#terrified that one day i will turn on them and call them out and publicly drag them theough the mud.

[alyakthedorklord]

Chiroptophobia: the Fear of Bats.

Bruce Wayne is Scared of Bats. This is a Canon Fact.

In a difference from canon, Batman pretends to actually BE a bat man.

(Again, “Loading and Aspect Ratio” by JUBE514 situation with fake wings. Please go read it I love it so much.)

Bruce turns himself into a physical manifestation of his personal worst nightmares, and sets out to be a street cryptid. People see him flinching from bright lights and loud noises (he hasn’t slept in three days and he really hates guns) twitching weirdly (testing his wings function/stimming) not fully understanding human social niceties (you cannot tell me this man isn't Autistic) and, duh, wings, and go ah yes this being is Inhuman.

However, people KNOW Brucie Wayne™ is petrified of bats. There was an incident at a party when one flew through a window, another at a zoo, there was this one time Manbat showed up and he practically teleported away. No one saw him for a whole month, even after Batman had captured Manbat. (He got injured in the fight.)

By extension, this means that Bruce Wayne is afraid of Batman. Just- absolutely terrified of him. No ones seen them in the same place. Ever. Bruce Wayne actually publicly refuses to even believe in the cryptid for YEARS past when he's already been proven to exist.

When the Justice League gets called in to protect Bruce and his smattering of children from some plot (batman conspicuously absent, despite Gotham being his territory) Bruce straight up tells the league that he doesn’t believe in Batman, and he feels much safer with “real heroes” rather than “a urban legend spawned from overdramatic furries and gang wars.”

The justice league is, obviously, confused.

Certified little shits Dick, Jason, and Tim, (because we’re going with JUBE514’s canon and jason doesn’t die they’re all brothers f off-)

ANYWAYS: Certified Little Shits Dick, Jason, and Tim, ready for chaos/solidifying secret identities: “Don’t worry! We believe in batman! We saw him!” :D

They then proceed to tell the justice league that Bruce HAS met Batman, but he has a phobia of bats, so when Batman saved them at a gala Bruce screamed so loud and shrill he threw off the bat-hearing and then punched batman in the face so hard he knocked him out cold, grabbed then-baby Jason and ran. (Nightwing and the second Robin had to HEROICALLY rescue a dazed Batman, Dick saw it with his own eyes!)

Bruce was so scared of the bat coming to take revenge that he jumped at every shadow for a whole month. Why, Jason, (who was younger then) had slept in Bruce's bed to keep him safe! (Dick is crooning about his cute little brother. Jason, who is hitting his growth spurt and not a little kid anymore, is infinitely embarrassed.) Right now, Brucie has settled into firmly denying Batman’s entire existence so that he can sleep soundly at night.

“Why is he so scared of bats?” The Justice League is wondering. Oh, they are so glad they asked!

“Alfred told us a story once,” Dick says, eyes wide and innocent as he prepares to lie through his fucking teeth, “that when Bruce was little, really little, he got trapped in a cave filled with bats, and his dad had to come rescue him. Apparently, Little Bruce had been crying about a massive bat, even bigger than he was, with glowing red eyes and human hands and (gasp) wait oh my goodness gracious what if that was the BATMAN :0”

“The baby batman.” Jadon adds.

“Batboy?” Tim wonders.

“Alfred, do you think Bruce met Batman when they were little?” Dick asks.

“I believe,” Alfred “the greatest enabler” Pennyworth hums, offering fresh baked scones to thier gleeful audience, “that Master Bruce referred to what he saw as ‘the bat king’ and reported seeing him outside his window several times over the years.”

“Maybe it really was him! Will you ask Batman for us?” Tim asks, already planning to hack the watchtower cameras and set up some popcorn with his brothers.

The Justice League, who have learned more about the Batman in one conversation than they have over MANY years of working together, tell the Wayne children that it will be their Genuine Pleasure to quiz batman on his interactions with BRUCIE WAYNE who has, apparently, laid batman out cold with one punch.

Alfred adds on that he personally thinks the Batman is being rather courteous to Master Bruce, as “bat king” sightings were after “difficult times” and he doesn’t come near the manor otherwise, as robin had been the one to return some family heirlooms that one time they were stolen. He calls the batman and his robins “polite young gentlemen” and then leaves.

But now the gears are turning in the justice leagues heads. Batman? Courteous? Polite? Batman is not Courteous or Polite. Not unless something else is going on.

Now. From their point of view. Batman lives in the cave systems under the richest houses in Gotham, Phantom of the Opera style, hiding his meta form (because this batman is playing cryptid really well. Maybe he was a mutant baby of some Rich Gothamites, who threw him into the caves in shame!) He’s been watching Bruce Wayne, likely as he struggled with the highly reported on demise of his parents, seeing the effects that crime had on the boy that fell into his cave all those years ago. Batman has always been so protective of children, so hateful of guns, obviously the Wayne tragedy is part of what motivates him. He loves Gotham dearly, territorial of it to the point of keeping other heroes out, and yet he breaks that rule here, for Gotham's prince, solely for Bruce’s comfort.

Bruce, another person who obviously loves the city of Gotham just as much, putting millions into charity and relief efforts. Who is clearly very protective of his children, even if he usually has no spine, to the point of attacking his greatest fear to keep then safe, and good enough to land a hit, even. (Bruce Wayne is also considerably attractive.)

Its all so clear to the Justice League: Batman is madly in love with Bruce Wayne. Has been for years. To the point of watching him sleep, on occasion. How very tragic! Batman, in love with someone he can never be with! Not only would it paint a massive target on Bruce’s back if they ever did get together- there’s no questioning what Gotham villains would do if they discovered this, (and denying himself love out of an attempt to keep others safe is EXACTLY the kind of self-sacrificing nonsense Batman would pull) But Batman can’t even truly see the man he’s in love with without Brucie running away in terror! Well, the poor guy… how sad…

This conclusion can be supported by the following evidence-

Batman being the one to catch the guy who put the hit out on Bruce. He sent them to babysit/make sure Bruce was safe while dealt with the actual threat. (Bruce had a suspiciously long bathroom break/a nap)

Batman’s first appearance being right after Bruce Wayne returned to Gotham. Was the bat following him to protect him in those missing years? Or maybe he decided to clean up the city now that his beloved had returned?

Batman always being seen near where Bruce is. He’s never once been at the watchtower when Bruce has a public appearance- he must be watching over him, a silent guardian in case someone gets it in their head to kidnap Gotham’s Prince.

Batman insisting that Bruce is innocent in a corporate scheme, despite evidence to the contrary. (Hes right in the end, of course, but they’ve never seen him ignore evidence so clear.)

Batman casually referencing Wayne Tech/Foundation inner workings- he keeps an eye on them, of course. (If he can’t be close to the object of his affections, the league reasons, of course he’d make sure that Bruce’s company and projects are on the right track)

Nightwing, when asked, confirms the Bruce Punching Batman story. He says “honestly I think B was impressed! Caught him off guard!” (Since when does Batman lower his guard? Only when he’d be… distracted, perhaps…)

Superman saves Bruce, who thanks him with a kiss on the cheek. Later, justice league was teasing Clark, batman huffs and leaves the room. He’s CLEARLY jealous! Superman feels just awful!

Batman inexplicably knowing social dances/high society manners- he must have learned by watching (stalking) bruce! He can navigate high profile talk if he wants to, he just doesn’t want to most of the time. but if the situation calls for it he can talk like the Richest of Pricks in a way that only comes with observation.

Batman bristling when some of the league members start making Comments on Brucie Wayne’s Physical Attributes. (Jealousy? Defensiveness? Perhaps… embarrassment at GL’s detailed explanation on what he’d do with a chance in bed with Brucie.)

Batman absolutely freezing up when confronted with any of the above evidence. (He’s trying SO HARD not to laugh/go tell his kids)

Dick/Jason being big enough to wear the Bat-wings rather than thier own and be convincing- they save Bruce, though the man passes out (from fear? Blood loss from an injury? Perhaps- he is faking) and Dick/Jason, either out of genuine concern for their dad or general “how can i stir the pot” chaos, gently strokes his hair away from his face in an act of compassion that the cameras just so happen to catch. (There’s a few tears shed in the justice league- poor batman! He can’t be with his love!)

The robins (in both identities) telling the justice league that they've seen batman watching him.

“oh yeah he does background checks on aaaaaall bruces conquests. Had a conniption when brucie found a mafia boss that one time.”

“And when he found out Bruce and Two-face had a fling!”

(The league notes that often, if a criminal gets too close to Brucie, they’re put away not long after. B is usually collecting evidence in his civilian ID. But it looks like angry Batman wanted them to get the hell away from his mans.)

The Justice League is swooning over this tragic, forbidden love story. Batman is a little creepy but hey. He apparently grew up in a cave system. Its a wonder he's as well adjusted as he is. Batman has their sympathy, he seems less unflappable/untouchable, they’re a little more understanding with him now. Superman is all too happy to be a rebound, if needed. There are magic users offering glamour spells. Green Lantern is making exposure therapy innuendos.

The robins can’t believe how lucky they got. They’re def grounded but B can’t be too mad bc his secret identity is FUKIN SET.

Alfred is rather proud of Batman's new nickname in the league being “the bat king” and keeps sending batman along with cookies. The league thinks Batman is checking up on bruce with his butler. Its a mess.

Eventually, Batman loses a bet to one of his kids. Committing to the Bit with an exasperated sigh (he’s definitely not having fun, shut up jason.)

He admits to his crush.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I start giving some very *very* Christian family members religious pamphlets from non-Christian religions as gifts?

To be clear, I am writing this while firmly believing I'm NTA but I am angry and don't trust my own judgment too much right now.

Background and Players: My Son (19) was adopted out as a baby by his incubator behind (my husband, 40) his father's back. He was abandoned at 4 by his adopted family because of behavioral issues related to what his incubator was putting into her body while she was pregnant with him, and went into foster care with people I will call Amom and Adad. Adad is a pastor in his 90s and Amom is a pastor's wife in her 80s. When Son was 13 and I had been with Husband for 5ish years, we had been told (by someone from his incubator's family but we didn't know that at the time) he was non-verbal and "mentally an infant" and that trying to pull him out of the routine he had would just be incredibly harmful to him, so we had given up hope of finding him and having a relationship with him. We got a phone call one day, a worker who was looking for a medical history for Son. Husband spent close to 3 hours on the phone with her, answering questions and asking anything he could squeeze in. Turns out, we had been lied to about his mental health just... completely. He's impossible to shut up and he graduated high school last year despite, you know, *gestures vaguely at everything* and I am incredibly proud of him. Half an hour after that call ended, she called back and told us Son might be interested in meeting us, was it okay for her to pass on our contact info. A month later, Son, Amom, Adad, Husband and I were sitting in a restaurant together and a month after that we went to their place for a week to spend Christmas with them. This is when they informed us that they had finalized his legal adoption a couple of weeks earlier. 2 years after that, my QPP moved in with us, and another year later 16 year old Son asked if he could move in with us. He still does.

