#maximum dysfunction

[jenahsey-creates]

Finally finished this expression study of Sassy Quokka Aziraphale I've had sitting unfinished for like a month. Inspired by this group of classic Aziraphale faces from a "What Aziraphale are you today" poll:

[crimson-nail]

i have been cooking an over-complicated roleswap au for. a VERY long time

[crowlore]

Toast to a Saint

[bad-as-me]

i need a big pink button that just says "sorry if it takes me 9+ business days to get back to you, i havent had my adhd medication for over two months and time is a vague and confusing soup to me right now"

[jacenbren]

Don’t you just hate it when your dysfunctional family comprised of three quasi-immortal interdimensional aliens with autism, strong senses of justice, godlike powers, and wildly conflicting opinions on humanity manage to single-handedly reduce a large metropolitan area to a smoking crater

read the fic here lmao

[ohitslen]

Confession time: I’m just at chapter three of Trigun, the first volume OANSNKW

I meAN, I’ve been meaning to read forward, but I know it’ll leave a gaping hole inside my heart and I need to FUNCTION you know, I have to pull the last push of the semester and Trigun is already occupying too much of my mind, can’t imagine what will happen once I read the manga. So that is that.

[class1akids]

"I like food"

I saw many posts people saying how random Shouto's line is about praying at Touya's altar and realizing that he likes food - and I wanted to point to how it helps wrapping up his arc.

Shouto is saying: "When I was praying at Touya's butsudan (Buddhist altar), I suddenly realized something, I liked eating food. I realized there's more to me than just the person I want to become."

Food was a "negative space in the Todoroki family, so liking food was not evident to Shoto growing up.

In Shouto's flashbacks with his family, we never see him eat food. His only memory tied to the kitchen is the kettle incident. We know from Natsuo that Shouto ate alone, a diet prescribed by Endeavor, no doubt all geared towards maximum performance, rather than enjoyment. Not even knowing your siblings favorite food is the ultimate symbol of how dysfunctional the household was.

2. Food was a positive space in Class A - tied to comfort, bonding, friendship

In class A, Shouto starts eating with Iida and Midoriya after the Stain incident. Food becomes comfort, connection, sharing, caring, teamwork, etc. He experiences things like using his fire to prepare food together, eating together, cleaning up.

Many memorable Shouto-scenes are tied to Class A eating together (e.g. heroes cry too) and he connects to Inasa over a discussion about favorite foods (udon vs soba) which is a theme that carries over to his endgame with Touya

3. As the Todoroki family tries to reconnect, food plays a central role

As the family changes, they attempt to reconnect around the family dinner table (the famous sluuurp scenes). But Todoroki dinners end in a disaster - still they are useful bringing to the surface important conflicts and trying to communicate about them (another important theme discussed in Shoto Rising).

There is more in the light novels: Shoto's and Rei's decade late reconnection as Rei offers him a little kid strawberry milk that she remembers he liked when he was 5, and their attempt to connect with Natsuo ending up in a mush of ruined soba - it's all out of sync.

4. Food as a symbol of lost time and broken futures

Food is also very central for the hopes of a happier future: Enji's dream of his family at the dinner table, Natsuo's regret about years of missed meals, Shoto wanting to share noodles with Toya, all culminating in the heartbreaking realization that they have the same favorite food they'll never get to share.

5. Food as a symbol of processing grief and healing

Praying at the butsudan (the Buddhist altar at home set up for a deceased loved one) involves the preparation of offerings of food and drinks, which then the family eats afterwards. We see this practice referenced in Ch 249 when Enji prays at Toya's altar.

So Shouto making a reference to it is a shorthand for telling us that Touya died at some point, Shouto is still grieving him and just like Deku and Ochako, he's trying to make sense for himself out of their short encounter. So wanting to learn how to make chopsticks and bowls (a traditional Japanese craft of woodwork and applying lacquer, often involving intricate patterns) implies that he wants to bring Touya the perfect offering, but also that he's finally stepping outside fully of the framework Endeavor created for the family, where children are cast into roles of heroes, villains and by-standers, masterpieces and failures but never human beings. He's thinking about what connects him and Touya together and who they would have been in a different story.

6. Shouto's personal arc

Shouto's character was always about balance. Balance between past and future, ice and fire, duty and family, etc. So crafting chopsticks and bowls to elevate good food connects the grief and survival guilt with healing and growth. It is both a tribute to Touya's memory and a new possible hobby to express still undiscovered sides of himself.

It fits the theme of the chapter "More" - as it focuses on what lies beyond being a hero, reaching a goal, working hard and how Izuku, Ochako and Shouto have been transformed by their experiences of trying to save their villains.

But it also fits Shouto's personal arc that was about discovering who Shouto really is. Earlier in the chapter, Shouto refers to being constrained into the framework of a bigger story, where his choices are bound to happen. As a hero of the sidestory of that manga, Shouto has no choice but decide what kind of a hero he wants to be (not-Endeavor, like All Might, reassuring, family hero). Encounters with his family helped crystallized this image of himself.

But now that he's being released from this story, he can look outside of the framework of a hero manga and discover those "more sides than just a hero". And Touya was the last encounter - the last piece of that puzzle. I think there is a parallel in how Tomura destroyed much of hero society - Touya also destroyed the foundations of the Todoroki family, so something different can maybe built.

