#it doesn't mean the people are inherently prey

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[renthony]

On "Consuming Content"

Every now and then a post crosses my feed that follows the vein of, "you have to do things other than consume media or else you'll be a dumb person who doesn't know anything about how the real world works and does nothing but pointless fandom stuff."

I hate those posts for three major reasons, not counting the inherent ableism and classism of "you must have approved Smart People hobbies or else you're worthless" rhetoric:

You don't know what people do or talk about outside of what you see on their social media. Responding to fandom communities on a fandom-driven website as if all these people are one-note cardboard cutouts of people is asinine. In many cases this genre of post feels like repackaged 2012 tumblr "not like other girls" and hipster discourse. Yes, yes, you think you're better than everyone else on this website because your hobbies are less mainstream, more morally pure, and have greater intellectual merit, we get it.

What do you even mean by consuming content? As someone who purposely avoids using the phrase "consuming content" because I find the term too vague to be useful, please be more specific. Are you including every single form of media engagement and art enjoyment? Are you just talking about mainstream TV and film? What about novels? Plays and scripts? Nonfiction books and instruction manuals? Do you mean to imply that going to a book club is a worthless non-hobby? Are you including academic reading? Are you including going to the art museum? Going to the theatre, concerts, or other performances? Taped liveshows? Watching sports events on TV? Are you including news media? Are you including YouTube tutorials about how to do various tasks, crafts, or other hobbies? Are you including trade magazines? Are you including industry publications in various fields? What constitutes "content," and what constitutes "consuming" in this discourse? Define it. "Consuming content" is a nothing phrase that people use to mean multiple different things depending on what they, personally, judge as valid media. It's a buzzword at best, and when the same buzzword can be used to describe both "idly scrolling social media" and "reading and discussing a book," it's a meaningless phrase.

As an artist and author, if engaging with media is bad and worthless, am I supposed to conclude that making it is equally worthless? If "consuming content" is a bad, lazy, worthless, fake hobby, what makes creating art a worthwhile pursuit? If I am constantly being told as an artist that engaging with media isn't a worthwhile pursuit in its own right, and the people who want to engage with my art are just brainless fandom losers, what incentive do I have to make that art anymore? Furthermore, to everyone reading this paragraph and thinking, "that's not what content creation is," I refer you to bullet #2: If the phrase "make content" can be used to mean "low-effort posts made to advertise cheap and useless products" as well as "being a novelist" or "getting a gig as a writer on a TV show," it's a meaningless phrase.

None of that is even getting into issues such as the way influencers are preyed on by both brands and targeted harassment from trolls. Influencer culture has major issues, but boiling those issues down to "stupid vapid young people who are too lazy to make real art or get real jobs" (which is a mindset I see frequently online) is unhelpful. So many people pursue influencer deals because they're living in poverty but are skilled at various social media and advertising related tasks, and just like any worker, they're being exploited because they need to eat. Labor rights for influencers are a huge topic that entertainment industry unions have been actively discussing and working toward. (Related links for further info: [x] [x] [x] [x])

"Consuming content is not a hobby" is a worthless statement unless you define what you mean by both "consuming" and "content." Quite frankly, you also need to define "hobby," because if you're putting requirements on what is and isn't allowed to be a "real" hobby, you mostly just seem like you're moving goalposts and defining "worthwhile hobby" as "hobby I, personally, think is good." Use more specific language to articulate your actual problems with the entertainment industry, the art world, influencer culture, or whatever else you're actually upset by.

Media and fandom can involve any number of enriching, satisfying hobbies that take up a perfectly acceptable and healthy space in someone's life. If you aren't into it, go find hobbies you do like and stop policing how other people spend their precious free time in this nightmare hellscape of a world.

[tavtime]

There is something skittering around in my brain tonight about the way that BG3 intends the audience to view mind flayers as individuals vs as a species, and the way that plays out in the player's relationships with Omeluum and the Emperor.

I mean, one of the primary gears upon which the story turns is that when a person becomes illithid, the soul they previously had is destroyed (but not their memories of the person they were). This is presented as an insurmountable wrong - literally socially aberrant - and it certainly is so from both the point of view of the gods concerned with mortal souls, and illithids' mortal prey concerned with keeping their brains in their heads.

The Emperor's storyline takes this to the conclusion that the condition of being soulless is, in and of itself, a complete destruction of the individual; that whatever it was before, the illithid will be invariably manipulative, inherently untrustworthy, and unable to reconcile its needs and desires into peaceful coexistence with non-illithids. It's certainly the conclusion you're intended to draw from Duke Stelmane's story, as well as numerous supporting texts, most notably from the creche.

But then... Omeluum offers the refutation to that. Here he is, leading a peaceful life because he just... wants to. Absent a soul or comprehensible mortal desires to operate as a moral compass, Omeluum still chooses to contribute to the Society of Brilliance. He voluntarily and at personal cost researches alternative food for himself so that he doesn't need to feed on sentient beings. He helps the player character multiple times, despite the fact that doing so carries variable risk with little promise of reward.

So clearly, being illithid in and of itself is not what makes someone manipulative or untrustworthy: it's not a baked-in species trait. The Emporer isn't Like That solely because he's a mind flayer; he's like that because... he's like that. That's who he is as a person. That's what he has become, in his current incarnation, and yes, some of it is certainly due to his transformation (having your soul shredded and your will broken would screw most people up pretty badly, I imagine), but not all of it! If something about his circumstances had been different, maybe he could've been different as well. Maybe his moral compass would have pointed in a similar direction as Omeluum's.

[cosmicjoke]

You know what, screw this tired bullshit about Levi being "a weapon". People constantly reduce him down to just that, when in reality, what actually makes Levi humanity's strongest soldier isn't his skill as a fighter, it's his heart. It's his compassion and empathy. And it's those qualities that Erwin constantly referenced and depended upon to help humanity, not Levi's violence. Anyone paying any kind of attention to the story and these characters should be able to pick up on that. Levi's defining characteristic isn't his violence, it's his kindness, and his history with Kenny is meant to demonstrate how, despite the way Kenny raised him, Levi still managed to rise above it and become a good man. It's honestly so disgusting and insulting to Levi's character when people reduce him down to just being a thing, a tool to be used for some ideological cause, when Levi is the most human character in the story. I said the other day that people always call Levi "an unbothered king", but in truth, Levi is the most bothered character in AoT. He's the most bothered character because he cares more than anyone. That's his real superpower. The fact he never becomes desensitized or apathetic toward the loss and suffering around him, despite being exposed to more of it than anyone.

