#there's nothing more dangerous than one fighting without question for their ideals

[daily-terus]

[in1-nutshell]

Why did Megatron leave idw Ophelia, hence why I request the idw Ophelia post but from Megatron pov on why he left his child and possibly future him think that Ophelia reminds him of his adopted sparkling

I have a feeling more IDW Ophelia will be coming in the future and I am ready for it!

Hope you enjoy!

IDW Ophelia: Megatron's POV

SFW, Platonic, Angst, Cybertronian reader

IDW/MTMTE

Life seemed to be getting better with time for Megatron.

He had a growing movement fighting for better change in the Senate.

He had made friends through these connections.

He met a nice bot named Orion Pax who seemed to share the same ideal as him.

And now, he now had a daughter.

Definitely not the biggest or heaviest sparkling out there, but she was his and he wouldn’t want her in any other way.

Orion looking over Megatron’s shoulder to look at the sleeping sparkling. Orion: “Does she have a name yet?” Megatron: “Not yet.” Orion: “What names are you thinking about?” Megatron shrugging. Megatron: “I am not sure yet. I will give her one when the time seems right. For now, Little One it is.” Megatron gently traces the sparklings digit with a warm smile. Orion: “I’m sure you’ll find the perfect name for her.”

Megatron never did get around to finding a proper name for her.

Most names he tried out for her just didn’t seem right.

So, she went on without a proper name, mainly responding to any nickname that corresponded to sparklings.

She was his tiny shadow enveloped in his own shadow.

The little one had a talent of managing to worm her little way in =o many of the sparks of bots and cons alike.

Even the more questionable colleges…

The sparkling looks up at Starscream. Starscream: “What? You have something to say?” The sparkling waddles up to him and gently pats his pede. The sparkling chirps happily. Starscream looks around before carefully picking up the sparkling to his chassis. Starscream: “Your father needs to have a better look out for you Young One. I hope you know how much time I am wasting on—” The sparkling looking at his wings: “Pretty! So pretty!” Starscream: “… At least you have a working processor.” He turns around to see Soundwave staring at him. Starscream: “…” Soundwave: “…” Starscream passing the sparkling to Soundwave. Starscream: “You saw nothing.” Starscream walks away… but not before perking up a bit hearing a small ‘Bye Pretty!’.

Sadly, good things tend to have sick endings.

One minute he was helping her read some glyphs, the next Megatron was being hauled to his cell.

The only thing keeping him from trying to break the bonds and race to his little sparkling was the emergency plan they had talked about.

If Megatron did not come back home after two days, she would go to the ‘safe spot’.

The safe spot was a small hidden room in the gladiatorial quarters.

It was often used for storage and cleaning supplies, but it was an excellent hiding place.

He would rather have her stay with someone trusted, but right now he couldn’t trust anyone.

What if a close friend ended up betraying him and used her as leverage?

No, this plan was for the best.

It was one of the nights into his sentence when the words of a nameless guard struck him to the core.

The guard walked up to Megatron, who was on the inside of his cell. Guard: “There’s been talk around that you have a sparkling. Is that true Megatron.” Megatron stays silent. Guard: “Well, she’s probably doing better now that a murderer isn’t under the same roof as her.” Megatron’s optics widen a bit. Guard: “Don’t think we don’t know about your little ‘accident’ in the mines Megatron. Hopefully without you around, she won’t end up here rotting away with the likes of you and the other criminal filth on Cybertron.”

The guard spat at his pedes and left him alone in his cold cell.

That thought struck him harder than any blow Whirl would have ever given him.

More thoughts about the dangers of his work started floating around.

With everything going on with his movement and the Senate, was he really going to bring his sparkling to a world like that?

Everything already seemed to be on fire, why drag her further into this mess?

… Maybe having the sparkling stay with one of her uncles… Or… maybe stay with someone else who was built for sparklings… permanently…

No, he wasn’t going to give up one of the only sources of light in his life because of some little fear.

Megatron was fighting for a better future for all Cybertronians.

A world where sparkling wouldn’t have to scavenge in unstable mines and hope to Primus for the best.

He was fighting for her.

Starscream: “Welcome back Megatron.” Megatron looks at the increased number of bots that had joined his cause. Megatron: “I see we have steadily increased in numbers.” Starscream: “Yes, the numbers ramp up significantly with your imprisonment.’ Soundwave walks up to Megatron. Soundwave: “Shall I go retrieve our sparkling now? I have the location—” Megatron: “No.” Every con who had met the sparkling turns to Megatron. Soundwave: “What?” Starscream: “Comedy doesn’t suit you Megatron. What do you mean ‘No’?” Megatron: “I am serious. Do not retrieve her.” Soundwave: “She doesn’t know you have returned—” Megatron: “When I say it is time to bring her, it is time.” Starscream: “None of—” Megatron: “She will not be safe here. The best we can do is leave the location hidden from our enemies and fight.” Starscream: “You do realize that sparkling is going to be a target anywhere she goes because of who her father—” SLAP! Megatron vents heavily putting his servo down. He looks down at a shocked Starscream. Megatron: “Question my orders again Starscream and there WILL be consequences.” Starscream grimaces while looking down: “Yes… Lord Megatron.”

Megatron bans Soundwave from sending anyone from contacting his sparkling, it was for her own safety.

A few days later, the news showed an extremely familiar looking gladiatorial arena in rubble.

Some bots had destroyed the entire building as an act of revolution against the Senate.

No survivors amongst the wreckage.

This was Megatron’s last straw.

A month later the War official broke out.

Megatron was a war machine, a cold calculated war machine.

There were rare nights where he would dream of his little sparkling, waiting for him outside the Halls of Iacon.

Megatron looks around the giant halls. He stops when he sees his sparkling reading a data pad and falls to his knees. Megatron: “Little One?” The sparkling immediately looks up smiling widely and breaks into a sprint. The sparkling: “Megatron! Megatron! You’re back!” She jumps into his open arms. Megatron squeezes her tightly. The sparkling: “I knew you’d come back! I just knew it!” Megatron suddenly wakes up to the sound of harsh banging at his habsuite. Megatron: “What is it!” Shockwave from the other side of the door: “I have the data collection of the prisoners’ processors ready for you to see Lord Megatron.” Megatron: “Give me 5 minutes.” Shockwave: “As you wish Lord Megatron.” Shockwave walks back to his lab as Megatron silently weeps the fleeting memory of his sparkling.

Time skip to the Lost Light…

As he boarded the infamous Lost Light, he recognized two of the bots waiting for him.

His fellow ‘Co-captain’ Rodimus Prime and Ultra Magnus.

The third larger bot was new and about the same height as Ultra Magnus.

Megatron had never seen this bot before.

She welcomed him onto the ship with a shake to his servo, he half expected her to pull some sort of trigger or something.

But no…

She was polite and got to the point of things.

He didn’t have much interaction with the larger bot, but he brushed it off as being scared that he was on board.

They chatted from time to time during or in between the halls of the ship.

It was nice.

But sometimes he swore he find the bot doing little things that reminded him of her…

But that was impossible.

Ophelia was Ophelia.

His sparkling… his sparkling was gone; she had been for a while… and no amount of wishing was going to bring her back to him.

[desmon1995]

The Warriors and their Odyssey of misogyny

I can’t stop thinking about how The Warriors is more relevant now than ever, especially in the wake of the 2024 election. This isn’t just a story about gang conflicts and survival—it's a brutally honest reflection of the world that marginalized people have to navigate every day. At its core, it’s about fighting through a sea of misogyny and toxic masculinity to survive in a system that’s dead set on crushing those who don’t fit its narrative.

Let’s start with Luther. He’s a white incel in every sense—angry, destructive, and, above all, ready to deflect blame the moment he’s caught in his own violence. After killing a black female activist, he immediately accuses the Warriors. Cleon, a character who knows what it means to fight for your community, begs for reason, for justice. But it’s hopeless—Luther’s lie spreads through his gang the Rouges, and every gang believes him. They want to believe the white man’s narrative. This is how the Warriors become outcasts, hunted by everyone.

What’s chilling, though, is how The Warriors dives deep into the nuances of toxic masculinity, showing it in forms we recognize all too well.

First, we have the Turnbull ACs—the poster boys of hyper-masculine violence. They’re the first to pursue the Warriors, and they’re more than willing to turn their hunt into something brutal. The ACs don't just want revenge; they want to dominate, to assert their power over the Warriors in every violent way possible. All in the name of Cyrus, no less—a symbol of a leader they’ll never understand. And they’re acting this way because of a lie, blindly following a dangerous white man’s narrative without question. It’s the rawest depiction of machismo and rage—almost an anthem of how Men of Color end up perpetuating harmful Eurocentric viewpoints just be a part of a society that hates them too.

Then come the Orphans. The Orphans are all talk, acting like the typical online "alpha males" we see on Reddit or Twitter. They talk big about their strength and what they’d do to women, but they’re nothing but insecure. The moment a more feminine-presenting Warrior flirts with them, they back down, only to puff up again when Mercy questions their manhood. It’s pathetic, really, but also painfully real. As soon as the Warriors fight back, the Orphans crumble, showing us exactly how performative their masculinity truly is.

Then there’s the Hurricanes—the only group to stand with the Warriors. They’re queer, and they know what it’s like to be outcast, to run because society sees you as something to be destroyed. The Hurricanes offer a quiet, resilient kind of mentorship, showing the Warriors that they don’t have to run—that they can fight. The solidarity here is beautiful, and historically resonant. Queer rights and women’s rights are so deeply intertwined because they’ve both faced the brutal crush of patriarchy, especially from those determined to keep the world “pure” and “safe” for white, conservative ideals. The Hurricanes help the Warriors see their own power, and it’s their influence that eventually allows them to survive.

But the most frightening group? The Bizzies. They’re the “nice guys,” the false allies who sing about being there to help. In their song “We Got You,” they say everything marginalized people want to hear. They’re supportive, kind, and reassuring—until they get you in a dark place, where your screams can’t be heard. Cowgirl lets her guard down with them, only to find out that their support was a façade. The Bizzies are insidious because this happens all the time in real life. Fake allies talk about helping marginalized people but vanish or even turn hostile the moment things get difficult. In 2024, we’re reminded every day that this kind of allyship is hollow.

A recent Vulture review questioned why most of the male characters in The Warriors are “bad” and argued that this one-sided view “limits” the story. But here’s the thing: this isn’t one-sided for those of us who are marginalized. For women, queer folks, and people of color, this is our reality. The Warriors reveals what’s true for many of us: that we have to rely on each other, and that the fight for our own freedom is in our hands because no one else will fight it for us without diluting or dismissing it.

In a way, The Warriors is the sequel to Hamilton we need in 2024. It’s a call to action, a piece that understands what it means to exist on the fringes of a world that was never designed for you. For those who think this story isn’t “realistic,” I urge you to think about what it means to live without the privilege of being heard, of being believed. This is the life marginalized communities face every day—the struggle of knowing that no matter how loud we shout, society might never listen.

We’re the ones who have to make our voices heard. And The Warriors reminds us that we’re not alone in this fight.

[corysmiles]

t!Tav with the Origin Companions

BG3 g/t

T!tav fluffy head cannons

Notes: this is unedited but I needed to get it out of my brain, so my apologies for any grammar weirdness

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

Karlach:

This woman is absolutely devastated that she can’t hold Tav because of her engine

She sneaks extra food to Tav because she’s fascinated by the tiny

As soon as her engine is fixed enough for her to touch people she is holding Tav all the time. Her first action after being fixed is just grabbing the tiny

Tav uses Karlach as a personal heater whenever it’s too cold at night and Karlach is 100% there for it. Although, she is extremely nervous about accidentally crushing Tav while she’s asleep

Karlach lets Tav hide in her armor while they’re out so she can keep the tiny close

Gale (+Tara):

Gale is extremely careful and gentle with Tav, letting them sit with him while he reads in his tent. He’s spent a long time writing and using his hands for magic, so he’s very well-practiced in careful movements

He is nervous that Tara will go after the tiny so he sits her down to talk about Tav NOT being food. Tara is upset about it at first, but starts to like the tiny once she realizes she can get the best ear scratches from the tiny.

Gale loves learning so he takes any chance he gets to study Tav. It gets a little weird for the tiny sometimes because he asks a ton of questions but overall they find it endearing

As the resident cook of the group Gale is all in on making sure Tav eats well. At first he’s not super sure about how much they should eat so they end up with a portion way too big for them. He gets better over time at making sure the portions are right but Tav will never complain about there being too much.

If Tav is in trouble or noticed during a fight he conjures a mage hand to whisk them away. The first time it happens Tav is terrified until they’re dropped into Gale’s pocket away from danger, and any time they try to look out to see what’s happening the hand pushes them back into the pocket

Astarion:

Astarion is extremely unsure about Tav at first. He doesn’t understand the point of keeping someone around who can’t really help much in fights, and he doesn’t like the idea of wasting resources on them (even small amounts).

He starts to get along with them when he realizes they’re upset about not feeling like they have much control over their life. One night when drinking they tell him about how they’re used to being used and controlled by larger people, and after that he can’t help but relate to them. And if he is a little nicer to them after that none of the other companions have to know

He definitely teases them about biting them, even though they know he wouldn’t actually do anything to them.

Astarion is also surprisingly gentle with them. His experience with picking locks means he is often the best at holding them without jostling them around too much. Whenever they’re on long walks to their next campsite Tav often lets him hold them since it’s usually the most comfortable. He always complains, but he never actually turns them down

Lae’zel:

Similarly to Astarion, Lae’zel also doesn’t like Tav much at first. In her opinion the tiny is nothing more than a liability in a fight, and she doesn’t understand the appeal of having them around.

Lae’zel typically avoided interacting with Tav, and if she had to pick them up she wasn’t very nice about it

However, after visiting the crèche Tav comes to talk to her and make sure she’s okay, and the tiny starts to grow on Lae’zel. After realizing that some of the githyanki ideals she’d been taught weren’t right, she starts to find the tiny’s company nice- even if the tiny still can’t help much in a fight

Lae’zel absolutely tries to teach Tav how to fight. She gives them a needle as a makeshift weapon and while it can’t do much damage she teaches Tav all the best places to stab.