Without Touya, I think the family would have kept at trying to piece themselves together in a tense, fake kind of peace to keep up appearances. If nothing else, Touya's actions tore through that need of saving face - leaving them all exposed and grappling with the harsh realities of their actions. But I think it also allowed the younger siblings to step outside the cage their parents created for them and build things better from scratch. It allows them to find more sides to themselves outside of the logic of the Todoroki household.

[pricetagged]

raft of the leucothea

A little Kyle piece for the Gaz lovers 💖 to tide you over while I work on the Nikolai and the Price stuff.

Shipwrecked. Washed ashore, injured and sick, and thankfully not alone. A man called Kyle Garrick has washed ashore with you.

No big warnings, just some ever-so-slight dubcon naked cuddling (for survival!).

----------

The harsh, salty spray stung your cracked cheeks. Like clay left to bake in the sun, you felt the cracking and peeling of stinging flesh. But you felt it, that was the important thing.

Sunshine seared through your eyelids, a high noon wake-up call. Glowing ember-red, turning the sands to hot coal beneath you. You only had a second to process it before you rolled over, cramping muscles seizing in a paroxysm of a crawl as you hacked and coughed briny, burning seawater.

Alive then.

You were scared to open your eyes. You could pretend that they were crusted shut, sand and grit and god only knows what flaking over. Irritating, painful. A conjunctivitis of caustic circumstance. If you opened your eyes, it was real.

No, it was better as you were. A temporary balm to a blistering scald. Eyes-wide-shut, blind to the horrible damp marl and putrid air burning through your smarting nostrils. Sea life and smoke; pungent enough to turn your stomach once more.

You moaned as you collapsed on the shore, skin-fever hot and itching. Grit and shell-shards dug in, piercing your sensitive flesh. Clinging, burrowing. Discomfiting. Like the discordant memories swimming to the surface, all driftwood and screams and kicking, aching feet.  

There was no more screaming.

The waves lapped at the shore, a gentle balmy breeze carrying the soft sloshing of surf. Hazy popping and crackling accompanied it, a paradisiac white noise that scrambled your sluggish thoughts. Your eyes fluttered open. Temporarily blind from solar glare, you blinked moisture back. Tried to, at least. You were parched, eyes-dry and throat drier.

Perhaps you expected to see devastation. Destruction. Flotsam and jetsam and bodies strewn along the beach. There was a fire, yes, but it was not from the casket of the ship. Debris visible, but neat. Collected and organized into tidy little piles by a great smoking fire. Through the heat-haze of the flames, you spotted a flash of green: fresh leaves. Gaseous white billowed up; perfect for maximum visibility.

"Ah, you're awake." A shadow fell over you, gentle hands supporting your back until you were somewhat upright. "Here, you'll need this."

You grimaced as your cracked lips crinkled around the fruit, harsh little fibres stabbing in. But the relief–

Light, nutty, refreshing. You guzzled it down, big greedy slurps as your hands raised to cup it closer, throat constricting as you lost your breath–

"Hey, hey, slow down," the stranger spoke, easily plucking the coconut from your shaky fingers. "You'll make yourself sick. Again."

"Thanks." You could at least croak out your gratitude, squinting to get a better look at him. "The others–?"

He was gorgeous, dark eyes and eyebrows slanted into the perfect expression of concern. He looked surprisingly normal, given the circumstances. Only a slight split on his full lips, a smear of sand crusted into his curls, marred his handsome face. You watched as his mouth twisted, as he rolled his neck glanced away. A grimace, more telling than words.

"Just you, me, the sand and the coconuts. Paradise cruise, eh?" He finally spoke, nose scrunching as the joke came out a little flat.

It wasn't a shock, but it was jarring all the same. Though you swallowed, your voice came out thick. "At least you're here. Wouldn't have gotten this open by myself."

It was feeble, words half swallowed as survivor's guilt and gallows humour met and warred. A dysfunctional marriage of relief and self-reproach curdled the coconut water in your stomach. A third player entered; unease. Anxiety, sending your heart rate spiralling high as your breaths grew shallow. Something stung your eyes, and you couldn't entirely blame the smoking fire–

"Hey, hey, look at me," You couldn't look away, not from his steady, unwavering gaze. Beautiful. Like sunlight filtered through whiskey, warm and soothing. "Breathe as I breathe– in, out, in– hold it– okay, out. That's right, that's perfect–"

He talked you through it, brought your trembling, clumsy fingers to his chest as he breathed in counts of eight. Kept his palm over your hand, cupped it against the rise and fall of his ribs. You could feel the firmness of his muscles beneath, feel the way his heart beat a steady rhythm just below your fingertips, and slowly, you relaxed into it.

Your cheeks were wet. You realised that around the same time you realised his other hand was rubbing ataractic circles on your back. A shameful emollient, setting you at ease but lowering your gaze. Here, in the arms of this stranger, who were you? Troublesome castaway, retching on the beach as he built a signal fire. Slurping down the fruit that he offered, then crying in his arms–

"Stop that," His hand paused between your should blades, chin tucked as he leaned down to catch your gaze. "You're doing so well, love. Bit of a fucked up situation we're in here."

