#in some ways yes but sometimes the circumstances are so out of the parents control and this is a very punitive framework

[natandacat]

The notes are so funny bc here are the 'downsides of being an only child' that are literally not unique to being an only child and more of a parenting/situational thing really:

- "It's lonely!/Siblings are built-in friends!" One of my brothers played with me out of a sense of necessity because we were not allowed to be with other kids and he deeply resented me for that, which made for a bad relationship and me being extremely alone all the time anyway. I'd rather have skipped the hatred (on his part) and heart break (on mine) and gone directly to playing alone. I have literally never had an intimate conversation with any of my 3 brothers (except literally One time with one of them) but I've had countless of horrid fights (with me or witnessed). Hell is other people, etc.

- "All the attention is suffocating!" I was monitored 24/7 and pretty much never left alone, up to a point where my bathroom time was also monitored. My brother actively and voluntarily participated in the monitoring at some points.

- "You get unconditional support as an adult!" I've been in a lot of trouble since I was 17 and they've never helped, not materially or emotionally.

-"You have more people to build happy memories with!" My brother got married 3 days before I was back in the country (he set the date way after I had bought my plane tickets and also he actively chose to hide it from me) and still blames me for being upset because "it was a ceremony for closed loved ones only anyway" (I guess I wasn't counted!). That's just the most egregious examples in a long, long list.

I get grass is greener ect but what bothers me is that it reinforces the idea that sibling relationships are *always* a net positive, in a very "nuclear family is sacred" way

Like I'm not venting for the sake of it, I've been no contact for 4 years and it's great, I'm just frustrated that it's so goddamn hard to get people to acknowledge sibling abuse, or even get them to *not* perform shocked incredulity at the idea. Especially on tumblr, THE website where people talk about parental abuse all the time and understand that sometimes you really cannot salvage the relationship and it truly is detrimental

All I'm saying is stop assuming that things would be better with a sibling around. You don't know that! Believe me, things could be so much worse with a sibling around.

The good news is you get to choose your friends and siblings as an adult! :) Life can be sweet not matter who your nuclear family is! You're not a failure for not experiencing the hegemonic ideal of siblinghood! It's okay!

[mariequitecontrary]

Can I have a tarot reading from you??

As a surprise! I'm not looking for anything in particular

Maybe on how to handle my mom actually...

Hello hello! Yes you absolutely can have a reading from me!!!

Since your reading isn’t a roleplay one, I’ll give you that surprise reading and the one about your mom!

The first reading…screamed some steps to take about how to handle your mom…

The Hierophant

The Hierophant represents conformity, legacy, social norms, and spirituality. To me, this feels like where you’re currently at. Tradition and expectations are keeping you within social expectations. This card also represents a spiritual guide, one that can lead you to new beliefs. Perhaps there is someone in your life that can help you with your mom, or maybe you need to look within yourself to find that guidance. Either way, its important to recognize where you’re at before you can get to where you’re going…

The Emperor

The Emperor represents a warrior, a leader. You are the ruler of your own life, and sometimes that means facing your adversaries with a just, firm hand. You need to be brave and stand tall when handling your mother. Sometimes, its hard for parents to see past the little child you once were, bold actions are occasionally required to be seen as exactly what you are. (Just remember to be a JUST AND KIND ruler of your life…and not a tyrant…)

Eight of Cups

Finally, The Eight of Cups. I don’t know how old you are, so I’d be careful to encourage this card until you are able to fully take care of yourself…but sometimes, walking away to improve your mental and physical health may be best for both parties. Maybe its just for a short time, give you and your mom the space to breath and self reflect. Or maybe its for longer, each of you needing to live your own lives before you can look at each other under a new light. Either way, seek the truth behind the struggles you face with your mom. Sometimes we can feel so clouded by our present circumstances that we forget to look at the facts.

Conclusion

Assess your current situation, take control of your own life, stand up for yourself, and find the root of the problems with your mom. Handling parents can be a tough situation. It may feel a touch dramatic but…treat it like a battlefield haha. Assess your current situation (the battlefield), take control over your own life (you are the commander), stand up for yourself (you are the WARRIOR) and find the root of the problems (you are the strategist). But like…don’t forget that you can’t lead an army alone. Don’t forget to talk to your advisors and those in your life that you can trust (those “spiritual guides” mentioned in the hierophant)

Hope this helps!

Surprise!

I literally just started shuffling when these cards popped right out at me…lets see what they want to say!

Five of Coins

Um…you ok? Five of Coins represents hard times. Seems like a call back to your first reading about your mom. Just to reiterate…don’t forget to ask for help. Like yeah, you need to OWN your life and be brave and fight for yourself…but like…ask for help. And if the people you thought were your “advisors” don’t help you…they weren’t the guides you needed. Do NOT ever think you’re alone in this ok? Keep reaching out until you find the ones who deserve to stand by your side.

The Empress

Funny how your first reading’s second card was the emperor and your second reading’s second card is the Empress!

This card represents nurturing, abundance, and accomplishment. To me, the Empress’ strength comes from the world around them. The world is BEAUTIFUL. Life may be hard right now sure but…look around. The world is still so beautiful. Draw strength from the good things in life and use it to nurture yourself. Strength comes in many forms!

The Star

Aw, The Star is a nice card to end on! It literally means hope after disaster. The stars shine brightest in the dark after all! Things can and will get better again, its all about taking what you’ve learned and really applying it to your life. Open your eyes, mind, and heart to the endless possibilities that awaits for you BECAUSE points at previous cards the world is beautiful and there are people willing to stand by you and support you if you only look.

[defiantsuggestions]

I don't entirely know how to word this but...

Yes, there are people out there who had good parents, who were difficult kids to raise. There are people who grew up hating the advice their parents gave, and then realized over the course of growing up that their parents were right.

There do exist members of the population were wrong as kids, who learned better, and have a good relationship with their parents as adults.

It's hard growing up. You're learning to be an entire person and a lot of times, even if the circumstances are perfect, relationships can be strained due to influences outside of anyone's control, and kids can blame their parents for things that aren't their parents fault.

Those people, who had good parents but had difficulties growing up...don't always realize that their experience isn't universal.

So, when they meet an abuse victim who is talking about their abuse or who has mentioned cutting off contact with their family, it tends to be their own experiences they draw from.

So they'll give advice like, "did you try talking to them," or, "but they're only looking out for you," or even, "but they're your family!"

Not because it's the right advice for you, but because it's the advice they would give to themselves.

They remember a time when they were furious with their parents over something they(the child) was in the wrong for, and they project that onto you.

They produce a solution to the wrong problem. They assume your situation is like theirs.

Made worse by the fact that a lot of people just straight up don't want to think about the fact that abuse exists so they tend to reject the possibility.

And it is frustrating, to be talking about something we've suffered only to have the other person take our parent's side without really understanding the situation.

But it's important to know that...they don't understand the situation.

Which means that their advice doesn't neccesarily apply.

Not everyone who is well meaning has good advice.

And...I don't know. There are also people who were abused who have internalized it in such a way that they think what happened to them is fine and that this is just normal. It's hard to tell the difference sometimes.

Human experience is vast and varied and there are a number of reasons I've been given bad advice and some of it was simply that the person I was talking to has such a widely different experience than I've had that they just...don't get it, and won't get it, and no amount of words I could say would express to them where the gap is.

[eruverse]

More Ivan Braginsky headcanon — trauma responses

I am writing this on behalf of @justknocking from our discord chat. All of this here comes from them and I’m only adding a bit of notes. Effectively, this is a shared headcanon because their Vanya is now mine too lol.

Firstly, yes, Ivan has deep traumatic backstory and everyone can see that from 100 km away. This comprises a long chain of events so his trauma responses are borne from things that keep piling up and finally spilling over? Something like that. It was certainly not from an isolated, singular circumstance. I’m gonna list what those things are, which are historical:

The loss of his mother, Rus, who was already weakening before Mongolia came for their first encounter on the Battle of Kalka River in 1223 (it was still Mongolia, not Golden Horde yet). Mongolia was instrumental in her death, with Golden Horde finalizing it.

Golden Horde’s vassalage of lands that would be Russia. If Rus’ death was scary for him, Golden Horde’s invasion was when Ivan truly learned what it was like to be small and helpless.

Life with Golden Horde. It wasn’t so bad for his people relatively speaking, but occupation is still an occupation and he was still shown his place under Horde’s boots. It was bearable but it did a number to his further emotional development.

Lithuania who he wanted to befriend but occupied his lands instead. Huge parts of it lol.

This fic here (tw rape) Background is siege of Moscow by Tokhtamysh of Golden Horde. The city was sacked.

Ivan the Terrible abandoning him in Moscow in 1571 when Crimean Khan came marching down and burned it. Ivan adored his king and the ground he walked on, so he thought he was a bad little boy because he had to be left alone (with an enemy, even).