The Issue: Son wants a continuing relationship with Amom and Adad, but due to the previously mentioned substances used by his incubator, he has memory and time management issues so I have to regularly remind him to contact them. I have no problem doing this, but the contact we have had with them over the last few years has soured me on their company. I've got no problem reminding Son to contact them and organizing rides for him to visit (usually QPP and I driving him, the trip is a couple of hours each way) but I'd rather never speak to them myself if it can be avoided. It didn't start out this way, but over the years they have made it very clear that they don't respect anyone else's beliefs. Not just us, like there was one night where they were going off about some Danish surgeon saying publicly that he was Muslim first, Danish second, and they were trying to convince us to be terrified by that. The conversation ended awkwardly when Husband asked if Adad was Nationality or Christian first (because that's different you see). We have found books on the bookshelves in the guest room about how any kind of queerness at all is demonic possession, one of which they wrote. They talk about things like being sent on a mission by their god to save as many (and I hate that these are quotes) "brown heathen children" by making them Christians as possible (Son and his adopted siblings are all First Nations, Amom and Adad are as white as I am), or how Jewish people are evil for stopping Christians from claiming their suffering because "Jesus was a Jew so aren't all Christians also Jews?". Amom once spent a week trying to convince me to go to church with her and share the details of my childhood sexual abuse with the entire congregation because "it will show God you are ready to be forgiven". QPP is a shintoist and after they found that out, we started seeing more literature about the Japanese, specifically during WWII, around their house when we visited.

We have politely made it clear that we are not interested in Christianity, especially not their version. Multiple times. We thought it was finally over after Son had a meltdown at them at his graduation ceremony because he wanted JUST ONE conversation with them that wasn't about Jesus. He was in tears trying to explain that to them, and their response was to tell him he needed to come back to church so they could lay on hands and chase all the demons making him say these horrible disrespectful things to them out of him. He was supposed to stay with them for a few days to visit after that, but by the time I tracked him down and got him calm, he didn't want to go anymore. They seemed to stop after that, like they actually backed off and I think I got maybe 2 emails that didn't mention God or Jesus, not even a "God bless" in the sign off. We were optimistic. Son was late organizing it but we dropped him off (at his request, he's worried that Adad won't make it to next Christmas and wanted to see him) at their place on Boxing Day. We did not hang around, we did not send gifts, we didn't even reply to the Family Christmas Email (it had a video of a Jordan B Peterson rant embedded in it and I've told them before that we are not interested in anything that sack of hateful arrogance has to say please stop putting him in my inbox). We have done everything we can to make it clear that we do not want a relationship with them for ourselves, including outright directly telling them politely to their faces that we will not stop Son from seeing them but we don't feel comfortable around them and don't want a relationship with them for ourselves. Son came back with "gifts" from them - a study guide for a specific Bible book (I got John, Husband got Michael, QPP set his on fire before we saw who it was) and a bag of candy that looked like it came out of a thrift store (I got the same one they always get me, which I laughed off the first and second and third time and explained I couldn't stand them because my abuser used to give me one when he was done. Husband is diabetic and got York Patties. QPP actually got something decent though, $20 for gas).

I have managed to keep my "I'd rather you hadn't bothered actually" rantingvto Tumblr, which i don't think they even know exists, but I'm still pissed about the Bible crap as "gifts". I am considering changing tactics completely and being super friendly, mirroring their energy, and giving them the same treatment they've given us. I want to make excuses to visit so I can explain the finer points of shintoism and Celtic paganism in every single conversation. I want to give them books for gifts, books like The Tao of Pooh and The Gospel of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. I want to wrap cash in pamphlets about The Invisible Pink Unicorn and leave it on their fridge.

QPP and husband think I should give myself more time to calm down and just keep ignoring it and playing nice when I'm forced to play at all but like, IT'S BEEN 6 YEARS.

What are these acronyms?

[mothduchess]

Kitsune HRT Part 3

Doors, are fucking,

TERRIFYING.

The office was unassuming by itself, yet the details spoke behind the facade's back, hinting to a truer nature. A nick upon the doorplate, how it could be pushed easily from any point on its towering height, or how dirt prints came in more varieties than just shoes. Snap! My gaze scampered upwards. The sun gazed unflinchingly from high above gazing through its mantle of clouds; it weighed like a crown with all of its aching heat. "I wonder how it'd feel with fur," I mused, before turning my gaze back to the office's doorway. I... couldn't distract myself for long. All that research I had done, the pep talk with my friends, they made it very clear: the first visit was the worst of them all. But like anything good and necessary, it still felt larger than it was. I could feel myself take a step back for just a moment. And then I stopped. The words of the kind man from before, and his quiet push to bring me to this place, they rang in my head as a gentle bell. Thoughts of her returned to my mind - my hands unconsciously went over my heart, head rolled to the side. I started to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. In. The door gave way to a refreshing reprieve an an audience of chairs. "Barely anyone else here... suppose it *is* a work day." The few merits of unemployment aside, it did make me feel still ever so uneasy. I couldn't help it! And it wasn't just fear either. Looking to my side, I saw the wounds upon the wall, infamously left by one of the most notable patients. Those pictures were how I knew this place even existed, and now here I was caught in the wake of it all. I passed the healing plaster patch and shuffled towards the counter. A slight woman greeted me with a smile. "How can I help you?" "I'm here for... um, I think his name was Herian?" "Oh, Dr. Herian. Did you schedule a visit?" "Yes. Uh, it's under-" "Here it is. Miss Wild?" Her pleasant smile set me at ease. I simply gave a nod. "Just sit down, it won't take any time." I sat down. Names, are a tricky thing during transition. You're constantly confronted by them throughout the process. Modern society asks you what you are through your name, but what if you don't know? What if you wished you didn't need one? Right now, my appearance didn't speak for itself but already so many people just called me the truth: "Fox". It wasn't a name, but it was me. I'd gone through earlier versions; Wild was just a nickname that I enjoyed better than the one I buried states away. And maybe this one would meet the same fate. Her voice flittered upon the air. I knew the routine, and followed my part. If the front door was merely daunting, though, the door of Dr. Herian's was something *else*. Not by the door's fault. It was entirely the man inside responsible. A man no younger than 40 sat behind a heavy desk bolted to the floor gazed right through me as I came through, his gaze shielded by thick spectacles. Only wisps of hair decorated his scalp with a bush rounding the rest and sitting over his lips. Theodore Herian was the stern face of the entire program, a genius amongst his field and a veritable boogeyman to the community. Wordlessly I sat before him in the tiny chair provided, shuffling to cut a smaller figure. "Miss..." his eyes glanced at the file before him, "Wild. According to my schedule, you're here on behalf of the Humanity Removal Therapy?" "Correct." "Mh. I see. Specifically.... ah, right. Kitsune, which involves a variant of vulpinestin. We do have the medication-" Here it comes. "-but have you been living as a fox for years, now?" "For as long as I knew what thought was." "Yes sir. I've been presenting as a fox publicly for a while now, both online and in person." Physical visits were so much more stressful than the online consultations my first transition brought with it. And the questions he asked, I felt as if he was investigating the fiber of my being. Pouring water upon glass to find any sign of the slightest crack. "To be clear, what you're asking for-"

"Practically begging for." "-is the kitsune type, not the standard North American Red Fox. This comes with more than just tails. Even more so than other HRT medications, the kitsune comes with notable side effects. Illusions, fire, s..." The voice filtered out. I knew what I was getting into, and I knew to some they'd misinterpret why. 'That I just wanted the powers' or 'it'd be okay if you were just a fox'. I might be a vixen, a creature of cunning and sneering grins - but I wasn't some kind of plotting mastermind! My fingers pinched the sweatpants I came by today in with frustration twisting under the skin. The irritation ran like wax, my mouth pulled into the faint signs of an oncoming sneer. I would be a beautiful vixen even if it killed me. Not for any reason other than to ring in a new spring. "I'll do this. I'm right here. It's almost the-" "MISS. Wild.... Good. You're back. Did you hear what I said?" I gave a flustered nod, which he responded with an exasperated sigh. "Then, I would like to be the first to thank you for coming here, and to let you know - you may pick up your medication at your chosen pharmacy." He handed over a pamphlet that felt as precious as gold in my fingers. For moments, I was on autopilot. Step Step Step Step At some point I recall bidding a polite farewell to the receptionist? But my mind was a buzzing hurricane of thoughts, a whirl of actions. Petals honey gold silk cars sirens light heat skin sweat lock key ho-! My door clicked behind me, the vacancy greeting me warmly. The bag crumpled underneath my fingers. And when I heard that rattle? The light kissing the bottle and coming out changed as an amber gold nectar that seeped into the floor? I wept, and delighted sounds of a fox escaped my throat. Kitsune HRT: Week 1 OH MY GODS OH MY GODS I HAVE THE MEDICINE, AAAAAA -No changes yet. First pills, but so stoked. -Gods I felt I was going to die in that office. -Thank the fucks I do not have oh HELLS. -....I hope I end up fluffy

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[thefrogman]

On fucking up...

The house has been incredibly quiet since my dad passed. And that quiet turns into loneliness quite often for me. So last night I decided to use every spoon I had to go to the movies. I swallowed my social anxiety and went out into the world.

The theater had these recliners that sit on a raised step. But when you are actually sitting in the seat you can't see that step. Once the movie was over I forgot about the step. I got up to leave and my ankle caught it on the way down. I flew forward and crashed into the back of a row of seats.

A middle aged gentlemen saw this and said, "Gee buddy, this your first day walking?"

And the other 8 people in the theater gave a boisterous laugh.

I wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

Making a mistake feels bad.

Making a mistake in public is an embarrassing lesson in humility.

And making a mistake witnessed by 15,000 people is terrifying.

When you get something wrong and people call you out, your first instinct is to dig in. Everyone wants to dig in. Which is usually the worst possible reaction. You want to defend yourself. You don't want to believe you were wrong. And you start spewing out reasons why you can't be wrong. I think the current vernacular calls this "tweeting through it."

Over the years I have tried very hard to fight that instinct to dig in. To consider what people have said and recheck my facts to see if my original information could be inaccurate. And sometimes you find out you were right and strengthen your point of view.

But when you find out you were duped or misunderstood the information, there is nothing quite like that sinking feeling.

And when you are wrong in front of 15,000 people... that sinking feeling goes to the center of the earth.

You get sucked into a thought spiral...

"How do I fix this? Do I send a message to all 15,000 people? Do I just post a video of me repeatedly punching myself in the face? Do I delete the post? No, can't delete the post, people will think you are trying to hide your mistake. Plus all those reblogs."

You have to accept the fact that even if you publicly admit you were wrong, a lot of those people are never going to see it. They are going to believe the thing and possibly spread it to others.

You've created a runaway freight train and you just have to watch it crash into stuff.

The sad thing is I have learned this lesson a few times in my 10+ years of being a minor public figure. It has caused me to be so paranoid about passing along bad information that I will fact check things to death. Sometimes 5 or 6 sources. I'll look at reputable sources and disreputable sources. And I'll try to corroborate those disreputable sources just as an exercise to give me confidence I have the best information at that time.

But the other night I finished watching John Wick 4 and was high on action juice. I started watching every John Wick video on YouTube. My history shows about 40 videos. And at 2 or 3am I heard the director being hyperbolic in a podcast clip and thought a fun fact was too great not to share.

I thought, "I'm not telling people to eat horse paste for COVID. I'm not pretending I'm a submarine expert who knows exactly how to save people at the bottom of the ocean. It's just a flippy gun maneuver. I'm sure Chad knows what he is talking about."

So I posted the thing on my personal blog with sleep in my eyes and figured it was fine. And after 500 notes no one had really said anything, so I thought it was okay to share on my main blog.

And that was my biggest mistake. I deemed the subject matter to be trivial so I lowered my standards.

I forgot that damn step was there and flew into the seats.

There are dishonest people on the internet. Tons of them. People who will post dangerous misinformation without a care. People who have a pattern of lying. Grifters who thrive on baiting people for clicks. And I think it has caused us to react to bad information with hostility by default. People forget that there are still honest people who just make a mistake or get duped. Yet they can still feel the need to make people feel stupid for believing something that seems so obvious to them.

I have been guilty of this myself. I have called people out forgetting they are a human being behind that social media avatar.

The first person to call me out just said, "This is not true, LMFAO."

