#that being said. i wish i actually did dream about the things i regularly dream about bc it would be a much better time for me

[coatabyss]

omg my crazy ass dreams are coming back :D

[brxttydevil]

You dying Scenario

MHA Scenarios Masterlist (no link yet)

Characters: Toga, Eri, Miruko, Dabi, Izuku and Aizawa

Tags: Angst, Nightmares (Eri)

Toga

Toga always remembered what she said to you. She said that you two would get married afterward. She had everything planned out and just waiting till after this hero attack. When you died, it was right in front of her. You got badly injured. She tried to stop the blood but it kept flowing into her arms. So she ran somewhere else. You deserve a better place to die. All you wanted was just to be in her arms. She knew nobody could do anything. But she wished someone could.

After you died, Toga had you buried in the flower area she wanted to marry to you in. She would come regularly with your favorite flower and planted it right beside you. Every fight she did, she dedicated it to you and knew one day she would be with you

I will always love you my pretty angel - Toga

Eri

She wouldn’t have known you died until Aizawa came back without you. She would be searching around the house calling out for your name only to not get a response back. Aizawa finally had the courage to tell her you died. She broke down crying. She was crying in Aizawa arms begging him to bring you back.

When your funeral happened she wanted to stay with your body. She knew she can’t but she wished she had seen you longer. She started to have worse nightmares of her life. It would always include you and she would always try to run to you but you end up faded away and just leaving her alone. This kept happening to the point she stayed sleeping with Aizawa and Present Mic. One dream had you in it but you stayed. You actually talked to her till she woke up. That made her smile and cry.

Don’t go. Please. I miss you - Eri

Miruko

You died in the hospital. When she saw you was deadly injured after the fight she took you straight to the hospital. She stayed by your side when she could. She would always come with something new for you. And stay the whole time when she isn’t being a pro hero. You died when she was bringing you a rose and a matching ring for the both of you. And that’s when the nurse broke the news. She went towards your room and saw you there with no heartbeat. She cried and then went to Hawks house to tell him everything while crying.

Your funeral had all the pics you took with your friends and her. She also cried during this time and had to leave because she kept crying too much. She would stay at your grave and tell you things that happened. She buried your ring in with you. And wore her ring as well.

At least you are safe forever bunny - Miruko

Aizawa

He watched you die in front of him. You saved his life from behind and when he turned around he saw your dead body in front of him. His eyes went wide and he held you close to him. He would start being more closed off and sometimes forget to eat just because you usually remind him.

He would sometimes get thoughts about you. And how much you did for him. He smiles sometimes when he sees things that remind him of you and would tell Eri those sweet memories. As well as his students/children.

You still continue to shine like gold in my memories - Aizawa

Izuku

Izuku went out of it. He used his powers to the fullest because you weren't there to stop him. He wanted to defeat every single villain that was near your body when he found you. It was a villain attack.

He would just stay near your grave and Bakugou+ would have to grab him and pull him up to take him back to the dorms to eat and sleep but he would always end up where your body lies.

It should have been me - Izuku

Dabi

He had heard your scream, the last scream you had. It was you calling out for him. He burned everything in his path to reach you. But he was too late. You were halfway gone when he got there. He held you in his arms. With your last breath, you touched his face, smiled at him, and said you love him. Then your body slowly lost its will and you closed your eyes.

It made him go on a rampage and burned a lot of things down. He hunted down those who killed you and gave them a brutal death. He always remembers you and would look at the picture of you every time he thinks about you. No one could tell him what to do at this point.

You idiot. I told you to wait for me - Dabi

[raayllum]

PAWN-OF-AARAVOS DARK-MAGIC-SCARRED CALLUM WITH LITERAL BLOOD ON HIS HANDS IN THE TRAILER

HOW DOES THAT VINDICATION FEEL?

I love that Claudia gets the white hair and he gets the facial scarring, just like you speculated about! They’re two sides of the same coin!

Also ICARUS CALLUM? HE FLIES TOO HIGH AND HIS WINGS FALL APART? THEY’RE JUST GIVING US EVERYTHING

Listen we Knew ever since he got that cube he'd be a pawn and worried about it (+ increased Claudia and Viren parallels to boot), the blood on his hands even in a dream was a lovely wish come true already, and white streak Callum will always be famous but I gotta say I am loving the corrupted face variant, showing the initial inklings of corruption

I already talked about it in my trailer breakdown post and it's like that singular screencap is Crazy, it's Nuts like the implications no matter which way you play it? Because it's clearly a nightmare or scary vision sequence and like

If it's Rayla's nightmare (the way Runaan is), that means she knows what he did on Finnegrin's boat and that she's scared of what Callum's becoming—Rayla, who's had more faith than arguably anyone that Callum is special ("No, Callum's different!") and amazing with or without his magic ("Humans could take their fates and change them" / "He's noble, and true") and so confident that his destiny was a book he could write himself she refused to even consider the possibility of her needing to be his (and the world's) safety net, because Callum has regularly done the impossible. If her confidence in him is shaken, his must be abysmal

However, if it's Callum's nightmare or vision or whatever (and that's what I'm leaning towards) it does show a shift of sorts. I'm gonna copy and paste what I've said earlier about it and then go into more detail if well, there's detail to go into:

We know from 6x01 details that he has a nightmare regarding Aaravos, and we also know from people at cons that this screencap was not there. Looking at the scene itself, the deep purple lighting highlights that it’s not quite 'real’, nor is it necessarily possible due to the background being Finnegrin’s office on the Sea Legs, where Callum last did dark magic. I could very easily see this being a dream where Callum is having horrifying visions of himself outside his body, and this is one. I do find it interesting that, rather than black dark magic slug goop like I first thought on his hand, it’s actually blood on his hand, and the changes this indicates of Callum’s psyche / fears. Normally when Callum breaks things (primal stone, moon opal necklace, the green slug) it’s with his other hand, for starters. But more importantly, I think it’s interesting that this nightmare isn’t Just about being flat out possessed, but of being more of a dark mage: the eyes, the corruption, the blood, etc. and how that may lead to Aaravos’ will being further enforced over him. It speaks to a recognition of his own agency as well as growing fears of being not just controlled, but corrupted along the way.

One of Callum's greatest assets has always been his self awareness. He's intelligent, attentive, growing in confidence in his own capabilities for more than just magic. This is one of his biggest differences from both Viren and Claudia. However, this awareness of what he could do—what Aaravos could get him to do, possession or otherwise—may make him more stressed, worried, fearful, and paranoid.

Additionally acknowledged is that like in S4 and even in 6x01 Callum seemed mostly concerned with being possessed, as stated. Obviously S4 still had indications it was going to grow into More than just "what if my agency is stripped away" to "what if my agency is stripped away (and it's 'my' fault / because of my previous choices)" from Callum himself ("What if I'm on a path of darkness" is no longer a flimsily founded worry) and even from other characters like Soren ("I know you love magic, Callum, but I hope you're careful, 'cause it can change people").

Which makes sense! Possession is a loss of agency and that's accordingly terrifying, esp to a character like Callum who is the thematic embodiment of Freedom in the series and who cares about agency and being able to Do things 110%. Just having your agency stripped away from you wholesale, though, doesn't give much of a character arc — even if Callum only makes decisions out of paranoia next season > love, he's still making decisions — so like... He can and should be worried about his choices and what they may lead to, honestly. Not only is there set up, it's a much more standard TDP storyline (when is anyone ever let off the hook?) and it's more interesting. Callum is also very good at keeping his fears logically grounded (i.e. not worrying about Viren after 3x09, but stressed about not being a mage in s2) so that's another point in the "yeah this is Setup" column alongside 5x08 and... all of s4 and s5 honestly. So this screencap is very exciting cause it seems Callum is having increased fear and self awareness about his previous dark magic use and the possibility of using it or doing something else he considers awful in the future and I can't wait!

Icarus chose to fly too close to the sun after all

[waytooinvested]

Forgotten, Not Forgiven - Chapter 20

This and previous chapters are also on AO3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two weeks had passed since the disastrous dream session, and it felt like everything had subtly shifted from where it had been before that night.

Kara still seemed entirely unphased by her experience – was thriving, if anything. Now she had successfully negotiated better contract terms at Catco and come to a compromise with Andrea about the sort of stories she would be writing she seemed happier at work, and had even managed to wangle a corporate discount membership at the climbing centre so she could go regularly. More troublingly she had also almost immediately thrown herself into some project that she was being unusually cagey about, but Kara had assured her it was nothing to worry about, and she was acting normally enough as long as the conversation stayed on other subjects. Lena was trying her best to trust her and not dwell on the mystery, no matter how tempting it might be to do a little digging.

Beyond that there were still the regular Project Atlantis meetings as always, but although none of them said it outright, they were all aware that progress had stalled. Now they knew exactly what it was keeping Kara from her Supergirl memories, they also knew that they couldn’t just break it down, and so far the best idea they had come up with to armour Kara against the trauma of it was… therapy.

It was a long way from being the silver bullet they needed.

However, after the latest uninspired and frustrating Atlantis meeting, something else had changed. Lena had offered Alex a lift home, as she often did since they lived in the same direction, and Alex had accepted. They had been sitting in the back seat watching the city go by outside the windows, same as always, and then Alex had come out with it.

‘So. I have this idea.’

‘For Project Atlantis?’

‘No, no, not that. It’s just something I hoped you might be up for trying with me...’

