#that's one hell of an invented op

[elliegoestodownton]

Trudy presenting the board with the details of a fake op: "My arts and crafts project" 😂😂😂

[godtears]

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Say in the tags what you voted for and if you live in or outside of the US

[betweenstorms]

Chapter 8/2 of Skin Of Thunder The Body Is A Burden Until It's Touched (previous chapter) (next chapter) (all SOT chapters) (masterlist) Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader TW: childhood abuse, childhood trauma

“There is nothing more terrifying than being held by someone who sees all of you, and touches you anyway.”

After that night, the world didn’t stop turning.

Ghost hadn’t expected it to, he wasn’t that daft, but the sheer brutality with which everything returned to normal still knocked him sideways. Fuck, he barely had time to process what had transpired between the two of you beneath the soaked haze of neon lights, the way your scent clung stubbornly to the collar of his jacket, the way your voice blurred by passing headlights, before he was back in the thick of it, deep in routines and chaos alike. The kind of chaos he’d known all his bloody life, the kind that wore familiar uniforms and snarled familiar orders, its heartbeat measured in the bursts of automatic gunfire and boots hitting concrete.

Back to routine it was.

The base dragged him under immediately, swallowing his body and his thoughts with it. He was back at the shooting range, squeezing triggers with a mechanical ease, hearing the sharp report echoing, bullet holes precisely drilled through lifeless hostiles as Gaz tossed banter in the background. Back on the mats, sparring with Soap, trading bruises, the crack of knuckles and the scent of sweat grounding him in easy violence, muscle memory that left no space for sentimentalism. Back in front of a monitor with Laswell’s sharp, calculating face delivering intel, the weight of every syllable heavy with the next life he would either save or snuff out. Ghost was back in motion, forever caught in the inertia of the next op, the next threat and the next shadow war. Everything etched deeply into muscle and marrow.

Everything he knew by heart.

Yet now, amongst all this brutal familiarity, was you.

His quiet disruption.

His vivid revolution. 

You, whose smile outshone constellations, who set whole galaxies alight with a glance. You, whose skin burned hotter than a thousand suns could ever dare. You, who wore your feelings plainly on colourful sleeves. You, who had somehow threaded your way into every crevice of his life, stitching yourself into the seams until he wasn’t quite sure where his edges ended and yours began.

You hid yourself into the hollow of his throat, into the ache in his knuckles, into the corners of a bed too cold. You, like a bloody litany, like a wound that begged to be kissed. The gravity in his marrow. The fire beneath the frost. The echo in every room he left empty.

Every breath, every breach, every break.

You. You. You.

It wasn’t as dreadful as he’d first thought.

Hell, he hungered for you, quietly but violently, though he’d never confess it aloud, not even to the dark. But temptation wore your name and Ghost’s skin prickled every time you brushed past him, each accidental touch filling his veins with gasoline, scorching him like napalm. He suspected—no, he knew—you were testing boundaries, intentional in the way your fingertips grazed his gloves as you handed over paperwork, daring him to pull away.

Instead, he lingered.

Stubbornly. Masochistically. Addictively.

Like a match begging to be struck again and again and again.

He found excuses to keep you close. Pathetic ones. Like helping him tidy up the never ending flood of paperwork that cluttered his desk, your handwriting precise where his own scrawl betrayed impatience. Bloody hell, he could recite every poor excuse he had invented by now, and each was a more miserable justification than the last. But it didn’t matter.

And then there were cigarette breaks.

“Fancy a smoke?” He had asked casually one day, as if it was nothing.

Christ. He was turning soft as fucking butter left out in the sun.

Ghost was usually a solitary smoker, preferring silence to idle chatter. Yet there he was, time and again, in the designated smoking area with you, offering you a drag, watching with quiet satisfaction as your manicured fingers trembled ever so slightly when you took it from him. Ghost hadn’t smoked this much in bloody years, yet there he was, reaching into his pocket for a battered pack of old fags, lighter flicking stubbornly under calloused skin, just to feel your warmth beside him a little longer. Nothing mattered, not the nicotine, not the smoke, not the relentless call of duty, only that fragile bridge between his silence and your voice, stretching out softly in the fading sunlight, built on whispered jokes, hidden meanings, daft banter, and smirks, fucking grins he didn’t let you see.

Ghost found himself craving it, those quiet moments when the whole world narrowed down to you and him and the burning tip of a cigarette. Each puff was another second stolen from the harsh glare of floodlights, another heartbeat away from the machine he’d become.

He was getting used to it, like a seasoned alcoholic savouring every bitter mouthful, knowing well the cost yet chasing the feeling regardless.

Ghost was becoming an addict.

He saw it plainly, recognised the fucking signs from too many missions spent tracking dealers and informants. Except now, the needle in his vein wasn’t poison, it was the delicate curve of your smile, the gentle sweep of eyelashes lowered in shy embarrassment, the melody of your voice laced with warmth as you recounted another small story from your life. He collected each tiny detail like brass casings after an op, counting them silently, meticulously, hoarding each one like they could somehow fill the hollow spaces carved out by all he’d lost.

He hoarded you in pieces.

You always wanted a dog, a big one, you’d said, a companion during hardships to make you laugh, your favourite flowers were red tulips and you’d always meant to learn embroidery, but your hands were always too busy with less delicate things. He remembered all of it. The music you swore had healed you. The childhood tales you told with gentle smiles and distant eyes. The names of your old schoolmates, the ones you still met in London, haunted by how easily and unconditionally you loved them. The way you lit up recalling cheap train rides and even cheaper gin, and how you laughed like home was a place found in people, not blood. He memorised the way you spoke of your grandparents, how they raised you, the warmth in your voice when you described their home, not your parents’, never your parents’. He noticed the absences, too, the stories you didn’t tell, and adored you all the more for them.

And the more you gave him, the more he wanted.

Because to Ghost, your life was worth more than the sum of all his blood soaked years. More than any honour he’d pretended to hold.

More than himself.

And you were a hell of an easy mark too, flustering over his driest quip or deadpan delivery, watching the bloom of heat in your cheeks with wicked satisfaction. Sometimes he laughed too, only a breath but fucking hell, it felt good. It felt like breathing after drowning for years. Ghost found himself chasing it, that easy humour, the flutter of your pulse visible against the soft skin of your neck, and wondered how far he could push it, how much he could make you flush and stumble over your own quiet words before you finally gave in to the game entirely. Sometimes, when his jokes dipped too far into the morbid, into the grotesque, or became too intimate, you’d smack him lightly on the shoulder, a gesture so gentle it barely registered as reprimand. And God, that undid him more than any kiss could.

He remembered clearly the night he realised he was truly fucked.

It was late afternoon, the sun dipping low beyond the airstrip, the sky bruising into purple and orange, melting across the horizon as if it might never rise again. You sat beside him in the smoking area, shoulder blades pressed to the concrete wall, legs carefully tucked beneath you on the bench, face bathed in the golden light. You were blinking at your cigarette rather than smoking it.

Ghost watched you from the corner of his eye, lips quirking beneath the mask as you clumsily brought the cigarette up to your mouth, puffing on it gently, coughing softly as you blew the smoke back out, your cheeks flushing faintly in embarrassment. It was fucking adorable, truth be told, watching you try your hardest to look nonchalant when you clearly had no bloody clue what you were doing. You held it delicately between two fingers, like it was something fragile that might shatter if you gripped it too hard.

He told you from the start to leave the smoking to him. It wasn’t a habit you needed. But you, ever stubborn, ever radiant in your quiet rebellions, insisted on learning how to do it properly. And he, bloody sod that he was, never could bring himself to say no to you. So each time you stepped out together, he handed you a cigarette without a word. It was a terrible decision for his wallet, sure, but in moments like these, watching the flame catch on the curve of your lips, watching smoke awkwardly unfurl from your mouth, it felt like the best decision he ever made.

“Christ alive,” he drawled, voice dry and laden with quiet amusement. “You fuckin’ smoke like you’re scared it’ll bite you.”

You glanced up at him sharply, eyes wide, embarrassment painted comically red across your features. “Don’t be a prick,” you protested, cheeks flushing beneath the fading sunlight. “Not everyone’s been chain-smoking since their bloody teens, alright?”

“Might as well put your pinky up while you’re at it.”

“Oh, piss off,” you muttered, a pout forming involuntarily as you gave another exaggerated puff. “Shit. That’s it. Last time I ever touch one of your filthy cigs, I swear.”

Ghost huffed, slow and lazy, like a wolf stretching its limbs.

The sun caught the edges of your eyes just then, gold bleeding into your hair, highlighting the stubborn crease between your brows as you clumsily flicked ash off the end of your cigarette and he found himself staring before he even realised it. Dark eyes traced the curve of your jaw from behind his balaclava, the way your lashes trembled when you blinked, the way the smoke curled from your lips in the laziest surrender, as if even it didn’t want to leave you.