That's not helpful.

People made me feel like I was a liar. And I am very sensitive to that. For years doctors, family, and friends were skeptical of my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. And when someone accuses me of being dishonest, I get very anxious and see red.

But I tried very hard not to dig in. I asked for more information--for evidence. Just point me in a direction so I can figure out what's true. But I got angry when all they said was that I was wrong without elaboration. Which is another form of digging in.

I guess I'm asking people to start with compassion before hostility. Maybe if we don't know the person or they have been a mostly reliable source, we can give people a chance. If the person has a history of deception, that's a different story. Bad faith is usually pretty easy to spot.

I remember for a long time I used to love telling people their blood was blue until it was exposed to oxygen. It was just the funnest fun fact I had ever heard and I *needed* others to know the thing I knew. Giving people knowledge can be intoxicating. But then I told my good friend who just became a medical resident and he was like, "I don't remember that in medical school. I think that might be an urban legend."

I still got that sinking feeling and I still had flashbacks to every person I told... but I was grateful he was so kind when he corrected me.

You can correct someone with kindness.

I'd ask that you imagine yourself in their shoes. Think about how embarrassing it is when you get something wrong. And just be like, "Hey, I think you got some bad information. Here's why."

When someone faceplants into a row of seats, metaphorically or otherwise, maybe ask if they are okay before laughing at them.

[simplepotatofarmer]

Blog Update:

Hi, it's me, Loyal.

I just want to say first and foremost, I really do love (parts of) the fandom and I'm not going anywhere.

I will, however, not be around as much. One, I'm about to enter an all day intensive treatment plan so I'll literally just be on in the evening. Two, as much as I'm going to keep writing and creating, I have no intention of interacting publicly with fandom as much as I have.

I can't. It's actually fucking insane that it's gotten to this point. I made tribute post and because I used lyrics from Dream's song, I got harassed. The people doing this, acting like this, thinking this way are insane.

So in case it's not clear: Based on my personal lived experience and some information that's come to light, I still enjoy Dream's content. You can approach me personally, off anon, if you want to know my reasoning. If you dislike me for this, that's fine. But I'm done trying to walk this fine line just so I don't get people threatening me, my kids, and my pets. Just so people stop sending me the city I live in, so they stop digging up twelve year old tweets, so they stop calling me slurs and suicide baiting me.

That's absolutely insane. It's horrible. It's disgusting and I was honestly just sitting here, taking it, because I'm terrified of upsetting people and losing friends if I say 'yeah, I'm excited for a new manhunt and I also this song helped me and my kids process my grief'. And the worst part is, it's not an unfounded fear. People have done the most vile shit to me. People I thought were friends jumped on me instead of those harassing me.

I just want to post about Techno and c!Rivals duo and not worry about whether or not this post is going to get me hate. I don't want to worry about how random discord servers are talking about me.

Because that's fucking batshit. Not the worrying, but what these people are doing and I'm tired of letting this effect me. I have enough going on in my personal life. My partner of 15 years almost died. We almost lost our house. I should be able to come online and post about the silly minecraft guys I like and their RP and lore without censoring myself out of fear of literally being doxxed and cyber stalked. I should be able to talk about the racism that effects me without being afraid people will make it about cc drama or calling me slurs or erasing my identity as an Ojibwe person.

The people doing this are the problem. It hurts that so many people are part of this, it really does. But I can't keep letting it get to me. I've always done my best to be kind. I haven't been perfect, especially not lately, because all this hate and stress has gotten to me. I've lashed out. I shouldn't have.

And I shouldn't have had to deal with all that shit in the first place. I hope no one else does. It's terrifying and draining and I'm done.

So I intend to post the things I enjoy, I intend to reblog my friends' art, write the Emerald duo and Rivals duo fics I want to. I want to post about the Syndicate and the new manhunt when it comes out. That's what I'm going to do.

Asks are staying off for the moment because people are too happy to make burner blogs but I'll probably turn them back on at some point as I love answering lore and headcanon questions and, again, it's fucked up I can't enjoy an aspect of the site and fandom because people can't just leave me alone.

To those people: Get help. You're harassing someone because you think they deserve it and that's the most fucked up thing.

To everyone else: So so many of you have been amazing. You've been supportive, you've been kind. That kindness and support speaks volumes and I love you all. I genuinely love you. Dreblr, you've been here for me for over a year at this point and I cannot thank you enough. You are the best part of fandom as far as I'm concerned. And to Dtblr, y'all have come to support me countless times and that means the world to me, it really does. As for all my fellow Rivals duo fans, you people are worth your weight in gold for the joy you bring. A special shout-out to @vpofcookies because you've been here since the beginning, practically, and I love you. There's more but you know who you are.

Anyway, I've been carrying this for awhile and I'm tired. I'm no longer going to give any amount of thought to the people determined to drag me down and harass me constantly.

My best advice is stop focusing on the things and people you hate and instead focus on what you love. That's what I plan to do, from here on out.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Pamela Paresky

Published: Oct 9, 2024

Jews across the world have the sense that the “universal collective” to which we thought we finally belonged has thrown us out and turned its back.

Ever since witnessing an ecstatic pro-Hamas celebration in Time Square just 24 hours after the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, I thought nothing could surprise me. Then to commemorate the one-year anniversary of those atrocities, the Guardian published an essay by Naomi Klein titled, “How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war.”

“What is the line between commemorating trauma and cynically exploiting it?” Klein asks. “Between memorialization and weaponization? What does it mean to perform collective grief when the collective is not universal, but rather tightly bound by ethnicity?”

As someone who encountered gruesome videos of Hamas’s “cynical exploitation” and “weaponization” of Israelis’ trauma exactly a year ago, watched as terrorists referred to terrified Israelis in the South — those who just happened to be most likely to oppose “settlements” — as settlers and dogs, and heard firsthand from people who witnessed livestreams of family and friends held at gunpoint, most of them murdered or taken hostage, I found the premise grotesque.

It was particularly appalling because beyond the therapeutic effect of creating artwork, the cri de cœur that motivated the art installations from Tel Aviv to American college campuses, “kidnapped�� posters across the globe, the Nova Exhibition, online maps of the massacres, and documentaries about October 7, is the denials of the trauma itself. And the feeling that since that horrific day, we have been abandoned. That we are profoundly alone. That every day in Israel is October 7th.

Given the depth of depravity of what happened that day, some Jews initially believed the world would finally stand with Israel. I didn’t. But I did think that everyone would at least condemn the atrocities. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Israel has faced obscene denialism and false accusations while young people across the globe celebrate monstrous barbarism and valorize those who perpetrated it. Jews across the world have the sense that the “universal collective” to which we thought we finally belonged has thrown us out and turned its back.

Where is the world’s outrage? Where is the world’s empathy? Where are the calls for Hamas to return our stolen souls? Where is the Red Cross? Where are the organizations and so-called allies with whom we stood, we marched, we campaigned? It’s #MeToo unless you’re a Jew.

American college students have borne the brunt of the rise in antisemitism. Days after the massacres, rapes, and kidnappings, when antisemitic student groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) used images of motorized hang-gliders to advertise their anti-Israel demonstrations, I wanted to believe that they didn’t know what really happened. When they used the same image to advertise celebrations of their “resistance” and “martyrs,” marking the one-year anniversary, they no longer had an excuse. “Happy October 7th everyone!” at least one school’s SJP posted on Instagram. They all refer to the massacres by the name the terrorists use for it, “Al Aqsa Flood.” To mark the anniversary, the openly pro-Hamas student group “Within Our Lifetime” (WOL) organized demonstrations, calling them “Students Flood NYC for Gaza.”

Last semester, Columbia University student activist Khymani James publicly declared, “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” and “be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” His anti-Zionist student group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) issued an apology for his remarks. This year, the group apologized to him for its “so-called apology,” which, they declared, “does not represent Khymani or CUAD’s values or political lines.”

That was apparent when CUAD celebrated a recent terrorist attack at a light rail station in Tel Aviv/Jaffa. Terrorists murdered 7, including the young mother of a baby, and wounded at least 16. The group referred to the horrors as a “bold attack” and a “significant act of resistance” that “reached deep into the heart of settler-colonial territory, further destabilizing the Zionist regime’s claims to security…”

Almost a year after going to the October 8 Times Square demonstration, I went back to the scene of the crime. This time, there were signs glorifying not just Hamas, but Hezbollah. There were also more activists, more keffiyehs, more police, and more of the same familiar chants calling for the eradication of Israel and the destruction of the Jewish people.

“There is only one solution: intifada revolution.” (Bonus points for harking back to the Nazi “final solution.”) “Palestine,” if they got their way, would extend “from the river to the sea,” making everything within Israel’s current borders as Jew-free as the Palestinian territories. If you thought they wanted an end to the shootings, stabbings, beheadings, suicide bombings, rapes, tortures, kidnappings, burning people alive…etc., you’re sadly mistaken. “Globalize the intifada.” “Long live the intifada.”

To hear the media tell it, though, especially when demonstrators add “ceasefire now” to their chant list, they’re “anti-war activists.”

This year, while students across the country attempted to hold anniversary vigils for the victims of October 7, terrorist-sympathizers celebrated the same events within earshot. As if that weren’t enough, anti-Zionist posters now include images of red anemones, the symbol of Israel’s South — where the atrocities happened. This is especially galling because survivors of October 7 see the red anemone as a symbol of their connection to the land. Many now have tattoos of the flower to remind themselves of resilience, possibility, and hope.

Relatedly, a chant that stood out to me as I left the Times Square anniversary celebration is “Hey hey, ho ho; Zionism has got to go.” Maybe because it seems banal compared to the others, it doesn’t get much attention. But in some ways, it’s more illuminating. We all know that for terrorists and their supporters, intimidation, harassment, and unimaginable violence is their love language. “From the river to the sea” is a threat. “Intifada” is a call to arms. But “Zionism has got to go” is something else.

Our connection to our ancient, biblical, historical, and permanent home is intolerable to those who hate the Jews. Perhaps that’s why student-jihadis now appropriate not just the date of the worst massacre of Jews in most generations’ living memory, but’ symbols too: In addition to red anemones, there seems to have been a proliferation of Anti-Zionist charms and t-shirts sporting maps of Israel.

That our connection to the land predates the birth of Mohammed, that we are the prototypical indigenous people and our presence in the land has been continuous, that we acquired the land through purchases and other legal means, that the majority of Israelis have relatives who were ethnically cleansed from Arab countries, that the only non-colonial, non-imperial sovereign power that has ever existed in that land was, and is, Jewish, and that the State of Israel came about in exactly the same way as countries that don’t face delegitimization campaigns, all puts the lie to the antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jews are “white settler-colonialist” robbers and thieves sent from Europe who stole land rightfully owned by ethnic Palestinians in 1948 — a time when there was no such designated ethnic group.

The Zionist-hating chant illustrates how antisemitic terrorists intend to take more from us than our land. They want to rob us of our hopes and dreams, too.

Maybe that’s why we always end up singing Hatikva when confronted by those who wish to destroy us — as if to say, “you might take our ability to live in peace today, but we won’t let you take our hopes and dreams.” As long as the heart within the Jewish soul yearns, and toward the East, an eye looks to Zion, our hope is not yet lost. Our hope is two thousand years old: To be a free people in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.

A day before Klein’s poisonous piece, the New York Times published a fawning article about a student-founder of WOL, one of the anti-Zionist organizations behind many of the activities that make campuses hostile to Jews. “Pro-Palestinian Group Is Relentless in Its Criticism of Israel, and It Isn’t Backing Down,” the headline reads. The goal of WOL, to be clear, is to destroy Israel“ within our lifetime.” Calling that “criticism of Israel” is like referring to the defacing of priceless artwork as “criticism of Monet.”

