#mostly because of the hundreds and hundreds of distinct people

[specialmouse]

lgbt people need to stop thinking in terms of black and white and by that i mean stop thinking our oppression as directly analogous to the oppression of black people by white people it's not the same !

[avoicebehindthestars]

About bootlegging Good Omens...

I don't have the ranges to reach a lot of people, but I'm going to say this nonetheless.

If you feel like you can't bare anything that NG has ever created, you don't want to hear about Good Omens, Sandman, Coraline etc. ever again, that's perfectly fine and a decision to be respected. Quite frankly, I've found myself feeling uneasy while I tried to read Sandman recently because I can't stop perceiving it through what I found out about the author. Hell, even the sex scene in Stardust doesn't sit right with me anymore...

BUT

If you are still a fan of any of Neil's ongoing franchise (GO, Sandman, DBD, Anansi Boys) and choosing to bootleg them just to "punish" him - think again. Neil's current net worth is $18M. Even if he doesn't ever earn another penny, he can spend up to $0.5M a year and live to be nearly a hundred without a care in the world.

What you'll actually be doing is informing the streaming networks (Prime and Netflix) that Neil's franchise isn't worth investing in anymore. And, as a result, you guessed it - the shows you still love WILL get CANCELLED. Make no mistake, just because Prime has greenlit Good Omens s3 doesn't mean that can't pull out on a whim.

Neil hates showrunning, he said as much himself. He's only persevering on Good Omens because he'd made a promise to Pratchett. So let me say it again: by bootlegging, you won't be punishing Neil. You'll be punishing YOURSELVES by literally telling the networks to cancel the show, because they won't get any money out of it. Or, if not cancel - limit the investment, as they did with GO s2, which will result in shorter episodes (in case of GO right now we're looking at 6x45m... would you rather get 6x30m instead?), fewer extras, lower budget on CGI and sets, and overall poorer quality.

In other words - you'll be cutting multiple artists' income. I'm not talking about top-tier actors like MS or DT - they'll do all right either way (although MS will mostly likely be heartbroken, as we know how much he loves Good Omens). I'm talking about all the extras and less known actors who perform minor roles! I'm talking about everyone involved in the production - in making of the sets, in creating the special effects, hell, in carrying equipment and pouring coffee! Those are the people you'll be punishing.

Seriously, aside from his promise to Terry, I'm convinced Neil couldn't care less. Otherwise why would he be so adamant about wrapping it up in just 3 seasons when it's winning distinction after distinction?

Last but not least, watching Good Omens legally and buying franchise doesn't harm the victims. If Neil really committed the atrocities he's accussed of, he'll be punished by the court! Punishing Neil isn't your responsibility!

So before you make a decision, please remember:

if the show you bootleg is cancelled as a result, you will have punished: yourself, the fandom, all the artists and people involved in the production

punishing Neil is NOT your responsibility

wanting the networks to continue the franchise you like doesn't harm the victims

[shewhowas39]

a quick note on elven maturity

all right. time for another lore dump, brought to you by a big DnD fangirl.

so i see a lot of conversation around Astarion's age at the time of being turned (39 years old) and how, in DnD, that would make him a "child." this comes from rules and lore that state that elves can live to be about 750 years old (or older) and are considered adults at 100 years old. and i can absolutely see why that is confusing, but let me break it down a bit.

Elves reach physical maturity at the same age as humans, but after that point, their aging slows down tremendously. a 39 year old elf may be "considered a child" but has the physical maturity of a human in their 20s and mental maturity of a 39 year old human.

so let's talk about that "considered a child" business. this might be cleared up by adding the caveat "by other elves" at the end.

the distinction of "childhood" is cultural. because elves live so long, they see those under the age of 100 as youthful. think about it: if you had seen five hundred years of shit, you'd think an 80 year old was a sweet summer child, too. hell, i'm in my 30s and sometimes it's hard not to look at people in their early 20s as "kids" because we're just in such different places in our lives, even though they are legally adults.

even in the real world, maturity and adulthood are seen differently across cultures. different countries have different drinking ages, different ages for driving cars, different ages of consent. those standards may seem odd to an outsider, used to their own cultural norms, but every community is different.

elves don't just see other elves under age 100 as children. they see other races this way as well. high elves tend to view humans as immature - even in their old age - because 80 years to them is nothing.

i was a legal adult at 18, but 18 year old me didn't know half the shit 33 year old me does. and i'm sure 45 year old me will think 33 year old me was "young" by comparison.

now, i've seen some takes that Astarion might be lying about being a magistrate because he was "a child" and why would they make a child a magistrate? that argument might hold up in an elven dominated city, but Baldur's Gate is mostly human. by human standards, Astarion had the same mental capacity as any other 39 year old man.

Astarion, at age 39, may have been seen as a "child" by other high elves, but this isn't literal. it merely means he had yet to reach a major cultural milestone of a very, very long lived race. a milestone even the most elderly of humans likely will never reach.

would you call an 80 year old human a child? no. but a high elf very well might see them that way. not in the physical sense, but in a "oh to be young and naive and know less of the world than I do" sense. the way that we all inevitably look at those a decade younger than us, even though they are adults, and see their youth in comparison to our own.

it's 5am here and i'm babbling. the point is, the "child" bit of elven lore in DnD is confusing, i get it. but it's purely cultural. in Baldur's Gate, a city primarily run by humans, Astarion was not seen as a child by most. he was a grown man. he had the mental maturity of a 39 year old man. the only people who would have seen him as a child are other, older high elves (mostly those who grew up in a place like Evermeet) and maybe elders of other races - even humans - who were like "oh, to be 39 again!" (lol, me the day i turn 40 probably.)

tl;dr elves in dnd are not LITERALLY children until they turn 100. it's an elven culture thing, similar to how in real life different cultures have different standards for things like driving, drinking, joining the army, and age of consent.

[specialagentartemis]

ykw i am having so much fan watching you be a hater, that i’ve decided to ask for more. PLEASE give us a rant about a book you hated.

Haha aw I'm honored. And uh I hope you don't have any particular attachment to Becky Chambers. Sorry in advance.

But A Psalm for the Wild-Built won a Hugo and I do not get the love. Book 1 was nice enough, yeah. Book 2 had me tearing my hair out.

Sibling Dex is a restless Tea Monk who serves the God of Small comforts on the science-fantasy planet of Panga. I genuinely love the idea of a tea monk - part therapist, part confessor, travels around to the different towns, mixes tea blends for people, lets them talk about their worries and fears and stresses, and gives them, if not advice, then sympathy and a listening ear and some calming tea. This is meaningful work but they're unhappy. After doing this for a while they're still unsatisfied with their life, so they go into the woods searching for self-actualization, and meet a robot named Mosscap, a wild robot that lives in the woods. See, hundreds of years ago, all the robots "woke up" and became sentient one day, then they staged a quiet rebellion against humanity's greed and industrialization by walking into the woods and never coming back. Now, the continent is split in half: humans stay on the Human Side, and robots stay on the Robot Side. The Robot Side is kept wild and humans are discouraged from going in there because humans can't be trusted not to ruin Nature. The rpbots are welcome to come to the Human Side, they just never have. Dex is the first person in a While to venture into the woods of the Robot Side, and the first human since the great walkout to see a robot. Mosscap gives Dex a lot of philosophical pep talks about not pushing themself so hard, about allowing themself to just rest and appreciate the world without feeling like they need to be Providing A Service to justify their existence. It's a nice theme. Underbaked, imo, but nice. Relateable.

Book 2 was a goddamn mess.

Book 1 mostly takes place in the wilderness of the woods, so it's okay if the nice utopian human community Dex comes from was sketchily-built. It Just Works, and everyone Is Just Nice, this is a science-fantasy parable. There were some issues I had with it - like the strict ideological and physical divide between Nature and Humans, and the fact that Dex's religion seems to be the Only Religion In The World, and it's vaguely secular-humanist with the gods being not "really" gods but names given to primordial forces and philosophical concepts, and the religion not really making any demands of its adherents in any way except to become their best selves and devote themselves to what they like... it's potentially interesting, but overall kinda lazy. It felt like Becky Chambers was aware of the idea that having an enlightened-atheist sci-fi utopia is Problematic, so she made there be a central religion, but she also didn't want it to have any of the ~icky~ things religions have, like belief in anything supernatural, or dietary restrictions, or creeds, or codes of behavior, or expectations to make any kind of sacrifice in any way. All the gods "ask" is that humans observe and appreciate the world. But whatever.

In book 2, Dex and Mosscap return to Dex's society, and the book seems to want to explain how the world works, and oh my GOD is Chambers not prepared to do this.