“World’d be better off without you wastin’ the good ones,” he muttered.

You snorted. “Charming.”

Ghost watched you tip your head back, sunlight feathering against your throat, warming that tender, pale skin where your pulse fluttered too fast. The cigarette trembled slightly between your fingers, too posh for the habit, too gentle for the vice, and he had to turn away, just for a second, jaw tightening beneath the mask.

“Least you’re not coughin’ up your lungs anymore,” he murmured, flicking his cig away, the ember bouncing once on the concrete before dying. “Progress.”

“You’ve got such a weird way of complimenting people, you know that?”

Ghost shrugged, eyes fixed on the horizon.

He almost said something else then.

Some daft line about how it suited you, smoking, ridiculous as it looked. Another jab, another joke pulled straight from his ribcage and handed to you like it was distraction, deflection, the usual dance. Maybe something about your blouse that day, soft pink again, tucked too neatly into those dark cargo trousers. Maybe something about the gloss on your lips, or how your hair kept sliding down from your flower shaped clip like it refused to obey military standards just as much as you did. But then your gaze drifted, not to him, not to the cig, not to your hands fidgeting in your lap, but far, far out beyond the airstrip, where the sunset poured itself across the tarmac like spilled oil and the perimeter lights blinked like dying stars.

He let the silence stretch between you for a beat, long enough to hear the faint hum of a cargo plane in the distance, the crackle of someone’s radio half a field away. The sky was bleeding now, molten violet sinking into bruised purple.

And the silence changed.

It wasn’t the comfortable kind anymore. Not the quiet he’d grown used to with you. This one came heavier. Thick in the lungs. And something about it made Ghost’s mouth dry behind the mask. You puffed absentmindedly on the cigarette, not really smoking it, just holding it, your expression turning oddly distant and thoughtful. Gone was the mischief, the fire.

Then, quietly, you spoke.

“Did I ever tell you about my dad?”

Ghost’s focus snapped sharp, his training kicking in like a switch flipped in the marrow. That old, cold instinct of reading a room, reading a face, preparing for confession or deceit. Fuck, it felt like the start of an interrogation, like he was back in some concrete room with sweat in the air and blood still damp beneath fingernails. But it was only you. You, of all people. And yet his body didn’t know the difference. His gaze dragged over your face, searching for threat where there was only tenderness. 

Of course he knew about your father.

Ghost knew more than he had any right to.

Names, dates, patterns, your file folded neatly into the chaos of his memory. The personal things, though, those you’d handed him in fragments, unknowingly, in brittle pieces pressed between breaks and offhand remarks. However, that winter day came roaring back, the sting of your voice in his office, the accusation you hurled like a match to dry straw, that he knew too much.

So why now? Why pretend you didn’t remember? 

He shifted slightly, voice careful in its neutrality. “Mentioned he served. Marine, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah. Royal Marine,” you confirmed, voice distant, eyes unfocused. “Retired now, medals cover half the bloody walls back home. Dad fought in Kosovo, you know. Before that, he was a nightmare in South Armagh.”

Ghost didn’t interrupt. He let you go where you needed to go.

“He did two tours in Iraq,” you continued, your fingers worrying at the cigarette again, thumb running slow lines along the filter. “First when I was still a baby. Second when mum died. He was on deployment when she got hit by an IED outside Kabul. She didn’t—” you exhaled through your mouth slowly. “She didn’t even make it to Helmand. There was no heroic exit. No valiant last stand. Just a knock at the door while I was doing homework in my pajamas. And dad didn’t even cry. Not once. Not even at the funeral. Just stood there, perfect parade rest, whole unit in dress uniform. And he just—and he just fucking stood there, Simon. Like mum was just another bloody casualty log while I cried until I puked.”

You glanced over then, catching Ghost in your peripheral vision.

“Dizzy—”

“He always wanted a son.”

Your mouth quirked, but the smile didn’t hold.

Ghost swallowed carefully.

“I tried, you know,” you said, voice thinner now. “Tried to be one. I had to. My granddad was in the Falklands and his dad before that was a radio op on the HMS Belfast so… yeah, fucked up legacy, huh?”

Your voice faltered slightly, fingertips trembling gently around the cigarette, eyes locked on your manicured nails, glittering in the dying light.

“I tried so damn hard when I was a kid,” you continued softly, your tone unbearably gentle, laced with quiet anguish. “Dad never remarried so—I mean, I had no other choice, right? My grandparents, mum’s parents, they raised me after she died. Granny cut my hair short, dressed me like a boy and granddad taught me how to shoot, tried to teach me how to act tough. They thought maybe if I acted like a boy, if I looked like a boy, dad would finally be proud. I even started talking like him,” you went on, voice distant now. “Swearing, spitting, everything, really. I thought if I just—if I just played the part, you know? If I could be the son he never had, then maybe I can… but no, he still didn’t look at me. He never did. Well, not the way he looked at the sons of his mates. Never like that.”

Ghost said nothing.

The wind tugged toward the sky then, carrying your quiet words off into the deepening dusk, where clouds rolled over the airfield like great black dogs. There was no softness in the world around you now, just the brittle cold of the early spring that knew how to bite, and the harsh halogen of security lights casting pale gold across the gravel.

“But teenage lads weren’t interested in girls who acted like boys, I learned that the hard way back then,” you murmured bitterly, voice barely audible now. “All those little shitheads with their Topshop girlfriends and stupid hair gel, I hated them. I hated them so much. They—they made me so angry, Simon. They always laughed. Called me a dyke and I—”

You stopped and took a breath.

Your hand moved down with more force than necessary, stabbing the burned down tip of your cig into the concrete, grinding it until it was nothing but ash and smeared paper. And Ghost could see the tremble in your fingers, the tension in your knuckles, all of it.

Clear as day.

You were trying to keep hold of yourself.

“Anyway,” you waved a hand as if trying to bat the air clean, “I moved to London the second I turned eighteen. I left when I got into university. I didn’t even tell dad until I was halfway down the M6. I didn’t want him to—you know.”

You were blinking hard then, rubbing your cheek with the sleeve of your blouse. Somewhere between the story and the silence, you’d shed tears you were now trying to erase before they even dried. It made Ghost want to put a bullet through the bloody moon, just so you wouldn’t have to cry beneath it.

“And then I—I went a bit off the rails, I guess,” you went on, laughing awkwardly. “I spent my entire bloody student loan on makeup. Glittery lip gloss, false lashes, the works. I wore the frilliest, stupidest fucking dresses I could find, the whole lot. Went to clubs in stilettos I could barely walk in just to catch some daft bastard’s eye, any bastard really, it didn’t matter. I went out every weekend and let the first guy who smiled at me take me home because I—I just—I just wanted someone to look at me like I was—” You paused again, blinking fast. “I know that’s fucked. I went too far. But I—I thought if I just leaned into it enough, I’d finally find whatever it was I missed. That my body—that I will be worth adoring, I guess.”

You raised your hand then, wiggling your fingers, trying to laugh again. Ghost looked at your hand, at the perfect, glossy little forget-me-nots painted on your long nails, delicate petals in different shades of baby blue on a pink base.

“And now—” you muttered, rubbing your cheek again, more forcefully now. “—now I can’t fire an SA80 without breaking one of these.”

It was meant as a joke but your voice cracked.

And Ghost didn’t know what to fucking say.

All he could do was stare.

His lungs were raw like he’d run a marathon without rest, like your pain had clawed its way down his throat and settled there, gnawing against his ribs like it belonged.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Ghost just sat there with your story in his hands and no idea what the hell to do with it. Because shit, he’d never learned this bit. Never learned how to hold someone without hurting them. He never figured out what to say to someone bleeding out that didn’t sound like a mission report or a fucking apology whispered through gritted teeth over a body that wasn’t gonna make it. And that same uselessness gripped him now.

Even as a lad, he’d stood silent when his brother cried after their dad’s drunken episodes. He just stared at the floor like his feet might vanish if he didn’t move. Ghost remembered how Tommy’s shoulders shook, remembered wanting to touch his arm, to say something, fucking anything, but he didn’t. How he’d sat at his mum’s bedside in the hospital when his old man had hit her too hard and Ghost couldn’t touch her even as she trembled like a leaf. Violence, he knew. Orders, he knew. Extraction, infiltration, execution. 

Ghost knew how to kill a man three different ways in under ten seconds. But comfort?

He hadn’t the faintest clue.

“I’m sorry,” you suddenly said. “That was… a lot.”

Ghost’s head tilted slightly, the gravel crunching uncomfortably under his boot as he shifted.  His mask had grown damp near the seams and he fought the urge to pull it down, just for a moment, just to breathe properly, just enough to look you in the eye without the damn thing.

But he didn’t do that.

Your knees were drawn tight to your chest, sleeves stretched over your hands like a child hiding. He dragged his tongue across his teeth behind the mask, jaw working slow, deliberate.

