#literally my only source of comfort is consuming food

[succulent-ghoul]

PTSD is literally evil and I hate this shit so much. I've cried twice and can't stop shaking at the idea of the fireworks tomorrow and in eating my feelings

[sunkeji]

Hello!! If it alright can i request a tsukishima(+anyone else separately) x reader where the boys get a wisdom tooth removed so they're loopy and high from the meds and the reader has to take care of them?

a/n: I'm so sorry that I didn't get to your req sooner. If you're still alive and following my blog, I hope you have the heart to forgive me 🙏 also I'm trying a new format tee hee.

Tsukishima

My guy is dazed. I'm talking about his eyes looking hazy, and he's just staring at you. He's literally just staring at you with this sort of confused and serious face, like he's trying to figure something out.

He's got cotton balls stuffed in his mouth to apply the needed pressure, which makes his cheeks look a little puffy. His face right now is contrasting with his usual stoic expression.

Of course, you're going to have to take pictures to show him later to use as material for your teasing and because he looks absolutely cute.

Now he's still high and kind of loopy from the medicine that they gave him so I'm sure he's still feeling sleepy. So you opt to take a cab back to his home, and during this time, he's gotten a bit touchy. He's leaning against your shoulder while slumping in his seat as he fiddles with your fingers.

Fast forward to when you're in his room together. You helped settle him down in his bed after helping him change into a set of comfortable clothes. And of course, he treated you like some sort of pervert for wanting to stay while he changed. You just rolled your eyes and faced your back toward him.

You wanted to make him a smoothie to help with the soreness, or at least some soft foods that'd be easy for him to consume. But before you could do so, he had gently grabbed your hand and led you to his bed.

He was acting shy now, asking you to join him in bed. He obviously wanted to cuddle since he got out of the procedure and was just thinking of ways he could ask you to cuddle with him without actually asking.

Give your tsundere boyfriend some love, he becomes clingy and less emotionally constipated when he's feeling sleepy and high after all.

Bokuto

Just like Tsukishima, except he becomes 10 times clingier and acts like an overgrown baby.

As soon as he's out of the dentist, he's drooping himself all over you. It's like he's leaning almost all of his body weight against you, and mind you, he is no small guy. So it's not unexpected when you get some stares after leaving the dentist.

So it becomes a race against time to get him home before he collapses from the drowsiness or before he starts getting rowdy.

When it comes to him, forethought is necessary. Like booking a ride in advance to ensure your arrival back home wouldn't exceed 15 minutes because, as sad as it is to say it, you don't think your boyfriend can behave for more than that.

And you reach home just in time because, as soon as you step out of the cab, he's sulking about something. You're not sure what it's about this time, but you attempt to get him into the lift first.

You're so close to getting him into his house when he stops dead in his tracks and starts accusing you of not loving him. You don't know how he ever got to that conclusion. You make a sarcastic remark that breaks the dam, and he starts wailing.

You're panicking now, trying to get him into the house before any neighbors start to come out and investigate the source of the noise.

So in a last-ditch effort, you shove him the littlest bit into the house and shut the door. You turn around only to see him on the floor, sobbing and acting as if he's in a soap opera.

You sigh and just go into his bedroom to prepare the bed for him and clothes for him to change into. When you're done, you call him by his favorite pet name and promise him you'll cuddle with him until he's sober.

He perks up at the use of the pet name and scrambles to get into his room to change, and once he's done changing, he grabs you and tackles you into his bed until you're both snug under the covers.

Now he's bombarding you with questions about questions with obvious answers, like whether or not you love him, as he's nuzzling his head into you.

[demisexual-dryad]

I’ve had,,, an idea,,, like a beautiful, beautiful idea for a fantasy creature Au for ace attorney.

I’ve had oread* miles edgeworth and fire spirit phoenix wright FUCKING INVADING MY BRAIN. Here’s some of my brain rot. And the reference pose I used just in case someone was looking for it (thank you og pose posters of the art world you are gifts of gods I swear it, I used number three but I altered the shit out of it AND THOSE HANDS TURNED OUT SO DAMN NICE) and I have ideas for who is what if yall wanna hear me out. (Please say you do I’m begging I wanna theory dump so bad)

So some tidbits. Yes Phoenix has little fire wings and he can (kind of anyway, it’s more like floating) fly. It is important to note; he’s not a true Phoenix, just an elemental being made of fire. He can change his form (he’s literally an essence of fire itself contained in an elemental core.) They flare when he gets happy, excited, jealous, worried, or angry. They tend to recede or die out when he’s sardonic or in any other depressive mood. He also flutters them a little when he’s really stoked or happy.

He can control how hot his external flames burn, same with his wing size (when he thinks about it).

If his internal flame goes out he dies. If it dims due to illness or lowered body temp, he does get really sick (like a flame getting weaker- yes he was really not ok after the bridge incident, and the taser gave him fever chills for two days after because it was too close to his heart. Glass had to be removed from his stomach after Dahlia because he can’t fucking digest glass and it melted into a huge wad in his stomach causing a large blockage. The poison dahlia used had a side effect of lowering body temp, so Phoenix still got sick from being stupid.)

Also. This motherfucker has to eat. A LOT he literally has to consume a fuel source (food, coal, wood, anything that can burn) so he doesn’t yknow. Stop burning.

He does glow! From the inside out! Lantern boi.

Miles is an Oread. Oreads are Greek rock, valley, mountain, and grotto spirits.

He’s made of limestone. Looks intimidating, but crumbles apart easy.

Yes. He does grow garnet crystals out of his horns.

He can mold and shape rocks at will, which is useful because when he pushes himself too hard or is stressed he can’t hide it. His body parts just start crumbling off. (Dw, they snap back into place like nothing happened but it’s definitely unsettling. Think: “Your arm’s off!” “It’s but a fleshwound.”)

I gave him a tail and more animal like legs to be more of a representation of animals that live in his life source area (there’s a sacred grotto he’s bound to, same one as his father, he visits to check in every once in awhile.)

Because his life essence is linked to the grotto, he can only get sick or die if his source area is sick or dying/destroyed- or if his heart is damaged or destroyed (it’s like a little physical link to their source area, can’t function without it.)

Earthquakes are still big scary. They’re extremely painful, like if all your growing pains hit at once. Miles experienced his first one when trapped in that elevator, which freaked him out so bad on top of the fighting that… well, we know how it ended. Even though he doesn’t need to breathe (made of rock) he still had a panic attack from stress and went unconscious from it. Not fun.

Also!! If he blushes too hard, he can melt!! His ear!! It’s melty!!

Big teefs for eatin rock. He does have to consume extra mineral rocks or he can be a little brittle.

He can shift into a more “human” form without a tail and with regular legs, but it’s not as comfortable as his standard form. Bratworth definitely spent more time than he should’ve trying to look more human to fit in with the Von Karmas.

He wiggles his lil ears when he’s content or happy. Because that’s cute and it makes me happy.

I’ve been thinking up theories for like most of the cast. Vote in the poll if you wanna hear more!

[shantyslimes]

Speaking as the brit who does this, I don't think y'all understand.

American culture is force fed into the English speaking world so extremely that your headlines become global headlines. This isn't because your news is that important for us, it's because most media companies are American owned. These days a lot of news is consumed by listening to the reactions of people finding it out, it's how online echo chambers form and it's a problem for another post.

The whole entire world will sit and deal with the self appointed default land, who upon any criticism, jumps to defend itself and point out things aren't actually that bad, as long as the one saying they suck lives outside the US. You are all victims of your propaganda machine and thus everyone else has to be as well. American mindsets are formed based on repeated indoctrinations and the idea of American exceptionalism (the worst day in America is the best day in any other country type thing).

As online communities formed, a lot of people became exposed to other cultures in a way that they just weren't before. But because most English speakers are extremely exposed to American culture through constant media blasts, the ways people outside of it tend to criticise tends to be pretty accurate.

Compare that to the UK, I remember even about 15 years ago that when Americans would meet me and hear my accent they'd lose their minds. Because the only exposure Americans had to Brits were our films or your own tv shows introducing an English character (very rarely Scottish, Welsh or Irish, especially Irish because in American media Irish just means second or third generation immigrant and never someone who's actually been there) as a person from a different culture to be fawned over for a sexy accent. The American impression of the UK was Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones Diary, Harry Potter, or James Bond. Doctor Who and Sherlock came later too once more fandom spaces started forming.

So when people with English accents - and only from England, never the rest of the UK - began meeting Americans, most didn't actually know much of anything about us. We were seen as and expected to be the distantly sexy and respectable types, but we knew you. We knew about different personalities people would have from different states, the stereotypes of the loud New Yorker, the bigoted South, the loud Texan, the in your face Californian, we had been exposed to them in some way. Once we saw them, finding the nuances became easier, in part because there were so many more Americans than anyone else, but people from other countries that weren't Canada were novelties. It took a LOT of time before Americans generally became aware of what Brits are actually like.

And instead of the change being from "people getting sexualised and treated like oddities" (source I was sexualised for my accent from a younger age than I ever should have been), new stereotypes formed, and they were mostly about mockery. It stopped being English people getting asked to say words every few minutes just so someone could hear what it sounded like, and turned into very loud mockeries of that same accent saying Tuesday in a way nobody actually talks. Our food became a joke, never our good food that we've made over the centuries and had tonnes of recipes lost during rationing during WW2, just beans on toast mostly. And yes, we eat it. It's fine, we know it's not exactly fine dining, it's just comfort food.

English people in particular get defensive because they've seen the shift from "Oh my god that accent" (someone's actual response to meeting me), to every aspect of English life being mocked regardless of if it's accurate or not. And since English culture isn't great at dealing with direct conflict (we are REALLY bad at actually handling problems), the main response is to get annoyed. I've had friends I've known for years who if I joke "Americans literally don't know other countries exist and just act like everyone should know their states better than they do" will immediately call me a coloniser.

I've had friendships end because at the first opportunity, I'll be called a coloniser because I speak with an English accent. I'm Irish. I got colonised first. I've had friends tell me that I'm going to die of tooth decay because I'm English. I've been in calls with friends cooking, and get made fun of for commenting that my food was spicy, assuming I was using maybe half a pinch of paprika? I wasn't. I've been called a racist bigot for voting for Brexit. I didn't. You know for a fact if I accused an American of voting republican, especially in 2016, they'd be furious. And rightfully so.

I'm not saying never poke fun at England, that's the main thing Europe does, and it's well deserved. The UK are fucking nightmares whenever they visit another country for any reason, we've been called the Americans of Europe and it's fucking accurate.

The point is, English people in particular get very defensive against Americans specifically, because there's usually little to no attempt to actually talk to the people you're mocking.

Anyway lads I'm off to eat some Wheezy bangers.

(tl;dr Americans leave English people alone you're taking away valuable mockery real estate from people who actually have to suffer them and you have absolutely no leg to stand on)

European: Americans will be like I’m going to watch a whore movie and eat a hamburger slathered in lard

Americans: it’s true I do do this.

American: British people will be like alright I’m off to eat some wheezy bangers (beans and bread out of a can)

Brit: I’ve seen this reblogged by several people I normally trust so: How mocking British cuisine and dialect has a long classist history and how it became frighteningly normalized on an American (uniquely cruel, uniquely ignorant) internet: a thread. 1/?

[soft-boi-eli]

Ayo do you write for poly relationships?

If that's so, could you do a cc!Karlnapity x male reader? Quackity is hella stressed because of law school and is very tired so the others just

Do little things for him, like acts of service and just, being supportive---

Feel free to say no if it makes you uncomfortable :>

Yep. I myself am poly but not in a relationship yet. So I am perfectly comfortable with it.

We believe in you.

Summary: quackity needs some tlc. With the stress of law school higher then ever you, karl, and sapnap decide to take care of him while he studies.

Pronouns: he him his

Quackity. The hyper happy streamer. Was in his office/streaming room studying for finals.

The stress he was under was immense and all you and your two other boyfriends wanted to do was comfort him and help him through this intense time.

You were monitoring how much he has eaten or drank today. That counter was at zero. The amount of times for a stressful break was monitored by karl. And the bathroom breaks by sapnap. With all of the counters at zero you guys went to work.

You were the only one that could cook in this house. The others would burn it down. So you were always on dinner duty. Or lunch. Even breakfast.

Whipping up some tomato soup and grilled cheese you were quick to plate it. These we're quick simple and the best thing for them to consume.

While sapnap and karl were harassing him to get up you were setting up the living room for a mental break for him. Setting it up for two episodes of the show you guys were watching you yelled up to them. "guys I'm done. And if you have to drag him."

You were making him take this break. Whether he liked it or not. Cramming can be useful yes. But not all the time. Not for hours on end with no food or water. Watching your two boyfriends literally dragging your third one down you smirked.

"So. You thought that you could get away with not eating, drinking, or even bathroom breaks. You thought wrong." Quackity stared at you. That look. He's seen it before.

