#something like this very well can and will turn into a slippery slope!

[anon-confesses]

It was dark, and there was no one in the kitchen, and I wanted a snack, and I got the snack. Just also ended up holding a knife to my skin and dragging it. Kinda pressing in. There wasn't any blood, but it's now been ~15 minutes and I still feel it stinging. I don't know why it was so simple to do. Nothing happened. I just finished watching a movie and got hungry. Nothing triggered this. I've never used a knife to do anything to myself before. Baby's first knife injury, if you'd even call it that because it really didn't do much. I'm so tempted to go down and take the knife up to my room, but then what. Maybe I can finally call what I do "proper self harm" if I draw blood with a knife. I get that "self harm" is just harming yourself, and there's been bits of blood and smalls scars from which in theory would make me more qualified to, but it's so little. I compare myself to musical figures too much. And I'm too obsessed with blood. I eat the blood from my scabs after picking them. And it would be kind of cool if I was to get blood to appear from my skin from a knife. I'd be able to drink it and make stuff look pretty for a while until it turns bronze. Maybe I'd eventually perform on stage as a musician while I bleed. I know it's horrible when it's other people, but there's an appeal to it, both when it's me and when it's them. But about bringing the knife up to my room, I'm somewhat scared but also tempted to. But not today. It's bedtime.

.

[sunderwight]

With moshang I think I'm equally fond of the possibilities/concepts where either Shang Qinghua is ludicrously attractive to demons in a broad sense (but doesn't realize it), or, where Shang Qinghua is just some weird little gremlin and everyone else cannot wrap their head around why THE Mobei Jun is so smug about seducing this man.

Or a combination, where no demon in their right mind would ordinarily look at Shang Qinghua and perceive a sex icon, but because such a high-ranking demon has clearly done so, they go "well there must be SOMETHING going on there" and then look closer and before they know it they're on the slippery slope to being horny about a guy who could help file their taxes or arrange to have their clan base's faulty plumbing fixed.

Basically it's all good. Demons en mass going "yeah yeah big scary dudes who punch good are a dime a fucking dozen around here, but do you know how hot someone who can skillfully use an abacus is?" vs demons going "the ice king is a respectable ruler but he has garbage taste in men, we all just smile and politely nod while he insists the weird rat guy he fixated on as a teenager is a catch" vs demons going "I really don't see the appeal -- wait he did what? he killed how many guys at once with 1 trick? he betrayed WHOMST? and lived?! and he knows how to get my door to stop making horrible squeaky noises?! okay yeah figures the king would marry him" but every option is a winner.

I'm also a big fan of both Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua being not very attractive to demons in general, but it also being really common for demons to get super weird about first crushes and fixate hard on them, so in that sense they are completely normal choices for a couple of high-level demons to marry. Like the demon populace can appreciate the emperor actually landing his hot teacher and the king successfully marrying his teenage sweetheart. It's an idealized fantasy in terms of the scenarios, even if the actual guys are just weird humans. Nearly every average demon has lifelong daydreams about successfully seducing their first crush, so regardless of who those crushes turned out to be it's still a power move for LBH and MBJ to actually succeed.

Bonus if the fact that both SQQ and SQH are peak lords from the same sect leads to a bunch of demon kids developing crushes on the other remaining, unattached peak lords, and chaos ensuing. Especially for Liu Qingge. I think it would be funny for him to gain a flock of teenage demons with crushes, whom he keeps trying to fight off, only to discover that beating them up does NOT discourage them at all (actually makes the crushes worse). Or Yue Qingyuan getting mobbed like he's a pop star any time he makes a diplomatic visit to the demon realms. Sha Hualing deciding that she's just waiting for Liu Mingyan to become a peak lord before they make things official, since That's Obviously How It's Done, or Qi Qingqi doing a head count one day and realizing she suddenly has a bunch of unfamiliar "guest" disciples who sigh at her a lot and have funny-colored eyes...

[pucksandpower]

if requests are open, can I pls request baby vettel telling her brothers (the grid kids) she has a "boyfriend" when she comes home from kindergarten one day ??? if requests are closed, please ignore 💗 love your works so much !!

Grid Kids: Cooties

Sebastian Vettel x wife!Reader x platonic!drivers

Summary: the grid kids take being big brothers very seriously

Series Masterlist

“No.”

Max’s voice is firm, his face aghast.

Charles, sitting next to him, nods in agreement. “I thought we agreed that you’re not allowed to date until you’re 40?”

Your daughter looks up from her crayon artwork, her little brows furrowing. “But Tommy said we’re boy ... boyfr …”

Lance interrupts, “Boyfriend and girlfriend? No, no, no. Absolutely not.”

George chimes in, holding up a toy car, “Tell whoever this Tommy is that you’re too busy racing to have a boyfriend.”

Lando adds, “Besides, boyfriends mean cooties. Do you want cooties?”

She tilts her head, pondering the dire consequences of these so-called cooties.

Charles, trying to be the voice of reason, kneels down to her level. “Sweetie, you’re a smart, wonderful little girl. And Tommy is, well ... you can do better.”

Mick, watching the entire exchange, laughs. “Guys, she’s just a kid. They’re probably just sharing crayons.”

Lando looks scandalized, “Crayons today, hearts tomorrow. It’s a slippery slope!”

Sebastian, watching the overprotective madness unfold, turns to you with a smirk, “I think our daughter has a solid set of bodyguards.”

You laugh, wrapping an arm around him. “Good luck to any actual future boyfriends.”

Your daughter simply shrugs, scribbles something on a piece of paper, and hands it to Charles. “For Tommy.”

Charles reads aloud, “We can be friends. But no cooties. Okay?”

***

The next day after school, Max bends down to your daughter’s eye level, “Now, which one is Tommy?”

She points a tiny finger to a little boy playing with a toy car on the playground. He has sandy hair and an innocent expression as he makes car noises.

Lando claps his hands together, “Alright, mates, game faces.”

George rolls his eyes but can’t help his grin, “Really? We’re really doing this?”

Lance nudges him, “We have to ensure he’s good enough for our sister!”

As the grid kids approach Tommy, he looks up, wide-eyed at the small army of grown-ups marching towards him.

Charles squats down, “Hey there, buddy. You Tommy?”

Tommy nods slowly, clutching his toy car.

George, leaning down too, tries to sound stern, “We heard you’re, uh, dating our sister.”

Lando, animatedly acting out air quotes around the word dating, adds, “We just wanted to have a quick chat.”

Mick, clearly finding the whole situation hilarious, jumps in, “You know, about intentions and all.”

Tommy blinks, “Inten-what?”

Max clears his throat, “Look, Tommy, we just want to make sure you’re treating our sister right. No stealing her toys or snacks.”

Lando jumps in again, “And absolutely no cooties. We had a long talk about that.”

Tommy nods fervently, “I don’t have cooties!”

Charles chuckles, “Good to know. So, you’ll play nice with her?”

Tommy nods again, “I promise. I just wanted to show her my new car.” He holds up the toy proudly.

George pats him on the head awkwardly, “Alright, Tommy. Just remember, we’re watching you.”

***

“Operation Sneaky Sneak is a go. Over,” Lando whispers dramatically into his walkie-talkie from his hiding spot behind a bush.

“Copy that,” George responds, trying to peer into Tommy’s living room window from a tree branch, “They’re ... playing with dolls? Oh, and there are some cookies. Over.”

Lance, hidden behind a garden gnome, chimes in, “I hope they're chocolate chip. Over.”

Charles, from his spot on top of a garden shed, adds, “No visual on any suspicious activities. Just some Barbies about to get the worst haircut of their life. Over.”

Mick, wedged between two trash cans, mutters, “Feels like we’re in a bad spy movie.”

Max, crouching behind a car, counters, “Feels? We ARE in a bad spy movie.”

Suddenly, the back door to Tommy’s house swings open and out step his parents, chatting and laughing. The grid kids freeze.

George, panicking, whispers into the walkie-talkie, “Abort mission! I repeat, abort!”

Lance tries to slink away, “Going dark! Going dark! We have been compromised.”

But it’s too late. Tommy’s mother spots them. “Um, gentlemen? What are you doing?”

Charles attempts to play it cool, “Oh, you know, just ... birdwatching. Beautiful sparrows around here.”

Tommy’s father suppresses a grin, “In our backyard? With walkie-talkies?”

Lando, thinking on his feet, responds, “Modern birdwatching. Very high tech. Over.”

Mick gives him a look, “Did you seriously just say over out loud?”

Max tries to salvage the situation, “We just wanted to ensure the playdate went ... smoothly.”

Tommy’s parents burst into laughter. “You guys really care about her, huh?”

