#so many people have used the phrase 'hot take' about the worst takes ever that its synonymous with 'complete bullshit' to my anymore LMAO

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

DIRK: Do you ever see a “hot take” and you’re like, ohhhhh critical thinking is a learned skill and OP has not put in the practice. 

JANE: Do you ever see a “hot cake” and you’re like, ohhhhh yum.

[kurishiri]

02┊Dark If —Alfons Sylvatica—

꒰ ִ ֺ ⊹ @ notice ⊹ ֺ ִ ꒱ this translation may not be 100% accurate or contain creative liberties due to characterization or narrative flow purposes. if you enjoy, please consider reblogging, but don’t repost these or claim these as your own!

— cw: implied dub-con, implied alcohol consumption, invasion of personal space.

(I-I-I...I...)

Alfons the Mirror: You’re rather quick to wake up, aren’t you. Well? Were you able to have a good dream last night?

(Why did I do such a thing... it was like Alfons was my lover...)

(Wait, like one...?)

Kate: Y-you did something to me, didn’t you?

Alfons the Mirror: Why indeed I did. We did a greaaat many things under consent.

A: That said, though, you ended up falling asleep, so we didn’t go all the way.

Kate: That’s not the point...!

Alfons the Mirror: Were you aware of my ability then? Because, yes, I did use it.

A: I am a mirror that reflects wishes and desires. I simply did what you wished for.

Kate: Wh—why would I ever wish for something so dirty...

Alfons the Mirror: Well I’ll be... is that really so?

Though I was intoxicated, I could still remember how I ended up wanting to lean into Alfons’ warmth.

Kate: Y-you’re the utter worst!

Alfons the Mirror: Aha, I do take a fancy to that reaction of yours. I prefer this loads over how you resembled a lost child last night.

Kate: Well, I won’t be seeking any more help from you.

Alfons the Mirror: Well then, how about I make a prediction? You will come to see me... I’m more than sure.

I straightened out my disheveled clothes and stood up as Alfons said while sprawled on the bed...

Alfons the Mirror: Ah, and...

(...?)

Alfons the Mirror: The first cocktail you drank last night is applejack. Despite all appearances, it’s quite some strong liquor.

A: A poisoned apple may not necessarily take the form of an apple itself. Do be careful from now on.

Perhaps out of frustration, or something else entirely, my cheeks grew hot.

Kate: Thanks for the warning! And you take care of that liver of yours too, mister Alfons the Mirror!

Alfons the Mirror: ......... (O_O)

A: ...pfft, ahahaha!

Leaving that shameless parting remark, I burst out of that shady room.

(That guy’s the worst of the worst, I swear to god——!!)

Pub master: Look at you, lady-killer. Did you have a fun time yet again? I’m almost envious.

Alfons the Mirror: Too much fun, in fact. Though she ran away like a cat would in the end.

??? (Harry): ...Hey, don’t go teasing her too much.

Alfons the Mirror: ...?

Sitting in the corner of the pub was a man, and that was all he said before disappearing into the darkness.

Pub master: So, are you gonna have a drink to wake yourself up, Alfons?

Alfons the Mirror: Yes, perhaps I will, with an applejack.

The day after I was played by the mirror, I went around on my own to find the missing thing.

But it seemed the favorite phrase of the people I asked boiled down to ‘maybe you’ll know if you ask Alfons?’

So in the end, I couldn’t get my hands on any information, leaving me to go back to that person, much to my displeasure.

Said person was at the castle, playing on a whim with a black cat.

Alfons the Mirror: Elbie was going to add this cat to his collection, you see... but it’s a relief indeed that you won’t be subject to a taxidermy, isn’t it?

Black cat: Meow...

Alfons the Mirror: And so, what brings you here?

Kate: .........ease.

Alfons the Mirror: I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch that. Speak up a little more, why don’t you.

Kate: ...Help me...please...

Alfons the Mirror: With what, might I ask?

(I-I swear, this man——!)

Kate: I need your insights, so please help me...!

Alfons the Mirror: Very well. I must say you looked quite darling just now.

While I threw him a resentful look, Alfons brought his fingers to his chin in a dramatic gesture.

Alfons the Mirror: For the record, everything I am about to say is mere speculation on my end.

A: But you are Snow White, Elbie is the Queen, Roger the Hunter, and I the Mirror.

A: Don’t you think there is a missing cast member here in the story of Snow White?

(Ah...)

Kate: The prince?

Alfons the Mirror: Indeed, if you find that prince who is somewhere in this world, you may be able to return from whence you came!

Kate: Thank you so much, Alfons! I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Alfons the Mirror: Hardly. Then, I say we head off to search for this prince and whatnot posthaste.

Kate: Wait, you’re going to help?

Alfons the Mirror: Did I not say? I happen to very much enjoy sticking my nose into other people’s business without the need to take an ounce of responsibility.

And so, with Alfons, we started our search for the prince.

Alfons the Mirror: To all the candidates to be Snow White’s prince, over here! Yes, that’s it, line up in a single file.

A: Now, entry number 1. You can come up.

Candidate No.1: I-I would like to take Snow White’s hand in marriage, so I can get close to Queen Elbert——

Queen Elbert: ...Dismissed.

Alfons the Mirror: Thank you for your time. Ah, and over there are some souvenirs, so do take some with you.

Kate: Thank you for helping out so much.

K: ...But, what in the world is this!?

Alfons the Mirror: Thinking it was the most efficient way, I invited candidates from within the country. I am quite good at my job, aren’t I.

Kate: I won’t deny that, but you could’ve confided in me before it happened...

K: Besides, why is Queen Elbert helping as well?

Queen Elbert: ...? Because, I was worried about you?

Alfons the Mirror: Alright then, entry number 2. You may come up.

Candidate No.2: I want to marry Snow White, and every night... hehehe...

Queen Elbert: ...Take him out of the castle grounds.

Alfons the Mirror: Yes yes, right away. Guards, if you please, throw him right out of the castle.

—— Time skip ——

(...That must’ve been close to 300 people, but we couldn’t find even one remotely like a prince.)

The fatigue piling up on me, I started to feel more down.

(At this rate, I won’t be able to find the missing thing, and I probably won’t be able to return back to reality.)

Alfons the Mirror: Kate? Kate.

Kate: Yes... ngh, mn...

Alfons kissed me with a wet sound before he finally parted from my lips.

Kate: W-why a kiss so suddenly?

Alfons the Mirror: I was starting to grow tired of all these worthless men, so call this a cleansing of palate, if you will.

A: Oh, or are you perhaps in need of a more intensely pleasurable ‘cleansing’?

Kate: Ah… no, we can’t…

I remembered the heat from when he fondled me before, and for a moment I recalled the pleasure from that.

(But that… all of that…)

Alfons the Mirror: You can put all the blame on me. I simply had unfulfilled desires, and so I laid my hands upon you.

Kate: In between an audience… that’s bad manners.

Alfons the Mirror: Oh dear, did you truly take me for someone who tries to uphold manners, by any chance?

A: And besides that, with that sort of phrasing, are you meaning to say doing things like this is alright if it’s in a different place?

Kate: Wh—ah…

Alfons the Mirror: We can leave the prince hunt for tomorrow and enjoy ourselves today. How about it?

(That it would make me happy if that smile of his was not apathetic, but rather one that came from his heart…)

(…It’s not like I’m thinking that or anything.)

And then, a few days later, in order to invite real princes, a banquet was held at the castle.

(Urgh, if it’s real princes, that would mean they’re nobility, right? Of course I’d be nervous…)

Alfons the Mirror: Are you finished with preparations? Well, I’ll be, don’t you look wonderful.

A: That is one shameless slit, to be sure. You’ll have the princes on their knees in no time flat, I say.

Kate: H-hold on, don’t touch me.

Alfons the Mirror: Goodness, what’s there to be so stingy about?

At this point, such interactions with Alfons like this had long become a part of my every day.

I had initially felt so anxious, but now such feelings have dissipated more…

Kate: …You know, recently I’ve had times when I’ve thought about what I’m really searching for.

Alfons the Mirror: And that is to say?

Kate: I had thought finding that missing thing and correcting what made this world twisted would be the right thing to do.

K: But it’s just… I can’t help but wonder if that’s really the case.

The people living in this country had gone twisted and mad somewhere along the way.

After all, Queen Elbert was still searching for the most beautiful thing in this world,

and Alfons�� he would sometimes have this severely lonely or icy look in his eyes.

But… there wasn’t any person here that was living an entirely proper life.

And I couldn’t help but feel more or less everyone was living at least a little mad.

While thinking that, I felt the sensation of fingertips tickling my back.

Kate: Eek!

Alfons the Mirror: So you no longer wish to return to reality, instead wanting to stay with me?

Kate: No way!

Alfons the Mirror: Hehe, that’s unfortunate. Oh, and would you look at that. It’s almost time, Snow White.

In the dance hall, princes from many different countries were gathered.

Green-eyed prince: Snow White, this dish is delectable.

Kate: Ah, thank you. I’ll partake in some.

(If it was Alfons, I imagine he wouldn’t eat this sort of luxurious dish.)

——How rude. I’ll have you know purposefully eating crudely is what makes a noble.

Blue-eyed prince: Snow White, uhm, could we talk over there later?

Kate: Yes, of course.

(If it were Alfons, he would probably drag me off somewhere without asking first.)

——After all, you don’t dislike this kind of force, do you?

(…W-wait, what…?)

(For a while now, why was I…)

Why was I trying to find Alfons in other people?

Kate: ——!

(I… to Alfons——)

to be continued…

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masterlist 🗝️ ┋ ko-fi ☕️ ┋ comms🤍

[mdhwrites]

What do you make of the "If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him" trope?

Personally, I hate it, but I think a more accurate assessment is I do not understand it. The logic, as far as I can tell, is as follows:

Villains are willing to take a life.

The hero is also willing to take a life, that being the villain's.

If the hero crosses the same line the villain is willing to by killing the villain, the hero is no better than the villain. Hence why the hero must spare the villain.

It's stupid how absolutist the logic is. We're talking about villains here. People who kill innocents, enslave populaces, destroy planets, laugh all the while, all that horrendous stuff. How is anyone "no better" than such a character just because they are willing to take the villain's life? I've never claimed to be perfect, but I can easily claim I am a better person than say, Emperor Palpatine. And if I killed Palpatine? Yeah, I'm still better than him. Because unlike him, I'm not a sociopathic, manipulative galactic tyrant, and me killing the guy doesn't change that.

Villains kill the meek, the innocent, the helpless, the good. Heroes who kill...well, they typically only kill villains who do stuff like that. There's a massive difference between taking an innocent's life and that of a bloodthirsty monster, and that's what writers who say "If you kill him, you'll be just like him" don't seem to understand.

Yes, taking somebody's life, no matter how vile they are, is incredibly serious in real life - it's why we have justice systems to non-lethally deal with criminals. But we're talking about fiction, not reality. And I think fiction should do away with the absolutist rule that taking a life inherently makes a hero as bad as the villain.

So do you think that the trope is BS, or would you say there's something about the trope I'm not getting?

Stares

Okay... So you're willing to admit it's fiction... But you think that means our aspirational figures should do the most abhorrent acts that are possible to others just because they can. We are talking about heroes, those we are usually are told to aspire to and are the best a person can be, like the paragon Luke, and villains, who are the worst of us. We are talking about fantasy, or fantastical settings, not reality. Places that are meant to be BETTER than our reality.

And yet you think those aspirational figures should EVER commit cold blooded murder just because they can go, "Well they deserved it." Do you see why that just MIGHT be a problem?

This is actually not an absolutist argument even. Heroes can be allowed to kill. Many heroes, especially in fantasy works, do kill. Luke kills plenty of Stormtroopers after all. The difference is that that's in active combat. That is when their blood is running hot and they have to defend themselves. Do or die. Maybe there are better ways to do it, and we see with people like Batman who train to make sure they can still perform their duty like this without killing, but in that moment it can be forgiven because they are trying to save lives, stay alive and these people are trying to kill them.

When the argument of "You will be as bad as them" is deployed is when it's cold blooded. What that phrase means is that you aren't running on emotion or anything like that. Nothing is pressuring you. You can be entirely calm in this state. When your opponent is entirely helpless, at the mercy of DOZENS of options for you to take, including actually taking them to court and arresting them like a proper member of society, you can also choose murder. You can decide that this person who dislike, who you think is a threat to things you care about, who might get in your way... You can just get rid of them. You can be judge, jury, executioner and cut them down right there and then. You have other options but this is the easy one. The satisfying one. The one that makes sure they can never bother you again.