It's just beyond me how anyone could read Levi's backstory, both in the main manga, and in "Bad Boy", and come away with this idea that Levi is inherently violent. You're meant to understand from learning about his backstory that he wasn't actually ever inherently violent (the way Eren was) but that he was forced into violence through the circumstances of his upbringing. Levi perfectly encapsulates what Sasha's father was talking about, about how adults lead children "into the forest", meaning into violence and conflict. Kenny led Levi into that forest, by forcing him to stay in the Underground and teaching him to kill. The whole point of "Bad Boy" was to show that fighting and killing didn't come naturally to Levi. Kenny left him to die, left him on his own in a place that preyed on helpless children, and it was pure luck that Levi's powers awoke in that moment, when he was being beaten to death. It's just as likely that his powers wouldn't have awoken at all, and he would have died. But yeah, Kenny was a great parent, sure. That's totally a normal way of raising a child. Letting them get beat almost to death and hoping it leads to them being able to take care of themselves instead of their demise. Further, we see the damage Kenny's caused Levi through Levi thinking about how Kenny wouldn't let the man in the glasses live. Levi's been taught by Kenny that in order to survive, you have to kill. He's been exposed to that lesson, again and again, forced into adopting it through Kenny's refusal to actually protect him, and as a result, Levi kills the man, which I mean, the bitch deserved it. But it doesn't change the fact that this was an incredibly traumatizing event for Levi which could have been avoided entirely if Kenny had just taken Levi to the surface. I've talked about this a lot, how we see that trauma response from Levi afterward, how being forced into killing, through Kenny's neglect, and how being taught by Kenny that killing and violence is a good or effective solution to most problems, had horrific consequences for Levi's mental and emotional well-being. Levi bursts into tears at the end of "Bad Boy" because of the damage Kenny has inflicted upon him, by refusing to take him "out of the forest". By instead forcing him into the forest. He totally fucked Levi up. Levi isn't a naturally violent person at all, but he was forced into becoming violent, and it's in that fact that Levi's tragedy lies.

Levi and Eren are set as foils to one another in the story to demonstrate this fact, by the way. Eren is naturally inclined toward violence. He and Levi are quite literally diametrically opposed. They're both violent, but for completely different reasons. Their backstories are meant to contrast one another, Eren coming from an idyllic childhood with loving, attentive parents who provided everything for him, Levi coming from a hellish childhood of poverty and desperation, with a mother who died and couldn't provide properly for him, and an uncle who did nothing but ruin his life further. They're both the most violent characters in the story, but their backgrounds are meant to show the difference in the nature of that violence. Eren's comes naturally, having nothing in his childhood to spur him toward that end, while Levi's violence was forced on him by the circumstances of his environment, forcing him to become violent in order to simply survive. The contrast is intentional. It's a subversion of the expected hero's journey. People would assume, out of the two characters, that it would be Levi who turned out to be the villain, but in fact it was the opposite. Levi is the hero and Eren in the villain. Again, they act as foils for one another within the narrative.

Levi is shown at the end of the story settling into a life of peace for a reason. Once he no longer has to fight, once there's no longer any need for that, he still continues fighting to help others in whatever ways he can, but this time, instead of as a weapon, as something much more suited to his actual nature, as someone who tries to build things and bring a little joy into the lives of children who have lost everything. That's what makes Levi's ending so beautiful, and probably the most hopeful aspect of the ending. To see this man who was forced into violence all his life finally getting to be who he really is.

That's directly contrasted against the tragedy of Levi's character throughout the rest of the story. This idea that he's a good and gentle man, forced to become violent and vicious by the world around him. Forced to become something he, deep down, never was. That's, again, what makes Levi's ending so powerful.

And, unsurprisingly and ironically, it's almost always people who accuse those who discuss all of this in relation to Levi of "woobifying" his character, or making him an "uwu", that turn around and do exactly that to Erwin's character, painting him to be some golden retriever ball of sunshine who never did anything wrong in his life. The irony here comes in the fact that Erwin's actions were always way more morally dubious than anything Levi's ever done. Even in torturing Sannes, probably the most morally dubious thing Levi's ever done, Levi only did so because it was necessary for them to find out who the true heir to the throne was, or the coup was going to fail and all of his comrades were going to die as a result. He was torturing Sannes to save lives, because he genuinely believe it was what was necessary to save humanity, and the one instance of Levi engaging in an act of unnecessary violence came because Sannes started bragging about torturing people and acting as if he should be praised and thanked for his actions. Levi was disgusted listening to someone trying to justify the same act he was `presently engaged in, because Levi could objectively understand that torturing someone was a disgusting thing to do, even while believing it was necessary to save lives. Because Levi never lost sight or strayed from what he felt was right. Even as he could objectively acknowledge that the act of torture was a horrible thing, he also believed fully, in that moment, that it was the only way to keep more people from getting killed.

Erwin, on the other hand, always knew deep down that what he was doing, the lie he was telling himself and others to get them to sacrifice their lives, was wrong, that it was wrong to deceive and manipulate people into giving up their lives for one thing, when in reality it was always for something else entirely, something they didn't agree to give their lives for. This is why Erwin was so guilt ridden, in the end. It's why we see him unable to carry the weight of that guilt any longer, why we see his psyche beginning to fracture, and why Levi ultimately realized that Erwin was done as their Commander. The guilt was beginning to destroy him and would have, eventually, corrupted him and turned him into a monster. In deliberate contrast, Levi never ends up crushed by guilt, despite all this shit going wrong. And the reason for that is because Levi never went against his own conscience the way Erwin did. Further to the point, even with all that guilt, Erwin still needed Levi to make the choice for him. He wasn't morally strong enough to do it on his own, even while knowing it was the right thing to do. That's the moment the audience is meant to recognize that, all this time, it was actually Levi who was the better man. It was always Levi who was the strong one. It was always Levi who was the hero. Levi's idolization of Erwin is meant to be shown, through this moment, as ironic in itself, because Levi was looking up to a man who Levi himself was always superior to.

