#it was a whole thing that this new version isn't.

[danisbrainrot]

ugh, there is just something delicious about the parallel between mistynat and jackieshauna in the first two episodes of the new season. i barely know where to start.

obviously, misty and shauna lose their best friends. they're both to blame/blame themselves for nat and jackie's death, because essentially, they killed them.

misty actively kills nat whereas shauna passively kills jackie, which shows the difference in their relationship. but at the end of the day, once they realised what they'd done, they have a similar reaction. screaming 'no' in disbelief and holding them in their arms. they refuse to believe not only their best friend is dead, but they've killed them.

OH! and they're both too late to save them. shauna is too late to save jackie from the cold and misty cries, 'it's too late' when tai asks her how to save nat. i can't believe i almost forgot this!

another obvious parallel, misty wearing nat's jacket!! we see that shauna can't seem to let go of jackie's butterfly top, treating it as a security blanket, and now in the adult timeline misty clings onto nat's jacket. both items of clothing are physical reminders of their 'best friend' that they lost.

finally, what parallel stuck out to me the most: misty and shauna became the versions of their friends they THOUGHT they were. shauna marries jeff and becomes a suburban housewife, misty dresses like nat and goes to a bar to do whisky shots and pick bar fights.

however, nat was more than an alcoholic, despite being reduced by misty to a caricature. she feels purposeless after the woods, she's broken and from what we've seen, isolated. nat barely leaves her hotel room except to do risky shit like chase the blackmailer or help shauna dispose of adam's body. the most we see her reach out is to kevyn, who she immediately pushes away when he tries to break down her walls. she's built up this alcholic, uncaring, asshole wall to keep people out.

so when misty plays her as some rough, badass femme fatale, she's demonstrating to the audience that she hardly knows nat. she only knew nat's exterior, and nothing like her true character. to put it frankly, misty never truly knew nat because nat didn't want her to. so when misty 'becomes nat' she's becoming the shallow understanding she has of her best friend.

this ties into shauna never truly understanding jackie's true character. not because jackie hid it from her, but shauna's resentment of her did. every action we see from jackie is protective of shauna—giving her valium to calm down, saving her from the plane explosion, and even 'allowing shauna to eat her.'

however, shauna can't see how much jackie loves her because of her own bitter resentment. even as a ghost jackie is seemingly punishing shauna for letting her die, but most importantly, for hating her while she was alive.

'i don't know who you are anymore shauna.'

'maybe you never did.'

if anything, it should be completely switched around. shauna doesn't know anything about jackie. shauna is projecting this mean girl persona on jackie that just isn't there.

misty is projecting this badass, gets in bar fights and tries to light men's dicks on fire persona onto nat. sure, nat has done those things, but that isn't who she is at the core. just like how being a mean girl isn't who jackie is at her core (i've gone more into depth before, here).

i love mistynat as much as the next yellowjacket fan, but we have to be honest, for the most part, nat was always cagey with misty. something happened out in the woods that made her distrust misty, and i think they're going to explore that this season. especially with the whole, misty telling shauna that nat knows where coach ben is.

both misty and shauna make up these fantasies about their best friends to connect with them after their deaths. it's just so fascinating the writer's have decided to parallel these characters, because when i think about it, misty has always been written as this desperate character, craving attention and love. . . but so has shauna.

they've been narrative foils this entire time and it took natalie dying for me to realise it.

[butterfly--empress]

And Another Thing...

Because actually, the more I think about it, the more it just pisses me off...

If The main writer wanted this to just be a simple formulaic "magical girl powa" kids show that sells merch. With no overarching story plot.

MLB could've just simply BEEN that. A cutesy Sailor Moon inspired story!

MLB could've just BEEN an all female superhero team with Marinette as leader, Alya second in command, and Chloe and/or Kagami being her love rivals/friends for Adrien's affections.

And Adrien could literally just BE THE DAMN LUKEWARM LOVE INTEREST that she wins in the end. Because the Deuteragonist of this show, sure as shit ain't been him since at least S4, let's be so for real.

Nothing against Alya, I love her, but girlfriend has overshadowed what used to be Adrien's role.

But in this version of MLB, being an all girl team of superheroes with a secret identity. Marinette's absurd 'whacky' antics in this show could easily be ignored/deflected/handwaved away, if we never knew much about Adrien outside of him being a popular, good looking rich kid, whom Marinette crushes on and daydreams about often.

And TA doesn't have to twist himself into a pretzel to defend his poor writing choices, when the only POV that matters is Marinette's.

There would be no need for the lore, or vaguely changing it when he feels like it. Or worrying about the unnecessary drama of the whole 'they can't know each others identities' main plot that has all become meaningless.

The original main plot of the whole secret identities for romantic drama and the reason many of us were drawn to this show to BEGIN WITH, is moot when the writer constantly refuses to do ANYTHING with the setup he writes for himself.

He won't let none of his characters have any real development and growth and only seems to care about ONE-HALF of the original two man team.

And I'm over it. 4 episodes and a lame ass Special that literally excuses the main heroine's reasons for LYING to her One True Love has shown me this show is NOT interested in doing anything beyond what it's given.

All of us invested or holding your breath for any real progress with the romantic/main subplot are going to be waiting for naught.

I was already convinced but now I'm certain:

There will never be a big reveal. And if there is one, it'll be purposely left to the VERY end of the series. And it won't even be satisfying.

Nothing will EVER be done with the Lie. Why should it? Marinette finally has the boy she wants, and even if it ever got addressed, the writer would handle it in the most contrived way possible that somehow excuses Marinette's decision anyway.

How much you wanna bet, he'll just end up retconning his own story to SOMEHOW scapegoat Marinette's bullshit to be Lila's fault?

Or Chloe's? Because even when she's not around, not in the same school, city, or even country, the writer STILL finds a way to hate on Chloe.

No...wait even better! Adrien finally finds out and to avoid allowing Marinette to own up to her fucking mistake/betrayal of trust, she decides to 'sacrifice' her memories and being Ladybug...and oh my fucking god.

......This is why TA had Marinette entrust Alya as the new leader isn't it? He thinks he's so goddamn clever!

Marinette's gonna fuck up big time in this season and then get temporary or semi-permanent amnesia to forget EVERYTHING to avoid owning up to her mistakes?

And instead of people seeing the manipulative writing to handwave away how she's been very selfish and self-centered, and her need to control everything. People are going to praise TA for believing or redeeming her bad decisions/behavior on how much she was finally willing to 'sacrifice' herself for a change for Adrien.