Starting to see how this is a villain mentality? How you are just being the villain if you do this? And people like to divorce the context from the statement "If you kill the villain, you are-" NO. THE CONTEXT FUCKING MATTERS JACKASSES!

When people fuck this up, it's because there isn't much of a different choice. When it is "Let the murderer go or kill him." Yeah, letting him go is the wrong option... But Batman doesn't let the villain go. Superman doesn't. They take the villain to the cops. They do their civil service so that he may be tried, judged for his crimes and a panel of their peers can decide to ship them off to prison or finally give them the death penalty. Or the hero doesn't get the chance and the villain escapes through cleverness, not just because the hero let them go because 'otherwise be as bad as you'. Any story that does that should be the one mocked, not the trope itself.

Because again, the point of the trope is to reinforce that the best of us, who we aspire to be as a people... Don't need murder. That's why most heroes don't kill at all. These people who go beyond what a person is capable of, or especially Batman honestly who is the pinnacle of what a human being can be if you dedicate your life to improvement, shouldn't have to kill. No one should HAVE to kill. Yes, in the real world we sometimes do have to. You put me in the room with a murderer and there's a gun there that I can use to live even if it means taking his life, I will probably do that because I'm a weak, scared, normal person.

Why should we expect our heroes to act like normal, scared people? Not when we're not criticizing the fact that these villains don't act like normal people. They do harm on a scale unfathomable to most people and often for reasons that are not why people do these things. They do them just because they enjoy being rampantly cruel and awful which a normal person does not do. So again: Why should we act like heroes should act just. like. Us?

So in an aspirational work, in fantasy, what is the difference between a hero who murders their enemies and a villain? Or are we just going to keep pretending that context and the point of these narratives don't matter just because some people tell you this trope is dumb because they're willing to do everything they can to paint the trope as a villain? Because I think they might not be the heroes that should keep getting championed then. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I actually have a Time Stop story, Pausing the Game, where this question comes up and the protagonist is praised and rewarded for not killing in the end. He still sends the abuser to the cops and used his powers to get evidence of his crimes to make sure he got locked up though... AND THIS COMPLAINT STILL CAME UP! Which is especially baffling because the abuser abused the power imbalance he had, almost like, I dunno, someone with magical powers would by using time stop to murder him. Can't imagine why I didn't say that was the right option there. AND THAT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO!

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[quailxcrossing]

💄 🍄 🎈 WONDER

💋 and ❗️(if it’s not too spoilers) Runo!!

🎸 🚨 Bartenn

💔 🌹 Machwell

🥩🍒🍎 Imogen <3

🪓 🍷 Kennedy !!

HOPE I DONT OVERWHELM YOU I KNOW THIS IS A LOT HAHA. I’ve been thinking abt these guys a lot (as always)! :3

JUMPS UP AND DOWN WITH YOU .hiiiii <3 i got really busy with hw so i wanted to wait until i had a moment i could sit down and really dig into these >;3ccc

i will always take an opportunity to talk about Wonder

💄 - What does your oc think of their face? Do they have a positive or negative opinion? Do they wear makeup? Do they have a skincare routine? What traits do they like most about their face?

Wonder has such a contentious relationship with its entire body; its face is no exception. It knows objectively a lot of people find it attractive, and it pays attention to its skin and makeup (usually focusing on its eyes) a lot. It'll stare at itself in the mirror and go yeah i know i'm hot shit. but also i don't think this body belongs to me and the only way I find that semblance of freedom and control is putting metal into it. it really wants more piercings, which is why in AUs i often give it the nose ring, bite piercings, eyebrows, etc- but in canon, it was advised by its team that getting more piercings would make it "harder to look at". they were appalled when Wonder showed up one day with the lip and bridge, but it was too late! being "hard to look at" is a phrase Wonder has not ever let go of.

(I think it makes them look super hot but whatever what do i know)

🍄 - Does your character like being in nature or do they prefer the indoors? Do they have any outdoor hobbies like camping or fishing? If they prefer the indoors, why?

Indoors all the way, Wonder dislikes the unpredictable nature of what makes the outdoors so great :( its house is extremely sterile and plain and empty because Too Many Things make it stressed out, and well! the outdoors is full of things. Its warming up a little bit to some things, Marya takes it down to the beach and it sits all bundled up in towels and a huge hat and sunglasses on a reclining chair while Marya wanders the shore and swims.

🎈 - What does your character do at parties? Are they a wallflower or a party animal? Do they go with friends or alone?

Wonder is still a fan of going to parties, its where it meets most of the people its in cahoots with, but things are a little different since its mental break. As I stated about disliking Lots Of Things, well parties are full of things, and very loud and very messy, so Wonder usually has to be in some state of mind to handle parties. It used to be a lot more rambunctious but the break caused the difficulties with busy locations and lots of socializing - but it still goes. Wonder doesn't really care if its uncomfortable.

runo love of my life

💋 - Is your oc a good kisser? Have they kissed anyone before? Do they even enjoy kissing? What was their first kiss like in comparison to their most recent?

This is such a cute question.....yes he's a perfectly fine kisser! he's just some straight man....he likes it, he likes kissing his wife......he just never knows when it's a good time, so sometimes he misses the mark or just waits for Peony to tell him "yes this is a good and normal time"

his first kiss was when he was first living away from his mom's house in a group home, definitely a little too rushed but there was a pretty girl his age and he was delirious on freedom

❗️(exclamation point) - What was the scariest moment of your character’s life? Does it still affect them?

OKAY WELL. okay the obvious answer feels like when he realized he might lose his younger brother forever (and he did) but there were a lot of other emotions happening there- grief, guilt, confusion, stress.....

the second scariest moment of just Pure Fear wassss probably when he found out Peony was gonna have their first daughter. he'd grown up his whole life with his mom beating into his head that having him was the worst mistake of her life, and that his dad was even moreso; Sunny was tentatively talked about before she was conceived, both Runo and Peony were like "yes this is something that would be cool" but when it Actually Happened he was terrified that he completely fucked everything up, and this was it, the end, that he was doomed to repeat his parents' mistake and Peony had been lying to him the whole time and she actually didn't want this at all- thats it! the relationship is over! and its all his fault!!!

obviously that was not what happened and Peony was extremely excited!! once the blind terror passed Runo was also a weepy excited mess, bc yess this is something that would be cool <3

bartenn questions from the bartenn enjoyer

🎸- What’s your character’s music taste like? Do they have one or two artists they play on repeat or do they have a varied and eclectic collection of music? Do they like mainstream artists or prefer underground musicians? What genres do they enjoy?

i mean you knowwww this guy is a classic rock dad YOU KNOWWWW IT I MEAN CAN HE BE ANYTHING ELSE!!!!!! you know he's got the most varied and crazy collection of old rock bands and his gas station exclusively plays oldie and if he hears a tiktok song from Harlie's phone, he keels over

🚨 - What’s your character’s relationship with the law? Have they ever been arrested? What for? What are their opinions on law enforcement?

he's never been arrested, despite his many crimes such as Starting A Time Loop. he's gonna be some big trouble with the Fold when he dies but i think they can forgive him....i mean just look at his scruffy little face he didn't mean it.....

he doesn't like police officers he doesn't give them free coffee when they ask

machwell machwell MACHWELL

💔- Who has your character hurt most? Physically or emotionally? How did it feel? Do they regret it?

absolutely Runo ABSOLUTELY absolutely runo absolutely Runo....his baby......Runo was so betrayed by him, Machwell's non-existence in his life was not a shadow out of the corner of his eye like it was for Goat- for Runo it was this big gaping hole, never able to be filled and always something Runo was blamed for.

Machwell regrets a lot- the leaving Runo guilt is humongous- which is why he's working very hard to completely forget about Runo so it doesn't hurt him anymore! yay! coping mechanism that's slowly killing his cognitive abilities!

🌹 - What does your oc find attractive in other people? Are these traits found in their friends and/or romantic partners?

blue hair and round little ears

personality wise he likes people who are very self-assured and assertive, strong people who can nudge him around, but not too much or else you've got a Francine who overhandled him to the point of regressing; he needs someone who is confident in themselves but also confident in Machwell, who'll nudge him around but in a way that's pushing him to stand up, instead of making him dependant on them again

imogen you have no IDEA i have wanted to talk about imogen 4 so long....underrated baby girl.....she is so important to me

🥩 - Does your oc have any coping mechanisms? Healthy or unhealthy?

the most major one that comes to mind is comic spoilers, or at least its something i'd like people to notice her doing and go "ohhh..."

🍒 - Does your character have a best friend? How long have they known each other? What do they like most about each other? How did they meet?

oh!! claps my hands!! no! no, Imogen doesn't have a best friend, she doesn't have a lot of friends, really! Imogen has always been pretty isolated by her peers- not because of anyone's choice, but literally, her peers don't like her. she's weird to them. there's been some light friends here and there, but after an event that happened when she was about 8, she realized her classmates genuinely didn't like her and felt she was too uncanny to be around :(

If Imogen were asked who her friends were, she'd say well, her dads! and her dad's friends- ooo! and her aunts and uncle!! and her grandparents!! and her dog, Bunny!! she has lots of friends!! she's friends with the grocer who has known her since she was small, and she's "friends" with plenty of retail workers around town who watched her grow up and are kind to her. she's friends with some of the older neighbors, and she's friends with....uh...her dads? oh she said that already

she hopes when she goes to college that she'll meet others who are more accepting! she's really really hoping for friends THAT ARE HER AGE....and she'll get some, although i don't think it happens in the comic. she ends up meeting Vega, and well. Vega is VERY used to strange uncanny people, so they're already starting off on the right foot!

🍎 - Does your oc go to school or take classes? Did they go to college? What was/is their favorite subject? Did/do they get good grades? Did/do they enjoy school?

Imogen LOVES school, her favorite subject is earth science and her least favorite is language. it just bores her. she loves learning about the planet and about cool rocks and plants and SPACE!!! she got her dad Caius's love for learning, having grown up on their books and lessons. she doesn't love it AS much, but in general, she doesn't mind school itself. what she does mind is the previously mentioned isolation, and how difficult it is to fit in, no matter how many shapes she tries.

kennedy

i like them.

🪓 - Does your oc have survival skills? Have they ever had to use them? What would they do in an apocalypse? Could they survive?

Kennedy doesn't look the part, but they do have some decent survival skills. they grew up out of their house quickly, so they had to learn early on how to couch-surf and feed themselves. for urban survival skills, they've got it covered!

would they survive dropped in the middle of the woods?? maybe for a little bit, purely because i think they'd be so scared they would go into some kind of override where suddenly they don't care about being covered in dirt and eating worms. but the instant they find civilization they're rolling over and crying bc their hair is sooo greasyyy

in an apocalypse i think they'd be awesome haahaha twirls my hair. kennedy knows how to fight and use blunt weapons so yeah i think they could get down to business. i think they'd be awesome haha

(the last question discusses alcohol!)

🍷 - Does your oc drink? What kind of alcohol do they enjoy? What are their drinking habits? What kind of drunk are they?

yess....maybe too much.......they drink white claws. white paws whatever. they love fruity shitty little drinks, but also they'll drink almost anything if you make it look pretty enough. they usually drink socially, and they're pretty used to it (a tolerance-built heavyweight) but sometimes they're just miserable for a variety of reasons, and this is their Not Great Coping Mechanism. it's not great because Leah knows if she finds them black-out that they've been drinking a lot. luckily this doesn't happen too often, but even once or twice is too many times.

as for what kind of drunk they are, the weepy clingy touchy annoying one. drunk Kennedy is a lot happier and chattier and it takes a lot more to make them angry at people! yyyayyy....?

[vintagelacerosette]

Weekly Tag game (Catch up)

Forgive meee I am late but I had the other one in my drafts & I hadn't be able to finish it off yet 😅

I was tagged by these sweethearts 💖💕💖

Jessica @guinguin1984 Julia @blue-disco-lights Deanna @deedala Georgia @iansw0rld

Face @burninface Jaclyn @crossmydna Evie @energievie

Bri @y0itsbri Lyle Lyle crocodile @kiinard Macy @heymacy

Mel @gardenerian Sarah @sleepyheadgallavich Julissa @heymrspatel

Harvey @mikhailoisbaby Kat @mybrainismelted Ling @lingy910y

Name: Shermyn

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (or you): Sydney in the western part  

Ok, so this week we are going to snoop into your google search. Type in each phrase and tell us what the first suggestion is that google gives you!

What is the best way to….rule? (hehe nice maybe my Leo tendencies 🤣🦁

This is what I saw on Quora

1) Become a community organizer · 2) Learn to speak eloquently · 3) Tell people what they want to hear · 4) Sell your soul to the Devil · 5) ...

