#plenty of situations to learn these behaviours

[of-pale]

There are but two certainties in life: death and taxes. So it’s business as usual.

Nero walked into the shop, surprised to see Vergil in Dante's chair, sifting through papers, while Dante lounged lazily on the sofa flipping through a magazine.

"What's going on here?"

"Oh, you know, Vergil being Vergil,” Dante gestured dramatically toward his brother as if presenting a circus animal in a grand display. “He thinks he can do a better job at managing a demon hunting business. Not like I've been doing it just fine for decades.”

"Anyone with opposable thumbs could do a better job than you, brother," Vergil replied dryly, scrutinizing the atrociously messy paperwork and accounting. It didn't require a genius to see how badly Dante’s business would be in the red if it weren't for all the money Dante undoubtedly weaselled out of Lady. Still, that's money that has to be repaid, and Vergil didn't even want to think about the returns the loan shark hag expects of Dante.

What truly frustrated Vergil was knowing for a fact that Dante could do a better job at running the business. Annoying as it was to admit, Dante had always been better with numbers. Ever since they were kids, adding up numbers at lightning speed was as easy for him as reading was for Vergil. So this accounting mess? It was like Dante didn’t bother to put any effort in it. And hadn't for decades. From the looks of things, he even got enough jobs coming in to get by, so why…?

“Damn, I wish it was that easy and I could just hire a monkey to do it,” Nero shook his head. “This shit's boring as hell.”

Vergil couldn't help but let his frustration leak through, “Something for Dante to consider then, since it would do a better job than this.”

"Does that mean I can pay you in bananas, Verge?" Dante fired back with a grin.

"A considerable improvement, since you don't pay me at all.”

"Hey now, you get your cut at the end of the demon hunting jobs.”

“You mean the rightful pay earned for a job I complete by myself, from which you take a cut simply because you act as a broker of a broker?”

"Welcome to capitalism, bro. It's how things are run topside.”

"I miss hell already,” Vergil replied sarcastically, massaging his temples. “Please tell me you at least paid the taxes.”

"Hey, I may be the Legendary Demon Hunter, but even I don't mess with the IRS.”

"Wait, you do all the bookkeeping on paper?” Nero raised an eyebrow. “You know we live in the 21st century, right?”

"Eh, it's easier on paper.” Dante shrugged. “Especially if the occasional job needs to be kept off the books.”

“You just said you don't want to mess with the IRS.”

“Oh, if there's one thing scarier than the IRS, it's Lady when she's come to collect her due.” Dante got up from the sofa and sauntered over to his desk, where an open pizza box awaited. “A wise man picks his battles.”

“A fool sets himself up for them,” Vergil muttered, quickly realising the irony of his own words.

Dante grabbed a slice of pizza and took a curious peek over Vergil's shoulder at his notes. “Hm, you got the total amount wrong by a couple hundred. Right there.” He pointed at it before cheekily patting Vergil on the shoulder and continuing on his merry way back to the sofa.

Vergil growled demonically in pure frustration, fighting the very real urge to roll all the blasted papers into a ball and dump them in the bin.

[words-of-wolf]

One thing I think about sometimes is like... maybe humans would be better at being people if we all were comfortable viewing ourselves as a type of animal, y'know?

Being a therian, I kinda do this by default. I'm a wolf, of course I'm just an animal! But it's funny how much is applicable to human-identifying folks as well?

Being able to recognise non-judgementally when a thing you are feeling is an animal instinct -- irrational, imperfect, something to be approached with gentleness but not naivety, like a scared little bird trapped in a house which you (unbeknownst to the bird) only wish to help -- is so healing, I think.

Sometimes I feel scared and it's not a "person fear" but it's also not a "wolf fear" -- it's a human-animal fear. An animal instinct that humans possess, a relic of a time when our ancestors were not quite people yet, or lived in situations vastly different than we do now.

I think a lot of peoples' fear of others who are different stems from that kind of thing.

Like, there's often this fear that those who are weird are "ill" or "dangerous" in some way. That's an instinct.

For an animal, it sometimes pays to be wary of something acting strangely, because there are infectious diseases that can cause that.

But the holdover of that fear doesn't serve much purpose for us when we can just talk, and listen, and learn.

That person who's making you uncomfortable doesn't have rabies, y'know? Your mind is telling you to be scared because maybe they have rabies! But you, rational-minded you, knows for a fact that that instinct is wrong.

It's not difficult to recognise these things, once you open your mind enough to your own natural behaviours.

But it's not bad to have instincts. We're all animals, therian or not. I'm a wolf animal but I'm also a human animal.

Humans have plenty of great instincts too. Humans are far more compassionate than wolves, that's for sure! It's a natural instinct for humans to want to help each other, and even other animals! That's really special, and awesome.

That's one of the reasons I think it's important to be gentle when you recognise the instincts of the animal that is you. Being an animal isn't bad. There's a lot of value in our capacity to feel.

It's just also helpful to be able to observe your instincts to learn to recognise when they're not helpful, or needed. And in that case, you can still be gentle with yourself.

It's okay, little bird, that person acting strangely isn't going to hurt you. You don't need to feel scared. They're a person, just like you.

[Note: if you respond to this most with misanthropy, I'm just gonna block you. Don't have the energy to deal with that rn. '^^]

[sophie-frm-mars]

Hi, ex-supporter here. Genuinely hope you’re doing well. I have been tempted to start up my support again because you genuinely are a talented writer/creator and I do enjoy your work.

I hope you understand supporting your Patreon is somewhat fraught. Your private life should be none of our business, but sadly it is relevant here. Moral action, both private and political is central to your work; you have called out plenty of people for abuse & morality drives your politics. We know abuse took place on your end, but that’s all.

A lot of people like myself might be emotionally rooting for you to bounce back from this, but are unable to support you right now because that moral dissonance has not been resolved. We really don’t know if you are like other ‘cancelled’ leftist influencers and just use leftist values to deflect attention away from abuse, or you are actually trying to do better and working on yourself.

You don’t owe us anything. However, many of us who are eager to support you are forced to hold back because trust has been damaged, and there has not been any real sign of reparation or reconciliation. Maybe you think those kind of questions are invasive, maybe you don’t think we are real fans for not sticking by you despite the allegations.

I don’t know, I just want you to know that there are plenty of people who do want to support you, but feel they need to trust you first. And that can’t happen without addressing some things.

Anyways, best wishes. Take care.

Hiya, thank you for speaking to me on this.

Before I say the rest of what I say I want to be clear that between me and the people I was involved with in 2023, there were some instances where I was responsible for harm, there were instances where I received harm and there was also a general pervasive ecosystem of harmful behaviours in the community I was in. This includes people who signed the statement against me, and in one instance one of them did something which everyone to whom I have described it has agreed is sexual assault, though there is more besides.

For the time being I'm not talking publicly more about what happened because it was a very messy situation, and although I have been seriously harmed by issues in my personal life being litigated in public in this way, I don't want to give my full account of my relationships with everyone involved because I don't want that type of harm to be done to other trans women. There are plenty of complicating factors as there often are in real life that social media isn't really capable of parsing. I have made it clear repeatedly that I am open to hearing anything that people involved want to say to me, and I talked in this post in January about that and about what I would be doing to ensure that I put in the work and make sure I don't cause harm like it again

https://x.com/sophie_frm_mars/status/1745414530455261531

I think that that post says everything I would like to say for now, although I regret saying I agree that my behaviour was abusive, because with more distance and perspective I don't think abusive behaviour was actually described to me.

As I understand it via the support that my therapist and friends have offered, my problems in 2023 were that: I wasn't taking my mental health seriously, I didn't learn good kink practice, I had very little appreciation of my own boundaries and when I shouldn't be doing something that someone asks me to do, and I was high basically all the time. I am in therapy and doing DBT and taking my mental health deadly seriously, I have done a huge amount of reading assigned by my therapist about kink, sex, relationships and mental health, I am working in an ongoing way on learning how to effectively communicate, know my boundaries and understand myself well enough to not be in the kinds of situations that risk harm, and I'm no longer high all the time.

(If anyone is interested in those book recs, so far I've read: Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again by Katherine Angel; The Right To Sex by Amia Srinivasan; Screw Consent (I hate this edgy title) by Joseph Fischel; Playing Well With Others; The Loving Dominant by John and Libby Warren; I Hope We Choose Love by Kai Cheng Thom; The New Topping Book by Dossie Easton and Janet W Hardy; and Dissociation Made Simple by Jamie Marich. There have been some others, and I've written a bit about them in the book club channel on my discord as I've been reading)

I haven't heard from the people involved. The last I heard from anyone was one of my exes calling me a pathological liar and saying that they just want to move on with their lives, so while I'm doing the work to make sure I act better in future I am just trying to get on with my life and let them get on with theirs. I hope this clarifies why I have not talked further about the situation.

I will say that the last few months have been hellish for me. I have been frequently suicidal, I spent Christmas and new years alone, I lost a tooth because I couldn't afford proper dental treatment, people from within the community I've been ostracised from have been putting pressure on my remaining friends to cut ties with me, Keffals had my abuser on her twitch stream, a bizarre exaggerated and monsterised version of my personal life has been publicly gossiped about by trans people, fash and "leftist" drama streamers alike, I have been doing other work to make sure I can still pay rent and afford my bills and my HRT, and to survive. As I've been getting more stable and more able to focus on things besides this, I've been working on new writing because all I want with regard to my work and my channel is for my writing to help people. I don't want to talk about my private life, but I do understand that some number of people will feel after what has been said about me that they can't move forward with me without hearing the full details. Lots of people in my life have repeatedly encouraged me to publish a full account of everything that happened but I know how the Internet works and I don't want other trans women to be harmed in the ways that I have been harmed.

[theabigailthorn]

If you had an employee who was perfectly civil and did all their work but just didn't want to be your friend what would you do?

I actually had a similar situation a while ago, not with an employee but a colleague! I was on a show with an actress who was really, really cold to me - to the point that some of the crew even commented on it like, "I can't believe I've just seen her do that, she's never this rude to anyone else!" After one incident I asked her whether I had done something to upset her and she denied it in a very odd, stiff way, so I was scratching my head a bit.

