#neurodivergence seeks to turn the other way

[giddygreengalaxy]

I dont think I'm disabled, I think the world just can't tame me.

Wasn't Jesus the same?

[huggywuggysuppy]

once you finish Empires S1 i'd like to hear your thoughts about esmp1!gem. she's genuinely one of my favorite characters to analyse because she is so nuanced and interesting in so many ways anywhere you look at her. her twisted determination to achieve peace at ANY cost, her rigid thinking and neurodivergency, her relation with symbols like her tower or the end and the moon, or her genuine wish to be a good person and so many other things. there's so much that is impossible to grasp at first (<- <- me, lesbian who is really normal about her favorite gem)

She's right.

Essentially, Gem understands the role a wizard PLAYS in a story. She's never the cause of something, but she sure amplifies both the problems and the solutions. She's morally gray, she's playing both sides, but nobody ever challenges her on that because of course Gem's helping the heroes too -- they need artifacts! She's a plot device, a questgiver, a weapon. She's the voice of reason, the straight man in any comedy duo, yet makes the same questionable decisions as anyone. She's experimenting, she's out of her comfort zone, she's having the time of her life. Wizard Gem is, ultimately, a real wizard.

That's the short answer anyhow. Longer analysis, well, I'm so glad you asked. I can't talk about character without diving into the content creator metanarrative (feature not a bug) so let's get into the noodles! What about Wizard Gem makes her so fantastic?

Wizard Gem is a catalyst.

From the beginning, Gem is mixing up dynamics and forcing new inspiration by opposing what's static. The way the rest of the Wither Rose Alliance sort of? Molds? Around her. How Sausage and fWhip are beefing until the day she alliances with Pearl and suddenly the four are besties. How she adds moral nuance to the villain side, both by mixing relations with the hero side, and just by insisting the Wither Rose are seeking peace, really, they're trying their best! This stops things from being so cut and dry and basic. Instead of Xornoth's vain forces against the heroic bumbling fish people (with the plant and animal empires in between), there's all sorts of messiness and drama. And Gem's aware of this, of how she's changing things, and so the effect is amplified.

On a CC level, even her origins are experimental. Gem was originally planning a more naturey plant wizard, but since Shubble, Katherine, AND Pearl, were plant based (& arguably Joey too) she adapted into amethyst and rocks. And it turned out amazing! That foundation of experimenting made it easier to take larger risks both content and character wise. All the empires folk enjoyed the lore centric storytelling: only getting deeper into it through the season, but Gem especially paved the way for embracing rp and outfits and items and fun.

But back to C! As the Wither Rose alliance progresses, terrorizing the server included, Gem maintains her peace loving stance. Taking on the role as fWhip's (and later Sausage)'s PR managers is genuinely so important to me. She never really stops them from doing bad things, but she's always discouraging them and talking them down one or two degrees. Ultimately loyal to her alliance, she's also taking responsibility for the consequences. Helping out Jimmy behind the scenes to lessen the blow, both for him but also herself.

At her core, Wizard Gem wants peace.

For herself and friends at least. Unfortunately, the Crystal Cliffs aren't in a bubble, so she keeps having to save the world anyway. She dreads conflict at best and fears it at worst. Her concerns are her kingdom, her neighbors, whatever magic / building she's invested in right now, and maybe a light shenanigan here or there. She'll help fWhip get out of trouble because they really do love each other, he's always helping her out too in his own ways (ex: making her stuff,) and she'll protect the realm so the problems stay far away from their doorsteps. When things do eventually fall into her lap, she definitely deals with them. Just... not 100%. Enough that they stop breaking the peace for now.

Let's be honest, Wizard Gem is firmly in denial. She's down for burying the corruption and letting it claim whole towers of her base. Often she'll just accept whatever another player brings to her: buying Scott and Katherines plush, whatever weird scams Lizzie tries on her, etc. When Scott gives her the Elsa curse, she hangs out in the nether, takes Shrub’s dodgy Xornoth cure, and stubbornly "it's fine"-s her way through avoiding a real solution until fWhip drags her to Katherine. It's telling that her (short-lived) corrupted evil version is more confident, while others become hyper or angry. This isn't laziness: it's fear. She doesn't want to step on any toes and start any conflicts. You can see it in how she talks to Jimmy and fWhip: giving them what they need not to win, but to end things.

This is how Gem maintains the story role of a wizard: she's always trying to stop things, so she's never starting new things, only making them better or worse. But how does Gem get away with it? She's simultaneously one of the most invested players in the lore, yet playing a character who'd rather be anywhere else. That dichotomy is entertaining, sure, but there's something else here.

Wizard Gem is loyal, curious, and moral. Just... not obviously.

Gem is unfathomably loyal. While she plays both sides, she's always standing alongside her allies in battle and all her actions are ensuring they're safe. She may be exasperated, yet treats her immediate alliance members with kindness. How fWhip drags her into things, but he never asks her to, it's always Gem CHOOSING to follow him because what else is she gonna do? Let him do it himself? How Sausage makes her laugh with his absurdity, even when they're fighting. How she's always a little uncomfortable, even in her great empire, except in the quiet simple moments with her allies between schemes.

(Still can’t believe roseblings isn’t canon. Like fWhip’s line about how he blew up relations with Scott because he messed with Gem, "it's okay fWhip I'm fine now," their tones, ohhhh devious work. They don't need to be canon, nonfamilial platonic relationships and all that, but STILL. I'm only human.)

Gem's also invested in magic and learning more about it, and she learns to trust and share that with others. The Crystal Cliffs Academy demonstrates growth: from solving problems herself when they’re too big to ignore, to actually addressing things at the source. Explicitly, the goal is to strengthen other empires magic knowledge so less crises happen. That’s preventative instead of reactionary. Even choosing the Ocean Queen as her first student is intentional: not an ally, causes a lot of medium scale ruckuses, in text Gem sensed her using transformation magic that wasn’t hers and wanted to guide Lizzie towards at least controlling it. Start of season Gem would’ve just kept handling any crises herself.

Essentially, Gem is trying SO HARD to be good. As anon said, she has a sort of rigid thinking (again, fun contrast between CC experimental and C rigidity) that creates this fantastic mix where she's staying true to the Wither Rose because she loves them and wants to keep them safe as their friend, but also trying to act for the greater good as a wizard, even though she'd rather focus on her own things. It's not a stable point of view, and is constantly challenged, creating the amazing series of events that we get to see unfold.

Also, Wizard Gem is straight up cool.

Regarding imagery, Wizard Gem has a distinct style that’s so fun to build and draw and write about. She's magical and otherworldly (dragons, the end) but also ethereal and magnificent on a human scale (towers, the moon.) Amethyst itself is inherently unique: something about forming deep under pressure, growing slow and beautiful, sought after as thrones and paths alike. These aesthetics have infinite storytelling potential, and look cute doing it.

And all these things are carried into Gem’s imagery as a whole! Losing her eye to and getting corrupted by the end portal in Life Series, building dragons and towers and villages all across her mc worlds, often using the moon in builds like her hc10 lighthouse. She’s solidly the moon in shinyduo sun/moon dynamic (while they both employ sun/moon all the time, Pearl builds and lores solidly more sun, let alone their comedy dynamic.) Even the struggle between embracing/chasing excellence versus holding herself back out of fear: that's Gem in every world! Emp1 is combining a lot of Gem's themes into one single character. And turns out she's really awesome!

This character wholeness lets Gem maintain her signature exasperated excellence over the other players. Like PVP prowess and building skill, she's an expert here too, and delightful to watch and interact with. Wizard Gem is amplifying everything, trying to keep her loved ones safe, learning that she needs to make peace herself, all while staying true to her beautiful masterful self.

Finally, CC!Gem is delighted to roleplay like this.

Every time she turns to the camera to give disclaimers and talk about her character, there's an infectious joy and "I can't believe this is my job." She often compares it to D&D, which ohh the parasocial brainrot is taking so normally, but also there's an unapologeticness to it. If you don't like her character / the roleplay / etc, stop watching, whatever, this is fun for the rest of us. Her and other CCs have talked about the crippling pushback from playing antagonistic characters -- and there's no shortage of that in emp1, she has to put disclaimers on the RP portions! But unlike Life Series where she's constantly fighting demons (it's own post, really) Wizard Gem is having too much fun to care. I think that's why emp1 hits different, at least for us Gem girlies. She's taking this seriously, and she's having the time of her life.

I originally posted about Worldhopper/Watcher Gem because that adds an extra layer of spice to her in all series, but it's still really awesome by itself. Summoning the dragons from ANOTHER WORLD? Hello?? Don't think I missed her using the nether portal to change skins either. Giggling during convos with Xornoth, undaunted by the Empires Crown, the list goes on. One day someone will assemble all her characters into the same room to compare notes and that someone will either be me or Geminitay herself.

In short, Empires S1 Gem is a Wizard. She's a catalyst, she ultimately wants peace, she's loyal curious and moral, she's straight up cool, and she's having fun. And isn't that just the most magical joy of all?

Anyway, accepting empires fic recommendations in reblogs / directly into my inbox. What a privilege to get to watch so much great art. Thank you for reading!

[gladiatorcunt]

- # GIVE A FLY SOME HONEY !!

all roads lead to death valley

cw: southern setting & accents, sui ideation/thoughts, protected sex (are you proud of me), dead dove ending and undertones, sort of ambiguous, virgin cowboy!anakin x virgin afab!reader, ROTS coded!anakin, r2’s a horse, the force is in place of the christian God and is referred to as such at times, star wars being a fictional franchise in a star wars au fic, weird mix of a farm and a ranch, spanking, clit slapping, biting, reader’s inner freak has some crazy thoughts, mentions of humiliation and collaring/choking, anakin murders somebody (one scene of violence), what a heat advisory and the south’s sex education does to a mf, implied plus size and neurodivergent!reader, kidnapping????????????, mention of drugs, reader has a lot of internalized shame about where they’re from

wc: 4.2k (unedited)

what if instead of star wars it was called 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 wars

consider commissioning me!

Your unlucky streak rears its ugly head yet again. June was already shaping up to be a hot month, and your junkyard car wouldn’t start. You’re used to driving long stretches of road with nothing but livestock in fields to gawk at, it comes with the territory. But you couldn’t afford gas and decided to push your luck on the way back home, nevermind that the drive would be at least 20 hours. Moving to the city had its drawbacks, the road trip to and back being one of them.

“No, no. Come on, please work. Do you need me to fucking sing to you or something?” You groan, fruitlessly twisting your key in the ignition over and over.

Nope, “Tough shit.” Your engine mocks, death coughs sputtering out one after the other.

“ ‘You havin’ trouble?” A masculine voice shouts from behind you.

You get startled by the sound and gracefully slam your head up into the roof of the car as you turn around. You must look like quite the sight, clutching your now throbbing head and stumbling out of your broken down hand-me-down car on a long open road. Once you’ve blinked enough to adjust to the harsh sunlight, your eyes land on a tall muscular figure riding a horse. The clip clop of the horse’s dirty hooves on the gravel pierce your ears but the gentle sway of the man’s fluffy hair softens the blow.

“Um…. yes, sir. I am actually. My…. my car won’t start and I’m all out of gas.” You burn with embarrassment as you get through your explanation, trying your hardest not to throw up from the sheer social anxiety.

“Well that ain’t no biggy, I think I can help with that.” The man cocks his head and hops down from the horse, a white stallion with a few faded black-gray spots here and there. “Stay here, R2.”