I want to address one more point in this post, unrelated to the previous several points, about what Isayama said about Levi viewing prostitution as a "regular job", and how the framing of that answer by some (tsuki, lets face it) as being reflective of how Kuchel's profession working as a prostitute didn't negatively impact her or Levi's life, is absurd and disingenuous. It's such a blatant misreading of not just Isayama's answer, but of the text itself, to push this bizarre agenga of painting Levi's childhood as being better than it actually was. What Isayama is actually saying is that Levi became conditioned to seeing prostitution as a regular part of life. That doesn't mean he thinks it's "right" or "good". Just a reality of his existence, the same way he came to see violence as a regular part of his existence. But we see, even as Levi won't definitively say whether killing in and of itself is right or wrong, he still makes moral judgments on it depending on the circumstances of said killing, like how he judges Zeke for killing the people of Ragako Village, because they were innocent and posed no threat to him, showing anger at Zeke for feeling no remorse over having done so`. The same would undoubtedly apply to how he views prostitution. He would see the women working as prostitutes as normal people, not deserving of judgment or ostracism just because of their line of work. His own mother was a prostitute, and he loved her endlessly. He clearly didn't hold her profession against her in any way, or judge her for it, which is just in line with Levi's character anyway, being the least judgmental character in AoT. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't have been aware of the harm working in such a profession causes. The way PTSD is so prevalent among sex workers. He, after all, watched his mother also die from contracting what can easily be assumed was an STD from one of her customers, and he also experienced a life of squalor, destitution, poverty and isolation, as well as discrimination, because that same profession wasn't enough to provide for the both of them. So just because Levi would view sex workers as normal people working a "normal job" (i.e. something he was conditioned to seeing as a normal part of life) doesn't mean he wasn't aware of or impacted by the danger inherent to that profession or didn't see the ways in which it obviously, negatively impacted his mother and himself. The same way that, just because Levi is used to violence and death, and accepts it as a regular part of life, doesn't mean he sees those things as okay or acceptable. The same applies to this. He'd also, undoubtedly, see the people who profit off of and force those same women into that line of work as reprehensible, as well as people who mistreat them or shun then for being sex workers as disgusting, as exemplified by his reaction to those men in "Bad Boy" when they started calling his mother a "whore".

One more point also about the excuse making I see for Kenny, and the way it exposes the hypocrisy of the people engaging in it. Levi is actually a positive example of masculinity, what masculinity should aspire to be, and yet he gets shit on all the time for his supposedly out of control violence, while Kenny gets his dick sucked because he didn't let Levi starve to death, but failed in pretty much every other category of responsibility when it came to raising a child. It just shows how ass backwards most people's views on masculinity are. Levi's masculinity is defined by the best qualities of masculinity, that being a driving, protective instinct and a willingness to take on the responsibility of protecting and caring for others, even when it costs him dearly and causes him to suffer. He's more of a real man than Kenny could ever be, and that's the point. Levi steps up and takes responsibility, dedicates himself completely to the people in his life, and does everything for them, while Kenny shirks responsibility because he's too much of a self-centered egotist and too selfish to do the right thing, always choosing instead to do whatever it takes to get what he, personally, wants. Levi and Kenny are purposefully contrasted for this reason. We're meant to see the way Kenny raised Levi, leading him into a life of violence and then abandoning him, as a bad thing. It being contrasted with Levi doing the polar opposite, dedicating himself fully to the people in his life, people he didn’t lead into violence, but who chose that life for themselves, and so Levi stays to act as their sword and shield, is also intentional, to demonstrate how, where Kenny totally failed, Levi completely succeeded. How people don't get this is beyond me.

One last point. There are many examples given of good father figures in AoT, so Kenny's portrayal isn't meant to be seen as a product of social conditioning. Kenny isn't the way he is because it's what he grew up around or because he was taught that's how father's are supposed to be. His grandfather even talks about doting on him, so we know Kenny got plenty of love growing up. Anyone who tries to use that excuse to defend Kenny is full of shit.

[velvetvexations]

@trans-androgyne made this lovely post that spurred me to have thoughts about how their second point also applied to transfems but I didn't wanna derail theirs so I decided to make my own post.

Transitioning being a pro-feminist move applies to trans women as well. Gender abolitionists want to get rid of gender but in practice mostly seem to want to just go back to not considering it separate from sex and otherwise keeping such clear lines between one or the other* that gender would be the only possible result. Like, the feminist future is one where anyone can undress in front of anyone, not where we recognize that women are weak prey animals that need to be kept separate from their natural predators.

So like, it's said that trans women further the patriarchy because they associate things like the color pink with womanhood. This is an understandable perspective that appears logical on the face of it, but dig deeper. When you say pink is a woman's color, and liking the color pink - to vastly simplify the many things that goes into recognizing a desire to transition - means you must be a girl, the implication is that there is an inherent link between womanhood and the color pink. But you're missing the forest for the trees, because the actual idea at play here is that whether or not you're associated with the color pink is no longer decided for you at birth!

Naturally the counterargument is that plenty of women throughout the world and history is that plenty of women have gotten by without liking the color pink, yet not categorizing themselves as a man. GNC cis women have a long, storied history, and in this modern age are especially prominent. They are not men, or non-binary, simply because they dislike pink.

However, cis women that are gender conforming exist literally everywhere you look. Performing femininity is not at all a trans thing, and radical feminism has had a ton of conflict with cis women who shave their legs, enjoy makeup, and things like that.

But cis women, you might say, have expectations of femininity thrust upon them. Isn't it uniquely bad of trans women to choose to define their womanhood that way?