WOL “has galvanized pro-Palestinian activists who are calling for the end of Israel,” the subtitle reads, “and [are] facing accusations of antisemitism.” The message seems to be: Let’s be reasonable. They don’t hate Jews. They just want to destroy the home of more than half of them — the one country where Jews aren’t a minority. Can you believe they’re accused of being anti-Jewish? The poor dears.

In the past year, I noticed a chant I don’t remember hearing before. It’s in Arabic, and it means “from water to water, Palestine will be Arab.” Anyone who thought this would finally put an end to the nonsensical claim that “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” wasn’t about the destruction of Israel might be right. It seems we’re all on the same page now: It is a call for the annihilation of Israel.

But get with the program; calling for the destruction of Israel is now merely “criticism.” To quote from Dr. Strangelove: Our source is the New York Times. 

[thearchercore]

and all this comes out after that bald fraud at ferrari publicly announced it was an electronic sensor issue! i can’t remember red bull ever risking their drivers’ lives and then forcing them to lie about it 🤔

(serious question: is this something ferrari can be investigated for? because it’s terrifying to think what would happen if there was no whistleblower)

i think fred shouldn't be fully responsible for the situation, especially at ferrari there are many other people making decisions.

not sure if ferrari can be investigated for it, the information seems to be a leak from an insider (could be discussed it was leaked by charles' team for more public sympathy // pressure on ferrari), ferrari basically stated in their race report what went wrong and called it a reliability problem: "As mentioned, Charles was unable to race because of an issue on his SF-23 which cut the engine and sent him into the barriers"

they, however, did not mention what could have happened with the car he had, which the leaked information included: "After five turns during the formation lap, the electronic self-protection system detected a completely abnormal value and shut everything down. If this had not happened, if the engine had not been immediately shut down by the system, it would have exploded a few meters later"

so they basically just did not tell the whole story, which now made its way to the press. not sure if it's going to be investigated, because for these issues with cars, the self protection system worked at the end of the day and no one got in danger.

however, it's a situation to learn from and charles definitely didn't take it well and it's going to impact his future trust with his current team

[melishade]

Number 38

This ask game

Dark Timeline Epilogue

Part 28: Ending

Mikasa continued staring at the statue before her in the quiet hours of the early morning, adjusting the travel bag slung along her shoulder. It was in a rather quiet place: in the desert of Fort Salta, but the camp that was set up near the area was not too far from here. It was an hour by foot. That was nothing in comparison to the hoops she had to accomplish in order to get to this very spot from Paradis. But she did experience some unexpected kindness. Onyankopon had introduced her to the Hizuru clan, remembering information about what Yelena had told him about Mikasa being descendant from the royal bloodline. She made it clear she wanted nothing to do with that, earning a modest laugh from the new emperor: Kenshin. Someone did tell him that she was there during that battle that decided the fate of their world. Mikasa was afraid of the attention that would come with that knowledge, but Kenshin was kind to keep that information between them. But he stated he and Hizuru's survival were forever in her debt, and promised to pay her back however he could. She just asked for a ride to Fort Salta and a ride back to Paradis.

But still, the statue bothered her. It was actually some type of angel with wings, slaying a demon that was supposed to be Shockwave. They did make the demon have one eye like Shockwave did, but it didn't look nearly as terrifying as the actual titan. It wasn't even made of metal, it was human skin.

Mikasa sighed. She wasn't going to lie to herself; she still had nightmares of almost being taken by Shockwave before Eren made that dangerous bargain.

"Mikasa?" Mikasa blinked at the familiar voice calling out to her from behind. She turned and saw Optimus walking up to her and the statue. He looked better and healthier. His armor no longer looked faded or discolored. He got his proper repairs. However...Mikasa looked up to see that Optimus' right optic was now replaced with a patch.

After they had defeated Shockwave, Wheeljack and Arcee had managed to use his resources to contact Cybertron. There was initial tension between them, what with the communication signal being from a Decepticon warship, and Optimus being alive. But once Optimus picked up the Star Saber, the tension and hostility was met with relief and jubilation. The Autobots have and still help out with the repairs on this world, but Optimus was receiving medical treatment on Cybertron, and when he elected to not return publicly even after he received it, they all knew what that meant:

Optimus was tired. He had been for a long time, and losing both Eren and Megatron seemed to finally be the last straw. He elected to live peacefully despite a few pleas from his old comrades, but they ultimately respected his decision. However, He did send a letter to Hanji, promising to return for any planned reunions, and today seemed to be that day. The Autobots and the humans of Paradis still continued to repair the whole world, Paradis and the mainland, building an era of peace and healing, without the one responsible for putting an end to Shockwave's life.

"I was expecting you to be on the island," Optimus remarked.

Mikasa turned back to the statue. "I found some help to get me here."

Optimus stared at the statue, and Mikasa couldn't help but glance back to see a look of disdain on his face. Seems he also hated the statue. She looked back at the engraving at the statue and sighed. "The Battle of Hell and Earth." Seemed fitting enough.

"It's been four years since we've seen each other," Mikasa began.

"...I am sorry," Optimus apologized, "I needed time."

"Don't be," Mikasa reassured, "I didn't want to help out with rebuilding at all. It shows how selfish I am."

"Mikasa, you made an unfathomable choice," Optimus retorted, "You more than anyone needed time alone."

"Maybe, but Armin lost his friend too, yet he's still helping," Mikasa shot back.

"I think we both know that a life of diplomacy and publicity was not meant for you," Optimus declared.

Mikasa let out a small smile. "Guess so." The Ackerman then looked at the Prime. "I'm sorry."

Optimus raised an eyebrow. "For what?"

"...you did not get a chance to say goodbye to Eren," Mikasa answered, "I took that chance away from you."

Optimus noticed the sun was rising in the east and turned his attention to that. "Eren and I had many conversations prior to Shockwave's proposal. And I am proud to see how much Eren had grown."

"But you still did not get to say goodbye," Mikasa retorted.

"I know, and I mourned that loss in private," Optimus confessed, "But it seemed that Eren died without any regrets."

Mikasa remembered that. After she had decapitated Eren, his severe head just looked so at peace. Even before the impact, she saw his expression fade to peace. But...

"...you looked more heartbroken when it came down to Megatron," Mikasa couldn't help but say. It was probably out of line, but she was curious. She had noticed the way Optimus wept over him, even after he unceremoniously ripped his chest opened and ripped out a purple shard from his corpse before blasting it to dust.

"If there is an afterlife for humans, I'm certain that Eren will be rewarded for his hard work and sacrifice," Optimus explained, "I have no doubts and concerns for his well-being. Megatron is a different case. He severed his connection to the Allspark that all Cybertronians possess when he put dark energon in his body. He belonged to Unicron. I pulled it out in one last attempt to save his spark, but...it is a pitiful attempt I do not know will have worked until millions of years later when my spark returns to the Allspark."

Optimus' shoulders slumped. "I will forever live in a perpetual state of fear and anxiety, wondering if my actions to save my brother were for naught."

"But weren't the two of you enemies longer than when you were brothers?" Mikasa asked bluntly.

Optimus couldn't help but chuckle at that. "I suppose family is complicated after all."

“Do you forgive him?” Mikasa asked.

“Hm, I suppose that is a tough question,” Optimus admitted, “I am glad that I was able to say my goodbyes to him and see that he has truly change. I just wish we had more time to discuss.”

Optimus felt his spark ache as he remembered Megatron’s sad smile, dark energon leaking from his mouth. “I wish we had more time.”

Mikasa look back at the statue, the sun now reflecting off the bronze and making it shine in the early morning, but it was already beginning to rust to green. “Eren said that to me too. He wanted more time to make up for how he treated me. Not intentionally but Eren always had a one track mind. Always looking ahead.”

A seagull flapped its wings landed on the wing of the statue. “I want to see him again.”

Optimus saw silent tears streaming down Mikasa's face, prompting him to kneel down to her. He scooped up the grieving woman in his servos before holding her close to his chest. Mikasa let out more wrecked sobs, covering her face with her hands. Optimus continued to let her cry, and the woman cried until the sun was now completely over the horizon.

"Sorry." Mikasa wiped her tears, feeling ashamed for crying in his hands.

"It is alright," Optimus reassured, "You have every right to shed tears."

"I think-!" Mikasa sniffed a little, "I think we should go and see the others. They said they would be at the camp."

"If that is what you wish." Mikasa yelped when Optimus stood up, with her still in his servos. He placed her on his shoulder, and the Prime began to walk away from the statue towards the camp. Unbeknownst to them, the seagull sitting on the statue flapped its wings before jumping off the statue and flying after them.

As Optimus continued to walk, the desert ground started to show signs of life, with patches of grass coming into view. As he walked closer, the grass connected together, until the desert was now a field of grass. When they arrived at the camp, Mikasa noticed someone giving instructions on how to build a new home. The structure was actually made of wood instead of fabric.

"Armin," Mikasa realized as Armin beckoned a few people to bring the wooden beam to a particular spot. "Armin!"

The man stopped and turned around to see Optimus lowering Mikasa to the ground. Armin bolted towards Mikasa, and Mikasa ran at him at full speed. They met in the middle and embraced each other with smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes. Armin let go of Mikasa and waved to Optimus with excitement, the Prime giving a polite wave back. Optimus heard a cry of joy behind him, and turned to see Hanji riding behind Levi's wheelchair. The captain holding on for dear life while Hanji was cackling with delight. They jumped off the back of his wheelchair and ran up to Optimus, hugging his servo when he kneeled down once again. Hanji then started rambling and pointing to their own eyepatch, saying that the two of them matched. Optimus turned his attention to Levi and saw the one-eyed Ackerman smile at him. Just a little bit.

The seagull landed atop the unfinished building structure, watching intently at the sight of the reunion before it. They laughed and chatted with one another, while the others in the camp were just excited to meet Optimus for the first time. The seagull wordlessly jumped off the wooden structure and flew off into the sky.

(A few cameos here and there and a message of sorrow and hope but yeah. #45 has been asked but everything else is free game.)

[theogony]

The Jesper Fahey Foolproof guide to getting your friends to fall in love™

written for the grishaverse big bang 2023 (@grishaversebigbang)! Pleasure to work on a lighthearted fic for a change of pace ^^ thank you sm to yaalni (@bloodyrakshasi ) for betaing the fic, and please go check the absolutely stunning works of accompanying artists :)

@intrgalartic (link to art here) @bubble--berry (link to art here) @jmie-draws (link to art here) @mitraavrs (link to art here)

"Wait, no, that’s it. That’s perfect,” Jesper says, and everyone turns to look at him. “What if we use like - what’s the term - reverse psychology?” Jesper pauses, for additional appropriate gravitas (as though everyone in the table isn’t already looking at him with varying degrees of shock, horror, or scheming.)

“What if we still say it straight - but to the opposite person - tell Inej that Kaz likes him and Kaz that Inej likes him,” he finishes, triumphant.

The table quiets down, before interrupting into a series of loud whispers borderlining on shouts, before quieting down again as everyone mulls over the idea.

All in all, Jesper thinks, it’s a pretty promising reaction.

-

When even the imminent departure of Inej cannot prompt either her or Kaz to confront their feelings and cross the invisible line the two of them have been toeing for entirely too long, Jesper and the rest of their friends decide to take matters into their own hands with the help of PowerPoint transitions, nosy partners, and perhaps the entirety of Ketterdam University.

Alternatively, the faked into dating AU, wherein Jesper learns that perhaps he's not as good a matchmaker as he thought he was.

read part of it under the cut! / ao3 link

The hallways part like a sea before them, whispers following them as the 6 (well 7 really, but no one's terrified of Wylan even with the rest of them surrounding him) skulking figures stalk down the hallway, leaving behind the principal's ajar door in their wake. 

