#my entire generation of people is under fire for it

[sea-lanterns]

SINCE YOU MENTIONED READER TAKING SNEZHNAYAN WOMEN TO TROPICAL COUNTRIES, I'M IMAGINING POOR COLUMBIMA MELTING IN THE SCORCHING SUN😭😭😭 She was NOT ready for how hot it would be in comparison to her cool office in Snezhnaya, but now she needs to take it to please her darling!!! She struggles quite an bit, but she does manage to resist the heat in the end. After all, she's an fatui harbinger! It should be expected that she can take the sun glaring down at her face and trying to turn her into crispy chicken nuggets!

Arlecchino would be interesting because maybe she wouldn't be so bothered by it due to her puro vision and etc etc, but perhaps she wouls get extra clingy to reader if they have an cool body, just for the sake of cooling herself off too!!! Or maybe she would avoid going out in general, but still would do it just because she's the father and the face of the HOH, so she needs to put up an example for her kids!!!

For Signora's case, i think she wouldn't mind it too bad because... liquid fire in her body and stuff.. but if we put that aside, there's the point that she is from Mondstadt, and i hc it to not be nor too hot but also not too cold yk? Just that perfect temperature that leaves everyone cozy and warm inside. She would probably be able to grow used to it pretty quickly, but if it got too hot, then she probably woukd use her cryo delusion to cool both herself and reader off (maybe put her freezing cold fingers into reader's pussy, but that's for later!!!)

Sandrone would either not care or care about it too much, in my head. In the scenario where she wouldn't care, i imagine that it would be because she's an puppet and wouldn't be actually able to feel the heat, but then her body might accidentaly overheat and she'd need to cool herself off somehow, but i think she wouldn't be bothered by the heat itself. Yk? In the scenario where she does get bothered by it, i can see her working for an entire day in an portable AC that she can take around to cool herself down (and reader as well!!) Although... i doubt her ass would even leave the house at all.

In my head, the prompt was kinda set in a modern au so their visions don’t technically exist. For sure they would be able to tolerate it because vision holders can withstand the elements a lot better than regular people, but in this modern au where they travel with you to your country…they’re just gonna rawdog it and suffer 💀

Signora and Arlecchino are the type of women to make the mistake of packing dark clothing. And if your home country is extremely sunny they are going to roast very quickly. Sandrone seems like the type of woman to like wearing a lot of layers too, so she will be sweating profusely under her cozy sweaters and long dresses.

Columbina is the type of woman to like wearing a lot of accessories, but that can get very uncomfortable especially when walking around in tropical climates all day. By day 3 of your journey, she gave up trying to be accessorize and just settled for wearing a crop top 😭😭.

On the flip side, I know for a fact that the Sumerian women and Natlan women will be completely fine in tropical countries. Heck, they will be thriving and going out all day, not even breaking a sweat because this is just another day for them in their own country 😊

[loving-family-poll]

2nd Ultimate Incest Tournament - Round 2

Propaganda under the cut

Jesus/Mary:

And then Jesus did fucketh his mother amen

Cmon man it’d be really fucking funny

It's never gonna happen BUT imagine if the last poll ended up being Jesus/Mary vs Lestat/Gabrielle. Heavenly Mom/Son VS Trashfire Creatures Of Darkness Mom/Son

Technically double incest due to the Holy Trinity: Jesus is God, which means he's both Mary's son and Mary's Father. Insert "calling your son Daddy" joke here

We wouldn't have Michelangelo's Pietà or Fabrizio De André's La buona novella concept album without them

Mary pretty much pushed Jesus into performing his own first (official/canonically recognized) public miracle at the Wedding at Caanan. If she hadn't spoken up? Not only would the wedding itself been a disaster and tanked the couple's reputation, but Jesus would have spent his life being like "uhm, but I should wait for a REALLY important occasion to use my divine power..." until like Lazarus

What if you were young and pure and unused to much besides life in a temple and your entire existence was shrouded in prophecy and mysticism to the point you were Chosen by God as the vessel for His own incarnation but then said incarnation turned out to be like. Just a child, besides the occasional weird Unearthly Wisdom Moment or early miracle. And what if you loved that child above anything else, despite having been forced to flee from your homeland due to his very conception putting you at risk of persecution and death, despite having had to give birth to him in rather miserable conditions, despite your husband almost leaving you over him. And then it turned out your child was never yours to begin with, but the whole world's sacrificial lamb, and you had to watch him suffer through one of the most excruciating forms of torture in history after the betrayal of his friends, and watch him be mocked and insulted and denied a chance of salvation right before that, to the point that even he, who had previously literally walked on water and raised the dead from their graves, eventually lost hope and despaired. And his last, anguished words were for his silent Father, asking why He'd abandoned him, but you were there the whole time, there near the cross you knew you'd watch him die on, and he'd tried giving you one of his own disciples, the one he loved the most, as another son to lessen your pain, to give you someone else to live for, but how could he ever expect you to be able to love again like that?

Gerard/Mikey:

brothers from new jersey. grew up spending a lot of their time together in the basement. we've all heard of flowers in the attic time for flowers in the basement. disgustingly in each other's space constantly. weird offputting freaks you met at a house party or basement show once. they share dawn of the dead in their list of favorite movies which i think is just kind of cute.

went to a smashing pumpkins concert together and decided being in a band is what they wanted out of life.

became the vocalist and the bassist for one of the most influential emo bands of the 2000s. as with any band that tours, especially in early days when you're not that popular, just a lot of room sharing and being noticeably in each other's space. people also consistently joking that they can read each other's minds.

gerard wrote "brother" about mikey and it's suspiciously close to another song he wrote ("summertime") which is straight up one of the most heartwrenching love songs mcr has ever come up with which is really really saying something. not to downplay brother either, because its pretty crazy. actually im just submitting summertime and brother as propaganda.

gerard has, on stage: licked mikey's nipple, pantomimed giving him a handjob, and generally groped him.

my personal favorite is the time gerard had to physically pick up and move mikey to keep him from getting set on fire from stage pyrotechnics.

they also look nothing like each other until they really really do which isn't exactly propaganda so much as porn material. you put glasses on gerard or take glasses off mikey and get them looking the same way and they look literally like the same person

in an interview gerard described teenage mikey as ‘wearing tight, black clothes’, ‘looking like a hooker’, and ‘looking like a piece of chicken’

gerard has gotten up close and personal with mikey during performances of destroya (a song in which 90% of the lyrical content is him moaning) to the point where during a performance one of their bandmates yelled ‘get away from your brother’ at him

gerard also ran a hand through mikey’s sweaty, sweaty hair and along his jaw, then licked it

gerard has written frequently about incest, and when asked which of his characters he related to the most said one who was in love with her brother

gerard is into lots of strange stuff (vomit, piss, inflation, potentially guro) it really would not be a stretch for him to be into incest

This Gif (https://www.tumblr.com/gerardcest/764335264300744704/why-does-he-touch-his-brother-like-that?source=share)

[babycharmander]

(BOOK OF BILL SPOILERS)

I just finished reading The Book of Bill and I am kindof losing my mind over some of this stuff.

I had wondered if Alex Hirsch might make Bill sympathetic in some way and oh boy I was not expecting him to do it so successfully (and without cheapening Bill's character).

So, we learn that Bill was born into a 2D world... as a mutant who can see into the third dimension. He claims he was absolutely loved by all, but when talking about his powers, he mentions under Pyrokinesis:

"Cipher, Cipher, he's insane / Starting fires with his brain." The kids in grade school could be so cruel. But where are they now, huh? WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

So probably not quite as liked as he was letting on. To add to that, there's the silly straw page, which looks like silly nonsense until you decipher some of the codes:

"EYE DOCTOR OF A DIFFERENT KIND / WHO WANTS TO MAKE HIS PATIENTS BLIND" "THE DOCTOR SAYS / THREE SIPS A DAY / WILL MAKE THE VISIONS / GO AWAY"

I wasn't sure what this meant until I saw someone point out... he was seeing a third dimension that no one else could see. His parents probably took him to the eye doctor to try to "fix" him. Which, speaking of his eye doctor, the coded message in the section about human eyeballs says something interesting:

"MY OPTOMETRIST NEVER SAW IT COMING"

It could be a joke given beforehand he's talking about dissecting a human eye, but given the previous hints of medical abuse, I wouldn't put it past him that he tried to get revenge on his eye doctor.

Oh yeah and the whole thing about him setting his entire dimension on fire? Yeah it turns out it was entirely a mistake (he just wanted everyone to understand the third dimension he was seeing so they could be free of only two dimensions), he was so traumatized by it he blacks out when trying to recall it. He deeply, deeply regrets it, and...

"What? Your ENTIRE home dimension? destroyed? How? By what?" Bill looked distant, more distant than I'd ever seen him. "By a monster."

He sees himself as a monster.

And yet, he's not some innocent, misunderstood being. He still revels in causing pain and chaos. He's terrible in general, but becomes incredibly abusive toward Ford.

"YOU'RE MY PROPERTY. DON'T FORGET IT. The hillbilly abandoned you, your father won't want you returning without millions, you have no friends, and if you died out here in the snow, who would even miss you?"

Which... speaking of him and Ford...

Yes, yes, I know people ship them. But like, whether you see their relationship as romantic or platonic (I see it as the latter), there's some interesting parallels to be made here.

Both Bill and Ford are mutants who were mocked for their being different. (Bill was not physically a mutant, as far as we know, but more in the sense of him having vision stronger than that of everyone else in his dimension, and also having special powers. And he does describe himself as a mutant.) Both became social outcasts, separated from their families but still haunted by them (Ford seeing commercials of Stan on TV and running across old photos of him and his brother, Bill being haunted by his family in some form). Neither could return home for one reason or another. Both more powerful than their peers (Ford intellectually, Bill in terms of actual powers). Both of them isolated and alone. (Yes, Bill does have the Henchmaniacs, but they seem like shallow friends, and only really seem to follow him out of a desire to have a place to party.)