"Observe and appreciate" is all anyone is asked to do. Book 2, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, is an ode to ultimate virtue of Doing Nothing. There's this attitude I see in a LOT of utopian fiction, where the author is bluntly just not a good enough author to imagine a utopian society where people act like people, so in the world of Panga, utopian society is achieved through 1) homogeneity 2) no one giving a crap about anything.

As far as I can tell, there is the one religion. Most people are Fine with this. Most people are Fine with anything. There are no characters with distinct personalities. There's no money, except there is, except it's not real money and no one will deny you anything if your balance is in the red, even though your balance is available to be seen by anyone - this does not cause any kind of shame or pride or competition in any way, and Dex doesn't understand why it might. There are no hierarchies or governing bodies, people just volunteer to step up when things need doing (this is portrayed as great and not deeply concerning). There are different communities, but in them, everyone is uniformly nice, friendly, and helpful at all times. There are some parts of nature, like the seashore, where people are not allowed to go because they'll ruin the environment, and this is accepted as correct and necessary. Most people live in hippie, pro-recycling, high-tech, end-of-history green communities; there's one group they visit, however, that doesn't trust technology, and lives in a vaguely sci-fi-Amish way. You might think, Dex travelling around with a robot, this might cause conflict! It does not. The people from this community calmly explain their anti-technology position, Dex calmly explains their pro-technology position, and they politely respect each other. "Not bothered either way" is a phrase that turns up in various permutations a lot and is held up as the good, mature, responsible way to be.

There's a scene where they catch a fish for dinner, and instead of killing it, the scifi-Amish guy says "We let the air do that for us, and they let the fish slowly suffocate to death in the air while they all look on solemnly and sadly. This is portrayed as a deep, beautiful moment of them witnessing and honoring the final moments of a living being's life. And not. y'know. them torturing a living being to death so they can keep their own hands clean.

This is what I mean about the valorization of passivity: observing is all you are ever obligated to do. Letting a fish die in the air is better than killing it quickly and humanely, because doing things gets your hands dirty, while letting things simply happen is the Correct way to do it.

At the end, Mosscap and Dex blow off all their promises and appointments and just hang out at the beach chilling out instead, because do what you want forever, you don't have to do shit. This is the happy affirming ending. Mosscap you fucking said you'd meet with the city leaders as the robot ambassador to the humans, did you tell them you were blowing off this commitment because you didn't feel like doing that anymore??? Did you even let them know??????

It is SUCH a baffling book. The theme wants to be "you are more than your job, you deserve to just Be" and ends up feeling like "you don't have to do anything ever, and no one can make you do anything you don't want to do if you don't feel like it, and you don't owe anyone anything and searching for a purpose in your life is just making you stressed out so chill at the beach instead."

The thing that drives me crazy is like. Mosscap cheerfully tells Dex about robots that spend twenty years in a cave watching stalactites form because they think it's beautiful, and those robots are just as much a valued part of society as anyone else. Appreciating beauty and wonder is good enough, you don't need to be productive. And I'm just. fuckin. like. Humans are not robots! Robots don't need to eat or sleep! Humans need food, and clothes, and shelter, and medical care, and if we don't have SOMEONE working to provide that, we Die! Nice as it would be, we CAN'T just all do nothing forever until we feel like it! We can't do that!

And at the same time, the book bizarrely treats wanting a purpose in life as like... almost disordered. If you are seeking a purpose in life it's because you just haven't let go of your guilt and relaxed enough. It's bizarre. Valorization of passivity. Humans aren't meant to be in nature so we just Shouldn't. Doing nothing and having no strong opinions is the most self-affirmed you can possibly be. Letting a fish suffocate is more moral than quickly breaking its neck or spiking its brain. Someone else will do it. Who, if we're all supposed to be resting and only doing what we feel like? Don't worry about it.

"The heart of this book is comfort [...] There is nothing in it that can hurt you." YOU LIAR BECKY CHAMBERS THE FISH SCENE STILL DISTURBS AND UPSETS ME TO THIS DAY

[catboymoments]

Also eda and lilith being pale doesnt make them less "indigenous" or mean that their ancestors like evelyn must have appeared different racially! There are plenty of people considered indigenous who might have very pale skin or appear "white" in the way that western countries have tried to define thet in the last few hundred years! Not to bring up the irish again, but there are people who would certainly be considered white and maybe the palest people on earth like me, but are "indigenous" in the sense rhey havent been removed from their ancestral homelands on the far western coast. Esp the Traveller people who are culturslly considered indigenous.

People like the Sámi who are "racially white" are indigenous to Norway and Sweden, and maintain cultural traditions local to the area and highly distinct from Christianised people of those countries.

There are also the turkic peoples all across russia, siberia and northern asia. Certainly indigenous and maintaining cultural lifestyles far removed from the Slavics of the western areas.

This isnt an attack or like. Wahwahwahwqqhh youre not woke 😡 but its more like indigenous is best considered as cultural and not racial because any race can be indigenous, there isnt a special quality that makes a race More Indigenous, its about cultural traditions and ways of living that are better criteria for classification.

In my country, "indigenous" is very racialised in meaning just like in the USA but it's sort of like. Something thats sort of specific by country to country and wont apply well to a fantasy world without those histories and classification systems.

YOURE SO CORRECT DONT WORRY I was mostly bringing up them being pale because I know a lot of people associate them being soooo pale with them being white BUT YKWIM YOURE NOT OUTWOKING ME CISJFNKVNVKDNFJV I actually thought this was super interesting!!!

[starsfic]

Erlang Shen is Supposed to Be on Vacation

S5 theory fic: Erlang Shen is supposed to be on vacation. However, in an hour, he learns that his uncle is dead, someone is trying to do another coup, and Sun Wukong has been filleted again. The people who deliver this news, including mass criminal Master Subodhi, the duo of Ao Lie's descendant and Iron Fan's son, and the creation goddess Nuwa, make things... difficult.

Erlang Shen was on vacation.

He honestly needed one after centuries of work, both doing whatever dirty work his uncle supposedly needed and the day-to-day running of his territory. The gods of fate had been merciful, creating a summer where Jian didn’t have anything important to do until autumn. Heaven could be handled by Li Nezha or any of the hundreds of other warriors (mostly by his student because he knew how the guards could be), the training of his personal guards and army could be handled by his head guards, and any paperwork could be handled by his staff. With all that, Jian found himself luxuriously stretching in his garden, soaking up the sun. Even Xiaotian Quan stretched out, making a happy little dog noise.

His private garden was his favorite place in his palace. Most of the plants grew naturally in the Sichuan province, but the air was sweet with the smell of blossoming Flower Fruit Mountain trees. The saplings had been a gift from Sun Wukong on his birthday, and Jian found no shame in enjoying the gift.

Hm…with the thought of Wukong floating around, Jian wondered if he could invite him over. Despite their rocky beginnings, Jian enjoyed the company of his sworn brother, both platonically and in a more romantic light. He had recently heard that Wukong had also taken up a student, so maybe they could talk about that?

The summer seemed full of possibilities. 

Right now, Jian just wanted to sunbathe.

So lost in his relaxation, he didn’t notice a magpie settle on the branches of one of the peach trees, staring down at him. Xiaotian raised his head, but the magpie fluttered away before the dog could notice anything. The large hound, after a quick scan around, settled back down into the grass.

The magpie poked its head out and, deciding it was safe, flew down from the branches.

“Ahem. Prince Erlang Shen.”

He shouldn’t have tempted the gods of fate.

Jian pushed up his sunglasses.

Silver robes and a long white beard met his eyes. If he didn’t recognize that distinctive style, the feeling of the old man’s power gave his identity away. “Master Subodhi,” Jian said, sitting up. “I thought I warned you to stay away from my property unless you wanted me to fulfill my promise of bringing you in.”

Was he risking his uncle’s ire by not fulfilling the bounty on the daoist’s head for gaining immortality in an illegal way? Yes. Did he care? Eh, not really. Wukong had racked up way more charges against him in his long life and he wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of his uncle.

“Are you aware of the state of the world?”

The question came so out of left field that Erlang Shen blinked. “Uh…it’s summer?” he said, gesturing to the perfect summer day with big white fluffy clouds drifting carelessly in a blue sky. “It’s a nice day? My uncle isn’t calling to bother me?”

Subodhi raised a brow. “I can see why, considering he’s dead.”

There was a long pause.

“...excuse me?”

He…didn’t know how to process that. 

“Have you not seen the kid? Did you not see reality start to tear apart?”

Oh. That. “That happens sometimes, especially as my uncle gets older. He must’ve slipped up to have everyone see.” Erlang sighed. Honestly, the dramatics of old men. “If he died, someone would’ve told me-”

THWACK!

“OW!”