Before anyone can respond, there’s a rustling from above. Thunk! “Ow!” Thwack! “Not the face!” Crash! “My hair!”

Everyone’s attention is immediately drawn to George who has dramatically fallen out of the tree, hitting almost every branch on the way down.

Rubbing his back, George groans from where he’s splayed on the ground, “Guess I should leave the climbing to the kids.”

Tommy’s mother takes pity on the fully grown children masquerading as adults in front of her, “Would any of you like to come in for juice boxes?”

The grid kids exchange sheepish glances. “Yes, please,” they reply in unison.

[raayllum]

by the end of s5, what do you think separates claudia and callum (if anything) from being a villain vs a hero?

Oh, there's plenty that differentiates them! This may not be as articulate as I want it to be as I've spent most of the past 3+ years pointing out / trying to convince people of Callum's similarities to Claudia and Viren (which S5 finally cinched for me, beautifully) than having to describe their differences, but I'll do my best!

Callum very much has both the best and worst of Viren and Claudia when it comes to dark magic, where he kind of borrows from each of them in distinct ways to be the most.... reasonable 'dark mage' in a lot of ways, due to 1) his views on dark magic and 2) his motivations for using it. So let's dig into it.

1) Views on dark magic

Unlike Claudia, to Callum dark magic isn't something frivolous (hi dark magic pancakes) or something to aspire after. He's far more like Viren (and even then I don't think Callum would ever consider dark magic "brilliant and clever" even if it is very much practical) in terms of seeing dark magic solely as a last resort since, as I've laid out before, Callum knows it's wrong. That it's a dangerous, slippery slope, for him in particular. Callum is also just willing to do something he Knows is wrong and see it to fruition anyway.

(Now, this also plays into the series' theme of how it's always Easier to play into / perpetuate the Cycle than it is to take the harder path of breaking it, but post for another day.)

Claudia has come closer to this viewpoint in some ways in S4 (crying as she explains what she had to do to bring Viren back) but ultimately, she doesn't think/see/know Aaravos is 'evil'. She doesn't think she's doing anything Wrong But Justified because she doesn't see anything wrong with what she's doing in the first place ("Humans were born with nothing, but we still found a way to do amazing things. That's what dark magic is really all about" / "The elves and the dragons did nothing. They judged us. They pitied us" / "All through history dragons have had the power while humans lived in fear. Well times are changing"). Callum is not that, at all, hence the guilt (even if I think more of it stems now in S4/S5 from what he knows dark magic allows - Aaravos' possession that then in turn also puts his immediate loved ones in danger).

Therefore, Callum's views on dark magic are far more akin to Viren's - powerful, dangerous, a necessity that chips away at you and you alone if you do it right, if you can successfully spare other people. Viren's comfort with dark magic goes further than that, and Callum's comfort with it is lesser than that, but they are more similar I think in their views of dark magic than either of their views are to Claudia's.

Like, regardless, Callum fundamentally disagrees with dark magic - he doesn't like or want to hurt innocent people/creatures if he can help it (again, big difference between him and other two mages, even if there are definitely areas where who Callum views as 'innocent' could be improved). It's a Last Resort, but it's a Resort. His aversion, those reservations, those lines, those morals? They exist (which is a distinction) but ultimately do not matter when Ezran or Rayla are threatened.

Which is, I suppose, as good a time as any to talk about

2) Motivations

Viren's hierarchy is the 1) the world (which his family is a part of), 2) himself, usually (because he believes he is uniquely positioned to be able to help the world & make the right choices) and 3) his family. We see this hierarchy play out pretty succinctly in 1x02-1x03 with Harrow, almost beat for beat. As Viren says there (and in S5) Harrow is his family and means everything to him... but Viren is not willing to reveal or relinquish the dragon egg in hopes of stopping the assassination, because he would rather have himself or Harrow die rather than put a weapon into Xadia's hands. This is also why he's willing to warp Soren into a cinder beast in 3x07. Not only is he personally pretty far gone at that point, but he is willing to sacrifice his family (gaslighting Soren to keep Claudia tethered in 3x03, for example + "I would've asked you to choose the egg over my own life, if it came to it"). In some ways, S5 is showing that he lost that part of himself and is now reclaiming it, making it true in ways it hasn't always been. Love is what made him Lose Himself but also how he ultimately Found Himself again (which bodes very well for Callum's S6 arc, but anyway...)

Alternatively... Callum says "I value those close to me more than Anyone or Anything" (Tales of Xadia bio) and he unequivocally means it.

Callum loves Harrow dearly, but he still knows the safest place for Ezran in 1x03 is to get the fuck away from the castle, so he goes. He breaks the primal stone after watching Rayla and Ezran mutually cry and console each other as Rayla blames herself for Zym's imminent death. As discussed, he'll do dark magic in 2x07 even though he knows it's wrong because it's Rayla's life on the line. He'll jump off the mountain for her. He'll threaten and demand answers from Soren before and after learning that Ez could be in danger, and run right into a trap. He'll do literally everything he did in 5x08 for Rayla, as we know.

In this way, he is very similar to Claudia, who would likewise Do Anything for her family and always mean it, particularly her father (after all, Soren 'walked out' on her, not the other way around; she was still trying to keep them all together). It is worth noting now, though, that Viren has now circled back, so arguably all three of them are sharing in this Motivation, and prime for Aaravos' manipulation if Viren still has a further role to play (although his curtain may have closed lmao). After all:

But yeah, Callum and Claudia are two characters who have always had a steady flow of parallels and a particularly brutal slant toward each other (because their selective loyalty is not and never has been to each other) and the easiest way to have an audience still remain sympathetic to an antagonist is to draw parallels between them and a protagonist, so...

Obviously in TDP there are 'good' guys and 'bad' guys but I don't think the series is that interested in a pure black-white good vs evil dichotomy. Almost every antagonist character is still sympathetic, developed, interesting, and we can understand where they're coming from. The protagonists make plenty of mistakes and have plenty of their own biases and contradictions; it's what makes them interesting too! People aren't necessarily Villains or Heroes so much as they are people stuck in cycles of grief and violence, and the series being an exploration of how and where and why they do or don't (or can't) break those cycles. At least, that's what I find is most useful from a meta perspective.

I think ultimately what differentiates Callum and Claudia in my head is, as mentioned, the different ways they view dark magic even if they have exceedingly similar motivations for using it, as well as Callum striking me more as the type to fight so hard to save his loved ones while they're still alive, but not quite as inclined to go as far as Claudia did and follow through on a resurrection spell the way she did. He's better at emotionally processing (although it's a low bar to clear for her) and better at letting things go, and more respectful of his loved ones' wants (most of the time). If Ez and Rayla both died in tragic/traumatic ways, I think that could (understandably) really warp him to something close to Claudia, but so long as one lived, I think they could keep him from going off the rails.

Claudia left the train station a Long time ago.

More metas that may be of interest (written before S4 and S5):

How Viren and Callum stack up flaws wise (S1-S4, screencap S5 update)

How Callum's initial view of Zym differs from Ez and Rayla (S1-S3)

Callum's morality (S1-S4)

TDP's Perpetual Trolley Problem, or How the Show Frames / Deals with Sacrifice and Exchange (S1-S4)

The Interlocking of the Cycle's Wheel with Viren, Claudia, Callum, and Rayla (S1-S4)

[ant1quarian]

More about Mirage

An original Sans, from Miragetale.

Mirage is, if anything, very, very deceptive. He’s intelligent and super observant– to the point he picks up on character quirks and tiny things you’ve done throughout your day based on the tiniest of body language.

He’ll know which side you slept on last night (if you sleep on your side) by the slight puffiness in that specific cheek. He’ll know if you didn’t get enough sleep.

And he’s really good at guessing even if he’s not entirely sure.

While he may be very deceptive, he’s also very charming. He’s caring and respectful; or at least seems to be.

His magic is… well, dangerous. It takes an incredibly strong will to be able to resist it for even a minute– it’s intoxicating and addicting, sweet in smell and gives off the same sort of vibe as something you want to eat but know it would kill you if you did.

He’s dangerous, plain and simple. He uses his abilities for devious things– and while his AU may come off as pleasant and calm (main reason he hasn’t met Dream), it’s actually pretty fucked.

It’s a nice society, built on an intricately woven web of lies with hidden deception strengthening the bonds. The “truth” is an incredibly slippery slope there, and whatever the Truth is will constantly be hidden from the public’s eye.

Mirage is an information collector. He is one of the singular people that know The Truth and can and will use that to manipulate others.

That being said, as a datemate, he is… surprisingly sweet.

His work is dangerous and forces him to keep many secrets, but that won’t stop him from being any less devoted.