I reflected on my own behaviour and eventually I hypothesised (never found out if this was true, so it might all be in my head) that I might be accidentally activating her insecurities for a cluster of reasons, some of which weren't within my control but some of which arguably were. For example, I was pretty sure my being trans was part of it and that definitely indicated some shit she needed to work through! But I'd also been talking excitedly about my upcoming work on another show, which might have come across as bragging; I like to share my excitement, and I'm learning that some people take it as boasting when I don't mean it to be. I'd assumed she'd share my excitement because in my eyes she's much more successful than me, but you never know how people view their own careers - she might not have had anything lined up after that project and could have been really anxious about her career even though from the outside it looked good to me! (I also found out much later she'd been going through some difficult personal stuff during the shoot, so maybe she wasn't at her best - it happens!)

So having done that reflection I considered taking it to the producers but then I was like, "Y'know what? I've only got 2 weeks left on this thing, I don't have to see her much, let's just get through it." I finished the shoot with no more incidents, gave her plenty of space whenever we had to be together, and then afterwards I chatted to my agent about it too and we agreed yeah, not worth picking a fight over :)

Not sure if I'll ever run into her again but I'd be happy to start afresh if we ever did! We all have bad months sometimes <3

[cinnamonest]

Thinking about terrible terrible boys who use Darling’s social anxiety against themselves

Kaveh who keeps you home because the world is just far too mean, just look at his roommate if you need any reminder. It’s putting himself out there that resulted in his debt, it’s the outside that caused you hurt don’t ever forget. It’s fine, he’ll lavish you enough to fill all you need, you really don’t need any other contact than himself!… and the forced proximity of Alhaitham grrr.

Ayato who keeps bringing you in important social events just to see you cling to him. He doesn’t teach you any etiquette, so you never know what’s socially unacceptable. You stand so close to him, trembling, your voice barely louder than a whisper. It serves as a reminder, see how bad the world is? All of them are vile people. If you run away, who’s to say you won’t end up with someone worse than him? (It’s terrible, how you keep waking these sadistic urges in him. He’s a good man with lots of self restraint but still a man.)

Wriothesley who got you locked up in his office. You complain about boredom, about his behaviour, but he only swat your worries away. He’s not worried about you ever running off, this is an underground prison. Criminals are the only residents, and god knows how many would have enough self control to keep their hands off if he’s not with you. Besides you’ve been here for so long, you have no place on the surface anymore. What would you do, go cry to Neuvillette? Pfff yeah, right. Try saying hello to Clorinde without trembling first.

Yes yes I am FOR this idea, also consider: Kaeya is the top tier candidate for it. He’s already in the top tier of Manipulative Bastardry, but it gets so much worse if he finds a weakness to exploit — and he’s great at sensing those.

He doesn’t mind that you’re introverted. However, he doesn’t just use the situations as opportunities to give you affirmation as a means of comforting you and coaxing you into bonding with him, no, he stoops so much lower than that. Outright taking advantage of it for his own benefit, ensuring he can use every tactic at his disposal to get whatever he wants... except "whatever he wants" actually just tends to be one consistent thing.

In the early stages, where he can pretend he doesn’t know you well enough to be able to feign ignorance to how much it would exhaust you, he makes sure to plan long public outings, watching as your energy quickly drains until you can’t bear another second in the public atmosphere and all but beg him to return home.

This gives him the opportunity to act disappointed (when in reality, he’s overjoyed it’s playing out exactly as planned) — aw, and here he had so many more things he wanted to show you before the night was over, but no worries, it’s fine… no no, it’s fine, really… and now that you’re all nice and feeling guilty, well, that will just make it much easier to coax you into giving him something to compensate for the disappointment you’ve caused once you’re behind closed doors. Maybe you’ll even volunteer it yourself.

But even later on, once he can no longer put on an act of not knowing how easily drained you are, he can still use it against you. Don’t worry, he knows you’re shy and easily tired out, you two can just stay at home tonight… besides, there’s plenty of fun things you can do alone at home, right…? Surely you’ll be able to think of something.

He, however, stoops even lower still, because he’s also willing to exploit your paranoias and insecurities, even if it means hurting you a bit. Part of the reason why you’re so socially withdrawn, he learns, is that you’re afraid of how others perceive you — I’m just annoying them, they all secretly hate me, you say, everyone thinks I’m weird…

And he… doesn’t rush to correct you or anything. Just shrugs.

Ah, who cares what they think? You already have someone who appreciates you as you are, you know.

Not denying it. If anything, it’s a subtle confirmation… he may even throw in a blatant —

Well, sure, they might feel that way, but I don’t. That’s good enough, isn't it? What do you need their attention for...?

— to really drive the point home, and throw in a bit of accusation and guilt for good measure. He likes hearing you immediately panic and stumble over your words as you reassure him that you don't need anyone else... it's adorable, and the ego boost is euphoric.

Honestly, you’re too gullible for your own good, so precious, so cute in how you fall for it so perfectly, effortless on his part. You don’t even hide your reaction in your expression, so transparent and vulnerable, the way your eyes widen with shock and you hang your head and your eyes water, giving him the perfectly opportunity to comfort you and hold you close and assure you it’s okay, they don’t matter, screw them anyway, and so on.

You’re so sweet, so pure. So much so that you almost, almost actually make him feel bad about it. How impressive.

[neriumxoleander]

If you could explain, I'm only learning this now! What's going on with Gato? I've only seen vague posts but I know all social media is gone (because by god fucking twitter apparently) I've seen from the fake gatobob account post about recent events and I'm soo confused. Could you please shed some more light on this? If you are as clueless as I am, you don't need to respond. - @your-very-own-anon (mod speaking)

Sorry for the late response, I've been trying to retag some things while I'm focused on this account for once. I'll try to be brief? please don't take me as the authority on this, I just happened to get into the tags while it was unfolding earlier today. still going under a read more though. i suppose a tw for mentions of racism and xenophobia are warranted. And please do not interact if you are a minor or have no age listed on your blog, I will block you.

Gato deleted her social media accounts this morning (tumblr, twitter, pillowfort) and explained on patreon it was for her mental health and safety (which... safety? hm) and someone here immediately claimed the gatobob url. which happens, it's tumblr. but this person is using it basically as a callout center.

the callout seems to be about an incident that happened in the patreon exclusive discord server before it got shut down a couple months ago. tldr according to this person, someone (a mod?) made a racist comment towards someone, and gato apparently handled the situation poorly and neither her or the mods apology were really that great. I was in the server as a lurker more than anything, but I don't remember being there when this happened.

other people sending in asks to this new gatobob account have also been calling her out for xenophobia, but I have a feeling that's looking a little bit too much into statements she's made about her games being redistributed in Russia and Spain specifically if i recall correctly.

this new blog is demanding gato and the aforementioned mod properly apologize for their behaviour, but in my opinion, this is a really weird and bad way to go about it. Smart to use her url as a way to boost the problem, but... I haven't seen any solid evidence besides some very vague screenshots, none of them including the racist remarks (the screenshots they've posted so far definitely aren't good responses or apologies if they ARE linked to this incident, and it should have been taken seriously) And the victim from the racism incident is NOT the person running the new gatobob account, so it feels very weird to me that this person is taking it upon themselves to stir everyone up and demand things from gato and the mod.

as far as I can tell, gato hasn't said anything about this on patreon, although she's likely taking her separation from social media very seriously. If she is aware (and I'm sure she's getting plenty of DMs about this on patreon), she'll likely make a post there addressing it in the next couple days, but that's just speculation.

I'm keeping a mostly neutral stance in this whole thing, but I'm encouraging people to not interact with this new gatobob account. There's nothing we can really do; they aren't impersonating her, posting anything against ToS as far as Im aware, and people have been hoarding urls for years. Just... listen and learn, I think is all I can suggest. Form your own opinions, but don't go on a witch hunt about it, if that makes any sense.

I'll try to answer other questions, but I'm just one guy on the internet who doesn't usually get tangled with things like this. Please be patient.

[tonydaddingham]

what the hell is going on in hell

this is essentially a braindump of ramble-y thoughts because the situation going on in hell is currently my new sub-fixation. a couple of things mentioned/shown in s2 would indicate the position that hell is currently in, and i dont think it's inaccurate to say that they appear somewhat stretched.

first up, we meet shax in ep1; she and crowley appear to have some kind of arrangement (ha) going in, where they are exchanging information - shax keeping crowley abreast of the goings on in hell, presumably so he can monitor his (and by extension - aziraphale's) safety being now an exiled retired demon... and crowley seems to be helping shax to assimilate to life topside, by means of teaching her behaviour that will mean she blends in more with humanity in her new role.

i did a post on bits of this scene, and on shax in general, that looked at how shax appears to be working somewhat with the favour of the higher-ups, possibly to the point of an unofficial informant, that would help her climb the career ladder. but i do wonder how far her allegiance lies, and actually how much she seems to know. in any case, a couple of things about this scene:

hell either doesn't know, or refuses to change, crowley's address for his post - they're still being sent to the flat in his name, and not his new abode, the bentley. furthermore, it's possibly even the case that hell hasn't even acknowledged that crowley has been replaced - they won't accept/recognise shax's signature.

however, shax appears to be very firmly in position as his replacement, and presumably has been for at least a little while. there's been a gap of 3/4 years between s1 and s2, so allowing for hell to be slow on the uptake in replacing crowley (as well as being initially shit-scared of him re: the holy water bath), plus shax is still learning things/remarking on how easy the job is, let's be really generous and say she's had the position, and the flat, for around six months. realistically though, estimating from her question about the boiler which, from crowley's tone, seems to be something that happens periodically, id say it's likely more around 1-3 months.

in any case, that's plenty of time for hell to update the records, right?*

same as crowley remarked in s1, it seems to be universally understood in hell that the ends justify the means; doesn't matter how things are done, just that they are. if shax echoes this sentiment, it supports that it must be true; hell doesn't give one shit about her interacting with crowley. this is supported by 1827; whether you look at it that crowley didn't secure elspeth's soul for hell through suicide, or that crowley was caught being good/nice in the general sense, either way it's strongly suggested that there is a consequence for him not doing the job. doesn't matter how it's done, only that it is.

ergo, hell doesn't care that shax is interacting with crowley, nor that she appears to be recruiting him as an intelligence source (despite his lackadaisical branding of 'traitor'), only that she does what she's ordered to. the issue is though, what are shax's orders at the moment? which leads me to the next one:

she lists three things, two of which don't appear to hold much importance to crowley, or at least he's not surprised by them. the first - he's still in hell's bad books: cool, not a surprise. the second, however, is the 'half rations' reveal. this brilliant post talks about this, because... well, what would demons feed on? or be interested in having, that holds any kind of importance to them? more on this later*. regardless though, crowley seems... to halfheartedly mull over the information? like its interesting, but not a major surprise? maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

the third thing though is the one that crowley perks up at: that something has happened in heaven. shax appears to admit that she doesn't know the details, and needs intelligence, which crowley brushes off. now, the thing that perplexes me is that - well, the conversation between michael and beelzebub hasn't happened yet, right?

could be that there has actually been a previous conversation between michael and beelzebub, where the news that gabriel has disappeared was revealed - and what we see above is a second conversation about the matter, now that it's gotten a little more urgent (hence the BOL threat)

or, that the two different scenes are out of chronological order... which honestly would be just plain weird.

the first option is possible, that beelzebub found out about gabriel from michael in a previous conversation (and told shax), and the one we see above is a follow-up.

but, in the crowley/shax conversation, shax doesn't actually seem to know that it's anything about gabriel, just that something's going on. so presumably, beelzebub doesn't know at that point either - not until the interaction above with michael. at which point, where did shax get her information from? how would shax have known shit was going on in heaven - even without the specifics - before it seems that even beelzebub knew? does shax have a different in-road with heaven?

