#it gets progressively less sane

[orbitfalls]

wip tag!!!

tysm to @sugarsnappeases for tagging me!! <3

Rules: In a new post, post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

out of order

east of eden

ultraviolence

red

pandora going absolutely batshit crazy and killing voldemort xoxo figure out title later (yes the document is called that😭)

happy little cute vintage bandfic with no tragedies and no plot whatsoever

rosier twins character study

silly drag race au

mary centered thingie ???

that's... it, actually. some of them are pretty long (out of order is almost 80k!!) and some are just snippets of midnight genius.

i don't have that many writer mutuals (new to tumblr heheh) but i'm tagging anyone who wants to do this!!! mwah<333

[non-un-topo]

@captainshakespear requested the tog crew + Canadian winter, and what started out cozy just got progressively more chaotic

[lavendermin]

Ououghhhh vampire Jing yuan jndjejdjcjr

The soft intimacy paired with the bitter twist that comes with it, in the way he holds you so softly as his teeth press into your neck-

There’s equal parts dread and anticipation when your neck is waiting for that familiar prick of sharpened fangs. The momentary few seconds of pain is something you’ll never get used to. But Jing Yuan feels the way your scent grows thicker—heady with the rush of adrenaline pumping through the veins in your neck.

He gulps almost audibly. Parched.

But he needs to keep up this little ritual, for the sake of keeping sane and not devolving to the monotonous cycle of feeding over and over and over like an animal driven by the brink of extinction. He needs to feel.

cw | blood, suggestive

Not human, no. That’s something he’s long given up on.

Just Jing Yuan is enough. To feel like he was, or who he could be, or who he wants to be. Just… him.

Intimacy, longing, exhilaration—he holds back the primal instinct to feed on the crimson life that courses through you. The very essence that keeps him sane for a few spare nights.

Perched on his lap you lay against him, his hands wandering the plush of your thighs so warm and fragrant. There’s still a bandage wrapped around one of them where he sunk his fangs into their inviting delicacy a couple weeks ago. He had his fill in blood and body, his shame put to rest as you gripped his hair and urged him to where you need him—mind high on adrenaline and blood loss.

His breath is hot on your neck as he licks a stripe along the pulse that quickens under his tongue. A tender kiss pressed just under your jaw. His affections—or his preparation as he likes to call it—made you squirm in his lap. It earns a deep, velvety chuckle from him, vibrations you feel against you where you lean further into him.

“I’m beginning to think you look forward to this little rendezvous more than I do, songbird,” Jing Yuan teases. His fang just barely grazes your skin, pulling a stuttering gasp from you.

“Being the general’s lifeline does things to one’s ego,” you bite back with a breathy laugh. A shiver courses through your body as he teasingly presses his fangs just enough to feel discomfort but not enough to break the skin.

“Noticeably, with how you wear rather… enthusiastic outfits to these meetings. What would the people think?” The question is sarcastic with a playful glint in his eye.

“The general I know doesn’t care for rumors as long as peace is long-standing. Besides, I hear the general is quite fond of my daring little red dresses.”

He chuckles at your quick witted arguments. And this is what he most craves. The faux normalcy—the way you never miss a beat, never treat him significantly different with conversations. Just you. Just him.

He nuzzles his nose along a prominent jugular vein, arms hugging you tighter against him. And he breathes in deep, grounding himself and taking in the sound of your pulse that is all too apparent for him. His hunger is progressing.

Jing Yuan acknowledges he is greedy. Definitely needy. It’s a cruel intimacy he seeks from you often. But this is sound company he’s made with a little unconventional transaction between you both.

Of course you love him. You wouldn’t be baring your neck for him every few days if you didn’t. Going through special diets for blood quality and too many doctor appointments to count—your selflessness was your self-destruction. But you wouldn’t put your fate in anyone else’s hand.

He doesn’t envy your humanity. Nor does he wish to make you his equal in this vampiric curse of abundance. It’s simply you and him and these vulnerable moments before he feels less than himself as he takes from you.

[melodygatesauthor]

Always Yours, Never Mine

Yandere Miguel O'Hara X f!Reader

Universe Three - The Therapist

Series Masterlist - Beta Read by @campingwiththecharmings

Summary

Summary: I arrived in a different universe, and in this one you’re a therapist. I saw your name on one of the doors when the orderlies were dragging me down the hall to a cell. I guess luck was on my side, I wouldn’t have to search very far for you this time, not that I would’ve been given a chance anyway. When the orderlies saw me, I think I scared them and they thought I was delusional. They took my watch, I’ll have to get that back…but I have to find you first.

Tags/Warnings

NSFW, dub-con due to identity issues, non-con, rape, More tags on the masterlist.

Word Count: 3.8k

It was a morning like every other.

You pulled into the parking lot of the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane, coffee in hand, ready to start your day. You loved your job as a therapist, especially when you felt like everything was in order. You had a good handle on your patients, all of them making good progress on their goals; nothing felt more rewarding as a mental health provider.

But you weren’t prepared for the wrench the unsuspecting six foot nine man was about to throw your way.

You wondered if your success was the reason you were assigned the new and highly delusional patient. After getting into your office and pulling out his nearly empty file, you looked at him from across your desk, his eyes calm, but unsettlingly trained on you. He had a slight smirk curling at the corners of his lips, as though he were trying to appear less intimidating. His size alone was enough to make any sane person quiver. He didn’t even try to tug on his restraints though, and that put you a little more at ease.

“Miguel O’Hara…” you said, closing the thin manila folder in front of you. “It’s nice to meet you I’m–”

“I know your name.”

Miguel sat, strapped uselessly to the wheelchair the orderlies had brought him in. He knew he could rip the restraints off at any given moment, but when he’d heard he was being assigned to you as his therapist, he decided to behave. He needed to see you; he needed to talk to you.

This was a change of pace. In his universe, you were a graphic designer. It was something you’d always enjoyed. In the second one, despite working at a coffee shop, you still seemed to have a hobby of creating artwork for some side income. Now you were a therapist. It was unexpected, but in the multiverse, anything was possible. Miguel was just glad that it seemed like in this universe, you’d never met him before, making this a lot easier - he didn’t have to worry about eliminating his alternate -.

“The orderlies said that you were wandering the halls when they found you? They said that when you saw my name you specifically asked for me to treat you. Why?” You crossed your legs and narrowed your eyes at the man.

You were careful while talking to this one. He was massive in size, not only in his height, but this man wasn’t skipping arm day, that’s for sure. You trusted him, despite being told not to trust patients - they can be manipulative - but you knew he was strong enough to rip his arms from the restraints at any given moment, and yet he sat there. To say you were intrigued was an understatement. Who was this man? And how did he know you?

After wasting so much time in the last universe, he wanted to change his approach. He wanted to try being more direct and honest with you. With a deep sigh, he pressed his lips together and looked you in the eye. You looked good all dressed up in your little pencil skirt and white blouse. He’d never seen you in a lip color that shade of red, but he liked it. Even if you weren’t quite the same, he liked the way you looked in this universe.

“Because, I traveled a long way to find you mi vida,” he started, smirking at you rather pathetically, but he was desperate for you to understand, “and I’m going to tell you why you’re going to take these restraints off my wrists and say yes when I ask you to marry me.”

Your patients had said some crazy shit before. Being in an insane asylum, even a minimum security one, naturally you would expect to hear some outlandish things, but that had to be the most delusional thing you’d heard to date. You furrowed your brow, continuing to take notes. You hummed in amusement.

“You’re very bold, Mr. O’Hara–”

“Miguel.”

“Miguel.” You cleared your throat, smirking in an attempt to show that you weren’t fazed by his surprising statement, “you’ve piqued my curiosity, but I’m certainly not sure why you think I would do that.”

“Ask me.”

“Ask you what?” You asked, scribbling more notes on your legal pad.

“Ask me how I became so wracked with grief that I created a device to travel the multiverse just so I could find you again,” he said, eyes darting between yours to see if you believed a word coming out of his mouth.

You were stunned. You’d seen patients in a catatonic state, but this wasn’t like that, he was far too clear as he spoke. This also didn’t present as the usual schizophrenic case you would expect to see from the majority of your patients. He was completely calm, making eye contact, and very direct in his line of thinking. He was either so deep in his delusion that he genuinely believed everything coming out of his mouth…or he was telling the truth.

“Miguel, why don’t you tell me more about how you got here, let’s start with that.”

Redirection didn’t always work, but if you could find a crack in his story, you might be able to get him back to a basis in reality.

“I used my watch, the one that security took from me. Gonna need that back by the way, very dangerous if it gets into the wrong hands.” He leaned forward a little, eyes narrowing on you. “I used my watch to travel from a universe where you were a barista with a piss poor attitude, to this one where you’re a therapist apparently.”

You scoffed, “I was a barista?”

Miguel could tell you weren’t buying it, so he decided to be more direct now. 

“Listen, I’m looking for the universe where you don’t die,” he watched your expression to see how you’d react.

Regardless of how delusional he sounded, something like that would make anyone feel a bit uneasy. You shifted in your chair, putting your pen down on the desk. Miguel’s expression softened, likely seeing that his words had an effect on you. After all the years of you being a therapist, you’d never let a patient make you uncomfortable like that. 

“I think that’s enough for today,” you said, standing up and heading for the door.

“Wait!” Miguel yelled, wheelchair creaking forward a smidge when his body lurched to try and stop you. It worked. You turned and looked at him. “You have to believe me. I’m just trying to keep you alive. If you don’t listen to me…you’ll die.”

“Goodbye, Mr. O’Hara,” you said, opening your office door. “You’re going to be reassigned to a different therapist. I don’t think I’m a good fit for you.”

“No no no, wait!” He pulled his hands free from the restraints, something you both knew he was capable of.

He grabbed you by the shoulders, “Help!” You yelled, only resulting in his strong hand covering your mouth quickly.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to talk,” he said, voice trembling in desperation.