You’re standing there dumbly, ignoring the tiny rocks digging into your shoes and the pounding in your skull as the cowboy wanders up to you. The sun bounces off his dark hat in a way that gives him a sort of halo, and you gape like a fish when he tips it down at you in a silent greeting, reaching out to shake your hand after. The silver spurs on his boots reflect sunlight directly onto your face, so you miss his open palm the first time.

His hand is rough, you can feel numerous old scrapes and cuts when you accept the gesture. But it’s so much bigger than yours, and there’s strange heat coming from his skin that you’re hesitant to pin on the southern summer sun. Too handsome, in a way that just can’t be possible, you quickly swipe a fingertip over his ring finger during the handshake and The Force must be looking out for you because there’s no ring. Not that you’re seeking anything out, but in the town you’re from, you’re lucky if anyone makes it past 18 without having a baby and getting hitched as a result.

Anakin tinkers away at your car for over an hour, finding more problems than just a lack of gas. Eventually he determines that you’ll die in this heat before you can back on the road, so he asks you to accompany him back to his ranch and he’ll send out one of his employees to bring your car around. You try to show him that you’re listening by ‘hm’-ing and nodding every so often, but it’s hard to rip your eyes away from a very attractive man bent over and sweaty while he’s fixing your car. You definitely do not want to cry when his flannel lifts up as he wipes the sweat on his forehead away with his greasy hand, revealing the slight softness over his muscles.

Since your car was no longer an option, Anakin grins as he gestures towards his horse, “R2’s a good horse, won’t give you any trouble. He likes to make a lot of noise and has an… acquired sense of humor, but I reckon we’ll get back just fine.”

He has you practice getting off and on the horse for a good while, the next step is letting you adjust to the feeling of being on one. You’d be embarrassed that Anakin’s having to teach you how to ride but his hands curl around your waist, keeping you steady and whispering in your ear to not be so stiff. Horses can smell fear after all, it’d suck to not only have your car be broken but your bones too. It’s a scene straight out of a cheesy romance novel, the kind that’s a tiny yellowed book sold almost exclusively in run down gas stations with a cover not far off from a porno.

Your cheeks are burning the entire way to the ranch, you relax as much as you can on an animal that’s a few hundred pounds of muscle with a searing hot body pressed right up against you from behind. It doesn't take long to get to your destination though, and before you know it sprawling fields bracket a mid size homey wooden building. There are some smaller pens for the cows to stay in and you follow their movement as an employee unlatches the gate and leads them out towards the left most field.

“They gotta switch pastures every so often.” He informs you, urging his horse into an energetic trot, “And it’s a good rule of thumb to have about an acre per cow.”

You tighten your hold on the reins and try not to focus on your fear of falling off. The pace of R2 isn’t one that you struggle to match but then again this is the first time you’ve ever ridden a horse in a long time. You’ve always been too skittish to do it regularly, and when you moved you got rid of the hobby entirely. You take a deep breath and let the horse’s movements travel through you, coming to enjoy the gentle jostling as you go. Anakin keeps his hands around yours on the reigns, making sure you don’t panic and seize up. R2’s not really beginner friendly unless he likes his rider, he has a tendency to just whinny and take off when the spirit moves him.

“The Force has done me good and given me a nice house on nice land, but it don’t mean nothin’ if i’m all by my lonesome. Ever since my dad passed and my ma’ died a few years after that, the workers and the cows are all I got, plus R2 of course.”

All right, he sinks into the jargon a little too much, but the way the sun accentuates the scar on his cheek makes it a charming quirk. You want to lick his teeth when he smiles, you think, before blaming it on an oncoming heatstroke. You’re no better than a man in this moment, and if you had seen him soaking up all of the attention in a crowded room in a bar you’d have no business being in, you like to think that you could pull him. You play with the slightly waxy feel of the leather reins, allowing the sensation of coarseness in the stitching to overpower any coherent thought.

“Why’d you name your horse R2?” You ask, ducking your head as you feel him guide the animal towards the stables.

“Oh uh, I was real wild over these sci fi movies from back when I was a kid. The hero had this robot called R2-D2, and I guess it just stuck with me.” He answers you with a shrug and a mild blush, curving his fingers around yours.

Your stomach warms at the feeling, but you refrain from returning the gesture, he probably isn’t even thinking that deeply about what he’s doing. He’s not obsessing over every square inch of skin that comes into contact with his own, not like you. You’re already missing the comforting weight of Anakin’s herculean body when he’s pulling the reins to stop R2 and hopping off, clamping his big hands around your waist and helping you down. You wobble for a bit and find your footing before you can pick up on how he momentarily froze in front of you, anticipating an easy opportunity to touch you again. Force, you really are stupid, bless your heart.

You glance up at him and start to say something but then you hear rustling in the bushes, Anakin must hear it too because before you can tug on his sleeve and tell him, he’s pulling his revolver out from its holster and striding off towards the sound. You’re quick to learn that he has a bit of a one track mind, especially when it comes to indulging the serpent twisting in between his ribs like a switchblade.

“I’ll be damned…”

You’re supposed to head inside and awkwardly linger around until your car is in good enough condition to get you back to Coruscant. The only thing is, you’ve now found yourself without your new security blanket, and your curiosity agrees with how much you don’t fucking want to speak to any of the people here without Anakin to hide behind. R2 loudly chuffs at you from his stall in the stables, either saying “That’s just how he is, leave him be!” or "What are you doing? You should obviously go after him!” You choose to believe it’s the latter, so you wander off into the distance, following Anakin’s lead.

You catch up to him quicker than you thought you would, and you have half a mind to scold him like a child if you weren’t catching your breath. All you can see is his wide shoulders because he’s hunched over something, your heartbeat quickens when you spot his gun being pointed at something. You circle around him to find a man squirming on the ground like a toddler, twitching every so often. Anakin seems almost enthralled by the desperate display, so he doesn’t notice you until you gingerly place a hand on his shoulder, soft and looking to soothe. Later you won’t remember the blood on the man’s temple or the matching stain on the muzzle of Anakin’s gun, because you didn’t witness that part.

He snaps out of it, turning his head to nuzzle his nose against your knuckles, “ ‘s alright, sweetheart, just a meth head too out of his mind to watch where he’s goin’. Had a knife with him, probably lookin’ to rob somebody blind.”

Your eyes flicker between him and the man, fully aware of how common stuff like drug addicts trespassing is and the old fashioned black and red ‘Trespassers Will Be Shot On Sight’ sign. You’ve grown up around guns, you’re more used to hearing them in a hunting or taking shots at beer bottles kind of way, but it’s not like Anakin’s the only one to have that kind of self enforced rule when it comes to his property. Still… killing a human man is different than making use out of a successful deer hunt, right?

“Maybe we should call the cops, he can’t hurt nobody like that…” You try to reason, casting a pitiful glance towards the cowering man.

There’s a scratch on Anakin’s face that’s still bleeding from the knife the guy had used before Anakin took it, it just barely missed his right eye, he could’ve lost it. You’ll ask to help him with it when you get back to the ranch, but you know that there’s no seeing to it right now. You don’t want to risk an infection just so you could brush your thumb across the wound, you’re not even sure why you want to, it’s like the urge just materialized in your head out of thin fog. Anakin gently shrugs your hand off and uses his free one to pull you against his chest, and it’s like you’re back on his horse, that same fear entwined with exhilaration like barbed wire. Your hearts are beating at the same pace, some folks say that’s how you know it’s love, that’s how you know it’s fate.

“You don’t got the stuff in ya to be a killer, that’s just fine, darlin’. ‘Cause I sure do.” His words dissolve into a previously unknown to you cold sneer.

Anakin clamps a burly, sweaty hand over your eyes as he empties the entire magnum into the tresspasser’s skull. The bright sun bounces off the brim of his hat, casting a shadow over his stormy eyes. He may not have let you witness the massacre, but you will never forget the sickening yelps the poor bastard gave to Anakin like prayer. And then he got put down in a more inhumane fashion than if he were a rabid dog. To your gracious host, there’s probably not a whole lick of difference. Between a wanderin’ sap and a deranged mutt, that is.

But there’s a far off expression on his face, maybe he was once at risk of having two bullets in his temple at the hands of someone unforgiving.

“Welp.” Anakin exclaims, making a point of slapping his thigh as he holsters his pistol. “Better head on home now, I reckon. Come on, honey, don’t want to lose you to the coyotes.”

It’s said like “kai-yohtes.” You balk at his teasing and obediently trail after him, a vulnerable duckling staying in line. The storm is hitting hard by the time you’re out of the woods, and you briefly wonder if the Angels up in heaven are gonna start bowling soon. A saying that got passed around in your family, when you and the ones before you would stare up in wonder and shiver in fear at the thundering purple skies as kids. You remember being surprised that one of the Angels’ bowling balls never fell down to earth, maybe it’d be somethin’ like a meteorite.

As is the case with many things, it’s easy to lose sight of the fresh corpse in the dry grass. Once you turn around and thread your finger through Anakin’s, dirtying them, it’s almost like that man never existed. There must be something wrong with you, sure the situation is so unimaginable that it would be hard to cope with, but shouldn’t you be feeling more guilt than you do? You feel bad, of course, but ‘easy come and easy go’ has always been the way of things in these parts. God giveth and God taketh away.

You’re back where you should be, a narrow dirt path going under a wooden fence to the ranch. Grand trees line the road forming a moss green canopy. A few workers are goofing off and playing a very amateur game of football, blissfully ignorant to the fact that Anakin can obviously see them from his place next to you.

It would be a peaceful place to die, a bright and clear afternoon-evening in the way that the world can only be when you’re about to leave it. That’s how you’d want it to feel, like you’re rowing a boat across the lake you used to go fishing at to see people you’d never thought you’d see again waiting for you. Fall leaves, blinding pale sun, a serene and calming quiet. You’d be the happiest you’ve ever been, skipping even though you never could as a kid. There’d be no sadness, only relief and a memento of everything that’ll only make sense when it’s someone’s turn to see you again. No buzzing from mosquitoes or chirping from crickets, only little lightnin’ bugs. Maybe you only get that kinda ending if you’re good, in the godly sense, if you come from something worth remembering.

Anakin raises an eyebrow and gently jostles you, and just like that your train of thought is derailed. He chalks it up to shock, and nods his head towards a clearing behind the building. A change of plans. You follow, as you are wont to do.

“That rat bastard had it comin’ to ‘im, hun.” He tries to reassure and squeezes your hand, imploring you to see reason. “The Force decided it was his time, sweet thing.”

You shake your head, not disagreeing, just in utter disbelief. “I just… most everyone in my life I've known that’s died did it when I wasn't there. I’ve never had to actually be there when they… you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” And that’s all he says, regardless of the truth.

It’s what you need, somehow he just understands exactly what that is. You’re starting to think that you certainly don’t have a damn clue. You look up at him again, really drinking in every facet of his entire being that you can latch onto and obsess over. You’re remembering why you were so anxious to get out of this sinkhole, it’s a miracle you ever got out of it in the first place. His hair’s all messy, dark curls strewn about like a windswept bale of hay. A storm is brewing in his eyes, like he could Earth to rotate in the opposite direction if he wanted it to. He works his jaw around in a weird way to get rid of the soreness after grinding his teeth.

It’s tantalizing, being the hand holding a man on the edge back from wreaking his God given havoc.

You dot a quick peck on his cheek, scrunching your nose up at the barest hint of prickly stubble.

