#people who starve themselves and call it healthy

[gender-euphowrya]

"eat this don't eat that more meat less meat plant-based omnivore carnivore vegan insects protein shakes keto paleo intermittent fasting eat this don't eat that eat that don't eat this" HOW ABOUT I EAT THINGS I LIKE AND WANT TO EAT IN A WAY THAT ENSURES MY SURVIVAL AND DON'T TREAT FOOD LIKE SOMETHING TO OPTIMIZE THE BENEFITS OF OR PUNISHMENT OR A CHORE OR A REFLECTION OF MY MORALITY

[thezombieprostitute]

The Arrangement - Part 9

Summary: Jake's done a lot of things to keep his sister, and then his niece, safe from his parent's influence and manipulation. If he wants to keep them safe, he has to marry you.

Warnings: Bad parents, Body shaming, Implied abuse. Let me know if I missed any!

Part 8 -- Part 10

Series Masterlist

Jake had his calendar open on his phone, putting in all of the events the two of you had been volun-told to attend. His heart sank as he realized just about every weekend would be taken up with something. He was going to have to work with you to coordinate calendars, clothes, and everything else.

"And don't forget to show up at the office first thing Monday morning," Montgomery tells him. "We've got an entire new employee orientation set up just for you."

"Thanks," Jake nods, exhaustion heavy in his voice. "8 AM, right?"

Montgomery laughs. "That's the arrival time for the drones and minions," he jabs. "But I suppose it would work to help endear you to them. Just don't expect anyone but your secretary to be there until at least 10."

"Right," Jake says through gritted teeth. "And do we need to get fitted for clothes or anything?"

"You saw the ones we got for you in the closet, yes?" Cordelia says with a raised eyebrow.

You try to hide your wince. If the parents knew you weren't actually sharing a bed you'd be in even more trouble.

"Yes, mother," Jake lies. "I just...didn't know if...if we'd need something special or tailored for the events."

The parents seem to buy his explanation and you breathe a little easier. Feeling full of nervous energy you keep yourself busy by refilling drinks and gently ask if anyone needs anything else.

Your mother snorts, "it's such a small wonder you haven't been able to lose weight, thinking people need more than that feast of a breakfast."

Jake's mother, Cordelia, laughs in agreement. "Seriously, girls these days are just too lacking in self control to starve themselves like we had to."

"It's such a shame," Carol shakes her head. Jake bites back a comment, reminding himself of what happened just an hour before when he tried to defend you. "I swear, the 'body positive' trend is undermining the strength of will of the younger generations. Who needs to eat to be healthy? Just take a few multivitamins a day."

Cordelia nods, "and you know they're not going to be able to make it through a pregnancy, either. The babies are going to be so fat!"

Your mother's follow up comment gets cut off by her phone ringing. You recognize the ringtone as the one she uses for when Travis calls her. "Travis!" Carol cheerily cries as she answers. You shouldn't be affected, but it still hurts that she never answers your calls with such excitement.

Everyone pauses when her smile drops. A hand covers her mouth and she starts shaking. "What hospital," she gasps, getting everyone's attention. "We'll be right there!" She hangs up and turns to your father, "Travis was in a car accident! We have to go!"

Your parents step away from the table, followed by Jake's parents.

"Should we go with you?" Jake offers, standing from the table.

"No," Montgomery shoots him down. "Only so many people allowed and we don't want to cause a scene by bringing a crowd."

Your mother starts sobbing and you go to comfort her but she smacks your hands away. "If we hadn't been visiting you he'd be okay," she snaps at you. You lower your head in shame. "You just had to keep us here, didn't you? I know you've always hated Travis. You know he needs more attention than you. And now he's in the hospital!"

"Let's go, Carol," your father intones. "Our son needs us more than she needs to be yelled at."

Carol huffs and storms out, followed by your father. You want to cry but Jake's parents are still here and you need to be a good hostess.

You turn to them to ask if they need anything but Cordelia sees your face and immediately scoffs. "Don't bother trying to keep us here. We're not that interested in you and now that your parents are gone, so are we."

William grabs his coat and tells Jake, "make sure not to screw things up worse. Anything happens to ruin this arrangement and your niece is up for grabs."

Jake's parents head out, leaving the two of you. That's when you start sobbing.

Jake's immediate thought is to comfort you, but he also knows he shouldn't touch you without permission. But would it be weird to ask when you're clearly already upset? Do you need words instead of hugs? Do you need water? Food? Blankets? Something else? He stands, torn with indecision, for several moments before moving close, but not too close, and asking, "what do you need?"

Caught off guard by the question you shake your head, "I don't know."

"Okay...let's start simple," Jake's voice wavers as he tries to keep himself calm. "Do you want a hug?"

You sob for a few more seconds before silently nodding. A hug does sound nice. You're not used to them, but they can feel good, right?

Taking your nod as permission Jake gently wraps his arms around you and you lean into him. When he helped you with the spilled coffee you got a sense of how much muscle his arms had but the hug solidified it. More importantly, he was so gentle with you, despite being so strong. You cry even harder at the realization of how much you've needed such a gentle touch in your life. You push a little harder into Jake's chest and he doesn't move. He doesn't say anything, doesn't do anything other than just hold you and let you cry.

Part 8 -- Part 10

Series Masterlist

Tagging: @alicedopey; @ashdoctor; @delicatebarness; @ellethespaceunicorn; @irishhappiness

@jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @lokislady82; @ronearoundblindly

[aquaaquila]

My very long rant about The Owl House many will have issues reading

Felt like writing my hot takes within The Owl House and its fan base after witnessing some crazy drama all over the blogs I follow and followed:

First things first, I want to establish that there's nothing wrong with liking other ships that are non-canon or ships that are canon. We can all co-exist peacefully, but we won't if we're going to assume that shippers of other ships by default must be sexist or delusional or just the worst. There are plenty of bad apples among all the shippers here, but they're not necessarily the norm (though to be fair the norm usually enables the worst behaviors of such shippers). As a whole TOH isn't a healthy collective and could never be as this fan base is much larger than people realise (you can't have so many people invested with this show for the fan base to be supposedly chill, like Fat Chance).

Like really you can go from canon purists who will keep everything wholesome and silly but because of how starved the actual canon left them they will include a hundred different headcanons that are not in any way related to actual canon and still be upset as if the canon was threatened when you can just to agree with the headcanons alone. There's still, of course, an issue of canon purists literally rejecting everything that's in their mind is supposedly not okay because it strays away from canon in a more direct way. Then you will have Wittelore enjoyers who just love everything about Belos, Caleb, and Evelyn in various different expressions, but it can at times go to becoming lowkey colonist apologist territory along with pretty much-appropriating everything that applied to the character of color into these three when two of them canonically were never given a proper characterisation and Belos is not supposed to be just a victim that deserves grace but the very force that creates victims and the one to continue the cycle without remorse or second thoughts becoming the cycle itself, thus not making it any wrong to unceremoniously end it, though plenty of people will still have problem with it and wish the show validated Philip's feelings. However, you will also have POC defenders who will give the attention and love to characters of color they deserve and even the demon characters like King for example, and acknowledge how they're in fact the main characters while pointing out the clear white favoritism. But this can also go to an extreme territory where you will be called racist for actually finding white characters your favorite and still being interested more in their characters, which as I said is in fact incredibly extreme and disingenuous and also, something that will invalidate all the other good arguments by the virtue of this extreme being the underlying reason behind all of them and thus completely diminishing the problem because people will no longer take it seriously. Then you will have shippers of non-canon ships that are literally harassed by canon persists and were like that for years until they snapped and started to return the favor in the same way to the point of being delusional about how the canon pairings were not the original plan and how they actually suck and it's the non-canon pairing that should be canon which also further fuels the cycle and validates those who believe that somehow the shippers of other ships are after them specifically and how they mean o good when in fact they're the monsters they created themselves. This also leads to the infamous "critics" of the show who will pretty much hate anything within it to also inaccurate extreme that is based on assumptions born from the collective gaslight of some headcanons being canon, along with people judging the show on the surface and assuming things that were never the plan because they made a connection to something else they liked and got disappointed when those two things turned out to be unrelated (for example Hunter's arc being not like Zuko's arc when clearly it was never the point) and thus shushing away any potential criticism the show actually could get by the virtue of getting criticism that holds no water upon the closer look and thus makes people believe the show is, in fact, flawless or that the flaws don't matter in the slightest (when they do as they help improve future stories to not make the same mistakes and create something better). And of course, you will have people collectively gaslighting everyone around them that everything is fine and there's no drama in the show even though everyone hates each other here and fuel toxicity together by constantly drawing distinctions between "us and them" but never talking about how toxic it is.

Congratulations, we created our Emperor's Coven at home! This entire thing is pretty much the reason why I'm making this thing.

But back to the rest of the actual meat of this post, that was mere appetizer.

Second of all: Multishippers exist. Some people like both Lumity and Lunter and there are Lunter shippers who like Amity, me included as Amity's one of my favorite characters. It's disingenuous to assume Lunter shippers are by default lesphobic or just hate Amity. Heck, the reason Lunter shippers dislike Amity is less about her and more about the fan base's attitude. Imagine being constantly harassed that you don't ship mainstream ship by being specifically reminded that a specific lesbian exists, even if this isn't about her. You would be tired of her too because "good for her to be a happy lesbian", but Lumity may still not satisfy people as it's basically all fluff at this point. People are so overjoyed with them being together they hardly explore now possibilities of them going through something. At most, they will use green-haired Amity but people still will be waiting for green to turn into periwinkle, and fluff will just overwhelm anything else. And don't get me started on how both of them also end up being flanderised and dirty because of each other (as it goes both ways). People can just not vibe with that or be indifferent, but because people get harassed for daring to not love Lumity or Amity, they just end up hating it more. The issue is not Amity, the issue is Amity being the only option allowed. And gatekeeping people from enjoying other ships isn't ok. It really makes you feel like people erase aspects of their characters just to conform to a specific image of them and how can you accept something like this when the show is all about embracing weirdness and differences and not conforming to anything. Loving Lumity is a norm in this fan base, not a break with convention.

Third of all: I'm sorry to y'all but I think that considering Evelyn and Willow as literal parallels because they both fell in love with "Caleb" is disingenuous to both of them. No one would draw this connection if Willow wasn't romantically involved with Hunter. And while I don't disagree that Huntlow is goated and canon/semi-canon, their relationship is still left to interpretation and they are only implied to have a thing but not confirmed to be downright an item. We don't know 100% if they're dating, playing the long game, engaged, or amicably broken up. And that's great as both of their characters work in their own right and they don't need an established relationship to be fulfilled and people can interpret their relationship however they like, no need to throw pitchforks at one another. And Willow being dressed up AS A STEREOTYPE just doesn't help the case of her somehow being Evelyn's foil. Luz was dressed as an actual witch character (even if said witch is also not how real witches operate either, but it's still closer in meaning than Willow being dressed up as a devil as if Evelyn indeed charmed Caleb and he didn't fall in love with her like a normal person or that Evelyn was ever in the wrong to like a boy).