Huge famine after Ivan the Terrible died. It was bad time all around as his whole family also perished which meant no one could inherit the throne after him, resulting in Russians fighting for power. Then outsiders tried to take over Russia again: Sweden took over some lands and Poland even took over the throne in Moscow and lived there for two years. This is when Ivan got decapitated and you could say that he lost his last marbles and went absolutely mad after this.

All of these events that occurred throughout hundreds of years incited deep traumatic responses. They are:

Vanya dissociates easily and readily. Do you know someone whose eyes just suddenly glaze over and look empty, but like, actually void? Yeah. Ivan is an emotional boy but also is capable of extreme detachment because of it.

Violent pain responses. He attacks people when he is hurt or threatened and can’t control the extent of his strength. This often results in skulls being bashed in, limbs being ripped, or flesh being torn out even though that’s not his intention. At the same time, he can bear basically everything from the people he likes and wants affection from (more on that later). His pain tolerance is actually high, so his perceived hurt often comes from more emotional pain than strictly physical ones.

Will go to great lengths to please people he likes (aka wants attention and affection from). In this he is like a toddler going after an adult man with a candy.

Has stockholm syndrome for almost all his rulers. High emotional dependency on them like a toddler with separation anxiety (I think especially when he was much younger).

Doesn’t think he can object authorities too much whom he sees as parental figures. Does sometimes run away from them tho (from getting overwhelmed) but will return if really demanded back.

Prone to anger/outbursts and tears (this is canon I think lol)

Doesn’t feel much empathy in that he is self centered. Not in a malicious psycho way tho, he’s none of that — but it is a childish self centeredness like the way many toddlers are only focused on their own gratification while not taking others into account. Get it? He doesn’t intentionally treat others badly but he often forgets that they too have emotional needs. His love is focused on his own self and he is kind to others so they would love him and shower him with affection, not because one should treat others the way they want to be treated.

He has a twisted world perception: for him, he is the center of the world with everyone else surrounding him. Again, he is like this because his brain is seemingly stuck on early childhood development with extremely narrow and self centered emotional mindset. He calibrates everything with how it relates to him and how it makes him feel. He cannot imagine things from others’ perspectives, or by putting him in others’ shoes. He cannot imagine situations using others’ logic. In that Ivan is actually deeply pure.

Painfully aware of everything around him if it relates to him. He wants to know every move, every gesture, every expression of the people who interact with him. Often gets obsessive about them too because he has such high hopes with these kind of people. He is a child starved of love.

[septembersghost]

Sorry to send this random message, but since you like both elvis and taylor I was curious for your opinion. I've seen people comparing would've could've should've to elvis and priscilla's relationship and that they can't wait for videos set to that when the priscilla movies comes out... saying elvis is like the subject of that song stuns me and breaks my heart, but what do you think?

don't be sorry honey! <3 it's such a complex topic and is often misjudged/weaponized with the worst intent, which tends to be unfair to both of them.

prefacing this with priscilla herself saying, “It’s hurtful, for a man who has given so much, to have others pick him apart. I’ll die defending him and his legacy. Because he deserves it.”

also going to refer to this ask from a few months ago.

okay, to be more blunt than i typically am, their relationship overall should not have happened, for a lot of reasons and both their sakes, but i don't like saying that because it erases the love they shared, cilla's agency, lisa marie's existence (and her children's), and the entirety of the life they shared, and i don't think that's right to do. should elvis have turned her down gently and guided her away when they first met? probably! should her parents have put their foot down and told her absolutely not, in no uncertain terms, were they sending her to memphis, and insisted she move on and continue her normal life? yes. she was an emotional young woman who was head over heels in love with one of the biggest stars in the world, and who can blame her, but she would've gotten over it. but that's not what happened. so we have to contend with what did.

elvis was a complicated, sometimes mercurial, often wonderful, man. he had come through extraordinary and extreme events literally from birth, and certainly in the rise of his star, experienced a certain degree of...i don't want to use this phrase, but arrested development?...because of his unusual circumstances. (no judgment on that, i have talked many times about being frozen at 19 because of what's happened in my life, i really empathize with why certain things were difficult and disorienting for him in my own tiny way, just like i, as someone chronically ill, hold empathy for his health too). he was dealing with what i'd categorize not only as profound grief and loneliness following his mother's death, but also compounded trauma for a number of reasons.

i think about the quote from his costar in follow that dream, anne helm, saying he was still such an innocent, "He was surrounded by a lot of people that took advantage of his generosity. It was a more innocent time. I mean, Elvis was -- how old was he? 24, 25? [Actually, Elvis was 26 when the film was shot in the summer of 1961.] He was a baby, and I was, too. We were very young. As much as Elvis was a celebrity, he was a big kid, he was a lot of fun." he had an inherent earnestness and compassion that was guileless.

one of his contradictions here is that, with priscilla, he also had a paternalistic quality where he was looking after her and doing what he thought was best for her. the people who try to frame this as predatory claim he was abusing her, even though that is not how priscilla characterizes it. he had this need to nurture and be nurtured, and he tried to look after her, but he was far from perfect in doing so since his lifestyle wasn't conducive to some of what she needed. that said, he set definitive boundaries with her for a reason. had he been preying on her maliciously, the end goal would've always been exploiting her in some way (namely for sex), but we know he decidedly didn't do that, that in fact she was very frustrated with him because he refused to sleep with her for multiple reasons, and wouldn't until they were married. by which point she was very much a consenting adult.

guiding her look the way he did i don't think he meant to be controlling or harmful, his approach wasn't inherently abusive, it came from genuine care. everyone knew he was pushing it, but they were in love and sometimes no amount of arguing will defy that. he had conflicted feelings about marriage, but i think he really did desire that security of family and love and home, even though he struggled with the commitment of that, and he also never felt wholly seen, safe, or secure in any of his romantic relationships. (this wasn't unique to priscilla, it's a recurring theme). and tbh a lot of that was also likely rooted in trauma, because that has effects on a person.

it's also relevant to note that it was an entirely different time. outrage on the internet prefers to ignore this, but it's vital for context. it may not excuse their initial connection, but by the time she went to memphis, and certainly by the time they got married, their romance and marriage wouldn't have been that unusual. the age gap discourse has gotten REALLY BAD and utterly flattened in a way that ignores all nuance and all particulars of the human beings involved. it doesn't always equate to abuse. it's unkind at the least and dehumanizing at the most to categorize every dynamic that way, and when priscilla herself refutes it and has never called herself a victim, i am not going to categorize him that way. relationships are vast and unique and imperfect, and sometimes people just fall in love! it's not intended for mass consumption or approval by total strangers, especially decades later.

priscilla herself discusses her girlhood and her growth into womanhood, and how much a part of it he was, how he was often many different roles to her. she mentions her naivete, her feelings of unsophistication, and how she grew into herself.

they both grew and changed. and some of that led them in distinctly different directions. she also mentions how they shared a connection and warmth, that in many ways they found more kindnesses and understanding for one another after they divorced. she, and we, will never know how their dynamic might have continued because his death closed that door forever, but she has grieved and loved him. she's not perfect either, and certainly i don't agree with everything she's done, but i cannot abide vilifying elvis and victimizing priscilla when that wasn't their story. they both deserve better and more understanding than that.

how dare people decide for her that she was deceived or that her girlhood was stolen? how dare people disregard her own words and experience and the love she has for him in such a puerile and vicious way?

taylor's story is HER STORY. she didn't intend for it to be applied to others without their consent, or copy/pasted over other dynamics. what she experienced with john was wholly different. he did take advantage of her in a calculated sense. he did use her youthful worship of him and how enamored she was to manipulate her, and then turned it against her. it wasn't a loving dynamic between them at all - she was in love and he got an ego boost and thought he could also make a conquest. it damaged some of her sense of herself, her approach to sex, love, and relationships, and permanently impacted her in some ways - even if she's healed, she shared that the scars still exist and haunt her. it's nowhere near the same tone that priscilla (nor any woman) uses about elvis. i think it's awfully presumptuous and cruel to decide to boil them down to 30 second fan edits using an extremely raw and personal song written generations later about an entirely different experience.

it's...gross and exploitative, not supportive or sympathetic to cilla. the agenda of it to cut down elvis is transparent. lisa would hate it. i really, really disagree with it and it's just a way to outrage bait. and it breaks my heart too. i know it's going to happen, i'm sure those little tiktoks will be prevalent, but i will not be giving them any credence or attention. i respect them both too much for that, and understand their mistakes and imperfections, and tbh cherish him more as a human, a sensitive and generous soul, and an artist than anyone can ever understand when they try to tear him down.

[0shewrites0]

This sounds controversial, but imagine Yandere Lucas??