"No. No! If I don't study I can't pass!" He was desperate to get out of their arms. Walking up to him you squished his cheeks. "Hun. It's gonna be an hour at max. You need to eat. Get some water. We're worried. You haven came out of that room for over 6 hours. Meaning you haven't eaten, haven't filled your water bottle, haven't used the bathroom. It's not healthy. And your brain needs fuel. Not energy drinks." He looked at you for a moment.

What you said was true. Every human needs it. But he just wanted to finish his notes. The ones that he said would be done in less then three hours. The ones that he could study for the final exam with.

But all three of your guys puppy dog eyes won him over.

"Fine. But no longer then an hour." He fully gave in. Letting go of his face you smiled. "Great! I made grilled cheese and tomato soup." Quackity looked over with stars in his eyes.

"You could of just said that Mi Amor. You know I would die for you soup." Rolling you eyes to him as he quickly picked up his plate and bowl.

This man.

He was scarfing it down like he was a starving man.

I mean waking up, studying, and not eating at all does that to you.

As the show played quackity seemed to relax a bit more. That was all you wanted. Him to sit back, relax, give himself a break.

Sadly the two episodes were over faster then they began. Leaving quackity to go back upstairs. Laving his three worried boyfriends.

"Okay guys." They looked at you confused for a sec.

"Every hour we bring him something. Water, a snack, blanket, hot drinks, cuddles. What ever you want. Just make sure he's taking care of himself alright?" They nodded.

"Good. Who's on first hour duty?" Karl was quick. He was nearly springing out of his seat as he raised his hand.

You were fine with it because your took at least two hours.

You were making cookies.

You knew the boys couldn't resist any of the baked goods you made. After all you were a cooking and baking youtuber.

So as the hours passed by the guys kept reminding quackity to take breaks. Telling him to go to the bathroom, stretch his legs a little, have a hug.

So when you finished the last batch it was your turn up there. Bringing a plate full of cookies and milk with you, you knocked gently.

"I swear to God sapnap if you're there again I'm going to ki-." He opened the door and looked directly at you. "Not sapnap this time I brought cookies though!" He greedily grabbed the cookies and milk, letting you in as he did so.

"So studying been going well?" He shrugged. "Could be better could be worse." Laughing lightly you sat in one of the chairs there.

"But way better now that you brought me cookies." Shaking your head you stretched. "Honestly if I didn't decide to learn. I would of never met you guys. But boy am I happy for that. Now I'm with my three handsome boyfriends. One of them ever so cuddly. The other quite the amazing voice. And lastly my extremely smart boy who is going to help so many people when he passes his finals." He tilted his head at you.

Standing up you kissed his forehead. "I belive in you alex. Just remember that your mental health is just as important as this exam." Your voice was soft on his forehead.

"Yeah! You are one of the smartest j have met! Don't you dare give up. But don't you dare mentally strain yourself!" Sapnap was loud.

Rolling your eyes you looked at the two in the door way.

"Yeah! We're here for you alex. If you need a small break we'll always be right here for you! Be it a hug, kiss, cookie, a tv break. Even just an hour of us laying in bed doing nothing except talking. We're here for you!" Karl was quick to add on. God you loved them yet they always tend to get way to cheesy.

"God you guys. I have no clue what I'm going to do with you three. I can't thank you enough." Quackity was about ready to break down in tears. With the ruffle of the hair you smiled brightly.

"No need. You are going through something that you need to work hard on. We aren't going to let you not take care of yourself." You opened your arms. On arm around quackity already.

You were inviting the other two over to join the hug.

Rushing over their arms over layed quackity and you. Squeezing the life out of you both.

God. Don't let this dream come to an end.

Bouns:

At the end of the day. All you, sapnap, and karl knew was the day coming to an end. This wasn't going to end with out quackity.

"Hey. Alex. How close are you to being done?" He turned to you. You hadn't really interuped him the whole time only every once in a while to bring up a snack. He looked up and down your pajama clad body.

He shook his head lightly. "You get comfortable with karl and sapnap. I'll be there in about 15-20 minutes." Nodding lightly you walked up the stairs. Leading to the massive room. This was the room you all shared. While also having your own room for when you wanted to sleep separately.

Karl and sapnap laid awake in their respective spots. "He's not coming to bed?" Sapnap asked. You shook your head.

"He said 15-20 minutes." Crawling between the taller ones you left space for quackity to crawl in.

He was a little off from the 15-20 minutes. He took 30 instead. But you weren't complaining one of your main sources of heat for the night was now in the bed, curled up, head on your chest, hands lightly intertwined with the other two.

Leaving your hands open to lightly comb his hair back and massage his scalp and back. This man was studying for at least 12 hours. And he deserved it.

There was no complaints from anyone. Not even quackity which was quite unusual. Except for the fact he had passed out almost as soon as your fingers started at his scalp.

His little snores brought a smile to your face while little giggles came from karl. While a chuckel came from sapnap. It's unusual for quackity to fall asleep first. But you wouldn't change it.

Not for the world.

*Ahem* I am now one year on testosterone! God it's been a weird journey but I do feel happier about myself.

Also I loved this fluffy tooth rotting oneshot. It made me happy to shower quackity, karl, and sapnap in love. They deserve it!

Anyways I hope you enjoyed and have a good day/night/morning/evening.

Eli out.

[ziploc849]

This!!!! I know it’s not immediately acceptable to the wider populace of Exandria, but I’ve never understood why people look past “the magic the gods offer can literally heal sicknesses, save lives, and create unlimited food and water that is safe to consume for a number of people.” And I know their magic isn’t the only one that can do that, bards, paladins, etc. can do some of the same stuff. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s incredibly powerful and helpful magic, and can do an incredible amount of good.

And also, even just as a religious thing, the gods are a source of comfort for so many people around the world. People devote their lives to praying to and studying these deities. Imagine in the real world, assuming all deities are real, that someone just said “Christianity does too much damage, I’m killing the Christian God”. Think what you will about Christianity, Catholicism, or any other sect/denomination and the people who believe it, but you have to understand how many lives that would alter and change for the worse. How many truly good and caring people would be left without faith, comfort, etc.

I’ve got my fair share of religious trauma, and I’m not particularly religious now, but it just feels so wrong to immediately assume that everything the gods do and offer are bad, and that it would *have* to be a net positive if they were gone

I feel like the whole "are the gods even worth saving" debate would've be way more believable with an adventuring party that didn't have one of it's members die and get resurrected by a cleric within their first month together

[whimsicallyreading]

The Answer is Love

“You rescued me when my mind was a prison. You set me free when no one else would listen. Now I finally feel complete, and I will follow you into the sea of eternity-” Broadside

-Crescent City AHOEAB dribbles because I love these two idiots <3 Prompts are currently open.

CW- Pure fluff only

Ear Ache-

Bryce woke up knowing the day would be terrible.

Pain stabbed through her skull like shards of glass through the soft flesh of her brain. She felt cold but knew her skin would be hot to the touch. Every little noise sent lashes of pain through her ears that ripped and tore until all she wanted to do was curl into a ball on her bed and cry.

She had an ear infection.

A common condition that put could put most fae out for days. Even a half-breed like her. Their ears were sensitive on an average day, like delicate instruments, they picked up the slightest sounds and caught the faintest melodies. They also required a lot of care. Tiny pains that would only pose a sight nuisance to most creatures could send a fae soldier to their knees.

Bryce had only suffered through this a couple of times in her life. Once when she was a toddler and her mother had just met Randall. When Ember couldn't console her crying child and was on the brink of an exhausted mother meltdown, Randall swooped in and saved the day. He'd laid her over his shoulder and massaged the insides of her ears. A trick he'd learned in Pangera to soothe fae children whose sensitive hearing became shot from the explosives.

It could put Bryce to sleep in minutes, and Randall still bragged to the present day. Not that she complained. Even as a teenager with school-induced migraines, she would lay her head in his lap, and just the comfort of it could ease the ache in her head...and her heart.

Bryce wished he was here now as she smothered her head under a pillow to block out the hum of the firstlights. Pain. Shattering, consuming pain.

"Bryce, are you awake?" Hunt knocked on her door.

Damn his knocking. Bang. Bang. Bang. Her eyes watered, and tears poured down her face. Bryce would holler for him to please shut up if the sound of her blood rushing through her head wasn't bothering her.

"Bryce?" The door creaked open. She'd put off oiling the hinges. Squeel, Squeak, Scratch.

She sobs quietly.

A feather-soft touch brushes against her cheek. "Tell me what's wrong, Sweetheart."

His warm voice that would typically send chills down her spine makes her body quake in a not so pleasurable way. Bryce doesn't dare reach up to touch the source of her pain for fear they may suddenly erupt. Thankfully, Hunt notices her flinch. His eyes crawl up her figure, scouring her for illness or injury.

"My ears," she mouthes to him.

Hunt's eyes shine with sympathy. He picks up Bryce's phone from her bedside table and shines the light on bright down into them. His eyes squint, and he examines them with as much care as a medwitch.

Frowning at whatever he discovers, Hunt makes his way out of the room with all the quietness of the Umbra Mortis. When he comes back, he has a long, heating compress in his hands. One that Bryce used to wrap around her thigh on bad days when she still had the venom from the kristallos clinging to the bone.

Gently guiding her into a sitting position, Hunt squeezes himself behind her so that her back is flush to his chest. He takes the heating compress, lays it across his front, and then carefully positions Bryce's head, so one ear lays against the warmth.

A large, scarred hand appears at her mouth and slips a tablet between her lips, followed by an icy drink of water. A softly hummed melody vibrates the side of her face, soft enough not to disturb her ears. The rhythm is low and soothing, making Bryce's eyes droop in content.

A warm finger massages the ear that faces away from him, helping release the pressure building up inside it. Relief wells up in Bryce so strongly that a breathy sigh escapes her lips.

Soon, she is blissfully asleep in a cocoon of soft velvet feathers.

When she wakes, it's late in the afternoon. The fading sunlight forms a warm pool on the floor where Syrinx is curled up happily. Bryce nestles her head against the hard pillow of Hunt's impressive pecs. Cracking her eyes, she sees a pair of shoes that are not his at the bedside.

"Ruhn?" Bryce's voice is barely a whisper to keep from agitating her own ears.

He looks a little too smug at their position and waves a small dropper and bottle in her face. "Hunt texted me that you would need this," Rhun said, matching her volume, keeping his voice soft. "Also, I fed Syrinx. You're welcome. He was nearly about to break in here and bite your ass."

Bryce laughed, then winced at the spike of pressure throbbing in her ears. The motion of which causes Hunt to stir beneath her.

Rhun looks at her in sympathy. "Come on. I'll help you put the drops in."

Careful not to wake Hunt, Rhun grabs her under the arms and moves her to the foot of the bed. Tilting her head, Bryce allows him to drip the correct number of droplets in each ear.

The relief is swift as the throbbing subsides to a dull ache. "That's some powerful stuff."

A shift of the bed, Hunt's eyes open, and he quickly takes in her state and the number of people in the room. Of course, he wouldn't be able to sleep through the invasion of their shared space, even if it was just her brother—insufferable males. "I'm sorry, Sweetheart. I meant to wake you before Ruhn got here, but I dozed off."

He sits up and gathers her in his arms once more. Bryce is more than content to comply, his warm body like a drug to her too-cold skin.

Hunt lets her nuzzle her face into his neck as he gives Ruhn a predatory look over the top of her head. "You can go now."

"I literally just got here," her brother complains, brows furrowed in annoyance.

Hunt leans back with Bryce in his arms, combing a hand through her wine-dark hair. "You could have just called up and given me the drops downstairs, but you showed yourself inside. "You've brought me the medicine, and now you've overstayed your welcome. Your sister is very sick. Not fit for company."

Bryce could swear the testosterone was flying in the air like sparks as they got into a silent pissing contest with one another.f

Grumbling, Ruhn finally concedes and bids her goodbye. Cursing out Hunt for his lack of appreciation as he shows himself out the door.

"There. All better. Now we can watch Lunathion Lover's Lockdown without judgment. It's a new episode." She looks up at Hunt to find him mischievously grinning down at her. "We can make popcorn."

"Popcorn and Trash TV?" Bryce murmurs. "You really know the way to my heart, Athalar."

Hunt moves her to the couch and buries her in a mound of blankets. After coffee, popcorn, and several hours of mind-numbing reality shows- albeit at a barely audible volume- Bryce felt leagues better.

Later on, after Hunt had gone to take a shower, she opens her messages to see Ruhn had texted to check on her. Juniper had dm-ed her and offered to bring food by for both of them. And she had missed calls from her mother that Bryce decided she would get back to later.

Bryce's heart swelled. It had been a long time since she felt so loved. Many things had changed, and just maybe, they were finally for the better.

Lemme know if you would like to be added to a tag list! 

Prompts for this fic are OPEN :) DM them or feel free to send them through the ask feature. I love hearing from everybody! 

