#they were neglected and starved to death but there was also a lot of my dad kicking the animals and my mom throwing the ones that she could

[comet-soda-lite]

While I did really love season 2 of Arcane (especially episode 7 and the subsequent follow-through of its plot threads, no notes there), I do feel like it dropped the ball compared to season 1 overall.

Season 1's narrative was complex, nuanced, and above all, highly political. The exploration of police brutality, the state's monopoly on "justified" violence, the difference (or lack thereof) between direct violence and violence by way of systemic neglect/oppression, and the role of discrimination/vilification (both intentional & subconscious) in maintaining control over a socioeconomic underclass, were all core to Arcane's identity.

For instance, what's the difference between the council's neglectful, stagnant, and often actively oppressive approach to governing the Under City—which allowed thousands to suffer and starve and be exploited in every way imaginable—versus Jinx (the "monster")'s direct acts of violence against relatively only a handful of people? This question is posed to the audience a lot in season 1, this idea that maybe the councillors (including Mel, Heimerdinger, and Jayce) should be under the same amount or even more scrutiny than a character like Jinx. But in season 2, the show suddenly seems completely uninterested in scrutinizing them in that way or to that extent.

Season 2 actually pulled back on all the aforementioned core themes, both in scope and depth. The political stuff was nearly absent in comparison. And when it was present, the complexity and teeth with which it was willing to tackle its subject matter (especially in terms of the enforcers) was toned way down.

Of course, the relevant political commentary was always destined to fall by the wayside the moment the show pivoted to Viktor as the main antagonizing force. His cult arc refocused the show around a more philosophical theme, that being "human emotion and imperfection may be the cause of all conflict and pain, but they're also the reason life is worth living." Which is a theme a really like, don't get me wrong, but it's a pretty broad idea and a pretty common theme across a shitton of media, and Arcane really does not explore it in any especially unique or meaningful way. Viktor only seems to even believe in his cause—not because of a long built-up character arc that makes the audience question whether he might actually have a point—but because he's being influenced by the Hexcore.

Episode 7 is fantastic though, like I said. One invention, one moment, one turn of fate, can change history forever (i.e. Vi's death got Jayce properly exiled and his research actually destroyed, preventing Hextech and allowing real social change to happen in its place, calling into question both Jayce & Viktor's and the irl endless chase for "progress"). Yes the choices we make are in-part responsible for defining us, but we could be anyone, driven to do anything, if life played out a different way. Look to that better world that hypothetically could've been if only the past went a little differently, and instead of being paralyzed by the injustice of it, move forward fighting for the future that could be. I can't put into words my emotions around that episode, but it really felt meaningful and even radical, compared to a lot of the rest of the season.

[madigoround]

🙃

[vrystalius]

Hello! May I request the hashira reaction to a child reader (6-7year) who's basically a yoriichi reincarnation? Like the hashira were struggling against an uppermoon, but reader interferred at a crucial moment and cut them down effortlessly with the hashira's own sword :] here comes the dilemma of how to proceed with a clearly abandoned child who's not a demon slayer yet easily managed to do what no hashira was able to do in centuries , not to mention their extremely young age. Thanks!

❕The hashira’s reaction to you as Yorichii’s reincarnation

You saving the hashira’s asses (with their own weapons!) as Yorichii’s child reincarnation.

Here’s my masterlist for the hashira.

Here’s my masterlist for the demons.

Note: Thank you for sending in a request! I hope I wrote it just the way you imagined and expected it. I think I struggled a little bit, but I you like it anyway, anon! <3 I’m thinking of making a part.2 with Giyu, Obanai, Mitsuri and Shinobu, but let’s see how this picks up first.

Pairing: Sanemi, Gyomei, Kyojuro, Tengen x gn!child!reader

💚 Sanemi Shinazugawa 💚

Sanemi was more impressed that he managed to fuck up this bad that he needed help from a frail child. He feels embarrassed. Embarrassment turn into humiliation, and that into rage. So, Sanemi did what he doest best. Yell and throw around insults.

“What the fuck were you thinking, kid? You could’ve fucking died! How can you even lift my katana?? Your arm is thinner than my damn finger!!”

But deep down, he’s kind of impressed. How did you even manage to do that? You look starved and dirty, as if homeless or neglected. Your yukata was stained and old, and seemingly the only article of clothing you have, obvious by the lack of shoes and socks. Geez, you’ll get sick like that, Sanemi thinks.

But as Sanemi inspected you further (and snatching his katana out of your hands) he noticed some kind of mark on your forehead. Is this the demon slayer mark Muichiro and Mitsuri were talking about back then? That would explain where your energy and skill to kill a former Lower Moon came from. Sanemi also saw how dirty and filthy your hair was, but he could see the deep maroon colour and the red tips peeling through. If someone were to wash your hair, it would look beautiful. Maybe Sanemi could even braid it?

But this was something to think about later. You look like you’re gonna fall over and just die of dehydration or starvation at any moment, or just freeze to death on the spot. If he wants to or not, Sanemi has to take you in for the moment. He can bring you back to the estate and hand you over to Shinobu or something later.

Sanemi would pick you up, into his arms, and wrap his cropped haori around your fragile body to warm you up a little.

“Let’s grab something for you to eat and maybe some clean clothes m’kay? I’ll bring you somewhere safe. Here, I got some ohagi. Eat up, you’ll need the strength to walk. I won’t carry your ass forever.”

🤎 Gyomei Himejima 🤎

Gyomei likes being around children. They are innocent, fragile, weak and need to be protected. They lie, too, but Gyomei doesn’t take it to heart when they do. He never did. Children are children after all.

But when he met you, right after you simply beheaded Upper Moon Five while he struggled, Gyomei knew that you are not an ordinary child. You do not need protection, you are strong enough to take care of yourself, and he can sense the powerful aura you had. He never felt this strong of an aura before, ever. It was almost overwhelming to his heightened senses.

“You seem very strong for a child. Where did you learn all this skill?”

In the ranks of the hashira, no one besides Gyomei can wield his morningstar. It’s too unique and western-style of a weapon to be used by an ordinary slayer, if you ignore the heavy weight all together. It takes a lot of training to wield something like that.

With that being said, Gyomei was surprised to say the least when he heard how you swung his weapon with ease. He felt the heat it was radiating after you beheaded the demon. What kind of breathing were you using?

“You seem tired. How about I carry you back to my estate? It’s safe , and you can rest there. On our way there, we can talk about how you got this strong. Shall I carry you on my shoulders?”

❤️‍🔥 Kyojuro Rengoku ❤️‍🔥

(Let’s just imagine he never fought Akaza during the Muegen Train Arc)

Kyojuro was walking beside what’s left of the Lower Moon’s Muegen train, checking for any more survivors and passengers. Tanjiro, Nezuko, Zenitsu and Inouske were heading into the opposite direction to check the other half of the train, while Kyojuro inspected the head of the train (in hopes of finding his katana as well, wich he somehow lost).

That’s where he found you, buried underneath the rubble and remains of the train, luckily unscathed. Kyojuro was ecstatic to have found such a frail child like you in such a terrible situation.

“I’m glad I found you in time! Are you hurt? Hungry? Thirsty?”

But as Kyojuro inspected you, he recognised the yukata you were wearing. He could’ve swore that he saw someone similar flashing before his eyes, beheading the train with some kind of fiery technique. It wasn’t flame breathing, he would’ve recognised it immediately. It was more powerful, more bright. It resembled the power of the sun.

That’s when it hit him. Yes, it was indeed you who beheaded the Lower Moon! Your small stature, your aura. Kyojuro laughed loudly when he realised. You, a child, managed to defeat a Lower Moon! With his own sword as well! Even if you did snatch his katana when you had the chance to kill said demon, he forgave you. You saved them all after all.

He made a mental note to look through all the corps’ records, including the flame hashira archives his father Shinjuro keeps back in their home. Perhaps Kyojuro can find what kind of breathing technique you were using, in case you don’t know yourself.

Kyojuro took his haori off his uniform and wrapped you in it, lifting you off the ground and holding you close to his naturally heated body. You looked surprisingly neglected and starved, as if no one took care of you back home. If you even had a home.

“You did great defeating such a powerful Lower Moon! You should be proud of yourself! How about we share some bento boxes when we head back?”

(You ended up being forced to eat multiple bento boxes because Kyojuro was worried you might starve to death on him.)

🩷 Tengen Uzui 🩷

He is incredibly embarrassed. First, Tengen didn’t notice how Daki was not the real Upper Moon right away. Second, his hand gets sliced off clean. Third, he let his nichirin-blades get snatched by a child. And fourth, that said child managed to behead Gyutaro while that blonde kid and boar boy beheaded Daki. Tengen basically didn’t even do anything! He just let himself get poisoned and lost a hand, then just laid in dirt the rest of the fight. How unflashy and boring!

But he did notice the technique you used to behead the Gyutaro. It was fiery and bright, similar to his friend’s Kyojuro’s flire breathing, just that yours is much more powerful or something. Tengen made a mental note to ask his friend about the fire breathing techniques later.

“Hey kid, lend me a hand will ya?”

What a poor choice of words. He could tell that by your unimpressed expression, but you understood what he meant by that anyway. After giving him his blades back and lifting him off the ground, you helped him walk out of the rubble that was once the entertainment district. Tengen is surprised by your strength and that you’re even able to make him walk upright, but that surprise quickly turned into curiosity.

He noticed the red, flamey mark on your forehead and your dark, maroon hair. You looked very flashy, but neglected. You’re kinda dirty, too. Tengen thinks a little bit of make-up and a nice bath can make you look all flamboyant again! Oh, and yeah, he guesses you’re pretty strong too. But that’s beside the point for now.

Then, finally, Tengen was met with the lovely view of his wives.

“Lord Tengen!! You’re okay! We were so worried!! Waaahh!!”

“Be quiet, Suma! Can’t you see Tengen needs to rest?

“Who’s this little thing here? She looks so thin.”

“My new, flashy and flamboyant apprentice, Hina!”

💠

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed! Thank you again for requesting, I hope I wrote about what you had in mind. I just got a request for Genya, so I’ll be working on that soon as well.

Anyways, make sure to EAT, SLEEP and DRINK enough!

Take care of yourselves. <3

[kindlingkeen]

I need to know if I’m alone in this or maybe missing something.

It always bothers me when people say Tim’s childhood was so much worse than Jason’s, or even says they’re the same kinda thing. Am I the only one in this?? (More specifically when they compare them) Like it feels like they’re minimizing Jason’s story to nothing, when it makes his character up as much as his death does. (I’ve even seen people compare Tim’s childhood to Jason’s death, which is. A choice.)

Granted, I’m not a big Tim fan (he’s a cool character, just not the one I focus on) so maybe I’ve missed some part of his canonical backstory or ive subconsciously got something against his character idk.