Wyll:

Wyll is one of the first to support the idea of allowing Tav to stay with them. He’s always wanted to help other people, and when they find the tiny he can’t help but want to protect them.

Whenever Mizora shows up at camp he hides Tav away because he’s always worried she’ll do something to them to keep Wyll under her control

Wyll reached Tav how to dance once he finds out that they don’t know how. It’s awkward since they’re smaller than his hand but he’s still able to at least teach them the proper movements

Tav loves to hear Wyll’s stories about the people he’s protected before and will sit in his tent to keep him company to listen to him

Wyll is very nervous about holding Tav. He’s always worried that he’ll hurt them somehow or that they’ll fall or he’ll squeeze too tight, but Tav always reassures him it’s okay. He gets better about it throughout their travels, but he still doesn’t hold them often out of fear

Shadowheart:

Shadowheart loves Tav almost from the start. She’ll talk to them constantly, and sit them on her shoulder for company throughout their travels.

Shadowheart is very keen on training the owl bear cub and Scratch to not hurt Tav. When they finally get to a point where Tav can be around them with out constant monitoring Shadowheart is extremely pleased with herself

After fights Shadowheart also checks on Tav first to heal them if they need it, always worried something bad will have happened to the tiny while she wasn’t looking.

When Tav finds out Shadowheart likes night orchids they start dropping off ones that they find in front of her tent. She doesn’t say anything about it, too worried the tiny will stop if she says anything, but she does appreciate it greatly

[whatevergreen]

A Talk to Teachers

"Let's begin by saying that we are living through a very dangerous time. Everyone in this room is in one way or another aware of that. We are in a revolutionary situation, no matter how unpopular that word has become in this country. The society in which we live is desperately menaced, not by Khrushchev, but from within. To any citizen of this country who figures himself as responsible – and particularly those of you who deal with the minds and hearts of young people – must be prepared to “go for broke.” Or to put it another way, you must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance. There is no point in pretending that this won’t happen.

Since I am talking to schoolteachers and I am not a teacher myself, and in some ways am fairly easily intimidated, I beg you to let me leave that and go back to what I think to be the entire purpose of education in the first place. It would seem to me that when a child is born, if I'm the child's parent, it is my obligation and my high duty to civilize that child. Man is a social animal. He cannot exist without a society. A society, in turn, depends on certain things which everyone within that society takes for granted. Now the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society. Thus, for example, the boys and girls who were born during the era of the Third Reich, when educated to the purposes of the Third Reich, became barbarians. The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it – at no matter what risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change.

Now, if what I have tried to sketch has any validity, it becomes thoroughly clear, at least to me, that any Negro who is born in this country and undergoes the American educational system runs the risk of becoming schizophrenic. On the one hand he is born in the shadow of the stars and stripes and he is assured it represents a nation which has never lost a war. He pledges allegiance to that flag which guarantees “liberty and justice for all.” He is part of a country in which anyone can become president, and so forth. But on the other hand he is also assured by his country and his countrymen that he has never contributed anything to civilization – that his past is nothing more than a record of humiliations gladly endured. He is assumed by the republic that he, his father, his mother, and his ancestors were happy, shiftless, watermelon-eating darkies who loved Mr. Charlie and Miss Ann, that the value he has as a black man is proven by one thing only – his devotion to white people. If you think I am exaggerating, examine the myths which proliferate in this country about Negroes.

All this enters the child’s consciousness much sooner than we as adults would like to think it does. As adults, we are easily fooled because we are so anxious to be fooled. But children are very different. Children, not yet aware that it is dangerous to look too deeply at anything, look at everything, look at each other, and draw their own conclusions. They don't have the vocabulary to express what they see, and we, their elders, know how to intimidate them very easily and very soon. But a black child, looking at the world around him, though he cannot know quite what to make of it, is aware that there is a reason why his mother works so hard, why his father is always on edge. He is aware that there is some reason why, if he sits down in the front of the bus, his father or mother slaps him and drags him to the back of the bus. He is aware that there is some terrible weight on his parents' shoulders which menaces him. And it isn't long – in fact it begins when he is in school – before he discovers the shape of his oppression.

Let us say that the child is seven years old and I am his father, and I decide to take him to the zoo, or to Madison Square Garden, or to the U.N. Building, or to any of the tremendous monuments we find all over New York. We get into a bus and we go from where I live on 131st Street and Seventh Avenue downtown through the park and we get in New York City, which is not Harlem. Now, where the boy lives – even if it is a housing project – is in an undesirable neighborhood. If he lives in one of those housing projects of which everyone in New York is so proud, he has at the front door, if not closer, the pimps, the whores, the junkies – in a word, the danger of life in the ghetto. And the child knows this, though he doesn't know why.

I still remember my first sight of New York. It was really another city when I was born – where I was born. We looked down over the Park Avenue streetcar tracks. It was Park Avenue, but I didn't know what Park Avenue meant downtown. The Park Avenue I grew up on, which is still standing, is dark and dirty. No one would dream of opening a Tiffany's on that Park Avenue, and when you go downtown you discover that you are literally in the white world. It is rich – or at least it looks rich. It is clean – because they collect garbage downtown. There are doormen. People walk about as though they owned where they are – and indeed they do. And it's a great shock. It’s very hard to relate yourself to this. You don’t know what it means. You know – you know instinctively – that none of this is for you. You know this before you are told. And who is it for and who is paying for it? And why isn't it for you?

Later on when you become a grocery boy or messenger and you try to enter one of those buildings a man says, “Go to the back door.” Still later, if you happen by some odd chance to have a friend in one of those buildings, the man says, “Where’s your package?” Now this by no means is the core of the matter. What I'm trying to get at is that by the time the Negro child has had, effectively, almost all the doors of opportunity slammed in his face, and there are very few things he can do about it. He can more or less accept it with an absolutely inarticulate and dangerous rage inside – all the more dangerous because it is never expressed. It is precisely those silent people whom white people see every day of their lives – I mean your porter and your maid, who never say anything more than “Yes Sir” and “No, Ma'am.” They will tell you it's raining if that is what you want to hear, and they will tell you the sun is shining if that is what you want to hear. They really hate you – really hate you because in their eyes (and they’re right) you stand between them and life. I want to come back to that in a moment. It is the most sinister of the facts, I think, which we now face.

There is something else the Negro child can do, to. Every street boy – and I was a street boy, so I know – looking at the society which has produced him, looking at the standards of that society which are not honored by anybody, looking at your churches and the government and the politicians, understand that this structure is operated for someone else's benefit – not for his. And there's no reason in it for him. If he is really cunning, really ruthless, really strong – and many of us are – he becomes a kind of criminal. He becomes a kind of criminal because that's the only way he can live. Harlem and every ghetto in this city – every ghetto in this country – is full of people who live outside the law. They wouldn't dream of calling a policeman. They wouldn't, for a moment, listen to any of those professions of which we are so proud on the Fourth of July. They have turned away from this country forever and totally. They live by their wits and really long to see the day when the entire structure comes down.

The point of all this is that black men were brought here as a source of cheap labor. They were indispensable to the economy. In order to justify the fact that men were treated as though they were animals, the white republic had to brainwash itself into believing that they were, indeed, animals and deserved to be treated like animals. Therefor it is almost impossible for any Negro child to discover anything about his actual history. The reason is that this “animal,” once he suspects his own worth, once he starts believing that he is a man, has begun to attack the entire power structure. This is why America has spent such a long time keeping the Negro in his place. What I am trying to suggest to you is that it was not an accident, it was not an act of God, it was not done by well-meaning people muddling into something which they didn't understand. It was a deliberate policy hammered into place in order to make money from black flesh. And now, in 1963, because we have never faced this fact, we are in intolerable trouble.

(...2023, 2024...)

The Reconstruction, as I read the evidence, was a bargain between the North and South to this effect: “We've liberated them from the land – and delivered them to the bosses.” When we left Mississippi to come North we did not come to freedom. We came to the bottom of the labor market, and we are still there. Even the Depression of the 1930's failed to make a dent in Negroes' relationship to white workers in the labor unions. Even today, so brainwashed is this republic that people seriously ask in what they suppose to be good faith, “What does the Negro want?” I've heard a great many asinine questions in my life, but that is perhaps the most asinine and perhaps the most insulting. But the point here is that people who ask that question, thinking that they ask it in good faith, are really the victims of this conspiracy to make Negroes believe they are less than human.

In order for me to live, I decided very early that some mistake had been made somewhere. I was not a “n*gger” even though you called me one. But if I was a “n*gger” in your eyes, there was something about you – there was something you needed. I had to realize when I was very young that I was none of those things I was told I was. I was not, for example, happy. I never touched a watermelon for all kinds of reasons that had been invented by white people, and I knew enough about life by this time to understand that whatever you invent, whatever you project, is you! So where we are no is that a whole country of people believe I'm a “n*gger,” and I don't , and the battle's on! Because if I am not what I've been told I am, then it means that you're not what you thought you were either! And that is the crisis.

It is not really a “Negro revolution” that is upsetting the country. What is upsetting the country is a sense of its own identity. If, for example, one managed to change the curriculum in all the schools so that Negroes learned more about themselves and their real contributions to this culture, you would be liberating not only Negroes, you'd be liberating white people who know nothing about their own history. And the reason is that if you are compelled to lie about one aspect of anybody's history, you must lie about it all. If you have to lie about my real role here, if you have to pretend that I hoed all that cotton just because I loved you, then you have done something to yourself. You are mad.

Now let's go back a minute. I talked earlier about those silent people - the porter and the maid – who, as I said, don't look up at the sky if you ask them if it is raining, but look into your face. My ancestors and I were very well trained. We understood very early that this was not a Christian nation. It didn't matter what you said or how often you went to church. My father and my mother and my grandfather and my grandmother knew that Christians didn't act this way. It was a simple as that. And if that was so there was no point in dealing with white people in terms of their own moral professions, for they were not going to honor them. What one did was to turn away, smiling all the time, and tell white people what they wanted to hear. But people always accuse you of reckless talk when you say this.

All this means that there are in this country tremendous reservoirs of bitterness which have never been able to find an outlet, but may find an outlet soon. It means that well-meaning white liberals place themselves in great danger when they try to deal with Negroes as though they were missionaries. It means, in brief, that a great price is demanded to liberate all those silent people so that they can breathe for the first time and tell you what they think of you. And a price is demanded to liberate all those white children – some of them near forty - who have never grown up, and who never will grow up, because they have no sense of their identity.

What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors. It's astounding to me, for example, that so many people really appear to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn't stay there any longer and had to go someplace else to make it. That's all. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts. Those who were making it in England, for example, did not get on the Mayflower. That's how the country was settled. Not by Gary Cooper. Yet we have a whole race of people, a whole republic, who believe the myths to the point where even today they select political representatives, as far as I can tell, by how closely they resemble Gary Cooper. Now this is dangerously infantile, and it shows in every level of national life.

When I was living in Europe, for example, one of the worst revelations to me was the way Americans walked around Europe buying this and buying that and insulting everybody – not even out of malice, just because they didn't know any better. Well, that is the way they have always treated me. They weren't cruel; they just didn't know you were alive. They didn't know you had any feelings.

What I am trying to suggest here is that in the doing of all this for 100 years or more, it is the American white man who has long since lost his grip on reality. In some peculiar way, having created this myth about Negroes, and the myth about his own history, he created myths about the world so that, for example, he was astounded that some people could prefer Castro, astounded that there are people in the world who don't go into hiding when they hear the word “Communism,” astounded that Communism is one of the realities of the twentieth century which we will not overcome by pretending that it does not exist. The political level in this country now, on the part of people who should know better, is abysmal.

The Bible says somewhere that where there is no vision the people perish. I don't think anyone can doubt that in this country today we are menaced – intolerably menaced – by a lack of vision.

It is inconceivable that a sovereign people should continue, as we do so abjectly, to say, “I can't do anything about it. It's the government.” The government is the creation of the people. It is responsible to the people. And the people are responsible for it. No American has the right to allow the present government to say, when Negro children are being bombed and hosed and shot and beaten all over the Deep South, that there is nothing we can do about it. There must have been a day in this country's life when the bombing of the children in Sunday School would have created a public uproar and endangered the life of a Governor Wallace. It happened here and there was no public uproar.

I began by saying that one of the paradoxes of education was that precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience, you must find yourself at war with your society. It is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person. And on the basis of the evidence – the moral and political evidence – one is compelled to say that this is a backward society. Now if I were a teacher in this school, or any Negro school, and I was dealing with Negro children, who were in my care only a few hours of every day and would then return to their homes and to the streets, children who have an apprehension of their future which with every hour grows grimmer and darker, I would try to teach them - I would try to make them know – that those streets, those houses, those dangers, those agonies by which they are surrounded, are criminal. I would try to make each child know that these things are the result of a criminal conspiracy to destroy him. I would teach him that if he intends to get to be a man, he must at once decide that his is stronger than this conspiracy and they he must never make his peace with it. And that one of his weapons for refusing to make his peace with it and for destroying it depends on what he decides he is worth. I would teach him that there are currently very few standards in this country which are worth a man's respect. That it is up to him to change these standards for the sake of the life and the health of the country. I would suggest to him that the popular culture – as represented, for example, on television and in comic books and in movies – is based on fantasies created by very ill people, and he must be aware that these are fantasies that have nothing to do with reality. I would teach him that the press he reads is not as free as it says it is – and that he can do something about that, too. I would try to make him know that just as American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it, so is the world larger, more daring, more beautiful and more terrible, but principally larger – and that it belongs to him. I would teach him that he doesn't have to be bound by the expediencies of any given administration, any given policy, any given morality; that he has the right and the necessity to examine everything. I would try to show him that one has not learned anything about Castro when one says, “He is a Communist.” This is a way of his not learning something about Castro, something about Cuba, something, in time, about the world. I would suggest to him that his is living, at the moment, in an enormous province. America is not the world and if America is going to become a nation, she must find a way – and this child must help her to find a way to use the tremendous potential and tremendous energy which this child represents. If this country does not find a way to use that energy, it will be destroyed by that energy."

James Baldwin. October 16, 1963.

Written 61 years ago and still relevant, especially as what little progress has been made is currently being uprooted.