That might be the case except that a lot of trans women are also GNC as well. Literally if you saw me you'd be like "that's a gender conforming man."** It's not only about separating gender from sex, but rendering it a totally meaningless form of personal expression. That doesn't mean erasing, trivializing, or appropriating anything about cis women, but I think it feels that way to many because they have a hard time getting away from terms like "woman" meaning what it traditionally has in the past. TIRFs*** take a stab at the linguistic evolution, at least, but otherwise still see everything the same way, and will often use words like "male" and "female" to directly refer to sex specifically despite the synonymous associations they have that make trans people still reject that kinna labeling**** even before you get into the actual ideological stuff that most trans people of either assigned sex reject.

But I think you need to have both. I think a gender conforming woman who has a penis goes to show that that gender role is not defined by having a vagina, nor is having a vagina defined by that gender role. Then, on top of that, you have GNC trans and cis women alike doing whatever the fuck, breaking down the idea that a woman is one thing in particular not only regarding sex but also in how they exist in society.

*ignoring for now that even sex isn't a binary; I would love if an intersex person could please add on addressing that if they felt they had anything to add

**until I get my breasts, anyway, after which I'll look like an otherwise gender conforming man with breasts

***distinct from TRFs, TIRFs are the ones who reskin TERF frameworks with trans validating language

****I consider myself male and specifically because of my body, but this is personal to me because my identity is based heavily in a lot of archetypical stuff that doesn't play a factor in the identity of others; one way to view it is that I like to use a certain shade of purple because it was used in a lot of paintings that inspired me, but other people use other shades of purple because they were inspired by different things that come at their self-portrait from a different angle

[genderkoolaid]

Oh my God, now I'm seeing people claim that trans men loosing their titles through the new FIDE regulations and only getting recognition back when detransitioning is good actually, because it affirms their gender. Will this argument never end? They just want to keep trans people from competing and having success, plus reaffirming that girl brains are weaker. Nothing about this is good.

AAAAAAAAAAHGHGHGHHGHGHG

Look taking away trans men's titles is 100% an extension of the patriarchal protectiveness over women as a category. And of the way transphobia views trans people as "really" whatever gender makes it easiest to attack us. Trans men are told they're "really" women because they need to go to a gyno, and then alienated from "women's" health clinics and women's shelters because they're too male.

The secret thing about trans people is that the patriarchy doesn't want any of us to be considered real women as we are. It wants to force transmascs into women's bathrooms and then beat the shit out of them for being trannies preying on women all the same. If you act like the beating-the-shit-out-of-them part is good because its "validating their gender" then you are supporting transphobia. A trans woman getting arrested for public nudity because she isn't wearing a top may be being treated like a woman, but that doesn't mean what's happening is good.

But because people believe that being seen as a man must always be a benefit, it means that even when being seen as a man is actively putting you in danger, they will still say its a benefit because being seen as a man is inherently beneficial. And that's transphobia for you. Its the same thing whether its being said to a transfem or a transmasc.

[atiianeishaunted]

before we get into the actual post, I need to have a lot of preamble and stuff, pretext or whatever just so people dont assume the worst! also probably will add to this and clean it up later on when im not exhausted lmfao

Trigger warnings: grooming, familial abuse, and things adjacent to that, those are the two major ones though, and obviously this is not a shiro safe zone. you are not being held at gunpoint to read this post, read it at your own discretion. nothing is explicit or like graphically described because why the hell would i do that

This is from the perspective of someone who has been groomed and abused by a family member. This is NOT a proshipping thing nor is this a place for proshippers to jump in and romanticize what i am about to discuss. Also I am autistic and have been nitpicking this show to pieces for 6-7 years now, this is just something I've personally noticed.

I am not saying ANY of this was intentional by dreamworks, im not delusional, but whether they intended it or not the pieces ARE there, the subtext IS there! "They didnt mean it like that" or "They just didnt show it" is not going to change my stance, see the previous sentence.

all i ask of you is that you hear me out please, let me cook. also this will be a mess, just bear with me okay!! this post isnt like an absolute guide to my take as i do not have the capacity to do that but moreso like "rewatch the show with this in mind youll see what i mean"

I have no clue how to start this but with the fact upon recent rewatches, I have grown a distaste for Shiro due to how he's genuinely just a bad person. His whole character is just like sucking the government's dick yk and being one of the good gays, i wont get into that here, theres a whole other rant i posted like months ago about him that covers that area of him being a bad person and my pure hatred for the "space dad" title the fandom had given him.

With that being said, i don't think about him often clearly as he irritates me but like he's always lurking in the back of my mind, you know those itches on the palm of you hand you gnaw on because itching wont work but biting doesn't do shit either, yeah like that. I've kind of always held the belief he's a groomer, not in /that/ way, more like grooming Keith into being a perfect soldier and tool for him to use and project onto however upon recent reflection and rewatching the show, i have come to the conclusion that the subtext of the show (INTENTIONAL OR NOT) (HEAVY EMPHASIS ON THAT!) has him fitting both definitions of grooming.

His and Keith's dynamic will always be inherently unhealthy, Shiro is not a good guardian to Keith at all and makes it clear that Keith isn't someone he genuinely cares about, even in their softer moments, Shiro is just manipulating him / using manipulation tactics. He preyed on an isolated, grieving kid who clearly needed support and used that mental state to his advantage, arguably worsening Keith's state and driving the poor kid insane. Not to mention the fact we discover later on that Shiro was hiding his relationship with Keith.

When Adam is arguing for Shiro to stay on Earth, he doesn't mention Keith at all, only himself and Shiro's health. You'd think Adam, Shiro's boyfriend, would know about a kid Shiro had taken in and would bring up the fact that Shiro has a kid relying on him but he doesn't. Because he didnt know. The Holts dont know about Keith either despite Shiro being very involved in their lives. (side note,, matt and keith.. u shouldve been besties u feral men.. . we lost so hard..) Not even that, literally NO ONE acknowledges that they have a connection besides Keith. Keith is the only one to label him as family, as his brother, but Shiro explicitly avoids labeling things or reaffirming the label, which seems harmless vaguely i suppose until we get into the next point. Like what do you mean you dont tell anyone you're attached to this kid. Why are you so scared of clarifying or saying something. Why would you be so afraid to admit you took in a kid? hm???