The very fact you managed to catch his eyelight and stick around long enough to learn the subtleties of his mannerisms is a Big Thing.

The only way you would have found out he likes you romantically is purely by his Papyrus (Del, short for Delirium) pointed it out.

One of the biggest ways he makes it (at least a bit) obvious is by spending time with you. A lot of time. When he prefers to be with you than without you, then he’s fallen for you.

Once he fully explains how his magic works and the ways to resist it, you’ve got him hook, line and sinker.

He loves you, and he shows it. It’s just hard to pick up on sometimes. Two of his biggest love languages is Words of Affirmation and Quality time (giving). There’s something about not having to lie and constantly monitor every single little thing he says that he loves. And when he compliments you, genuinely, you can hear his tone change.

It goes from his normal voice (smooth and deep) to considerably softer, warmer, and quieter.

One of his favourite things to do is come up behind you, wrap his arms around your waist and murmur a, “g’mornin’ beautiful” into your shoulder if you’re in the kitchen when he wakes up.

Other silly things he likes to do randomly is impersonate Classic Sans. He does this regularly– snatching up Classic’s clothes and wearing them as he goes about Classic’s day.

He’ll turn up to Classic’s work and imagine the confusion when there are two Classics in the same room.

How is he capable of doing this, you wonder? They are mirror images, if you ignore the different body languages. Classic would never be able to impersonate Mirage, though. His world is far too complex and Classic’s facade, quite simply, just isn’t good enough.

He’d get called out almost immediately.

Sometimes Mirage gets tempted to commit crimes when he’s impersonating Classic, but decides against it– only because he finds it more entertaining to toy around with Classic.

( If you’re Mirage’s significant other, it’s pretty obvious he’s acting as Sans. He winks with his right eye when he doesn’t trust someone, and winks with his left when he does– which is completely backwards when it comes to Classic. There’s also the whole SOUL connection that definitely tips you off. )

@sleepyhoneybees, as you requested :]

[perpetualexistence]

Sea Monster AU: "If you hate this so much, why is there a fire in your eyes?"

Putting a song here about becoming/being a cannibal feels about right for a duo killing people and treating them like animals to the slaughter.

Originally I was just going to call this part 'The Routine', but then the idea for an Alejandro quote struck me and I had to change it. There is no scene in this part, but if there were this quote would certainly be there.

It ended up being harder to write than I originally thought. I couldn't figure out why until I realized I was trying to force a singular scene that would serve as a face-heel turn. When I decided to scrap it and go by death by a thousand paper cuts, suddenly writing everything else flowed a lot smoother.

Who knew that was how editing worked? You learn something new ever day when it's your first time writing something long-form.

But yeah, herein lies the beginning of Noah's descent into darkness! It also includes Noah's backstory in this AU. You'll probably notice it's got some inspiration from Slippery Slopes. What can I say? I'm not immune to an angsty Noah past. I do hope it's different enough!

Content warnings: Slight mention of eating people. And of course, Alejandro being manipulative. But again, to be the norm for this AU. Also! This relationship gets toxic and codependent at times, and this is one of those times. This part shows one of the foundations for that.

I will say though, the next part does get lighter!

Enjoy!

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The problem with Noah's suggestion is that he isn't a really good actor. Alejandro's smart enough to recognize this might be a problem before he tries to trick the first ship, and asks Noah to demonstrate how he'd try to convince someone that he's helpless. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

Alejandro decides he needs to teach him acting somewhat otherwise this plan is dead in the water. There's risks in teaching him how to lie, but if he's the teacher then he can learn Noah's tells so he'll still be able to read him.

The lessons are going as okay as they can be until Noah starts recognizing a few of these techniques as things that Alejandro did during the first few days of their meeting. He can't help but ask "Oh, like how you did with me?" because his mouth runs faster than his brain sometimes. This makes Alejandro feel A Certain Way about his past actions, but he tampers that down and insists that it was true with Noah.

They blitz their way through this tension by avoiding pursuing the discussion. Eventually Alejandro feels that Noah's ready enough, and so they begin in earnest.

Alejandro and Noah develop a pretty decent routine of Noah scouting out ships for Alejandro to either eat or spare. Noah has a walkie talkie/ear piece that he's connected to a radio that sits on the ship Alejandro uses to push him. That way he can subtly announce code for 'leave this one alive' or 'take no survivors'. Noah also makes sure to break any lines of communication that Alejandro wouldn't be able to take out in time. This includes scrambling sonar that would detect something as large as Alejandro getting too close. Once Noah gives the signal to begin, he makes sure that he's above deck. Alejandro fakes eating Noah first to cover their tracks in case any of the survivors realize that Noah showed up on the ship suspiciously before a giant eel showed up.

Alejandro originally intended on making a lot more ‘mistakes’ with innocents because he assumed that Noah was probably using the vigilantism as an excuse to not let Alejandro eat any humans. But Noah’s very aware that Alejandro probably would pull some bullshit like that, so he only sparingly requests for survivors if someone was nice enough to him. Yet Alejandro’s enjoying the vigilante side of eating people who deserve it much more than he’d anticipated since he really only agreed to it to make Noah happy. He doesn't know why exactly, but he takes more pleasure than normal when he's able to kill someone who was rude or cruel to Noah. 

Meanwhile Noah's finding himself taking more and more pleasure in taking people down without realizing it. Noah finds himself on the receiving end of things such as being yelled at for being a stupid tourist by someone who's from out of town, to people trying to extort him for money to get back to land, he's starting to find it particularly hard to be as guilty as he was. This is partially due to him doomscrolling the worst things about humanity to help himself feel better about what he's doing. It's also partially due to the fact that for as messed up as it is, there's a part of him that enjoys the attention that Alejandro's giving him. Mind you, he hates being treated like a possession with no autonomy. But he does like being treated as someone precious who deserves the best. Plus he's not immune to Alejandro's charm and appearance. Made even worse by the fact that Alejandro being bigger means that he can see it in more detail.

An important thing in this AU, and the reason why Noah's slipping into a path of darkness, is that Noah in this AU starts off as Season 1 Noah. There's no Owen or Team E-scope to help him see the good in humanity. He's someone more passive in that he's easily influenced by those around him. And when that person is Alejandro? It doesn't do good things for one's moral compass.

It doesn't help that Alejandro's not only encouraging Noah viewing humanity as the worst, but he's rewarding it. Even though it's not part of their deal, Alejandro starts gifting Noah treasures from the ship after he wrecks them. He saves the prettiest for himself in an underwater cave where he keeps the spoils of his accomplishments. He just gives Noah the ones that are profitable for humans. Plus a few shinies. He wants his (precioso) hunting partner to look the part of someone successful. Noah's appearance is a reflection on both of them after all.

Noah knows this is a bribe to keep going. But he's also pretty desperate for money. His dad left when he was young and took most of his money with him, leaving his mom to raise nine kids all on her own. She and the eldest sibling took as many jobs as they could, but they still had to resort to a loan shark to stay afloat. The second and third eldest siblings became pseudo-parents to their younger siblings because the family certainly couldn't afford babysitters. Noah's mother hated resorting to this, but with little help from extended family there wasn't much choice if she wanted to keep the family together.

Noah actually ended up becoming a breadwinner in the family. Once upon a time little Noah had a poetry phase. He'd read it, and he loved to write it. He'd write out his feelings about the shitty family situation to cope. It was cathartic. Over time his love for writing it faded. Not out of anything negative. That poetry was there when he needed it most, but now it was just time for him to find something else. His interests in literature just changed. The thing was, one of his siblings found out about a writing competition with prize money and decided to submit one of his works without him knowing.

He won. It was a very decent chunk of money that helped the family that month. He knew the family needed it, so he started to throw himself into more writing competitions. He started to notice a pattern real quickly. His older, angstier poems were the ones that one prizes. The newer ones, his lighter ones, didn't. He only had a limited amount of the older poems he could submit before he'd have to make newer ones. But the family still needed money. So he forced himself into writing poetry (a medium he no longer cared for) about a time in his life he hated to discuss.

That combination created a gifted kid burnout who closed himself off to force himself into a state of misery that could be profited from. His mom and siblings would try to reach out to him because they could see that he was having a terrible time with this. But the bitterness he felt towards writing extended into bitterness towards his family for putting him into this situation. It's not fair. He knows it's fair. But emotions don't often go by what's fair.

By the time he met Alejandro, he no longer had to write. Most of his siblings had left the house, or had income of their own. They'd all chip in to help their mom with paying off the loan shark. Noah no longer has to be the breadwinner. But the damage was already done, and that bitterness had never been resolved. That bitterness made it hard to keep friends, because it seeped through even in places he didn't mean it to.