[readingsquotes]

"The problem is — and I will keep banging this drum as long as I have to — Biden’s incoherence on Israel and Palestine is both morally unforgivable and bad political strategy. He is bleeding support not only from young people, Arab-Americans, and others incensed with his continued support for a genocidal war machine, but also from pro-Israel moderates and Never Trump conservatives who are enraged at his furtive and contradictory efforts to ever-so-slightly rein that war machine in. I’ll give more details about that incoherence below. For now, I’ll just say that by trying to make everyone a little happy, he is making no one happy, as the pile of Palestinian corpses grows at his feet.

But that’s the narrow part of the question in the context of American politics. The bigger issue for me is why Biden’s management of the human catastrophe in Gaza is so salient. My answer is that it points to the larger and even more consequential failures of liberal politics over the last four to eight years.

....the heart of Biden’s failure to both recognize and confront the actual danger facing democracy. In a recent In These Times essay titled “Antifacism after Gaza,” the Italian philosopher Alberto Toscano subtly tweaked leftist Democratic politicians for whom “the threat of Trumpian despotism blunted opposition” to Biden’s Israel policy: “There is a bitter irony in granting primacy to the national fight against fascism over the campaign to stop a U.S.-funded genocide when the current Israeli government — in its exterminationist rhetoric, patronage of racist militias, colonizing drive and ultranationalism — fits textbook definitions of fascism far more neatly than any other contemporary regime.”

The campus protests would have been another opportunity for Biden to show his commitment to democratic and pro-social ideals. I’m not saying he had to support the protesters or their aims — they are, after all, in large part protesting him. But no one made Biden take the further step of employing reactionary talking points about the protests being fonts of antisemitism and supposedly genocidal rhetoric, or repeating memeified claims about “Jewish students” being “blocked, harrassed, attacked, while walking to class” — questionable claims that have been weaponized to justify state and vigilante violence against demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights.2 Biden repeated those claims on May 7, Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yet he said nothing about the weeks of wanton anti-demonstrator violence by both police and unhinged pro-Israel counterprotesters. In fact, instead of condemning the episodic police state, he is pushing a new plan to funnel $37 billion more to police departments and hire 100,000 more cops.

The political problem here should be obvious. How do you explain to a student who just watched, say, the NYPD throw their friends down a flight of stairs for participating in a nonviolent protest — acts committed without so a peep of condemnation from the president — that a vote for him is a vote against fascism?

Nor is Gaza the only place Biden and the Democrats keep undermining their claim to being the antifascist party. The president has repeatedly pleaded with Trump to work with him in passing a MAGA-like immigration bill: one that prioritized enforcement, detention, and “shutdown” measures over, for instance, pathways to citizenship for undocumented migrants or those who came as children. When Trump didn’t take Biden’s obvious political bait, the president tried running even further to his right. Biden can insist, as he did at the State of the Union, that he “will not demonize immigrants” or endorse Trump’s Hitlerian cant about “poisoning the blood of our country.” But by adopting reactionary fearmongering about the need to “secure the border” above all else, all that remains of a message to voters is that even squishy libs think the fascists have a point about immigration — it’s just that they aren’t willing to do more to stop it.

The connection between state violence at home and genocide abroad isn’t lost on the students. Popular chants connect the dispossession and killing in Palestine to U.S. policy in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Latin America, as well as immigration policy here: “From Palestine to Mexico / border walls have got to go.” As Toscano notes, protesters at the University of Texas chanted at the Austin police: “APD! KKK! / IDF! They’re all the same!” — connecting domestic policing and racism to the Israeli military. And indeed, that connection isn’t purely theoretical: thousands of U.S. police officers have received direct training from the Israeli military on crowd control, use of force, and surveillance in recent decades, including the NYPD, and yes, the Austin police as well.

[ichoric]

@minarcana said: "what the swivving shit are you doing?!" laurel shouts as she watches mina slip up close to her during a fight. can she not see this monster is winding up for something major? it doesn't matter what weak spot mina's trying to go for, there's nothing their armour is going to do. the spark of preparatory magic coalesces and laurel doesn't have any time to relocate herself without still hitting mina with the magic's splash so- fuck it. instead of shielding herself, laurel turns and whacks mina with the flat of her axe like it's a shovel and sends mina skidding with a stumble far out of the way right as a massive ball of offensive magic slams into laurel.

with her axe occupied she didn't have the time to swing it in front of her to take the brunt of the hit. she emerges barely standing, burnt and bloody, holding the magical chain of holmgang tied to the beast to keep her standing. "are-you-bloody-stupid?!" she snarls through grit teeth. "if you wanna die, save it for later!" it'll take a bit for the beast to gather itself for more attacks, at least, by which time laurel should be able to whack it enough to fuel her wounds closing. they're already trying to as she raises her weapon one-handed to bring it down sloppily on the beast.

you’re no good, you know ? what use is a performer that hides away !

those words sprout up like toxic bulbs, oft echoed by asi’mina’s former ringleader. they had nothing to do with the performances, but the many - many - fights and conflicts darrien caused throughout their travels. a troupe always defends their leader ! won’t that be FUN ! an ideal now ingrained in their head, whether or not their training dictates otherwise. whether the very competent warrior tells them otherwise.

the expression mina wears, however briefly they stare at laurel, holds something broken. unfathomably detached, a hollow shell. they want to take the hit, completely feel it’s deserved as part of their role. how else can they honor being called a hero ? - they, who barge into danger because of events that happened years ago.

the axe collides with mina quicker than they can formulate any words. although dazed, stumbling like a baby animal, they’re completely uninjured by the attack. their heart leaps to their throat, reaching towards laurel until her question cuts through them. why die later, like a coward ? they wonder vaguely, but those thoughts are too dangerous during a fight. instead they hiss up at laurel in painful agitation. ‘ sorry. sorry. you didn’t have to protect me if i’m so stupid, i know what i’m doing. ‘ mina stops bearing their fangs, backing away instead. no sense staying close, and disappointing laurel —- they aren’t sure what’s worse. ‘ let’s just kill it. ‘

[marie-bradshaw]

#teamwolf

Let’s talk relationships guys.

Even without pressure or false promises, i am in the team of people knowing what they want and needing to know a minimum where they’re going.

In the case of a might be new relationship, getting to know each other better- making a little time everyday to communicate or just say “i am thinking of you and i can’t wait to see you again ” is a good start.

My male friends are always like “Chill out Marie”, and frankly i am chill, i just don’t want to give any of my time to someone that already knows he’s not ready for any kind of true comitment.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

Everything is a question of timing after all.

Two people can have chemistry but their timing is not right, and it will be going nowhere.

I am just f*cking tired of all of the playgames, the keeping yourself detached and not believing in anything anymore to play it cool.

Cause if you do there is a good chance you might get yourself hurt.

In sports we say “no pain no gain”, i have a feeling it’s exactly the same thing for love.

No risk, no opportunity to grow.

Being where i am in life today, meaning being willing to get out of my comfort zone, building something great for myself and for others with my company, something i can be proud of, it just happens to enlight the will to be able to share that amazing adventure with someone i will have a deep connection with.

Someone that will let me get to know every side of him, make room for me to feel i am just where i am supposed to, knowing i do have as much value as he would get to have for me.

Someone i will be able to trust so much, we won’t have to talk to get each other, just a glance, just a soft touch on the hand, it will be enough to dive in each other’s thoughts.

Someone that will make me feel like this is easy peasy, all smooth and chill, but true and sincere.

Someone that will get that i am a very sensitive woman, with a big heart and soul, tough, unbreakable, independant, fierce even, but so loyal and devoted to one person that he will instinctly want to protect me, not posess me.

Freedom is key.

A relationship should never be a cage or feel like jail time (not that i have ever done any, but i did feel caged by a couple of exs and that did not end well for any of us).

If you do care, you act right, you trust, you show you’re there, but you don’t have to change your way of life in any way if you don’t want to.

Having this conversation with a friend, we’re both feeling like wolves.

Why wolves?

Cause wolves are strong, they’re predators, they’re fierce, dangerous even, but they’re also so loyal and true to themselves and their mates that they will do everything in their power to protect them.

Wolves are leaders, needing to be with their equals to be furfilled, not with hyenas or any other specy that would go after us for our shining lifeforce.

Unfortunately i have a feeling we are less and less among the urban forest streets.

It’s so much easier to go from date to date, get in bed with someone else every two days and never get attached to anyone or feel you have to act rightfully towards someone that might get “too close” to you and endanger the wholeness of your heart.

Guess what?

Connection comes at a price.

And we absolutely all want that.

That’s basically the main purpose of the human being.

Even your cells, will always either chose to survive or perpetrate, depending on the environment- but their first goal is to feel safe enough to connect/duplicate.

I, personnaly, have survived a lot.

I can ensure you i was a warrior in a previous life.

A Viking maybe even.

I don’t want to do that anymore.

Fight all the time.

It’s exhausting.

Even if the situation is not ideal, even if the risk is i will get more wounded than i already am, it’s ok, i know i’ll always rise above.

What i absolutely do not want, is spend my life wishing i had manifested more a true partner, giving myself the means to attract the right one for me.

Soulmate or not, someone sharing the same good vibes and energy, someone going in the same direction (to go eat the world and build an empire), a partner in crime i’ll never feel old with, someone i could talk to for hours and stay silent with, someone trust worthy.

Dear god, if you hear me, i am ready for this, send him my way please, i’ll do my best to take good care of it.

Love xoxo

Marie

[iwannasleepbuticant]

To be honest, I've always had a passion for keeping diaries. One of them has already been completely written out and now I do not know where I got so many thoughts at all. Probably, I didn't start this "blog" for nothing. So, this is all a preface. The topic of today's brainstorming session is the degradation of society in my eyes аnd the hopelessness of our situation. If you want a light conversation, not today. And it doesn't matter at all that no one reads me, let the old woman dream a little.

Well, today I was sitting on YouTube and came across a video where it was said that people have long sniffed out all the jokes of life. That happiness is not a goal, but a consequence of becoming yourself and leading a conscious lifestyle, what is life and death, who is an ideal person, that religion is not just a blind faith of a person in a deity, it is when people really admire a certain being and want to be like him. Now, of course, all these truths have been distorted, but that's not the point. I want to say that all the questions that weigh on us have long been answered and we, like idiots, sit and get hit by them again. Did people come up with writing for nothing? In fact, not all questions can be understood just by reading, many are tedious to live and feel on your own skin. But the fact remains the fact. And do you remember how many philosophers there were before? Where did they all go? I will say that people used to be much more united than they are now. Then they shared their knowledge and wisdom with everyone who asked, for free! They developed as a society, as humanity. But then something went wrong and we're back here, just degraded a little for a couple of generations. In short, the ancient Greeks were smarter than us now, congratulations.

I'm saying all this because it's all kind of sad. Like, imagine what heights we would have reached if we were all together? Like humanity. I'm a future astronomer, believe me, you can't imagine how many dangers are coming at us from space. The huge Andromeda galaxy is flying towards us right now, and God knows what will happen when we collide! Our star, the Sun, has already lived half of its life, and, by the standards of space, will soon die. And we are with it! We have terribly little time, and we are fighting with each other like yard dogs. It's like nothing is happening and we can really afford to do it!

The heads of countries pull for money, which they themselves print, people squeeze a little money for the sake of helping their own kind. What will happen to us? Do you really believe that we'll survive? Sorry, not the most positive topic, but I can't stop thinking about it. After all, the past is the past, without it there'll be no future and it cannot be changed. And there is no point in regretting it. But we can try to do something in the future. I know that only a couple of people will read it, but it doesn't matter. I just wanted to speak out. Thanks for reading.

[illithilit]

          YEARS HE HAD SPENT, trying to fight back every last argument the devils of Avernus threw at him; they delighted in breaking down spirits for the use by their lords. There was nothing to be gained by listening to them. Yet he still recalled the bitter moment he was forced to see the final moments of one sworn to Bel who had died in his ascension. Who had died to Vlaakith herself. Knowing this haunted him, and made him bitter beyond recount for years -- a perfect hellknight, certainly, but not much else. And all the same, it's knowledge he desperately wants his kin to have in their reach; isolated, it was bound to wound as it had him, but with the might of the indominable minds of the Githyanki as a whole? They may yet be able to wrest freedom from the claws of tyranny.

          This between them was no doubt a mix of just that -- reaching where he wasn't wanted -- and a result of his own private nature. Of himself, he hadn't shared much, hadn't even allowed them to see his arm without its gauntlet on. He held no malice or mistrust towards them in particular; such was his way, unless pushed to share of himself. Wordlessly, each piece of his upper armor he unbuckled, saving his right gauntlet for last -- for that, he gave her a pointed look as the ruby-coloured metal scales of his prosthetic glimmered in the firelight. "Five, last I counted. Tried to pull one of our kin from the jaws of a demon, and lost her and my arm in the process." He let the tiny tale soak in, before adding, more gently, "I do not intrude for no reason."

          Bright draconic eyes narrow as lips pulled into a deep frown at her suggestion, any semblance of gentleness gone in a heartbeat. "No," he himself growled in a sharp tone. "We are not created for the endless slaughter of anything. We are capable of far more, and worth even greater still." He sighed, closing his eyes to let the vitriol of the past moments ooze out of his system. In the back of his mind, he could practically hear the soothing words Ashen might say to calm his temper. "What I had meant," he began, voice poised once more, "was that you cannot find truth in the same bad places; the ghaik hive was a metaphor."

          Reopened eyes fixed on Lae'zel, gauging what words he would offer. Further urging away from the ideals of their birth wasn't any better than continually trying to push a brick wall out of his way, but then neither was letting her fester with unanswered questions. "How is simple; I should have been on the same path you walk. I once dreamed of riding a red dragon for the glory of Vlaakith. But so did my sarth, and for that, I and a few others of my year were sold to the Hells for power. The frontlines of the Blood War were.... Enlightening. Dangerous enough to hone my blade, yes, but Avernus opened my eyes to many, many truths. That is why I refuse Vlaakith's summons; I see that which she does not want us to see."

🗡

Youth, sure. She could call it that. At least in the eyes of the other gith, the bile-skinned woman in her blackened warpaint had been, juvenile. As much as she didn't like to admit it; The lifespans, experiences, and overall prowess of her people had stretched further beyond the comprehension of most. She had barely just begun to scratch the surface. To say they were misunderstood in their ways was beyond an understatement.