Ford was not aware of most of this, aside from knowing that Bill could not go home because his dimension was destroyed. But Bill absolutely saw himself in Ford. There was no other person he tried to use whom he felt a stronger connection to.

And he actually seems to care about Ford--he actually gave him a birthday present, and when Ford didn't like it, he decided to get drunk and party with him instead to make up for it.

And then when Ford realizes what Bill's plan actually is and refuses to go along with it, and fights back no matter what Bill does, Bill completely breaks down.

After living for trillions of years, he met someone who was like him, and that person rejected him.

He goes berserk, wreaking havoc, being caught by the dimensional authority that he's been taunting for most of his life.

And then after dying and being cast out of hell for being too annoying, he winds up faced with the Axolotl, who sends him to therapy, where he continues to break down further, sending out the book in a desperate attempt to find someone, anyone who will help him break loose and wreak havoc once again.

"You have no friends, and if you died ... who would even miss you?"

I don't know, Bill. Who would even miss you?

In short,

[ID: The front and back of one of Bill's Valentines cards. On the front is a black void with Bill Cipher lying down without his hat, gazing blankly upwards, with the text "I DON'T WANT TO DIE ALONE" above him. On the back is a simple white "TO/FROM" in red, with a red outline illustration of Bill spontaneously growing a mouth and eating a realistic, bloody heart. /end ID]

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Surprised to see that you as a communist (and a lot of other communists too) seem to like disco elysium so much. doesn't the game make fun of communists a lot?

It does! Quite frequently and gleefully, in fact.

My blanket response to this type of question about most pieces of media would be that, in the words of Big Joel, "I am not a politics robot". My enjoyment of a piece of art is almost entirely orthogonal to how much its implicit or explicit worldview aligns with mine. And I think ultimately that's the way you end up having to approach media if you're a communist who plays videogames at all. Or reads fantasy books. Or watches anime. Or... you get the idea.

But in the case of Disco Elysium specifically I think the read that the game depicts communism just as negatively as all the other ideologies it criticizes is a quite shallow one. Ultimately we're being shown this world through a very communist lens. Like yeah the game has a lot of (usually pretty funny) jokes about firing squads and about "communism is about failure" and about pretentious overeducated college communists who do nothing but read theory and then do some leftist infighting about it, it doesn't shy away from the immoral actions of the revolutionary army, it depicts the dockworkers union as extremely shady and corrupt and basically a crime syndicate (although this depiction is way more nuanced if you actually take the time to dig deeper and talk to people about it), and generally doesn't shy away from pointing at the ugly parts of a variety of communist movements past and present. But, under all of that, the game's understanding of issues like class and poverty and crime and colonialism and imperialism and international conflict is ultimately rooted in a very marxist worldview.

I once saw someone say something along the lines of "everyone in this game talks like a communist regardless of political alignment", and while that's obviously an extremely hyperbolic statement, I do think there's a nugget of truth in it, the clearest example being Joyce Messier. Joyce is an ultraliberal, the furthest thing from a communist you're going to find in the DE universe. And yet, when she talks about the world she does so in very marxist terms, like in her famous "Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself" quote. Like. You'd never catch a real libertarian expressing that idea Like That. And a lot of the more serious, in-depth political discussions in the game are similar.

Plus, ultimately... regardless of how much criticism the game piles on it, of all the ideologies it criticizes, communism is the only one which is not depicted as a completely lost cause. The communist vision quest ends on a quite hopeful note, unlike pretty much any other one, and the Union is ultimately shown as having tons of popular support because they're the only ones who have actually gotten shit done to somewhat improve the lives of the people of Martinaise. I have lots of thoughts about the way Evrart Claire and the Dockworkers union are depicted actually, but for the time being I'm just going to say that the read of "unions are corrupt and union leaders are greedy fat cats who only care about their personal gain", while not exactly lacking in textual support, is likewise an extremely shallow one.

[bramblebeau]

Alright I told myself I wouldn't interact with fandom when s2 came out, and I haven't and don't plan to except to say this about people deciding Caitlyn is the Worst or that the writing is OOC.

As someone who has had a family member violently killed, I cannot stress how much it shakes up everything you thought you were and stood for. My beliefs in proportionate compassionate justice and the rights of all human beings are some of the strongest I have (stronger now because of the way that experience affected me personally), but they were pushed to the absolute limit when it came to an individual who had killed my loved one, showed no remorse, and laughed in our faces outside court, among other things.

People generally like to believe it wouldn't be them or their peace-loving family members being talked down from seriously considering violent revenge, consequences be damned. People like to believe they wouldn't lash out at people closest to them under that pressure, that they wouldn't build walls around the kindest and most sensitive parts of themselves because those parts are the ones feeling pain you never thought possible, that they wouldn't stalk the killer, make notes on all their family and friends, and fuck up their hands punching walls in anger wishing so badly it was flesh and bone because they can't handle the fact that there's no way to turn back time to stop it all from happening. People like to think they're "better" than that. But the reality is messy and painful as hell.

With Caitlyn, she has the added guilt of having actually had the opportunity to stop Jinx before she fired the rocket, but she hesitated just long enough for it to result in the deaths of her mother and other councillors and in the cities being plunged into chaos. Not only that, but the person close to her she's lashing out at is the person who caused her to hesitate, and just so happens to be the sister of the killer.

Furthermore, her behaviour is entirely in character. We have seen her set up as someone who becomes obsessed with achieving a goal and will do pretty much anything she wants to get there. In S1, we agreed with her methods because her goal was exposing and taking down Silco, and because it led to Vi being released. In S2, she's doing a similar thing but it's fuelled by fear and a type of pain she doesn't know how to deal with, rather than being fuelled by a need to prove herself and solve a case, and it leads to her making morally questionable decisions and to hurting Vi. She admits herself, albeit privately to Vi, that she does not know what she's doing and doesn't know how to fill this hole in her chest (and the hole in the city leadership). She has been sheltered from the real world for almost all her life, and as a result she has no experience of functioning or making decisions under this kind of pressure. The real world blew up in her face in the worst way and she was given power and a loaded rifle, and then shoved into an even more elevated position by a very experienced warlord who is manipulating the shit out of the whole situation.

I'm not saying that you have free rein to hurt people when you're grieving and facing extreme stress. (If you think that's what I'm saying then idk I'm not sure there's much hope for you in terms of critical thinking skills). What I'm saying is that Caitlyn is exhibiting pretty normal human behaviour that most people would be susceptible to in those circumstances, not the behaviour of someone who is some kind of heartless abusive bastard.

TLDR: Caitlyn is being written in a way that completely makes sense and is also not OOC, and if someone told me there would be no chance of them reacting in similar ways I simply would not believe them.

[flawseer]

On Mudwing Culture

My last deliberation on Seawings and their eccentric insult vocabulary seemed to be well-received, so here is another one of my headcanons:

Mudwings are seriously into food.

I know, pretty revolutionary take when there is only a handful of named Mudwing characters, and two of them love eating so much that it either almost or entirely eclipses their personality.

But Clay and Ochre are not what I am talking about. This isn’t about a love of eating (though many Mudwings admittedly do have that). I’m suggesting that, out of all the tribes from Pyrrhia, Mudwings are at the forefront of food preparation and culinary innovation, to the point where a large part of their culture revolves around it.

The State of Food Preparation on the Continent

Pyrrhia as a conglomerate of different cultures largely sustains its populations through hunting and gathering. The average dragon, when the hunger pangs set in, will make a hasty trip into the nearest forest, cave, or scavenger den and round up some prey animals. In most cases, this prey will go straight from the talons to the mouth, or, if the hunter is a bit more forward-thinking, into the pantry, and then from talons to the mouth.

There are a few variations of this practice; Skywings may give the carcass a quick roast on an open flame before eating it, Sandwings may dry the meat out so the excess moisture does not upset their internal water balance, Rainwings will prefer fruit over meat. Icewings will nearly always consume their prey raw and unseasoned, as their extremely delicate palate is easily overwhelmed by intense flavors that may be released through cooking.

More complex forms of food preparation seem to exist mostly outside the scope of the general populace. The practice of “cooking” appears to be limited to the ranks of aristocracy, with dedicated cooks only found within the court of a queen or in private households of other high-born individuals. It creates a sharp divide between commoners and social elites, between the wealthy and (as Sea Queen Coral once put it so succinctly) the “eel-eating masses”. All exemplified through the differing standards of food.

And yet somehow, standing in stark contrast to everywhere else on the continent, nearly every Mudwing-- from the most low-born runts of the Diamond Spray Delta to the most decorated head advisors in the Queen’s palace --knows how to cook, and will do so regularly.

Why is that, and how did it happen?

Historical Benefits of Cooking

Most things that form the backbone of a culture usually start with some ancient practice that was useful at some point in time and then, as people kept doing it, eventually got absorbed into public awareness and became “the way things are done”.

Mudwings face a unique challenge compared to anyone else, as they are the only tribe whose combat prowess is significantly affected by their environment, specifically climate, weather, and temperature. Sure, you can take any dragon, drop them into an unfavorable climate, and they will generally perform worse than under normal circumstances. But the unique weakness of Mudwings is that they lose their breath weapon when they get too cold. Place an Icewing into a burning room and they will still be able to use their frost breath. Pluck a Sandwing from their dry environment and drop them into the humid, sweltering hell of the jungle, their natural weapons will still function. But make a Mudwing cower between two piles of snow for a while, and their internal fire will go out quickly.

As you might imagine, this is a bit of a liability when you have to defend your territory from Skywings hiding and scheming among the frozen peaks bordering your country.