“Are you telling me that communication in Heaven has so broken down-”

“My lord!” Before Subodhi could finish his yelling or Erlang could grab and throw that stupid ruler far away, several guards marched in. “We have captured two trespassers. They insisted on talking to you.”

“YEAH!” A female voice called from the center of the huddle. “We have some questions for you.”

Erlang blinked. She sounded young and probably better than the gaping immortal, who for once looked surprised. “Allow them forward,” he called. “Let me see them.”

The guards stepped aside, revealing a girl in a green jacket- her features were familiar, although Jian couldn’t put his finger on why- and…hm. He had heard stories and seen pictures of Princess Iron Fan’s son, although he had never met him in person. He had the same dark eyes and noble bearing his former sworn sister had.

“What are you doing here?” Subodhi said, interrupting his thoughts with his baffled words. “Did you follow me?”

“Master Subodhi? What are you doing here?” the girl said. “You-”

Before she could finish, Red Son grabbed her and forced her to bow at the waist. “Remember what we talked about,” he hissed quietly to his companion. “Manners or we aren’t gonna get anything.”

“Yeah, but-”

He stomped on her foot. “Erlang Shen, Illustrious Sage and True Lord of Sichuan, we are Hong Ha-eir, son of the Demon Bull King and Princess Iron Fan, and Long Xiaojiao, descendant of Ao Jie-”

“Oh, that explains why you look familiar.” She looked strikingly like Ao Lie’s older sister…what had been her name again? Jian stood up with a sigh. “Rise, please, nephew.”

Red Son bristled at the address, but rose. Long Xiaojiao stepped forward. “Lord Erlang Shen, we came to plead for mercy for Sun Wukong, Liu’Er Mihou, and my best friend, Qi Xiaotian,” She got fully on her knees, pressing her forehead to the grass in a kowtow. “The charges leveled against them are false. None of them helped Azure Lion reach Heaven and kill the Jade Emperor. Any actions they did to help him were unwilling, done with manipulation-”

Several things stuck out at him. “Wait, what do you mean, kill the Jade Emperor?” Jian nodded to Subodhi, who’s shocked expression had been replaced by a strangely protective look. “He just told me my uncle died, but I have received no news about his death.”

“You…haven’t?” She rose up from her kowtow, looking confused. “But, you sent out a notice. He’s been dead for what, three weeks now?”

“A month,” Subodhi corrected. “I don’t know what you or your friends did. But it’s been over a month since the previous Jade Emperor was slain.”

“And two days since Heaven violated their agreement with me,” another female voice called. Jian felt himself stiffen, just in time for a hand to cup his face and lips to press against his cheek. “Shen, my dear.”

The pet name given by the goddess dressed in earthly tones only made his brow rise higher. While he had a few brief conversations with the ancient goddess at the few parties they both attended, she had never referred to him with fondness. Something was clearly up and Erlang Shen had a feeling he didn’t want to be part of it, but he would have to be.

“What brings you here, my lady?” he said, dipping into a deep bow. 

“Oh, I came here to help my son’s little friends and my son’s…master.” Nuwa’s pause on the last word felt mocking. Subodhi clearly noticed it as well, based on his snort. “I also came here for an explanation.”

Her smile was serene. Her aura was not. 

“An…explanation for what?”

“Wait, you’re Sun Wukong’s mother?”

“Wait, you’re XIAOTIAN’S MOTHER?!” Xiaotian raised his head at his name. “Sorry, puppy,” Long Xiaojiao cooed. “Not you.” The dog huffed and settled back down.

“It’s complicated and yes,” Nuwa said before turning to him. “And an explanation for the court’s recent actions. As you must be aware, when the Jade Emperor took the throne, he held up my agreement with his predecessors. Any issue with the stones of the universe must be handled by me directly.”

“...okay? Did something happen?”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, based on Nuwa’s darkening face. Jian was tempted to deflect, considering he just received the news of his uncle’s…unfortunate passing. But that was the coward’s way out. 

Nuwa stared at him. Then she snapped her fingers. “Girl, dearest one,” she called. “Bring him the announcement.”

Xiaojiao and Red Son exchanged looks, but she stepped forward, pulling a scroll out of her pocket. “Li Jing gave us this after he put a filet on Sun Wukong’s head and sucked my best friend into his pagoda,” she reported as he took it.

Jian was too busy studying the scroll to hear the shocked gasps from both Subodhi and Nuwa. 

Well, that was his seal.

Jian opened it.

That wasn’t his handwriting.

He scanned it over, reading it quickly. It was all very formal, claiming that the royal family, including the Queen Mother of the West, who was slated to rule until the next emperor would be chosen according to his uncle’s will last he checked, would be taking time to grieve at the sudden loss. Li Jing was to be put in charge for the next few months, supported by the ten kings of the Diyu. Someone had even put the Gold Star of Venus’s seal at the bottom, signifying it as legit.

Jian raised a brow. “Did any of you see the Gold Star of Venus?” he asked the Long girl. She stared blankly at him. He sighed. “Either a goddess in yellow with a cockscomb hat or an older man, about…” He put his hand to about his chin. “Yay high or so?”

She and Red Son exchanged looks. “No,” she finally said. “I don’t think so. Honestly, the only celestials we saw during the trial were Li Jing and Nezha and the ten kings. And I honestly expected to see a few peach maidens.”

Huh? “Why?”

She paused, as if realizing she wasn’t supposed to say that. “No reason,” she lied. “But, to answer your question, no.”

Something was afoot. Jian was tempted to ask if they were just pulling a prank on him, but Subodhi hated his guts, Nuwa was clearly furious, and he barely knew the younger two. Pranks didn’t seem to be in their skillset. Something popped out.

“Did you say that Wukong has the filet?”

“Yes! At least a filet! Li Jing said he wouldn’t take it off unless we got all the universal stones together and fixed the universe.”

“Which you cannot do without my help,” Nuwa said, crossing her arms with a hiss. “There was no quest needed in the first place. The holders would hand them over to me without a problem. Several Heavenly servants saw you attack Azure to defend the Jade Emperor. Nezha’s testimony alone should be evidence.”

Another thought popped into his mind.

“Where was Nezha when this was happening?”

Silence met him. Faintly, the girl sucked air through her teeth. The boy coughed into his fist. He could practically hear the words rise and fall.

A soft hand once again pressed against his shoulder.

“You know where,” Nuwa whispered. She sounded like she was laughing, even if it was silent.

Jian did.

“It seems someone or several someones have lied,” Erlang Shen dropped the scroll- he hadn’t even realized he was crumpling it- and turned. He was met with anger, but not at him. Good. It would fuel them all. “Now, let me go get changed and call my aunt.”

His vacation was over.

[voxofthevoid]

I took a nap the other day and woke up, not particularly rested, to word vomit a 1.5k outline featuring alpha fem!Yuuji with alpha masc!Gojou into @nearalways' DMs.

So, yeah, we're doing goyuu het with fem!Yuuji now. That's another goyuu dynamic struck off the list. Or added, depending on how you view it.

The chances of me actually writing this are low. The outline is complete, but the number of JJK ideas I want to write is now 95, excluding the hole mission concepts. So, below, you have the basic premise and a few hundred words of omegaverse worldbuilding and cockwarming ft. Gojou being a horny creep and Yuuji being far too okay with it.

The section below has detailed descriptions of fantasy bottom growth, so give this a pass if that's a sensitive topic for you.

Title: wield her, use and yield her

Premise: The years after puberty is particularly volatile for female alphas, both physically and mentally, owing to secondary genital development. Gojou volunteers his mouth to ease his new favorite student’s distress.

Female alphas' most distinctive anatomical feature is that their cocks grow, knots develop, and balls drop during the presentation period, which happens 1-2 years after puberty.

Yuuji's smack in the middle of it when she's yanked into jujutsu society, and that's considered the most volatile time for female alphas, even more than their male counterparts, because the ongoing discomfort of bottom growth plus the raging hormonal/pheromonal changes keep them on edge almost 24/7. Yuuji being Yuuji, she keeps her irritability contained for the most part, but it's a more visible mask than usual and even she doesn't manage to hide the physical aspects—squirming and flushing when her growing cock aches, breaking into cold sweats, pupils dilating etc. It's identical to arousal except for the way her scent is an unpleasant blend of pain and desire, obvious to everyone in a closed classroom environment.

Now, Gojou, being the kind and helpful teacher he is, decides he can't just let his newly acquired favorite student...suffer. Maybe a week into Yuuji joining the school, he holds her back after a class in which she seemed particularly bothered and very casually gestures at her crotch and asks if it's bothering her. Yuuji replies bluntly, if sheepishly.