But from my understanding, Tim is a rich kid who was taken care of (as in, he always had what he needed), just his parents were neglectful? Or away? (Not to say this isn’t bad, of course wouldn’t wish that on a kid either)

But Jason’s lived surrounded by crime and poverty, hell we see panels where he’s hurt and generally not havin a great time.

And I’m fine with people making angst worse because like, favourite character. I’m sure I’m guilty of doing the same to Jason (fave character bias and whatnot) it’s just something that strikes me as odd. But hey, maybe I just don’t know about some canon panel that shows Tim’s childhood as a tragedy where he almost died countless times (another thing I’ve seen fans use)

So yeah. Generally, what do you think about this? I am not too great with character analysis & whatever else, but I like the stuff you’ve said in regards to characters. I know you’re a Jason fan, unsure about how you feel about Tim/how much you know, but curious about your opinion anyway. Thanks.

You are not alone, anon.

You’re also not missing anything in canon, Tim’s childhood was not a tragedy (his parents traveled a lot and he spent his time in boarding school). Were his parents on the neglectful side? Yes. Does that equate to being parentless and living on the street before the age of 12? No. I answered an Ask about Tim a little while ago explaining why I don’t really care much for Tim in the comics or a lot of fanfics. And I only ranted a little about how projecting Jason’s trauma onto Tim is Not. Cool. So maybe check that out.

As for my opinion on this … *takes a deep breath* Let me start by saying that everyone should like what they like, read what they want, write what they want, etc. No judgement or shame intended at all.

But … my opinion is that the enemy-to-caretaker trope is to blame for the over abundance of this dynamic in the fandom.

It seems like this trope grew out of/is a Gen take on enemies-to-lovers. I have absolutely no problem with this trope in general. In fact, I quite enjoy it in certain settings. But the thing is, lovers can be equals. But a caretaker, that has an inherent power imbalance to the relationship. A caretaker takes care of a person who is in some way weaker or less able than them.

So, to make Jason a caretaker for Tim, you somehow have to make Tim weaker, and with time and repetition that’s gotten amplified to much weaker.

The easiest way to do this is to jack up the angst and trauma of Tim’s origin story and increase his overall vulnerability. Because in reality, the inherent power imbalance between Jason and Tim is not that significant. Jason is only two years older than Tim. They’re both supposed to be badass vigilantes who can fight and solve crimes. Tim’s home life was loads more stable and supportive.

Play a few games of fanfic telephone, and all of a sudden you have a baseline of touch-starved Timmy who was made to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs as a wee little niblet and then Lazarus-mad Jason came along and tried to murder him repeatedly (nope), slit his throat (‘twas but a scratch), and generally traumatized him beyond repair (Tim is Robin, pretty sure he’s been beaten up before). 🤦‍♀️

That’s my opinion, anon! Thanks for the ask! 💙

[skuleighrose]

I always have to remind myself they were only stuck in the apartment for 3 months. While that feels like a long time, it's not. It's long enough for the food they currently had to run out but short enough for their parents' abandonment to be fairly fresh. While also leaving room for Andrew to neglect his relationship—because he's focusing on not starving—culminating in Julia's phone call.

I wondered how Ashley could leave so many voice mails with each one escalating without Andrew knowing at all. Especially in the ones where she's practically screaming.

But then it occurred to me that it probably had been going on for quite some time before we met the siblings. And I bet three months of silence from one's partner will leave lots of time for reflection.

Now this is my speculation for ch 3, I know a big fan-theory is meeting Julia in the next part and if it were to occur I think it would be Andrew & her trying to be friendly and skirt around the awkwardness of their last conversation while Ashley is livid they came into contact with her, moreso if its Love Burial; Ashley feels like she had finally won and got her Andy all to herself just for the one floozy who could take it all away to reenter their lives.

While Andrew would likely want to keep it cordial for the sake of not drawing suspicion, the tension will eventually break; whether it be Ashley having enough of Andrew speaking to his ex, Julia going off on Ashley/Andrew for the harassment, or Andrew feeling hurt by Julia ditching him and making no effort to help them while they were quarantined.

I could see all three taking place, and more!

& with the voicemails in mind, I could then see Ashley slipping in that taunt about Nina and her not too subtly indicating her death was foul play.

So many possibilities!!!

[prettygoododds]

20 Questions for fic writers

Thanks @wellbelesbian for tagging me. Such fun questions! Tags below the cut.

How many works do you have on AO3

68! Wow, I did not realize this.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

134,335

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The Carry On Series aka Simon Snow fandom aka Snobaz

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

When the Ink Dries

Can I Change My Mind (this one blows my mind, how it continues to stay at the top)

Namaste Away

Every Lover Has A Little Dagger In Their Hand

We're So Starving

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or Why not?

I try to, but I'm very bad at it. It's something I need to work on.

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

We Were Pity Sex, Nothing More and Nothing Less It doesn't even pretend to be kind.

Also, I'm Right Where You Left Me It's short, but cuts right to the bone.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of mine do have a happy ending (when I go sad, I go hard). If I had to choose a few, I suppose:

Where Did the Party Go?

Believe

Namaste Away

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No. Had a few recommendations on how to tag a few works, or to make it more user friendly but everyone has always been very kind with those suggestions. The Carry On fandom is a really good fandom.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I'm slowly dipping my toes in that water. I've posted a few works that have smut, but I'm still very tentative about it. I don't know what kind really. Regular?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I do not

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not to my knowledge

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not, but I'm not opposed to it.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

Snobaz, hands down. It's the one I come back to every time. My comfort ship.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have 2 WIP currently and both of those will be finished. My other WIP not on AO3 are just sitting in my google docs, where no one can see them shivering in the corner, neglected.

16 What are your writing strengths?

Oof. I'd like to think I'm good at dialogue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions and setting a scene. I'm working on it though, and that's the important bit I suppose *shrugs shoulders in Simon*

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Not something I've attempted. I won't say I never will, but I will probably not unless I absolutely have to

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Somewhere, in the depths of fanfic.net are my abandoned Twilight fics. And that is where they will stay until the death of the planet.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I have a few and when I'm questioning why I think I should be doing this at all, I read them to remember I started because I wanted to write the stories I wanted to read.

When The Ink Dries - I started this fic waaaaay before I ever posted it and it was the reason I decided to participate in my first Carry On Big Bang. It's my fic first born.

I'm Not A Pitch - This fic popped my AO3 cherry. I posted it before I could second guess myself. It's full of errors, but I wouldn't change anything about it.

Vibe Check - I wrote this in a few hours when I was feeling silly and it is still one of my favorites

Who Wants Ramen? - My friend and I giggled endlessly when I plotted this one out.

You Can Call Me Babe for the Weekend - I spend a lot of time listening to music and plotting out the story that a 3-4 minutes song can tell. 'Tis the Damn Season was an immediate movie in my head and as soon as I could plot it out and put it on paper (so to speak) I did.

And last but not least Sugar, We're Going Down Swingin - This is pure self indulgence. I got into hockey, I wanted the boys to be hockey players...bam, here's a fic with almost no hockey in it, but sometimes they talk about it.

I'm don't know who's already been tagged, so sorry if I double up:

@facewithoutheart @imagineacoolusername @artsyunderstudy @shemakesmeforget @ivelovedhimthroughworse @ionlydrinkhotwater @rimeswithpurple @aristocratic-otter @cutestkilla @blackberrysummerblog @nausikaaa @supercutedinosaurs @nightimedreamersworld @valeffelees @iamamythologicalcreature @shrekgogurt @ileadacharmedlife @martsonmars @you-remind-me-of-the-babe

[skibidi-mimic-division]

Now I'm curious, are mimic alphas aggressive or are they neutral? (I'm not too up-to-date with your universe, so I hope you don't mind me asking.)

Mimic Alphas are not ALL aggressive. Buddy is also considered an "alpha class" camera mimic and he's benevolent to all of his pack members, he's even patient with Fiend!

He lets everyone eat at the same time and with the same amount of portions, he helps look after newborns and young, congratulates new parents when they give birth and allows them to bond with their little ones for weeks at a time, and he even protects the young and injured from outside threats. He's a golden leader, just like Veteran! However, his previous pack had an alpha that was the polar opposite of him. Buddy came from a pack that didn't treat each member equally and fairly. Peons were treated like borderline slaves that built nests and did the dangerous hard labor that would result in death. Peons were also only allowed to eat whatever remained after the rest of the pack was finished eating. Mostly just scraps...even stripped bare bones. Buddy spent most of his early life being worked day-in and day-out with only scraps of food as his reward for his tireless effort. The behavior is certainly not universal and is only sourced and encouraged by what alpha is currently in power. The alpha of Buddy's previous pack was cruel, controlling, and selfish.

While Buddy only got scraps and a cold hard place to sleep, the "royals" of the pack would gorge themselves on food brought to them from their underlings and would keep the better parts of the nest to themselves and their offspring. Pretty soon, Buddy began to fall behind in his efforts because of him being malnourished and abused. His situation was only getting worse and worse as the days went on. He was starving to death...and his alpha didn't care.

Eventually, he had dissenting thoughts and wanted to leave the pack. He thought long and hard about his situation...he could leave the pack and go on his own with a sliver of a chance for survival...or stay and slowly starve while he worked himself to death for an alpha that didn't care for him. After lots of quiet thinking, and one fateful night with a lot of hope and courage, he simply got up and abandoned his pack while they slept. From what I remember him telling me, he was a loner for a while. Going from place to place, scrounging around for food and morsels. But his weakened state only worsened and one snowy day in January...he collapsed and waited to die. Then...he met me. It was the first time he ever felt cared for and felt like he was worth anything as I carried him back to the base on my back and nursed him back to health. After such a horrible start to his life, Buddy swore he would NEVER be like the "alpha" that he abandoned. In Buddy's words: "He was more like a dictator than a leader. Alpha's are supposed to care for their pack, not abuse them and neglect them. One that does so should never be considered a true alpha."

[emeowwww-blog]

I performed a social experiment today, and the results kinda lowkey shocked me:

TW for topics relating to violence, self harm and suicide, bullying/harassment, threats against personal safety, and adjacent topics.

Note: I refer to myself as a “good person” a few times here. I am not in any way suggesting that I am a model for people to follow. I refer to myself as such to show what I think a good person would do.

Idk why it continues to surprise me, but I did a social experiment today and I still find it so weird how outright fucking MEAN people are.

I was simply talking about my likes and dislikes, and I say a few things about a game I like (that gets a lot of hate for no reason). I expected backlash for liking the game, that’s normal and I get that no matter where I say it. Suddenly, I am getting death threats and suicide guilt trips for liking said game. I am told that i should kill myself, I should die, I should never have been born, my parents were right for starving and neglecting me.

Over a game.

The social experiment I performed was to create an overemphasized version of my current life, and to slip up and create loopholes to see if people would find out I was lying. I joked around and tried to copy the behavior of other people, while also subtly attention seeking and dropping hints that I was faking my life. I also did my best to get peoples social media for later purposes.