His eyes widen, and the sun itself shines brighter. The cutest light dusting of pink spreads across his face, so he one ups you by pressing your lips together. It’s exactly how a first kiss should feel, a simple gesture that leaves you breathless and with more butterflies than a flower garden swarming in your tummy. There’s no fireworks, but you can hear wind chimes and birds singing as your lips glide together, the meeting of your tongues is so natural that you won’t be able to remember when his slipped through the seam of your mouth. You want to keen as he maps out your teeth, his spit has to have some kind of aphrodisiac in it.

Anakin works your jeans open and off your legs completely, his pupils expand when he sees your thick thighs in all their glory but he keeps himself from slapping them and acting like they’re the only part of your body. There’s an ever growing to do list in both of your heads, your combined inexperience brings a flurry of perverted ideas and porn scenarios to recreate with it, and you’re sad that you’ll very likely leave with none of them being fulfilled.

He yanks the collar of your tank below your chest, immediately leaving over to bite your cute breasts with all the grace of a rattlesnake. He doesn’t try to make any marks, he just wants to bite wildly and with reckless abandon, like he’s using your tits to self soothe. You’d do the same if he let you at his pecs to be fair, his chest is practically as big as yours if not bigger.

“This means somethin’ to me, hear that? ‘m always gonna remember my first.” He spits, clutching onto your bruised tit like he’s a split second away from sinking his hand into your viscera and dumpster diving for your heart.

He pauses pawing at your tits to reach in his back pocket and pull out a condom. It’s crumpled and the packaging is worn by rubbing against the denim of Anakin’s jeans, you can tell that he’s excited to finally put it to use. You’re glad that there’s some safety measures being taken, but your heart swoops in disappointment at the dose of reality. It’s the kind of thing that calls for the most diabolical, unhinged, strings of goopy fluid hanging from his balls as they slap against your rippling ass, raw sex. You don’t let yourself pout, Anakin’s making good use of the only working brain cell between the two of you. You scoot back on his lap to give him room to pop to button on his pants and whip his dick out. It makes a heavy ‘thwop!’ as it slaps against Anakin’s abs.

Your mouth waters at the sight, so thick with the just right amount of curve, it would scratch your throat perfectly. His hands shake harder as he rips the condom’s packaging open with his teeth and rolls it on his twitching length. You take a deep breath, finding comfort in the tense muscles on Anakin’s shoulders through his warm flannel. He curls a hand around the base of his cock and grasps it tightly, positioning it right under your empty hole. You’re lucky he didn’t have to tell you what to do, because working yourself down every inch would’ve been much more painful if you already needed to be taught a lesson. It’s weirdly sweet, the chaste pecks he presses along your nose and jawline as you adjust to what feels like a tree log forcing your tender folds to stretch around it. Your slutty body tries to twist itself in a pretzel with the way you’re swiveling your hips, trying to get more of Anakin’s dick inside of you when you’ve miraculously already swallowed him to the hilt.

“I want this pretty pussy weepin’ for me, I’m awfully sorry honey but i’m not stopping till it’s gushin’ all over me.” He speaks in between wet kisses up and down the column of your throat.

“Mmm- It’s okay, I want it like that, Ani. Promise- oh my god, so big.”

You make him feel like a man trying to outrun a forest fire only to get swept up in a tornado. Like there’s a fever in his brain that’s gotten into his blood, black tar dripping into his liver. Drives a man to drink so he can have a sliver of that feeling, that scalding need not even God could give you. There’s no finesse or coordination to anything, his lips frantically scurry along random spots on your upper body. His upward thrusts are heavy hitting and wrangle your breath out in stuttered gasps, he moves as if he were riding a horse, following only the imagined scent of old blood. Anakin’s cock is so big your walls could rip if he wasn’t always keeping a sharp eye on how much he’s bullying you. He doesn’t try anything crazy like fucking your cervix, it might shock you so much that you remeber exactly how long it’s been since he’s had your car “taken to the shop”.

His spurs dig into the dirt as he slaps your ass, the material of his gloves adding an extra bit of ‘umph!’ to the resulting sting. Anakin’s jeans are so warm against your ass that it takes a few more spanks before you really get the urge to bend over his lap and tell him to just have at it until you sob. You’re on an ecstatic high, living in the present with a near stranger’s dick balls deep inside of you. His eyes gleam gold when you make eye contact, and you find it so easy to fall down the rabbit hole, letting this man burn away all your responsibilities until he’s the last one left standing in a sea of ashes.

You don’t mind that he stops talking eventually, switching to gruff grunts and harsh yells. ‘Don’t be so stiff, let the movement roll through you.’ Anakin digs his fingers into the meat of your jiggling ass and delivers a final smack to both cheeks. You sigh in relief, but then you snap out of your cockdrunk haze to yelp at the cruel hit to your swollen clit.

“Need ya to keep squeakin’ sweets.” He orders. “Don’t want the townsfolk to think I fucked your brain out your ears.”

It’d be polite to make conversation with the people you meet when Anakin parades you around with his hat on your head later, something of a pre engagement tour. If the Force is good, you’ll be willing, because rope burn isn’t something you want to become your new normal.

“Chin up, buttercup,” He says almost bashfully despite how hard he’s pounding your puffy cunt, “We can get some ice cream at the fair after if ya like, make it a cute little second date.”

You whimper and harshly pull his hair, earning you a throaty moan and another slap to your clit, saying yes to him like you’ve already done a million times. You thought that the pure social anxiety of being around so many of Anakin’s employees would be nerve wracking, it’s nothing compared to having to speak to them AND keep their boss’s cum from oozing down your leg. Anakin’s discarded belt catches your eye when a sharp thrust sends your head falling back, and you picture the scuffed up belt buckle as the O shaped ring of a more traditional collar. The black stains from working on your car only add to the appeal, it scares you exactly how much you’d let the man fucking you with a cheap gas station condom get away with. You’ve already heard him kill a man, finding yourself in a relationship is pretty much the natural next step.

When he cums deep inside with a hoarse growl, there’s the sound of a bear trap slamming shut on an unsuspecting bunny rabbit. Your simultaneous orgasm is the tiny squeal it makes before it dies.

“I forgot to ask, hun, what stuffed animal do ya want me to win for ya?”

- faetreides 2024. do not repost, translate, or put my works into ai

[cy-cyborg]

Disability Tropes: The disabling change of heart

When a character in a story becomes disabled, they'll sometimes experience a trope that I like to call "the disabling change of heart". This is when the character goes through a massive change in their outlook, their personality, their goals or even roll in the story, specifically because they became (or are about to become) physically disabled. Sometimes, this will be in relatively small ways: the happy-go-lucky comedic relief character might become bitter, angry and jaded after getting into an accident that caused a spinal injury, or the severally depressed and nihilistic character might suddenly start acting more cheerful and hopeful, stating that loosing their leg has "put things into perspective and showed them what really matters". In other cases though, the impact is much larger, the heroic character you've been hearing about looses an arm thanks to the main character's actions, causing them to become consumed with anger and self-loathing which they take out on everyone else, eventually becoming an antagonist as they seek revenge for what the main character did to them. The morally grey or even villainous character is injured by their own scheme, giving themselves a permanent disability in the process, which prompts a change of heart and leads them to turn their lives around and become better people, maybe even deciding to team up with the heroes.

Now, having a character go through a personality and goal change due to a major life event, such as becoming physically disabled, isn't inherently bad. A lot of writers are told to tie major shifts in your character's development to major life events, because realistically, something like becoming newly disabled will at least impact how you view the world around you. I very frequently talk about how if I didn't loose my legs, I would have become a vastly different person, but the issues with this trope depends on how it's used and the reasons behind these developments, and whether or not the change suits the character in question.

Before we get into things, I would like to specify that in this post, I'm only going to be talking about how this trope is used with physical disabilities and other easily visible forms of disability. It does show up with characters who develop disabilities under the mentally ill and neurodivergent umbrellas, and is actually a bit more common than what I'm talking about today, but the specific ways its utilised are so different that it's more or less a separate trope, and one that deserves much more attention than I could give it here as this is already going to be a pretty long post. So for today, I'm keeping to it's use with physical and visible disabilities, and we'll talk about how this trope is used with neurodivergence and mental illness another day.

The main thing you need to be mindful of is ensuring that you, as an author, are not including your ingrained biases about disability into the reasoning behind the change. Let's look at one of the examples from before, an evil character who, after loosing their arm (because it's almost always loosing an arm for some reason) becomes a villain and wants revenge against the main character. In a story like this example, the character who became an amputee often views this new disability as something that has ruined their life. It's something that has caused them to suffer, and they want to make the main character (or whoever has "wronged" them) suffer like they did. Stories like this example portray disability as something that is not just horrible, but life-destroying, especially with villains who become all-consumed by the misery this disability has brought them. Many stories that utilise this version of the trope also often perpetuate the idea that if you become disabled, you'll have to give up all the things you love and your goals, even when this wouldn't necessarily be true for the character in question.

Let's say your character was a knight, and the main character cut off their arm in a training accident. obviously you can't be a knight with only one arm because you can't fight anymore, so they left their order. Now this character has become a villain and has found power that "makes up" for their disability, perhaps magic or some other force that doesn't exist in the real world, and are back to get revenge on the character for ruining their lives. Here's the thing though, the loss of a limb, or at least, the loss of an arm specifically, often isn't the career ender people think it is, even back then. In fact, there are many historical records of real amputees continuing to serve as knights and other similar military roles after loosing an arm or at the very least, continuing to fight in other ways. One such example was Götz of the Iron Hand, a mercenary knight who lost his arm to a cannon. Götz had fought as part of the Roman empire's military in 1498, but shortly after left to form his own mercenary company. He lost his hand in 1504 and continued his career as a mercenary with the help of an iron prosthetic capable of holding his sword and the reigns of his horse, among many other things such as writing, for another 40 years. Götz wasn't unique in this though, several suits of armour from the same time period have been found with integrated prosthetic hands, though the names of their owners are unknown. There was also Oruç Reis (aka Aruj Barbarossa), A privateer admiral who served the Ottoman Empire in and around the Mediterranean who lost his left hand - earning him one of many nicknames: Silver-Hand, thanks to the colour of his prosthetic. Oruç, like Götz, continued his career for several more years until he was eventually killed in 1518.

My point in bringing this up, is to highlight how important it is to double check that the reason your character's whole motivation for turning to villainy, isn't just based on your ideas about what a disabled person can or can not do. Actually double check it, research it, especially if it's important for your plot.

Even in the cases where the disability in question actually would stop someone from being able to do something, the incorrect assumptions can still occur and cause issues in different ways. For example, a character in a more modern setting who looses their arm due to an accident the main character was responsible for while serving in the military would be discharged, ruining the character's plan to become a general some day. This absolutely would be devastating for a character like that, and they realistically could struggle to adjust, both in terms of getting used to their disability and finding new goals for their life. They may well feel anger at the main character, however, if you are portraying just living with a disability, in the case of this example, living with an amputation as inherently "suffering" for no other reason than they are disabled, it is still perpetuating those really negative ideas about disability. I've said this a few times in other posts, but villains who are evil or even just antagonists purely because they're disabled or are trying to avoid becoming disabled is a trope all its own and one that is best avoided if you yourself aren't disabled, as even outside of spreading these negative ideas about life with a disability, it's just an overdone and overused trope.

But what about when this trope goes in the other direction? when you have an antagonistic or even just morally grey character who becomes disabled and this is the catalyst that turns them into a good guy?