😂😂😂

Where can I…. watch Saltburn? (it's on my watch list haha) Amazon Prime

How old is…. Taylor Swift? (i didn't search this but i guess she's top result) 34

How long does it take… to get to mars? (wow a fun one) Now quoting NASA, "If jt all goes well, you'll get to the Red Planet in about seven ot eight months." ♂️🔴

How many… states in Australia? Six states 🇦🇺

Who set the record for…. the highest jump? Javier Sotomayor good job my dude 👏

When did….michael jackson die? 25 june 2009 (woah I started 1st year of high school then)

What does it feel like to… to be in love? (ummm ive never searched that but damn a pointed search 😭😭😭) Reddit says "when you wake up thinking of that person & go to bed thinking of them"

Can you…go parasailing in sydney? (So me bc i missed out when i was in the Philippines 🥲) You can't anymore booo 👎

Why do… i sweat so much? Google says could he nerves that trigger it.

Is there a way… to save karlach? I really wanna play Baldur's gate 3 what's gonna happen to her?? I love her?? 🥺

How old do you have to be… to work? (boooo i don't wanna work but i want money 😩) In NSW minimum age for full time work is 17

Where do the… kardashians live? (i don't care) Malibu

What is the best time to… to go to fiji? (aaayee holiday??) June to September

And to finish us off…. What comes up when you type in Shameless? shameless last episode date

11 April 2021 I needed it for my gallacrafts 🥹

Name: Myn

Age: 27

Astrological sign: Leo ♌️

Upon which continent do you reside: Stralia 🦘

tell us how you're feeling right now using 3-5 emojis: 🥶💸🤔🤫🤗

whats your favorite flavor of gum? Juicy fruit but the flavour never lasts long

whats the last movie you watched? Anastasia for my nieces first viewing 😆 It mostly became a sing-a-long with my big sis 🎤

what was your worst subject in high school? Maybe science?

whats the job you stayed at for the shortest period of time? Working for a weekend event at a convention centre for the active wear brand Lorna Jane. I got lost on the 1st day & didn't get paid for that 15 min 😅

whats your favorite thing to do at an amusement park? Try all the interesting foods 😋

what condiments go on top of the perfect hot dog (meat or plant-based)? BBQ sauce & caramelised onions 🌰

cincinnati chili, thoughts? Never heard of it!

do you sleep with a plushie? No my plushies are on a shelf bc I can get kicked out of my room every 2nd weekend bc my sister & her family takes it over haha. But worth it to have my baby niece over 🥰

how do you feel about thunderstorms? No strong emotions. It's cool when boom

what's the last animal you touched? My dog Roxy 🐕 ❤️

grab the nearest item with words on it that ISNT a book and tell me the final word: Tulip on this korean dry shampoo I'm trying 🌷

have you ever forgotten to do an assignment until the night before its due? Oh I was organised at knowing darw but procrastinated the hell out of the assignment until the due date. Then trying to finish the night before 😅 I found an old diary entry calling myself a dumb bitch for doing that to myself & saying to never do it again (she did) 😭

Not tagging anyone bc LATE but if you wanna play consider yourself tagged! 🩷🐇

[clanoffelidae]

I’m always scared of jinxing myself by opening my mouth and saying I’m ‘not physically disabled anymore’ or that ‘my cyclic vomiting is gone’; because there’s no cure and we don’t know why it sometimes just… stops. There’s not even really any medication to manage it you just kind of… try to work through it and manage symptoms and side effects as best you can. Namely, the dehydration due to excessive vomiting being the main concern. (Have had abdominal spasms due to becoming dehydrated from it before. Took me 5-6 minutes to army crawl six feet to the shower, wiggle out of my clothes, and stretch up to turn on the hot water to try and soothe the muscles I was in so much pain. It was also like 4am and I was at a homestay in another country so fuck me I guess lol. Fortunately my homestay actually spoke English; which worked out because I speak Spanish decently well so I was making an active effort to converse with her and practice before I got sick, she was extremely helpful because I mainly needed help with specific vocabulary/phrases and she could help me translate them, and then when I got sick and was so exhausted I could barely communicate in English anymore I was able to drop the Spanish and still be understood and given help. That’s a tangent tho lol sorry)

And that’s true of a lot of physical disabilities, sadly, so I’m sure many of you can understand why I’m scared of it. Because I’m one of the lucky ones, even when my condition was at it’s worst I had more good days than bad. One of the defining characteristics of CVS is that in between episodes you would never know something is wrong with us.

And sometimes people just… ‘grow out of it’, so to speak. It most commonly affects children, even being thought of as a pediatric disease, and then just goes away when they get older. I was a weird case, I had two sporadic episodes in high school and then it hit me hard basically as soon as I got to college; it only ever happened when I was an adolescent/adult.

During the worst of it I would have episodes as little as 3 weeks apart; I’d be in severe agony and vomiting profusely for around 24 hours, take several days for the pain to go away (the episode was over but I was sore after the vomiting), and about a week for the brain fog and lethargy to clear up. I knew my stomach was empty, I knew I had nothing in it, but it felt so swollen and I was convinced it was about to tear open like an overfilled balloon. The condition is believed to be related to migraine headaches and I believe it - my severe migraines are the throbbing kind where it feels like my head is about to explode, and that is the exact same kind of pain I was feeling in my stomach. Those same, unique qualities that differentiate the pain of a migraine from another headache were exactly what I felt in my abdomen. I was also light and sound sensitive, seeking darkness and solitude; although it didn’t cause literal pain to be exposed to light and sound like with a migraine headache, it stressed me out for ‘seemingly no reason’, overwhelming me and increasing my pain as a result of the stress and desire for the stimulus to go away.

My last episode was in 2019. I only even had frequent episodes for a little over 2 years.

And I’m still deathly afraid of every new medication I try because I don’t know why it stopped. Nothing about my lifestyle changed, nothing about my habits. I was never able to identify any triggers like with my headaches, it just sort of ‘happened’ as far as I could tell.

I have no idea why it started and no idea why it stopped.

And I’m constantly fucking terrified that I’ll fuck something up and it’ll come back, that this time of peace and ‘health’ is temporary. I’m so fucking scared because it hurts so fucking much and I don’t want to be in pain again.

I don’t want to be in pain again.

And I don’t know why I’m bringing this up or what I’m trying to say really. I guess I just want to get my fears written down because they’re circling in my head again.

And I guess I also want to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry to everyone who suffers with a ‘hidden’ condition that no one believes you about, I’m sorry for everyone who is barely dragging themselves through it day by day; in pain, exhausted, and with the people around them burnt out on offering help because ‘why can’t you just get better already’.

I’m lucky, I’m so very, very lucky that for whatever reason my episodes just… stopped. They just stopped. And even still I live aware of the sword dangling over my head, never believing that the dragon is actually dead and is only just sleeping, still there to be reawakened if I mess up (when I don’t have the slightest idea what or where that invisible line I must never cross is), and I never dare to say that I’m ‘cured’ because I don’t believe in miracles like that. It’s a miracle that they stopped, and I’m grateful for it, but I will never dare to believe that they couldn’t come roaring right back any day.

Disability can happen to anyone, and I’m vividly aware that my old pain could be stumbled into at any minute, along with any number of other things, and I’m so sorry to everyone who still lives with their pain that is a constant companion. Mine is sleeping, but I remember it well for how it burned like the sun, to the point that I was able to identify sporadic episodes years after the fact that I had thought only stomach bugs because they were so horrible.

Pain is good, but not like this.

Pain is meant to be a teacher, a protector. A warning system of ‘hey! Don’t do that! We could get hurt!’ Your body’s way of keeping you safe and alive; don’t touch the fire because it hurts, don’t touch the fire because it could kill you. Pain is life’s way of steering you away from death, of keeping you safe and alive; letting you know there’s damage so you know to keep that part safe while it heals and use it less. Because when you’re about to walk into the flames your body doesn’t have the time to sit down and explain it to you gently, it has to alert you ‘NOW. PULL BACK NOW!’

Pain is meant to be a good thing; it’s meant to keep you alive and to protect you, to teach you about danger so you know how to be safe, and go let you know when you’ve been damaged so that you can make sure to give the damage time to heal.

But it’s not meant to be there all the time; it’s not meant to be constantly flashing the alarms when there’s nothing to be done, your body trying to help and let you know that something’s wrong when there’s nothing you can do. It’s not meant to linger until it breaks you, to weigh on your shoulders until you struggle to see the good past it. But just like with any good thing, so often does it become ill.

Pain is a constant companion for too many of us, and I’m so, so sorry for that.

You shouldn’t have to be strong.

I’m sorry.

I just wanted to let you all know that.

[mylesobando]

My first post

I would define social media as a tool to connect with the world. I think that it was made with the intention of making people closer with others and helping realize that we in fact are all just as human as anyone else. It unfortunately did not end up that way. In a best case I think the most it could be was a place for people to just be funny online, and we have that. We have a big network of people “riffing” with everyone else for all of eternity. 

What social media is in actuality is a cesspool showing up the worst of what humans can be, and the extent others will go to use it to control others. How some will use it to manipulate and control a narrative. Build “communities” that are essentially just echo chambers where they can scream their hate speak and everyone else there will agree or blindly follow. It is a place for most to go fully numb in their head and consume an amount of information the human brain was never meant to take in. It is a place for us to endlessly doom scroll and take in our slop as it is presented to us so we can interact with rage bait or see something that can make us laugh but in 4 scrolls we forgot we ever saw it. Being on social media is the closest those of us living will ever get to being in purgatory, because even if hell is hot it doesn't have AI generated jesus engagement farming on facebook. 

As a social media user I am fairly active. I definitely have more time on it then most people my age I feel. I was lucky to be born when I was so I did not have to navigate the people who are marketing misogyny and to young boys and saying that's how you get women because I was really dumb and would have fallen for it. I feel like I am not quite “chronically online” but you have to be a certain level of online to even be aware of that phrase. I am an amount of online where making connections in person is hard because most sentences start with “did you see that post on (social media site) about (dumb/angering/political/funny thing)”  and if they say no then it feels like an impromptu staring contest. 

I feel like I am pretty strong at identifying some trends and reading between the lines of internet speak. I can also read things with an appropriate amount of skepticism knowing everyone wants to make themself look like the good guy who just did a superhero landing in a marvel film, you have to read posts from many different perspectives to really feel you have the full story. I would say I am fairly weak out of my bubble however. If it is things about welding or gym rat behavior I am out of the loop and would not be able to clue people in. I am strong within my cliques but outside there are many things I know very little about.

For this class beyond of course the credits I think being more informed on things I use but know little about has always been interesting. I have been on social media since I was very young and yet I know nothing about it beyond what the 2010 film The Social Network told me. Elon bought Twitter for more money than anyone in my gene pool will ever see within their lifetime but why, what value did it have to him? Joe Rogan may say he needed to and is saving humanity by doing it but I think he is just a very rich bored guy with autism because if I had a lot of money I would also buy things I did not need because I am also autistic and bored. I feel this class can potentially teach me the value social media can have and how we can use it most effectively. I also feel like this would be fun for me because before I changed my major I wanted to be a social media manager. 

[writteninscarlet]

🖤 ;; @americashielded

send 🖤 and my character will answer about yours. ;; accepting

attractiveness:

repulsive / hideous / ugly / not attractive / unappealing / not unattractive / meh / no preference / ok / mildly attractive / nice looking / cute / adorable / attractive / pleasant on the eyes / good looking / hot / sexy / beautiful / gorgeous / hot damn / would tap that / perfect / godlike / holy fuck there are no words.

"I couldn't ever deny the fact that Steve is attractive," she mused, before giving a roll of her shoulders. A small shrug. "He is attractive, he has good looks and keeps himself clean and together. He may not be overly prideful in his appearance, but I can always appreciate someone who puts in some effort to not be a slob. And his attractiveness, to me, is certainly accentuated by his personality - good looks only get you so far, but he has a good personality to match."

personality:

grating / irritating / frustrating / boring / confusing at best / awkward / unreasonable / psychotic / disturbing / interesting / engaging / affectionate / aggressive / ambitious / anxious / artistic / bad tempered / bossy / charismatic / appealing / unappealing / creative / courageous / dependable / unreliable / unpredictable / predictable / devious / dim / extroverted / introverted / egotistical / gregarious / fabulous / impulsive / intelligent / sympathetic / talkative / up beat / peaceful / calming / badass / flexible.