Similarly, she settled in stringent mediation by the wisping fires before them— The thin-slitted splendor of her own eyes half-lidded, feeling the wingbeats of the inferno's incessant heat against her dwindling stare. "Then I can imagine lot like you have lost many fingers." She thwarts, discontent, unable to help but shake her head her companion's way. Lae'zel hadn't the slightest clue what crèche Amis hailed from, but by the scrunch of her nose, and the near-pinning of her notched ears; It was obvious where she had begun to stand on the matter.

"Is that what you think this is, what we are worth? Endless slaughter of ghaik?" Lae'zel nearly growled out, her posture unmoving, and she was keen on letting her glower of chrome wring shut for a few heartbeats, as if wringing the rancor itself from her mind; It may not seem like it, but her biting words were merciful. Another gith was unbeholden of her brutality, but it was only slight, any other creature settled by the bonfire around them would not be spared of her malice like Amis had been.

"Those hives burning into ash are part of our being. It is innate to us. Clearly, there are other matters beyond crushing those parasites that our kind see to— That Vlaakith herself has destined us for." She breathes through her clenched teeth, tempered, and stiff; "I cannot even begin to fathom how a fellow gith has yet to even open his eyes."

@illithilit

[pet-genius]

Lily, Severus and Altruism

Lily had to be a mystery to preserve the plot twist around Snape’s allegiance, but on re-reads, it is such a missed opportunity. I personally find myself craving more, as I’m torn between two interpretations of her character. The intended interpretation, I’m sure, is that Lily was a good friend and a good person in a doomed relationship, but many people point out that a good friend would have acted very differently in the courtyard scene, to say the least.

I think Lily was a good friend and a good person, even if she was wasn’t as “special” as the narrative makes her out to be. She was certainly special to Snape (perhaps this is the point?). Another lingering question is how much of the good she inspired in him is her, and how much is him.

Lily has two defining moments, one because it literally makes the story possible and the other because it inspires Harry when James is knocked off the pedestal, culminating in Harry’s ultimate sacrifice that won the war. Both these moments involve Lily stepping in front of danger for a loved one, a move that both Harry and Snape revered and emulated.

Evolutionary psychologists like to discuss two types of altruism, kin altruism and reciprocal altruism. Lily exhibits both, in her willingness to die for Harry, and in her willingness to step up for a friend in a tough position. She doesn’t do everything in her power for her friend, certainly, as she could have disarmed James herself or summoned a teacher, but she does more than anyone else present, and that takes strength and courage in itself. She also appreciates altruism and kindness and family, even if she doesn’t always practice it: she reminds Petunia that Dumbledore was kind in his letter, she reminds Severus that Petunia is her sister when he doesn’t understand why she’s crying over that cow, she respects James for saving Severus’s life (misguided as she is), she chastises Severus for hanging around cruel people…

Her values are clear, and they’re solid, but she has failings, and in my opinion, those failings are a desire to feel special and “chosen” and the inability to see shades of gray, leading to unintentional bouts of hypocrisy (or at least glaring obliviousness). Everyone she’s associated with is gray: young Severus himself, James, Sirius, Dumbledore, Slughorn, and Peter, but she doesn’t see. Anyone who treats her as something special gets a pass, possibly because her parents started the golden child/scapegoat dynamic that Petunia overcompensated for so wildly with Harry and Dudley. Her blindness to shades of gray in the people she likes - and who like her - lead her to make excuses for Severus for years, then give up on him at just the moment when she could have really made a difference in his life. It also costs her her life, as she trusts James and vicariously, Peter. Typical failings and not a hanging crime, normally, but in a world that features Voldemort, she died for them in a display of kin altruism.

Bringing us to reciprocal altruism. She was friends with Severus, and in return, I suppose he spared her whatever unpleasantness he unleashed upon other Muggle-Borns, and she defended him, until the tit-for-tat expired. Reciprocal altruism makes possible society, a community; a reputation as a good guy enhances reproductive fitness (James knew what he was doing leaking the story of how he saved Snape, but not the whole story, and nothing can convince me otherwise). I like to think, though, that truer friends behave altruistically even when reciprocity is not guaranteed, and even when they’re not bound by blood.

Or perhaps in Slytherin, you'll make your real friends. Those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends.

Lily had a real friend in Slytherin, though he strayed. Without the possibility of reciprocity, and while foregoing any possibility of kin altruism in the future, Snape used any means to achieve his end – protecting her and her kin, and fighting for her ideals, that became his. He could not bear to have his goodness exposed, and it speaks volumes that the thing that bothered him was that he would be protecting “Potter’s son.” The humiliation of losing Lily to his bully and abuser was one thing, but the idea of dedicating the rest of his life to protecting Potter’s spawn obviously remained abhorrent to him – forgive me – until the very end (ugh). It is very hard to believe James would have done anything to protect Severus's son if the roles had been reversed.

It could not be argued that Snape was looking out for his reputation either, as to reveal his goodness would be his doom. Plato speaks of the Ring of Gyges, something akin to the invisibility cloak. His characters maintain that powers of invisibility would corrupt those who had them, that people behave morally and lawfully mostly because others are watching. The perfectly unjust man would grow more respectable with every sin; the perfectly just man’s reputation would grow darker the better he did, and still he would persist. To call Snape perfectly just is absurd, but he does embody the ideal. He didn’t have a ring or a cloak, he had only himself for a mask, and he used any means to achieve his ends, treating his life and reputation as only a resource in the service of the greater goal.

For her.

But not only for her. She was right, ultimately - why should she be any different? The real Lily and the idea of Lily stood to gain nothing from Snape watching die only those whom he could not save. He internalized the values Lily believed in but sometimes failed to act on better than Lily herself.

The Patronus, he was sure, was Umbridge’s, and it glowed brightly because she was so happy here, in her element, upholding the twisted laws she had helped to write.

Umbridge was not being selfish, a hypocrite, or self-serving: she was experiencing the strength and bliss of serving a cause she truly believed in. It was her own version of altruism, proving that noble sentiments can give people the strength to commit atrocities when they don’t have the right values. But Severus did, and his Patronus showed what they were. The Silver Doe was almost like a real animal, beautiful and almost alive, because that was the strength of his faith and his love. He first discovered his altruism because of Lily, but he surpassed her, and it extended in the end not only to people he disliked (or as they are commonly known, people), but to his bitter enemies. Harry learned from him and he did the same, but thanks to the protection afforded by kin altruism, he survived where Severus did not.

Severus evidently experienced very little altruism in his life, and yet he gave so much of it, and that was his true nature, his true end. This cannot be reduced to kin altruism or to reciprocal altruism, but to a higher order, demanding - even spiritual - altruism. Whatever Lily had to do with Severus’s capacity for such altruism, we must thank her.

[luimagines]

Hey, I’m not sure how to explain this but getting straight to the point, I’m the person who runs the yandere-linked-universe blog and I’m pretty sure you’re pinkittwice.

So, I was just wondering what ideas you might have about the chain being yandere for one person. Like, what would the dynamic be and how they would behave as yanderes, you know that kind of stuff.

I hope it’s not too much to ask but I’m just curious to see what you might think of it since you’re pretty much the only person on the sight that I know of who also writes things involving lu and the reader. I’m not unhappy or dissatisfied in any way but it does get a little lonely being the only person who writes stuff like this. Sorry if this is too weird.

Masterlist

Yahaha~! You found me!

Everybody go check out their stuff @yandere-linked-universe

They do cool art sometimes and are even writing a whole fic which you can find right here.

It's really well written and I'm excited to see how the story progresses and where it goes- especially endgame.

And I'm assuming the ask means if they were yandere in the same circumstance than in the story.

That being said, I'm still going to apply the rules I have set for the Links. Like how Sky was never with his Zelda and similarly how Time and Malon never really happened. As for Wind, he will not be platonic unlike in the fic mentioned above- I will explain this in his section I promise.

Also, disclaimer, I'm not good at horror and I've never written for these types of characters before. But if you want headcanons then I'll provide the brainstorm that I've been cooking up of ever since I got this ask. (And it was a while ago I'm sorry for the wait.)

I'm also including some songs that I think best fit their rose tinted glasses ideal. Not necessarily yandere and can apply to Link being in love with you in general but it's as close as I'm going to get to making a playlist.

I might come back and change them to stalker songs and add these songs to a separate list entirely but maybe not...

Content under the cut!

It's long, brace yourself.

As a group, I think jealously would run high.

Everybody wants the attention of a single person and there's eight other people as competition.

If the group was tight knit as we like to portray them, it won't last long.

If dear reader was a little caring or naturally falls into a healer/medic position in the group, the group becomes more reckless, less caring about their personal safety- if only to get a momentary caress from the love of their life's fingers as their wounds are tended to.

There's less group unity and alliances between them form.

If the reader isn't a fighter well...

They would take turns guarding their prize and fight to be the one to do it.

Leaving you behind when they go to dungeons is a must.

They won't risk you getting a scratch on your person let alone putting you in a potentially dangerous situation.

They try to keep all their weapons away and out of reach. Less you get any ideas and try to fight with them or worse, get hurt playing with them.

Or try to fight against them. HAHAHAHA!! How crazy would that be?

Like you would stand a chance.

When you're simply traveling with the group, your designated spot is on top of Epona, hands down, no questions asked.

Not only would be easier to keep an eye on you, and make it harder to get away, but Twilight has personally asked Epona (through Wolfie) that if they were ever ambushed, she was to take off with you and get away from the fight no matter the cost. She'll always come back to him anyway- so if you're tied to connected to her than all the more reason for him to be the one to retrieve you when it's all over.

The others don't like how Twilight gets to be the one to greet you first. But Epona is on Twilight's side and everyone knows it.

So they wait their turn.

You're on top of Epona even if you're a fighter as well.

If you can prove your salt and fight with them, they actually don't try to keep you away as much as they can (because now it means that they can spend more time with you!)

It instead becomes a competition to be your partner. Among the younger ones anyway.

The older ones, are less concerned now by you fighting, and more by the younger ones who keep trying to be by your side (even if that's their spot) and try to keep them out of your way.

Every bump and cut you get is treated immediately by who ever reaches you first.

It's once again a race.

The group, as yandere's go, do not know how annoying they're being nor do they plan to stop.

If you told stories of your past conquests, it a mixed bag of awe, adoration and anger for you even being put there to begin with. These thoughts are not voiced however, and they instead stew and simmer and grow into their possessive tendencies.

Because they would protect you, honor you, worship you and you wouldn't have to worry about anything ever again. Not if you were with them, not if you stayed with them, not if you were in their Hyrule.

There's a slight knee jerk reaction when you bring out your items to take it away because it's dangerous. But not only would that piss you off, it would take away what little protection you have on your person and they don't want to take any risks when it comes to your safety.

I wouldn't share too much if I were you.

Now as Individuals they're all different, obviously.

Let's explore that.

Time

He's the most dangerous

I'm starting this off with that

I'm talking the most calculating, scheming and devious of the whole group

He know he's in charge and that the others will listen to him regardless if they actually agree with him or not

Because he's the leader

His grip on the group lessens as time goes by and their unity dissipates

But he's delusional and he doesn't realize it

However, because he's already in this position, he takes it upon himself to take care of you

And others let him

Less work for them to focus on when they can be by your side instead

You never have watch

You're always in the middle of the group

He'd gladly send the boys ahead of you into danger to make sure that they deal with it before you even get there.

The others let him with little thought because it's for you

So they go for it

Time however, is somehow, never the one to go ahead, instead waiting behind (with you) while they go ahead and deal with the issue

He gets away with this 8/10 times

Mostly because he rotates who's he's sacrificing

Dad! Time is not here- not anymore

But he lets them near you because he's only biding his time

You're meant to be

Soulmates, if you will

If a little time with you is all those boys need to stay in line and listen to him then he'll allow it

Because they're only boys

He's a man through and through

They have nothing on him

And you deserve more than a mere boy

He has some other concerns on his mind while the boys fight each other like street dogs

Time has to think about your future together so he daydreams the most out of the group.

He doesn't really have a home and a roof over his head for himself- let alone you and he knows he'd have to change that

He thinks about staying as a permanent employee at Lon Lon Ranch

He can save enough money

Buy a house

Maybe some land

And enough things for you and him to make a comfortable life without any worries

Maybe even start a family?

The dream is a reprieve form the headache that are other boys who won't leave you alone

Pray you don't end up in his Hyrule

EVER

This is just the gateway he'd be waiting for to keep you all to himself

Fighter or not it's dangerous to travel with them

You're in danger

And he won't stand for that.

He doesn't know how exactly he'd do it

But he plans to leave you at Lon Lon Ranch, waiting for him, for when he comes back after the mission

He'd have to find some kind of way to actually keep you there and find you when you inevitably try to leave the Ranch

But he's traveled all over his Hyrule

There's no place you could go that he doesn't know about

As the adult of the group, he'd step over all the others

He's not going to listen to them when they try to stop him

They don't know as much as he does

They haven't experienced as much as he has

He knows that this is the best and only option to ensure that you're safe and well taken care of

He'd doesn't mind leaving you as prisoner to the Gerudo instead either if the others start to really get pushy

It won't be comfortable and it won't be glamorous

But they'll definitely keep you in one place

And he can walk in whenever he wanted thanks to that note from the chief from a time long ago

Pick you up, take you away and you'll be his

He daydreams a lot

And he knows that you'll choose him

You have to

He's the best and only option

He's never felt happier thinking about you and the life you'll both have

He's struggled so much anyway

Maybe you were the blessing the goddesses owed him for all his work in his youth

And surely they aren't so cruel to give you to him and then take you away by some monster attack or some terrible unforeseen fate

He can't have that either

So he'll take the first and best out he's given

But while you're here with him...

He's looking at you like you're magic

Warrior

Warrior is the least dangerous

He knows the feel of being on the receiving side of someone's obsession

He was ignorant for a long time about it

But he wasn't sure how to feel comfortable in his own skin again when he found out about it

He can see how the others are starting to show similar obsessive tendencies and tries to mitigate what he can

He does a lot of damage control

It's what he's trying to do anyway- he's not very successful

Warrior is the one who's challenging their train of thought

Why do they think this is ok? Why don't they ask you for your opinion? Why do they not give some time alone to recharge? Why don't they lay off?