“Meanin’?”

Your shoulders jumped a little. Like the question caught you off guard, or maybe it was just the night wind curling past, slipping beneath your blouse, finding the softest parts of you. The light didn’t reach your eyes, not fully, but the silver rim caught the soft curve of your cheek, the shine on the skin that hadn’t quite dried yet.

You sniffed. Ghost heard it.

A wet, embarrassed sort of thing.

“I just—” you began, voice barely there. “I just hope you don’t think I’m disgusting. Or used. Or whatever. I just hope you don’t—”

Ghost blinked, once. Slow.

You were staring at the ground now.

“It’s just—what I told you. I wasn’t—I’m not the girl you probably thought I was. I’ve done shit I’m not proud of. Things I didn’t even want to do half the time, just—just to feel wanted. And I know that’s not—I know you probably think less of me for it, because you were right, about the attention thing I mean, but—” You trailed off again, fighting with your own words. “I wanted to tell you this in London. In the car. That night. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want you to look at me differently. I was scared, you know. Scared that you’d—” you swallowed hard. “—scared you wouldn’t want me anymore if you knew.”

Ghost sat still.

Utterly still.

Not out of coldness. Not out of indifference. But because every goddamn cell in his body was fighting to stay in its place. Not to move, not to reach, not to tremble.

Because all he could see now, all he could bloody think about, was your father’s face. Not your smile. Not the way you hugged your knees like you were trying to shrink yourself out of existence. Hell no. All he could think about was that bastard, still alive in some godforsaken suburb with medals on the wall and nothing but rot behind his ribs. Then you exhaled, head bowed low between your arms, resting on your knees like a kid who’s been picked last.

His hands itched for the weight of a weapon.

Ghost wanted to find your dad. Wanted to storm his neat little house with its framed photos and false fucking pride. Wanted to strip the medals off the walls with his bare hands and ram them down the fucker’s throat until he choked on every ounce of the legacy he used to break you. He wanted to kneecap him first. Not kill, execute. Deliberate. Surgical.

To make it hurt.

Then let him crawl. Crawl through every room, let him drag his useless, bleeding body past the photos he never deserved to pose in. Let him cry for mercy he’d never shown you. Let him beg. See how proud he was then. How stiff he stood. How bloody noble he was.

And then, only then, pull the trigger.

Simon Riley, not Ghost but Simon, wanted to tear the fucker limb from limb.

He wanted to slit the throats of every man who had touched you without reverence, who had looked at you and seen nothing but a body to claim. Every bastard who’d fucked you without knowing how to see you. Who never once bothered to understand your heart. Simon wanted to castrate them, make them bleed for every careless word, every unworthy glance.

But worse was the part of him that wanted the bullet too. For the way he’d scoffed at your clothes the first time, for the irritation in his voice, the way he let military standards warp his perception of beauty, of you. For making you feel ridiculous. Unworthy. Less than a soldier. Less than brilliant. And yet, he did none of it.

Instead, what left his mouth was quieter.

“He was a right bastard. Your old man,” he murmured gruffly.

You blinked. Startled.

“Deserve a round to the teeth,” Simon finished the thought.

A short and breathless laugh escaped your lips, more exhale than joy, but it was something. It made Simon feel his chest loosen, just barely. He shifted his weight, scratched behind his ear like he needed to do something with his hands.

“Don’t reckon you’re overcompensatin’,” he muttered. “Not my place to say but—”

You glanced at him from beneath your lashes, wary. He looked away then. Jaw twitching. His thumb brushed the edge of his mask, a small gesture, half nervous tick, half muscle memory. He licked his lips behind the balaclava, searching for the words, like he was digging them up. He hated how dry they were. His mouth. His words. Everything around him.

“You’re the most attractive woman I’ve ever met.”

Colour bled into your cheeks, slow and warm, like a rising tide. You dropped your gaze and pressed your cheek to your knees, trying to hide from him, but you didn’t look away entirely. Your eyes, still glossy with tears, searched for his gaze again, and your lips pulled into a faint, almost invisible smile. So faint he might’ve imagined it.

Then you shifted a little closer. Not much.

An awkward inch.

But it was enough.

“…Thank you,” you whispered.

Simon only hummed, staring out at nothing.

Then, after a beat, he muttered, “I should be the one worried.”

Your brows furrowed, “What do you mean?”

He didn’t answer at first.

Just reached for his pack of fags, fingers unsteady now. Slower than usual. He lit one with the sort of quiet deliberation that felt like ritual. A borrowed moment. A breath stolen from a past he hadn’t touched in fucking years. He inhaled. Held it. Then let it out.

Fucking hell. It wasn’t enough.

Nothing would be, really.

Simon thought about what he’d promised. About not pushing you away. About trying. Trying to let you in. He’d never told anyone this. But fuck, you’d given him your story. Bled it into his hands. And he couldn’t sit in his own silence anymore.

Of all the vile things he’d done and witnessed, there were too many to name, too many that still throbbed behind his eyes when the nights went quiet. So he reached for a memory buried deep in dust and time, something old enough it no longer bled when he touched it. Something distant. Harmless. Safe enough, he hoped, to give to you without staining your hands.

So he breathed in again. Slower.

“I never—” he started again. “Weren’t a womaniser. When I was a lad.”

You frowned.

“My old man used to hunt animals, capture them,” Simon huffed. “Wild ones. Mean bastards. Badgers. Rats. Once had a fuckin’ fox bleedin’ out in the shed. Used to show ’em off. Brag to his braindead mates. Then when they were fuckin’ gone, he’d make me deal with ’em. Said he’d ways to ‘make a man out of me.”

Your gaze shifted.

“One time—” Simon’s hand twitched. He glanced down at the burning cigarette between his fingers. “—he brought in a bloody snake from one of his mates.”

He swallowed.

“Held me down. Told me to kiss it.”

Your face twisted in horror. “What?”

“Said if I didn’t kiss it, he’d let it go in my bed at night,” He looked straight ahead. “Damn thing weren’t even dead. Still squirmin’. Could feel the scales under my lips, movin’. Tasted like piss. Proper fuckin’ foul. Couldn’t eat for a week.”

He flicked the ash off the end of the cig. Watched it spiral down.

“Didn’t kiss anyone for years after that. Didn’t touch anyone. Couldn’t stomach it, not even with birds who liked me back. Felt like if I did, I’d turn into him and I’d carry it. That filth. Or taint ‘em or somethin’. Fuckin’ bastard, he was.”

You breathed in quietly, shaky.

“My first kiss,” Simon continued, voice lower now, like he was speaking through a crack in a wall, “was a dare. First year in the Forces. One of the lads thought I was full of shite. Bet me a tenner I’d bottle it. Felt like I was takin’ a piss on somethin’. Never told the lass that. Never told anyone that.”

There was a long silence after that.

But not dead air. Not awkward. Something deeper. Something carved out between two people who’d shown one another their bones and didn’t quite know what to do with the mess on the floor. You shivered beside him, just slightly. Simon wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or the weight of the story he’d dropped between you like a live grenade with no pin. Maybe both.

Then, after a beat, you hummed.

A soft, gentle noise that felt like balm over the rawness.

“He was a right bastard too,” you said, voice a little rough. “Your dad.”

Ghost huffed a small breath. The closest he could get to laughter in that moment.

“Died screamin’, though. Guess the world’s fairer than I thought.”

Silence again.

And then you moved.

It was subtle. So slight he almost didn’t notice at first. You tucked your knees tighter, curling in like a petal folding inward for the night. Then your hand with those blue forget-me-nots on the nails slid across the bench. Just a painfully small inch. Then two. Not quite touching. Not reaching. Open in a way that had nothing to do with words.

Then you moved again.

You inched closer. Agonisingly slow, like you expected him to snap, to jerk away. Simon felt the warmth of your thigh brush his, the contact cautious but solid. Real. And before he could brace himself, before he could ready a mask thicker than the one on his goddamn face, your head tipped. Carefully. Slowly. Until the curve of your skull settled against his shoulder, your hair brushing his sleeve, your cheek warm even through the layer of his hoodie.

Simon’s spine locked.

“Thank you,” you whispered. “For telling me.”

He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t make his mouth work. Couldn’t force air through his throat.

So he just hummed. A low, gravelled thing. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe, only barely. His body went still, more still than when he was on recon, heart thudding like boots on stairs. You were there. Right bloody there. And he didn’t know what to do with it. So he just sat there and let your presence burn into the fabric of his clothes.

Simon watched the tarmac stretch into shadow. Watched the flashing lights of another aircraft blink in the distance before it took off, thundering through the dark and vanishing into the clouds. Another ghost swallowed by the sky.

Your breathing was steady now.

Like you’d finally exhaled something that’d been stuck in your lungs for years.

“Simon?” you called.