For the longest time, I knew I usually disliked this version of the trope too, but I couldn't put my finger on why. With disability being the reason someone became a villain, the underlying reason it's there is often able to be boiled down to "I, the writer, think being disabled would be terrible and life like that is inherently suffering, so this character is angry about it," which is obviously an issue (the "inherently suffering" bit, not the anger). However, when a character becomes good due to becoming disabled, the reasoning is usually more along the lines of, "this is a big change in a character's life that has caused them to reconsider and revaluate things" (or at least, that's what I thought). This isn't bad, nor is it necessarily unrealistic. Hell, as I already said, I do consider my disability to be a catalyst that made me into who I am today. I also know plenty of people who, after becoming disabled later in life, did have a big change in how they viewed themselves and the world, and who consider themselves better people since becoming disabled. It's far, far from a universal experience, mind you, but it does happen. So why did this version of the trope still not sit right with me?

Well, I think there's a few reasons for it. The first being that there's a tendency for non-disabled people to think real disabled people are just incapable of evil deeds, both in the sense that they aren't physically capable of doing them (which is bad and not even always true for the reasons we already discussed), but also in the sense that there's this idea that disabled people are, for some reason, inherently more "good" and "innocent" - As if breaking your back or loosing a limb causes all evil and impure thoughts to be purged from the body. This is a result of many folks viewing disabled people as child-like, and thus attributing child-like traits (such as innocence) to them, even subconsciously. This is an incredibly common issue and something disability rights organisations are constantly pushing back against, as this mentality can cause a lot of unnecessary barriers for us. With how often I and many other disabled people are subjected to infantilization, I would be honestly shocked if it wasn't at least partially responsible for people thinking becoming disabled is a good reason to kick off a redemption arc.

This infantilization isn't unique to physically disabled people by the way, in fact it's way, way, more commonly directed at people with intellectual and developmental disabilities - or at least, people are more open about it, but as I already mentioned, how that is reflected in tropes like The Disabling Change of Heart is vastly different and deserves a post of it's own.

That's mostly just speculation on my part though, since that infantilising mindset does show up a lot in media, but not usually as part of this trope specifically.

However, it's not the only reason I wasn't a fan of it. When the disabling change of heart is used to fuel redemption arcs, I think, once again, that the disability itself being credited with causing the change directly is another factor. When this happens, it's usually because "it put things into perspective for me and showed me what really mattered."

This sounds better than our previous example on the surface, but stories that use this logic are often still portraying disability as an inherently bad and tragic thing, something so bad, in fact, that it makes all the other (legitimate) issues they thought were massive before seem so small by comparison. This is a type of inspiration porn: content made to make non-disabled people feel inspired or just better about their own situation. It's the mentality of "well my life is bad, but it could be worse, at least I'm not disabled like that!"

In a fictional story, this might look like an athlete character who dreamed of making it big so they could be famous and get out of poverty. They were a dick to anyone who got in their way but only because they were worried about not being able to make rent if they don't constantly win. One day though, they overworked themselves and got into a car accident on the way home because they were too tired, and now they're in a wheelchair and can no longer walk, which is (supposedly) absolutely tragic and way worse than anything else they were already going through. But they end up becoming a better person because it has put things into perspective for them. Yeah they were struggling to make ends meet, but at least they weren't disabled! Now that they are, they know they shouldn't have cared so much, because money doesn't matter when compared to not being able to walk, right?

As well as portraying disability in a negative light, these kinds of stories dismiss and diminish the other struggles or challenges the character is experiencing, placing the status of "not disabled" above all else.

There's also the fact that, when a lot of real people say their disabilities had positive impacts on their lives, they don't usually mean the disability itself is directly responsible for the change. There's exceptions of course but for myself personally, and most of the people I know who say they are better people because of/since becoming disabled, the disability has been more of a neutral catalyst than the actual cause of positive change. Meaning, it opened the door to allow those changes to happen, but it wasn't the direct cause. For me personally, becoming physically disabled at a young age didn't make me a nice person like people expect, I was still a little judgemental asshole for a lot of my childhood. However, because I was disabled, I had to travel a lot, initially because I needed medical treatment that my local hospital wasn't equip to provide, and later, because I started competing in disability sports. because of both of those things, I met people I never would have otherwise who made me reconsider what I'd been taught on a wide range of subjects, and made me question where those beliefs had come from in the first place. When I say my disability played a part in who I became, it wasn't because my disability itself change me, but it helped me meet people who were positive influences on me and my life. but when creatives make characters who experience arcs like this, they ignore this, again, defaulting to the "this was a bad thing that just put all my other problems into perspective" reasoning.

Some iterations of this trope also use disability as a kind of "karmic punishment" where the disability is portrayed as a rightfully deserved punishment for an evil character's deeds - usually something relating to the disability they acquired but not always. An example might look like an evil tyrant who punishes the rebels they captured by cutting off their hands. Eventually, this catches up with him, maybe the friend or a child of one of the rebels is able to capture the tyrant and cuts his hands off as payback so that he gets a taste of his own medicine, a taste of the suffering he imposed on others. Now facing at least one of the same realities of the people he subjugated, he realises the error of his ways. With some pressure from the main characters, he has a change of heart and surrenders himself, steps down to let someone else take his place, or perhaps he decides to start changing policies to be more in-line with these new morals until some other character usurps him, becoming an even bigger threat than the previous former tyrant.

Once again, stories that use a disability like this are still portraying the disability as an overall inherently bad thing, but there's the added layer at play in this example. The thing is, there are a lot of people in real-life who actually believe disability is a punishment from God. I remember one time when I was over in the US, an older lady came and sat down on the seat beside me on the bus and started asking me about my disability and specifically, how I became disabled. This isn't an unusual interaction, it happens fairly regularly whenever I use public transport, but on this particular day, the conversation suddenly shifted when I told her I became disabled when I was very young. This woman, despite the bus-driver's best efforts to get her to stop, ended up lecturing me for an hour and a half (during which time I couldn't move due to how my wheelchair was held in place) about how my disability was punishment from God for my parent's sins. She then tried to convince me to attend her church, claiming they would be able to heal me. And the thing is, this isn't an uncommon experience.

A lot of disabled people are targeted by cults using this same method: they'll convince people their disabilities are a punishment, make them believe they deserved it, that they just weren't good enough, but don't worry, if you repent and come to our specific church we can heal you. There was even a case in Australia recently that uncovered a cult called Universal Medicine, who taught that disabled people were reincarnations of evil people, and that being disabled in this life was their punishment, as well as that parents who have disabled children were being punished for other sinful behaviours. They were found to be operating a disability care service named Fabic that was being paid for by the NDIS, a subsection of the Australian government funded healthcare system that specifically aids disabled Australians by paying for and subsidising treatments, technologies (such as mobility aids) and other services relating to their disability. Fabic was found to be stealing excessive amounts of funding from their disabled clients under the guise of therapies and carer services, but was not actually helping their clients at all. Whether it's just taking advantage of them to get their money, or actually using this logic as a justification to mistreat them, this mentality of "disability is a punishment" actually gets real disabled people hurt or worse, and so seeing it come up in media, even if there is no ill-intent, can be very distressing and uncomfortable for disabled audiences.

So with all this being said, is the disabling change of heart a trope you should avoid in all it's forms and versions? No, but it does need to be handled with extreme care. I do think it should be avoided as a reason for a character becoming evil for the most part. If that really can't be avoided in your story though, at the very least, ensure that you foreshadow the change. Your happy little ray of sunshine, embodiment of sweetness and innocence type character probably isn't going to turn murderous and want revenge for an accident for example. A character who is likely to be driven to that kind of extreme of wanting revenge for their disability, so much so that they become a villain, probably already had at least a few traits that would predispose them to that line of thinking already, before becoming disabled. As for when it goes in the other direction, and you have a character becoming a good guy, avoid using the reasoning that "the disability put things into perspective for me". Instead, if you must use this version of the trope, use the character's new disability as the reason they encountered other people and situations that challenged their views, things they wouldn't have encountered otherwise. No matter the reason though, be very careful to avoid inspiration porn, and as always, try to find a sensitivity reader to give your story a once-over, just to make sure something didn't slip under your radar.

[Thumbnail ID: An illustrated image showing the same elf character twice. The picture of her on the left shows her laughing evilly, two tiny horns protruding through her brown hair. She is wearing a black dress and red shoes. On the right shows her in a yellow dress, sitting in a bright pink wheelchair with her head held eye and her eyes closed. The horns have been replaced with a glowing halo. In the centre is text that reads: "Disability Tropes: The disabling change of heart." /End ID]

[raynaisanerd]

Too much of the fandom really likes Renee. I hate her. I can understand that people find her attractive, because she is, but I can’t stand her. Obviously each to their own, and I can acknowledge that if you don’t particularly like both Andrew and Ashley you will find Renee’s actions less hate-able. This is just my thoughts shoved into text format. Sorry for any errors.

Abuse of Andrew

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ Renee made Andrew into a parent for Ashley, which in turn didn’t allow him to have a proper childhood. It’s also teased in the Episode 3 trailer that there’s rumours of incest between the siblings around school which is no doubt stemmed from the two being forced in such close proximities due to the mother and fathers neglect. This more than likely affected a lot of Andrew’s social life, pushing him towards other women to ‘prove’ he isn’t ’like that’, which isn’t particularly healthy for a teen boy.

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ Renee and the father are likely the cause of Andrew’s anxiety in fear of pissing her off, or generally bothering her. Andrew represses his true feelings so he can please his parents, Both parents seem to brush off any concerns Andrew has, making him internalise his feelings and not seek any mental or emotional support for what he is going through.

Abuse of Ashley

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee forcing Andrew to be Ashley’s caretaker tore away any form of other support network for the young girl. This is clearly shown with how she struggles to make friends and genuine connections with others outside of Andrew, seen with Julia and Nina. It is also why she never sought out support for herself, Renee would never get help for her clearly neurodivergent or somewhere on the ASPD spectrum, so Ashley in turn also did not.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee not allowing Ashley to have birthdays may seem like a small and insignificant detail but it speaks volumes of what she was like as a parent to me. She never allowed to have nice things and Renee made sure of that. Or didn’t. She didn’t care enough to even check up in the girl, probably didn’t even remember her birthday.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee calling her a problem and an annoyance, again, something insignificant to some that I am reading into far too much. Your parent is supposed to be your biggest supporter in life, the one that brought you to life, who is supposed to love you unconditionally. Ashley has none of that. The only unconditional love and support she has is from her older brother. Not having support from your parents, your mother actively calling her an annoyance doesn’t help with her obviously festering insecurities and self hatred.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee thinking and openly expressing that the only way Ashley could have value to anyone (specifically Andrew) is if she is having sex with them. Ashley’s mindset about sex is very contractual (I will probably go into further detail about this in a later post) and I believe that that has been taken from her mother.

—

🌺 Selling her children to the organ harvesting scheme is just generally fucked up, and how she shows absolutely no remorse is even more concerning. She happily collected the life insurance money, moved to a nicer home in a nicer place intending to forget about the two whole children she had.

🌺 Renee may not be the cause of all of the siblings problems, there are external influences as well as the father, though I feel with the lack of content we have around their father that I am unable to judge him on his actions, bar being equally responsible for his children. I just find the fandoms treatment of Renee to be odd considering how fandoms usually absolutely flame abusive parents in fiction. As I said, each to their own, if you like her this isn’t a post to try and change your mind, it’s just my opinion.

[fumifooms]

Helki compilation

Helki is a prisoner-turned-servant. He’s a criminal canary and was implicitly one of Milsiril’s charges, and now that she’s retired he’s become her servant.

