#unpack situations no matter how uncomfortable it is

[ask-codeearasure]

I'm adding this here because of how the Undertale Community has done similar things though I don't know if it ever reached this extent, as I've said before I've only ever been a mere light observer. I've only engaged with a small bit of the community once and then said "never again" after that (fuck Undertale Discord Servers. I'm never doing that shit again, even if it kills me)

If you ever engage with "I don't like [insert random creator/person]" type of things, the best way to gage if you've fallen for a bandwagon of hate that is jumping into creepy levels of behavior is by saying "Hey let's unpack the situation and see where it started" and then start asking for FULL UNCUT SCREENSHOTS.

I'm not talking this:

IM TALKING THIS:

(Note: I'm using these as an example because I'm not giving you guys screen names of random people who probably don't want their screen names to be out and about here. Ya weirdo)

If the people around you start throwing a fit about it and not wanting to look at the screenshots and just not wanting to unpack the situation(s) or even just devolving into throwing dehumanizing and violent rhetoric your way, you need to get out and fast.

Disengage and block them immediately.

They view you as someone who is either a threat or a "shit stirrer" because unpacking and talking about a situation critically is uncomfortable to them and holds up a mirror that shows them they're in the wrong.

This goes for personal relationships and online discourse about random creators.

If you are actively discouraged from looking at the evidence critically and asking for FULL CONTEXT screenshots, you've found a red flag and are seeing nothing but bullshit that is made to demonize someone who probably doesn't deserve it.

-- Ouija

How to spot a smear campaign:

Victims’s “crimes” will be enlarged, and even if they’re small missteps, they will be treated as if only the worst person on the planet would do such a thing

Accusations against the victim will always be a reach, aka, they did ‘this little thing’ but it actually means they’re a racist/murderer/genocide supporter/fascist/have blood on their hands, even when the person’s actions never conformed to those crimes

All and any actions of the victims will be misenterpreted in the worst possible way, anything the person does will be taken as an offense and intentions will be read as hostile and manipulative, regardless of how clear they are

All victim’s actions will be taken out of context; ie, victim said something cruel to someone, but they take out the context of the victim being abused, threatened, tortured, forced into defense mode and finally attacking out of desperation to defend themselves and get free

The victim will commonly get provoked into giving a bad reaction, (anyone gets defensive if they’re accused of the crimes they never did, or simply triggering insults until they snap), and the reaction will become the new ‘proof’ that the victim is in fact, evil and guilty

A lot of pressure will be put on you to react 'correctly’ to the smear campaign; if you don’t accept to demonize this person at once, you’re getting scrutinized, shamed for your lack of morality, told that you support all these horrid things and that you are just as despicable

You will notice a trend of people ganging together based on their demonization of the victim; they will set a standard where you’re accepted and welcome if only you also will demonize and hate this person, and if you don’t, you’re blocked, cast out, and accused of causing harm

It will feel very easy to accept to demonize this person, and going against it will feel risky, like going against the grain, doubting the word of the many and risking being demonized yourself.

The smear campaign continues all the way until the victim is chased out of the community and denied a voice, even if the victim commits no further crimes, awful things will be said about them, their past 'misdeeds’ continually brought up, until the victim is commonly believed to be worthless, and becomes completely isolated, scared of society and alone

There will be no limit to what is considered okay to do to the victim of a smear campaign; even if the victim is accused of minor bad behaviour, it will become okay to threaten, insult, shout slurs, trigger, provoke, humiliate, manipulate, and repeat any kind of abusive behaviour to the victim, all because 'they’re bad so they deserve it���.

People leading the smear campaign will switch between being 'extremely grossed out and enraged’ to showing absolute joy and satisfaction when they find a new reason to demonize and smear the victim. People truly horrified of someone’s actions do not get a leap of joy when a new disaster happens, they’re not beside themselves to abuse the perpetrator all over again.

It will never, ever be acceptable to show any mercy to the victim. Forgiveness is out of the question, trying to understand them is out of the question. Even reading or listening to what this person is saying will be banned and forbidden, unless it’s for humiliating purposes. They will be shown as absolutely irredeemable, and associating yourself with them as evil and unforgivable. You will be instructed to block or unfollow or report the person based on what you’re told, without any significant proof.

Do not fall for smear campaigns. If a large amount of people all agree that a person is the worst, but their story is exaggerated, out of context, sounds fictional, and doesn’t show any proof, and the people switch from being enraged to eager, doubt it. Participating in a smear campaign will help the abusers isolate and abuse someone, and you do not want to be a part of it. They will also smear anyone who stands up to their abuse, so you’re helping the abusers to create a place where pointing out abuse gets you cast out of the community.