All in all, it's a pretty normal day for Kaz Brekker and the crows, really. 

"You'd think we'd robbed the school ourselves at the rate the students are avoiding us." 

Jesper laughs merrily, throwing a friendly arm over Inej's shoulder.

"Relax, Nej. Besides, it's not like you're going to be here in this shithole much longer anyway!"

Inej lets out a tinkling laugh, lips momentarily turning up at brief levity - before she purses them again, turning around to address the rest of them.

"Alright, enough moping around about inevitable change - don't think I've noticed some people in particular practically avoiding me since the trip was announced."

Though the rest of their group tries their level best (which is to say, not at all) to hide their snickers - it's pretty obvious who the message is directed at. After all, there's only one person whom Inej would never bother to hesitate to call out so publicly - only one person whom Inej would never forget to look out for. 

To his own credit, Kaz looks away non committedly, before hefting his bag slightly higher. 

"If you forget to collect your dance shoes from the studio, I don't even think I'd be able to stop Baghra from keeping you here."

Imej hums before walking next to him.

"Fair enough. But you know that I'd stay if you asked me to."

A tension fills between the two of them, filled with unspoken possibilities. 

"I think I'd eventually learn how to handle my accounts on my own, thanks." 

The both of them shrug, turning away from each other, though the tense look on both of their faces tells a very different story.

The fact of the matter is this - no matter how much Inej wishes, Kaz wouldn't dare take away everything Inej has worked for - even if that meant depriving them of something that both of them wanted so badly.

Eventually, Inej shakes herself and joins Kaz, currently facing forward, an impenetrable stone wall of emotion. Together, they tentatively begin talking again about a topic that's too quiet for the rest of them to hear and enclose themselves in a bubble of their own - disappearing into the winding hallways.

read the rest here!

[their-destinys-writer]

The Trials of Confessing - Chapter 5

Rated: Teen

Chapters: 5/5

Ao3 / Wattpad

For additional content and behind the scenes, support me on Patreon. I also take Ko-fi.  

A/N: Now that this story is complete, I've been working on another one that's already five chapters ahead in Patreon called Akuma Flashpoint. It's a canon divergent reality warp AU, where Marinette gets transported into a different reality where everything has gone wrong. Main pairing being Ladrien. If it sounds intriguing, you can start reading it right now! But if you're willing to wait, the first chapter will be out publicly on August 28th, and will update every last Monday of the month. In the meantime, enjoy this last chapter!

First | Previous

Adrien felt his senses go numb. He then understood why she had seemed so out of it after they encountered Lila. Her words must’ve gotten to Marinette. However, what was more shocking was knowing that such an amazing girl like Marinette felt so strongly about him. And what was terrifying was the potential of having to break her heart.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner,” she sobbed. “But after everything you’ve been through, I rather be there for you instead of being part of the problem. Maybe now you can at least cross me off the list and find your true love.”

Adrien let out a shuddered breath. “You know about the list?” He felt Marinette nod against his shoulder.

“Alya is convinced that I’m the girl you keep talking about.” She slowly pulled away, wiping away snot. “All because the very day you said that thing about the love of your life, I had happened to decide to confess to you. But that could’ve just being a coincidence, because I’ve said that so many times, yet always chickened out.”

Many times? Adrien pondered. “Marinette,” he said, “how long have you felt this way?”

“U-um.” Marinette placed a hand on her arm, averting her gaze. “Since almost the beginning. You were just so kind when I thought you were a jerk. Even though I made assumptions about you, you still treated me with respect, so different from how Chloé treated me. That’s how I knew you were nothing like her. And over time... I’m sorry, it’s not important. Just cross me off the list.”

“How are you so sure you’re not the girl I’ve talked about?” Adrien rushed to say.

“Because!” Marinette’s arms flailed. “What are the chances, right? There’s no way I’m that lucky. I mean, if I am, it changes so much between us, and it would mean that things have been so much more complicated between us, and there’s a chance of other consequences—”

“We’ll cross that bridge if we get there,” he insisted. “Just say or do what you were gonna do before this whole mess. Don’t just ask me to cross you off without even trying.”

The girl stared at him, as if he had grown a second head. Adrien frowned. Was there something on his face? Did he say something wrong? Marinette gasped, right before saying: “I have something for you—Whoa!”

She pulled something out of her purse, but it slipped off her hand. When she tried catching it, she instead ended up hitting it with her palm, making it fly off to the street. She was about to run to it, when several vehicles drove by and squashed it. Adrien slapped a hand to his mouth, and Marinette let out a screamed ‘NO!’ with her hand hopelessly extended in the direction of the lost gift.

The two of them stared at the mush on the pavement for several seconds, as if hoping they could turn back time and stop the small packet from ever leaving the purse. After finally processing the disaster that happened, Marinette slapped her hands to her face and groaned.

“This is like the premiere all over again!” she cried. “Can’t even give a damn macaron without it being a disaster. Ugh, he’s gonna hate me when he finds out.”

“When who finds out?” Adrien asked when he finally found his voice.

“My friend!” Marinette responded. “He’s the reason I was determined this time. I promised him I’d confess to you, but it had to be done in a specific way, and that includes the gift. But now I don’t have it!”

“Marinette,” Adrien said, taking her hands, his heart starting to beat louder, “you said something about a macaron. Was that what the gift was?”

“Yes. One passion fruit macaron, your favorite. Or at least I think that’s your favorite, but Lila made me doubt my instincts. But that’s not even the important part of the gift.”

“Then what was?” He could feel his heart slam hard against his ribcage, almost ready to burst out.

“The package,” she said. Adrien’s breath hitched. “I designed it myself. It was… special. I needed to give you that along with my confession, but now I’ve ruined it.”

“Not necessarily!” Adrien blurted out. “What was the design? Do you have it with you?”

“No,” she sighed. But almost immediately lit up. “Oh! I have a small notebook I use sometimes when I can’t take my sketchbook with me. I can recreate it!”

Marinette let go of Adrien and was quickly rummaging through her purse. She gave him a blue pen to hold while she pulled out the pocket-sized sketchbook. Just as she dislodged it, there was a honk from the street. When they turned to it, they saw Adrien’s ride, and from it, Nathalie exited.

“Good, I was about to call you,” she said the second she saw him. “Adrien, your father needs you to come home early.”

“What? Why?” Adrien asked, taking a step back, already seeing his hopes and dreams flutter away.

“It has come to your father’s attention that there have been several incidents these days in school, and he feels you’re currently not safe here. We’re taking you home until a press conference can be made on the matter.”

“Seriously?” Adrien said, cursing his father’s timing. “Can you give me another minute? Marinette needs to do something important right now.”

“I’m afraid your father wants you home now.”

He desperately turned to Marinette. “Can you do it fast?”

“I-I, um, I-I—”

“Adrien, we have to go now,” Nathalie insisted.

He looked at Marinette, hoping she would suddenly come up with what was probably exactly what he wanted to see. But from the look of it, she didn’t seem ready to fight. She looked more exhausted than courageous in that moment. And the last thing Adrien wanted was to push her too far.

“I’m sorry,” he said, to which Marinette softly nodded. “Maybe—”

“Adrien,” Nathalie called. It was then that he noticed some of the girls walking down the school’s front steps, watching his father’s assistant like vultures waiting for dinner.

He let out an irritated sigh. “I’m not crossing you off the list,” Adrien said, as he walked backwards towards the car. “Not yet. We’ll finish this later. I promise. Bring a new one tomorrow!”

The car door closed, but he continued staring out of the window. Marinette awkwardly waved, and he immediately returned the gesture. He couldn’t help but notice how some of the other girls seemed to have noticed their exchange, if their death-stares towards Marinette was anything to go by. He winced, hoping he hadn’t just accidentally thrown her to the lions.

And yet, he couldn’t help but hope that, perhaps, he had just become the luckiest guy in the world.

* * *

Worst. Afternoon. EVER.

That was how Marinette would describe her day after Adrien left. Every girl that had witnessed his departure, talking about the list, felt the need to make her miserable one way or the other. The most common were the stares of murderous intentions. Others were far more creative or intrusive, from the passive-aggressive comments to a yogurt she managed to narrowly dodge.

The consensus among them was the same: she was tricking Adrien. Somehow. Oh, and that she was a terrible friend, unlike Lila, apparently.

When it was time to patrol, Marinette didn’t feel like going. She was emotionally drained. But at the same time, she could use the comfort from her partner. Yet, in the end, her sense of duty won out, and she was off, soaring across the rooftops of the city. Trying not to dwell too much in her awful day.

Ladybug landed on the meeting spot, about two meters away from Chat Noir. She bit her lip, still thinking about the hoard of scary fangirls, still wondering how to break the news to her partner. After a deep breath, she approached him. It wasn’t until she was almost next to him that she noticed he was humming a song.

She cleared her throat. “Evening, Chat Noir.”

The boy quickly turned to her, a wide smile on his face. “Good evening to you too, M’Lady.”

“You seem happy today,” she commented, as she sat down next to him.

“I had a very interesting day,” he said. “What about you? How was your day?”

“It was—” Ladybug had been about to say ‘fine,’ but was immediately attacked by memories of the day. “Ugh, it was a complete disaster.”

“Why? What happened?” he asked, sliding an inch closer to her.

“I confessed.” Ladybug covered her face. “And it couldn’t have gone worse. Not only did I cry during my confession, but I lost the gift! My clumsy civilian self somehow managed to get it under three cars and a truck. It was crushed and ruined. He must’ve been so confused. And probably thinks I’m just like any other girl, going after him for the wrong reasons.”

“Eugh, that does sound bad,” Chat Noir said. Sounding a bit too calm, for Ladybug’s taste. There was a pun coming, she could feel it.

“Total disaster,” she said, attempting to sway the conversation from whatever he was planning on saying. “He did ask me to bring a new version of the gift tomorrow, so I guess that’s something. He didn’t completely turn me down.”

“That is something.” Chat Noir said, nodding as he checked his pockets. “I guess you’ll just have to write off today.”

The boy presented her with a pen. Ladybug blinked, right before giving Chat Noir the most unimpressed look she had ever given him.

“Oh my gosh, now you bring stuff to make your puns?” she scolded.

Chat Noir laughed. “Nah, I just think you could use this particular pen.”

“Honestly, Chat.” Ladybug shook her head, suddenly regretting opening herself up to him. “I’m basically pouring my heart out here, being vulnerable to you, and all you can think about is making a joke?”

“Ladybug, just look at the pen,” he pleaded, suddenly far quieter than when he made the joke.

“Yes, I see it.” Ladybug snatched the pen from his hand. “It’s a normal, cheap—” But she stopped. For it was not a normal, cheap blue pen in her hands.

It was a pen with a hole in it. The very hole Chat Noir punctured to it the night they made their deal. The pen that was supposed to be in her purse, yet for some reason, Chat Noir had just given it back to her.

“Wh-Where did you get this?” she asked, any sign of anger gone, but having a hard time breathing properly. When she looked at her partner, he wasn’t smirking, or even flirty. In fact, he almost seemed shy, for the first time since she met him.

“You kinda gave it to me today,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “You were taking your sketchbook out of your purse and gave me the pen while you were taking it out. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I still had it in my hand. And that was when I recognized it as the one you used to create the design for the macaron package. It was a passion fruit macaron that you made, right? My favorite pastry? Not quiche, by the way.”

Ladybug gasped, and almost immediately let out a shuddered breath. She remembered taking the pen out and giving it to Adrien. She never asked for it back, now that she thought about it. And yet, there it was in her hands, as a gift from her superhero partner, who had many times proclaimed his love for her.