"Steve has a lot of different sides to him," she began, a slight smile on her face. "And whilst I wouldn't call him an actor, I think he probably knows well how to react in different situations. But overall? I think he is a good man. Sometimes I know exactly how he will react, and at other times I cannot tell. Sometimes he can be annoying and bossy, but I would never doubt that his heart is in the right place." The smile was certainly there now, and affectionate and warm enough. "Yes, a good man, and not someone I would want to go up against - I think he can be very tough when he wants to be."

how likely they would have sex with them:

not if they were the last person on earth and the world was ending / fuck no! / never / no way / not likely / not sure / indifferent / I’m asexual / maybe / probably / it depends / fairly likely / likely / yeah sure / yes / would tap that / hell yes / fuck yes! / wishing that could happen right now / as many times as possible / we are already having sex.

"I'm... not entirely sure I like the phrase tap that," she murmured dryly, a little scrunching up of her nose. But then Wanda relaxed, amused look on her features. "He's a friend, and a teammate. To do something like this could jeopardise that, no? But to take that aside - he is charming, and smart. He is well put together. I am comfortable with him. He is, to put it in one word, amazing. So if we are being truthful and taking awkwardness of going to that stage out of it, then yes, I would have sex with him."

level of friendship:

never in a million years / worst of enemies / enemies / rivals / indifferent / neutral / acquaintance / friendly toward each other / casual friends / friends / good friends / best friends / fuck buddies / bosom buddies / practically the same person / would die for them / true friends / my only friend.

"As teammates or just as two individual people, I completely trust him. And would like to think of us as good friends. I feel... one can never really know everything about another person," she gave a soft shrug, "but I would like to know about him. And I feel happy to be able to call him a friend."

first impression of them:

i hate them so much / i don’t like them / i don’t trust them / they annoy me / they’re weird / I’m indifferent / meh / they seem alright / they’re growing on me / truce / I think I like them / I like them / I’m not sure if I trust them / I trust them / they’re cool / they’re genuine / I think we’re going to get along / I really like them / I think I’m in love / oh fuck they’re hot / I love them.

"Of course, we met on opposite sides first of all. In that sense I didn;t actually much care either way for him, not on first meeting him. He was never anyone I personally disliked, we were just on opposite sides" She gave a little grin, almost a smirk, then said, "So first impressions? Not ideal. But perhaps we had a NEW first impression when we were on the same side." For her sake, she'd think of it that way. It was nice to have a fresh start. "He can annoying and bossy, can I say that again? He can be. But I think nearly everyone that meets him can tell he... he is good. And I wanted to trust him from the start. Or, at least perhaps to get to know him better." She tapped a slender finger on her chin, thinking for a moment about it. "He seemed a bit square at the start rather than cool, but easily seemed a dependable person."

current impression of them:

i hate them so much / i don’t like them / i don’t trust them / they annoy me / they’re weird / I’m indifferent / meh / they seem alright / they’re growing on me / truce / I think I like them / I like them / I’m not sure if I trust them / I trust them / they’re cool / they’re genuine / I think we’re going to get along / I really like them / I think I’m in love / oh fuck they’re hot / I love them.

"I don't think I would want him out of my life. He is dependable. He's someone I trust. He's someone I enjoy having around." Truthfully, her feelings for him grew all the time. He was someone that grew on you, wasn't he? "I like Steve, a lot." A LOT.

[otomes-world]

Anon said: Hello. I saw your event and so I would like to send this. I am always cheering on you. Please take care of yourself. And I would like to remain anonymous if possible.

yandere!Jamil Viper x you x yandere!Leona Kingscholar

Scarabia turned out to be not the worst option, especially when you heard a lot of Epel's horror stories about Pomefiore and Ace`s about Heartslabyul. Sure, it was hot there, and the culture was completely different from what you were used to, but you couldn't say you didn't like it.

Different colors, unusual smells and tastes - all this characterized your dorm, which was more, much more than it might seem at first glance. The parties were loud, you dislike this level of noise, but it was fun nonetheless. Music was pouring from all sides, people were dancing and enjoying every thing in every possible way. Perhaps that was what sets you apart from others dorms.

The other thing you were lucky about was the head. He was the complete opposite of everyone else, in a good way. Probably, all the students thought so, but you, who ended up here by the Mirror's will, it affected in the first place.

However, you were also lucky with his deputy, Jamil. The young man was many times calmer than Al-Asim, more collected. You could say that he was the unspoken head. He got up at the first light of the sun to wake up Kalim, help with breakfast, organize training and much more. He was responsible for all assignments, even the smallest ones. There wasn't a task that Viper didn't supervise.

You respected him for it.

Still, this did not mean that you spent all your free time in the dorm. You have successfully signed up for the Magift club. Honestly, you could not call yourself athletic, so you were surprised when your application was approved.

Although the workout were hard for an unprepared you, as with parties, you could say that you enjoy it in your own way. Cutting through the sky on a broom and feeling the wind in your hair, you felt like a bird. Especially when Leona Kingscholar himself appreciated your skills.

It was a shame you had to skip club days a lot lately. Jamil began to turn to you, asking for help in preparation. You did not think that such a talented person might ever need help, so you gladly agreed. You were more than happy to lighten the burden on his shoulders a little.

You might do too well if, after the party, Viper started calling you time, after time, after time.

With sadness, checking whether all the dishes were in their places, you thought about the sky and flights. Maybe you could get Professor Vargas to lend you a broom for a little while.

A voice pulled you out of your thoughts. Turning your head, you saw the vice-leader handing you a mug of what seemed to you at first glance to be juice. "Here, you did a great job, Name," still holding out your drink, Jamil patiently waited for you to take it.

“Vice-leader, can I ask you a question?..” You took the mug and made a sip out of courtesy. Then you turned completely towards him, feeling the sweetness spread on your tongue, waiting for an interested look. "Do you mind if I leave a little early? I haven't been in the club for a long time. A little more and President Leona will kick me out."

Jamil did not answer right away, apparently considering your words. You squeezed your mug nervously as he finally voiced his thoughts, "I understand, but, Name, your help is what I need most. I really appreciate your skills," with each phrase, your joy melted faster than wax on burning candle. "If you want, I can train you as way to show my a thanks. You don't have to go to the club for that. I'm more than sure that my skills will be as good as Kingscholar-senpai`s."

Knowing he was right didn't stop you from getting upset over the rejection. However, you still tried to smile and, putting the juice on the table, went to the kitchen.

Viper might think differently, but perhaps next time you would be able to slip away.

[max1461]

And yeah, I’m just not going to extend charity to this kind of doublespeak from people, not matter how bad off they are. People cannot talk about “settlers” who should and must immediately forfeit their rights, and then also claim that this would be somehow peaceful, bloodless, and cause no suffering. They can’t sit around engaging in revenge fantasy and then also claim to be the most pure people who’d never be oppressive ever. I don’t care who and I don’t care if it’s just rhetoric, it’s bad.

Maybe this just bespeaks a fundamental difference in how you and I understand ethics. Regardless of any specifics of the present topic, I have to admit that I believe the approach you're taking here is essentially never the correct one. Yes, political doublespeak is bad. Revenge fantasies are not productive. But that does not make your response, your total unwillingness to extend charity or listen to people's concerns, a justified one. You must recognize that people are imperfect. It would be lovely if we all said exactly what we meant, and held our anger when cooperation was in order, and so on and so forth. But people are not always going to do this, because people are imperfect. That's a fact of life, and it's especially a fact of political organizing.

People are going to articulate their struggles in language that makes you uncomfortable, rightly or wrongly so. People are going to use terminology that sets off alarm bells for you, as the word "settlers" seems to. And maybe people are even going to hold opinions that you think would be harmful to you if brought to fruition. To get anything done in politics ever, to make the world a better place, being able to deal with this is a fundamental skill. I analogized it in another post to the place of math in physics. You need to be able to coalition build, to organize with people you disagree with (even in very fundamental ways!), to shape your tone to your audience. You need to be able to talk comfortably to all kinds of people who believe all kinds of things, even people who don't like you. You need to be able to tolerate a bit of nasty rhetoric.

Even in the worst of times, when conflict is hot and you perceive there to be some credible threat to yourself, the noble thing to do is still to listen, through your discomfort, and attempt to reach an optimal comprise between your interlocutors' needs and your own. Obviously this is not something I would demand of someone, if they really were in danger. But to me it is still the noble response. However, this is not the worst of times. Conflict is not hot. On an actual practical level, the only aspects of the decolonial movement that are not marginal in the US are the purely symbolic ones. The most radical forms of decolonization, the ones that could conceivably pose any actual threat to you, are ridiculously marginal (and indeed, limited in obvious ways by demographics, such that it's basically inconceivable to me that they could ever find themselves in a position to harm you). You are in no actual danger of an indigenous lead forced relocation.

Furthermore, it seems to me that many of the words which trigger you here are extremely common in discussions of indigenous issues (and in-and-of-themselves purely descriptive terms), like "settlers" and "settler colonialism". This means that, if you refuse to engage in charity or calm discussion with people who use these terms, even when no other associated rhetoric is present (as in many of the cases on this blog that have upset you), you are basically refusing to cooperate with any existing effort at all to address indigenous peoples' concerns. Again, even though these efforts pose no practical threat to you, and even though the concerns they address are very grave, as evinced by the discussion of poverty among American Indians that motivated this discussion. You are upset by rhetoric to such a degree that you continually obfuscate the discussion of real material suffering when it is not phrased in the terms that you like, attributing the least charitable possible mixture of political opinions, pulled from the most extreme and least-thought-through subsets of decolonial discourse, to (what appears to me to be) anyone broaching the topic at all.

If every time someone says the phrase "settler colonialism", you jump straight to the conclusion that they are trying to commit genocide against you and respond as such, you are significantly hamstringing your ability to talk with people about the very real and immediate struggles they face. You appear to be ramping up your own level of antagonism immediately in response to the perceived worst-case level of antagonism that might be displayed by your interlocutor, based on associations you have with the terminology they use. I hope you can see how this comes across as, frankly, a callous and immature response.

In fact, it's more than just a terminological thing, because the quote which started this whole exchange made no mention of the terms "setter" or "settler colonialism"—indeed, it was an example of "talking about extreme poverty overtly", as you yourself said you would be more comfortable with. And the article about "Man of the Hole", which you (I believe it was you) took umbrage with the other day, wasn't phrased in the rhetoric of decolonization either. This makes it look as if any mention of indigenous issues at all is a trigger for you, and I hope you can see how that's counter productive.

Look: you do not have to engage with this topic. If discussion of these things provokes such fear and anxiety in you, I want to say with full sincerity that you should probably stop. There is nothing wrong with that. Maybe our present discourse norms have convinced you that you must have a Take on every topic, but our present discourse norms are wrong. However, if you are going to engage with this topic, as you have been choosing to do by sending me angry anons every time I reblog a post about indigenous issues, I think that frankly you have a responsibility to tolerate some rhetorical discomfort.

[stufftippywrote]

not an astronaut

This is based off a personal experience. Tw for fat-shaming, homophobia, and general assholery from an asshole kid.

The bell rings cheerfully as Bitty steps through the doorway. This was one of his favorite places when he was younger. The eclectic curios, every shape and size and color, packing the shelves were an endless source of fascination for young Eric Bittle, and the owners were friends of the family, so they knew Bitty well and didn't freak out when he picked up a ceramic pepper shaker or glass figurine and held it in his hands like an ancient treasure.

He walks through the store with that same sense of wonder now, 30 years later, and brushes his hand reverently over the shelves. They’re not looking for anything in particular today, but Bitty has told Jack about this place so many times, he simply couldn’t help but visit. Besides, you never know when you might find the perfect accent piece for the new home.

Chicken-shaped serving bowls, a porcelain figurine of a girl dancing, a set of silverware in a dusty wooden case. Bitty is spoiled for choice. As he browses, there’s a movement at the back of the store, and he catches a glimpse of someone hauling boxes through a door. He wonders who runs the place now. The sign still says Thompson’s Antiques, but he knows Mrs. Thompson passed and Mr. Thompson is getting on in years. Could it be that…

A prickle of fear runs through him.

The figure in the back drags the box to a nearby aisle and starts unpacking it, placing items on a low shelf. Bitty’s curiosity overflows. He moseys into that aisle and begins to speak, but the man raises his head before he can get a word out. He has to catch his breath all over again.

The man’s face goes slack. “I know you,” he blurts.

Eric puts his hands on his hips and gives a bright smile. “Davey Thompson. So you’re here after all!”

~~~

“Davey, this is Eric. Eric, this is our little boy Davey.” Mrs. Thompson’s smile is bright as she urges her son forward. “Why don’t you two go play at the playground while Mommy and her friend talk?”

The kid is tough-looking, with ruddy cheeks and a thick build. Eric reaches out his hand to lead Davey along the way. The minute they’re out of earshot, Davey snatches his hand back like he’s just touched a hot stove. Eric turns, surprised.

“You’re fat,” Davey says.

Eric blinks.

“You look dumb,” Davey adds on. And thus a quote-unquote “friendship” was born.