(also before i get to the next point id like to add just now the fact shiro frequently brought keith out into the middle of nowhere which is. insane. now that i think about it. wdym you only interact with him when you're very separated and alone from everyone else. what the FREAK. most of their interactions/genuine acknowledgement of their relationship is when they are isolated. frowns. this is so sinister im ill.)

Shiro's romantic relationships, which we only see two of them, shows he has a specific preference for those who blindly do what he wants without questioning him or fight back. He broke up with Adam (willingly abandoned him) and never acknowledges him again beyond a quick scene of him looking at Adam being confirmed dead on a screen, the scene of Adam's argument, hes openly pushing against Shiro and mentions he cannot wait for Shiro again, he cannot keep doing this. And Shiro never mentions him, not once, throughout the show unless its a scene with Adam. Curtis is his second partner and husband who we actually meet before the finale where it shows them getting married, and you wanna know all we see of Curtis? him blindly following orders by Shiro. And I think one clip of him working out in Kinkade's vlog(?).

Keith is super devoted to Shiro, its constantly brought up even in the handbook (which isnt. very reliable but still) where he talks about Shiro as if Shiro is the only thing in existence and basically his god which lines up with the show. Keith borderline worships the ground Shiro walks on and Shiro eats that shit up, thats his /type/. He picked Keith very intentionally. We discover that Keith's worst fear is Shiro (its implied at least) in season 2 episode 8, Keith passes out and hallucinates Shiro. Its important to note this is a hallucination first of all due to the fact this is how he views Shiro. His brain pulled from his interactions/memories of Shiro.

Shiro's behavior isnt met with Keith's usual lashing out or anger we see him use when the others are mean to him. he looks Resigned, exhausted, hurt and scared. He isnt confused, he isnt surprised Shiro is acting like this, hes simply resigned. Implying this is something hes actually experienced outside hallucination land.

This happens again when Clone Shiro and him fight, Keith doesn't lash out, he avoids hurting Shiro, none of the words coming out Shiro's mouth are met with the intended reaction. Keith constantly jumps to a fawn response around Shiro, constantly spouting "I love you" whenever Shiro's upset which is not normal behavior for Keith. At all. Everyone else is met with anger and him snapping but when it comes to Shiro, hes suddenly very anxious and tries to appeal to him as if thats what he was taught to do / thats what Shiro wants from him.

Keith's attachment and behavior towards Shiro is not normal at all. If Shiro was a responsible non ill-intentioned adult he would've nipped things in the bud, established a healthy bond with Keith and made sure to redirect him but he does not. He allows Keith to spiral over him and consistently encourages it.

Keith was like 13 max. When they first interact (timeline wise), Keith wasn't scared of Shiro, literally stole his car, snapped at him, etc. What did Shiro do to him? What the hell happened!!!

That is all I got for now, will probably clean this up later and add to it but like 4 people wanted me to post this and i dont wanna keep people waiting so . gestures vaguely. theres the gist of things. rewatch the show as i said at the start, youll understand what im saying better.

[lilderitter]

Hey there, it’s so nice to have you here on tumblr!

I was just wondering if you could give any extra backstory on how the Dreadlord first reached out to Aerin or his general experiences while growing up with shadow magic.

I’m a big Aerin-romancer so any lore about him would be super appreciated!

Hi! Honored to be here! I actually wasn't the in-house Aerin expert because our lead writer adores him and was an absolute monarch with his scenes so I don't want to speak out of turn. As I mentioned in another ask, I did write Kade's intervention with MC in Book 2 though where we talk about Shadow as it interacts with the humans as a race so I can talk about that and you can apply it to your headcanons where it fits for you, I hope?

So in Book 1, we view Shadow through the lens of Nifara's followers. Shadow is every negative emotion, every point of selfishness. It's wild and unpredictable and inherently cruel. In Book 1, Shadow is basically viral. A whisper from another realm can send it through where it shouldn't be, eventually consuming the sufferer until they are nothing but distilled cruelty and delusional ambition. It's not supposed to bother you that you kill the mayor or the orc pirate. They're too far gone, right? Impossible to save, so you have to kill them. (Sorry, Tyril. I really am.)

When we redefine the difference between Light and Shadow in Book 2, the way I personally understood it was the battle between creation/purity/order (Light) and destruction/complexity/chaos (Shadow). That is how the Shadow Court would understand it and explain it to Aerin, I think. If you think about the concept of a court in the nobility sense, while there is one monarch (the Dreadlord), courtiers are always jockeying for position, falling in and out of favor. The concept of the Shadow Court inherently implies a degree of complexity and flux that I think would appeal to anyone who considers themselves to be smart, but especially as an outsider. There are positive aspects to complexity, chaos, and even destruction, because they leave room for things to grow. And things have to grow. How else do they change?

I think all children remember the first moment they realized they were being lied to deep down, and that is what the Shadow Court always counts on. I imagine Aerin was such easy prey on that front. So many secrets in that family. SO many secrets. Imagine being told your tormentor is inherently more valuable than you, the Light's anointed, the next Divine Valleros. And then an (admittedly creepy) voice tells you that's all a lie and more so, you can use the truth to keep yourself safe.

I wish we had had more room to talk about Aurinae, Aerin, the Dreadlord, and even the role Nyra played as his tutor. (Not just because I love an "evil" lesbian but I do love an evil lesbian. *shoves Barbies of Nifara and Vali behind my back* How can you tell?) I think threading the needle of why different people join the Court is utterly fascinating. It's so different from the Old Gods.

While the Old Gods were conditioned in a way to obey Nifara, the Shadow Court are a loose group of competing factions by their very natures. Worshipping chaos doesn't exactly make you follow the leader super well. It's why the Dreadlord has to lean so heavily on shows of power. (Vali, on the other hand, might be "consumed" by Shadow, but she's still kind of unintentionally created a replica of Nifara's setup.)

For the record, when I say "consumed by Shadow" here, I mean that Shadow itself kind of functions as persistent intrusive thoughts, interrupting attempts at reality testing and empathy with the reminder that you deserve time and space too, and that no one has ever fully understood you. And that (plus some cool special effects) is how you make a supervillain, right loves?