So when someone new enters his life that actually cares about him for himself? Who stays even when he's bitter? He'd be a fool not to do everything in his power to keep them. Even if it means he'll have to sacrifice others to do it. At least it isn't himself this time. And if he now has a means of taking power back from other people who have wronged him? He'll use it.

Alejandro doesn't know about any of this of course. Noah has told him a little, and that little is enough for Alejandro to make some assumptions. But not the whole story. As far as Alejandro knows or cares, all is going according to Alejandro's plan of molding Noah to be just as ruthless as he is so they can properly rule this lake together.

And then the power of friendship just had to come and throw a wrench into things.

[thrawns-backrest]

A big thank you to @anthean for letting me use their concept for a location on Csilla for this chapter! I hope I did it justice. Please take the time to read their fic hang me, oh hang me it’s an amazing read!

Title: Buried in Ice

Characters: Ronan, Ba'kif and others

Chapters: 3/?

Summary: Ronan adjusts to life with the Chiss when a sudden revelation leads him to realize that his fate is not as firmly in his hands as he'd thought it was.

___

Ronan could swear his eyes bulged out of his head.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“That’s –” he stumbled over the words, “Are you serious?”

“We need someone with a good grasp of politics and how administration systems work. That sounds to me like your area of expertise. It’s politics we need to fight the Syndicure with, not military tactics.”

“And you think they would listen to an alien?”

“Oh, you don’t have to speak to them directly.” Ba’kif waved him off. “Or be present at any of the meetings. We need people to do research and keep track of events behind the scenes. Someone to prepare our defense and make a convincing case whenever we need to go head to head with the Syndics.”

The logic seemed sound enough and Ronan fumbled, grasping for a good reason why this was a very bad idea. Because it was indeed a very bad idea.

“You forget I’m not very well versed in your language yet.” Was his best try but Ba’kif parried that just as quickly.

“You’re doing well enough. In any case our officers can handle the talking. The politics that need to go into backing them up however. That requires a different skill set.”

“I don’t see how a human with limited knowledge of your history and politics could do better than a Chiss.”

“These things can be learned.”

Ronan glared at him. Ba’kif returned his stare calmly.

He was putting up a strong front but the Chiss’ determination was beginning to worry him and felt the first signs of nervousness as a bead of sweat trickled down his neck. This whole business was a red flag. To be given that much responsibility while his relationship with these people was lukewarm at best, outright distrustful at worst. And to get himself involved in things that were so far outside his original plans…

He didn’t like this. Not at all, not one bit.

Who was to say this wouldn’t end badly for him? Politics were a slippery slope and for all that Ba’kif seemed to have this irrational trust in him, Ronan wasn’t quite so sure of himself. One misstep and he could sink into a hole too deep to dig himself out of.

And he couldn’t hope to be too careful in a setting he wasn’t completely familiar with. Sure, he could ask for time to prepare but the fact still stood that this wasn’t where he was supposed to be. His initial agreement with Thrawn was for him to go with Ar’alani and if he lost that position now, if he lost his military rank, he could lose all hope of returning to the navy and the one step closer it was to the Empire.

“In any case,” Ba’kif ploughed on, “you’ll be safely tucked out of sight and won’t suffer any of the Syndicure’s rage directly.”

He sounded almost too happy about it, a smile playing on his face and something mischievous swirling in those red eyes.

“Maybe we could even find you a cape to wear as part of your uniform,” he finished, the smile turning into a smirk and that was the final straw.

Ronan shot out of his chair as his face flushed with rage. He shoved the wildly spinning backrest aside and made his way to the door.

“Good day, General Ba’kif. I appreciate the time you took to speak with me.”

He didn’t know where this had come from – Ar’alani or Vanto – but he wasn’t going to take being humiliated like this anymore.

“Sit down, Lyron, we are not done here,” Ba’kif called after him, sounding apologetic? Exasperated? Ronan didn’t know and he frankly didn’t care. “I was being serious about giving you the position.”

“And why would you do that?” Ronan hissed, spinning around on his heel. In a flash he had crossed the distance to the desk again, his arms propped on the glossy surface. “Why would you trust a human to handle your affairs?”

Ba’kif met his glare head on, his movements slow and deliberate. As though handling a wild animal. His voice had dropped to a near placating pitch when he spoke next.

“Because Thrawn sent you to us for a reason,” he said slowly, “I just have to figure out what it is.”

And there it was, Ronan closed his eyes. He should have expected it, he knew, and yet the word still felt like a hand scooping bile out of his throat.

Thrawn. Thrawn again.

The man who had gotten him into this mess. The man who all these people seemed to trust to the point of lunacy and whom crossing paths with had only brought Ronan trouble. Trouble and worry and misery and a future ruined beyond any hope.

A sigh ripped itself out of his chest and he collapsed back into his chair, still warm from having been occupied just moments before.

“Of course…” He muttered to himself as he felt the familiar exhaustion overtake him and dropped his head into his hand.

“Of course.”

Distantly, he remembered something that almost made him want to laugh.

Ba’kif had called him by his Chiss core name. Another move meant to remind him how tightly he was bound to these people. To garner his cooperation and make him feel like he was one of them.

But all Ronan was, was tired.

He wanted to sleep. He wanted to rest. He wanted to forget about Thrawn and the fact that he was here because of him. He wanted to pretend he was back in the Empire, working on Stardust and preparing to start a new day in a place where everything made sense.

Most of all he wanted to feel like he hadn’t squandered everything he’d ever worked for and disappointed the only person whose approval mattered to him. Alas, it was probably just wishful thinking.

The silence in the room stretched and stuffed into the cracks around them.

“I hear Lakuyoo took you out to the surface the other day.” Ba’kif’s voice broke the peace.

Ronan threw him a listless glance.

Lakuyoo. The aide they’d tasked with giving Ronan a tour of Csaplar. Just so he wouldn’t become hopelessly lost on his first day there and inconvenience someone who didn’t have the time or patience to deal with him.

Of course, he said tour but what he really meant was a brisk march through the very limited places he was allowed to be in, ending with a stroll along the planet’s surface. Because they had time to spare and his guide was bored.

Ronan nodded absentmindedly, not even bothering to pretend he knew where Ba’kif was going with this.

“I also hear you barely flinched from the cold.”

“I grew up on a planet with just about the same climate in winter.” A shrug. “Maybe slightly milder.”

“I see.”

There was a loose thread at the edge of his tunic and Ronan focused on tugging on it with his nails. The mess in his head had simmered down to a low apathetic hum and there was little of his defenses left when the words bubbled up his throat.

“Tell me, General,”

The thread snapped at the next tug.

“Is there any chance I will ever go back home. Is there any point in hoping or should I just spare myself the disappointment and give up the idea entirely.”

Ba’kif was quiet for a moment – not that Ronan had expected an answer – and Ronan wondered if there would be repercussions for asking the question.

“One should never give up hope, Lyron.” He said finally and the intensity of his tone sent a shiver down Ronan’s spine. Then the spark all but vanished and Ba’kif was back to being the impenetrable military man.

“But for the time being the answer is no,” he said matter-of-fact, “I can’t let you go back. You do not trust the Chiss and the Chiss do not trust you in return.”

Ronan’s shoulders drooped further.

“Right…”

Another moment of silence where Ronan focused on a different thread and then Ba’kif was standing up behind his desk and reaching for an access card in one of the drawers.

“Come.” He ordered. “I was hoping I could show you something.”

The command was abrupt and Ronan blinked at him for a moment. But he couldn’t muster the will to protest and rose to trail after the Chiss as he walked past him and reached for a spare outerwrap robe at the door.

Ronan took it on autopilot, doing a halfhearted job of the ties.

The path they took once out of the office was a blur. At some point the metal flooring under his feet gave way to a flight of stairs and then they were walking out into the Csillan landscape, a cool wind throwing snow in their faces while a line of jagged rocks rose silently in the distance.

It was both familiar and foreign, Ronan thought as he rewound a handful of memories from his childhood.

The cold became easier to bear as they walked and the snow covered them almost gently, coming in thin wispy sheets. He almost missed it when the ice at their feet dappled with rocks but he felt the moment they entered under the shadows of the distant rock formations, the air temperature around them dropping sharply.

“Please.” Ba’kif stepped aside to let him lead and Ronan looked past him at the small well-trodden path ahead. The end of the path, when they got there, was not something he expected.

He stood there and stared up at the sheer rock face in confusion.

“I assume Lakuyoo didn’t bother to show you the sights.” Ba’kif said from behind, standing just a little ways to the left.