(at which point, the only ones that appear to know about gabriel going missing, when it happens, is the metatron, michael, uriel, and saraqael - unless there's been a containment breach/someone else accessed the file? make of that what you will.)

*coming back to this point, on why hell hasn't gotten round to, or been bothered to, update the record that crowley is no longer an employee/in his flat, i think this is directly related simply to hell being short-staffed. i think it was mentioned in a BTS video somewhere, but the set design in hell purposefully included lots of files and folders to directly suggest that there is a huge backlog; whilst the higher-ups may be aware of shax replacing crowley, it doesn't appear to have reached the administrative offices:

as for why hell is short-staffed, ive toyed with it in previous posts/rbs but it would suggest that:

demons are disappearing - im thinking along the lines of the book of life, or just straight up being killed

demons are leaving - perhaps another mass rebellion?

demons aren't leaving but the numbers of the damned keep increasing - this, i think, is the most likely.

we don't know what the deal is with heaven, but presumably there is a separate facility for heavenly souls, and all we see in the show are the offices. in any case, it would kind of make sense that, if heaven is in fact taking its fair share of souls, even if lower-choir angels are attending to them... well, it's unlikely to extremely hands-on, is it; souls can be left to their eternal rest with minimal angelic involvement.

demons, however, are actively torturing their share of souls, such as is the purpose of hell, and this is definitely more hands-on; at which point, demons are going to be overworked/understaffed as the soul population increases. demons are only made from fallen angels, so the staffing situation is only going to get worse - hence why in s1, it was revealed not only that an estimate of 10 million demons exist, but that they would be pretty pissed about being told to go back to work. armageddon was meant to wipe out humans altogether (putting a stop to the ever increasing human population and therefore number of deaths), and bring about an eternal victory for one side or the other.

this, however, assumes that heaven is taking their fair share. i don't think it's necessarily the case that they're not (as i said, we haven't actually seen any areas where human souls exist in heaven - only the higher offices), but it's certainly possible that they're not, and they're all going to hell. at which point, why wouldn't heaven want more souls? isn't that ultimately the point of aziraphale and other earth-stationed angels? to bring about god's plan, but also sway humanity to the good? or is that the point - that human souls going to heaven or hell is inconsequential, and all that matters is the complete annihilation of one by the other?

1941 shows a bit more context for hell, in that we have what appears to be the main lobby, with multiple admissions demons (including shax and furfur) and there are chutes for transport into the lower floors/departments.

one thing i did notice as a small difference between 1941 and 2023, is the lights; this could be purely ambience/a single set design choice, but compare the scene where furfur has an audience with dagon, and the crowley/beelzebub chat - the lights in latter start flickering, like they are faulty or there is a power supply issue. this not appearing to happen in 1941 would suggest that the situation has gotten worse between these two points in time. it could just be for the ambience as i said, absolutely, but i think the line re: rations* could potentially be linked here.

another thing that interested me in 1941 is this:

pretty intriguing that the camera deliberately focuses on this, right? instead of continuing to track behind furfur? if it is Of Interest, what is the hourglass keeping time in, or counting down to? it could be the apocalypse, but if you consider the proportionality of sand in the top to the bottom, vs. the time that has passed since the Beginning vs. the next 78 years until armageddon, that seems... well, disproportionate? so could it be ticking down to something else, or does the hourglass time something, and it's just been recently flipped? at which point, why is it framed as so significant?

*returning to the "half-rations" point, there has to be due credit to this post by @that-ineffable-devil, it's such a good point; what do demons care about - is integral to their existence, and is essentially in short supply - that rationing would be necessary? crowley doesn't seem overly intrigued by the notion, but shax idly considers it important enough to share when prompted. op suggested that it's power; that there isn't enough (given that miracles appear to be drawn down from heaven/up from hell) to go around. op gave the great example of the ceiling leak in s1, but if the flickering lights, the broken lift mentioned by eric in ep5, and the excess backlog of filing in s2 is also anything to go by - yeah, these things could be solved with a demonic miracle or 'magical' intervention... so why aren't they?

gabriel cautions (putting it politely) aziraphale at some point around 1793 around using up 'frivolous miracles', which suggests that heaven was/is having a similar issue (or, alternatively, it was simply a power flex; to keep aziraphale in his place, so to speak). however, when we look at the archangels' reactions to the 25-lazarii miracle, their main concern understandably, given the plot, is what it signifies (ie. it's too coincidental to have occurred at the same time as gabriel going AWOL)... but not so much that there isn't enough power to allow a 25-lazarii miracle to go unchecked. instead, it seems like the sheer scale of it is just completely written off, that heaven doesn't actually care too much about how much power it seems to have partially drawn from heaven (ie. if it's a 50/50 split, 12.5 lz), and they seem to write it off like petty cash.

so tl;dr, hell might be having a power issue, but heaven doesn't appear to be sharing in it. i don't think it's anything to do with human souls fuelling miracles, because by the same logic (which i accept may be completely flawed. in fact id stake my life it is) the pool of power should be increasing, rather than decreasing - if more and more souls are being funnelled into hell and heaven respectively. so what if instead there's a leak somewhere - what if heaven is syphoning off power from hell? and when did the power leak start happening - was it to do with the failed apocalypse? is it actually nothing to do with heaven, but instead that because the soul population keeps going up and up, the power they actually have to contain and maintain them is stretched really thin? power can't be spared for lower-priority shit like filing and maintenance? why isn't heaven having the same issue? why is power seemingly finite, and where does it come from? does power actually come from god? or does it directly parallel to humanity's faith (and, presumably, the dwindling amount of it) in god? but heaven is closer to god, so they haven't yet been hit with the shortage?

this is still flummoxing me slightly - if there even is any answer to be had/if there's anything deeper to be read here - but the post is already long enough that it's probably best to leave it there... ideas very much welcome!!!✨

[formulatrash]

at the risk of being part of the madness in your inbox, i firmly believe much of the hate for Stella, Vowles etc. comes from people who do not have experience (largely through age, i suspect) of senior leadership in effective organisations, but do have plenty of access to the extremely online concept that being polite to or about someone while being critical of them is inherently and at all times a form of abusive manipulation, and the conception of F1 teams as some sort of family rather than a highly competitive workplace.

(see for example a lot of the reaction to how Vowles spoke about Logan Sargeant to the media - the flip from "daddy Vowles and his gentle parenting" to "this is straight-up emotional abuse" as the words grew more critical but the tone changed.)

combine this kind of thinking with the profound psychological effect that lando's big brown eyes and emotional openness have on many (i am admittedly not immune), and it's easy to create a narrative in your head that he's being treated unfairly - statements like Stella's at the weekend pointing out that Lando's needed to learn and improve on weaknesses over the season morph into projections that either he or the viewers are being gaslit by Stella's apparent calm and decency.

Zak Brown's whole "McLaren family" bit definitely doesn't help with this because it's very apparent that he would be perfectly happy to sell one of his drivers to Silicon Valley for one corn chip and a shiny sticker on the front wing.

so yeah - given the choice between managers who are (a) aggressive shouty bastards that leave everyone demoralised (b) ruthless cunts who act nice then break your spirit (c) slick political operators who prioritise efficiency over growth and (d) reasonable, polite people with high expectations that make you want to live up to them, i'd go for option (c) every time, but i suspect that if you haven't had the experience of the first three types and are looking at them through the lens of non-professional relationships, it's harder to identify the behaviours or their impacts.

or i don't know, maybe i'm reading the situation completely wrong.

I think these are all good points - I do think James Vowles is an interesting outlier case amongst the quiet engineers because he's got Mercedes habits at Williams (which is interesting because eg: Stella and Mekies don't really have Ferrari habits at their teams?)

where Vowles deserves to take some heat over Sargeant is Australia. it was the wrong call to give Alex Logan's car, even if he'd scored points it was just the wrong thing to do. unfair pressure to put on Alex and just a devastating blow to Logan, from which he never really came back and that's pretty understandable. there's really no bigger vote of no confidence you can give someone than saying honestly we think it's better if you don't drive.

what he then said about Logan, as his season deteriorated, was (unfortunately) just true. it wasn't nice but it was what was happening. as someone who really rates Logan I actually wish he'd been fired earlier since being dragged across the season unable to do anything to turn things round was firstly horrible to watch and secondly is the sort of thing that has a man needing 3-4 seasons in Formula E to recover from.

[thatthoughtatthebackofyourmind]

In Defence of Albus Dumbledore:

Look. I know this is an unpopular opinion, so I’m going to write this here because putting it anywhere else (like at the bottom of the fics which have inspired this frustration) would seem mean, and it would probably end up coming off as unintentional flaming, which I would never do to anyone ever. Also, as I’m less frustrated with individual works than I am with an entire situation, it wouldn’t really be fair to direct it at one specific person.

Get ready. This is going to be very ranty and long and I can't promise not to get off topic and onto a tangent a few times.

I understand that we all have grown up a lot since first reading Harry Potter. I get that once we realized how grey a few of Dumbledore’s decisions actually and the ways in which they affected the characters we love we all felt rightfully upset.

But can we please stop being so narrowminded about it?

There are plenty of redemption fics out there. A lot of them are works that redeem characters like Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy, Draco’s parents, various Dursleys and loads of other people. I’ve seen fics that have Sirius confronting the realities of his juvenal behaviours and having to atone for past wrongs. I’ve even seen (but admittedly never read) fics that redeem Voldemort himself.