And as for Evelyn: please stop just summarising her up to Caleb's love interest for Titan's sake. We may not know much about her but we know that they did start as friends according to Dana's livestream and later on they would become parents to their child (if Belos didn't ruin it). Not only it's different from Huntlow as Huntlow didn't establish where they stand in their relationship at the end while it's clear that Evelyn and Caleb fucked, but Evelyn and Caleb had their love story that did take time (Huntlow at most is just getting started but for all, we know they could still break up in the future cause why not, it's their choice, first love isn't necessarily the only option). My point is that Evelyn's life didn't revolve around her love for Caleb alone so saying Willow and Evelyn are parallels because of them being lovers of our favorite white boys pretty much erases both of their characters. Evelyn's worth as a character doesn't end on getting pregnant, but also being a catalyst of all the events within the story, along with being a Clawthorne ancestor and original wild witch living between worlds.

Fifth point: this is where I bring Luz into this as the parallel, the infamous "Luz is Evelyn" everyone just loves to discard because it's only used as Lunter's argument and further making Evelyn only Caleb's bitch and nothing else, but here's a thing: you can use this parallel platonically to further spite Philip. People draw the connection because aside from having no romantic feelings towards "Caleb" (which is the only distinction between the two), Luz is also a wild witch (wild as in both wild personality-wise, wild as in everything Belos stands against (and side note: Willow being someone Belos wouldn't approve of is not a high bar because Belos would literally not approve of ANYBODY within our cast, so Willow's not special in this regard, heck Belos doesn't even know Willow all that much), wild as in using the very magic that came from the titan and wild as in a wild card that changed the course of history) that traveled between realms and came from another world (let's be real, Hunter is a witch from boiling isles, not a human from the earth, so Luz by a longshot matches the description better than Willow who's just a regular witch born in the demon realm to Hunter that frankly wouldn't be hurt or restrained by the coven system as she only uses plant magic from her bile sac and didn't go against the empire until season 1 finale and even then she didn't do it as a wild witch but child witch railing witches belonging to the coven to release Eda). Both of them also have loose association with Clawthornes as Luz isn't legally one but just a surrogate daughter of one and Evelyn's surname isn't known, the clan could've been established much later down the line or Evelyn's descendant married into Clawthorne's family, making Evelyn just an ancestor at best and distant at worst. I also already mentioned how both of them are catalysts to both the rise in power and the death of Philip while having massive guilt over it (Philip died on the inside as he killed Caleb, crossing the moral event horizon along with setting on the journey of destroying the entire realm. Plus I cannot imagine the survivor's guilt Evelyn must have felt over Caleb dying and orphaning their unborn child - which parallels Luz thinking she doomed her palisman by carving into an egg thinking it could never hatch because of how "she keeps on messing up constantly"). And of course, it's clear as day that Luz kickstarts Hunter's redemption arc by introducing Flapjack (and Evelyn did the same with Caleb, meanwhile Willow's only interaction with Flapjack is her giving him flowers on his grave; and it's worth noting as I doubt that Evelyn intentionally 'fixed" Caleb, much like Luz didn't intentionally "fixed" Hunter, though people sure love to think otherwise), making him question what he knows (a witch hunter falling in love with a witch - existential crisis is warranted, along with tones of guilt) and making him "betray" Belos (Hunter disobeyed Belos in HP and then questioned him directly in HM; Caleb "left Philip behind"). Like I'm sorry but Willow did nothing but wait till Hunter gets his shit together by himself (the only thing she actively tried to change his mind about is not judging a book by its cover but that's where it ends; she didn't call him out on doing the utterly terrible thing of kidnapping them to his cult nor anything else he did that wasn't morally correct) while Luz openly defied him and his worldview for him to come to his senses ("You're really going to take all those Palismen? I know what he does with them. I thought you were a good guy, but that was just wishful thinking" Hunter then proceeds to protect Luz from Kikimora, reveals his name, and lets Luz go with the Palismen just like that). Trivia: Evelyn also has brunette hair that is wild and tied back, Luz used to have them too early on but shorter, and currently they're curly.

That's where parallel comes from. That's what Evelyn us to Caleb: catalyst of change. Yes, Luz isn't in love with Hunter, but we could headcanon away that Caleb would be merely an uncle of Evelyn's kid, who's going to stop us from doing that? We can even make it that Philip felt replaced by Evelyn by her being Caleb's "new sibling" just for the fun of interpretation of the character.

But even if we won't do that (as no one forces us) then we must remember that parallel characters are not 2 characters being one and the same. Evelyn and Luz would still be separate entities and there's no crime in that. Luz not falling in love with a blond white boy is fine because that isn't and shouldn't be Evelyn's defining trait. Evelyn's defining trait is kickstarting change in Caleb which kickstarts Belos's vendetta against Witches. Romance was a bonus.

My sixth point: Last but not least let's finally talk about the elephant in the room that is parallel between Philip and Luz. All interpretations are valid, if you're choosing to interpret them like that, it's your valid choice and opinion. But saying that it's THE thing that happened within the show is just not correct and let me explain why before you discard me altogether if you haven't already.

Luz projected into Belos and Belos took advantage of that.

There, I said it, that's the ultimate truth of the show, you literally cannot deny this isn't how it happened.

Luz pretty much only had Philip as a point of reference to someone who shared her experience of a human in the demon realm. However, if she got to know Caleb instead of Philip, he would be the one Luz would compare herself to him. Ironically, she would be more correct as both of them are humans who run away to the demon realm after being possibly rejected by the closed-minded society and leaving behind unpleasant reality and their only living family member who they didn't realize how much they've hurt for choosing to leave them for the world that made them happy and helped them flourish (compare starved Caleb in Belos's vision to Caleb living in the demon realm and introducing Philip to Evelyn before he decided to kill them,). You could even say that Luz is a fusion of both Caleb and Evelyn at once. But unfortunately, Luz doesn't know Caleb as well as the audience does, all she knows is that he used to be a witch hunter who fell in love with Evelyn but that's about it. She doesn't know that he even has a connection to the portal door or Clawthorne ancestry.

So with no one else as a point of reference, Luz is going to compare herself to Philip Whattabitch. She assumed that she must be as bad as Belos because she thought he sincerely thought he was doing everything for a genuine reason and not because he was just a douchebag. Sure Philips's motivations are complex, but they don't come from a good place in the slightest. The Titan himself literally asks Luz if she's drunk on Eda's apple blood for thinking she's just as bad as Belos.

Like seriously, Luz stumbled on the Isles by pure accident. It was never for a reason or a higher purpose. She was never "destined" to go there, but it was her actions and decisions that led her there and changed the world around her. She didn't know the reason why she landed on Boiling Isles because there never was any reason or a prophecy to justify her presence there as it was never needed. This is not the same as Belos who willingly went to the demon realm to both find his brother and destroy all the witches. Luz very quickly grew out of "I'm the chosen one" whereas Belos made himself a false messiah. Even the Titan said that she's not chosen to be given Titan powers by fate but for her actions and kindness she's given them to support her and it was her decision to accept them. Not to mention that she respected the Isles, the inhabitants, and the magic that was part of this world, while all Belos ever did was destroy, murder, and steal it all for himself.

The show doesn't tell you Luz and Belos are foils, the show tells you that Luz VIEWS herself as Belos's foil, but she's nothing like him. Even their respective hero complexes are different. Luz seeks self-improvement to find a community for herself to belong to. But Belos? Belos wants to get praise and glory for slaughtering "the evil". Those two are not the same because Belos doesn't care about anyone but himself while Luz is all about what other people feel and think about her and she sacrifices herself multiple times for other people's sake. Belos would never do that. Belos wasn't even happy that Caleb was actually well and healthy in the demon realm, in contrast to the vision where Caleb is starved and sleep-deprived because he had to look after him ever since they were little orphans, sacrificing his own well-being. But Luz would rather give up her own hopes and dreams just to not see anyone she cares about ever put themselves on the line like that.

At most, I can agree that Luz represents what's best in humanity and Belos represents the worst, but that is still an incredibly broad concept that just doesn't contribute much to the actual story of TOH which isn't about humanity as a whole. And I'm sorry but this parallel is just used to woobify Belos and villanise Luz, something that certainly is not right. Because even if you made Belos a hero and Luz a villain, they'd still be nothing like one another.

Even Luz's dynamic with Hunter is nothing like Caleb and Philip. Caleb and Philip grew up together and they were the entire world to one another growing up. But Luz and Hunter didn't even have each other when growing up, they didn't get to know them until their teens, and the first time they meet they were at each other's throats which is different from Wittebane brothers having a loving relationship early on only for Belos to stab Caleb. Arguably, even if liked the idea of Luz and Hunter being siblings, I'd be disappointed with how much the show didn't do anything with them and it's always the fan base that pulls heavy weight on them being sibling-like. Like Hunting Palismen is them not even being friends let alone family and it's still supposed to be the pinnacle of their sibling rivalry, even though they were actual enemies and Luz is just as petty and immature here as she is with Kikimora? Luz supposedly didn't go after Hunter after he ran away from the Owl House whereas she did chase King when he learned the truth in Echoes of the Past? Supposedly we never had an on-screen scene where Hunter officially becomes a Noceda? I'm sorry but I will take a "You're family" from Afro-Latina as not confirmation that I'm a sibling but a friend who is close enough to be as valued as a family member, especially followed by Willow's "You're one of us now" and preceded with Camila's "I'm a mother of six". Are Hunter and Willow siblings too now? Hunter didn't even get to be in a photo of the Noceda family in the epilogue, what kind of brother would that be?

Camila is more of a Caleb to Luz considering it was her who raised Luz through trials and tribulations, sacrificing her own quirks and encouraging Luz to do the same just to conform to the norms of Gravesfield. But quite frankly it's Luz who ultimately runs away because of a certain Clawthorne Witch leaving Camila behind. Hunter literally has no such story with Luz, unless you count him running away in HM, only to return to COTH a week later and then finally live under Nocedas' roof.