[chaifootsteps]

Feel free to ignore this if you are fed up talking about this- but on the subject of proship. Personally after some deep thought and personal experience I believe all proship is inherently an adult topic whether or not the ships have sex in them or not. And by ships I mean dark ones such as incest, pedophilia and zoophilia.

Simply because proship content has been used to groom children before. (And from experience myself has caused a lot of confusion and anguish in my own life as a child)

though I’m not saying children won’t look at it- they surely will. I was one. But I consider it more like porn is, kids may watch it and we can’t stop them most of the time but we definitely can put more of an effort into labelling proship content as for mature/adult people who understand better the nuances of the imagery. Children are easily influenced and can do stupid shit with the media they are fed.

the proship community has to do a better job at kicking children out of the space and specifically labelling it as adult. Definitely don’t welcome kids in and engage that can lead to grooming whether they believe it not to be or whatever. Inherently showing a child images upon images of a parent X child it will fuck with them.

honestly this is why I’m not a part of the proship community regardless of if I now believe fiction can be separated from reality- but only by those who are intelligent enough to do so.

welp! That’s my mini rant. Let me know your thoughts.

I honestly think we need to scrap the whole thing and start over, because a big part of the problem is that "proship" now means extremely different things to different people, and that even words which should be unambiguous have become so muddied as to be incomprehensible; for example, fandoms calling an adult age gap pedophilia and a human/furry bestiality. It's become tribalistic nonsense, and that's bad, because predators will and do prey on the vulnerable under any label they think will make it easiest, and the situation as it stands only gives them places to hide.

Obviously, dark topics like incest, pedophilia, rape, etc. should to be tagged and ideally have some kind of disclaimer on them (no really, when I was a kid on the internet poking around in places I wasn't supposed to be, the disclaimers really did make a lot of difference.) It's not about scrubbing dark content completely, it's about making sure these kids know that there's a difference between fantasy and reality, and most importantly, the warning signs that someone might be trying to hurt them. I don't believe adults and kids who don't know one another in real life should ever be having extended private conversations online.

TL;DR: Everyone writes what they want and draws what they want, tags it appropriately, sets their own boundaries, and doesn't it to show it to kids. If you're showing weird shit to kids, you're a fucking creep regardless.

[rambling-red-wizard]

Wizards: A Controversy

I acknowledge, full well, that I am going to step on some toes with this one. Some of what I'm about to say will definitely rub people the wrong way. Before I begin, I want to say that I agree wholeheartedly that my stance is uncommon, morally questionable, and faithless. I am not here to question your faith, nor your validity, however- only to express how I have coped with my own. I've said before that I self-identify as a wizard. Not a magician/magickian- ceremony isn't my tallest teacup. Not a witch- the line that determines what makes a witch can get shaky when you examine the claims of influential witchcraft figures. Not a sorcerer- my magic isn't inherently malfeasant. Not a druid- I love nature, but I fear the wild. I am a wizard, which to me, means two things: I am really good at knowing things that other people don't bother to learn; and I live in a world where idea and analogy are inherently tied to matter and action. I have a saying: "Wizards are not good con men- con men are just bad wizards." The reason I say this is because I don't believe in magick. I use the Crowleyan spelling here because for as much as I believe that I can affect the world tangentially, through symbolic words, art, and rituals- I know that's a result of interpretation. I am only using magic because that is what I have decided to acknowledge this practice as. And if I can get consistent results in that mindset, I don't need to look at it any deeper than that- most people will see the results and accept, at least, that "The Wizard Did It Somehow". And that's that. The public doesn't care how Granny Fitz makes her famous apple pie, it's still the best damn pie they've ever tasted. We magic-users all talk in a kind of advanced, unspoken-of code, I've found. Aphorism, analogy, and fable all blend to create this rich landscape of phrases that are all too easy to take literally. Running around the forest with friends to restore dopamine becomes 'a moonlit coven ritual.' An anxiety episode or a deep depression that we cannot explain becomes a 'spiritual attack.' Problem solving or brainstorming with a visual aid becomes 'divination.' Therapy is shadow work. Cleaning and airing out our homes is consecration. Doing arts and crafts to deal with a break up is cord-cutting. Stopping to acknowledge our needs for rest and a warm drink is meditation. Our hopes, ambitions, fears, and loves are gods. (Deity work primer post) It never stops. And just in case you're frothing at the mouth with rage that I would dare reduce your spirituality to this- I don't ever want it to. I don't ever think it should. We live through analogies and ideas, and they have re-enchanted our lives, uplifted our mental and physical health, and improved us as people- all because we give enough to ourselves and spaces that we are able to take back from them when we need to, in the form of comfort, and reminders, and something to do with ourselves when we have nothing else. Please know that I am making this post for the little magi, the reluctant wizards, the beautiful curious enchanters- it is so easy to fall prey to pseudoscience and cult behaviors, and equally easy to dismiss this entire thing as a LARP or a farce because "that's not how the world works." Be reasonable, with yourselves and others, I beg you. Let the magical live alongside the mundane, because the 'us and them' is exhausting for everyone involved. It is magic. It is amazing. It is real, valid, useful, moving, empowering, and beautiful. It is not a substitute for the world around you.

Blessings, with love from this long-winded madman.

[disabledtranshellagay]

Intellectually disabled people are allowed to have relationships

My partner is intellectually disabled. She doesn't have the highest support needs, but they are still there. I am both her partner and a kind of parental figure. She is kinky and she wants to kind of mix the two together and that is her active choice, but for the most part I am platonically her parental figure. She is 27 i am 30. She has a history of csa. I am one of the only people she's had that has helped her to genuinely improve her mental health. She is a person. She is allowed to have relationships. I am not inherently predatory for dating her. And I am not a predator. She just has support needs that I can fill. Don't tell me she can only be helped by a therapist, and I shouldn't support her. She is going to therapy. When you see an intellectually disabled person dating someone, don't assume that they are being preyed upon. Actually see if they are and then act. To assume because someone is mentally disabled that that means they cannot have relationships is just abelism. To assume intellectually disabled people are puritan and cannot have kinks, INCLUDING THOSE THAT INVOLVE THEIR DISABILITY is abelism and infantilizing. Intellectually disabled people who have a younger mental age ARE NOT CHILDREN. Look out for them, protect them, care for them, stop them from being preyed upon, but do not overwrite their decisions unless you actually see someone prey upon them.