Ronan tried to put his scattered thoughts in order. He had a vague memory of passing by this place but the aide had indeed neglected to mention there was anything special about it.

His eyes found Ba’kif’s in a question however the Chiss had decided to be difficult again and merely waved a hand out in invitation. Ronan bit back an irritated huff and refocused on the cliff in front of him. In a minute or so he had figured it out.

He was looking at some kind of artwork, was the best way he could describe it. A natural rock formation with added chinks and gouges, artificial no doubt, where snow piled up in accordance with the wind’s speed and direction, resulting in a myriad shifting patterns.

Those patterns, he realized, were more coherent than he’d first thought and he began to distinguish images in the accumulated snow; ridges and clumps coming together to form faces, words and charts.

Each pattern made way for the next as the wind brushed it away, a new configuration of cascading accumulating snow, some snow marks holding on longer depending on the force of the gusts blowing them in, and Ronan wondered how many of them there were in total.

It was impressive but also unsettling. Incredibly unsettling, Ronan realized as the scale of the whole thing finally registered in his mind.

“There are many interpretations as to the artist’s intention,” Ba’kif said quietly, coming up beside him.

Artist, Cheunh singular. The work of just one person, Ronan swallowed.

“The one I prefer personally is that the piece symbolizes the Chiss’ ability to change and adapt while keeping our core values. How one thing can be something but also another without losing its essence. It’s a thought worth pondering, no?”

Ronan kept his eyes on the stone in front of him.

He wasn’t so far gone so as not to realize what was happening. This, all of this – dragging him out into the severe landscape, the cold, putting him at the foot of this monstrous creation – was all meant to intimidate him.

It was a completely transparent tactic. And it was also working.

These Chiss were fanatically devoted to seeing something through once they put their mind to it. Ronan remembered the way Savit had griped his arm on the bridge of the Firedrake, tightening his hold with every angry spasm Thrawn drew out of him. He hadn’t been intimidated then. Merely uncomfortable and anxious for the whole ordeal to end.

And yet he felt a jolt of something shoot up his spine as he stared up at that grand rock face, towering over them in its grim, convoluted glory.

His thoughts took a slow turn, veering back to the reality of his situation.

His performance here would determine if the Chiss could truly trust him. And that, in turn, would determine if he would ever set foot back on imperial soil. He could either give it his all and rise to the challenge or keep resisting and dragging his feet and only one of those brought him closer to his goal.

Still, if one of their enemies came and plucked him away, or if he managed to return to the Empire, that was an awful lot of information to put in his hands… But really who would come to take him away from some Maker forsaken office, buried out of sight underground?

Ronan shivered as a chilling thought suddenly hit him.

He wasn’t more likely to leave this place if he agreed to Ba’kif’s proposition. No, that was merely an illusion he wanted to believe in. In reality, working for the Chiss, going anywhere near their politics, would only pile more valuable information into his hands, further tethering him the Ascendancy, to Csilla and whatever plans the Chiss had for him.

Ba’kif’s little speech about change and adaptation confirmed it too. He wanted Ronan’s commitment and expertise but without the loyalties they came attached with. No, he wanted them for the Chiss.

Ronan attempted to swallow again and the dryness in his mouth grated against his tongue.

He would basically be signing the last of his freedom away by accepting this job. He may rise in prestige and the blueskins may be less neurotic with him if he was in a more secure place but in the end he would still be a prisoner.

And yet, something tugged at him inside as he stared up at the cold stone.

The ridges and groves and their meticulous arrangement. The shifting design and the painstaking thought that had gone into it.

There was dedication here, he concluded grimly. Dedication and diligence. Dedication and diligence that reminded him of Director Krennic and dedication and diligence that seemed really appealing if they were going to be directed towards defeating the Grysks. And if there was one thing Ronan knew – from his little adventure with Thrawn and his subsequent experience in the Chiss fleet – was that these Grysks were a grave threat to everyone.

True, Ronan didn’t know the Chiss too well yet but he could maybe see them, see himself, working toward a goal that could benefit the entire galaxy. Just like he was sure he had been doing with Director Krennic.

The wind beat at them again as Ronan steeled his resolve like a man headed for his execution.

“General,”

Ba’kif’s head tilted in his direction.

“I accept your offer.”

A moment of silence and then Ba’kif’s mouth split into a full-toothed smile, his posture relaxing ever so slightly. Satisfied with himself. Pleased.

“I am glad to hear that, Lieutenant. You will find that we appreciate and take good care of those who work for the good of the Ascendancy.”

___

“All you need is here and the file you requested will be sent to you as soon as possible. The rest is on the data cylinder Supreme General Ba’kif should have given you. Will that be sufficient?”

Ronan grumbled under his breath as he scrolled down the file on his questis.

“Yes, yes, I will look into it.”

The Chiss gave him a cursory nod and swept out the room in a flurry of robes.

Ronan didn’t bother with any parting pleasantries as he brushed accumulated flimsi and cylinders to the side and sat down to peer at the file in front of him. Just when he was catching up on his reading too…

The work was grueling, he had to admit, but at least he’d been blessedly busy and it gave him something to think about. It was still up in the air if this idea of Ba’kif’s would take off but so far they’d powered through their first cases with some partial success and partial success was better than nothing.

There was a knock at the door and he lowered the questis with a sigh, shooting the newcomer on the other side a glare.

Ba’kif had mentioned he would be sending another officer his way this afternoon. Ronan had hoped there had been a rescheduling given it was nearing evening that his point.

Did he have the patience to deal with another military snob today? Probably not. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have to, he groused to himself.

“Yes, come in,” he called, jotting down a few quick lines on the file on his screen and making a few mental notes for later.

He was just about to invite the newcomer to sit when he looked up at the stiff thin-lipped face in front of him.

…Oh.

… … Oh.

Well now, this was going to be interesting, he thought with no little amount of giddiness as a smile of pure malicious glee bloomed on his face.

“Senior Captain Aguilos,” he said, waving a hand at the seat in front of him, “please, how can I help you today?”

The Chiss’ face spasmed and twitched, much like the day he had been yelling profanities in Ronan’s face. Ronan felt his heart sing with delight.

It turned out there was, in fact, some poetic justice in the galaxy yet.

“Your case for Captain Aguilos was rather flimsy the other day. Not your best work, I must say.”

“What can I say? The man wasn’t being very cooperative. And I hear he’s a rude fellow anyway, he probably deserved that slap from the Syndicure.”

“You hear? From what source if I may ask?”

“A reliable one, General. I don’t take these things lightly, rest assured.”

___

taglist: @vibratingbonesbis @labextia

[acetolightning]

Dragonic Weapons Stats

Fastest Flyer to Slowest Flyer

Jay - Can fly faster than a jet, or even be as fast as lightning if he so chooses. His wings and tail have perfect aerodynamic shaping, allowing him for sharp turns and acrobatic skills that are unmatched.

Kai - Not nearly as fast as Jay but still decently quick in flight! Though his tail isn’t necessarily made for quick flight, it doesn’t stop him from trying to catch up to the lightning ninja.

Zane - His wings and tail shape don’t allow for very fast maneuvers or flight.

Cole - Very, very slow compared to the others. He’s much faster on the ground, as his tail and wings are too bulky to allow for fast flight.

Strongest to Weakest (Physically)

Cole - Is this a surprise? The element of earth is so sturdy and only allows for manipulation if it so chooses.

Zane - Ice likes to pretend it’s fragile; in actuality, it can clear that of the oceans and even land.

Kai - His strength is relatively close to Zane’s, but he often likes to rely on quick bursts of fire rather than strength.

Jay - Physically the weakest of all the ninja. Lightning is a powerful element, but it’s a rare phenomena that appears and disappears just as quickly.

Most Unstable (Elementally)

Jay - Lightning is unpredictable and cannot be tamed. It is the poster child of pure chaos at its finest. This translates to Jay’s emotional state. Ever since fusing with his golden weapon, he can have……outbursts of insanity if not reeled back in by Lloyd.

Cole - Surprisingly, Cole has become unstable since merging with his weapon. Though he still has his calm, tough guy attitude, he has feelings of wanting the earth to swallow up the humans that have hurt him. The call of the earth is something that no one really knew about until he became Earth as a whole.

Kai - Though he is fire, his devotion to Lloyd does help in reigning in his more….sadistic nature of wanting to consume all matter with himself. It’s a slippery slope that he is able to manage semi-well.

Zane - Ice is solid, cold, but logical. Even being one with his element, Zane keeps his calm demeanor, though that could be because of his time as the Ice Emperor. He knows how he should not let his ice overtake his own thought process.