But the least popular person for a redemption story in fanfiction by far seems to be Albus Dumbledore.

I get it.

He was supposed to be an infallible genius who did no wrong and he let us down. But please.

Can we all please just admit that we’re using Dumbledore as a stand in?

The hatred we as a fan community levy at Dumbledore is influenced by so much more than his actions in cannon.

It’s the dissolution we feel at growing up. The need as young people to bite back at overbearing authority. It’s the conviction that leaders should never be allowed to fail if failure means the death of innocent people. Even though we can all recognize on a personal level that our failures are typically unintentional and are definitely what make us human.

Of late, it’s very clear that Dumbledore is a stand in for the betrayal we feel at JK Rowling’s anti-trans standing.

We all loved her so much.

She gave us this world.

She promised it to everyone.

And then she said that it was all a lie, and that it was never meant for some of us anyway.

The parallels are clear.

While we were first reading, we loved who Harry loved. Simply because he loved them, and we loved him.

When we grew up, we started acknowledging the ways in which the characters mirrored people in real life, and we chose the people we found the most familiar to love instead. Personally, I understand the reason I read Severitus so often is because I had a largely absent father who I idolized as a child, and that father was a bit of a rockstar like person. Dark, intelligent, and cruel when he wanted to be. Artistic, genius, condescending, and amazing.

As an adult, I still long for his love and approval. Learning that Severus was capable of so much good at the very end of his story, that he was in fact good all along, even when he looked exactly the opposite, gave me hope that my father was too. Even though I now understand that redemption for my father is just a fairy tale it’s still a story I hold close to my heart. A story I long for. It’s a possible happy ending for both a lonely child and a jaded grouchy adult.

Albus Dumbledore was different.

This was a man that we trusted to have everyone’s best intentions at heart. We were told he was safe. We were told he was the smartest man in any room. And then he failed us. And we looked back at all he had done, and rather than seeing the good he had tried to achieve, all we could see were the mistakes he had made.  

I firmly believe that the reason that so many people hate him so strongly now is because we all loved him so much first. Like Harry, we all believe that he was incapable of mistakes. His mistakes in cannon aren’t any more morally condemning than anyone else on the light side.

Keep in mind that I said, “in cannon.” I feel like I need to distinguish that. In cannon, though Harry asked if he could stay at Hogwarts during the summer, he never told Dumbledore about living in a cupboard under the stairs. His letter was addressed to there, but we have no way of knowing whether it was physically or magically written on the envelope. And besides, that letter was signed by Professor McGonagall, not Dumbledore. Harry also never mentioned to him the Dursleys withholding food. Or locking up his trunk so that he couldn’t do his homework. He made it clear that they disliked him, that they thought him a burden, but think. Really think. Dumbledore is the head of a school full of children. How many children misunderstand and exaggerate even in their own minds how much their families dislike them.

Let me be clear; when I say kids exaggerate I don’t mean in terms of abuse. I only mean typical things such as, “My mom’s always grouchy when she gets home from work and she never notices that I’ve tried really hard by cleaning the bathroom if she told me to clean the kitchen before she got home and I decided to do the bathroom because I wanted to clean it instead of doing the dishes and now she’s yelling at me that she just needs me to help her sometimes, and I don’t feel like that’s fair because really I do. Look, I cleaned the whole bathroom by myself! And I straitened up the living room too! The only thing I ‘forgot’ was the kitchen and now she’s acting like I do nothing. This means she hates me and appreciates nothing I do. I am clearly a burden to her, and I should go live under a rock so that she doesn’t have to deal with me anymore.” Really, your mom probably isn’t saying you’re a burden. Your mom is more than likely overworked, over-tired, and almost certainly depressed in a society that doesn’t cater to mental health awareness, and on top of all that she was raised by a generation that was allergic to admitting and self-regulating their true feelings so she can’t articulate that and she’s instead taking her frustrations out on you.

This is wrong, and she shouldn’t do it. But consider. Why didn’t you want to clean the kitchen? Was it because you had a long hard day at school and you’re overworked, over-tired, and definitely depressed in a world that doesn’t cater to mental health awareness, and all you really wanted was a break from the hardest job and you just wanted to compromise by doing the ones you felt emotionally and physically able to do? Because I promise, that’s probably exactly how your mom feels about the damn dirty dishes that she’s going to have to deal with before she can make dinner after being cussed out and yelled at by customers and or bosses all day in between doing her actual work and that’s the real reason she’s yelling.

Because, though a lot of teens believe otherwise, parents are still just people and the feelings that overwhelm kids still overwhelm adults just as badly. And they’re even less likely to know how to help themselves because they didn’t grow up with the internet where everyone shares their feeling and gets back validation and advice, so they mostly just believed those feelings were personal failings that indicated something broken specifically only in them and that they should learn to live with it and never tell anyone ever because complaining is for babies and liberals. Okay, maybe that last bit is a little too specific to my own mother, but you get the idea.

It’s a cycle that’s been going on for years. Hopefully, we can eventually all learn how to communicate peacefully and compromise on chores sometimes so we can end it someday. Or everyone can just switch to paper plates, and then we’ll worry about how we’re killing the planet later and no one will have to do the dishes ever again.

The point is, while that isn’t the best parenting style, and it can cause issue’s with your familial relationship as you age, it isn’t technically abuse. And it especially wouldn’t be considered abuse in the 90’s while Harry Potter was taking place or the early 00’s when it was being published.

Harry was not bruised when he arrived at Hogwarts. He didn’t show obvious outward signs of abuse. He never told any adults what his life was like at the Dursleys at all. He really didn’t even say much about it to Ron or Hermione either. Mrs. Weasley sent him treats for his birthday, which was a sweet motherly gesture. Hermione and Hagrid did as well but think about it. Do you believe for a second that if Molly have-another-serving, can-I-get-you-some-more-bread, try-the-potatoes Weasley honestly thought the Dursley’s were starving Harry that she would first wait until the end of July to send Harry anything, and then only send him sweets? She would scale the Dursleys’ house and stuff a full six course meal through the bars multiple times a day before she let that boy live off stale birthday cake. When she asked if the Dursley had fed him enough she meant it in the same way she always meant it, in the if ‘I can feed the world I can love the world’ way.

 Hagrid sent him rock cakes, but again, think about it. Hagrid had shown up with a cake for Harry’s birthday the day he first delivered the letter when he couldn’t have yet known of the way Harry was treated. He just wanted to show Harry he was loved and missed.

Of the people who sent him food, only Hermione really knew Harry didn’t get to eat his fill at the Dursley’s and she still only sent cake because all she knew was that he was being forced to diet with Dudley. Which is why she sent him the kind of food one would eat if they weren’t on a diet instead of true sustenance. A fourth of a grapefruit as a meal is not a diet, no matter what Petunia called it. And if he had told Hermione specifics, she likely would have told Harry that, but again, he didn’t tell anyone specifics.

 Everyone knew that Harry was unfavoured by the Dursley’s and that they wouldn’t be celebrating his birthday, and he wouldn’t receive cake or presents, but they really didn’t know much else. Ron and Hermione only understood he was being starved in the way most naive well-fed kids from happy families can understand. It sounded cruel, and they did try to tell people, but because they didn’t understand the full gravity of the situation, they couldn’t properly communicate to trusted adults that Harry was actually experiencing abuse. Plus, Harry tended to downplay it even to them.

When Dumbledore speaks about knowing Harry would come from a less than happy home, you can tell he is picturing a world where Harry is liked second best to his cousin. Where he never feels fully at home. Like an overextended visitor in a relative’s house. He thinks they’ll treat him like the weird cousin who came to stay and never left rather than an immediate family member.

He isn’t picturing Petunia Dursley slinging a frying pan at Harry’s head. Or refusing to let him drink his fill of water on a hot summer’s day spent weeding her ridiculous flower garden. Or an overly restrictive diet enforced on an already undernourished body simply to make Harry’s morbidly obese cousin feel better about his doctor changing his eating habits.

I think we’ll all agree that feeling less than welcome by stuck up relatives sucks, but it’s better than whatever Voldemort’s loyal leftover followers will do to him if they manage to track down the person responsible for their dark lord’s downfall.

I understand why a lot of people feel like Dumbledore should have just put Harry under the Fidelius Charm and hid him rather than sending him to the Dursley’s but consider: If Dumbledore trusted Sirius the way he must have done to not betray James and his family, then it makes sense that he felt Fidelius was no longer an option. He fully believed Sirius was the secret keeper. Sirius, the Potters, and Pettigrew were the only ones to know of the change. It’s likely that after learning that the Death Eaters had convinced Sirius to betray the Potters he was jaded enough to take it as a sign that no one could be a trusted Secret Keeper. No matter how much they loved the person under protection.

He also likely would have insisted on a trial for Sirius had Sirius himself not told everyone that he was the one who killed James and Lily while descending into hysterical laughter. We know what Sirius meant, (he felt responsible for them dying because switching to Peter at the last minute had been his idea) because we read the third Harry Potter book, but Dumbledore didn’t have that same advantage. All he had was the word of an apparently mad man. A man who had just tracked down another dear friend and apparently killed him and 12 innocent bystanders in a fit of insanity.

Why, when last he had heard Sirius was the Secret Keeper, would he doubt a verbal confession from a man who did nothing to try and save himself from Azkaban? The Marauders never told anyone of their animagus abilities. No one but Sirius could have understood what Peter had done. Why do we expect Dumbledore to have known better?

So, instead of Fidelius and hiding Harry away for his entire childhood, he gave him the best protection he could think of under the circumstances he had been given. He sought to give Harry a normal life and to keep him safe from the remaining Death Eaters.

Dumbledore understood that fame was power, and that power could corrupt even the best of people with the strongest of minds, so he kept Harry away from the limelight. He also understood how fickle people where about fame. This was the right decision even if the Dursley were a bad choice in guardians. We saw proof of this numerous times while Harry was at school. His fame only ever seemed to bring him more hardships. In book two they said Harry was a dark wizard because he was a Parselmouth and that that’s how he overpowered Voldemort. In book four even some of Harry’s friends refused to believe he wasn’t just a glory hound and that it hadn’t been him who entered his name in the tournament, but rather someone trying to kill him. In book five, almost everyone refused to believe Harry was telling the truth about Voldemort’s return. Every single time Harry’s name entered the limelight, it was in a way that harmed him. Imagine how much earlier it would have started had he grown up in the wizarding world. They would have been debating his kindergarten finger paintings if they could have.  