Gojou says he knows something that can help; does Yuuji-chan trust him? Yuuji does because she's insane and has bad taste in people. Gojou tells her to lean against her desk and then drops to his knees. And Yuuji is shocked and a bit scandalized, but she doesn't stop Gojou when he nuzzles her crotch—have Gojou describe how she flushes darker, how her scent thickens with the arousal drowning out the hurt, how her fists clench in the wood till it creaks. Cue explanation where Gojou lays out that the right kind of pressure and heat can soothe the ache. Yuuji rasps out: but, sensei, it's too sensitive, I can't even jerk off properly anymore.

Gojou nods, aware of a variation of it since his knot felt like that too coming in, but says Yuuji was probably too rough. There is a fine difference between a horny teen's hand and an adult's experienced mouth. Unzips her pants and demonstrates.

Her cock is like a micropenis in its current state: some 2–3 inches, distinct from a beta woman's clit because of how thick it's grown. Her cunt already seems to be atrophying, no wetness despite the need thick in her scent. 

Gojou closing his mouth around the cock, licking but not sucking. Mostly just staying there, something warm and soothing around her. Yuuji reacting with gutted sounds and grasping hands, hips bucking into Gojou's mouth one moment and flinching away the next, and it carries on until she comes, which takes longer than it should for any virgin, and afterward, Gojou stays, mouth sweetly still and behaved, and Yuuji just looks at him like he's a miracle.

[mercurygray]

For the one word prompts, how about “security” + whichever one of your OCs the inspiration strikes! - @softspeirs

Katie, I hope you don't mind that I've decided to use this prompt for Crank and Laura!

For those of you who might be new here, Laura Arsenault is an OC of mine from The Darkening Sky; she's a nurse with the 128th Field Hospital and a good friend of Frankie Horgan, who is a good friend of Marj Gordon's. Part of Laura's story is that she has a brother, George, serving with a tank regiment, and an older sister, Vivian, who was one of the Army nurses imprisoned on Bataan.

--

She never thought she'd miss the war.

Well, not the war, exactly - Laura didn't miss the war itself. She didn't miss the smell of operating wards and dirt and wet canvas and boots that were never dry and washing out of a helmet and keeping the rats out of your bunk and scrubbing blood out of your nails. She didn't miss the dying, or the dead.

But maybe it was - was the being in it that she missed, the sense of shared self and shared goals and shared purpose. And she missed the people. They weren't ever alone, in that hospital - there was always someone to talk to, always work to help with, always someone to go see. And getting a date had been infinitely easier. Easy as pie, when you were one of only fifty or so girls and there were dozens - or hundreds - of guys at the dance.

Not any more. Now she was back home, where no one knew her, and everyone she did know was always a bus ride away instead of a two minute walk, and finding dates was awful - especially once everyone heard what she did for work. "Oh, a nurse." And then this odd little smile and an anecdote about whoever they knew in the hospital, or something like that, and she'd have to smile and nod and pretend to care.

And all the men were - well, she didn't know where they were, but none of them seemed to be in Boston, or at least, not the part of it that she was, and yet everyone seemed to have a brother, or a cousin, or a - a someone who needed to meet someone. But none of those guys ever seemed interested in more than one meeting. She wasn't desperate enough yet to start answering those ads in the paper, but it felt like a distinct possibility - reduced to twenty words or less.

So here she was again - another blind date, this time with Rose's cousin Charlie. "You'll like him," Rose had said, patting her arm and handing her the address of a restaurant. "He was a pilot."

A pilot - possibly her least favorite kind of soldier, probably because she'd seen so few of them, and heard so much, and your average infantryman didn't have a lot of nice things to say about the bomber boys, except that they were lazy, and they were late, and they were getting all the press. Now, come on, Laura, you haven't even met him yet.

Yes - hadn't met him yet because he was late, and now she was sitting, like a bad penny, all on her own at this table in the middle of the back wall trying not to look too lost in this big room with all these other perfectly paired off people.

"Miss Arsenault?"

Well, here he was - and lord, did he ever sound like a local boy - Laura heard it in every syllable. She held out a hand to shake, and he took it, his grip firm and uncompromising.

"Mr. Cruikshank."

He had a kind face - that was something, anyway. Not the sort of face she would have thought belonged to a pilot, if she was being honest, but that was Hollywood and a lot of movies talking. His hair, she could see, was very naturally curly, though he'd done his darnedest to comb it down into parting neatly. He was wearing civies, or mostly civies, anyway - charcoal grey trousers and a sweater that wasn't too far out of current fashion with his leather bomber jacket over it, his name, C. Cruikshank, stamped into the leather plate over his left breast.

"It's Charles, if that's too much of a mouthful."

Not Charlie, then. She'd have to remember that. "Laura," she offered, watching him pull out his chair and drape his jacket over the back. "The waiter should be back soon, I didn't - want to order without you."

"You ever been here before?" he asked, obviously just trying to make conversation, his eyes darting around the room.

"Once or twice, but not - not for dates." I'm trying not to sound like the kind of girl who goes on a lot of dates. "Rose said you were - were a pilot. What'd you fly?"

"Heavy bombers," he offered, shuffling a little in his chair. "B-17s, out of Norfolk. And you were a - were a nurse?"

She nodded. "Field hospital. We were everywhere."

"Imagine that was a -- a hard job." His eyes were still avoiding hers, his hands rubbing together nervously in his lap.

"I can't imagine what being in a plane was like. We didn't get too many airman."

He nodded, and Laura looked back down at the candle on the table, feeling foolish for not knowing what else to say. He was bouncing his leg, underneath the table, his chair not quite pulled in all the way, like he was going rather than coming, waiting for the check instead of waiting for the menu.

Well. I guess that's that on that, then. Failed before we even ordered. She'd get chicken - that was easy, and cheap, now, too. They could eat and mumble through something about the weather and she wouldn't have to do this again and she could tell Rose on Monday that Charles had been charming but not the guy for her.

Just how had Vivian managed it - finding the love of her life before the end of the war, and in a hospital, no less! Laura knew she shouldn't compare, but it was hard not to, when it seemed to have been so easy and where she was now seemed so hard. Not that Vivian had had it easy, at all - she'd only been in Hawaii because she'd been in the Philippines, and she'd only met Andy because she'd been on light duties, and him recovering from surgery. She'd made the mistake of saying it, once, a few months ago, and the look Vivian had given her would have scared anyone silent. "Don't say that, Laur," she'd begged. "I'm not lucky. You don't want to be where I've been."

"So, what did Rose say about me? When she set this up?" He looked nervous about hearing the answer.

"She said she thought we'd get along, I think." Laura offered, and then paused. Wait. That's ...not what she said. She said we wouldn't have to explain anything to each other. And she said that you'd had a hard war...but who didn't?

She didn't want to say that last part out loud - no one liked to be a charity case, and she knew that better than anyone. But as she thought about it, really thought about the way Rose had spoken about her cousin, she realized that Rose had only brought up meeting Charles when she'd told a story about Vivian. And she realized, finally, where she'd seen the look on his face before - in Vivian's eyes, always trying to find the exits, calculate the quickest way out. This man wasn't just a pilot - and maybe there were things from his war that he didn't want to explain, either, things that really were hard. "Do you want to switch places?" she asked, moving her chair out from the table a little.

He looked guilty, and…afraid, even, a man trapped who'd been trapped before. "My sister never wants to sit with her back to the door," she said, trying not to pry. "She always wants to - see that there's a way out." She paused. "Three years behind wire will do that to a person."

He looked up from his hands and stared. "Your sister?"

She nodded. "She was with MacArthur in the Philippines." She met his eye. "I don't mind, really."

"Thanks." They moved seats, leaving their coats where they were, and a kind of calm came over him as he took in more of the room. "Imagine she had it worse. I was…only eighteen months. In Germany. 43 to 45."

Laura could see her sister's face as he said that - could see Andy's face, too, talking with her brother George over their pipes after dinner about whether fighting in the heat or the cold was worse. "She'd tell you it wasn't a competition. If it helps."

He smiled at that, loosing up a little. "My doc says I should work on things like this - dinner, and conversation, and…crowded rooms." He shrugged. "I know no one likes a project, but I'm….trying." He smiled a little bashfully. "And I'm a little nervous anyway - Rose …didn't tell me you were pretty."

She felt herself blush, and looked down at her napkin. Well, all right, Charles Cruikshank, tell me I'm pretty. "She didn't tell me her cousin Charles was cute, either."

It was his turn to blush, and he did it almost sweetly, a touch of color coming into his already ruddy cheeks. "You know I haven't…actually been called Charles for about five years. He feels like…some other fellow that's not me. All my friends call me Crank."

"Crank?" What a name! Pilots.