Because it's totally for your benefit- AND THEIRS

Because it's not ok

He doesn't see himself follow the exactly same train of thought

He doesn't see himself doing what they're doing

He's just annoyed that they're the ones doing it

Warrior becomes the very definition of hypocrite.

However- because he's the one acting as your advocate- the others don't consider him as much as a threat and therefore more inclined to listen to him at this point in time than Time himself

It also means that they don't fight him as much when he wants time with you. Mostly because in their eyes, he's not interested

They're wrong

At some point in Warrior's attempt to keep the group together and keep you from going crazy or hating all of them, he begins to gain ulterior motives in his mission

He begins to play the role in an attempt to win you over.

Because- see, he's not like them

He won't violate your space

Go through your stuff

Or keep you from doing what you love

He's the one to say you should join them in fights, that you should stay, that you can hold your own

Since he's the main strategist in the group, he takes into account your skills and always places you at a distance from the fight or from the most obsessive the group.

He knows that their one track mind could kill you or them and there's still the darkness to defeat.

They don't have the luxury to afford this kind of distractions

When the others aren't paying attention to him, he'd pepper you with compliments and flirty lines, playing up his charm and suave attitude

He becomes the perfect gentleman

You'd never know that he's crazy

Just join him and be with him- that's all he wants

He loves you so what more is there to offer you?

He's got the status, the looks and the means to take care of you so you wouldn't have to worry about anything else

He'd be the best husband that Hyrule has ever seen

He'd hate to have the group scare you off with how over the top they've all been.

He knows the group is being annoying with being by your side all the time and how they don't let you be and how there's always someone by your side even when you're at your final straw

Warrior is the one who takes over guarding you when you need to pee or bath and actively argues on your behalf to let you take care of your hygiene.

He's not always successful but it's the thought that counts right?

Hyrule agrees with him most of the time and since Hyrule seems to be the only one who still cares (somewhat) about the mission, they make an agreement

Warrior isn't at all concerned about the others and know that you'd come around to him eventually.

Since he's not like the others

You're his first thought in the morning, his last thought when he rests his head to sleep and there's nothing that he hasn't been doing that wasn't for you

Hyrule

Hyrule is the least possessive

Mostly because of his low confidence.

I've mentioned in a previous post that is unrelated to this, his love language is physical touch- so he's all over you

There always have to be some way that he's holding you- whether its a hand on your shoulder or the small of your back, maybe he's holding your hand or maybe he's just pinched the edge of your tunic

But he's careful to not go beyond what you're comfortable with

He doesn't want to you to pull away from him

Because the others will not hesitate to push and pull him away if you so much as hinted at not wanting him near you

So he plays it cool

Hyrule also gets concerned when there's too many injuries to go around and he needs to heal the group

Because if you hurt then he can't spare anything else to help you

It's one of the few things he thinks that he's useful for- so if he can't do this little thing for you then why does he bother?

There's so many other guys here that could easily sweep you off of your feet and have so much more to offer you

He doesn't have any land

He doesn't have a house

His Hyrule... isn't the most welcoming and he doesn't like the idea of bringing you from one dangerous situation to another

Especially since he's being hunted for sport back home

It doesn't stop him from trying to win your heart obviously and he tries to show you and win you over in whatever little ways he can.

He's the gentlest with you

Whatever hurting you, he'll heal

Whatever scaring you, he'll deal with

Whatever danger comes your way, he'll end it's miserable existence

He- like Time- daydreams a lot but he's trying to live for the moment

He's almost resigned in a way- that you won't pick him

He knows they're on borrowed time, he knows that something dangerous can take you away from them or that he could be the one to be taken away instead

So he's trying to make up for it in the time that you do have together and spend every second by your side that he can

Because the group gets a little more reckless in their attempts to impress you and be dealt with (whether you're healing them and tending to their wounds or just yelling at them)

He heals the group a lot little less

If they're going to be stupid and get hurt- then he's not going to waste his magic when they're only going to do the same thing the next day

Soon, with enough time and patience, Hyrule begins to hoard all the healing potions as well.

It's an attempt to keep them away from you so when they're hurt he can step in and just get them healed up in a minute

But it also works to keep the group from getting too reckless

It's not his intention but he takes it as it is

If they get hurt too much anyway then that just means less competition for him to deal with and a higher chance with you!

Because of his low confidence about you actually ending up with him, he becomes one of the more mission minded of the group, probably right after Warrior

Since they both have their sights on eradicating the darkness instead of focusing on their love lives (for different reasons) this is the first alliance to be formed

Hyrule wants you to be his but he's at a crossroad

He knows Warrior has a lot of charm to win you over and has the means to make sure you live a good life

He knows it's more than he can ever give you

But he's fairly certain he can take Warrior in a fight

One well timed Thunder Strike and Warrior wouldn't stand a chance

Not to mention that they've been fighting side by side now, so he knows what to look for to bring him down

He doesn't think it'll come to that though

Warrior doesn't seem that interested with you anyway so he doesn't worry about him

Which just leaves the problem of winning your heart

He wonders what life would be like he can love like you do

Twilight

Twilight is the most protective

It's his wolf instincts and his caretaker instincts combined.

He's used to being the one to look after everyone else

Being his village's primary babysitter and all

But wolves are family animals and they protect their mates

He's the one to fight to keep you away from the fights, whether you can handle yourself or not

He can Four agree with this and it's the second alliance that forms

You must be protected at all costs and there's many things around that can injure you, or worse

So they both try their hardest to keep you safe and secure

If bubble wrap existed in Hyrule you would have been wrapped in it and then wrapped again for good measure.

He's the first to run up to you and the first to drag over Hyrule or someone with a fairy or a potion to treat you

He's not afraid to start punching anything that dares to threaten you

Forget the sword

He'll just start swinging... or maybe just go full Woflie even if he's not in his form and go for the jugular

He lets you ride on Epona more often than not and refuses to let you work more than you should

He's quick to carry things for you

He tries to impress you by being a handy man and tries to fix whatever he can get his hands on for you

He's not good at it

But he tries

His love language is acts of service so he's trying

You don't really need his help though

But let him get it out

And tell him that he's doing a good job please, for your sake

He talks a lot about his home life with you and he ask a lot of questions about your own

He's comparing notes

Trying to see what way of life you'd be more comfortable with and how he can accommodate to it

He tries to win you over with the simple life and he paints pretty pictures of having a ranch and a farm and letting you have all and any animals you want

Wolfie make an appearance every other day instead of simply whenever it's convenient

If you're a dog lover then it's even better.

Twilight is not afraid of taking advantage of it to give you all the kisses and cuddles he can get away in his other form

The others would have to fight the each other just to get kisses from you but Wolfie gets special privilege's

He gets kisses no problem

He's not above using it to his advantage

Epona is always on Twilight side and while he's in wolf form, he tells her all about you and how much he loves you and all the ways he finds you amazing and spectacular

Because you're riding Epona more often than not, he tells her to watch after you and to keep your safe and to get to a safe area if they ever get ambushed

She doesn't know how human romance works, so she agrees.

Link is her master and her best friend, so she trusts him with her life and you're important to him, clearly, so you're important to her too

He's not going to lose you like he lost Midna

She left him behind with barely a glance behind

You won't leave him at all

He'll make sure of it

The others won't take you away from him either

Four seems to be the one who's most on his side right now and together they can lessen the competition

He'd hate to fight the guy and maybe they can come to an understanding but he knows he's got the brute strength that Four lacks not to mention Wolfie and Epona as well

So maybe he'll listen to reason

His world used to be so grey with no change in either direction

An eternal twilight

You became his light in the gloom

Sky

Sky is the least violent

He actually falls in the middle of both protectiveness and jealousy.

But he's more set on letting each of the boy pick each other off (not unlike Time) and then he'll figure out who's left over to deal with them then.

Sky also isn't one to fight off the other people who you interact with

He's not going to go confront the person or drag you away and definitely not going to start swinging

He still feels uncomfortable if you aren't by his side but he'll make up for it when you're done by sticking to your hip

Sky doesn't want you to feel cramped by only talking to the group

But he does get a little jumpy when you're beyond his line of sight.

That being said- he will let you out of his sight

Not for long periods of time, mind you, but he's not going to be in your shadow the entire time or demand to be glued to your hip

He's arguably the most normal out of the group- the least yandere if you will

Still crazy though

Sky is also one to agree with Warrior and Twilight.

He's not a part of any alliance but between wanting you to be safe and still wanting you to be healthy and clean (he knows how being clean helps out ones moral and he doesn't want you to be depressed when you're with them) he'd let them do the fighting and arguing for him and when they lose a bit, he'll say something and add to their cause

He's trying to be chill and he plays on his harp when you're nearby.

If you come sit next him to listen and chill- he will absolutely be over the moon

He will go through some of your things to make sure you have anything and everything you'd need for their adventure

But he won't take away your weapons or go through your diary (he wouldn't be able to read it anyway)

He does try to ask you in some roundabout way if he has permission to do that.

It'll be long winded and vague and a total play on words, so be careful to what you agree with when he asks something of you

Sky although is the least violent, that's in regards to other humans

Monsters have learned to keep away from him when he's on the battle field and if they haven't learned that...

They will

He's the one that tries to have your relationship mature and grow naturally.

Sky is going to simply be your friend first and show you that he has your best interest at heart

So when you talk to him about your problems and how the others are driving you crazy, he'll give you advice, tell you he's on your side and openly give you outs to avoid the others.

If you want time alone and the others begin looking for you, he'll tell them you went in the other direction and he'll send them on a wild goose chase.

Since he's on your side, he tells you to at least let him know where you're going and for how long so he can distract the others.

He's not concerned about you running away, since the others are going to do the work for him

Four and Twilight and Wolfie can find and hunt you down in a heart beat and you'll be together again

He won't blame you for running away, there's a lot of people who won't leave you alone in the group and it annoys him too

And Hyrule, Wind and Time keep you within the group and close by so he never has to worry about not knowing where you are at all times

Warrior and Wild keep you well fed and well taken care of

And Legend makes sure that you always have a potion on you and has even given some power rings to ensure your safety

So all he has to do is butter you up by being the least persistent of them all and you'll fall for him and you can be together forever and ever and even be the start of Hyrule as everyone knows it

Wouldn't that be nice?

While he may not be the most musically inclined of the group, he's the one to serenade you when he gets the chance

He plays his harp more often than not, trying to get the notes out that he hears in his head when he looks at you

His life was such a simple song before you came along but now... It's a symphony, he wants you to know this

Four

Four is the most controlling

He's the one putting restrictions on you left and right and is the one to never want you to leave his side- let alone his line of sight.

You see, he's got these voices in his head that bounce ideas off of each other.

When one might be, hey that guy is talking to you

The other responds with, he's close to you too

One might say, you're smiling and it's beautiful

Another says, why is it directed at that guy?

Which snowballs to, you're a little too close, a little too nice, is he flirting? Has he touched you? Is he trying to make a move?

And then he's even more possessive and it grows and spirals and next thing he knows, he's next to you again and chewing the poor guy out for no reason when it was a simple conversation about the weather and directions.

And that's in public

Now add in the threat of monsters and traps and many other dangerous that surround the group as a whole

He's paranoids in the extreme

So when Twilight suggests that they tie you to Epona and keep you where he they can always see you, he's the first to agree

In fact he feels as if Twilight is the only one who's actually looking out for your well being

Wind tries to throw fits and get the two of them to back off but he's just a kid, what does he know? He should know better anyway, he knows how dangerous this journey is going to get, so why is Wind trying to actively put you in harms way?

Twilight a least can get Wind to listen to reason and Twilight's better at explaining it than he is so while Four'll yell, Wind is really Twilight's problem.

He doesn't like the idea of fighting is friends but he can see that well... He's the only to notice that they're not as close as they used to be when you first joined.

He thinks that Warrior can feel it but Four is the one who'll say it out loud.

Four is actually the most trigger happy out of all them, he's not afraid to break character and yell at some poor passerby who's too foolish enough to even look in your direction

He's the angry guard dog in public and it's a little hard to reign him most of the time

Twilight agree with him in this but he's also the one to hold him back

The last thing they need is to be kicked out of town

But if while you're there maybe he can get something for you?

He's the kind of person to make something for their beloved but he only knows how to make weapons and tools

Things that he's never going to give to you and actively tries to keep them away from at all costs

Yes, if you have your own weapons he'll also try to take them away

He'd rather see you angry than injured

No, he does not see how being weaponless in a fight will lead to more injuries and no, he not going to listen to those who try to tell him that.

Maybe he can learn how to make jewelry and gift that instead?

A pretty thing like yourself should be adorned in more beauty.

And he can save enough to make it with rubies and diamonds and any gold that he can salvage in Hyrule

He'd give you and make you anything you want

You'd be dripping in jewels if he had it his way

He also knows that the voices try to point out his flaws and all the ways that he's really not that appealing to any potential partners

It doesn't matter that he's merged and they all have the same flaws

But whenever he's next to you and things are calm, the voices are quiet and he feels like him

Wild

Wild is the Most violent

Like Four, he does not care if it's a simple conversation, if someone else is taking up your time and attention then he will want to start swinging.

He's usually held back by Warrior and Time since Twilight typically has to restrain Four

But if you're in danger? Real danger?

He becomes the equivalent of the Fierce Deity, no mask required

The battle field becomes a blood bath by his hand alone

Sure the others will want to to cause some destruction as well and destroy any and all threats to you, but Wild goes the extra mile

Forget Twilight going feral, he has an excuse- but Wild?

He'll go ballistically feral, even going as far to drop his weapons to rip into the threats with his hands and teeth

He has to make sure there's absolutely nothing in between you and him

He's not afraid to throw away his whole good guy reputation and even the reputation of the hero in order make sure he's the last man standing

Wild is now taking notes on how the the group fights and how they defend themselves, defend you and try to figure out the best ways to take them down

If there was ever to be a physical fight within the group, he'll not only be a part of it but most likely also the instigator

Wild has already lost all his friends and family before, he can't afford to lose anyone else

Besides his Hyrule has so much more to offer you than some of the others

Not to mention he has his own house- in a safe village- with low monsters around it- and barely any reason to think that he wouldn't be able to provide for you

He's got the rupees he needs from his monster farming and everything's nearby. Whatever he can't get, he can teleport to and he wouldn't have to leave you alone for long periods of time.