Hi 🫶🏼

First of all, thanks for the ask!

Secondly, here’s what yandere means in Japanese fiction:

A character, usually a girl, who has an obsessive and possessive side in regards to their crush, ready to use violent and murderous means to maintain an exclusive bond.

So, what about yandere Lucas? Could that be a thing?

I think we can state as a fact that Lucas has a very strong possessive side. This simply comes with his - admittedly sometimes irrational - jealousy. Lucas is a very intense and passionate character, so I can easily imagine him drifting to an obsessive extreme as well.

We already have that when it comes to order and disorder, cleanliness and chaos. He is very strict about this and emphasizes how much chaos drives him up the wall.

Next, I can imagine him being a bit obsessive when it comes to work-related details, such as keeping a strict separation between work and personal life. Also, he's obviously well-built, and for that he needs a tight workout schedule. I see him going to the gym every day after work to maintain his physical fitness. And I imagine he has a general work day/daily routine that he adheres to almost punctiliously (even on weekends). If something were to happen that threw him out of that routine, I could easily imagine him losing his cool. Maybe not outwardly, but definitely inwardly.

We've established that Lucas has both obsessive and possessive traits, which - depending on the circumstances - can easily go to extremes. But I wouldn't go so far as to say that he develops violent or murderous intentions in order to keep something (a relationship, for example) the way he wants it.

Why?

That would contradict his feelings about his upbringing. I imagine his parents resorted to some pretty harsh means to get him to follow their orders when he was a kid - you can interpret that however you want - because his father definitely didn't have a lot of love to give and he was probably pretty damn strict and cold in the way he taught Lucas to grow up and "become a real man."

Secondly, Lucas would never lay a hand on a partner. No matter what they would do, that's not even up for debate. He respects them too much for that. In general, Lucas may well resort to violence if there's no other way, but he's not so quick to get into a fight. He will always try to find a civil solution, and he has some serious self-control.

And finally, he knows how it felt to be kept in a gilded cage that deprived him of the opportunity to be truly free in his ideas about his future. That's probably why he's developed a rebellious streak, and why motorcycles play such a big role in his life. Riding a bike lets him breathe, it lets him feel freedom in a way that nothing else can.

Is he a control freak?

Yes, because he knows what it's like not to be in control, having grown up in conditions that forced him, among other things, to move whenever his parents had to. But he is aware of that and he is definitely someone who works on himself. That's why he would never start trying to control a partner. (Even though there are fics where Lucas is the villain and does just that without a reason whatsoever 🤮🤮).

Final verdict:

Although Lucas tends to be (somewhat) possessive and obsessive, he would never use violent or even murderous means to maintain a relationship. That is not to say that he wouldn’t do everything in his power to protect his partner if threatened by anyone or anything. But this would never be directed against his partner in a pathological way.

Picture source

[lynnedwardswrites]

Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday! What are some traditions surrounding love (platonic and romantic) in your world?

Hallo! Thanks for the ask. You'd think I'd have developed more of these kinds of traditions considering that Isabella and Creed aren't married even though they've been together for a decade. This is at least partially because neither of them find the marriage traditions (that are implied to exist??) compelling... nor the labels and formalities.

Hmm, let's start with what I do know. I wanted to build a society that was neither patriarchal nor heteronormative, so right off the bat, different roles and inheritance patterns. Rather than gendering things, I decided to make inheritance about birth order instead. First children inherit a certain status, second and later children inherit a lower one. When two people (regardless of gender) get married (and are of a high enough social class that this matters at all; ok, yes, we're talking marriage for the elite), it is either apparent or their families negotiate which of them becomes Realmliege(/lord/lady) and which becomes Houseliege(/lord/lady).

The Realmliege is generally chosen because their family is the higher status of the two, or they're the elder born, in that order, and is responsible for managing and running family properties and businesses, governance (if the family controls a township or a larger realm), and anything relating to matters beyond the domestic.

The Houseliege is generally in charge of the household itself, food stores, management of staff, perhaps running the household's garden and greens, managing children, and they're also in charge of hospitality and politicking: socials, dinners, parties, that kind of thing.

Realmliege manages property, Houseliege manages people. Realmliege manages income, Houseliege manages the home. Kinda like American gender roles, but the Houseliege is expected to have more say in how money is spent, and can sometimes wind up with a more domineering level of control over domestic life (not that that's uncommon in America, but hopefully you get the picture). And hopefully you can see the marriage intrigue opportunities of "My parents have always expected me, a first born, to end up Realmliege but there's this super hot guy in a much bigger house and now I have to figure out how to run a household..." and so forth.

When people get married, the Houseliege can either keep their family name or take the Realmliege's family name, depending on factors like the relative status of either name and so forth. (Most common folk just keep their family name). But when naming children in a split-named marriage, the eldest takes the Realmliege's name, and the remaining children take the Houseliege's family name, both as a way to honor that family, and to differentiate younger children. (In a common marriage, the first child takes the birth-mother's name, and subsequent children in a stable marriage are often given the birth-father's, but it's also not uncommon to just take your mother's name since it's pretty damn evident to everyone that she's definitely your mom; you came out of her.)

Anyway. Hopefully that level of complexity makes it clear why the idea of Isabella and Creed getting married is a little ridiculous to them. Isabella is the daughter of an emperor, after all, and Creed is "just" an orphan who never knew his parents. Is Creed going to go around calling himself Creed Morgenstern when that name bears so much weight? Creed doesn't even have a last name (that he'll acknowledge anymore), so they can't use his name. And Isabella would obviously be the "Realmlady," but what does that even mean for them? That role dichotomy just doesn't reflect their circumstances or how they want to live. It seems silly and stupid to try to fit their relationship into that mold. And when you consider that they're con men who spend 99% of their time in the world going by completely other names, well. They might as well just claim they're married when it makes sense, and claim they're "partners" or "companions" when it doesn't, and let the thing be what it is.

Ya know. Until I decide to give them reason to reconsider. ;)

Hopefully this was not mind-numbingly pedantic. I love playing with my social structure mindtoys. 🥺🪀🧸🚒

(Also I know the question was about love, and not its institutionalization. I'm sure there are a thousand "this is how Realmliege and Houseliege treat each other to prove their love and commitment and improve marital happiness" things, but my protagonists like to treat them all like they're artificial and prescriptive and performative (even when they're not), so through their eyes, I have very little to give you besides a lump of "ew gross love lol" that they have very intentionally left unexamined. After all, "Everything is a con." They'll have to earn the "Everything but us" part.)

[tavwrote]

hi i couldn't not talk about this at some point, apologies for the ramble that's about to follow,

kunikida can be simplified into two things: his ideals—more specifically, his obsession with saving everyone—and his schedules. however, both of those, in my portrayal anyway, are habits he picked up in response to a single traumatic moment.

those who worked at the agency before dazai knew a significantly more carefree and lenient version of kunikida, but around two years into the job, he experienced six different losses at once. and on his youngest sister’s birthday, no less. that single event affected him horribly, and he almost blamed himself as much as the actual killer because he possibly could have prevented it had he just been there on time.

as a result, he grew distant from the few people he had left—aside from katai—because he didn't want to burden them with his problems and deliberately made it difficult for new people to get close. he swore to always protect the innocent, both to make up for being unable to save his family and to prevent anyone else from going through what he did. he even began to obsessively plan everything and stuck to that schedule consistently, that way he'd never risk being late to anything ever again. at first, it was just major events that he wrote down because they were all that mattered, but within just a few months, that had turned into writing down every little thing. that last part was less of a trauma response than it was a need to have the control he really didn't have before, but it still stemmed from it.

most importantly though, what he has never told anyone about are the hauntings. since the loss of his family, his own parents and siblings began haunting him, scolding him for daring to live on when they didn't get to. and it didn't stop with them, because every single person that's died on his watch since then has joined the fray. usually, he just hears their voices, but sometimes he sees them. he just never tells anyone about it or seeks a solution to the hauntings because he feels it's deserved.

however, while he genuinely believes this is all happening... it isn't. they're hallucinations. but he's lived in this delusion for so long that he's trapped himself in it, and nothing anyone says can convince him that they aren't real. and even if anything broke that illusion, he'd lose his entire purpose. yes, his main goal is so save people, but that only exists because he lost people, too. it's those deaths and the hallucinations that push him to work so hard to keep people safe, both to do the right thing, and so that no one else torments him for each of his failures.

unfortunately, kunikida is also aware that saving everyone is impossible, and that's where the defeatist behavior kicks in. once he loses someone, his mindset shifts from " i have to save everyone " to " why bother trying if i keep failing. " it's moments like that where he genuinely believes that he's not good enough to live because he cannot do the one thing he sets out to do. and then that, is what leads to the unhappy thoughts.

simply put, kunikida is suicidal. but not in the way dazai is. kunikida's manifests in a more passive way, as what would be seen as " accidental deaths " than " suicide attempts. " he cannot take his own life, because he knows that would leave people wondering what went wrong or if they had any part in it. no, he wants someone or something else to be the cause of it, or at least cause the circumstances he'd end up in. see: the bomb situation with aya, and the... other bomb situation with tetchō, why is it always bombs–

never would he attempt or even consider it in a normal day, but it's almost a guaranteed thought in any situation where he could justify it by disguising it as  a good thing. in aya's case, he was saving several people by choosing the lesser of two evils, and there was a possibility that he would have died there too ( albeit a small one, with yosano being nearby ). if he had, then technically, he would have done so with his ideals still intact. in the case with tetchō, he risked his own life again to save the other members, knowing how likely it was that he would die. and then neither situation worked.

on one hand, he's grateful that he didn't die, because of... a whole bunch of religious / afterlife concerns that could honestly be their own post, but equally as unhappy about it because simply being alive means his purpose is still going to crush him over and over again, and he'll just keep willingly doing it. and make no mistake, he's terrified to die, but he's also aware that with the way he's living, his time with the agency won't even be as long as he originally planned for it to be. it’s inevitable, and his own lifestyle scares him, but there’s really nothing else he can do about it.