~~~

Davey stands up. He still has the same tinted cheeks and stocky build that Bitty remembers, but his face is sunken somehow, and he’s built up muscle where baby fat used to linger on his arms and shoulders. He’s got a tattoo on one arm – a Japanese koi fish, mid-splash.

“Nice ink,” Bitty comments.

And Davey Thompson, for possibly the first time in his life, smiles at Bitty. “Thanks.”

“The shop looks nice,” Bitty says, surveying the shelf like it’s his domain. “Hasn’t changed much since I used to come here.”

“You’re – you’re Eric Bittle, right?” Davey says, sounding almost scared of the answer. “From school?”

“From way before school,” Bitty responds. “You’re looking good.”

“Uh. Thanks. Same to you.” Davey looks uncertain, almost sheepish. There’s a moment of awkward silence. Davey tries to break it. “Um. So. What are you –”

He doesn’t seem to have the strength, or the will, to come up with the rest of the sentence. Bitty picks it up. “I’m a pastry chef,” he says. “I have a bakery and I cater, and I’ve put out three cookbooks. Can you imagine that?”

Davey looks kind of stunned. “Wow,” he says slowly. “Good for you. Where’s the bakery?”

“Up in New England. Providence, Rhode Island, to be exact.”

Davey snaps his fingers. “That’s right, you went to college up there. For hockey, wasn’t it?”

~~~

Bitty takes a swing at the ball. He misses, and it goes tumbling behind him into the net.

“Hah, you’re the worst goalie,” Davey says.

Somehow, Bitty finds the courage to say, “Let me play forward.” But his words are swallowed by the passing of a car on the cross street.

“What?”

“You be goalie.” Bitty gives the phrase all the menace he’s got in an eight-year-old body.

Davey laughs, a cruel laugh that sounds like ripping paper in Bitty’s ears. “Why? I can score on you all I want. That’s why we made you goalie.”

Resentment simmers like a low sun in Bitty’s gut. He wants to challenge Davey to play him on actual ice. He knows Davey can’t skate. As bad as he is, Bitty can’t possibly lose to him there. But the words stay stuck inside, plastered to the inside of his stomach, making him feel sick.

“Worst goalie ever,” Kevin chimes in.

“The worst, the wooooorst,” all four of them sing to him.

Bitty crouches low and is glad they can’t see much through the oversized goalie mask. Someday, he thinks, someday I’m gonna get them.

~~~

“Something like that,” Bitty answers easily. “And you’ve been here running the store?”

“Pretty much.” He doesn’t look very proud of that fact.

“I remember you used to say you were going to be an astronaut.”

“Ah, well –” The rose tint on Davey’s cheeks grows a shade deeper. “We were kids. I figure I missed my shot to make something of myself.”

All of Bitty’s nurturing instincts come alive. “Don’t say that. You’re doing well. Doing good, honest work. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Nah, man. It was just the easiest thing to do, once Mom got sick. I had to be here for her, and I … just stayed.”

Bitty gazes at him. This isn’t the attitude he expected from Davey Thompson, not in the slightest. He seems so defeated, as though Bitty’s arrival has reminded him of everything he isn’t. Bitty doesn’t want to be that for him, but he doesn’t think he has a choice in the matter. He quashes the small, self-satisfied demon that’s cackling in the back of his head. He’s not that kid anymore, either.

Just then, the chimes jingle at the front of the store. The babbling voice of a young child brightens the room. “Ah,” Bitty says, “there they are. He had to keep them outside a while before they calmed down. Little kids just work themselves up into a dither sometimes.” He offers an apologetic smile to Davey and retreats down the aisle toward the front of the store.

Suze is quiet, but it’s clear she was crying her eyes out earlier. She hangs on to her Papa with a fierce fist. Robby’s eyes are bugging out at the sight of the store. “What’s that?” he keeps asking, tugging on Jack’s slacks. Jack himself looks a little the worse for wear, but happy. That kind of tired-happy that they see in each other’s faces every night once the kids are in bed.

“Come on, Rob,” Bitty says, holding out his hands. “Want to see Daddy’s favorite store?”

Robby holds out his hands to be picked up. Bitty obliges, despite the warning creak of his back. He turns to take Robby further into the store and sees Davey standing there, staring them down.

He points. “I know you, too.”

“Ah, here we go,” Bitty says with a laugh.

“Were you in school with us? I don’t think that’s right, but—”

Jack holds out his hand for a shake. “Jack Zimmermann,” he says. “And you are?”

“My old friend Davey,” Bitty fills in. He can’t help but put a pointed emphasis on the friend part.

Davey clasps Jack’s hand but doesn’t seem to want to let go. “You’re Jack Zimmermann? The hockey player?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

Davey pumps Jack’s hand about four more times before finally letting go. “It’s – it’s good to meet you.” He looks at Suze, still curled up in Jack’s other arm. “And these are your kids? Or—” He turns to Bitty, face contorted in confusion. “Are they your kids?”

“Both,” Bitty answers cheerily. “Davey, meet my husband.”

Davey Thompson very nearly has a coronary right there.

~~~

“Hah, you’re just small all over, aren’t you?” Davey says with a pointed glance at Bitty’s crotch.

“You can’t help how you’re born,” Bitty retorts, but he pulls up his boxers right quick.

“Yeah, some people are just born stupid,” Davey agrees. Bitty instantly regrets replying at all.

Kyle whispers something in Davey’s ear. They both laugh.

“You’re right,” Davey says. He turns back to Bitty. “He’s right. They do say things about you.”

Bitty’s heart drops to his stomach. “W-what things?”

“You know! That you’re—” Davey flaps his wrist.

He doesn’t seem to have the nerve to say the word, but he doesn’t have to say it. The others in the locker room laugh.

For not the first time, Bitty is tempted to just ask, “So what if I am?” But he can’t. Not to these people. This isn’t how he wants his coming out to happen. So he just turns away and pulls on his sweatpants, ignoring the rills of laughter that echo against the lockers, and feels small. Small all over.

~~~

Davey recovers from his shock and nods his head rapidly. “Oh, I get it. Uh, congratulations. Uh, Bittle, could I talk to you a sec?”

He has that sheepish look again. Bitty watches as he retreats into one of the side aisles. “Gimme a sec,” he tells Jack, setting Robby down, and follows Davey.

When they're isolated, Davey turns to him sorrowfully. “I, uh—” Davey looks at the floor. “I was pretty mean to you in school.”

It isn’t what Bitty expected, not at all. To be honest, demons in the back of his head aside, this sort of thing doesn’t bother him so much anymore. Why should it? He’s married with two kids and a brand new home. He doesn’t spare a lot of time thinking about the distant past. “Um,” he starts, suddenly terribly embarrassed.

“No, let me—” Davey raises a hand. “Just let me. I said a lot of nasty things to you back then. I’m really sorry about it. I think about it a lot, and I’m just – I’m really sorry.”

There is a piece of Bitty that’s happy, even smug, at hearing this apology. But mostly he just pities Davey at this point. What a thing to carry around your whole life. “We were kids,” Bitty says. “Kids say dumb things. It’s all water under the bridge.”

“Still.” Davey says.

“I can’t say it didn’t hurt me,” Bitty goes on. “But I turned out okay, don’t you think?”

Davey laughs grimly “Yeah, look at you … and look at me.” He shrugs.

“You seem to be doing all right,” Bitty says charitably.

“I’m not an astronaut,” Davey says.

Bitty laughs. “Neither am I. We’re all good.” He pats Davey on the shoulder. A moment passes between them, silent, as they both listen to the sound of the past giving way to a new, kinder present.

After the moment passes, Bitty grins “Come on, I’m going to introduce you to my kids. Do you have kids?”

Davey flushes. “Yeah, I got a teenager. A real smartass. I wonder where he learned it.”

“Pictures!” Bitty declares. “Get that phone out, I demand pictures.”

Davey struggles to pull his phone out of his jeans pocket. This time, he flushes with pride. He narrates the story of each photo as they walk back toward the front.

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

Hot takes about Severus Snape are a wierdly decent glimpse into how a person with progressive values analyses things. Literally every time someone talks about Snape, it’s like this tiny window into how one-dimentionally people actually think.

Recently saw a twitter post that was a fantastic example. Here’s how it goes (paraphrasing):

Person A:“Snape is POC and Queer coded, that’s why you guy’s hate him uwu lol.”

Person B: “Actually I hate him because he was mean and abusive to children under his care uwu but go off I guess lol”

Both of these takes are designed to be dramatic and/or reactionary. They each use partial truths to paint very broad strokes. These are get-em-in-one-hit quips. This is virtue signalling, if you’ll excuse that loaded phrase. Nobody had a substantial conversation, but now everyone who sees their statement knows the high ground they took.

At least a hundred other people chimed in to add their own little quippy hot takes into play, none of which add anything significant, but clearly made everyone feel very highly of themselves.

So many layers of nuance and complex analysis is completely lost in this kind of discussion. On tumblr, you get more of this kind of bullshit, but you don’t have a word count limit, so you guys just spew endless mountains of weak overblown evidence backing up your bullshit arguments, none of which was really about engaging in a real conversation anyway.

Here’s the thing about Snape.

He is a childhood domestic abuse victim. His abuser is a muggle.

He becomes a student at a magical school that takes him away from his abuser and immediately instills in him the idea that being a part of this magical world is a badge of self-worth, empowerment, and provides safety and security - provided that he keeps in line.

There is a war is being waged in that world over his right to exist (he is a half blood).

He is a marginalized person within the context of the narrative, forced to constantly be in the same living space as the children of his own oppressors who are being groomed and recruited into a hate group militia (the pureblood slytherins). They are in turn trying to do the same to him.

He is marginalized person bullied by children who are also part of his oppressor group, but who have “more liberal” leanings and aren’t direct about why he’s being targeted (the mauraders are all purebloods, Sirius, who was the worst offender, was raised in a bigoted household, the same one that produced Bellatrix.).

He had a crush on a girl who is a muggleborn, and therefore she is considered even lesser than him and carries a stigma to those who associate with her. That girl was his only real friend. In his entire life.

For both Snape and Lily, allying themselves to a pureblood clique within their own houses would be a great way of shielding themselves from a measure of the bigotry they were probably facing. There would have been obvious pressure from those cliques to disconnect with one and other.

Every other person who associates with Snape in his adulthood carries some sort of sociopolitical or workplace (or hate cult) baggage with their association. Some of them will physically harm and/or kill him if he steps out of line. He hasn’t at any point had the right environment to heal and adjust from these childhood experiences. Even his relationship with Dumbledore is charged with constant baggage, including the purebloods who almost killed him during their bullying getting a slap on the wrist, the werewolf that almost killed him as a child being placed in an authority position over new children, etc. Dumbledore is canonically manipulative no matter his good qualities, and he has literally been manipulating Snape for years in order to cultivate a necessary asset in the war.

He is a person who is not in the stable mental state necessary to be teaching children, whom has been forced to teach children. While also playing the role of double agent against the hate group militia, the one that will literally torture you for mistakes or backtalk or just for fun. The one that will torture and kill him if he makes one wrong move.

Is the math clicking yet? From all of this, it’s not difficult to see how everything shitty about Snape was cultivated for him by his environment. Snape was not given great options. Snape made amazingly awful choices, and also some amazingly difficult, courageous ones. Snape was ultimately a human who had an extremely bad life, in which his options were incredibly grim and limited.

In fact, pretty much every point people make about how shitty Snape is as a person makes 100% logical sense as something that would emerge from how he was treated. Some if it he’s kind of right about, some of it is the inevitable reality of suffering, and some of it is part of the cycle of abuse and harm.

Even Snape’s emotional obsession with Lily makes logical sense when you have the perspective that he literally has no substantial positive experiences with other human beings that we know of, and he has an extreme, soul destroying guilt complex over her death. Calling him an Incel mysoginist nice guy projects a real-world political ideology and behavior that does not really apply to the context of what happened to him and her.

Even Snape’s specific little acts of cruelty to certain students is a reflection of his own life experiences. He identifies with Neville; more specifically, he identifies his own percieved emotional weaknesses in his childhood in Neville. There’s a very sad reason there why he feels the urge to be so harsh.

Snape very clearly hates himself, in a world where everyone else hates him, too. Imagine that, for a second. Imagine total internal and external hatred, an yearning for just a little bit of true connection. For years. Imagine then also trying to save that world, even if it’s motivated by guilt. Even if nobody ever knows you did it and you expect to die a miserable death alone.