You looked terrified, and rightfully so. This huge man that you’d never met before was towering over you, staring at you with such intensity, you thought you might faint in terror. He took his hand off your mouth and held a finger to his lips.

“Shh, mi vida, por favor,” he spoke softly, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“G-go sit down in your chair n-now,” you said, legs shaking wildly.

He put his hands up in surrender, showing you that he was willing to comply with your request. He walked over and sat down in his chair, the weight of his body forcing the equipment to sigh under his frame. There was a silence in the room, a silence that made it easy to hear your own heartbeat pounding in your ears. You took a deep breath.

Miguel recognized that face, you were going to run. He sighed, he’d tried a different approach this time, and it didn’t pay off. Instead, his attempt had you rushing out into the hall, shouting for an orderly or two to help you. He didn’t fight them when they ran in, sticking him with a couple of syringes, being too massive for only one to do the job.

You didn’t stop thinking about him for the entire night. His words rang through your mind like a broken record:

‘I’m looking for the universe where you don’t die’.

No matter how hard you tried to shake it from your mind, it was impossible. For a week you managed to avoid talking to him again, but your curiosity - or perhaps it was your anxiety -, got the better of you. Your co-worker, and the patient coordinator, Stacy, spoke to you exactly one week after you’d last spoken to Miguel.

“He’s still asking for you every day,” she said, handing you his chart, “Dr. Harrow doesn’t want to work with him anymore, says he’s not getting anywhere with Mr. O’Hara.”

You took his file from her hands, looking it over, “So you put him back in there with me, knowing how dangerous he is and that he’s targeting me? That doesn’t sound like the best idea.”

She followed you down the hall as you walked, “I said that, but the higher ups insisted that you should see him. They gave him more sedatives and stronger restraints than last time so–”

“So nothing, I can’t believe they’d do this,” you said, tone laced in frustration.

You weren’t sure if you were upset because you were worried he was going to physically harm you, or if you were worried that there was validity to the words that had kept you up every night for the last several nights. You stopped in front of your office door, letting out a deep exhale. Stacy touched your back, patting it gently.

“Well, at least he’s hot.” She chuckled.

You rolled your eyes at her before opening the door and stepping into your office. There he was, sitting in the chair, eyes hooded from the sedatives when he looked up at you. His restraints were doubled, both his legs and wrists tied down with metal this time, rather than the flimsy leather from before. You felt a little better, but you were still afraid of what he might say. No patient of yours had ever been so direct when targeting you before.

“Hello again Mr. O’Har–”

“Miguel…or you can just call me ‘baby’, the way you used to,” he said, words coming out in a slow drawl due to his mentally inhibited state.

“Miguel…” you said with a sigh, “I’ll continue to treat you, but you need to be more appropriate when you speak to me or you’ll have to seek treatment elsewhere.”

“Did I scare you? I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He sounded genuine, eyes looking up at you from under his lashes. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of admitting your unease, so you nodded with a meek ‘thanks’, before sitting down behind your desk. He leaned over and wiped his drool slick lips on his shoulder, unsuccessful in cleaning the mess. Inappropriate as it may have been, you weren’t going to let the poor guy sit there in a mess like that.

You took a tissue and walked over to him. Miguel couldn’t believe you would touch him, not after the way he’d frightened you. He thought this version of you would be impossible to get through to after his first interaction with you, but perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps being blunt with you was going to work after all.

You held the tissue in your hand and wiped his lips. You damned yourself for mentally commenting on how soft they looked. With a shaky breath, you finished and sat back down at your desk. You crossed your arms over your chest.

“You didn’t want to talk to anyone else so…go ahead…talk,” you took out a notebook and a pen, waiting for him to start.

“Was that Stacy? Or maybe it was Mira?” He chuckled, watching your eyes flick up quickly to lock onto his.

“So you saw my co-worker’s name plate at some point, I presume? Who let you walk by the front desk of the asylum?” You asked, feeling a pit of unease forming in your stomach at his mention of your two closest friends and coworkers.

He shrugged, “I saw Stacy’s yes, is Mira not your co-worker in this universe?”

He could see you getting anxious. You always clicked your pen incessantly when you did, back in his universe. He wasn’t trying to make you feel crazy, but rather, he was trying to make you realize that he was sane. Finally, you looked at him again.

“M-Mira used to work here, but how do you know–”

“What about Emily? Your step sister…”

“No…no, no, no…” you got up quickly, heading for the door.

Miguel called your name, and you stopped, turning slowly to face him.

“I’m not trying to scare you, mi vida, I’m trying to save your life. If you would…please…entertain me for just a moment.” He rattled his wrists in his chair. “I couldn’t do anything to hurt you even if I wanted to. I’m fucking…I’m drooling on myself and I’m stuck to this damn chair.”

You stared at him for a while, considering your options. If he was insane, which was the most likely explanation, then helping him through this was your duty as a therapist. If he was telling the truth…you needed to try and figure out what he meant anyway. No matter which way you sliced it, the only way you could sleep at night would be to hear him out. You slowly walked back to your desk and sat down. When you picked your pen back up you realized that you were shaking.

“Have you been stalking me?” You asked bluntly.

“No,” he returned your tone. “I know you, I know you well, and if you’ll hear me out with an open mind for just a second, I can explain everything to you.”

You gestured with your arms to give him the floor. He nodded, thanking you in Spanish before letting out a deep sigh.

Miguel told you everything, from the day you first met in his universe to the day you died. He talked in depth about things in your life that he knew only you would know. He damned himself for crying while he explained how much he loved you. Then he went on to tell you about the second universe, where you worked at a quaint little coffee shop barista, but he didn’t express the same emotion toward that version of you as he had the first.

When he was done, you sat there in awe, doing your best to process. Not only did you believe his every word, you were trying not to fall into an existential crisis upon learning that the multiverse might actually exist. You gulped, reminding yourself quickly that if a patient is delusional enough, they can tell a lie and still pass a polygraph test. All it takes is for them to believe that lie to be true with all their heart. If he was a good enough stalker, he could easily be making all of this up, and combined with heavy delusions, you had a recipe for someone too crazy for your paygrade. He needed more care than you could provide.

“Miguel…” you looked him in the eye, unsure of how to respond.

A buzzer saved you, indicating that the time for your session was at an end. He didn’t fight, he’d learned the hard way that breaking the rules of the asylum would get him nowhere. Regardless, he couldn’t continue like this for long, he was wasting too much time. If this version of you wasn’t going to see things his way, he needed to move on.

One more session…

Both of you were thinking the same thing without realizing. You would give him one more session to sway you one way or another, and he would give you one more to make up your mind before he moved forward.

He was already waiting for you in your office when he heard you clicking down the hall toward the door. He heard you stop, and then Stacy started talking to you.

“I texted Mira and she’s down, you wanna come out for drinks with us?” Stacy asked.

Miguel’s heart nearly stopped. Was this it already? Was this the day you’d die if he didn’t stop you from going out with your damn friends? He thought about the last universe though. You still died, even before you were supposed to go out with your friends, as though it were a static event that happened in every universe you existed in.

“Yeah sure that sounds fun! I’ll meet you at your place around seven?”

Once you finished finalizing your plans, you made your way into the office and sat down behind your desk, trying not to make eye contact with the man whose words had kept you up at night over the last week. You averted his gaze until you couldn’t anymore, finally looking at him and sighing heavily.

“Hi Miguel, how was your week?”

You started the same way you started every session.

“If you go out with your friends tonight, you’ll die,” he said, speaking coldly, “I told you that’s how you died before, remember?”

“You really expect me to believe that? Come on. I’ve been wracking my brain all week trying to decide how I felt about what you said and I’m not buying it.” You spoke with little conviction, voice wavering slightly. “Plus in the second universe you said I died getting hit by a car, not from being in a car so–”

“I know, but the days started the same both times, your friends talking about meeting up for drinks and you agreeing to go,” he sighed, “What have you got to lose, hm?” He looked intense now. “If I’m wrong, then you can toss me in my cell for the rest of my days and label me insane, but if I’m right, then you’re going to come back here and realize that I’m telling the truth.”

“How…how will I know that you’re telling the truth versus making this up?”

You’d left out the fact that Stacy and Mira died in each universe as well, not wanting to complicate things by mentioning them. He looked up at you, brow furrowed and face full of frustration. He was hoping that after you finally believed him, that this alternate version of you would be worth all this time he’d put into you.

“You’ll just know.”

He was right.

The next day you came into work, despite having just lost your two closest friends, to confront the insane man who suddenly didn’t seem so insane. If you’d been in the car with them that night, you would’ve died alongside them. You stormed into your office after demanding Miguel be brought in to see you immediately. You’d grabbed his watch from storage, putting it on your desk.

Success had never looked so heartbreaking. Miguel hated seeing you so distraught. Your bottom lip was trembling and your eyes were glossed over with tears. He hated being right sometimes. You pointed to the watch with a shaking hand. Your face held a combination of anger and sorrow etched in every pore.

“You’re saying that this thing is…you can travel to other universes–”

“Si, honey but listen–”

“-going on but I believe you, I really fucking believe you–”

Your eyes were crazed, “mi vida, don’t touch that please, it’s not–”

“-through the multiverse and I mean, you’re insane and I’m insane for even thinking you might–”

You picked up the watch, holding it in your hand and putting it on your wrist while you continued to talk over Miguel’s desperate protests. He started wriggling in his chair, trying desperately to get free. You didn’t understand how that thing worked. It wasn’t made for you.

“-I thought to myself why the hell didn’t I just take this damn thing and prove once and for all that–!”

It wasn’t made for you…

When Miguel built it, he’d put in a failsafe to prevent anyone else from taking it and using it. If someone stole it from him, or he ended up in an insane asylum and had it confiscated, they wouldn’t be able to take it to another universe, leaving him behind and helpless. Since there was no telling where the watch would take him, he wanted to prevent the possibility of ending up in one that didn’t have modern technology, and getting stuck there…without you. So it was hardwired to work with only his DNA, and no one else’s.