I was being serious when I was talking about liking the game, and THATS when people snapped. Suddenly they brought up all the evidence of why I was lying and how, which I found odd that they hadn’t before. I played up my argument and pretended to be one of the people that guilt trips and gaslighted others to win the argument to make them react more.

I did expect “kys” jokes and other mean comments. That is what I set out to find. I did NOT expect to be sent death threats, doxxing threats, threats to harm my irl family, etc.

I eventually revealed that it was an experiment, and that I had screen recordings and screenshots of the hate messages and messages proving whose social media belonged to who.

Now, I don’t have social media besides Pinterest, Tumblr, Ao3, and Discord. I purposefully did not ask for or share these things. I made burner Tiktok, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram accounts, and followed the members with those.

After I revealed the information, I thought it would be a good idea to tell them (jokingly) that I was going to leak the screenshots to their family and friends that followed their socials.

And guess what, they IMMEDIATELY started apologizing and begging me not to. People were even advocating to ban me and erase all message data relating to me (as though that would do anything).

My experiment set out to show how humans, especially younger people ( <22), act when they are behind their online identity. And how they change immediately when they realize that someone they know in real life will find out.

I am not going to send screenshots to their IRLs, nor on and of my socials, as I am not petty and I respect their privacy as minors (and humans) like a good person would and should.

My complaint is just asking why people are so mean? What do they gain? Absolutely nothing. I keep being disappointed for being surprised, over and over again.

Please be a nice person, to anybody who read this long post. I have made huge mistakes in the past, in the same way that this experiment shows.

You do not have to like someone. You do not have to agree with their opinions. But imagine if this wasn’t an experiment. Imagine if a younger person with a little out of the ordinary life joined this group, and got treated this way.

They wouldn’t be prepared for this. This could harm people. This DOES harm people. There are countless, and I mean COUNTLESS news stories about cyber harassment and bullying leading to teen suicide.

Be a good person, both IRL and online. You can and will harm people by your negative actions. I don’t expect you to like everyone. I expect you to be kind and respectful. If they become angry or mean, that does not indicate that you can react harshly.

Cut off your connection. Block them. Report them. We have measures on the internet to essentially get a restraining order on people you don’t like.

Be a good fucking person.

Have a wonderful day/night. I am sorry for the rant.

[weeping-statue]

Im bored so im yapping

Do you have a favourite historical figure? One of mine is Elizabeth of austria, i always felt really bad for her😢 she was the eldest daughter of the emperor of roman empire and from her younger years she was being prepared to marry the polish king (fun fact: they’re related but atp who wasn’t at that time😭 her grandma is literally Juana la loca, Katherine of aragon’s sister lmao) apparently they haven’t taught her the polish language so they can have a valid reason to send „translators” disguised as spies with her, but her reign as queen didn’t last very long because of her illness - she suffered from epilepsy that was probably caused by the huge inbreeding issue running in the habsburg family. People didn’t understand it well yet and were scared of it, it was also the cause of her death later on. Her wedding day was already a disaster, her husband would avoid her and during her life he would cheat on her with several mistresses, he was very cold towards her😔 but her husband wasn’t the worst thing like at all, it’s her mother in law that made her life literally HELL on earth, she hated the habsburg dynasty and was mad at her son that he agreed to marrying her and did everything in her power to postpone their wedding. She would offend her, bully, neglect, alienate and even starve her to the point she was terribly scared of her and no one would talk with her, not wanting to get under the mother in law’s radar. Her spies reported her experiences to her father stating that she’s isolated and treated poorly - which the language barrier made even worse. As result the mother in law expelled all her companions from the polish court so she could pick on her whenever she liked to. (Btw, she was equally a bad mother in law as she was a real mother💀). Eventually her dad threatened the kingdom to treat her well, and her husband did pretend to be kinder to her, but he was already plotting to marry his mistress. Elizabeth’s reign only lasted two years, she died because of several painful epilepsy attacks in just a day, meanwhile her husband was in vilnius and quickly remarried. She deserved so much better omfg😔😔😔 she kind of reminds me of Anne of cleves in a way, as both were rather inexperienced, shy, obedient and delicate

Damn…….i should probably start a podcast or something at this point💀

That’s honestly extremely sad, back then a lot of people suffered and were given unfair treatment. I dont have a favorite historical figure but my favorite historical event was the French Revolution and the black plague!

Also a podcast would be so fun!

[superspoonie24]

Anna: *is neglected and abandoned for majority of her life, starting at like age 5*

Anna: *runs into someone who actually sees Her and notices Her and doesn't act like she's invisible or a burden for the first time in over a decade*

Anna: hey sister I desperately want to notice me and will accept even the tiniest bit of attention from, here is a man I just met that is, *checks notes*, actually talking to me. I'm going to marry him.

Elsa: that's ridiculous! You just met him.

Anna: ~~yeah and in the few hours I've been with him he has talked to me more than you (or anyone else really) have in like 13 ish years~~ Oh haha yeah but like... I Know him and he's a prince!

Elsa: No. I don't approve.

Anna: ~~who the hell are you to approve??? You. Don't. Talk. To. Me.~~ Oh. Uh. Well can we talk about it? (Definitely is not desperate and terrified to lose the tiniest shred of a shred of a relationship she has with her sister) *Reaches out for the attention and affection she is so starved of*

Elsa: *freaks out, reveals giant secret, runs away*

Anna: holy *shit*... I gotta go make sure she's okay!! ~~I gotta make sure I don't lose her.~~

Anna: *goes after Elsa and gets shamed by another stranger for A going after her and B 'falling for a man she just met'*

Elsa: *rejects her more and tells Anna she is better off without her*

Anna: *heartbroken cause the last member of her family, the person she idolizes and so desperately wants love from, Keeps Rejecting Her.*

Anna: *leaves heart broken ~~and heart frozen~~ to go back to the only person this whole night who has shown her undivided 'love', attention, care, affection*

Hans: *is an asshole out of no where????*

Anna: *heartbroken AGAIN because she really can't trust anyone and maybe it's her own fault she's so unlovable.*

Elsa: *Is gonna be killed*

Anna: *is on the brink of literal death and when it comes to going after the stranger who is actually pretty nice and kind and likes her for her and treats her with respect vs the person who she has longed for her entire life even though she keeps pushing her away, she goes after her sister because despite it all she still wants Her love, hell just her Attention above anything else.*

The movie: This is true love 🥰

Me, definitely not projecting my own life onto this at twelve: Hold up this hurts a lot and I relate to these characters wait-

My sister: This movie is mine and only I get to sing and only I get to love it cause it's mine. But if you sing it perfectly and never mess up any of the words or notes I guess I'll let you watch with me.

Me: Really???? 😍🥺🥰🥺😍

...

Okay so this was going to be a critique about how Anna is seen as naive and dumb and it is used against her the entire movie without ever acknowledging *why* she's like that. And how a lot of fans don't see it either. But then it really just turned into me trauma dumping lmao.

But seriously. I feel like most of the neglect and abuse talk ends up being towards Elsa cause she visibly struggles more. And Anna hides it because she has to. Her parents were so worried about elsa that they didnt have time for her pain too. So it's hidden. But it is most definitely there. And it deserves to be mentioned and talked about.

Also this is a very common situation for emotionally neglected people to find themselves in. They cling onto someone showing the slightest bit of decency and believe it's good and amazing cause when you're starved, you'll eat poison if it might help for just a moment. Cause something is better than nothing. And when the something is bad and hurting, the pain of going back to nothing is worse. So you're stuck with a Hans believing it's what you deserve because of years of neglect and abuse.

But yeah. Anna is just dumb and naive. Definitely no trauma on her end.

Bottom line:

Anna deserves better. In canon and from fandom. And ESPECIALLY from Disney.

[cosmicjoke]

Further thoughts on Levi’s upbringing with Kuchel:

I wrote this as a reply in my original post about Levi’s childhood and Kuchel’s own trauma, but just wanted to put it in a separate post as well, to clarify some of what I meant.

Of course Kuchel loved Levi, absolutely.  I never meant to imply otherwise.  My point is only that, when considering their situation, it’s important to acknowledge that her love alone wouldn’t have been enough to shield him from the misery of the dire poverty and desperation of their circumstances.  She was living a life of destitution, fear and struggle, and that translated to Levi.  Again, we see him in a state of extreme neglect, living in what amounts to a hovel, at most, starving to death, filthy, alone, and waiting to die.  This in no way speaks to a good or secure life or living situation.  This in no way speaks to a situation in which Kuchel was able to adequately provide for her child.  She was a single illness away, essentially, from Levi dying.  When she became ill, that was a death sentence for Levi too.  These things should be considered when talking about Kuchel’s ability to care for her son, I think.

I have no doubt Kuchel did all she could to protect and shield Levi.  But my point is, in her struggle to even protect herself, the task of protecting and shielding him would have been colossal, and realistically, she wouldn’t have entirely been able to.  Another poster suggested that Kuchel wasn’t actually living in the brothel she worked in, which I suppose is possible.  I just assumed she was because we’re never given much indication otherwise.  But even if she wasn’t living in the brothel, I think Levi’s unsurprised non-reaction to Kenny, a strange man he’d never met before, coming into his and his mother’s room and beginning to talk to her, is a pretty strong indication that Kuchel likely brought her clients home with her, and that Levi would have at some point been exposed to what she did for a living.  If she tried to hide it from him by sending him away, or was having sex in alleyways outside where they were living, Levi could have easily seen something like that through the window, he could have wandered back inside or outside and seen, etc...  There’s a million scenarios in which Levi could have been exposed to the life she was living, and again, talking in terms of realism, Kuchel wouldn’t have always been in a strong enough emotional or mental state to keep the damage her work was causing her from Levi either.  It would have had a negative impact on her ability to care for him, to provide for him all of the emotional support a growing child needs.  There’s also just the raw reality that Levi had to watch his mother die in front of him as a result of her work, which is the ultimate indicator of her not being able to shield him from the bleak reality of her life and what she was doing to provide for them.

I bring up again how withdrawn Levi was when Kenny first met him.  He hardly spoke, and wasn’t at all open or talkative or friendly.  That indicates that he was maladjusted socially.  He wasn’t taught good social skills, wasn’t taught to be good at conversation or how to make friends, etc...  and I think this likely has a lot to do with Levi being kept isolated and alone, and with Kuchel not being able to provide those things for him, too preoccupied with providing the most basic necessities, like just trying to keep Levi alive.  Things like socializing him and playing with him and spending quality time with him would have taken a back seat to simply trying to make enough money to feed and cloth him.  And again, we see from the state Levi is in when Kenny finds him, the rags he’s dressed in and his state of starvation, that Kuchel wasn’t able with any consistency or certainty to provide even those basic things.  Not from lack of effort, I know.  Again I’m not questioning Kuchel’s devotion to her child.  I’m just saying that we have to consider Kuchel’s own circumstances to understand how those things which I’m sure she wanted to give to Levi, wouldn’t have been so easily provided as the fandom sometimes makes it seem.  If she couldn’t provide adequate food or shelter or warmth for him on a consistent basis, then things like spending social time with him wouldn’t have been able to be provided on a consistent basis either.