So the ancient Mudwings had to figure out a solution to their conundrum, and what they came up with was this: They got a large pot and filled it with water, threw in all manner of meats, plants, and herbs, whatever they could find where they were holed up, then boiled it until it was good and filling. The hot food in their bellies helped them stay warm even at high altitudes and allowed them to stand their ground against the northwestern invaders.

Soon it became tradition for troops to share a hotpot the night before battle, and a rich variety of hearty broths and stews developed from there, as these were simple to make from scraps and could be reheated easily. The practice became so popular, the Mudwings kept doing it even during peacetime. Soon, in addition to the hunting of prey animals that was commonplace, Mudwings began to cultivate vegetable gardens to have access to a more stable supply of ingredients. Eventually, their growing understanding of agriculture allowed them to grow rice, which was especially well-suited to the abundance of wetlands found in their territory. Everyone was cooking now.

The Role of Food in Mudwing Society

If you ask several Mudwings which core values represent their tribe best, many would likely put forward some variation of “camaraderie”, “family”, or “loyalty to your sibs”. They are a very social people who form deep bonds with those whom they grew up with, and one of the most direct ways to grow close to someone is to share your meals with them every day. As such, the preparation and consumption of food is a vital part in maintaining cohesion between members of a Mudwing sibling group.

Every one of these groups will have a “Bigwings”, which is understood to be a combination of a leader and caretaker role. The Bigwings is aware of all of their sibs’ culinary preferences and needs and has all of the troop’s recipes memorized. When mealtime approaches, he or she makes the call on what kind of dish will be prepared and delegates roles and tasks to the troop. This is a daily exercise that builds the Bigwings’ authority and communication skills, and reinforces trust and familiarity between all siblings.

Next to the Bigwings is the Gatherer, which historically was a role assigned to one or more troop members who foraged for wild vegetables or hunted more prey if the previous communal hunt did not yield enough. While this is still true today, many Gatherers also maintain a garden or wet patch to source fresh vegetables or grain for meals.

And lastly there is the Communicator, which is a role usually assigned to the most social and charismatic sibling. The Communicator is vital for coordinating battle strategies with other troops, which, while very important, is not really all that relevant for this deliberation. What is relevant however, is the role they fulfill during peacetime, which is to set up joint meals between two or more sibling groups. This practice is critical for maintaining morale, as doing this regularly helps expand the troop’s palette and keep their Bigwings inspired. That way the troop’s collection of recipes stays fresh and innovative instead of turning stale and rigid.

Of course how much each troop values culinary exploits varies between individuals. Some Mudwing groups are outspokenly passionate about cooking and advancing their craft. They might view their work as an expression of art and get very upset or offended if you indicate that thinking about food is unimportant or a waste of time. Some extreme cases may even get angry at you if you waste ingredients or refuse to elevate a dish to its fullest potential by not seasoning it well or doing something else to ruin it. Other groups may be more relaxed and casual about food preparation, and a few might even not think about it much at all.

If a Mudwing invites you to dinner, it is paramount to figure out which of these groups they belong to beforehand, so you may get an understanding of how much of a threat this outing may pose to your health, especially if you are an Icewing or Seawing with a limited palate.

Is there any evidence for this in the books?

To my knowledge, there isn't much. Mostly because there isn't much about Mudwings and their culture in general. Across all the books, only one of them has a Mudwing protagonist, and the vast majority of it is spent in the Sky Kingdom, so his roots don't get a lot of exposure. Then whenever another Mudwing comes into the story, they tend to exit it very quickly after, without being able to share more.

I made this theory for myself largely in response to Mudwing culture being such a big question mark. I initially came up with it when I saw a Mudwing gardener in Escaping Peril and thought "That could be a cool direction for the tribe." The guidebook that released recently gave me some additional pointers with regards to a few of the looser points of this theory.

I'm hoping it is interesting, or at the very least entertaining in some way.

[nv-alexander]

About the election:

There was record voter turnout and record numbers of first time voters. This includes early voting.

It can take weeks to count all the ballots including mail-ins and absentees. There is no way the ballots were done being counted enough to call

AP called the race 8 hours after polls closed on the east coast. At the time the race was called, several states had only counted 40-85% of their ESTIMATED votes. AP says right under the election map that their results are based on demographic and statistical analysis of voting patterns in a district, not actual counts.

At the time the race was called, trump had only actually secured about 181 electoral votes. Kamala had secured 224. AP projected trump to win nearly 100 electoral votes he did not actually have at the time the race was called.

Thousands of ballots were thrown out for "signature verification" and over the past year, states have had court cases surrounding where polling places can be (my county shut refused to put in polling places for an entire town). Court cases surrounding legitimacy of absentee votes.

Polling places were shut down for hours at a time because of bomb threats or "technical issues" and the ones in PA opened back up after buses stopped running.

Several states refused federal oversight. Federal oversight of elections is standard practice. There was tampering with ballot boxes.

People have set fire to ballot drop boxes over the past few weeks.

AP called the election while results from many states--swing states specifically--were well within the margin of error, showing a less than 3% lead.

PA voters are currently getting emails saying their ballots were not counted.

Kamala would be the first democratic candidate this century to lose the popular vote. And by 6 million? High voter turnout generally goes in democrats favor. 3rd party votes were not enough to significantly split the vote.

Trump has said in no uncertain terms that he is a dictator and planned to take the election. He said it would be the last election the USA would have.

The Harris campaign rallies were absolutely packed. People were walking out of trumps rallies.

Tens of thousands of white men held phone banks for the harris campaign multiple times. Harris had strong social and political support. Fox News anchors even came to her defense multiple times.

There was confirmed Russian interference in the last 2 presidential elections.

Elon musk was buying votes.

Please, tell me how this whole thing is not suspicious as fuck.

Whitehouse.gov/contact/

Send an email to the president about election security, point out fishy shit, and demand an investigation

[butchvamp]

i do think that for me personally. there is no version of taash's storyline that i can get down with except one where they reconnect with their qunari side. my main problem with their arc is that it perpetuates this idea that someone has to "choose" one culture, that they have to turn their back on parts of their identity in order to be the right kind of trans (the white western kind) and all of it just makes me so viscerally uncomfortable. and to be clear this is not me like... trying to make anyone feel bad, there are parts of taash's story that i personally connect with as well, like there is nothing wrong with the way taash does gender in general and there's nothing wrong with it resonating with people. it's when we put it all together in context within the game that it becomes a problem for me.

we know the qun does not have the same ideas around gender as the rest of thedas, we know that their identity, including gender, is connected to their duty. and so it doesn't make sense that taash's mother cares about them wearing dresses. why would she care about that. i'd ask if we've ever even seen any qunari in dresses but i'm pretty sure we've only seen three qunari women total and two of them are in veilguard and are scholars wearing what i personally consider a robe. the third is in trespasser and is ben-hassrath, and is definitely not wearing a dress. if anything, their mother should be concerned about the fact that they fight, since the whole point of leaving for rivain was to avoid taash being designated as a soldier. and to be fair, we get this a Little bit with the fire-breathing. but everything else about shathann's disapproval doesn't make sense in-universe.

and we also already know about the aqun athlok, which shathann even tries to bring up but the game shouts her down because....? i get that shathann is meant to be overbearing and kinda shitty, but this is not the way to do it. all this does is imply that aqun athlok is "wrong" and not as progressive as this other identity that rook has to teach taash about (and that also isnt even specific to rivain, or related to them connecting to their rivaini culture. it's the shadow dragons that teach them all of this along with rook. in general transness and the nonbinary identity are not integrated into the world in any meaningful way which makes it feel even worse). there are various cultures that have their own specific gender identities that do not adhere to the gender binary, and taash should have been given the chance to connect to their own culture in this way. and even if they really wanted to make it so taash just didn’t feel right with aqun athlok, that identity still should have been properly discussed as an option and handled with respect, rather than so carelessly thrown aside as “wrong” (though again not a depiction i would personally like but it would still be better than what we got).

and just. i really disagree with the idea that gender identity under the qun is More Rigid than elsewhere. it’s different, as we know from comments from iron bull and sten-- and we could argue in circles about inconsistencies with the things they say, obviously there have been retcons previously in an attempt to better develop the qunari beyond what we see in origins and da2, but i think this kind of development is a good thing, and is exactly why the regression with taash irritates me so much-- but when we look back at characters like warden tabris, dorian and his father and tevinter's obsession with bloodlines, the entire experience of playing f!hawke in da2 (and also da2 literally has a whole subplot about women being murdered for like 3 years and no one cares. these games just have a misogyny problem lol) and even tarquin in veilguard commenting about how his father forced him into being a soldier because he's a man(!!)-- there is a lot of rigidity, expectations, and violence around gender throughout thedas. but for some reason these rigid gender ideals and a lot of this gendered violence is held up as the status quo and not challenged at all by the writers in the way the qun repeatedly is. the exception being dorian (though you're still incentivized to forgive his father), but a lot of the characters in tevinter-- magisters, templars, the literal black divine-- are still allowed complexities and to be the good guys working with the shadow dragons, a grace not given to any qunari character besides iron bull (who ultimately still has to leave the qun or die later). i’m not trying argue that the qun is perfect and can never be criticized-- i like the flawed characters and societies within dragon age. but the qunari also deserve to be given the same depth, complexities, and engagement as everyone else, too. and it’s worth pointing out that it’s always the qun that’s depicted as backwards for the same harmful “rigidity” every other culture in the game reinforces.

and ultimately with the way the game inserts this very modern, anachronistic, and condescending language in a poor attempt to be as "correct" as possible to "teach" the player, while simultaneously writing such a careless, racist arc about their culture kinda just , makes me feel like they were actually trying to imply that one identity is more correct and progressive than the other. or, if nothing else, it's a bias that got amplified due to their unwillingness or inability to engage with taash's character beyond using them as a mouthpiece for corporate "representation."

there absolutely are people out there that are like taash, who don't necessarily have or want a connection with certain parts of their culture, and maybe they do identify closer with one aspect of it over another. this is all fine! this happens in real life, everyone has different relationships with their identity and heritage, there is no universal experience, and people are allowed to write about their own. but the thing is. this is dragon age. and taash was written by weekes. and both dragon age as a whole and weekes specifically has a repeated pattern of racist writing when it comes to depicting the qunari. and taash's quest along with the way the antaam are portrayed-- faceless, voiceless, basically naked bodies for you to kill-- makes this a series of poor choices that i don't feel generous enough to excuse.

and it sucks. so bad. that this happened. i want to like taash so bad. but.... man.

anyways if you read this far you should read this article, which is far more eloquent than anything i could write and really dives into the whole "civilized versus savage" binary that we see in a lot of fantasy RPGs and is really epitomized in taash's quest-- in dragon age, it's always the qunari and dalish elves versus a (usually white and/or human) andrastian:

[chillinglikeashilling]

I'm only on episode 8 of Jentry Chau vs The Underworld but I've been thinking about the parallels and contrasts between Jentry, Michael and Kit.