[mmmleckerlecker]

I was reading the questions you've answered, and I'm curious now: you said that the co-existence between preds and prey is very recently. So I was thinking the HP world from years ago, when pred could snatch up whoever prey they wanted... How was the society in that time? How did they live? (Headcanon: prey lived underground?) Did the preds have no qualms in consuming whoever they could find? (prey children/teens or the elderly, for example?)... The harmony was founded by a prey or pred? (1/2)

What was the reason for the preds to make the jump from consuming indiscriminately to the public/private contracted prey? (another headcanon: preykind severely disminishing in numbers?) I find your worldbuilding so enchanting, I'm sorry for the avalanche of questions. You're awesome! (2/2)

AHHHH YES!!! THE QUESTION I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR!!! No need to apologize!!! I have considered making a post about stuff like this for awhile now but I’m always like “do people REALLY wanna hear all that?” But now i have the perfect excuse. Thank you, anon! You’re awesome too!! (WARNING this kinda turned into a chapter length read. So I hope y’all like to read history about fictional worlds.)

Okay so. This is all stuff I’ve sorta kept in my head and have built upon when I’ve had ideas, so sorry if there are some gaps currently haha.

So I imagine preds and prey started trying to “make peace” about five centuries ago but didn’t start living in true “harmony” until about two hundred years ago. And I use the term “harmony” loosely because clearly there’s still a lot of infighting happening. Before that, the preds and prey lived in two entirely separate cultures. The prey lived in larger, more stationary groups while the preds lived in much smaller, more nomadic groups. They also DEFINITELY didn’t speak the same language.

So for preds, the groups they would live in were more like traveling pods that consisted of maybe 1-3 families living/working together. Having groups of preds getting too large was… not sustainable. It would create too much competition for food. So each group would usually give other groups of preds a wide berth. Granted there were definitely still spats for territory, especially if said territory had a good supply of prey available.

Prey, much like in modern times, were never really the preds’ main food source, however. Preds would still hunt and gather like normal. It would usually take some organizing to get a raid together on a prey village (or a pred could just get lucky and stumble across one that wandered off alone). Consuming prey all the time was just too much effort. They weren’t a practical food source nor a completely sustainable one if they were over-predated. Also! Keep in mind, the more a pred consumes, the more their body acclimates to handling such a large meal. It would be better for the preds to consume every once in awhile and have their prey take longer to digest (hence, keeping them fueled longer) than to consume ALL THE TIME and risk addiction. I think consuming would probably become more regular in the cold months too, when it was harder for preds to find other food sources.

As for WHO the preds would consume? Definitely adults would make for the best meals. Children? Well, I imagine prey would be very protective of their children, first of all, making them difficult to obtain. But also they would just make… not as filling meals? Also prey children are mostly the same size as pred children so there might be that little hesitation there on the pred’s end as they’re reminded of their own kind. I guess if the pred is desperate? There’s always gonna be a time and place for special circumstances. As for the elderly… I imagine they also live in places that are harder for preds to get to. I also think if a prey managed to live that long, they would have a trick or two up their sleeve. But like I said, there’s always a possibility for things to happen.

Now for how prey live…. Like I said, they live in larger groups. There is safety in numbers, after all. These groups were basically villages, sometimes even cities where prey could really know their territory and set up defenses against any invading preds. (An underground dwelling is really cool idea tho! I also believe that prey evolved to be able to fold themselves up and be comfortable/feel safe in tight spaces that preds could never reach them in, so prey living in like a cave system might actually work really well!) Like it’s been stated in the story, prey tend to have a lot more children than preds for “just in case.” This could cause their towns to become rather large and populous sometimes.

Prey, also unlike preds, usually tried to keep in contact with neighboring towns/villages/cities. This was one of the key factors for what made it possible for the shift to both sides living in harmony to happen. Since the prey lived in settlements and kept in contact with other prey settlements, it allowed for a certain development of culture as well as the sharing and recording of knowledge that preds… just didn’t have. Prey were able to develop things like farming and running water. They could study math and science and share their knowledge in libraries and schools. They were really on their way to becoming an advanced society, they just had one big (both figurative and literal) problem holding them back. They constantly had preds attacking and killing off their people.

Despite their efforts to fight them off, the prey just weren’t winning. So they decided, if a war against preds wasn’t going to get them anywhere, then why not make peace? The first step for this was the prey learning the preds’ language. This was… dangerous, of course. But it was done enough that the prey were able to open conversation with preds. Just this move alone caused a huge shift between both sides. What are you supposed to do when your food, which for centuries has only babbled nonsense at you before you swallowed it down, suddenly starts speaking to you like an equal? It certainly gave preds pause, but not enough to stop consuming. Not that the prey didn’t expect this. They approached the preds with more than just a common language. Their first big move was offering them food. And not just any food, but GOOD FOOD. Cooked food, decadent food, spiced foods, foods that preds didn’t have the resources (nor the patience) to prepare.

Sharing food took… probably a little more effort than one might expect. Prey and preds view food fundamentally different. To prey, it’s sustenance but also something to enjoy and connect with. To preds, it’s simply something to stop hunger. There was a sort of learning curve for preds to actually learn to ENJOY food for its flavor, but once they got it… OH BOY!!! A door was opened! Because despite LIKING prey food, the preds weren’t always so good at preparing it, so it gave the prey something they could exchange for safety. (This is also something that persists into modern times. Preds are still often stereotyped as not having very refined palates and not being very good at preparing food. This is referenced a little in Heart Pangs itself as well as the one-shot I posted last week!) Once the food trade became established, it opened up relations enough to exchange other things!

The prey shared would they could with the preds in exchange for their own survival. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it SEEMED to work but then the preds turned on them and things went downhill very quickly. But the prey had the advantage of sheer numbers and determination on their side (that and if they didn’t keep pushing they would literally be eaten alive). It took generations of negotiations, but the preds and prey eventually came to a sort of truce, though consuming never stopped entirely.

The preds weren’t stupid, they saw the prey had a lot of good stuff to offer them. At first they took what they needed and went their separate ways, but as they gained more trust from the prey, the preds encroached more and more into their territories until both sides were more or less neighbors. There were some advantages to this. If both sides cooperated enough, they were able to make further advances as civilized societies. But there were also disadvantages… like the fact that the preds were always bigger and the prey were always making sure not to anger them so it became very easy for the preds to take whatever they wanted and leave the prey with less than they deserved.

The prey even began to lose their own language as most of the preds couldn’t be bothered to learn the prey’s language (although a lot of prey terms for food and science stuck around). The preds stopped being the enemy who lived outside the prey’s walls and suddenly became the bully who lived next door. Yes, technically the prey were a little safer than before, but the advantages they once held over the preds were slipping away as the preds claimed more and more of what the prey had until the preds were able to start developing their OWN advantages.

For a long time, the preds and prey operated as two different societies that lived in one space, meaning each group had their own leaders and their own laws. But as things began getting more and more strained between each side (as they tend to do when two natural enemies live side-by-side), the prey (once more) tried to make peace. They made the bold move of reaching out to the pred leaders in an attempt to work together and function as a singular society (although both sides more or less continued to live as two societies, just under the rule of one government). The preds were surprisingly open to this change, which was a relief to the prey… at first. But then it became clear that this was mostly just a power grab for the preds to acquire more status and wealth and power amongst the prey.

Besides the fact that a lot of prey were falling into poverty because of this, the most glaring issue was that the “unification” had made it even easier for a lot of preds to break the peace and consume prey with barely any consequences. This caused a lot of prey to flee and seek out safer, more remote places to live. Eventually it got to the point where the prey leaders threatened to break away from pred society completely. The preds didn’t like this, though, as they’d gotten very used to having prey within easy reach. They also knew that losing half the people in their society would cause a lot of problems in terms of keeping everything running smoothly. However, the preds very much did not want to give up consuming entirely. It was in their nature after all, they argued.

So after A LOT of negotiations, both sides came to a compromise. The preds would actually start enforcing consuming as something illegal UNLESS the prey being consumed had agreed to it beforehand. Obviously the prey leaders couldn’t see any prey ever AGREEING to being consumed, so they settled on the compromise thinking that was the end of it. This was the true beginning of the “harmony” between preds and prey, but of course, the preds always have something up their sleeves.

Rich preds began offering up money and food and shelter to all those desperate prey in poverty. Those prey could get everything they could ever want for, the only payment was their lives ending in said pred’s gut (after a specified amount of time). These ventures started slow, but once they started to catch on, BOY DID THEY CATCH ON. The desperate prey began hearing about certain preds who were practically giving away wealth, all it took was a signature written in (figurative) blood. Meanwhile preds began hearing about other preds who had found a loophole in the consuming law and wanted in on the action. Like any good entrepreneur, the preds turned their contracts into a business and started selling them to other preds.

The prey leaders, of course, despised this, but what could they do? It all aligned with the compromise they had made. The only thing they could do was stand by and help come up with regulations for this new practice. So they did. Over the decades, the contracting businesses grew to what they are today (large corporate monsters… although the smaller, more private contracts still exist) as well as became the core to keeping the peace. Even the government itself offers contracting services now.

Society has shifted considerably in the years since harmony was reached. The two sides have mostly learned to live with each other. Prey have fought viciously to be treated as equals while a lot of preds go their whole lives without consuming (particularly fatally) even once. And, as you know, the development of neutralizers allowed preds to experience consuming without having to hurt anyone. A lot of progress has been made, but a lot of progress still needs to happen.

And I think that pretty much catches us up to the setting of Heart Pangs (whew)! I keep thinking it would be really cool to write a story that takes places in an earlier time period to further explore how different the relations between preds and prey would be, but I have yet to come up with a plot haha. Maybe someday. I’m sure an idea will come to me at a proper time. Anydays, thank you for your interest! It was really nice to be able to (finally) type all this up somewhere!!

[hugewoman]

I agree completely and I think women also do something very similar with fanfiction. It’s supposed to be like a comfort food to read alternate versions of stories you already know you like, but really after a while it becomes a lot like eating the same meal over and over and over and over again until you’re sick of it.

This is not something I’m proud of, but I’m 30 and I’ve been a fanfiction reader since I was 12. That’s literally more than half of my life. I read it constantly, sometimes multiple fics a day and as much as dozens of fics a week. Rereading favorites or finding new stories that are actually good can be soothing, but for the most part it doesn’t make me happy and it has a noticeable numbing effect.

I used to be very positive about fanfiction as a hobby, but over the years it’s become a more and more guilty habit. What I’ve noticed most is that for all the hidden gems an overwhelming majority of what’s out there is absolutely fucking trash. The average person’s writing is so much worse than they realize. Fans hype each other so much over fics that are objectively awful. People who have a third grade reading level and no idea what they’re talking about confidently tell their fave writers “oh you should get published” it’s ridiculous. It’s a hobby, and not even a particularly productive one.

So much of it is people retelling the exact same stories as the source material almost verbatim with only extremely minor cosmetic changes, to the point where it genuinely feels more like plagiarism than a supposedly transformative work. They aren’t as creative or original as they think they are. It’s embarrassing.

Also this is more personal but like… It’s stressful to make specific searches for what you want like you’re at a buffet and constantly get a few chapters into something and have to abandon it because it’s just so egregiously poorly written. Or you find something close to what you want but it’s too short to be satisfying or it’s written from a weird perspective or the writer just has bad opinions about the characters and the source material. It 1000% percent has a depressive effect and I’m saying that from experience as a consumer of it

TLDR I guess but I concur with op that the romance genre in general is making women anti-intellectual in that they’re not pursuing actual reading, and also I posit that over-reliance on things like YA and fanfiction is actually making them actively dumber and sadder as well

I feel like many adult women are making themselves functionally illiterate by refusing to read anything but YA and very simple, straightforward romance. Basically for books what McDonald's is for food. Already digested and regurgitated to make it as unchallenging as possible. And it IS women, it's almost only women both writing and reading this shit! It's women making a whole social media persona about being a "reader" but skipping whole paragraphs because they don't contain spoken lines and it's too boring and too long. The market is fucking flooded with absolute garbage. To me this looks like female anti-intellectualism.

[misora-msby]

night drive

rating : mature

word count : 1.9k

themes : fluff, fwb, mutual pining, implied sex, drug use (alcohol and marijuana)

notes : originally from my ao3, thought i might post it here as well :) // you can kinda imagine this is an au where atsumu’s not doing volleyball in college because this dude would definitely take care of his body better than this as an athlete lmfao

miya 🤢 : “im driving over rn. be ready in 10?”

You grimaced slightly. Atsumu always did this; he’d text late at night, insisting to meet up without giving you much of a choice.

“bitch it’s so late and i literally just finished my assignment gimme a break”

Your reply was read and within a few seconds you received a reply;

miya 🤢 : “Sorry! I’m driving right now and will reply later.”