*groans*....god this sounds even worse.

You know what, this post had a point and I spiraled again.

Oh yeah...MLB should've just been another inspired typical 5 teamed magical girl knock off because hoping the writer does anything worthwhile with his Deuteragonist, is just waiting for Levithan to reveal itself from the deep, dank, ocean depths, and in this timeline the world's in rn, that's actually more plausible than hoping for meaningful character arcs after 6 seasons of MLB...

[winterspellsfrozenkit]

However, I don't think that Ace and Jack are "traumatized" or carry a lot of baggage compared to the other cast.

Ace comes off like the "everyman" trope to a tee. He has a good homelife and has no real drama going on his life. His problems are ones that anyone can have. Jack is like this as well, since he doesn't have a dark backstory like the other boys either.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Not every character needs a traumatic past.

Although, I think Ace could've been handled a lot better, since he doesn't have much going for him as a character. I swear you can write him and Deuce out of the story, and nothing much would be lost.

Even Jack could be a lot more interesting if the game showcased him more and dove more into his relationship with Vil. He could've been like a Trey figure in Vil's arc, except he has a connection with both Epel and Vil, making the situation even more messy, and help out during Vil's overblot.

Having said that, I totally agree with what you said about most of the TWST boys having trauma in a general sense, and wanting the game to dive into them more. Hell, I wish the game gave Ace a bit more dimension and background. Yes, he got the whole "I feel insignificant compared to everyone else" in the last update, but that was almost resolved as soon as it was introduced as a character conflict for him, making it feel unsatisfying and unearned. The game undermined that whole thing by making him uber special and powerful after all with his UM being like an overpowered version of Ace's. Considering the game rarely every dives into these boy's backgrounds once their arcs are done, I think that's the end of it and that's all there is gonna be to Ace. Which is ashamed. Because he and Jack have so much more potential if the game actually fleshed them out more, especially Jack.

What I said: “Everyone in this game has trauma or personal struggles and it's NOT a competition of who has it worse.”

Ace and Jack are not really traumatized. For that matter, neither is Rook, but they DO have personal struggles. Personal struggles does not necessarily mean baggage, but everyone has things that they struggle with.

For Ace’s “I feel insignificant compared to everyone else”, I got the feeling they were setting that up for a while. Ace does this weird thing of deciding to mess with Grim and the player early in the game and we know he bullies Deuce. Now, he could just be being a jerk and arrogant, but why did he decide to pick on Grim and the player, who were janitors, not yet students? The novelization about the Rose-Red Tyrant explains he didn’t like the idea that Yuu got special treatment while he had to work to get into the school.

The idea that Grim and Yuu had gotten into NRC without any work apparently bothered him enough to instigate him being a bully. However, I don't buy Ace's excuse.

Grim and Yuu weren't students. Ace earlier was picking on them for being janitors and not getting in. That to me had read as Ace has been considered special for a while because he had strong magic and he was now struggling with not being as special as he thought.

According to the novelization, about 10 percent of the population has magic, but among that 10 percent it's rare to have the level of magic required to get into Night Raven College. So Ace was likely treated as really special, but once he got into one of the top magic schools, he realized he wasn't the top person anymore and it bothered him. At the Orientation, the new students had it confirmed that Malleus Draconia attended the school. Malleus is considered the strongest student at school because he is one of the top 5 mages in the world and Ace's own housewarden, Riddle, is only a month older than Ace.

Many bullies bully others because they are: insecure themselves, want to have to power, have been bullied, or learned it. It did not feel like Ace's bullying was learned behavior or that he had been bullied, but either he wanted to establish himself as the most powerful one of his friends or he's insecure. When we see Book 5, seeing Deuce get his Unique Magic before him, really bothered Ace. That's what sealed for me that Ace has personal insecurity he's trying to hide.

For Jack, he tries to act as a tough guy. Most people who do that? They've been hurt. It's often a defense mechanism. 'I'm going to act like I don't need anyone, because it scares people off from using or taking advantage of me and if I don't need anyone it won't hurt as much when people reject me.'

We don't know much of how Jack got along with other kids. But we do see in Book 5, he came to help Vil against bullies and the bullies ran from Jack. As a student at NRC, Jack tends to push away people, but his longing for companionship still leaks out. He's kind and he cares, but he hides it under his 'I don't need anyone dragging me down' schtick. That feels like someone who longs to make friends and have connection, but doesn't particularly feel safe doing so.

As for Rook, we don't know his story much either. We know he has many siblings, so maybe theater was his was of differentiating himself. We don't know. But he does carry some stuff in Book 6 because Vil says Rook is very perceptive, and yet Rook could not see Vil's struggle. That bothers him.

I'm not saying everyone is traumatized. But I did say IT'S NOT A COMPETITION ON WHO HAS IT WORSE. Everyone in the world has their own personal struggles. A person who comes from a good homelife can have personal struggles that affect them greatly, even though they aren't as dark as assassination attempt or extreme poverty. That's doesn't make them being struggles for that person less valid.

They still affect that person and undermining it because "Well, it's not trauma." is so callous to me. Maybe it's not a struggle to you, but you don't know how someone else handles things.

When I was a little kid, I had a classmate who would break down because they couldn't finish our math sheets in the set amount of time when we did timed math sheets. It's not something someone would describe as traumatic, but it still really upsetting to that person and affected them to the point they were sobbing and hyperventilating.

Several students, including me, and our teacher would talk to them, trying to help them calm down because not finishing a math sheet is not the end of the world in the grand scheme of life. They were okay. They didn't get physically hurt, but they were terrified about it. Why? I don't know. I never asked. I just knew that it made them upset and me and my classmates didn't want to see our classmate that upset because we felt so worried about them.

And guess what? That event that happened over 20 years ago for me? It still affects me to this day because when someone is upset to the point they are in tears, I go over to do what I can to try and help, just like I did as a little kid, because I can't help but worry when I see people in extreme distress.

It doesn't matter if it's "traumatic". What matters is the personal struggle that person is going through is real and it affects them.

[alizha]

𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚞𝚗-𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

☾⋆⁺₊✧ ⁀➴ 𝗋𝗈𝗅𝖺𝗇 𝗑 𝗍𝖺𝗏 | 𝗇𝗌𝖿𝗐

Happy Valentine's Day! ―୨♡୧― Please note this is the NSFW version of a Valentine's challenge fic I wrote! Click here for the SFW version if you're interested in some flirty banter instead!

