again feel like they wouldn't've been #1s to each other, better than jasiper worse than percabeth 6/10

lukabeth: FUCK THAT SHIT NONONONONO GET THAT PEDOPHILIC SHIT OUTTA HERE RIGHT NOW -92736373937373/10

thaluke: feel like they may have had a small thing when they were on the run, but it's a no for me 1/10

perachel: this ship is so valid y'all are just afraid of having this conversation well here it is. it's more similar to jasiper in how if they had gotten together i don't think they would've lasted, but there was some thiqq chemistry and they would've been really great together. and they're also really good friends, stop erasing that 😡✨ 8/10

jeyna: they would've been so great together. as much as i love me a lesbian reyna, i have to admit jason and reyna would've been lowkey goals and super adorable and just, perfect for one another. super sad hera decided to get in the way of that :/ 9/10

theyna: tbh i don't ship it. i just don't see any chem between the two. cool friends maybe, but it's a no for me. 3/10

pipeyna: yessss now that's a badass duo if i've ever seen one. turn it up! 7/10

clareyna: y'all ain't ready for this oneeee ugh like too powerful of a duo the world ain't ready but they'd be so cute i- 🥺 soft clarisse and reyna but also stern and badass clarisse and reyna ahhh this is so shmackalicious, spicetastic, words can't describe... but numbers can 10/10

clarina: a couple of cuties and they definitely had something. not bad, 6/10

valdangelo: no words can describe how much i love this ship. litch-rally gay percabeth. they're meant to be and i'll bet my life on that. like they've both gone through almost the same things, they just handled them differently. they'd feel for each other and eventually open up to each other and get along great. never feeling like they belong but finding comfort in eachother. knowing that there's someone there for them, who understands them, not feeling alone, ugh 🥺 please they're sooo cute 🥺👉👈 also forgive me if this is horribly incorrect but i feel like leo constantly flirting with every girl is just a bit of internalized homophobia ?? like if he had a super religious family i could see them being homophobic (i'm mexican and a lot of my family is like that so i can see it being like that, but not all mexicans are tho) so that could've been kinda rooted in him. he was also called el diablo by his family that could've ran through his mind a bit idk that was just a bit of random extra info anyways 10/10

valgrace: i've never gotten background on this ship?? like i'm open to options yk let me learn so like if anyone wants to elaborate on it/give me reasons to ship them i'm all ears ! but based off of what ik of them in general i don't think they'd be super great. def better as just friends, 3/10

jason + annabeth: uhm issa no from me they'd be that super bland saltine cracker couple, maybe like lifeless praetor duo or smth (if anna elizabeth was somehow roman ofc) 0/10

piper + percy: chaotic and iconic, but definitely not in a relationship 1/10

beckendorf + percy: no❤️✨ but beckendorf was definitely percy's first crush and you can't change my mind 0/10

carter + hazel: this one was a request from my ig.... idk how to feel like.. i mean.. tbh i don't even know... i haven't heard this before today, if you got reasons lmk i'm here for it but i'm very... idek what i'm feeling. ??/10

[korezlee]

Ayo, TW// I talk about weight, body image, body dysmorphia, EATING DISORDERS

Im not gonna tag the SuperMega tag cause it’s a lot and it’s a “downer” lmao

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WOOOO BOY I’ve been wanting to discuss or talk about this for awhile and I saw a mutual make a post about it so now I feel kind of safe and validated to talk about it too:

Ok so kinda off topic but this goes into what I have been thinking for a long time but IKKKkk ik comments under SuperMega videos when it’s live action mean well and don’t mean anything by it, but it’s always bothered me when people comment about Ryan losing weight.

Like at first it seems very light hearted and nothing too deep. It’s just a nice little “hey look Ryan lost weight! (Because he always brings up how he is self counscious about his body/weight etc.)

I relate to Ryan a lot and obviously many other people do to, I relate in the sense of not always being comfortable in one’s body and having some kind of body dysmorphia.

The thing is though, his weight fluctuations make me kind of concerned and I wonder if others follow behind that as well. Like ik it’s none of my business, I’m just a viewer and I only know as much as they (Matt and ryan) want their audience to see.

But putting two and two together makes me feel kinda icky.

Ik they’re human, and they’re not perfect, but the way they talk about food and eating sometimes makes me like... not want to listen to it them anymore lmao.

Like Ryan talking about not eating all day, (and Matt,) or trying something to lose weight is kind of triggering to me personally, and of course, it’s their YouTube channel, blah blah blah, I can choose to not watch them, but I think I just wanted to shed some light on it either way?? Idek I think it’s good to critique people you follow/look up to whether they want to be or not because their job is being on social media essentially, so I feel I can have a say and have an opinion on the matter.