He smiled again - really smiled, this time, his eyes even lighting up a little, and she was glad, finally, that he'd felt security enough in being called by his name to show her what his smile looked like. "Someone would tell you it's 'cause I complain a lot, but it's, it's short for Crankshaft. It's a long story."

The waiter appeared, pad and white apron at the ready. "Are we ready to order?"

Laura looked at Crank and smiled. She would still order the chicken, and there would be no need to talk about the weather. "Well, why don't you tell it to me? I think we've got some time."

[beauregardlionett]

m'kay in light of the most recent cr episode i got thinking about this post of mine again because it's relevant and i am SO excited for whatever happens this week with the hells. brief tl;dr for that post - it is so fascinating to me personally how the m9 and bh treat vulnerability and trust as two distinct concepts in complete opposite ways. the m9 trusted each other to an insane degree and were only vulnerable when held at metaphorical gun point. meanwhile bh trauma dumped on each other the majority of their shit before we were even 50 episodes in, but they have yet to display constant, true trust in one another.

and the trust exercise is the last to happen, and it involves two people being replaced with doppelgängers who intend to impede the group's progress. how much personal bias is going to bleed through? how much will recent events blind their choices? how well do they actually know each other? is this going to actually relieve tension or increase it?

fifty episodes into the campaign, orym asked fearne if she would help him stop imogen and then leave the group with him if it came down to it. laudna lost all faith in ashton and some faith in fearne after the shard stunt just two/three episodes ago. orym just admitted that he has planned out how to take down every single member of bell's hells. they did a poll once on who they thought would turn on the group. they still fumble their way through combat doing mostly solo attacks because they don't know half the shit everyone else is capable of. the m9 weren't perfect but they were further along on that front by this point in their campaign.

and maybe it's on account of the lack of downtime they've had thus far - but one would think that if they were vulnerable with each other and had been through several, consistent fires with each other facing a force that could end the world, trust would have developed somewhere along the way! but instead - we're here.

and personally, i think it's because these are all the people who were left behind. who cares about being vulnerable when you've already been broken? putting your broken pieces on display is a lot different than allowing someone to handle those pieces and try to put them back together. because then you run the risk of shattering again.

they have all been left behind by someone. trust doesn't come easy after that. chet and his family, laudna and her parents, f.c.g. and dancer and his whole life hundreds of years ago, fearne and her parents, imogen and her parents, orym and his husband, ashton and his parents and the nobodies.

chet put it perfectly - "i don't want to get attached again"

too bad. you're in this now and until you decide to back out, you have to learn how to trust at least these people. they've all decided to at least stick around and that's the first step. the rest of the process will be painful, but worth it.

i hope they never have to cut each other down.

[lifesteal-headcanons]

i literally have so many spoke hcs it’s insane (he’s my favorite :3)

- created by the void in a weird, incredibly rare event. voidians only exist once every few hundred years and are one of the rarest beings in minecraft

- because the void is mostly in the end and all that, he has some similarities to endermen. he can make certain enderman sounds like the warbles and shrieks on occasion. he has a few physical similarities too, like the tail, longer ears, and some horns. he could almost be mistaken for a enderman hybrid at first glance until you really look and see the differences

- natural night vision and relies less on oxygen to survive. he still needs a bit of it, but can go without breathing longer than the average player and can survive in thinner air climates like the end

- he cannot teleport, he doesnt have THAT in common with endermen

- dumped into 2b2t for being a voidian when he was young (some people are scared of voidians because of stigma and how dangerous they can be) and was taught how the place works by a few players with some morals left. he eventually left around 15 and server-hopped until he joined lifesteal because some of the members (cough cough the nerds. aka parrot.) were intrigued by him being a voidian

- his eyes are indeed just plain white. they glow when he feels strong emotions of any kind

- herobrine was the first ever voidian, so in a way he’s kinda a descendant of herobrine?

- the glowing white eyes are a very distinct way to tell enderman and voidians apart

- he wears his rainbows because 2b2t is really boring color wise. the land is mostly destroyed by the players and everything is built out of obsidian. so theres not an abundance of color there. he likes colorful things partly because of this

spoke hcs bestowed upon you all by me, emethystald

.

[theoutcastrogue]

by Mike Shea on 5 August 2024:

Hasbro may be hurling D&D towards a digital future but we already have everything we need to enjoy this game for the rest of our lives. Hasbro is super-excited for a digital D&D future. They're tired of selling us, as Penny Arcade perfectly describes, a single hamburger we can share with our friends every week for thirty years. Hasbro wants subscription revenue from every player every month – not just the single purchase of a book you can keep, share, and use for the rest of your life. Hasbro doesn't want to sell you D&D. They want you to pay rent. Chris Cocks, Hasbro's president and former president of Wizards of the Coast, is pushing hard for a digital future. He already said they're running experiments with artificial intelligence saying "D&D has 50 years of content that we can mine". The new head of Wizards of the Coast, the subsidiary of Hasbro in charge of D&D, is a former Blizzard executive who replaced a former Amazon and Microsoft executive. They posted a new D&D product architect job with a clear focus on digital gaming and a new "monetization designer" which is as close to "professional enshittifier" as I've heard of in a job description. So yeah, Hasbro is really excited to charge monthly fees and microtransactions for D&D and ensure you never stop paying for it. But I have good news for you. It doesn't matter. Here are four reasons why: 1. The three D&D core books are the only D&D books that really matter and they're going to be physical books. 2. With rulesets released into the Creative Commons, anyone can build digital tools, adventures, supplements, and even entire RPGs – all fully compatible with D&D. 3. We have 50 years of previous versions of D&D we can play, multiple competing and compatible 5e variants from other publishers, and hundreds of other RPGs we can enjoy. 4. We have several independent digital platforms we can use to run our games online.

[keep reading]

So Mike Shea's argument here is that no matter what Hasbro does, D&D is enshittification-proof. Personally, I agree that tabletop games (all of them, not just D&D) are to a large extent resistant to that, due to the nature of the game, but digital platforms are another matter. Then again, I have zero interest in digital platforms, so I don't know how they work. Can you incorporate non-SRD material in an independent VTT, for example? Does it matter? No idea!

For traditional D&D, I think it's always had (in its entire history, all editions!) two distinct modes of attracting people:

here is an Official Book of Rules! I should buy it (or borrow it, or pirate it) and use it, because it's an official and authoritative publication

here is a Good Rule! I should incorporate it in my D&D game because I like it, and I don't care where it came from and in what format, official book, third party, homebrew, DMs Guild, hardcover book, piece of paper, pdf, a reddit post, my own noggin.

But last year, they tried an new thing and released a set of 25 monsters for $6 only on D&D Beyond. No physical print, and no pdf. (Previously there had been digital-only releases, mostly short adventures, but in pdf form.) And although I have no way of knowing how sales went, I strongly suspect this will NEVER work. It's just a bunch of "assets", it doesn't register as an Official Publication, there's no incentive to get it as such. So we're left with "is it a good rule?", and there it competes with a million other rules published for fun and/or profit by other people. Why "buy" that one? (You're not quite buying it: if D&D Beyond goes down, poof go the monsters!)

So yeah, I think they'll try to enshittify tabletop D&D, but they'll go about it half-heartedly (to go full in, they'd have to drop the printed books, and there's NO WAY they'll do that), and simply no one will care, D&D doesn't work like that.

[thorraborinn]

Thinking about trolls (+elves, huldufólk, others) in light of Eduardo Vivieros de Castro. I'm not willing to say that pre-Christian Scaninavians were perspectivists in Amazonian style, but I do think that looking at Norse religion and later Nordic folklore through that lens is productive.

I'm mostly using the word troll as kind of a catch-all (which is not unlike how Scandinavian folklore uses it, though Icelandic folklore does not).

There are two main fears concerning trolls: that they will eat you, and that they will marry and/or fuck you. In Levi-Strauss's time that might have been seen as symbolically reducible to the same fear, but I think we can learn more by examining them in their distinction.

I dunno that I can summarize Vivieros de Castro's points here, but I'm reading from Cosmological Perspectivism in Amazonia and Elsewhere: Four Lectures given in the Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University, February-March 1998.

In western ontology we humans are like animals in that we have bodies, but what distinguishes us is the soul (or the rational mind, or whatever, the details change over time but the point is something distinctive about our interiority), so that for, say, Christian missionaries, "because the spiritual is the locus of difference that conversion becomes necessary (the Europeans wanted to know whether Indians had souls in order to modify them)." Sverrir Jakobsson says that Icelanders bought so heavily into the [Christian : Heathen] distinction as the primary ordering principle of the peoples of the world that they had trouble recognizing, or even outright denied, that there was an East-West split in Christianity.