Devotion/Loyalty (to the Green Ninja)

Kai - The big brother of the Green Ninja, he takes his role as weapon/protector very serious. He is Lloyd’s trusted weapon when in elemental form, and the one that will make sure Lloyd is protected at all costs.

Cole, Zane, Jay - The rest are almost as loyal as Kai but there is that little nagging feeling of wanting to be wielded by a new master, though they are always able to quiet that part of themselves. After all, Lloyd is their little brother.

Oldest to Youngest

Zane - This nindroid doesn’t even know how old he is. But more than likely, he’s in his mid thirties (but looks early twenties).

Cole - 22 Years Old. He’s older than Kai by a few months.

Kai - 22 Years Old. Younger than Cole by a few months

Jay - 19 (Close to being 20). Youngest of the OG ninja, though still older than Lloyd. He is a little older than Nya by a few months.

[wildpeachfarm]

One of the craziest thing I see is the growth of terfs hidden as “feminism”. I got some tweets of someone mocking femboys and saying that if men wear skirt that’s fetishing of women (????), and now they’re using the minor and sexuality card as a defence, and now they’re screaming that attacking them is misogynistic and homophobic because they’re a lesbian and “be a lesbian means they even hate men” (which is fucking bullshit like what).

Genuinely I’m worried about this growth of terfs that even started with some ccs, especially female ones. As a girl, I start to feel so damn unsafe even around girls. And the young generation is growing with those thoughts, I’m so worried for the new generation

Sorry about this rant is just crazy to me

oof yeah idk if you have seen some of the other things discussed on this blog but this is something I have touched on before!

Unfortunately there is a very slippery slope between the internet (cough cough tiktok and twitter) rhetoric used that is claimed to be "feminism" and the things that are twisted into terf/rad fem language and ideas. Additionally, I think a lot of female CCs are unaware of just how easily some of their language can be spun into something harmful because they are just not educated on it at all or don't care. And it becomes even more of a problem when you advertise yourself as a feminist CC (which is absolutely fine to do, and talking about issues women face is always important) because you will always attract some radfem followers just because of the nature of the internet and because they think we are all fighting for the same things (which is incorrect).

I think that hiding your terf behavior behind lesbianism is so offensive and gives the rest of us a horrible name as well.

I don't want to turn this into a whole thing again because I have already talked about this in depth before, but I do understand your frustrations anon

[calciumdeficientt]

bro if you still do oc headcanons can you do headcanons w my oc and jimmy? they have like a sibling relationship and she’s like his mom cuz his mom is..well..yk

thank you !!!!

Absolutely!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HARIN KIM AND JIMMY HOPKINS HCS

Jimmy has some unresolved mother issues. That much is very obvious based on the opening of the game, his mother’s apathy towards him and the general distaste he shows to yet another stepdad shows that this is absolutely nothing newThis teenaged womaniser, troublemaker and just generally disadvantaged kid needs a mother, figurative or otherwise, and Harin already has a brood of kids just like him, what’s one more?

She goes out of her way to check up on Jimmy regularly. At first he probably resisted because he sees himself as independent and mature enough to manage his own emotions, but eventually Harin is able to get him comfortable to talk it out. They find somewhere private to sit, and Jimmy lets loose all of his pent up shit. Wether it be one of the endless troubles he’s having with Gary, troubles in class, or just generally clueless kid stuff, Harin is there. During these talks, they’ll usually share a cigarette. Harin knows its bad for him, but she’d rather the kid be well regulated, with one bad vice than completely rogue and losing his mind doing all kinds of bad shit. It’s a slippery slope.

Has his back, even when the whole school is against him. Shes not all that easily swayed and because she’s taken the time to get to know the kid, she knows that none of the shit flying around the school is true. He’s just a kid, sure he goes about stuff the wrong way sometimes, but doesn’t everyone when they’re young? Especially when they’re in the formative years of teenhood like Jimmy is.

She does get a little bit overprotective of him but she can’t really be blamed, he come out of his dorm wearing a thin cotton school shirt, boxing shorts and sneakers in the dead of winter, you can’t really blame her for turning his ass around and making him put on long pants at the VERY LEAST. He’s a loose canon, under her watch he gets just a little bit of a tighter hold on himself.

If he’s sick she’ll do her best to make sure he’s well taken care of, god knows sick students dont get much other than a day or two in their doers. Usually she’ll send peanut as a scout and if he’s very worse for wear she’ll cut class to bring him water, tissues, meds if she he can get them and maybe a comic or something, kid’s probably bored out of his skull in that godawful dorm all day long.

[newkiqx]

Nearly every single modern computer utilizes cobalt, a mineral whose supply chain is so heavily dominated by slave labor that it's practically impossible to ethically source. Ignoring AI, it is even ethical to do digital art at all? The production of a drawing tablet is not a victimless crime.

I feel you when you want to reduce this to something as simple as a comparison. But bear with me (or alternatively, I put a tl;dr/conclusion at the end).

Much of capitalism is unethical - yes. I agree with this point completely. It's impossible to completely avoid unethical consumption in the world we live in. But it's good to be thoughtful of it and I think businesses and governments responsible for bad practice should be held accountable. Sadly I can't change the world on my own in any meaningful way, but i'll do my part where I can & vote people into power that care about this too.

Taking your comparison for a second, I feel like the art project of that OP was asking a much more direct "I bought cobalt I didn't need and then turned into a children's toy, could this be art?". And my reply was basically yeah sure it could be art, but was it worth it? My point is that I'm not sure on that last part, and leaning towards a 'no'. They specifically sourced it unethically and made that the center piece, which is distinct from the utilitarian nature of consumer electronics we need to get through our lives. Unethical sourcing of art can be a goal or statement (like here cw dead pets) but will then of course still be a part of it. I don't think ethics were considered for the post we're discussing though and it instead only discussed the very unproductive 'is it art' discourse. This, of course, matters about as much as my "dick" being objectively "long" or not.

Maybe getting a little sidetracked, but I also want to mention that cobalt is an extremely useful metal, whereas AI.. well.. i've mentioned the very human cost of mturk and the wholesale theft of the entire internet. There's also:

the power required

the jobs in art it threatens and therefore the skilled labor we stand to lose if we're not careful

the inevitable price hike and betrayal of the public as soon as alternatives are out competed (this will happen)

the risks of biases (racism, ableism, sexism) in an opaque weighted system like AI & the fact we cannot deal with this except for slapping some extra prompts in front

AI poisoning our actual collective knowledge with untrue shit. Recent cases in point being the hilarious fake mouse dick science being published and the ai generated inaccurate servals on google, but there's a lot more going on

the risks of companies and people in power using AI to more efficiently screw everybody over and hide behind 'machine told me so' accountability loopholes

the risks of AI being used in all sorts of malinformed use cases

But what are the gains? What do we stand to win? Call me cynical, but we already had an infinite amount of pictures at our fingertips, as well as all the mediocre writing you could ever want (but actually much better because someone loved writing it). I feel like all these general AI's are good for is filling the pockets of some very rich robber barons and grifters, as well as diluting everything that's beautiful and true in the world.

Quick sidenote - Some specialist AI have genuinely already improved the world, like with medical screenings, but even then it's hard to really call it a win because reverse engineering the reasoning of an AI is so fucking hard. And again, they're a slippery slope with insurance companies wanting a piece of that pie badly, just so they can apply their 'justified' penalties to people not even sick yet.

tl/dr; So in conclusion, no, I don't think your comparison holds up. I agree that it sucks that so much of necessary consumption is unethical in ways we can't easily fix as consumers. But one thing bad does not equate other thing good. If anything, it should inspire you to do better where you can make a difference and hold the ones responsible for the exploitation in this world accountable.

Don't let it eat you up though. I'm not even saying you can't use it for inspiration ever. But any art based on these generated pictures cannot be divorced from the ugly side we'd rather not see: the underpaid army of technically not slaves and the wholesale theft of everything.

also sorry but i couldn't not include this (source: matt bors)

[henrysglock]

What what who and who do you ship now...I'm so confused

Okay, Nonnie. Here's the rundown. Get ready, because it's a bit complex.

What I ship in canon is very different from what I ship in fanon!!

I don't ship Patty and Henry as a canon/endgame couple. This is mainly because a) I don't want Patty to be reduced to "Henry's girlfriend" rather than having her be her own stand-alone character with a proper arc that Henry happens to fit into, b) I think Henry's gay, and c) I don't think there's a whole lot of canon basis/there are more signs that they won't end up together than anything else.

However.