He must have gotten into Milsiril’s good graces, wether through attachment or convenience, which is a feat considering Milsiril’s a socially anxious recluse. Interesting since it’s not like he seems like the agreeable type, shifty upbeat delinquent style… We really don’t know much about him, not even what crimes he did, so there’s a lot of space for speculation on all grounds.

Edit: Shanghai QnA with Kui gave us a new juicy morsel of info!

Interesting… The original answer in japanese is: パッタドルと同じような杖を使っていました。今も同じものを支給されているのですが、すぐになくすのでもはや携帯していないようです。 That it’s written in japanese seems to say that there isn’t the same double translation issue there was last QnA, so if someone wants to look at the original phrasing and word choices it can be done. Perhaps Helki-Milsiril has a more protégé dynamic undertone than previously thought… "For various reasons", meaning circumstances that made it so the squad had to choose between saving him and saving their own skin, or like, "man this guy’s personality sucks we don’t really like him"? Likely to be a mix of several things, since ‘for various reasons’ implies the situation was either complex or they had multiple reasonings. In either case, the phrasing is very much that Milsiril couldn’t abandon him herself, and so a relationship sprung out of that. Another instance of outcasts seeking out and sticking with other outcasts in Dungeon Meshi. This could mean that it’s a bit less out of personal attachment and more out of a sense of duty on Milsiril’s side as well though.

Still edit: So then maybe him staying with Rin in that comic isn’t that much because of work ethics or that he cares for kids (or maybe he does because he feels kinship to them, alone and mistreated), but because he didn’t want to join the other canaries in that room chatting and laughing… Maybe the isolation was exacerbated because he became Milsiril’s favorite, teacher’s pet style, but I’d also be careful about assuming the others disproportionately dislike him, it could be that they just don’t really care for him. Why? Could be because of his personality, because he’s seen as shifty or unreliable or annoying, if an event, who knows who knows, but I like to think because of the Rin comic that he generally just tends to be a loner, that he’s "weird" in a neurodivergent vibe, he doesn’t conform to proper social behavior which in elven society seems especially alienating. He’s the only one with Rin to think of her sake, not only worth observing/caring for but also asks her to eat, but he does this with an offputting stare, not really emoting, and then well, the infamous alone with her staring munching covered in blood panel. He stands out. I’m a fan of the theory that it was a "Helki? Not that I dislike the guy but I’m not risking my skin for him" situation… Ok end edit back to older observations.

He seemed to be acting out of his own initiative in the Rin comic, he doesn’t look thrilled to be there in many post-canary comics but he also seems content enough. He restrains Milsiril in the Mithrun cleaning comic which is interesting to think of for their relationship.

It’s fun to notice how he’s the only one that didn’t get bored of looking after Rin, and then reports back about her condition… I’d say he was getting used to taking care of kids which would come with the job of serving Milsiril, but then, not enough for him to clean the blood off himself hah. In this way it’s interesting to think about his relationship to the idea of parenthood, he’s probably the closest thing to a father figure/male role model Kabru had growing up, without mentioning the other kids. I feel like he’d consider himself an older brother, cousin or uncle figure sooo much sooner than a father, but even then I do think it’s just his job and he’s not really invested or forming real relationships with any of them much.

It’s curious to note that he’s dressed in canary uniform presumably after having been pardoned and living with Milsiril? Which you can tell by the armor bits (the yellow strips of spider silk). In the Kabru training montage and the Rin comic specifically. It seems very implausible for him to have still been a canary while being a retired Milsiril’s servant and being with her all the time, and the cleaning with Mithrun comic (where he’s not in uniform) happens after Utaya so it could happen after Kabru was taken in but around the time of the Rin comic. So why uniform? It could be one of the best outfits he has, so it’d make sense to wear it around especially if you’re sparring or getting… Blood on you? Could just be because that's how Milsiril wants him to dress. But yeah we don't know when exactly Helki becoming Milsiril’s servant happened. We do see Mithrun’s charge Cithis be tasked with taking care of him, so a charge being given a servant-caretaker role doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary, sometimes even prior to retiring.

Imo, if he doesn't work for Milsiril he goes back to jail/the canaries/has to try and get a job instead of just tending to her, so Helki is staying with Milsiril because she's the best option for him. He’s her milsiril's personal servant and does mostly dull tasks involved in that. He’s not particularly suited to the role but they’ve gotten used to each other to him so she took him with her, and he does prefer it to canary work so it works out decent for him. I think he’s used to reading her and managing her moods and he’s one of the rare social connection she has.

Under spoiler is stage 2 interpretation stuff, bigger speculation, in a reblog I’ll make soon I’ll go over my thoughts for stage 3 interpretation lol. Helsiril I’m coming for you

Translation of the canary hierachy chart used is by Thatsmimi, here

[nicksversion]

⚠️!PSA FOR EVERYONE!⚠️

I know we are all terrified, upset, and angry right now but DON’T PANIC YET! They are recounting the votes on Friday November 8th. The electoral college isn’t done voting and the true results could take till as late as December. We also have till January 19th to come up with a plan. Now with that being said below I have tips on how to get through this if things take a turn for the worst.

How to survive the next four years:

1. Stay alive:

As much as you will be feeling, validly so, keep going. It’s okay to grieve and feel what you need to but they want you to give up/be stagnant. Live out of spite if you have to but don’t let them win.

Inclusivetherapists.com/crisis gives you resources to call if you are struggling and you don’t have to be in crisis to reach out. Police are not involved with the hotlines and won’t be notified.

2. Play dumb:

You now know nothing about anyone.

For example:

Your friend who’s trans or a part of the LGBTQIA+ community, you have no idea. Same goes for your neurodivergent friends.

Your immigrant friend, they were born here

3. Stay strapped:

Get firearm training, purchase a firearm, and take self defense classes. It’s better to be prepared to fight than be blindsided by it. Additionally, don’t let your guard down in public ever and stay inside as much as humanly possible.

4. Hold your tongue:

Be careful what you say/ post. You never know who’s listening with malicious intent. Don’t talk about anything that doesn’t align with the MAGA point of view and if you are asked about it you tell them you don’t talk about politics.

5. Remember the dress code:

You want to dress as conformative and conservative as possible. I know it will suck but if you are dressed any other way you make yourself a target. Look up how to do your makeup to pass as fem/mas if you need to.

Additional information and tips:

Everything will not fall apart overnight, these things take time but you should still be prepared for it.

Propaganda will be everywhere, make sure you are getting your information from reliable sources.

They will be doing everything possible to change your beliefs to align with them, DO NOT FALL FOR IT!

Do your own research about how Hitler came to power and went through with the genocide. If you know the signs, you can help deinfluence the lies that will be spread (safely of course)

If you are planning to participate in the 4b movement be prepared for violent reactions. Men will not react well to not getting their way so make sure you can protect yourself if things go south.

Plan b has a shelf life of four years when stored in a cool dry place. It is purchasable on Amazon for less than $10 when you search levonorgestrel pill (it’s the name of what’s in plan b)

If you’re looking for doctors to give you long term birth control look up Reddit child free doctors list (it’s a list of international doctors who will let you have it and is updated by patients)

Delete your period tracking apps and use a physical calendar to track them. The government has access to them.

Freethepill.org gives you a bunch of resources to get the pill, if you are able stock up as you see fit.

If you have children in school, buy books that teach about evolution, black history, and all other things America has done to other countries.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTF3444aD/ - recommendations of places to go to get out of the US

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTF3VPUQc/ - how to get a passport

Project 2025 seeks to ban porn so start saving your favorite books/fanfics on external hardrives.

I will update this post as I research more ways to get through this. It is important that you take time for yourself and make sure you’re okay before trying to help others. Stay safe, stay alert, and stay informed. I wish you all the best.

[joanofexys]

i don't want to start a war or anything but i know nothing about cults. so i'm really curious if you have any thoughts on former ravens being in a long-term relationship with other former ravens once they're out of that environment. like maybe it's realistic or maybe it wouldn't cause as many problems as one would assume...

OKAY SO

this is actually such a good question and something i’m very excited to talk about. yet another disclaimer that my experience is unique, as are all cult survivors, and my opinion isn’t like an objective fact just observations from being a cult a survivor. since i haven’t made a cult post in awhile

but cult survivors tend to flock to each other. without even realizing most of it the time. as a cult survivor the majority of my friends are fellow cult survivors. some of them i grew up with and others i befriended without even knowing they were in a cult. you’ll hear a lot of queer people or neurodivergent people talk about their friend groups being predominantly queer or ND just by complete coincidence and i’d say a very similar thing happens to cult survivors. and of course a lot of us also seek each other out as support systems for a sense of community and understanding and shared experiences.

and there are couples who are in cults together and often get married while in the cults who will often deconstruct and leave together. obviously it seems like the majority of the time it’s just one person in the couple leaving the cult but i wouldn’t discount the amount of couples who leave together or say they’re a rarity.

all that to say i think it’s very likely for couples who were secretly together in the nest to stay together. especially because a lot of ravens haven’t worked through the mindset of being in a cult. that us vs them mentality.

it actually probably seems beneficial to them once they graduate. and it’s probably something that reflects well in the media too. a raven couple signing to the same team and then later publicly being a couple. the media gets to use that “power couple” sort of spin. the ravens get someone who understands and a way to still rely on the partner system. it’s a safe option.

and there’s a couple ways it can go. they feed into each other’s patterns. they cling the nest and everything they were taught. they might function fine that way but they’re not healing. they’re not unlearning anything. it could even make it worse, send them spiralling downwards. they could crash and burn. or it’s a way to slowly adjust to the outside world. they don’t drown without someone by their side. it’s a way to ease into everything with someone that understands. and maybe with that they get the time to think about everything they were put through. as they recognize what was wrong with the nest they have someone to turn to when they feel like they can’t tell anyone else. they get to work through things together. relearn healthy relationships and boundaries and how to be people again. and those things that are too heavy, too shameful, too gut wrenching to confess to anyone who didn’t go through it too can finally be said.

or there’s the option of ravens who never dated in the nest seeking each other out afterwards and dating. this is probably something messy and unhealthy for former ravens who have never tried to heal. they’d likely flock back to each other and become codependent, fall back into habits in the nest. but it also has the opportunity of being something healthy. it’s that same sense of community, of understanding.

even former ravens who have adjusted to life outside the nest, who have relearned how to be people, may not feel comfortable with dating or with being surrounded by people who just don’t understand. and i’m not saying that cult survivors can’t date non cult survivors. obviously those relationships happen and they can be fully healthy and loving with a lot of understanding and growth. they work just fine. but there might be some ravens who feel like that’s not possible for them. they’ll find people with similar experiences, other ravens, who just get it.

in general i think it’s incredibly likely that a lot of ravens tend to reconnect or stay together outside of the nest. and that has the potential to be good or bad. i don’t doubt that some of them just cut each other off entirely. some might be more causal friends than anything. but maybe they meet up for breakfast when they’re playing in the same city. they might send each other wedding invites or christmas cards. a text with a therapist’s information and a mention that they’ve been really helpful in working through things. a lot of them might be a lot closer. teams made up almost entirely of former ravens. a lot of them might be roommates. they spend a lot of time together on and off the court. a change from their obligated time spent together in the nest to actually becoming friends. ravens retiring together and following each other into the same field. coaches, journalists, commentators. eventually moving further away but staying in touch. regular phone calls and texting every day.

the ravens healing does not necessitate them cutting each other out of their lives. though that’s something that people might assume. they can continue to co-exist and even maintain relationships with each other in a healthy way if they do it right. and a lot of them might do it unhealthily anyway. it’s unlikely that ravens uninterested in healing or working through trauma will let each other go when their system relied on an unhealthy level of dependency.