Alex shuffled a bit in her seat, and for a moment she looked so much like Kara when she had been about to suggest rock climbing that Lena narrowed her eyes, suspicious.

‘I swear to god Alex, if you’re about to ask me to go skydiving-’

Alex snorted.

‘HAH, no. I do kind of wish I’d thought of that just to see your face when I suggested it, but no. I was actually going to ask if, maybe, you wanted to come with me to a gay bar some time.’

Lena’s eyebrows shot up.

This was new.

She and Alex had spent time together outside Project Atlantis meetings, sure, but it had always been a continuation of them, or at least started out with some kind of pretext of a work thing before they had settled into just hanging out. This was the first time either of them had suggested something purely social, let alone a gay bar.

‘Really? How come? It’s not our usual sort of meet up place.’

‘Exactly. I’ve never actually been to one before, and I don’t know, you might you go all the time, but I thought maybe it would be similar for you, and we could try it out together.’

Alex was… not wrong. Lena had been to a few exclusive VIP only queer events over the years, but an ordinary gay bar in her home city? Never. There had always been the risk that she might be recognised and end up all over the tabloids of course, but it wasn’t just that. She’d never had anyone to go with. Not until now.

‘Wouldn’t you rather go with Kelly?’

‘I mean, yeah, I’d really like us to go together eventually, but… well, when I got together with Maggie so much of the dynamic was her as the worldly wise one, and me as the newly hatched little baby lesbian who had never been with a woman or had any of these experiences. And even though Kelly never makes me feel that way, I kind of want this to be something I do for the first time just as myself, not as part of a couple. So I thought it could be a good friend thing. With you.’

A friend thing.

Alex wanted to discover her community with a friend, and she was asking Lena. Not Kara. Not Nia. Not any of the other friends she had uncomplicated histories with and who would gladly have tagged along with her.

She wanted Lena.

‘I would love to go to a gay bar with you Alex.’

Alex beamed, and the change in the set of her shoulders made Lena realise that she had been nervous about asking. This really mattered to her.

‘Awesome! So I have been looking into options and narrowed it down to three. There’s ‘Velvet’ which is the big one in the city centre that seems like a nice place, but it’s pretty high profile so I thought you might not be comfortable with the visibility – I don’t want you to end up as a story in some gossip magazine because of me.’

Lena nodded, appreciating the consideration. She was not afraid to be out, but she would rather control the narrative around any public announcement, and do it in her own time. Ideally when her life was less complicated than it was right now.

‘Then there’s ‘Liquor Lips’, which is the most private seeming, buuut also looks kind of skeevy. It’s not quite a strip joint, but they have some ‘exotic dance’ nights and a generally more X rated feel, and uh.. I’m not sure the whole thing is quite the vibe I’m looking for.’

‘Agreed, that is not the kind of night I was imagining.’

‘No, so this last one is my favourite – it’s called ‘Violet’s’. It’s a bit more open than Liquor Lips but also kind of far out of town, which I thought might be a good thing for you, and it has more of a community feel. It’s on the smaller side, but it looks friendly, and they have a pretty decent cocktail menu.’

Cocktails and community. Lena could work with that.

‘Violet’s it is.’

They had agreed a date and time, and that was that. They were officially the sort of friends who did things together outside of a work context. It felt a bit strange, but not bad strange. New, and unexpected, and… nice.

Violet’s turned out to be an unassuming building with a small sign hanging above the door and a rainbow sticker on one window. From the outside it didn’t look like much, and certainly wouldn’t raise many eyebrows if anyone saw Lena Luthor going in, at least not unless you knew what the place was.

Inside was a different story entirely.

Beyond the entryway it opened up into a surprisingly spacious room, decked out with purple fluorescents over the bar and string lights criss crossing the dark blue ceiling to give the impression of a starry night, though it was almost lost behind the yards and yards of rainbow bunting that had been strung overhead, and the flags of just about every queer identity one could hope to name hanging from the walls. The whole impression was utterly chaotic and much too busy to be considered entirely good taste, but Alex was right, it felt friendly.

Alex herself was hovering in the doorway, staring round from the flags, to the bunting, to the people gathered around tables. Drinking, laughing, playing darts, holding hands, kissing.

When several more seconds passed and she still didn’t move, Lena gave her a little elbow nudge.

‘You doing okay there Danvers?’

‘Huh?’

Lena raised an eyebrow at her.

‘Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I’m good, sorry. I just realised, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a room with this many other gay people before. It’s kind of blowing my mind.’

She knew what Alex meant. It was different for her of course – she had been in plenty of rooms with at least this many other queer people, but not like this. Those had all been highly curated events with carefully chosen guest lists of the rich and powerful, all of whom knew exactly who Lena was. It had meant that no matter how much she might enjoy herself, she always had to be aware of the impression she was giving, just in case any of it came back to bite her later.

But here there was none of that. This was just a bar that she happened to have walked into with a friend. They didn’t have to be The Lena Luthor and Director Alex Danvers here, and the one or two people who had glanced up when they came in had gone back to their own conversations, clearly seeing nothing noteworthy in their arrival. Right now Lena was just one more woman who loved women in a crowd of others just like her. It made her feel unremarkable. Mundane even.

She was going to like it here.

Once they had their drinks they settled at a table that was slightly out of the thick of things, but not so far back that they felt hidden away. For a little while they sipped in silence, just soaking it all in and allowing themselves to fully experience what it was like to be in the majority. Alex particularly still seemed very slightly in shock, though she was clearly trying not to stare too obviously at anyone in particular.

After a few minutes she let out a long breath and swore softly.

‘I didn’t realise. I fell in love with a woman and I came out to my family and I thought that was it, I never realised how much more there was. I’m not just a woman who happens to love other women. I am a lesbian, and that means I get to be part of something bigger than my own relationships. I feel like I missed out on so much by not working it out sooner.’

‘It’s not too late. Everyone starts the journey at their own pace, and you have plenty of time for yours. Maybe when things have settled back down and Kara... well, maybe one day we could all go to a pride parade together.’

‘Yeah… I’d like that. How come we never talked about this stuff before? It feels like kind of a waste.’

Lena shrugged.

‘We weren’t those sorts of friends. We were both more focused on Kara…’

They still were of course. Kara was their centre and the purpose for their coming together in the first place, but now Lena and Alex had formed a bond that was separate to their relationship with her. And maybe, whatever happened between Lena and Kara once Kara had her Supergirl memories back, even if they found they couldn’t work through the lies and hurt on both sides and decided not to stay friends, maybe this friendship with Alex would be something she would be able to keep this time.

‘I guess so. It’s weird though, I’ve known you for years and I don’t even know anything about what all this is like for you. I mean… have you dated women before? When did you figure out that you were bi?’

‘Boarding school. I was 15, and I realised I had the biggest crush on Andrea Rojas.’

‘Andrea- wait, that Andrea Rojas? Kara’s boss? Kara’s boss that she hates?’

‘The same. She’s more fun if she’s not your boss.’

Though it could be fun when Andrea got bossy too, in the right context.

‘Wow okay. So you two were a couple?’

Lena tilted her hand back and forth in a measuring gesture.

‘I wouldn’t say we were a couple, exactly. We were best friends, and there was definitely… tension. Then one night we snuck down to the common room in the middle of the night – no one else around, just us in the dark with a bottle of scotch Andrea had managed to smuggle in. We drank a bit of it, but just a few sips each, we hadn’t really acquired a taste for it yet, and then we talked – or more accurately, we flirted, though not in a very intentional way. Andrea was playing with the bottle, just for something to do with her hands at first, but watching it turning round and round, I think we both had the idea at the same time. She picked it up very deliberately and put it down between us, then kept eye contact while she set it spinning. We both stared at it so intensely, it was like our entire future depended on whether it stopped pointing at me or not.’

‘And did it?’

Lena laughed.

‘Not even close. But I kissed her anyway.’

‘Wow. That’s a bold move, I can’t imagine having that much confidence at 15.’

‘Well, you have to remember we were raised in families who expected to get what they wanted, and we had been dancing around it for months by that point. I think on some level we both knew it was just a matter of time. Anyway, that night kind of opened the floodgates, and we had a lot more secret make out sessions, and then eventually more than that… but it always felt more like a friends with benefits set up than an actual committed relationship. After a while she started dating someone else and so we stopped our trysts, and then I did too. We would still get together sometimes after we left school, if we were both in the same city and neither of us happened to be dating anyone else at the time, but it was always casual.’

‘And... do you still? Now she’s in National City?’

‘No. We had a… falling out. We’re back on reasonable terms now, but it’s not like it used to be. I couldn’t trust her the same way after that.’

There was a silence following this statement, filled with their shared knowledge of Lena’s more recent ‘falling out’ with someone she had romantic feelings for, and the unspoken implications about trust brought up by the parallels of the two situations.

But Kara and Andrea could hardly be more different, and Lena had never felt about Andrea the way she did for Kara…

Did that make their future prospects better, or worse?

She wasn’t sure, and she couldn’t stand the heaviness that now seemed to be pressing down on their evening of queer discovery, so she shook it off, and tried to get the conversation back on track.

‘How about you? What was your gay awakening like?’