[bardicbeetle]

So it seems like a lot of your vampires are pretty young, where/when (ish, it’s OK if you don’t have concrete things for all of them) did they all start? Are there any particularly old ones hiding out, or are they a newer phenomenon in your world? Does being young affect them? Would being ancient?

Oooooh alright nonnie.

Yes, a lot of my vampires are quite young, only dead a few decades or so. But there's a handful of older ones we meet along the way. They aren't a new phenomenon as far as the world at large, but the older ones are definitely few and far between.

So, lets go backwards shall we? And then at the end I'll get more into what age does to them.

Starting with the youngest, Alex is turned present day. The how is still shifting and uhh, frankly I hate that I haven't decided. Current iteration: Eric suggests (read: fucking vampire hypnosis) they just bite the bullet and drink from the bottle Daniel gave them when he and the rest of the vamp!house offered to let Alex stay permanently. They remain in a halfway state between human and vampire before making their first kill, which is one of their parents, which one is also constantly changing.

Next is Moira. She's turned sometime in the early 00s, though she's technically lived with Jesse and Daniel since the 90s. She wanted to settle into the town they bought a house in without doing it in the dark. Which, fair. Jesse is the one who actually gives her his blood, per her request.

Jesse is turned sometime between 1987-1989, exact year pending, but early november whichever one. On the way back to California after his younger sister Sarah goes missing. Originally the plan was for Daniel to kill him, since it was what he wanted (ish, dying on his own terms was better given circumstance). Daniel offers to make him a vampire instead so he can go looking for Sarah (and because both idiots caught feelings, what else is new).

Before this, a brief sidestep from the vamp!house residents, we get Eric. Eric is turned by Carter on Amalthea's orders, though it's somewhat a joint effort (Carter's blood, but Daniel's the one who has to force him to kill). This happens around 1976. Exact location currently unknown. Eric resists (or plays at it) but eventually takes probably too well to vampirism. By the time we reach present day, Eric is a patchwork mix of color and monochrome, saturation leeched from flesh and hair from the amount of Amalthea's blood he's consumed by then.

Aaaand we're back. Daniel is turned by Amalthea in 1967, after blacking out drunk and waking up in an unfamiliar forest. She torments him for a little while, and forces his first kill to be his fiancée's younger brother. None of this goes well for him. He remains under her complete control for about six years before regaining some semblance of himself again.

Carter is next after Daniel, a "casualty" of the revolutionary war. He's turned by Amalthea when she finds him mostly dead on the battlefield. He's mostly content to do as he's told, with the understanding that it keeps him alive and mostly well.

Lila is the eldest of the trio when Daniel is taken into Amalthea's group. She never really mentions how long she's been around, but she does know Madeleine which puts her at least firmly around the 17th century. She's an experimenter, and it ends up getting her (and eventually Carter) killed after she pushes the limits of Amalthea's patience one too many times.

There are a whole host of people between Lila and back but lets get into the proper meat of the question.

Amalthea.

She is, old. There's something consistently unsettling about her, in whatever body she happens to be using at the time. Her original body has been lost to time, and the ones she's taken down the line have just been whatever she's managed to make use of (this was originally Lila's purpose, but that didn't go as planned). Every part of her is color leeched, looking more carved marble than flesh. Everything except the eyes, which stay so bright red they seem to glow. Even if she's just taken a new body, the saturation is going to leech away immediately, as though it can't hold with her presence inside it.

This sort of thing does happen to my vampires once they get beyond a certain age, starting to fade. Not tonally any different, but rather, someone has taken the saturation slider all the way down to nothing. Starting in extremities, in hair, creeping inwards until there is nothing left untouched by the monochrome except the eyes.

Most vampires don't survive that long.

But enough of Amalthea's (or, strictly speaking, any vampire old enough to be fully faded already) blood can start to do it too. In bits and pieces. We see this with Eric, his hair and skin going more and more colorless every time he shows up, a walking neon sign saying he's still in Amalthea's pocket and all the stronger for it. We see it with Daniel when he's taken back, when he's bleeding out everything he can to keep Amalthea's new group weaker and unable to threaten her.

Thanks for the ask!!!

[msfbgraves]

When learning to do dramaturgy after being trained as a historian, I really clung to the mantra of "every story is about today", and I can accept that sometimes you have to look through a different (historical) prism at a current issue to see it clearly, but that's why I vastly prefer fantasy for that.

Because people aren't that different, fundamentally, then 20,000 years ago, it's our circumstances that shape us. You can't have someone reacting to their circumstances like they would to ours. Like,if in the series 1888, a girl in a pristinely white nightshirt dives into a river because she is both innocent and adventurous, or so we as an audience, are meant to learn from that action, I understand the intent... but what those actions actually mean in that context is that she is so spoilt and sheltered as to be sociopatic. Why? Because she doesn't have a washing machine. Sure, to us, what does a cotton nightshirt cost? $20? It's a garment you could stand to lose. But to her, not only did that shirt cost the equivalent of hundreds of dollars - it's a fine shirt - in the context of the story, there's no clothes to buy for several months. And they're on their way on dusty roads in an hour or two. There's nowhere to wash, dry, iron and bleach your now heavy, dripping, stinking shirt. That thing is ruined. You just threw away the equivalent of a designer piece for a spontanuous swim. And now you have no shirt. For months. Does this girl in her late teens not realise that? Then there's something wrong with her. Does she not care? Then she's borderline dangerous to be around, what else does she not care about??That's the difference between having access to a washer and dryer and not having that.

If she's not insane in that context, merely spontanuous, let her be distracted by something during a chore, let her hitch up her skirts and run off - but let her take care not to damage her clothes; let her dress as a boy specifically not to damage her skirts, you can even let her comment: "These'll dry and darn, but if I damage that lace Ma will never forgive me!" Let her sneak out at night to go skinny dipping - and that she would, being naked is far less bad than ruining clothes - but yeah, OP, I concur, you have to work to make the audience understand the context. And that can be a bit hokey, but it's better than the character sending the opposite message of what you mean to say.

Another historical scene was so weird too. A soldier in the 1940s is on leave in Australia, and a girl who he just met jumps into bed with him - without any birth control. Twice. At her parents' house. She's not even drunk. The soldier assumes she means to get engaged, which is logical because crikey, that's a surefire way to get pregnant. But no. She simply wanted to have some fun. Dafuq are you on, lady? This isn't the 1960's! Risking an std and a pregnancy like that isn't logical if you don't want to babytrap people. Yes, 80 years later you can play this as "sorry mate, I didn't mean anything by it, why are you surprised?" But in the 1940's, the guy is right to be crushed, because to do this without birth control (not to mention abortions or std treatment), this isn't casual behaviour. It's like a guy buying you a diamond ring. He wouldn't do that if he didn't mean business. Because buying a ring like that is very costly behaviour. Now in the series they played it as him getting too attached, too soon, after two hookups - but he was being logical here! She was either lying to him or again, insanely irresponsible. Because modern behaviour is too costly in that context! And could they not have him be crushed after a night's dancing, a picnic and a makeout session in the park? That could easily have shown his longing for domesticity and love as well without having the woman do something potentially life threatening.

But that requires money and time and some knowledge of women's lives through the ages - but for that you need the work of female historians to trickle into pop culture, and given the fact that women have only been a major factor from the 1970's onward, this means that anyone socialised before the 1990's at the earliest problably isn't aware of these things and doesn't think of them unless they're women and maybe not even then.