It would appear that his failsafe ended up being what killed you in that universe. You pressed the button on the watch, waiting for something to happen with bated breath. Miguel hoped that his device would malfunction. He’d taken a liking to this version of you, but it didn’t. He watched as your body convulsed, flesh bubbling and tearing from the inside out as the energy that would normally transport him from one place to another coursed through you.

Your screams would be etched into his memories for the rest of his days. It didn’t matter that you weren’t the original, it was still your voice crying for help and ringing through his ears. He’d never seen anything so horrific, not even in horror films. You were gone again, and this time he felt despair again. He almost wished that if you were going to die, that you’d gone in the car with your friends instead, that way he wouldn’t have to go to the next universe covered in your blood and with the sound of your cries on repeat in his head.

He managed to shimmy himself over to the part of your blazer where he knew you kept your ring of keys. Tipping over onto the floor he could get to them, moving his wrist in a way that just barely reached the lock holding his hand in place. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, truly, but when three orderlies and a security guard tried to stop him from getting his bag containing his personal items, including that photo of the original you, he had no choice. He even warned them to stay out of his way, but when they didn’t listen, he was forced to make them.

Stepping over their bodies, bag in hand and watch on his wrist, he activated the device. He was still searching for the perfect you.

Thank you for reading! You can support your favorite writers by the simple act of reblogging AND liking! Thank you again!

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Miguel O'Hara Masterlist

Main Masterlist

[inkyarcturus]

give me all your headcanons for snape nEOOOOWWW (pretty please 🤎)

Okay so I think I’m going to break this down into chunks because I have a LOT of thoughts so here’s the first chunk :D

TW: for child abuse?

PRE HOGWARTS:

it’s pretty much canon that Sev came from an abusive home with an alcoholic muggle father and a pure blood mother.

Personally, I believe that his mother Eileen Prince was disowned by her family upon marrying Tobias. Although at first they were a happy couple, Eileen becomes pregnant with Severus and reveals to Tobias that she is a witch. Tobias, coming from an era where witchcraft is demonized and realizing the drain that a child has on his finances, becomes abusive.

Eileen tries her best to keep the abuse from Severus as much as possible, leading to her stopping herself from using magic as she believes that would just anger Tobias even more.

Severus is absolutely a mamas boy as a child and you can pry that headcanon out of my cold dead hands. He would do anything for his mama, growing up hearing stories about Hogwarts, magic and the legacy of the Princes, it was all he had to stay sane. Whenever Tobias was out of the house for extended periods of time, Eileen would brew with Severus as well, usually healing potions.

He would often be seen wearing his mother’s clothes because of the families lack of funds but also just because it was a way to connect with her.

The first time Severus uses accidental magic was to help his mom avoid Tobias, blasting him unconscious. It’s a mess of emotions for the rest of the night. Eileen is panicking, worrying about her husband’s health and her own but also trying to celebrate Severus’ magic so he knows magic isn’t bad (pure bloods are aware of obscurials). Severus is in tears worrying about his mother’s injuries, unable to understand the situation. Eileen calms him down enough to get him to agree to never tell Tobias about this incident.It happens again more times afterwards.

Severus is sensitive as a child, always crying despite his father’s anger towards his tears. He becomes agitated with himself, being unable to control himself. His father’s words haunt him every time he cries.

He goes years without any friends, not going to school because of his magical status, but still being allowed to go out to play and escape his fathers grasp.

The kids usually don’t like him cause of his poor hygiene, odd clothing and even stranger words. He’s rather intelligent for his age, but being raised in an abusive household has only taught him vulnerability is weakness and everything is a threat.

When he meets Lily he learns how to let go of his shields. He’s made his first magical friend, someone who doesn’t mind his clothing, or hair, or overall oddness.

He goes over to the Evan’s family house at least once a week. Lily’s parents constantly fuss over him, asking if he’s alright or need food or clothing. He constantly denies it because he doesn’t want to burden them, or have them look too closely at his home life

Eileen is so grateful her son has a friend she is brought to tears wherever she hears Sev talk about Lily (which he does, a lot). Whenever she knows Tobias will be out of the house she’ll ask Sev to bring Lily over so all three of them can make potions together.

Petunia is less receptive of him, constantly starting arguments with Lily over why she even talks to him, but generally leaves them alone to stay in her room.

Sev was always quiet as a child, he would play silently whenever on his own, keeping his thoughts within his imagination. His preferred method of play, pre-Lily, was organizing objects. He would organize them by color, shape, name, then mix them back up and start again.

With Lily he would let his imagination run wild, playing the part of dragon, knight, prince and spy, usually acting as a helper to Lily. They call each other sun and moon. He sees himself as a reflection of Lily’s light. His self esteem will only get lower as the years progress.

Occasionally, Lily would get extra allowance (Lily’s parents purposefully gave for Sev) and they would go to a corner store to buy sweets. I imagine he has a pallet for less overwhelming sweets, like matcha flavoring, but as he grows older he convinces other people he likes bitter sweets the most. I think he has an appreciation for berries the most.

Hope you appreciate these :D think took almost an hour to write and I keep on wanting to add more but this is honestly already too long :,)

Side note I just realized I can’t do multiple posts on one ask? So if you want the second chunk can you please send another ask :,D

[thisapplepielife]

Written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles December challenge.

That First Terrible Step

Prompt Day 18: Free Space (Hurt/Comfort) | Word Count: 1000 | Rating: T | CW: Injury | Tags: Post-S4, Eddie Munson Lives, Physical Therapy, Recovery, Pre-Steddie, Building Friendship, Caring Steve, Eddie POV

Eddie is too tired to deal with any of this today. Physical therapy takes too much out of him and he doesn't feel like he's making any goddamn progress, anyway. 

He flops his head back against the pillow and closes his eyes. His leg hurts, and it doesn't want to cooperate, not with that much muscle loss. The bats took a big enough chunk, that he's having to learn to walk again with this new body.

Losing that much thigh muscle isn't exactly ideal, he quickly learned. It had gotten infected with what they called Necrotizing Fasciitis, and it was a particularly stubborn strain they'd never seen before, so they didn't know how to treat it effectively. So they kept cutting, whittling away, trying to save him.

Trying to save his leg. 

They succeeded, but now he needs to learn to walk all over again, missing part of what made it easy, before.

Steve had it, too. On both his sides, and the hospital was baffled at what they had been exposed to, together. 

Despite Robin's fretting, it wasn't rabies. The hospital decided it was from bacteria growing in Lover's Lake, and they went with it. They didn't really have any other choice, they couldn't exactly tell the truth about the fucking bats.

The kids visit. Robin, Nancy. His bandmates. They all come in shifts, and switch out with Uncle Wayne and sit with Eddie, to keep him sane. Motivated.

Steve. 

Steve's here more hours a day than he's gone. 

He recovered, his sides eventually healed, and he was released. 

But he hasn't gone far. Steve pulled him out of the Upside Down, and now he's determined to pull him out of this rehab center.

"I'm too cold to walk," Eddie says, stalling.

Steve takes off his yellow sweater, and pulls it over Eddie's head.

"Arms," Steve demands, and Eddie raises them. "There, now you can walk."

Steve never lets him get out of it, no matter what he tries.

He doesn't want to take steps that are excruciating. Trying to use muscles that just aren't there, not anymore. His therapist stands beside him, as Steve stands in front. 

Steve's walking backwards through the parallel bars with ease, as Eddie hangs onto them for dear life, each step a fight.

"That's good, that's really good," Steve says, and Eddie knows it's not. It's not good at all, but he's trying.

Steve counts him down. 

"Four more steps," Steve says, and it helps. 

"Three," Steve updates him, as he forces his leg to move.

Step two isn't as bad, that leg still works.

"One more," Steve says, and Eddie gathers up his strength, and takes it. Foot coming down through the pain.

"That's good, you did it faster today," Steve says, helping Eddie back into his wheelchair.

The therapist is there, leading the whole process, but they learned weeks ago that Steve was better at getting Eddie to work than they were, so they've utilized Steve, liberally. Day after day, Steve has helped him take that first terrible step, and all the painful ones that have followed.

That he's even in this facility is thanks to Steve. They released Eddie from the hospital once his wounds had healed, but he was unable to walk. 

He couldn't afford this kind of therapy, no way, but Steve made it happen. Eddie doesn't know how much it's costing, Steve won't tell him. Just that he needs to do it so he'll get back on his feet.

And Eddie wants that. 

All his wounds healed, in various levels of terrible. His face, his neck, his nipple. The defensive wounds on his hands had gotten infected, thankfully less so than his leg, but it had scared him so fucking bad that he wouldn't be able to play the guitar again. But he can, and expects it'll get better with time.

Steve brought in Dragon Slayer, Eddie's acoustic guitar. And Eddie sits and plays him for hours, rebuilding that strength.

The rest of the time, Steve is here, forcing him to use his damaged leg, as often as the therapist will allow, for as long as Eddie can stand it. 

Steve says they're getting him home next month. 

Eddie sees no proof of that, but if Steve says it, it's probably true. 

That's something Eddie's learned over these past few months. Steve has a gift to fix problems, to dig in and make change. 

He'd had no idea.

He's a good dude, that Steve Harrington.

And now he's arriving with food, a pizza box balanced on one hand and a brown bag in the other.

"Dinner is served," Steve says, sliding the little wheeled table over Eddie's lap, putting the box down. 

"Smells good, man, thanks," Eddie says, and he opens the box to see what they have. Supreme, his favorite. 

Steve pulls up a chair, and unloads the sack, bringing out cans of pop, and a stack of napkins. 

Eddie's already eating, but Steve is picking the black olives off his piece, first. Eddie's told him a dozen times to just order it without, but Eddie likes them, so they keep getting it the same way. 