I tend and have gone through weight flucations over the past... my whole life I guess, haha. Not just a few or several pounds, but I’ve been pretty plentiful in weight range. I wouldn’t say (nor have I been diagnosed with and eating disorder,) but I have relaizes recently that I have/had the tendencies of one.

I think sometimes they don’t realize that while yes talking about and venting about their struggles with food and body image and what not is valid, BUT it’s interesting because it seems like they don’t realize that how they’re talking about it is toxic? I don’t wanna say that because I have an obvious bias towards them, but it’s weird realization when you hear people talk about something and you’re like “do they not realize that’s like not good and they probably shouldn’t be talking about it that way?” But idk if that just my ego talking?

In essence, it just feels like they forget sometimes that while most of their audience are college students, a lot are teenagers too. (Not that college students can’t be affected as well, but they’re not are kids.)

Like... I’ve been watching them since I was 15, and my stupid little 15 year old brain hearing that stuff probably didn’t help with my issues as well too.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand I wanna be like “I’m being ridiculous and if I don’t like it then I should just stop watching it OR ignore it,” but on the other, I feel as if this goes deeper and is a fundamental flaw in them I suppose that unintentionally inflitrates into their young audience due to the normalization of diet culture and eating habits especially in America.

I don’t know if I have to go into examples of what I’m exactly talking about but I guess I mean this... *here’s a made up and simplified example of what I can recall just from memory*

Ryan: I hate my body

Matt: why you look great you’re not fat Ryan

Ryan: but I feel like I am and need to lose weight

Matt: but you’re not fat

Ryan: yeah but I still feel gross

Matt: but you’re not fat

*talks about not eating all day and then inevitably talks about losing weight in the same breathe, making the connection whether they had wanted to or not that not eating much obviously = weight lost. And then praising it.*

It just feels kinda not fucking good when it’s implied that being fat is gross or not good.

Like I feel bad listening to that shit cause I’ve gained weight back from losing it, and sometimes I think would they think I’m gross for gaining weight ya know?? And I think if a teenager who already probably has low self esteem hears that (or adult, using teenager because more impressionable,) it’s subtly telling their viewer that yes being fat is gross and not eating all day is admirable.

My rebuttable for this is my head are people saying “but Matt and Ryan usually say that they feel like shit and it ISN’T healthy.” Yes, they usually do joke and comment about their habits not being the best. I’m not saying they’re the end all be all role models for young people either, but I just think it’s something to note when they don’t explicitly say it’s bad, but it’s implied that it’s ok and normal.

I don’t necessarily blame SuperMega for not recognizing this or even really seeing a problem with these conversations, I do think it just shows how human and flawed they are and in a way trying to relate to those that have similar problems.

Again, I do know this problem goes wayyyy beyond them, and they are also part of out society where diet culture has been placed onto them and normalized.

Idk if anybody is reading this, but take it with some salt I suppose? Has anyone ever had this problem while watching and browsing their content? It’s something that I always think about but never talk avout because I feel bad for pointing out that Ryan’s weight loss is “bad,” because it’s none of my business. (The connection between that and how they discuss their eating habits and insecurities makes me think they are connected. I don’t want to say that it the CORRECT assumption to make, because I could and probably am wrong hopefully. I don’t want to come off as purely bashing to dude for wanting to look and feel better about himself.)

And if I do recall, I think I remember (I can’t remember if it was them,) saying that commenting on someone’s weight loss isn’t good because you don’t know how it was lost.

(I think I’m thinking of someone else I have no idea.)

Anyways, just trying to always looks at them in different lights instead of just praising them?? Yea lol.

Maybe I’m projecting my insecurities onto fucking YouTubers way too much but I do think that there are other people that would agree with me, but if not please let me know because I would interested to see those that think differently than me.

[nonbinaryresource]

ive been thinking abt this for a little while & have been needing to ask someone abt it. i am nb & have always considered myself trans but recently ive not been vibing with the trans label bc i am so sick of seeing ppl exclude & invalidate nb ppl. ik that i shouldnt stop doing smth just bc other ppl r being assholes but its so tiring to see ppl constantly say how u dont belong or arent valid. srry this is long & kinda rambly i just dont really know how to feel abt it

I will directly address your ask, but I’m going to start by telling you a story about my journey with identifying as asexual and queer.

.

When I was about 11, my friends suddenly started drooling over magazines and calling people hot, and I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I did not feel whatever it is my friends were feeling.