Kuchel didn’t choose to go Underground to work as a prostitute.  This isn’t a life that she actively sought and strove for.  The very fact she’s underground at all speaks to it not being so much a choice, but a path taken in desperation.  The Underground isn’t safe at all.  It’s where people who are rejects from society end up, either outright criminals, or persecuted groups like the Ackerman’s.  But it’s anonymous, which is why criminals flee down there, because they can escape the law, and so Kuchel could have left her real identity behind, and nobody would know who she was, because the people of the Underground aren’t registered citizens above, and are by and large ignored by the authorities above. The Ackerman’s were being hunted in general.  The few members that fled to the countryside were still persecuted and struggled to make any kind of a living, experiencing poverty even above.  It wasn’t safe for them anywhere on the surface, I imagine.  Kenny stayed because Kenny is a violent man capable of taking care of himself.  But Kuchel was just a young woman, maybe even a girl, and she was alone.  So I don’t think one can classify her going Underground and becoming a prostitute as a decision she made with full agency or choice.  The poverty and desperation she was living in speaks to it being a forced situation in which she had no other options.  She didn’t end up in a situation in which she was financially stable or secure, or living comfortably.  She was living at the least in a single room, with no comforts, with no luxuries of any kind, barely able to keep her child alive, and herself eventually succumbing to disease.  With Levi being born, if she’d been capable and able to make it above, I’m sure she would have at least tried, if for nothing else, then to give Levi a better life.  But she wasn’t able to because she had nothing.  No resources, no recourse, no options. She also knew if she went above, she would continue to be hunted, and Levi in turn would be hunted too, which adds just another layer of desperation and no other options to Kuchel’s circumstances. So I just think these things are vital to understand when assessing what Levi’s situation was like in the first few years of his life with his mother.  They weren’t good years.  They were full of struggle and hardship and desperation, and that struggle and hardship and desperation would have made it incredibly hard for Kuchel to give Levi everything he needed, to take care of him in even the most basic ways a parent is expected provide for their child.  Kuchel’s own trauma needs to be addressed, I think, to fully understand Levi’s.

[mandalhoerian]

review below because ghost fics (and especially when its leon) just make me think so much OOH WOOOO BOOOO BEWARE I RAMBLE A LOT if im getting any detail wrong here just know i just devoured from top to bottom in a frenzy 😭

This fic hit all the right notes:: haunting, atmospheric, emotional, and just the right amount of OoOoOoOoOOOO. I was completely immersed from the very first paragraph, and by the end, I felt like I had been pulled into the same eerie liminal space as the reader. The way you crafted the tone made it feel like more than just a ghost story; this was a meditation on longing, grief, obsession, and the strange ways we try to connect, even across the veil of life and death. It stayed with me, and I loved every moment.

You did an incredible job building the atmosphere here. From the very first description of the homestead, with its once-grand pillars now bowed and splintered from neglect! Descriptions were always mwah! Immersive at every beat!

Your portrayal of the reader was excellent—her growing obsession with Leon felt so organic and gradual. I could feel how badly she wanted to connect, not just with the supernatural world but with Leon in particular. The way you wove her loneliness and longing through small actions like how she talks to the empty room or gets excited when the bird moves really brought her to life. It’s like she’s spent so long searching for something that now that she’s finally found it, she can’t let go. The line where she says, “Love for you has never needed a pulse, just a presence,” really just. Ugh it's SUCH a hard-hitting line. It encapsulated her entire journey how she’s always been more at home with ghosts than with the living and just how starved for the crumbs she is. There’s a quiet tragedy in how much she’s willing to sacrifice just to feel close to Leon, even though she knows it’s impossible.

Leon was handled beautifully too. I loved how subtle and ambiguous his presence was like. never quite solid, but also never completely distant. The way he interacts with objects, moving them in small ways to engage with the reader, made him feel both innocent and loaded. The reader’s relationship with Leon isn’t romantic in a conventional sense, but it’s deeply intimate in a way that feels just as powerful. There’s a sense that she’s not just haunted by Leon—she’s haunted by her own loneliness, her own need to be seen. And Leon, for all his ghostly presence, can only offer her almost enough to satisfy that need, but never quite enough to fill it completely.

Luis is such a fantastic foil to the reader. His skepticism was exactly what this story needed to stay grounded, and I loved the dynamic between them. He never feels dismissive or mean-spirited, just genuinely concerned for his friend, which makes his frustration with her obsession all the more heartbreaking.

My all time favorite scene(s) are the bluebirds. I know that he may not have been the one to do kill that bluebird, he could have dragged a dead one there and placed it and gotten offended when she asked if he did kill it (there's more to it i'm sure since this is a series and all works are connected and perhaps the bluebird has a significance to **them** in the past), but it shifted the tone from "oh he's gentle actually CUUUUTE" to "ooh... um...." SO QUICK. This scene was gruesome but so effective. The description of the bird’s mangled body was a hard cold splash of water to the face, yeah, it's looking to the past and hinting at something. It felt like a turning point, the moment when the story shifted from playful haunting to something darker. It was also a brilliant way to show that Leon, for all his gentleness, is still not fully human. There’s an edge to him that can’t be ignored.

Thank you so much for sharing this—I’m still thinking about it AND how it's all going to connect long after finishing. Cannot wait for the other installments! !! 11!!!!!!!

— between here and there || l.s.k

pairing: ghost!leon kennedy x ghosthunter!fem!reader

tags: set in 2001, graphic depictions of dead animals one is right under the cut, mentions of death, mentions of grief, mentions of violence, themes of obsession and love, implied/referenced childhood abuse inflicted by a parent, typical horror topics. (if i missed anything pls dm me and let me know!!)

summary: Even if it is full of love, all a ghost can do is haunt. Or: The year is 2001, and you've just found out about a haunted homestead on a prairie, sure to hold a million mysteries within its rotting walls. You've chased rumors of the supernatural before, but this place feels... different. Maybe this time, you'll find the evidence you need to prove the existence of the other side—and finally go viral. But quickly you come to learn that some doors, once opened, can't be shut.

word count: 6.6k

a/n: i wrote 80% of this fic on my phone, so i'm sorry if it reads badly 😔, i hope you enjoy regardless though! and things will make more sense in the coming parts, i promise <3 also; thank you claudia for beta-reading for me!! n also thank you @/uhlunaro for bone-chill, go read their work!! it's so good n inspired this fic.

playlist ⭑ AO3 || back to the party ⭑ next (coming soon) »

You were eight when you saw your first ghost. Your mother had found you with your face pressed up against the living room window, eyes wide as you stared out into your backyard, convinced there was a dog by the fence that was staring right back.

Your mother had ushered you back to bed, murmuring about how there was no dog out there, and you needed to sleep. But you saw him! You swear it! Floppy ears and a bone between his teeth.

You couldn’t sleep that night, tossing and turning and anxiously waiting for morning to come. By the time the sunlight had crept through your window, you scampered outside to prove it. You’d spent nearly an hour out in the early morning cold, digging, digging, digging with your bare hands, until eventually, you found it, something that wasn’t a dog—not anymore, anyway.

Wrapped in a plastic bag you found it, decayed skin clinging stubbornly to yellowed ribs poking through like splintered wood. Its jaw hung open, snapped and crooked, patches of fur still clinging to the skull, matted until it resembled something more like melted plastic. There was a sense of grief that came with finding its body, a suffocating presence that weighed down over your little lungs, tightened your oesophagus, made your stomach clench.

You gave the rotting dog carcass a proper burial. 

A grave by the oak tree, dirt pressed down gently over its brittle body as if the dog might still feel it, a ring of daisies set atop in remembrance. When you finally stood, wiping mud-stained hands on your pants, you could feel your mother’s eyes on you, her silence heavier than her words ever were.

After that, her patience thinned. She’d catch you whispering to empty rooms, her voice sharper each time, the snap of her voice was soon paired with the snap of a belt. The corners of your room were just corners, she’d say. The shadows were just that; shadows. 

You stopped talking about it, but the flashes of something stayed—the fleeting movements, the whispers, the shadows that lingered in the corners of your vision. The haunting weight of it all clung to you like a thick blanket, creeping in with every bump in the night, until curiosity bled into something deeper. 

Eventually, you gave up waiting and started searching, looking for answers between ghost-hunting forums and haunted houses. 

And now, years later, you’re chasing a truth you’re still yet to prove. 

You jolt from your thoughts the same time the van does over a potholed, eyes snapping to the stretch of dirt road before you. The homestead comes into view, your breath catches in your throat at the sight of it—looking every bit more eerie when bathed in hues of twilight than it did in the grainy two-bit photos on your laptop screen. 

Luis lets out a low whistle from the driver’s seat, before he clicks his tongue and puts the car into park. “Well, we’ve seen worse.”

Luis says it with an air of carelessness you struggle to stomach under the looming shadow of the homestead. He’s never believed in the paranormal the same way you do, always the wind, always a shadow to him, everything has an explanation. Never a ghost, never a spirit.

Yet, he sticks with you, out of what sense of loyalty you’re not entirely sure, but you’re grateful all the same. Maybe it’s the remnants of a childhood bond that keeps him tethered to your side, echoes of sleepovers and whispered secrets, of nights spent laughing over nothing, long before you were chasing shadows and seeking the dead.

It’s not that Luis doesn’t care—he does, more than he’ll ever admit. He just doesn’t see the world the way you do. And that’s okay. He doesn’t have to believe. You do.

He slides out of the car easily, no doubt eager to unpack the camera gear. You hear the back of the van slide open, before you finally make the decision to move, feeling as if your bones have stuck themselves together—rigor mortis.

The homestead looks like it’s rotting from the inside out. Once-grand pillars holding up the front porch that have long since bowed, wood that rots and splinters from years of neglect. The windows, fogged over with dust, are cracked and warped as if the house itself has been trying to keep the world out for far too long.

“What even happened here?” Luis asks, eyeing the decayed structure with a grimace as the both of you step onto the creaking front porch.

In truth, the research had been thin. The house didn’t show up on any official ghost-hunting registry, and there wasn’t much mention of it in local history. But there were enough stories, enough pieces of something to make you believe it was worth the three hour plane trip.

If no one else could get proof, then maybe you could. This could be your big break, could be your skyrocket to supernatural stardom—If that was even really a thing.

“A lot. Murders, disappearances, all the fun stuff.” You joke, flashing a wide grin over your shoulder, trying to ease the pit in your chest, and find amusement at the way Luis shivers at the mention of murders. His shoulders stiffen enough to make you bite back a laugh.

Luis fixes you with a hard stare. “You’re not right, anyone ever tell you that?”

“Plenty of times,” you reply, grin only widening. You reach up and give his cheek a playful pat, “You’re not special.”