Word Count: 3.8k

Tags: f!bard Tav with she/her pronouns, Tav's race isn't mentioned (but she isn't a tiefling), post-game

Warnings: NSFW, explicit sexual content, oral sex (f receiving), possessive behavior, wall sex

Summary: When Tav decides it's time to make things right by sneaking back into the Sorcerous vaults and returning a few stolen tomes, she gets more than she bargained for after getting caught by the new owner.

❖ SFW VERSION ❖ masterlist ❖ read on ao3

Tav really, really hoped she remembered the correct way to bypass the vault’s security. She ran through each trap in her mind, the puzzling order of steps she needed to take to get through unscathed. Stepping through the portal in the Lower City magic shop, she was instantly transported into the centre of the ornate, cave-like rotunda that led into the vault.

Blinking to adjust her eyes in the candlelight, she took a tentative first step forward onto the floor that seemed too clear to be glass, filled with mist and stars that might go on forever below. The air in the vault hummed with residual magic, the scent of dust and parchment and candlewax thick in the enclosed space.

In her arms, a precarious stack of heavy tomes, each highly valuable and equally questionable, threatened to topple at any moment. She had taken them weeks ago, back when she and her friends had snuck in to search for The Annals of Karsus. Lifting a few other books in the process had seemed a victimless crime at the time—she didn’t give two licks about Lorroakan, after all.

But then, Rolan had taken over the tower, and the magic shop and vaults as a result, and suddenly, selling the tomes to make a dime didn’t feel as harmless anymore. Tav had already put off sneaking the books back. Returning them, as it turned out, was far trickier than stealing them without Gale’s arcane knowledge, Astarion’s lockpicking, or Karlach’s strength.

She could only hope that Rolan was too busy these past few weeks to notice a few books missing from his newly-acquired and impossibly-vast collection.

Maybe there were easier ways. Maybe he would be understanding. Even though the man was a perennial curmudgeon, his sharp edges had somewhat softened in the time since he took over the tower. For some reason, Tav burned with unfamiliar shame when she thought about just handing the tomes over. It was ridiculous, to be sure, but she would rather just stick them back into their shelves without admitting what she’d done and wash her hands of the whole thing.

She shifted the books in her grip, wincing as the one on top started to slide forward a tick. Why did wizards insist on binding everything in gilded leather? Carefully, she reached for the handle of the first vault door with an elbow, trying not to think about the very painful ways Rolan’s wards could smite an intruder—

“Taaav!!!”

She nearly dropped the entire stack.

The voice that came from behind, sharp and laced with urgency, belonged to none other than Rolan himself. Tav whipped around, bracing herself to face his outrage at her being where she didn’t belong, and there he was. The bright ochre of his eyes glinted in the dim of the corridor, wide with—wait. That wasn’t fury. That was panic.

“What the hells do you think you’re doing?” Rolan hissed, advancing toward her with quick, stomping strides. His shirt, in a shade of ivory that fetchingly contrasts his skin, the ties undone below his neck, billowed with each step.

Tav floundered for an excuse, distracted by his appearance. He’d been making his appearances at High Hall in grand new robes, dark with a velvet sheen, befitting his new position. This was something else entirely, practically a state of undress for Rolan with the centre of his chest on full display, decorated in infernal ridges.

“Uh…”

Rolan grabbed her by the arm before she could formulate a response, yanking her back with surprising strength for someone who spent most of his time poring over dusty spellbooks. ���Are you trying to get yourself incinerated?” he snapped, motioning wildly toward the door.

She blinked. This was not how this was meant to go. “No?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. “I reset the traps yesterday, Tav. If you’d stepped through that door, you’d be a very artistic arrangement of ash on the floor right now.”

“Huh.” She glanced at the door. “Good to know.”

“By Mystra,” Rolan muttered, exhaling sharply as he let go of her arm. “I knew you were reckless, but I didn’t think you were stupid.”

“Hey! First of all, rude. Second of all—” She held up the books, stomach fluttering nervously. “—I was putting these back.”

Rolan’s eyes flitted down to the stack in her hands, his brows pinched. “Yes, I was wondering when I might be getting these back.”

Tav exhaled a laugh. “You knew,” she said accusingly.

“Of course I knew,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. Had his frame always been so broad? Tav couldn’t recall. “Lorroakan might have been shit at cataloguing, but Tolna had some records of our most… precious tomes. And you can’t seriously think I didn’t notice you and your friends lurking about when I was manning the shop?”

She chuckles weakly, clutching the books like a guilty child caught with a stolen pastry. “I mean, you could have lost track of them. Is that so unbelievable?” she offered, giving her most charming grin. “You’ve got so many books, Rolan. An embarrassing amount, really. You were bound to misplace a few.”

Rolan’s unimpressed stare refused to waver. “Tav.”

“Alright, fine,” she sighed dramatically. “I borrowed them. With every intention of bringing them back when I was done.”

“You stole them,” he corrected.

“Gale put me up to it!”

“Tav! You’re the bloody hero of Baldur’s Gate,” he said, rubbing his temples. “I would’ve let you purloin anything you needed from the vaults if you had only asked.”

She pressed her lips together, failing to suppress a smile. “Aw. Technically, I stole them from Lorroakan, but that’s very sweet of you, Rolan.”

He let out a long-suffering sigh. “Give me those,” he grumbled, moving to take the pile of tomes from her.

Tav relented easily, letting him shuffle the weight into his arms as he muttered something under his breath about ‘bards’ and an ‘absolute menace.’

“Well, I did bring them back, which I think should count for something,” she said, shaking out her wrists.

“Count for something?” Rolan scoffed. “Sure. It can count for restoring my sanity.”

He was taking this all very well, much to Tav’s delight. Now that she knew he wasn’t livid about the missing tomes, his irritation was something she had come to learn could be smoothed over. She stepped a little closer to him and tilted her head coyly, dropping her voice to a honeyed purr.

“You know,” she said, peering up at him through her lashes, “you could stand to be a bit flattered.”

Rolan looked at the ceiling for a moment, as if asking Mystra herself for patience. “At what?” he asked flatly.

“I chose to take care of this myself instead of bothering you with it,” Tav said, gesturing toward the books in his hands. “Obviously, that means I think you’re a very powerful, very important wizard.”