Every Friday night is pizza night.

Mondays they get takeout from Enzo's. Big containers of pasta and breadsticks.

Tuesday is burger night. 

On Wednesdays, Steve drives twenty minutes to the Mexican joint Eddie loves, and brings back big platters of food, and sacks of greasy chips and homemade salsa.

Thursdays are a wildcard, and Eddie is always curious what he'll turn up with next. Soup. Sandwiches. Fish. It could be anything, and it gives Eddie something to think about besides his pain.

Steve spends every night hanging out in his room, keeping him company. He's dragged in a VCR, and they are quickly burning through the entire stock of tapes at Family Video. Debating what makes a good movie. Why sometimes bad ones are the best.

And Eddie feels normal for a few hours, because Steve makes sure of it.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddieholidaydrabbles and follow along with the fun!

If you want to see more of my entries into this month-long challenge, you can check them out in my Steddie Holiday Drabbles tag, right here!

[spoken-tacenda]

tip: do not let your desk get cluttered to the point it feels like it's gonna make you cry.

it's been said before, I know, but it doesn't make it any less important. your desk state correlates heavily with your own mental state.

see this picture? yeah, that was me at the peak of my depressive episode; I was crying in the stairway from sheer stress.

and you know what? my desk worsened it. I constantly felt as if I had a lot to do in such little time. Everything seemed suddenly worse than it actually was.

I'm not saying cleaning up your desk is going to magically fix your life, but it'd definitely help your progress.

stay safe and sane out there, darlings.

[jeffrey-anderson]

Injustice in the Justice System: The Ethical Plight of Arkham Asylum

It is a common saying within Gotham City that you can set your watch off of Arkham Asylum’s regular breakouts.

Founded by Dr. Amadeus Arkham well over a century ago, this government-funded penitentiary has morphed from a well-meaning mental hospital to quite literally a house of horrors. Sanctioned as an asylum for the criminally insane in 19XX, Arkham Asylum has been affected by corruption and fraud every year since its founding - a reality only exacerbated by the breakout rates that have spiked by almost 46% annually since the Joker’s posting as a publicly known terrorist.

Anybody who lives in Gotham has been affected by the persistent breakouts plaguing the asylum. It’s been the Riddler’s bombings of the subway system. It was the threat of Gotham’s water supply being polluted by Joker toxin (only narrowly avoided by vigilante Batman’s interceptions). It was literally any Halloween these past few years. Take your pick.

Arkham Asylum is wholly an ethical nightmare. Its moral values and code of conduct have completely warped since its founding, and a lack of accountability has transformed it into an unethical hovel for anybody incarcerated there. Corruption runs rampant in the system. Any bribe of any size can be weaponised, and prisoners can do anything within and including escaping.

The poor legislation and the lack of accountability likens Arkham to the El Salvador gang jails. Both of them have death rates in the hundreds, and both do not receive programs preparing inmates for reinsertion into society. The two of them have inmates who are rarely - if ever - allowed outside.

These so called ‘reformatory’ institutions are unethical, unlivable hovels for anybody incarcerated. The abusive living situations make it a wonder any of Arkham’s convicts ever even consider choosing to stay within the prison walls.

Speaking of Arkham being an unliveable hovel - asylums throughout America have progressively gone out of style within the last forty years. However, Gotham is a city that leans more towards traditionalism - a view paired with and reflected throughout the city’s beautiful architecture and the scarcity of new bills, legislations and laws that are passed as a result of the city stagnating and being unwilling to create change.

This languishing, this lack of desire for movement and progress, is part of the systematic problems that threaten to topple Arkham. It is part of why it is inhumane.

Asylums have been going out of style for a reason - both sides of the system suffer. There is a relatively low rate of recovery from patients in asylums who are mentally unwell - even lower in Gotham City. Caregivers are pessimistic about their future outlooks because of the low success rates, feeding back into the cycle with no positive yield. This vicious pattern makes it nigh-impossible for anyone within the system to get any sort of fulfilment from it.

Although Arkham is officially a psychiatric ward, it houses patients who are arguably sane and yet are sentenced to life with the mentally unwell. Take Adam Bomb for example (article linked). Convicted of terrorism after trying to blow up the city, Bomb worked with criminally insane terrorist Firefly and thus was convicted of insanity beside him despite all claims that he was not mentally unstable.

It could be argued that these inhabitants aren’t perfectly sane, but an overwhelming amount of evidence from court records show otherwise. XX% of convicts in Arkham were allegedly intended to go to Blackgate Penitentiary, but couldn’t as a result of the overcrowding in the system. This whopping XX% percent of inmates, forced to live in padded cells and treated as less than human because of an insanity that they don’t have, live in an oppressive scheme which in turn makes it more difficult for actually unwell prisoners to receive the help they require. Furthermore, inmates who are criminally insane likewise suffer - the heightened risk of assault, dangerous gangs, and trauma in result of the organised crime fester a wholly unhealthy environment for the patients in the system who are meant to be there.

This misconduct is really highlighted in 20XX’s horrifically dubbed “Haunted House” breakout, where seven inmates (both sane and insane) attempted an escape. One of their psychiatric patients (a Ms. A. Smith) was killed in the panic after experiencing a psychotic break and subsequently attacking one of her fellow escapees after watching one of the sane male inmates assault a staff member.

The tragic events that transpired in the “Haunted House” jailbreak underline the desperation of reform required within our justice system. It is crucial that we address these issues within and around Arkham, as its current state has crossed lines and boundaries that even the worst cities throughout the globe have not passed.

Now, after considering these insurmountable problems, you may be wondering.

How is Arkham Asylum still standing?

Surely, some uncorrupted Gotham official is good, right? They would have seen the corruption, the abuse, the inhumane condition. Surely, somebody would have pushed for a change.

Well - you aren’t wrong. Arkham has been the focus of almost 15% of bills petitioned within Gotham City for eight years.

But there are good reasons why it is still functioning. Why nine out of ten of these petitions are rejected, despite the obvious poison to our society that it provides.

Arkham Asylum was made by a key founder of some of Gotham’s most foundational rules and regulations, Stuart Gordon. Nevada and Maine are the only other states to decriminalise sex work - but Gotham City, too, has special permissions under the state of New Jersey to abolish the law as a result of his work. Furthermore, Gordon pushed for Gotham to be one of the first cities (although highly debated and largely criticised at the time) to allow equal purchase and selling of property by minority groups within Gotham. Gordon’s lasting contributions to New Jersey’s sociopolitical landscape are likely partially why Arkham‘s presence continues to endure despite its increasingly intrusive existence in our modern society.

Arkham Asylum stands as a symbol of justice. Despite the rampant violence and a severe lack of accountability within its system, it is the most famous (and infamous) jail this side of America. When you look any closer at the system, its flaws and corruption reveal themselves to you in a disturbingly clear fashion. Yet when we think of the law, when we consider the justice system, Arkham is always the first to mind, given its wide discussion by people around the globe.

Arkham Asylum was a lot of money. A lot of money. For the first fifteen years of its construction, Gotham government’s annual transparency records reveal Arkham Asylum taking almost 40% of the budget allocated to police and law enforcement in its construction time. This rampant fund theft and poor budget of the government, exacerbated by the relative spike in crime rate during the years of its building, proves just how long they intend Arkham to stand. Why would the government put so much money into something that they didn’t intend to run in the long term?

These factors have made our authorities comfortable. Unaccountable. Stagnant. The level of ease that Gotham’s government holds about jailbreaks trickles down to regular citizens. They face no consequences from us as a result of our being excessively comfortable with the crime they permit.

If nothing is to change, we have a clear view on the future based on the long history we have with Arkham in the past. Gotham City’s complacency allows corruption to fester, and it leaves us citizens complicit in the tragedy of crime and disaster.

It is not too late to change course.

If we don’t stop this fraudulence now, it will be too late to change course.

The first step to change within others - our society - is change within ourselves and our standards. We must remind ourselves that this crime is not normal. Remind ourselves that we should not be comfortable. The disasters, the rampant crime and the rotating door of terrorists coming and going from Arkham is not something to be nonchalant about. We have to teach our children that the standards that Gotham’s bureaucracy sets for us isn’t acceptable, and that they should not be growing up with fear in their hearts and emergency exits in their minds.

Furthermore, it is imperative that we insist on more from our higher-ups. Allowing them to continue shrugging their shoulders and telling us that the establishment cannot be changed is only going to worsen the state of our city and justice system to the point of no return. We need to pressure new laws from them, so we can uproot the corruption that they have allowed to fester in our city for decades. We must demand new regimens for jails in order for us to be able to transfer inmates out of overstuffed systems and give resources to those who need it most.

Most importantly, we have to demand better, moral legislation. Regulations that seperate the harmless from the terrorists, and incite prisoners to remain in a prison that will not be cruel to them at every waking moment.

One voice can only do so much.

Many voices, speaking as a part of an undivided unit desiring wholly for change - that will get the government’s attention. That will make them feel the same discomfort we have been experiencing our whole lives. That will lead them to forging new change within this stagnant society, one which will better both the lives of AA’’s inhabitants and those of Gotham City.

Sign this petition, and stand with me. Stand with all of us who are appealing for a difference within a society. Help us create change that will last for generations.

-Jeffrey Anderson

[robin-the-enby]

Hi! Can I get an angst/comfort fic of Arthur with a female s/o who is depressed and suicidal? Like he walks in on his s/o c*tting while having a mental breakdown? Or he just notices the cuts/scars? Or he walks in on his s/o bl33ding out?? Idk you can get creative with it I’ve just been having an extremely rough couple months. If this makes you uncomfortable then you can just ignore this request, but thanks anyways! I hope you have a great day/night!! <3

It's my problem if I feel the need to hide

Pairing: Arthur x f!reader

Summary: You feel under the weather, but decide not to tell anyone. As your condition only worsens, your friends start to worry about you. It's when you decide to let everything go your knight with blue eyes and a cheeky smile comes to the rescue.