I'm getting so sick of major female characters in historical media being incredibly feisty, outspoken and public defenders of women's rights with little to no realistic repercussions. Yes it feels like pandering, yes it's unrealistic and takes me out of the story, yes the dialogue almost always rings false - but beyond all that I think it does such a disservice to the women who lived during those periods. I'm not embarrassed of the women in history who didn't use every chance they had to Stick It To The Man. I'm not ashamed of women who were resigned to or enjoyed their lot in life. They weren't letting the side down by not having and representing modern gender ideals. It says a lot about how you view average ordinary women if the idea of one of your main characters behaving like one makes them seem lame and uninteresting to you.

[sweetofsin]

life is so scary and beautiful and deathly terrifying and gorgeous at the same time. so deeply paradoxical too because we oftentimes try to search and cling onto control in certain areas that we don't have a lot of control over, and then we release control and sink to helplessness in areas where we do have more control over. i think life is all about figuring out, how much power and control do i have within this situation? what can i do? even if it's something big or small—and if all you can do is nothing, that's okay too.

i grew up experiencing powerlessness and helplessness. nobody could save me except myself. a lot of life happened to me, and i was a passive existence. now, i am determined to make life happen. i'm not great at it. sometimes i'm tired. sometimes i'm exhausted. sometimes all i can do is just... be... exist... but oftentimes, i refuse to just experience things. to just let life take control over me. i am life! i am happening within life, it's not just happening to me. i don't only want change to happen when i just so happen to stumble upon it. i have to embody change. i don't only want to experience growth through passing the time by and somehow waiting for the growth to happen. i have to intentionally put in the effort to grow. i may not have a lot of control over unpredictable external circumstances. i do have some control over what i choose to do with a lot of my circumstances. even if IM FUCKING TERRIFIED AND SCARED. i'll do it scared....

i grew up thinking that life had no choice to happen to me. being stuck in freeze mode. i can't do anything. i can't change anything. i'm powerless. i was stuck in a loop that i could not exit, i could not change, and there was no rescue.

i'm still stuck in some freeze mode, but i have no choice but to learn that the primary person that can save me is myself. no parent, no sibling, no friend, no god. only i can get myself through things. only i can choose bravery or courage or ways to overcome things. only i can figure out how to get myself through situations. only i can learn and make mistakes and fail and get back up again—because nobody else is going to choose what i do or choose my choices or choose my path or choose any of these things except me. my friends can offer beautiful support and love and advice yes, but only i have to go out there and make it happen. i am no longer a victim without power. i have the power to end SOME things, some cycles—and that power strengthens through the love of people around me. most importantly!!!!! through the love of myself... still working on it of course...

[sugamamacustard]

🍢 🍡 (A/B/O) Menu 🍡🍢

My A/B/O verse ↦ Here! My rules ↦ Here!

Appetizer (🍚)= Angst Dessert (🍪)= Fluff Breakfast (🥞) = Social media! AU Lunch (🍙) = non-specified AU! (Other than social media; Mafia! Werewolf/vampire!, angel/demon!, etc) Supper (🍘)= Smut/ NSFW Happy hour (🍸) = Yandere Specials (🍮)= My personal favorites 🍡 🍡 🍡 🍡 🍡 🍡 🍡 🍡 🍡 🍡 🍡 🍡 🍡 Order up!

↳Reach so high ( 🍪)

Summary: You’re used to the world around you not being kind to the vertically impaired, but you and you’re alpha get through it.

Ingredients: Alpha! Tendo Satori, Alpha! Nishinoya Yu

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳ Sweet Little Chick ( 🍸, 🍙(Mafia! AU))

Summary:  The Karasuno Crows fell to the will of one person and one person alone. You were expected to do the same to the mama crow.

Ingredients: Alpha! Mafia boss! Sugawara Koushi

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN-- But Reader ends up in a dress and thigh highs, so take as you will)

↳ Come see me (  🍚, 🍪, 🍮 )

Summary:  Being a manager for Nekoma was a thankless job, but one you were proud to do. You were surrounded by alphas who wanted what was best for you and in turn, you wanted what was best for them. However, sometimes what’s best for them…may not be best for you or your omega.

Ingredients: Alpha! Tetsuro Kuroo

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳ Knock me out ( 🍪)

Summary:  When your omega demands to see your alpha, you can’t help but oblige, but unfortunately, someone else see’s you before he does.

Ingredients: Alpha! Hajime Iwaizumi

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳ Fire man ( 🍘 )

Summary:  Your heat hits unexpectedly and it’s up to your alpha to help you through it. How is he doing it?

Ingredients: Alpha! Tetsuro Kuroo, Alpha! Toru Oikawa, Alpha! Kotaro Bokuto

Serving: Omega! Reader (Fem!)

↳ Double Trouble ( 🍪)

Summary:  Inarizaki is known for many things above the surface, but only few know what great treasure lies deep within the pack.

Ingredients: Alpha! Osamu Miya, Alpha! Atsumu Miya

Serving: Omega! Reader (Fem!)

↳ Level Headed ( 🍪, 🍘,  🍮 )

Summary: Betas were known for one thing and your alpha loved you all the more for it. So he shows you his gratitude.

Ingredients: Alpha! Hajime Iwaizumi

Serving: Beta! Reader (Fem!)

↳ Please don’t let me go ( 🍚, 🍪 , 🍘 , 🍙 (Shifter! AU))

Summary:  You were excited when the other packs joined yours, even finding solace in one of the alphas of one, but suddenly, you weren’t needed. Wanted. Not what he desired. And that hurt. So you do the only thing you can think of. Try to find someone who will comfort your poor omega heart.

Ingredients: Alpha! Kuroo Tetsuro

Serving: Omega! Reader (Pretty GN, but I said the word c*nt, so take it as you will)

↳ Please don’t let me go (Part 2!)   ( 🍪 , 🍙 (Shifter! AU))

Summary:   Thanks to Kuroo, your place in the pack has been cemented. But what made it waver in the first place? How can the rest of the pack change what has already happened.

Ingredients: Alpha! Kuroo Tetsuro

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳ Feral animal ( 🍪, 🍮 )

Summary:  You just wanted to get the boys to practice on time. You weren’t prepared to deal with this.  Good thing you had a guardian angel- or should we say, dog.

Ingredients: Alpha! Kentarou Kyoutani

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳ One more time ( 🍪, 🍮 )

Summary:  You loved your small little family, but your alpha felt there was something missing.

Ingredients: Alpha! Toru Oikawa

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN, but a baby is born, so take it as you will)

↳ Puppy ( 🍘, 🍮)

Summary:   It wasn’t supposed to hit you as hard as it did, but when your heat came and blindsided you, you were left staggering for a way out. Luckily, your alpha knows you better than anyone else.

Ingredients: Alpha! Kentarou Kyoutani

Serving: Omega! Reader (Fem! Reader)

↳ Two for one special ( 🍪 )

Summary:  You weren’t even a manager. You were a medic for the Nekoma team and yet, you still caught they of not one, but two, powerhouse alphas. What could go wrong, right?

Ingredients: Alpha! Satori Tendo, Alpha! Yuu Nishinoya (Poly)

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳ Rut ( 🍘)

Summary:  You and your alpha have been through so much together, but how are the reacting when their rut hits?

Ingredients: Alpha! Tetsuro Kuroo, Alpha! Atsumu Miya, Alpha! Kiyoomi Sakusa

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳ Helping hand  ( 🍘, 🍙 (Mafia! AU))

Summary:  You were always so good for your alpha. There are some things that fall out of your control however, things that may put a wrench in your good behavior.

Ingredients: Alpha! Mob boss! Kenma Kozume

Serving: Omega! Reader (Fem!)

↳ Spare some?  ( 🥞, 🍘 , 🍮)

Summary:  You simply ask for Daddy’s Cummies. How are these alphas reacting?

Ingredients: Alpha! Satori Tendo, Alpha! Toru Oikawa, Alpha! Wakatoshi Ushijima, Alpha! Kenma Kozume, Alpha! Yu Nishinoya, Alpha Keiji Akaashi

Serving: Omega! Reader

↳ Let me help you ( 🍚, 🍪) (Now with Part 2!)

Summary:   Because of unseen circumstances, you drop, and you drop hard. How does your alpha help you/redeem himself?

Ingredients: Alpha! Toru Oikawa, Alpha! Hajime Iwaizumi + Part 2 includes Mattsun and Makki.

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳ All Mine (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 ) ( 🥞, 🍪, 🍮)

Summary:  You alpha sees someone flirting with you, he’s not happy/ This time you see someone flirty with your alpha and your not happy.