Even when Luz didn't like Hunter's guts, she would never kill him. And despite being dressed up as Belos in the nightmare sequence, there's never a parallel between Philip and Caleb, because truly this isn't their relationship. And while we're at it, the whole nightmare sequence is once again a play on Luz's insecurities and doubts, but none of them are the truth. None of Luz's friends blame her for what happened, none of Belos's crimes are her crimes, and Luz would never willingly destroy the Boiling Isles because she doesn't destroy the things or people she hates. Even Belos was not finished off by Luz but by boiling rain and her family.

Ok, I finished venting about everything that's been going on inside my head. Might add more on the way, but those were the issues that were bugging me so now do whatever you want with it.

[alexihollis]

Arcane "Soulmate" AU - Piltover's Finest

I have been thinking about a delicious Arcane AU where people are bonded together, but people don't necessarily fully by into the soulmate thing (not everyone is bonded, lets say a healthy 40% of people). And lets make it a super intrusive bond, too, almost like Sense8, where you can feel yourself connected to the other person through their strongest thoughts and emotions, you can talk to them, you can even swap bodies for short periods of time. And lets say that one cannot live without the other so the bond does weird ass things when one person grows up in adverse conditions - like, say, lacks clean air or an abundance of food - but the other person lives in abundance. For example, the person in abundance would be insatiably hungry until they ate enough to sustain both themselves and their bonded. Maybe not to the point of thriving, but enough to keep the other alive so that they themselves stay alive.

What would this look like if Caitlyn and Vi, for instance, were bonded like this?

Vi's parents - ecstatic. Their child is clearly bonded to a Topsider which is...not fantastic, but it essentially means one less mouth to feed and struggle with. She's not as healthy as she could be, but she doesn't have the constant cough of the other kids her age. She's a bit lanky, but she's the tallest of all her friends. She's hungry, complains about not getting to actually eat that often, but she isn't hungry, she isn't starving, because her bonded - a little girl she calls Caiti - has enough.

Caitlyn's parents - less so. For one, it becomes very obvious very quickly that Caitlyn is bonded to a child from the Undercity. She can barely go three hours without needing a snack, wakes up in the middle of the night to raid the kitchen to the horror of the cook. She's not as healthy as she could be, she can't run around the way the other Topsider children can. When Cassandra took her to the doctor, he shook his head and said that her lungs were suffering from slight effects of smog poisoning. She's a bit malnourished, because she's eating for two and she needs to watch her nutrients more, though the doctor admitted it was difficult to manage that if he wasn't sure what nutrients her bonded was getting.

So Cassandra built the vents, officially because the people of the Undercity deserved to breathe and unofficially because her daughter needed to breathe. She sent Enforcers to search for a girl born the same day as her daughter named Vi. Then sent Personal Investigators when it became clear that no one would talk to Enforcers.

All she got? Heimmerdinger in her office telling her that attempting to track down a child of the Undercity would not go well in the long term.

But the Cassandra Kiramman cannot accept that. And she starts to resent this bonded who has latched onto her daughter like a parasite. And then she finds other Piltover parents with children bonded to Zaunites that aren't particularly happy either. Some of the other parents are bonded themselves, plenty aren't, but they all reach the same conclusion: these bonds are not healthy for their children. They start convincing each other that any misbehavior from their child must be them having switched with their bonded.

And Cassandra Kiramman is a policy maker who gets a lovely excuse dropped on her lap during the Zaunite Bridge Uprising.

"My daughter could have been killed while sleeping safe in her bed," she said at that meeting. "Parents with children bonded to children in unsafe situations have the right to protect their children by taking custody of both."

And so the law was passed. And the round ups began, with Enforcers flooding the city and searching for children bonded with Piltover children. Some Piltover parents encourage their children to force a switch, inhabit their bonded's body, long enough to find and Enforcer to bring them topside. Cassandra all but ordered Caitlyn to do the same.

She never did learn that Caitlyn refused. That Vi watched through the bond in pure horror and Vander did his best to hide her.

But Caitlyn had already revealed too much about Vi. Enforcers found her after two weeks. Drag her to Topside and thrust her into a life of abundance and wealth and anything a child could materially want and she despises every silk covered moment of it. It takes her a long time to forgive Caitlyn and Caitlyn never really does get around to forgiving herself. Particularly for what happens in the years Vi spends in that house.

They're still connected. Vi's body still struggles with what it went through in the Fissures and Caitlyn's body continues to overcompensate. And Cassandra is impatient and fully does not believe in the bond being sacred, not bonded herself, and finds it suspicious how many Zaun children are bonded to Piltover ones, like it was some sort of evolutionary trick to bypass being born in a bad situation.

It's not important that it doesn't follow whatever understood metaphysical science exists, it's important that Cassandra believes this. When the doctor says that it will takes years before Caitlyn and Vi's bond will equalize, stop favoring Vi's needs over Caitlyn's, Cassandra decides to turn to something a bit more dark.

Isolation chambers are rarely used - mostly in medicine, such as when one bonded pair needs treatment such as surgery and doctors are concerned about the feedback through the bond. They are sometimes used in interrogation, but they are banned in prison's. It's considered a form of torture, to block off a person's connection to their bonded.

But it's also known to help reset bonds, recorrect overcompensation issues. Cassandra sees the mental toll the bond is taking on Caitlyn - how reserved she's become, she never wants to talk anymore, she's skittish. Cassandra doesn't stop to think about the residual terror Caitlyn feels from Vi when she looks at her own parents now, the anger at being trapped in Piltover. Not to mention Caitlyn's own anger at Vi being ripped away from her family and the relationships Caitlyn made to them through Vi. Relationships her parents never tried to forge with Vi.

So instead, Cassandra pays for an isolation chamber to be built in their house and Vi spends an uncomfortable amount of time there. It doesn't matter how much Caitlyn screams or begs. The first time, it was just an hour. Over the years, as Cassandra's frustration grows, as Caitlyn starts to show progress as she's able to complete her schoolwork faster and faster without the connection, the time elongates. They hit sixteen days one time, when Caitlyn had gotten into a blow out fight with Cassandra and Cassandra was convinced it had actually been Vi switched into Caitlyn's body, as she always was when Caitlyn acted in a way she did not want her to.

And Caitlyn of course feels guilty and horrible every time her own behavior lands Vi in the insolation chamber, but a lack of emotional regulation and impulse control was one of the top side effects of longterm insolation use on bonded pairs.

Then, one day, Jayce stops by the Kiramman house to meet with his patron and sees 15 year old Caitlyn, sitting almost catatonic in the living room. She says her mother will not be back for an hour but told Caitlyn to entertain Jayce, though she seems quite apathetic about the idea at all. Jayce - part of a bonded pair himself with Viktor, who had not experienced the raiding of Zaun children but who had found his own way to the Talis house after his parents' premature death as a child - asked where Vi was. It wasn't abnormal to see the girls apart, but Jayce realized he wasn't sure what Vi did when she wasn't with Caitlyn.

But then Caitlyn didn't answer. Jayce pushed. She gave a washy one. Jayce looked at her a little closer. Then, firmer, asked where, exactly, Vi was.

And Caitlyn was so tired at this point that she just answered. Jayce threw himself down the basement stairs to the chamber and carried an unconscious Vi up the stairs, Viktor screaming in his head about what the absolute fuck was going on and that he would be contacting the authorities.

Suffice to say, this all gave Vander and Silco - who had been working together once they got over their shit after the raidings - the ammunition they needed to go against the bullshit "protection" laws Piltover had put in place. And from here, we see the development and hope that occurred in the Episode 6 AU as Vander and Silco work to make Zaun better. Except here, Caitlyn and Vi are alive and living with Vander.

And good lord would that be a lot for them to try to work through. Caitlyn feeling guilty for all that Vi suffered, Vi feeling weak and self-hating for what Cassandra convinced her she put Caitlyn through. Lot of healing needed.

Wow this post got long. And Cassandra is a bit OOC, but im going to blame that on her losing her mind over her child being affected by something she cannot control

TL;DR Soulmate AU where physical needs are connected would be absolutely bonkers in Piltover

[creature-wizard]

Cathy O'Brien - The First Project Monarch "Survivor"

Cathy O'Brien is the main author of TRANCE Formation of America, a 1995 book in which she claims she was a victim of Project Monarch alter programming, which was supposedly practiced by the New World Order. The book makes a lot of bizarre pseudoscientific claims about DID and is very obviously using the general conspiracy theory template laid out in The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, along with plenty of stuff derived from witch panic tropes. O'Brien was allegedly deprogrammed by Mark Phillips in 1988. Here's a selection of the claims she makes:

She claims she was recruited from "a multi-generational incest family" by none other than Gerald Ford, who personally came to her parents' house.

She claims that DID gives you photographic memory and a visual acuity of 44 times greater than the average person.

She claims that hypnotic regression can make old wounds (as in actual physical wounds) reappear.

She claims that Monarch slaves can be programmed to disguise themselves by shifting their facial muscles around.

She claims that she could read backward text because she was using more of her brain than normal, and claims this is a "typically occult based phenomenon."

She claims that Monarch programmers would use various movies to program their slaves. Alice In Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz come up a lot.

Pretty much EVERYBODY with a speaking role in her book is into horrible wordplay. She claims these double meanings are actually "double binds," which are part of Project Monarch's mind control techniques. They aren't double binds. They're just god-awful puns.

She claims Project Monarch was based on Nazi research, and is a key element of bringing about the New World Order. According to Cathy, the Vatican, Jesuits, Mormons, Freemasons, NASA, and the US military are all in on it.

She implicates a number of politicians, entertainers, sports figures, and various others as members of the NWO.

She claims to know what the NWO wants to do because she, personally was around many of its high-ranking members (which include but are not limited to Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Hilary Clinton.)

She's very much into the whole "the conspiracy runs the entertainment industry" trope. She claims that entertainers usually only make it big when they participate in CIA operations and/or are slaves themselves. She claims that she knows "numerous entertainers in need of rescue and deprogramming."

She claims Marilyn Monroe was a Monarch slave.

And typical of conspiracy theories in the time period, the conspiracy is supposedly behind the distribution of drugs, porn, and CSEM.

Like many conspiracy theorists, she claims that a snuff film industry exists. There is no evidence that any such industry exists.

She claims NASA has a drug called "Tranquility," which makes people follow whatever orders they're given.

She has her own take on the reptilian conspiracy theory. She claims that the president of Mexico, Miguel de la Madrid, told her that he was descended from reptilian aliens who interbred with the Maya to produce reptilian shapeshifters. She claims George Bush and de la Madrid used holographic technology to make it seem as if they were transforming into reptilians. She also claims NASA uses reptile themes in its Mexican operations.

She claims that the evil plan includes establishing free trade between the US and Mexico, so that drugs can freely be transported into the US, and Monarch-enslaved white people can be transported out.