Warnings: depression, suicidal ideation, not being able to care for oneself (containing lack of hygiene and proper meals), mentions of vomit(ing) (3), negative self talk, dark thoughts

A/N: I am so sorry for the delay of this fic, I hope it will be of use to you still. I haven't written for this fandom in a long while, so getting back to it was a little hard, though I enjoyed it none the less. I tried not to use any (Y/N)s and make it as racially neutral as possible, as well as appearance-neutral (Arthur carries reader 1 time, but he's stronger than a regular human, and y'all deserve it ladies, no matter your size). If anyone wants to talk about anything at all, my dms are open, as well as my ask box. Take care of yourselves and stay safe!

The human mind is possibly nature's greatest invention. The complexity with which all its components interact to keep the body functioning is nothing short of phenomenal. And not only that, but it is aware of itself, encasing its own conscience inside a safe vessel, built and evolved specifically to protect it. And as time progressed, and all the basic needs of the body were cared for, there came a need to create. The body could easily be fed, but the conscience needed a different type of sustenance.

The human mind is capable of incredible things. It can set goals for itself as well as achieve them. It shaped the entire world to its liking, for better or for worse. The human mind is the reason why we live the lives we do today. It is the thing that keeps us alive and sane.

It's funny how drastically that can change.

If you'd ask any of the men residing in the mansion on who the worst enemy of humans is, you're sure all of them would at least mention the human conscience, if not directly choose it. After all, their lives have been woven through with the thread of sorrow, the perpetrator being none other than the human mind- theirs or someone else's.

At this point, you feel like you've at least got a peek at the complex inner worlds of history's greatest minds. Some you knew better than others, but you've been le Comte's servant for long enough to consider all the mansion's residents at least friends.

It was evident to anyone who has been in the mansion for at least a month that all of the people (and vampires) residing in it had some sort of baggage, wearing them down even in their second undead life. Some were better at hiding it than others, some just felt more comfortable keeping their troubles to themselves, while others' emotions and traumas were sometimes too great, too overwhelming to be kept locked inside their bodies.

You've tried your best to help those who needed it, both physically and mentally. It helped a few to open up to you at least a little and as time went on, with your hard work, you've earned respect for yourself even amongst the toughest nuts in the mansion. Poking through others' personal affairs and traumas carried along numerous fights as well as apologies and in the end just served to strengthen the bond between you and the residents. And yet, at times like these...you couldn' help but feel alone.

Like all the others, you had to shoulder the burden of traumas, insecurities and unpleasant experiences collected unwillingly throughout your life. You suspected the others knew of this, or at least had a hunch that you, like all of them, haven't had the pleasure of living a carefree life.

They saw you as an independent, strong and courageous woman, resilient and kind in any situation. And if you were in the right state of mind, you would agree. But lately, you began to doubt these traits of yours, the ones you valued so much and were valued for.

You weren't a stranger to struggling and you knew that anyone in need of help deserved to receive it and should not be scared to ask for it.

So why did the thought of asking for help make your stomach churn?

You've been pondering that question for a few days now. Lately, your entire reality seemed to have shifted. At first, you didn't think anything was wrong, a simple bad day, or a bad week wasn't anything to be too worried about. Nothing a nice, relaxing weekend couldn't fix, right? And yet, when you had tasks to complete, you felt agitated and annoyed, but when you had nothing to do, you were antsy and restless. Always feeling like something should be happening, like you should be doing something. For some reason, you couldn't make yourself to do the things you felt you should be doing.

Soon everything has become a bother. Tasks you could usually do with one hand were suddenly so hard that by the end of the day, the thought of bathing or changing into clean clothes made you want to scream until your throat was sore. And so you chipped away at your routine that you so painstainkingly built when you appeared in this time, until the only remaining activities in your days were your work and some basic necessities.

You knew it was getting bad. And it constantly created an almost numbing whirlwind of emotions you really didn't need right now. Why was this happening? What brought it on? Why now?? Is it going to get worse? All these questions and none you had an answer to. You had guesses and various techniques you learnt here and there back in your time, but...you couldn't bring yourself to do anything.

You were trapped. At least it felt like it. Trapped inside yourself, inside your mind. You knew you should tell someone, that if you let it go on, it would sooner or later consume you. But you couldn't do anything. It was as if your body didn't listen to you.

It seemed the residents were starting to get suspicious of your strange mood as of late. There were times when one of them would approach you and carefully ask about your wellbeing, and as much as you wanted to say something, you never did. You logically knew that the first step would be the one to break through the loop, the one that would make all the others just a little bit easier until you felt normal again. But anytime you tried to break through the selfdestructive habits you had fallen into, a wave of such tirednes, nausea and shame overcame you, that you simply caved to your mind's twisted whispers.

You concluded that your best option at this moment was to lay low and let it pass. Your days have become a steady routine of wake up, work, go to bed. And repeat. It was manageable, at first, even with the onslaught of thoughts your mind was conjuring, managing to come up with more and more ways to taunt you with. But as days and then weeks passed, your energy slowly seeped away from your body and it retaliated by shutting off and out anything unnecessary to save as much of what was remaining.

These things included mostly socialising. You became less talkative, while you would usually enthusiastically engage in conversations, if not outright start them, lately you would not speak unles directly spoken to. It has taken a toll on your concentration as well. Many times when someone would try to strike up a conversation with you, they'd have to repeat their question or even call out your name mid-conversation, because mentally you just weren't there. These things not only started to worry Sebastian, your biggest constant in your new life, given that you worked alongside him every day, but also the other residents. You knew of this, as out of it as you might have seemed and/or have been these past few weeks, you knew that they noticed, because you knew them. But what started as a simple snowball had alrady turned into an avalanche and you had to admit that you were no longer in control.

Not that you really cared. You knew you should care, should be trying harder than ever to break out of this spell, but you couldn't. And every time you might have felt strong enough to confess how you were feeling, to lean on someone, to get the help you knew you needed, a sudden pang of fear pierced your chest and you shrivelled back, back into your own small shell that was your skull.

Trying to find a reason for this foolish anxiety proved not so easy, when your mind would make up about five reasons why you should keep your mouth shut every time you even dared to ask yourself such a question.

What if they didn't believe you?

What if it wasn't not that bad?

What if you were just making it up? Making it seem bigger than it is?

These people have gone through so much. They've seen war, witnessed and felt abuse and probably had been through things you couldn't even imagine. Why should they help you, when they're the ones who needed help?

You were not worthy.

Such comparisons were something you chastised anyone who would confess experiencing them for. And yet, when it came to you, it felt like a holy truth. Something that could not and should not be questioned. Because you don't want to be selfish, do you?

You've dealt with this by yourself before, surely you could do it again and not drag down others with you. These and many others became your daily mantras. Lay low, hide, be small, don't make a noise. Survive. But was that really how you wanted to live? If you could even call that a living. You were surviving, yes, but at what cost? For a promise of a period of time where you wouldn't feel like the world is made out of cardboard? A period of time where you wouldn't feel like screaming and crying every second of every day? And how long would that last? A few months, a year maybe? Was it really worth the struggle?

You blinked yourself out of your thoughts when someone vigorously snapped in front of your eyes. Looking around in slight daze, your eyes fall upon a smiling face. "There you are! Theo says he's just waiting for you to walk face first into a wall!" Arthur says cheerily, showing you his signature smirk. "I, like the good friend I am, keep defending you of course. But it's hard when your mind seems to get further and further away from us every day. At this rate, you'll wander off into Seine soon. And we wouldn't want that, would we?" he playfully jabbed at you.

You could feel yourself shaking your head, but the only thing you could focus on was how nice it acually seemed, the cold water seeping through clothes and circling your limbs, the undercurrents keeping you down, where nothing could get you, laying you down onto the riverbed, weighed by the water in your lungs... "So, what's going on in that noggin of yours, hm?"

Arthur was, besides Sebastian, the closest person to you out of all the others. You enjoyed his easygoing demeanor and his jokes never failed to make you laugh. He was a terrible flirt though, and someties could be pretty pushy with his advances as you've realised over the time you two spent together. Luckilly, after a firm conversation backed up by Theo, he had calmed down significantly towards you. The writer still heavily complimented you, always putting that silver tongue of his to use, but you thought nothing of it. He was like that with everyone, even some of the other residents, so the possibility of it ever meaning anything more than banter or a simple compliment never even crossed your mind.

"You're doing it again." the man in question sighed. You blinked at him with confusion. As if reading your thoughts, Arthur clarified "You're in your head again. It must be something really interesting in there to make you so distracted." he joked again, but his expression turned serious "But honestly, what's going on? You haven't been yourself for quite a while now and everyone's getting worried. Even Wolf asked me if I knew what was up with you the other day!" the writer looked at you intently "You know that we're here for you, right? Even if you feel like it's stupid, if you need anything, you can tell us."

You averted your eyes from Arthur' piercing gaze. You knew his words were sincere and it made your chest squeeze uncomfortably. Looking straight ahead, in the direction which you were going, you answered, trying to make your voice as leveled as you could "Thank you for worrying Arthur, but I'm alright, really. I've been thinking of asking le Comte for a break. It would be nice to have some off time." This wasn't a complete lie, since having some down time, where you could pretend time has stopped really did sound appealing, but now you'd have to actually go and ask the good count, which you really didn't want to. Not because you were worried you wouldn't be given a break, but because it was another plan to be made and you barely had enough energy to last you until the end of the day, much less go somewhere out of your own volition.