[ceasarslegion]

Honestly don't know why people are so grossed out by the idea of things like nuggets and hot dogs being made out of the animal parts we don't usually eat in roasts and such. I mean it's all just meat, just because it's a different part of the animal doesn't mean it's gross. What makes a shoulder haunch or pork belly inherently less "gross" than an ear or a snout? I think I would rather the whole thing be used than just to cut out the parts we consider "choice cuts" and discard the rest. That seems so wasteful to me.

Same with organ meat. There's nothing gross about organ meat imo, it's actually very healthy for you because it's full of all the most dense nutrients in the animal's body. Yeah it has a different texture because it's made of different kinds of muscle and it's not for everyone but there's nothing more gross about eating a liver than there is about eating the muscle. We are truly omnivorous animals and the predatory animal of your body does not know the difference between a beef tongue and a rib rack. It's all prey food to it

[stormsbourne]

The most baffling thing about the Kotaku article, besides spewing out typical Edelstan talking points, is how it thinks Claude wants the "status quo" and has an "us vs them" mindset. I'm sorry, but what?! Have they actually played the game?

it doesn't make any sense for dimitri either, who says time and again that he finds the current system abhorrent and wants to cultivate an era where the strong aren't able to easily prey on the weak who can't defend themselves. the entire point of fe3h is that it's four different takes on what needs fixing in a fucked up world. some of the takes are wrong and some are ill-informed, but every "lead character" of each route (edelgard, claude, dimitri, and rhea) have a different view on what fodlan really needs to become a better place.

and in regards to saying edelgard is the only right one, or even the most right one, I think it's just a western thing to view conquest as inherently productive and I think it's an instinct we should interrogate! not to mention that fire emblem is traditionally about either recovering conquered land or defending your home, eventually taking the fight to the invaders but only because you got invaded first. so crimson flower is trying to tell us something by nature of it being a route where you are doing conquest. you are on the side of the initiator. all of the lords in 3h pull from very distinct archetypes (dimitri is a combination of a classic lord and the swordsman/nobleman with a dark past, your ravens and such; claude is a combination of the wyvern riding noble/prince -- often villainous -- and the wandering/itinerant prince like lewyn or joshua). edelgard pulls from the red emperor, an exclusively villainous archetype very, very strongly and has little else to her.

all of this is also without getting into that japanese game writers are just going to have a very different outlook on this shit than online western leftists in their 20s. I find it happens with a lot of non-american media specifically, where people have a hard time understanding, say, japan's relationship with the aesthetics of christianity or catholicism, because they've got the american viewpoint on those religions and what they mean embedded so deeply that it doesn't occur to them.

anyway I don't know how anyone playing through cf watches dedue Do That on tailtean plains while a dour war march plays, and thinks to themselves, yeah, I'm the good guy here

[l0stfoster]

I wanna know more about the harpies they interest me so deeply ‼️

HARPIES TALK TIME!! They're some of my favorites to think about. I'm gonna re-post the little bits of info about them from the original post ab Cursed here, just so this can be like a little collective master list of Harpy info :D INFO BELOW THE CUT BECAUSE I'VE LEARNED MY LESSON!!! If I add more info about harpies I'll likely edit this post

- All the greaser Harpies look out for one another. It doesn't matter if they're not from the same gang, or if their gangs have tension; you look out for one another. They may necessarily not be each other's flock, but it’s natural for them to stick together. - They flock together as much as they do because a harpy escaped Tulsa once, completely disappeared, and it set all the east side harpies into a panic. They can't leave Tulsa, so it's better to always have a connection to ensure you won't HAVE to leave. - The harpies love to play fight. They will absolutely beat the shit out of each other and then grab lunch as if nothing happened. All of the harpies have bird habits too. Most of them sleep on their stomach because catching your feathers underneath yourself when sitting up hurts. - Gifting culture and flock marking with feathers is a huge thing for them all. Almost all harpies have feathers from other harpies, though the symbolism with those isn't for flock marking and stands more as a general display of loyalty. - All harpies have an inherent aversion/fear of cats since felines are a pretty big predator to birds. Even harpies of birds of prey or the birds you'd traditionally see that go for cats have that built-in instinct to avoid. (Little fun fact, they're not fans of Umbra, and Paul abuses that. He has let Umbra gnaw on Tim's feathers before out of spite) - Not a single harpy can see glass, they're all victims to the DX windows. - Pretty much all of them can enter torpor willingly as well. Some do it more often than others, it's a preference thing. - Most of the harpies can't fly well in rain, it's just difficult in most weather conditions that aren't clear skies. However, bad weather doesn't stop them from trying; it just means there's an increase in broken bones and hurt birds for a day. - All of them can chirp, coo, whistle, copy voices, etc. Certain harpies are better at it, as the kind of bird they are makes it either easier or harder. The Shepards are a good example, being black vultures and all. Vultures don't have voice boxes and usually make low growling sounds instead of other noises. But since the shepherds are harpies and not full birds, they can make normal bird chitters and such but it’s raspy because they’re not really supposed to be able to make those noises. - They're very territorial by nature. - They generally don't eat bird meat for cultural reasons, but every now and then the birds of prey and scavengers do. It's sort of in their nature to be uneasy about it, though, and they're not fond of watching people eat bird meat either. - They all have hollow bones, so they're pretty damn light. - A lot of them affection bite. - One baby harpy gets adopted by pretty much any harpy in the proximity. Two's sister was a victim of every Harpy taking the chance to fly with her, preen her, etc. It's like that motherly thing where moms will whip around if they hear any child yell "mama", only it's that the harpies will be up and arms the second a baby harpy makes a sound. - On that note, though, the babies get bulled (lightly) for their goofy-looking wings. Mostly the ones who look like blended cotton balls as babies. Some baby birds are REALLY ugly. - They have a really good sense of smell and even better eyesight. I would not want one of them hunting me down. - Their talons are hella sharp and their nails usually get sharp as fuck too.