"How are you so calm? How are you so organised? I feel like I'm going to drift away like–like–"

The hand at your back pushed you forward, pressing until you were draped across his lap. He rocked you, stubble against your temples as he shushed and soothed. Analgesic whispers that slackened your tight limbs, sent eyelids fluttering until you slipped into slumber. Mind numb, docked in restful harbours.

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

When you woke up, you were hot. Shivering, teeth-chattering, but hot. You could no longer smell the fire, but you could feel it against your bare skin. Toasty, crackling embers smouldering and making you sweat.

The fever slowed your mind, too. Thoughts turned to sluggish, sticky mulch as you nuzzled into the strong bicep supporting your neck. His skin was smooth, slightly tacky where it met yours, and you whined a little as you tried to pull away.

But moving sent your head spinning, aching muscles seizing until all you could do was cry.

"You're alright, just sleep. Don't move–"

"My clothes," you slurred the words, heavy and sticky on your tongue. Crystallising like spoiled honey, you tried to spit them out faster, but they just dripped. Molasses-slow, and murky. Confused. "I'm not– my clothes are– what–?"

"I took them off you–shh, shh– They were tattered anyway, we'll need to dig through the piles and see what we can repair." You felt his arm flex below you, rolling your head until it was resting on the pillow of his chest. You tried to open your eyes, but the image was hazy. Like looking through seaglass. "It's cold here at night, freezing. The fire's good, but body heat's best."

"'m too hot– feel too–"

"Yeah, noticed you weren't just cold when you wouldn't stop shivering," his forearm banded around your squirming body, pinning you to his. "I know, baby, I know. It's not nice. Gonna try to sweat it out of you. Don't exactly have the luxury of good food and medicine."

His voice was pitched low, sweet. It made you want to cry, mind adrift and body at his mercy. Holiday turned tragedy, swallowed up by the sea and spat up on the beach like refuse. Control slipped through your fingers, finer and more fickle than the sands below and all you could do was cry.

You felt his fingers, whisper-soft, stroking through the ends of your salty, parched hair. Your tears dripped down, soaking into your flushed cheeks and the sparse, scratchy hairs on his chest. He paused for a beat, fingers swiping over your damp forehead. Whisps pushed away until you felt a butterfly kiss against your clammy forehead. Quick and gentle and fleeting.

Small waves kissed the beach, too. Susurrus, splashing caresses that almost sent you drifting off again. The rumble of his voice tickled your cheek, made you blink slowly until you could make out his face through bleary eyes.  

"It's just you and me and this island," He spoke it softly, sting mollified by surety. Bittersweet ointment for a distressing prognosis. "I've got you; I'll take care of you. I promise."

Your answer was faint. "What if no-one comes for us?"

His arms curled tighter around you, twisted until you were splayed atop him. In another time, another place, you'd be flustered by the open splay of your legs, bare against his lean waist. Here, shame withered away, fizzled out. Ephemeral as seafoam.

"I told you, I'll take care of you. Rescue or not, it's you and me now."

Later, you'd blame delirium, fever dream-fugue, for how the words echoed in your mind. 'Just you and me.'

You and him, and the island.

-----------

[meichenxi]

12 hyper-specific actionable neurodivergent-friendly goal suggestions for the New Year!

If you are considering writing goals / intentions / focus points that are more ADHD and/or autism friendly and not overly focused on career or relationships but rather on feeling at home in your body, here are 12 very specific, very actionable tiny steps that have made my life actively better in the last year. Feel free to reblog with similarly actionable points!

(Obligatory disclaimer: these are what have helped me – hence why ‘hyperspecific’! They might be completely the opposite of what you need, or irrelevant to your situation. And all of them, of course, are funds-dependent. But I hope you can find something to inspire you to think about more actionable goals for the coming year.)

1) Get a recipe box

This is number one for a reason. In the past, I have lived for three years on sandwiches (!). I cannot cook or reliably feed myself, and have been beating myself up about it for years. At its best it is humiliating, and at its worst I have gotten various illnesses from malnutrition. I find cooking a sensory hell, as well as triggering past ED thoughts, and shopping and deciding every day what to eat is an executive dysfunction nightmare.

‘You should be able to cook’ – okay, but you can’t. If you can afford it, what’s more important – that you eat well, or that you fail again and again at doing what you ‘should’ be able to do? I think of it as part of my autism accommodations, and just one of the ways that existing as a disabled person is more expensive. Please take the shame away from it, and use it if you need.

I pay for Gousto – it’s the best for vegans, and costs about £35 a week. This is a huge part of my budget for the month, but I find it worth it a million times over. It delivers the recipes and packaged foods in correct amounts to my house every week, and I always choose the quickest recipes to cook. They are done in about fifteen minutes. This forces me to be in the kitchen every day, which has the added benefit of making it very clean, because I can’t stand to cook when the kitchen is very dirty.

2) Go to the gym for ten minutes a day

- (If you don’t want to go to the gym but do other exercise instead, swap the location out for your preferred place!)

- Most traditional advice around exercise revolves around not doing too much – so for most beginners that means 3-4 times a week, at the maximum. The problem is that for AuDHD and other neurodivergent people that habits may be much harder, if not impossible, to form. This means that the executive function required to remember to go to the gym if it’s only 3 times a week, conversely, is actually significantly higher than if you do it every day.