‘ Oh, well, the big thing was meeting Maggie, obviously. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot since, and realising there were so many things that I missed at the time that make so much more sense now. Like how weird and complicated my feelings got about sleeping over with my best friend Vicky in high school. Or the girl in my freshman college dorm who was obsessed with Norwegian fantasy movies, and I was the only one who would watch them with her. I didn’t understand a word of what was going on, but she would always grab my hand and hold on tight whenever this one guy came on screen, and that was enough to make me keep going back. Then there was the barista I used to try to coincide my coffee shop visits with, even though she made terrible coffee. But she had blue hair and all these amazing tattoos, and she would give me this look and call me Beautiful like it was my name, and she used to slip me free muffins when her manager wasn’t looking.’

‘...And you didn’t read that as her flirting with you?’

‘Well no, not at the time. Why?’

‘No, nothing, I think I’m just seeing where Kara gets it from. It might not be quite an office full of flowers, but that girl did everything but write her number on your cup to tell you she was interested.’

‘Oh. Uh… she actually did write her number on my cup one time.’

‘WHAT?’

‘It wasn’t like that! It was just in case-’

Alex broke off, thinking back over the interaction, and shook her head.

‘Yeah, no, okay it was exactly like that. Self-denial is a hell of a drug.’

It probably wasn't nice to laugh at someone's process of coming to terms with their sexuality, but in this case Lena couldn't help it.

‘God, if we had had this conversation a year ago I would have known I needed to hire a sky writer to get through to Kara. Or just grabbed her by the lapels and stuck my tongue down her throat.’

Alex groaned and swatted her arm.

‘Lena!’

‘Oh you know what I mean. Anyway, it’s probably for the best. If you had picked up on Cute Blue Haired Barista’s flirting you might not be with Kelly now.’

The aggrieved look softened instantly into a dopey smile, like just the mention of Kelly's name was enough to make Alex happy. She looked the way Lena felt when she thought about Kara, and it made her simultaneously happy for her friend and intensely jealous of Alex’s uncomplicated romantic relationship.

‘Yeah, Kelly is pretty great. I guess it was worth waiting for my big realisation if it meant I got to end up where I am with her. I do wish I could talk more to her about what’s happening at the moment though. You know, with Project Atlantis… I mean, she knows in a general sense, but not how personal it is. I hate feeling like I’m keeping something from her.’

‘Kelly doesn’t know about Kara?’

‘No. Things between us were still pretty new when everything happened, and now… I can’t exactly ask Kara’s permission to loop her in, can I?’

‘No, but… for what it’s worth, I think you should tell her anyway. Kelly is your person, and you need to be able to share something this huge with your person. Your sister has essentially had a serious accident that’s left her with amnesia and missing half the context of your life together. That is a lot to deal with on your own on top of trying to keep everything from falling apart in Supergirl’s absence, and you need someone to talk to about it all. Kelly deserves to know what all this means to you, and I really think Kara will understand.’

Alex went quiet for a moment, prodding at a chunk of lime floating in her Caipiroska with a rainbow striped straw, and then asked ‘who do you talk to about it?’

‘What?’

‘Kara’s your person, right? And you can’t tell her how you’re feeling about any of this. I’ve never really thought about that before. I mean, she’s my person too obviously, but in a different way. And like you said, I have Kelly... But you don’t. And it must be hard for you.’

Lena looked away. Somehow she hadn’t been prepared for her comment to get turned around on her, but it was true. She had spent so much of her recent past keeping herself a step removed from everyone around her, safe and solitary, and yet now when she actually wanted to be brave and do the work to open up, she couldn’t let herself.

Honestly, it was shit.

But Lena was in a her first gay bar with an excessively pink drink in front of her and a Tegan and Sara song blasting in the background, and she had no intention of getting maudlin about her unrequitable love right now, so she fell back on an easier answer.

‘Oh, I have my own ways of relieving the stress.’

‘Such as?’

She shrugged.

‘I break things. Wine glasses, mostly. Plates. An electron microscope once, after the Q-wave trial failed. It’s cathartic.’

Alex stared at her, clearly not having been quite ready for this response. Then she snorted.

‘Has anyone ever told you that being a billionaire makes you kind of an insufferable brat? You seriously smashed a piece of equipment that costs at minimum tens of thousands of dollars because “it was cathartic”?’

‘Hey, I fixed it afterwards! I might be obnoxiously rich but I’m not stupid.’

‘You… you fixed it afterwards.’

‘What? I did! I actually added in some upgrades while I was at it, so it was a net positive really-’

Alex shook her head, looking half wondering, half exasperated.

‘Fucking hell Lena. You are by far my weirdest friend. And most of my friends are aliens. One of my friends is a blue guy from another century who is also part computer. But you still win. NONE of that is how normal people deal with their feelings.’

‘Maybe that’s just because normal people don’t have access to electron microscopes, or sufficient knowledge about their inner workings to rebuild them after they get smashed.’

‘Yeah, no that is definitely not it weirdo.’

For the most part Lena didn't appreciate being called out for being odd. It reminded her too much of a childhood spent trying so desperately to fit in with what was expected of her only to fall short again and again, the black sheep in every situation. But somehow, in this context, it didn't feel like a bad thing. She pulled the straw from her drink to point it at Alex, accidentally-on-purpose flicking a drip of pink grapefruit and gin mix in her direction as she did so.

‘Psh, jealous. Keep talking like that and I won’t invite you to come and smash things with me next time we need to vent.’

Alex let the drink splashing go without comment, straightening up from her semi-slouched pose with a suddenly hopeful look.

‘Wait no, invite me! I want to smash things!’

‘Huh, what happened to “that’s not normal”?’

‘Well, not highly delicate and expensive scientific equipment things, but I could absolutely be down for bashing the hell out of a junk yard car or something. I was always kind of jealous that Kara could work out her feelings by pounding an old car into a crushed blob with her bare fists, but I bet it would still be pretty satisfying with a sledge hammer.’

‘You wait until you try a laser.’

Alex’s eyes went wide.

‘You have lasers? Can I play with them??’

‘Sure. As long as you listen to my safety instructions before you touch anything – I don’t want you burning a hole all the way through the side of my building.’

‘Awesome. I take back everything I said, your way of dealing with emotion is totally normal and healthy and not at all bratty-rich-kid.’

‘I should think so.’

Alex hesitated, then added in a more serious tone ‘however, if you ever decide you want to try a different kind of catharsis… you can always talk to me, you know.’

‘Thanks Alex. You can talk to me too.’

‘Oh I was planning on it. But uh… Just do me a favour and don’t tell me any more about how you want to kiss my sister, okay?’

Well, saying that was basically handing Lena the advantage on a silver platter. An evil grin twitched at the corners of her mouth, and she leaned confidingly closer across the table.

‘Oh, I don’t just want to kiss your sister. I am an adult woman with adult needs, and I want to-’

‘Aaargh oh my god shutupshutupshutup you absolute GREMLIN!’

Lena licked her lips, schooling her expression into something downright lascivious as she doubled down on her baiting.

‘Have you seen her biceps? And her abs are just- mmmm.’

‘Lena Luthor I am so serious right now, if you don’t stop that this second I will tip this drink over your head and ass-plant you right off your stool. That is so gross.’

It was tempting to keep torturing her, but Lena was laughing too hard by this point to think of anything else to say. Besides, it honestly felt pretty weird for her to talk about Kara like that to anyone, let alone her own sister.

Worth it though, given how much it had made Alex squirm.

‘Okay, okay, I’m done. Consider that payback for all the cotton candy jibes.’

‘Urgh. Paid back in full and then some. And you owe me about five more drinks to help block out the memories of what you just said.’

Alex knocked the rest of her drink back, and whether her shudder was for the sudden rush of alcohol or the mental images Lena had managed to evoke was anyone’s guess.

‘Aw, poor little delicate flower. Alright, my round. They actually do a shot here called ‘Supergirl’, shall I get you one of those?’

‘ABSOLUTELY NOT.’

There were several other temptingly named shots that would have served to send Alex into further paroxysms of horror (a Slippery Nipple, a Screaming Orgasm, a Quick Fuck, and of course the classic Sex on the Beach would all have done it after the conversation they had just had), but in the end she had mercy and bought her a perfectly respectable New York Sour shot and another passion fruit Caipiroska; and when she returned to the table she allowed the conversation to move on to less contentious subjects.

She had that one in her back pocket now though, just in case she needed future retaliation material. It would not be difficult to wax lyrical about Kara’s strong shoulders and tantalising shy lip-bite if she needed to.

[atla-confessions]

People engage with Katara’s role in LoK in bad faith.

Was it everything that we all dreamed it would be no, and I wish she had a fight scene as well. But dying that LoK Katara was side lined as Aang’s baby making factory is so grossly misogynistic it’s honestly disgusting.

Katara does a lot in LoK especially the first 2 seasons and the first half of the 4th. She’s the member of the gaang most featured in the entire show. She is the reason that Korra can even walk again and somehow that’s not comparative to Zuko’s one 30 second fight where he got his ass handed to him because…….? What? It’s a more “feminine” duty? When the decision on whether to send Korra away for airbending training is being made it is katara that everyone looks to for final say, it is katara’s opinion they respect more than anything to decide to forgo their own reservations. The white lotus looks to get for guidance but these things don’t count. Obviously

Katara is held to such esteem by the entire world and is a constant source of guidance to everyone else in the show. Katara is the reason the casualties in the civil war where no where near as terrible as they were. And all these things don’t matter because they are her more “feminine” side because Katara didn’t get a 30 second fight scene sprinkled in so you can say she still got it? Meanwhile she’s performing complex water bending and taught not only kya but Korra as well how to waterbend but all these things don’t count or don’t matter because she’s primarily healing.