He rolls his eyes and you’re well aware he doesn’t buy your teasing, but that’s half the fun. You slip past him to check out the entryway, Luis trailing behind with his camera over his shoulder.

Luis keeps his distance as you wedge the door open. A thick layer of dust comes loose with the movement, swirling with the fading light and wafting straight into your face. You cough violently, waving it away with a grimace.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Luis mutters, adjusting the lens of his camera.

“Nothing’s going to happen—” And as if infuriatingly on cue, the door slips from your gasp and slams shut with a bone-rattling thud.

The both of you jump despite yourselves—Luis lets out a yelp that he stifles with a cough, while you freeze, hand still hanging in the air where the door had once been.

The silence that follows is deafening. You stare at the door for a beat, pulse-quickening as if it might just spring open again on its own, while you feel the burn of Luis’ gaze in the back of your neck, waiting for you to explain it away with your usual bravado.

You lower your hand slowly, give him a sidelong glance. You take a step back from the door as if daring it to open or slam shut again. “Well. That’s one way to make an entrance.”

Luis glares at you. “Yeah, real funny. Can we leave now?”

Rolling your eyes, you reach for the handle and tug the front door open again, choosing to ignore Luis’ insistence. The homestead is as quiet as you imagined it’d be, even so you can’t shake the eeriness of the silence. You swear you can hear static in your head.

Luis hands you a flashlight, which you flick on before toeing the warped floorboards. The wood groans beneath you, but it holds, so you plant your foot fully inside, waiting for the house to react. One second. Two.

Nothing.

With a relieved sigh you step deeper into the homestead. The pale remains of sunlight filter through grimy windows, while dust swirls lazily in the beam of your flashlight as you sweep it across the room.

“Are you recording?” You whisper over your shoulder to Luis, who gives a quick nod, a thumbs-up flashing in your periphery.

The homestead opens up around you—parlour to the left, kitchen and dining room through the door on the right, and a staircase, old and worn, curling up toward the shadows in the back.

“We’ll set up in the parlour,” you murmur, moving toward it. Your hand brushes against the wall as you reach for the light switch, fingers hesitant. You flick it, expecting nothing. But then the chain bulb overhead sputters to life, casting a weak, flickering glow across the room.

“Huh,” you breathe. “Not bad.”

Nightfall comes sooner than you would’ve hoped, and you’re starting to understand why there’s so little about this homestead online. In the two long hours you and Lewis have been here, the silence has remained unbroken. The EMF reader has not spiked once and the camera has picked up nothing. No doors have slammed, nothing has creaked strangely, not even an unsettlingly cold gust of wind. 

Maybe this place is a waste of time, another dead end to add to your already growing list. You contemplate if packing the van up now is a good option. But yet, yet—you can’t shake the feeling that there is something waiting for you here, just beyond reach. A presence. A secret.

There’s still upstairs, a voice nags at the back of your head. Rooms yet to explore, yet to be turned inside out so you can find what’s hidden in the confines of this home’s brittle bones.

Luis follows behind as you carve a path up the stairs, flicking the stairwell light on and waiting for the flicker of the bulb to cease into a steady hum. It takes a moment too long, and your fingers twitch at the edge of your flashlight.

You never did shake your fear of the dark.

Upstairs, the floor is dappled in the pale glow of the moon. You sweep your flashlight through the shadows, the light catching on each warped surface, every peeling edge of wallpaper, casting lonesome shadows across the splintering floors. You watch the EMF reader calibrate and tick in your hand as you tread further down the hallway. The air up here feels heavier, like it’s holding its breath, waiting for you.

That’s when you see it.

Or him, rather. 

At first, you make out nothing but a vague shape standing at the end of the hallway, a shadow where there shouldn’t be one.

But as your eyes adjust, you make out the figure’s skin; a sickly pale, marred with crawling veins like rivers of ink. He has hair like dull flaxen straw, eyes that are such a piercing blue you make them out even in the dark. You freeze, your breath catching in your throat as a chill crawls down your spine. You take a step back, stumbling into Luis, who nearly drops the camera.

The light overhead flickers dramatically before the bulb bursts with a sharp pop, plunging the hall into sudden darkness. Your EMF reader spikes violently in time with your heart slamming against your ribs, and in the panic, you scramble to bring up your flashlight—but as the beam sweeps over him, he vanishes, parts of his body disintegrating into the light, like bend the rules of physics themselves, like something wrong.

“Is that—?” it hits Luis the same time it hits you. Not a person. A ghost.

But there’s no haunting glow, no cloud of smoke. He doesn't float; in fact he doesn’t move at all. Instead, the air grows thick, an oppressive weight that threatens to shatter your ribs inwards and pierce into your lungs.

You hear him. The sickly sound of breathing, a rasping inhale followed by an exhale, like a death rattle. The noise crawls under your skin, itches against your bones.

Your own breath catches in your throat in favour of hearing his. The sound swells, crescendos, then tithers to nothing. Silence, like buzzing in your ears, is all that’s left behind. Slowly, you peel your  eyes open, the ghost is nowhere to be seen.

You come back to reality like ungluing yourself from a fly trap—slowly, sticky, the numbness in your body ceases.

“Did you.. Did you get that on tape?” You ask Luis between bated breath, eyes still glued to the wall where he had been.

Luis swallows hard, his breathing ragged. He fumbles with the camera, fingers trembling, flipping through settings with a frantic sort of urgency. His face drains of colour as he checks the screen. The camera blinks, sputters.

Panic surges as you rush downstairs, tripping over your feet. Luis yanks the camera from his shoulder, flipping it open to review the footage. His hands move fast, flipping through buttons…

Then, the camera shuts off with a mechanical click, the small screen fading to black.

"No, no, no," Luis mutters, voice tight with frustration. He pulls out the tape reel, and the acrid smell hits you first. He stares at it, brow furrowing. You step closer, peering over his shoulder. The reel is ruined—burnt and blackened beyond recognition, as if scorched by something unseen.

Neither of you says a word.

“Sorry, we’re full.”

The words feel like a death sentence this late at night. Luis sighs sharply, his breath fogging up the plexiglass screen between him and the motel keeper. “There’s got to be something, no? Just one room,” he mutters, pushing the crumpled fifty across the counter one more time, almost pleading.

The motel keeper eyes the money, before shaking her head. “I’m serious, hon,” she says, her voice flat, tired. “We’re booked solid. You can try the highway if you’re desperate.”

You’re really only half-listening to the exchange, shivering from the cold as you lean by the side of the van parked under the carport. 

The motel sign above flickers weakly, casting uneven shadows across the parking lot, the words The Black Dog barely legible in the failing neon glow. Cerberus snarls from the sign like a bad omen, one head flickering on and off as if it’s ready to give up entirely.

After the encounter at the homestead, neither Luis nor yourself could shake the feeling of dread that had settled like a thick fog, a weighted blanket that provided more unease than comfort. The decision to leave for the night had been easy, but now, standing outside in the frigid air, you’re starting to feel the sting of bad luck. There are only two motels in this entire town—one’s closed for maintenance, and this one, The Black Dog, is fully booked.

Luis pulls back from the counter with a groan, stuffing the money into his pocket as he joins you outside. “No luck,” he mutters, breath curling in the chilled air.

But you're distracted, focused on the yellowing photographs lining the walls behind the motel keeper’s desk, town history captured in fleeting moments behind dusty glass. Your eyes widen in realisation when you note the homestead is in one of them. A farmer’s family stands at the front of it; a husband, a wife, his daughter and two sons.

You quickly rush up to the window, leaning down closer to the little cutout in the plexiglass as you rest your elbows on the counter. “That photo,” You start, finger pressed to the plastic surface, “do you know who the people in it are?”

The motel keeper swivels in her squeaky office chair, her eyes widening with a sort of realisation. “Them? Well they’re the original settlers of this land,” She hums, turning back. “Their family were the first to come this far east, their father built that homestead with his bare hands.”

“What happened to them?” You ask, your curiosity piqued. Desperate for more, desperate for answers. Although, your ghost looks nothing like any of the men in the picture.

“Well they died,” The motel keeper says, something akin to god-fearing in her voice. “But whatever malevolent force has been haunting that place never did.”

You stare at her, wide-eyed and unblinking. Luis fills in for you where you can’t. 

“You’re not serious,” he says, but it comes out more like a question than a statement.

“Dead serious, hon. That place is no good. They say the prairie wind drove that family mad—” she states, sticking a thumb over her shoulder to point to the picture “—we’re just not so sure it was the wind that did it.”

You decidedly spend that night in the back of the van, parked right outside the homestead on that old gravel path. 

The wind whistles terribly and you begin to understand what they mean by prairie fever—you can’t fathom what it would’ve been like, out here, all alone with nothing but the wind and the wolves.

“Something’s wrong,” Luis murmurs just loud enough for you to hear. You turn your head, watching as he stares at the ceiling of the van.

There is a sudden unease that settles in your chest, watching him like this. Luis has never been rattled by the dark, never questioned the supernatural because he didn’t have a reason to. In many ways, he has been your anchor.

And what is a ship without its anchor?

You hum, mirroring his movements and righting your neck to stare up at the ceiling. “Luis, you say this every—”

“No, I mean it.” He cuts in, a certain urgency to his words. “We saw something, I saw it. He was–” His words die, fizzle into nothing on his tongue as if it’ll be a sin to refer to the shadow as anything more than just a shadow. “We can’t go back in there.”

You understand… yet you don’t.

“This is the closest we’ve ever been Luis, what do you mean we can’t?” Your words are oddly calm despite the desperation they clearly convey, “You know how much this means to me.”

Luis sighs, “I get it, I’m just not sure this is a good idea.” He hesitates. “I think… I think we’re way in over our heads this time.”

“I’ll be careful. I promise.”

Luis holds you to it.

A car crash—that’s what you see in your dream. Although, it feels more like a vision; a premonition or maybe a memory. 

You’re trapped behind your own eyes, sitting rigid in the passenger seat. There’s the sound of tyres screaming against the asphalt, a horrible blur of red and blue, glass and smoke. 

The car swerves hard, jerking your body with it, weightless, floating, falling. The ground falls away, and for a split second, there’s nothing. Just the sound of your own heartbeat pounding in your ears. 

You try to catch a glimpse of the driver, but your eyes are glued to the chaos that unfolds before you. You catch a glimpse of the side of his face, shadowed in the flickering lights. Just the curve of his jawline—sharp, familiar.

And then you slam into a tree.

The night is much less forgiving than day. In moonlight, your mind is left to fill in the gaps, pulls at the seams of reality, and paints over it with every fear you’ve ever had the cowardice to bury. A creak in the floor becomes footsteps. A sigh of wind becomes a distant cry. 

But daylight? Daylight spills over the horizon like a gentle promise. In daylight, things feel explainable. Safe. You do not falter and question the shape of shadows, each one is tethered to something, tangible and real, solid in your grasp.

Yet the homestead does not follow these rules.