- The ‘ten minutes a day’ thing, for me, means that my goal is not to do X amount of exercise or overwhelm myself. My goal is only to get there. Once I’m there, I can do whatever I want. This formulation of the goal in my mind removes the demand-avoidance and executive dysfunction barriers because if I really don’t want to exercise, I can just walk on the treadmill for a bit and then leave. Knowing this means that I almost always do more exercise than I otherwise would if I were forced to follow a difficult and tiring exercise regime.

- The key to this is that you actually have to mean it. Don’t beat yourself up if after ten minutes, you go home. That’s okay. Your goal was ten minutes – your goal is to make going to the gym a habit, not necessarily the actual exercise you do. That comes next.

3) Use a weighted neck-wrap, cushion or plushie

- For a disorganised sensory system, as many autistic people in particular have, proprioceptive input (that tells your body where it is in space – so weight, pressure, compression etc) can be hugely regulating and calming. A weighted neck wrap is small enough to go under your clothes or can go over your chest as you sleep. I already use a weighted blanket, but this means I can have a little bit of calming proprioceptive input as I work at my desk as well.

4) Get a smoothie box

- This is a similar point to the recipe box. I frequently have health problems because I absolutely hate the texture of fruit and vegetables, and just don’t ever eat them. Rather than forcing myself, as I have done for the past several years, to just try – I’ve leant into my difficulties and worked around them. Smoothies work for me. A smoothie box that comes every month averages out to about £2 per smoothie, which is less than the cost of a bottle in a supermarket. You don’t have to chop anything, just put it in the blender with water or oat or coconut milk.

- Most smoothies have 3 of your 5 a day at least, and some even have 5! If you are struggling nutritionally, it might be something to think about. It’s helped me hugely, and I now consider it an essential part of my budget.

- If it’s too expensive, consider buying frozen fruit by yourself if you have the spoons for that.

5) How can you look the most ‘put together’ without doing anything at all?

- I don’t mean showering. I mean infrequent practices like haircuts! I hate wearing makeup for sensory reasons, but I have a good haircut, one that makes me feel like myself and sharp and confident – I feel so much better, and it’s something I only have to do once. I now make it a deliberate choice to put a haircut in my calendar for every two months.

- Consider a ‘no style’ haircut that will look smart whatever you do! My haircut is a short French bob. You need essentially no styling, it works curly or wavy or straight (though if you have curly or coily hair, you should go to someone who can work with your texture – if you don’t thin it out properly, it’ll give you a horrible triangle shape!). I feel SO put-together with this haircut – it elevates even pyjamas, and I have to do absolutely nothing.

- I bite my nails to the point of bleeding – getting professional gel paint on my nails (no extensions) is the only thing that works to stop me, because the smooth round tips meant I could stim with those instead of biting. For ages, I didn’t because it was a ‘waste of money’. This year I realised: if I’m not going to stop stimming, I need to give myself something to stim with that doesn’t hurt me. Accept your neurodivergence and work around it. I now book a nails appointment every 6 weeks or so, for £20-£25. I find it again more than worth it.

- Similarly, I have just got a nose piercing, and I am considering tattoos for next year. For me piercings and tattoos do the same thing as the above two: they make me look more put together without actually ever having to think about wearing temporary jewellery or makeup (which I can’t for sensory reasons). What might work for you?

6) Dress for Sensory Good

- I have found a noticeable difference in my self-confidence with my appearance once I a) accepted that I have sensory differences, and b) bought clothes that accommodated those differences without making me look like a slob. For example, I hate feeling constricted around my thighs as I like to jump and stim and dance, but I don’t want to live in tracksuit bottoms because that leads to Depression Soup – so I have started buying formal, ‘monk-style’ trousers with a wrap-around belt and flowy legs. I like the feeling of pressure around my waist that a tight top provides, but I hate it around my shoulders (don’t ask me why…), so I have started wearing tops with huge baggy sleeves and a wrap-belt around the waist. So many of these tiny adjustments, and for the first time in my life I feel both comfortable and beautiful in my wardrobe.

- Do you like heavy things? Soft textures? Scratchy wool? Lots of badges to play with? Tight compression? Flowing fabrics? And how does this work with your lifestyle? When I am overwhelmed, I often want to cover the lower half of my face and neck – it feels comforting to me. So I have started wearing light scarves that I can wrap around my face like an old lady (!) which both block out the world, provide that comfort, and also look...normal? It lets me stim without visibly outing myself as autistic, which I don’t always feel safe doing.

- Other things to consider that might help: compression clothing, weighted jackets, heavy boots, ankle and wrist weights (there are some that are very minimalist and look like bracelets), wrap trousers, tight belts, cloaks with hoods, cowl necklines, activewear, Merino wool (if you sweat a lot or can’t shower / do laundry often), complete light-blocking sunglasses (you can buy these from a ski shop), stretchy fabric, etc. Whatever works for you – find it!

7) Use a sippy bottle with a straw

- I can’t stay hydrated. If it’s left up to me, I drink less than a glass of water every single day. I have constantly bleeding cracked lips and skin from lack of hydration. The only thing that has worked so far – and it has been a game-changer! – is to buy a huge 1.2 litre / 40 oz water-bottle with a built-in straw that I can take around everywhere. I can stim with it, the straw feels nice, I much prefer drinking from a straw because I hate accidentally wetting my chin / sleeves - and all I have to do is remember to fill it up twice a day. That’s way less mental effort than remembering eight glasses!