O'Brien claims that she and her daughter were brutally tortured, sleep deprived, dehydrated, and starved. At the time she claims she was forced to run drugs, she was supposedly allowed only two hours of sleep per night and 300 calories per day. Yet in the pictures of her and her daughter included in the book, they both look perfectly healthy.

She claims that the entire country of Haiti is under Monarch mind control, and that she was involved in a plot to murder Haitians by way of poisoned vaccines administered by Jesuit missionaries (who were secretly NWO operatives).

Whenever she writes about an alleged event involving a foreigner… let's just say Cathy O'Brien's love for national and ethnic stereotypes rivals JK Rowling's.

She claims that her personalities were integrated after she was freed from Project Monarch, with the implication that she doesn't have DID anymore.

Mark Phillips, her alleged rescuer and deprogrammer, whisked her and her daughter away from Tennessee and took them to Alaska before beginning the "deprogramming" process. At this point, she fell in love with him. That's right - her "rescuer" flew her across the country to a remote location before using hypnosis to help her "recover" memories of Project Monarch and the New World Order. Can we say "yikes"?

It's unclear who exactly came up with the idea of Project Monarch itself, but H.P. Abarelli Jr., who researched Project MK-Ultra, wrote this in response to a question about Project Monarch:

I researched the CIA's programs for over 17 years.

As far as I could see and find, there is/was no Monarch project. Indeed, I was told by the fellow who first wrote about it that it was a fabricated project on his part and that he has regretted the creation for years. It is not necessary to make MKULTRA and Artichoke any worse than they were.

They were absolutely horrible programs and the attempts to embellish them with made-up projects is not helpful or needed. In fact, it readily serves the Agency's disinformation objectives to scatter this fabricated disinfo dust over the real story. (Source)

What we do know is that Project Monarch is a right wing conspiracy theory, and its tropes have roots in antisemitism and witch panic. There is no evidence that alter programming via the methods these people describe is possible, but there is plenty of evidence to show that confabulated memories can be cultivated with very little effort.

[princess-ibri]

King Magnifico Backstory Part 2

(Sorry it took so long. The holiday rush caught up with me, and it hasn't ended yet, so this is probably gonna be a three parter, actually. But here's the link to Part 1 and some other meta that connects to the backstory!)

The young man and his new bride sailed through time and space, through storms and starlight, out into the sea of a new world

Their ship crashed upon the shores of an island, on which stood the remains of a great castle and above which shown a brilliant star, shining as if it were a good omen that here they could build a new home for themselves

And such a home they built. The magic of the young man seemed to swell even greater beneath the light of the star--(the star he did not know was the home of his own fairy godmother)-- and as he and Amaya built their new home, others began to flock to them, as if also drawn there by the star.

The young couple welcomed them, and the young man used his magic to aid them in their dreams in exchange for their help in creating a new kingdom, where he hoped to be able to use his powers to bless those worthy of it--for he still felt the swell of love and happiness and wonder that came from helping to grant the wishes of others, so powerful it felt almost tangible at times.

They called the island Rosas, after the favorite flower of Amaya, and took the rose and the shining star above them as their symbols. Indeed, the star was already engraven on many parts of the now refurbished castle.

And soon enough, with the help of their new friends and subjects and the magic that flowed around them, a beautiful kingdom rose up, with Amaya as Queen, and the young man the people began to call “Magnifico” as King.

As the years passed, King Magnifico granted many wishes, and Rosas grew in prestige and beauty, people from the farthest flung places in the world began to flock to it, seeking its joy and bounty, and the chance to have their wishes granted.

Eventually the kingdom's population grew so great and so quickly that Magnifico--who had learned his lesson on granting wishes indiscriminately--decreed that only those who had lived in Rosas for a year and a day would have their wishes granted, and only then their greatest wish--so as to have time to prove their character and loyalty. Eventually this was raised to three years, then five, and finally all those who were born in Rosas and reached 18 were to have their wish granted, once per month at a grand ceremony.

To help aid and protect his new home, Magnifico studied magics both great and small, dark and light. He had books brought to him from all the lands that came to Rosas, and--though he did not know it at first-- the natural magic that drifted down from Rosas's guardian wishing star helped to aid him in becoming one of the greatest sorcerers in this new world, where magic was not as bountiful as the one he had been born in. One so great he managed to mostly stave off even old age for himself and his beloved queen, so as to keep their kingdom stable and secure

(And perhaps there was something of vanity within this. Having been starved of true affection for so long, Magnifico had became rather susceptible to flattery, and took perhaps more pride in his appearance then was healthy).

But for all his powers, and all his ability to grant the wishes of others, Magnifico found over the years that he was unable to grant the greatest wish shared between him and Amaya--to have a child of their own.

At last, one night, in desperation, remembering the vague story he had heard of his own birth, he wished upon the star above them.

And the star answered.

They named the child Maroula, “Wished for Child, or, Star of the Sea”, as she was born with the mark of a star on her forehead

The couple adored their daughter, as did the whole kingdom. Neither Rosas nor its rulers ever knew greater happiness than in caring for the young princess and watching her grow.

One day though, as young Maroula was playing in the rose garden of the palace, she heard a soft voice calling to her, though she could not see from where.

“Maroula, Maroula, wished-for-child of a wished-for-child. Great will be your power, but great too will be the trials that come to you from it. Would you face them when you are young, or old?”

And the little princess thought, “Far better to get anything bad over with sooner than later. Then, once it's done,I can live happily ever after without worrying about it”

So she answered “When I'm young”

"So be it" said the voice, and faded away...

And yet the years went by without any sign of these promised trials, until Maroula had grown into a beautiful young woman.

The princess has always been close with her father, and over the years he had taught her magic as well, and eventually she became his official apprentice, as well as his heir

Maroula studied hard, and became wonderfully proficient in all manner of spells and sorcery, helping her parents to bless their kingdom and aid in its prosperity

All seemed well, until the eve of the Princess's 18th birthday…

Part 3

[kiruyeen]

rambling abt my danny johnson hcs bc I dont have anything better to do

alright so the fog most definitely changed everyone in it, but while most of them are for worse, Danny for better, actually. not for the "hehe I can mutilate people without worrying abt consequences" part. by all means I believe danny would get bored. of the same methods of killing, sacrifing, stalking for short periods, the same realms, same victims, etc. Danny, as patient as he can be while stalking, is a thrill seeking man, and only human, whether he likes it or not.

but this is a key part of him actually getting to explore who 'danny johnson' is. he spent his entire life putting on masks, physical or metaphorical, that he has no idea who 'danny' is otherwise, and this would give him a chance to explore, since, well, being painfully average isnt any advantage to him here and he has nothing better to do since he cant focus his attention on stalking and studying other people. when theres no one left to study, one is forced to study themselves.

he could actually grow out his hair, give himself stick and poke tats (maybe with the help of the legion, who knows), grow a beard to see if he likes it (I dont think he would), etc.

going from this, if he forms genuine bonds with anyone (especially any survivors) bc yk what else is left to do, he could actually, just maybe, open up about his past and realize oh fuck, that shit wasnt healthy or normal at all. I dont think itd fix him, but itd give him a better understanding of himself. I dont think he would ever upon up about this if it wasnt for the fog.

similarly I dont think he'd form any romantic bonds with anyone if it wasnt the fog as well, I fully believe danny used to cut himself off (more accurately, cut THEM up) as soon as he felt his feelings for anyone would get in the way of his mission. I dont think he even recognizes romantic love anymore. the difference in the fog is, well, you cant get rid of your problems by murdering them here bc they just come back like a boomerang.

he semi-canonly has NPD (as in the devs called him a bit narcissistic once and I stuck to it like a starving leech) and I most definitely believe he has the symptoms, as a lack of a sense of self is common with NPD anyway. I never wanna think too much abt this since I have a deeply set fear of misrepresenting already stigmatized disorders esp due to not having NPD myself but I will say, 1, he definitely has an internal hierarchy but the way he feels abt those above and below him are different than you'd assume, and 2, he would have been a murderer regardless of his npd and the npd has nothing to do with him becoming a murderer, it does influence it naturally yes bc its a PERSONALITY disorder but its not what makes him evil yk. its the ritualized abuse he went through all his life with the explicit intent to make him the way he is.

other, small stuff

so since the entity can and does change a few things with the killers, I love to think Danny has tapetum lucidum in his eyes, like a cat, to see better in the dark, esp beneath the mask's eyes.

the way his costume's... strap.. tentacle... things work is similar to a cat's tail as well. swishing furiously when upset, resting naturally when calm, curling slowly when curious etc. it makes it a little bit easier to guess how hes feeling with the emotionless mask on, for the theoretical audience at least.

he's actually not a fan of physical contact, unless it is to cause discomfort to or fluster someone. he's simply not used to it, but he will tolerate it when necessary. he's likely just touch starved but doesnt recognize the sensation, though.

he would not care enough to label his orientational identity but it'd definitely be pan and somewhere on the a-spectrum.

returning to the only getting to know himself after the fog bit, he'd probably realize hes at least a little bit gender queer. (I also love trans man danny headcanons I just cant seem to make it fit with my other hcs)

alr thats abt it I believe. feel free to share ur ideas as well I love reading abt different interpertations for a character esp when it is the silly sopping wet cat that is danny

[thependragonarchives]

Grim Reaper Headcanon Blurb

here's just a good chunk of all headcanons I have for general Dispatch shenanigans!! below cut :> ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ-

✧ A general one shared with most of tumblr, but the reapers looking more inhuman. Sharp teeth, glowing eyes, pointed ears, the works! I personally think they carry the smell of decay with them. But I also think they carry physical traits from their deaths as well! A reaper who drowned would look bluish/greenish, a reaper who died of blood loss would be ashen, burned by fire have dryer/leathery skin, etc. etc.

✧ On the list of 'petty things to get written up for', unpermitted scythe modification is probably high on the list. Dispatch, regardless of the staff of the Management Division's own personal thoughts, requires everything and anything to be recorded and reported. Even if it's just a simple blade change. People forget!

✧ When a reaper first 'wakes up', they're treated with cold and clinical detachment. A statistic before anything else. Dying is incredibly traumatic, and 'waking up', a reaper is probably going to be in shock! It's easier faster to go through the paperwork first, before beginning to explain everything. Even then, there's this shitty information pamphlet the doctor hands you, called 'So You Killed Yourself! What Now?', to help explain the role a new reaper now plays.

✧ There's different levels of blindness a reaper can have! While they're all legally blind, some can see more than others! I personally think Grell and Othello can see colored blurbs, and can make out features but to really see specific details they squint, while William is almost-fully blind, only seeing big splotches of color. Like a bleeding watercolor painting.