In perspectivist ontologies this is flipped, the locus of differentiation is the body, because the interiority of everything is the same, difference comes from inhabiting different bodies. If you could acquire the sight of a jaguar, you would look at a puddle of blood and see a nice cold beer (but you would also be dangerous to humans, because you would see them as game animals). The resulting anxiety is cannibalism. If everything is the same in underlying essence, it becomes necessary to engage in an active practice of differentiation to avoid eating something that is the same as you. Ritual specialists who can transform into animals are sometimes bad hunters because they are too deeply engaged in this paradox.

The fear of marrying a troll (or elf, whatever) is the fear of spiritual conversion. This is sometimes made explicit: "I don't want to live with elves; rather, I want to believe in my Christ" -- Ólafur Liljurós (note that while this ballad is related to similar ones all over Europe, many of them deal with the protaganist's impending marriage and/or infidelity in some way; this is absent from the Icelandic and it's a purely religious conflict). In Tungustapi, Sveinn doesn't just fuck elves, he also goes to their church (which is a sort of inverted Christian church). He's alienated from the [Christian/human] community. This corresponds to "western ontology."

The other side of this is fear of being eaten. At risk of overthinking things, because being afraid of a scary monster eating you doesn't really seem to need a lot of explanation, I think there are religious/cosmological implications here.

The fear of being eaten by a troll is different from the fear of being eaten by a bear or a boar, because humans also eat bears and boars, we are on the same level with them. You can't eat a troll (we also don't eat wolves, and wolves are trolls' domestic animals, although I guess you could eat a wolf). A semi-human semi-Euhemerized jötunn/troll is associated with cannibalism in Orms þáttr Stórólfssonar. I've written before about the likely etymological derivation of jötunn from a word meaning 'to eat'; previously I said that while *etaną 'to eat' and *etunaz 'jötunn' have a clear etymological relationship, that might not be so a few hundred years later when they have become eta and jǫtunn, but maybe this relationship should be reconsidered.

Eduardo Kohn was once told to always sleep on his back in the jungle, because if a jaguar comes it will see his face and recognize him as a person, but if it sees his back it will see him as prey. To avoid being eaten by a troll you have to get the troll to see you as a person and not as food, you can do this by giving a gift (and initiating a relationship of reciprocity), or else by being more troll-like yourself (maybe even by preestablished kinship with trolls like Egill Skallagrímsson). It's a widely-acknowledge attribute of trolls, at least in Iceland, that if you do manage to get them on your side they are loyal, hence the word trölltryggur 'trustworthy as a troll [=extremely trustworthy].'

The alternate way to avoid being eaten is, of course, to pray to [Thor/St. Olav] to come destroy them with his [hammer/axe]. I don't think this throws off what I'm saying here though, because "extreme violence" is also an option for dealing with humans in a reciprocation-exchange relationship too.

Anyway, my point is that the responses to the two different fears are the exact opposite of each other. You respond to the fear of conversion by never associating with trolls, never falling for the deceit that they are persons like you. You respond to the fear of being eaten by trolls by establishing mutual recognition of each others' personhood.

Contrary to popular belief (which says to never accept any gift from the fey under any circumstances), both of these are represented in folklore. Ólafur Liljurós even presents both of them at the same time, and says it's better to be killed than convert.

There's a big gap in this, which is magical creatures that don't want to eat you but which are still dangerous. e.g., an elf is not going to eat you but you still don't want to piss him off because he'll shoot you with a disease-transmitting arrow. But I think this can get filed along with the fear of being eaten, it's just that because the Eduardos (Vivieros de Castro and Kohn) are themselves talking about cosmological food chains, and I'm working from their material, there's better opportunity for examining trolls that eat people.

[clover-system]

Allow us to introduce ourselves

Half a year active, over a hundred followers, the majority of which are veteran tumblers from that one 60k note explosion, and we still haven't properly introduced ourselves. Time to fix that.

We are Clover, an endogenic plural system. That means we are multiple people sharing one brain and body, and we aren't plural because of trauma. We do not have DID. (nor do the vast majority of endos)

I am Quincy Eliza Bethany Madeline, the headmate who fronts the most. Rose may also post on here sometimes.

There are a lot of people on here who say that it's impossible for a plural system to form without trauma, but as you may have seen from our syscourse reblogs, they rarely cite any credible sources, and that's because they're wrong. I am not a LARPer and I do not claim to have DID. This really is every hour of my life, online and offline. If you have any more questions about plurality, feel free to send me an ask.

Though if we're talking about origins, "not from trauma" is overly vague for my taste. If we're really talking about how the system formed, I prefer "dreamgenic", because everyone originated from some combination of nightdreams and immersive daydreams which I had varying levels of control over.

The second most active headmate, Victoria Penelope, has her own blog @victoria-penelope-clover. She posts more infrequently, when she's able to front/cofront/proxy, and is currently mostly focused on syscourse, with occasional slices of life. She's my older syster.

Headcount is currently in the upper teens. Some more may be mentioned occasionally but I'd rather not have a list of private details about everyone easily accessible here for anyone to see. For the most part, all you'll see every once in a while is some colored text indicating a distinct voice.

Anyway, enough plural stuff! Now for typical bio stuff!

Fleed Reddit to come here and wow Tumblr is way better. Always happy to commune with fellow Rexxitors!

For obsession I circle between Chess, Minecraft, Geometry Dash, Warrior Cats, and Undertale. Fandoms I am on the edge of getting sucked into include The Amazing Digital Circus and Death Note. I also plan to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender at some point. Ever since our syscovery, I've consumed next to no fiction for fear of more headmates.

I have a few projects in the works but I've promised myself that I won't post them publicly until I've actually made substantial progress!

No DNI! Maybe it's just because I'm not jaded by years of wasted time with unproductive trolls, but I think assuming someone is in bad faith just because they disagree with you about something heated is bad actually, partly because I've seen what happens and how long progress takes when left-of-center people generally refuse to interact with, for example, transphobes. Relatedly, I will only block you if I think you're a bot or if you really, really fuck up.

Do not be surprised if I casually shit on something you believe in without warning.

I have an ever-growing queue set to post five times per day, and I try not to post too much more than that. I also try to keep my dash at less than 100 posts per day, which is apparently uncommon here.

Reblog reblog reblog! Not just my posts, but everyone (unless you have a good reason not to, like with this intro post). Reblogs are what keep Tumblr alive! Likes do next to nothing.

That's all for now! If you have any more questions, send me an ask and I might add it to this post!

[twistedastrology]

- Cancers at their worst -

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

i just saw an ig post (no shade to the original poster) that said a cancer's dark side was everything they are stereotyped to be (extremely emotional/sensitive, are way too kind and always think people are judging them) and as a cancer that may be about to go neurotic again rn im gonna tell you from my personal experience what a cancer's dark side is actually like.

like i said though im going off of mostly just my experience so if this doesn't resonate, my bad- i did my best 🙏😔

to understand the nature of a cancer at their worst, you have to actually understand water and its potential volatility.

remember when i talked abt cancers and rage and how i said cancers are fire-coded (cardinal) water? keep that in mind for just abt this entire post.

fire is pure energy, and so is water, water just has more space to hold said energy- where fire burns out quickly, water doesn't dry out that fast at all especially if you have an ocean specifically.

people who say cancers (or really any water sign honestly-) are crybabies and switch moods every 5 seconds do not understand what water really is and this topic makes me a little livid sometimes because those are the same people that made me not like my rising sign for a long time.

to understand a cancers rock bottom, think about what water can do.

tsunamis can kill hundreds of thousands of people if they're big enough.

hurricanes, and sometimes tornadoes, form over water when the temperature is right.

the pressure at the bottom of the ocean can crush almost anything in an instant except for what has specifically evolved to live down there.

rain can lead to insane flooding (fellow floridians remember hurricane ian 2yrs ago 😕)

we have explored less of our ocean than the space around us, can you imagine what oceans on other planets would be like? especially the planets or moons that are almost Entirely water?

water represents emotion, yes, but when we boil that down to water signs being overly emotional, it doesn't make any sense and it makes some people, at least the ones that are like me, ashamed of their water placements because our society loves to say "emotion = bad." when obviously that is not true.

But if we wanna talk about the actual dark shit, aka my jupiter in scorpio's favorite shit, u gotta strap in.