“Yes, and you failed,” he said with a sarcastic smile. “I’ll thank you not to blow smoke up my tail. I think I would have preferred your bothering over scraping your ashes off the vault floor.”

“I would’ve been fine,” she said, waving a hand dismissively. “But I’ll take that under advisement and come and bother you next time I need to return something I’ve stolen—I mean, borrowed.”

He snorts. “Consider me grateful.”

“It’s the least I could do. Since you seem to so enjoy my company.”

His eyes narrowed. “Really, Tav. That fluttery-eyed act might work at the Elfsong or wherever it is you spend your time, but if you were anyone else, I’d have you properly punished for theft.”

A thrill ran up her spine, a warmth invading her chest in response to the low gravel of his voice. “Aha! So, you admit that you like me.”

Rolan huffed, looking torn between throttling her and casting some spell that would send her careening out of his vaults forever. “Come on, thief. Let’s get these put away before you get any more terrible ideas.”

Tav smirked. “Oh, Rolan. I only have terrible ideas.”

She was close enough to see his jaw tick, to catch the glimmer of something desirous darken his eyes for a brief moment. Something seemed to shift in the air between them—the cool, empty scent of stone and dust growing sharper by the second. It was a familiar sensation; she had felt it once at Lamp Light Inn and a few times since. Brief spats followed by charged moments in the backrooms at High Hall and the upper levels of Sorcerous Sundries.

Somehow, they had ended up face-to-face, the space between them just wide enough for the tomes in Rolan’s grasp. He was looking at her—glaring at her, really—over the topmost leatherbound cover. She let her gaze wander deliberately over the rather patrician set of his brow, the piercing eyes, his straight nose. When she settled on his lips, they parted in another short huff.

“Tav—”

“How would you punish me?” she asked.

He frowned. “What?”

“You said something about proper punishment,” Tav insisted. “How would you punish me?”

“That—that was—I was merely jesting,” Rolan stuttered.

She shifted forward, knocking gently into the spines of the tomes separating them and, in turn, pressing the other side of the stack into his chest. “Don’t give me that. I know you’ve thought about it. After that incident at the docks, for instance.”

“That cutpurse was practically robbing us blind,” he countered indignantly. “You were too busy stroking his ego to notice.”

“That merchant was thinking about donating goods for the cleanup effort. I had him on the hook before you scared him off with that critical scowl of yours.”

Rolan gritted his teeth, pointed canines shining in the candle light. “I didn’t like how he looked at you,” he bit out.

“No, you didn’t like that I was sweet-talking him. You wanted to scold me, punish me, didn’t you?”

“That’s not true!” he said, taking a step forward and shoving the books into her chest in the process.

Tav stumbled backwards slightly from the unexpected force as Rolan shrank back, a sheepish look on his face. There was a fluttering in her stomach that she was certain hadn’t come from the temporary loss of balance. And it was hard to tell, but the faint darkening in his cheeks seemingly indicating his flush of embarrassment made her head all the more fuzzy.

“Tav,” Rolan started, but she didn’t give him any time to continue.

She grabbed the stack of tomes from his hands, and he watched, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, as she dropped them to the stone floor with an echoing thud.

“TAV!” he half-barked, half-gasped in incensed shock.

Before he could no doubt launch into a passionate lecture on the proper handling of antiquated magical tomes of great renown, she grasped the loose flaps of his shirt collar and pressed her lips to his. Rolan let out a muffled noise of surprise that quickly morphed into a low groan. The sound went straight to her core, a scorching jolt like getting hit by lightning conjured by her own lute.

In an instant, the tomes were forgotten as Rolan’s hands curled around her waist. She felt something sliding against her leg, and she realised it was his tail coiling possessively around her thigh. Oh, he had been awful at hiding how much he wanted her. And now, finally, her poking and prodding had won out.

Rolan draws away with a smack, his half-lidded eyes glowing down at her. “Hells, this is really happening, isn’t it?”

Tav dove an impatient hand into his hair without regard for the neat styling. “You have to ask?”

She pulled him back down to meet her lips in another kiss, reveling in the soft moan rumbling in his throat. He invaded her senses with rich nodes of cloves and vetiver, the elevated warmth of his skin seeping into her as she opened her mouth to him. His tongue slid in a tentative stroke against hers, and she knew he was being consciously cautious of those sharp incisors.

“Wait, wait,” Rolan gasped, pushing with his hands at her hips. “You want to do this here?”

“It’s alright. This is a very secure vault, after all. No one’s going to walk in on us,” Tav said, flashing him a sly grin as her hands groped at his shirt.

He gave an amused grunt, his tail snaking a little higher up her leg as she pulled the hem of his shirt loose from his trousers. While she worked the garment up over his head, his hair falling in pieces from its knot, Rolan backed her against the stone wall of the corridor. The moment the shirt hit the ground, his lips were crashing back onto hers fervently.

She could feel his pointed nails grazing against her ribs as his hands ran along her sides, then down to her ass. The caution he was taking in awareness of how easily he could draw blood was admirable, really—not that she would care if he did. She was all too busy getting lost in the otherworldly warmth of his skin.

“Naughty Tav,” Rolan murmured between wet kisses against her jaw, trailing down her throat and over her clavicle as he folded himself down to his knees. “You were trying to get caught by me, weren’t you?”

Was she? Her face was flushed hot as she gazed down at him and the hungry look in his eyes. She couldn’t rightly remember. Maybe she had wanted that, deep down.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly, shuddering as his hands splayed up her skirt before bunching the fabric between his fingers. Her thighs were quaking beneath his touch, hot anticipation blooming at her core.

Rolan tutted softly, lifting the hem of her skirt to expose her legs. The cool rush of vault air against her heated skin sent a shiver down her spine. She gasped at the feeling of his fingers carefully pushing her underwear aside, and he cooed in appreciation of her conscious effort not to buck into his hand.

“That’s a good girl,” he drawled, blowing humid breath over her waiting folds and clearly delighting in the way her frame trembled in response. His tail brushed against her ankle, lightly snaking up her calf. “Keep still for me like that, sweetheart.”

A moan tore from her throat as he brought his mouth to her cunt, palms slapping against the wall. Rolan wasted no time, lapping eagerly at her clit, giving her no lead up to the sudden burst of sensation. Her hips canted of their own accord, his command for her quickly fleeing her mind, and his hands gripped her tighter to hold her in place.