Until I was about 16/17, this part of me remained a mystery to me and to my friends. I never had crushes, I never found people hot, I never liked complimenting people physically, I was uncomfortable with sex on TV, and I didn’t even like platonic touch. Now my group of friends were all repressed and closeted queer folk, so I didn’t have to deal with “being left behind” as my friends dated. But the later we got into high school, the more my friends began discovering and exploring their sexualities.  A freshman became a part of our friend group and was openly trans and gay. One friend came out as gay. Another as bi. They started commenting more and more about other’s looks and having crushes.

Still, there was nothing on my end. My friends used to think I was just being vague and secretive because this is what I tended to be like. I don’t think they’ve ever realized how much of it was that I truly didn’t know or understand what my lack of sexual feelings meant or that it could even mean anything. I used to just consider it a “nothingness” of myself. Until, by complete chance, I came across the term asexual. I immediately connected with it. It explained so much that I didn’t even know I needed explained.

I came out quickly after that and I was really excited and happy and proud to know who I was and what how I felt meant. My friends were great and supportive. My mom was a little ignorant but overall supportive. AVEN was great and a community for me. But if I tried to talk about it anywhere else online…

Well, the effects of how people treated me would fester for years. See, I came out as asexual before exclusionism (the specific movement of anti-aro and anti-ace erasure and gatekeeping from lgbt+ spaces) was a movement or a named thing. Yet exclusionist attitudes were exactly what I faced. My queer friends all completely accepted me as one of them and I helped co-run our school’s new GSA with the rest of them. But online, as a teen, I was facing 30+ year olds telling me I wasn’t queer and that I was just trying to seem special and that I needed to shut up about my asexuality and my experiences and that I wasn’t valid and that asexuality wasn’t a real thing and that even if asexuality was a real thing it wasn’t valid and it certainly didn’t matter.

I graduated high school and went to college and was no longer really in touch with my group of friends. I therefore completely cut myself off from any lgbt+/queer community, even though a friend invited me to join the college’s queer association. I stopped participating so much in online asexual spaces. I become wrapped up in other things.

A couple of years went by and a lot of things in my life changed. By chance, mod applications for a blog about aro and ace headcanons for a fandom I enjoyed came across my dash. I had extra time on my hands and thought I could help, so I applied and was accepted. This increased my exposure to the aspec community again and thrust me back in… just around the time exclusionism was becoming a specific and named movement of bigotry.

At the same time I resisted these ideals, I was also still hurt and unhealed from what I’d gone through as a teen. I internalized a lot of the hatred and gatekeeping. I was so hurt and so tired. I just wanted to be able to exist in peace. And people I considered myself one of were harassing me and dismissing even my biromanticism. So I struggled with my identity and my asexuality. I did not specifically become an exclusionist, but I turned my back on the lgbt+ community and spaces. I did not consider myself lgbt+ because I learned that doing so only brought pain and upset and made me feel alone and isolated. I didn’t speak a lot on exclusionism or inclusionism, but at some point I did make a plea to my fellow aspecs to just let the larger community go and be our own community and accept that maybe we could be straight. I did it out of desperation and hurt, wanting to stop feeling targeted and attacked and to stop seeing the fighting on my dash and in the tags. I just wanted us all to be happy and feel accepted and supported.

On that post, one wonderfully kind and patient person opened up a discussion with me, explaining their own hurts over exclusionism and being so damn exhausted of them and fellow aspecs being targeted and excluded and written out and not supported and feeling like they had to split their asexuality from their other queer identities and how being asexual was a part of them and how it had strongly shaped their experiences, especially with realizing and coming to terms with the other parts of their queer identity. And through their raw honesty I came to realize… I had never stopped to process the harassment I had faced and the pain and hurt that cut me so deeply.

It was a changing point for me. I realized that I had handled my pain in a bad way and had ended up lashing out at other aspecs instead of the people who were actually hurting me. I realized how much I had hurt myself and held myself back and cut myself down and dismissed parts of myself trying to fit into the box exclusionists had laid out for me, as if I could ever made them happy enough to stop harassing me and just let me exist. I cut myself down for them, but the truth is that exclusionists don’t just want aspecs “out” of the community. They want to hurt us. They want us to hurt. They want us to doubt ourselves. They want to feel strong and powerful, and they feel they can achieve this through bullying us. Perhaps some, like myself, are trying to appeal to their oppressors by pointing out another vulnerable group they could target more/instead. They are passing on hurt instead of standing up to it and so they are actually festering in hurt instead of changing anything.

Today, I am a staunch inclusionist. I understand myself and the issues aspecs face much better. I am a more compassionate person regarding the confusion and upset aros and aces have over their identity and their place in the world. I feel more stable and confident regarding my identity as an asexual - and now as an aromantic - queer person who is lgbt+.