✧ Birthdays aren't celebrated often. There's either no-time or no purpose to them, because a reaper is 'one age' forever. Death Days, while not celebrated however, are treated with kindness and respect and empathy- The whole shebang. Death Days are reminders of the fact this is a punishment for their suicide, making a reaper feel that anguish that caused them to take their life anyways. In certain, severe cases there's even physical reminders (an old bullet wound beginning to bleed, water being coughed up, feeling like one's burning alive). Calling out and having either your: Mandatory Partner, dear friend, or romantic/queerplatonic other half(ves) spend the day with the affected reaper is MANDATORY, due to how volatile it can be.

✧ Mandatory Partners!! My personal example is William/Grell before Will got 'promoted' to Management. Or Alan/Eric before the Tragedy. A mandatory partner is essentially someone a reaper in Retrievals works extremely well with, and the Higher Ups require reapers to NEVER BE ALONE and have someone else in the area. There's too many dangers to working alone, without backup a skip away. If there isn't anyone a reaper works well with (or their MP is assigned far away), a Mentor or Management position can take the place of the MP. London Dispatch, however, is usually short-staffed and can't supply this often, meaning reapers work alone instead of in pairs.

✧ While most demons can't permanently kill a reaper, they can severely wound one so a Bigger Threat (starving demon, Greater Demon, rogue deserter, Dispatch Itself) can kill them. Lesser-Demons however, can 'attatch' themselves to a healthy reaper, and create a parasitic relationship. A reaper's energy/'lifeforce' gets slowly drained unless they feed the demon the souls they reap, but this is considered low-class and taboo by demons, while reapers have very few cases of this. It isn't impossible though, with the right circumstances (and a bit of manipulation).

✧ Deserters aren't executed or jailed when caught! No, they're put into a 'reformation' process, ESPECIALLY if the Dispatch branch is short staffed. This is done as a 'final chance for redemption', before the brass takes them away forever. No one knows what happens to the ones the reformation didn't help.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

[liquidluckandstuff]

Drabble? oops

(Witch hunters torture Harry, Voldemort adopts Harry)

(Also this grew legs and i really just wanna write write this now? you know?)

Witch hunters were real.

They've hidden themselves well in the "real world" as they like to call it, though they have a healthy fear of wizards. They have long since abandoned any notion of eradicating the world of witches and wizards and have since focused their efforts to isolated cases.

Young muggle born children with wild magic who's parents think they are possessed, or children who are too disruptive for their parents to handle.

Used to be the hunters had "morals" but now they will take the money where it comes.

Thats how Vernon found them. For a large price, they promised to save his nephew from the corruption of magic. He knew better. Those who were saved by them never returned the same and that is what he was hoping for.

Harry wasn't a child anymore, but that didn't mean they weren't up to the case.

Vernon paid them extra to steal him away in the night. Cuffs with strange markings were locked on his wrists and upper arms that prevented him from accessing most of his magic, so he was helpless against them.

It was simple. They tortured him.

They beat him. Starved him. Locked him in a cell so small he couldn't even sit down. Harry was introduced to shock therapy and every time his magic reacted to defend him on instinct, they would shock him again until he was too tired physically, magically, and mentally to fight back.

They thought they had won, even Harry thought so for a time. Until deep into one of their whipping sessions, Harry started hallucinating Voldemort.

It had to be a hallucination, because he had never seen such a look of shock on the man's face before.

or fear.

The man did nothing to help him, just stared openly as Harry was whipped until blood ran down his back and he was begging for them to stop and asking for forgiveness for being such a burden to his relatives.

They called him their greatest success yet.

Harry went back to his relatives with deep burns from the cuffs on his arms and his cupboard now covered in the same strange markings that had bound his magic. The only magic Harry cast was hiding his new markings.

Living was torture.

Breathing was a chore.

Harry was too terrified to fight back when his relatives demanded more and more from him.

But his instincts never really died, that saving people thing of his.

He saved Dudley by casting magic and now he was in the second bedroom (his aunt was too scared that someone was watching them) clawing at his arms waiting for the punishment.

The order came to rescue him and soon he was standing in front of the ministry pleading his case to deaf ears until Dumbledore came to save him.

Why didn't he save him from the witch hunters?

Harry said nothing. He didn't talk about what really happened to him over the summer. Either they would call him a liar, call him weak for letting a muggle get the best of him, or at worse... they already knew and didn't care.

Then, the strangest thing happened.

Harry got a letter in the mail with nothing but a muggle newspaper clipping of an old reform school being burned to the ground with everyone inside. Harry recognized some of the victims. Why would someone do that?

Who knew what happened to him?

Who would do that for him?

Then, he was informed that his his last remaining relatives all perished in a house fire. Nothing of their bodies or home was left. Harry didn't even have to attend a funeral for them since there was no one liked them enough to organize one, and there was nothing to bury.

Harry knew who did it of course, but couldn't figure out why.

The question came of who would take care of the boy-who-lived.

The Weasleys eagerly put forth their name and so did the Malfoys hoping to impress their master.

But a third option appeared. A strangely familiar man , Thomas Gaunt, had proved his magical power, a long distance connection to the Potters, and enough money for the two of them to live modestly.

Of Course, Harry instantly knew it was Voldemort.

Harry was asked his opinion. "I love the Weasleys, and would like nothing more than to go live with them. I always begged to spend the summers with them, but have been denied due to my safety. And i'm giving that same reason now. They are not equipped to protect me for an entire summer. i would only be putting their family at risk. I know you don't believe Voldemort is back minister, but I do. Which is also why I refuse to go with the Malfoy's. I choose Thomas Gaunt."

The Weasleys were upset, clearly thinking Harry was put under some spell. But Harry, somewhat spitefully, reminded them that they had refused to take him in even when he begged again and again. They had a family to look after. To love and protect. And Harry was alone in the world.

Thomas Gaunt, Voldemort, took him away to a little house that surprised Harry with how comfortable it looked.

Before Harry even put his bags down, before he even began to delude himself that he wasn't about to die by Voldemort's hand, the dark lord took Harry's arms to look at his new scars.

He led him into the kitchen where he treated his wounds, and put new wrappings over them. Then, to Harry's shock, he removed glamour on his own arms and showed harry his matching scars.

"Never again." Was all he said.

_________

Voldemort said he had no expectations for him. Which stung a little. Harry had done so much to be so much so someone would want to take care of him. until it was too late, and now he was here with Voldemort.

But then, Voldemort corrected himself. He had no expectations of Harry, other than to take care of himself and do well in school. He ensured Harry completed his homework and it was done right.

He even taught Harry how to duel. Not in front of jeering death Eaters, but one on one and with patience. Harry flourished instantly and Voldemort even taught him more defensive spells.

Harry was waiting for the other shoe to drop so to speak.

Why was he being treated with kindness? he didn't know what to do with it when he didn't have to put on a brave face to practically beg for someone to love and take care of him.

He knew Voldemort didn't or couldn't love, nor did he care about him. So why?

Their relationship was... something. They didn't argue, Harry found it easy to do as he was told since Voldemort never made him do anything unreasonable.

Then, it was time to go to school.

Thomas Gaunt saw him off at platform 9 3/4 and Harry had never felt so awkward in his life. What was he supposed to do here?

He saw the Weasleys and the Order across the train station with both worried and relieved looks on their faces.

Thomas pulled him aside and said "I don't expect you to not preach about Voldemort's return, but I do expect you to keep my identity a secret is that understood?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And I expect you to keep your grades up. It's your O.W.L year after all..."

"Yes, Sir."

"And you will write to me every week."

"Sir?"

"We will keep up this pretense... and I want to make sure you are safe. I have never trusted the ministry and I do less so now."

"Oh.... " Harry looked over and the order seemed to be getting impatient.

"and Harry... Have fun."

"Oh." Harry said with surprised and found himself smiling softly.

Suddenly, he didn't want to go to Howarts. He wanted to go back to their little home where he was safe and comfortable and it was a little awkward, but he had no expectations or worries of the real world.

Maybe that was Voldemort's plan all along.

"If you would indulge me... " Thomas smirked, his eyes looking over to the impatient order. "While i would love to kill most of them, I wouldn't mind settling for pissing them off a little." He opened his arms slightly and Harry found himself find a piece of himself he didn't knew he was missing.

Everyone else got to hug their parents goodbye before they set off for school, and now he finally got to do the same.

Harry hugged him tightly. He buried his face in his shoulder and he had never felt more complete in his life.

"Have a good term. You are welcome to come home for the holidays if you wish."

Home.

He had a home. He had a family? At least someone who cared about him. About just Harry.

Even if it was pretend, it was better than he had ever experienced in his life.

As he pulled away and walked toward his friends, he held his head high and had a happy smile on his face. He couldn't wait to go home.

[vintage-bentley]

How in the fuck are you going to be anti trans and a Good Omens fan as if both the book and the show don’t explicitly establish the existence of several nonbinary characters and both Aziraphale and Crowley themselves are genderless beings

Not to mention both David and Michael’s staunch support of the LGBT (really emphasizing the T here, since you love to drop it) community as a whole, and David literally has a trans child

Part of me is even asking this in good faith because how do you see a series that is so incredibly queer and like it considering how much you shit-talk trans people on your lackluster TERF blog

There’s many reasons, actually! I’ll explain them in good faith, because I think that people who ask questions like this don’t understand the perspective of so-called “terfs” and assume we think like you do.

Firstly, I’m a feminist, so I’m used to media not aligning with my politics. I expect it, actually. Down to very simple things, like knowing I’m never going to go into a show and see a woman just existing with body hair like men do in shows all the time. But I’m comfortable and confident enough in my beliefs that I can consume media that doesn’t align with them. This extends to my feelings regarding gender. A they/them character doesn’t make my head explode, it’s just the same for me as seeing a Christian character (like Ella from Netlix’s Lucifer) or a female character who’s pro-beauty culture (like Elinor from First Kill). It’s a representation of a belief I don’t agree with and personally don’t believe in, that’s all.

Secondly, Good Omens is set in a made up universe with fantasy themes. I can easily get behind the idea that the true forms of angels and demons are genderless, because that makes sense to me in the same way God being genderless makes sense to me. This doesn’t have to carry over to me believing that humans can be genderless (I don’t believe in the concept of internal gender identity, because I don’t believe in souls. So I guess the better way to put this is that I don’t believe humans can be sexless unless we’re using gender and sex as synonyms). In the same way that it makes sense to me that angels and demons have souls that are put into bodies issued to them…but I don’t have to believe that also applies to humans. Or how it makes sense to me that Aziraphale and Crowley could survive without food, water, and sleep…but I don’t have to believe that also applies to humans. Etc. etc.