The walls bleed with secrets you’ve yet to learn, each groan of the floorboards underneath your gentle footsteps sounds like another pair is following closely behind. Light spills through windows, but  it dies before it reaches the corners, and does not fill the room the way it should.

It’s that morning, one hour into your second investigation, that you smell it—something faint at first that quickly grows stronger, souring the air with each breath you suck in. It’s familiar but unwelcome, the unmistakable stench of decay. Luis notices it too, his nose wrinkling as he glances toward the far end of the hallway.

“Do you smell that?” he asks, his voice quiet.

You nod. 

The smell rots. It festers the further you walk down the hallway, intensifying until it clings to you like a second skin. It seeps through the floorboards, through every crack in splintering wood, and it leads you to a door. The one at the end of the hallway from the night before. The one you didn’t manage to open because he had been there.

Luis nudges you with his elbow. “Ladies first.”

“Very brave,” you mutter, pushing the door open.

Inside, the room is cold, the air heavy with dust. Yellowing and peeling wallpaper lines the walls, a dusty bed in the corner, a dresser by the opposite wall and a wardrobe by the adjacent one.

But what draws your attention are the walls—every inch covered in horrifying jagged scratches, as if something had clawed at the walls in a frenzy of desperation.

N-O-E-L.

The letters are scrawled over and over, the same pattern repeated a millennia of times. They twist and turn, written backwards and mirrored, as if whatever had left them behind had longed for a voice it had forgotten how to use.

“What the hell…” Luis murmurs, stepping closer with his polaroid camera, the shutter sounding as he snaps a few photos of the scratches. “What are we dealing with, the ghost of Christmas past?”

You swallow, admittedly now confused. “What does that even mean?” You muse, walking towards a wall and running your fingers over the splintering wood.

“His name, maybe?” Luis supplies, lifting his head from behind the camera.

Without thinking, you speak. “Is your name Noel?” 

Silence answers.

You decide to move around the room, keen to find answers where your ghost refuses to give them to you. Your fingertips grazing the walls as if you could pull the truth from the cracks in the old plaster.

“I know you did this,” you say, your voice firm but edged with a strange softness, like you’re coaxing something fragile from the dark. “Why won’t you tell me your name?”

The lights flicker. Luis begins to pray.

The stench grows, grows, grows, more potent with each step you take towards the bed. You fear you’ll find rot when you pull the covers back—a body, perhaps. But what you find confuses you more. You fall to your knees by the bed, crane your neck to peer beneath it, and your eyes catch the glint of silver.

Your hand stretches out, inching under the bed as your teeth catch your lip. When you pull the object free, you look up at Luis, who meets your gaze with the same confusion. In your hands you hold a hunting knife.

And as quickly as it had come, the stench subsides.

You turn the knife over in your hand as you push yourself off the dusty floor, a strange emblem is etched into the heel of the blade. 

“Well that’s not weird at all,” Luis mutters, taking the knife from your hand to inspect it himself. You bite the inside of your cheek, about to say something more, when a faint creak draws your attention. The wardrobe. The door swings open, as if nudged by an unseen hand. You meet Luis’ wary gaze, your heart thrumming with anticipation.

Drawn like a moth to a flame, you rise to your feet, walking closer, pulling the door open by its rusting brass handle. Inside hangs a tarnished mirror, and in it you catch your own reflection—dark circles ring your eyes, your reflection looks as drained as you’ve begun to feel.

Luis hums over your shoulder, a spark of realisation lighting his expression as he clicks his tongue. “Not Noel, look.”

You squint into the mirror, making out the jagged inscriptions in the wall that are now mirrored. “Leon?”

There’s a knock on the wall behind you, too loud to be mistaken for the walls of the house adjusting. 

“Is that a yes?” You breathe.

Two knocks.

Luis stares at you, his voice hushed, disbelieving. “Are you talking to a ghost?”

“Holy fuck, I’m talking to a ghost.”

Your ghost isn’t as terrifying with a name to its haunt. Leon, you’ve come to find, is gentle. You and Luis have spent the past three hours communicating with him; knock once for yes, twice for no. A language of patience.

You’ve been documenting it all in your notebooks—entry after entry of everything you’ve learnt. It's all you can do, considering the tapes you’ve tried to record burn out. You figure he doesn’t like the notion of being seen. Being known is different, though. You can feel that—he wants to be known.

He cannot leave.

He doesn’t remember how he got here.

He knows only his name.

You find he also likes to move things.

First, it was the photos. Luis had left the polaroids from the bedroom out on the dining room table to develop, safe with the windows drawn. You’d found them around the house later, one in your bag, another nestled between the equipment. Harmless. Cute, almost.

Then Leon started to move bigger objects. Your torch was found in the bedroom closet, Luis’ lighter in a kitchen cabinet, your hairpins scattered like breadcrumbs on the mantle of the fireplace. It’s a game to him, one that you find yourself eager to indulge. 

You slip into the kitchen, carrying a small wooden figure you’d picked up from the general store—nothing too special, a simple carving of a bluebird. Ghostly fingers might appreciate the weight of its worn edges, you think.

“Alright,” you say aloud, speaking to the empty room, “I – uh, got you something.”

You place the bluebird on the dining table, straightening the figure before taking a few gentle steps back. The temperature in the room drops suddenly, a chilly cold that you no longer mistake for the prairie wind, a denseness in the air that can only be explained by experience. 

Your EMF reader ticks up, and you itch to jot down the reading, yet the moment you turn your back, there’s the sound of wood scraping against wood. You spin back on your heel, only to see that the little bird has moved, facing the window with its beak pointed towards the fading sunlight.

“So you like the bird then?” You nearly laugh, low and under your breath.

There’s another scrape, this time longer. The bird moves again, right before your eyes, closer to the edge of the table.

Despite the absurdity of it all, you continue to talk. “Careful, you’ll knock it off.” You warn softly.

For a moment, nothing happens. Then the bird stops just short of tipping over the edge, as if Leon has taken your words into consideration. You watch as the bird drags back across the table to the centre. 

The lights flicker with your laughter, as if your ghost finds amusement in the cadence of your voice.

You begin to wonder how anyone could’ve thought this home was malevolent at all. The unease that had come with your first encounter has long since given way to something deeper—an ache, a yearning, a quiet desperation to understand. You don’t want to leave. You want to stay, to uncover every secret this house holds. 

How did he die? Was it peaceful, or something violent? What kind of life did he lead? Did he love? Did he lose?

You sit on the living room floor, your back pressed against the wall, clicking your pen twice as you jot down tonight’s meeting in your notebook. From the wall beside you, two soft knocks answer in return.

There is a difference between an architectural haunting and a hereditary one. There’s a certain comfort in knowing a haunting is bound to a place, that its roots lie deep within the dirt that make up the home’s foundation. That it cannot follow you home.

But when a haunting becomes hereditary—when it latches onto you, burrows under your skin, sinks its claws into your soul, twisting, festering—when it’s tethered to you, that's when the fear takes hold. You cannot outrun a hereditary haunting.

Last night, you dreamt again. The homestead, its walls bleeding dark and thick, like wounds seeping into your memory. The flashes came in fragments: the house, the woods, a clearing bathed in moonlight. A glint of a knife to match the gleam of his eyes. And then, the sensation of cold mud pressed against your skin as you lay in the dirt, helpless, hopeless, dead.

You wake in the middle of the night and wonder when this haunting stopped feeling architectural.

Luis finds you on the third day in the parlour, your fingers curled around the edge of an old, weather-beaten box. It drags across the warped floorboards with a groan, sending up a small cloud of dust. 

He pauses in the doorway. “What are you doing?” His voice cuts through the otherwise quiet home. 

“Cleaning up.” You keep your eyes on the box, focused as you rifle through its contents.

Luis steps further into the room, his boots crunching on the debris-strewn floor, nearly tripping over the marbles you had laid out earlier for Leon to move. “Cleaning up?” His brow furrows. “Jesus, I thought we were here to investigate.”

“We are,” you mutter, your hands brushing off the dust clinging to your clothes as you turn to face him. “I’m just helping out.”

“Helping out?” Luis stops mid-step, his confusion sharpening. “Helping the ghost?”

Your hands still. The air shifts, colder than before, almost as if something is standing beside you. You glance over your shoulder, but it’s just Luis, a mix of disbelief and frustration in his gaze.

“Yes, Luis,” You sound annoyed now. Tension thick in the air.

His laugh is short and bitter. “This is crazy,” he mutters, his voice rising slightly. “You’re growing too - too attached, we need to leave.”

“No.” You straighten up, the words more defensive than you intend. “He needs help. Look at the state of this place!” You gesture to the peeling wallpaper, the broken furniture scattered, the oppressive sense of neglect.

“He?” Luis tries to be your voice of reason, tethering you back to reality, to the here and now because currently you seem like you’re in a different plane of existence entirely. 

“Yes, he.” You drag the box into a corner, your back to him, and run your hand across its lid. The texture feels wrong—too damp, too cold, as if the cardboard itself is rotting from the inside. “He’s trapped here,” you murmur, more to yourself than to Luis. “I don’t know how long, but... it’s been years. He doesn’t even have anyone to mourn him.”

Luis exhales sharply, his breath fogging the air. When did it get so cold? “You don’t know that,” he snaps, his voice louder, louder, louder. “You don’t even know who ‘he’ is!”

The words hit you like a slap. Something shifts, as if the chain binding his anchor to your ship has snapped and broken all at once.

“I’m not—” You stop, swallowing the words. “I’m not crazy, Luis.”

You can see the flicker of regret in his eyes, the way his expression softens, but it doesn’t erase the sting of his words. He hesitates, lowering his voice as if it could take back the hurt.

“I didn’t say that,” he murmurs, “But you’re not thinking straight. You haven’t been since that night. The ghost—or whatever it is—has you hooked. And you don’t even see it–”

Each word feels like a knife twisting deeper. The betrayal coils inside you, bitter and raw. You trusted him to believe in you, to see you, even when no one else did. You open your mouth to argue, but your ghost has better timing.

A sudden, violent knocking echoes through the house, an urgency to each rap. This time, it’s not coming from within the walls, and oddly, that unsettles you more than if it were. The sound pounds from the front door, growing louder, louder, louder with each second that passes. When both you and Luis rush to the foyer, you stare blankly as the door handle rattles on its own.

You don’t think when you walk forward, as if compelled by an unseen force, your hand wrapping around the crystal handle before twisting it and tugging it open. There, crumpled on the porch, lies a bird.

It’s ruined. Feather slicked by a sheen of its own blood, some still fluttering in the wind, others matted to exposed bone. The body is split open, like something had torn it apart with its bare hands, its innards spilt on the rotting boards. Thin ropes of intestine, wet and glistening, loop over themselves. 

The head, nearly severed, hangs at a grotesque angle, twisted so far back it looks as though it were straining to see something beyond its reach, connected by just a thin sinew of flesh. One of its glassy black eyes remains open, dull and lifeless, its beak parted in a scream that never came.

The bird has blue feathers. A bluebird, you realise.