This would be too long if I tried to do all three so this is just my thoughts on Jentry and Kit

Spoilers below for episodes 1-8

It's so interesting to me because at first the show seems to tell us that Jentry and Kit parallel each other - both have been keeping a secret for most of their lives, both of them hurt people/caused damage because of their 'nature' (Jentry's powers are not 'naturally' hers but she's had them so long it doesn't really matter), both of them just want to be understood as more than a demon.

But as soon as we learn that Kit is a face painting demon those parallels start to break down.

Kit has intentionally killed people before, people who he lied to. He's been lying to Jentry from the moment they met purely for his own benefit and, importantly, to Jentry's detriment. He showed up under a guise that would allow him to get close to Jentry, with the explicit plan of falsely earning her trust and killing her.

Part of the reason Jentry liked Kit to begin with is that he didn't have all these preconceptions about 'the demon girl'. It's a similar reason she's able to get close to Stella quickly.

Kit was just a completely normal boy who was new in town, and who just happened to like all the same stuff she does. He had no connection to the fire, so she didn't feel like she was always actively lying to him. She felt normal around him.

Except then she finds out that he does know, in fact he's known about her powers since before she met him. Everything he has initially presented to her about himself is a lie, one intentionally created to appeal to her.

I think this is part of the reason, apart from the obvious, that Jentry is so uncomfortable when he's making the Jentry skin. She becomes intimately aware of how much work went into the artifice of 'human Kit'.

I also think this is why despite his generally good intentions, Kit is misguided in his attempts to court Jentry.

Kit wants to go back to the place where they were both open to a romantic relationship but Jentry can't get back to that place because it wasn't real for her.

He's not a normal boy, he probably doesn't like as many of the same things as she thought he did (if he likes any of it), and also he's a hundred year old demon who's killed hundreds of people.

I don't think Kit is lying when he says that his feelings for Jentry were real, but of course they were. He had the benefit of knowing the truth the entire time, he can trust what Jentry has presented to him because it lines up with what he knows. Jentry does not have any of that reassurance when it comes to him.

Everything Jentry learns about him now is like getting to know an entirely new person. Of course she doesn't like him the same way as before.

It is a tragedy for Kit. Having to lie to get close to people is heartbreaking not least because those people cannot actually like or be close to the real you, that version of you is a stranger to them. A stranger who has been lying to their face.

It's not his fault he's a skin painter, but the truth of the matter is by that sheer fact he was never what Jentry was looking for in the first place.

[moosesarecute]

December 1st

December masterlist

General masterlist

Feyre and Rhysand had a calm evening at the River House.

The fire was lit, and they were snuggled together on the couch. Nyx had already fallen asleep, and the couple took the opportunity to have some alone time.

“I have a painting from their mating ceremony to Nesta and Cassian, a new cookbook to Elain and a perfume to Mor,” Feyre listed up Winter Solstice gifts she had planned for her family. However, she was missing one. “But I don’t know what to get Az.”

Feyre looked up at her mate and saw how he was deep in thoughts. She lifted her hand and carefully cupped his face. He leaned into her hand. His eyes met hers and she felt his strong emotions. He was filled with both gratitude and love, but also grief.

“You know Az won’t celebrate Winter Solstice with us,” Rhys told his mate.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get him a present.”

“Yes, it does,” Rhys started. “Az hates Winter Solstice. I’m afraid giving him a gift will only bring back bad memories.”

Feyre sat up on the couch and watch her mate with a careful gaze.

“What happened?” she asked.

She saw how the grief covered Rhys’ face, and she felt how powerful the feeling was. She almost started crying just from that alone. She reached over, held Rhys’ hand and gave it a small squeeze.

Rhysand answered with taking a deep breath and started to explain.

“Y/N was the daughter of my mother’s best friend. She was about two years older than me, but we became friends quickly. She grew up at Windhaven too, but we didn’t see each other often. She was my mother’s apprentice, and therefore also a seamstress. We started to become better and better friends and then Cassian came along, and she became good friends with him too. She ended up moving in with us when she was nineteen, after her mother passed away.

“Y/N was like an older sister. She took care of our injuries after training and did her best to help us with our hangovers, unless her hangover was worse than ours. She was the steady stone that helped all of us through everything. When we lost my mother, or when any of us was scared for whatever reason, she was there. She had the best hugs and made the best stew. Neither Cass or I had ever had a big sister before and neither one of us have ever loved someone that dearly.”

Rhys’ eyes were glistening with tears, but he forced himself to hold it together.

“What about Az? Wasn’t she an older sister to Azriel?” Feyre couldn’t hold back her questions. She had heard a little about Y/N, but never this many details.

“No, she was definitely not a sister to Azriel,” Rhys said with a loving laugh. “They were mates.”

Feyre felt her eyes grow wide. How had nobody told her that Azriel had a mate? However, she soon realized that something must have gone very wrong for her not to know about this before now.

“They spent centuries crushing on each other, but neither one of them dared to admit it. Y/N was in multiple different relationships and Azriel crushed on Mor, but both eventually realized that they were suppressing their real feelings. Their mating bond snapped only weeks before I got stuck Under the Mountain. They were going to have their mating ceremony only days after Amarantha’s party.”

Dread filled Feyre. Amarantha had destroyed so much for so many years and for so many people. She couldn’t imagine spending fifty years under her reign. Feyre had, after all, not even survived three months.

“They decided to be stupid and waited for me to get back before they accepted the bond. They waited for fifty years, just so that the entire family would be there.”

Rhys swallowed in dread and his voice was shaking as he spoke.

“They had their mating ceremony only two days after I returned and then spent a week in their shared apartment. After they returned, I needed Y/N to go on a mission. She needed to use her charm to get some people on our side again after Amarantha. Azriel initially refused to let her go, but eventually Y/N convinced him that it would be okay if they went together. However, they never got to where they were going. They were ambushed and when Azriel woke again after, Y/N was gone. Nobody knows what happened.”

Both Feyre and Rhys had to dry tears at the end.

Feyre hated to be away from Rhys, sometimes even seconds apart was too much. She couldn’t imagine not knowing if he was okay, or if he was alive. Even the thought made her nauseous.

“Y/N loved Winter Solstice. She would decorate the entire Town House and there was always cookies or hot chocolate in the kitchen. Without her, Azriel haven’t been able to enjoy the holiday. Azriel haven’t been the same.”

Dividers by @issysh3ll

[mariacallous]

“Did they really decapitate babies?” my 14-year-old daughter asked me yesterday. She was pointing to a text message on her phone from a friend. “They’re saying they found Jewish babies killed, some burnt, some decapitated.” And I froze. Not because I didn’t know what to say—though in truth I didn’t know what to say—but because for a moment I forgot what century I was in. All of the assumptions I had made as a Jewish father, even one who had grown up, as I did, with the Holocaust just a few decades past, were suddenly no longer relevant. Had I adequately prepared her for the reality of Jewish death, what every shtetl child for centuries would have known intimately? Later in the day, she asked if, for safety’s sake, she should take off the necklace she loves that her grandparents had given her and that has her name written out in Hebrew script.

The attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians last Saturday broke something in me. I had always resisted victimhood. It felt abhorrent, self-pitying to me in a world that seemed far away from the Inquisition and Babi Yar—especially in the United States, where I live and where polls repeatedly tell me that Jews are more beloved than any other religious group. I wasn’t blind to anti-Semitism and the ways it had recently become deadlier, or to the existential dread that my family in Israel felt every time terrorists blew up a bus or café—it’s a story whose sorrows have punctuated my entire life. But I refused to embrace that ironically comforting mantra, “They will always want to kill us.” I hated what this tacitly expressed, that if they always want to kill us, then we owe them, the world, nothing. I deplore the occupation for both the misery it has inflicted on generations of Palestinians and the way it corrodes Israeli society; when settlers in the West Bank have been attacked, it has pained me, but I have also felt anger that they are even there. In short, I wasn’t locked into the worldview of my survivor grandparents and I felt superior for it.

But something in me did break. As I was driving on Tuesday, I heard a long interview on the BBC with Shir Golan, a 22-year-old woman who had survived the attack at the music festival where more than 250 people were killed, her voice sounding just like one of my young Israeli cousins. She described, barely able to catch her breath, how the shooting had started and how she’d begun to run. She’d found a wooded area and tried to hide. “I got really into the ground,” she said. “I put the bushes on me.” Covered with dirt and leaves, she’d waited. A group of terrorists had shown up and called for anyone hiding to come out. From her spot under the earth, she’d seen three young people, whom she called “children,” emerge. “I didn’t go out because I was scared. But there were three children next to me who got out. And then they shot them. One after one after one. And they fell down, and that I saw. I saw the children fall down. And all that I did was pray. I prayed to my god to save me.”