8) Get noise-cancelling headphones and Loops

- I assume everyone who is autistic has these. If you don’t – they will change your life. I only got them last year and suddenly so many places have become accessible to me that I would have just avoided before. I also tell people very honestly that I often wear them, so please don’t be alarmed if I do – if you want to start this, I’ve found it less intimidating to do it with strangers first, and then moving up to friends / family. Now everyone is used to it, and I get way less overwhelmed.

9) Use an audiobook service

- For a long time I thought that I had lost the ability to read. I now know that’s directly correlated to my levels of overwhelm (which makes my ADHD traits worse), but even so, my short-term memory is so poor that I have basically never been able to read non-fiction – it goes in one ear and out the other. Now that I use an audiobook service, however – I am listening to lecture series about so many things I’m passionate about and actually remembering things for the first time in my life!

- Knowing that I can listen to things I love whilst I clean or tidy my room or pack or whatever helps me so much. I also enjoy lying down in the dark under my weighted blanket listening to audiobooks as I wake up and go to sleep – it has completely replaced scrolling on my phone as the first / last thing to do in a day. When I’m overwhelmed I often can’t look at a physical book as it hurts my eyes, so an audiobook is far better.

10) Get Huel / Pleny / other meal-replacement drinks

- Because sometimes even with a recipe box, you won’t be able to cook. You’ll have forgotten to go shopping. You’ll be so sensory-weird that the thought of eating food is awful and makes you want to vomit. This doesn’t work for my partner, who hates the texture of Huel, but for me I can bear it and often enjoy the same-ness of knowing exactly what to expect. On days when I can’t cook or go out or sort out a meal, Huel is a life-saver.

11) Add active rest time to your calendar

- I don’t mean necessarily an actual calendar, but about how you think about time and your day. I make it a habit now to automatically add the same amount of time as the activity took as recovery time afterwards. So if I schedule a date for 2pm to 4pm, then I know that after I get home I will need two hours to recover before I can do something else.

- This has helped me be both more deliberate about my rest time (I don’t scroll or watch anything – I deliberately ‘go in’, as I call it, using my weighted blanket, other weighted things on my chest, a blindfold, brown noise, pitch black room etc), and also be realistic about how much I can do in my life. I know that if I have to rest for two hours after a two-hour event, it’s very unlikely that I can do more than one social engagement in a day. This expands to longer periods: if I go and visit my family for four days, I will likely need four days doing not much afterwards, and certainly no cognitively demanding tasks or socialising. This is a reality check which helps me say no to certain things that are not crucial.

12) Try compression clothes

- These provide a subtle and constant proprioceptive input which can calm the nervous system – as I have said above, proprioceptive input (knowing where your body is in space, pressure etc) is hugely regulating to AuDHD nervous systems. It also massively affects the other sensory systems if it is dysregulated – so if you aren’t meeting your sensory needs for proprioception, it’s likely that visual or auditory will be even harder. You don’t need to buy ones specifically for autism – UnderArmour or shapewear or activewear works just as well.

---

I hope these help! I have many more suggestions, but will leave that to another post :)

[sunnycanvas]

Hello, it's not a fanfic, it's a question. Do you think that Balwin can or resists, so to speak, having intimate relationships?

It's actually going to be difficult. Baldwin IV suffered from lepromatous leprosy. It is said that people in this condition suffer from loss of libido, Ejaculation dysfunction as well as infertility in men in small percentage. Baldwin IV also been known to be prone to weakness and constantly in ill health. Example: The King was unhorsed and carried to safety on a knight's back because he could not remount on his own. He did need soldier's help sometimes to get up and get down from the horse. He was also easily prone to diseases as well. I personally don't believe Baldwin IV would participating in sex. Not just because of religious reasons but because maximum times he won't feel the need for it(loss of libido). Ejaculation dysfunction is going to make it painful. Him being sickly is also another reason. I personally believe sex life with him will be non existent unless he decides to compromise for his s/o. Then also it's going very few occasions where he will have sex with his s/o

@trobairitzdedia has done a really good job in explaining to me. Thank you so much!

[maxdibert]

I think anon meant with how you could dislike Lily when it's Severus that idealised her in his head for decades and would definitely disagree with you about any criticism about Lily. Which doesn't really correlate in my opinion. Lily is the "Saint" in the series which is unrealistic, we barely get to know her, why didn't JK written in some Girl friends of Lily to tell Harry how she was. We only met Jamess High school buddies. Makes me feel like Lily was the epitome of pick-me and social climber, to only hang around people she benefits from.

Severus is my top 3 and I totally disagree with his treatment of Harry and co but especially Harry, the son shouldn't bury his father's Sins, but I know he's too deeply traumatized and mentally ill that this is not James who he's glaring at. Severus had less opportunities or just social circles to rely on or get help and support.

He's a great Bastard still love him, fascinating and breathtaking.

Sir you're bullying an orphan in your 30s 😭😭😭 What are we doing....