But it was a long, hard, difficult journey to get here. It was full of a lot of turmoil. I wish I would have had a happier journey where I felt more supported and accepted, and I hope I can help provide more stability and support for future generations to not have to go through what I did.

.

My point (or one among a few, anyway) is that I deeply and personally understand how you are feeling and the decision facing you now. As someone who went through a very similar experience, my advice to you is to take care of yourself and to prioritize your mental health.

It’s okay if you can’t handle identifying as trans right now. Maybe you do need some space from the label (and definitely from the hatred and gatekeeping). Maybe you need to pull back from certain communities or blogs or discussions.

However, I will say that not identifying as trans may not bring the peace you desire. It may end up making you feel even more isolated. Not identifying as LGBT+ certainly didn’t help me. It was reactionary and it only made me feel like there were less spaces for me. That said, you may find peace in this. But I think the bigger action to take is to separate yourself from those who are saying harmful things more than to separate yourself from a label you feel really suits you. Use your block button liberally. Don’t force yourself to partake in spaces where gatekeeping is allowed or encouraged. Follow and listen to more people who are inclusive.

I think burnout like this is unfortunately pretty common. You do not have to force yourself to face this hatred or exhaustion because you think it’s the right thing to do. It’s okay to pull back and just take care of yourself. Just work on some self-care. Work on building up a community of people around you who don’t resort to bigotry and hatred and exorsexism and gatekeeping and identity policing. Engage only with what you can actually, honestly handle.

We will confront and move past this bigotry only by acting as a united front. The responsibility for improving things isn’t on any one person’s shoulders. And no one needs to be on the front lines 100% of the time, especially at the cost of their own wellbeing. Take care of yourself and rest now before you completely burn out and break down.

You do not have anything to prove, okay? I have both hope and faith that there is a lot more to your journey - a lot more good things and a lot more happiness and belonging. Take whatever time it is you need to help heal yourself and recover from the hurt and harassment that’s been plaguing you. You are important and you matter, much moreso than whatever label you use at whatever point in time. It will be okay.

I am here for you.

~Pluto

[gellavonhamster]

the eye of the storm, or a still life with pineapples

teen and up audiences (?) || Bertrand Baudelaire/Beatrice Baudelaire/Lemony Snicket + guest starring other ships and characters || pre-canon, canon divergence

ao3 link || originally posted in Russian

As famously said by a famous cartoonist and later by an even more famous musician and before them, probably, by many other famous and not so famous people, life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. For example, less than half a year ago I was certain that in a little while, I would marry the woman I love, and dance with her at our wedding, which would be held in a place called the Vineyard of Fragrant Grapes. A few months passed, and here I was dancing at the wedding indeed, but not as a groom and not with the woman I dreamed to marry. However, she was also attending the party, and radiating beauty in her refined wedding dress just like in my erstwhile dreams. It was her wedding – her and another man’s, and I didn’t doubt that many guests were surprised I was invited and, on top of that, entrusted with reciting one of the wedding blessings. Then again, there weren’t that many guests: only the trusted long-time associates, most of whom both the newlyweds and I had the honour to consider our friends. Some of them were familiar with the events which had resulted in my bride marrying someone else; as to the rest of them, I hoped they were too well-mannered to whisper behind my back. On the other hand, if they decided to spread some gossip, I would not have minded it much. In these latter days, all kinds of things were being whispered about me behind my back, said out loud, and printed in the newspapers. If I had a chance to choose between the discussions of my love life and the accusations of crimes I had nothing to do with, I would have chosen the former without a moment’s hesitation. Unfortunately, in practice, there were two options: either both the former and the latter or just the latter, and I had no choice anyway.             

Even the celebration venue was not what I had expected. The Vineyard of Fragrant Grapes was undoubtedly very lovely at that time of the year, but just like many other gardens, libraries, restaurants, post offices, bookstores, and tailor shops, it had lately become unsafe for the members of our organization. It was far too risky to organize the wedding in a widely known place. That was why the ceremony itself, as well as the celebratory banquet, took place in a small hotel outside the City. It was called The Eye of the Storm, and that name was more than appropriate. “The eye of the storm” is an expression which means an area of calm weather at the centre of a hurricane, both literally and figuratively, and so the present celebration seemed a calm moment at the centre of the hurricane of feuds and treachery that was raging in my life, as well as in the lives of the groom, the bride, and all the guests. An attentive visitor would also notice another eye – the motif used in the design of the hotel, from napkin rings to the moulding on the ceiling. To paraphrase the definition provided above, one could say that the eye of the storm is an area at the centre of a hurricane where the world is quiet.      

“Snicket, wake up!” called the lady I was dancing with. “Do you want us to bump into someone?”