“So, um, now that we kno—Oof!” Chat Noir’s words were cut off by Ladybug, who had thrown her arms around him and was giving him the tightest hug she could muster. Slowly, he returned the gesture.

“You were right,” she said, as happy tears trailed down her cheeks. “This whole time you were right. And I’m so glad you were.”

“You are?”

“I know, right?!” Ladybug pulled away, taking his face in her hands. “I used to laugh at the idea, but the more I thought about, it just seemed so perfect. I am so happy it’s you. Adrien.”

The second she said his name, Chat Noir gave her the biggest grin she had ever seen from him. 

“And I’m so happy that the girl I’ve been in love with this whole time is you, Marinette,” he said.

The sound of her real name sent goosebumps through her body. Or maybe it was the fact that he had taken her hand as he said it. Or perhaps it was the intense look he was giving her, asking the very question she had been about to ask. Instead, she responded his, slowly leaning towards him.

“Wait.” Chat Noir placed two fingers on her lips. “Before that, I have a question: If you were in love with Adrien-me, how come you said that you loved Chat Noir-me?”

Ladybug let out a muffled whine. The very thing she didn’t want him to ask, was the very first thing he asked. She backed away, averting her gaze from him.

“I-I, um, was trying to hide my identity. And I didn’t have time to think of a proper distraction, so I said that.”

“Oh,” Chat Noir uttered. “So, you didn’t mean it?”

“Well, not in the romantic sense,” she explained. “Though, if it makes you feel any better, I was upset that you showed up. It made me think your feelings for Ladybug-me were shallow. But then you went and rejected Marinette-me for Ladybug-me, so I almost celebrated in front of papa. Then I had to pretend I was actually upset, but I was just celebrating in my room. Because your feelings were real. And I’m gonna stop talking because you’re looking at me funny.”

Chat Noir had his index over his lips, with an unreadable expression.

“So,” he started, “what you’re saying is, that you were jealous of yourself?” He finished with a mischievous grin.

Ladybug sputtered. “That’s not—No! I was not jealous! Why would I be jealous? There was nothing to be jealous about. I mean, clearly, you were very loyal to me. Notthatitmattered!”

“It sounds like it mattered a lot,” Chat Noir purred.

“I-I... Urgh, fine. Yes,” Ladybug relented. “I may have, on occasion, wondered what it would have been like if Adrien—you, I realize—hadn’t been in the picture. Then maybe, who knows what could’ve happened between us.”

“Oh.” The skin underneath Chat Noir’s mask turned scarlet. “Now I do feel better.”

“I can see that,” she teased, feeling slightly more confident thanks to his reaction.

“I guess that makes us even,” he countered.

“Even?”

“Mhm.” Chat Noir nodded. “You don’t know this, buuut, I may or may not have had a tiny, little, itty-bitty crush on a classmate I nickname our Everyday-Ladybug.”

“Wait, what?!”

“What can I say, I have a thing for girls who stand up to bullies.”

“Didn’t your dad say you weren’t interested in anyone, and to leave you alone?”

“Nooo, please don’t remind me.” Chat Noir covered his face. “That press conference was one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever been a part of. And I’m not easily embarrassed! I’ve walked in high heels and a pink skirt. I would dress in a banana costume, if I have to. But having my father talk about my relationship issues to the press? Freaking kill me.”

“Don’t worry, it wasn’t so bad,” Ladybug giggled. “It was more hilarious seeing a grown man think he has a grasp on teenage relationships, which he clearly doesn’t.”

“Wait, that reminds me, are you okay?” he suddenly asked, uncovering his face. “I saw those girls giving you death-stares when I left. They didn’t do anything to you, did they?”

“Oh, just a lot of passive-aggressive comments about how I’m a horrible friend, and that Lila would never do that.”

“Lila what?” Chat Noir said, bewildered. “What the heck does Lila have to do with any of this.”

“You know how she is,” Ladybug said, with a sigh. “The same thing she said earlier about real friends, she repeated it with the fanclub outside. Now I’m the girl who’s trying to trick you into thinking I’m the love of your life.”

“But you are the love of my life,” Chat Noir retorted. It wasn’t until Ladybug’s cheeks became warm, that he seemed to have noticed the weight of what he had just said. To her face. With their identities revealed. “Uh, I hope you already knew that.”

“Y-Yeah,” she responded, trying her best not to smile too wide. “I-It was pretty clear, with what you t-told Nino. A-And me, when you didn’t know you were talking to Ladybug, and just talking to Marinette-me.”

“R-Right.” Chat Noir went quiet, the red under his mask becoming slightly darker.

Ladybug took a deep breath, before saying: “You know you’re the love of my life, too, right?”

His head snapped towards her, with an expression of surprise, that quickly turned into a giddy smile. “Wasn’t sure, but it’s such a relief to hear.”

“It’s a relief to say it so openly,” she admitted. “I just don’t know what to do now. Much less knowing what awaits us tomorrow.”

“Hmm.” Chat Noir rubbed his chin. “I think I have an idea.”

* * *

Today was the day. And this time, hopefully the other girls had been scared off by his father’s sneers at the camera the previous day. Hopefully they at least got the message that they angered a powerful man. Hopefully they realized the error of their ways. Hopefully—

“Morning, Adrien!” the voice of Christie said as he entered the front doors to the school.

Adrien resisted all urge to whimper. “May I help you in something?”

“Here,” she said, presenting him with a small box. “I got you this quiche. I know it’s your favorite.”

“It’s not my favorite,” he responded automatically. “And whoever told you that lied.”

Christie stared expressionless, with the box still extended towards him. When she didn’t react, Adrien asked if there was anything else she needed. With the question, she seemed to come out of her stuper.

“Yes,” she responded. “I’m sorry I’ve failed, but can’t you see we’re meant to be? I’m clearly the girl you’re looking for! No other girl has tried as hard as me.”

“You just don’t get it, do you,” Adrien retorted, his patience already gone. “You can try all you want, but you’re just not the one. It’s not about how much you try, it’s about actually being the girl. A girl I already know and talk to, and who confirmed to me that she hasn’t given me the gift yet.”

“What’s even so special about this girl?!” Christie bellowed. “If she actually cared about you, she would’ve been with you in the first place. She would’ve already come out and snatch you up. Yet here we are—”

“Yeah, here we are,” Adrien snapped back. “She got so afraid I would confuse her with you bunch, she decided not to confess and be part of the problem.”

“What do you mean the problem?!”

“This! Right here! A bunch of girls asking me out for all the wrong reasons!”

“But I actually love you! Unlike the other girls!”

“If you actually—!”

“Excuse me.” The sweet, wonderful voice of Marinette interrupted his train of thought. Adrien and Christie turned to her. Although her tone had been low, Adrien could see the fire of anger and determination in her eyes. He melted, almost missing what she was saying. “I was waiting in the locker room to talk to you about something, but it was taking you a bit long, so decided to come to you instead—”

“Sorry, Marinette,” Christie interjected. “We’re busy at the moment, in case you missed it.”

“No, we’re not,” Adrien shot back. “Marinette, I’m all ears. What is it?”

Even thought he already knew what was coming, he could still feel ladybugs in his stomach, along with his heart giving excited beats.

“Here.” Marinette took his hand, and in it placed a small green and black package. “I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner, but the other girls scared me. I wanted to say that I’m in love with you, Adrien. Ever since that day under the rain, when you showed me kindness, and that you were not the jerk I thought you were. I made a passion fruit macaron, your favorite pastry, in a special package I designed myself—”

“Wow, you really are a tricky minsk,” Christie interrupted. “You’re such an awful friend to Adrien. You really think—”

“This is my favorite pastry!” Adrien said loudly. “But more importantly, this package has the exact design the girl I’m in love with drew.” He took out the piece of paper Ladybug had given him the night of the deal. “Marinette, you’re the girl I’m in love with!”

Marinette cringed. “This felt a lot more embarrassing than when we talked about it yesterday. Imma go—”

“Nono, don’t go!” Adrien rushed to grab her hand, as she had started backing away. “Sorry, I just hadn’t expected for the girls to try again after the press conference yesterday. But please don’t leave me.”

“Can’t you see she’s abusing of her knowledge as a friend?” Christie desperately said next to him. “She doesn’t mean it.”

“Marinette, would you allow me to do something crazy right now?” he asked, entwining his fingers with hers.

Marinette’s lips turned from an ‘o’ shape to a soft smile. “How can I say no to those kitty eyes of yours?”

Adrien heard Christie comment something about his eyes actually being puppy eyes, but he ignored her. In favor of closing the gap between him and Marinette into a soft kiss. There were several gasps around them. He knew more people had just bear witnessed to their first memorable kiss. But he didn’t care. The only thing he cared about was the girl who’s hand he was squeezing.

When their lips parted, he noticed Marinette’s face was pleasantly pink. He took a stray hair of hers and tucked it behind her ear.

“I’ll remember this,” he whispered.

There was a sudden cheer, followed by a loud ‘I KNEW IT!’ from what sounded like Alya. Adrien pulled away enough to see most of the girls from their classroom high-fiving each other, while Alya ran towards them.

“I told you!” she cheered. “I told you you were the girl he was talking about! And you kept saying ‘nooo, there’s no way it’s me, nooo, it’s a total coincidence I made this very specific gift the very day some girl is supposed to give some very specific gift to Adrien.’ Ha! Coincidence my butt!”

“Alya,” Marinette half-heartedly scolded.

“Wait, no!” Christie said, stepping between Alya and the couple. “No, no, this is a misunderstanding. Adrien, I know Marinette has been stalking you and investigating you. She knows more about you than the fanclub put together. Honestly, it’s creepy. She even has hundreds of pictures of you.”

“Right, the pictures!” Adrien raised a finger, right before leaning towards Marinette, their noses almost touching. “Care to comment on the pictures, Bugginette?”

“Bugginette?” Alya and Christie said at the same time.

Meanwhile, Marinette did a very familiar move he had never seen in her civilian face: she rolled her eyes. Adrien’s heart jumped out of its place.

“You’ve just lost all your kissing privileges for today,” she said, walking away. Yet she stopped for a second to look back at him, a glint in her eye.

Adrien grinned. “Aww come on,” he called, following her, completely ignoring the other two girls. “This is not what we agreed on yesterday. You promised me at least three kisses.”

He knew anyone who heard them had no idea what was happening. Had no idea of when they suddenly became so close, to the point of having inside jokes and nicknames. But he didn’t care. He only cared about the giddy laugh Marinette let out when he caught on to her. The quiet whispers about their homework and about patrol after school.

The promise that what they had was real, and that no obstacle in the world could get in their way.

---

First | Previous

[chaifootsteps]

These fans really will just make up and believe whatever they want.

I just saw a fan declare “there are NO straight characters in Helluva Boss or Hazbin Hotel btw ; )” quickly followed by “Don’t give me characters you believe are straight, they are not ; )”

We literally have a Q&A leak where TWO of the MAIN FEMALE CHARACTERS (Millie and Loona) were confirmed to be straight BY VIVZIE. A decision that disappointed Sam.

Someone pointed out in their replies that Millie is straight and they just flat out said “nope wasn’t confirmed most of us believe she’s bi”.

They truly will not hear of anything that doesn’t come straight from Vivzie’s public mouth and it’s insane.

Y’all are actively creating your own volatile surroundings by acting like this because you insisting so vehemently on your headcanons or the “majority vote” of the fandom will make Vivzie will either feel like she in fact CAN’T publicly confirm anything (like when she didn’t want to confirm Alastor’s asexuality in fear of “ruining fans fun”) or she WILL confirm it (when she believes in it enough) and create a bunch of in-fighting where if fans attack her she’ll turn on them in an instant and call in the pity party army.