[nocturnalnewsiestrash]

I'm in my feels about how the way ghosts interact with the world and each other affects Edwin and Charles as sensory seeking and sensory avoidant neurodivergents.

While it's already hard to understand the dynamics of ghostly interactions with their environment at play I'm pretty sure of these things. So we know that Edwin and Charles don't feel items and other alive people the same as they would alive. It's a different touch-based-sensory-less experience(?) at least that's what we know. And we know that they can feel other supernatural beings and each other, differently. I'm in the camp of its basically the same as normal human sensory touch but that could be argued a bit. However we're sticking with that both for the sake of this post and cause I want to.

This analysis got long as shit so readmore it is

Now we see Edwin being very touch avoidant with relatively everyone (besides Niko and Charles) and we see Charles being touch seeking with just about everyone. This makes sense to me under the fact that they as neurodivergent beings both have their more usual "resting state" on the touch-sensory-acceptance scale where Edwin generally rests at the sensory avoidant side and Charles rests at the sensory seeking side.

The implications though of how the fact that you can't really feel things through touch the same way as you would alive really gets to me though. Because you might think that without the sensory part of touch there wouldn't be anything to activate the neurodivergent avoidance right? Well obviously this is not the case for Edwin as we see him from the beginning tolerating touches from Charles and no one else. Then we gain Niko too as someone he appreciates the touch of. And if he can't really Feel the alive people, like Crystal, the same that means that the new ghost touch sensory experience also triggers the touch avoidance. And we see Charles practically touching anyone and (anything) who will let him which means the ghostly touch also triggers touch seeking. So does this mean that under DBDA dynamics neurodivergence finds a way to still be sensitive to sensory experiences under any circumstance? Both in avoiding and seeking it? Does this mean that it's more of a mental thing than the actual 5 senses of it? This is so interesting to me because I've often thought that having the ability to turn off and on sensory capabilities would be LOVELY for my mental health (I have ADHD) I'm not so sure that's true anymore because my brain would just adjust and find ways to avoid and seek THAT new feeling. The feeling of the absence of feeling.

Now the difference between ghost-alive touch/ghost-environmental object touch and ghost-fellow ghost or other supernatural being touch is also interesting to me in sensory seeking terms. Because we also see Edwin enjoying Charles touch specifically and at first we could assume that he only likes touch under ghostly sensory feelings. And us neurodivergent people often have our people that we have more spoons to handle the touch of than others. Which also has very adorablely soft implications of Charles being Edwin's Safe Person including sensorily. But then we see him enjoy Niko's touch too which means that he can also find his sensorily safe person in alive interaction sensories terms. And obviously we see Charles being sensory avoidant too when he's out of spoons for that, like when he bats Edwin's hand away when Edwin attempts to comfort him at the lighthouse. And we see Edwin also sensory seek in, as George put it, craving Charles' touch after their hug in episode 5.

Now I'm fairly certain that they feel things in Hell the same as they would between other supernatural beings and as they did when alive. Which after 70 fucking years of that, I don't even KNOW how I would feel about touch as an already sensory avoidant person if I was in Edwin's shoes. Genuinely an unfathomable part of the experience for me. But clearly Edwin still can handle touch just more specific about it. No different than a regular neurodivergence experience really. Which just gives me so many emotions because Edwin baby boy I knew you were so so strong but 🥺 how did you handle this so well too 🥺. I don't know how you did it. He has so much credit for how he's handled (well everything, but specifically this) so well under these circumstances. Someone pls tell him he deserves more credit than he gives himself.

Anyway my Edwin hell emotions aside, i saw someone mention awhile ago (I would credit them but I don't remember who) that Charles and Edwin wear their gloves so often specifically to avoid having to think about the fact that they don't have the normal human sense of touch anymore which is just so something. Because that in and of itself is its own sensory avoidant behavior. Avoiding the fact that they're not really experiencing a specific flavor of sensory anymore? Could this be true for their many layers of clothing they don to possible keep from feeling that they can't feel the environment the same? Like wind/the snow in ep1, the temperature, and other elements? Sensory avoidance too. A supernaturally charged type of sensory avoidance but still. Sensory avoidance. Plus how we see them lose their layers and gloves when they're in their office bubble alone? Their home? Their comfort space where they have the spoons to relax? And possibly have the spoons to handle the new (well new as a relative term) different type of touch sensory experience that is their ghostly existence? Cause in THESE terms Edwin's sensory seeking in the form of rolling up his sleeves and placing his legs propped up upon the couch arm to experience this new type of environmental feel more fully. And Charles is sensory seeking in the form of Touching Everyone of His Magic Bag Items (and doing classic neurodivergent rearranging and setting up just to take back down play but that's beside the point) and fidgeting by throwing (and consequently touching) the ball in ep1. Which IS in line with how when we're more emotionally comfortable we have the spoons for being more comfortable with other things like more touch and more audio and more visuals as neurodivergents. These are the environmental and worldly items based touch. But we also see them touching EACHOTHER more within their office comfort zone, which means they also feel more sensory seeking in the way we're familiar with in their home bubble. And having the spoons for being more emotionally vulnerable there too but that's not really the point of this post.

In conclusion, how Edwin and Charles still act as touch-sensory seeking and avoidant neurodivergent individuals after this long as ghosts really enamors me. I didn't really go into analyzing the other 4 senses have changed for them but we know they can see and hear the same so those sensory seeking levels wouldn't change, and smell and taste are too things they mentioned they don't have anymore as ghosts but they HAVEN'T touched on how smell and taste senses would work between them and other supernatural entities like. I can't really comment on how the minute differences between ghost on alive and and ghost on ghost feelings would differ without knowing more. Like perhaps this would be touched on more in season 2? Like the taste of eachother hmm? Much to think about. Anyway yeah this was my neurodivergent reading of their touch based sensory seeking, I probably didn't consider some things, so I would love to hear your input on this too!

[pendragora]

I can write a whole essay on why Alicent would love to have a daughter-in-law from outside the House Targaryen

First of all, Alicent is bewildered by the customs Targaryens have (something we see in her when she is younger). I believe that if it wasn't to enforce Aegon's claim to the throne, she would not have him and Helaena wed and rather prefer to have them marry someone outside of the house

Second, ever since her falling out with Rhaenyra, she is stripped off any female companionship. She is surrounded by men – Viserys, Larys, Otto, Criston, etc. – and nobody is her friend there. For everyone else she is the queen. The only friendship she's had is long gone and is unlikely to be restored. We can see her yearning to have female company when she spends time with Helaena, but here she is also refused that – her daughter is much unlike any other maiden she has ever encountered or was herself. Helaena is a true Targaryen, tormented by her dragon dreams, one of the biggest manifestations the blood of the dragon has

So, imagine if Aemond and Daeron were to marry and their pick fell on ladies from other noble houses

She would be thrilled to have another daughter (even if in-law) because that would provide the female companionship she is stripped off. Her daughters-n-law would be someone who know the struggle of being a young woman in the world of men, the labour it is to be a maiden in noble society of Westeros.  She would not only offer guidance to her sons' wives, but also cautiously seek and provide them with some actual warmth of a companionship such opportunity presents

Oh, and if she was to see that they were willing and eager to spend time with her? I think that, as a mother, all Alicent really want is to have some love from her children. I also believe that her love language is physical touch and she is so starved for it:

Her own father is not affectionate

Her husband is the last place she would seek warmth from, he's made it clear over the years where she stands

Her own blood, her children are struggling themselves in the misery that their situation gives them

Aegon is either drunk or in a whorehouse and he is stubborn in his self-loathing, he is convinced his own parents do not want or love him - he would never go for the comfort and warmth to Alicent

Helaena is neurodivergent and distant because of it, she can provide company, but it is not the company Alicent is used to. She can't touch her daughter (the older she gets, the less Helaena allows her to) and when they speak she can hardly understand her

Aemond is distant too, but they have their moments. I bet he is her favourite because he sometimes allows her close and gives her this affection she yearns for

Daeron is not even there in the King’s Landing with her

But they all are tormented by their fate. And she can't ask of them to be nicer. She knows they struggle. So does she

So, imagine women that have not known that struggle and legally are her daughters (in-law). Women that are eager to learn from the wise queen and look up to Alicent with adoring eyes. The last time she saw someone look at her this way was when her children were young and yet not off age, when they were not stripped off their childish innocence. She would do anything to bond with her daughters-in-law, but approach them cautiously, as if expecting them to also turn on her, like her children did at some point

But they don't and they openly express how much they want to be around her. She would be thrilled. It would be something for her

Something for her only

Suddenly, the Green Queen hosts tea parties with her daughters in law. She goes on promenades with them. They are often seen holding a conversation in public. In private Aemond and Daeron would notice how she holds them, either having a hand on the girls' wrist or half-embrace them

She would love to once again be a mother, not a queen mother, but just a mother, a female companion, dare I say, a friend to her daughters-in-law

She would become so much more relaxed and affectionate if her daughters in law were on board with physical affection, but she would never dare to raise a question herself

This is why I think she would cherish and support her daughters in law

She would be the support a newly-wedded into Targaryen family woman needs. Something she didn't have once she was married into the family

The Queen in Chains would not allow any other young girl or woman from outside the house to suffer the way she did

Please, I just want to hug her

Also? Bonus points if the daughters-in-law are from the Reach, she would have loved them twice as much

[kyoshitargaryen]

decentring the 3D

note: this is a section of my larger post a neurodivergent breakdown of the 3D and 4D for manifesting + shifting which you can read here. someone suggested I should make this its own post, so here it is!

I came up with this idea after hearing about the feminist concept of decentring men.

what is decentring men?

the concept of decentring men is to turn away from patriarchal and male-centric perspectives and beliefs, instead turning inward and focusing on your own wants, wishes, desires, and needs. instead of looking for validation through men or other social means, you simply validate yourself. where you may have valued the social norm or others, you instead place yourself at the centre of your own life.

how can we decentre the 3D?

just like the patriarchy has taught us to seek validation from external factors like men, the world has taught us to find validation in what is right in front of us — the 3D.

like decentring men, we must learn how to find satisfaction and validation in the 4D instead of seeking instant gratification from the 3D. there are many ways to do this, including;

understanding that you are in fact in your DR / already have your manifestations

it's agreed that time is not linear, it is simply that our brain processes it as such. even if you do not personally believe in shifting or the multiverse, it has been widely agreed that time moves in all directions, not just forward. by that reasoning, you already have your desire, and you're already in your desired reality, because events exist even when our brains have not yet processed them.

take the 3D as though it were someone doubting you

have you ever expressed a dream, desire, aspiration to someone, only to be told you could never do it or it's not possible? think of the 3D as being the same way. what do you do then?

prove them wrong. brush it off your shoulders. read my post about how to do this here.

Schrödinger's Cat — understanding that you are in your DR until you allow yourself to view otherwise

Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment that boils down to the fact that we cannot guarantee an outcome if we do not experience it, i.e. a quantum superposition, which is the principal that something can exist or be represented by multiple values (or outcomes).

the cat is both alive and dead on a quantum level, until we observe an outcome. a path has not yet been carved until we align ourselves to one. you may benefit from my post on the butterfly effect and how it validates shifting and infinite realities, which you can read here.

close your eyes. you are both in your desired reality and your original reality until you prove to yourself otherwise, as in, opening your eyes. at the same time, thanks to infinite realities, you are both in your desired reality, your original reality, and infinite more until you choose to become aware of one singular reality.

when you choose to shift, you are in your desired reality until you allow yourself to come back to your original reality, by quitting. lean into that knowledge — allow yourself to truly feel that when you visualize, affirm, or try to shift to your DR, you are genuinely there. find validation and satisfaction in that. allow yourself to say I shifted whenever you do those things.