There are more elements here to consider, including the way Rowling described his looks (there may be something in there re: ugliness and swarthy stereotyping). These are just the things that stand out the most prominently to me.

J.K. Rowling is clearly also not reliable as an imparter of moral or sociopolitical philosophies. I don’t feel that her grasp of minority experiences is a solid one, considering how she picks and chooses who is acceptable and who is a threat.

All of that said, this is a logically consistent character arc. Within the context of his narrative, Snape is a marginalized person with severe PTSD and emotional instability issues who has absolutely no room available to him for self-improvement or healing, and never really has. And yes, he’s also mean, and caustic, and verbally abusive to the students. He’s also a completey miserable, lonely person.

There are elements in his character arc that mirror real world experiences quite well. If nothing else, Rowling is enough of an emotional adult to recognise these kinds of things and portray something that feels authentic.

In my opinion, it’s not appropriate to whittle all this down by comparing him directly to the real world experiences of marginalized groups - at least if you are not a part of the group you are comparing him to. There have been many individuals who have compared his arc to their own personal experiences of marginalization, and that is valid. But generally speaking, comparing a white straight dude to people who are not that can often be pretty offensive. This is not a valuable way to discuss either subject.

Also, I believe that while it’s perfectly okay to not like Snape as a character, many of the people who act like Person B are carrying Harry’s childhood POV about Snape in their hearts well into their own adulthood. And if nothing else, Rowling was attempting to say something here about how our perspectives (should) grow and change as we emotionally mature.  She doesn’t have to be a good person herself to have expressed something true about the world in this instance, and since this story is a part of our popular culture, people have a right to feel whatever way they do about this story and it’s characters.

The complexity of this particular snapshot of fictionalized marginalization, and what it reveals about the human experience, cannot be reduced down to “he’s an abuser so he’s not worth anyone’s time/you are bad for liking him.”

And to be honest, I think that it reveals a lot about many of us in progressive spaces, particularly those of us who less marginalized but very loud about our values, that we refuse to engage with these complexities in leu of totally condemning him. Particularly because a lot of the elements I listed above are indeed reflected in real world examples of people who have experienced marginalization and thus had to deal with the resulting emotional damage, an mental illness, and behavior troubles, and bad decisions. Our inability to address the full scope of this may be a good reflection of how we are handling the complexity of real world examples.

Real people are not perfect angels in their victimhood. They are just humans who are victims, and we all have the capacity to be cruel and abusive in a world where we have been given cruelty and abuse. This is just a part of existing. If you cannot sympathise with that, or at least grasp it and aknowledge it and respect the people who are emotionally drawn to a character who refects that, then you may be telling on yourself to be honest.

To be honest, this is especially true if you hate Snape but just really, really love the Mauraduers. You have a right to those feelings, but if you are moralizing this and judging others for liking Snape, you’ve confessed to something about how you’ve mentally constructed your personal values in a way I don’t think you’ve fully grasped yet.

I have a hard time imagining a mindset where a story like Snape’s does not move one to empathy and vicarious grief, if I’m honest. I feel like some people really just cannot be bothered to imagine themselves in other people’s shoes, feeling what they feel and living like they live. I struggle to trust the social politics of people who show these kinds of colors, tbh.

But maybe that’s just me.

[thetriggeredhappy]

day 1 let’s fuckin’ go. everyone listen to butterflies by samsa

Day 1: Pursuit

“You seriously don’t have any better games than this?” Scout complained, looking back down at the board, doubtful. “Not even, like, a deck of cards? To play poker or somethin’?”

“Rather not play two-person poker, and I don’t like gambling anyways,” was Sniper’s reply, not glancing up from shuffling the cards.

“I mean, maybe Go Fish then, or Old Maid, or—or somethin’, not fuckin’… Trivial Pursuit.”

Sniper seemed to mull that over for a moment. “If you don’t want to play,” he started to say, hesitant, and Scout sputtered to cut him off before he could finish that thought.

“I, I mean, I didn’t say that,” he managed, still half-glaring down at the board. “Just, y’know.”

Sniper probably didn’t know, actually. Truthfully, Scout wasn’t much for… book smarts type games. Games that needed quick reflexes, talking quickly, theatrics, those he was a champion at besides his eternally bad luck, but facts and numbers and geography? Those he tended to sort of… fuck up beyond recognition. And he really, really didn’t want to look like a complete idiot in front of Sniper.

Kind of the worst case scenario, actually. But the worse worst case scenario was driving the guy away before even getting to hang out with him, here, the first time he’d ever agreed to one of Scout’s dozens of proposed hangouts.

Hell, he’d honestly gotten used to Sniper always saying no. ‘Nah’ and ‘Not this time’ and ‘Afraid not, sorry mate’ were three phrases Scout had heard at least three and four times a week for months, now. He’d started brushing right through it, stopped letting it hurt his feelings even, although he couldn’t help but get his hopes up, still. Invitations to team drinking nights and poker parties and carpooling with the guys to the movies or a bar or a casino, or more overt invitations to listen to new albums or go out to get fast food or to fairs or to concerts, he’d long since gotten used to those standard, polite rejections.

So he was surprised, then, when he’d delivered his offhanded invitation—“Hey, Snipes, all the other guys bailed on the rec room game night tonight, you wanna be there anyways?”—he hadn’t expected Sniper to hesitate for a few seconds before shrugging and saying sure.

Hell, he was halfway through his ‘yeah no problem no worries man’ before he even realized Sniper said yes, then it was fumbling the whole rest of the way.

Better to be an idiot friend than a distant acquaintance, maybe. That’s what he told himself.

A brief mumbled rundown of the rules went in one ear and out the other as he got preoccupied with looking over one of the cards, mind boggled by what the hell the letters and colors were supposed to mean. A short summary was nodded at vaguely, and apparently his poker face had been terrible all along, because Sniper shrugged and said that they could just play first to six questions right and tally up wins from there. Then they rolled a dice and Sniper, apparently, would go first.

“Alright, uh,” Scout said, squinting down at the little card. “What does a… he-leo-logist, study?”

Sniper thought about it for a second. “Er… the sun,” he replied.

“Yep,” Scout nodded, nudged a piece towards him. Sniper took it. “So, uh, you go again?”

“Yeah. Er… geography, this time,” Sniper mumbled, shuffling some pieces around in a way that probably made sense to people who actually knew how this board game worked.

“Sure. What’s… the country that has South America’s highest and lowest points?”

Another pause. “Bloody… Argentina, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Damn. Okay, next one,” Scout said, less concerned about the fact that Sniper was doing well and more worried at the fact that he was gonna do awful.

“Geography again,” Sniper determined.

“What natural… breakwater, is off the north… eastern, part of Australia?” he read, a little stilted, squinting at the letters, like that would help, for once. Silence, for a pause, then for longer. Scout breathed an internal sigh of relief, smiling a little. “C’mon, it’s your own fuckin’, uh… country, continent, thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s both,” Sniper said, and paused. “It… it’s not talking about the bloody, er… Solomon Islands, is it?”

“Great Barrier Reef,” Scout replied.

Sniper muttered a swear. “Overthought it,” he sighed, nudging the dice over to Scout, who rolled it. Sniper glanced at the number, moved the pieces, looked at a card. “Right. What craft uses a… kiln, and a kick wheel?”

Scout could’ve cried. “That’s, uh, pottery, sculpting,” he said, relieved.

A nod from Sniper, a piece scooped onto his side of the table, the dice rolled a few seconds later when he realized he was supposed to do that. “How many colors are in the rainbow?” he asked next.

Scout had to count off on his fingers for a second. “Uh, seven,” he said, and fist-pumped when Sniper nodded, scooping up another piece. “Even though it’s, uh, kinda bullishit. There should be six.”

Sniper’s eyebrows ticking up in confusion probably was a sign he should drop it, but instead he found himself spouting off.

“Because, uh, like, y’know, there’s—there’s the kinds of colors, right?” he said, backpedaling at his response of furrowed eyebrows. “Like, the basic ones, the, uh, primary colors, that’s red and yellow and blue, y’know? And then the other three, that you get from mixing those, like, uh, red and yellow is, uh… is orange, and then like, green, and purple, you combine ‘em, right?”

Sniper nodded slowly after a moment.

“But then you got, uh, fuckin’… indigo. In the, uh, in the list of colors, fuckin’, Roy G. Biv? Red orange yellow, green, blue indigo violet? And I know it’s, like, blue and dark blue, but I think that still sucks. If we’ve got indigo we’ve gotta have like, the other in- between guys. Know what I mean?”

“Don’t have much of an opinion on it, but, sounds like you’re making points,” Sniper said, and Scout shrugged, glanced down at the table, tapped his fingertips against his knees out of sight to try and let out some nervous energy. “Bloody, er… your turn, or mine?”

“Uh, mine,” Scout said, scrambling to roll the dice.

“Right. Sorry. Er…” Sniper read over the card. “Patron saint of Scotland?”

Scout swore under his breath, deflating a little, coming up blank. “Uh… hey, Demo!” he called, and heard a vague ‘aye’ from the kitchen. “Who’s the patron saint of Scotland?”

“My mum,” Demo called back, and Sniper snickered, at least, which softened the blow to Scout’s confidence considerably.

“Ah, fuck off,” Scout called back, and looked back at Sniper, smiling. “Saint Scrumpy, fuck, I dunno.”

“Saint Andrew, apparently,” Sniper shrugged, rolling the dice. “Sports question. The orange one.”

Scout tried to read the question before starting to say anything out loud, and found himself completely lost anyways. “Who was the first… Ch—Check-uh-slavarian… to win, the… Wimbleton…”

“No idea,” Sniper said outright, shaking his head at himself. “Don’t follow, er… what, the Olympics?”

“Tennis, I guess,” Scout shrugged, rolling the dice.

“Sports for you too. What did… bloody hell. What did second baseman Bill… Wambsganss, do all by himself in the, er… 1920 World Series game?”

“Oh, shit,” Scout laughed, “guy did, like, a triple play, and then hit into a double later that same game. That was the year some guy got hit in the head with a ball and fuckin’ died.”

Sniper was staring at him, clearly shocked.

“What?” Scout asked, rolling the dice. “I know baseball. And it was a whole thing.”

Sniper seemed to shrug it off, shaking his head. “What’s the Taj Mahal made of?”

“Fuckin’, I dunno, chocolate? What, that some kinda dessert? What’s that?” Scout scoffed, trying to play it off.

“It’s… it’s a place. Looks a bit like a castle? Like, er, like the Eiffel Tower, or Big Ben, tourist sort of thing?” Sniper tried, and Scout shrugged, and he shrugged back, rolling the dice. “Fair enough. One of the, er, Science ones. Green one.”

Scout looked at the card for a few seconds. “I… dunno how to say this word. Glue… glay… what’s that?”

Sniper leaned over, and Scout turned it towards him. “Glaucoma. Hits your eyes,” he said, and Scout nodded, and he took a piece, rolled again. “Brown one.”

“What are… catalogued, under the Dewey decimal system?” Scout asked, eyebrows furrowing.

“Books, library books,” Sniper mumbled.

“Jesus, are you—where’s the mirrors, seriously? How are you doing that?” Scout asked, and Sniper huffed something like a laugh, taking the piece, rolling again. “No, no, seriously. How the hell do you know half of these?”

“Geography, blue,” he prompted.

“Alright, I swear to god.” Scout held the card close as he read it, first to himself, then out loud. “What national capital is heated by underground hot springs?”

Sniper, to his credit, paused for a moment before answering. “Iceland’s. Reykjavik, it’s called.”

“I swear to god.” Scout flipped over the card, read the answer. “Oh, what the fuck!”

“I’ve bloody been there!” Sniper defended.

“Nah, fuck off, hold on—“ Scout picked up another card, reading another question. “Where in a tree does photosynthesis happen?”

“Leaves.”

“How do you know that so fast!” Scout demanded.

“That’s just science class in school!”

“Fuckin’—who, fuckin’, rode on the raft with Huck Finn?” Scout asked next.

“The, er… runaway, Jim.”

“Oh, what!” Scout all but shouted.

“Scout, I read.”

“Nah, nah, you’re way too good at this game, either you’re like, cheating, or you on purpose picked this game because you’re, like, weirdly crazy good at it or something!”

Sniper’s expression went from amusement to that blankness again, and it only made Scout even more infuriated.

“I mean, seriously, did you pick this game on purpose because you just know all the cards? Did you just wanna do the game where you’d for sure win?” he demanded.