He tipped his chin.

You didn’t lift your head, but your eyes turned up toward him, soft and wide. Your signature lovely smile wasn’t there, not fully, but your mouth curved gently, reverently, like something was breaking open behind your ribs.

“For what it’s worth,” your voice was smaller now. Almost shy. “You’re the most attractive man I’ve ever met.”

Simon let out a sound. It could’ve been a laugh. Might’ve been a cough. Either way, smoke ghosted out between his teeth in a huff as he muttered—

“Then you’ve met a lot of ugly bastards.”

You snorted. “Hey, I’m serious. Even if I can’t see your face, you’re still more handsome than anyone I’ve ever been with.”

Ghost raised a brow.

He tilted his head, deadpan.

“Might be the mask, then. Makes up for the ears. They stick out.”

You laughed.

God, you actually laughed.

It punched the air from his lungs, sharp and sweet.

You shifted again, closer, your side warm against his. The stars were starting to bleed through the clouds above. He kept his eyes ahead, watching the dark swell and rise at the edge of the base, where the horizon dipped low and the wind dragged its teeth across the gravel. The weight of you against him was a new kind of gravity, unfamiliar and holy, like he’d been built for this moment and just never known it. And somehow it didn’t scare him like it should’ve. The closeness. The contact. The tenderness. It should’ve snapped every muscle to attention like an ambush at midnight. But instead, he felt—

Fuck.

Simon felt lucky.

Like the universe had handed him a moment and forgotten to ask for anything in return.

Simon didn’t know what demon had slithered down his spine and cracked his ribs open like a rotted corpse, didn’t know what madness had poured into his chest, but in that short second, he felt lucky. Unthinkably and unforgivably lucky. The kind of luck that felt profane, stolen from a life he was never meant to live. And Christ, how he wished he could stop time, trap it in amber. Keep you like this, close, trusting him, touching him like he wasn’t made of dirt. You could never understand the weight of what you’d given him.

The mercy. The grace.

Your hands, your warmth, your laugh, you silenced the long war he’d waged against his own body, that cursed prison of flesh he’d always wanted to tear away, to escape. The skin he’d tried to scrub clean, the muscle he’d bruised, starved and trained into obedience. For years it had felt like a coffin, but now, if only for this fleeting moment, it felt like something worth touching without shame. To be wanted, not feared. Because this body had brought him here, to you. And no, not close to your body, but closer to your heart.

Your head shifted slightly and he felt it then, the rise and fall of your breath syncing with his. Like a metronome he’d been waiting his whole life to hear. You tilted your chin up, nudging into the fabric of his arm.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Thinkin’ I should quit smokin’,” he lied, “if you’re gonna keep nickin’ all my fags.”

You let out a breathy chuckle against his shoulder, and he felt it vibrate through his clothes, through skin and tissue and scar, his bones thawing slowly under it.

“Oh come on,” you murmured, “you love it. You’d miss me gagging on them.”

“Not denyin’ that.”

“You’re horrible,” you gasped between giggles. “Absolutely awful.”

“Can’t help that,” Simon muttered.

“You need professional help.”

“I’ve got HR,” he deadpanned.

You snorted, hiding your grin behind your hand. “That poor woman.”

“Poor?” he echoed. “I’m the one workin’ with her.”

You slapped his tight weakly, scandalised and amused in equal measure, and he soaked in the warmth of it, like sun through cracked glass. “Simon—”

Simon almost didn’t notice the way he was smiling.

Not properly, not with his mouth but something about the shape of it tugged behind the mask, behind the bones of his face, behind that old stitched-together piece he wore as skin. It ached, strangely. Like his body didn’t know what to do with this situation anymore, like it mistook it for shrapnel, for some injury flaring up under his ribs.

He’d lived a long time in a body that felt more like punishment than flesh. But now you were pressed against him, soft and unafraid and somehow he didn’t feel like a burden anymore. He felt like a man. He felt wanted. Maybe even lovable, if he dared to stretch it. And bloody hell, wasn’t that the strangest fucking thing? To want and be wanted in return. Not because of what he could do, or what he’d survived, or what he’d endured, but just because. And Simon didn’t need more. Just this. Just this peace. Just your laugh. Just your eyes, soft and tired and still somehow burning like dawn on the horizon.

He didn’t deserve it.

He knew that.

But for once, he let himself have it anyway.

“The weight of a body is nothing compared to the weight of carrying it alone.” Skin of Thunder Chapters

Sorry for the long wait and for the extra long chapter, too. This one’s packed with internal monologues and a whole lot of feelings, so… my apologies (or maybe you’re welcome? You decide.)

[dark-elf-writes]

I wonder how Shen Yuan reacts to his Shimu cooing over him and giving him soft affection

I mean, I imagine he’s happy Binghe is getting the soft childhood he deserves (at least for now) but I wonder how he reacts when that same soft love is directed at him

There Shimu wasn't supposed to exist.

Not that anyone other than Shen Yuan knew that.

He had poured over every word of Proud Immortal Demon Way, had hunted down scraps of world-building through hundreds of thousands of words of terrible smut and ridiculous power fantasies, had been a top contributor on the PIDW wiki, faithfully updating new and retconed information every single day without fail.

So he would have fucking noticed if the scum villain had a husband, to say the least.

Hell, he would have noticed if the scum villain showed even a hint of being gay! That would have been something interesting about his character, at least, rather than the cartoonishly evil caricature that had been played out through the beginning arcs.

But it made no sense! Even for a Omegaverse extra (or possibly an alternate universe fanfiction? He was still unsure) to introduce such an important character with such heavy influence on the plot by himself much less how his actions seemed to be actually changing the story around them why here? Why now? Why was he married - happily at that - to the scum villain of all people when such a beautiful, kind, intelligent omega had all of the markers for the protagonist's harem? A male omega wasn't that different from a wife in these kinds of stories, if his younger sister was to be believed, so he should have already been spoken for by someone completely different!

Wei Wuxian made no sense from a plot perspective and worse seemed to know that himself.

The unmatched genius with a mysterious past tamed the scum villain, rescued to abused protagonist from his terrible childhood, and had befriended the cannon fodder spy Lord of An Ding all, seemingly, for a laugh. He kept introducing new, OP inventions that could break the very world as Shen Yuan knew it (the linked books that acted like a Xianxia text messaging system could have cut the plot in half on their own, and Wei Wuxian chose to use them to send doodles of a rather prissy looking cat with a fan to his husband all day). He seemed to know everything about cultivation, despite only using the most basic low level things himself and not even having a sword of his own (though he had on occasion borrowed Xiu Ya for a flying lesson, the sight of which had nearly sent Shen Yuan into a full Peerless Cucumber rant about how that shouldn't work.)

Transmigration was the only answer. Shen Yuan knew he had to confront him, had to tell him Shen Yuan knew what he was doing and... demand to know where he got off changing the story this much? Offer to help save the world by making sure Binghe and the scum villain never grew their mutual hatred? Ask why he had married the fucking the scum villain of all people? He wasn't sure yet.

Yet every time he steeled his resolve to demand answers from his Shimu, he got... distracted.

He still didn't know why he had gone to Shimu to help Binghe. Didn't know why his fingers, trembling with the anxiety of knowing the fate of everyone on the peak relied on one man in a Stallion Novel to not be an asshole to the vulnerably protagonist, had curled into his sleeve like a child clutching a blanket. Didn't know why he had felt like a weight lifted off his chest when a hand cupped his cheek as Shimu told him he would help.

He didn't know why that hadn't been the last time he had gone to Shimu... or why the likely transmigrator's reactions always made him feel... better.

(It had to be the omega thing, right? Had to be some kind of biological advantage that made future alphas and betas - because what else would Shen Yuan be when he finally presented in a few years - feel calmer.)

"There you go again, wearing away the very mountain below your feet."

Shen Yuan stopped mid stride (not pacing, no matter what Shimu said. Just... scouting his surroundings) and whirled toward the voice, feeling the tension in his shoulders ease in spite of himself.

Shimu's smile was as bright and teasing as ever, but the hand he rested on Shen Yuan's head was gentle. Warm and broad and steadying. Like he could hold the whole world in his hand. Like he could be trusted with it.

(A sharp pang hit Shen Yuan's heart as he thought of a man who looked about as old as Wei Wuxian, with the same green eyes as Shen Yuan, who had always had the time to listen to his san-di's woes.)

"What is twisting you into knots this time, Yuan-er?"

It would be the perfect time to say it. To ask about all the things Wei Wuxian did that didn't make sense. To even drop a stupid meme reference and get Wei Wuxian to reveal himself that way.

Shen Yuan did none of those things, instead dropping his eyes to the path already worn from his feet, and whispering a truth he didn't even know he had been feeling: "I miss my siblings. They... I'm the only one left, and I..." The hand on his head stroked through his hair before gently gripping he back of his neck. Before Shen Yuan knew what was happening, his face was pressed against fine black silk as Shimu pulled him into a tight embrace.