Wild goes out of his way to buy you clothes since the others have taken care of your other needs (much to his chagrin)

But he also makes sure you have the best portions of the meals he makes

He keep tracks how much you ate and when

He always there to give you a snack if you even mention of being peckish

He knows the others won't mind if he dotes in this manner

Not only because it's for you...

He has all the food anyway.

When he sees that you're wearing Legend's old tunic, he instantly hates it

He and Legend are less of an alliance and merely on tolerable terms- not that Legend notices or cares- because of this and Wild knows that your clothes have taken a lot battery

He wants to you be warm and protected

But he also has a lot of extra outfits

So he takes a page out of Legend's book and gives you some as well

He's a little disappointed you don't wear them as often but he knows that most of them are specialized for certain terrain- Legend's is more of a catch all kind of deal so he can understand the need for general uses

He's not happy about it

But he understands

The crazy thing is, you wouldn't want to end up in his Hyrule either

Pray you never do

Like Time, Wild has been all over his Hyrule and has traveled to all the nooks and crannies

He knows that he can hide you away without the others ever knowing what happened to you

Not even Wolfie would be able to track you

Why?

Because (and this is from AoC) he can teleport more than one person at a time, so he can just take you far away and somewhere secluded, somewhere where you wouldn't be able to leave

Hebra region? In the cabin where he learned how to shield surf? Or play the snow bowl game?

Gerudo Wasteland?

Akkala Region? With Robbie? It's hard to get past the guardians and the high level monsters...

Or maybe ditch you in the mountains with Paya in Kakariko Village?

Or maybe leave you on the Great Plateau? You can't get down without a paraglider...

Life with you is the only reason he's still on this journey instead of just taking you and leaving

The darkness is still around and it threatens his future with you

But it looks bright in his head when all is over and he's so happy that he met you

Life is now pink! And he won't take off his rose tinted glasses any time soon!

Legend

Legend is the most possessive

As some people have headcanoned in the past, he has a problem letting things go

He's lost so many people he cares about- he knows that items are a little harder to lose

He's the Collector- the Hoarder

Naturally when he sees something that he wants, he'll stop at nothing to make it his.

However, since he has a problem coming into direct contact with his own feelings, he's projecting

Legend instead tries to keep you at arms length and fails miserably

He doesn't want to fall for someone only to have them be ripped form him again, and again and again,

He cares for the group still even after their disagreements and eventually mistrust

He doesn't want to leave this little family they've made for themselves and has disillusioned himself into thinking that he can save it before it's too late

But in his fairytale ending, you're with him

Legend, though, still knows that their time will end and everyone will eventually go home so by the time everyone begins fighting and jealousy runs amuck, he's trying to hold everyone at arms length

When you don't give him attention, he's prone to get angry and may very well at times act like he hates you

He doesn't like it when you so much as breath in someone else's direction

You're his and his alone, why is anyone else even worth your time and energy?

But he's not going to say this out loud

So he's frustrated with himself and pouts often

So he's stuck in a cycle of self hatred and jealousy and not willing to do something to change it

But when you do give him attention, he's melts into a puddle

He's at your beck and call if so much as say his name

There's very little that he isn't willing to do for you or get for you, anything to make you happy

He's also quick to give you power rings to protect you even if he's against you fighting

Legend is also going to give you an extra tunic if (/when) your clothes take too much damage and they're too far gone for him to fix

It's a power move on his part

Not only does he feel giddy with boyish excitement when he sees you in his old tunic (that definitely has some kind of magical properties to ensure your safety), it's also him marking you as his property

And the others know it

Wild does a similar thing so you can at least have a change of clothes but Legend is quick to tailor them when you're not looking to not fit you and be uncomfortable

He's the one going through your things for sure

He need to know that he's the one who's taking care of you

He needs to know you have everything you need

He needs to know if there's anything that you're lacking so that he can sweep in and provide it for you

He's not really planning on taking out the competition or is planning beyond keeping you by his side for the day

He (like Hyrule) is living for the moment, because he's afraid he's going to blink and you'd be gone and there would be nothing else left for him

But you won't be gone

He's going to make sure of that

He's got tunnel vision for sure

But since he's also trying to not fall for you and get his heart broken, it becomes a game of hot and cold with a whole lot of minefields in between that could set him off for (what looks like) no reason

He hates you- no he doesn't- he wants nothing to do with you- he wants to be your everything- he's not going to write you poetry or braid your hair or fall asleep listening to your heart beat- he would kill for that to be his reality- he hates that you're all he's able to think about now- don't leave him please

He's not crushing

He's not

He is

Wind

Wind is the least protective- Still protective but arguably not to the degree of the others

You see, he knows that the others protect him because he's the youngest

And he's not blind

He can see that they're just as, if not more, protective over you

He can see how you hate it and how much it annoys you

He's not going to make that same move

And as a bonus, since the others are protecting you anyway, why should he put in the work and protect you as well?

There's enough people watching you all the time

With the others taking care of it, he can plan on winning you over

He's going to give you as much freedom as he's able to get away with

It'll put him as your favorite

This immediately puts him at a crossroads with Four who's somehow a hair's breadth away from tying you up and chaining you together by the wrists

They fight against each other the most

He plans on marrying you

It's honestly in the same degree of young children that say they're growing to grow up and marry their dad or their mom

Because obviously you marry the person you love and you stay with them for the rest of your life

And he loves you.

So that's what he plans to do

Win you over is step one

Then he (and you) just need to wait a few years for him to get older

And then he'll marry you

He does not see a problem with this plan

Typically I make the reader the same age as him to avoid the worst of it but in this case, this does not matter

I'd say that if you're older, he'd get more easily attached to giving you the freedom you've been missing

With him by your side obviously

Because you're older- you're an 'adult'- you can take care of yourself

You're so cool in his eyes

The others, naturally, see a problem with this

Not only out of jealously at the very thought of it not being them to marry you but because they know he's young and if you're older, (say closer to Twilight and Warrior's age) then they can see the problem it'll prove to be for you from a moral stand point

The others (mainly Legend and Four) bully tease him when you're not around about how selfish he is to even think about making you wait, when you could easily marry one of them instead, so why would you ever choose him?

He tries not to let it get to him because he does hang out with you more than they get to- so maybe they're really just jealous that his plan is working

Wind has the more innocent approach to this whole ordeal out of the whole group

His obsession isn't healthy, obviously, but he at least the excuse of being young and not knowing how to deal with crushes

Because he's awkward with it, (and he knows it) he's actually pretty quick to shut away the worst of it when he's spending time with you, less you think he's weird and push him away

Not only does he not want that to happen, but he's heard the others come up to you countless times regarding him and his behavior and if you'd like him to leave you alone

Because they will deal with him if you so much as say one word of annoyance

The choice is yours

If you indulge him when he wants your attention then he's more like himself and becomes the most normal out of the whole group

He becomes the him when you first joined

Before the obsession

Wind becomes your safest bet in terms of keeping your sanity intact and it's the groups saving grace to keep up any illusion that they're still normal

Wind is dealing with a highly flammable vial of puppy love concentrate

All in the form of budding teenage yandere hormones

If you had met him any later in his life, the cocktail would have no doubt exploded into the form of the other's behavior and he'd seem like a completely different person instead

He's almost like a lost puppy, always following you around and being in your shadow

It would be cute if he wasn't crazy

Wind adores you though and he wants you to know that

[wearywinchester]

Stubborn

Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: Even though you’re just as stubborn as Dean, you can never stay mad at each other.

Word Count: 3.8k

Requested by @flamencodiva: “You did what?”

Warnings: injury, blood, little bit of arguing, fluff, kissing

Dean Winchester

Fiercely protective of those he loves without a second thought on the matter. In fact, you’re starting to think there wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do to keep you safe, you knew there wasn’t. He’d go to the very ends of the earth if it meant you’d be okay, if it meant you were safe. He’d stop at nothing to keep it that way no matter what that meant for his fate. He was selfless and you knew that to be true for as long as you can remember.

With such traits came with the stubbornness should you try and do the same, came with hard stares and furrowed brows. It brought with it his reluctance to let you stray too far on a hunt; if he had it his way, you wouldn’t tag along on hunts at all. But Dean Winchester met his match when it came to you. Equally as stubborn, casting him the same narrowed stares and furrowed brows, the same determination to look out for him just as much as he did you.

It brought on a great deal of huffs and puffs, and that certainly hadn’t changed now.

When he’d caught sight of the fact that you’d been injured on a hunt he didn’t even want you on in the first place, he didn’t take too well to that. Not that you were expecting him to, nor would he ever. You had dreaded the very moment when he’d see the scarlet smeared across your cheek, knew for a fact that he’d be anything but thrilled to see you hurt no matter what it was. And you were right.

He’d pushed himself off the Impala, releasing his lip from between his teeth where he’d been biting it out of nervous habit. He came to you the moment he saw the cut grazing your cheek and the way you held your side cautiously, your face twisted partly in discomfort and partly to brace yourself for what was to come next. But he came to you immediately— always did and he always would. Yet the words that came to follow, the attitude, that was always something you could count on with all the certainty in the world. It was Dean.

The very first thing that came out of his mouth was a question of if you were okay, that was on the forefront of his mind as he’d made his way to you and Sam with quick strides. He was careful when he peeled back the bottom of your shirt, patchy blotches of crimson just barely staining through the soft cotton material to reveal a less than ideal scratch. Not deep enough to need stitches but enough for him to tense his jaw with worry. When his eyes fell on you, brow raised in anticipation of an answer, you had simply nodded in return.

“That was really stupid,” he muttered once he knew full well you’d be okay.

You rolled your eyes.

“‘M fine, Dean.”

“You’re bleeding, Y/n. And it could’ve been way worse than that, you know,” he said, voice raising a bit more than it was.

“Well it’s not,” you counter, narrowing your eyes only briefly before the action had pulled at the cut on your cheek that you’d seemed to have forgotten. Your wince, no matter how subtle, had only proved his point and only made you angrier.

“I told you to stay back on this one.”

“Well, I didn’t!”

“If you’re gonna fight with me, sweetheart, at least change up your comebacks.”

“I’ll do what I want,” you say, looking away from him only briefly to gather yourself, a huff puffing out from your nose.

You’ll do what you want.

That was the problem. You always did what you wanted, when you wanted to. It was something he loved about you more than he’d admit because it only brought with it fear. He admired your independence, your ability to handle things yourself, your stubbornness when someone tries to stop you from doing anything but that. He loved it and he hated it because he knew it all too well. It was reckless and dangerous to go off and do that on your own the way you did.

“I’ll be fine till we make it back to Bobby’s. I can patch myself up there,” you mumble, voice softer than moments ago.

He bit his tongue then, jaw tense and eyes narrowed down at you to meet an equally frustrated stare. As much as he loved how stubborn you were, as much as he admired your ability to hold your own and refuse to back down—those qualities about you had been working against him in that moment, had been pushing his buttons because now was not the time to be so stubborn.

You were hurt.

He wanted to tell you just how upset it made him that you’d gotten hurt, how guilty it made him feel that it happened on his watch because he felt it was his responsibility to protect you. He always felt that way even when he’d just been your best friend who was too oblivious to see you were the love of his life. He wanted to tell you how angry it’d made him that you went ahead and tagged along on that hunt even when he told you not to get involved. But there was no stopping you—you did what you wanted whenever you wanted and that’s one of the things he loved about you.

Though in that very moment he wished you would have listened just that once.

Even with everything running through his mind in a heap of worry and frustration, he’d left it at a tense jaw and a hard gaze but that had only lasted all of ten seconds with the way you looked at him. The argument that had been sitting on his tongue, ready to be spoken in harsh words and loud tones had melted away.

He was ready to tell you just how ridiculous you were to not let him patch you up right then and there, for thinking he’d let you do it yourself. But he didn’t. Instead, he purses his lips and clears his throat, offering a barely there not before moving around you to get in the car. He knew full well he wouldn’t let you tend to your own wounds, he would never let you do that no matter how angry he might be. But he decided not to say any more until you got back, didn’t want to argue any more than you already did.

That was where he left it the entirety of the drive back. No classic rock playing on the radio for a good while until Sam had decided the tension was far too unbearable for things to be absolutely silent. It was spent with you sulking in the backseat, your brows furrowed and the inside of your cheek between your teeth in your attempt to will away angry tears and stave off how much you wanted to give into the fact that your wounds hurt a little more than you let on.

His knuckles were white with how he’d gripped the wheel, his gaze flickering from the road ahead to the rear view in a constant pattern of glances just to see if you’re okay. And each and every time he laid eyes on your frown, at the crease between your brows all telling of your emotions— it made his stomach twist and churn.

When you got back to the house you were quick to try and disappear off to the bathroom, entering the house first as you rushed past a confused Bobby Singer without a greeting, Dean hot on your heels with just as much determination leaving the man to be doubly confused at the sight. It’s when he turns to Sam that he gets a little bit of an answer, the younger Winchester offering a shrug and an awkward smile at the ever present tension in the air.

“Will you slow down?” Dean asks when you pull the first aid kit from under that bathroom sink. You’re moments away from closing the door when he beats you to it, hand wrapping around the edge of the wood and boot stepping in the way of its closing. “I’m patching you up.”

“I can do it myself.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

Your gaze shifts to him and your jaw tenses at his insistent tone, he’s got a stare to rival yours and you knew there was no changing his mind on this no matter how tough you made yourself out to be.

“De,” you exhale, your initial anger beginning to fade some but just that. “Fine.”

With a huff and an eye roll you hop up on the counter, the smile on his lips less than sincere and more so that of a teasing act in favor of getting his way before a softer look falls over his expression. One that was still a ready display of his anger but not enough for you to think that he hadn’t cared, that he wasn’t clouded with worry.

That was one thing he was terrible at—hiding his emotions. He could bite back his words and stuff them down, bottle them up for a good long while. He could leave them there to simmer in the back of his mind with the help of some beer and whiskey until it all eventually boiled over in a show of anger and frustration. But he was bad at hiding the very emotions he felt.