Why does the entire fandom also assume that Dumbledore thought of himself as the wisest most all-knowing man in any room? The only people who canonically acted like they believed that about him were the Golden Trio, and they were enlightened otherwise multiple times throughout the books as they grew up. Just as everyone learns new truths about trusted adults they thought of as perfect as they grow.

The fact is, Albus Dumbledore has always been just a man.

He was a great and powerful but flawed man who wanted more than anything to make sure that evil could not prevail. He obviously still holds plenty of shame and guilt over his dealings with Gellert Grindelwald in his misspent youth. We have surmised that when he looked in the Mirror of Erised he likely saw his sister Ariana, or something as equally heart-breaking which he recognized as his own fault. He fully understood that he was just a man. He encouraged everyone to understand that fact about Voldemort as well.

He was not a god, and he didn’t pretend to be.

Not in cannon anyway.

Fanon Dumbledore, on the other hand, tends to be anything from a meddling idiot to a full on manipulative dark lord complete with moustache twirling and nefarious intent. Which, I believe, further influences and enforces the fandom’s collective bad opinion of him. Most of us haven’t reread the real books in years. It gets hard to remember at some points what was something he did in canon vs. what was something he did in fanfiction.

 Every other character seems welcomed to grow in the world of fandom.

Severus was canonically a willing Death Eater in his youth, a bully to children in his care in his adulthood, and a petty grudge-holder who couldn’t let go of the past. We accept that we can’t fully know how much of his behaviour towards the students was an act to fool the Death Eater’s children, but we can assume it definitely wasn’t all of it. Still, he gets plenty of redemption fics. He had literal access to Harry’s traumatic childhood memories but still saw no signs of abuse because he was too busy trying to keep a 15-year-old child from gaining any ammunition about his own past.

Looking back, it seems obvious that as very few of Harry’s childhood memories were shown in the Occlumency scenes, he likely wasn’t as bad at clearing his mind as either he or Snape assumed, but it was also possible that Severus didn’t see those memories because that wasn’t what he was looking for. The memory of Harry getting chased up a tree by Marge’s dog as the rest of his family watched and laughed should have triggered at least a couple of red flags, but Severus was typically determined to only see the bad in Harry, so he overlooked it.

James Potter who is often thought of as the better choice for Lily was also a bully. And he spent years relentlessly pursuing a relationship with someone who had never given him any indication that his advances were welcome and had in fact outright told him the exact opposite of that many times until he finally wore her down and convinced her to give him a shot. That’s gross, unacceptable behaviour but I guess it is technically better than dating a budding racist that sees you as the exception to his views on your people, so James is rebranded as a lovable hero who changed after having a slightly misspent youth rather than a mean spirited bully who likely grew bored with his main target once he no longer saw him as competition (there would have been no reason to bully Snape if Lily wasn’t friends with him anymore after 5th year which was conveniently around the time he began to “grow up”) as well as a pushy loser who wouldn’t take no for an answer even though Lily said it multiple times. (There’s also the point that once Snape knew about Lupin being a werewolf, James likely wouldn’t have bullied him anymore so as not to provoke Snape to reveal the secret and get Lupin thrown out of school and possibly killed.)

Ron told Molly outright that the Dursley’s were starving Harry and had fixed bars on his windows to trap him after weeks of being concerned when he didn’t reply to Ron’s letters, and she still ignored it, assuming instead that Ron was exaggerating and never even tried to check with Harry to learn that he wasn’t.

Remus spent a year teaching Harry individualized lessons to repel Dementors and never once asked him why he was so sad that they affected him in ways that none of the other students experienced. I mean really, he couldn’t have been the only orphan attending that school so Remus couldn’t have thought it was just that. And Neville’s backstory was nearly just as sad (and just as well known to Remus) and even he didn’t faint like Harry. Yet, he didn’t question Harry once.

Sirius (who is also a bully and a petty grudge-holder) never wondered why a child would want to move in with an escaped prisoner who he had never met before that had just mangled his best friend’s leg and tried to commit murder in front of him instead of the relatives he had been with his entire life. Even when until that very night he had believed that prisoner wanted to kill him?

Arthur actually met the Dursley’s and saw Vernon’s rage at magic when he came to collect Harry for the Quidditch World Cup and he still questioned nothing.

Half the Order found Harry locked inside his bedroom with locks affixed to the outside of the door, and all they did was give vague unfulfilled threats to Vernon and send Harry back. You could blame that on Dumbledore, but I think that’s ridiculous. They were not under Imperious. They made their own decisions. Every adult there had a responsibility to that child, and they all failed him individually.

Yet time and time again I see Dumbledore condemned so overwhelmingly in the very fics that redeem and or absolve these other characters of those very actions.

Even McGonagall, who knew from the start that the Dursleys were awful people, never pulled Harry aside as his head of house and asked him anything about his home life. And, as I stated earlier, her name was the one on the letter addressed to the cupboard under the stairs. She also made it very clear that she wasn’t someone for Harry to confide in by constantly dismissing any concerns he presented her. The way she reacted about the Stone was ridiculous. And her non-concern over the amount of detentions Harry received from Umbridge followed by the ‘have a biscuit’ scene rubbed me the wrong way. And yet, of late she seems to be revered in the fandom community as some kind of badass grandmotherly character. All because she protested one time about leaving Harry with the Dursleys and then never brought it up again.

It’s getting a bit ridiculous. I’m exhausted by the way the fan community continues to rewrite cannon to fit their dissatisfaction with our once trusted role-model JK Rowling through Harry Potter’s once trusted mentor Albus Dumbledore.

Just once I would like to read a Harry Potter fic without having to think about the various ways in which JK Rowling let us all down. And with everyone rewriting Dumbledore as the ‘real villain all along’ I can’t help but be taken out of the fic and forced to relate it to reality.

[toomuchracket]

matty seeing girlie *politely and professionally* cuss someone out in her lawyer mindset and it rlly gets him going

OOH OOH one time vee @abiiors and i talked about you and matty getting called into the school because elena punched a boy in the face because he was bullying her big sister - matty gets there first and has to listen to this obnoxious dad be like "your daughter broke my son's nose (she did not) i want discipline", all the while thinking Just You Wait Until My Wife Gets Here.

he swoons when you rock up in your work clothes and your heels (red lip optional but it would be so cunty i fear), and does his best not to smirk while you sit through listening to this fucking awful excuse for a father complain about how his son is an angel and would never do anything wrong and your daughters are feral and should be expelled with a raised eyebrow and folded arms, because he knows you're about to tear this arsehole a new one. you do, but in a lawyerly way; you literally pull handouts from your bag for everyone like "email transcripts from the past six weeks, detailing the problems your supposed angel of a child has ben causing my eldest daughter, beginning with a note from their class teacher to apologise for the bruising dylan came home with after he deliberately pushed her off a swing set and to inform us he would be duly disciplined in class, and hopefully at home too, as the email had been sent to you and your family as well. the rest of the transcripts are emails from myself to the class and head teachers, explaining that dylan has since been scared to go to school due to further bullying, and asking if something could be done about this rapidly escalating situation. i don't necessarily condone my younger daughter's actions, although i am proud of her for standing up for her sister, but if you had bothered to deal with your child's behaviour before now then she wouldn't have had to resort to violence to stop her older sister being targeted". the headteacher is (rightfully) mortified, the man is IRATE, and matty's not sure he's ever fancied you more in his life. and then he has to rescind that, because the man tries to pull the "oh, i'm sure my son's only acting like that because he fancies her!" card, and you just say "children learn behaviours, though - you implying that your son equates affection with violence also implies someone in the immediate family thinks so, too. in that case, maybe best to get social work involved. i'm sure they'd be very interested to hear that" - he's spluttering out denials (which don't sound too convincing), and you just stand up and say "i think we're done here. we'll speak to elena about her methods of tackling injustice. and i hope your son's bruising isn't too severe - we can testify from dylan's that arnica ointment helps, though. have a good weekend" and grab matty and leave. he keeps it together until you pick up the girls and take them home, and then he distracts them by putting spongebob on before he pulls you into the utility room and just kisses you until you're lightheaded; he pulls away like "i love you i'm in awe of you and you're so hot that if i don't go down on you in the next two minutes i might die. i'm not even kidding like you ended that stupid cunt. ENDED. sexiest fucking thing i've ever seen. please for the love of god let me make you cum" lol. you're like "you've only got eight minutes until the episode ends and the girls start wandering", and matty lifts you onto the counter and says "plenty of time" and yeah he's right he gets you off with time to spare. i do think the girls are maybe sent off on a last minute sleepover at uncle george's that night, though, lmao, so matty can show his appreciation of you a bit more thoroughly in peace. hot <3

[iobsessoverfictionalmen]

Midnight Roses (4)

This fic contains canon-typical violence and behaviours, manipulation, mentions of death, murder, orphans, pain, blood, blood drinking, torture, memory manipulation, prison, and criminals.

Chapter 4

“I am curious to hear your assessment regarding Bella Swan.”  Athenadora uttered that same afternoon.

You opened your mouth only to close it with a smirk decorating your lips, “I could tell you now and our eavesdropper would only listen to the conversation or we could include our visitor in the conversation so we have plenty of perspective.”

Athenadora grinned wolfishly, “Come out eavesdropper.  There’s no point in hiding anymore!”

A blond, curly-haired, lanky vampire stepped into view.  It took you some time to remember who he was.  Then it clicked.  This vampire was Jasper Hale, the youngest of the clan and the one that Aro told you about who struggled the most with the Cullens’ animal diet.  Aro had gone on to explain that it wasn’t due to lack of self-control but Jasper’s struggle with the diet was due to the fact that his gift was sensing and manipulating emotions.  Since emotions were affected by hormones that travelled in the bloodstream, it made sense that Jasper would have more difficulty controlling his desire for human blood than the other vampires in Forks.

“I did not intend to eavesdrop,” Jasper stated solemnly with his hands clasped behind his back.  His posture was stiff and he spoke in a formal tone.

“Sit.”  Athenadora ordered.

At the same time, you and Jasper sat down in the comfy chairs that furnished the room.

“Your assessment?” Athenadora prodded as she too sat.

“Bella has demonstrated that she is willing to learn and to be taught,” you stated, massaging the palm of one hand with the thumb on the opposite hand.  Your eyes darted over to Jasper who maintained his stiff posture while seated. 