(Da-ge was always the hugger out of all of them. Er-ge preferred to drop a hand to Shen Yuan's hair and wiggle him around like a bobble head, and Meimei tended to lean against Shen Yuan's side whenever he sat down. When he was younger, Shen Yuan used to think that his Da-ge gave the best hugs in the world. The kind of hug where the rest of the world no longer existed and it was just the feeling of warmth shared between them.

Shimu's hugs were the same.)

"As long as you still remember them, you are not the only one left." Wei Wuxian spoke with so much conviction that Shen Yuan was certain he knew. That he was also mourning the family he had left behind when he had transmigrated. A family still alive in a world neither of them would get to see again.

There, hidden away from the world behind his Shimu's sleeves, Shen Yuan allowed himself a few minutes of silent tears.

(It was definitely an omega thing, he was sure.)

[tossawary]

Looking up some things has turned into reading the last 100 or so chapters of the "Naruto" manga for fun, because why not. Some random assorted notes so far (as of finishing Chapter 661):

This end fight is so fucking long, there are so many characters, and the pacing is bordering on excruciating. There's some stuff happening here that's delicious, but there's a lot of messy back and forth of the narrative focus that I personally am not fully vibing with. I cannot imagine trying to follow this split story weekly. This is common enough to a lot of big shounen mangas.

I generally like the basic artstyle here (the use of white and black especially), but the quality of page composition, panel composition, and scene clarity generally is obviously suffering heavily from these chapters being pushed out too quickly. I can barely tell some characters apart and some panels are just messes of lines. This is also common enough among mangas, so eh, it's also whatever.

It's kind of funny to me how Hashirama and Tobirama and Minato suddenly become major characters for like a solid 30 chapters or so. Like, yeah, I can see why Founders Era fic is popular. The flashback chapters themselves are pretty short, but Madara is one of the main villains in this fight, and the undead Senju brothers are suddenly here to kick ass on a level apparently far beyond most other characters. The grudges and betrayal here are delicious. These are also the people who founded Konoha itself, the main location of the manga for hundreds of chapters now, honestly not that many generations ago. It also helps that the Founders feel like they have nicely complete tragic arcs and lives to work with, instead of the relatively open-ended narrative mess that the main Naruto characters live in.

Also, Hashirama can definitely act the idiot and I think some of his choices / opinions are stupid as hell, but he's obviously a very clever and observant and ruthless person. Tobirama went on to become Hokage after his brother and will not hesitate to forcefully give his opinions, but it's also clear in some scenes that Hashirama is still the one in charge between them. Tobirama seems to fairly naturally fall into a very useful support role to whoever he's fighting with, including Minato and Naruto.

I like both Minato and Tobirama because I have a weakness for characters who engage with their magic systems to make new things. Minato improved on the Flying Thunder God technique and Orochimaru improved on the Edo Tensai technique, but Tobirama invented BOTH of those things? PLUS Shadow Clones??? All of which are basically carrying a significant part of the battle right now? Like, damn, Hashirama has his Mokuton, and Tobirama was stubbornly like, "Not being left behind. Fuck you."

So, yeah, the "Hashirama versus Madara", "Tobirama versus Madara", "Minato (plus Naruto & Tobirama) versus Obito", and "Kakashi versus Obito" are probably my favorite parts of this. Not knocking on Naruto or Sasuke or the large background mob of characters here, but they just do not have the same personal, ugly, emotional history in this fight, so I don't really care as much.

Ino can forcibly link hundreds of unknown minds together so Shikamaru can broadcast battle plans??? Holy shit??? The vibe I'm getting is that she was using the link apparently created by Naruto's chakra to do this, but still. Both Ino and Sakura have the potential to be incredibly OP badass characters and they are generally just... Not Allowed to take the spotlight here.

Shikamaru had this big dramatic chapter about surviving to become Naruto's future advisor someday, and I had to repress the urge to holler, "Gaaaaay!" at the screen. I do love the inherent homoeroticism of a right-hand man. (Also, *waves a hand vaguely* Gaara's whole everything.)

To be honest, though, I'm not even sure what Sasuke has spent the past fifty chapters doing. He's there! He sure is there! I think he just got stabbed, so now he gets to be emotional motivation for Naruto again. As far as I understand it, not being sure what Sasuke is actually doing sums up basically everything he does in the manga. There are too many characters here.

On that note, the vibe I'm getting from Orochimaru is that he's also mostly just here to spectate. Like, yeah, I know. Characters like Orochimaru and Sakura and Tsunade are keeping everyone alive with their bare fucking hands right now, but also, give Orochimaru some opera glasses and an alcoholic beverage and it wouldn't feel that out of place.

I'll probably have more to add at some point, but these are the (not that serious) notes off the top of my head.

[pheavampire]

Astarion, Cazador and D&D vampire lore

Let’s talk about D&D vampires and some lore inconsistencies in Baldur’s Gate 3.

BG3 is not a game about vampires. It was obvious we won’t get a playable character who will be 100% vampire spawn from the handbooks - the mechanical balance would be disturbed in comparison with other characters. But we can list some weird stuff and missing aspects. For fun, for fanfiction, for nerdiness.

I still wonder why Cazador even asked Astarion if he wants to be turned. Sure, he could do that, so he could say later „ha ha you asked for it!” but still - weird. Anyway, a vampire lord doesn’t need to ask - he just bites his victim, kills it by drinking its blood and boom, a vampire spawn is made. Almost made…

… because at first the victim needs to be buried and layed in the ground before it rises. That’s the next question - how the hell did Cazador make 7000 spawns? Theoretically he needed to bury them all, dig them back/wait until they dig themselves out or something and transport them to his dungeon without being noticed. His servants could do that for him, but it still is a pretty big thing to cover. Besides…

… accordng to D&D 3.5 edition: "At any given time a vampire may have enslaved spawn totaling no more than twice its own Hit Dice" which means it was impossible for Cazador to create 7000 spawns. Sure, Baldur's Gate 3 uses 5 ed rules, but I'm sure they didn't change this one that much. (BUT! We can interpret this rule as: a vampire lord can create as many spawns as he wants, but the number of enslaved ones is limited. That's all right in this case).

That being said, Astarion is surprised when he discovers that all Cazador’s victims are spawns now. One of his dialogue options is „I thought Cazador was feeding on you”. Well yes, he had to feed on them to make them spawns Astarion, I thought you noticed that yourself 200 years ago. But let's say I understand your confusion, 7000 spawns mean Cazador's hit dice is 3500. Lol.

As a vampire spawn, Astarion should be able to regenerate even without biting someone. To be precise, he should get 10 health points at the start of every turn until he gets killed. But ok, this one doesn’t work in the sun, so let’s say it’s justified… unless the party is in the underdark, shadowlands or other dark place. But yeah, that would be too OP.

Astarion should be afraid of holy symbols, mirrors and garlic. That would be quite irritating, as he wouldn’t be able to even get near Selune's stuff or Lathander’s temple (Lathander HATES the undead, just ask poor Jander Sunstar). But let’s say the tadpole gave him immunity.

Spider climb. Imagine Astarion climbing walls or even ceilings like a damn Spiderman - this is what a regular vampire spawn can do. If the tadpole took away this ability, that’s not very nice of it.

Claws. Astarion should be able to transform his fingers into claws at will. That’s right, it works like another melee weapon.

Coffins, graves et cetera - bunk beds in Cazador's palace are a very anti-canon idea. Because D&D vampires have really traditional weaknesses, they always have to „sleep” in the ground they were buried in to recover - just like Cazador. Jander I mentioned earlier invented an un-lifehack, as he was traveling through Faerun by keeping some of the dirt from his grave in his pocket. He was scattering it in the place he wanted to rest for some time.

A vampire spawn can be controlled or banished by clerics like any other undead. That's right, when Shadowheart casts this one, Astarion should roll the dice, or else he will have to run away from her like those zombies you banished during your playthrough.

Last but not least, vampires get damage if they are in the flowing water, for example river, but you already know this one from the early access Astarion. Shame they removed it, in was a bit irritating but I loved it. It reminded me Astarion is a vampire not only in the dialogues.

That's all I can think of now. My knowledge is a mix of 3.5 and 5 ed, do with it what you want. I wouldn't mind more lore accuarte Astarion fanfics though.

Shocked Astarion reading D&D Monster Manual. Or Libris Mortis.

[mpov]

If female tears lower men's testosterone level then why is there so much hardcore porn? Don't get me wrong, I don't hate men and I don't agree with the OP of the post you reblogged but your statements just don't suit the reality very well. Men created a whole porn category based on abusing women and it's quite popular, so why would they do that if that doesn't turn them on but in fact the opposite? I agree that it's not all men but this also proves that not all men are pure and there's a bunch of them that actually enjoy the abuse of women.