Cancers feel more rage than anything.

i talked abt this specifically in my cancers and rage post, but it's true for this as well.

to use myself as the example, whenever i feel depressed or upset for some reason (like today), it's never just that sad feeling, it is always accompanied by a distinct anger because i get pissed that i feel like shit.

but if that rage doesn't get its way, or worse, gets too much of its way, i can succumb to a state of misery or, at my worst, neurosis, where multiple god awful things happen.

im not one to stay down for long, the last and first time i went neurotic, it only lasted for a week until i snapped out of it, but it was still very damaging.

cancers at their worst will feel an urge to self-destruct that may or may not be uncontrollable depending on other placements in the chart and of course how shitty they feel.

they will find something detrimental to do and if they genuinely can't, they will instead just mentally rip themselves open and daydream about what it would be like to just completely lose control and fall into a self-destructive spiral.

that's what happened to me when i went neurotic. one wrong decision and, having no access to anything that would take a toll on my physical body, i ripped myself to pieces in my head and almost fell in love with the act.

like gerard way said, there's something very romantic about it.

cancers can get moody, yes, but at this point they'll go mostly numb and tearing at their soul is the only thing they enjoy.

and then the pain will catch up to them.

once that pain catches up to them, two things will happen.

they will begin to realize what they've been doing and how pointless it is, and they will activate a duality within themselves of the desire to hurt and the need for pain relief.

they will tear at themselves even more, knowing they shouldn't be doing what they are, but it's a vicious cycle.

this will happen, and then the potential for redemption begins to boil over.

after being in the dark, blissfully hidden depths of their own mental ocean, they will realize they can't breathe anymore, and they will either suffocate themselves or snap their eyes open and swim up until they see the light they deprived themselves of for however long.

once they've made it to the surface, they gasp to catch their breath, their tears being of the need for pain relief winning against their desire to hurt.

now the water is not a personal vice, but a cleansing presence that makes them feel understood. the water gets it. the water would never judge them for what they did.

after being in the dark embrace of the depths of the ocean for so long, the light finally hitting your eyes makes color seem so much more vibrant.

- 🌙 -

all this to say that, at their worst, cancers can succumb to self destruction like no other, but they have the drive to keep them going to even them out.

they don't just cry all day or switch moods 24/7, they fall into a vat of water that, the deeper they go, reveals more and more of their very soul.

it's the deepest level of shadow work, it's the pain no one wants to go through because it's the pain of losing your personal momentum and then having to find it again in an instant before it's gone forever.

OR i could be totally wrong idk But this is my experience!!!! ✨💞💞✨💞✨💞✨💞✨ God belsls!!!!!!!!

my bad that was real dark and poetic writing now i gotta balance it out Uhhhmmmmm Legalize nuclear bombs. 💥

[idontplaytrack]

can you write an aj fic, college au, when r bring her home for the holidays but her parents arent approving of it…and the end can be like r’s cousins or siblings taking r and aj out to a gay bar or something, a mostly happy ending

✧ It’s Not Christmas Without You

AJ Campos x fem! reader

Warnings: coarse language, homophobia, quarrelling, underage drinking mentions, sexual assault mentions

In which reader’s parents do not approve of their relationship so the siblings and cousins make their holidays better by taking them out instead

“So they know I’m coming?”

“Yeah, I told them I was bringing my partner home.”

“They probably think I’m a guy.”

“Yeah, but screw it. If they kick me out, we still have a place to go, baby.” You told her, “We’ll be fine.”

And to be completely honest, you and AJ had discussed this. This visit back home for the holidays was out of courtesy. No matter how they reacted, you’d still be telling them that you’d be moving out. But if they didn’t approve, you’d never be coming home again, ever. You weren’t going to give your parents the upper hand and satisfaction of kicking you out. Never.

Your sister was picking you and AJ up from the airport. And for a little bit of a background on your family, you were the youngest of three. Your older brother, Theo and older sister Patricia were well into their twenties, both married. Patricia had two children— your darling niece and nephew, Aurora and Austin. As for Theo, he’d just gotten hitched on halloween with his boyfriend. That’d be Robin. Wanna make a guess which one of your siblings had a better relationship with your parents?

Patricia did. They were only okay with Theo having a boyfriend (at the time) because he was bi. So to them, that meant that he’d still be able to start a family if he wanted. Boy, did Theo shut them down so quickly. But they were still in denial. So far, Theo was the only one in your family that you were out to. You figured that only he truly understood your fear. But in a matter of minutes, Patricia would know as well.

“y/n!”

Immediately, you spotted Patricia thanks to her distinctive voice over buzzing chatter of the swarm of people in the arrival hall. You rushed up to her, still holding onto AJ’s hand. “Hi, Trishy.” You hugged her back.

“Let me guess, AJ?”

“That’s me.” AJ chuckles lightly, “Were you expecting a guy too?”

“Not exactly.” Your sister admits, “Let me help you with your bag.”

“Explain.” You gasped, looking at her with wide eyes.

“I just don’t really care who you’re dating unless they treat you right. I wasn’t expecting anybody specific.”

“Oh.” You nodded, “Thanks?”

“Let’s go, Theo’s waiting in the car. And your precious niece and nephew are waiting at home.”

Getting into your sister’s car, you sat in the middle seat between AJ and Theo. “Good to finally meet ya and put a face to your name.” Theo commented, “She’s very secretive, this one.”

AJ chuckles. “She had her reasons, which I get. But I have nothing to hide, ask me whatever you want.”

“Oh, no, no.” Theo laughed similarly, “I trust you. She’s happy, she’s safe, she’s clearly so loved by you. I’m not the least bit worried.”

“I am,” You stared at him, “Mom and Dad are one hundred percent expecting AJ to be a guy,”

“Well…she can look the part.” Theo jokes. AJ snorted, “We’ll just leave the bags in your car because we’re almost certain they’ll want her outta there. We’re planning to leave either way. I’m not bi, so they will definitely go off on me.”

“Honey.” Patricia turned her head to look over her shoulder, “We got you. We get it— courtesy visit. Because they’ve been asking and asking, and asking. You’d think after two years of you not coming home, they’d at least start to get the hint, noooo, they’ve been painfully oblivious.”

————

“We’re home.” Theo announces, letting out an inevitable sigh. Aurora and Austin dropped their toys and ran over first, tackling you with a hug. AJ? She stood right behind you. “Hi, auntieeeee.” They squealed. “Hey, goofballs. Wow you guys are so tall.”

They giggle happily. “I’m taller.” Aurora grins.

“Sure are, sweetie.” You chuckle, ruffling with her hair.

“Who is this?” The seven year old girl asked.

“I’m AJ,” She smiled.

“You’re really pretty.” Aurora says. “Are you y/n’s friend?”

“Uh, girlfriend.” You answered honestly.

“Oh. Hello, AJ!” The kid shrugged, pulling Austin away to go play again.

And then, your parents. “Girlfriend, Rory, don’t be silly. I’m sure your aunt’s just kidding.”

“Kidding for what?” You asked, almost a little too harshly.

Your mother’s mouth hung open, “You…watch your mouth.”

“Watch my mouth?” You wanted to scoff so badly, “I’ve graduated from college this year. I don’t need to be treated like a child.”

“This is AJ?” Your dad chimed in.

“Oh, yeah. This is AJ and she’s great.” Theo spoke on your behalf, sensing your anger building up to a close peak.

“So are you bisexual too, like Theo?”

“No, Mom.” You stated, “I’m a lesbian,”

“Oh, God. What have I done?”

You were so ready to leave. It was clear AJ was thinking the same thing. “Nothing. You have done nothing. I have always been this way— nothing has changed and nothing needs to change. Why does it matter to you that I’m in love with a woman?”

“Mommy, why are you all mad at auntie? She didn’t do anything wrong.” Aurora appeared again. Shit, you’d forgotten in the moment that the kids were around. You should’ve just turned and left with AJ.

“Baby, come over here. Let’s get back to our movie, hm?” Ezra, her dad, came up to the foyer soon enough.

“No, gramma’s mad at auntie y/n. That’s not nice of her.”

“I’m gonna go, baby. But I’m okay, I promise.”

“Aw.” The kid sulked. “Whyyy.”

“Aurora, they need to talk— let’s let them finish talking first, okay?”

“Ezra, there’s no use talking to them. They’re so stuck in their narrow minds that only what they think, is correct. We’re leaving after we hand the gifts over to the kids.”

“Okay, dinner’s canceled.” Your mom announces.

“Way ahead of you.” Patricia looks up from her phone. “This family hasn’t felt like a family in years. It’s ridiculous that a child knows better than you two do. Ezra, let’s go. We’re moving the dinner to ours— I’ve already texted the rest of them. You two can stuff yourselves for all I care. y/n’s being very kind to come back here when she’s made it pretty clear she doesn’t want to be back here several years ago.”

Not wanting to escalate the situation, all of you left. You sat in Theo’s car with AJ. While Patricia, Ezra and the kids were in their own. With that, the bunch of you were on your way to Patricia and Ezra’s house. “y/n, AJ. The guesthouse is all yours. Make yourselves at home.” Ezra told you both while Patricia got the kids settled and freshened up.