I pulled my car over because my own hands were shaking as I listened. She then described waiting, hidden in the dirt under bushes for hours, until she saw the terrorists begin to light the forest on fire. “I didn’t know what to do. Because if I’m staying there, I’m just burnt to death. But if I go out they are going to kill me.” She crawled over to where she saw dead bodies and lay on top of them, but the heat soon approached, so she found more bushes to hide in until she could run again. Burnt bodies were everywhere, and Shir looked for her friends but couldn’t find them, couldn’t even see the faces of those killed because they were so badly burned. “I felt like I was in hell.” She finally escaped in a car.

Her story flung me back to my grandparents’ stories. My grandmother hid in a hole for a year in the Polish countryside, also under dirt, also scared. My grandfather spent months in Majdanek, a death camp, and saw bodies pile up in exactly this way. Stories are still emerging of families burnt alive, of children forced to watch their parents killed before their eyes, of bodies desecrated. How was this taking place last Saturday?

But these stories aren’t what broke me. What did was the distance between what was happening in my head and what was happening outside of it. The people on “my side” are supposed to care about human suffering, whether it’s in the detention camps of Xinjiang or in Darfur. They are supposed to recognize the common humanity of people in need, that a child in distress is first a child in distress regardless of country or background. But I quickly saw that many of those on the left who I thought shared these values with me could see what had happened only through established categories of colonized and colonizer, evil Israeli and righteous Palestinian—templates made of concrete. The break was caused by this enormous disconnect. I was in a world of Jewish suffering that they couldn’t see because Jewish suffering simply didn’t fit anywhere for them.

The callousness was expressed in so many ways. There were those tweets that did not hide their disregard for Jewish life—“what did y’all think decolonization meant? vibes? papers? essays? Losers”—or the one that described the rampage as a “glorious thing to wake up to.” There was the statement by more than two dozen Harvard student groups asserting, in those first hours in which we saw children and women and old people massacred, that “the Israeli regime” was “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” And then there were the less explicit posts that nevertheless made clear through pseudo-intellectual word salads that Israel got what it deserved: “a near-century’s pulverized overtures toward ethnic realization, of groping for a medium of existential latitude—these things culminate in drastic actions in need of no apologia.” I hate to extrapolate from social media—it is a place that twists every utterance into a performance for others. But I also felt this callousness in the real world, in a Times Square celebratory protest promoted by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, at which one speaker talked of supporting Palestinians using “any means necessary” to retake the land “from the river to the sea,” as a number of placards declared. There were silences as well. Institutions that had rushed to condemn the murder of George Floyd or Russia for attacking Ukraine were apparently confounded. I watched my phone to see whether friends would write to find out if my family was okay—and a few did, with genuine and thoughtful concern, but many did not.

I’m still trying to understand this feeling of abandonment. Is my own naivete to blame? Did I tip too far over into the side of universalism and forget the particularistic concerns to which I should have been attuned—the precarious state of my own tribe? Even as I write this, I don’t really want to believe that that’s true. If I can fault myself clearly for something, though, it’s not recognizing that the same ideological hardening I’d seen on the right in the past few years, the blind allegiances and contorted narratives even when reality was staring people in the face, has also happened, to a greater degree than I’d imagined, on the left, among the people whom I think of as my own. They couldn’t recognize a moral abomination when it was staring them in the face. They were so set in their categories that they couldn’t make a distinction between the Palestinian people and a genocidal cult that claimed to speak in that people’s name. And they couldn’t acknowledge hundreds and hundreds of senseless deaths because the people who were killed were Israelis and therefore the enemy.

As the days go on, the horrific details of what happened—those babies—seem to be registering more fully, if not on the ideological left, then at least among sensible liberals. But somehow I can’t shake the feeling of aloneness. Does it take murdered babies for you to recognize our humanity? I find myself thinking—a thought that feels alien to my own mind but also like the truth. Perhaps this is the Jewish condition, bracketed off for many decades and finally pulling me in.

When news broke of the Kishinev pogrom in 1903 that took 49 lives (compare that with the 1,200 we now know were killed on Saturday), it caused a sensation throughout the world. “Babes were literally torn to pieces by the frenzied and bloodthirsty mob,” The New York Times reported. “The local police made no attempt to check the reign of terror. At sunset the streets were piled with corpses and wounded. Those who could make their escape fled in terror, and the city is now practically deserted of Jews.” In response to that massacre, the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews to the United States began in earnest; the call of Zionism as a solution also sounded clearly and widely for the first time.

In his famous poem about the massacre, “In the City of Slaughter,” the Hebrew writer Haim Naḥman Bialik lamented, even more than the death, the sense of helplessness (“The open mouths of such wounds, that no mending / Shall ever mend, nor healing ever heal”), the men who watched in terror from their hiding places while women were raped and blood was spilled. I can’t say I know what will happen now that this helplessness has returned—if I’m honest, I also fear that Israel’s retaliation will go too far, that acting out of a place of victimhood, as right as it may feel, will cause the country to lose its mind. Innocent lives in Gaza have been and will be destroyed as a result, and competing victimhood is obviously not the way out of the conflict; it’s the reason that it is hopelessly stuck. But in this moment, before the destruction of Gaza grabs my attention and concern alongside fear for my relatives who have been called up to the army, I don’t want to forget how alone I felt as a Jew these past few days. I have a persistent, uncomfortable need now to have my people’s suffering be felt and seen. Otherwise, history is just an endless repetition. And that’s an additional tragedy that seems too much to bear.

[jadeazora]

Which Pokemon Villains are homophobic:

Giovanni: Would founding 🌈Rainbow Rocket🌈 count as rainbow capitalism? (It sounds like the name of a company that manufactures dildos, tbh.) I don't think he's supportive, but it doesn't bother him either. All he cares about is if you do your job well. He has men and women in his organization both thirsting for him. Have you met Archer? (His only true loves are money and power; Silver feels more like a precautionary heir.)

Archie/Maxie: are divorced. Also this was an image the official Japanese Pokemon Twitter fucking dropped with the caption "they're getting along well!" Definitely not homophobic:

Cyrus: dgaf. His whole thing is purging the world of emotion, so love's got to go too. (Pretty much everybody is under fire here.) He probably doesn't give a shit what you do in the meantime tho.

Ghetsis: 100%, no fucking doubt in my mind, regularly calls people slurs. His list of slurs is also *VERY* comprehensive.

N: Who do you think Ghetsis's favorite target is? I feel like he's completely chill with it, tho is personally entirely incapable of discerning the difference between romantic love and the love between friends.

Colress: If it isn't his "how to draw out a Pokémon's true strength" research, he doesn't care. You do you. 👍

Lysandre: His whole thing is beauty, and beauty isn't limited to gender or sexuality, and love is a beautiful thing, so why limit himself? Bro's pan.

Guzma: He takes outcast kids off the streets and gives them a home. No way he's homophobic! You got disowned? You're a fellow outcast in his eyes, and your home is with Skull now! (He's dating Plumeria, but is bi to me.)

Lusamine: initially, probably not since she's super controlling and not really a supportive mother to begin with, but since she does end her story wanting to do better for her kids, I feel like she would come around eventually and try to be better.

Piers: Nah, he's with Raihan and his little sis "fancies" Gloria. Next.

Rose: I feel like he would probably engage in some rainbow capitalism here and there, but he's generally friendlier than the other CEO-type villains personality-wise and there's several members of the Galar League who feel bi/gay (Nessa, Piers, Raihan), he wouldn't really be homophobic.

Volo: I don't think he cares that much, but if he can use homophobia to manipulate somebody, he totally would call them a slur. It really just depends what tool he has in his arsenal he feels would be the most effective way of manipulating you.

Penny: she literally calls your mom so pretty her brain glitched. I feel like she could get mad enough to doxx you if you tried to bully gay/trans kids in her presence.

Sada/Turo + the AI: As scientists, they're too wrapped up in their work to care (hell, they barely paid their own son any mind) and the AI knows being gay is something found naturally across species, so homophobia doesn't make much sense to them. Sada also strikes me as bi, and Turo strikes me as ace (with him, I think it's the outfit).

[robertreich]

How Trump is Following Hitler's Playbook

You’ve heard Trump’s promise:

TRUMP: I’m going to be a dictator for one day.

History shows there are no “one-day” dictatorships. When democracies fall, they typically fall completely.

In a previous video, I laid out the defining traits of fascism and how MAGA Republicans embody them. But how could Trump — or someone like him — actually turn America into a fascist state? Here’s how in five steps.

Step 1: Use threats of violence to gain power

Hitler and Mussolini relied on their vigilante militias to intimidate voters and local officials. We watched Trump try to do the same in 2020.

TRUMP: Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.

Republican election officials testified to the threats they faced when they refused Trump’s demands to falsify the election results.

RAFFENSPERGER: My email, my cell phone was doxxed.

RUSTY BOWERS: They have had video panel trucks with videos of me proclaiming me to be a pedophile.

GABRIEL STERLING: A 20-something tech in Gwinnett County today has death threats and a noose put out saying he should be hung for treason.

If the next election is close, threats to voters and election officials could be enough to sabotage it.

Step 2: Consolidate power

After taking office, a would-be fascist must turn every arm of government into a tool of the party. One of Hitler’s first steps was to take over the civil service, purging it of non-Nazis.

In October of 2020, Trump issued his own executive order that would have enabled him to fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists. He never got to act on it, but he’s now promising to apply it to the entire civil service.

That’s become the centerpiece of something called Project 2025, a presidential agenda assembled by MAGA Republicans, that would, as the AP put it, “dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision.”

Step 3: Establish a police state

Hitler used the imaginary threat of “the poison of foreign races” to justify taking control of the military and police, placing both under his top general, and granting law-enforcement powers to his civilian militias.

Now Trump is using the same language to claim he needs similar powers to deal with immigrants.