An annoyed groan escaped you at the use of the automatic reply function. You knew he definitely read the message. It was just like Tsumu to do this.

Throwing on a light cardigan and applying a bit of lip gloss, you grabbed your phone and a little tin box you always brought along on your drives with Atsumu. After stuffing them into the pockets of your sweatpants, you double checked your appearance in the full length mirror by the door. A spray of perfume was used and you slipped on a comfy pair of sneakers before exiting the flat to wait at the entrance of the building.

As promised, Atsumu arrived and you got into the passenger seat of the car. It was a little messy and you had to dust off some crumbs on the seat but it smelt just of him and the cologne he loved to use.

“You gotta stop doing this. Especially the impromptu texting.” you muttered, leaning back in the seat as he began driving.

“But ya always agree to it anyways. And as promised, I never do it on a Tuesday, Friday, or Sunday night, just like ya asked.” he hummed while giving the smirk you hated but loved. And as much as you hated to agree, he was right.

Six months ago, you two had been set up on a blind date with each other by some friends. Miya Atsumu, known as a notorious flirt all his life, and you, a regular student just looking for a change in life. The date itself didn’t go too well but the sex that followed was incredible and so you two had continued with this agreement for the past half year.

And here you were now; on a drive to someplace out of town, a packet of cigarettes to share in the cupholder while the little tin in your pocket contained something a little stronger to smoke. And not to forget the cooler in the backseat which most likely contained at least two bottles of beer.

“Fine… you’re right.” you sighed, crossing your arms as you kept your eyes on the road to try and guess where you two were driving.

“Hey, doll. Light me a cig, would ya?” Atsumu asked. As always, you pulled out the stick of tobacco from the packet and lit it before passing it to him. He took a long draw on it before rolling down the window to breathe it out.

“I don’t get how you’re still so fuckin’ handsome after all the ciggies and drinks you take.” you muttered while taking the cigarette from his hand to have your own draw of it.

“Same goes to you, doll.”

“... T-Thanks.” you muttered while reaching back to grab a beer from his cooler.

Neither of you saw it but there may have been the slightest flush on both of your cheeks.

After that, the drive was silent for half an hour, save for the soft R&B that played and the occasional humming from Atsumu. It was always like this, and somehow the two of you had grown to like it. As much as you complained over and over about it, you enjoyed it. Enjoyed the thrill, the sex, the debauchery, and strangely, the company.

“This place looks good.” his smooth voice hummed while turning into a forest. It was dark and a little scary with how cramped it felt with the towering trees, but your pride refused to let him know that. Plus, you knew you wouldn’t be thinking about it for much longer. He parked his car in a decent spot and unfastened his seatbelt before turning to face you who was just a little drowsy from the beer you had. “There’s a real pretty place I wanna go in there. But first…” Atsumu’s eyes looked darker than ever as he placed a hand on your thigh.

No words had to be said before lips were locked and soft moans were pulled from your lips. It only took a few more seconds before you were both scrambling into the backseat, with him pushing you down onto your back as he grinded his strong hips into your more delicate self. The kiss ensued, though at this point it was hard to call it a kiss as it seemed more like a battle between lips. He groaned softly as he felt your fingers entangle themselves in his blond locks.

The two of you pulled away for a second to gaze into each other’s eyes, dark with lust and passion.

“You taste like beer,” he chuckled while wiping off a little bit of saliva from the corner of your lips with his thumb. His touch was strangely soft, contrasting the way he had kissed you just seconds before.

“Yeah? You taste like nicotine.” you replied with a slight grin on your face. He replicated that smile, a rare sight from him, before resuming your kiss.

* ･ ゜ﾟ ･ * : . ｡ . . ｡ . : * • * : . ｡ . . ｡ . : * ･ ゜ﾟ ･ *

“Think you can walk over to that place I was talkin’ ‘bout?” Atsumu asked while pulling his sweatpants back up.

“Hmm… I don’t know, you were pretty rough tonight. You might have to carry me,” you laughed while putting your own clothes back on.

The man rolled his eyes, though there was the slightest hint of endearing in them as he took the blunt you had half finished smoking earlier and lit it himself, leaning back in the seat a bit. 

As he did so, he glanced over at you - hair messy and strands stuck to your brow from the sweat, your clothes were in a disarray, and marks he had left on your skin covered your neck and collarbones. It gave him a weird feeling to look upon you, like a sort of strange pride. Whether it was because he had given you that messy look, or because he was just proud of you in general, he didn’t know.

“No way, I’m tired too,” Atsumu scoffed and redirected his gaze out of the open window for a second before looking at you. His eyes softened slightly at the pout on your lips before he sighed, “Fine, I’ll do it. Help carry the drinks.”

He opened the door and carefully carried you out in a princess carry before kicking the door shut and beginning to walk. His steps were a little uneven and shaky as he was just slightly intoxicated.

As he carried you, you looked up at him, eyes tracing his sharp jawline and his blond hair. There were bags under his eyes and the scent of sex and everything you two were consuming today mixed into the cologne he wore with his natural scent. Somehow, it was still attractive.

“You’re hot.” The words left you in a whisper without you even realising it. Atsumu looked down and nearly stopped walking for a moment before laughing as he continued to walk.

“You’ve got the weirdest fuckin’ timing. But yeah, I know that.” he replied before setting you down a little later.

“Where are we?” you raised a brow at him, still holding onto his arm.

“Just take a look, would ya?”

Tearing away your gaze from his handsome self to look at the sight before you, you gasped softly.

You stood near the edge of a cliff, just beyond the fence-like barrier, there were paddy fields and the occasional farmhouse providing a small source of light. It was a pretty normal sight, but upon closer inspection, you could see the reflection of the night’s stars in the water of the fields. The twinkling stars shone in pitch blackness, undeterred by the city lights you were used to. The moon looked brighter than ever too. A cool wind blew past your face, refreshing it after the stuffy feeling of having sex in Atsumu’s backseat, carrying the faint scent of spring on it.

“You know, I think being here would feel so much better if I didn’t have your cum in me.”

“Shut the fuck up and enjoy it. You asked for it anyways.”

Atsumu flicked your forehead lightly before pulling you closer to the edge and sitting down on a log, looking out over the fields and up at the sparkling sky.

“Happy 6 months.”

“Tsumu, I don’t think anyone celebrates a fuckbuddy anniversary.”

“Eh, whatever. Fuck and drink buddy.”

“...well uh, happy anniversary!”

“Happy anniversary, doll.”

The two of you looked at each other in silence for a few seconds, slightly dazed expressions on your faces before breaking out into giggles.

“Oh! Right!” you passed him a bottle of beer and opened your own with a spare coin in your pocket. “Cheers!” you clinked your bottle against his before drinking about a third of it.

“Cheers.” Atsumu replied and took his own large gulp of the drink.

You leaned against him the moment he moved the bottle away from his lips. His muscular arm, strengthened by years of playing volleyball made him rather comfortable to lean against. You hummed an unfamiliar tune before sighing in content.

Atsumu looked down at you resting against him. He could get used to this. He realised that lately he had been opting to stay the night after the fun you had together. Whether the time contained pillowtalk or it was just falling asleep in silence, he enjoyed it. Atsumu enjoyed being around you.

You enjoyed it too. People often claimed the blond was an ass but you knew better. There were nights when after you two had sex, the worries of the day or week would catch up to you and you’d end up crying to him. It was awkward at first but he slowly got used to it and eventually would comfort you with food he ordered or a few words of encouragement. (“Yeah it’s that bitch’s fault, go fuck her up.” was probably the most commonly said thing). As the nights passed, you found yourself wanting to spend more and more time with him.

“Hey… the sun’s coming up.” Atsumu said, making you finally look up from your silence. You hadn’t even realised you had fallen asleep on him for a bit. 

As you narrowed your eyes and looked over the fields and fields of crops, you noticed he was right. The first rays of sunlight could be seen peeking over the landscape, bringing light to the sky.

“Woah… it’s pretty.” you whispered in awe.

Atsumu looked over and studied your features for a few seconds. The way your eyes sparkled and was lit by the early morning sunshine, the way your hair bounced just a little as the wind blew, and the way your feet tapped quietly on the dirt in tired excitement. He didn’t want to admit it but he realised he might’ve been falling for you for a while now.

“Thanks for bringing me here. I love it.” you grinned up at him. At the man who you hadn’t realised you had fallen for weeks ago.

“Yeah,” he replied, and in a voice just barely audible to the two of you, he whispered, “and I love you.”

This moment seemed like a perfect time to properly ask you to be his, but he figured he would just let you two enjoy it in silence for a little longer.

[skrltwtch]

Starving

Prompt: I work at the butcher shop and we've never spoken, but I recognise you from when you come in to buy fresh meat every month. I don't mind keeping the store open a little past closing since you're running late and seem kind of desperate. This may be weird to mention, but did you know your teeth are getting sharper while we talk? (Source in master list)

Word count: 2,782 words

Genre: Feels, supernatural

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Someone had the bloody cheek to enter as I was getting ready to close up shop. Our opening hours were indicated on the door. The door. You couldn’t get any clearer than that. When did schools and parents stop teaching their charges not to enter business premises two minutes before closing time?

It was her.

I could make an exception this time, I suppose. She came in often enough and bought more than enough for me to consider her a regular. And she was a lovely person to deal with; I couldn’t say the same for a decent amount of my other regulars, whose business I accepted with gritted teeth.

‘I’m sorry. I know you’re closing soon. Just — please, I’ll take any cuts of meat you have left. I can pay extra for the trouble,’ she said.

Oh, God, what had I done to earn that kind of impression?

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’ Her pale skin and quivering form said otherwise. ‘I just — I just lost track of time at work. I got here as quickly as I could once I could leave the office. I’m really sorry.’

‘Don’t — it’s okay.’ I packed whatever I had left that would also match the typical volume of her purchases. From the corner of my eye, I saw her pacing up and down the shop, holding herself tightly. Every breath she made reached my ears. She wasn’t fine. Forget small talk then. Just like it wasn’t my business what she did with enough meat to feed a large animal in a day every month, it wasn’t my business why she looked close to falling over.

Maybe it was.

I called her over to the cashier, where approximately four kilogrammes of raw meat awaited her. Despite her stature, she never had any difficulties making it out of the shop with that much in tow. That might not be the case today. She was having a tough time simply getting her wallet out of her bag, and she looked absolutely sickly. Were those … were those tears in her eyes?

I really shouldn’t.

I really should.

‘Hey, are you alright? You don’t look too good,’ I said. Understatement: she appeared to be deteriorating by the second.

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted as she struggled with her wallet this time. I narrowed my eyes at her for a better look at what I thought I saw: her canines extending and swelling into fangs. A cross between a hiccup and a sob squeaked past her throat and into the open.

‘You can come back for payment tomorrow. I can help you with this to your car.’ No, it was now my social responsibility not to let her get behind the wheel. She was barely able to stand. ‘Or I can drop you off at your place … or somewhere nearby if you’re more comfortable with that.’

‘I’m fine,’ she growled.

Literally.

‘Shit, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘It’s … okay …?’ Sorry, my attention was hijacked by the sight of claws, honest-to-God claws, fucking splitting her fingernails open.

She left £100 on the counter and grabbed the parcels I made for her. ‘Please keep the change. You’ve been so kind. I can’t — I can’t come back here anymore.’

I wasn’t given a chance to question why she felt that way. Whatever was plaguing her — and scaring me a little, I had to admit — didn’t give her a chance either to make it out the door, as she’d collapsed not far from the counter. I had no idea how I could even let her walk out alone in the state she was in. I rushed to the phone. ‘I’m calling for help,’ I said.

She got to her hands and knees. That was … encouraging. I think. ‘No, please don’t. You need to go.’ Her voice was distorted and rumbly. Her blouse started to tear across her back, revealing a thin, but growing, layer of … hair. Fur, more like. Not so encouraging anymore.

‘I can’t leave you here alone. What is happening to you?’

She buried her face in her hands — or whatever they were becoming as they stretched and popped. Her feet burst out of her shoes, the same changes happening to them. ‘Don’t laugh.’

‘I promise.’ The rapid decline of her health from when she came in, the physical changes wracking her body, and the animalistic noises she was making drained what I was witnessing dry of any humour. I doubted there was any to begin with. I felt almost like I was seeing something I wasn’t supposed to.

‘Werewolf. I’m a’ — a bark, involuntary, broke up her sentence — ‘werewolf.’

I went to her. Outside, the shades of violet and orange the sky had been awash with were muddling into a dark blue. I ducked my head a little to verify the shape of the moon tonight. None of the passers-by thought to look inside. At this point, I was more worried about someone else becoming privy to her secret than I was about the image of my shop. I didn’t understand how this was happening. It made sense and no sense at the same time.

‘You can stay in the storeroom tonight. You’ll be safe.’

She kept her head down. ‘Your boss? Okay?’ Her speech was strained.