Ingredients: Alpha! Hajime Iwaizumi, Alpha! Issei Matsukawa, Alpha! Tetsuro Kuroo, Alpha! Osamu Miya, Alpha! Atsumu Miya, Alpha! Suna Rintaro

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳ After hours ( 🥞, 🍘)

Summary:   Some spicy messages between you and your alpha~

Ingredients: Alpha! Atsumu Miya, Alpha! Osamu Miya, Alpha! Wakatoshi Ushijima, Alpha! Kentaro Kyoutani, Alpha! Rintaro Suna, Alpha! Eita Semi

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳ Keeping you close ( 🍪, 🍘)

Summary:   Your alpha catches some low-bit, pathetic excuse of an alpha trying to get with you and he’s determined to but a stop to it.

Ingredients: Alpha! Rintaro Suna

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN, until the smut)

↳ Lips like Sugar~ ( 🍪, 🍘,🍙(Sugar Daddy! AU))

Summary:   Toru Oikawa had no qualms about paying a pretty little thing to hang off his arm, but he expects you to be at his beck and call for the price tag you come with. And if you aren’t? He’ll put you back into your place real quick.

Ingredients: Alpha! Toru Oikawa

Serving: Omega! Reader (Fem! Reader)

↳ Back me up ( 🍪)

Summary:   Pregnancy can bring out both the best, and worst, in any and all alphas, and yours is no exception. Life, however, is unpredictable in every sense and sometimes, the worst and best parts get melded into one– and make you fall in love with your alpha all over again.

Ingredients: Alpha! Kotaro Bokuto, Alpha! Wakatoshi Ushijima

Serving: Omega! Reader (Fem! Reader)

↳Baby, it’s cold outside ( 🍪)

Summary:  After waiting for your parents to come pick you up, only for them to never come, you can’t seem to get warm. Lucky, for you, your alpha is there to help you get warm!

Ingredients: Alpha! Takanobu Aone

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳Kiss it Better (🍪)

Summary:   You love spending time with your alpha in the kitchen, unfortunately it’s a little bittersweet for him.

Ingredients: Alpha! Osamu Miya

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳Again ( 🍘,🍮 )

Summary: How much can you take before your alpha breaks you?

Ingredients: Alpha! Tetsuro Kuroo

Serving: Omega! Reader (Fem! Reader)

↳Feed Me ( 🍪,🍮 )

Summary: Some times, people do things because it’s what they think is best. You don’t tell your alpha about some weight gain you’ve noticed, and try taking care of it yourself because of this.

Ingredients: Alpha! Keiji Akaashi, Alpha! Wakatoshi Ushijima, Alpha! Rintaro Suna

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳ Day and Night (🍘)

Summary: How do you and your gamer alpha spend heats and ruts?

Ingredients: Alpha! Kenma Kozume

Serving: Omega! Reader (Fem! Reader)

↳ Crash Course(🍪)

Summary: The relationship between Iwaizumi and Oikawa is always a confusing one. No one is quite sure what it is and where exactly you fall into it. Well, you guys do and that’s all that matters.

Ingredients: Alpha! Hajime Iwaizumi, Platonic! Alpha! Toru Oikawa

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳✨Intimidating✨(🍪)

Summary: Alpha’s are scary creatures. Going up to them is scary, and honestly, you were never sure you would ever be able to look one in the eye. Unfortunately, your omega was dead set on one particular alpha– one who seemed so much more intimidating than any other alpha you had seen before.

Ingredients: Alpha! Issei Matsukawa, Alpha! Satori Tendou

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN)

↳✨Daddy cats✨ (🍪, 🍘)

Summary: What’s life like with not one but two alphas at your beck and call?

Ingredients: Alpha! Kenma Kozume and Alpha! Tetsuro Kuroo (Poly)

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN until the smut, then it's fem! Reader)

↳✨Olympic level✨( 🍪)

Summary: Sometimes your air-headed alpha makes you question your sanity. Luckily, you have some back-up to get him back in line.

Ingredients: Alpha! Yu Nishinoya

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN!)

↳Time Bomb ( 🍚,🍮,🍙(Non! A/B/O) )

Summary:  Anger is an ugly emotion and can bring out the worst in all of us. Mid-argument, it pushes your boyfriend into dangerous waters, threatening your very relationship. Is your relationship strong enough to survive?

Ingredients: Koushi Sugawara, Wakatoshi Ushijima

Serving: Reader(GN!)

↳Paparazzi ( 🍪)

Summary: Fangirls are nice, yes, however they tend to get in the way of simple things such as passing your classes. You won't take their harrassment laying down though.

Ingredients: Alpha! Toru Oikawa, Alpha! Yuji Terushima, Alpha! Atsumu Miya

Serving: Omega! Reader (GN!)

More to come!

[isaacsapphire]

People respond incentives. Incentives are different for different classes of people, and different in different circumstances.

We've been discussing package theft. In a geographically physically non hilly neighborhood with high foot traffic, a porch that is only a few steps high and only a few flat steps away from that heavily traveled sidewalk, it is very little physical effort and very little time for a person who is tempted by a package on that low porch to grab it, and with high foot traffic, the chance of such a person walking by while there's a package on the porch is higher.

Compare a porch in a hilly neighborhood with lower foot traffic, where two full flights of stairs have to be climbed to reach the porch, which can barely be seen from sidewalk level. The street itself is steep enough that few people walk up it unless they live in the neighborhood.

Is anyone surprised to hear that almost no packages are stolen from the second porch, despite being in the same city in a similar rent range? The average passerby is not necessarily of greater average virtue in the second neighborhood, they just don't want to take the time and effort to climb two flights of stairs to even find out if there's a package, and there's fewer passerby, so the probability of Porch Pirate Georg coming along is lower.

I've run into this issue professionally too; compare a permanent full time employee, someone who gets their health insurance through the job, has a 401k retirement fund, vacation days, and could expect to continue working there for years if they want, with a seasonal temp worker who has no benefits and will not have this job in two weeks no matter how good of a job they do.

You don't need to suppose that the temp worker is less virtuous or more criminally inclined at all! Their incentives are different; the permanent employee would risk their future employment and their benefits if they stole from work, whereas the seasonal temp risks... The next two weeks of work. Now, the pay rate is not identical between these two groups either, so one might also theorize that the temp worker is more impoverished and so in some sense has a greater need to steal too, but this is not necessary to explain different behavior.

So back to the package stealing rich kid. Yes, sometimes the scions of well-off families do steal packages, shoot rivals, join gangs, and do meth. Their parents do pull strings for them. Sometimes the little darling pulls out of their dive before the family lawyer is no longer able to save them from themselves, or before daddy gets sick of their bullshit and leaves them to their fate. Sometimes they don't. If you ask around about family histories and about people's siblings and cousins, the Type of Guy or Gal who was born well-off and then was a little too Assaults Georg or too susceptible to falling in with The Wrong Crowed or getting addicted to drugs starts to become obvious. There's overlap with the scions with mental health issues TBH. And overall, yeah, those people DO often fall in class. Not always, not always all the way down, but they do fall, especially when they only started as upper middle class.

I would be being dishonest if I didn't elaborate a bit more about the Assaults Georg behavior among the Wall Street Ivy League class; this class collectively is a physical danger to anyone fuckable of a lower class, especially but by no means limited to the young men of this class. They are controlled about their targets though, because the ones who aren't get in trouble when the angry law firm partner dad of the girl next door comes after them. As long as they restrain themselves to people like us though, well, we both know that we could be forced to settle out of court and sign an NDA.

Yes, richer neighborhoods are safer from petty theft, assaults, and gun crime. And yes, that does mean that "if that's true any kind of belief that it's impossible to increase wealth means that more of us are being warehoused with (certain kinds of) criminals." An unpleasant implication doesn't make something untrue.

worth blogging over and over

[anaveragebibliophile]

He Comes First

Thranduil x Wife!reader x Young!Legolas 

Summary: After finding out some exciting news about your and Thranduil’s future as parents, you begin reminiscing on the all the joys and wonders that this life has given you (especially getting to see your husband excel at fatherhood). 

PART 1 

PART 2: 

https://anaveragebibliophile.tumblr.com/post/659269636241637376/cyclical-love

“Are you one-hundred percent certain, Morwen? I know you are an expert at discerning such things, but I cannot help but still feel the uncertainty reverberating through me,” you said, hands gripping your kneecaps as you awaited the healer’s response. 

“Yes, my queen. All of the signs are there: the nausea, the subsequent morning sickness, the exhaustion. I am positive that I am correct in my diagnosis.” 

“Oh, by the Valar (God),” you responded, your right hand drifting to hold your stomach protectively. “I am with child. Thranduil and I will be welcoming another elfing next fall.” 

“Yes, Queen (y/n). When the leaves begin to fall, you will be holding another blessing in your arms.” 