[tallerthantale]

An open letter to Neil Gaiman regarding his post "Breaking the Silence."

@neil-gaiman In what way have you been a private person? What does that description mean to you? You have, rather notoriously, been prone to oversharing on tumblr for years. Your online activity drastically shifted after the allegations broke. The extreme change from baseline does not corroborate the idea that you are merely continuing to honor a consistently held value. You seem to like playing with definitions, so tell me, what definition of 'private' are you using? The one I can infer is that there are specific features of your life you would prefer people didn't know about, which is perhaps not the impression you are at this moment trying to give.

An odd mix of not private but also carefully curated expression is a position I found myself in for most of the past 8 years, and I can recognize some of those same patterns in your online presence. I am, as I write this, in the process of preparing to file for divorce. Australian law requires 1 year of separation first, and that benchmark has just recently passed.

My former spouse is a highly manipulative person who outright endorsed to me their intention to systematically exploit vulnerable traumatized neurodivergent youths, believing that if they sprinkled enough life advice platitudes on top of the exploitation, that made things morally balanced and therefore fine. Now, a certain amount of their latter statements to me were a variety of unconventionally expressed threats, so it's hard to know which things out of their mouth to take at face value, if any. However, their life choices did reflect a strong enthusiasm for exploitation, and a fondness for collecting exploitable people under their thumb, myself included.

Their behaviour also had quite a lot of trauma features. Those features were not the source of their exploitative inclinations, but had become a tool to enact them. It is easier to play the role of poor traumatized hapless person in need of endless support, special consideration, patience, and understanding when the trauma is real.

One of the most prominent features of their trauma was the capacity to selectively willfully forget. They would call it their 'woodchipper.' Memories and knowledge that weren't convenient to what they wanted to experience at that moment, other people's boundaries, other people's objections, other people's preferences, other people's needs, other people's rights, other people's autonomy, other people's pain, their own obligations, their own past assurances, they feed it all into the woodchipper. They knew they were doing it. They could observe their own mind do it mid process, or at least so they said.

When Good Omens 2 came out I was still in the relationship-turned-hostage-situation. We watched it together. One thread of the season spoke to them far more than any other. A part that for most people would barely register as interesting. A few times Crowley demands that Jim try to remember being Gabriel, and he variously responds with indications he "can't remember THOSE things" because "it HURTS too much to remember." Jim's descriptions of the experience of self-removed memories resonated hard with my ex. The final fifteen was meh. Jim's pain running from his own memories was the centerpiece of meaning for them. Perhaps a concept written by a person familiar with operating a woodchipper in their brain, picked up on by a person running a woodchipper in their brain? For the rest of this I will leave my ex out of it, the woodchipper is what matters.

Once it is clear that your mind can broadly erase vitally important information for being too emotionally challenging to deal with, an ethical person would seek therapy urgently, (with a real qualified therapist, not a fake one.) An ethical person would not interpret the ability of their mind to selectively know and not know important things based on emotional needs as a fun tool to brag about, nor as an ability they are happy with and want to keep. The liability that degree of selective forgetting presents is staggering.

One of the most obvious liabilities of running a woodchipper in your brain is that you cant really be sure that any particular thing you don't remember didn't happen. And if you start to not be able to cope with knowing you're running a woodchipper, it can achieve it's own separate sentience and woodchipper away your knowledge of the woodchipper itself. A particularly well honed woodchipper can precision edit awareness to create the basis for specific beliefs out of what knowledge remains. With that editing power over the perception of reality a person can believe very creatively, very temporarily, and very strategically.

If you don't care how your actions impact other people's internal experience, if you only care about how you will perceive your own actions, you might find yourself disregarding the liabilities of the woodchipper, and embracing the potential of the strategy. A strategic precision woodchipper is a very potent tool in a manipulator's arsenal. It lets a person fake sincerity in the most powerful way, by fully believing what they are saying in the moment that they say it. As your works have reiterated, "If you can fake sincerity, you've got it made."

In an old interview with the New Yorker you said:

“I’m terribly good at believing things, but I’m really good at believing things when I need them,”

“I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not.”

I am obviously not evaluating you in a clinical setting, but I can comment that this sounds like exactly the sort of thing a mental woodchipper produces, and that these statements seem to be from the perspective of a person who is remarkably unconcerned with the daunting ethical liability that sort of strategic belief system presents. Back to the response to the allegations:

"There are moments I half-recognise and moments I don't, descriptions of things that happened next to things that emphatically did not happen."

Which moments in the allegations do you recognize and which don't you? Do the moments stay in the same category each time you read them? How can you know they emphatically did not happen, when you know you can believe things that are false? What if you are just really good at believing they didn't happen because right now you need to believe that? What if you don't remember those things because it hurts too much to remember? What if all the memories you have of how totally fine everything went was a dream-world you made for yourself, built on other people's pain that you let the weakness in your mind erase from your perception and memory?

"I have never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever."

How do you know? Are you a mind reader? What is your basis for that claim? How are you defining "non-consensual sexual activity?" Is the internal experience the other person is having part of that definition? If so, you have no basis for judgement if they disagree. Do you struggle to accept that weather or not sexual activity was consensual depends on the judgments of everyone involved, not just your own? Do you struggle to respect the judgments that other people make about their own experience of a situation? If you and another person remember things differently, why is your memory the truth and theirs 'misinformation?'

"The messages read now as they did when I received them - of two people enjoying entirely consensual relationships and wanting to see one another again."

The allegations are that you manipulated the women into performing a pretense of consent for you through exploitative power dynamics. The existence of the messages does nothing to dispute those claims. The people who believe the allegations are aware of the messages. Responding this way gives the impression of not understanding that exploited people play the role they need to in order to survive. But I don't think that's you. You wrote very compelling depictions of characters playing along with their roles to survive exploitation. If you mean to claim you can't understand that someone would pretend to consent to survive while not consenting, I do not believe you. I could believe that at times you refuse to process how that knowledge could apply to your own behaviour. Into the woodchipper it goes.

"I'm far from a perfect person"

What are the specific faults you are claiming?

"I don't accept that there was any abuse"

Trial and error is how we learn. Fail again. Fail better. Learning is a process limited by our own fortitude. We can only learn and hold onto what we can emotionally tolerate understanding. We can only learn to do what we are willing to realize we have failed to do. That's why perfectionists procrastinate, you cant fail what you decide not to attempt. An unwillingness to accept the possibility of having failed is an unwillingness to learn.

We as a society have come around to being deeply skeptical of people who insist they have never failed, or are otherwise convinced of their own perfection. Such an attitude would itself be an imperfection. People know now to say they've made mistakes, to say they have room to improve, to ask for patience while they update the details of their word choices. It's often a script, wiggle room to believe they have room to learn, while still insisting they are not capable of doing something seriously bad. No, they would still never be capable of failing in a way that was important. What we are left with then, is a person who can only learn things when they aren't important. That misses the point, don't you think?

If you are not willing to believe that abuse could have happened, you are not capable of learning what abuse is. You may have your own private definition of what abuse is and isn't, and you will always have a way to convince yourself that you never did anything that meets those contrived criteria you picked out for yourself. No one else is obligated to take on your personal definitions. People can choose to stop joining you in your bubble universe where reality is subject to your personal approval under threat of woodchipper. If you systematically churn out people who experienced their time with you as abuse, your behaviour is abuse, weather or not you are willing to agree to see it that way. People can form opinions about your actions without your permission.

Claiming sexual relationships with desperately vulnerable people dependent on you for housing were consensual because they acted like they liked you is on par with going on twitter to argue you didn't commit rape because they were unconscious and it doesn't count as rape if they're unconscious. It's claiming 'I cant have abused them because it's only abuse if I perceive that what I did was wrong!' *The woodchipper runs in the background, eliminating all perceptions and memories that could become an emotional liability.* If there were indications your actions were abuse, would your mind let you be aware of that? Not if your brain makes you believe whatever it needs to in order to protect your feelings. People can twist themselves into all kinds of rationalizations to feel better about their actions. You wrote Aziraphale, it is clear you understand these dynamics well.

In cognitive psychology we often treat rationalizations as a 'black box.' People are terrible at accurately perceiving their own motivations, intentions, memories, reasoning, the works. When we study cognitive processes, what people tell us they believe can be a variable, but it isn't the 'what they believe' variable, it's the 'story they are telling themselves' variable. Given what you have written, you seem pretty familiar with the idea that people can create whole worlds out of the stories they tell themselves, separate from reality. Our cognitive psychology 'black box' is about having the tools to ignore those stories. We look at what outcomes people's behaviour produces. Information and situation in, behaviour and it's consequences out. From that we can infer the functional motivations, goals, and priorities without the distractions of the stories.

It is with that lens I can look at your title and say no, you are not breaking the silence, because a person who was breaking the silence would publicly void all the active NDAs protecting them. You are attempting to control the narrative. I can look at your claims to want to learn to do better, and say no, if you wanted to learn to do better, you would be open to the possibility that your behaviour had been abusive. You have to believe that it is possible that you could be wrong in order to learn new information. I can look at your claim to be taking responsibility for missteps made, and say no, if you wanted to take responsibility for missteps made you would be specific about the details of those missteps, the impact they had on others, the basis on which you should have known better at the time, and what you are doing to make sure they don't happen again. 'I was emotionally unavailable and I'm going to do better' doesn't begin to cover it. 'I'm not going to fuck my vulnerable employees or people who are dependent on me for housing anymore' would be a more serious start.

Which things do you claim happened and which things are you claiming are misinformation? Which things are you claiming are distortions, and why are you so confident it wasn't you who distorted them? You are the common denominator after all, and by your own words what you can believe is determined by what you need, not the actual truth. Being vague to avoid legal liabilities is not the behaviour of a person who is committed to taking responsibility. However many people you have hurt, that was the result of your behaviour. Your actions did that, consistently. Your choices, freely made from a position of power, produced those results over and over again. And from that I can infer that you wanted to do the things that would produce those results, undeterred by the outcomes, no matter what stories you told yourself, no matter what stories you tell others.

[hocuspocusbabyy]

Low key sat here crying at the thought of the anxious and or neurodivergent fxf pairing. ‘GENERAL’ Example ADHD gf with her Autism presenting gf.

Three couples example bellow:

Casey Novak & Alex Cabot:

Both struggle with balancing their work to home ratio. Not with each other, they are very understanding. Rather with themselves. Alex will take on more and more tasks, believing nobody will do it right and will save her time in the long run… till she burns out. Manifesting mostly as overstimulation, isolating herself as a result. Very minimal contact, she will bite your head off. Her skin feels like it’s crawling. Yet she cannot stand the idea of being left alone.

Casey on the other hand, can’t say no to anyone - need a favour? She already done it. She often forgets to do things for herself, including getting behind in paperwork leading to many long nights trying to catch up. Eventually the nervous energy gets the better of her and she has to do something. She can get manic with it, a good mix of stress and sleep deprivation. Casey will push herself past it till bordering on tears.

Casey started going to the batting cages again when it all gets too much. It was nice for her to just get some fruition out rather than training for a game, maintaining her body scholarship as she did in college. Alex took to joining her, seeking the redhead out whenever the anxiety had got the better of them both… after the inevitable argument when Casey storms out. A familiar car pulling into the grounds as she swings, the blonde slowly sinking into the bleachers - far enough that the cracking sound of the bat and hall didn’t offend her. She’d sit and read.