‘I’m the boss of me.’ I knew my decision not to hire extra help would pay off someday. ‘Come on.’

‘Thank you.’

She stood up. I shifted my gaze elsewhere, as tempting as it was to see what a werewolf looked like mid-transformation. I showed her the way to the storeroom. It was due for a cleanup anyway. Her constant twitching and whining next to me didn’t go unnoticed. I took it to mean that she was controlling herself from either changing completely until I was out of her way or hurting me. I could be completely way off base, of course. The only piece of werewolf media I ever consumed was An American Werewolf in London (I was more of a zombie person myself), and … well, from what I’d seen tonight, the filmmakers got the transformation right, I’d say.

She took off what was left of her clothes once she was inside, and her transformation … accelerated. I closed the door to give her privacy — and to drown out the horrific noises. Nothing about the human body should produce what I was hearing. Things went quiet, eventually. I opened the door ever so slightly. ‘I’ll be here all night,’ I said despite not knowing whether she’d know what I was saying, ‘so you won’t be alone.’ I should be safe on this side of the door: the change had stripped her of opposable thumbs. The keyword was ‘should’.

The darkness coupled with her black fur made it impossible for me to see the creature she had become. Did I want to see? I still couldn’t shake off the feeling like I’d been some kind of voyeur; her appearance mattered naught to me, though I’d understand if she thought — she likely did — it would. Then she threw herself against the door, slamming both the actual thing and the door to my maiden glimpse at a real werewolf shut.

She loosed a howl that drove home the point that I had a werewolf in my storeroom. That I had been selling meat to a werewolf for her consumption. That the sweet, cheery petite lady who came in once a month was a werewolf. I wondered, then, if what she was like as a human carried over to her wolf self. If it did, I should be safe, right?

… There it was again: ‘should’.

I went back to what I was doing before what I knew about this world had been violently upended. I thanked God — should I? Did He or did He not exist? — that tomorrow was my day off. I was going to spend it with a good book and minimal to no human contact in the comfort of my living room. Now I was only interested in contemplating my place in the universe. What else was out there? Were any of the people walking past as I went to advertise the shop’s official closure for the day harbouring similar secrets as well?

Baleful whines transcended the door and filled the air. I picked up the parcels she’d dropped. Could she be hungry? It was worth a shot. I unwrapped one parcel. The closer I got to the storeroom, the more charged she got. I never dreamt I’d get to know the extent of damage a werewolf’s claws could do to a door in this lifetime. I threw the slab of meat as deep inside as I could. While she went to examine what it was that I’d left to her mercy, I turned on the lights to benefit us both.

What I got to see at last was ineffective in reeling in my disbelief. Where I’d left a quaking, infirm woman now stood a massive black wolf rending raw meat like paper. Despite looking almost indistinguishable from an ordinary wolf, there was an unsettling quality to her proportions and demeanour that made it hard for me to remember my manners and stop fucking staring. She was … beautifully horrifying and frighteningly stunning all at once. In some sick, twisted way, it made sense that something like her — something like what she’d become — couldn’t have come about naturally.

She turned to look at me, her jaw dripping with blood and her tail … wagging.

I regained control of my senses quickly enough to leave. The slamming of the door failed to mute her whimper at — missing out on her chance at a tasty human? Being alone in the storeroom again? Best I didn’t read too much into it. I fed her the rest of the meat she bought. She refused to eat the last piece, yet she wailed when I left her be.

‘I don’t think I’d taste very good. I’m lean and stringy,’ I said through the crack in the door. ‘And bland, like most English food.’

I didn’t know what to make of the bark that followed my attempt at a witticism.

I felt bad for her. Wolves were social animals, weren’t they? Then again, who’d feel bad for me upon discovering my mutilated body in my shop? No one had attempted to romanticise werewolves like the likes of Anne Rice and the Twilight author had done with vampires, and probably with good reason, as I willed myself to remember how she, a soft-spoken woman an hour ago, devoured almost four kilogrammes of meat in record time. The ending of An American Werewolf in London wasn’t a happy one, for God’s sake! (Maybe I should stop invoking God’s name for now.)

‘Can you understand me?’ I said. ‘Bark … um, bark twice for yes’, so it wouldn’t be a coincidence.

And she did.

Well, fuck me.

I sighed. ‘Are you … are you lonely? Bark twice for yes.’

Silence.

For the longest time, until she barked again, softly, mournfulness plain to hear in the two notes.

✦✧✦✧

My back! G— fuck, my back. How the fuck did I sleep last night?

Right. I slept in a chair outside the storeroom.

I stretched to get rid of the kinks in my back. Yeah, that was it. That was the spot. No, that one. That other one was definitely it. Relief — sweet, glorious relief. How the hell did I even fall asleep in a chair anyway?

‘Hey, you’re awake.’

I turned to the direction of the voice that had no reason to be here at this time of day. Or at all. No one was allowed here but me. Why was I in the shop? Wasn’t today my day off? What happened last night? Why, of all things instead, did I remember not to use God’s name as a synonym for ‘fuck’? I also didn’t remember finding religion last night. I pinched the bridge of my nose. I needed water.

I focused my eyes on the figure in front of me.

It was her.

Oh.

Oh.

‘Yeah, I am now.’ Without a doubt. ‘How are you?’

She declined my offer to have my seat. My legs demanded that I continue standing to get the blood flowing. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. I could believe her this time. She was wearing one of my aprons over the tattered remnants of her clothes. ‘Thank you for … um.’ Her pause made me think her admission last night was the first time she said those words out loud to someone else. ‘Thank you.’

‘It was nothing. You looked … really sick yesterday’: I took a leaf out of her book

She smiled. ‘It’s okay. You don’t have to be polite. I know what I am.’ Her words were shaded with the same tint of sadness as when she confided in me about her loneliness.

‘No. You — the wolf — you were …’ Tame? She wasn’t an animal. She was … ‘You didn’t hurt — I’m fine.’ I held up both my hands to show her the absence of any marks, and she could very well see I wasn’t missing any limbs. ‘I’m fine,’ I repeated, ‘except for this sudden bout of scrambled egg for brains, but in my defence (or not), this is how I am a fair bit of the time. Who put me in charge of a meat slicer?’

‘You’re very kind. And cute,’ I thought I heard her say under her breath. ‘Thank you. How can I repay you for last night?’

‘You don’t have to. The meat’s on the house, too.’ Nothing to do with what I thought she said. ‘I’ll return you your £100 on the way out.’

‘No. Please. I could’ve done something bad to you.’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘Please. There has to be something I can do for you. I’d feel terrible otherwise.’

I truly wanted nothing from her. I survived a night with a werewolf. That by itself was a fantastic reward. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Well …

‘Were you serious about not coming to my shop anymore?’

‘I … if that’s what you want, I can go elsewhere. If you’re going to tell the other butchers not to sell to me because of what I am, that’s okay, too. I’ll figure something out.’

‘No. G— shit. That’s awful. I’m not —’ Why did she always jump to the worst conclusions about me? ‘No, promise me you’ll come back to my shop. That’s all I ask. And … your name. You’ve been coming here for years, and I don’t even know your name.’ I knew some of my customers’ names — and not necessarily the ones that mattered. Like her. ‘It’s not about the business I get from you, by the way. I don’t care what you are. I don’t know why you are what you are, and I have so many questions, but I do know it’s none of my business. I won’t judge.’

She nodded. ‘Thank you. I promise. I’ll come back. I’ll come back when it’s not the full moon and I didn’t skip lunch because I was too busy with work. And my name’s Eloise.’

‘I’m George.’

‘It’s lovely to meet you, George. Now you know why I buy so much meat on one day of every month. You’re the only person who knows what I am.’

‘I won’t tell anyone. You have my word.’

‘Thank you. I know I’ve said that a lot of times already, but I mean each and every one of them.’ Her eyes roved around the space. ‘I should go now. I have work in a couple of hours at best … or I’m late at worst. And you probably need to get ready, too. You should be opening soon … or I’ve made you late. It’s on your door.’

‘I have the day off today. Great timing, huh? Are you sure you’re good to drive?’

‘Yes, I can definitely manage much better today than I would’ve have yesterday. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just so hungry …’ She shook her head, expelling a breath signalling disapproval. ‘I’ll return this’ — she yanked at an apron strap — ‘to you tomorrow as well.’

‘Actually … one more thing. So we’re really even.’

‘Yes?’

‘Would you perhaps like to meet for coffee later, please?’ I could only navel-gaze for so long.

She looked taken aback. That and her response, articulated in three softly spoken words — ‘I’d love to’, led me to believe that what she was like as a human did indeed carry over to her wolf self.

[buhok-ng-bruha]

On Writing Cult/Ex Cult Characters

By an exjw

I don't have experience with uh, more 'extreme'/isolated cult life personally BUT I did grow up in a cult regardless and love making characters for fun. I also, like most people, love consuming media. I especially love fantasy stuff - which, when you're an ex cultist, can be a minefield.

The sheer amount of 'cultists' in media meaning a) just a source of Evil Henchmen for your villain, nameless bodies to be slaughtered because they're 'evil', b) something along the lines of the 'kick the dog' trope, where the actual victims don't matter or play any role in the story beyond making a character appear more evil c) a joke, whether that be a 'weird and religious' character incidentally belonging to a cult so you can make fun of the odd restrictions placed upon their life and behaviors, OR, especially in ensemble cast comedies, where the 'naive and gullible' character joins a cult to showcase how cartoonishly stupid they are.....

I'd say it was insulting to cult survivors, but that should go without saying. What NEEDS to be said is how DANGEROUS this is to the general public. These depictions of cults and their victims actively harms people. It depicts cults and cult leaders as overwhelmingly evil, to the point that a lot of people now believe that either you will absolutely recognize a cult when you see one (bc, uh, look at them) and that people who fall in their trap are stupid and gullible and should have known better, or it harms actual real life survivors when never-cult members tell us that our cults aren't REAL cults, that they don't 'count', because our experiences and the public image of our groups don't line up with popular depictions of what a cult looks like.

This is every cult's favorite thing. You're spreading their propaganda for them. Every time a piece of media talks about cults and cult members like this, a real life cult ruins another life.

Because now, thanks to this culture, people can't recognize cult recruitment tactics. People don't realize those nice church folks who brought food and comfort when their spouse died are actively targeting them in a vulnerable moment. People see Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or a particularly controlling mainstream church and make fun of them because they're weird and annoying but, to them, ultimately harmless.

And when victims ARE recruited, because now they don't know they have been, if and when they wake up and realize what has happened to them, that they've been manipulated and hurt and abused, now they have to fight against their own shame because they 'should have realized'. They believe they're stupid for being abused. Hell, I was a born-in - I literally had known nothing different. There was still so much shame in realizing I'd been 'had'.

So if you want to actually write good cult/ex cult characters, a few pointers:

1. Why are you writing cult characters at all? What are your reasons? Are you actually trying to explore this particular and specific brand of abuse, or are these cult members henchmen fodder? If any of your reasons line up with the trope examples described earlier, Don't Write Cult Characters. Stop.

2. Talk and listen to ex cult members! Feel free to message me to ask about my experiences/be a sensitivity reader. The exjw subreddit has received a couple questions in the past about this stuff and we want to talk about our experiences lmao, we love talking shit about our ex cult. Read books by ex cult members - there are quite a few out there

3. Know that every ex cult member's experiences are different and nuanced. Every single one of us deals with guilt about shitty things we have done to enforce a harmful and toxic environment for our 'brothers and sisters' while we were still in. We've said and believed bigoted things. Some of us attained a certain amount of power and influence in these groups before leaving; some of us were at the bottom of the pecking order. Some of us were born-in; some of us were recruited in adulthood. Some left after only a few months; some of us left in our 60s.

Write better cults and cult survivors. For literally everyone's benefit.

[ikeservant]

girrrllll can I please have some hc for mitsuhide, kenshin, masamune, and hideyoshi with PMSing mc? I’m dying inside help plz🙏thank you very much have a great day

Big mood right here! I’m in my PMS stage and I hate it >:(. At least I could imagine beautiful warlords doting on me to ease my woes lol >//< I hope you enjoy!

Mitsuhide- Mc walked down the hallway, putting her hand on her gut bc girl was in some menstrual discomfort. Mitsuhide, noticing the troubled look on mc’s face, walked up to her, asking “Is walking tiring you already, little mouse?” Mc replied with a snippy “No, I’m fine.”, right after getting a bad cramp and holding in a cry while putting her arms in front of her abdomen. Able to deduce that this was a part of mc’s PMS but didn’t say anything besides giving her a kiss on the forehead and saying “Well at least you have a short work day.” “Wait no I don’t.” but Mitsuhide was already walking away. Shortly afterward she was asked to go to Nobunaga’s tenshu. “It occurred to me that you were scheduled to take a break today. Under my direct order you are not allowed to carry on any tasks today and will be under the care of- “ “Don’t tell me Mitsuhide set this up. I’m telling you I’m fi-nnneee”mc, being interrupted by another wave of cramps. “I’ve just seen enough evidence that you are not allowed to work for the rest of the day. Mitsuhide is waiting for you and will care for you.” Annoyed that now her boss knows she’s PMSing, she threw open the door to Mitsuhide’s room ready to give him a piece of her mind but was met with a relaxation resort. Futon laid out, a hot cloth to be a heating pad, and incense making the room its own safe haven. Mc started to tear up before Mitsuhide pulled her in the room, insisting for her to relax and let him take care of her. Be prepared to fall asleep as he plays with your hair.