Toph has one flashback where she doesn’t really do anything but be blood bended and then another flashback of her being a bad parent. She then mentors Korra for a bit just like katara did but in her own abrasive way. Next time she shows up she’s helping her family escape. And this portrayal is somehow better than Katara’s because toph got to actually fight…..?because she got a statue? Toph while still fun has arguably the most convoluted plot lines in the show.

This isn’t even mentioning the complete lack of Sokka or any of his descendants but I guess it’s all right since he got a statue?

The way people act you would think that katara spends her entire screen time barefoot and pregnant or moaning about Aang or even just being a mother. But actually she only brings up Aang twice and the bulk of her interactions are her acting as a source of guidance for Korra or performing healing. She does not act as aangs mouth piece, she gives advice from her own life experience and her own teachings. People regularly seek her out for guidance but she’s not important? Or well regarded? How? Compared to what? Zuko’s 30 minutes of fame?

And like I said there’s obviously more I wish we had seen, I wish we got a fight scene, I wish we saw a fucking statue of her if only so you guys will shut the fuck up. But this narrative that katara was nothing but a baby maker is grossly misogynistic and wildly misleading. And I can understand frustration with the writing or the heavy focus on one aspect of her character saying that Katara’s focus on healing and teaching essentially equals to her being nothing but a mistreated housewife/baby making factory is a brain dead take and the call really is coming from inside the house.

LoK has its problems but Katara being turned into a baby making factory is not one of them and it’s wild that that’s what some of y’all interpreted her as.

X

[crguang]

ok, so, I wasn’t sleeping bc I probably just have insomnia, possibly my depression, and also I’d just moved in to my dorm and I suck at sleeping in new places, lol, dw tho I slept for like most of the weekend and I’ve been sleeping regularly this week.

I honestly forgot that we don’t actually know wtf the stellaron hunters are actually doing , line they literally could just be lying abt everything. Actually none of them even say anything except Kafka , blade has his own thing going on, silver wolf is usually behind the scenes fucking around and firefly just didn’t say a thing , like come on, TB didn’t even think to ask anything, there was that dreamscape pass thing of whatever it’s called and the quote from 2.3 is like “Once, we dreamed of being strangers.Upon waking up, we realized we had always loved each other.” Which I assume is abt TB and firefly, and I do kind of wish we got some more stuff about TB’s past with the stellaron hunters, especially since firefly was so important, but it’s whatever. I am actually kind of interested in the script, what Elio tells them to say, and the stuff they’re just making up as they go. Especially since firefly’s script for penacony was just a few words (also firefly said she was part of the iris family the acting/performing one bc she carries out scripts). And Kafka was told was to tell TB during her interrogation abt what they’re doing on the Luofu, but I’m not sure if she’s just lying after that 😭Kafka has some explaining to do when she comes back very soon, in the main story.

hsjajsmskdmnx the arrests on the Luofu are so silly tho, especially since jing yuan pardoned her so she’s not technically wanted there anymore BUT I STILL WANT HER even tho she’s literally worth almost 11 billion by the IPC. The IPC stuff kind of bothers me tbh, they’re not the government, but also they’ve got a fair amount of authority, I feel like pardoning the stellaron hunters wouldn’t be allowed, like I don’t understand how Jing yuan did that without getting in trouble 😭 especially with the most wanted one. And topaz APPARENTLY doesn’t know who the stellaron hunters are, in her voice line abt them she said she didn’t know who they were but they had a good credit score ITS KAFKAS CREDIT SCORE SHES THE ONE W THE CARD and like it’s funny bc that means Kafka registered it under her actually name, and no one cares. Like it would’ve been funnier if she said like the wanted criminals, the ones who blah blah blah, but they have a good credit score. And jade knew exactly abt firefly and the other stellarom hunters, and even tho they’re different ranks topaz should know them. Especially considering the fact that they’re pretty infamous, ig I shouldn’t be nitpicking especially since march literally says when in Rome one time, but whatever.

sorry for ranting 😭 hope you’re doing ok!

-🌠

hope you’re doing a bit better!! insomnia is a bitch, make sure to take care of yourself as much as u can <3

i totally agree with you on the stellaron hunters not revealing anything, i dont really expect them to since we’re still quite early in the game timeline wise but it’s a bit disappointing for the TB to have gotten close to firefly and she never alluded to them knowing each other before, especially when the game’s marketing was pushing romantic implications between them😭 and the trailblazer’s “idgaf” mentality is a bit annoying because i get wanting to move forward and not wanting to be burdened by the past but not being curious at all is… weird. even march, who was repeatedly told not to look into her past, got upset about it at some point. and in the TB’s case, their connection with the stellaron hunters is actively shaping their present/future, so it’s not like they gain nothing from asking a few questions. kafka was the one who encouraged them to get some information from her when they were alone by playing truth or lie, like they don’t care😭 it’s annoying cause i wanna knowwww. a big missed opportunity with firefly imo, we could’ve gotten a pattern of learning a little bit about the trailblazer on every planet they stop by and it’d have been nice. instead all i get is trashcan and raccoon jokes like oh brother are we 8. i wonder what the script actually says, the SH says he always tells the right future but from what we know , it feels super vague. “experiencing 3 deaths” “finding the stellaron in a non-physical way” is not precise at all like how do they even carry those orders😭 no wonder they have liberty to do lots of stuff during missions, there’s barely anything in the damn script

about jing yuan, he’s general of the luofu and the xianzhou has its own regulations and criminal law, the ipc has no control over how they treat their prisoners and their bounties dont really matter to the xianzhou unless they want the money LMFAO, so the ipc has no jurisdiction to punish jing yuan for letting the SH get away. not to mention that the alliance and the ipc have trade agreements and stuff, so their relationship would be damaged and the ipc wouldnt benefit from that. at the end of the day they’re a corporation, they don’t really care for justice.

what bothers me is TOPAZ. IT MAKES NO SENSE. she’s a stoneheart in the same division as jade, sure jade is more cunning and always looking for opportunities to make profits but not knowing them at all is so ridiculous and unrealistic fr. they’ve broken into pier point like twice and that’s her place of work😭😭😭😭😭😭 no way she never heard anything about it to not form an opinion on them. i feel like giving her a voiceline about them was just for the credit score joke which also makes zero sense because why would any of them pay taxes to the corporation that wants them dead or imprisoned. how would the ipc even know which credit card is theirs and why are they doing nothing about it like its so stupid… herta froze all of silver wolf’s accounts cause she was feeling petty but youre telling me the ipc is monitoring their credit scores?.. like im not going to lie i dont take the ipc seriously at all. silver wolf was literally participating in a tournament they sponsored and they just let her compete. like that girl was on the big screen with people cheering her on… for a company that would benefits from civilians fearing/hating the SH, they really dont give a fuck. once again it lowers the stakes and makes the story less exciting for me, and in general it’s inconsistent and weird narration wise to approach heavy themes while simultaneously making a joke of everything. if that makes sense 😭 like the tonal shifts are always very harsh and out of place, it’s one of the things i hate the most about hsr. having the trailblazer crack a stupid joke when everyone’s super serious (which often gets them ignored by dan heng or makes march’s face turn unimpressed, or has her tell them now isnt the time) is starting to annoy me like we get it they’re dumb as rocks omg. when cocolia died at the end of the belobog mission and march’s first words were “well! what an adventure!” in front of bronya hello?!? having no tact in actual serious situations isnt endearing to me like u can just keep ur mouth shut atp

anyway sorry i ranted i guess i needed that off my chest HDJFKFKG

[buttonloops]

okay, anxiety around writing in particular

so I had a bit of a creatively stunting upbringing

all fiction was strictly forbidden until I was fifteen. I occasionally snuck some in under the radar, but was always wracked with guilt afterwards

my dad said the reason was that fiction sets up unrealistic expectations, that life doesn't work like it does in stories

the problem is

I've been compulsively telling stories since I was a toddler

literally started trying to write a novel when I was seven

all this interdict really ended up doing was consuming me in guilt and really severely stunting my creative guilt

I didn't start learning how stories *work,* like, the instinctive way from absorbing countless fairy tales and epics and novels, until later. I wrote my first novel at fourteen, when I was still forbidden from reading Winnie the Pooh or the Chronicles of Narnia.

I... still haven't made peace with that emptiness. With the aching need for fantasy and fancy that gnawed at me for the first half of my life.

The pain of it still takes my breath away.

Honestly, I think it was the cruellest thing my father ever did. And he didnt even know what he was doing.

(honestly, he was just following his own anxiety about being a good person, his own inner demons that told him he was following the will of god)

I quit writing for years as a young adult. Because somewhere in my brain the thought had burrowed in that stories = bad and fiction = evil and I wanted my parents to approve of me. So I abandoned the thing that came so naturally to me and got a whole degree in something that was like pulling teeth, something that I struggled constantly with, until finally when I graduated I finally had to admit that the thought of actually looking for a job in that field made me actively suicidal and I had to do something else.

I've written on and off as an adult. Slowly creeping my way back to it. Limbering up the stiff muscles. Trying to learn how stories work. Reading and reading and reading, insatiably, sometimes as much as a book a day.

But all the adult anxieties lie thick over my efforts, often thick enough to push me back.

Because now there's years of fandom purity culture and cinemasins and plot hole discourse rotting through my head, swirling together with that old old notion that fiction is bad insofar as it is unrealistic.

I've gotten to the point that I can enjoy reading tropey, cheesy power fantasies and other flights of fancy.