“However, centuries of bias and prejudice will be difficult to overcome even if the participants are willing.  If the participant isn’t open to change, there is a high probability that their lack of willingness will negatively affect those around them.  It may result in Bella’s progress becoming stunted and she could even regress to her previous manner of thinking.”

Athenadora pursed her lips.  Both she and Jasper understood that you were referring to Edward and Alice when you said ‘participant’, “I was thinking along the same lines.  It’s not just Edward that we are concerned about but your mate, Alice, as well.”  She directed her second sentence to Jasper.

“My mate cares deeply for Bella.  That is both her strength and her weakness.  She can be easily convinced to choose a certain path when Bella is at the centre.  Once someone has decided on a course of action, Alice will then have visions of that outcome.”

“Which is how she convinced Aro to let them leave when they visited Volterra the first time.”  Athenadora observed.

“In the past, Alice has found that technique to be effective.”  Jasper revealed before examining you, “I can imagine that while Bella listened to your explanations, there were times when she reacted negatively due to the amount and content of information she was receiving.”

“I had my doubts about how Bella would respond to the information that I revealed.  She definitely had some strong opinions about a few of the topics but I don’t think that Rosalie’s presence during the conversation helped the situation.”

Jasper frowned, “The two do not get along.  We were all changed out of necessity and Rosalie believes that Bella is squandering her chances at a human life to be with Edward.  When we left Forks, I heard whispers that Bella wants to become a vampire and then Alice told me of the vision that she showed Great King Aro in the throne room.  Edward is reluctant to change her.”

“That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one.”  Athenadora grimaced, “It also explains the control he has over her.”

“If your family had a vote, what course of action would you take?  Would you change Bella into a vampire?”

“There was a vote before we were brought here.  The majority of our family voted to change her into a vampire.  Two of our family did not.  We didn’t know the extent of Edward’s manipulative behaviour then.”

“And now that you do?  Would you change your answer?”

“I voted yes because Bella being a vampire would be a nice change and I wouldn’t feel the need to attack her.”  He deadpanned.

You weren’t sure whether Jasper was joking or not. 

“That reason is quite shallow and selfish of you.”  Athenadora chastised.

Jasper remained focused on Athenadora.  You could see the micro expressions chasing each other across his face before it became stony.

“And what of you Major?  Do you support Jasper’s decision to change Bella?”

When Jasper spoke, his voice once again held that undertone.  “Jasper overruled me in his decision.”  The Major bit out.  “Bella’s wish to become a vampire is rooted in her desire to remain with Edward.  Following our unexpected journey to Volterra and the reveal of information along with Bella being exposed to different perspectives, I am not aware if that longing has subsided or grown.  Prior to becoming involved with Edward, she had no understanding of the dangers of our world.  Her infatuation with Edward has opened her eyes to the dangers yet I believe that she wants to become a vampire in order to handle situations on our level.”

A familiar form appeared in a flash of green and the Major’s posture shifted once again.  Somehow, without fully understanding how you knew it, you knew that Jasper was in control again.

“The three of you need to get to the throne room now!”  Claymore urged, “The Kings are preparing to kill Edward Cullen.”

[sav-not-tav]

BG3 Backstory Bash by Kelandrin

Introducing Tavyra - a.k.a, Tav!

Thank you to @darkurgetrash for this tag!! I'm late to it because I was undecided on which Tav I wanted to complete this for. I settled on my most recent Tav whom I'm in progress of writing a fic for :) I tend to write using nondescript characters for reader insert but this is how I played her! Left is her usual hairstyle for day-to-day, right is how I imagine her to look when *relaxing* around camp.

AN: I am writing a fic for her ATM but this should not have much in the way of spoilers. The fic will focus on her journey through the events of BG3 - and her romance - but in a *what if Tav wasn't the group leader* way.

Baby:

Birth/Parents:

Tavyra's parents were Lower City residents who were struggling to make ends meet when they had her. She knows nothing of her parents aside from their low social status, and only has one picture of them from when she was a toddler.

Firsts:

Due to her unconventional upbringing, Tavyra does not know anything about her firsts. She does know that her magic presented itself very early, around 2.5 years of age.

Childhood:

Friends:

She did not have much in the way of traditional friends, as a kid. She was teased by kids in the orphanage for being abandoned by her living parents, and her magical mishaps only increased the teasing. Tav did not begin to make friends with other street kids and locals until she got a bit older.

Siblings:

She did not have siblings - there were plenty of other kids around, but she never formed a close enough bond to consider them found family.

Getting Into Trouble:

She rarely got into any trouble that did not involve her wild magic. On a few occasions, she was caught pickpocketing by the city guard, but was let off with a warning due to her young age (and her tears).

Birthday:

She does not know her true birthday, but has always celebrated on Summer Solstice. She enjoys the warmth of the summer sun on her skin and if she can spare the coin, treats herself to some ripe sunmelon and fresh pastries.

Games:

Tavyra grew up playing traditional games with the local kids. A lot of hopscotch, hide-and-seek, and one-a-cup.

Trauma:

After an unknown magical mishap at a very young age, Tavyra's parents realized more than before that they did not have the proper means to care for her. She was left at an orphanage before she turned 3, and was cast out from there after only a few years, left on the streets by age 6. These events left her without a secure sense of home or self.

Teenager:

Reckless behaviour:

Tavyra had to learn to manage her emotions and avoid magic use from a very early age. Numerous incidents left her out of a job, and many times she had to resort to theft to keep herself housed and fed. She became a good pickpocket during these years.

First Love:

As a teenager, she found herself hopelessly enamored with an Upper City boy who frequented the Elfsong Tavern for dinner during her shifts. She regularly tried to work up the courage to speak to him for more than a passing moment. On the day she had finally built the nerve to approach him, he came in for dinner with another girl. Tavyra's emotions went haywire when she saw this, causing her magic to surge - not only embarrassing herself in front of him, but also losing her job.

Taking responsibility:

Tavyra was forced into taking responsibility for her magic when it kept landing her in difficult situations. Shortly before she turned 6, she got into an argument with a boy at the orphanage, and her she cried so hard she cast 'Fireball' on her bed. Part of the orphanage went up in flames and she was kicked out for being a liability.

She also lost numerous jobs due to surges, so she practiced keeping herself calm and never used magic on purpose.

Adulthood:

Their "first time":

Her first time was with a boy who had been living in the hostel for a few months. She did not enjoy the experience and actively avoided him afterward. His bed was unclaimed shortly after.

Serious relationships:

She has not found herself in any serious relationships. After her "first time", she had a few flings throughout her later teenage years, but never anything lengthy. Due to keeping her emotions tempered, she struggled to build a deep emotional connection with anyone.

Work:

Before BG3, she worked whatever jobs she could find in the Lower City. For a short time, she served and cleaned tables at various taverns or worked the counter at some of the local shops.

She became an adept pickpocket, but her moral compass limited her to only steal from those who could afford the loss. She refused to take from anyone who was not well off, no matter how desperate she became.

After the events of BG3, she travels with Halsin back to Reithwin Town to help care for the orphans and rebuild, until her heart draws her back to Baldur's Gate.

Finding her place:

Tavyra didn't quite feel that she fit in with her group of companions, no matter how much she liked them. Each party member held skills that made them useful while she seemed to keep getting in the way. She finds her place among the tiefling refugees when she is left to remain at camp outside the Emerald Grove, while her companions travel the area.

Her bonds with the refugees grow deeper as she spends time with them at Last Light Inn and during the events of Act 3.

Starting a family/Found family:

Tavyra grows very close to the tieflings, specifically Cal and Lia as well as all the orphaned children. After the events of the game, she travels with Halsin back to Reithwin Town to help establish a home for the orphans. After a few months, she finds her way back to Baldur's Gate to reconnect with the tiefling siblings, finding a home for herself.

Aging:

Tavyra is a human and ages normally like one. In the events of BG3, she is approx. 22-23 years old (which is the age I headcanon Cal and Lia as)

That's Tav! I am super excited about the fic I am writing for her (if I ever get around to posting it) and finishing her playthrough (if I can ever get done with Act 3). <3

[theonevoice]

Rumination n. 4 – On Aziraphale, sacrifice and guilt (another bold hypothetical)

I feel like we've been almost only considering the tragedy of the Fall from Crowley's point of view (it's obvious why), but I would really like if in s3 we get to see the battle before the Fall (the big missing event between what we have seen in the s1 and s2 prologues) and learn something about how Aziraphale experienced that moment. So I started wondering what kind of situation would be in character for the two man-shaped entities we know, being at the same time relevant enough to deserve to occupy a prologue (that is, to open our collective third eye about some new underlayer of this millennia-long cursed relationship). And then, one specific thought popped into my empty brain, and I went down a rabbit hole.

One aspect of Aziraphale character that I have never seen discussed per se is his attachment to his identity as an angel. There is plenty of wonderfully insightful takes about how this attachment influences his behaviour (to Crowley and in general), but why is he so attached in the first place? What if there is something other than fear of punishment in his oh so painful obsession with preserving his angelic status? What makes it so precious to him? If Gabriel so readily dropped his role of Supreme Archangel to be with Beelzebub, why is Aziraphale so obsessed? Is it really only a weird metaphore for "class struggle", reminding us that powerful élites get to do whatever they want while the little people must abide by even the stupidest rules?

What if Aziraphale's rank of principality is particularly dear to him for a personal reason? We know that angels get promoted or demoted and not created with a fixed role. What if he earned his during the great war of Heaven? But would the Aziraphale we know be the kind of "soldier" able to win a title in battle?

I think it is not entirely absurd to imagine that Aziraphale didn't want to go to battle at all and was forced to by other angels. That coul explain why in s1 he is, for once, so strong and determined when he tells the Quartermaster angel that he has "no intention of fighting in any war". Consider how remissive he tends to be with other angelic entities throughout the series: he is uncharacteristicly resolute here. It almost looks like he was setting a non-negotiable boundary here. 

Maybe Crowley is not the only one traumatized by what happened. Maybe after being forced to go into war, Aziraphale also experienced something terrible, a moment that scarred him forever. What could that be? Here it comes another bold hypothetical.