Kenshin- Avoided women like the plague most of his life until he fell for mc and got together, so he keeps freaking out every month until he realizing PMS does not equal medical emergency.Takes it back that women are weak and fragile when he learns that every month their organ goes on a crazy rampage and they’re just considered natural and put up with it until they get old. Asks if there’s a cure in the future but learns there’s only meds to help decrease discomfort. “Sasuke make a PMS medicine or I’ll kill you.” “Aye aye captain.” (only was able to make pain relievers so overall success). Still doesn’t have tact when asking “Are you on your PMS/period stage?” when mc is irritated, crying, or in discomfort (he’s just genuinely asking so he can help do not hit him). Keeps a mental note of mc’s comfort foods so he can bring them to her and makes her take a break from work because one time mc got a cramp while carrying a vase and hunched over tearing up and that was the breaking point for mandatory no heavy/physically stressful activities. Good at massages and will make mc’s back and tummy feel so much better. Bunnies are definitely the best heating pads and destressers for mc.

Masamune- Probably that one guy that goes “We’re in this together! UterUS!”. He’s a master of  comfort food of course. After describing chocolate and other sweets from the future, he’s gotten good at recreating sweet warm comfy foods for mc to consume. Thinks mc is a brave trooper for having to deal with a painful, uncomfy organ for a week every month and will assist his brave kitten with whatever tasks. Will rub her tummy when it feels bad, joking that he didn’t know that he had another Shogetsu. Good at making her laugh and relieving her irritability by being his usual entertaining self and reassuring her that it’ll be over soon. If she starts feeling bad while walking he’ll just scoop her up with a toothy grin and rush her to where they need to be, even if it’s to the war council with no shame both to keep her from cramping up too hard and to distract her from the pain while making her laugh. Would probably “innocently” suggest a hot makeout session to distract her and make her feel better (no harm in givin it a try 😉).

Hideyoshi- Not very shocking that he’d be ultimate caregiver. As soon as mc shows the very first sign of PMS he will just go “Okay you’re off for the rest of the day.” and will not budge on that claim. He will be damned if he sees mc get hurt by working too hard with a beast of a uterus. Will make the most warm, filling food that puts mc’s gut at ease. Will literally try to do all mc’s work bc he knows she gets more irritated and stressed during PMS but will be sneaky about it so she doesn’t feel bad. Will allow mc to have SOME konpeito to eat through the day to comfort her soul. Will give heavenly massages that will make mc almost cry bc of how relieving it is. Will give mc a warm cloth and change it out frequently so mc has a constant heat source over her murderous organ. Will fret over everything as though mc hasn’t been through this before. “Are you sure you’ll be able to do that?” “I don’t want you to overexert yourself mentally or physically.” Is normally met with mc saying that if she’s been able to deal with school and work since she was a young teen she will be able to manage and knows how to deal w/ it. Boi is just tryna help and is a total worrier but he trusts mc’s judgement while also just watching cautiously with some good herbal tea to soothe mc.

[lucci0la]

what do your kinshifts feel like?

LONG ASS POST WARNING‼️

Personally I tend to notice kinshifts when my behavior and interactions with people change- I feel a very particular way about certain things, or my daydreams more often than not end up having to do with those from my canons. I miss certain people more, or my feelings suddenly change about specific people from my canon. I also tend to feel a lot less strongly about my other kins, sometimes removing them from my list just to add them back later when I feel a shift. And this may sound rancid, but when I’m in a kinshift, I tend to feel very agitated or annoyed seeing others with the same kin or feeling a strong sense of (unrightful) possessiveness seeing someone from my source being close with them. Not to say that anyone sharing a kin with me is invalid (they absolutely aren’t invalid in any way and my personal beliefs enforce that), but it’s an involuntary feeling that arises in my kinshifts. Behavior wise, there’s usually a very noticeable shift in what I do or want or my emotions.

If you’re asking about specifics of my kinshifts, I’ll just tell you what I’ve noticed!

Kakyoin :

~ My dysphoria gets stronger- not in the way of wanting to be more masculine as I’m fairly feminine, but feeling upset by any hyper feminization by those in my life (and occasionally within the fandom). There’s just a strong disconnect between myself and others emotion wise.

~ I tend to feel more passive and wear my more flowy clothing or button ups and spend more time on my hygiene, actually bothering to do things like put my damn earrings in or do my hair. I also seem to be more careful with what I eat and take care to finish any tasks and chores.

~ While my motivation for things increases, so does my will to talk to people. I speak noticeably more friendly to people (read: I’ll be really friendly casually until a full on encounter occurs, in which case, I’m shaking in my boots with uncertainty) and my tone changes drastically, so that’s always a hint. With that being said though, my words come out much more naturally and I don’t sound as much like a broken record.

~ This is literally the main thing that I noticed between kinshifts in the beginning, but in my Rohan shifts I felt a strong interest in body modifications or body art- like piercings and tattoos. In my Rohan shifts I’d have a clear feeling that I’d want some sort of tattoo or get random piercings, specifically nipple piercings, and then when I would be in my Kakyoin shift, I couldn’t not notice that I just had no will or want to alter or mark my body. This was during the time where I kept shifting back and forth between my Kakyoin and Rohan shift, which would change every (this is really a guess) 3-21 days and my feelings and sense of improvement, progression, and change were super clear to me, so it couldn’t go unnoticed. What made it even clearer to me was that the back and forth interest in body modification didn’t feel like indecisiveness, it just felt more like a flipped switch that always went back and forth to the same thoughts and feelings. I remember the thought of dying my hair being a similar feeling to body modification even though my hair color is different from canon- attempting to remedy it outside of video games with customizable characters just makes me feel like I shouldn’t.

~ SUUUPER fucking lonely. I may have more motivation to talk to people, but oh my god, I’m still painfully reluctant and shy in genuine interactions.

Rohan :

~ Usually I feel a lot more upfront with everything, and unlike in my Kakyoin shifts, I’m a bit more distant from people and tend to repeat myself if I’m not in the mood to let my words come out naturally. In other words, I’m considerably more self-focused and care more to finish my school work, usually only reading on the side instead of my Kakyoin shifts where I’m actually taking the time to do anything and everything I can to take care of myself.

~ I don’t experience much dysphoria in these shifts, if any, and lean towards form-fitting or revealing clothing. Though by revealing, I mean more that if I’m alone and at home (which I usually am) I usually just end up strolling around in an unbuttoned cardigan and my underwear so it’s not like I do it in public.

~ Even though I present myself differently with people and don’t actively pursue them much in this state, I feel a notable fondness for them. It’s not like I ever stop loving my pets or family when I’m in any of my shifts, but I’ve noticed that I think about them in a kinder light when I’m in my Rohan shifts. To put it very lightly, the family I was born into that I remember from my canon though wasn’t one that I was as close as I would’ve hoped.

~ It’s a subtle change from the Kakyoin shifts, but I tend to be happier and a bit more hopeful rather that feeling like something is missing. My memories are all and all very much happier and it makes me feel a lot more at ease in many things that I do even if I’m not actively remembering them at times.

~ I’ve admittedly been very distracted from my own kins as of late and unfortunately even let myself forget my own memories- though once I read them again (as I wrote them down) I was reminded. Aside from the attachment and interest to body modification like nipple piercings or getting tattoos, I can’t remember many more differences.

Doppio :

~ These shifts are always way shorter than the others, but I notice them very easily. They stick out like a sore thumb in my eyes. My emotions aren’t passive (in the background) in the slightest during these shifts and mostly consist of like,,, pure fucking peace. Like it’s just a strong feeling you can’t ignore.

~ I procrastinate much more and act with self-indulgence, food becomes the biggest comfort, and I lose my absolute MIND over the outdoors. Scenery of any kind (even if it’s really not that good) catches my eye in an instant and I fuckin’ lose it just trying to take pictures.

~ I’ll interact and talk with those close to me, but I don’t care to do so that much with others.

~ While I like being babied (caressed, treated with endearment, etc.) I literally cannot stand not being treated like another person. Consuming kin content for this shift in particular can make me very angry very quickly unless I get it custom made- like holy shit, call me sweet all you want to, but if I see another damn aesthetic regarding frogs or phones, I will lose my shit. It feels like saying one thing at a family meeting when you’re five and then everyone holds it over your damned head into your adulthood. It’s just a bad joke.

~ I’m pretty sure this is the one kin that I had whose canon was more fem-leaning in terms of attraction because every time I’m in the doppio shift, I just— women 💞💞💞

Johnny :

~ Honestly I don’t know how I know I’m in this shift when I am, I just am. I may have not had this shift enough to know for sure, but I just do.

Aside from all that, easier hints would be

Kakyoin: Attached to Jotaro (and Dio at times) and reacts to doubles in a very jealous way- I don’t interact, obviously, but regardless.

Rohan: Attached to Josuke for the most part, but enjoys most from part 4 and reacts to doubles with a strong feeling of disgust or annoyance, obviously still not interacting.

Doppio: Attached to no one in particular despite kin memories (regardless of my care for Donatella or Trish), but reacts to doubles more out of anger. Just as I said, I just get really angry to the point of shaking and simply try to remove myself from the situation.

Johnny: Who knows tbh lmao. I haven’t done any meditations on this one.

Like I said before, these are just involuntary feelings I get from doubles, I don’t, like, bark at or harass them or anything, they’re all just as valid as I am, but these are just differences I’ve noticed between shifts.

[greylunar]

Hey!! I'm a hot mess right now who cant enjoy art anymore so if you could help me solve this out I would appreciate but i understand if you can't so here's the deal: Is being rich while people are starving unethical? And if so how can I enjoy my favorite artists, rich people, knowing this? I mean it's obvious you want you and your loved ones to live comfortably but there's a point where is just too much, right? And all these big artists that I love they are way above the threshold of too much.

This is probably my favorite ask I’ve ever gotten only because I wasn’t really expecting anyone to ask me about this particular political and philosophical question, and I, an anarcho-socialist English major, have some thoughts on the subject, to say the least. Let me preface this by saying there’s no right answer to this question, as much as I wish there was one, and I can only give my opinion and how I’ve chosen to go about my life. That said the majority of people on this site are still pretty young. I’d encourage you to take my opinion with a grain of salt and ask other people you trust and read more theory so you can form what you think is the right way of going about consuming art for yourself! Regardless, I’m really proud of you for asking this and interrogating these sorts of topics within yourself, it can be hard to maintain the balance of keeping hope while attempting to live ethically within capitalist society, but the fact that you are trying is commendable, and it’s my hope that more people asking questions like this will bring about the change we wish to see in the world c: 

Alright, answer under the break!

For starters, yes, I do believe being rich is unethical. While there is a multitude of reasons for this being the case, the one you brought up (hunger) is more than enough reason on its own. Now, no one rich person could end hunger, or at least not permanently. Estimates on how much it would cost to end world hunger range from 7 billion to 265 billion USD annually according to the IFPRI, which sounds wild right off the bat, since those are two unfathomably different numbers, but basically the difference boils down to the 7 billion dollar approach aiming to reduce malnutrition to World Health Assembly goals in about 15 years, and the 265 billion plan aiming to actually end world hunger (reach a “zero hunger target”) within about 20 years by targeting the sources of hunger, mainly being poverty and agricultural infrastructure. 

So when you hear people say things like “why doesn’t Bezos end world hunger” one short answer is that he can’t. But the fact that he can’t doesn’t really matter because what really matters is he’s not trying. Without getting into liquidizing stocks and all that nonsense, if the ten richest people in the world made a one-time donation of 60 billion each, we would have enough and then some for the first two years of that zero hunger target plan by that alone. And the “poorest” of those ten billionaires would still have a net worth of 15 billion, which is still an unfathomable amount of money. 

I say all of this to point out why it still matters to say the rich aren’t doing enough to end world hunger, and not to say that this is my ideal plan for solving it (which involves a lot more social restructuring and abolishing the value-form). I think if someone wakes up with billions in assets it a capitalist society in which the median “living wage” (which includes covering basic expenses, building savings, and having “fun money”) in my country is roughly $67,700, they must have woken up on one of those days and thought “oh hey what if I ended hunger in my home town” or “oh hey what if I funded a food co-op in a food desert nearby” or maybe even “what if I fucked around and tried to end world hunger” and then they didn’t. They turned around and went back to sleep, or went to a business meeting where they continued to exploit their workers or did whatever it is they do that I will never understand. And I think that is unethical. 