Walking back to your and Thran’s chambers provided ample time for rumination on this news (because the healer’s quarters were on the other side of the palace). Now, that’s not to say this contemplation was meant to curb any sentiments of regret, resentment, or anger. Not at all. In reality, you couldn’t stop a huge smile from framing your face. You couldn’t help but embrace the elation that was filling every facet of your heart, soul, and mind. Oh, this was a dream come true. 

Obviously, the topic of having another child had been discussed between you and your husband many times (usually on fireside date night with goblets of wine and lots of cuddling). And the funny thing was that the prospect had cemented itself more securely over the last few months. Having and caring for another child no longer appeared to be this unattainable desire, but, instead, it filled you and Thran with this rapture, this thrill. And why wouldn’t it really? Legolas was everything you both could have hoped for, so why not try for that relentless feeling of contentment one more time? You’d have to be asinine not to. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ada, Ada are you awake?” Legolas’ melodic voice asked, breaking through the tranquil haze you’d encompassed yourself in. 

“There is no need to fret, my little leaf. Ada is just resting his eyes. He is tired,” your husband’s deep baritone responded. 

“Of course, Ada, but that is not why I was asking. Would it be alright if I laid on your chest?” 

“You already know the answer to that, Legolas. Climb on up, iôn nîn (my son).” 

And climb on up he did, at least from what you saw through the little crack in the door. Once your little elfling’s voice alerted you to the fact that your two favorite people in all of Middle Earth were in your chambers, your immediate instinct was to rush and join in on the cuddle session that was so obviously taking place. Yet, somehow, right as you put your hand on the doorknob, it was as if your feet were tethered to the floor. You couldn’t move. You couldn’t speak. All because you turned your head. All because of what you were bearing witness to. 

Legolas was sprawled starfish-like on his father’s chest, his little face turned into the right side of Thranduil’s neck. You could see the red, depressed sleep lines marring his face from his morning nap (where he and the pillow became great comrades). And even though that was such an adorable sight, what you saw your husband doing made joy spread through your entire heart in such a way that you thought it might implode on you. 

Sometimes your little leaf struggled to fall asleep at night. Whether it be because of a nightmare or a fear of separation from his parents no one could truly say. His insomnia was variable at best and inevitable at worst. However, regardless of the circumstances, your and Thran’s mission was to get your son some relief, no matter the cost. And you tried everything you could think of: lullabies, rocking, warm milk, literally anything that the rule book on parenting tells you to attempt, but nothing would make any impact. That is, until your husband changed the game. 

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One night in mid-winter, Legolas’ inability to sleep had reached its peak. He hadn’t been feeling well for most of the day--spending most of it snuggled with you in the sitting room or with Thranduil in his office--and by the end of the night had been sporting a pretty nasty fever. He was miserable, plain and simple. You had hoped that the illness would’ve given him the opportunity to give in to his fatigue, to barricade himself in a dream-like state. Wrong. Instead, the infection chose to create a pain in his ear that wouldn’t abate by any means. No question, it made him absolutely hysterical. 

Despite this, though, he was most at peace with your husband, the man who spent most of that day with his lips pressed in a thin, white line and his stomach in knots. All he hoped for was his son to be improving, but it didn’t seem like Valar (God) was in the mood to grant that wish. So, he did what he was best at: finding a way to take control of the situation. In this case, the problem was Legolas’ discomfort. The little guy was trying to sleep--on his side, his back, in Thran’s arms, in whatever position his brain could conjure up--but would then proceed to hold his left ear and whimper. Anything he did would cause pain to shoot through him.  

“Alright, little leaf,” Thranduil said while rocking his son in his arms for the tenth time that day, “how about we try having you rest on my chest. You might sleep better that way.” And all he got was an almost imperceptible nod from the elfling that was clenching his hand so tight. 

Moving over to the bed, he slowly settled himself in the center, making sure not to jostle his son too much. Quietly humming to Legolas, he carefully moved his right hand up and down his spinal column and left lingering kisses on his forehead. 

“There we go, iôn nîn (my son),” he said. “Hopefully this helps. Gi melin (I love you).”

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“Darling, you can come in, you know. This is your space too,” your husband’s voice articulated, a hint of mockery and teasing in his tone (all in good fun). 

Opening the door all the way, you smiled at the treasures that laid before you. One curled into his father’s chest like an armadillo. The other grinning like a fool at said armadillo. 

“My apologies, sweetheart. Once I got here, I couldn’t refrain from letting you have that special one-on-one time with him.” 

Your husband’s right cheekbone lifted up to create an off-centered smile of sorts. “How was your appointment with Morwen? Was she able to give you some herbs to aid your sickness?”

“Yes, she was. But that is not the only thing she mentioned to me. About why I am ill anyway.” 

“What else is wrong? Whatever it is, it is treatable, yes?” Thranduil queried, his voice getting higher by at least three octaves. 

“Yes, honey. It is treatable. I’ll only have to wait about six more months.”

At that, your husband paused, concentration taking over his features. You felt his brain’s agony at the mere thought of analyzing the riddle and attempting to figure it out. Every mechanism was moving to decipher the answer. 

And then it all clicked. 

“If what you say is true, then that means we are….” 

TBC 

[duckprintspress]

Ten Things We Hate About Trad Pub

Often when I say “I’ve started a small press; we publish the works of those who have trouble breaking into traditional publishing!” what people seem to hear is “me and a bunch of sad saps couldn’t sell our books in the Real World so we’ve made our own place with lower standards.” For those with minimal understanding of traditional publishing (trad pub), this reaction is perhaps understandable? But, truly, there are many things to hate about traditional publishing (and, don’t get me wrong - there are things to love about trad pub, too, but that’s not what this list is about) and it’s entirely reasonable for even highly accomplished authors to have no interest in running the gauntlet of genre restrictions, editorial control, hazing, long waits, and more, that make trad pub at best, um, challenging, and at worst, utterly inaccessible to many authors - even excellent ones.

Written in collaboration with @jhoomwrites, with input from @ramblingandpie, here is a list of ten things that we at Duck Prints Press detest about trad pub, why we hate it, and why/how we think things should be different!

(Needless to say, part of why we created Duck Prints Press was to...not do any of these things... so if you’re a writer looking for a publishing home, and you hate these things, too, and want to write with a Press that doesn’t do them...maybe come say hi?)

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1. Work lengths dictated by genre and/or author experience.

Romance novels can’t be longer than 90,000 words or they won’t sell! New authors shouldn’t try to market a novel longer than 100,000 words!

A good story is a good story is a good story. Longer genre works give authors the chance to explore their themes and develop their plots. How often an author has been published shouldn’t put a cap on the length of their work.

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2. Editors assert control of story events...except when they don’t.

If you don’t change this plot point, the book won’t market well. Oh, you’re a ten-time bestseller? Write whatever you want, even if it doesn’t make sense we know people will buy it.

Sometimes, a beta or an editor will point out that an aspect of a story doesn’t work - because it’s nonsensical, illogical, Deus ex Machina, etc. - and in those cases it’s of course reasonable for an editor to say, “This doesn’t work and we recommend changing it, for these reasons…” However, when that list of reasons begins and ends with, “...because it won’t sell…” that’s a problem, especially because this is so often applied as a double standard. We’ve all read bestsellers with major plot issues, but those authors get a “bye” because editors don’t want to exert to heavy a hand and risk a proven seller, but with a new, less experienced, or worse-selling author, the gloves come off (even though evidence suggests time and again that publishers’ ability to predict what will sell well is at best low and at worst nonexistent.)

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3. A billion rejection letters as a required rite of passage (especially when the letters aren't helpful in pinpointing why a work has been rejected or how the author can improve).

Well, my first book was rejected by a hundred Presses before it was accepted! How many rejection letters did you get before you got a bite? What, only one or two? Oh…

How often one succeeds or fails to get published shouldn’t be treated as a form of hazing, and we all know that how often someone gets rejected or accepted has essentially no bearing on how good a writer they are. Plenty of schlock goes out into the world after being accepted on the first or second try...and so does plenty of good stuff! Likewise, plenty of schlock will get rejected 100 times but due to persistence, luck, circumstances, whatever, finally find a home, and plenty of good stuff will also get rejected 100 times before being publishing. Rejections (or lack there of) as a point of pride or as a means of judging others needs to die as a rite of passage among authors.

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4. Query letters, for so many reasons.

Summarize all your hard work in a single page! Tell us who you’re like as an author and what books your story is like, so we can gauge how well it’ll sell based on two sentences about it! Format it exactly the way we say or we won’t even consider you!

For publishers, agents, and editors who have slush piles as tall as Mount Everest...we get it. There has to be a way to differentiate. We don’t blame you. Every creative writing class, NaNoWriMo pep talk, and college lit department combine to send out hundreds of thousands of people who think all they need to do to become the next Ernest Hemingway is string a sentence together. There has to be some way to sort through that pile...but God, can’t there be a better way than query letters? Especially since even with query letters being used it often takes months or years to hear back, and...