They’d take turns checking upon one another just a simple glance in each direction. Till Casey couldn’t possibly hit another, Alex having finished her chapter, working their way across the pitch. Gingerly reaching for the others hand. No apologies given, as they both understood one another’s side of things, simply smiling and driving home together.

Eloise Bridgerton & Cressida Cowper:

Eloise uses her writing as an outlet for emotion. When the world gets a little too much. After she’s turned away from a conversation and found she’d hardly gotten herself across at all. Eloise often struggled with expressing herself without coming across as abrasive. Many people shy away from her personality, her brazen. It often stuck to her, how life would have been so much easier if she had been more like her sisters. Her main standing was being a writer, yet people did not take to kindly to writers block.

Cressida’s is more frustration with articulating her mind, she noticed more as she got older. How passive people could be of her when a particular topic of interest ran away with her, only to look up and see nobody listening any longer. Or the assumption people made that she was lesser in intelligence just because it took her a moment to catch on. Rather her attention has been grasped counting the buttons of everyone’s shirts.

They can both cope with it, most of the time but often at the coming ends of seasons when countless balls and dinners are done everything crammed into one and the anxiety gets the best of them. Cressida delves into her sewing, perfecting the next round of presentations. Cressida liked to he prepared as a coping mechanism. Eloise on the other hand will bury herself in books, pulling extracts and taking apart words till her own can form upon the page.

They develop a pattern of hardly seeing each other; until one night when Eloise walks into her study to get some writing done she finds Cressida’s always sat in the Sewing. Neither taking any notice of the other as they work till eventually the blonde sighs loudly, the other woman looking up with a frown.

“It’s awfully quiet in here.” The blonde states passively still working on her sewing. Smirking lightly as the brunette simply clears her throat and starts reading out loud. Eventually the blonde will grow tired of sewing, swanning over to sit upon her lovers lap. Eloise allowing her gladly, they’d simply sit together till the early hours reading from the same page. Eloise never changes the page till Cressida is ready.

Wanda Maximoff & Natasha Romanoff:

Wanda has always struggled with being around crowds or new people. She knew who she liked and forming new relationships was something she’d always struggled with. A lot of people were either impossibly dull or didn’t stick around long enough to get to know her. It took her a while to open up. So weeks of conferences for the Avengers at Tony’s and the PR teams assistance; she really couldn’t stand the idea of people around anyone right now. It translates to anger. Practically chasing Sam from the kitchen when he offer to help.

Natasha was used to people relying on her, ever since she was a child. However sometimes the weight of it all gets a little too much. When there’s a particularly bad accident or job for the Avengers so many life’s on the line and responsibility. Nat going back into that black widow shell a little more.

Nat would come home after a long day dreading having to speak with everyone at the compound yet will be met by an empty floor. Wanda borderline angrily tossing items into dishes on the stove, her body in full culinary focus. The blonde would simply place the ingredients Wanda had text for on the counter, kissing the side of her head in passing and walking towards the couch. Opening a beer before watching reruns of spy old movies.

The food would be ready eventually a movie or two in, undisputed as her girlfriend had threatened anyone from coming close to her. Suddenly a bowl would appear in front of her, the redhead simply handing it over before sitting beside her. The blondes arm rising to pull them closer together and Wanda reaching to turn up the tv volume.

[raynaisanerd2]

Too much of the fandom really likes Renee. I hate her. I can understand that people find her attractive, because she is, but I can’t stand her. Obviously each to their own, and if you don’t particularly like both Andrew and Ashley you will find Renee’s actions less hate-able. I’m not taking you who to like and who not to like, this is just my opinion.

I hate her and here’s why.

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ Renee made Andrew into a parent for Ashley, which in turn didn’t allow him to have a proper childhood. It’s also teased in the Episode 3 trailer that there’s rumours of incest between the siblings around school which is no doubt stemmed from the two being forced in such close proximities due to the mother and father’s neglect. This more than likely affected a lot of Andrew’s social life, pushing him towards other women to ‘prove’ he isn’t ’like that’, which isn’t particularly healthy for a teen boy.

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ Renee likely is the cause of Andrew’s severe anxiety and she made him repress his true feelings in fear of pissing her off, or generally bothering her. Both parents seem to brush off any concerns Andrew has, making him internalise his feelings and not seek any mental or emotional support for what he is going through.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee forcing Andrew to be Ashley’s caretaker tore away any form of other support network for the young girl. This is clearly shown with how she struggles to make friends and genuine connections with others outside of Andrew, seen with Julia and Nina. It is also why she never sought out support for herself, Renee would never get help for her clearly neurodivergent or somewhere on the ASPD spectrum, so Ashley in turn also did not.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee not allowing Ashley to have birthdays may seem like a small and insignificant detail but it speaks volumes of what she was like as a parent to me. She never allowed to have nice things and Renee made sure of that. Or didn’t. She didn’t care enough to even check up on the girl, so probably didn’t remember her birthday.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee calling her a problem and an annoyance, again, something insignificant to some that I am reading into far too much. Your parent is supposed to be your biggest supporter in life, the one that brought you to life, who is supposed to love you unconditionally. Ashley has none of that. The only unconditional love and support she has is from her older brother. Not having support from her parents, her mother actively calling her an annoyance doesn’t help with her obviously festering insecurities and self hatred.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ Renee thinking that the only way Ashley could have value to anyone (Andrew) is if she is having sex with them. Ashley’s mindset about sex is very contractual (I will maybe go into further detail about this in a later post) and I believe that that has been taken from her mother.

🌺 Selling her children to the organ harvesting scheme is just generally fucked up, and how she shows absolutely no remorse is even more concerning. Even if she seemed to show some remorse when she was extending the olive branch to Andrew it could just be some manipulation tactic. I don’t know, I don’t trust her.

🌺 Renee may not be the cause of all of the siblings problems, there are external influences as well as the father, though I feel with the lack of content we have around their father that I am unable to judge him on his actions, bar being equally responsible for his children. The fandom also really likes Renee and barely anyone mentions the father, and this post is specifically made because people overwhelmingly like Renee. Which I don’t understand.

Anyway, that’s my thoughts. Apologies for any grammar or spelling mistakes, this was typed out in my notes app and was just a way of venting my frustrations about how the fandom treats Renee (about how aspects of her character remind me of my own mother). If you got this far, thanks for reading 💚🩷

[curioscurio]

Some thoughts on hypersensitivity and comparing it to viewing life as of it were one giant unpredictable youtube poop, from a sensory standpoint:

Under cut!

To me, Hypersensitivity is like a deep fried youtube poop where random noises are extra loud and crunchy while some are slow and weird and the editing is insane. sometimes it's manageable but sometimes you have to just stop the video because its overwhelming right?

now imagine if real life was like a youtube poop. The dog is barking, and maybe 40 minutes ago it wasn't deep fried and max volume, but now it's annoying, overwhelming, maybe even painful.

Certain textures feel like bass boosted mr krabs in your brain in a bad way. Or maybe you love mr krabs crunchy nightcore and you're sensory seeking.

Now imagine you live your life 24/7 in a youtube poop. Many everyday or normal things may unexpectedly be presented to you youtube poop style. having to turn the volume up or down or pause or skip or even replay just to keep yourself from shutting down the tab.

Sometimes you get so tired of youtube poops you need to minimize and pause the tab (life) and recover/decompress/isolate/etc. On the other hand, if you cant close the tab or are somewhere with no way to manage that hypersensitivity, you just freak out and do anything you can to make it stop.

Meanwhile a neurotypical brain would only have youtube poop moments on certain occasions or in situations where it's expected life will be like a youtube poop. The difference is that hypersensitive neurodivergent people may be living life in a youtube poop every moment of their day.

Luckily, we have coping mechanisms and sensory accommodation tools to help!

Just wanted to talk out my view on hypersensitivity, and why some things bother me in different ways. I'm also trying to re teach myself better methods of coping with the world I live in, where before any uncomfortable or painful feeling and emotion was stored away so as to be "convenient" to others.

Well no more! I'm trying hard to let myself be inconvenient to others if it means taking care of myself!

[monstersinthecosmos]

Okay I don’t want this to be like an obnoxious millennial assumption because I’m positive that every generation has things like this, but the way autism and ADHD was treated for us in the 90’s and how it affects adult diagnoses is like, imo, so integral to our coming of age and the stories we tell and the way we’ve gotten to know ourselves, even the way it relates to our job market and economy and how we operate inside it, and especially the way a pandemic uncovered it for so many people and exposed the cracks and revealed that we were all just barely functioning and held together with popsicle sticks and anyway

I say that because maybe it’s the un-diagnosed 90’s child in me but I feel particularly emotional about Keith’s arc in learning that he’s part Galra, and the way even the creators said they made him sort of prickly because of his biology, and I just !! Think so much about Keith’s neurotype as a part Galra!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cause something about being diagnosed later in life is like, looking back at all the other ways you tried to handle yourself, all the missteps, maybe even misdiagnoses. Like, how many times did you try to treat ANXIETY without realizing you didn’t have an anxiety disorder, you just can’t deal with your family blaring the TV from the next room? How many times were you told you were lazy, or lying, when you didn’t know what executive dysfunction is? 

Keith is such a lovely rich character because his prickliness is EARNED—we know what happened to him, we know he’s traumatized, we know he’s been treated poorly by many people in his life. We know that he grew up thinking that he’d been abandoned by one of the people who should’ve loved him the most, in the whole world. He even questions that in his vlog—he makes the connection that he has trouble with people because of his mom. 

But I just wonder like, how much of it is just his biology. Not understanding the body he’s in, being completely ignorant of one whole half of his culture. Had he ever mutated before the TBP fight? Did it take him by surprise, did it frighten him? ((* This is head canon territory LMAO there’s no way to really know—like, is he able to do this because he just spent so much time with Krolia, or does Shiro going That’s the Keith I remember mean they used to have really primal sex that turned his eyes yellow? Lol)) 

Like when we talk about even the most broad generic terms of saying someone is neurodivergent, we don't even need to put a real life label on Keith. Like he's literally not human! Of course his brain looks different! Of course he functions differently! And I wonder how much is nature v nurture -- if he knew the truth about his mom, if his dad had lived, if he'd been allowed a normal childhood, would he still have been a weird kid?

Cause like, even seeing the way Shiro is able to get through to him, we see ways that he allowed for thrill seeking, and he didn't judge Keith for stealing his car. It reminds me of like, what we know now about asking children to sit still in school, and how perhaps some children would do better with standing desks. Shiro wants him to behave and succeed, and doesn't judge him for being a car thief, and gets through to him by bringing him cliff diving. And it just feels like this clue, you know, that nothing is wrong with Keith, he's just living in a weird place where people don't get him.

It’s just really special to me, because there’s so many pieces in the sequence of events of Keith’s character arc, and I know I’ve said this a handful of times now, but I really sincerely believe it’s the only thing the show really nailed. Accepting himself during the BOM Trial -> MOMENTS later learning something very important about his biology -> spending time with Krolia -> coming back to pilot Black when he’s READY and WANTS to (unlike the first time, when he resisted) -> becoming a pragmatic strong leader by the end.

Gosh idk. 

I don’t really have anywhere to go with this, it’s just something I was thinking about today and it gets me real emotional. Like, Keith must have had these moments, re-evaluating who he’d been before he’d known, finally understanding why he was Like That, and it’s so healing to imagine him accepting his past self and forgiving it because he understands now.