His tongue was nothing short of sinful—no, magical would be a more apt descriptor. Alternating between broad, flat licks through her folds, then pointed and focused on her clit. Tav could feel her legs starting to shake, her breath growing shallow, her heart fit to burst as her body shifted from tensing against the onslaught of overstimulation to desperately chasing after that pleasure.

“Ah! Rolan—”

She delved one hand into his hair, her knuckles brushing against the protrusion of his magnificent horns. The wild urge to grasp onto them as he devoured her cunt flashed through her head. Experimentally, she slid her fingers up one spiny appendage, feeling the bumpy surface made of something smooth like a fingernail.

Rolan groaned beneath her as his molten hot tongue split her folds. She took that as encouragement to wrap her hand around the horn, eliciting another low groan from deep in his chest as his tail coiled a little tighter around her calf. As if in reward, his lips closed around her clit and gave a delicious suck that had her arching into him with a gasp.

“Oh, fuck, fuck!”

It was like the louder she got, the harder he focused in on her swollen bud. She was clenching around nothing, desperate to be filled, to gush around him. Sounds of her pleasure echoed off the stones, and some part of her thrilled at imagining her moans reaching all the way to the other side of the portal in the next room.

Before the heat at her centre could build too high, Rolan began drawing away, much to her disappointment. His mouth and chin were glistening with her arousal as he stood, wiping the shine away with the back of his hand. Tav could only lean limply against the wall, eyes glassy and chest heaving.

“You really are a naughty girl, aren’t you?” he said, loosening the ties of his trousers. “Coming into my vault, looking to rile up the master of Ramazith’s Tower under the pretense of returning a few books? Gods, you knew you had me wrapped around your finger, didn’t you? You knew how much I wanted you to be mine.”

Her head had been swimming, barely able to follow along with what he was saying, but the admission yanked her back into focus. She stared at him for a long moment, lips parted, the implications of his words causing her stomach to somersault in adoration. What was he saying? Did Rolan feel something toward her? Something deeper than desire?

“Wait, what—?”

She cut herself off when he lowered his trousers to reveal his cock, all coherent thought dissipating once again. Fresh arousal leaked from her cunt at the sight of his thick length, straining and hard from giving her pleasure. He let out a low rumble of a chuckle at her reaction.

“Is this what you want?” He gave himself a few strokes with his hand while crowding her into the wall again.

Tav nodded dumbly, reaching for the throbbing member herself, but Rolan lightly smacked her hand away.

“Use your words, sweetheart. Is this what you want?”

His cock was hard against her abdomen. It made her mouth run dry.

“Yes, Rolan, please.”

“Good,” he murmured, sliding one hand down over her thigh. “Lift up your skirt for me, love.”

With quivering fingers, she grasped at the material of her skirt, hoisting it up around her waist. At the same time, Rolan picked up her leg to hold her open as he pushed her underwear out of the way again. Tav’s breath hitched the moment the head of his cock tapped against her soaked, swollen folds.

“Oh, you’re so wet, Tav,” he breathed. “So wet and ready for me. You must have been thinking about this.”

Her eyes blew wide as he pressed into her, moving slowly to let her feel every inch of him, each infernal ridge along his length deliberately dragging against her walls. She whined as her cunt stretched around him, the slide aided by her slickness.

“Look at how well you take me,” he said, voice strained. He let out a swear as he bottomed out, hips meeting hers. “Like you were made for me, love. Mine.”

A wave of heat flooded her at the intensity lacing his tone. When he pulled his cock out to the tip and rolled his hips again, shoving himself deep with a long moan, her vision swam. He was big, filling her to the brim so perfectly that she could do nothing else but focus on the point at which they were joined.

“Yes, Rolan, yes,” she moaned as he started to fuck her, snapping his hips into her with increasing speed. “Oh—”

He buried a growl into her neck, his grip bruising against her thigh as he hoisted her against the wall. Unable to be bothered with continuing to hold up her skirt, she threw her arms around his shoulders, clutching at the wiry strength of his back. Her back thudded bluntly against the stone as he rocked into her, thrusting his cock as deep as he could go.

“Tav,” he groaned, teeth scraping against her skin and sending electricity ricocheting through her. “Faex, Tav. You’re so tight. I want you to cum for me. Cum on my cock for me, love.”

“Fuck,” she cried, reaching between their bodies to press two fingers on her clit.

Barely a few seconds of stimulation against the sensitive nub was all it took before she was shoved head first into her release. Tav tipped her head back with a moan, nearly hitting it against the wall behind her as she clenched hard around Rolan’s thick cock, still pulling in and out of her. He rode her through her orgasm, groaning at the feeling of her hot, pulsing cunt.

He let out a string of good girls and infernal swears as he continued holding her, spread wide for him. Tav slowly came down from her climax, the edges of her vision fuzzy, while her hips rolled weakly of their own accord. Rolan didn’t slow down, fucking her into the wall to chase his own release. She whined, nails digging into the planes of his back.

“Is this what you came here for?” he demanded as she writhed. “Is this what you wanted, Tav? When you snuck back in here with those tomes?”

His cock was hitting some part deep inside her that was so lush, she didn’t have the mental capacity to come up with anything other than to blindly agree to whatever he said. “Yes! Fuck, Rolan, yes! Gods—”

“Then, take it. Take it.”

All of a sudden, he shoved himself into her and seized, abruptly stopping his thrusts. Tav keened, feeling his length twitching inside her as Rolan came with a clenched-jawed groan. Hot spurts of his release filled her, and he shuddered before dropping his brow to her shoulder, panting.

Gingerly, he lowered her leg down, supporting her until her foot was steady on the ground. He slipped out of her in the process, a slight shiver racking through him at the loss of her heat. She brought a hand up to his hair, raking her fingers through the tousled locks as he pulled back just enough to meet her gaze.

“Hells, Tav,” he said between heavy breaths. “I mean it, you know. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this. But regardless of my feelings for you, you must tell me now if you don’t feel the same.”

“Oh, Rolan.” Her chest flooded with an aching mixture of affection and guilt. “I like you, too, dummy. I wish we hadn’t—you know. Not here.”

He shook his head resolutely, taking her by the shoulders. “Here, the tower, the bloody Shadowlands—makes no difference where. Because I’m just going to bring you back with me and take you again, Tav. You won’t be leaving my bed tonight. Does that sound agreeable?”