Leon doesn’t speak much the rest of the day—if you can qualify the knocks and the flickers of light as speech at all. When you ask him about the bluebird, there's only silence. When you press him on whether he caused it, a vase shatters like fallen stars at your feet.

Perhaps he’s not all gentle. Neither are you, though, so you give him grace. You pick up the shards of glass one by one, wrap them up in a handkerchief, and discard them in the garden. 

It’s only when you return inside that you realise you’re bleeding. A thin line of red trails from the split in your thumb, the sting arrives after, delayed but insistent. You watch it drip, swirling with the water as you rinse it away, the crimson draining down the sink.

You’ve grown used to seeing Leon in your periphery. His shadow is a presence that has grown comforting. Unknown to know, unfamiliar to familiar. You find yourself looking forward to the night even more now, eager for a glimpse of him. But tonight, he doesn’t visit.

You think you might’ve upset him. Between the dead bird and the silence, maybe he didn’t like all the arguing, how loud the house had gotten today. You don’t blame him. 

“Luis wants to leave tomorrow,” You hum softly into the darkness. You don’t need to see Leon to know he’ll be listening. “I have to go with him.”

Silence.

“I’ll miss you,” You try again, your voice holding a sense of urgency. Please, please, please.

Again, silence.

You ignore the tears that prick at your eyes, upset that your ghost is ignoring you. You fall asleep with a headache and a heartache to match. But when you dream that night, it’s much more alarming than any of the ones before.

You wake in the darkness, your body stiff in your dream like you’ve lost your flesh and have been made up of bones. Rigor mortis once more. For a second you think this might be some sort of horrible sleep paralysis,but before the panic can set in, your eyes focus on the cracks of light in your vision, seeping through the darkness of your mind.

You’re not sure what part of your brain comes to the conclusion, but you realise you’re stuck under something, in something maybe. A coffin? Something wooden. You can smell the musk of the cottonwood.

When you wake from the dream, your headache is pounding twice as hard, you sit up, groaning as you press a hand to your head. When your eyes open, your breath catches in your throat. 

Leon.

He's there. Right there.

Closer than he’s ever dared to get, standing beside your bed, watching, waiting, like he always is. Yet, he looks more solid, more here than you’d ever seen of him before. You could make out the shape of his nose, the curve of his eyes, the length of his lashes.

Your heart beats wildly in your chest, bated breath caught in the cavern of your throat as you try to comprehend what you’re seeing. 

“Leon,” you whisper his name, your voice shaky, barely more than a breath.

He doesn’t move, but his eyes soften, just slightly, a weight behind his gaze that you can’t quite place. You watch his chest rise and fall with breath that should not be there, lungs that have no reason to expand, a heart that doesn’t beat. And yet, yet, he is here, in front of you, as vivid as anyone else would be.

You lift your hand, your fingers trembling as they hover just above his cheek. You know he isn’t real, not in the way you are, but in this moment, he feels real enough. The heat of your skin, the cool air between you—it all blurs together until the only thing you are sure of is him.

Slowly, carefully, your fingertips brush his skin.

It is faint—barely a touch at all, like reaching through fog—but it is there. For a second, maybe less, his skin feels solid beneath your fingers, cold but tangible. The breath catches in your throat as your hand lingers, the boundary between life and death blurring, blurring, blurring. His eyes flutter closed. 

But then, just as quickly, the sensation is gone. Your fingers slip through air, the chill of the room returning, and he is nothing more than a ghost again.

No, no, no your mind screams. A desperation in the way you reach for him again only to feel nothing. A hand over his chest is merely a hand in mid-air. You cannot feel the beat of his undead heart.

Yet, the weight of his gaze remains, heavy with something you cannot name. You want more. You want him to stay. You want to stay.

Leon’s lips part, the faintest hint of a breath escaping, and you swear you can almost hear him say something. Almost. His hand twitches, as if he is also trying to reach for you, but can’t quite cross the divide.

It is unbearable, the way you see him see you. 

You don’t tell Luis of what happened last night, refuse to unravel the complexities of the ache in your being that cannot be satiated anymore. 

It’s not pain exactly—at least not the kind Luis would understand. It’s deeper than that, a longing you can’t explain. You’re stuck here, you realise, tethered not by chains but by something far less visible, yet much harder to sever. 

Luis frowns when you tell him to go without you, that you’ll follow in a day or two. He doesn’t believe you, not entirely. There is scepticism in the way he argues, but you don’t have much fight left anymore. Maybe there isn’t in him, either.

You’d promised yourself this was temporary—a few nights, maybe a week—just long enough to get the evidence you needed. But those days had unravelled into something else. You couldn’t say when you’d first realised you weren’t going to leave. Maybe it was when the lights began to flicker in time with your heartbeat, or when the chill of the air began to feel like a ghost of a touch on your skin.

There was no evidence to gather anymore. No story left to tell but this one.

And perhaps, you think, that’s always been the truth of you—this love of yours, spilling over the edges of your heart until it found something, someone, to hold onto. Living or dead, it didn’t seem to matter. Love for you has never needed a pulse, just a presence.

You walk through the homestead, the familiar creak of the floorboards beneath your feet, and find that the air no longer feels heavy. There’s no longer that crushing weight on your chest, no musk of decay hanging like a warning. You breathe, and for the first time, the house feels still.

"Leon?" you call, your voice fragile, unsure.

The lights flicker in response, faint and distant.

Maybe, you think, this house has always been your grave.

likes n reblogs r very much appreciated <3

[imx-n]

In this time I’m learning how to navigate pain. Being in a space of having to allow myself to be taken care of & taking care of self I learned how I felt I was deserving of love. I feel in my life I am to be so broken down that I forget that I could be genuinely loved. Yes we know that there’s ppl in the world who’s has phobia towards those in the community, but we also have to deal with a lot of jealousy. The jealousy of when people love us they actually can say they love us because we’re living in our truth and they know who we are. Literal walking expressions of authenticity embodiments of god, but my authenticity and my will to not conform to a world who tells me that in order to make it I have to sell myself. In which I fell victim to at one point, feeling like I had to conform. I have to deal with the pain that comes with the hardships of being trans, being black, being an empress and being beautiful. I have to deal with the pain and the suffering of choosing to be authentic. People love to hate and hate to love someone who can be themselves without identifying the projections of the environment around them. Everyday I have to deal with someone trying to break my spirit bc of their lack thereof….spirit. It’s not easy. To live without. To be starved. To be forced to live in poverty. To be humiliated in front of ppl on a daily basis and the most someone is willing to give me is sex. No love, no support, no genuine care, no respect. Being confident in an insecure world the world begins to put you down to humble you bc who tf do you think you are. Loosing toxic relationships and people all around you. And I think of the pain I have to deal with knowing all I’ve been through or all I continue to go through and the only thing ppl can say to me is I look beautiful which is great but physical beauty is limiting and it entraps you. I literally cannot tell you the last time I’ve been nurtured before my trip to pure sweat sauna bar but I can tell you when’s the last time someone came to me for sex. I can’t tell you the last time I’ve had a relationship where I had no betrayal or didn’t end up beefing with a bitch after I literally prayed for them and thanked god for them. So then I ask myself do I be alone or do I use this attention to my advantage? Who do I trust?

My heart has been hurting so heavy and to be honest not even just for myself. Just been hurting bc I know so many people who go through the same things I go through. Who don’t have the strength or capacity to see it through and I get on knees and cry out to god. I hold my heart and I hurt bc when will things change whose gonna fight for them and I cry bc god could I do it? Can I be the change that’s needed for our kids, for our marriages, family, peers, our community. Who’s gonna shut this shit down. The outwardly oppressive nature of people and their need to abuse their power and because they’re the ones in power you get scared to speak. We need more good apples in the bunch fuck the superficiality fuck this reality tv shit. We need more practitioners, more doctors, more politicians, better ppl in the homeless shelters, more creative opportunities for the natives. We need a fresh start. You convince yourself it’s not that bad and in turn instead of ppl rallying behind you to stand on business it’s so much bigger than me. I think of this young kid who went through what I did being abused for being gay and for being trans by those who was supposed to raise me and protect they didn’t. Instead they rally and laugh and the mess they create and so many ppl die at the negligences of other ppl. My mother’s death for example. She was so neglected, so afraid to allow herself to be vulnerable, taken care of just loved to the point she lost her life. It hurt to see the same ppl saying r.i.p. was the same ppl who watched her demise and they could’ve did something then go to sleep at night like not my problem. When she was here where were you to show her the love and support she needed while she was sick? Where was y’all after the funeral? Where was y’all after taking her stuff? And for me I’m no longer fighting for relationships that don’t want to be had. Especially ones that are superficial and I guess that’s why I’ve been hurting because the death of my mother really showed me how alone I really am and how much she had to fight. I literally feel her pain sometimes nd it took a while for me to get to this place of feeling like myself. Feeling like I don’t need these vices or need these people who do nothing but add to my suffering instead of relieving it. A lot of “adults” really should be ashamed of themselves to be honest and if you can look at yourself as an adult in the mirror and love yourself after abusing a child or watching a child suffer you are sick and consider getting some help. Especially the ones within my family. Y’all spend your lives hating and tearing down the lives(not all, but if this triggers you. You need to ask yourself…why?) of the younger generation because you’re still a little kid in need of healing. That pain of having to walk away from those I’ve known, those I once loved, those who I realized gave no fucks about me lingers in my heart and soul and I don’t know if that will ever leave me. But the more I get to walk this life in my authenticity the more I heal, the more I grow and the more love I’m loving giving to those who deserve it. Life is not easy for nobody, but the least we can do is make it easier for each other by showing one another that it is indeed safe to live within love. Safe to be yourself. Safe to love yourself and safe to love others.

The more I feel pain. The more it reminds me that although I’m an intergalactic ex terrestrial being im still a human being on this earth. I can cry, I can laugh, I can be angry, I can literally do stupid shit and it’s okay. The more I feel pain the more I feel alive, but I’m in a space of switching that narrative to the more I feel love the more I feel alive. My self love pumps the blood out of my heart to another and that’s the beauty of being here. I know now without pain there’s no bliss, just like there’s no breath without air or no oceans without water. They have to coexist, but we do not have to stay stuck in cycles that aren’t good for us. It’s okay to be…healthy and we’re learning that umm…healthy is cool. That’s the true abundance and anything that just is not working is just unhealthy and we don’t want that. We don’t want to continue to constantly hurt ourselves bc of the lack of love we feel which is a lack of self love. I love myself so much that if I never get married, never get that dream house, never get that luxurious lifestyle I’m manifesting for myself, if I never have a family of my own wouldn’t say I’ll be happy, but I’ll be okay. Bc the love of myself which is also a love/connection to my 1st husband which is god is enough and I have enough to give to those who need it. I hope you felt it and I hope you don’t feel bad for not giving it back or if you didn’t feel the same bc it was genuine and you deserved that. Never settle for less bc you’re beautiful and I hope you begin to see that and treat yourself as such. Male or female. You’re beautiful so act like it and I need to start acting like it myself. Y’all I be forgetting who tf I am sometimes and I get so much hate I forget about the genuine love I get that have me in tears and remind me to keep going. And I get that love just by being myself so be yourself.