Toxic person attracting toxic people which is a breeding ground for drama. Every day little areas of the Hellaverse fandom just eat themselves alive, and I hope one day it all finally fizzles out to be enjoyed more calmly.

There's no arguing with them, they're completely delusional and inside their own heads in a way that goes beyond the usual fandom bickering. It's actually kind of terrifying; at a certain point it goes beyond ship wars and headcanon slapfights and into "this is how we get/why we have flat earthers" territory.

[cynical-crypt]

so, before i start this rant up, i’d like to thank the proship community for being such a lovely place to be, and i’d like to talk to a very specific anti from afar.

so for some context, i used to be in a friend group, which, in the year or two of reflecting i’d had to myself, i’d realized was HORRIFICALLY TOXIC. before joining that friend group, i was a thick-shelled internet kid who wasn’t scared of anything and cared about everyone. being IN that groupchat? i became an oversensitive, overbearing, terrified, hateful son of a bitch. no thick shell, no compassion, and that was only within a few months of me joining. there are still remnants of what that groupchat did to me! i’m still quick to jump the gun and defend myself even if it was a joke. to this day i can’t tell when someone is pulling my leg or not. out of that whole group there was maybe one good person who i’m still friends with today. they were one of the unlucky ones. so, to put it simply, this group was a clusterfuck of whining, writhing, oversensitive little twitter babies who thought that everything they didn’t like had to be destroyed. they harassed and kicked out every single person who didn’t agree with them until they were all gone. all but me, because i was already in a horrible mental state at the time and at that point i would’ve done anything just to keep having people to talk to. i went along with every pitchfork-n’-flame plan they ever had even if i felt horrible about it and they’d all get angry at me if i hesitated for even a moment. i was dragged into drama that had nothing to do with me and there were no breaks. the specific person i’m going to talk to, who i’ll call SJJ, would constantly vent in the groupchat and start screaming and bitching if nobody replied. SJJ was the “ringleader” of our circus and they were the one that ruined me. in the beginning i thought they were cool and i looked up to them because i thought they were hilarious and were fun to talk to. that was a mistake. they lectured me every time i had an opinion they didn’t like, they forced me into pitchfork harassment parties, everything, up until i broke and became just as whiny and bitchy as them. this went on for a year or so before i finally snapped on them and got kicked out. and, yes, i got kicked out because a fucking 12 year old (not exaggerating) thought they were gonna be all badass and stand up for SJJ, so they pretty much cornered me until the only thing they’d accept is “no, i hate SJJ and don’t want to talk to them,” and that was enough to have me completely banished from the friend group.

skip 2 years, i’ve recovered mostly from the damage that group did to me, and here comes SJJ waltzing into my dms to “apologize.” in that they claimed they had changed, which then proved a few months later to be a complete lie. their dni listed people who are proship. it took me months to finally accept that i thought that way and that i was happier that way, and it took me 2 months to gather the courage to tell them we needed to stop talking to each other permanently so that i’m not invading their space anymore. they then talked down to me as if i were a 4 year old. i told them to stop treating me like a child, which they completely ignored. i tried desperately to have a civil conversation explaining why i’m cutting them off, but of course, they turned it into a shitstorm just like they had with everyone else. after we blocked each other they apparently ran to twitter and exposed my name to literally everybody publicly and then accused me of sending “pedophiles” after them when *RANDOM* people told them to at least blur my name out. they deleted the post but then made a huge thread bitching about how i’m “the worst person on earth.” and as far as i know they also deleted their twitter account. i had nothing to do with the comments and i wasn’t even the first one to find out they were posting about me. that was one of our mutual friends.

so... to SJJ, fuck you, from the very bottom of my heart. you tried to turn me into some kind of zombie for you to send to harass people who didn’t deserve it. you hurt me repeatedly and then were surprised when one day i didn’t bounce back up at your feet like a stupid fuckin puppy again. you ruined people’s lives and you destroyed what will i had left at the beginning of our time together. i don’t know why i ever trusted you. i don’t know why any of us ever trusted you. hell, i don’t know why people still trust you. i don’t know why people still can’t take one look and realize that you’re a narcissist. maybe even YOU don’t realize it. look at how you treated people in the past and how you do now, you’ll realize eventually: you’re the worst kind of person there is. 

there were two paths i could have taken. i could have continued to be a zombie and be abused by you, or i could have taken the opposite in which i am enveloped in a loving, safe community where i can be myself without anyone to try and control me. which did you THINK i was going to choose?

to the proship community, thank you. my time healing from hatred has been nothing short of wonderful and i’m so glad to have a safe space to hang out where i’m not being battered for my differences by people who are supposed to be my “friends.” this place is loving and accepting and i couldn’t ask for a better pocket of tumblr to be in. you’re all awesome.

i know SJJ is suffering. continuing to despise them will change nothing, but it cannot be helped right now. all i can hope is that one day life for them gets better and they do not continue to pour their hatred into other people. nobody deserves what i or any of their other victims went through. SJJ, i’m sorry. i know you’re hurting. you might be a terrible person, to me at least, but if you somehow manage to find this, please know that despite everything i still hold hope that you’ll change, even if that hope is lost on you. it doesn’t matter now.

[opinated-user]

WHY does Lily think people get off to hurting female characters? There's "beat them to death with a fucking rock because they're vile human beings who get off to the suffering of women and non white people." from her last video but there's also her freakout from her video on The Legend of Korra where she says that 1. only Korra is shown being beaten up in the series (a lie if you watched even a handful of episodes) and 2. the only reason she gets beaten up in fights instead of coming out without injuries is because the writers get off to it.

I don't know how to explain it to her but sometimes bad shit happens to characters and no one is masturbating to it. It is, in fact, extremely unusual for anyone to masturbate to or be aroused by these things. So why does she keep acting like this is NORMAL?

Anecdotal evidence for my point: even super misogynistic men I know were incredibly uncomfortable in my Public Speaking class when I talked about a subgenre of porn, ryona, that's currently getting banned off of most websites. In ryona porn, the sex does not make up the majority of the video, beating up a woman does - and even the fucking INCELS in my class looked ready to vomit. There are very, very, VERY few people who get off to violence and suffering. I won't say they don't exist, but even people who hate women are usually not into it and even people who are in favor of consensual rough sex are repulsed by the concept of beating someone up being an arousing thing in and of itself.

For once it's not projection since there's no ryona in Lily's Sankaku faves, but that just makes me more confused, not less. Where the fuck is she getting this from?

this is going to be pure especulation from my part, full tinfoil moment... but i do think that she's projecting. remember all the times we spoke about how LO always had to slip something abusive on whatever relationship she's writing and then tries to gaslight the audience into thinking that it's wholesome? well, the modern example of that is clearly whatever is happening between G and CLO but before that was stockholm. i know that when talking about that series most people immediately jump to Rainbow Dash being written as an offending pedophile but there's actually a b plot that is the whole reason why the story is called stockholm: that of Ascentia and Twilight. their conflict is that twilight is horribly agressive with ascentia, slapping her around, raping her multiple times, kicking her, and she does it publicly and never faces any consequences for it because Ascentia has developed stockholm and the physical abuse is what she has come to expect, so twilight essentially is encouraged by the narrative to keep abusing. the other day i was talking with someone about stockholm and they showed me a post where the co-author, Nintengogal55, talked about a particular scene that was so extreme that actually brought her to tears.

Okay, this other one was for a shot we currently haven’t released yet. Without going into too much details, it involved the CMC and it was so awful. I would read all of my original fanfics from ten years ago than ever write or read that again! I didn’t just hate how the scene became, I felt physically uncomfortable reading it and writing it. It wasn’t just uncomfortable, it was painful. All throughout Stockholm, the worst I ever felt was sad. Now sad, I can handle that perfectly fine. Even the descriptions of the domestic abuse, while unnerving, weren’t graphically written and didn’t affect me that badly. Yes, Ascentia terrified me in the story, but I can also handle fear. But physical discomfort from writing/reading something so terribly uncomfortable and painful? No way. I was, honestly, on the verge of TEARS. Thankfully, Bhaalspawn understood and offered that we make it less…like that. It turned out so much better after that. I am forever thankful for his compassion and letting us re-do that scene. <3

it was LO's idea to make that scene. i don't know what scene was, i don't want to imagine it, but if it had such a strong reaction on the co-author, who already was up for the most disturbing aspects of this story then it had to be graphic, it had to be visceral and it had to be a especial kind of awful. the CMC are a group of literal children on the story so this scene, whatever it was, it would have involved children going through something so graphically horrible that the co-author couldn't handle it. in stockholm there's a lot of reference to the abuse that ascentia goes through. she winces she has to sit because twilight literally made a tear on her ass, she gets an arm broken so it has to be put on a cast and there is a scene where twilight goes feral on her, breaking her nose and her ribs. ascentia goes through hell and in my opinion it's not made any better by the fact that it's "off screen" because we still read about the results of that extreme abuse. to what i have been told, something similar happens on her fanfic previous to stockholm. on the ones where she introduces Matt Ryder (her self insert, remember that) there's many one scenes where Meg (only Meg, never Matt) gets abused as well and it's treated like a joke or a minor thing not worth paying attention. you could say that LO back then was trying to imitate the "humor" of FG by constantly bashing Meg, her favourite character, but considering that she just kept doing that with later works? i don't know. broken champions, the fanfiction that LO wrote about anevay and only shared for a server? the exact same thing happens, although for one the abuser of anevay wasn't her love interest and those abusers are cartoonisly evil before they get punished. but the fic still spend so much time describing all the different ways in which anevay was tortured, raped, branded, mocked and broken down. one scene could have been enough, but it happened so many times i had to skip entire parragraphs because it was making me so uncomfortable. someone could potentially say that was a survivor of abuse venting about their experience and using a fictional character in order to live through something horrible and get the desired comfort at the end. i can see that point of view. fiction can be a great tool for therapy that way. but it just hit me right now, as i was reading your ask, that could also just an excuse. why else would she keep sliding abusive dynamics into her "wholesome" works? why does she keep accusing others of specifically "getting off" to scenes of women suffering or being beaten? there's a lot of abuse and rape on her sankaku account, so why this kind of interest would be out of place? see the thing in common between all these characters (CLO, ascentia, meg, anevay)... these are all characters LO claims to care about and love. LO multiple times directly says that she makes anevay suffer the worst just because. i believe she's projecting and we can see that on her writing more than on her porn accounts. i'll admit i could be seeing something that's not really there and there isn't any real evidence for what i'm saying, but i believe there's a coherent pattern here and it makes sense with all we know about LO.

[verdantmeadows]

This is a very serious/heavy vent but I'm on mobile so I can't do read more, CW for suicidal ideation and accusations of sexual harassment

Okay so I go to a very alternative school, there's kids as young as like 7 and ones as old as 21. For those who don't know, a 14 year old, who was one of my friends before this, accused me of sexual harassment. This completely ruined my social life there and I faced a lot of bullying. I've had constant nightmares about it since then. But I've stayed strong and true to myself no matter what people think about me.

I decided I wanted to try joining sewing club, but they're a member of it. So now me joining is an issue going to administration and I don't even know why. I didn't do anything. If they're uncomfortable with me there, then that's their problem!!!! I was told I wasn't going to be punished at all for this situation, but the fact I have to wait for "approval" to join a club is punishment in itself.

Now that the issue is going to admin, I'm terrified. I'm terrified this issue is gonna be brought up again and I'll be punished this time. I don't want to have to go to court for libel just because my stupid ass decided he wanted to join sewing club when I knew this person was a member. I just wanted to let this stay dead and buried.

I don't want to be punished for something I didn't do. It was already enough being told I was disgusting and to kill myself by other students.