Here’s the thing, and I’m sure some people will disagree with me on this one (I’m more than happy to read anyone’s replies and take them into account going forward) there’s a difference between corporate wealth and celebrity wealth. Do I fucking hate looking at pictures of Drake’s mansion? Yes, completely. Do I think that, like Mark Zuckerberg, he should be tried for crimes not limited to aiding and abetting ethnic violence in Ethiopia and failing to remove a militia event in Kenosha in which people planned to kill BLM protesters and then did, proceeding to lie about it in order to continue to profit off of the traffic and internet buzz white supremacists provide his site with? No, because Drake is not Mark Zuckerberg and there is a difference between what crimes it takes to make and uphold a 170 million dollar net worth versus a 98 billion dollar one. While I’m not jazzed to say the least about millionaire celebrities lounging in their wealth, in a way they are a very successful worker being rewarded by a capitalist society in exchange for a service they provide. So yeah, I feel more comfortable cheering on John Boyega for succeeding in a system set against him than I do any corporate capitalist.

That said, there are ways to support the art you love and strive to consume art more ethically. Support local artists, black artists and other creators of color, artists who support sustainable printmaking or give part of their proceeds to charities you care about. In terms of music, for every band you like that has problematic views there are thirty small bands with similar sounds you can support if you go looking. If you find a band you think is doing great work, support them on Bandcamp or buy a CD, and if you really want to listen to Kanye’s Power because its just that kind of day, listen to him on Spotify, where they’re literally paying people jack shit for it.  If you’re going to participate in a capitalist society (and if you’re not, let me know how since I haven't figured that one out yet haha), reward the people you feel good about supporting. 

Speaking of which! One of my favorite rappers noname has an online bookclub that uplifts POC voices by featuring two books a month.  It’s awesome, noname is awesome, and I feel good whenever I listen to their album for the thirtieth time because telefone is the best. There’s art out there for you to feel good about loving. Sometimes it just takes a little digging to find.

I think my last note is going to be this: art is human. Art isn’t capitalist. People have been making art before capitalism and they’ll be making art after, art is an expression of the pain and hope and past and future of us, and we need it. To try and cut yourself off from consuming art to distance yourself from capitalism won’t work, because we need art to be human, and it was never capitalist in the first place. You aren’t evil or unethical for wanting to consume art, that’s the most natural urge in the world. It is a sign that our system is unethical if it makes us feel guilty for the things that make us human. So consume art, love it, love the people who make it, because its the good stuff. It’s the stuff that makes the rest of this more hopeful and more worth it. I know this can all feel like so much sometimes. But you’re not alone. There so many people out there working to make the world better and brighter, and making art to get us through it. I love you, and I hoped this helped even a little bit and I’m sorry its so long haha. I hope today is a little better for you than yesterday, and tomorrow’s even better than today c:

[bigskydreaming]

Hey friendly reminder that I honestly do not want anyone to follow me unless they actually WANT to which means they are free to unfollow, refollow, leave and come back and leave again or WHATEVER as many times as they want, for any reason whatsoever. Including if my posting styles of the moment get to be too much for them or are not to their liking, etc?

BUT I have been seeing a surge in comments in notes and stuff on various posts of mine about the length of my posts or the rambling of my posts and like....I know? This is not new information to me? But I post the way I post at any given time based on the resources I have at any given time and the fact that its often a matter of I can post a long rambling post or I can make no post at all.

Like, I really truly do not like going into specifics about my situation more than necessary or when not necessary, because like, my situation is boring to me, I don’t particularly care to dwell on it any more than I have to. But the fact of the matter is its still a thing that exists so here goes: yes I have physical issues like near constant migraines and pain and also vertigo, and yes I have neurodivergencies like C-PTSD and ADHD and yes I have circumstances that include near constant stress from eternally being in the negatives, financially, as well as being almost constantly hungry from a lack of money and limited options for eating due to the physical constraints of my jaw as well as being consistently sleep deprived because there’s only so much sleep you can get when there’s no such thing as a physically comfortable sleeping arrangement for you currently, all while existing in a constant limbo of I literally have NO idea when any of this will change for me because haha fun fact WE LIVE IN A PANDEMIC.

My point is like......all of these are things I’m not shy about, but they don’t exist as bullet points in a checklist of identity or circumstantial traits, they all exist at all times as points of fact that influence and inform and interact with each other.

So my financial situation and limbo of not being able to move forward with my surgery because of the chaos of the health care industry during a pandemic directly informs both the way stress impacts my mental health issues, but also my ability to treat my mental health issues by way of medication, nutrition, rest.....ie, almost every cent I make via work, etc, goes right back out the door to keeping up my insurance premiums of $850 a month, because even though my surgery is paid for, there’s still elements like hospital stay fees, anesthesia, etc, that won’t be paid until the day of surgery itself, and which I will not be able to pay without my insurance remaining current and active. Which means that I had to prioritize an insurance package that would net me THOSE benefits, which means I had to sacrifice parts of insurance that are no longer in that package, but which previously made things like my medications, refill appointments and therapy more affordable for me. 

Which means that I have to prioritize my medication and therapy etc and maintain my therapy and PTSD, depression and anxiety meds as the most important to upkeep, while my ADHD meds are pretty much priced out of accessibility for me at the moment. Like, the specifics of my metabolism and various trial and error with different meds over the years and the way my body rapidly adapts to various meds and plateaus to a point where they cease to have any real impact on me means the only ADHD medication that’s consistently effective for me is Vyvanse, which there isn’t a viable generic form of that I can take, meaning a monthly refill of it is $350 without insurance, which I flat out can not ever afford anymore, which means its been roughly two months since I last popped an ADHD pill.

So yeah, that directly impacts things like my ability to self-edit, make a point briefly, or refrain from circling back to the same point several times over and over because I literally forget that I made it.

Now of course ADHD medication is not the be-all and end-all and its not like there aren’t various other life-hacks and coping strategies for working around ADHD even without it, after all, I didn’t even get diagnosed until I was 26. But these various other adaptations rely on things like good nutrition (which I can not regularly afford, or even consume....most leafy green vegetables for example, or fruits other than berries, are literally nonstarters for me because I don’t have enough leverage with my one-sided jaw to CHEW them in the first place, and the ingredients for making smoothies regularly are again, expensive). So nutrition as a hack for ADHD management is pretty much out - I’m too busy prioritizing eating anything I can, whenever I can afford to. Other adaptations involve getting lots of rest: something that again, physically isn’t all that viable for me these days, even leaving aside the effects of constant stress on attempts at getting meaningful rest, along with the constant stress and constraints of trying to work as much as humanly possible in my circumstances, in order to keep bringing in income to go to insurance, rent, and food and meds. Then there’s also the stabilizing effects exercise and physical activity can have on the brain and various neurodivergencies like mine, but the migraines and vertigo make most forms of exercise a nonstarter for me, with most of the rest invalidated by the fact that I’m pretty much always hungry, tired, and in chronic pain.

Now let’s examine work and the viability of obtaining more sources of income to help with all this. Well, my options are limited there too due to the ecosystem of factors in play. I’ve been trying for awhile to find even a part time job in my area I can do, but the problems are even though I can make myself mobile and active through my pain issues and migraines, and am even good at gritting and bearing it and acting like I’m smiling and laughing and happy even while in excruciating pain (yay, perks of childhood abuse making a career in retail viable even while practically dead on my feet, lololol)......there’s the simple physiological limitation that I just can’t stay upright RELIABLY for more than a couple hours at a time. Eventually, dizziness knocks me on my ass. Downside of a jaw that’s constantly hanging with all its weight from one side of your face, fucking with your ability to even stand up straight, not to mention causing inner ear and equilibrium problems at random whenever you open or close your mouth in the wrong way (or mere approximation of ANY kind of way).

So, standing upright at any kind of customer service or retail job is one issue. Stocking stuff, that sort of thing.....not really an option when you’re likely to drop all of it at any given moment. But then there’s bracing myself at cash registers, something like a job at Starbucks or hell there’s a Jamba Juice nearby, that’d also get me an employee discount for smoothies I can drink regularly. Course, there’s the whirring of blenders and such, which pair great with constant migraines. Etc. Etc.

BUT. I’m a well-rounded person with lots of skills....which lead to things like my freelance graphic design business as a book cover designer, as well as various writing endeavors, etc. And all of these are things that I DO do, currently. They’re how I make my income as is. There’s absolutely more jobs out there, but the fact is as a freelancer, FINDING additional jobs is a time consuming and spoon consuming process, that is additionally impacted by factors like ADHD, so not only does looking for work require time that’s not already being spent working, it also requires the management and expenditure of mental resources that I have to prioritize FIRST towards applying them to what work I already DO have, given the absence of ADHD medication and minimal coping or regulatory habits allowing for me to be all that productive WITHOUT said meds.

Not to mention the strain sitting in front of a computer all day for work in venues like graphic design, etc, puts on migraines, so there’s only so many hours I can devote daily or in one sitting to doing things like cover work. Much of my writing time is spent not actually writing, but me just dictating into notes on my phone and then copying and pasting all that into the appropriate formats for fiction, nonfiction and just random posts. Of course here then I have to prioritize applying my mental resources to first making sure the stuff I write to make money gets edited or properly pared down to size and isn’t repeating the same shit over and over and over, then doing the same to stuff I write fic wise as one of my few escapes from Real Life BS so I can at least point to having SOME kind of life (as this has been my daily existence for years, and uh.....people having things they like or like to do, as much as is humanly feasible, only becomes MORE of a necessity the more stress involved in their day to day life, not less). 

Meaning by the time I even get to posting, like.....as much as it may look like I do a lot of it, the speed at which I write when I have any kinds of spoons to apply to posting or composing thoughts at ALL means I actually pour out a lot in a little span of time.....BUT that’s not like, a Skill so much as its a Fact. Its just the way I am and it comes with its downsides as well as its upsides....Im good at banging out a lot in a short amount of time, but ONLY when I just....let it go, versus try and regulate it all or squeeze it out bit by bit. I’m a sprint poster these days rather than a marathoner, even if the length of my thoughts makes it LOOK like the latter.....the reality is for me it tends to be all or nothing, its whatever I can get on the page BEFORE I lose my breath or train of thought. So that’s why it looks the way it does, because that was the only form it was coming out at the specific time and space when I had the energy and brainpower TO get it out, and going back in hindsight and editing it for clarity or brevity AFTER I gasp it all out requires energy and breath I do not have PAST that point, so it becomes a simple equation of well do I want a post to exist here at all or not at all.....and I err on the side of posting. This isn’t a defense because there’s nothing to defend, mind you, I’m simply explaining my way through my thought process, approach to things, and realities of my day to day existence for you to do with whatever you want. Its just a perspective you may not have had before. Whatever. 

Of course, even this doesn’t exist in a void. Something that’s always a factor in my awareness when posting is like......I’m lucky enough to have a large enough following that cares enough about what I have to say for whatever reasons or puts enough value in what I have to say or the things I write and create, that I’ve been able to supplement my financial needs when absolutely necessary at times, by way of donation posts. I try not to lean on them more than necessary because I am keenly aware that they are a gift from people, many of whom I do not know and will likely never meet, and as such, not something I have any form of expectation for. I make donation posts when and where I do not in the anticipation of getting them met, but simply for a lack of any other options whatsoever. I’m limited in the work I can do, and the time and energy I can devote to finding more of that same work. There’s not a ton of other career paths I can pursue even from behind a computer due to my lack of a college degree, and the fact that even when I’m qualified skill or knowledge wise, I lack the specific credentials for verifying that I possess those skills or knowledge in a way employers are inclined to recognize and/or validate. Going BACK to school to get said credentials is an expenditure of time, finances, and other resources I do not have to spare at the moment or any time soon, especially not in the name of shoring up a lack of all that in the present term. 

I dropped out of college freshman year after my gaybashing and rape. I never went back to it for a variety of reasons that were only half about resources and half about intent. My family is not a presence in my life and hasn’t really been in any significant way since I was eighteen, so college in the first place was something I had to be entirely self-sufficient about....I was only able to afford to go the year that I did go by way of academic scholarships that were dependent on grades I couldn’t keep up in the wake of what happened to me, and that I couldn’t exactly ever get back without a foundation to build upon, like high school and my initial academic career. Then in the half that was about intent, I eventually moved into pursuing my actual interests like writing, graphic design and acting. One of the things I’ve always loved about those is that output and portfolio nets you more than credentials most of the time....they ARE your credentials. I was actually pretty damn successful as an actor for years, not in the way that leads to being someone that people would recognize, but in the way that leads to being able to support yourself doing what you love. All the skillsets that I have but could not back up with things like a diploma were still useful to me as an actor in a way that they’re not in terms of getting things like tutoring or teaching jobs.....I speak multiple languages but I’m self taught, I have a black belt in karate, I’m a classically trained pianist, I know a whole lot of shit about random shit that I just learned because I wanted to, and all of that got me the kind of work that I was looking for and meant I COULD work and make a living off those things for years throughout my twenty....work that I would not have been able to get if I had been back sitting in a classroom instead. The primary currency of my years as an actor were life experiences and I had those in spades, and I was very good at what I did, if I do say so myself, and the reasons I never advanced further career wise tended to have less to do with whether or not I booked the roles I auditioned for and whether I got the auditions at all......