So I made a vow to take better care of myself as well as taking responsibility for my own life. discipline. Is step one for me. I found this sauna place which may be my new sanctuary if they’ll allow and I recommend y’all go. It’s such a beautiful place owned by a beautiful woman(she’s so knowledgeable stay tuned for the video. It felt so nice to be taught and so nice to sweat out everything as well as immerse myself closer to spirit) ran by women and it just felt like home. These next six months I promise they’ll be seeing me more. Something I wish we did more is take care and uplift our healers fr. So guys support, uplift and show love to them bc they showing it to us by providing spaces like these as you should be grateful. Savannah is such a trauma filled space including for myself and it needs healing. Sometimes I feel I need to leave bc the ptsd of being in these streets and the things I seen, the lovely connections and ppl I lost, and the things we did just to survive. As I navigate that pain I dive further into my healing and further into a deeper understanding of what it means to love & love yourself. 🙏🏾

If you know me I love a good sweat. One of my secrets to staying snatched mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally fr. Sometimes going to the gym is draining, but if you eat well, move your body a bit and sit in the sauna boy that weight & extra baggage will start falling off. Here’s some extra benefits as well for internal and external health.

1. Helps you relax

2. Improves heart health

3. Decrease chronic pain

4. Detoxification

5. Burns calories

6. Assists in workout recovery

7. Great for brain health

8. Induces better sleep

9.Weight management/loss

10. Boosts immune system & fights illness

11. Cleanses your skin

12. Respiratory system

13. Helps fight addiction providing recreational benefits

14. Improves flexibility

15. Great for prayer/meditation time.

I hope y’all enjoyed this message and very vulnerable post. Love y’all. I love myself. I love god. Thank you god and I pray you all can find that peace with god and yourself as I found in my short 25yrs of living and it’s only growing.

Cashapp: $222sun.

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[joinedtheghosts]

Been thinking a lot about the somewhat opposing (but not entirely so) notions of lifelong community vs the careful curation of who we spend time with/allow into our lives. This was partially spurred by my reading of this piece, Against Self-Sufficiency, which problematizes the almost flippant way in which some have come to conceptualize of community :

Nowadays, most people who have grown up with Western cultural values don't even know what a community is. It is not a subculture or a scene (see: “activist community” or “community accountability process”). Nor is it a real estate zone or municipal power structure (see: “gated community” or “community leaders”). If you will not starve to death without the other people that make up the group, it is not a community. If you don't know even a tenth of them since the day either you or they were born, it is not a community. If you can pack up and join another such group as easily as changing jobs or transferring to a different university, if the move does not change all the terms with which you might understand who you are in this world, it is not a community.

A community cannot be created in a single generation, and it cannot be created by an affinity group. In fact, you are not supposed to have affinity with most of the other people in your community. If you do not have neighbors that you despise, it is not a healthy community. In fact, it is the very existence of human bonds stronger than affinity or personal preference that make a community. And such bonds will mean there will always be people who prefer to live at the margins of the community. Whether the community allows this is what distinguishes the anti-authoritarian one from the authoritarian one.

Alternatively, this piece, Against Community Building, seems to disavow the notion of the community altogether, and instead herald friendship as the essential mechanism for mutual aid. Its author, ziq, writes that "The more time I spend amongst anarchists, the more I find the "anarchist community" ideal to be inherently unattainable and isolating. It seems every attempt at building an organized egalitarian community ends up enabling gross misconduct by certain members and the end result is always demoralizing burn-out for everyone involved. The attempt to group disparate strangers who barely get along, based on an imagined affinity (typically ideology, but painted in such broad strokes so as to be rendered inconsequential) inevitably manages to crash and burn every time." They seem to be pointing to the same issue about these newly amalgamated, ideology based communities, but turning to freedom of association and individual relationship building instead of longstanding intergenerational communities as a solution.

These two pieces have been floating around in my mind, alongside my recent lived experiences as a queer adult spending more time in the community of my childhood that I had to turn my back on completely in my late adolescence/the beginning of my twenties. I've experienced abuse. I've experienced community neglect stemming from imposed social structures and Western notions of privacy and the family unit. Despite these things, I think to sever ties completely with this community would be harmful to me, and antithetical to the types of community I seek. I am able to both recognize this and also build personal relationships and friendships and choose with whom I spend time and exchanged relationships of care. While it is not my personal experience, I also would relate this to these experiences of rural queer folks who are not interested in "escaping to the city" despite the adversity they will face. That is their home, that is their community. These spaces can be incredibly difficult to stay in and I have experienced first hand the necessity of leaving for a period of time, but I think the impact of staying within these communities is how we change and shape them in all the most beautiful and necessary ways.

[joeydrewkindaselfhoodirlthing]

i think you’re a panromantic lesbian who leans more towards men, but you’re still gay enough to like women and use them for your benefit, only to discard them when you’re done. you’re asexual ofc because nobody wants you, but you also think too highly of yourself, so you probably say “i don’t want it done to me” yet you’ll abuse people and use that asexuality excuse so nobody can come after you. i think your gender is demigirl or something because you’re not quite 100% (you’re 20% woman, 30% mental unstable, 10% delusional, 20% broke and in the slums, 18% disappointment, and 2% “man” or however you claim to be a boy). i think my math is right. anyway, you probably dabble a lot in neopronouns and i feel like you’re the type of person to use maybe nya/kawaii pronouns because you think you’re asian, although you’re painfully white passing and show absolutely no features of being asian, so your claims are either untrue or so minimal that you don’t have the right to label yourself as asian. get a dna test, freak. i hc your race to be white and irish. your religion is atheism because you probably believe you yourself to be a god when you’re not. some fun little hcs: you dye your hair every week because your “alters” want new hair colors, you only eat potatoes and corn. your “vessel’s” mother locks you up in a cage on the weekends for being a disappointment. you have to eat from a dog bowl, and if you don’t, you get kicked in the face (that’s why you look so deformed). you paint your nails pink to “break female stereotypes” when really you’re just solidifying them. your mental illnesses are adhd, schizophrenia, npd, ptsd (from your “abusive” partners and “horrible” childhood that made you form a “system”) and let me think… definitely not did/osdd and not bpd, i mark those off. you probably can’t drive and want to claim disability benefits so you don’t starve to death. oh right you also have an ed, i believe that. worthless piece of shit. you probably were severely neglected as a child because nobody could ever love a fucked up creature like you. i think these are all canon tbh, not just headcanons!

Joey is not panromantic and is not a lesbian. Ink is asexual because of trauma and developed sexual aversion disorder because of it. Ace is not a demigirl. Joey uses only ink/inks and a/ace for pronouns, which are neopronouns. Ink is Asian and not white. Joey isn't an atheist if you looked at the carrd ink has. Joey is a pagan luciferian angelhist Jew. If Joey would do that, we'd probably lose most of our hair from bleach, so, no, ink doesn't do that. A barely dyes ink's hair. We barely ever have potatoes and corn. She might be a shit mother, but she doesn't do anything even close to that.

A few of us alters like to paint our nails. Joy does as well, but ink is not a female. Joey has ADD, not ADHD. Schizophrenia is actually fairly likely as that runs in our bodily family on our bodily mother's side. No way in hell does Joey have NPD. It would be C-PTSD, which, yes, Joey does have. Clearly, ink has DID, and BPD is just a possibility. Yes, Joey can't drive. Lessons start in June/July around here, and you must be 16 for that. An age we turned bodily in December. Quite a few people in our system have them. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Do not call them headcanons. That's severely disrespectful. 🏢

[bts-trans]

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Story Translation:

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the value of life lies in finding individuals that are worthy of being admired. Looking at it broadly, my work where I had to study modern Korean artists can be said to have been one such process of finding this aim. From the end of the 19th century till 1950, Korea was a country that went through an enlightenment period characterized by chaos and the darkness of Japanese colonial rule and has seen war and division. Exploring the traces left behind by those who managed to survive this turbulent era isn't just exciting, many times it also brings with it a feeling of being sincere. Moreover, there's the mere fact that they'd take the risk of being an 'artist' of all things in a hard life where you couldn't even eat a light meal! What thought spurred them on to undertake this kind of work without a backup plan. In a time of 'commercialism' like the one today, how can one understand their 'romanticism'.

But it's inevitable that the active role of these individuals, who dispelled the darkness and spread light as this chaotic era went on, is seen as prominent. Regardless of the way the world turns, the numerous artists from modern Korean times overcome their own struggles and go through the process of sharpening their inner selves; they're the ones who have unveiled how to live according to one's own way. Whether the world understands them or not, between themselves, they would naturally understand each other, rely on one another and protect their 'wow factor' even if they were starving to death. Safeguarding the innate innocence and integrity is more valuable than anything else, these were the people that could leave the path of fruitless competition and power in the mundane world.

However, for the remainder of their life, they couldn't receive proper acknowledgement, were poor as they couldn't sell paintings or sculptures and even after death, couldn't receive their many royalties.

Even now, the names of modern artists that most Koreans know of to the best of their ability are Lee Joong Seop, Park Su…

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Story Translation:

…It stops at around this point. Reality is a bit disappointing because many people who can list a lot of foreign authors, do not know much about Korean writers. In a way, is this not because of the neglect of experts including myself?

I don't want to claim that artists have an existence that is especially grand. I can, of course, talk about whether Park Soo-geun* or Moon Shin² possessed a superhumanly strong will, that Na Hye-seok³ and Chang Ucchin⁴ were so tenacious that nobody could stand in their way or whether or not Kim Hyang-an⁵ or Park Rae-hyun*⁶ were especially wise. However, that does not mean that they were transcendent, perfect beings completely different from us. They were perhaps more human than all of us and had many imperfections within themselves. And there must have been many occasions where they felt the hardships of the world more acutely.

In my opinion, the aspect that makes these artists great lies in the way they respond to hardships that may befall anyone. No matter what situation they're placed in, they're those who remain faithful to the nature and basics of humanity. Innocent in the way they cherish humanity, their ability to express this is because they've honestly taken stock of the world contained within themselves. Since they can't make their craft if they don't protect the vulnerable inner parts of themselves, they can't surrender to the demands of the world outside of them. This is why their existence is one that absolutely requires them to live life with dignity and honesty.

If we feel touched looking at an artist's life or work, then it might just be the result of that artist's "stance towards life." The hardships life throws at you…

(T/N: *Park Soo-geun was a Korean painter.

Moon Shin was a Korean painter and sculptor.

Na Hye-seok was a poet and writer.

Chang Ucchin was a modern Korean artist.

Kim Hyang-an was a Korean modern and contemporary artist.

Park Rae-hyun was a Korean painter)

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ㅎ2 @thv

hi @/thv

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