Maby he and soon-to-be Crowley run into each other and realize they both don't want to fight. Maybe they are on the verge of developing the unfathomable thought of running away together from the battlefield. Maybe they almost try but keep getting separated by crushing waves of opposite legions. Maybe they finally manage to step away from the thick of the fight, but other angels surround them before they can even discuss what to do next. Maybe Crowley is struck by the unbearable cruelty and absurdity of what is going on and decides to protect the only pure, gentle, and actually good angel he knows from harm. So maybe he pretends that Aziraphale just captured him and let them take him away and put him with the other defeated angels. And for his achievement Aziraphale earns a promotion to principality that will forever remind him of that horrific moment, of how he could not find the courage to tell the truth and say something in Crowley's defense. 

Maybe this is why he is so obsessively attached to his place in Heaven, because someone he loved sacrificed himself in order to preserve it for him. Maybe this is why he is so fixated on the unspeakable desire to bring Crowley back to Heaven, not just as a compensation for a generic cosmic injustice but as atonement for his own fault. 

Maybe this is his side of the trauma. 

Maybe this is why, whenever he is in a state of emotional pressure, he tends to fall back on his black and white, "you are the bad guys, we are the nice ones" pattern of behavior. Because actual - clinical - trauma prompts the traumatize mind to deploy self-defense strategies, and if I can convince myself that you were evil all along, then I am not guilty of letting them catch you. 

(I still believe it would be interesting if Crowley actually "didn't really fall," but he willingly chose to leave Heaven - but I've already rambled on about it long enough here, and the two scenarios could even be compatible if my math is correct).

Maybe this is also why, when dispatched on Earth, he does so poor of a job (by Heaven's standards, of course). Because trauma also causes self-sabotaging behaviours leaning on the deep unconscious belief that you don't deserve to succeed and never will. How could you ever deserve to succeed if the accomplishment that gave you your very rank of principality - the word that defines who you are in Heaven's books - was a lie?

Maybe this is what makes the dialogue at the end of the Job minisode - and all the other bits of dialogue that he have on the same topic - so dramatic and tragic: Aziraphale needs to convince himself that he is worthy of the sacrifice that preserved his angelic status, and finding himself lacking in that department would activate the most devastating guilt. And even more he needs to convince Crowley of it, to prove to him (even if he probably doesn't remember it) that he didn't sacrifice himself for a fraud. He doesn't need to be an angel because he likes it, but because it was the identity that the angel who hung the stars bought him with his damnation.

Maybe this is why he shows such a pathological conduct about forgiveness and forgiving. Because under all the many, many layers of denial he believes that he is the one that has to be forgiven, but doesn't know how to ask for it, being afraid that he could be, in fact, unforgivable.

It is entirely unsupported speculation, of course, but imagine what it would mean if Aziraphale angelic identity was "stained" by such a gigantic deception, his "original sin," and he spent 6000 years in full impostor syndrome mode, repressing the thought of his unworthiness. Not out of fear of Heaven but out of fear of being a disappointment to the angel that Crowley was once (and that demon Crowley constantly reminds him of). Maybe Aziraphale has spent his entire existence telling himself that he had the duty to repay this enormous, secret debt by being the most irreprehensible angel ever, only to have this plan thwarted by the tempting presence of none other than Crowley himself. The most cruel temptation of all. Imagine being torn between the joy of misbehaving with the entity you love and the duty to be irreproachable, not for Heaven, but for the unspoken obligation that (you believe) this same entity put on you a long time ago.

It would mean that Aziraphale's struggle is not between his love for Crowley and his allegiance to Heaven, but between his love for Crowley and his obligation to (past) him. It would be not "I cannot love you because I am afraid of losing my place in Heaven," but "I cannot love you because if I lose my place in Heaven, I will have wasted your sacrifice and failed you again." It would be the tragedy of renouncing the happiness of being together with the person you love because you convinced yourself that that same person, when he saved your place in Heaven, implicitly gave you a mission that denies that happiness. "I cannot love you because if I do, I will betray you in the worst possible and most unforgivable way." "I cannot love you because you wanted me to be a good angel, and good angels don't allow themselves to love demons." "I cannot love you because you chained me to the duty not to." It would be tragic in the "classical tragedy" meaning of the word, like in Antigone by Sophocles (that Aziraphale actually namedrops in the 1941 flashback), where the main character is torn between two conflicting moral laws and cannot move without infringing on one of the two. But with the extra pain of having both laws coming from the same person and the person in question actively trying to pull you away from that (self-)imposed lawfulness in the meantime.

Honestly, by this point this is more a fanfiction than a speculation, but it would give us an explanation for why Aziraphale decided to take the Metatron's offer specifically after Crowley's reaction to the opportunity of being an angel again (when he leaves the Metatron, he tells him "you don't have to answer immediately. Take all the time you need", which means that he didn't say no, but he also didn't say yes). In this scenario, he is so excited for the prospect of restoring Crowley to his angelic status because he still pins his Fall on himself. The idea makes him so happy not because he wants to be together in Heaven (it's hard to imagine that he wants to go live there or doesn't know that Crowley is not interested) but because this would extinguish his imaginary debt and allow him to leave the cage where he held himself hostage for 6000 years. The cage that prevented him from getting to close to a demon. With Crowley restored as angel, Aziraphale would be "off the hook," and they could finally "go off together." He would not feel chained to his heavenly rank anymore. It's not "come back to Heaven so I will not be trouble by our love," it's "come back to Heaven so you I will be relieved of the duty of being worthy of my rank and be free to be the kind of questionable angel that can love a demon." 

It's only when Crowley refuses to go back - and only then - that Aziraphale feels definitely compelled to take the role of Supreme Archangel. If his moral duty to be a worthy angel cannot be erased, it must be paid entirely. And the payment is sticking with the responsibility that he thinks Crowley gave him, to live up to his rank of principality, to do good and, even better, to "make a difference," which, in his mind, would be the ultimate way to honour that never forgotten sacrifice, sacrificing himself in return.

[boyfridged]

What’s your opinion of fanon Jason? I fucking hate him but I’m curious about what you think since you’ve been posting about him recently. The pit madness stuff with Jason in canon is insanely ableist and reeks of abuse apologism in my opinion. To me, part of the appeal of his character is that him doing all of those awful things is entirely his choice and making so that it isn’t fully his fault is both unfair to him and all the people he hurt.

i’m sorry if any of that comes across as unnecessarily blunt but i talked ab it plenty before and each time i have been misunderstood so i want to be clear.

i guess the general difference in my perception of jason being overly violent while displaying psychotic symptoms (because i believe this is what we are talking about?) versus reaction of most people is that i don’t think it’s primarily an issue of abuse apologia. i get that this sentiment is based on approaching the topic from an angle most of the audience is familiar with. however, i believe if you take the problem of ableism seriously, the excessive abuse should be just taken out too. it makes no sense without that context anyway. what is the reason to claim that he acted violently with no motive and while completely sane if it says nothing about his attitude and the story whatsoever? the idea of him targeting random victims is already rooted in the concept of his delusional state; so just throw it out, or else the readers will go back to the conclusion of clinical insanity. unless you want him to be an inherently cruel person – and that’s just not a type of characterisation that is to my taste (i have too much fondness for his original place in the narrative to entertain it. i’d rather think it’s something learned.)

that is not to say that i think all of his violent acts should be written out; but the specific ones most associated with all the psychosis-esque behaviour (like the so-called titan’s tower incident for example.) this is also not to say i think the motif of “madness” should be completely erased; it can be approached in fiction without using the language and showcasing specific behaviour that point at real symptoms and tie them to aggressive actions.

so, regarding whether or not everything he does is fully his choice– i think it’s a bit of a reductive presumption and question in general. i’m sorry for getting philosophical but most discussions of autonomy in the field presume that the circumstances someone finds themselves in already limit autonomy a fair share. and at the end of the day, jason’s position in the narrative and in the world he finds himself in post-res are so obscure that it is the point that he doesn’t get much choice in how he communicates his grief. and grief and madness are themes that blur into each other too. i think, very much like in hamlet, the question of whether the protagonist is sane or mad doesn’t actually matter much because the extreme circumstances call into question if there’s a “normal” response to this situation at all.

if you want to be realistic about it, you have to ask how much someone who has been raised (in good faith and not fully intentionally) to believe it’s their duty to fight criminals and protect people only to get brutally murdered, resurrected, kidnapped and finally given access to assassin training at 16/17 can be believed to be a fully self-aware and autonomous person.

if you want to think of it in terms of what the story is about, at least the initial stages of it (so the lost days & utrh for example, as well as countdown, if you will) then it doesn’t truly matter that much. this is something that can hold weight if there’s talk of redemption – and in the narrative he’s not alive enough for it as things stand anyway (and sometimes he’s just written as a very much redeemed corpse without any significant build-up leading to it.) to me, a perfect story would address his wrongdoings, but also highlight it's not the core of his personality; but still, this is such thin ice to walk on with all the classism and ableism inherent in his development as a "villain" and "anti-hero."

and as for fanon – i don’t like the takes which justify his actions by “pit madness” etc, and i hate the tag “enemy to caretaker” with my whole heart, but honestly, i also don’t mind when some of these actions are erased (which canon does a lot too, depending on who is behind the portrayal and what they want him to be). this is simply because, again, too many of them are rooted in writing that has been historically full of classist and ableist influence. and to reference one of my recent posts, as much as i enjoy some of the red hood content and the tragic cycle he drives himself into, i do prefer him being softer and kinder. this is who he was meant to be — his story starts in the place of batman’s parents’ murder but the beauty of it is that it’s ia story of hope and compassion that was supposed to overwrite that tragedy.

[thearcher1003]

My turn to ask you some questions :)

3,5,7,8,15,17,18,23,24,26,31,35,42 and 43

3. Yes I like pasta!

5. Yeah kinda yeah 😅

7. No, sadly I never learnt :(

8. Yes, I have had plenty of water. My throat gets extra parched in rainy weather for some reason.

15. Weirdest thing that happened to me? I can't think of anything immediately. I have made a lot of situations weird because of my behaviour but that's not the question. I'll come back to it if I can think of something.

17. There is this cartoon show called 'Krish, Trish and Baltiboy' that aired on weekends only. These three characters were a cat, a monkey and a donkey who narrated folk stories through different folk styles of visual art. It was my absolute favourite show.

18. No, video games look cool but I don't have any :(

23. silly, nervous, caring, confused, smol

24. In the past few years I have learned that I have developed this pattern of working only under extreme pressure which is really bad. And it gets worse now that I am aware of it and still don't act upon it. So now I am like calm and keep thinking "why am I not getting stressed? I should be getting stressed. I need to get work done." But nothing works.