Trump plans to deploy troops within the U.S. to conduct immigration raids and round up what he estimates to be 18 million people who would be placed in mass-detention camps while their fate is decided.

And even though crime is actually down across the nation, Trump is citing an imaginary crime wave to justify sending troops into blue cities and states against the will of governors and mayors.

Trump insiders say he plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to have the military crush civilian protests. We saw a glimpse of that in 2020, when Trump deployed the National Guard against peaceful protesters outside the White House.

And with promises to pardon January 6 criminals and stop prosecutions of right-wing domestic terrorists, Trump would empower groups like the Proud Boys to act as MAGA enforcers.

Step 4: Jail the opposition

In classic dictatorial fashion, Trump is now openly threatening to prosecute his opponents.

TRUMP: if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business.

And he’s looking to remake the Justice Department into a tool for his personal vendettas.

TRUMP: As we completely overhaul the federal Department of Justice and FBI, we will also launch sweeping civil rights investigations into Marxist local district attorneys.

In the model of Hitler and Mussolini, Trump describes his opponents as subhuman.

TRUMP: …the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country…

Step 5: Undermine the free press

As Hitler well understood, a fascist needs to control the flow of information. Trump has been attacking the press for years.

And he’s threatening to punish news outlets whose coverage he dislikes.

He has helped to reduce trust in the media to such a historic low that his supporters now view him as their most trusted source of information.

Within a democracy, we may often have leaders we don’t like. But we have the power to change them — at the ballot box and through public pressure. Once fascism takes hold, those freedoms are gone and can’t easily be won back.

We must recognize the threat of fascism when it appears, and do everything in our power to stop it.

[hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall]

For Rome - Chapter 2

Summary: When those three days pass, he's back to see you and talk about things most important to him.

Pairing: General Marcus Acasius x F!Reader

Warnings: a description of injuries (I'm not a doctor or do not have any medical education so apologies), angst, some fluff if you squint, a not-defined age-gap. English isn't my first language so apologies for all mistakes.

Words: 4 300

N/A: The story is not really canon, but I still hope you guys will enjoy it ;)

Marcus Acasius never imagined a woman could take up so much space in his thoughts. It was absurd, really. He was a Roman General, a man forged in the fires of war, and yet he felt like a boy—a foolish, inexperienced boy—mesmerized by something he couldn’t shake from his mind.

As he sat in the quiet of his chambers, the world outside his door dimmed by night, his thoughts betrayed him once more. He couldn’t stop thinking about you. The memory of your gentle touch on his scars lingered like a phantom, your soft voice echoing in his mind, and those eyes—those beautiful eyes so full of care—they almost broke him. You made him feel strong, and yet so painfully vulnerable all at once.

Every night, as per your orders, he applied the oil you had given him. The act itself was mundane, yet it felt anything but. The subtle, calming scent reminded him of the peace he had found in your presence. Whether it was the oil itself or the thought of you that brought him relief, he couldn’t be certain. What he did know was that the angry red scars were beginning to fade, the pain that had once been constant now a dull memory. You were skilled, undoubtedly so, and he clung to that explanation for why you haunted his thoughts.

Yes, it was your talent. It had to be.

It couldn’t possibly be you.

He had traveled far and wide, seen beauty in every corner of the empire. He had shared nights with women whose allure could make poets weep. You were lovely, of course—adorable, even if he were forced to describe you. But he was no stranger to beautiful women. Unlike the younger men under his command, he had long since lost the naïve infatuation with a pretty face. He had experienced it all before, knew it well, and yet here he was.

And so, when he summoned one of his men to gather information about you, he told himself it was out of curiosity for your skills, nothing more.

The report was straightforward enough. You were from a lower-class family, though your roots hinted at something more complex. Your father had once been part of an aristocratic lineage, but when he married your mother—a woman of modest means—he was disowned. Together, they built a humble life, known for their generosity and compassion.

The tragedy of their deaths, claimed by illness, had left you alone. But it also explained much about you. Your father’s education had clearly been passed down, and your mother’s kindness was etched into every fiber of your being. It all made sense now—the deft way your hands worked, the calming air you carried, the unwavering patience and joy with which you helped those in need.

He found himself smiling at the thought of you. Even your stubborn refusal to address him with the formality his title demanded brought a strange warmth to his chest. It was improper, yes, but it was honest. It reminded him of how deeply you valued people—not their titles or their rank, just their humanity.

So when the third day finally arrived, Marcus Acasius was more than ready to see you again. He had spent the past two days drowning in reports, orders, and the endless bureaucracy of war, but the thought of you lingered like a quiet undercurrent. Of course, he told himself, this visit was purely about your skills. Your talent for healing was unparalleled, and any admiration he held for you stemmed entirely from professional respect. Or so he insisted.

---

You were exhausted. More so than usual, which was saying something.

Helping people was your calling—it gave you purpose and joy—but the demands were relentless, and lately, sleep had become a luxury you could scarcely afford. Last night, a frantic knock at your door woke you at three in the morning. A small family needed your help; their young son was sick and vomiting, and his parents were in a state of panic.

You had gone to them immediately, carrying your bag of remedies through the cold, quiet streets. After examining the boy, you reassured the worried parents that it was likely something he’d eaten. You gave him a dose of your homemade stomach drops and stayed long enough to see his color return before heading back.

But the day didn’t stop there. As soon as the sun rose, more patients arrived, each with their own ailments and needs. It was nearly nightfall when you finally sat down, the ache in your feet a dull reminder of the hours you’d spent moving from one task to the next.

Your eyes fell on the small bag of coins sitting on your table. The one the general had given you three days ago. It remained untouched, unopened—a symbol of your stubbornness. You had told yourself you didn’t need it, that you could manage without it.

And yet, as your gaze lingered on it, a small pang of disappointment stirred within you.

He hadn’t come back.

You frowned, pressing your lips together as if to stop yourself from admitting the truth. But it was no use. You wanted to see him again.

Who were you kidding? You liked him.

Marcus Acasius was a mystery to you—a man shaped by war and hardship, yet possessing a depth of kindness you hadn’t expected. The way he spoke of his men, the gratitude in his voice when he thanked you, it was like listening to a father speaking of his children. It had been endearing, yes, but it had also made your silly crush on him all the harder to ignore.

Couldn’t he have been just handsome?

But no, he had to be charming too.

And handsome he was. The image of him lingered in your mind—his broad shoulders and strong, weathered hands, his sharp jawline and the lines etched around his eyes from years of experience. His dark brown hair, streaked with just the faintest hints of silver, framed a face that seemed carved by the gods themselves. His piercing gaze, often shadowed with the weight of command, had softened when he looked at you, and the contrast was enough to make your heart race.

He reminded you of a hero from an epic tale, though he carried himself with far more humility. The ruggedness of his features, paired with the quiet strength in his voice, made him nearly impossible to ignore.

And those moments when he smiled? They felt rare, like a secret treasure, and you found yourself wanting to be the cause of it again.

He was older than you, of course, that much was clear. But the years had been kind to him, sculpting his physique and demeanor into something almost otherworldly. He had the physique of a seasoned warrior—broad and powerful, but lean, every muscle honed for purpose rather than vanity. The way his tunic clung to him when he moved was enough to make your cheeks flush just thinking about it.

So, was it foolish to hope he might return? Maybe. But hope was a stubborn thing, and tonight, it clung to you as tenaciously as the exhaustion in your limbs.

And as you sat there, staring at the unopened bag of coins and willing yourself to move, a part of you couldn’t help but glance toward the door.

Almost as if you had summoned him, the soft creak of the door and a quiet knock broke the silence. You stood quickly, brushing your hands on your apron as you approached the door, but the sight on the other side made you freeze.

It was him. The man who had occupied far too many of your thoughts these past days.

“Apologies, my lady. I am late,” Marcus Acasius said, his voice carrying that deep timbre that you hadn’t realized you’d missed. A faint, self-deprecating smile tugged at his lips. “But it seems that just because I’m off the battlefield doesn’t mean I’m free of its demands.”

The joke was awkward, and yet it disarmed you completely. The tiredness that had weighed on you moments ago seemed to lift as if by magic. You smiled, stepping aside to let him in, your voice softer than you intended. “Don’t apologize, General. I’m just glad you listened to me and came.”

I’m glad you came. The words lingered on the tip of your tongue, but you bit them back, forcing yourself to remain composed.

“And I told you not to call me a lady,” you added playfully as you waved him toward the chair by the hearth.

He chuckled, a sound that warmed the room as much as the firelight. You lit the remaining candles, bathing the space in a soft glow, and poured him a cup of wine. His gaze drifted as he accepted it, landing on the small bag of coins sitting on your table.

“I see I’m as stubborn as you are, my lady,” he said with a raised brow, emphasizing the title with deliberate mischief.

You followed his gaze and sighed, rolling your eyes as you poured yourself a cup of water.

“It’s hard for me to believe you don’t need the funds,” he added, his tone light but firm.

“I don’t take money from my patients,” you replied, your voice tinged with the stubbornness he was quickly coming to recognize. “They come here because they know I don’t expect anything from them.”

He leaned forward slightly, the light catching the curve of his jaw as he spoke. “It wasn’t meant as payment. It was a gesture of thanks.”

His words were gentle, but the glint of amusement in his eyes didn’t escape you. He seemed almost entertained by the pout that had formed on your lips, and for a moment, you thought he might laugh.

Instead, he set his cup aside and began to remove his tunic. You turned instinctively, pretending to busy yourself with your tools, but the sight of his bare chest caught you off guard when you glanced back. Heat rushed to your cheeks, and you cursed the warmth that betrayed you.

Marcus raised a brow, catching the faint flush in your face. Adorable, he thought to himself. Absolutely adorable.

You apologized softly for your cold hands as your fingertips brushed against his skin, working methodically to check his healing wounds. You peeled back the bandages carefully, your touch light yet deliberate. Each scar you examined showed clear signs of improvement, and the satisfaction that lit up your face was undeniable.