It's only logical that Severus had her idealized. I mean, we're talking about a kid who didn't receive any affection at home, who lived in a dump with a violent father, no money, in a terrible neighborhood. Lily was probably the first person who treated him well, and he developed a very strong emotional attachment to her. I see him as someone quite dependent on Lily. Of course, he was going to see her in a good light and even justify any hint of problematic behavior in her.

I mean, she tells him he should thank James for "saving his life," as if she didn't know James had been bullying him for years. She excuses the Marauders for being bullies because they don’t "practice dark magic," as if that somehow made their abuse less harmful. She ends up marrying a guy who spent his school years tormenting people right in front of her. These are things that Severus might not fully acknowledge, or that he minimizes or justifies internally, but that doesn't mean the reader has to do the same.

I'm not Severus, nor do I share his emotional shortcomings, so I can freely think that Lily was far more of a jerk than many are willing to admit—because, honestly, in certain aspects, she behaved like one. And I don't mind people being jerks, but I do mind when someone is a jerk while pretending to be a saint, because I cannot stand that kind of person. And I especially can't stand people who marry someone capable of sexually assaulting another person, sorry.

Aside from that, as a 29-year-old, I have to say that I can handle my nephews for a maximum of three hours—and I love them to death. But I can’t take more than 3-4 hours with them because they’re unbearable. I mean, I’m an adult, and they still drive me crazy because they are genuinely a massive headache, but I put up with them because I love them.

Honestly, this might sound terrible and be a total unpopular opinion, but I’m not going to shame any dysfunctional thirty-something with clear psychological issues for not being able to tolerate a kid who shows them zero respect, constantly challenges their authority, and repeatedly puts themselves in danger—forcing them to work unpaid overtime just to keep them alive. And on top of that, a kid who isn’t even their own. Like... I do it for my nephews because they’re my family, but other kids? I want them at least a kilometer away from me.

[bookishjules]

I’m actually really curious about the critical things of Clary & Simon!!! 👀

i would like to preface this by saying i adore both clary and simon, and their friendship itself is so special to me. what really gets me is the idea of them becoming parabatai..

i have a lot to cite here (i've been thinking about this for almost a decade atp) so bear with me lol

even though the two of them were best friends since childhood, the ever-present crush/pining/unrequited love on simon's side kind of skewed the relationship in a way that results in what we see in cob and coa with how clary takes simon for granted and brushes him off while simon keeps showing up, keeps craving her attention. this kind of dysfunction is a large part of what causes the strain in jace and alec's relationship, and yes they were able to work past the distance between them, but that sort of strain occured once they were already parabatai. if cob/coa clary and simon decided to become parabatai.. i genuinely don't think it would have worked.

once their relationship starts building as clary remembers to value simon and simon gets over his romantic feelings.. it's incredible. there's this equilibrium they're able to hit. but the thing is about this time, is that they've also both already started relying on other partners, in a way that i think is sooo healthy for clary and simon considering how their relationship began. it's important for them to have other important people in their lives. but because of that we also see a shift in need.. if that makes sense. i think a good representation of this is in cols when jace is lost to sebastian. simon going to clary and sleeping beside her is a fall back into old habits of comfort and stability, but that's just the thing.. they're old habits, outgrown, not a representation of their current relationship. simon is there beside clary for one reason: because jace isn't. jace is clay's priority. and not only that, but we see in this same chunk of the book jordan telling izzy that simon shouldn't be prioritizing clary over isabelle in these moments. and he's not wrong. izzy needed simon, and her showing him that is the beginning of simon then consciously making her his own priority.

and that's good and fine and i'm not saying that clary or simon value each other any less because of these relationships, but rather that their roles in each other's lives have shifted just slightly out of the reach of a parabatai-type bond. they can still be best friends without having to be parabatai. this one is so important to me. simon and clary have been such important figures in each other's lives, but not every best friendship should necessitate a parabatai ceremony. the nature of parabatai is not to validate friendship or to reach the maximum friendship level, but to strengthen a bond that is already there for the sake--if we're being technical--of battle. best friends can be best friends. and simon and clary are great best friends. they learned how to overcome what caused tension in their relationship and in doing so both gained a certain level of independence and their own individual support systems that, yes, include, but do not rely on one another.

now here's where we get into the george of it all.. when simon returned from his six months as a born again mundane, he knew nobody. an absolute blank slate. and while he did spend that first summer dipping his toes into a his old life, the shadowhunter academy is where he really found simon, you know? he kept up correspondences with clary, yes, but i don't think two summers and a bunch of letters from someone telling you they're your best friend until you believe it could bring them to the level they would have needed to be to become parabatai, especially not when you have george as a comparison, who not only didn't know simon as he was before, and therefore maintained no prescriptive expectations for his behavior, but was there to champion him in becoming his own version of simon the entire way, without simon ever feeling like he had to hide anything or be anyone else. and despite clary's efforts, it did take much longer for simon to be fully honest and vulnerable around her, simply because of the nature of the situation. so even if the two of them did have the kind of relationship that would lend itself to a parabatai ceremony before the memory loss, they still wouldn't have it at the point by which simon would be having to choose who his parabatai is. and not only that, but, unlike george, clary hadn't been training with simon, which is a hugeeee part of becoming parabatai. as a pair of shadowhunters, parabatai have to know how to fight in tandem, and clary and simon are simply not given the chance to get to that level or to prove that they can before becoming parabatai.