I think it would be very entertaining to have a version where the three of them (Henry, Scott, Patty) were all school friends, and Henry ends up married to Patty because he genuinely loves/trusts her, even if they're not romantically into each other (i.e. married for the benefits type deal). However, he's 100% into Scott/they've got a romantic thing going on. Meanwhile, Patty and Scott are sitting there together like: Screwing Henry?

Y'know, classic qpr/throuple shit.

More of a...

Patty and Henry aren't in love with each other, but they do love each other dearly, and they could absolutely keep each other happy, iykwim, even if the attraction isn't there (it's a nuanced approach to attraction vs "i'll bite, we can make it work"). Patty's not opposed to sharing Henry with Scott, especially since they're clearly over the moon for each other/she grew up being good friends with Scott and likes him well enough anyway.

...type deal.

She's not in love with Henry, she got over her puppy crush on him a long time ago, but she also knows they have a mutual respect/deep bond (they were in the Hawkins High trenches together) that means she's going to have a happy, loving home. Henry's still serving Kinsey 7 when it comes to attraction, absolutely, but what's he going to do? Turn down a really good situation that comes with tax benefits, a qpr/fwb housemate, and a break from the gay allegations? And honestly, what other lady could possibly be a better fit for this than Patty, who already knows everything off-putting that there is to know about him and loves him anyway? (Also. Henry's absolutely the "wife" here. Patty's holding the reins in this household. Mark my words: that man is not dominant)

Thus: "I'm Patty, and this is my quasi-wife Henry, and his all-but-legal husband Scott, who's a good friend of mine".

I'm also not one to slip into gold-star mindsets, because once you start getting into "what makes someone a real homosexual/what are real homosexuals 'allowed' to do in the bedroom" debates, you start down a slippery slope into bioessentialism/trying to define what it means to be a "real" man or a "real" woman in regard to who's "allowed" to sleep with whom while still being a "real" homosexual. That ends up with us trying to force people into neat little boxes, which is coincidentally something that Henry as a character is entirely opposed to (but that's a tangential conversation).

tl;dr: Do I ship Creelby as a canon endgame couple? No.

Do I think it's fun to make up stories with Creelby-Creelarke like weird Barbie and her two Kens from the Barbie movie? Yes.

Telling my non-ST friends this was the Creelby-Creelarke household:

[phoenix-positivity]

10 April 2024

When I made this blog I was questioning it very much. I was very torn on whether it would be beneficial for me. In the past I have had many many blogs. Blogs that got terminated for good reason. Some blogs live on in eternity with their posts still being reblogged. I had blogs that one could consider pro-ed and pro-sh. Or rather 'not pro, just for me' which can be considered the same thing honestly.

I also had many a recovery blog in between relapse. I posted a lot of content on both depending on where I was in my journey. Yes, I have taken many pictures of my sh and shared it with strangers. If you ask me why I did that, well, in a way it was an art for me. In a way it was just the way I expressed my pain. In my eyes back then, as a sh addict who really needed sh to keep going in life, I felt like my sh was comparable to smoking a cigarette. I advocated a lot to get rid of the taboo around sh. I did a lot of research on it. The many different reasons why people turn to it. What about it makes people addicted to it. I really explored it in depth. Of course my ultimate goal as an sh addict was to be able to keep doing it without people trying to get me to stop. It wasn't much a noble goal. My sh addiction really ruled my life for quite a while. Until it didn't anymore. After many attempts to stay clean, I finally managed to go without it. I've recently passed the 8 year mark, and will hopefully continue on for the rest of my lifetime to stay clean.

Do I regret making those blogs? I do. The biggest reason for my regret is that my pictures were inspiration for others to keep their sh going. I hope I never inspired someone to start sh, but I know I have in at least two cases. That was never my intention. But the way sh works is that when you show visuals of it, or even talk about it to vulnerable people, they will get ideas to try doing it. It's logical. If someone is desperate for a sense of relief and you let them know others have achieved a form of relief by doing something bad. Those desperate people don't care if it's bad, they just want to try and achieve that relief. This is partly how I even ended up with my sh addiction in the first place. I already did forms of sh, but I wasn't aware of other ways existing until people told me not to start doing those too. This inspired me to try those ways as well. I would have likely never done that otherwise.

This is especially true for my eds. While I struggled with eating already, I would have never been able to think up the complex ed behaviors by myself. Those were all copied and inspired by other people's ed thoughts and behaviors. I watched documentaries just for more tips. This is why I believe this topic is also really vulnerable to be discussed and it's difficult to bring awareness to without potentially inspiring someone or fueling their early developing ed. I recovered and relapsed with my eds many times in different ways. It's still something I have to be mindful of because the road to relapse is a slippery slope you can easily fall down. One thing that really inspired and motivated me to recover was, ironically, some pretty dark places on the web where people share all details about their disordered behavior. Seeing especially the much older people struggling and still trapped and seeing how absolutely miserable they were. It made me realize just how absolutely miserable I was. I can't quite explain just how truly truly miserable. My body was dying because of me and I could feel it. I recovered with the help of mostly the book called 'Wanneer kap jij ermee? - Isabelle Plasmeijer'. But also help from others, creating a sort of psych ward like setting at home where I was being monitored. It took a lot of work to recover but I think I've done a pretty great job by myself (and those that helped me). Looking back at it now I think I haven't given myself nearly enough credit. I really just revived myself. Also great great shoutout to Ro Mitchell on youtube. I really recovered side by side as she went through her journey. I would put her videos on with every meal. (I don't watch her anymore now as I consider that to be triggering for me)

Anyway, what led me to type this is. I worried so much that my blog would be yet another festering pit of just pure destructive habits. Instead it actually turned out to be a really healthy coping mechanism. I believe venting feelings and pain is incredibly helpful. Doing so while creating a sense of community can feel so healing because you are not alone in your feelings. I do have a boundary for myself in place that I do not follow any blogs that post vents or traumacore. I only go through those type of blogs and tags when I need to express emotions I am already feeling. This means I get to protect my precious vulnerable mind from unexpected triggers and negative emotions. My dashboard on tumblr really is a collection of uplifting, motivating, validating, comforting, soothing, enjoyable content.

I think that expressing pain in an online space in a healthy way is possible. It's important that it's done safely, by not hurting oneself or others. Providing the right content warnings so people can be warned or filter it out. Not tagging it with things that are not related to it so that people don't suddenly see disturbing content in otherwise safe places. and taking care of yourself as a user to really use the features that allow you to blacklist words and themes. Blocking users that post upsetting content or that just trigger you for one reason or another. Turning off anon if you get a lot of upsetting messages. Knowing not to browse certain tags when you are already triggered. Knowing which tags to just never browse, period, not even when happy or stable. Taking note of your boundaries. Not triggering yourself on purpose as a way of sh. There's a lot that can be done to make it safe to vent.

I'm quite glad I made this blog. It has indirectly given me friendships that I'm very thankful for.

[duck-in-a-thrift-store]

Getting on my soapbox for a moment, topic being, uhhhh... religious influence on education and bodily autonomy? Smthn like that idk

(This ended up being really long, so, more below the cut)

My parents put my little sister in homeschool as soon as I graduated, which like, i WoNdEr WhY (it's me hi I'm the problem it's me)

And the program/co-op thing she's involved in is christian-based bc my folks are unfortunately conservative christians who think it's a good idea to bias their child's entire understanding of the world through their religious beliefs

So my sis was telling me about her health textbook the other day, and how it was kinda weird? Like, they have a unit on I guess dating and sex type stuff, but this textbook has some interesting opinions

Such as, suggesting kids (not like little kids we're talking about high schoolers here) avoid hugging their partner because it supposedly might turn them on??

And, ok, to be honest I have absolutely no idea how realistic that is, it sounds pretty silly to me, but like even if that totally is a thing that happens to people... who cares, right?

But no, obviously that would be just disastrous because we can't have anyone tempted to do something totally crazy like having sex before marriage, god forbid

And there's just that sort of "no touching" purity culture bullshit and it really pisses me off, especially as someone who was also raised in that mentality, and I was just lowkey flabbergasted by the ridiculousness and audacity of a health textbook to tell kids not to hug someone they're dating bc it might lead to premarital sex, and I basically said as much, smthn along the lines of "imagine sexualizing hugs" to my dad, trying to get him on my side I guess, but that isn't how it went

Let me preface this with: I love my dad. I do. And he has really been making progress in terms of letting me be me and still supporting me even though our views don't always align. But my dad can also be petty, and he's a very touchy-feely person and I'm very much not, at least with most people including him. We have a little bit of history of him trying to hug me, me rejecting it, and him getting butt-hurt over it. So there's your rant-relevant context I guess

So when I half-jokingly say "imagine sexualizing hugs," he shoots back with "imagine being uncomfortable with hugs" in like, a targeted mocking way, like that in any way makes sense to use as an insult toward your own child or anyone for that matter

I didn't have the presence of mind or energy to really unpack that in the moment so I kinda just went "bruh did you really just-" made some joke like "well gee sorry for being autistic" (which yeah that's part of it too) and dropped the conversation

But like.... does he really not see the irony?