And the fear hasn't gone away that when I'm older, and I'm doing stuff in my career of choice, that they'll bring this up and say that I did these things to them, when I didn't. And people are going to believe them. Of course they are. Because they're way younger than me. And you're supposed to always believe the victims. No one is going to believe I didn't do those things.

I'm honestly at the point where I don't know if I'm just going through suicidal ideation or I want to make plans to kill myself. Before this, I already had awful intrusive thoughts that I was a pedophile and that my hypersexuality is making me be a creep without even knowing. And now that this happened, I feel like it came true. I feel constantly disgusted with myself. My intrusive fears of being a sexual predator and creep now feel like they were confirmed, even though logically I know I'm not.

I just don't know what to do. I just want to graduate school. I don't know why this had to happen. My last year of school like this was messed up because of this. I'm so scared. This could affect the rest of my life. It really could. I have to live in constant fear now that one day, they'll somehow bring this up on a larger scale, call me out publicly, especially when I'm working as an adult in my career of choice. And that everyone is going to think I'm those things and turn on me. This is a very real possibility and I'm terrified. I'm so scared.

I don't want that to happen. I can't ever achieve my dreams without the fear and very real possibility they'll say I did things I didn't and people are going to believe them. They already did. And when they accused me, they refused to show proof. To the point that my school administrators that talked with me about the situation don't even know what they accused me of specifically. Just that I was sexually harassing them. I was told that it had been verbally in like, around August, which doesn't even make sense, because I barely talked to them at all in August. Based on what I know, they were compelled to do this by other students as revenge for a falling out we had. I had also been distancing myself because I was no longer comfortable with being friends with someone that much younger than me, plus they were super toxic. They literally got jealous over me liking fictional characters. When one, they were fictional, and two, they're 14. The specifics don't even matter. Now I'm just ranting about them as a person. I'm failing several of my classes and have barely done any assignments and this is my last semester of school. I feel like there's no point to any of it.

I don't even know what the point of working towards my dreams and goals are if this could happen at any time. Everybody at my school already believed them about what happened. I feel disgusting and I honestly don't know if it's just feeling at this point. I feel like I deserve to die. I don't know what to do. I don't know how much longer I can be strong. I've had great support from friends and family, but I don't know what else to do. I'm so scared.

[becaexists]

Gonna vent for just a second because I literally have no one to talk to about this so y'know turning to the internet as one does

All over my social medias like Twitter and tiktok (I know they're bad but sometimes they're designed to trap you) everyone is talking about Brianna Ghey, the 16 year old trans girl that was murdered on Saturday. She was a year younger than me, I have friends that are the same age, and all I have seen all day because I've been travelling thus had nothing better to do than to stare at my phone, is so much of the same thing, the same kind of posts, just talking about how this sweet young girl was murdered, potentially out of hate for our community but they're "not sure", and it is really fucking getting to me.

I know it sounds selfish as hell to because it sounds like "oh there was a trans girl murdered and I have to complain about seeing it everywhere" but it's not that, it's the things people put in and under the posts about it. So many of the people trying to spread awareness are trying to be reassuring by saying shit like "to trans youths, we stand by you, this should not be happening" but that doesn't help, because I'm terrified out my fucking mind that if I start trying to be myself, I might get fucking murdered too. What's worse is all of the horrible things transphobic people are saying, like "she's a boy", and "she deserves it" and "example of what should happen to all those trans freaks" because those are actual things I've read today.

And it's not just her case specifically, it's the constant despair I feel as a trans person where my right to exist are constantly being questioned by the only government I've ever known. I open twitter and see stories of how trans rights are being stripped back all over the western world, how people were abandoned by family after coming out as trans, about how being trans is so incredibly awful with little silver linings of "at least you're yourself". So I open tiktok to distract myself, where I see more people talking about the same things, about how the people in government hate us so fucking much. This whole corecore thing is important to highlight the awful shit but when that's the only thing you're seeing with maybe a few cat videos and stupid family guy or movie scenes while someone plays with slime makes to split them up it really makes you feel nothing but despair.

I just wanna get away from it all. I want people to stop talking about it but that's not exactly what I want? I want it to have never happened. I want to live in a world where these things don't happen. I want to live in a world where I can leave the house without being terrified of being hatecrimed or murdered for being who I am. I didn't come out as a trans guy until this year even though I knew for ages I wanted to be a guy, I didn't come out because if I came out in high school, my "all girls" high school where I was already severely bullied for being autistic and queer, I would be fucking dead right now, either from being murdered like she was or from suicide, which I was so so so fucking close to doing after some girl publicly berated me for asking one of my teachers to not call me my deadname (I was going for a fem NB approach to my transness at the time and thought that Bee was the start of something much more fitting for me) because she was right, no one would ever see me as anything other than some pretty but unpopular girl trying to somehow both escape the torture of womanhood and make myself more intriguing

If I could choose anything else, I would. I would not be trans. I would be a regular teenage girl who likes parties and stupid roadmen and skipping lesson to smoke and vape. But I'm not. And my mum, my own mother, has said "if you would choose not to be this, why don't you? Why don't you just go back to being my girl?" And I want to. But I need to be a boy to live. If I don't transition, I might just die from all the self hatred of what I have to pretend to be. I just can't do it.

Sorry this was long, I just have many many emotions and if I said this anywhere else I might just be on the receiving end of some of the same stupid shit people are saying about Brianna. I hope she finds peace somewhere where there isn't so much hatred.

[ancestorsofjudah]

1 Kings 21: 17-29. "The Dogs."

Worry, which is the result of a lack of familiarity with the Torah, plagues Israel after its King and Queen engage in corruption and seize territory that does not belong to them in the name of religious fervor.

God sends Elijah, the Old Testament Christ to call them to account:

17 Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: 

18 “Go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who rules in Samaria. He is now in Naboth’s vineyard, where he has gone to take possession of it. 

19 Say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: Have you not murdered a man and seized his property?’ Then say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: In the place where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, dogs will lick up your blood—yes, yours!’”

20 Ahab said to Elijah, “So you have found me, my enemy!”

“I have found you,” he answered, “because you have sold yourself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord. 

21 He says, ‘I am going to bring disaster on you. I will wipe out your descendants and cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel—slave or free.[a] 

22 I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat and that of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have aroused my anger and have caused Israel to sin.’

23 “And also concerning Jezebel the Lord says: ‘Dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of[b] Jezreel.’

24 “Dogs will eat those belonging to Ahab who die in the city, and the birds will feed on those who die in the country.”

Elijah the Tishbite means "The Return of the Presence of the Lord in all things." God invokes him to chastise Ahab for coveting a vineyard which he planned to downgrade into a vegetable garden. No one in the neighborhood will gather to sample veggies quite the same way they would in order to sample wine. Ahab's judgement is flawed as usual.

The flaw is seen when we turn an entire coastline into a dirty leaky oil refinery we will one day decide we don't need, or concentrate a nation on the making of weapons when it needs to build schools, fund colleges and universities adequately, or ensure disease treatment and the economics of quarantines are being studied appropriately. All these, the result of corruption lead to the gathering of the Torah's licky lickies, dogs.

Dogs will lick up blood and that is disgusting. Humans lap up wine or honey, but not blood unless they are trained to act like dogs, who are men that prostitute themselves for the sake of building weapons and watching people die. God tells Elijah to cut the future off from this practice.

The Numbers for the above are as follows:

v. 18: The Value is 8192, ח‎א‎טב‎‎, hatab, "to lead in the snatching up of fire." Branding is supposed to indicate an enthusiasm for soulfulness. This is not what we would say about Ahab, so his outward expression of soul is one of darkness. This is true for all hypocrites and their demonstrations of piety, their hurry to quench the thirst of their souls with nonsense.

Kings, princes and leaders must never make displays of faith and also act like ninnies at the same time.

v. 19: 1271-7 יבזא‎‎‎ז, "shame on you", "yabza z." "that wolf which dries up in fear."

Ahab's and Jezebel's behavior must have been terrifying to the rest of Israel. They framed the owner of a vineyard, had him publicly executed and then acted as if they were innocent of any kind of crime. Instead of a pair of sovereigns who are sworn to protect their people, they became their primary source of fear. They turned their people into slaves once again. That, and made them into dogs, just like them.

v. 20: The Number is 11077, אא אֶפֶסזז‎‎‎ ‎‎"Oh I'm sorry." Just as God found Adam and Eve in the garden, he found Ahab reveling in the theft of the vineyard. The sentence God passes follows.

v. 21: The Number is 8890, hekhatefes, "his sin is infinite."

When a statesmen demonstrates corrupt behavior, it leaves a debt behind that is almost impossible to correct. We are still trying to figure out what to do about World Wars I and II, this has us on the verge of WW3. Any time one covets what does not belong to one and then murders to steal it, there is no way for justice to fill the vacuum this leaves behind. God will therefore not forgive it.

v. 22: Jeroboam son of Nebat, "desires all he sees" and Baasha son of Ahijah, "the shit stink of profanity" were exterminated by God and replaced.

=9093, טאֶפֶסטג, tapestag,

tapes=

Together with the particle of negation α (a), meaning without: the adjective ατοπος (atopos), literally meaning without a place, and used to mean improper, injust, absurd, unsuitable or plain unwanted.

When applied to people, this word is akin the word ιδιωτης (idiotes), which means "in a category of their own" or rather "antisocial". 

ag= without the company of others

As for Jezebel, in v. 23: 8473, חדז‎ג, hadzag, "Sharpness of tongue that is forbidden."

This verb's derivations are: The adjective חד (had), meaning sharp, but only of a tongue as sharp as a sword (Psalm 57:4), a mouth as sharp as a sword (Isaiah 49:2), or a whole woman as sharp as a sword (Proverbs 5:4). 

zag= name of some insignificant product of the vine, forbidden to Nazarites, perhaps the stem or skin of the grape.

Jezebel, as you see, LIED and told the public something about another man that was not true, inciting the public to violence towards him. This is a violation of a number of Decrees, stemming from "thou shalt not covet" which led to violations of "thou shalt not bear false witness" and then "thou shalt not steal" and "thou shalt not kill" finally, she made a graven image of herself. The Queen of Israel may not sully her own name and thereby make a graven image of her government.

v. 24: God says the public should be ruthless towards persons that abuse power or are hypocrites. Turnabout will be fair play- the people will gather like dogs to lick their blood, the media will gather like birds to pick them apart.

Whenever a politician or governor does not behave, God commands us to shed their blood and ruin their lives. They must not be shown mercy or fairness they are to die in agony and shame.

This is the essence of what it means to be stoned to death. Recall Jezebel stoned a good man to death, a way of saying "look what I can do!" The only fitting end is for the people of Israel to do the same in return in the name of all that is just.

= 7117, זאאז‎, Zaaz, "to quake in fear of the strong."

25 (There was never anyone like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel his wife. 26 He behaved in the vilest manner by going after idols, like the Amorites the Lord drove out before Israel.)

27 When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and fasted. He lay in sackcloth and went around meekly.

28 Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: 

29 “Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.”

in v. 27, believe it or not, Ahab achieves Shabbat but this he does the hard way. The final Number for this section is 9609, טואֶפֶסט topfest,‎ "he makes a breakthrough."

The verb פתת (patat) means to break up or crumble, and the noun פת (pat) means fragment. Noun תף (top) means drum or tambourine, and the verb תפף (tapap) means to beat a drum or tambourine.

Although the link to the former is not immediate, it's not unthinkable that, to the ancients, the sound of drums represented the sound of things breaking, and thus of scientific inquiry.

Ahab saves himself at the last minute. His instincts were correct and he dies a more enlightened man because of them, but the consequences of his actions were not to be denied.