She hummed, lifting herself slightly on her toes to kiss him. “Perfectly agreeable. I am sorry about the rough treatment of your tomes, though."

Rolan spares the books a glance and rolls his eyes. "Forget it. We'll deal with them later."

❖ masterlist ❖ read on ao3

[torgawl]

everyone here was soooo excited because a national channel was going to bring back this iconic tv series, directed specifically to the youth, from our childhood and adolescence that we are so nostalgic about after 11 years for them to disappoint us all with the trailer because it looks like elite 2.0

[sysig]

It’s hard to put on a bright face, in spite of everything (Patreon)

[ruvviks]

toying with the idea of making yancey's friends not real. would that be too evil

[0hellifiknow0]

brief rant about X-men 97 because apparently whitewashing is still a thing in the 2020s

I know season one came out almost a year ago, but I'm still frustrated with X-Men '97's portrayal of Roberto Da Costa. In the comics, Roberto is the son of an Afro-Brazilian millionaire. His mutant powers developed after he was the victim of a racial hate crime in Rio de Janeiro. Admittedly, the comics have a nasty habit of lightening Roberto's skin and giving him Eurocentric features but his first appearance makes it clear that he’s a dark-skinned, visibly black man.

That’s not what we get in X-Men '97. Instead, Roberto has a tiny nose, rail-thin lips, and barely textured hair (it honestly looks less like it’s wavy and more like straight hair that's just been styled.) Whitewashing is always frustrating, but it's downright disheartening when it happens in a franchise that centers around diversity and anti-discrimination. X-Men '97 has demonstrated its ability to engage with diverse backgrounds effectively. The effort and care that went into portraying Magneto's Jewish heritage is a testament to this. It's telling that they'll do that for a white character but couldn't even be bothered to draw Roberto with black features. They don't even explore how his Brazilian heritage affects his view on being a mutant. The Da Costas are Brazilian immigrants. This makes them outsiders in New York's (predominantly white) wealthy circles. That could add a lot of nuance to Roberto's belief that he shouldn't "rub [his mutation] in people's faces." If Roberto was visibly black, that would add even more nuance to that stance because he (and his father) would be an outsider, even among other Brazilians. I don't think there was any malice behind this decision. I think they were just lazy and careless.

To be clear, I'm glad they did Magneto's Jewish heritage justice, and I don't want to imply that antisemitism isn't an issue. But a lot of Jews are white, and they experience the privilege that comes with that. You can't tell that someone is Jewish just by looking at them (unless they're wearing religious clothing and/or jewelry). It's the opposite for most black people. Magneto and Kitty Pryde are both white. While I enjoy seeing how that shapes their view of anti-mutant discrimination, I wish it was explored more with characters whose race or ethnicity is more visible. It just feels like they don't care. Which sucks because I fucking love the X-Men. The franchise is so deeply rooted in diversity and anti-discrimination, and shit like this makes it ring hollow.

For context, here's comic Roberto vs. cartoon Roberto:

[aberooski]

I love my gx winx au and I love that it's just bits and pieces of me being like oh that's fun and not having any semblance of lore or plot. It's purely contained to the character designs I've drawn for the girls.

[the-golden-ghost]

1,500 words babey

[iamthedukeofurl]

Scott Pilgrim is, I think, the best example I can think of for establishing a setting's Nonsense Limit. The setting's Nonsense Limit isn't quite "How high-fantasy is this". It's mostly a question of presentation, to what degree does the audience feel that they know the rules the world operates by, such that they are primed to accept a random new element being introduced. A setting with a Nonsense Limit of 0 is, like, an everyday story. Something larger than life, but theoretically taking place in our world, like your standard spy thriller action movie has a limit of 1. Some sort of hidden world urban fantasy with wizards and stuff operating in secret has a nonsense limit around 3 or 4. A Superhero setting, presenting an alternate version of our world, is a 5 or 6. High fantasy comes in around a 7 or so, "Oh yeah, Wizards exist and they can do crazy stuff" is pretty commonly accepted. Scott Pilgrim comes in at a 10. If you read the Scott Pilgrim book, it starts off looking like a purely mundane slice of life. The first hint at the fantastical is Ramona appearing repeatedly in Scott's Dreams, and then later showing up in real life. When we finally get an explanation, it's this:

Apparently Subspace Highways are a thing? And they go through people's heads? And Ramona treats this like it's obscure, but not secret knowledge. Ramona doesn't think she's doing anything weird here. At this point, it's not clear if Scott is accepting Ramona's explanation or not, things kind of move on as mundane as ever until their Date, when Ramona takes Scott through subspace, and he doesn't act like his world was just blown open or anything, although I guess that could have been a metaphor. there's a couple other moments, but everything with Ramona could be a metaphor, or Scott not recognizing what's going on. Maybe Ramona is uniquely fantastical in this otherwise normal world. And then, this happens

Suddenly, a fantastical element (A shitty local indie band finishing their set with a song that knocks out most of the audience) is introduced unrelated to Ramona, and undeniably literal. We see the crowd knocked out by Crash and The Boys. but the story doesn't linger on the implications of that, the whole point of that sequence is to raise the Nonsense Level, such that you accept it when This happens

Matthew Patel comes flying down onto the stage, Scott, who until this point is presented as a terrible person and a loser, but otherwise is extremely ordinary, proceeds to flawlessly block and counter him before doing a 64-hit air juggle combo. Scott's friends treat this like Scott is showing off a mildly interesting party trick, like being really good at darts. The establish that Scott is the "Best Fighter in the Province", not only are street-fighter battles a thing, Scott is Very Good at it, but they're so unimportant that being the best fighter in the province doesn't make Scott NOT a loser. So when Matthew Patel shows off his magic powers and then explodes into a pile of coins, we've established "Oh, this is how silly the setting gets". It's not about establishing the RULES of the setting so much as it is about establishing a lack of rules. Scott's skill at street-fighter battles doesn't translate to any sort of social prestige. Ramona can access Subspace Highways and she uses it to do a basic delivery job. It doesn't make sense and it's clear that it's not supposed to. So later on, when Todd Ingram starts throwing around telekinesis, and the explanation we're given is "He's a Vegan" , you're already so primed by the mixture of weirdness and mundanity that rather than trying to incorporate this new knowledge into any sort of coherent setting ruleset, you just go "Ah, yeah, Vegans".