“Sorry. I got lost in thought. And we wouldn’t have bumped into anyone: you’re the lead.”

“And good thing that I am. For a moment I felt like I was dancing with a coat rack or something like that. You alright?”

“Of course I am, R,” I smiled at my partner who was none other than R, the Duchess of Winnipeg. “How about you?”

“I’m fine, L. You know me,” she smiled back, but I saw it in her eyes that just like me, she couldn’t stop her gaze from drifting to the bride, who was dancing with her beloved in the centre of the ballroom. “It’s been long since I’ve come to terms with the fact that this is how it’s going to end. It’s only that when I used to imagine all of this before, it was you, not Bertrand, and it was easier somehow. But it’s nothing.”  

When I first met R, she was yet to become the duchess and the renowned meteorologist and the multiple fencing champion of VFD. Back then she was just the daughter of the previous Duchess of Winnipeg, now deceased; just a little girl who had just got her volunteer’s tattoo and, being confused and a little bit scared, went to explore the infirmary in search of someone who would explain to her where she was, why she was taken away from home, and where her parents were. That evening, she didn’t find the answers to all of her questions, but she found a little boy – me – who, like her, had just been tattooed and didn’t understand what was going on. We were already friends when we met Beatrice, the woman whose wedding we were dancing at today. When we understood that both of us were in love with her, we promised each other that we wouldn’t let that circumstance ruin our friendship. There is an absorbing Gothic novel in which three friends propose to the same girl, and remain friends after she chooses one of them. Similarly, my friend and I both courted Beatrice, leaving it up to her to choose one of us and not expecting that in the end, just like in that novel, there would be three contenders for her heart, and it would be the third one that she would favour. One could only hope that at that point, the similarities with the novel would end, although taking into account Beatrice’s fondness for bats, she would surely be amused by the prospect of being turned into a vampire.        

“I do know you, R,” I confirmed. “And that is exactly why I am worried.”

“Oh, come on. If you want to know, today I feel much better than over the last two months combined. Look around, L: even in these trying times we’re surrounded by noble and trustworthy people. My dear friend got married and is happy. I am dancing at her wedding in a wonderful dress and in an excellent company, and who knows,” she winked at me, “perhaps it’s in that excellent company that I’ll meet someone who would help me to let go of the past at last.”

“You will meet – or you have met?” I asked, intrigued. My friend smiled cryptically. “Who is she?”

“Look to your left. See a beautiful girl in a peach dress standing by the window?”

The girl was beautiful indeed. Something about the features of her face seemed familiar to me but I didn’t know her name, which was what I told R.

“Sally Sebald,” she told me, with the same conspiratorial look. “The little sister of Gustav, our Monty’s new… assistant.”  

If “our Monty” had heard the way R had spoken the word “assistant”, he would have definitely pretended to be offended to the marrow of his bones. However, at that moment he was busy dancing with that very assistant. The music stopped, and the band bowed in response to the applause, then proceeded to flip through the sheets, selecting the next piece to play.    

“I’ll leave you for a while,” R announced. “I must ask her for a dance. Promise me you won’t just stand by yourself ruining everyone’s mood with your long face.”

“I promise. Go for it,” I squeezed her hand, wishing her luck. “And I’ll go grab a bite.”

With that, I made my way to the cold table at the opposite end of the ballroom. “Cold table” is an expression which here means “a buffet-style table with the dishes that the guests are expected to help themselves to” not a table that is cold to touch, although I couldn’t have had any idea if that particular table was cold to touch before I ever touched it. As I was eating mushroom tartlets, I watched the dancers. Here was my brother waltzing with Olivia Caliban, and there was my sister, talking animatedly about something to her partner during the dance – and looking, as I was pleased to notice, like after all the recent troubles and worries she was finally at peace. Some of the guests might have been watching her too and wondering who she was dancing with: Frank or Ernest? That was, of course, the wrong question, while the right question would have been “How many Denouement brothers are there, actually?” I shifted my gaze to R, who was dancing with Gustav’s sister, then to Gustav and Monty and then to Ike and Josephine Anwhistle and so, looking over the dancing couples one by one, I finally met Beatrice’s eyes as she looked at me over her husband’s shoulder. My heart sank. That ballroom was full of people I held in great affection, and still I had to abandon them tomorrow, to flee abroad in order to save myself and everyone who was closely associated with me and could get in the firing line because of that. I didn’t know when I would see all of them again. Just the thought of it made me suffocate with grief.        

“Snicket,” someone said. I turned around. There was a woman standing next to me, one that was different from the other guests for two reasons. Firstly, most of the invitees were the same age as the bride and the groom, while this woman was much older. Secondly, I have never met anyone with a hair as thick, long, and unruly, presently already greying. Even if she had tried to arrange it in some sort of a hairdo on the occasion of the party, all the pins and clips clearly were already lost, unable to tame this natural disaster. “Do you mind?”