I linked the article for a reason. It's not a visual cue, it's olfactory. While they may enjoy seeing those kinds of scenes acted out, most would not be able to stomach it in real life. The effect is from smelling the tears.

I love watching slasher films. I probably could not handle seeing someone killed in real life. I sure as hell couldn't kill for fun. I sure as hell wouldn't condone the actions of Chucky, Angela, Jason Vorhees, Mike Myers, Freddy, etc.

Those videos are produced in studios, with the actors names attached, and the directors. Why? Because videos of real abuse make people sick and uncomfortable. The people watching know it's an act, fantasy. Show them a video that isn't an act, and 99.99999% will be disgusted.

Hardcore just means penetration. Not violent or extreme.

Men didn't invent porn of any category. Society did, men and women together. Don't forget women consume this material as well. In both video and novel form. The most popular romance novels contain rape and abuse of their heroines by the love interest hero.

No one is claiming men are pure and innocent. Just that they aren't out of control slobbering rape monsters

[nijigasakilove]

Ahhh we are so back. Had two years of UY now we get another long running Takahashi Rumiko remake. Different studio, but just like David Production did with UY, it seems like MAPPA have really captured that 80s anime vibe and brought it to modern audiences while not compromising on what makes Takahashi sensei’s work so loved! Ano on the OP as well we are eating so good this season with OPs 😭

They also got Wada Kaoru back as well who did the music for Inuyasha I KNEW that ost was sounding mad nostalgic, especially when they were giving the Jusenkyou backstory in China, sounded straight out of my childhood. I’m so excited for this.

One thing that’s important to keep in mind whenever you watch any of these Takahashi remakes is that what seems like generic tropes was actually stuff she either invented or was one of the first people to use, so whether it’s Lum being the first tsundere, Ranma moving in with 3 beautiful girls or the gender swap gimmick, this was all revolutionary at the time and shouldn’t be held against the series.

So far here in this first episode, I really like Akane and Ranma dynamic and the gender switching thing looks like it’s gonna be fun as hell. Ranma in his female form will probably be able to bond with and see a side of Akane that his male side never could. You can already see them starting to be a little sweet on each other despite what their mouths might be saying, I know that look out the corner of your eye anywhere lol. Ranma gotta chill with the “my proportions are better than yours” type lines tho. That’s one way to get killed by a growing girl.

If it’s one thing Takahashi sensei gonna do it’s write a dad who makes questionable decisions tho 😂 having your daughter marry someone you never even met is kinda crazy lmao.

[dandelionjack]

there is a lot of grieving involved in realising you’ve been a radlib this whole time and embracing actual marxism. mainly grieving for all the media you’ve enjoyed and been a fan of, particularly when you’re on the spectrum so media is your predominant way of interacting with the world.

it’s all fascist, all of it, all fantasy is. any story that features people with magical powers that elevate them above the populace and which they can use to heal or harm? any story that features an Exceptional Individual Who Can Change History Because They’re So Awesome/Tragic/Weird? fascist. any story that describes an inherent characteristic possessed by a race of mythical creatures? fascist.

it’s all fascist, all romanticism is. individuality in general, the belief that i’m somehow special because i’m autistic, that i’ve been sent here for a purpose, that all of this is leading up to some grand narrative — a product of liberal brainwashing. any story with a protagonist who significantly alters events, basically. any Chosen One — yes, even anti-chosenone stories like Dune. any superhero. any wizard. any Doctor Who.

all mysticism is. the belief that manifestation/thinking hard enough/casting spells/drawing sigils/whatever can change reality ignores socioeconomic factors and the thousand hidden background events constantly shaping every second of our lives. all magic(k) is at best a distraction or escapism and at worst a system of false consciousness that blames immaterial factors for people’s misfortune. chaos magick is the ultimate extension of the neoliberal mindset

there is no art created under capitalism that is not a commodity designed to make more profit. that’s it, that’s all Art is. especially pop music (which includes rock, punk, emo, goth, any subculture basically, jazz, and also classical too sorry adorno), movies and TV, but books as well. there is literally no escaping capitalist realism, no escaping the spectacle

all individual rebellion, all subculture, is liberal at its core. if you call yourself goth you’re making yourself a marketable product. in fact any stable identity-categories turn you into a subject of advertising.

everything is ideology. there is no art, there is only production. “b-but i make my own choices! i create what i want to see!” haha. buddy. you think your desires aren’t entirely contingent on the social milieu which indoctrinated you? you think you’re inventing something new? you think you’re “being yourself”? that “self” is a subject to be marketed to. byung chul-han writes that the word subject itself is a cognate of subjugation — the individual that considers themselves sovereign is a perfect slave to capitalism

this post is what radicalised me. i realised i fit into at least 9 of those categories (tchotchke collector, fandom devotee, cinephile, witch, member of an “alternative” music/fashion based subculture, hipster, cultured consumer, ethical porn proponent, anti-ai luddite) and initially i got mad as hell but having examined everything and done some reading i realised OP is probably right. we’re all treatlers

i don’t know how to deal with this though. my entire identity, sense of self (bourgeois concepts in of themselves) were based on some of the above labels and/or hobbies, interests, values. i literally have to rebuild myself from scratch

also they/them pronouns are probably unmaterialist too. hell, everything i am is inherently radlib. i don’t know what to do, i’m a failure to the revolution and i need to just kill myself since committing unorganised acts of violence against the state is infantile adventurism but no vanguard party org would accept me because i’m a slow reader and i’m stupid and sensitive and well all of the above. there is no hope for me in this world or the next one they are building

i’d say i probably need therapy to sort all of this out but therapy is a placating/pacifying mechanism invented by the bourgeoisie to suppress our justified feelings of rage and grief at the state of the world. being happy as a first-worlder at the expense of orphans in palestine or children in cobalt mines in the congo is actually unethical. so no, actually, i can’t go to a liberal therapist to sort this out, i deserve to implode and die

[atopvisenyashill]

What really frustrates me about Catelyn & Jon discussion is that I can see where it comes from in the amount of fic especially I've seen that poses that Catelyn is the only woman in Westeros who wouldn't have embraced Jon because she invented prejudice against bastards herself, but then it swings to the extreme of she did nothing instead of that, yes, prejudice against bastards is common but that doesn't mean it's not a prejudice that hurt both Jon and her children! that Cat wouldn't (1/2)

2/2) want that is one of the reasons it's a powerful character flaw, like the other ways she - & the other parents who love their children - have hurt them in other ways not intended. also this reminds me of 'Ned being evil for hiding Legitimate Targaryen Jon as a Bastard & not work to get him the throne'. which is just. I cannot even Fathom

EXACTLY OP YOU GET ME.

there’s an alarming amount of people who blame catelyn for everything under the sun, and refuse to understand why she’s afraid of jon and how ned completely botched his entire handling of this situation. i've even seen like "this is because catelyn is a southroner she doesn't understand the north" like what in the goddamn hell are you even talking about omg. do we think there aren't bastards in the north that are treated like shit when ramsay exists?? lord hornwood has his own bastard, and the kid is castle raised but not at hornwood hall and for a reason! and jeez it's not like anyone stops catelyn from being weird and hostile towards jon - ned knows it's a problem, that brief little tiff they have over it when she gets the letter from lysa imo speaks to ned and her having argued more than once about this, but he's not stopping it, and neither does luwin or rodrik or jory or whomever because they think this is fine. it's ~an institutional bias~ she didn't invent it.

but at the same time it's like yes....she does participate in it. and it's fascinating! i think it's fascinating that despite ned's initial fucked up reaction, catelyn has the audacity, the nerve, the sheer goddamn spine to have argued about this subject more than once with ned, with robb, in front of sansa and arya, wrote letters shit talking this toddler to her uncle...but still has the self awareness to see Mya Stone is a regular ass girl just trying to make her way the way Catelyn herself is doing, and feel shame and feel guilt and then shove all that shit right back down because she's got other stuff she needs to do and she can't reflect on Jon when her actual children are in danger. And YET her refusal to reflect on this helps drive Robb away, adds to Arya's feeling of isolation. it's a really interesting dynamic and when we go to either extreme of "catelyn was right to be hostile towards a middle schooler" and "catelyn invented the entire concept of bastardry and legitimacy" it takes taht fascinating dynamic and flattens it into nothing.

[go-go-devil]

re:your tags on fanfic being treated as a market: ppl saying leaving comments is part of the attention economy just proves to me that tumblr bloggers are willfully ignoranr bc that is not what is meant by attention economy 😭 i hate it here

That specific post I was referencing was essentially the OP inventing their own problems by calling out those posts by fanfic authors who are frustrated with the lack of engagement between the authors and readers in modern fandom spaces. They essentially held the opinion that authors getting burnt out from writing due to a lack of seeing any engagement in their work means they've become addicted to the "attention economy" and are thus too entitled to something that readers don't actually "owe" them.