But I still freeze up, locking up absolutely rigid when I try to write them. My perfectionism (...my anxiety) screams "that's ridiculous, that would never work, that's absurd, how do they pay the rent? Shouldn't they be more stressed about work? No one's that good at what they do!"

I've tried writing "realistic" stories which of course gets excruciatingly depressing and tedious.

I still want to write. Desperately. Constantly.

Part of me screams "if you really cared about it that much you'd be doing it, instead of wasting so much time avoiding it and wishing you knew how to start"

Another, gentler part of me points out that if I didn't care about writing, it wouldn't bother me not to be doing it. I'm not regularly consumed by longing and wistful guilt over my lack of ...idk, boxing matches or racecar driving or painting.

Just writing.

I still have this dream, this dream I've had since I was a kid, that someday I'll make a career out of being a novelist.

(as unrealistic as that is, too)

Anyway. I'm reexamining all this through the lens of anxiety. And I wanted to talk about a core defining trauma that I carry with me. Thanks for listening.

[bi-hop]

faliiiiinnnnnnnn

Falin!

How I feel about this character: it's actually kinda funny upon further reflection that she's one of my favorite characters. because I reread dungeon meshi a lot (just random chapters) to try and absorb the dialogue and she's barely present? Obviously, she haunts the text, and chimera!Falin shows up pretty regularly, but her herself? barely there! mostly post-canon! she rocks though to be clear.

I think what I like most about her is how the person viewing her subtly shapes what we expect from her. I remember being somewhat surprised she was so cordial with her parents still, as Marcille was, because even though Laios acknowledged the possibility of her not being as strongly affected by their upbringing, I didn't actually believe that would be the case. I enjoy that all of her loved ones have these lens on that mean you do get to see Falin, but almost always through these curtains of bias first. I don't know what it means for me that part of why I like her is because of getting to peel back that curtain every so often. LMAO

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Farcille, for starters, which I won't dwell on. basically everyone loves it. LET'S TALK OTHER STUFF!!!!

if I had a nickel for every time I wrote Asivia falling for a lady despite being at Laios' court in post-canon presumably to 'try again', I'd have two nickels. this is becoming a funny trend. anyway won't mention the other fic but I have this general idea for Asivia having an interest in dragoness Falin that no one really picks up on because I like mess. I still don't really know if I want the interest to be reciprocated or not. but I think Asivia is neat. I support women trying to get money out of guys, even if said guy is my fave. enough about Laios though. in terms of attraction, I think it's mostly a matter of beauty and power as the starting point. that might sound not genuine, but I think the draw of the power part of Falin is a fascination with the freedom she now represents and embodies. I dunno though, I've basically invented Asivia in my head.

there's also Rin, which I can only express this way

no one sees my vision though

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Laios (I wish good big brothers were real) of course. Marcille also. I think those are the main ones. That isn't to diminish her bond with any other character, just OTP is a big weighty term to me and those are the dynamics I've dwelled on the most. I should change that though bc Chilchuck calling her strange (if I recall right) in his relationship map (or hers?) was funny to me. you did all that for a girl you think is weird? aight, grump grump

My unpopular opinion about this character: she should have killed more people actually-

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: my dream... my sole dream... is a random ass bonus thing that's 'Falin's traveling journal' a la Senshi's journal and we get to see countries in the dungeon meshi world that weren't named and life is good. life is so good. my final message. gootbye

[sarah-crewe]

tagged by my pal @thecrackshiplollipop

1. are you named after anyone? yes, sort of. some of my great-something grandmothers had my names, but it was more that my mom liked them a lot and wanted to name me my name since she was a teenager. we later found out that one of my great-something grandmothers was named sarah mariah (which is my name and my sister’s name).

2. when was the last time you cried? i teared up earlier today when i was reading a post about dads being great and loving their kids.

3. do you have kids? no. i’ve had a lot of childcare jobs, including being a nanny for four years, and i’m still super close to those kids and see them all the time. sometimes their mom wishes me a happy mother’s day, so...

4. do you use sarcasm a lot? never. you think someone would really do that? go on the internet and be sarcastic?

5. what’s the first thing you notice about people? i straight up do not know... i feel like i’m taking in a lot of info when i meet someone new, so maybe it’s just whatever stands out the most about them?

6. what’s your eye color? brown

7. scary movies or happy endings? happy endings. i’m a little bitch and i don’t watch scary movies.

8. any special talents? running into large, solid objects that have been consistently been in the same place for months, years, or even decades of my life.

9. where were you born? maine, born and raised bb

10. what are your hobbies? i like to read a lot, dabble in 45 different crafts/arts, watch educational videos on youtube, partake in semi-dangerous sports, and play pretend with my friends

11. have you any pets? no. i live in a real small apartment that is uncomfortably messy and i would feel too guilty to bring an animal into that. i really love cats though, and want a cat that is legitimately bonded to me, which i’ve never really had. we weren’t at my dad’s house enough for his cats to really get comfy with us, and my mom has always been hella allergic.

12. what sport do you play/have played? i played soccer and basketball as a kid. my dad said i was actually good at soccer when i was little, which i always thought was not true (not afraid of the ball, good coordination, good soccer vision, his words) but i quit both of those when i was in upper elementary because i was focused on gymnastics. i started gymnastics when i was five and did it regularly, up to 5 nights a week, until i was 14. i took up figure skating about a decade ago, but i’ve been on an extended break because of pandemic anxiety. i skateboard occasionally, but i am not good at it.

13. how tall are you? 5'3″ on a good day, lol. can’t believe the doctor told me i was gonna be 6′2″.

14. favorite subject in school? english or art/theatre (in high school). i liked school in general, but i struggled a little bit with science and math in high school: science because i had never learned how to study and was finally being challenged for the first time in my life and math because i accidentally pattern reconditioned myself into a higher placement test score than i ought to have had, putting me in a class where i didn’t have the foundational knowledge needed to succeed. both problems were fixed by the time i was a junior, but the damage had been done to my psyche and i thought i was bad at those topics for a while. english though, loml.

15. dream job? lol my current job (children’s librarian) if it was just the actual job and not the societal bandaid that it’s become... though i would love a four day work week. that would make it perfect.

tagging @jennamacaroni @tarynlatx @knockfivetimes @stellesappho @roarsaidthedinosaur @also-angels @littleoases @seemssostrange

[eightwholebreads]

So, since round 1 is over, I think it's time I looked back at how the 21 characters I submitted to @who-do-i-know-this-man season 2 did. I want to keep the winners secret for now but I'll evaluate them in order. Do I count all of these characters as blorbos to me personally? No not really but I do have a reason for each of them. Why 21? Well that's because it's 1% of the whole tournament! I kept a rule that there should be only one character per series so there's some variety. Do I think any of them will win? No, but some may get pretty far.

On with the list.

[redacted] was up against a main character from a film. I don't recognise the film but I recognise some of the actors named in the cast list. I think this guy is my most obscure character that I submitted if only because he's from a kind of a forgettable thing despite it being broadcast regularly enough

Cecille (Luminous arc) did pretty good I think? Is the overlap between DS game enjoyers and webcomic enjoyers large enough that a significant amount of the both/neither vote is both? Good fight but the adversary was simply too obscure.

[redacted]. I'm genuinely surprised he did so badly but given the media was given as the album and not the band... I don't know why op didn't put the album cover as the image tbh. He got a visual appearance recently! So he will have one for round two. But I don't think that'll help recognisability in the slightest

Digit Al (Digital UK). I know he has some enjoyers on this website and wanted to jumpscare them. Fun fact! I typed his name wrong on the submission form so it actually says digit ai on the poll...

[redacted] seemed to be up against a much beloved character. This was one of those "Have you played this game?" characters

[redacted] was submitted to prove that you can't submit [redacted] characters on the [redacted] enjoyers website and expect them to get anywhere. But she somehow won this round...

[redacted] is from a game that never got an official english translation. I know there's [redacted] enjoyers on this website... I mostly picked him in particular for his fun design. Described as "looks very polite"

[redacted] only won because of the massive coincidence of who she was up against. I don't think she's surviving round 2. My first ever blorbo! I was obsessed with her at age 5

Kasasagi Watase (Root Double -Before Crime * After Days) is another "Have you played this game?" characters and the answer is mostly no since he only got about 7 votes (vs the other guy's 5)

[redacted] was a "have you read this book?" style submission. This particular book fills my dreams at times and makes me desperate to reread it since I still remember the shape of it in my mind. I did reread it recently and I can't tell you a single thing that happened because it was really weird.

[redacted]. The guy who I liked the most in [redacted] and also the guy who I had the most interesting experience with (somehow triggered the [redacted] system near the end of the run...). I guess the other media was just more well known? but I've never heard of it

Nero (Lunar Knights) I ♥ black cats! What more can I say. Technically the wrong image. Was meant to be this guy

[redacted] I wish they'd bring him back... but also his final adventure where he ends up stuck in a time loop is too good of an ending imo. To the person who said "#wait [redacted] have a podcast? #is it a musical comedy podcast?": what a way to find out

[redacted] another "Have you played this game?" type submission. Why her? Idk I just remember her banana holder in perfect clarity for some reason. Idk how well she'll do in round 2 since her opponent this time seemed to be well known

Professor Layton was submitted because I do still find him sexy somehow. Plus I wanted to see how many not-obscure-enough complaints he could generate. Note: I did not pick the image used but I approve

[redacted] Does anyone know how to get this game working on linux? Actually I've got it working but I can't record it properly. I think it'd be fun to stream due to massive deep nostalgia in those that know.