Basically, just because something is in a fantasy show, doesn’t mean I have to believe it’s real.

Thirdly, what the actors do in their own lives is none of my business. I don’t agree with supporting the TQ+ especially in relation to LGB (considering they’ve made it a primary goal to harass lesbians into pretending we can like penis, and to take every chance they get to express their hatred for homosexuality. I love to drop the T because they dropped me and my fellow homosexuals years ago). If two straight male actors want to do that, whatever. I also don’t agree with Sheen having a baby with a woman his daughter’s age, but that hasn’t stopped me from watching the show or appreciating his talent.

This all takes me back to what I said about believing you don’t truly understand the perspective of those you call “terfs”. Just because you might not be able to comprehend watching and enjoying something that doesn’t perfectly align with your worldview, doesn’t mean others feel the same. For example, many radical and rad-leaning feminists enjoyed the Barbie movie, despite it not being radical feminist. We’re capable of watching and enjoying things we don’t agree with, and of having discussions about why we don’t agree with it.

A much simpler answer to your question would be: I’ve always loved angels and demons and all things supernatural. I’ve always loved old cars. I love Queen. Religious/moral commentary and critique interest me. I love lighthearted comedies. I’m gay and starved for representation of healthy gay relationships. I love gay star-crossed lovers stories (go watch First Kill). Naturally, I’m going to love Good Omens, even if it doesn’t perfectly align with my worldview.

[girldragongizzard]

Chapter 20: A measurement of the future

A Megnitude is a unit of measurement of my own inner bullshit.

It’s really that simple.

It’s a Meghan thing. If you’re not a Meghan, you might not get it.

You can always change your name, of course. I did it!

In fact, I recommend it.

OK, so. I may be a dragon, but I’m also a trans girl. And we trans girls have a long and storied tradition of turning our own names into puns. We also have a common habit of looking in mirrors a lot and taking a whole bunch of selfies. It’s an understandable thing if you’ve had a lot of trauma over how you look – thank you, dysphoria – and especially if you’re in the process of healing from that. It’s actually healthy. Also, we end up having to draw a lot of boundaries, usually (though I’ve been kind of spared from that myself). And this tends to give us the reputation of being full of ourselves. At least, it’s a common criticism.

But, honestly, have you seen cis people? Holy shit, humans are so obsessed with how they look and how they’re perceived. And they criticize each other for it all the time, while dressing themselves up and grooming themselves carefully to be seen for what they feel they are. And trans people really aren’t the only ones posting selfies.

As a dragon, though, I’m definitely full of myself.

I don’t know if it’s the fact that I was raised by humans, or if it’s my instincts, or if it’s because my instincts are derived from how humans have shaped dragons through the ages. But my status in this world is utterly dependent on who respects and supports me, and if that status falls I run the risk of being killed. Either attacked by another dragon, or mobbed by angry and hateful humans. Or starving due to lack of support and access to food.

If I don’t step forward and fill the shoes I’ve been given, I’m in trouble. And I could always feel that, throughout my whole life. I was, for the longest time, on the verge of death because I couldn’t fill the ones laid before me.

So, when one morning those shoes were covered in scales and tipped with talons, and they finally fit, you bet I stepped forward and called myself “queen”. I literally felt like one.

As I’ve pointed out before, I’m not actually a queen. But I think people have embraced the title and leaned into it because it’s part of the games of Supporting Your Local Trans Woman and of Taking Pride In Your Dragon. 

Wentin, on the other hand, probably kept bringing it up because it knows how to push the buttons of its victims.

But, very similarly to a drag queen, as a dragon I am a symbol of royalty, of what it maybe could or should be. Maybe a parody of it, but one to be taken seriously in a way when within my domain. Not that I rule anybody, but that I represent the reason why everyone in my territory is there and part of it.

And looking back, I can kind of see how it all played out that way, too.

My audacity to speak up first, to scream the loudest in the mornings, to speak to the press and the Mayor publicly, to write letters to all of the local politicians and to the people through the news media, it all got attention.

Similar to how all the rest of us focused on Säure as a symbol of what’s wrong in our world, I became the center of his focus.

And like how he was just the latest in a long line of stewards of his family’s wealth and power, and how that estate will continue long after his death, I’m just the loudest voice of my neighborhood.

Also, finally, the mistake that Säure made was that he ostracized his own support network while he focused on me, ignoring all the work that my friends were doing.

So if we’re going to celebrate his absence, and we can certainly do that, we must do two things in the process of that:

Remember that he wasn’t the problem, just a tiny part of it. And so be ready to lay the groundwork for the next battle.

Don’t congratulate me. Congratulate yourselves. You took him down. I was just there sticking my tongue out at him while you did it.

And, I don’t have any idea of what our future is going to be. This whole planet is on the precipice of so much disastrous change. And with the advent of us dragons, it’s only going to get weirder. Especially when mating season arrives.

Oh, and if anybody is wondering why the law hasn’t stepped in to straighten things out, and why I haven’t had a big showdown with the police or the military, consider this. It’s been less than two months. And the whole world is dealing with this. Fairport’s kind of a small corner of all that’s going on, and Säure’s downfall happened so fast.

Already elsewhere in the world, dragons are both being attacked by their local militaries and courted by them. But only the most high profile or the most vulnerable of dragons yet. That kind of action will come around here eventually, and maybe soon, but with the work of our Artists and what was going on with Rhoda, the local forces were overwhelmed, I’m sure.

And maybe everyone’s still waiting for the national election to decide things more seriously.

So.

In the meantime.

While we still have the time to say such things.

Those of you living here who stepped up and became part of what we were doing, thank you. Thank you, with all my heart and my gizzard, for becoming, however briefly, my family. Thank you for saving me.

Love,

Meg

—

I guess it’s a Sunday morning. Barely, still.

I know I decided to provoke Säure on a Saturday, one day ahead of my public plans. And that that would mean that the following day would be Sunday. Today, in theory. But somewhere in there I lost track of the days, and I almost don’t care anymore.

I don’t think I know the date, just that we’re still in October. Presumably.

I could look at a computer, tablet, or phone or something to find out.

Instead, I’m licking the air above my tea in Rhoda’s living room, filling the silence between her vocalizations with long slow blinks.

I’ve never described her apartment, but now that I guess I live here I might as well.

The layout is identical to what used to be my apartment. It’s sort of a C shape. You walk in the front door and after the short entry vestibule you’ll find yourself passing through the kitchen. To your right will be the sink and dishwasher, framed by the oven and the fridge. To your immediate left will be the door to the bathroom. It doesn’t take very many steps to go from there to the living room, which extends to your left. It doubles as a dining room if you put a table and chairs in half of it. The outside wall, opposite the door, has four windows. Then, if you turn left and walk the length of the room, you’ll find the door to the bedroom, and if you turn to go in there you’ll have turned 180 degrees from entering the apartment. The bedroom’s kind of small. There’s a closet tucked in between the bathroom space and the building’s hallway. To get to the bathroom from the bedroom, you have to walk back through the living room and the kitchen, but it’s not so far that you’ll pee before you get there.

But any apartment in the building will be exactly like that. I don’t think they even mirror them. So, the doors aren’t across from each other in the hallway, you have to go up or down the hallway a little to get to any neighbor.

But what makes it Rhoda’s is what she’s put into it, of course.

Her favorite colors seem to be shades of burgundy, various hues of green, and bone, with accents of gold or brass. And I can’t overemphasize the importance of green and bone in her life. She’s managed to find textiles with patterns of these colors and decorated both floor and wall spaces with them. And then, between woven wall hangings, she has photos of her child, Jacob, and of places that seem important. I know that some of them are places that they’d visited together, and others were related to where her family had grown up. And most of them are black and white, but not all. Those with color are intensely green. And every photo that’s hanging looks like it was taken by a professional photographer preparing for a gallery opening in New York, I imagine.

Very artsy.

She’s the photographer.

In the livingroom, there are the low bookshelves with books I think I should read, topped with ceramics and carved wooden things. Everything there was either found in a thrift store, garage sale, or a free bin. She’s spent quite a long time collecting it all. None of it came from her parents, I’m told. She’s as proud of it as I am of my junk, only she has reason to be.

And interspersed between all of that is her crochet supplies and projects.

The central piece of her living room is her coffee table which, as I’ve described before, is full of magazine clippings of animals from all over the world. Many of them are pretty standard fare for zoos and children’s books, gorgeous creatures that everyone is familiar with. But the rest of them are really exotic and strange, the types of creatures you learned about as a kid but then grew to believe couldn’t be real. Or the bizarre monsters from the deep that you didn’t learn about until just yesterday on your favorite social media or something.

I love that table so much.

What little furniture she has is eclectic and from different eras of design, but still managing to fit her themes of color.

And when I lick the air to enjoy my tea, I also pick up the volatile compounds from all over the rest of her apartment, and her sweat, of course, no matter how much she tries to hide it with soaps, deodorants and perfumes. My tongue is just that sensitive. It's also my favorite scent. Something natural.

The strongest smells, though, are the spices from her kitchen, the wax of the few candles she owns and uses, and her favorite perfume, which is reasonably floral but also a little herby and spicy.

I’ve never been a fan of perfumes of any sort, and hers still stings my tongue now. But I’m developing a sense of comfort in it anyway.

I really like the teas she has, as I’ve been rotating through them, because they’re all strong enough to couch my tongue in their esters and tannins and carry me mentally to various realms of vegetation and imagination.

Anyway, I don’t really see much of her bedroom. It’s her lair, not mine. I get to enjoy my spot in her living space, and sleep on my rug near the door, and that suits me just fine. I’d never fit on her bed with her in it, even as small as I am for a dragon. 

And I can’t sleep in my human disguise. I tried it once, and woke up in full dracoform. It really is like holding a muscle tight. I can’t help but relax it when I lose consciousness.

I can start sleeping on the roof again, though, with Säure gone. But I’m probably going to save that for the warmer months, unless Rhoda needs me to give her more space.

It doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen, though, because right now she’s talking about eventually moving and asking me if there’s any way I could move with her. By which, I mean she wants me around wherever she goes, apparently.

“I love the community here. I really do. And if I do move, I’m going to really miss the coffee shop. Maybe more than I’m willing to admit. But, Meghan, I still always feel like an outsider here,” she says. “I need… more diversity. I can’t put it any other way. I need more people who are like me, and I need more different kinds who aren’t. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes,” I say, because I’m pretty sure I know what she’s saying. Not because I feel remotely the same. I don’t need to. This makes sense to me.

My people, dragons, are extraordinarily diverse. But, before we knew we were a people, I was living amongst so, so many human beings who looked like me, and I was as lonely as anyone can get. However, very, very few of the people in this town are like Rhoda. It’s gotta suck.