You could see it with the way the crease between his eyebrows hadn’t left since you insisted on going on that hunt. You could see it with the way the tension remained in his jaw, intensifying each and every time he saw the scratch on your cheek or the ruby stains on your shirt. His lips will purse till those dimples show in the corners of his mouth, and his grip will tighten on anything he touches. Dean Winchester was a terrible actor.

He sifted through the old plastic kit, pulling the peroxide from the cabinet as he grabbed more than enough cotton pads and a few too many bandages from their rightful spots. He laid everything out on the counter, soaking a pad in the clear liquid before his gaze returned to you.

“This’ll hurt a little,” he mumbled, his other hand settling on your cheek.

“Can’t hurt more than this.”

He wasn’t happy with your words, that much was obvious, the look on his face telling you just how much before his expression softened. He brushed the material over the wound, the sting you knew all too well burning atop the fresh scratch as the peroxide bubbled over the irritated area. You moved back from him only slightly, his hand on your cheek keeping you from straying too far. He was patient, though, angry with the fact that you were hurt to begin with but patient.

“He really got you good,” he murmurs, gentle as he continues to wipe away the blotches of crimson sitting smeared around the mark adorning your cheek. You could hear the frustration in his voice despite the softness of his words, the pad of his thumb swiping lightly over your skin.

“I’m fine, Dean,” you say, less defensive than the last time you’d said it but it hadn’t comforted him in that moment.

“Would you cool it with the tough guy act, sweetheart?” He huffs, dropping his hand from your face and tossing the dirtied cotton pad in the trash.

A few moments passed before he sighed, focusing his attention on opening a bandage to let his anger simmer down some more. He crinkled the wrapper in his hand and tossed it in the small garbage can, his eyes moving back to you. You give him a half smile then, the corner of your mouth quirking up only slightly as you breathe out a sigh of your own through your nose.

The simple action seemed to cool him off as his shoulders relaxed a fraction, and you even caught a glimpse of a hint of a smile. One that faded just as quickly as it’d come as he pressed the small bandage over your cheek. You rest your hand over his, the action stilling the thoughts that had been swirling around in his mind for a few moments. It was then that he looked at you again, the close proximity having given you a flurry of butterflies in your stomach as if you hadn’t already kissed the Winchester a thousand times over. But you were sure that was a feeling that would never go away.

You smile then, one he sees immediately as he flashes you an inquiring look with a simple raise of his eyebrow.

“You’re cute when you’re angry, you know,” you say, paired with a tilted of your head and your smile widening, hand squeezing his.

You barely got the words out before he rolled his eyes, turning his head away from you in favor of hiding his half smile, an effort that hadn’t worked quite as well as he’d hoped but he tried his best anyway. He even shook his head in an attempt to stave it off, running a hand over his face.

“You’re a pain, sweetheart.”

“I know.”

He gave in and smiled then, head still shaking as he moved onto the scratch across your hip. He was just as gentle as the first time he peeled back your shirt, revealing a similar situation as the one he’d just tended to and he heaved another sigh that was more than telling of just how he’d felt about it. If it was possible, you were quite sure that steam would be coming out of his ears in that very moment, his fingers brushing over the sensitive skin around the scratch as he huffed through flared nostrils.

“I’m okay, Dean, it’s okay,” you remind him, trying your best to make him realize that though you know he won’t.

“It’s not, Y/n. Quit sayin’ that,” he grumbles, “it could’ve been worse out there.”

“You said that already,” you sigh, and he’s not amused but he refuses to admit the way he feels the slightest bit better at the nonchalance of your attitude. It calms him and stresses him all the same to be perfectly honest, but he’ll keep the former a secret for the time being.

“Yeah yeah,” he mumbles quietly.

He says nothing more as he works, gentle as ever as he cleans everything the best he can. You said you were okay but he notices each time you tense up, can see when you clench your fist or suck in a sharp breath no matter how hard you try and hide it. But a simple soft glance your way, a gentle swipe of his thumb over your skin was enough to make it all the more better each of those times.

After another minute or two passes things become more bearable than they had been, and you were beginning to become less focused on the pain that ebbed away and more on the man tending to your wounds. He’s got more than enough attitude for one person, quick wit and sarcasm falling from his lips even in the scariest of moments. His words could be venomous to those he’s not too wild about, but he can also be one of the sweetest people you’ve ever known all the same.

You couldn’t help the smile trying so desperately to show, one he’d noticed the moment he pulled his gaze to you.

“What?” He asked curiously before looking down once more.

“Nothing,” you say, spotting a small grin forming as he shook his head. It was not nothing and he knew it.

But that smile soon came back to tug at the corners of your mouth, a soft laugh falling past your lips that you knew you couldn’t help even if you had tried to. You were done stifling it at this point.

“Remember that time I baited that werewolf?” You ask, biting the inside of your cheek once more in an effort to stifle your smile.

He paused what he was doing, gaze lifting to meet yours as the crease between his brows deepened at the mere thought of it. His palms rested on either side of you atop the counter for a moment, lips pursed. “You mean that ridiculously stupid thing you did on that hunt? How could I forget.”

You give up on fighting your widening smile completely now, huffing out another soft laugh instead as you shook your head at his grumpy words. “I did it to save you, you know.” He laughs softly, a bittersweet one at that. “I did it today too.”

He barely finished bandaging your hip when his stare returned to you, narrowed with bits of anger seeping in more and more with each passing second.

“You did what?”

You give him a knowing look, one he’s come to know all too well. He wanted to be in disbelief, wanted to think you wouldn’t put yourself in danger just for the sake of saving him. He didn’t feel he was worth it, not enough for you to wind up with even so much as a scratch as a result. But all you do is shrug, you shrug and you give him that smile that makes him weak in the knees every time you grace him with it. That smile that makes even his angriest moments melt away in a single second. That smile that’s getting him to soften his frown and lighten the heaviness of his glare just by the simple sweetness of it even if he wanted to hold onto that anger so you know just how much he disagreed with what you did. But he couldn’t help it.

“You don’t need to save me sweetheart, trust me you don’t,” he says, averting his gaze as he busies himself with packing up the first aid kit just as it was before.

“You’re not always the quick witted hunter you make yourself out to be, you know. Somebody’s got to do it,” you counter, your tone nothing but light and teasing as your words grab his attention just as quickly as ever.

“Very funny. I meant what I said,” he grumbles, fidgeting with the bandage on your hip before picking at the loose string dangling from the hem of your shirt.

“So did I,” you say, head tilted and smile bright as you brushed the hair away that stuck to his forehead.

“Yeah, you’re a pain.”

You puff out a sigh as your smile stays, more sincere than the teasing grin you once held mere seconds ago. The grumpy look on his face became more amused, unable to stay too angry when you keep looking at him the way you do. The way you always do and he always knows just how soft it makes him, because if there’s anyone in this world that can make him feel butterflies of all things, that can even slightly sway him with even so much as a glance in his direction—it’s you. It’s always you.

You couldn’t stay mad at each other for very long.

You reached up and pressed your hand to his jaw softly, the more than obvious tension in it melting away under your touch. Those little dimples by the very corners of his lips were still very much there, though his humor was still shining through all the same. You could see each and every freckle that dotted along his nose and cheeks at this proximity, could see the ones that were hidden by his lashes and the ones that splayed all the way over to his ears. Each one was a different size and each one even cuter than the last, all complimented by the pale pink shade in his cheeks from the anger that once had him so burned up that day.

“You’re not the only one that gets to save the ones you love, De,” you say softly, an even softer smile on your lips to go with it.

He sighed at your words, an eye roll soon after as he pulled your hand from his face and held it in his own. You could tell he disagreed with that, you knew he would, because the thought of someone he’d cared about putting their life on the line just for the sake of saving him wasn’t one that sat well with him. Especially when that person is you.

“You keep sayin’ that and I keep hating it,” he murmurs, and you laugh quietly, the action causing the corner of his mouth to quirk up.

“And I’ll keep saying it.”

He laughed then, soft as it puffs warmly against your lips. He knows there’s no convincing you otherwise, there was no changing your mind on the subject just the same as there was no changing his. You were tough as nails and he could argue till he was blue in the face but there was no chance you’d miss an opportunity to protect him just as much as he does you whether he likes it or not. He doesn’t.

He leans in a little closer, so much so his lips brush over yours with each word he speaks in that moment. “You’re stubborn, you know that?”

“I think I know someone who just might be worse than I am,” you say, his hum sounding mere centimeters from your lips as cue to keep talking as if he hadn’t known just who it was you were talking about. “You see, he’s got these pretty green eyes and he’s devilishly handsome,” you start, his smile widening. “But he’s got a mouth on him, like seriously, he just might be one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever—”

“Okay, okay c’mere,” he sighs, amusement woven around his words as he quiets you.

His lips meld with yours and cut the rest of your own words short in favor of your affection, his smile pressing into your lips and lingering there as he makes no effort to stray too far from you. His hands come up to settle on your cheeks again, the pads of his thumbs brushing lightly over your skin in the sweetest of touches as he kisses you once more before his hands fall down your arms to rest over top of your hands.

“Try and be a little more careful, sweetheart?” He asks softly, the tip of his nose bumping against yours. In other words, I love you.

You simply nod, smile sweet as your forehead rests against his. It’s not his ideal answer, because ideally, he didn’t want you in danger at all. Ideally, he’d rather you stay back when it comes to hunts. But he knows you wouldn’t go for that idea, and he knows he’s got to deal with that though he’ll always put up that fight even though he knows he won’t ever win. You’re stubborn and he loves you.

He’s got you.

—

Tags: @flamencodiva @stixnstripesworld @dean-is-sams-apple-pie @elegantbutedgy @humanmistakes

[ephemeralove]

--her senses come together again beneath the weight of a single question, audacious in the way it tolls within her skull. Clearly, whatever illusions tasted her mind and memory understood her even more than they had misunderstood Kris, before shoving his imperfect likeness upon her only to bleed him dry.

If he is not here, there is nothing for her in this place; how could it ever compare to Archanea? A kingdom thrice beloved, they had tried to steal her from it with ugly untruths: Kris is here, and Marth is gone, so why would you ever go back? As if it was better to stay here, in this awful and uneasy place that reminds her of broken boys who died alone, without even their selves. But Archanea is where her liege's ideals are laid, and Archanea is where she will return, no matter if she has the misfortune to outlive him.

...It is an easy answer for her, perhaps, but she knows it can't be for the professors. The faces of those they love are still hued in the warm colors of life-- perhaps where they had no longer been before, if Eir's tale of her mother was any indication-- but they do not let the world stand still. Selena moves first, an unsteady hand shaking her resolve, and Byleth lunges forward not long after... though for their attack, Jeralt withdraws, and Katarina is thankful for that.

Whatever strength the pair had summoned to turn a hand against the mimicries of their loved ones, Katarina will not see wasted. Not wanting to intrude upon Selena's fight, the mage's gaze sweep over their remaining foes. All of them seem to be taken aback, wild eyes flitting between each of their number with weapons half raised. One catches her attention in particular: a villager with a peculiar weapon in his grasp, whose focus draws to Hilda and her wyvern with uncanny swiftness. Some kind of archer, maybe?

Katarina 10/10HP hits Villager E 10/10HP with Hades at melee range. Heartseeker activates! [Roll: 5 + 6 = 11, -3; Villager E 7/10HP] Lifetaker activates! +1.5, Katarina 10/10HP Villager E 7/10HP is unable to counter. Poison Strike activates! -1, Villager E 6/10HP Et tu? activates! [ Katarina 0 -> 1 Ruin]

"...Sorry to do this..." But even as she murmurs, Katarina darts forward, a bolt of shadow kindled in her palm. The head and throat are too dangerous, but-- her eyes cut down to the villager's hands, and the weapon held within them-- there. Her magic lunges toward them, aiming to destroy the unknown weapon or at the very least disarm him, but the man yelps, fumbling backwards. For his clumsy reaction, both of them pay the price, the weapon still firmly in his hands and a festering wound now striped across his side.

the brightest shade of sun

team theta week 2 combat

[astrolovecosmos]

Neptune: Deep Dive

Pink petals

fallen onto

night shaded

waters.

Nothing is ever as it seems.

Wood turned to metal.

Reality turned to dreams.

-Natasha Reeves 

The planet Neptune I think is most famous for two things - illusions and dreamy or ethereal associations. A lot of negativity is also commonly associated such as addiction, insanity, guilt, sorrow, denial, and doubt. This planet is complex and just like all the other planets has a huge array of associations. What prompted me to do a deep dive in Neptune? Well for one I’ve been going through the transit of Neptune in Pisces crossing over my IC which has been powerful and I am at the end of my progressed Moon in the 12th House. Also in my own chart I’ve been paying more attention to my natal Neptune placements... which are a lot more prominent and worthy of my attention than I’ve understood and noticed in the past. Honestly I spend a lot more time analyzing others’ charts vs. my own, and I really should have looked more closely at some of my own aspects. I have had a LOT of experience with Pisces influences throughout my life, intense ones. I want to make it clear that Pisces DOES NOT = Neptune. I’ve always wanted to write a whole essay about my experience as a Pisces friend, lover, family member, enemy, etc. An outsiders opinion but that isn’t this. This is a disclaimer because this is going to be both theory and my own experiences. This is a deep dive. 

The Sea’s Love and Wrath 

Neptune in a lot of mainstream media is described as gentle but this planet can be unpredictable and harsh, with erratic energy that could rival Uranus. Neptune can be about tolerance and kindness, seeing past the ego and material. Neptune can embody or promote unconditional love and forgiveness. Because Neptune can be about dissolving and merging this planet allows us to see ourselves in others, maybe even in everyone allowing for compassion, empathy, and the ability to love very freely and openly. But the illusion and deception of Neptune is its shadow. 

Romanticizing and idealizing can be one of Neptune’s downfalls. Many times this is described as putting other’s on a pedestal but this can be applied to any area of life from work to places to ideals. From this those with strong Neptune aspects or prominent placements can find that disappointment is a frequent visitor. Neptune square, opposite, or conjunct Venus can quickly fall for others, trust others, and gravitates towards those they want to help or who have a strong personality they can meld with. Neptune opposite or square Mercury may face the frustration and disappointment of frequently being misunderstood or finding that they easily misread others or trust their words. After feeling tricked there can be wrath to these oceanic bodies. 