Basically just another post smugly talking down to strangers solely for the sake of it (i.e. tumblr users' favorite past-time), but it really is the epitome for how depressingly antagonistic the simple social spaces of fandom has become as of late.

Readers are making so little effort anymore to find and read fics that go outside of whatever is considered the most popular m/m (or on rarer occasions m/f) ships with no regard for any authors who dare to write ANYTHING that is slightly different from these accepted standards, let alone gen fics and rare pairs. That's not to say all fic authors are incapable of being assholes who also help perpetuate this awful mindset, I've unfortunately seen several myself. Yet to immediately assume that an author feeling extremely bummed out that their f/f or gen fics they worked so hard on are getting absolutely ZERO comments despite being viewed/kudos'ed by a handful of people are acting "entitled" is just plain cruel.

There's a reason why longfics have basically become exclusive only to "fandom approved" ships heavily focused on romance/smut in them. If I dared to write a 50-100K gen fic that focuses on worldbuilding and expanding platonic relationships it WILL be ignored by most people in the most of the fandoms I'm in solely because there's no shipping in the tags (Hylics had proven to be an extremely rare exception, which is why I primarily wrote fics only for that fandom).

That same post even had the gall to end by encouraging fic authors to look up their usernames on Google to find other people talking about their work elsewhere because apparently the OP found a mixtape or something someone made for one of their works. Good for them, but the vast majority of people aren't gonna fucking find that shit if the fandom's already ignoring them on AO3 and Tumblr!

Hell, I myself have objectively written some of the most popular Hylics fanfiction on the Internet, and I couldn't find shit when I googled my username outside of the artwork my friends/mutuals already showed me personally because people who love my work fucking tell me that they love it! That's the whole damn point of being in a social space!

I just don't get this stupid isolationist mindset at all! Nobody should force a reader to leave a comment if they don't want to, but for fucks sake how goddamn hard is it to just leave a single, solitary comment on a piece of writing YOU ALREADY LIKE to tell the author how much you LIKE IT????

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

Look at this....☠️ https://www.tumblr.com/bohemian-nights/737003196544958464/fuck-rhaenyra-fuck-the-writers-with-this-sapphic?source=share

Fucking hell.

First off: I find it interesting the anon doesn't acknowledge that Laena x Daemon is also incest. Sure, she's not his niece, but she is still related to him. They love projecting their insecurities about their ship onto daemyra.

Second: yeah, HoTD choosing to make the Velaryons black then sidelining them massively is shitty and, sure, could be interpreted as racist. However, how is that Rhaenyra's fault? She didn't make Daemon marry Laena when he couldn't have her neither did she kill Laena. Condal and Hess chose to write out Laena's relevance (which already wasn't much outside of being Daemon's wife and Baela and Rhaena's mother) in order to give Alicent more screen time. But again, that's neith Rhaenyra's nor Emma D'Arcy's fault, stop blaming them (also Emma is good at playing Rhaenyra as she is written, the only issues are the writing, which aren't their fault). Op also chose to ignore the fact that Daemon actually is confirmed by GRRM himself to have loved Rhaenyra the most.

Moving on, once again the Rhaenyra antis are bringing up how Rhaenyra isn't "feminist". Literally no one in F&B is feminist by our modern definition. Visenya and Rhaenys are probably the closest, and even then, they aren't writing feminist manifestos (which apparently Rhaenyra is expected to for some reason). Alysanne, the most proactive queen regent, still enforced arranged marriages on her daughters and granddaughters. Rhaenys didn't advocate for Laena's right of succession in the book and in the show refused to support Rhaenyra long before Laenor's "death". Her antis hold Rhaenyra to unfair and unrealistic standards while making excuses for or ignoring other characters who don't meet them.

In that same vein, I still can't get over how Rhaenyra antis will say that TG aren't the conservative group. They say Rhaenyra isn't a feminist and that TG, the ones who are obsessed with male primogeniture and believe being gay, a sexually liberated woman, a child born out of wedlock, or not adhering to the equivalent of the Catholic Church make someone subhuman are the "progressive" group. It's delusion at its finest. Alicent and the greens are misogynistic and, because of them, women's rights in Westeros ended up more repressed than ever.

The fact that the op says that Visenya and Queen Rhaena are acceptable shows they have no understanding for TG or F&B. First off, TG would never support either woman. Visenya was hated by the Faith and most of the Lord's of Westeros, she was a warrior accused of witchcraft and dared to interfere with the misogynistic customs alongside Rhaenys. Rhaena was gay, something she wasn't allowed to live fully because the Targaryens chose to conform to Westerosi ideals. She was also robbed of her inheritance, even Jaehaerys acknowledged that Rhaena was the rightful heir, just as Aegon acknowledged Rhaenyra was.

As for the racist allegations, those come exclusively from Mushroom, someone who is far from a reliable source. Mushroom invented an entire woman to try to add "spice" to Jacaerys' story: Sara Snow. A woman of whom there is no record of, even though she was raised in Winterfell and supposedly married Jace. If Mushroom is willing to make up a whole ass woman to make the story more dramatic, why should we trust anything he says?

Yes, Rhaenyra ordered Nettles' execution, but that was because of her rumored relationship with Daemon and Rhaenyra's paranoia which had grown massively since Hugh Hammer and Ulf White's betrayal. Was it just? No. Was it racially motivated? According to Mushroom, maybe, but looking at Rhaenyra's character, it doesn't make sense.

Moving on, what exactly does op mean by "she's done too many things to claim she's been wrongly framed by the narrative"? By the time Nettles comes along, Rhaenyra hasn't done much that could be considered reprehensible. Op seems to have an issue with Vaemond's death, which Rhaenyra did order in the book. They seem to think that Vaemond "rightfully called her out" and was wrongfully killed.

She ordered Vaemond's execution after he declared her sons bastards in order to challenge Corlys' decision regarding succession. Keep in mind, Vaemond in the book is Corlys' nephew, not his brother, which moves him even farther down the line of succession. Vaemond not only was putting Rhaenyra and her sons in danger but was also trying to usurp all of Corlys' line, including Baela and Rhaena, who op seems to like a lot.

Yeah Rhaenyra is much harsher in F&B, but that hardly makes her evil and irredeemable. Queens Visenya and Rhaena were both harsh and even cruel sometimes, yet op doesn't think they're irredeemable monsters.

I do agree with op's anger over the sidelining of the Velaryons, as I said earlier, but taking it out on Rhaenyra is completely uncalled for. Rhaenyra wasn't a monster, anyone who believes that has frighteningly little reading comprehension. Rhaenyra's reign would have greatly helped women's standings in Westeros and pushed along gender equality. Ignoring that fact and blatantly saying the greens aren't supporting the repressive patriarchy is delusional and idiotic. The greens' actions were damaging in every way. Vaemond was far from an innocent victim, he was power hungry and misogynistic in both the show and the book. Keep your angry focused on the right people, don't take it out on a woman who had her whole life destroyed by the patriarchy.

[solarballs-confessions]

Maybe I've said this before here? I mean. I've definitely ranted to others about this, but I am so frequently angry about this that I shall complain again.

(If I have, just delete this)

I hate how Alvaro (+ some parts of the fandom) insist on labelling Solarballs, Mr. Spherical, etc. content as "polandball/planetball"

It is nothing like that.

Most obvious thing is THE ART. THE MOUTHS! WHY ARE THERE MOUTHS IF THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A POLANDBALL DERIVATIVE THING. That is rule 1 of polandball! NEVER add mouths! And yes, that matters! The point of PB is to look shitty and simple! It is also to show homage to the OG comic! Adding mouths to a PB character is a surefire way to go to the PILLARY OF NO-GOS.

Eyebrows, and hands too. "But expressions!" just stretch the character up and make the dialogue so good that you don't even need to pay attention to that. Some PB artists (see: wildeofoscar) like to stay to a derpy look and let the text alone show the mood. And it works mighty fine, might I add! "But hands are needed for this!" There's the handipoles specifically for that. In r/polandball, handipoles were invented by a user specifically to circumvent the rules in a funny way.

But that's not all! It's how they speak! How they act!

rPolandball? The characters speak in bad english. None of the characters are taken seriously. (Save for the depression month comics). The leaders aren't shown.

Mr. Spherical? They speak in perfect english aside from poland... WHO IS RIGHT SIDE UP, AND DOESN'T EVEN SPEAK IN "CANNOT INTO OFINGS" ENGRISH. They give the vibes of taken seriously, but the story forces them to be not taken seriously, which ends up awkward as hell.

You might be seeing this and going "does art really matter? And for the space medias, do planets even have stereotypes?"