The whole Pacific Northwest is notoriously bad for this. But, within this region, even moving down to Seattle would give us a wider range of people to meet and interact with, if we can get past that Seattle freeze thing.

That’s the other problem with this area. It takes a long, long, long time and some sort of secret password to get past friendly acquaintance to make a close friendship around here. Or, even to simply be considered a local. Some people were born here and have never been able to achieve it.

“I know that moving’s a really fraught topic for you dragons, of course,” she continues. “You’ve got your territories, and your humans, and your own politics. But, do you think you could look into it for me? Explore the idea?”

I tilt my head in question.

“You know I’m not moving without you,” she says. “Consider that a given.”

I pull my head up a little higher.

“Don’t give me that,” she says. “Meghan, I’ve adopted you. I’ve thought long and hard about this. I’ve had my moments. And I want you to really understand this. I’m not your prize. I’m not something you’ve just won by surviving whatever’s just happened. I found you. You’re part of my hoard. And I guess I like taking care of you, when you’re not galavanting around doing dragon shit all day, and I don’t want to stop doing things that I like. We should all get to do things we like.”

I very carefully smile at her instead of doing anything else, to make sure she knows I’m acknowledging her.

“And, also, about the immortal thing,” she says, taking an even more stern tone. “I’m going to tell you that I hear you. And I accept you. Even if you turn out to be some monstrously long lived thing of narrative spirit or something. Even if you see the end of the universe as you said. I think I’m even ready to accept that. Because, right now, you’re just you, and I get to know you as you currently are. And that’s what matters to me. But also, maybe because it gives me something that I find I can’t let go of.”

She stops. She doesn’t explain that. There’s a little bit of a tear in her eye, but she doesn’t wipe it. She lets it sit, and then nods.

“We’ve got to get you another tablet or something. I like talking, but I like hearing your voice, too,” she tells me. Then she leans over to fish her phone out of her purse, which she then turns on and puts down on the table, pushing it toward me. “Use that. You get to tell me anything you need to, you know. Tell me I’m full of shit with this move thing, if you have to. Though I might well argue with you about it if you do.”

I pull myself into my princess disguise to pick up the phone and open the AAC app, saying with my syrinx, “Thank you.”

“Of course, Sweetheart,” she says.

Then I type out what I can, “I don’t feel like talking. I am enjoying my silence. Talking is work. I’m Tired.”

“Yeah, OK,” she says. “After yesterday, you get to be tired. We all do.”

We sit and enjoy each other’s company for a while, like we’ve gotten used to, and it’s good.

Then I say, “My family is in Seattle. I want to visit them. It might go bad.”

She nods, and says, “I’d go with you if I could. But don’t let me hold you back, if flying down there’s easier.”

I smile. Then I decide to offer her another thought, thumbs tapping the screen rapidly, “I think if I move, it will have to be out in the country, away from any cities. On the edge of any territories.”

I try to do that thing where humans move their mouth sideways and attempt to look sardonic, or wry, or conciliatory. Like a visual, “I’m sorry, but I also understand.” 

She reacts like I got it right.

“Let’s survive the next few months and give it some years,” she says, waving her hand. “I’ve still got lots of bacon cinnamon rolls to eat downstairs, anyway.”

I frown in my way, which means I open my little human mouth a little, and type, “You helped me so much. I wouldn’t be the me I am now without you. Moving will help you. What else?”

“Friendship isn’t an exchange or trade, Meghan,” she says.

“What else?” I repeat.

“Well, OK, you’re holding it,” Rhoda leans forward a little and points at her phone. Then she jerks her head up and says, “Exit out of that app and click on Docs. Open the first file and read it.”

I do as she says, and while I do she continues talking a little.

“I can’t remember if I told you I was writing this. But I’ll repeat myself anyway.” She points at the phone some more, poking her finger at the air. “You really are the only person I know who can help me edit it. At least before I send it to a publisher or something. Either way, I need you to read it. Please.”

After another moment’s pause she speaks again.

“I told you that you had a lot in common. I don’t think I’ve said just how much. Maybe I was embarrassed or something. Maybe in denial.”

—

Jacob

Preface

I will never be done grieving, but it’s been too long and I am more than ready to start celebrating my child’s life again. I invite you to do it with me.

Let’s let him live in these pages and our hearts!

On August 24th of this year (2024), something strange happened to us all that I think he would have just loved. Three days later, it was his 26th birthday. And on that day, I decided to give my best friend a present in his name, though I didn’t tell her that at the time.

It was a small, cheap gift, one that cost me only a couple dollars for an app. It was the ability to talk. And I think that may have changed everything for her. Just like it did for Jacob and me when he finally put his own words together.

Talking isn’t the most important thing a person can ever do. There’s lots of other ways to communicate, too, of course. But so much of what we do in the world with each other is use words.

So when someone doesn’t talk when you expect them to, it can be profound. It can, sometimes, shake you to your core.

When your child doesn’t start talking at least by the age of two, you know something is going on. When the silence goes on to three and four years old, you start looking for reasons and maybe you start thinking you should have looked earlier.

But with Jacob, I had a way of talking without our voices a lot of the time, and that felt special. He taught me how, honestly, by reaching for what he wanted.

Once I realized that that was all I was going to get out of him for a while, I would see if he wanted anything by holding up various objects or foods to see his reaction. And if he ignored me, I knew he didn’t care for it. But if he looked at it and reached for it, it was his to have. And he did reach for me, too. At least I had that.

Over time, and fairly quickly, we developed a lot of ways of communicating non-verbally. Some of them were just like how most people do with their families, and others were unique between the two of us. But I’ll get into that in the rest of the book.

Maybe to the point that I’m getting to, I  also knew he could hear me, because I started reading and talking to him as soon as he was born. And even though most of the time he didn’t show the kind of outward interest that most children are said to show, he still would react to my voice sometimes. And when he started walking, he’d actually mind me, especially if I explained why I wanted him to do things or avoid other things.

I didn’t have nearly as much help as I should have, especially since I wouldn’t let his sperm donor into his life, or mine. And that is all I will mention about that man in this book, or ever. But without that help, I also didn’t have a lot of voices telling me what I should or shouldn’t do to parent him, and I went with what seemed to work for him. And I went with love.

I think that is so important. And he did show love back, in his own way.

That I was able to do this still amazes me, though. I had good friends at the time, who watched him too, and let me lead in parenting him, and I’m sure that’s what saved us both.

People really need their friends.

In any case, here is the part that I think is relevant to so many people now.

His favorite book right from the getgo was Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like by Jay Williams and Mercer Meyer. So I read that to him every day. In the first days I was reading it to him it was really beyond his comprehension, but I loved the artwork so much that I just had to show it to him anyway. But I think he got it pretty quick.

And then, when we started going to the library together, he’d drag me over to the section where all the dragon books were and pick out a new one for me to read to him over and over again while we had it checked out. This was during that time when dragon books were all the rage and coming out in droves. It was the best timing.

And if this seems like a coincidence to anybody, I assure you it’s not. It is, absolutely, one of the reasons I was drawn to my best friend. When she spoke in the coffee shop about dragons, which she did whenever anyone mentioned them for some reason within earshot (and you really wouldn’t be surprised how often that happens in a college town coffee shop), it always reminded me of Jacob. When she was able to talk like that, she had the same manner as he did.

Because, I did, one day, finally get to hear Jacob’s first words.

You know, when you start hearing about autism, you start hearing stories like this, and you might think, “Oh, no. That’s too fantastic to be true.” Or, “None of the autistic children I’ve known have been like that.” But autistic people are all so different. Each one is such a unique treasure, with their own unique joys and challenges. And occasionally, one of them is just like one of the stereotypes or fairy tales.

Jacob was hyperlexic. By age six he was insisting on reading all of his own books, silently at the table, back straight, flipping the pages himself, when most children are still struggling to learn to read in first and second grade.

And, of course, I let him, because I was proud of him and it gave me time to get other things done.

Then, one day, without looking up from his book he said, in a bit of a clipped carefully pronounced monotone, “Mama. Did you know that some people used to worship dragons. They made friends with them. And fed them food. And the dragons protected them and kept them safe.”

He didn’t know how to inflect a question to make it sound like one, but I was shocked. 

Of course, I knew the first words out of his mouth would be about dragons, if he ever spoke. Dragons were his passion. His first special interest, as the doctors would say much too late in his life. But I was not prepared for full sentences.

I think I was too floored and thrilled that my child was so articulate that I didn’t realize just what he was saying, even when he said the next thing.

And then he looked right at me.

But not in the eyes.

And said, “You feed me, so I will protect you.”

[omgellendean]

Thread 🧵

We hated the “aid” food we got during the Bosnian Genocide soooo much that we literally erected a “monument” to the Intl Community as a very sarcastic “thank you” for the shitty food they sent us. People undergoing genocide are still deserving of dignity and decent food!!!!

People want passive victims who will kiss their asses for sending them garbage. Westerners waste food like nobody else in the world, they gorge themselves on food on a daily basis and yet they think they get to lecture genocide survivors for daring to say the aid is crap. I grew up eating dandelion tea, pita made from nettles and sugar between bread which was carefully cut up and shared equally between all 20 of us living in one 3 bedroom apartment during the Bosnian Genocide. You know nothing of what it means to be hungry. I refused the aid food. It is infuriating to watch as some of the world’s most privileged people speak about war zones and people enduring a genocide. You know absolutely fucking NOTHING about what it means to be starving, being bombed mercilessly, massacred due to your identity. Women in Bosnia would still dress up every single day during the genocide. They would put on their make-up and their favourites clothes. It was an act of resistance in the midst of a brutal genocide. People were seeking out dignity where they could find it. B/c people in war zones, people suffering a genocide are still human beings. They are entitled to dignity. They are entitled to have decent food to eat. They are not required to be whatever pathetic concoction you’ve made up in your heads about what a genocide survivor must be. After the war, a Kosovo refugee family was taken in by my family. Five of them lived with us. They were starving by the time they got to us. You think we gave them canned beans and expired food? No, we made them healthy, delicious home cooked meals!! B/c they deserved that! You don’t get to give people expired and disgusting food and call yourself their saviour. They are not deserving of less because they are suffering and have nothing. You want genocide survivors to be passive victims who kiss your asses for the bare minimum. Fuck that & fuck you. Also, I just want to note for the assholes who are saying “well if its good enough for our troops”. 1. These are regular humans, not soldiers who signed up willingly for the army & knew what they were getting into. 2. Soldiers are provided with MREs every 8 hours. The people in Gaza do not get MREs every 8 hours, they get barely one meal and often they have to share it with others because there is NOT enough aid being provided because Israel keeps blocking aid trucks from getting into Gaza to provide people with food! A single MRE is NOT enough for a family, its not enough for a single person even. & even if was…people do not have to like it. If it tastes gross, if its expired, if its moldy as many have reported the aid is…people do not have to be “grateful” for it. And when every single human rights organisation, when every single IHRL mechanism is stating “hey, people in Gaza are being starved. Israel isn’t allowing aid in. Kids are dying of starvation and malnutrition” then maybe you should stfu and listen to the damn experts. I just don’t understand how utterly devoid of empathy you must be to minimise the suffering and starvation of an entire people despite all the evidence. How vile of a human you must be to demand they be grateful for the leftover crumbs you sent them, while you fund their genocide

[therealieblog]

Please for the love of God do not tag your diet culture posts with "Intuitive Eating"

I get that you've decided to get "healthy" and so you found some completely-unfounded and un-researched fake information on Intuitive Eating from some diet culture blog, about how allowing yourself to have a few squares of dark chocolate or a piece of pizza once a week will help you "make peace with food" but also lose weight (of course), but just don't tag that shit as "intuitive eating."