“An interesting question. For a well-mannered person, there’s only one answer to it,” I observed, “which could be in equal measure correct or incorrect depending on how much…”

“Snicket,” my chaperone interrupted me, annoyed, “I asked because you’re standing by yourself ruining everyone’s mood with your long face. If you’re fine with being in such condition, I can leave you alone.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you, Theodora,” I objected. “Shall I pass you something? The salmon sandwiches are really good.”  

“Thank you, I’ve enough for now,” she showed me a full plate. For some time we stood there eating and not saying a word, enjoying the music, the meal, and, to the lesser extent, each other’s company. Finally, Theodora said what she apparently wanted to say from the start.  

“I grew wary when I saw you here, quite honestly,” she began. “I knew you were invited, as astonishing as it may be, but I was still surprised you’ve showed up. I’ll admit I feared that at the last moment you’d… pull some trick. I even told Bertrand about it, but he just waved it aside.”  

“Well, that just proves the student has surpassed the teacher when it comes to getting other people,” I shrugged. “I suppose you wouldn’t trust me, but I didn’t even think of ruining the ceremony. Believe it or not, I sincerely wish Bertrand and Beatrice nothing but happiness.”

“You’re a peculiar person, Snicket.”

“Am I? I thought I am insufferable and lack respect for my elders.”

“And that, too. It won’t ever cease to amaze me that you and Bertrand hit it off.”

My brain instantly came up with a couple of presumably witty responses concerning how well we hit it off indeed – the champagne might’ve been to blame – but I restrained myself. There were some things she’d better stay unaware of.

“Life is full of surprises,” I observed instead. Theodora looked at me dubiously.

“I’d like to believe you’re telling the truth,” she said. “That you really came here to congratulate them on their marriage, and not to wallow in self-pity or make them doubt they made the right choice. You’re a peculiar person, Snicket, and that is precisely why I feel I really might be right to believe that. Care to ask the old hag for a dance?”

“With pleasure,” I agreed. This conversation was somewhat upsetting me, and it appeared I was already failing to keep the promise I gave R anyway. “May I have this dance, Theodora?”  

The look on her face told me she was expecting some other answer, in which I would have pointed out, for instance, that I see no old hags here, but she still gave me her hand, and we went dancing.

 ***

 The celebration ended late into the night. Many kind words were said to the bridal couple, many wonderful songs were sung, and the young Quagmire, evidently inspired by the example of his friend Bertrand, seized the moment to propose to his beloved. Finally the time came for everyone to head home. I was hanging around the hotel lobby and making my adieus to the guests: some of them were waiting for their taxis to arrive while some preferred to make use of the secret tunnel that connected The Eye of the Storm to a number of VFD buildings in the City. I was bidding farewell to my friends: sometimes a handshake, sometimes an embrace, and sometimes simply an exchange of phrases which would’ve seemed nonsensical to the uninitiated. My future appeared to me full of uncertainty and loneliness, and the volunteer’s work kept becoming more and more dangerous with every passing day. If I was destined to never meet my comrades again, then I wanted to remember them precisely the way they were that evening: happy, content, elegantly dressed, and with a newly found confidence that we may still be bound to witness the victory of nobility, valour, and erudition over cunning, avarice, and bad taste.                  

“We’ll meet you by the road junction at nine,” my brother said, clapping me on the shoulder. He was obviously worried. I didn’t want him to worry about me – I was doing that myself just fine. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave earlier? You could get there in time to catch the…”

“It is highly likely that our enemies have infiltrated the crew of the Prospero. You know that yourself,” I didn’t let him finish. “I’ll take the train. Don’t fret about me, Jacques. Better try to get some sleep. Or…” I cast a sidelong look at Olivia, who was standing nearby and apparently waiting for my brother, “spend the time until morning the way you see fit.”

It was twilight outside The Eye of the Storm, but I had no doubts Jacques blushed.  

“You’re taking a lot of risk, L,” he said, displeased. “Are you sure it’s worth it? After all, everything has changed now…”

“I know,” I said. Deep down, I wasn’t sure indeed if it was a good idea. If it was appropriate now, no matter how much we wanted to believe it was. But I couldn’t act differently. Firstly, I had given a promise. Secondly, if I changed my mind, then – who knows – I might miss the last chance to feel happy that I’d get in my life. “I am only sure that if I leave now, I am going to regret it. See you tomorrow, Jacques.”  