I'll start with the art: Yes. It matters. The rPB art rules make sure the comics never stray from the original spirit of PB. When I saw art from people who break the rules, I also saw that their "jokes" were too safe and afraid of being offensive, a lot of stereotypical behaviour of the actual country and their peoples were ignored/changed to fit the OP's politics. (Either SJW, or actual nazism.)

For the space media: Yes and no. Venus has almost always been portrayed as feminine in most celestial-anthro media, but sometimes she is portrayed masculine. I can also accept that personalities don't matter much.

But something about SB. Even if you took the whole series and made it obey the rules, I'd still refrain from putting it under the polandball & derivative umbrella. It does not have the same charm, the same spirit of polandball & derivatives. It has charm. It has spirit. But it's nothing like polandball.

Even looking at the official pillary of no-gos, I can still accept some of it as polandball. Because it has the same spirit.

I blame it on the buzzwordation of polandball. Before, "countryballs", "planetball", etc. refered to things like r/Polandball.

But the gen alpha SJWs, who didn't have hetalia, who didn't have countryhumans, nor even SATW, came to hunt for a new target. And polandball was that target. They removed the spirit of it and reduced it to just another one of their "country anthropomorphism medias". So now, petit bourgeois like Alvaro market to the gen Alphas by invading our words.

I can somewhat agree with calling Mr. Spherical "countryballs" and keeping the OG polandball as "polandball". But as for solarballs, it has essentially become an invasive species for "planetball". Nothing wrong with Solarballs, if I didn't like the series I wouldn't watch it, but I wish it would accept that it is it's own brand and not a polandball-derivative.

-Emoji Hater Anon

.

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

Who is Abhorash?

Because as someone who knows a bit, but not too much about gotrek. I refuse to believe gotrek can loose a fight.

I refuse to believe that anyone who does not think gotrek can wipe the floor with big e, is not an extremely racist elf that is racist to dwarves as much as everyone else they (the hypothetical turboracist elf) are racist towards combined

So Abhorash must be fuckin op as hell

I mean, objectively, Gotrek is powered by a god in WHF, and is more or less a god in AoS, and has been powercrept over time due to his narrative presence in his own series. I also don't really enjoy matchups, because they lack a lot of context and narrative background and all kinds of things that play into two characters throwing hands. But anyway.

Abhorash was one of the first vampires. Specifically, he was the captain of the guard in Lahmia, one of the main Nehekharan cities. He was, by all accounts, one of the single most capable warriors and duelists of the age, and a very pure, very loyal person. He got tricked into becoming a vampire by Neferata (the woman who invented vampirism) and was verily unhappy. At the same time, his martial skill was elevated even further, and he became one of the best warriors of... every age. But, again, he was also deeply upset at being a vampire, and the people he'd killed when he'd first turned and gotten hungry. He swore to never kill an innocent person, and he mourned the people he'd killed genuinely.

So, he started off by only killing criminals and enemies of his city, but when the city fell (that was a whole other thing, he killed a lot of people during that whole affair, and defended it alongside the human inhabitants) that changed to criminals and worthy combatants. The best of the best. Champions, monsters, etc. He did this for centuries, if not millennia. The culmination of that was him slaying an enormous dragon in single combat and drinking the whole thing, which actually permanently cured him of his thirst. Dragons are a big deal in WHF, for the record. Very powerful, very scary. After that, he sort of vanished. Made friends with Gilles le Breton, though. They built an abbey together.

So yeah. Dude is, by all we know of him, one of the single greatest martial combatants in Warhammer Fantasy.

[g-a-r-o]

You wanna know what kinda shit I'm on? I'm on 15 parts Vicodin, 5 parts agent orange, 2 parts Krispy Kreme donuts ground up in a blender. 50 gallon batch size. I down that shit after every rep. I will fuck you up. I will fuck you down. I will fuck you north, south, east, west, and every other inconceivable secret cardinal direction. I will fuck you into Mordor. I will fuck you into MOUNT DOOM. I AM MOUNT DOOM. Ops call me MOUNT DOOM, because I'm MOTHERFUCKING MOUNT DOOM. The Aztecs built Tenochtitlan when they saw me on a cactus holding your bitch in my beak. I dap up Jesus on the daily. I've fucked Vishnu's butthole. Zeus is a real one. Allah is my op. The state of Utah could never be as huge as me. My circle is fifteen carbon copies of Judas smoking dried out rolled up algae from Leonard Nimoy's pool filtration system. Leonard Nimoy is my op. I would never smoke his algae but my real ones know I'm him. Week-long bender in New Jersey got me looking like Thom Yorke on a normal day. Sloppy toppy afterward, call that the Radio Head. The I-95 was not ready for my grind. That highway got adopted like a fish gets sucked up an intake valve. I'm smoking gnomes. Cheefing fuckin forest creatures like the fire that killed Bambi's mom. I can walk on water. I can swim in the ground. I know the Statue of Liberty very intimately. I have done unfathomable things to the Eifel Tower. I drink Gatorade and I don't even know what the fuck is in that shit. Author of the Kama Sutra self-defenestrated after he heard what I did to his mom. I'm a sex demon from sexy hell. Invented cunnilingus. Gunnifringus too, but it was so fire that the ops had to take me down. Hat man tryna get me off bennys because he knows he can't even fuck with me. I down 1200 mg, he's gotta take twice as much just to get away from me. Sleep paralysis demons couldn't even after they heard my flow. Worst mistake they ever made was forgetting to freeze my jaw. Second worst mistake they ever made was forgetting to freeze my dick. They never made a third mistake. THAT'S the type a shit I'm on

[lostcauses-noregrets]

I know new AoT stuff wasn't going to be anything but still an artbook wasn't what I expected. I know it was never going to be about the Ackermans but I swear Isayama should do something about them one day because they are "weakest point" storytelling-wise in AoT. Kenny Levi and Mikasa are all my favorites but also they don't make sense and always feel like something Isayama only invented to explain how they are so OP in a more grounded story where ordinary people without Titan powers are just that, ordinary people. That ask you answered recently for example. They are just... It makes zero sense. Fandom, especially Eruri fans, did so much more justice to this side of AoT compared to Isayama. Because in no world it makes sense that they just discover 2 of their soldiers are literally super soldiers and there can be more out there when they are literally threatened by intelligent titans and a mostly unknown enemy. Don't get me wrong, I love that Yams kept it mysterious which gave the fans creative freedom when it comes to Ackerman stuff. Eruri fans are so creative with it. But he still acts like Ackermans exist in their own little world. No one reacts to them, no one is interested in them unless the story has to remind us they are special (again that ask you answered about ackermans being immune). You telling me Paradis, in desperation under the threat of outside world and their intelligent titans, didn't search for possibly more Ackermans? Erwin who loves things like that never questioned Levi or Mikasa? Hange, who is a science freak and loves titan science in the first place, begged Levi or Mikasa to give them their blood sample or anything? No one tried to weaponize them? Ackermans make no sense because it feels like their story is a side story, a side quest and completely seperated from the main storyline, not because they are a mystery. THEY MAKE NO SENSE ITS DRIVING ME CRAZY

I got this ask last weekend and we've had a lot more information about Shingeki FLY since then. We now know it's going to be a 200 page art book, a "top secret final draft", and "Attack on Titan Vol. 35 which contains the newly drawn manga Bad Boy". There's been a lot of speculation about who Bad Boy refers to with many fans holding out hope that the new manga or side story will be about Levi. (Though I did laugh at the person on twitter who said it might be about Armin and Annie.). So you never know Anon, you might get your Ackerman lore yet!

Much as I would love to know more about the Ackermans, I'm not sure I agree that they're the "weakest point" storytelling-wise". I think there are much more annoying plot weaknesses, particularly whatever the hell is going on with Historia! Personally I can live with the layers of ambiguity surrounding the Ackermans, particularly because they've proved such fertile ground for fic writers, as you rightly said.

The thing about the Ackermans is that, given the king's attempts to wipe them out, it's not clear whether anyone on Paradis knew anything about them. Erwin wanted Levi for the Survey Corps as soon as he saw his strength and skill, but when he recruited Levi, he had no idea he was Ackerman, or what that meant. Levi himself only discovered he was an Ackerman at the end of the Uprising Arc. We don't know from canon whether Levi revealed his lineage to Erwin, but I'm quite sure he did. He certainly doesn't seem to have been reticent about talking about his relationship with Kenny to Mikasa and Hanji in the cart, and with Nifa on the rooftop.

But even if Erwin did know by the end of the Uprising that the Ackermans were a clan of supers soldiers, as you put it, he didn't really have a chance to exploit that information; sadly he was killed barely a couple of months later. Hanji does appear to have some knowledge of the Ackermans later in the story, but again, by that stage they were all fighting for their lives so they weren't exactly in a position to go hunting for more Ackermans to support the Alliance.

Anyway, I can understand your frustration about the lack of information about the Ackermans, and I really would love to know more about them too. However, over the years, I've made my peace with the fact that they are likely to remain a mystery.