26. Yes, I do. It's a vast vast universe. We can't be the only living beings here.

31. No, thankfully I have never been bit by a dog or any animal for that matter.

35. I am good with literature and creative writing to some extent.

42. Earphones

43. I remember a lot from my childhood. My mother is a teacher. At the time I was born, she was employed in a school that was in a different city than the one we live in so my mother and I (and a roommate whom I developed a close affinity with) used to live as paying guests near that school. I remember how that flat used to look like. I remember the shop there from which we purchased a hippo soap case that I still use and the ankle length hair of a girl in that shop who was probably the shop owner's daughter. I remember the tiny ditch that my aunty (the roommate mentioned before) helped me skip on the way to school and how she would give me a flower for it saying that I was brave like a knight for crossing that large ditch. I remember we were going on a vacation around my 4th birthday. We were in a train at 12 am on my birthday so we were gonna cut the cake there, but my father ordered a 2kg cake instead of a 2-pound cake so we shared that cake with a lot of people in our train compartment. I also remember the same nightmare I used to have in that flat and how I never had it again when we moved to our current house when I was 6. I could go on and on but lets stop here cause it's getting unnecessarily long so sorry for that > <

Thank you for sending the asks, I loveee answering them <333

[merryfortune]

I Scream for Ice-Cream but You Scream For Me

Written for the Rarest of Rare Pairs Fic-a-thon on Dreamwidth

Prompt: Any: Any/Any(+) - Sticky situation

Title: I Scream for Ice-Cream but You Scream For Me

Ship: Sharena/Nerþuz

Fandom: Fire Emblem Heroes

Rating: M

Word Count: 1,675

Warnings: Choose Not to Warn

Tags: Food Kink, Food Play, Sexual Content, Smut, Consent Issues, Kissing, Groping, Licking, Size Difference, Inappropriate Behaviour, Semi-Public Lewdness, 

   Always dress for the appropriate occasion!

   Sharena had been told that over and over again since she was a child. 

   She had always been something of a ball of energy, hard to direct into practical means and typically a little clumsy. Sharena had plenty of fond memories of being scolded by her mother for what she wore and what she did in her clothes. Whether it was for dragging her good and pretty little dresses through the mud or trying to argue that she ought to wear her play clothes to a fancy dress gala, Sharena had been a handful. Her Mother’s ire made her chuckle in recollection but her wisdom continued to be pertinent.

   For example, her work clothes which marked her as the heroine princess of the Order of Heroes was not appropriate beachwear. Even if she had foregone her armour and scarf upon learning the agenda for the day.

   Waking up, putting on her clothes, Sharena paid no attention to if it truly matched the day’s intentions. It was a day in, day out humdrum beat of her schedule. Perfectly normal so she wanted to wear something which was comfortable and practical. Even if it ended up being a “take the day off and go check on the new Heroes who are celebrating all things fun in the sun” kind of day and Sharena thought… Yippee! Too easy! She loved the beach and she only had to say hello. After that she could do anything she liked and she thought maybe she would enjoy having an ice treat from the side lines.

   Yes, well, about that…

   Just as much as Sharena hadn’t thought about what she was going to put on to wear today, she had thought equally as little about how she was going to take it off. Wrongly assuming it would occur closer to her bedtime rather than the middle of the day.

   Five new Heroes had rolled up for a wonderful beach day: Olivia, Hríd, Gullveig paired with Seiðr, and oh… Nerþuz!

   It was always lovely to see Nerþuz, of course. Even if Sharena was, ahem, very surprised to see Nerþuz in such… little clothing. But this was a beach, it would make sense for her to wear swimwear. The colour and cut of said fabrics really suited her, however, not that Sharena was examining her or anything. Just an innocent and harmless observation.

   Honestly, wearing a swimsuit and chat about the warm, balmy weather was one of the more normal things Nerþuz had ever done in Sharena’s presence, actually.

    Things had been off to a strange start with her, Sharena would be the first and fastest to say, but she now considered Nerþuz to be a dear friend. She was a little eccentric, yes, but seeing how she was able to get Olivia out of her shell was proof that deep down, Nerþuz had a heart of gold. Her head was just a little in the clouds.

   With the other Heroes greeted, Sharena happily allowed herself to get drawn into Nerþuz’s infamous atmosphere. She was so peculiarly easy-going and relaxed with a certain charm to her, a glint in her eye, she was utterly alluring vision of the summertime divine in this instance. So, Sharena kept yap, yap, yapping with Nerþuz whilst the other Heroes opted to socialise amongst themselves or with the Summoner. 

   Sharena had all of Nerþuz’s attention and vice-versa. Which made sense since Nerþuz had something that she wanted to show Sharena.

   “Tada!” Nerþuz said. “Isn't it cute? I have been wanting to show it to you all afternoon.”

   “Wow, it's me.” Sharena gawked at the ice-cream that Nerþuz had thrust closer to her.

   A very strange and one of a kind ice-cream given that it was imbued with a certain power to allow Nerþuz’s transformation in battle but still an ordinary ice-cream in that it was, well, ice-cream. A chilly treat perfect for a warm afternoon, vanilla soft serve piled high inside of a thick paper cone and dusted with raspberry sherbert. The curves of the ice-cream were adorned with crunchy, edible pearls that shone in the sunshine, a berry flavoured madeleine, and a sugar cookie which looked just like Sharena.

   “It's so well-painted, it looks too good to eat.” Sharena laughed.

   “Indeed.” Nerþuz agreed. “But, it is very tasty.”

   She ever so elegantly plucked the sugar cookie off its perch atop one of the mid-to-lower curves of her ice-cream cone. She was ever so careful as to not touch the cookie in a way that her fingers never obscured Sharena’s face in the painted cookie. Such care, portrayed ever so effortlessly by Nerþuz, made Sharena nervous. And rightfully so.

   Nerþuz put the biscuit towards her mouth and she bit hard through it. The face of the Sharena cookie shattered, spooking the actual Sharena as Nerþuz ate coyly. She cared not for crumbs as they scattered over her plump lips and even atop her breasts. 

   A shiver ran down Sharena’s spine as she made long and sultry, sustained eye contact with Sharena. She chewed, like the masticating animal she really was beneath her unearthly glamour as a goddess then swallowed lasciviously. Sharena watched as her throat showed a slight lump as it travelled down before she smacked her lips together contentedly.

   “It makes me curious though, is the real deal as delicious as it?” Nerþuz wondered aloud as she finished swallowing.

   “Ah, well, um-!” Sharena squeaked as Nerþuz surprised her.

   She swooped in and kissed Sharena’s cheek. She bent down and swallowed all of Sharena’s vision, causing her to go red in the face. Her lips trailed against Sharena’s skin, even the pale hairs along her jawline and made them stand on end as a sudden intensity spurred between them.

   “Mmhm,” Nerþuz murmured to herself, “just as sweet but… so much softer, oops-”

   Nerþuz interrupted herself as she oh so accidentally got ice-cream all down Sharena’s front. She had to bend down so far to meet Sharena, a mere child of Midgard, and then acting like a child herself, she purposefully worked the ice-cream into Sharena’s clothes - and her body underneath.

   “Hey, st-stop it, that’s cold.” Sharena squeaked, embarrassed. “Wh-What if someone sees us?”

   Shiver after shiver ran down her spine as her body reacted to being touched like this and being smothered in freezing cold ice-cream. It smeared down her front and with the mess guided by Nerþuz’s hand, the sticky sweet cream found its way onto her skin as well. 

   “That’s okay,” Nerþuz whispered, “I’ll clean you up. No one will even notice.” Her voice was silky smooth as she tried to console Sharena who buzzed with all sorts of pent-up, nervous energy.

   Sharena tried to lean away but Nerþuz followed her, utterly unfazed. She got up nice and close and personal with Sharena, licking her intently and kissing her afterwards. 

   The meeting of their lips was messy, a clash of mismatched and engulfed Sharena in how ravenous Nerþuz was in her pursuit of all things sweet. Her lips were plump and greedy, she stole Sharena’s breath away as she was kissed and kissed again. Nerþuz’s taste was stained with the sweet sensations of vanilla ice-cream and flecked with buttery crumbs. It would have been delicious were it not so forceful but Nerþuz wanted what she wanted and what she wanted above all was Sharena.

   Sharena buckled underneath her own embarrassment and closed her eyes hard. She was entirely unconvinced that none of the other Heroes wouldn’t notice her being all but molested by Nerþuz in the shade of the far tree at the north of the beach. Sure, all of them had gone further down the shoreline in search of the Summoner but still! It's not like they were completely alone out here even if the seagulls had ceased their crowing in this part of paradise. 

   Nerþuz began to unwrap Sharena from her clothes. Sharena shimmied out of them in some vain attempt at helping. Or if only to get the smashed to smithereens madeleine crumbs off her or the pearls now lost in the folds of her clothes. Nerþuz pulled and grabbed and groped at her, Sharena moaned lewdly as she was manhandled by the goddess.

   With her white shirt pulled off and tossed into the sand around them, Sharena only had her mini-skirt for chastity. Oh, it made her knees knock. The beach breeze tickled her and caused her nipples to pebble underneath her bra but her bra came off soon as well. Completely bare, if she hazarded a look down at herself and Nerþuz, Sharena saw the extent of how she had been painted in ice-cream.

   It was soaked in and smeared between her small breasts. It left a sticky residue on her but it wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable, just humiliating. What if someone saw? The pair of them looked an unusual sight with Nerþuz coming down to her knees and placing herself at Sharena’s chest height, licking her clean of the mess that she had made of the mortal.

   The late afternoon heat intensified through the lens of Sharena’s reddened embarrassment, causing the ice-cream smeared on her to melt faster than it may have otherwise. The sherbert once powdered atop the soft serve now tingled upon her skin and Nerþuz licked it all up with sexual glee. Her tongue was textured with an unusual and inhuman roughness but Nerþuz appeared mindful of that as she was gentle with how she used her tongue. She appreciated the softness - and the sweetness - of Sharena’s body and the ice-cream, too. 

   Nerþuz lapped at Sharena’s chest incessantly, with her eyes alight with hunger. She sucked Sharena’s left nipple noisily and pinched her right, massaging Sharena’s small breast with the rest of her palm that cupped her flesh. Sharena panted, her heart raced and her earnestness made Nerþuz’s dessert all the more delicious to her. 

   And, of course, confirmed to Nerþuz that the sugar cookie Sharena was far, far inferior to the dulcet perfection of her precious and most favourite child of Midgard.