[velvetvexations]

wasg going to send a more coherent ask but it became. this. thanks for listening if you do and have a nice day :)

i really really dont want to assume anything but sincerely a lot of the gender discourse sounds really really fuckin american. like im not trying to say that everyone dismissing t-androphobia is american but it is sincerely kind of breathtaking how many people think bigotry is this kind of inherent brainworm that transcends culture, context, and all physical boundaries

when sometimes it is literally necessary to understand that a lot of this Is just a distribution issue. the world and people's lives are massively narrow and patchy. posts like "you never see x happening" drive me bonkers because literally doesn't mean anything? it's the black swan paradox all again. i feel like it's done me a world of good to realize that i could run around at a speed of 10 mph for the rest of my life and still not be able to see 90% of what people experience and know to be real

also a huge part of this debate leaves me scratching my head because there's this assumption that someone who does not experience some sort of oppression is forever unable to understand such oppression...and then as this idea evolves we get all sorts of fun varieties like "trying to relate to some sort of oppression with your own experiences is presumptuous appropriation" (odd to me because at least as i've been taught sometimes this can be helpful to comfort and connect to people) "doing so means you're jealous of the perceived attention oppressed people get" (this one is silly to me) "everyone different from you can never actually ever be your friend because your oppression is central to your identity and if they don't understand it they will tear you down" (just downright not true, in my experience, though of course, it's also entirely possible that for someone else's experience, it HAS been true.)

i don’t necessarily think that anyone who buys into the tma/tme divide is just someone who has never experienced oppression before, though. honestly, some of the blogs vilest towards transmascs are, from what ive seen, run by people who are struggling or isolated currently. i can’t help but feel like this rhetoric is preying on people who feel alone and perceived as an animal by everyone around them by telling them that this is true, but that this time their isolation can be self-imposed to keep all those enemies out. it all leaves a really fuckin bad taste in my mouth that it especially targets vulnerable people.

(failed coherent ask anon) more rambling idk if this would have fit into one asks’ wordcount. people are bringing up past ace discourse and i agree. almost all of the posts are also phrased in a similar way, just kinda funny to me. anyways, it’s actually a really cowardly maneuver every time. it goes like this: we have determined group A is mathematically less oppressed than the umbrella group we have determined that us, group B, are mathematically oppressed more for a multitude of reasons, we bully and belittle group A bonus steps: find discussions that are naturally happening around the oppression of group A and convince people that these discussions are silencing, proof of jealousy of oppression, proof of some uniting whinyness/cringyness/personality defect of the whole group, or proof of oppression towards group B people react to us bullying and belittling group A no matter how vile the bullying, no matter how harmful the bullying proves to be, no matter how much proof of real oppression group A may provide, you can brush it off because of the main mantra, “group A is not oppressed but group B is.” we can structure every conflict between the two as inherently oppressive because A are always the oppressors, and B are always the oppressed. final step: if anyone from group A calls out the bullying, we can again go to bonus step 4 and use this as proof that A are trying to make themselves out to be oppressed, which is ridiculous, because A are and always have been oppressors it’s such a lazy, automatic argument. ace attorney would eat those chucklefucks up. (i know nothing about ace attorney)

My Ace Attourney fan friend probably agrees lol. Such circular fucking logic.

[pinkpastels113]

I'm holding up my hands like a little kid waiting for candy and am asking for some more vamp!chloe beale headcanons pretty please

PHEW the way i saved this ask for last bc i am READY to give you a lil treat rolo (im so glad there's people also feral for vamp!chloe):

inspired from cheapthrillsbeca's fic(s)

chloe can tell how the person that she's drinking the blood from is feeling. like if they're scared, horny, on cloud nine, etc

chloe can walk in the daylight. "evolution" is the best response HAHA cuz like dude it's the 21st century come on now-

(but maybe she would need like high spf sunscreen or an umbrella or shades or something if she has a beach day or anything like that where she would be in harsh direct sunlight for long periods of time, otherwise she would get vampire sunburn/major headache if not)

she CAN drink human blood and it DOES taste amazing to her but she usually drinks animal blood unless someone specifically requests to be bitten and drank from (but more about this below)

they def (bechloe) have HEAVY make-out sessions/rut when she drinks from beca ADFGHJSK and beca is desperate/horny for it

chloe doesn't need human food to survive. i think it's kind of like. a snack sorta thing for her. like a kitkat. like you cant get full from it but you can enjoy the taste and share the activity (eating human food) with friends and catch up w them

OKAY MY OWN

vampires are inherently sexual and hot. i personally believe that in order for them to "allure" their "prey" they have to have some kind of strong pull of attraction radiating from them, almost magnetic, esp towards people that they also find attractive, so that it makes it easier to... yknow :)

even tho it was mainly for pp spookfest my fic implies that chloe has this. like. hunger on halloween every year for human blood. bc like that line from hocus pocus: "halloween is the one night of the year where the spirits of the dead can return to earth", and like. y'know? the one night of the year where chloe feels particularly inhuman/undead ig. she becomes a tiny bit feral (kind of like the vampire version of hangry for us)

(beca counts the days down till halloween for this reason^^)

her fangs don't exactly retract? or protrude. they just sort of sit there in her mouth. but they extend and become sharper when drinking human blood. or when she wants to. (bc just bc she won't until she gets consent or when it's halloween and she needs it doesn't mean that she doesn't crave it from time to time lmao.) like basically her fangs are just sharper than her surrounding teeth (i have two teeth that are sharper than the others lmao so this is not that farfetched) but it's not super noticeable until you get really close but they will become even pointy-er and longer when she's drinking/thinking about drinking (for those hazbin hotel watchers out there this is the same concept as charlie shifting into demon mode whenever she's super mad, upset, frustrated, and im assuming Excited as well :))

oh also her eyes kind of shine when the whole fang thing happens

havent decided when she's Turned yet but hmm 1970s? during the wars? what do we think yall

super flirty bc "they won't last anyway so might as well as fun while they do" and "i'll outlive them so might as well fill every second with love" kinda thing. but then beca comes alongg teehee

that's it for now!! but open to thinking more about it :33