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5. "Simultaneous submissions prohibited.”

No, we don’t know when we’ll get to your query, but we’ll throw it out instantly if you have the audacity to shop around while you wait for us.

The combination of “no simultaneous submissions” with the query letter bottleneck makes success slow and arduous. It disadvantages everyone who aims to write full-time but doesn’t have another income source (their own, or a parents’, or a spouse’s, or, or or). The result is that entire classes of people are edged out of publishing solely because the process, especially for writers early in their career, moves so glacially that people have to earn a living while they wait, and it’s so hard to, for example, work two jobs and raise a family and also somehow find the time to write. Especially considering that the standard advice for dealing with “no simultaneous submissions” is “just write something else while you wait!” ...the whole system screams privilege.

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6. Genres are boxes that must be fit into and adhered to.

Your protagonist is 18? Then obviously your book is Young Adult. It doesn’t matter how smutty your book is, erotica books must have sex within the first three chapters, ideally in the first chapter. Sorry, we’re a fantasy publisher, if you have a technological element you don’t belong here…

While some genre boxes have been becoming more like mesh cages of late, with some flow of content allowed in and out, many remain stiff prisons that constrict the kinds of stories people can tell. Even basic cross-genre works often struggle to find a place, and there’s no reason for it beyond “if we can’t pigeon-hole a story, it’s harder to sell.” This edges out many innovative, creative works. It also disadvantages people who aren’t as familiar with genre rules. And don’t get me wrong - this isn’t an argument that, for example, the romance genre would be improved by opening up to stories that don’t have “happily ever afters.” Instead, it’s pointing out - there should also be a home for, say, a space opera with a side romance, an erotica scene, and a happily-for-now ending. Occasionally, works breakthrough, but for the most part stories that don’t conform never see the light of day (or, they do, but only after Point 2 - trad pub editors insist that the elements most “outside” the box be removed or revised).

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7. The lines between romance and erotica are arbitrary, random, and hetero- and cis-normative.

This modern romance novel won’t sell if it doesn’t have an explicit sex scene, but God forbid you call a penis a penis. Oh, no, this is far too explicit, even though the book only has one mlm sex scene, this is erotica.

The difference between “romance” and “erotica” might not matter so much if not for the stigmas attached to erotica and the huge difference in marketability and audience. The difference between “romance” and “erotica” also might not matter so much if not for the fact that, so often, even incredibly raunchy stories that feature cis straight male/cis straight female sex scenes are shelved as romance, but the moment the sex is between people of the same gender, and/or a trans or genderqueer person is involved, and/or the relationship is polyamorous, and/or the characters involved are literally anything other than a cis straight male pleasuring a cis straight female in a “standard” way (cunnilingus welcome, pegging need not apply)...then the story is erotica. Two identical stories will get assigned different genres based on who the people having sex are, and also based on the “skill” of the author to use ludicrous euphemisms (instead of just...calling body parts what they’re called…), and it’s insane. Non-con can be a “romance” novel, even if it’s graphically described. “50 Shades of Gray” can sell millions of copies, even containing BDSM. But the word “vagina” gets used once...bam, erotica. (Seriously, the only standard that should matter is the Envelope Analogy).

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8. Authors are expected to do a lot of their own legwork (eg advertising) but then don't reap the benefits.

Okay, so, you’re going to get an advance of $2,500 on this, your first novel, and a royalty rate of 5% if and only if your advance sells out...so you’d better get out there and market! Wait, what do you mean you don’t have a following? Guess you’re never selling out your advance…

Trad pub can generally be relied on to do some marketing - so this item is perhaps better seen as an indictment of more mid-sized Presses - but, basically, if an author has to do the majority of the work themselves, then why aren’t they getting paid more? What’s the actual benefit to going the large press/trad pub route if it’s not going to get the book into more hands? It’s especially strange that this continues to be a major issue when self-publishing (which also requires doing one’s own marketing) garners 60%+ royalty rates. Yes, the author doesn’t get an advance, and they don’t get the cache of ~well I was published by…~, but considering some Presses require parts of advances to get paid back if the initial run doesn’t sell out, and cache doesn’t put food on the table...pay models have really, really got to change.

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9. Fanfiction writing doesn't count as writing experience

Hey there Basic White Dude, we see you’ve graduated summa cum laude from A Big Fancy Expensive School. Of course we’ll set you up to publish your first novel you haven’t actually quite finished writing yet. Oh, Fanperson, you’ve written 15 novels for your favorite fandom in the last 4 years? Get to the back of the line!

Do I really need to explain this? The only way to get better at writing is to write. Placing fanfiction on official trad pub “do not interact” lists is idiotic, especially considering many of the other items on this list. (They know how to engage readers! They have existing followings! They understand genre and tropes!) Being a fanfiction writer should absolutely be a marketable “I am a writer” skill. Nuff said. (To be clear, I’m not saying publishers should publish fanfiction, I’m saying that being a fanfiction writer is relevant and important experience that should be given weight when considering an author’s qualifications, similar to, say, publishing in a university’s quarterly.)

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10. Tagging conventions (read: lack thereof).

Oh, did I trigger you? Hahahaha. Good luck with that.

We rate movies so that people can avoid content they don’t like. Same with TV shows and video games. Increasingly, those ratings aren’t just “R - adult audiences,” either; they contain information about the nature of the story elements that have led to the rating (“blood and gore,” “alcohol reference,” “cartoon violence,” “drug reference,” “sexual violence,” “use of tobacco,” and many, many more). So why is it that I can read a book and, without warning, be surprised by incest, rape, graphic violence, explicit language, glorification of drug and alcohol use, and so so much more? That it’s left to readers to look up spoilers to ensure that they’re not exposed to content that could be upsetting or inappropriate for their children or, or, or, is insane. So often, too, authors cling to “but we don’t want to give away our story,” as if video game makes and other media makers do want to give away their stories. This shouldn’t be about author egos or ~originality~ (as if that’s even a thing)...it should be about helping readers make informed purchasing decisions. It’s way, way past time that major market books include content warnings.

Thank you for joining us, this has been our extended rant about how frustrated we are with traditional publishing. Helpful? No. Cathartic? Most definitely yes. 🤣

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[shipsawayandusuallygay]

I couldn't disagree more with this take on Baby!Jack being abliest or supporting cishet tropes as an actual autistic queer who has ONLY been in relationships with queer and non cis people for the last 30 years.

Baby!Jack only erases his personality if the writer choose to not write them like Jack. To think you can't convey character non verbally is ablest, disregards him being a nephilim & assumes he would be devoid of personality as a child which is ridiculous.

It's been stated in canon that Jack purposely choose the appearance of not a child for his safety and because according to him that's what his mother thought was needed. It was a a need, not a want forced on him by circumstances out of his control. Again talk about not having his own agency. Like Dean he was forced to grow up too quickly; for Dean it started at 4, for Jack it was at birth. Name me one child especially an older teen who doesn't hate being called a child or treated as one? Of course he's not going to like it when his parental figures point out that his a child both in his human emotional development and in his angel powered development. Yes he is part angel but he is also human. If he truly was an adult he would have the emotional maturity of one.

The next one about it's wrong cause he has what some people say are ND traits wtf...first of all neurodivergent people are not "child like", that's a label put on them by neurotypicals. Being non verbal knows no age, interacting in different ways to stimulus knows no age. It is ableism that labels those behaviours as "child like" & tries to infantalize autistic and ND people. The canon for Jack is he literally didn't have certain knowledge of humanity when he was born because he was a newborn which had be taught to him and he learned it just like how neurotypical child do. Nothing to do with being neurodivergent.

Ok what the fuck, assuming domestic Destiel is automatically hetero and nuclear family conforming? Guess what Queer families are queer when the people in them are queer. period. It's pretty damn homophobic to think that if two people of the same gender are together they magically start acting like some patriarchal cishet fantasy. And the assumption that if a man is FEMME or feminine that he is suddenly the wife is sexist, homophobic, misogynistic and an incredibly ignorant understanding of queer relationships.

Again I have to ask do these folks making these claims have the lived experience of being in queer marriages like mine of 20 years, of the experiences of being autistic (diagnosed 48 years ago as a toddler) because the assumptions and justifications they are making as so far off.

Now personally sometimes I like baby!Jack and sometimes I don't but it's usually based on the story. I personally wish the ending of SPN had Jack not becoming God but being safe enough to get to actually experience life as a nephilim child which means being 3 and aging like any other nephilim before him did. I think him being an adult was forced on him & just like Dean, Sam & Cas had their lives controlled I think he deserved to experience life including being a child. In a just world his mom would be alive too and co-parenting with Cas and his husband Dean. I think he would still be Jack with Jack's likes and unlikes and core personality.

take your pick!