[deepestdelulu]

Learning to love yourself ౨ৎ

Celebrate yourself. Every accomplishment deserves to be acknowledged, no matter how big or small. Stop putting yourself down by thinking that you don't deserve to celebrate your achievements just because others have accomplished "greater things." Also, there is so much fun in hyping small wins; call your girlfriend, bake a cake, and enjoy yourself!!

Invest time in things that you love. Doing what makes you happy is essential for your mental health. It's so important to pursue one's small and simple pleasures without the intention of turning them into profit!!

Boundaries and relationships. Learn to say no, define and set boundaries, question your current relationships and friendships, and distance yourself from people who make you feel unloved or worthless.

Allow yourself to grow. Let go of the notion that you are undeserving of growth. Acknowledge the past for what it is, learn from it, and grow from it.

Refelct. Getting to know yourself deeply is key to self-love; journaling is a great way to reflect. Ask yourself questions, question your habits, observe how you respond in certain situations, etc...

Trust yourself and your intuition. Listen to yourself, and don't dismiss the small cues that your inner voice gives you!!

Care for yourself. It is not selfish to look after yourself. Start exercising, eat balanced and healthy, stay hydrated, educate yourself, read complex literature, consume media mindfully, prioritise your sleep and routines, care for your skin and hair...

Be patient. Self-love takes time; you must slowly unpack and unlearn past habits, confront uncomfortable thoughts and memories, and gain a deep understanding of yourself. Give yourself time and approach this as a journey to enjoy. <3

[malusokay]

Learning to love yourself 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

Celebrate yourself. Every accomplishment deserves to be acknowledged, no matter how big or small. Stop putting yourself down by thinking that you don't deserve to celebrate your achievements just because others have accomplished "greater things." Also, there is so much fun in hyping small wins; call your girlfriend, bake a cake, and enjoy yourself!!

Invest time in things that you love. Doing what makes you happy is essential for your mental health. It's so important to pursue one's small and simple pleasures without the intention of turning them into profit!!

Boundaries and relationships. Learn to say no, define and set boundaries, question your current relationships and friendships, and distance yourself from people who make you feel unloved or worthless.

Allow yourself to grow. Let go of the notion that you are undeserving of growth. Acknowledge the past for what it is, learn from it, and grow from it.

Refelct. Getting to know yourself deeply is key to self-love; journaling is a great way to reflect. Ask yourself questions, question your habits, observe how you respond in certain situations, etc...

Trust yourself and your intuition. Listen to yourself, and don't dismiss the small cues that your inner voice gives you!!

Care for yourself. It is not selfish to look after yourself. Start exercising, eat balanced and healthy, stay hydrated, educate yourself, read complex literature, consume media mindfully, prioritise your sleep and routines, care for your skin and hair...

Be patient. Self-love takes time; you must slowly unpack and unlearn past habits, confront uncomfortable thoughts and memories, and gain a deep understanding of yourself. Give yourself time and approach this as a journey to enjoy. <3

You guys ALWAYS ask about self-love and confidence, sooo I hope this can be a little helpful to some of you and as always, please feel free to share your own suggestions and tips in the comments!! ♡

love ya ･:*₊‧౨ৎ

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

Eddie is gushing about Steve to Robin and he mentions how it's so fucking metal the way he never shies away from danger. Like, quite the opposite, he literally jumps right into it without a second thought!

And suddenly Robin remembers how Steve wanted to be tortured by the actual real Russian secret service if it meant that his then friendly coworker who he never saw outside of Scoops would be at least a little bit safer. And she notices for the first time how Steve always makes sure that everyone is safe before he leaves a dangerous place - how he makes sure to always be the last one - and she thinks fuck.

(She feels so fucking bad. He is her best friend. Her soulmate. The person who knows her best and vice-versa. How has she never noticed this before?!)

They start paying closer attention to him, then. Neither like what they see. Steve's eyebags grow bigger with every day that passes. He doesn't eat a lot. He can never say no to others, no matter how much it inconveniences him. And when Robin and Eddie gush about what an awesome person he is, he gets an uncomfortable expression on his face and denies it. Robin had never noticed how most their interactions were self-deprecating jokes until now, either.

They need to stage an intervention.

The next time Steve walks through the doors of Family Video, Robin and Eddie are ready. They lay down all the facts and propose a simple deal: either go talk to a professional, or they will explain everything to the rest of the party and they will force him to talk to a professional. It will end the same way no matter what he chooses, might as well take the path with least resistance.