He frowned but said nothing more and, after hugging me once again, got into the car and left. I headed back to The Eye of the Storm. My brother and Olivia were the last ones to leave; presently the only ones staying at the hotel were the employees and the newlyweds. I sneaked a look into the ballroom and saw them talking about something to the hotel owner. The bride laughed at something and took her groom – her husband – by the hand. I was standing there in the dusk and thinking: what if my brother was right? Wouldn’t it be better for me to leave before it’s too late – just like that, without saying goodbye? I shook my head, chasing these thoughts away as if they were circling me like Snow Gnats, and hurried to the second floor. At the very beginning of the corridor, a bored-looking hall porter was sitting on a chair and cleaning his nails. I approached him.  

“Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire are wondering if the still life with pineapples displayed in the ballroom is for sale,” I said.

The hall porter raised his head to look at me.

“Unfortunately it isn’t. It’s the only thing our owner has to remember his late grandmother by,” he replied, and gave me the key from the luxury suite. There was no further conversation between us; I took the key and headed to the suite.  

I entered the room, closed the door behind me, and looked around. As it is commonly known, luxury accommodations differ from the regular hotel rooms in the number of amenities and the refinement of the furnishings. In the present case, one of the indisputable advantages of this suite in comparison to the other rooms was a bookcase with a great number of books on its shelves. I looked over the room, checking, among other things, the presence of weapons and fire extinguishing tools hidden under the bed in the event of the enemies of the bridal couple finding out where the wedding was taking place and deciding to pay a visit. Then I took a collection of poems by Oscar Wilde from one of the shelves and immersed myself in reading, hoping for once I wouldn’t get much time for that.          

Indeed, I didn’t have to wait for long. There was the sound of steps and voices, and the just married burst into the room – it struck my eye that they were still holding hands. They didn’t notice me because as soon as Mr. Baudelaire shut the door behind him, Mrs. Baudelaire pinned him against that very door and kissed him. Since she threw off her high-heeled shoes the moment she ran into the room, she had to stand on tiptoe to kiss him, which looked absolutely adorable.

I watched those two who had clearly forgotten at that moment about the world around. Without a doubt, the Baudelaires were a beautiful couple. Beatrice was lovely even wearing an old tracksuit covered in dirt after the annual orienteering competition held in the city sewers – presently, in a white and golden wedding dress, she looked like an angel. Bertrand, handsome and well-built, looked dapper in a cream-coloured suit with a tea rose on the lapel. I was feasting my eyes on the both of them, all the while racked by doubts as to whether I’d better withdraw through the window before they noticed me. I even started to reflect on how wide the windowsills of The Eye of the Storm were, but then the Baudelaire spouses pulled away from each other and finally realized they were not alone in the room. My presence did not surprise them in the slightest.          

“You’re here,” Beatrice said, and her face lit up with such joy that I shook all the thoughts about the windowsills out of my head.

I put the book back on the shelf.

“I asked the hall porter about the painting with pineapples,” I said. “It is not for sale.”

“What a pity,” Beatrice replied merrily, ran up to me, and kissed me on the lips.  

I was not destined to tie the knot and start a family. When I was engaged to Beatrice, I tried to ignore the thought of it but it was always with me, in some hidden corner of my mind. It was there when Beatrice accepted my proposal and in the early days of our relationship and when I was twelve years old and Theodora was telling me that her previous apprentice, the same young man who was half-smiling now as he watched me kiss his wife, would become a husband and a father, while all that awaited me was loneliness. I was not destined to find the happiness harped on about by writers and telenovela characters and the designers of those advertisement posters that featured parents and two children, always a boy and a girl, carelessly consuming cereals or ice cream. But I knew happiness of another kind, and while the creators of cereal advertisements would hardly be able to appreciate it, I suspected that some writers could have understood me. I was kissing the woman that wasn’t mine in the eyes of the law and the society yet still was mine as much as I was hers – that is to say, with all her heart and all her soul – and I was happy. That was more than enough.          

Beatrice pulled away from my lips.

“I was mad the whole evening I couldn’t just come up to you for no special reason,” she told me. “Couldn’t dance with you, not even once.”

“It is important that as many people as possible are sure we’re not together anymore,” I reminded her. “You have plenty of your own enemies, Beatrice. You shouldn’t have to deal with mine to boot.”

“I refuse to believe that any single one of the people who were here today…” she started, but stopped short. Perhaps she remembered how fragile the bonds of friendship can be, and in how much danger they can be put both by ambition and the sense of duty. Perhaps she remembered about the family whose manor she used to visit as a child and about a night at the opera and the poison darts; about the articles in The Daily Punctilio and the stolen sugar bowl. I pulled her close. I didn’t want her to think about those things on the day of her wedding.    