Arthur knew that you were lying, or at least not telling him everything, so he grinned at you again and spoke confidently "Alright, love, the game is on! I gave you a chance to explain youself, but it seems I'll have to solve this mystery myself." he winked at you and you expected him to take his leave. But Arthur softly grabbed your arm and stopped you in the middle of the halway you were in. Turning to face him in his hold you looked at him questioningly. His smile is much softer now, and if you could focus properly, you would see worry glinting in his eyes "If you ever change your mind, you can stop by. Day, night, doen't matter. We're here for you, love. I'm here for you. Just as much as you're here for us." and as soon as he finished speakig, he was gone. Down the hallway, in the direction of his room. You quietly turned around, trying to process the strange encounter while you went your way.

Your mind was surprisingly quiet for a few hours after that.

You eventually did end up in le Comte's study. Nerves were wracking your body and mind the entire day and when you finally did enter the dreaded room, after all your chores were done for the day, you felt like you would start crying at any moment. For some reason, you felt awful for doing this. You didn't need the break. You didn't need off time to get better physically or because you had too many chores. Why did you want a break, besides Arthur catching on that there was, indeed, something wrong? The only thing you had planned for this break of yours was rotting away in your bed and doing as little as humanely possible. Maybe fate would be so kind and take you away in your sleep. Let you wither away like an overwatered flower.

You tried to make the discussion as quick as possible. Fortunately, the count didn't ask too many questions about your wellbeing and the reason for taking a break, remembering well that you haven't had one in a good while. He did ask if you consulted Sebas about it and you forced down a shudder at the mention of your good friend's name. Not because the butler was opposed to you taking a break, he actually kindly insisted you take one, revealing that he also noticed your mental absence in the past weeks, which could be almost counted as a month now. The worry and confusion in his tone as well as his expression made you wish he told you to stay, to help him, anything to try and convince you to not do what you were about to.

Why were you so worried? There wasn't a reason you should feel bad about taking a break. Even if you physically were just as spry as a grasshopper, taking a break for the sake of mental health was just as important. But deep down, you coudn't lie to yourself. Deep down you knew you were going to give up completely. Either for someone to find you, or to be left to rot. And right now, you hoped for the latter, even if it was still scary to admit.

After Comte gave you a week off, asking if it was enough time for you, which you hastily confirmed, feeling bile rise up your throat and wishing for the comfines of your room, your shaky legs and hazy mind managed to carry you to your room. After spending some time emptying the contents of your stomach, which were absolutely too small you would bet, you nothing but collapsed onto your bed. Mouth unrinsed, hair oily and ruffled, it had finally dawned on you how much of a mess you must have loked like. This realisation finally seemed to open the dam that was holding back everything you were feeling. The disgust, the shame, the fear, the anxiety the heavines, the loneliness, but most importnatly the longing.

Fast, salty tears carried all of that out of your body, leaving your face a puffy, sticky mess. Suddenly, you felt rage boil inside of your chest, sprading quickly to your head. Why didn't you say anything? You were so worried and because of what? Your own mind? Could you be any more stupid? The very same mind that put you through absolute hell this past month was now angry at itself, at its own actions. Why did the world have to be this cruel? Why couldn't it grant you the simple request of a mind that would not try to sabotage itself? And now it was too late.

Yo chose this, you thought to yourself. You chose this and these were the consequences of your actions. As if the tears have released all your pent up frustration in your body, all that it left was numbness. A kind of numbness that made your eyelids heavy, making them gravitate towards each other and pulling you into a deep, calm slumber. The kind of slumber you have not been able to achieve for more than the month you've been actively suffering. But also the kind of slumber that would not bring you closer to salvation.

You woke up, not knowing the time and not really finding yourself caring either. You felt strangely...calm. There was no hunger, no thirst, nothing. Only suffocating quiet, the likes of which you would feel in the deep blue of the ocean. You laid stil for what felt like hours, but could have also been minutes, before you succumbed to unconsciousness again.

This has gone on for a few days of your week long break. At one point you felt the pang of hunger, yet you had no will to satiate it. You only rose from your bed late into the night, when the squeezing walls of your stomach, at this point surely eating itself, threatened to spill nothing but its own acid. You tiptoed as quietly as your stiff muscles could into the kitchen, and after munching on some bread and water, because even though you got up, you still didn't feel like cooking, or that you deserved anything more than the simplest of dishes, you quietly stalked the halls back into your room. You fell asleep again, your stomach satisfied, or maybe convinced into satisfaction by your mind, the last thing you heard was the faint sound of Mozart's piano in the dead of the night.

This cycle had repeated for another few days. Your days were interrupted by quiet knocking that would wake you from your slow decline, and sometimes joined by murmurs behind the door. You couldn't find it in you to care. The door wasn't locked. At one point, you could swear you saw a shadow in your window, but it was gone too soon for your slowed mind to focus on it.

One morning, somewhere at the end of your break, not that you were keeping track of time, your door opened. A gust of fresh air was the first thing that barged its way into your room, chasing out the old and musty, albeit warm air from it. You shivered and wiggled deeper under your covers, grumbling hoarsely in protest. Your half asleep mind registered someone slowly walking into your room, as if they were scared to find out what was in it. You kept your eyes closed.

Arthur knelt down beside your bed, looking at your sickly, worn out face. Carefully sneaking his arm under your blanket, his hand searched for yours until it could take it into its own. Caressing your knuckles with his thumb, he cooed softly "Oh, love. I am so sorry. I am so sorry we let this get so far." You didn't respond. What was there to say? "It isn't your fault" you croaked out quietly, not having enough energy to say it loudly and fearing your voice wouldn't work.

"Why did you hide from us? We would've helped..." the writer almost whined, and you could feel the guilt and worry radiating from him. You wanted so desperately to answer, to give him a good reason for how foolish you were acting, but you couldn't. There was nothing that would excuse you. Nothing.

Seeing your slightly open eyes well up with tears, Arthur rushed closer to comfort you. Shushing and soothing you like a small child after a booster shot, he held you close and you tried not to weep hader. "It's alright, love, everything is alright. I've got you. I've got you now, it's good. You're alright."

After you calmed down slightly, you wanted nothing more than to shoo him away, close yourself off again an bury yourself into your bed to get away from the immense shame you felt. But Arthur seemed to be having none of that. He softly but insistently reached under you and helped you sit up with one arm, holding your hand with the other still. you couldn't bring yourslf to look him in the eye and yet his tone never changed from the soft lull he comforted you with. "Come on now, darling. Let's get you cleaned up."

Your mind wanted desperately to push back at him, scream and yell and fight, but you almost limply let him straighten you up and help you walk over to the bathroom. The writer's heart nearly broke in two as he saw you in the same clothes you were in when he last spoke to you. The image of you suffering in silence for so long made him nearly tear up as well, but he held himself back, focusing on you being his biggest priority.

He ran a bath for you, helped you out of your clothes, his gaze never cascading from your face, looking for any signs of overstepping any boundaries and when he found none, he helped you into the bathtub, first washing your hair and then your body, asking if you could and wanted to handle your private parts yourself. You whispered out a small yes, feeling somewhat ashamed still and wanting to make his efforts a bit easier. Letting you soak in the blissfully warm water, a question appeared in your mind "Arthur..." you called out quietly "Were you the one knocking at my door?" you asked timidly, not knowing fully if it wasn't some kind of delirium your mind put you through. The writer's face became solemn as you took a peek at his face and he spoke, his words and tone equally heavy "Everyone did. We were worried about you. After we heard about your break, we thought it might do you well. Everyone noticed that you weren't quite yourself. But after the first few days, when no one ever saw you leave the mansion, let alone your room, our worries doubled. Wolf said he noticed you walking to the kitchen at night, but Sebas only noticed small portions of bread disappearing from the kitchen, so we wanted to check up on you. We tried knocking at your door, not wanting to disturb you if you really were physically ill, but that didn't do anything." "And the window?" you interrupted him, casting your eyes downward again at the rude gesture. But Arthur continued, with no offense taken "That was Dazai. He was checking up on you a lot. In his own way." Arthur smiled sadly "Today, I had enough. Something was telling me you needed help. And I'm glad I listened to my instinct." he smiled at you and you felt your dry lips lift up ever so slightly. You were found when you needed it the most, it seemed.

After Arthur dried you off and helped you put on fresh clothes, he told you Sebas made a nutritious meal for you that wouldn't upset your stomach. He also suggested it would do you good to get out of your room for at least a little while and eat it in the kitchen. Seeing the panic in your eyes, he rushed to assure you "You don't have to talk to anyone if you don't want to." And so you nodded.

The mansion seemed awfully quiet. There was no one in the halls, no sounds from either corner of the building. On your slow trek to the kitchen, you passed Mozart. The musician didn't say anything, but his lips melted from their usual stern frown to a warm smile and you couldn't help but to start crying again. Athur sat down with you on the cold ground of the hallway, pulling you onto his lap and rocking you back and forth until you felt good enough to walk again. Mozart was nowhere in sight.

You found out that Sebas made you a delicious soup, one with enough vegetables and some meat, the broth strong enough to get you up on your feet in no time. You ate slowly and savoured every spoonful. You suddenly realised how much you've missed eating good food. After your meal was done and Arthur washed your bowl and spoon in silence, he slowly sat down next to you. "How are you feeling?" he asked carefully, knowing that you were nowhere near out of the deep end yet, but desperately hoping his efforts weren't for naught. "Better. Fuller." you answered simply. After another beat of comfortable silence, where you soaked up the sun pouring in through the windows, the writer asked again "Would you like to go back to your room?" You pursed your lips. Suddenly, the idea of your bed and the stuffy room you hid yourself away in sounded horrible. But he comfortable, fluffy clothes and full stomach were pullig at your eyelids again, sleep threatening to take over. "My room it is, then?"

Arthur piped up and you nodded. Before you knew it, you were scooped up bridal style by the vampire, feeling his soft lips on your hairline "Rest, love. I've got you." Soon, you were in a room that smelled of coffe and cologne with a hint of ink. Once again, you wriggled under the covers, these ones feeling much fresher than yours, as you succumbed to sleep once again. But this time, you weren't alone.

[illwilledomen]

Is there lore as to what happened to hero and what void bornes are?