One of the major reasons I'm not comfortable with hugs and touch in general is literally BECAUSE of how it's been sexualized, like, that's kinda the whole point?

Of course I'm not going to want to hug you, my father, when there are voices in my upbringing suggesting that touching people is sexual, duh

Like it's literally so obvious to me how the two lines of thought are inextricably linked and how this sort of ideology can fuck someone up because, hello, living proof right here dude, so let's maybe NOT teach the same shit to your younger child?

Yeah you're right I'm not comfortable with hugs and that's kinda sad but I'm trying to get you to see that part of why that is is because of the same idiocy you're letting someone preach to your daughter, so if you don't want us both to be like me,,, maybe don't do that

To the kids and anyone else who needs to hear it, when how and why you touch another person should be up to you and that person and no one else. If you want to hug someone and they vibe with that then hug them, please don't let some bible-thumping freaks tell you it's a slippery slope to sin or whatever. Your body is your own and you make the decisions about what to do with it. That is one of your most basic, most fundamental, most bar-on-the-floor rights as a human being. Anyone who tries to guilt you about something like this is trying to control you and you should be wary of them

Me personally, I just find it interesting how society is so set on calling drag queens and queer people groomers when there are literally religious teachers out here manipulating children into not having bodily autonomy

What's up with that?

[blysse-and-blunder]

In lieu of a commonplace book

it’s after midnight when I’m posting this so, on a technicality,

monday, sept 9, 2024

reading getting so so close to the end of the blacktongue thief by christopher buehlman, and it’s not like I’m not enjoying it — I am, I am— but between the length of time I have to wait each time my libby hold expires, it’s been months and I’m eager to know how things end. i like the narrative voice, and the many details that smack of not medieval but early modern europe— it gives strong post-Thirty Years War vibes, to me. there’s a gruesomeness which seems not out of place, adds to the atmosphere, but also has prepared me for things to End Badly. but since i think this is the first book in a series, I don’t expect there to be any resolution yet.

watching finished season 2 of the bear. I genuinely loved that last episode, so much, the walk-in thing felt so appropriate and the fact that things did go wrong but not insurmountably, until that very last. fucking. minute. and of course it couldn’t have gone any other way but. i can’t decide if it feels too contrived.

listening started d20’s first season of misfits and magic today, to get ready for the new one! i am a little torn at the moment because i have said before that media that is explicitly, openly trying to do harry potter But Not, and Better usually annoys me (it’s almost always so smug), and i felt the stirrings of that here too, but i have a deep well of good will for aabria and everyone at the table, and i’m open to them using this foundation as a way to say something new.

playing dipped back in to Pentiment, which goes a lot faster when i’m just playing alone (but isn’t quiet as fun—clicking around trying to find clues when it’s just you feels like it drags a little more, especially when you’re moving around the map a lot). there’s a lot more game here than i thought, which is nice. pictured: local villagers in this act of the game enjoying a merry st john’s eve bonfire.

making a dear friend gave me an origami kit a little while ago, based on the idea of my artificer d&d character tinkering with it, so: crane. turns out focusing on something delicate and precise and non-screen based is good for my stress levels, who could have predicted. hoping this leads me down a slippery slope of actually using the many other delightful craft project materials i have either collected or been given.

working on many hours this week spent on getting my course set up, with website pages, the first few assignments, the first few weeks of readings, oh and leading the first class. I barely had slides and talking points ready for after we got through the syllabus, and i can tell that, as much as i don’t want this to be a lecture course, I’m going to feel like this deep insecurity unless i make slides every week. hopefully the library visits and field trips and hands on workshops and students leading discussion will help abate that somewhat, but i still need to find ways to plan out my talking points and exercises.

also have been. neglecting all writing projects, badly, but at least spent most of today thinking a lot (in the background) about revisions on my article and maybe (?) coming up with a workable new direction.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: James Esses

Published: Nov 1, 2023

Last weekend, I was privileged to speak at the Battle of Ideas in Westminster, debating some of the biggest issues facing society. Below is a transcript of the opening speech I gave on the ‘Politicisation of Therapy’:

“The entire basis of psychotherapy and counselling is built upon the foundations of empathy, active listening, non-judgement and crucially, treating the client sat opposite you as an individual.

However, over recent years we have witnessed a new breed of therapists take over. I say ‘therapists’ but it would be more accurate to describe them as ‘activists’.

They, through a blend of identity politics and postmodernism, have chipped away at the core, ethical principles of psychotherapy and risk doing harm to the clients they are meant to serve as a result.

I would like to illustrate this through a few examples.

You may have heard the names B.F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Fritz Perls or Carl Rogers. Considered by many to be the forefathers of psychology and psychotherapy. Although coming at the human condition from different angles, with their respectful modalities often in disagreement with one another, their influence is beyond doubt.

Well, increasingly, I hear of therapists and therapeutic bodies writing both them and their work off, on the basis that they are a bunch of “dead, old, white, men”. I wish I could say I was joking. Some training institutions are even renaming rooms formerly named after these individuals or removing them from the syllabus altogether for that very reason.

This is shocking. If these individuals were influential (which they were) and have something to teach us (which they do), it is utterly irrelevant what their sex was, or their skin colour, or whether they are no longer alive.

These foundational modalities of therapy have instead been replaced with a form of identity politics.

I have spoken to clients whose therapists have chastised them for the way they voted in the Brexit referendum. I have spoken to clients who were essentially told by their therapists that they were ‘privileged’, suggesting maybe they had nothing to complain about. I have spoken to clients whose therapist made a point in the very first session of commenting on their client’s skin colour.

All of this goes against the therapeutic principle of ‘bracketing’, in which therapists should attempt to set aside their own personal beliefs, convictions and judgements when it comes to meeting the client sat opposite them.

We have witnessed this more clearly than anywhere else through the infiltration of gender ideology. Gender dysphoria, the debilitating mismatch between one’s sex and one’s identity is a mental health condition. Yet, it is the only mental health condition that is currently treated by affirming the distressing thoughts inside someone’s head or encouraging them to physically change their body. The treatment for anorexia is not liposuction.

Such unconditional affirmation flies in the face of the notion of exploration – a bedrock of psychotherapy. It turns therapists into nothing more than robotic, nodding dogs, unable to explore or indeed challenge what their client is saying to them.

As we have, unfortunately, come to learn, including through the demise of the now-disgraced Tavistock Clinic, the road to medical transition is paved with significant risk and irreversible harm. More and more young people have been left scarred, physically and emotionally, left infertile or robbed of healthy body parts they can never get back. Many have told me that they wish their therapists had challenged them at the time, rather than affirming them down this slippery slope. The stakes could not be higher.

The battle lines have been clearly drawn. Such ideologically minded-therapists virtue signal their allegiance to the cause to prospective clients, through the placing of pronouns in their online biography or using terms such as “lived experience” or “LGBTQ+”. Those who dare to speak out against this, as I and my group, Thoughtful Therapists have, are branded ‘conversion therapists’, with many being hauled through kangaroo disciplinary processes or excommunicated altogether.

In 2021, I was 3-years into a 5-year masters’ degree in psychotherapy, on the cusp of setting up a private practice. I began to speak out about the infiltration of ideology into therapy, even writing a petition to the government asking them to safeguard explorative therapy for vulnerable children. One Thursday in May, I received an email from my training institution, the Metanoia Institute, telling me I was expelled with immediate effect. The grounds were that I brought them into disrepute. I was provided with no evidence, no policies, no hearing, no appeal. They publicised my expulsion on social media. For daring to speak out in support of biological reality and child safeguarding I was treated, according to their policies, with the same measure they might use against a student who had sexually assaulted a colleague on campus. I’m currently embroiled in litigation against them and the UK Council for Psychotherapy, on the grounds of discrimination.

One final anecdote – I was asked to give a talk to a therapeutic body last year. A large number of the membership were so triggered by my attendance that they tried to get it cancelled and when that didn’t work they set up an emergency “safe space” on site for after I had spoken. Remember, these are the therapists, not the clients. That so many therapists felt unable to have a discussion with me, let alone be physically present in a building at which I was speaking, made me worry about the impact of both their fragility and dogmatic ideological beliefs on their clients.

It appears that, far from alleviating mental distress, as therapists were created to do, the modern breed of therapists are in fact exacerbating it. This should terrify us all.”