[krawdad]

I didn't know there was a (long defunct) different mr toad ride built for Disney world that I'd never heard of before

It's bizarre it manages to feel like an even cheaper version of an already dangerously archaic plywood-with-blacklight-paint-and-jumpscares type dark ride

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

average United States contains 1000s of pet tigers in backyards" factoid actualy [sic] just statistical error. average person has 0 tigers on property. Activist Georg, who lives the U.S. Capitol & makes up over 10,000 each day, has purposefully been spreading disinformation adn [sic] should not have been counted

I have a big mad today, folks. It's a really frustrating one, because years worth of work has been validated... but the reason for that fucking sucks.

For almost a decade, I've been trying to fact-check the claim that there "are 10,000 to 20,000 pet tigers/big cats in backyards in the United States." I talked to zoo, sanctuary, and private cat people; I looked at legislation, regulation, attack/death/escape incident rates; I read everything I could get my hands on. None of it made sense. None of it lined up. I couldn't find data supporting anything like the population of pet cats being alleged to exist. Some of you might remember the series I published on those findings from 2018 or so under the hashtag #CrouchingTigerHiddenData. I've continued to work on it in the six years since, including publishing a peer reviewed study that counted all the non-pet big cats in the US (because even though they're regulated, apparently nobody bothered to keep track of those either).

I spent years of my life obsessing over that statistic because it was being used to push for new federal legislation that, while well intentioned, contained language that would, and has, created real problems for ethical facilities that have big cats. I wrote a comprehensive - 35 page! - analysis of the issues with the then-current version of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in 2020. When the bill was first introduced to Congress in 2013, a lot of groups promoted it by fear mongering: there's so many pet tigers! they could be hidden around every corner! they could escape and attack you! they could come out of nowhere and eat your children!! Tiger King exposed the masses to the idea of "thousands of abused backyard big cats": as a result the messaging around the bill shifted to being welfare-focused, and the law passed in 2022.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act created a registry, and anyone who owned a private cat and wanted to keep it had to join. If they did, they could keep the animal until it passed, as long as they followed certain strictures (no getting more, no public contact, etc). Don’t register and get caught? Cat is seized and major punishment for you. Registering is therefore highly incentivized. That registry closed in June of 2023, and you can now get that registration data via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Guess how many pet big cats were registered in the whole country?

97.

Not tens of thousands. Not thousands. Not even triple digits. 97.

And that isn't even the right number! Ten USDA licensed facilities registered erroneously. That accounts for 55 of 97 animals. Which leaves us with 42 pet big cats, of all species, in the entire country.

Now, I know that not everyone may have registered. There's probably someone living deep in the woods somewhere with their illegal pet cougar, and there's been at least one random person in Texas arrested for trying to sell a cub since the law passed. But - and here's the big thing - even if there are ten times as many hidden cats than people who registered them - that's nowhere near ten thousand animals. Obviously, I had some questions.

Guess what? Turns out, this is because it was never real. That huge number never had data behind it, wasn't likely to be accurate, and the advocacy groups using that statistic to fearmonger and drive their agenda knew it... and didn't see a problem with that.

Allow me to introduce you to an article published last week.

This article is good. (Full disclose, I'm quoted in it). It's comprehensive and fairly written, and they did their due diligence reporting and fact-checking the piece. They talked to a lot of people on all sides of the story.

But thing that really gets me?

Multiple representatives from major advocacy organizations who worked on the Big Cat Publix Safety Act told the reporter that they knew the statistics they were quoting weren't real. And that they don't care. The end justifies the means, the good guys won over the bad guys, that's just how lobbying works after all. They're so blase about it, it makes my stomach hurt. Let me pull some excerpts from the quotes.

"Whatever the true number, nearly everyone in the debate acknowledges a disparity between the actual census and the figures cited by lawmakers. “The 20,000 number is not real,” said Bill Nimmo, founder of Tigers in America. (...) For his part, Nimmo at Tigers in America sees the exaggerated figure as part of the political process. Prior to the passage of the bill, he said, businesses that exhibited and bred big cats juiced the numbers, too. (...) “I’m not justifying the hyperbolic 20,000,” Nimmo said. “In the world of comparing hyperbole, the good guys won this one.”

"Michelle Sinnott, director and counsel for captive animal law enforcement at the PETA Foundation, emphasized that the law accomplished what it was set out to do. (...) Specific numbers are not what really matter, she said: “Whether there’s one big cat in a private home or whether there’s 10,000 big cats in a private home, the underlying problem of industry is still there.”"

I have no problem with a law ending the private ownership of big cats, and with ending cub petting practices. What I do have a problem with is that these organizations purposefully spread disinformation for years in order to push for it. By their own admission, they repeatedly and intentionally promoted false statistics within Congress. For a decade.

No wonder it never made sense. No wonder no matter where I looked, I couldn't figure out how any of these groups got those numbers, why there was never any data to back any of the claims up, why everything I learned seemed to actively contradict it. It was never real. These people decided the truth didn't matter. They knew they had no proof, couldn't verify their shocking numbers... and they decided that was fine, if it achieved the end they wanted.

So members of the public - probably like you, reading this - and legislators who care about big cats and want to see legislation exist to protect them? They got played, got fed false information through a TV show designed to tug at heartstrings, and it got a law through Congress that's causing real problems for ethical captive big cat management. The 20,000 pet cat number was too sexy - too much of a crisis - for anyone to want to look past it and check that the language of the law wouldn't mess things up up for good zoos and sanctuaries. Whoops! At least the "bad guys" lost, right? (The problems are covered somewhat in the article linked, and I'll go into more details in a future post. You can also read my analysis from 2020, linked up top.)

Now, I know. Something something something facts don't matter this much in our post-truth era, stop caring so much, that's just how politics work, etc. I’m sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

Laws that will impact the welfare of living animals must be crafted carefully, thoughtfully, and precisely in order to ensure they achieve their goals without accidental negative impacts. We have a duty of care to ensure that. And in this case, the law also impacts reservoir populations for critically endangered species! We can't get those back if we mess them up. So maybe, just maybe, if legislators hadn't been so focused on all those alleged pet cats, the bill could have been written narrowly and precisely.

But the minutiae of regulatory impacts aren't sexy, and tiger abuse and TV shows about terrible people are. We all got misled, and now we're here, and the animals in good facilities are already paying for it.

I don't have a conclusion. I'm just mad. The public deserves to know the truth about animal legislation they're voting for, and I hope we all call on our legislators in the future to be far more critical of the data they get fed.