I’m getting a bit off topic here but I’m just saying there’s definitely a convo to be had at some point, about the roles and opportunities I turned down because I wasn’t willing to sleep with someone or put up with their advancements in order to do so. Something that’s a dime a dozen in Hollywood and the thing is.....I was a sex worker, for years, before I moved to Hollywood and started working as an actor. But there’s a distinct difference between the way people talk about, interact with and perceive someone who’s gotten roles because of sex, advanced up a corporate ladder because of sex...versus, gotten paid because of sex. I didn’t turn down offers of roles for sex because of my hang-ups about sex but rather other peoples’......I had a problem with various parts of the industry that would have thought nothing about me getting a role because a producer wanted to sleep with me, but would have turned up their nose at me because I slept with someone to get money for groceries before. Basically I’m just saying the specific bullshit Hollywood has not just about sex but predatory behavior got in the way of my career advancement because there were some games I just wasn’t willing to play....which hails from the very life experiences that oftentimes made me so good as an actor in the first place.

Which brings me back again to my main point......none of this exists in a vaccuum. Being the sum of our life experiences and variables means being the SUM of that, at ALL times, both in large and small ways. We are never just a LIST of identity traits or experiences. They all constantly loop back around and feed into each other and inform where we are at every second of every day and where we GO in each second, what we DO with our days and the choices we make.

Which is where so much of my discontent with fandoms, on social media in general, with PEOPLE in my day to day life comes from: this desire people have to compartmentalize, to ZERO IN on specific factors or variables or instances and act like it even CAN be divorced from all other influences. Its not that you can’t FOCUS on one thing at a time, its just even when you do that, that doesn’t like....snap all existing connections that thing has to everything outside of your area of focus.

As an example, my attitudes on being a survivor and various kinds of fiction get me a ton of pushback from various corners, and its all geared around the same premise: don’t like, don’t read. Put a wall up between you and it. Focus on just what you’re doing and forget what everyone else is doing.

But it doesn’t work like that. It CAN’T work like that. And this commitment people have to pretending it does just because that pretense has been working for them, THAT, I’d argue, is the true wedge in fandom spaces.

Everything about me is connected to something else. I’m a childhood abuse and incest csa survivor. When my therapist asks me to picture a moment from my childhood when I felt safe or protected, I got nothing. I don’t have that resource. I don’t know what that feeling is meant to feel like, because I never felt it. And that connects directly into the fact that when I was gaybashed in college, after they dumped me in a fucking park, bleeding and covered in writing, I didn’t even think about going to the hospital, the police, let alone calling anyone like my parents, I just picked myself up and walked back to my dorm, cleaned myself off as best I could, and went to class next Monday morning. That’s fucked up, I shouldn’t have had to, but its what I did, and there’s no divorcing that from any of the contexts of WHY that’s what I did, and why I didn’t think there was any other logical recourse or option for me then. Just like all of that also links back to growing up in the closet and entering high school the same month Matthew Shepherd was attacked, and then when he ultimately died two months later, and watching everybody’s reactions to that informed the fact that I did not remotely feel safe in the aftermath of my attack, disclosing what happened to people around me, or just like I didn’t take it on face value that even if they said appropriately sensitive things to me to my face didn’t mean that like when I was a freshman in high school and everyone was reacting to that, they wouldn’t revert to callous jokes about fags the second they felt a little less out of the spotlight or in the right company for those jokes. 

And all of that directly links into my feelings not just when people write rape and gaybashing scenes that make no attempt at any kind of catharsis but rather only appear to exist for the fetishization, the glamorization, the VALIDATION of the idea that in the right context, those kinds of scenes can be hot to the right audience rather than demoralizing to the figure who’s pain and humaniliation is required for everyone else’s entertainment....but it also additionally plays into the reactions and attitudes I have when people look at me going “wow, really don’t like the lens you’re using here or the environment you’re creating around an experience that is never anything BUT painful and traumatic for someone who lived it, like I did” and choose to respond to that by saying things that amount to “well you’re basically just like conservative southern assholes who hate free speech when you say stuff like this,” cuz y’know.....that’s describing my literal oppressors. That’s lumping me in with the actual literal kind of people who are the SOURCE of my trauma there, all because you felt butthurt and defensive about how I said I wasn’t comfortable with the kinds of jokes and output you were making about scenes that aren’t that far divorced from my own personal reality, and that I shouldn’t HAVE to divorce from my own experiences just to exist within certain fandom spaces.

And just like the fact that being an incest survivor is directly relevant to the fact that my stepmother always made an effort to keep me at a distance because not wanting to admit to what happened to me and how it played into our family entanglements was directly linked back to the fact that she and my aunt were both incest survivors who never got the opportunities to deal with what happened to them, which in turn directly plays into the fact that ultimately my aunt ended up taking her own life a few years ago, which also very much informs my attitude towards people interacting with incest ships as something cutesy and uwu, as my aunt was literally the only person in my family I ever WAS close to or comfortable with. And there’s no divorcing any of that into nice neat little compartments that make it easier for anyone on the outside looking in to just peek through ONE window to see what they might see, and try and act like it doesn’t matter what’s in any of those other boxes because it has nothing to do with the only one they want to concern themselves with.

And my lack of resources and emotional state post gay-bashing led directly into my sex work for various reasons, which led in various ways to better things for me in some respects, while compounding certain traumas of mine in other respects, and there’s no divorcing any of that from the rest either. There’s no ‘my time as a sex worker was good’ even though some of it was and there’s no ‘my time as a sex worker was bad’ even though some of it really was. And a lot of the attitudes of some of the rich assholes who paid me for sex and viewed me as a plaything they could do anything to directly informs my resistance to letting powerful assholes in Hollywood hold roles over my head in exchange for sex, even though the latter could have advanced my career in huge ways and led to me being a lot more financially stable and self-sufficient by the time my physical issues emerged due to the jaw joint on one side of my head eroding through and snapping completely just like that in turn was a long-building repercussion of not just my gaybashing, but my decision to never go to the hospital and get checked out after it.

None of this can be cut away from the rest and trimmed into neat little pieces that don’t color outside the lines or impact anything else. Just like my gaybashing itself can’t be divorced from my white privilege, and the fact that it played into the fact that I survived that night in the first place. Something I say not in some weird white guilt kinda way like people try and project onto others for even acknowledging white privilege, like no its not like I fucking wish I died to prove some kind of weird point, what I’m talking about is just the simple basic AWARENESS that multiple and even contradictory factors exist in even the most extreme of situations. And its never anything BUT self-serving to pretend that you can frame it as otherwise.

And so when I talk about being a survivor, just like with all the rest of this, I’m not talking about some arbitrary status of survivorhood that exists in a specific point in time and is only relevant to some singular event I survived, its applicable to everything about my life big and small. I’m a survivor every single day I’ve survived, every day I wake up and keep moving forward despite the pain and stress and lingering trauma of what was done to me one night sixteen years ago, I’m surviving what they did every bit as much as I survived it that night and in the morning after as I dragged myself back to my room. Just like my status as an abuse survivor stemming from childhood directly informs everything about not just my coping mechanisms but my entire freaking worldview as someone who grew up throughout childhood learning to view the world through a lens in which he was simultaneously not safe due to the presence of victimizers in his own home, while at the same time still having certain protections that others don’t have in life in general due to not just again my white privilege but my male privilege, my cis privilege.

And that’s what makes it so laughable and so offensive when people act like I’m defining myself by being a survivor as some kind of singular identity trait whenever I raise it as something of relevance in fandom discussions that have EVERYTHING to do with stances of abuse apologism and homophobic ideas that directly play into why I was so unsafe in certain parts and times of my life, because who the fuck is anyone else to tell me how my experiences as a survivor and how they shaped me are or are not relevant to ideas pertaining to those very things, when brought front and center and face to face with me in various fandoms due to the insistence of fandoms at large on KEEPING these things front and center in almost ALL fandom discussions? Like, the hilarious irony of people who have so wholly centered certain types of ship and content in terms of their own personal fandom identities that they can’t help but feel personally attacked when someone so much as says “I don’t like the ideas you’re broadcasting alongside your choice to amplify and signal boost this kind of content because you’re not JUST signalboosting the content itself, but these specific perceptions of it and ideas in support of and in apology for it.”....like, turning around and saying IM too defined by my views stemming from my existence as a survivor. The call is coming from inside the house, lolol.

Again, none of this can be divorced from the rest. It can be focused on one piece at a time, but its connections to everything else that informs it in various RELEVANT ways, can not be made IRRELEVANT just because you don’t like the picture that forms when you’re forced to look at the WHOLE picture instead of just willfully condensing the frame to just the part you like or want to talk about.

And to bring it all home, looping back up to what I opened with:

Do you know how often I hear people say shit about the length of my posts or the rambling nature or in various ways act INCONVENIENCED by various things about how they have to interact with my posts when that interaction itself is still completely voluntary?

Taking in everything I said in this post, the way it all interconnects and informs other things, I’d like to ask anyone who has ever objected to some post somewhere or derided one because of something as ultimately nonconsequential as the length of it, something where its literally just like....scroll a few more seconds......do you apply the same energy and scrutiny to posts that cross your dash that are filled with various things like racism, transphobia, rape or pedophilia fetishization or abuse apologism, or do you let that slide by without acknowledgment before looking at a post that makes you sigh because of how fucking LONG it was and think...this, THIS is what I’m gonna choose to speak up about?

Because that’s ultimately what this is all about. Here’s the kicker with everything I said....my life could be better, I want it to be better, from the biggest aspects of it and pain issues to stuff just like.....the fandom communities I immerse myself in for my own attempts at having something to counterbalance real life stress. But at the end of the day, there’s no my life sucks or my life rocks....its still just...my life. And it has its good as well as its bad, and that ultimately hails from my choices, and the fact that like....even while there are choices I literally CAN’T make, I can be comfortable with the ones I DO make.

And so like......would my life be easier in some respects now if I’d gone back to school and gotten a diploma and had more job opportunities available to me? Yeah, for sure. But that awareness doesn’t mean I regret my choice NOT to go back to school when I DID have more opportunities for that, because the acting career I had at those times instead was the choice I made, with intent, and its one I’m still glad for making. Those experiences still matter, still meant something and still mean something to me. 

And do I wish that I’d coped with what happened to me in college in different, healthier ways that would have given me more tools for how I interact with my trauma and who I became after that, rather than how I did? Yeah, sometimes, for sure. But not without losing my awareness that the choices I did make at the time were not made in a vacuum, and can not be edited in hindsight....there were reasons I made them, reasons that were informed by everything that had happened to me previously and stemmed from a lot of things I still didn’t have control over and as such always placed a cap on the range of choices that were available to me back then, because there’s a difference between choices that exist in theory versus choices that exist as something that might viably be chosen at a particular place and time.

The world is big and complicated. Life is big and complicated. WE are big and complicated. And nothing about understanding any of that is IMO benefited by putting most of our effort into SHRINKING our worldviews, constructing artificial frames that don’t just focus us in on specific aspects of it for finite periods but attempt to then treat that as its own individual thing utterly disconnected from anything else that might be going on OUTSIDE that picture frame.

So if you’ve read this far and you’ve taken anything away from this big long rambling post that could be a lot shorter, could be a lot less rambling, but could also just not have been posted at all and I’d rather have it exist in this form than let everything in it go unsaid.....

My request would be that your takeaway be this: to look at your choices in regards to some specific finite interaction in even just one of your fandoms, and see what happens when you open the frame back up. If you widen the scope. If you let other things into the picture. Are you still comfortable with the choices you make or don’t make in light of THAT image, are they any different from the ones you made or would have made when keeping things as small and contained in your awareness as possible, just because that was easier for you to conceptualize, easier to navigate around, just....less COMPLICATED?

Because things aren’t made less complicated just by the mere fact of WANTING them to be.

And if your choices are more born of what you’d say or do IF the world were as finite or as limited as its sometimes easier to pretend it is......is that really the approach you want to go with and the reasoning you want to stand by?

And similarly, if there are choices you make and that in ORDER for you to feel comfortable making them, you feel a need to tighten your focus or shrink your worldview around one specific element or area and leave out all the rest and only then are you truly comfortable with doing or saying something, like......

Its important to remember that this isn’t the only option you have for making yourself more comfortable with things you say or do or think, or even just have in the past.

The other perfectly viable option exists: you can simply....make different choices.