Where will their vengeance or anger land? It isn’t fair if they idolize you to get mad at you... sometimes their anger is self-loathing and self-destructive, other times they take you down with them. But the lesson is that Neptune can be as soft and as dangerous as the sea. 

Enlightenment and Madness

Coming down from the high, was getting lost in Neptune’s blue. Dreams and visions dancing in the back of my mind, when reality is so hard to chew. Sensation used to distract and pieces of stories stitched together to where nothing is fact.- Natasha Reeves 

There are many influences that can grant us wisdom or enlightenment throughout astrology, but I don’t see too many writings or posts about Neptune and its connection to enlightenment, nirvana, or eurekas and on the flipside also insanity and denial. Neptune can pull away the fog to give us clarity - especially when looking at the whole of things, the big picture. Neptune can famously also be the fog. 

The transit of Neptune crossing over my IC/4th House brought a lot of light to my childhood and how I was raised. However my IC is in Pisces, while Pisces isn’t the same as the planet, and many astrologers believe Neptune is not the ruling planet of Pisces - it is a sign known for illusions, confusion, and vagueness much like Neptune. I came from a place of a lot of secretiveness and vagueness, but when the “planet of illusions” crossed over I found myself accepting the instability and moments I felt lost or clueless in my life as well as looking back with remembering and understanding. 

Neptune can represent the part of us that is hard to grasp and understand, it also faces us with the idea that it is okay to have unanswered questions, to not have closure, that many times we have to create that closure or solidity ourselves. Neptune much like Jupiter is a matter of faith whether in ourselves or a higher power. 

It should be noted Neptune doesn’t always mean outside sources. Neptune is an introverted, intimate actor. It can represent how we lie to ourselves, trick ourselves, or how we push responsibility off of ourselves. Neptune also allows us to see, understand, more importantly feel what we easily ignore or can’t see. 

Life’s Extremes - Our Extremes 

“Neptune moves between the greatest extremes: from the highest spiritual awareness through imagination, fantasy, and illusion, to the depths of deceptions and disillusionment. The planet of mysticism, glamour, and enchantment, Neptune exerts a hypotonic fascination.” - Judy Hall. 

When many think of extremes they probably think Pluto before Neptune. The blue sphere isn’t going to take away the icy orb’s reputation - Pluto holds tightly in terms of extremes, but Neptune is far from a level-headed, consistent influence. Let’s touch on fantasy and illusion - two things that tends to warn of foolishness or impracticality, but fantasy is part of everyone’s life, no matter how pragmatic or mature an individual claims to be. From coping to manifesting to understanding to enjoying, fantasy is a natural human thing. Think of how often you daydream in an hour, how many books, movies, and games you indulge in, how often you find yourself being tempted by gossip, and how often you find yourself painting a picture of another in your head - negative or positive. 

Neptune symbolizes the abstract, importance, and rawness of our fantasies. Individuals with prominent Neptune aspects can find themselves easily tapping into their imagination, falling into escapism frequently, or have a great use for their wild ideas. If you think of the subject of fantasies or illusion as an extreme - it makes sense. You aren’t going to get an interesting story without the gods and monsters. Our sleeping dreams often are filled with strangeness or strong emotions. Clarity to madness, hopeless romantic highs to deeply wounded sorrows, and dissolving/surrendering to becoming whole/complete are common extremes this planet centers around. 

I have Mercury Square Neptune which tends to make one doubtful of their own opinions and intellect, can increase misunderstandings, and make communication difficult for the individual. Mercury Square Neptune can make someone highly persuasive and deceptive but it can also make one easily confused, tricked, and manipulated by others. Rationality and intuition can conflict. One experience I have with this aspect is usually swinging from extremes to being very withdrawn and quiet to interrupting others, chatting away. I’ve been described by those in my life as always saying something they didn’t expect - few words but impactful or strange ones. This is an example of the more everyday way Neptune can present itself.

“Neptune-attuned people possess glamour in the old sense of the word: the ability to bewitch. They are also impossible to categorize or pin down, demonstrating the planet’s elusive quality. Lacking strong boundaries, Neptune-attuned people are susceptible to outside influences.” - Judy Hall. It is from these lack of boundaries and fluidness we see Neptune’s extremeness. Neptune aspects can have us take on the traits of others and there is intensity in that. Let’s say we are talking about a Neptune to Mercury aspect, here may be someone who is easily energized or put down by the mood of another. Neptune to Mars can create a volatile person who fights, guards, and pursues based on their inner circle. 

Alice: Imagination and Dreams 

Personally I tend to associate Alice in Wonderland with Gemini themes. But I’ve seen her used as a metaphor for many placements and influences, such as Scorpio and Pluto. Neptune’s lostness certainly relates to the character and story. Neptune can be the planet of dreams. Challenging aspects to Saturn indicates someone who struggles to get in touch with reality while easy aspects to Saturn indicates someone who can marry big dreams or imagination to practicality. 

Neptune to Moon aspects can indicate powerful dreaming - almost intuitive or helpful in processing stress or trauma. So does Neptune in the 12th, 4th, 8th, and possibly 9th. Neptune in the 2nd can mean imagination or even dreams themselves act as a resource, maybe this is through inspiration or increasing one’s belief or confidence. Neptune in the 3rd may find themselves always remembering their dreams and keeping a journal. Neptune in the 5th blessed with all of the fun dreams of flying or dreaming of a favorite fictional character. Neptune in the 6th or 10th may find strikes of inspiration, knowledge, problem solving, or important foresight in their sleep. Neptune in the 11th may find comfort or realize important information about self and/or society in their dreams. 

Neptune is a newer planet, many times called the visionary, healer, or spiritual link or messenger. Traditional astrologers can approach the planet with a lot of skepticism. Its exaltation is in creative Leo, detriment in practical Virgo, and fall in usually praised as “visionary” Aquarius. Neptune is still new enough to be a hot topic of debate. You will find many astrologers don’t even agree on the planet’s exaltation, fall, and detriment. Leo is considered one of the most creative sign and on the topic of imagination and dreams Neptune can feel amazing in this sign. It feels confident and shinning in its ideas, fantasies, and magic. Elusive and ever-changing Neptune doesn’t feel comfortable in stable and structured Virgo. But Aquarius is an unexpected challenge for Neptune. Aquarius is about collective action - unity that Neptune also is familiar with. But Aquarius is a cold sign and despite its unconventional side can be highly practical and may dislike unrealistic ideas or approaches. Saturn is Aquarius’s co-ruler after all. Neptune wants oneness as in intimacy, not oneness in action or rebellion like Aquarius. Neptune is the magical moonlit spring to heal all your wounds, especially the emotional and spiritual kind. Aquarius is the soul forge in Asgard from Thor: The Dark World or the hypospray in Star Trek. Aquarius is modern medicine most of the time and when Neptune is dressed in Aquarius’s colors at its best it is advanced medicine we don’t understand yet but are working towards. Neptune in Aquarius can be a genius, but it is about ambitious realism to help others, Neptune at its heart is about helping the individual on the most personal level. Aquarius is random strikes of lightning coming from an active mind while Neptune flows from one spot to another, always connected and coming from an original primal, emotional place. Aquarius is the future, Neptune is outside of time. Aquarius is intellect and Neptune emotions and intuition. Aquarius is rebellion, riot, revolution, Neptune is peace or death and rebirth - Aquarius is the noise and Neptune the silence. 

Some believe Neptune’s fall is in Capricorn, which the struggles exist with Capricorn’s strictness and clinging to reality and control. Neptune in Leo is Alice looking regal like a queen or warrior going to fight the jabberwock, Neptune in Virgo can get dark, feeling uncomfortable and maybe in pain, but still important and empowering. Alice in Aquarius or Capricorn is likely a totally new story, adult Alice putting away the tea parties and white rabbits for a lab coat or pantsuit. 

What about Healing and the Spiritual? 

Let’s get to what Neptune may be most known for. That otherworldly connection, the power of love, transcendence. Neptune is dramatic and it is soothing. Neptune embraces all aspects of the human experience so we can focus more on the soul. Neptune is all about healing and how healing can come in a million ways. It can be fast and hard or slow and revealing. It is painful and messy, it goes in cycles, loops, falls and rises. 

Neptune whether the aspects are easy or challenging, whether in a house focused on the self or others, it gives everyone ways to heal and to connect. As an outer planet it gives a lot of insight into generations but in the unique placement of one’s chart it touches us with humanity. 

Pretty speeches, enchanting metaphors, crazy nights, and charming lovers lead us to our doom and a raw poem, crying ourselves to sleep, old medicine, late night graveyard walks, and maybe a rebound help us pick up the pieces. Neptune many times shows us that the unexpected is what tears us down and what lifts us back up. It teaches us nothing is inherently bad like substances, manipulation, honesty, authority, it is how it is used. Neptune shows us that you are the hero to some and the villain to others. 

Regret, shame, guilt, feeling trapped, isolation, addiction, grief, and sorrow are closely linked to Neptune. I believe many times this is due to the healing process or spiritual associations of the planet. These emotions are heavy and life-changing but they are emotions that many times need to be faced with a lot of bravery and work. They are feelings that also help us come to realizations. Neptune is associated with rebirth and if you examine emotions like regret or shame, sometimes rebirth is the only way you can shed those feelings. Neptune’s fluid nature also allows us acceptance, which is needed to deal with such heavy emotions. 

While we always talk about the lack of boundaries as a dangerous or bad thing... and it can be, these lack of boundaries like I mentioned above can allow for a very giving love and empathy, it also allows us to feel or interact with a higher power, magic, and the spiritual. Whatever your beat is - religion, magic, or the belief we are just star stuff, Neptune symbolizes our relationship with it. 

[violettelueur]

FUSHIGURO MEGUMI || OCEAN EYES

| featuring : fushiguro megumi from jujutsu kaisen

| warnings : grammar errors, but other than that n/a

| form : imagine

| word count : 968

| published : 10 novemeber

Laying your back against the headboard of his bed was nothing new to you. Having your legs tangled with his under the thick blanket covering you both was the ideal way for you to spend your days off. Suddenly, you felt his arms slowly tighten around your waist as he laid his head on your stomach begging for more warmth, causing you to begin lightly tracing small patterns on his back alluring him back to sleep - sleep that you knew he needed.

Looking to the side window, you quickly noticed how the sky was a deeper shade of blue than it was a few hours ago, indicating that it was the early afternoon at this moment and time. 

Since at a young age, you always thought that the sky was the most beautiful sight to behold, how it would be decorated with white clouds one minute to then be filled with stars the next. From how it would be a bright blue in the morning to a warm orange when the sun was setting or how it would have a slight tint of purple when the season was getting colder.

The way the sky painted itself in different various ways was just something that was so enchanting to you. 

Well, that’s what you thought before you met Fushiguro Megumi.

                                            ꕥ

You knew Megumi at the beginning of Middle School, you didn’t think much about him at the start. From what you could recall he was someone that was known to be a troublemaker, always fighting and leaving a large pile of beaten up bodies after he was done, but you could guess it was for the right reasons. It just wasn’t what caught your attention.

It was exactly during the second year you started to notice who the raven-haired boy was, due to him being in the same classes as you. The both of you were seated next to each other in your respective desks, so there were times where you both would talk but it was mainly for projects or asking each other for help on homework. Yet the one thing that always managed to captivate you about the secretive and quiet person was his ocean eyes.

“Why are you staring at me?”

“You know you have the prettiest eyes”

“....concentrate on the question we’re struggling with”

Once you heard him say that, you surprisingly noticed how his ocean eyes gleamed for a moment before he looked down onto the sheet the both of you were working on. 

At that time, you didn’t know how much that little sight would make you feel later on in life. That little shine that somehow made you the happiest people when you were with him.

                                            ꕥ

However, what you didn’t come to realise was that this blooming partnership would continue to blossom when you both were enrolled at Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College without each other’s knowledge, causing you to come to the realisation that both you and Megumi could see curses and that both of you were now heading to a dangerous yet exciting stage in your lives as Jujutsu sorcerers.

“Fushiguro?”

“Oh L/N? You’re enrolled here as well?”

“Yeah, I didn’t expect anyone I knew coming here, to be honest”

“I guess we’re still partners then”

What you didn’t tell him was that, when he said those words to you, there was the same hint of happiness that radiates in his ocean eyes, just like the way they shined back in middle school when you told him his eyes were pretty.

They still were.

As time passed, you and Megumi slowly but surely began to become closer than ever, learning to depend on each other during missions as well as learning how to coordinate well with one another during fights felt natural between the both of you, or with Gojo exact words “you both were destined to fight together as Jujutsu sorcerers,”

                                              ꕥ

Unexpectedly, a groan was heard, causing you to snap out of your reminiscing session to quickly look down, only to find Megumi staring up at you with his beautiful green eyes. Seeing Megumi in his sleepy state was a sight to see, his already erratic hair was more of a mess and his face was more relaxed than what he usually portrayed making you feel lucky that you were one of the only people that have seen him in this vulnerable state.

“Good afternoon,” you quietly greeted him with a small smile, as you then gently ran your fingers through his raven locks as he mumbled a ‘good afternoon’ back to you, before sitting up slightly to place his head on the crook of your head.

Looking down at him, you noticed how his eyes looked a little brighter than they did this morning, only to come to the realisation that the light from the window was causing this shine - or was it? Looking back up at you, Megumi stared at you right in the eye causing you to suddenly become lost within his emerald green coloured iris within seconds.

“You know you have the prettiest eyes right?” you asked, as you continued to gently run your fingers through his hair, causing him to gradually go back to the sleepy state that he was in a few seconds ago.

“You tell me that every day,” Megumi answered, before placing his lips on your collarbone to place an ever so light kiss, almost to the point where it was quite faint.

“But I never get tired of hearing it from you” 

And there it was again, the small glow that emitted from his eyes whenever he was happy. That to you was the most beautiful sight, more beautiful than the sky itself. 

The most beautiful view that you would ever behold was Megumi’s ocean eyes.