Qrs Tuvwxyz did I think he'd win on the Qrs Tuvwxyz website? no. But look at him!!!! Yippee!!

~~space for a mysterious 22nd character I don't think I submitted because he's not on my list but as soon as I saw him I went oh I think I submitted him~~

[redacted] I picked him because he had my favourite joke in [redacted] (His [redacted]). Also I apparently completely didn't recognise his voice actor the whole time I was listening... I'm gonna have that weird experience of re-listening to something and only now recognising their voice

Russi Clover/Candy Holly was picked due to this quirk of hers. The reason this happened was the phoenix wright and miles edgeworth manga were translated by different people. Despite her appearance in the edgeworth manga clearly being framed as a re-introduction, the translator didn't notice and so re-named her

Suzukage Hotori (remember 11). Definitely kind of a trick one given the exact nature fo this character. Surprised she lost and [redacted up above] didn't

[redacted] he stood out to me and my friend when we were playing [redacted] together around age 8 and his name became an inside joke for a time

So the final result is...

Slain at the first hurdle: 8/21 On to round two: 13/21

If this keeps up (it won't) one of my guys might even win this thing!

I submitted 1 character each to seasons 3 and 4 and they are both winning (so far)

[yeehaw-in-magic-space]

Session 6b Recap: Part 1/5

Immediately following the events of Session 5, Prometheus and Geraldine were ushered back to their room by one of Barley’s guards and the door was locked. The lies they’d told about the battle and about Chuck and Dolly’s deaths seemed to have gone over okay. There was no guarantee that Barley had believed their lies, but he at least had no intention of killing them that night.

If he was going to have them killed, he would have done it then and there when they were injured and exhausted or simply dropped them into the pit they’d been standing on top of while telling their tale. Despite this, Prometheus seemed unable to relax. He struggled to breathe or get out a thought as he wondered what King Barley was thinking and what would become of them now that they had even less muscle to protect them. 

Geraldine was in relatively good spirits. She had pulled off the deception of a lifetime—at least well enough to keep her head for another night. She had been put through the wringer and come out whole. She tried to reassure Prometheus that they had done everything they could have and that the others would be fine. The two groups would reunite and continue to do the best they could until everyone was safe and sound away from this planet. When that didn’t seem to do much to quiet Prometheus’s mind, Geraldine tried the form of comfort that had worked best for her in difficult moments. She began to talk about her favorite novels. In “The Adventures of Mike Hawk”, the beginning of the journey was always rough (and not in the fun way—that came later), but he always found a way to turn things around at the last second. Prometheus snapped at Geraldine. He coldly reminded her that this wasn’t fiction and that they could actually die—and based on his tone, he thought their deaths were certain.  

He tried to convince Geraldine of how serious their situation was, but his frantic words caused his accent began to slip once again into the more refined and noble tone he tried his best to hide. Geraldine noticed this immediately and asked Prometheus why his accent seemed to shift around. Prometheus spun a story about his parents being from two very different parts of the galaxy, which led to him having two different accents depending on the situation. Inexplicably, Geraldine bought this story without much further questioning (the consequences of the inquisitive rogue being the only character with a positive wisdom score. I believe Geraldine’s insight check was a literal zero).

Prometheus began to relax slightly as his focus shifted away from deceiving King Barley and onto deceiving Geraldine. After a bit of conversation about their circumstances, Geraldine asked another question: she asked about his miraculous ability to disappear—referencing the multiple spells that Prometheus had recently cast in front of the party. Prometheus tried to downplay the ability, brushing it off as a little trick he had “picked up over time”. Geraldine asked him how it worked, and Prometheus said that he didn’t know how to teach someone—though even if he did, he made it clear he would have no intention of teaching it to her. 

Geraldine expressed her wished outloud that she could do something impressive like that. Her passion for literature and writing didn’t seem to impress her family, who regularly encouraged her to give up her dreams.

Prometheus used this opportunity to avoid answering any further questions about his own life. He asked Geraldine why her family was so demeaning of her focus on writing. She explained that they worked for some very wealthy independent worlds in archival and book-keeping. They had a lot of work to do and some high-stress clients that her family prioritized pleasing above all else. This had been a large part of the reason she’d left. She wanted to focus on her passions for a time and create something that was inspired by her and what she loved.

Prometheus asked if she’d written anything, and she admitted that she hadn’t yet. That was a large part of what had brought her so far into the outer reaches of the galaxy in the first place. All of this was meant to be research for her adventure stories. She felt the best way to write an adventure story was to have an adventure herself. Prometheus could hardly disagree with her methods—perhaps due to his shock at hearing them. This difference in motive didn’t seem to do any work in warming Prometheus up to his traveling companions.

[purplesurveys]

1920

When’s the last time you ate bread? I had a Big Mac last night.

What’s the last movie you watched on your own? I don't really do that anymore; I always ask at least one other person to watch with me – usually my sister.

What about the last movie you watched with another person? Ready or Not, with my sister and cousins.

How many coats do you own? Zero. I don't need them + haven't been to a country cold enough to need coats.

What about shoes? I probably have around ten pairs. I say 'probably' because I'm never sure about this and because I only wear the same two, haha.

One word to describe your most recent ex? Narcissistic.

Where, in your current country, would you like to live, other than where you do now? I had a dream a few nights ago that I retired in Bulacan and lived a quiet rest of my life there, with my own tiny home and a garden. I felt oddly at peace when I was dreaming that...I don't know if that's my brain trying to tell me something or if it's just meant to be a random dream. That said, it would be nice, but maybe in another universe.

Do you like snow? I think I would. I've never seen or touched it before.

Do you like sheer clothing? Not a fan.

Have you ever seen anyone famous in the street? I was at the mall the same time as Greyson Chance - that's the most random encounter I've had. Every other celebrity I've crossed paths with was expected since they've all been for work. Just this evening I was part of a courtesy call for one of our Olympian athletes.

Are you hungry right now? Continued from Thursday. I'm actually not, even though it's 3 AM. I had a very heavy dinner that I'm still feeling, lol.

Are you regularly tired? Yeah, pretty much. I have a bad habit of sleeping late even though I constantly need to wake up early for work.

What was the last thing to upset you? Just work stuff as usual...with Trina resigning for good and having no immediate replacement, I no longer have a work superior per se and all the tasks that she would normally have to approve and decide on have fallen on me, even though that crap is way out of my job description. It's all just very overwhelming and I wish people would stop looking to me for solutions because I do not fucking have them.

How’s the weather been today? It rained really hard this morning, then was humid the rest of the day. 

What was the first tattoo you got or what would be the first tattoo you’ll get? Pawprints of all my pets.

What was the last store you went into and did you buy anything? I rarely go into stores because truth be told all I ever spend on are food and my subscriptions haha. If I had to guess, probably a Miniso? Didn't buy anything though.

Have you ever been late for school or work? Last Thursday I set a new record for being irresponsibly late - woke up at 9:56 AM. I still feel gross about it and probably always will. It's a miracle no one had been looking for me.

What is your favorite kind of fruit cobbler? No thanks!

Is there a basement in your house? If so, what is it used for? We do not.

Have you driven a car today? I haven't in two weeks, no :( We're having my car done for a major maintenance thing so I had to let go for it a while. For the most part I've been able to manage but the shitty aftereffect is how much it's been draining my wallet because I've had to Grab everywhere lol.

Do you have a small, medium or large bedroom? I would say it's small, but it does a good job feeling medium since I have a loft bed and I have space everywhere below.

Where was your first job and how old were you? PR associate, I was 22.

Have you eaten soup this week? Nope.

Are you a fan of The Office? Not so much. I started with Season 1 and I didn't hate it, but I also couldn't hold my interest long enough to watch the rest of the eps.

When was the last time you started a new medication? Was never on anything I've had to take regularly.

What is your favorite type of nut? Almond.

Do you know anyone who doesn’t have a middle name? No.

Have you put your phone on silent today? Yes. I cannot stand the stupid Viber notification sound (aka the national messaging platform of PH corporate).

Can you name all 50 US state capital cities? Not at all. I can't even name all 50 states and always forget anywhere between like 8-15.

Do you read John Green novels? I've read a few but I don't follow his works.

Have you ever been to Universal Studios? Yes, the one in Singapore.

Can you tie balloons? Nope.

When was the last time you were at a pet store? I don't enter pet stores.

[francinosaurus]

My Wonderful Experience with KATAGA-Tanghal: Lucena

THIS IS MY ACHIEVEMENT OF THE YEAR! I'm very grateful that I was given a chance to be part of the production for this wonderful stage play.

I auditioned months ago to apply as prod for KATAGA-Tanghal: Lucena, but I wasn't called back until 3 months after. I was actually losing hope until Sir Lenard, who happens to be a prof in our school and also a member of the troupe, messaged me if I still want to be prod. Since its a dream to be a part of this organization, I immediately said yes.