“Wow, thanks.” You replied, then made your way over to the guesthouse through the backyard.

“Rest of the family’s coming by at 8. We have a few hours, so you guys just…chill.” Patricia eventually poked her head into the front doorway of the guesthouse. You hear Aurora and Austin playing in the pool, squealing.

“Well, can we help any way at all?”

“AJ, relax.” Patricia laughs, “I got this, you two just do whatever you want. Let me worry about the cooking.”

“You wanna go for a swim, then?” You glanced at AJ to ask.

“Sure.” AJ beamed, “Let’s do it.”

The moment you and AJ got inside the pool, Austin sprayed you with the water gun, then AJ became the target. Eventually, it became a little bit of a fight. You let the kids win, just because. They’re kids. It was just a game, everyone had fun. After an hour or so, Aurora and Austin wanted to get back inside so Ezra took them, leaving you and AJ alone.

“Are you okay?” AJ asks, pushing herself up to sit down on the edge of the pool.

“What? Yeah, I am.”

“No, I mean, really.” AJ continues.

“Babe, come on. It’s Christmas eve— I don’t want to talk about it.”

She looks at you, you look at her. AJ wasn’t going to give it up. “I don’t wanna talk about it here.” You stood up and led her back into the guesthouse.

“Me and my parents were very close. Until— okay, remember in high school, junior year? After my volleyball team won a big game.”

“Yeah.” She nods, sitting right before you, “Right before summer.”

“That night, we all got wasted at the hotel and some guy ended up…I dunno. Touching me while I was pretty much blacked out. I woke up to him hovering over me, kissing my neck and just— it was horrifying to have that be the first thing I saw and felt after getting sober from the drinking.”

AJ’s facial expression was indistinguishable, but you continue. “I didn’t known who to tell, so I ended up telling my Mom. Who, told my Dad without my permission. Then, the police showed up at the door, it was a whole mess that week. I know who did it— I always have. The memory started coming back and I knew that guy. But he got away with it. He pleaded not guilty, went to trial. I lost. My parents blamed me for drinking and getting myself into trouble. Since then, everything just kinda spiralled. At the time, Theo and Trish were the only two people in my corner. No one else knew what happened. They’re really just unrelated matters but since that happened, they changed. My parents simply hated me, it’s like they’re disgusted by me. But the drifting apart was pretty gradual so I got used to it. I just hate that they’re that way towards me even though I look at it from their point of view and I get it. But it’s been weighing on my mind, and you deserve to know.”

“Was that why you lived with them senior year?”

“Oh, yeah. Theo already started working and Trish was a senior in college. With both their incomes, they took me out of our parents’ home and let me live with them.” You explained, “It was so much more complicated in my head, but now that that’s out of the way…I just need a few days to forget about that. Work through that, you know? It’s not use being all upset about it now. I don’t want to be caring so much about them that I let them affect my mood when clearly, they couldn’t care less about me.”

“That is just…terrible of them to practically wash their hands off you.” AJ scoffs.

“Baby, don’t get yourself all angry over those two. There’s no point. Let’s just focus on ourselves and those that actually do care.”

“You’re right.” She smooches you on the cheek. “You’ve come a long way and done a lot of work. I’m very proud of you for that. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me that. It’s not an easy thing at all to be sharing.”

You cracked a smile. “Thanks, baby.”

————

Seeing some of your family members clicking with AJ so well, so quickly, it seriously made you so happy— the relief you felt was impeccable. “AJ, will you read me a bedtime story?” Aurora comes running up to AJ— and you.

“Sweetie, they’re watching a movie—”

“It’s alright, Trish.” You assured.

You and AJ shared a look before she smiled and agreed. “Yay!” Aurora exclaimed and dragged the two of you by the hand upstairs to her bedroom.

“Good night, sweetie!” Patricia laughs, as did Ezra.

“Night, Mommy. Night, Daddy!”

A good twenty minutes later, Aurora reluctantly agreed to finally sleep. You walked back downstairs with AJ and were met with Theo immediately suggesting that the few of you should go out for the night. “Come on. We’ve been keeping it PG for the whole evening. Let’s go party it up.” Theo laughs.

“Hey, don’t need to look at me. You guys are adults. No curfew over here.” Patricia bit back a laugh, “Go. Have fun.”

“Alright, alright.” You gave in. Theo cheered quietly, gesturing for his husband Dylan to join you all and leave the house.

The destination? A gay bar. Ever since that night in high school, you were very careful around alcohol. So much so that you flat out didn’t drink alcohol in chaotic settings like these. Not all of them knew why, but they didn’t force you— you had two glasses and that was it.

“Which one of you people wants to take the mic tonight, party people?”

“Let’s go do that. Let’s sing.” You grabbed AJ by the arm, causing her to look at you, laughing.

“Sure.” AJ giggles, looking over to the guys.

“y/n, you know I cannot sing.” Your brother pointed at you, “Dylan— you can.”

“Hell yeah.” Dylan agrees and hopped off the stool, heading for the stage with you and AJ.

“Alright, alright! Here we go. First daring ones of the evening. Dylan, AJ and y/n singing ‘It’s Not Christmas Without You’, everyone!”

“So if you feel it comin'

On this special day

Just trust your heart

'Cause I can't wait to hear you say

That it's Christmas

And the start of something new

Well, it's Christmas

And I hope you'll feel it too

Everyone together, sing

Silver bells and golden rings

But all of it means nothing

Without you

No, no no

It's not Christmas (Christmas)

Without you, you, you

It's not Christmas

Without you, you, you

It's not Christmas

Without you, you, you

It's not Christmas without you”

🏷️ Tag list:

@ashecampos @auliisflower @cheesysoup-arlo @frogs00 @reneeswif3 @ludoesartnstuffs @pda128

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September 11

Hey Friends! I know this is kind of a random thing to post about, but I felt like I should.

If you don't know, today is September 11th, the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in America on September 11, 2001. Nearly 3,000 people died just in the attacks, with hundreds of others sick and dead because of the amount of toxic air and debris released into lower Manhattan after the crashes.

The World Trade Center's North building was hit first, followed by the south building, then the Pentagon, then a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. They were hit by planes piloted by members of al-Qaeda, an Islamic extremist terrorist group formed by Osama bin Laden, along with some others.

Because this group couldn't defeat America military-wise, they instead set their sights on symbols and iconic American monuments. Members hijacked these four flights to attack these various targets representing America's power.

There was only one plane that didn't land were it was meant to. This plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. We aren't sure were it was meant to go, but there's a theory that it was meant to land on the Capitol building because it is a sign of America's Legislative power. Even though we don't know for sure where this plane was meant for, what's important is that it didn't. Because of the bravery of the people on that flight who fought back against the hijackers, many lives were saved. Unfortunately, everyone on that flight died.

Other people who should absolutely be mentioned are the First Responders involved. During the attacks, after the attacks, and everywhere in between, First Responders came from all over America to help the victims of these attacks.

We owe a lot to the dedicated men and women who worked day and night to save hundreds of lives.

It's important to say that even though the attacks were committed by Islamic extremists, NOT ALL MUSLIMS ARE AT FAULT. The people who attacked were extremists, who, like their name suggests, have extreme views. This is, in my opinion, the other side of the tragedy surrounding 9/11. After the attacks, people were very hateful towards Muslims and Muslim-Americans in general, not usually making any distinction between neighbors and friends and the people who actually attacked America.

All in all, 9/11 was tragedy on many levels. There's lots of others things to be said and aspects I haven't covered. If you want, you can check out the websites/resources linked below to read more. If you're a 9/11 victim or the family of one, I offer my condolences and hope that you're able to feel hope even today, on the anniversary of this tragedy. If there's something I left out, or something I said wrong, I'm really sorry. I don't want to offend someone by this, only commemorate and remember this day for what it is.

If you want to learn more about 9/11, I would suggest---

1. CNN10; they released a video today with some good information, mostly about the 9/11 memorial in New York.

2. The 9/11 Memorial website; there's a lot of information including ways to get connected/help with the efforts to help people learn about 9/11.

3. Ground Zero by Alan Gratz; if you didn't know Alan Gratz is a writer who writes really deep, meaningful, and slightly gore-y books about tragedies. The books are gore-y for a reason, they really demonstrate the true tragedy and this book made me cry like five different times throughout reading it. It's on Libby and a bunch of other reading websites and local libraries if you want to read it. I highly recommend it. -> (TW: blood, fire, angst, wounds, death, etc. If you're under 13, I suggest asking a parent to read this with you)

4. The National Archives; I haven't read through this entire website because it's super massive, but if you look at the side of the page there's a place that says 'Contents' and there's a ton of resources there too.