To answer your first question: the ancient humans died out due to three factors, lumped together in an event called The Fall.

I’ll put a read more since this is kind of long.

- The first was a huge war between two major kingdoms, which would cause the next two catastrophes. They were butting heads as their technology began to progress and they needed more materials.

- The second was the undead plague. This was caused by necromancer magicians playing God in order to gain an upper hand over the other kingdom, but the bioweapon got out of control and people started zombifying.

- The third was the Wither. The wither was sort of their equivalent to a nuclear bomb. It was the weapon to end all weapons. This was made in a last ditch effort, but as it turns out, summoning an angel of entropy isn’t a good idea, and the land was scourged with radioactive withering.

- Due to the voracity of the wither combined with the zombie outbreak, the surviving humans scattered and fled to the ender stronghold and underground (different groups). However, the group that went to the stronghold, in their panic as they wrangled random civilians together, had not accounted for the fact that the end portal was on the enemy kingdom’s land, not theirs, and so they didn’t know that the portal had been shut off by the ender dragon when she had been summoned.

- They were stranded, and soon succumbed to the ravaged landscape they found themselves in. Meanwhile, the people who went underground found a strange biome full of tarry black mould that seemed to be sapient. This group was led by Rana, once a princess of one of the kingdoms. She negotiated as best she could with the organism, which called itself Sculk.

- the Sculk was intelligent, but it was entirely single minded in its goals — Get Food, Spread More — making it somewhat untrustworthy. Not to mention being around it had hallucinogenic, mind altering consequences. This would soon spell the death of the Rana’s ancient city inhabitants, as the population soon descended into a sort of cult that worshipped the superorganism. It became less of a mutual benefit situation and more of a “feed our eternally hungry god even if we starve” situation.

- Some of the few sane people left in the ancient city (including a now aging and unwell Rana) knew they were screwed. They had kept the notes and documents from the old world’s genetic experiments, and used this to create new forbears that could give them a second change in the far future once the world had recovered. These genetic experiments were called Players. They were made to be very durable, resilient and curious, and were to construct the foundation for the future civilization they would produce.

- Eventually, the ancient city was overcome with the sculk, and they too died (causing the mould to spread even further through the bowels of the world). 1000 years later, the Players exited stasis and spawned into the world with no memory aside from Basic Information, instincts and concepts engraved into their brains by their creators. These Players were Steve, Alex and Hero.

* The ancient humans had not accounted for the fact that some remote farming settlements and monasteries had survived (they were far away from the main cities where the catastrophes took place, so they only really got some of the second hand affects like areas of crop failure) and over the course of 1000 years they would become what are now villagers and illagers.

Okay, with that out of the way, about Voidborn. Voidborn are creatures native to the Void (the expanse of darkness between dimensions). Due to their origin in the Void, they are chaotic forces and exist as a form of sentient entropy, like the Void itself. They are semi-corporeal and while they can influence the corporeal realm, they can’t exist in the likes of the Overworld or Nether. However they tend to want to be corporeal. Lesser beings, like White-Eyes, latch onto things to feed off of them. In the case of White-Eyes, they latched onto Hero’s soul, and became the entity known as Herobrine. Stronger beings exist in Shells, biomechanical bodies built for them by corporeal beings they have influenced. This encompasses the likes of The Ender Dragon and The Vengeful Heart of Ender. These guys have a tendency to fuck shit up to put it bluntly. The heart of Ender, even when imprisoned in the orb of dominance, influenced many mortal beings through history to become utterly demented tyrants, such as the Arch-Illager.

[prince-liest]

what I love most about your 666 vox is that even though he and alastor make an olympic sport out of bending the boundaries of "safe and sane" sex, he seems to VERY firmly believe in the "consensual" part... him letting go of alastor the SECOND he uses his safe word, holding himself back when alastor can't handle touch during his rut, all that stuff. so what would his reaction be if the events of bus stop happened in the same verse and he learned about what valentino did? I know you mentioned it in another ask before but it's been rotating in my mind for days lol - ✨

Alright, y'all get the long and serious answer for this one! >:) Buckle up, buttercups! And thank you SO much for your kind words! <3

I genuinely think that Vox is a fairly shitty person who does not typically particularly care about the violation of consent. He is so free not just with lying, selling spyware, and enabling enabling Valentino, but also with dominating people's will with his hypnosis in his introduction. I think that, if anything, he gets a power trip out of it and he sees what Valentino does, generally, as an extension of that! They're the Vees! They're powerful, they're winning, they have Pentagram City wrapped around their fingers!

However, in 666, his view of Alastor and the fact that Alastor lets him do things is obsessive and borderline worshipful, in, like, a fucked up sadomasochistic way! 666 is written from Alastor's POV so you get to see a lot of his own emotional progression with regard to how he views Vox, but on Vox's end, he's also seeing Alastor differently. He would not be able to genuinely think that he's fallen in love with Alastor if he wasn't able to get past being worshipfully infatuated with him first. He's still obsessive, but especially after O.T.O Special 6.66, Now Streaming: The Birds and the Bees, Natural Wonders! (aka. the rut fic, I know, my fucking titles—) where Alastor starts offering Vox more genuine vulnerability without the looming threat of his shadow, he sees Alastor as more of an actual person rather than a celebrity figure to fight or fuck or both.

Which means that, before Vox made that transition, he would probably be pissed that Valentino ruined his chances to get up to more shit with Alastor. He is very careful with regards to Alastor's consent in the first two installations of 666 because he's extremely aware of how easily Alastor could withdraw it, and how little Vox could do about that. He's not willing to lose Alastor after the taste he's finally had! He's practically manic about finally getting what he wants!

After he's developed more genuine feelings for Alastor (and Alastor has moved solidly into being one of the relatively few people that Vox registers as not just being an NPC or untouchable raid boss in his life), he would be... absolutely fucking mortified, I think. The empathy would fucking suck! That's why he prefers not to have it for most people!

But the thing is, he also loves Val. He has history with Val. And he knows what Val is like. I think he would be less actually, genuinely, overtly angry at Valentino in this scenario than he would have been if he'd just seen Val as ruining his big break with Alastor. He'd make a show of it, sure, but how the hell can he really blame Valentino when he genuinely wouldn't have given (has never given) half of a shit if it had actually been Angel Dust?

And he also knows what Alastor is like. I think his decision would be forced by the fact that despite what happened, Alastor is alive and Valentino is very much about to not be. In a triage situation, one of those people is by default a higher priority.

Alastor, of course, would never forgive that. He would also never forgive the fact that Vox knows what happened—and knows it in a universe where Alastor had dared allow Vox liberties and slowly, eventually, trusted him not to abuse them.

Like I said! It would absolutely nuke the relationship, and I think Alastor would put a great deal of effort into turning all of V Tower and its inhabitants, likely especially Vox, even moreso than Valentino, into so much rubble and a wet smear on the ground.

[couldinfinitytrainhavesavedthem]

[homunculus-argument]

Hey, worldbuilding exercise: Give the people in the world sensible, understandable but completely wrong assumptions of how their world works. Even if their scientific knowledge of exactly how or why something happens is limited, people have a remarkable skill of observing cause and effect, and it adds realism that they would come to a logical but incorrect conclusions based on the limited knowledge that they have.

Observation: Anyone who is placed to rule either as the king or in the king's place eventually goes insane. While a new king or queen may start out sane and even, they will slowly inevitably become progressively more and more unhinged, and safeguards must be placed to handle them before it happens. Even a regent of no royal blood, who sits on the True Throne and drinks from the King's Goblet, will eventually lose it, while a regent that never physically takes the seat of the True King will not. Conclusion: While all power has the potential to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. That, or the throne itself is cursed. Probably both. Actual explanation: The King's Goblet is made of lead. Anyone who spends decades drinking from it is going to get brain damage.

Observation: The people who meticulously follow sacred rites in all they do, from cooking and healing to the handling of corpses, say the right prayers at the right times, do cleansing rituals correctly and use sacred materials suffer less illness and death. Conclusion: Obeying holy rites protects you from evil spirits and the wrath of the gods. Actual explanation: Most of the rites and rituals are matters of hygiene, the substances and materials that supposedly ward off evil are actually somewhat antibacterial, and doing things that prevent food contamination and the spread of germs simply lowers the rate of infections and the spread of disease.

Observation: This stranger from a strange land acts very differently from the people here, is oblivious to the proper customs and does not notice when she has insulted people. She averts certain materials, does not look people in the eye, and when asked of why she does things the way she does, she cannot explain. Conclusion: The people of this land and their customs are completely unfathomable, and there must be a cultural taboo about explaining their ways to outsiders. Actual explanation: Having a sample size of exactly one person is far too small to make assumptions about a whole people. Also this lady is really just autistic, and oblivious to her own peoples' social customs as well.

[the-seas-incarnadine]

TCOAAL - Metaphysics Theory

Okay so we've seen some interesting stuff in the most recent tcoaal progress report, and I'm SO ready to read a lot of stuff into it.

Some observations:

People have souls. There are also a number of Entities whose natures are more or less mysterious.

This lil guy is generally referred to as The Entity. It has a greater or lesser degree of difficulty finding summoning circles in the human world from its usual residence on the other side of the dream borderlands. It makes a pact with Ashley. It seems to want to collect or consume human souls. Its name is unknown, its dialogue is displayed as being spoken by "? ? ?".

The Entity notes that Ashley has a "tar-colored soul", and it refers to her as "tar soul". It implies that this is why it does not want to take her soul. It further indicates that this is not just a nickname but a preexisting phenomenon, the nature of which is unclear.

Ashley seems to be much better at summoning entities than the cultists we encounter, despite proceeding fairly haphazardly and without much background knowledge.

While in the dream borderlands, Ashley sometimes encounters what seem to be human souls. Normal souls appear like this.