Bertrand coughed. I met his eyes, and felt Beatrice softly push me away. It occurred to me that kissing the wife right in front of her husband’s eyes is extremely improper, so when he approached me I decided to atone for my behaviour, and kissed him too. If Beatrice always kissed with all the fervour of the woman who could fight off a giant eagle with her bare hands, then Bertrand always did it with all the thoroughness of the man who enters a lions’ cage without fear because he has studied their habits in all detail and thought out all the actions required in case the situation gets out of control. I didn’t see Beatrice’s face the moment my lips touched Bertrand’s, but I knew she was smiling.          

I ran my hand over his chest and felt for the tea rose.

“Been wondering all evening if it’s natural or not,” I said. My head was spinning. I still hadn’t fully got used to the effect these two had upon me, and this might have been our last night together.  

“Artificial,” Bertrand said, took the flower out of the buttonhole, and put it into my pocket. “Take it. As a keepsake of this day.”

“Thank you,” I said. As I was looking at him, I hoped yet again that if Beatrice’s children (who were bound to be born one day: she’s always wanted to become a mother) take after their father, they’ll inherit Bertrand’s features, not mine. I wouldn’t mind to pass on the colour of my eyes or my hair, but certainly not my innate tendency to corpulence that created certain inconveniences when it was necessary, for instance, to exit the building through the basement window. As to Bertrand, he was outrageously good-looking from head to toe – I remembered vividly how it used to annoy me back when I had just met him. I used to be itching to hit him even though he never actually provoked me in any way. I didn’t want to admit for a long time that what was hiding behind that was simply the longing to touch him. “But I think that can wait. I am not leaving yet, after all.”      

“Will you stay till morning?” Beatrice asked hopefully.

“I am to meet Jacques and Kit by the road junction a mile from The Eye of the Storm at nine o’clock. They’ll take me to the railway station – not the nearest one, but the one after – where I shall board the train at nine twenty-nine.”  

“It’s five minutes to two now,” Bertrand observed, glancing at his wristwatch.

“About seven hours,” Beatrice said, taking a step towards Bertrand and me, and put her hand on my cheek. “Almost the whole night.”  

“Your wedding night, by the way,” I reminded. “Are you sure that…”

“Lemony Snicket,” she interrupted me petulantly, and slapped me on the lips lightly with the tips of her fingers, “yes, we are sure, we’ve discussed all that more than once, we told you the password that got you the key to our room for a reason. If the world was simpler and quieter, you would’ve been getting married today as well. Consider this as your wedding night too. And before you’ve managed to make some other silly statement: yes, we’ve discussed that as well.”  

I looked at Bertrand. He nodded without thinking twice.  

“The fact that Beatrice and I are married now doesn’t change a thing,” he said. “Remember that when you return to the City. You will return one day, won’t you, Snicket?”

I was about to answer honestly, “I don’t know”, but I just couldn’t.

“I’ll try to,” I said. That was also true. I would have given anything not to leave the people I loved more than anything else in the world, but since I had no other choice, all that was left to me was to make every effort to come back to them sooner or later.  

“All right,” Beatrice said. “All right,” she repeated, and it seemed to me I saw tears glisten in her eyes and I felt scared. She stopped me with a motion of her hand before I could say anything to her. “We’ll talk about that later. Are you feeling sleepy?”

“Are you suggesting I go to sleep, Beatrice?”

“I suggest you accept that you’ll only get to sleep on the train.”

With that she pushed me to the bed – a large bed, the kind that three people would fit on with ease. Beatrice moved towards me and I moved back until I fell on my back right on the blanket. Beatrice lifted her skirt a little and climbed first onto the bed, and then on top of me.    

“Careful, Snicket,” Bertrand said as he noticed that my hands slid under her skirt. He sat on the bed and bent over me. “She’s got a dagger in her garter. Sheathed, of course, but you never know.”

I grabbed the tip of his necktie and pulled him closer.

“How interesting,” I said. Beatrice was straddling me, rising a little and then pressing herself to me again, and I was moving towards her in sync. “Do you also have anything hidden underneath your clothes, Mr. Baudelaire?”

“See for yourself,” Bertrand offered, and kissed me.

The storm was raging outside the hotel, yet only figuratively. Clouds were gathering over all the fearless and well-read people who have dedicated their lives to science, literature, and keeping the world quiet. But I and those two that I loved were in the eye of the storm: literally, because that was the name of the hotel, and figuratively, because that night we weren’t thinking about the schemes of our enemies and the everyday dangers that befell our friends. I was happy in a way the one whose beloved has just married someone else rarely is, and here, in the eye of the storm, nothing could take that happiness from me – at least not until the morning.