Sniper was fidgeting with his glasses, now, and to be honest, Scout wasn’t even particularly mad, just confused.

“I mean, shit, you’d think you just wanted too play this one so you could look smart and cool and shit like that,” he said. and saw the way Sniper shrank a little, and the lightbulb went off way too late.

A pause.

“Dude,” Scout said, fighting down a laugh.

Sniper mumbled something he didn’t quite hear, sinking in his chair.

“Alright, seriously, if you wanna look smarter than me, you really don’t gotta pull out the trivia questions. Pretty much any game works, you know that, right? I’ll make an idiot of myself playing, like… Uno,” Scout said. Sniper shrugged, still not looking him in the eye. “Okay. Here’s an idea. How about we play, uh… I dunno, Crazy Eights. And while we play I’m gonna keep grilling you on this random trivia shit because seriously, that’s totally nuts, man.”

Sniper hesitated for a few seconds before he finally nodded and straightened up, and in a way, they both won. Scout because he now at least knew he wasn’t the only one who was a total mess and way too worried about what other people thought, and Sniper because he could keep being impressive about random trivia knowledge. Apparently, he knew a bunch about geography and books and nature, and not a single thing about sports.

Scout accused him of trying to memorize the cards. Sniper laughed, properly, for the first time all night.

[davidmann95]

Sooo… Superman and the Authority?

magnus-king123 asked: Your thoughts on Superman & the authority Give it to me...lol

Anonymous asked: Seeing Bezos take his little trip into space the same day Morrison puts out a Superman comic that touches on how far we’ve fallen from the days when we dreamed of utopian futures where everyone explored the stars was a big gut punch. Not used to Superman being topical in that way.

Anonymous asked: What'd you think of Superman and the Authority#1?

This is far beyond what I can fit in the normal weekly reviews, so taking this as my notes on the first six pages, with this and this as my major lead-in thoughts:

* Janin's such a perfect fit for Morrison - the scale, the power, the facial expressions selling the character work, the screwing around with the panel formatting as necessary to sell the effect, the numinous sense of things going on larger than you can fully perceive amidst the beauty and chaos. It's a shame he wasn't around 25 years ago to draw JLA, but I'll take him going with Morrison onto other future projects.

* His intro action sequence is such a great demonstration of why Black actually does have something to offer, and also how he's such a dumbass desperately needing Superman to save him from himself.

* While Jordie Bellaire didn't legit go with an entirely monochromatic palate the way early previews suggested, it's still an effect frequently and excellently deployed here. And glad to see Steve Wands carry into this from Blackstars since there's such an obvious carryover from its work with Superman.

* "Gentlemen. Ladies. Others." Great both because of the obvious - hey, Superman's nodding at me! - and because it's a phrasing that reinforces that this take on him (and let's be real Morrison) is old as hell.

* I'm mostly past caring about whether this is an alt-Earth Superman until it becomes indisputable one way or another, this and Action both rule so what does it really matter? But while there are still a couple signs in play suggesting some kind of division (the Action Comics #1036 cover, Midnighter up to time-travel shenanigans) the "lost in time" quote clearly thrown in after the fact to explain how he could have met Kennedy outside of 5G that wouldn't be necessary for an Elseworlds, the assorted gestures towards Superman's current status quo, the Kingdom Come symbol appearing in Action, and that Morrison would have had to completely rewrite the ending if this wasn't supposed to be 'the' version of Clark Kent going forward as was the intent when they first planned it all say to me that no, no fooling around, this is our guy going forward one way or another.

* Janin and Bellaire making the first version of the crystal Fortress ever that actually looks as cool as you want it to.

Anonymous asked: I like that Superman and The Authority is basically the anti-All-Star; instead of the laid back, immortal Superman who is supercharged, we have a stressed, ageing Superman whose tremendous powers are fading. The former will always be there to save us, but the latter is running out of time and needs to pull off a Hail Mary. Also, he mentions in his monologue to Black that he was "lost in time" when he met JFK, so maybe he is the main continuity Clark. Or he's the t-shirt Supes from Sideways.

* You're absolutely right - the power reversal is obvious and the ticking clock in play seemingly isn't for his own survival but everyone around him as he wakes up and realizes all the old icons grew complacent with the gains they'd made and he's not leaving behind the world he meant to. Both, however, are built on the idea of preparing the world to not need them anymore - it'll still have a Superman in his son, but that'll only work because of the others he empowers and inspires. The question is what happens to Clark if he's not going to live in the sun for 83000 years.

* Clark's 'exercise' here does more to sell me on the idea of Old Man Superman as a cool idea than however many decades of Earth 2 stuff.

* Intergang being noted alongside Darkseid and Doomsday speaks to how much Kirby informed Morrison's conception of Superman.

* This isn't exactly the most progressive in its disability politics but at least it makes clear Black's being a piece of shit about it.

* It's startling how much Clark can get away with saying stuff in here you'd never expect to come out of Superman's mouth. "I made an executive decision" "Privacy, really...?" "You have nowhere to go, Black. Nothing to live for." "There are few people in my life who I instinctively and viscerally dislike, and you've always been one of them." It only works because there's zero aggression behind it, he's just past the point of niceties and being totally frank while making clear none of these assessments preclude that he cares and is going to unconditionally do the right thing every time. He is absolutely, per Morrison, humanity's dad picking us up when we're too drunk to drive ourselves home.

* The story doesn't put a big flashing light over it, but it's not even a little bit subtle having the material threat of the issue be a ticking timebomb left by the carelessness and hubris of generations past.

* Manchester keeps trying to poke the bear and prove his hot takes about Superman and it's just not working. The front he put up under Kelley is gone after decades of defeats, and as Morrison understands what actually conceptually works about him as a rival to Superman underneath the aging nerd paranoia he's exposed as what he absolutely would be in 2021: a dude with a horrific terminal case of Twitter brainworms. I was PANICKED when I heard there was an 'offensive term' joke in this, I was braced for Morrison at their well-meaning worst, but it's such a goddamn perfect encapsulation of a very specific breed of Twitter leftist who uses their politics first and foremost as a cudgel and justification to label their abrasive, judgmental shittiness as self-righteousness (plus it's a killer payoff to a joke from way back in his original appearance). Cannot believe they pulled that off when they're so very, very open about basically not knowing how the internet works.

* @charlottefinn: Manchester Black using his telekinetic powers to force someone he hates to fave a problematic tweet so that he can screenshot it and start a dogpile

@intergalactic-zoo: “Once they cancel Bibbo, Superman won’t be *anyone’s* fav’rit anymore!”

* Friend noted this issue had to be fully the conversation because the whole premise stands on the house of cards of these two somehow working together, and with three 'silent' inset panels the creative team pulls off that turning point.

* So much of this feels on the surface like Morrison bringing back the All-Star vibes with Clark, but when he drops a "That's all you got?" in a brawl you realize what's underlining that bluntness and confidence in the face of failure is that deep down this is still the Action guy too. This dude ain't gonna get wrecked in his Fortress while the other guy chuckles about him being A SOFT WEE SCIENTIST'S SON!

* Bringing up Jor-El made me realize that Morrison already spelled out that this is the final threat to Superman, what he faces at the end of the road:

"Now it's your turn, Superman."

* A l'il Superman 2000/All-Star reference with the Phantom Zone map!

* There's so much intertextuality going on here even by Morrison standards - Change or Die with the old hero putting together a team of morally nebulous folks out to 'fix' everything, Flex Mentallo with the muscleman trying to redeem the punk, Doomsday Clock with the fate of the world hinging on whether Superman can get through to a meta stand-in for an idea of 'modern' comics cynicism, DKR and New Frontier and Kingdom Come and Multiversity and Seven Soldiers and What's So Funny and All-Star and Action and the last 5 years of monthly Superman comics and Authority and probably Jupiter's Legacy and Tom Strong - but none of that's needed. You could go in with the baseline pop cultural understanding of the character and not care about any of the inside baseball shit and get that this is a story about a leader of a generation that let down the people they made all their grand promises to as inertia and day-to-day demands and complacency let him be satisfied with the accomplishments they'd made long ago, looking at a new era and seeing the ways its own activists are dropping the ball. The only thing that fundamentally matters in a "you have to accept you're reading a superhero story" sense is that because he's Superman he's willing to own up to it and listen to people who might know better about some things and try to set things right while he and those who'll take his place still have a chance. And yes, the oldster looking back on their legacy with a skeptical eye and hoping for better from the next generation, hoping most of all that their little heir apparent can fulfill the promise inside of him instead of being a provocating little shitkicker, is obviously also autobiographical.

* The overlaying Kennedy reprisal is such a great visual of a sudden intrusive thought.

* The Kryptonite secret is the obvious "This is going to matter!" moment, but "He lied about his son" is a bit that doesn't connect to anything going on right now so maybe that's important here too? More significantly, the Justice League can't actually be the villains here but that Ultra-Humanite's crew are in an Earth-orbiting satellite makes pretty clear what's up.

* I've said before that between Superman, OMAC, and a New Gods-affiliated speedster this was going to use all of Morrison's favorite things. King Arthur playing a role isn't exactly dissuading me.

* Love the idea that all the antiheroes have their own community in the same way as the capes and tights crew. They definitely all privately think the rest are posers though and that they alone are Garth Ennis Punisher in a mob of Garth Ennis Wolverines.

* Manchester's fallen so far he's gone from trying to convince Superman to kill to convince him to dunk on people for their bad takes and Clark just doesn't get it. Official prediction of dialogue for upcoming issues:

"According to these bloody Fortress scans, the only thing that can restore your powers is an unfiltered hit of dopamine. Don't worry, Doctor Black has a few ideas."

"Hmm. Maybe I'll plant a nice tree?"

"...fuck you."

* Ok I already talked about how great the Fortress looks in here but LOVE this library.

* A pair of pages this seems like the right spot to discuss from Black's original appearance that underlines both his and Superman's inadequacies up to this point:

Responding to the problem of "the government and penal system are hopelessly corrupt" neither of them has any actual notion of what to do about it in spite of their respective posturing beyond how to handle individual outside actors - each is in their own way every bit as small-minded and reactionary as the other. Clark's coming around though, and he's holding out hope for the other guy.

* Superman: Have a lovely mineral water :) proper hydration is important :)

Manchester Black: *Is a dude who can get so mad he vomits and passes out. At water.*

* That last page is the one to beat for the year, and does more to put over the idea of this as an Authority book than that Midnighter and Apollo are literally going to show up. It also feels like Morrison tacitly acknowledging all the ways the premise could go or at least be received wrong - from Superman saying 'enough is enough' to who he's bringing into the fold to go about it - in the most beautifully on-the-nose fashion imaginable. Maybe they'll save us all! Or maybe they'll drown us in their vomit.

[startanewdream]

Hello Mah, forgive me for coming to ask for another prompt, I should control myself more, but I was reading ''Fate'' when I came across with this part ''Harry will have a full plate with these two someday.''

And I thought that if you haven't written that, make Harry complain to James and Sirius or Lily, idk, over the Easter break, about how Hermione and Ron are fighting, and maybe, just if you want, there is no Voldemort? Just to see the Golden Trio even more as teenagers, as they should be. But if you want to put Voldemort to give that dramatic touch of yours, it's okay too, you decide :)

and if you don't want to write that, that's fine too <3

Hiiiiii, Sweet! <3 please send all the asks you want!

I loved this prompt so much that I couldn’t help myself. So please enjoy this family moment between Harry, his parents and Sirius as they discuss Ron and Hermione’s possible relationship, during the Easter Break of Harry’s Fourth Year (for curiosity, in this universe, Ron and Hermione begin dating the start of their Fifth Year - and one day I’ll finish a WIP about Hinny’s relationship in the same universe) 

Oh, and I know you asked for the Golden Trio being teenagers, but, really, here the parents are the teenagers:

Harry looks at the letter Errol just dropped with a heavy sigh that’s muffled by the sound of the owl hitting the glass of the window instead of flying away.

‘Rest before you go back’, Harry says, picking up the owl carefully (Errol blinks in thanks) and taking it downstairs to the tree next to the window of the kitchen that stands as their owlery. His parents are there, with Sirius, finishing their breakfast.

‘Morning’, Harry says distractedly, helping to place Errol in a branch of the tree, next to a sleepy Hedwig.

‘Come take your breakfast, Harry’, his mother tells him. Harry sits, yawning.

‘What’s with the grumpy face?’, Sirius asks, watching him.

‘I woke up early. Hermione sent me a letter - and when I was almost sleeping again, Errol came with another’.

‘Ron and Hermione are already writing?’, James asks, sounding amused. ‘You have been apart for only one day, you know that, right?’