I HAVE LEARNED A LOT WITH THIS EXPERIENCE. I was assigned to be the technical head almost immediately after arriving to the venue. Okay, you might think, "Wow, that's an amazing position"....and I'll tell you... It was frustrating at some point. Look, I had my fair share of experience being in the technical department. I'm mostly skilled with the visuals controls but I'm also familiar with sounds and light operation so it was pretty easy to me until... I was also assigned to manage the lapels. OH MY FREAKING GHAAAAD! The lapels we had to use are just outright (forgive my words) b*llsh*t. The first thing I learned is how difficult it is to handle multiple wireless mic and lapels. My job first thing in the morning in set, is that I have to connect each transmitters to its corresponding receivers (its much harder than it sounds). And I did that everyday for almost an entire week. I also need to make sure that each and every mic were on different frequency so they wont interfere with each other.

I also had to regularly check the battery of each transmitter before and after shows. There was an instance where the battery was still around 70% percentage for the 2nd showing of the day, so to save some resources, I decided not to change it.  But, lo and behold! As the Murphy's Law states "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong," Things did go wrong and the battery died mid show. I developed trust issues with microphones because of this. The second thing I learned during this process is how to apply and tape mic to the actors. I learned how crucial the distance between the mic to the mouth to record the sounds of the actors properly but at the same time, avoiding the "airy" sounds we get from their breathing. Taping is also kinda hard, especially when they make up. The medical tape barely hold sometimes to different actors.

I really wish that they would have better quality wireless lapels next year 😭😭😭

Now that I've done with the ranting...I'll tell you what I learned the most about during my experience. Since, as the technical head, taking noted of all the lights changes and their cues are also part of my job. This is the part of job that I actually enjoyed the most. The lights operator form AOZ was actually really friendly so it was very easy to work with him.

Back to topic... so since it is my job to take notes, I also took the opportunity to observe learn with the director. Direct Marco is amazing for all I could say. While I observing his decisions for the lighting for the whole play, I was able to witness color combinations that I never thought would work together. This made me realize that color and lights gives so much life to a play.

Direct Marco also gave me an advice when I expressed my amazement to him. He said that, with art, I should not always follow my instinct. Play a little bit more, if it doesn't work, that is when I follow my instinct.

I will keep that advice in my heart Direct Marco. <3

THIS IS SOLID EXPERIENCE FOR ME. There's no way I would forget this learning journey I had with this production. I'm gonna miss my co-prods after this especially Ate Dara and Ate Elaine. They like to tease me a lot but they were really helpful for me to dissolve the awkward air I had for the first day. I will definitely join the productions again next year! See you KATAGA. BULAGIN NA SYAAAAA!!!

All the photos used for this blog is taken by Marcus Daniel Angay.

[diaryoftheunidropout]

DAY 12

Who knew I could sink so low again?

I was fine. I was doing so fine. I woke up around 11am and had some sort of lunch-breakfast and then they delivered the last piece of furniture I needed for my apartment and then I built my bedside table and then I started reorganizing my place.

And then my mom and I had our daily call at around 6:15pm and within 10 minutes of it I was crying so hard I had to tell her I needed to hang up and call back in 5 minutes, which I did. And within 5 minutes of the second call I was crying harder than I had in the past two years and a half.

She told me I didn't know how to handle my expenses and that she and all of my grandparents were very worried, and that she didn't understand how all the money she and my grandparents had given me could possibly already be gone, and that she wouldn't be teaching me how to do better because I was an adult and that was none of her business and that maybe I needed to get myself deep in financial shit to actually learn. What hurt the most is when she told me "maybe in a couple of years you'll be successful and you'll have made it, but for now you haven't." It would have hurt coming from anyone, but it hurt even more coming from her. And the sweet irony of all this is that literally just a couple of hours earlier I was telling my friend that success was something very personal and that it meant different things for everyone, like for me, success was having gotten out of university to take care of myself (implied: instead of trying to d-word). So me typing out that I felt I was successful in life, and just a few hours later having my own mother tell me I was not successful honestly crushed me.

Because it's true. All I've accomplished so far is remaining alive despite how much I suffer. What she said about me not knowing how to deal with my money is also entirely true. Because I dream of being wealthy enough that I don't have to watch how much I spend, it's what I do although I can't afford it. These past few months, I've been so depressed that I just couldn't bring myself to care about how much I was spending because whatever money I was spending was on things that made me happy, even if it only made me happy for a couple of second or minutes, it still got me out of my extreme suffering and that was better than nothing at all. Being depressed has also pushed me into a situation where I've tended to live for the "now" and rarely ever think about the future, because when thinking about the future, all I could see was something even darker than the "now". So when you don't think of the future, you don't care about how much you might be endebting yourself, or how much money left you'll have in a year or so. And yet, I've been extremely anxious about money through all of it, although it never stopped me from overspending.

So yeah, I am having a big breakdown. I have no idea how long it'll take me to start recovering. This conversation on the phone also made me realize that, in more general terms, I cannot care for myself. I go to bed late and wake up late, I don't eat regularly nor properly, I often can't bring myself to brush my teeth twice a day, I don't know how to keep up with the tasks I have to do nor how to prioritize things, I don't know how to stop spending so much money. And do you know where they put adults who can't care for themselves? Psych wards. Maybe that's where I belong. Or just where I need to be. Or should be.

The other sweet irony in this is that my therapist texted me because she was worried about me cancelling my appointment last week. I thought it was so nice of her I decided to rebook an appointment, which I might have to cancel because it's literally so expensive.

I can't undo all the damage I've done. I don't even know if I should take the time to look at all the damage I've done. And that I might do in the future.

I'm hurting so much. I just wish I would stop hurting like this.

"See, the rain is nice but...

I don't really like getting wet.

Wh- What in the world?

No I... I went under the awning

It's still raining!

Why is it still raining?

I did what I was supposed to

That's not fair..." -Jack Stauber

[prettybreedinggirl]

I decided to start sleeping naked recently. I didn’t mean for anyone to see me walking to the bathroom when I had to pee in the middle of the night. But when Daddy saw me I think it woke something inside him that had been dormant for a long time. He took his baby girl’s virginity that night, right on the bathroom floor.

Since then he offered to be my teacher and teach me everything I need to know about sex so I could impress the boys at school. Lessons take up most of my time though, so I haven’t been able to hang out with many guys. It’s okay tho. As Daddy always says, they’ll never make me feel a fraction of what he can. Sometimes I wish it could stay like this forever because the thought of being without Daddy is incomprehensible.

That’s why I let him fuck me bare, so I could wrap my legs around him when he was on the edge. He had no choice but to cum deep inside and drench my fertile womb with his godly seed. After he finished he just smiled mischievously at me. “I guess our family is about to get bigger. You’re going to be so pretty pregnant with your brother or sister.” I grinned up at him, excited that my plans were working and that Daddy seemed to actually want to impregnate me. I might be kinda weird for my baby to also be my sibling, but Daddy’s always wanted a big family. When Mom took off ten years ago, Daddy’s dreams were kind of crushed. I feel so honored to be able to give Daddy the thing my heartless mother couldn’t.

“If we’re going to do this right a few things are going to have to change around here, baby.” Daddy said as he began slowly thrusting his newly errect cock into me. “First, I’m not your teacher anymore, I’m your fiancé. That means you’ll begin regularly sleeping in my bed every night, making me food, and taking care of the household chores. In return you won’t have to attend school anymore and I will take care of the finances and other important things so you don’t have to worry about them anymore. You’ll listen to me and do what I say and I will provide a loving and comfortable life. You will raise and nurture our children and I will work to put food on the table. If you’re up for that I will be more than happy to impregnate you.”

His proposition sounded like heaven on Earth. I’ve always been terrible at managing adult responsibilities and I grew up with a great respect for my Father because he was always there for me and always knew what to do. I could completely submit to His leadership because I would be trying to follow him anyway. Now that he’ll be holding my hand through it all I’ll finally be able to live the life I’ve always wanted. I can’t believe how lucky I am…

“Good girl, I knew my dirty little daughter couldn’t resist her Daddy’s potent seed. I’m going to keep you as a pregnant housewife for as long as my beautiful baby’s cunt can carry my children. How does that sound darling?”

I smiled up at him. His words and the deep thrusts of his thick veiny cock blissed me out so much I could only moan in reply.

“That’s my girl. I can’t wait for us to be lovers and parents. You’ve always been the love of my life. I couldn’t see it until now, but after you were born there was no room in my heart to love anyone other than you. I’m so glad our relationship has become even deeper and that you’ll soon get to parent my children just like I did for you. I love you baby. More than you’ll ever know.”

Daddy kissed me deeply, his tongue tasting every inch of his little girl when he suddenly tensed up and exploded rope after rope of potent, powerful seed into my vulnerable womb.

9 months from now I’ll be screaming Daddy’s second child and first grandchild out of me in the exact same spot.

💋

[dreamteamspace]

They really went there huh

/rp (good lord I rly hyperfixated on this essay huh)

torture tw, abuse tw, manipulation tw, gaslighting tw

So the Dream SMP built a character, once maybe morally gray, who slipped straight into villany with little to no desire to change, and willing to cause a LOT of pain to get his way. Despite this, he doesn’t question what he does enough to stop, justifying his actions with a good intent that doesn’t come close to justifying what he’s done.

C!Dream is unremorseful of what he’s done, he’s quite literally manipulated and gaslit (like actually, not in the way everyone keeps throwing the word around) c!Tommy, almost drove him to take his last life- like, jesus christ. That’s not even to mention blowing up L’Manburg three times, encouraging c!Wilbur, wanting the discs JUST to have power over c!Tommy, etc.