while i did say i've been chewing on these thoughts since the fiery trial came out, we have had books come out since, which have allowed us to get an actual picture of what clary and simon would be like as parabatai and it really hasn't done much to improve my stance on this. there's this one scene in lbotw that captures the issue perfectly for me. it's the one where simon has his breakdown in that church and the one to go comfort him is isabelle, not clary. clary just looks on with concern, either not sure what to do or how to handle the situation, or knowing that who he needs most in that moment is isabelle. which really should be case and point right there. because if this were jem and will? no way would tessa have stepped between that. and i'm not saying simon couldn't need izzy, but rather that placing clary as an onlooker in this situation exemplifies exactly what their relationship is (as described in the cols section above) and how it doesn't fit the picture of what parabatai should be to each other. there's a lack of connection there, a lack of need and priority, that is not inherently bad, but does look bleak when you paint a parabatai symbol over it.

[butchcarmy]

CARMY X READER ENJOYERS I need ur input

I wanna write a rly dysfunctional fic abt a relationship between you, a chef working at the beef (for maximum distress) and carmy (YOUR BOSS!!!) im thinking friends with benefits, messy emotions, angry sex, just a gigantic traumatic clusterfck

What do u guys wanna see from a messy carmy fic like this?? I’m trying to come up with scenes and meat for plot but I want some outside input

For example here are some scenes I vaguely have in mind

Carmy being rly mad and arguing with you and you argue back and shut him up by giving him a blowjob in the back (LMFAO)

You doing a REALLY good job at handling the chaos of a day in the kitchen and he is like “come to the back for a reward” and he gives you head

Taking a smoke break with him in the back after saying just the WORST things to each other in the kitchen. Maybe you will make out. Who knows

You and carmy usually argue but one day he makes you cry and then he feels really bad

It’s sort of an enemies to fuckbuddies/friends to lovers situation and you guys bring out the worst in each other because…it’s fun to explore!

Anyway yeah if y’all have any thoughts on it PLS HMU whether it’s in dms or my inbox!!

[tomato-greens]

my old bandmate left a public comment detailing the breakup of our band, but getting the order of events incorrect (at least as far as I remember). they also left a cruel & untrue comment on another friend’s new band Instagram page. they insulted me by name, and called my disability & development of chronic migraines COVID simply refusing to show up to practice & not being cut out for playing music (I defended this person long after almost everyone else had given up on the relationship, I just couldn’t make it to practice because this was before I was diagnosed with migraines - this person was incapable of playing below maximum volume, & I was often afraid I would vomit on their very expensive equipment).

it is sticking to my craw, though, & my insecurities, even though this person was excruciatingly unkind over & over & over & I know there is nothing else I could have done (I tried, I tried, they were determined to burn our friendship down, there was nothing I could do to save it no matter how I tried).

a few people from the last couple years are seeking reconnection, some genuinely, some for obviously dysfunctional reasons. my heart must be eager to be broken, because I always want to believe this time, someone can change, can learn, can be kind. I mean, they can! but will they? & should I become grist for the emotional mill?

[definitely-not-a-wasp]

Why Angel should face Consequences

Okay, so I mentioned this offhandedly at one point, but I'm circling back around to it because I honestly feel like it could solve multiple character arcs.

First off, I'm saying CONSEQUENCES, not punishment. I don't think Angel should be punished, because she's a child who's being given a horrible amount of power, she doesn't understand how the world works (see: child), and she's really trying her best, all things considered. However,

A) this would be good for Angel's character. She's a powerful character who makes increasingly big decisions, and if the world isn't effected at all by those changes and they get reset at the end of the day, then she not only doesn't actually feel powerful, but she cannot grow. She's stuck being Max's little girl instead of her own person.

B) this would be good for Max's character. Throughout the series, Max has a tendency towards getting incredibly upset whenever the flock disagrees with her, any of them leave, or their dynamics change. This is a fun and good, realistic character flaw, but it is never challenged. However, if her little girl were to do things and then have to actually deal with the fallout (instead of doing things and then getting kidnapped for unrelated reasons, thus needing rescue), this would push her to confront that her flock is not a group to be ordered around, but a collection of living, changeing individuals.

C) this would be good for narrative tension. A big flaw of Maximum Ride is that, if the stakes get higher and higher but the flock is never truly impacted in the longterm, then it's impossible to maintain tension.

So: consequences. Consequences would be good for most of the characters, but Angel is a particularly egregious example because she's really powerful, makes HUGE decisions by the late series, and still maintains Max's Little Girl status despite being a literal prophet by the end.

Starting in the early series, I think it's completely in-character for Max to continue to gloss over Angel's mind control and willingness to use it, and I think it's equally interesting for Angel to not understand what's wrong with manipulating people like that. That's fun. That's dysfunctional. I love it. However, when Angel fake-betrays the flock, I'd love to see more dysfunction over that, and some anger at both Angel and Max for not communicating that plan. Maybe one of them (not Gazzy, because that's his sister, obviously not Max, but any of the other three) tries an escape attempt and genuinely hurts Angel, and they all have to live with the knowledge that they would be willing to hurt her if they thought she betrayed them. Maybe Iggy goes with Fang not because of Ari, but because he doesn't trust Max or Angel, anymore. Something small, not at all earth-shattering, but enough to make everyone uncomfortable, and to permanently shift the flock dynamics a little.