Lily giggles. ‘Look who's talking. When was the last time you spent a day without seeing Sirius?’

‘Hey!’, James complains, while Harry laughs too. ‘If I don’t see him, how will I know he’s been feeding himself?’

‘Maybe trust he is a functional thirty-five-year-old guy?’

‘Hey, I am right here’, Sirius remembers.

‘Yeah, and you are eating breakfast in our place, which just proves my point’, James notes, smirking. He turns to Harry. ‘What’s so important they had to write to you on the first day of the holidays?’

‘Privacy, James?’, Lily says, amused. ‘Or you used to share the contents of your Marauder letters with your parents?’

‘I hope not’, Sirius intervenes. ‘He used to talk a lot about you in those letters - I am not sure Monty and Mia would have enjoyed reading so much about your very nice pair of -’

‘Hey, hey!’, Harry interrupts, raising his hands. ‘Kid alert here!’

‘Very nice pair of eyes, Harry’, Sirius says calmly. ‘Why did you think I would say?’

‘Oh, shut it’, Harry rolls his eyes, ignoring the redness around his neck. ‘And if you want to know, it’s no big deal, they don’t stop talking about it anyway. It’s about Viktor Bloody Krum’.

‘Harry -’

‘Sorry, Mom’, Harry adds hurriedly. ‘It’s just I don’t wanna ever hear about him again, really’.

‘What happened to all that admiration?’, James asks, surprised. ‘I thought you were cheering more for him than for the Hogwarts Champion’.

‘That was because…’, Harry’s voice drifts off, embarrassed. He doesn’t really want to talk about why Cedric Diggory annoys him lately. ‘Well, I don’t have any problem with Krum, but don’t say his name out loud near Ron and Hermione unless you want to hear them bickering’.

‘Oh, they are still in that phase?’, asks Lily, a grin playing on her lips that Harry doesn’t understand.

‘They always bicker, it’s just… I don’t get it, I thought Ron would actually be glad Hermione is friends with Krum, but all he does is complain’.

‘They are friends? Krum and Hermione’, his father asks, raising his eyebrows. Harry supposes that’s really an unlikely pair.

‘Well, friends, I don’t know - wait, I didn’t tell you? Hermione went with Krum to the Yule Ball’.

James and Sirius make a chorus of ‘ohhhh’, raising their eyebrows at the same time, and pull their chairs so they get closer to Harry.

‘You didn’t tell us!’, his father complains.

‘I didn’t think it was important’.

‘You really need to sort out your priorities, Harry’, Sirius says, somber. ‘That’s big news’.

‘Hermione and Krum?’, Harry asks doubtfully, then he grins. ‘Oh, wait until you hear everything then’.

And he tells them how Ron got upset with Hermione’s choice of date, accusing her of fraternizing with the enemy.

‘Wow’.

‘Nice phrasing’, Sirius agrees.

‘I should have used it when I found you snogging Anthony Travers’.

‘He was hot’.

‘He was a Slytherin!’

Lily rolls her eyes. ‘Grow up’, she mumbles, but they don’t seem to hear.

‘And at the end of the Yule Ball’, Harry adds, expecting for their reactions, ‘she told Ron that next time there was a ball, he should ask her before someone else does, and not as a last resort!’.

Sirius and James don’t disappoint him. ‘OOOOOOH’.

‘One point to Hermione!’

‘She definitely hit a nerve there’.

‘And then what happened?’, Sirius asks curiously. ‘The next day? What did they do?’

Harry shrugs. ‘Nothing, actually, they just pretended nothing happened’.

‘I will need to talk to Ron’, James says gravely; he looks at Lily. ‘If you told me something like that, I would be asking you out the very next minute’.

She gives him a loopsided grin that Harry is sure she learned with his father. ‘As if you would ever not ask me for any ball first’.

James grins, raising to kneel in front of her. ‘My dearest Lily, would you give me the pleasure of your company for all balls for the rest of your life?’

‘Oh, get a room you two’, Sirius says, rolling his eyes. ‘I am waiting to hear the rest of the story. Come on, Harry’.

But Harry is looking wistfully at his parents. ‘It must be so nice to ask someone out when you know she is going to accept it’.

James laughs. ‘Well, now it seems easy, but when I asked your mom, trust me, I was nothing but a nerve-wracking mess’.

‘He fainted’, Lily agrees, looking fondly at her husband.

‘It was not a faint! I just closed my eyes for a while -’

‘Harry’, Sirius interrupts out loud. ‘So if everything was ok, why are you receiving letters now?’

‘Oh’, Harry grins. ‘It’s because of the Second Task. The champions had to rescue the things they would miss the most - and for Krum, that was Hermione’.

‘That is so -’

‘Unexpected?’, Lily suggests. ‘Unbelievable exaggerated for someone you just went to a ball together?’

‘Romantic’, Sirius finishes, frowning at her. ‘What did James see in you, Evans?’

‘Potter’, she notes, smirking. ‘And from what you said, he was very fond of my pair of… eyes’.

‘Oh, stop you two’, James says, waving his hand as if they are two misbehaved kids. He glances at Harry. ‘I take Ron didn’t like it very much’.

‘No, he hated it. I mean, he was very worried with Hermione while she was underwater, though I told him Dumbledore wouldn’t really anything happen with any of the hostages… and then when she was safe, he got angry with her!’

‘Of course he did’, James agrees, eyes sparkling with laugh. Harry doesn’t see much humour in this story.

‘Well, now they keep arguing about Krum, about house-elves, about whoever Ron is talking to, about everything, and I am in the middle of it. Letters and all now’.

James exchanges a look with Lily. ‘We were never like that’.

‘No, we went from arguing to bantering and then snogging’.

‘It wasn’t arguing, I was just an arse and you didn’t take it quietly’, James says unabashed. ‘But I meant we never took pleasure in arguing just for the sake of it’.

‘I wish you had’, Sirius notes. ‘At least then I could shut you up with a spell’.

‘We were not that bad’, James says fairly. Sirius gives one of his barking laughs.

‘You two keep looking at each other when you thought the other wasn’t looking, both convinced the other didn’t like you back, while you both sighed all over the place, finding some stupid excuses to be near each other - I mean, come on, how many meetings could you have in our final year?’

‘I was Head Boy!’, James remembers.

‘See? The worst excuse ever to get near a girl’.

Harry blinks. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Your parents’, Sirius says joyfully. ‘And comparing them with Ron and Hermione’.

‘What they have to do in common?’

‘Oh, Harry’, Sirius looks at him almost pityingly. ‘You see, when a boy likes a girl - or another boy, or when a girl likes a boy or a girl -’

‘You are just complicating everything, Padfoot’, Lily tells him brightly. ‘What he means is that there is something going on between Ron and Hermione’.

‘Yeah’, Harry agrees, his brows furrowed. ‘They are fighting’.

The other three laugh. Harry crosses his arms, annoyed.

‘But why are they fighting, Harry?’, his mother asks gently.

‘Because they are two stubborn people?’

‘But why now, why about Krum?’ When Harry shrugs, without answering, Lily shakes her head. ‘Oh, dear, you are as oblivious as your father’.

‘Hey!’

Lily places a soft kiss on James’ face before turning to Harry.

‘Ron is jealous of Hermione’, she explains patiently. ‘And Hermione wished Ron had asked her to the ball before. You see now?’

‘So Ron and Hermione… will become Ron and Hermione?’

‘I don’t know that’, Lily says. ‘Not every crush turns into something’. 

‘Ours did’, James whispers, smugly.

‘And not every school romance lasts after school either’.

‘Seventeen years together’, James sings. Lily throws him a fond look.

‘And counting’, she agrees, offering her hand for him to take it.

Sirius rolls his eyes.

‘You see what I had to endure with these two? That will be you with Ron and Hermione’.

‘They like each other?’, Harry repeats, thinking, but now that they’ve said it, he supposes he couldn’t really be surprised.

All that bickering had to mean something - and beyond that, they were always close, always gravitating around each other. He supposes he should be glad they would move on that bickering phase, but if they did...

‘But - what if they get together? I will be a third wheel! Worse, what if they get together and then split up? We won’t be friends -’

‘You are overworrying, son’, James assures him. ‘You won’t stop being their friends no matter what happens’.

‘Yeah’, Lily mumbles. ‘Look at Sirius’.

‘What about me?’

‘James dating me and marrying me didn’t affect the relationship between Prongs and Padfoot’, she notes, ignoring Sirius’ wink at her. ‘So you will be fine with them’.

Sirius nods gravely. ‘There is only one rule you need to follow when your best friends are dating, Harry. Remember that and your life will be easier’.

‘What is that?’

Sirius grins. ‘Always knock on their doors before you enter any room they are in or else you will see them in positions you didn’t even know it was possible’.

‘Sirius!’

[theevangelion]

Soulmates: Chapter XIII

(Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)

At home that night, Kara felt she couldn’t make sense of it because there was no making sense of it, and so she continued with her life as though nothing had been said about the matter. It was thought of, once in a while, put away and stuffed down, but in the shower, there was too much silence.

The matter simply couldn’t be avoided.

Quietness always allowed for thought processes to procrastinate on things they shouldn’t.

“Hi,” Lena said when the phone was picked up.

“Hey babe,” Kara whispered, juggling the phone between dripping palms as she reached for a towel. “I’m sorry for calling so many times I know it’s still working hours where you are—”

“Do not apologise.” Lena was stern about it. “You do not ever apologise for reaching out, ever, especially when it’s important like this.”

“So you know?” Guilty, Kara felt a weight lift from her shoulders.

“I know.”

“How are you?” Kara did her best to keep it all ticking and steady and without symptom of her own persistent, dribbling tears.

“I'm not the best person to ask questions like that.” Lena sighed. “I'm either great, or as you once phrased it, Miss Danvers, I am...the impulsive, erraticism and paranoia that—many now feel—aptly describes my brother’s downfall into madness—”

“Lena, Jesus Christ, would you stop?” Kara's voice bit more than she meant to.

“Woah.”

“I'm sorry,” Kara didn't skip a beat, softer this time. “I am so sorry. It. It didn't feel good. The joke. I don't know, I'm a little raw. I'm sorry.”

“That's okay. You have every right to feel raw about this too, Kara, you spend virtually every day with Cat. I should have paused and registered that. I think dark humour is my..." Lena sighed and thought. "The jokes are my healthy outlet, but I understand they're not yours. I apologise.”

“Your crutch,” Kara corrected seriously, but she was smiling, and she knew Lena was smiling too. "Don't say sorry. It's been a hard day."

Lena paused.

"How are you?" The concern was palpable.

“I mean…” Kara didn’t know why she was crying. “I mean, yeah, she’s—she’s Cat Grant, you know?”

“At the end of the nuclear apocalypse it will be the cockroaches, Cher, and Cat Grant, I know, she feels indestructible and godly.” Lena talked around all the feelings Kara couldn't quite extrapolate. “But that doesn’t make it any less terrible, baby. I can be on a flight home tonight. I might not get to you until tomorrow morning, but I want to be with you. I want to be there.”

“I feel like it has no right to hit me this hard.” Kara burst into tears. “She’s…she’s awful. She’s the meanest person I know. She’s rude, and crass, and she takes pleasure in putting people down and making them feel horrible! What kind of person does that, Lena?”

“She is all of those things, yes, and somehow also the kindest and most generous person I think any of us know. How do you even make sense of that?” Lena commiserated. “She is both the best and worst for all the same reasons.”

“It’s like…” Kara inhaled and held it for a moment, unsure of why the news had possessed her with such heartbreak. “It’s like every big milestone since I’ve been here. Every good and bad moment, every time I realised just how much I was falling for you, how drawn I felt to you, how connected I felt to you, she was there.”

Strange.

Kara registered it, became aware of it, just as it all rolled and fell off her tongue.

Kara drew a gasp too big for her lungs when she felt the birthmark throb, grow hot, clearing slightly with that distinct heat on her skin.

Lena fell silent.

She fell silent because she knew too.

“Did you…” Lena sounded as though her voice was wobbling, but she coughed and cleared it away. “You just felt the thing now, right? The…birthmark thing?”

Kara kept her palm fixed to the side of her hip and didn’t dare lift it.

“Kara,” Lena whispered. “It’s alright, darling, it’s quite alright. I love you very much and I…” She hung on her pause as though trying to convince herself it was true. “I can say with some certainty that I have known true love with two great and brilliant women in my life, and how very fortunate I am for that, so if you need to put down the phone and take stock of this situation, then I’m here and I’m only ever one phone call away. There are…no bad feelings, only love, always that if nothing else.” Lena laughed sadly, crying and unable to hide it. “I’ll call you when I’m back around.”