“I’d like to take the bandages off completely, if that’s alright,” you said, glancing up at him.

His deep voice rumbled with a simple, “Alright,” and you thanked him with a smile so sweet it nearly undid him.

As you revealed more of his healing skin, your excitement grew. The bruises that had once been dark and angry were now fading to muted shades. You pressed lightly against the edges of one to test for tenderness, and though he winced slightly, he barely flinched.

“Forgive me,” you murmured, pulling your hand back quickly. “I needed to see if it was healing properly.”

When you looked up at him again, your expression was so full of joy that it made his chest tighten.

“It means you’ve been following my instructions,” you said with a pleased smile.

“More like orders,” he teased, unable to resist.

You shot him a look, but the playful glint in your eye made him chuckle.

“That oil you made is fascinating,” he admitted, his tone softening. “For the first time in years, I didn’t feel like retching while using medicine.”

You laughed quietly, shaking your head. “The nose is a powerful instrument. Humans are naturally drawn to things that are pleasing, even when it comes to healing.”

He nodded thoughtfully, though he wasn’t sure if it was the oil or you that had been so alluring. No, he told himself firmly. It was the oil. You were just... a curiosity.

Handing him a small bottle, you said, “Three more nights of this, and you should be fine. After that, keep the area dressed for another week to ensure complete healing. And please,” you added, your tone soft but serious, “make sure you rest. Rest is as powerful as any medicine I could make.”

You placed your hand lightly on his freshly dressed ribs, your fingers lingering just a moment too long. When you realized it, you pulled back quickly, your heart racing as if you’d been caught doing something improper.

Marcus noticed, of course. But instead of teasing you, he simply smiled—a quiet, knowing smile that made your stomach flutter.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice low and genuine. “For everything.”

You nodded, your cheeks warm as you turned away, focusing on tidying your supplies. But as you moved, you felt his gaze on you, steady and unwavering.

“Actually…”

The sound of your name on his lips made you freeze. It wasn’t his usual voice—the commanding tone of a general accustomed to giving orders. No, this was different. It was hesitant, almost fragile, like he was about to confess something he wasn’t sure you wanted to hear.

“I came to ask you something. A favor.”

Your heart skipped, the uncharacteristic vulnerability in his voice sending a ripple of unease through you. You forced a smile, trying to ease the tension that seemed to thicken the air between you. “What is it, General?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, his gaze fell to the floor, his hands flexing and releasing as if grappling with the weight of his own words. You stayed quiet, waiting, though every second of his silence felt heavier than the last.

“This will likely be my last campaign for a long time,” he said finally, his voice quiet and measured. “The emperor is preparing to marry, and with any luck, he’ll have his hands too full with his new bride to concern himself with war.”

The faint bitterness in his tone made you smile despite yourself. It was rare to hear him speak so plainly about the emperor, and it felt oddly comforting to know he shared your unspoken frustrations.

“It’s a critical mission,” he continued, his gaze meeting yours for a fleeting moment before flickering away again. “Not for Rome, but for my men. Their morale is fragile, and I want as many of them to come back as possible. They deserve that much.”

There was a heaviness in his voice that made your chest tighten. You nodded softly, silently urging him to go on.

“What is it you need from me, General?” you asked gently when the silence stretched too long.

He stepped closer, his presence suddenly filling the room in a way that made it hard to breathe. Your heart stuttered as he moved within arm’s reach, his broad frame towering yet not imposing. It wasn’t his size or rank that overwhelmed you—it was the way he looked at you, as though searching for an answer he wasn’t sure you could give.

“Of course you’d want to help,” he murmured, his voice carrying a warmth that sent a shiver through you. “You really are an angel, aren’t you?”

The words caught you off guard. Your lips parted to respond, but no sound came. Before you could compose yourself, he reached out, his fingers brushing against your cheek as he tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

It was such a small gesture, but the tenderness in it left you frozen. You could feel the warmth of his hand lingering on your skin long after he pulled away.

“I want you to come with me,” he said simply.

His words felt like a punch to the chest, knocking the air out of your lungs. You blinked, staring at him in disbelief. “I’m… I’m not sure I heard you correctly, my Lord.”

“You heard me,” he replied, his tone steady but lined with something raw. “You’re the most talented healer I’ve ever met. You don’t just treat wounds; you give people hope. You make them feel seen, cared for—like they matter. That’s something I’ve never seen in the ranks of the Roman army.”

His words struck a chord deep within you, and for a moment, you felt like a child again—small and unsure, standing in the shadow of something far bigger than yourself.

“The medics I take with me,” he continued, his voice quieter now, “they’re soldiers first. They’re efficient, but they’ve seen too much, and it shows. My men—they trust you. They look to you for more than just healing. I want them to have that on the battlefield, too.”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair, leaving it disheveled. “I’m tired,” he admitted, his voice breaking slightly. “So damn tired of burying boys who never got the chance to live. Of hearing mothers wail when they learn their sons won’t come home. Of hearing wives weep for the husbands they’ve lost.”

His shoulders slumped slightly, the weight of his words seeming to bear down on him. He turned away, walking to the window, his hand resting on the frame as he stared into the darkness outside.

“I’m asking for a lot,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “But I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t believe you were the only one who could give them what they need.”

His words hung heavy in the air, wrapping around you like a storm cloud.

“I’m not who you think I am,” you whispered, your voice trembling. “I’m just a girl from a low-born family. I mix oils and make stomach drops. I wrap bandages. I’m not…”

“You’re more than that,” he interrupted, his voice rising with conviction. “You’ve done more for them than anyone else has. You’ve given them hope, kindness, a reason to believe in something. Including me.”

Your breath caught at his last words. He turned back to you, his eyes searching yours, and the intensity of his gaze made your chest ache.

Tears welled in your eyes despite your best efforts to hold them back. The vulnerability in his face, the rawness in his voice—it was too much.

“My lady…” He stepped closer, his tone soft, almost pleading.

“I’m no one,” you whispered, shaking your head. “I help them because they come to me already half-healed. I don’t do anything special…”

“You do more than you know,” he said, his voice steady but filled with emotion. “And I don’t expect miracles. I just want my men to feel cared for. To know there’s someone who sees them as more than soldiers.”

He paused, his gaze dropping to the floor. “I want them to feel like they have something to come back to. And I don’t want to wait until they return to Rome to give them that.”

The room was silent, save for the faint crackle of the fire. You stared at him, his words sinking into your chest like stones, heavy and unrelenting.

“I have people here who depend on me,” you murmured, the words faltering as they left your lips. Your eyes darted anywhere but to his face. How could you look at him, knowing the weight of what he was asking? It felt impossibly heavy, pressing down on you, suffocating you.

“What you ask of me, my Lord, it’s too much…” you trailed off, your voice barely audible. The truth was clawing at your chest, but you didn’t know how to give it words.

You stood abruptly, needing movement, needing something to ground yourself. The room suddenly felt too small, the air too thin. Your fingers moved to the jars on your desk, rearranging them out of habit, though they didn’t need fixing. Your thoughts were a whirlwind, crashing into one another with relentless force, refusing to settle.

“I’m more than honored,” you said, though the words felt hollow. They weren’t untrue, but they weren’t enough to explain the tempest inside you.

You paused, your hands gripping the edge of the desk as if it could keep you steady. “Gods, this is why I hate Rome!” The words burst from you, sharp and unguarded, as though ripped from the deepest part of your soul.

The moment they escaped, regret surged through you like a tidal wave. You froze, your breath catching, your chest tightening with panic.

Behind you, you felt his attention shift, his presence suddenly sharper, heavier.

“Do you really hate Rome?” His voice was calm, but the question cut through you, leaving you bare.

You turned slowly, your heart hammering in your chest. Did I say that out loud?

His gaze met yours, unwavering. It wasn’t cold or accusing; it was something worse. Understanding. He saw you, and in that moment, it felt as though he could see everything—your doubts, your fears, your anger, and the tiny flicker of hope you’d long tried to smother.

“I…” you stammered, your throat dry, “Forgive me, General, I have misspoken.” Your words rushed out, desperate to cover the mistake you couldn’t take back.

“You haven’t,” he said softly.

The gentleness in his tone startled you, and when he stepped closer, you instinctively stepped back, your hands gripping the desk tighter.

“Perhaps,” he continued, “it’s not Rome you hate. Perhaps it’s the Rome we have now—the one ruled by men who care nothing for its people.”

Your breath hitched. His words were dangerous. More dangerous than anything you’d dared to think aloud. And yet, they resonated so deeply within you that you couldn’t push them away.

“Tell me,” he said, his voice a quiet plea. “Tell me about the Rome you dream of.”

You hesitated, your mind racing. How could you speak of the thoughts you’d buried so deep, even you were afraid to confront them?

When his hand cupped your cheek, the warmth of his touch startled you, grounding you. His thumb brushed lightly across your skin, and for the briefest moment, the noise in your mind stilled.

“My parents dreamed of a Rome that belonged to its people,” you began, your voice trembling. “They dreamed of a place where corruption didn’t rule, where the public had the power to choose their future.”

You paused, the weight of those memories pressing against your chest. You could see your parents so clearly, their faces illuminated by the flicker of the candle light as they whispered of a better world.

“But I don’t think their dream was enough,” you admitted, your voice quieter now. “It was… too far away, too focused on what could be. The Rome I dream of needs to start here, now.”

His brow furrowed slightly, but he didn’t interrupt. He watched you, his expression open, patient.

“It needs to start with the wars,” you said, your voice growing stronger. “Ending them. No more death, no more pain, no more conquering. We have to stop trying to claim the world when we can’t even take care of the people we already have.”

The words poured out of you now, a torrent you couldn’t hold back.

“There are people starving, suffering, dying right here in Rome. How can we talk about a better future when we’re losing the present?”