It's literally not at all Intuitive Eating, and is in fact promoting the exact opposite of Intuitive Eating.

The first step in ACTUALLY practicing IE is to read Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch's book, Intuitive Eating (I suggest the 3rd/latest edition), or, Lindo Bacon's Health At Every Size.

Then, you follow a series of steps to unlearn bullshit advice like the kind you've put in your blog. To stop listening to the food police. To stop trash talking food. To DITCH the diet mentality, not to "eliminate cravings" for food by having two squares of dark chocolate a day or some shit.

Intuitive Eating is about removing all restrictions on food. People who tag diet culture bullshit as IE probably (at this point anyway) can't even fathom that as a concept. They've been starving themselves in one way or another for so many years, or even decades, that the concept of just eating as much pizza as you want, whenever you want must be horrifying and mind blowing in equal measure.

I don't honestly care if you don't get it. I just want you to stop tagging your diet advice as "Intuitive Eating". Call it "making peace with food" if you must (though it's the exact opposite of that). Call it "being healthy" or "taking care of yourself" or any number of other platitudes, but for the love of fucking god, please do not tag it Intuitive Eating. That's like tagging photos of extremely thin models with "body positive". Just stop.

[youremyheaven]

Hello how are you?. I just want to give you my experience with another encounter and experience with Venus dominant woman

My abusive mother is Purvashadha Sun (3rd house again same with my ex friend), Danishta Moon ( 4th house) and Chitra (1st house) Ascendant. She also has Mars in Vishaka 1st house and Mercury in Mula Conjunct Sun in Purvashadha in the 3rd house .

While me Saturn Conjunction Ketu in Uttarabharapadha in the 2nd house, Sun Conjunction Rahu in hasta in the 8th house, Krittika Moon 4th house, Hasta Sun 8th house and Purvabharapadha Ascendant 1st house

*warning mentions of abuse, rape

She never loved me in the first place. I remember in my childhood I get to see my mother love and take care other adult women and girls same my age as her daughter but not me.

She loves wealth than her children. She starve us and never use the money onto us but more on her own jewelries. She uses the loan and debt to buy us for food.

Shes a manipulative gaslighter and enabler too especially always sided to our abusive father.

She always criticize our weight and the need for us to be skinny and model like beauty and body. She always criticize me and my siblings what we wear what we do in our lives what career and everything.

Shes obsessed with perfect beauty and being youthful. But it never happens on her but only to me.

She secretly competes with me everyday painted me like a bad guy and being delusional at all times.

She made my life like a living hell. Until her health starts declining and all she wants in her life didn't happen even controlling us.

She did creepy thing like not respecting boundaries and always told us to fit in and do what people has to say. She let other people destroy our boundaries.

She took pictures of my backside and butt area when I was asleep.

She even lets stranger go inside our house and called them a part of the family and we didn't even know them.

My brother saved me from possible rape that she accepted as a " brother". And my only brother are there to save me and my abusive mother are not there to save me.

She never let the man in jail because the mother of the stranger that almost raped me was asked to never put him into jail and she agreed.

She is very obsessed delusion of looking of our speaking pattern, tone and everything then tell our private conversation without knowing, try to strain our siblings dynamic but she didn't win.

Always looking for drama and recently she is added to a groupchat with her abusive siblings that she has drama with (they make fool of themselves)

She's having the delusions every man she talk with had a romance interest in her

She always are very jealous and envy when other people called me beautiful or always talk about me.

She has self entitlement and also a narcissist.

She always called her children even when we are healthy as fat pig

She has insecurity with herself and likes to be a leader of women empowerment but hates women who go achieving their dreams and she hate and resents me and other women who "NEVER HAD A CHILD IN THEIR TWENTIES" AND CHOOSE NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN.

She likes to repress our sexuality freedom which she never win.

She is angry at women who was being like and perverted by my abusive father even if it's a minor or have evidence that he sexually harassed them.

She is happy that me and my siblings didn't ask her for help and money

And always take toxic positivity and mindset in dealing with us through FACEBOOK Cringe outdated motivation and issues in relationship and have healthy dynamic

Her karma is her own marriage and me and my siblings font talk to her.

omg i hope you're in a better place now. im sorry you've had to experience all this :(

tysm for sharing your experiences tho

my Purvaphalguni Moon grandma is very similar to your mom. i once fell down on the hilltop next to her house (thankfully i didnt roll down the hill or anything, i just fell) and i bruised my thigh area and hurt my legs pretty bad and she made a big fuss about how this happened because of how all the people in the neighbourhood were giving me nazar/evil eye because of my big booty 😶and she told me i shouldnt walk around "enticing" the neighbourhood folk with my ass??? lol? and i told her that made no sense bc there were hardly any men in that area, just old ladies, their daughters etc and she said "yes they're jealous of you because theyre not built like you" and i was like ok grandma might as well call me a whore with the way i entice senior citizens with my giant ass 😤my grandma body shames a lot a lot a lot as well but thats a whole another thing. my grandmom is lowkey obsessed with my mom (in a very love-hate way) and she always ALWAYS talks about my mom in a highly sexualized way and compares me to her and its soooo icky

she's also obsessed with beauty, looks etc and she takes A LOT of pride in my mom being stunning which makes her other kids feel upset lol (you'd be hard-pressed to have a convo with her without her mentioning how down bad the whole village was for my mom in her youth) ive always thought that in a different culture/era, my grandma would 100% be a stage mom who tried to milk her daughter for fame/money (lowkey reminds me of brooke shields and her mom)

[stormcrow513]

Awesome to work the best you could to get Kamala in, to then lose know you and everything that matters to you is now threatened AND THEN have to see Europeans taking pot shots aimed at fucking every american,

We fucking tried a lot of us tried

My ma used her old white woman status to talk a lot of people around,

People protested, people did their best to convince people to vote Kamala

Fucking Taylor fucking Swift had people registered to vote at her concerts

Our government fucking saw us turn states blue and did everything they could to make sure those people couldn't vote

I am so mad

I am so that there are so many people that look at Trump and like what they see

I am mad at the people that want the Rapture to fucking happen

The ones that want a grand Revolution

The ones that pissed their vote into the fire so they could tell themselves that their hands are clean,

I am tired of being a woman being told what to do with my life my body,

To be told as a rape victim that rape doesn't matter,

There are a lot of people in my country I would fucking throttle if I could

But there are sooo fucking many I love

There is so many things that fucking matter here

The Hispanic woman that fed my ma when she was a little girl and her parents were starving her, who called ma's aunt and told her to come get her niece or she'd call the authorities about it,

The Japanese doctor that got ma healthy saved her life

The native man that saw me staring at the arrows he was selling and figured out ma couldn't afford one so he went to her asked what she could afford then kneeled in front of me and told me to go pick an arrow anyone that I wanted

The old white woman helped me learn to read properly when all my other teachers wrote me off called me to stupid just like my mother they said

The friends I've made here on this site

I may never meet you but I love you

You've listened to my pain, offered me kindness when I needed it most

I'd tag you but I don't want to drag you into this post

But anyone there are so many good people, my people and some of them are going to die, some may have likely fucking killed themselves today so

Shut the fuck up, yeah our policies affect you and that sucks

But our house is on fucking fire so maybe stop pissing on our boots you dicks

[hellfiredemon]

tw: eating disorder and venting

i offered a friend to stay with me since she needed a place, but she's got an eating disorder and tries to stays at 12% body fat year round which is very difficult for a female, like entry level body building qualifier, and she wants to stay with me because i like exercising and she thinks we can be accountability partners to stay fit and while having a workout partner would be nice, i don't want to be used in that way.

i told her outright that it's not healthy to think of herself as disgusting because she's gained some weight, and that also, fitness can't be this thing that's all tied up in aesthetics. you gotta do exercise for yourself, and it's ok to enjoy the benefits of a healthy body like feeling the endorphins and being strong and easily buying clothes, but having your personal fitness so closely linked to maintaining an aesthetic standard that only becomes more difficult as you age is a losing game.

it's frustrating for me that she complains about her weight gain preventing her from wanting to work out and it makes me feel like she's judging everyone else's weight and it makes me uncomfortable because i feel like if we do live together, i'm gonna feel that judgement when i eat. like i'll subconsciously eat less because she does?

she's definitely depressed and acknowledges her way of thinking is not logical or kind but isn't working to get past that. i am afraid being around that is going to influence me in a bad way. maybe that sounds so stupid but i'm really sensitive to others around me. most people are not lean and their bodies shouldn't be considered disgusting. it seems hateful to so admonish your own body. i can kinda relate to it bc i am trans but i'm also at the point where i'm like, you gotta accept some things about yourself instead of hating it all the time because it doesn't do you any good! i'm not gonna grow 4 inches or get a fucking insane surgery to make my limbs longer!! your aesthetic preoccupation with yourself does not serve you!!

i hate that we idealize images of people who have muscles but are only "magazine ready" when they've starved and dehydrated themselves to appear in those images. at their leanest, aesthetic athletes fucking hate their lives! have no libido, the body is crying out to be nourished beyond anything else. the way we continually idealize this is disturbing to me.

i've extended an offer to try and be kind to her because she's really depressed but it feels like if we go ahead, i'm gonna get used to be like...a fitness pal enabling an eating disorder. if i rescind the offer to try and protect myself and her, to some extent, she'll probably think i'm being a selfish and lazy asshole. i don't even know how to start that conversation, like, hey you know when i called out that you have really unhealthy thoughts about your body? well i don't want to be around you because i'm afraid it'll hurt me??? ugh what can i even do