During her vision in the Decay route, Ashley encounters a soul that looks like this. It is part of a group of four souls in a small room, hovering near The Entity. If Ashley tries to speak to it, a heart pops up between it and another (normal) soul. The Entity describes it as "a Tar Soul to be" that never "hatched", and remarks that Ashley's soul looks similar but darker.

That is, a Tar Soul proper, like Ashley, is either a "hatched" version of this, or has the potential to "hatch" into... something.

Given that the number of souls in this area corresponds to the number of souls The Entity has taken, and the Tar Soul To Be is part of a couple, it is sometimes theorized that this is Ms. Graves's soul.

This is Lord Unknown, to whom the Cult seems to be dedicated, and who our heroes are able to summon (but not communicate with) in the cult building.

Lord Unknown shares some imagery with The Entity, but they seem to be distinct.

In the Burial route, during the second summoning / the sacrifice of the Graves parents, Ashley says that The Entity can't have Andrew's soul, because it belongs to her. The Entity tells her it intends to summon her again, and instructs her to bring Andrew with her.

In the Burial / Sane route, during her vision, Ashley encounters a number of souls and must capture them in bottles. Afterward, she encounters this lil guy, who is referred to as "an entity". When she makes her way to it, she seems to recognize it, threatens to put it into a bottle (as a joke), and then says "let's get out of here before it finds us". Additionally, though its name is displayed as "? ? ?" (like The Entity" and it does not speak any words, the ellipses in its dialogue boxes are displayed in green. This seems to suggest that this is Andrew's soul.

From its appearance, we might conclude that this is a Tar Soul that has Hatched or that is closer to Hatching than the Tar Soul To Be encountered earlier.

Additionally, it seems to be taking a shape more similar to that of Lord Unknown (scale aside) than the human souls we've encountered.

All of that suggests that what a Tar Soul is is a soul on the path towards becoming an Entity like Lord Unknown - or, colloquially, a nascent demon.

The newest progress report gives us a few new images, but we're going to be focusing on these two in particular:

Hmm!! Interesting!!

Let's zoom in on that second one:

Here's what I'm seeing:

A Hatched / Hatching Tar Soul appears to be the playable character in this scene.

The other image seems to depict this same entity catching some red flowers (associated with The Entity and with the dream borderlands), with some trepidation.

This entity has lost track of "time."

Given what we saw of the Hatched / Hatching Tar Soul in chapter 2, and given that it seems to be a playable character, it seems reasonable to conclude that this is either Andrew or Ashley - given what we've observed above, Ashley's soul likely looks something like this, or will at some point, or did at some point.

The rest of this is way more speculative, and I'm unsure what direction it might go in chapter 3:

After the Burial / Sane vision (which Ashley seems to have brought Andrew's soul into), Andrew tells us that he was unable to sleep during that time.

Andrew often has trouble sleeping, and Ashley's presence helps.

In these new screenshots, the Hatched / Hatching Tar Soul seems to be confused about time, suggesting it's been in a strange state outside of the normal world for a long, ah, time.

This suggests that there is something unusual about the entanglement of Andrew and Ashley's souls. Does she literally have his soul in some way? Was she able to remove it from his body when she had this vision? How are their souls connected? Is the proximity of his own soul affecting his ability to sleep?

I'm not sure this is anything, but my curiosity has been piqued.

Anyway. That's just some thoughts, based on my current understanding of things! I hope people find it interesting, I'd love to hear what others think of these speculations.

[radfem-rage]

do you ever think about how emotionally immature TiMs and TiFs are? Everything I see them hung up on as been stuff I dealt with when I was 12-18. Yet they're out here hung up on it despite being 23+. Stuff like being obsessed with having followings, treating trivial things like it's their personality (gender, pretending their bad habits makes them cool, etc), being a mindless consumer (they all act like teens- wanting all this junk and being equally bad with money), not wanting to work because it's soooo unfair, being mad at the way SoCiEtY is (in regards to trivial things), etc.

It's honestly kinda creepy seeing TiMs in their 40s sounding the same way as 16yr TiMs, since literally most trans people sound and act the same fucking way. Its so uncanny, but it's due to their sheer lack of personality. They then turn into little "clusters" of appearance. Are you an it/itself/pup *posts pictures of furries and bdsm* trans or are you a they/them *posts pictures of cottagecore* trans? Don't even get me started on their physical appearance, because yes they even look alike physically and there's sets of "clusters" in regards to style. Are you the kidcore-esc dyed hair still feminine they/them girl or are you the porn-addicted dead-eyed blond twink trying to mimic an e girl? Or are you Chris Chan? lolol

When I see how they all function, especially with how I had plenty of friends who transed out.... It makes me conscious of how much I matured over the years. I wonder if I would be less mature if I wasn't actually dealing with systemic issues? Like abuse, homelessness, discrimination, etc. I went from "youre so mature for your age" to feeling like a "child within an adult body" to now feeling like my actual age. Progress! Yet with these people, there is no progress. They all come across as children in adult bodies.

Holy shit, yes!

What scares me is how the trans community has no problem telling the mentally ill youth that if their pretend identity isn’t affirmed at all times or if their insane demands are not being accepted immediately, it is a valid reason to threaten to commit suicide or shoot yourself. Things like:

• Demanding your parents never call you your “deadname” again out of nowhere

• Parents being forced to forget about how their child used to be before they got mentally ill and when they obviously struggle (because duh, a woman that gave birth to a girl will obviously struggle when that now teenage girl pretends she is a boy) they’re evil

• Tattoos of deadnames must be covered up or “fixed” to have the TiP’s new name or be removed all together

• Genital mutilation surgery the moment they want it and if the parents refuse or want to wait they’re evil transphobes who deserve to die.

• Never being allowed to share news articles about Trans pedophiles or rapists because “transphobia”

• TiF’s invading gay bars and TiM’s invading lesbian bars and then act confused when no one wants them around even though they have been shown multiple times no one wants the opposite sex in gay bars.

Trans people are indeed like children in adult bodies. They have never been told the word “no” and can’t accept it, either. They are stuck in a trans hug-box all day long that will affirm their bullshit and lie to them at every second of every day, they will only depend on other trans people because everyone else is transphobic and slowly lose connections with sane individuals. Then the moment they realize they were never born in the wrong body after all and underwent FGM/MGM for nothing the trans community will backstab them and tell them to k!ll themselves.

I used to have 2 TiM friends. Both were addicted to porn and thought women lived life on easy mode. They were acting extremely feminine and like a sexist stereotype, because they thought that was all a woman was, the moment I stopped affirming their bs and told them women aren’t regressive stereotypes or “feminine people” but adult people of the female sex, they dumped me as a friend. I never once regretted it because truth deserves to be spoken and I got nothing to be ashamed of. I too, changed a lot over the years and became more mature and outspoken, and grew & improved myself a lot, from libfem to radfem, and I love that about myself. ✌🏻

[frogletscribe]

A:FoP Sky Breaker DLC Thoughts...

Alright so i finished the main story of the DLC and have let my thoughts cook for a minute. This is just some of my thoughts/opinions overall. I will have to do a separate post for my more intense thoughts because I managed to actually hit the character limit and I wasn't even halfway through everything (i didn't even know tumblr had one of those and I've been on here for over a decade)

Spoilers for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Sky Breaker DLC under the cut.

The opening? Gorgeous. Amazing. Fantastic. Obsessed with the little cut scene of our Sarentu on their Ikran. I am in love. I was really pleasantly surprised to see Kin right off the bat too! Thats my grandpa, i love him! And then walking with the Zakru and getting to hear other NPCs talking was really nice. I loved the banter about So'lek.

Getting into the main games camp was visually very pretty but confusing. I got lost immediately (distracted by the wandering Zakru) and accidently came in from the back? and then proceeded to not be able to find anything or anyone. I kept getting turned around and winding up back with Etuwa and Ka'nat. I did eventually find everyone else but it was a struggle.

Was Eetu only there at the very start??? He was hanging out with So'lek and having a very cute banter and then as everything progress he completely disappeared. Sosul too for that matter. It made me a little worried when he wasn't there after a while bc it felt like almost all the other key npcs got at least a small cameo in other quests but not Eetu? I got paranoid he died but also i think hes an important enough NPC that someone else would have said something if that was the case. I guess i just wanted more of him in general. (Im biased/delusional and ship him with my Sarentu, i will take literally anything)

Theres also a smaller moment, walking around where Teylan calls and starts talking about Nor, about how he would have loved the games, that really got me. For a second i actually thought Nor might come back later in the story, but given how things went it makes sense that he wouldnt. I do really hope that Nor shows up in the next DLC because I really need closure for him. He deserves to see and be a part of what his fellow Sarentu are building and to heal from all the hurt he has been through.

Can the Zeswa PLEASE catch a break? 😭 First the arches are collapsed, then Pasuk, now this?? I need this to be the last big bad thing that happens to them for a while.

More So'lek all the time please! I love him. I loved his role in the over all story and how he helps us throughout the final mission. He is the reason i am desperate for a romance in this game, but i can't have that so i'll just have to write it myself fhdjskghfs

I will be making a separate post about my thoughts on everything with Alma and Mokasa.

With the last of TAP (more or less) gone now, I'm really curious about the next DLC and the general future of Frontiers. Secrets of the Spires comes out in Fall, which is rapidly approaching, but i doubt we will hear anything until like September at the earliest. I think I remember hearing about a new clan in the new area for that one?? (Could be wrong though) Im really curious what the plot for that one is gonna be now that Mercer and Harding are gone.

Hopefully we will see Nor again. I'm kinda also hoping for a movie cameo? like Norm or Max showing up? We got an audio cameo of Ardmore, i think it'd be cool to see some friendly faces or at least audio for one of those guys. I don't think we will get a Jake cameo but i would lose my mind if we did lol.

Im also really hoping that theres more content coming in the future? More DLC or comics or something cause AFoP is the only thing keeping me sane when it comes to Avatar Brainrot rn.