Your chest heaved as you finished, your heart pounding against your ribs. For the first time in your life, you had spoken the truth of your dreams aloud, and it felt like tearing open a wound.

“And do you believe that’s possible under Geta and Caracalla?” he asked, his tone gentle but edged with something you couldn’t quite name.

A bitter laugh escaped you before you could stop it.

“They don’t know how to build,” you said, the anger in your voice surprising even yourself. “All they know is how to destroy. Every day, I see what their vanity has done to the city I love. I try to help, but it’s never enough. I can’t undo the damage they’ve done.”

Tears welled in your eyes, and this time, you didn’t bother to fight them.

“Tell me, General,” you whispered, your voice trembling with both anger and despair. “Do you know what it’s like to hear the cries of the dying? To see the fear in someone’s eyes as they realize it’s over? Do you know what it’s like to hold someone’s hand as they take their last breath?”

Your voice cracked, and the sob that followed broke free before you could stop it. Your knees buckled, but before you could fall, his arms were there. Strong, steady, pulling you against his chest.

“I know,” he murmured, his voice soft and filled with a sorrow that mirrored your own.

The warmth of him enveloped you, his steady heartbeat grounding you as your emotions spilled over.

“I know exactly how you feel,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “I’ve held the hands of boys who will never grow old. I’ve listened to the wails of mothers, the sobs of wives. It’s why I need you.”

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his hands cradling your face. His thumbs brushed away your tears with a tenderness that made your chest ache.

“It’s why I need you to help me help them,” he continued, his voice steady, filled with conviction. “Help me build the Rome we both dream of.”

His words hung in the air, heavy with promise and hope. You stared at him, your heart warring with your mind. He believed in you, in your dreams, in a future that felt impossible.

And somehow, against all logic, you believed in him too.

You nodded, the motion small but certain.

For the first time, you allowed yourself to hope—not just for the Rome you dreamed of, but for the man standing before you.

[wolfiesmoon]

Eyes on me

floyd x gn!reader

Its rlly hard writing this w one hand because i had a bit of a medical emergency last night (in fact i'm in the hospital as i'm typing this) but we survive

so imagine my surprise when i got my baby boy floyd in all his basketball glory (as a consolation from the sevens i assume)

long story short this calls for a floyd fic

(also i use the word stadium a lot here, by that i mean a more small, local stadium and not one of those big NBA league ones)

"I told you, I'm not playing." Floyd crossed his arms and pouted like a little toddler. "Floyd. This is an important match. We have no time for one of your tantrums." Jamil tried reasoning with him, but it was all for naught. It seems like Floyd is inconsolable right now.

The coach was very close to losing it at this point. The match was drawing closer and closer and Floyd's mood was getting worse and worse.

The team could already hear the people coming into the stadium.

"What are you even so sad about?" Ace questioned, getting a bit annoyed with Floyd.

"Little Shrimpy promised to come see me but isn't here yet... " Floyd glanced at the people sitting on the bleachers, searching for your face in the crowd. When he didn't see you, his pout increased.

"... That's why you're refusing to play?" Jamil couldn't believe his ears. Neither could anyone else in the club right now. Is this dude really 17 years old? He seems like a bit of an overgrown 5 year old right now.

Well, the coach knew he was taking a risk when placing Floyd on the team seeing as things like this are very likely to happen. All he can do now is hope you actually show up so he won't have one potentially amazing player less.

.

"Oh crap, Floyd's match! I almost forgot!" You quickly got up, startling your classmates. You had to stay with some of them to work on a group project professor Crewel gave you. "Anyone wanna come watch basketball with me?"

A few of your classmates agreed to go while others said they had plans to get to.

And so you went.

"Can't believe you forgot it, idiot." Grim scolded you. "Oh yeah? and who was the one sleeping away in my lap while we had to do all the work?" you shot back and he grumbled something under his breath as a response.

The two classmates going with you huffed in amusement at your reply.

By now, you were already at the entrance to the stadium. You saw Floyd play before at practice and you know how good he can get when he's fired up. But you also know how he can be when the opposite is true.

You just hope he's in a good mood right now. If he isn't, you'll just cheer for him until he is.

You sat down on the bleachers, chatting with your classmates about the project as you waited for the match to start.

.

"Hey, isn't that the Prefect right the-ack!" Ace got pushed away by Floyd who's eyes immediately scanned the bleachers again. When he saw you, his eyes lit up and a wide smile spread across his face.

"Shrimpy is here!~" the sudden change in mood surprised even the coach. Well, he supposes the issue is solved now.

His eyes darkened, however, when he saw you laughing with your classmates. You're here for him, not some rando dudes from your class.

Suddenly, he feels determined to play so well you won't take your eyes off him for even a second. He'll make sure of it.

"Hey. We're going to beat the other team so hard they cry. Got it?" he suggested with a horrifying expression on his face. The entire team felt too afraid to do anything but nod in agreement.

That's the second mood change he had in a matter of 30 seconds. Now the entire team is just generally concerned for him.

As the NRC team walked out, you smiled at Floyd and waved to him, Grim raising his little paw to wave too. He smiled back at you widely, flailing his arms around like an excited child at you. When he looked away, however, his expression darkened once more.

Better keep your eyes on him the whole time or someone from the other team might not make it out unscathed.

[xnchxntmxnt]

hurt comfort with the astarion guy pls I don't don't know anything about the game I've just seen clips of him on youtube and I love him

you aSK AND YOU SHALL RECIEVE i love him

Blood is Rare and Sweet as Cherry Wine

Character: Astarion (Baldur's Gate)

Warnings: reverse hurt/comfort, mentions of alcohol (reader doesn’t drink), general astarion backstory information but it’s nothing super specific. not proofread

Notes: almost cried writing this. im sorry. anyway I'm a hozier lover what else is new.

gn reader

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Astarion stared at the fire, leaning back against one of the boxes under his tent. There was something serene about this area—they’d never been attacked at camp, and it comforted him to know he could let his guard down somewhere. If only slightly. 

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice you walking up to him until you spoke. 

“Astarion?” you asked, voice softer than he expected. “Are you alright?”

He must have looked upset—he didn’t need your pity, though, so he tried to shake himself back to reality. “What can I do for you, my dear?” he asked, sitting up a bit straighter and taking a sip of the ale next to him. 

You paused, looking at him with your eyebrows furrowed slightly, then finally decided to sit next to him. He offered the ale but you declined. Instead, you turned your body to face him and slowly, gently, brushed a bit of hair out of his face. 

And he flinched. 

You quickly pulled your hand away from him and rested it in your lap. He stared, wide-eyed, terrified of his own actions. He’d inflicted pain on countless others and never felt guilt for it, but such a simple gesture broke him. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice small and quiet. It was unlike anything you’d ever seen before. Astarion was always so eccentric, so proud, so…unafraid. This was an entirely new side to him, and he was even more embarrassed to show it to you. He wanted to run, he wanted to hide, but he didn’t have the energy to make his feet move. To make anything move. 

There was a beat of silence, where the two of you only listened to the crackling fire a few feet away. Then, you spoke. “You don’t have to apologize for anything.”

He didn’t understand how you could be so kind to him. There were so many things wrong with him as a person, or things from his past—he’d hurt people, tricked them, found ways for dear Cazador to turn them into mindless little puppets. Like he was, before all this mindflayer business. 

There was so much wrong in the world, and there you sat. His ray of sunshine—his hope. Somehow with you, things seemed a little less dreary. True, there was some mystical dream-being that followed you around keeping everyone from sprouting tentacles, so that was something positive. But your general disposition, the way you smiled at him when you caught him staring at you, the way you snuck away from the rest of camp with him to watch the stars…all these things made him fall so hopelessly in love. 

He couldn’t be that person for you, though. He never learned how to make big, romantic gestures or show his affection in a way that made sense. A way that made sure you knew he adored you in your best and worst moments. Cazador had ruined him—he’d ruined any semblance of having a normal life. On top of being a vampire spawn and ripped away from his life before, he was stuck in an endless loop of servitude and puppetry or constantly fearing for his life. He never learned or could afford, to just relax. You deserved someone who could love you whole-heartedly, not the monster he’d become. 

“I care for you so, so deeply, my dear,” he all but whispered, voice tight with emotion. 

“I know.”

“I cannot, for the life of me…” he trailed off, quickly wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “I cannot understand why you care for me.”

His head hung low; you stared at him, shocked and unsure how to react to his words. He felt embarrassed, he felt small—there was nothing he could do, it seemed, to pull himself out of this rut he had himself stuck in lately. 

Then he heard your words. 

“Can I hug you, Astarion?”

He glanced over to you, seeing teh pleading look in your eyes. You’d asked. Maybe that made him feel a little more normal, a little less messed up. Hesitantly, he leaned into your embrace. The moment he felt the warmth of your arms around him, though, he melted. He laid his head on your chest, his full weight falling into you exponentially by the second. And with it, he began to cry. 

It was heart-wrenching sobs that felt like someone stabbing him through the heart every time, but he couldn’t mistake the comfort of your hands running through his hair. The soothing, repetitive motion calmed his nerves more than he thought possible. After what felt like ages, he began to sit up, trying to put himself back together like that hadn’t just happened. His eyes looked slightly irritated, but he tried desperately to wipe any evidence of his outburst from his face—

Suddenly, he felt your hands around his face, thumbs running over his cheeks. He stopped—his hands slowly fell, and he relaxed into your embrace once again. 

“You do not have to apologize for feeling things, Astarion,” you said softly. “And you certainly don’t have to hide from me. Not your thoughts, not your emotions.”

He nodded, turning his head slightly to the side to kiss the palm of your hand. His voice was hoarse but surprisingly gentle. “Thank you. I don’t deserve you.”

“That’s the thing. You do.”

He smiled softly—it had been a long time since he felt like he could do so freely. 

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