SO, he gets thrown in a box for it so he doesn’t hurt anybody anymore, making his own hubris his downfall (narrative consequence my beloved). This leads us to a good finale - the bad guy, the person who’s caused objectively the most pain and destruction, is now unable to do so anymore, taken down by the person whom he tried to weaken. It is also revealed he was planning on blackmailing and threatening pretty much everyone, but now everyone gets their stuff back.

Good, right?

Especially for the finale, yeah! The message of the finale is good, c!Tommy manages to escape his abuser with nothing more but his clothes on his back and fights his way back to c!Tubbo and his home.

He doesn’t let his trauma (which is still very present!) let him become a terrible person (arguably the way that c!Dream DID let his frustrations make him a terrible person, c!Tommy, despite bearing quite a heavy weight, recognizes when he begins to turn that way and actively works against it).

It shows that while alone, c!Tubbo and c!Tommy were outfought by Dream, but because c!Tommy went the length to ask for help (which he didn’t even really seem to be relying on actually showing up), he wins! It truly is a good message.

C!Tommy escapes his abuser and manipulator, refuses and fights his trauma to not become someone he doesn’t want to be, and defeats his abuser by asking for help and receiving it, even more than he thought he’d get. He refuses to play c!Dream’s “game”, refuses till the very last moment to let c!Tubbo die, to surrender and say goodbye to him.

So, great! Good finale! C!Dream The Villain is boxed like a fish in a prison of, quite literally, his own making. It sent a good message to people. C!Tommy wasn’t expected to forgive him and did, in fact, axe him down twice, causing c!Dream to finally fall from his high horse.

Most media would stop at this point, say the villain is now defeated and never show them again, or have them come back another one or two seasons later, escaped and seemingly unharmed and worse than ever.

Alternatively, there’s a throwaway line, (or, in good media, a genuine, reasonable backstory, complete with remorse and bad role models and complicated situations), that allows the villain to be redeemed.

In GOOD redemption arcs (See: Zuko from avatar tbh), the villain was already never quite as heartless, or stressed their good intent, or felt remorse for what they felt they “had to do”. Then, ideally, the villain takes a looooong time adjusting their habits, regretting their actions and changing until they’re considered redeemed.

Not on the Dream SMP, though.

They don’t stop at c!Dream’s defeat.

He doesn’t dissapear off-screen and is never spoken of again. His life continues on, everyone’s does, just like it would in reality. He doesn’t magically want to become a better person, far from it. So no redemption. But he doesn’t dissapear, either.

They go on to, slowly, stress how awful the conditions in Pandora’s Vault are. c!Bad says c!Dream should be imprisoned, but at least at slightly better conditions. We’re in very VERY morally gray territorry here. Nobody says c!Dream is a good person, of course not, but even c!Bad - who knows Dream was planning on keeping c!Skeppy in a cage to control him with - goes, “yeah, he should stay boxed, but does he really need to like... suffer suffer?”

Still, c!Dream seems to be kindof inconsistent in his behavior. Is he faking his pain? Is he not? His actions don’t fully make sense for either take. He acts differently to each person, but at the same time some things he does don’t make sense if he were just fishing for pity.

Then c!Sam admits to trying (and thinking he succeeded) to “break Dream’s will”, to quite literally starving him for weeks.

Okay, so now we’re a step further. C!Dream is now suffering even more, although already boxed and unable to hurt anyone. Pandora’s Vault is one thing, but now c!Sam just seems to be out for revenge and nothing more. Instead of spending his time with c!Tommy, he spends his time pickaxing(?) c!Dream.

C!Sam isn’t an angel, and we should all know that by now. He does what he thinks is right, but he’s deeper than that, all characters on the DSMP are.

He cares deeply for the Badlands, and would always choose them above anybody else. He’s a capitalist. He built the prison because it would benefit the Badlands resource-wise, despite knowing Dream would probably use it on his enemies, and it was no secret that ALL members of L’Manburg, especially c!Tommy, are his enemies. C!Sam, undoubtedly, knew that. He still built it.

Arguably, he didn’t know about c!Dream’s attachment obsession at the time, but the point still stands.

People have already latched onto the untold story happening between c!Dream and c!Sam, and frankly, we barely know enough about it. Does c!Sam torture him regularly? Do they talk? Does c!Dream try to verbally fight back? CAN he fight back? We don’t know! We’ve gotten proof for both, between c!Sam saying that c!Dream is terrifying even in prison and c!Dream going silent to go on strike. We don’t have enough of an idea how bad or how good it truly is.

So the people who prefer to humanize c!Dream and explore morality imagine c!Sam to downright torture him, people that prefer to see c!Dream as nothing but evil due to his actions imagine prison on the DSMP to not be equivalent to real life prison, and thus nowhere near as torturous as people are making it out to be.

Now all that is thrown out the window as c!Quackity quite literally tortures him.

So now the internet is faced with a question that, judging by some of the impulsive reactions *cough cough* celebrating torture *cough*, it didn’t turn out to be ready for.

Tell me.

How far do we go?

C!Dream hurt a LOT of people. He did a lot of things that caused irreparable damage. Now what? Do we torture him forever? Why? Because he deserves it? How do we determine that without comparing one kind of pain to another?

It’s custom and kindof generally respectful not to compare people’s pain too accurately, because different things vary greatly in severity depending on the person that experiences them.

At what point do we say he’s suffered enough without comparing exile to the prison?

And if we DO compare, does that even make the question easier to answer?

And if he’s never suffered enough ever, killing them would be a mercy...

At what point has a person done enough damage that they “deserve” to die? What if someone only did half of the things c!Dream did. But if c!Dream gets infinite punishment, and half of infinity is still infinity, do they ALSO deserve endless suffering?

Do you think every person that did something you can’t emphasize with deserves to suffer for eternity and die?

I’m not saying we SHOULD emphasize with c!Dream. He did things we cannot justify, that NOTHING can justify. He did things that were, by their nature, unjustified.

I’m also not saying anybody should forgive him. I think it’s a GOOD thing that c!Tommy doesn’t want nor is narratively pushed to forgive c!Dream.

But c!Dream doesn’t need c!Tommy’s forgiveness to be... a person.

There’s a saying that I’m sure you know, that goes “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”, because there’s things you wouldn’t want any human being to experience. Not because you like them, not cause you think they’re right, but because they’re human.

And perhaps this is my personal opinion, but I don’t think c!Dream being a bad person justifies dehumanizing him, because then we get into an area where someone needs to meet criteria just to be human.

-

I met someone once, whom, because of outside circumstances I knew I probably wouldn’t meet again. We’d been getting along just fine for people who just met, and were both getting into an interesting discussion about morality. They kept insisting upon something I kept refuting, so they said they needed to get something off their chest.

They proceeded to tell me that they had, years ago, while a teen, manipulated someone in a relationship, pushed boundaries and tried to convince them to do things they didn’t really want to do to get what they wanted.

They cried, while telling me, too terrified to tell anybody they know, terrified nobody would ever speak to them again, insanely regretful of their actions. They didn’t know whether to go back and apologize or just stay as far away as humanly possible, didn’t know which one the right thing to do is.

It had been years, by then, and I talked them through it. I said that what they did was bad, and there’s no going around that. But I also said what I saw, which is someone who would never do something like that ever again. I saw a human being. Someone who regrets a mistake they did and now, after enough time has passed, would do anything to make it undone.

Someone who is too terrified to be close to anybody in fear that they would do it again. I don’t remember if they already went to therapy or not, but it was definitly on the table, or in the near future.

They asked me how I could possibly even keep talking to them after they told me all that. They implied they felt like some kind of monster despite literally chocking back tears, firmly convinced they don’t deserve to be close to anybody in their life ever again.

I never swerved from the fact that what they did was wrong, and harmful. But I also told them they’re human. The universe isn’t keeping score. They want to be a better person now, and they were never going to learn how if they never let themselves be close to anybody.

I told them to seek therapy, and to slowly, carefully, try. Assured them that the fact that they regret it so strongly will at least help them in not falling back into the same pattern, and if they do, they can learn to recognize that.

They thanked me after the conversation, genuinely, especially for the fact that I didn’t sugarcoat what happened, because I know otherwise it would’ve felt like I was lying, like I was just sparing their feelings. I wasn’t. I was thinking about how to make sure they get to live without hurting anybody.

As per the circumstances, we didn’t speak again after that, which we knew basicly from the very start.

-

I still think about that conversation a lot.

Do you think they should’ve been locked up for life after it happened, instead?

Do you think this real human being, that I spoke to, that took years to realize their mistake - and never would have realized it if they hadn’t had the time to, if they’d been killed right afterwards - deserves to suffer forever?

Let me tell you something, from someone who’s been in more than one abusive situation: People that hurt you are human.

That doesn’t mean you have to forgive them. That doesn’t mean you have to like them. That doesn’t mean you have to make an effort to understand them. That doesn’t mean you need to go anywhere near them ever again.

You can hate them. You can be angry at them. You can (and should) go as far away from them as possible, and/or defend yourself.

But that doesn’t mean you have to dehumanize them.

You’re allowed to hate and dislike people that are human, because you’re human, especially if they hurt you. That’s how life is.

And to go back to my original point - c!Quackity torturing c!Dream is not something that should be celebrated.

There’s a difference between necessary measures (locking c!Dream up so he doesn’t hurt anyone), and torturing people for fun.

It’s not right. It’s never going to be right, and do not justify literal torture on human beings, and do not make someone lower-than-human to justify torturing them.

Taking revenge on someone for what they did tenfold is romanticized, I know, but I promise you it’s not actually as cool as it sounds.