The Final Warning Happens. Angel wanders off, gets hurt, but nothing changes between her and the flock. Max happens. Angel wanders off, gets hurt, but nothing changes between her and the flock. Things steadily ramp up, and Max doesn't do anything, because that's her little girl and she doesn't want to admit that anything's changed.

Fang happens. Angel performs a coup, accidentally poisons the flock, wanders off, teams up with Dr. Hans, and kills Fang. But Fang is brought back, so nothing will change, right?

This is where I suggest Captial-C Consequences.

I have kept circling back to the idea that Fang leaves the flock not because of their relationship with Max, but because they died and were brought back and couldn't handle the strain. I would say that, if that were made explicitly the case, it would immediately make the flock dynamics more interesting, and force everyone to realize that their actions affect the world. Regardless of her intent, Angel helped kill Fang, and Fang isn't going back to "all is normal" like they're expected to. In fact, I would take it a step further, and not only disrupt the flock dynamics, but change something that is incapable of being reversed.

Imagine: after a few weeks apart, Fang reaches out, as they do, and the flock reunites! Yay, everyone thinks, things will go back to normal after this! Fang is acting normal, too, and not at all standoffish towards Angel. Sure, Fang has a new posse, but that can be worked through.

Fang, Angel says, visibly freaking out, why can't I read your mind?

Fang looks at her, a little bewildered. Because I died, Angel. Don't you remember that?

A mechanic that, if a person dies for any amount of time, their brain and body is changed enough that Angel can't read their mind anymore, means that no amount of forgiveness or brushing over the issue would be able to restore the dynamic she used to have with Fang. This could also be foreshadowed earlier with Ari in SoF, but the important thing is that this is a consequence that doesn't directly hurt her. There's nothing for Max to save her from, her family isn't shunning her, she's not being punished, but for someone whose entire view of the world is based on mind reading, Fang is now a blank wall. And everyone has to accept that something happened that cannot be undone.

And because this ISN'T a punishment, I think she'd be able to work through it. I think eventually Fang would forgive her and tell her not to feel too guilty about what happened, and eventually she'd learn how to talk to them without the aid of reading their mind. She'd heal. But she'd also change— maybe a little more cautious, more withdrawn, more scared of herself. The flock would change, too. Maybe, despite Fang's forgiveness, they never let themselves be alone with her again. Maybe Max takes the opposite approach and is more reluctant to let Angel out of her sight, not because she doesn't trust her but because she knows Angel feels guilty and worries for her. But either way, they cannot stay the same. And that's more important.

[veliseraptor]

Top five canon ships from your fandoms?

canon ships? what're those. also I mean. how "canon" are we talking, like, explicitly canon, implicitly canon, they-get-together-at-the-end canon, they-at-some-point-were-a-thing canon, plausible-deniability-canon, it's complicated

but okay, to try to take this in the spirit it was probably meant

Hua Cheng/Xie Lian from TGCF. one of the most incredible things about TGCF is that it actually made me wholeheartedly and enthusiastically ship a completely canon and...relatively functional...ship. I mean, they've definitely got their dysfunction (Hua Cheng get some self esteem and maybe pedestalize Xie Lian a little less challenge) but they're weirdo4weirdo and friends in a delightful way that makes me really enjoy how they do it. I'm not saying they invented love, as the saying goes, but they're certainly good at it.

Felix Harrowgate &/ Mildmay from Doctrine of Labyrinths. look, if there's explicit incestuous attraction at at least one point I think it counts. this is one of those ships that straddles the line between & and / for me a lot of the time, because any sexual stuff aside it's so intense and intimate that, like. it might as well be a "classic" ship, just without the sex, and we're agreed that something doesn't have to have sex in it to be a ship, right? and there is the canonical one-sided incestuous attraction, so, like. it's not even completely without the sex.

Vegas Theerapanyakul/Pete Saengtham from Kinnporsche. cannot believe that this is canon thing that actually happened in a show that I watched. made 4 me. incredible. forever grateful to Kinnporsche for giving me this gift.

Caleb Widogast/Essek Thelyss from Critical Role. I feel like it's canon enough? maybe that's controversial but I'm going to stand by it. fascinating dynamic, two fucked up people being fucked up together, atonement arcs that aren't usually my thing but crossed with a wondrous amount of wizard hubris and people who are both kind of bad at being people. I'm into it.

Chu Wanning/Taxian-jun from 2HA. this spot was more of a toss-up but ultimately I settled on these two. I specify Taxian-jun here because while I really enjoy Mo Ran/Chu Wanning other flavor it's truly the Maximum Fucked Up that gets/got me. the hate/love/obsession of it. so good, I'm rolling around in it like a cat in catnip. thank u Meatbun for giving this to me with all its laundry list of associated trigger warnings

I feel like everyone should know how fucking tempted I was to put xuexiao on here. because it was very tempted. they're so close, you guys, I would argue implicitly canon, but, well. probably not what you meant, anon.

a number of what I'd call "plausible deniability canon" ships from mxtx, really. but again, spirit of the question.