[ladyshinga]

When it comes to artistic personification of the deadly sins, Lust is usually the ONLY ONE ever designed to be the OBJECT of the sin rather than the sinner. Greed? They tend to design some one who LOOKS greedy. Sloth? Lazy person. A lot of these design choices kinda reveal how the creator views people in general (wow you made Gluttony or Greed fat, how original, so groundbreaking) but LUST? Lust is usually just… a hot chick. Who makes OTHERS lust but she herself often isn't running around acting inappropriately horny or anything. She's just kinda there. Maybe a bit flirty but otherwise the whole intent is to make the AUDIENCE feel attraction and that's how they associate it with lust. The Greed character won't make the viewer feel greedy but by god with Lust this is all we GOT. (Before you ask, I only half-count the FMA versions of these characters since they had these names but their origins were more complicated than Being Literal Sins)

I want all or nothin' here. Make the personifications ALL like Lust, maybe! Make it so their designs are only hinting at these things but the MAIN THING they can do is make OTHERS feel these things. Greed? He's a crypto guy who can manipulate people into screwing over others for easy cash. Sloth? The dude commenting "lol who cares, no one cares, just chill" at even the most horrible tragedies in the news (We can also change this one to Apathy and throw THAT deadly sin in, I just like that concept as a sin), make Wrath a reactionary podcaster or something. Make them make OTHERS sin.

Or, go the other way, and have them all LOOK like the sinners, and include Lust IN THAT. Just design some gooner who hasn't seen a real woman in six weeks and comments on every selfie they see online judging them for not looking like an anime waifu.

COMMIT TO THE BIT, PEOPLE, this mixed-up message is WEAK

[bluebeads-art]

As the flash hits your eye, you feel something crashing into you from all directions. Below you is obvious, Bonbon situated themself to bump into you while the picture was taken. You look to your right, and Mirabelle’s cheek is pressed up to yours. On your left, Isabeau’s sheepishly hugged you to his side. There’s a hand in your hair, too, and it feels like Madame Odile. [...] “We need a souvenir of this trip,” Mirabelle adds. She rushes to the ground to pick up the picture and snort-laughs as she looks at it. “Oh no, Siffrin looks like we’re holding him hostage!” — Curtain Call, Chapter 9, by @openphrase123 (Link in the replies)

2024 October 22nd

Fanfic fanart fanfic fanart!! When I read the "hostage" line, it invoked such a clear image in my head of Siffrin tensed up like a startled prey animal that it got added to my list of things to maybe draw immediately.

Dooon't think about the words 'left' and 'right' in that quote too hard. I know how to read I prommy. :) (I did Not process those words and lost the coin flip in the composition phase...)

Close-up and ramblings about the cans of worms I unleashed upon myself under the cut

Time taken on this was [head in hands] 48 hours and 37 minutes.... That bloated number has two culprits:

1) I got a new tablet! My old one was 10 years old. Its plastic was melting and the electronics had ghosts in 'em, so it needed the sweet release of retirement. However, I had just gotten to the line art phase when the switch happened. Clumsily getting used to the new one during the most precise phase of the process did devastating things to my perfectionism.

2) I made a GRAVE mistake with how I chose to color this. I wanted to keep the grayscale layers for accuracy instead of just slapping a B&W filter over the colored version, so all the colors come from gradient maps, color balance layers, overlay layers, and raster layers clipped to other layers. Listen. I'm used to working with lots of layers. I like keeping things separate so I can edit them more easily. But this is the worst layer system I have ever created. Going from color to B&W requires toggling exactly 20 layers & folders on or off. There are 87 visible layers total. This file lags when you edit it. I've never wanted CSP v1.13 to have layer comps more in my life.

Not helping matters was Isabeau. I said he was the easiest to draw in my last post, but he took that as a challenge, apparently. It's a simple fist-on-hip pose, why was that so hard!?! His face gave me grief too.

Odile's lil' wave got added at the end of the line art phase. I've never added to a sketch that late in the game before, but I felt bad about how little screen area she got, haha. Girl, I tried, but this composition was not kind to you.

Giving Isa, Odile, and Siffrin skin colors felt cursed. Well... "color" is maybe a stretch for Sif. The pallor from being affection-jumpscared isn't helping. In the dev's nose reveal post, they said that Siffrin isn't white but is white-passing, so BOOM albinism headcanon. Like c'mon, they wear a big hat and have most of their skin covered because the sun is a deadly laser when you have little to no melanin and idk if sunblock exists in-universe. Heck, maybe most Islanders have it, their whole religion is about the night sky so maybe they're nocturnal. This makes perfect sense. :)

[ghosted-jazz]

Did Cosmo and Wanda have a fairy Timmy back in the day? I hadn't watched A New Wish yet but iirc their relationship was strained by Timmy, I think because of the whole "no one aged for 50 years" thing in Timmy's Secret Wish. So would that mean Timmy messed up their marriage?

Yep! Timmy was Cosmo and Wanda's first fairy!

Cosmo and Wanda were newly weds with no support systems thus miserable enough to get their own fairy!

For the first few years, the three of them were perfect but Timmy overstayed his welcome, none of them wanting to lose this new family they created. Timmy used his magic to try and force a magic solution to make Cosmo and Wanda happy again, to varying levels of success.

New fairy management notices that Cosmo and Wanda seem to be getting more miserable despite having Timmy, so they get assigned a new fairy:

Chloe is here to fix all of Timmy's mistakes. But their happy little family isn't going to be separated so instead of being replaced, Timmy and Chloe end up as coworkers.

But even with two fairies, Cosmo and Wanda keep getting more miserable. With a fresh new set of eyes and someone to talk to, Timmy finally admits that the Fairywinkle-Cosmas might be better off without him since most of their conflict does seem to revolve around magic. So both Chloe and Timmy resign, erasing Cosmo's, Wanda's, Poof's Peri's and Sparky's memories of magic.

That day, the Fairywinkle-Cosma's pet goldfish, the one they got when they got their first house, dies. The whole family is very torn up about it, crying even though they don't know why they feel so strongly about losing this goldfish.

As for the whole 50 year time loop thing:

After granting that accidental wish, Timmy does not come clean about it for 50 years in fear of getting into trouble. A swap version of Timmy's Secret Wish does happen and undoes the time loop but yep, that wish absolutely contributed in the decline of their marriage. Not that Cosmo and Wanda would remember it anyways