The only thing that sounds worse than paying a stranger to talk about his feelings is to be forced to talk about them to his friends, so he agrees.

He doesn't think it will make a difference, at first. It's not like he is allowed to talk about monsters and other dimensions.

The first session is awkward. But Robin and Eddie always look at him with such worried and expectant looks and he cannot bear to burden them in any way, so he starts opening up more. He can't talk about the time he almost got eaten by Demogorgons in a secret supernatural underground tunnelsystem, but he can talk about the time Billie almost beat him to death. He can't talk about the secret Russian operation beneath the mall, but he can talk about almost dying in the "mall fire". (His memories of his time there are all scrambled because of the drugs, anyway. It is more about the 'near-death' thing and never being able to feel safe, which he can talk about)

He doesn't mean to talk about his interpersonal relationships at first. But then his therapist cautiously asks him about his parents, and before he knows it he is spilling beans he didn't even know needed to be spilled. He talks about how he only seems to be friends with people who went through traumatic experiences with him, and what does that say about him? He talks about when he first realized that other kids are not left behind by their parents for months at a time. He finally starts unpacking the whole Nancy situation and realizes, wow, turns out he isn't nearly as over the whole thing as he'd hoped. (There are a lot of tears).

He seamlessly fills session after session, and at first he doesn't think that it makes much of a difference. Until the kids meet him after he is exhausted from a double shift at Family Video and beg him to drive them somewhere or other, and he can say no and not give in without fearing that they will cast him aside.

(Robin and Eddie are smug when they also notice the changes, but Steve supposes they have earned it this one time.)

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

You know, if I have to read another take or fic that treats Ed ordering that racist French captain skinned with the snail fork as proof of Ed's anger issues, or, somehow bizarrely commonly, has Stede talk down to him about it, I'm gonna lose it. Both Ed and Stede indirectly cause some pretty major violence in s1e5, but only Ed's seems to be proof of a violent nature. Strange.

And I'm honestly a bit tired of talking around this, because when you look at what some portions of this fandom can excuse and what they can't, it becomes very obvious how this is really just a racism problem. I mean, in this episode:

Ed responds to racist abuse by ordering the French captain killed. It's in the context of him having already given the captain a chance to back the fuck off ("what's that supposed to mean," said very calmly considering we all know what "your kind" means), has to visibly hype himself up to start yelling, and is responding to being called a donkey. It's vile and Ed deserves to be upset, not to mention he knows he can't just let that slide when senior crew members like Fang are right there watching. Ed is visibly upset and shaken by this whole situation and what he thinks it says about him as a person.

Stede, upon learning that the party guests were cruel to Ed (in a passive-aggressive but undoubtedly racist way), is angry on his behalf, and also wants to retaliate, just as Ed did earlier. It's sweet that he's defending Ed, but this is surely also personal for Stede, who felt mocked and belittled earlier and has had to deal with a lifetime of that. We see the results of Stede's playing the crowd here, with the boat burning in the background and the screams of people jumping out into the open sea, and Stede is also visibly pretty stoked about the whole thing.

There's no way around it, I think: we have been conditioned to think it's morally superior for someone to "turn the other cheek" and "be the bigger person" in the face of racist abuse, and Ed doesn't do that, so that's why this is still such a big issue for some people. When Ed gets upset again at the party, unlike earlier when Stede was put off by Ed ordering the captain skinned, Stede validates his feelings and is the one to respond, and that's the difference in reactions, I think. In the second case, Stede has validated Ed's anger and pain - Ed's feelings have gotten White Permission to exist.

OFMD does something really very unusual in the current media landscape, and that's how it treats racism in itself as violence. It doesn't expect characters to look away, turn the other cheek, or try to make amends with racists when they're cruel to them. And the only problem here wrt Ed is that some viewers of the show, bringing in the biases of the society we live in, will get uncomfortable when Ed acts in accordance with the show's philosophy - it doesn't matter that Stede is much more gleeful about being the one to respond in a similar situation, it matters that Ed is brown, and we therefore expect him to have to put up racist abuse. The show doesn't ask us to pass judgment on Ed in this episode, and I think that if you're automatically more inclined to believe Stede's actions more "reasonable" and "justified" than Ed's, you just might need to unpack that.

[bellaxgiornata]

Falling For the Devil [Part eighty-six: "The Moving Day"]

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader

Summary: The day you move in with Matt has finally arrived!

Or Some strange, nervous feeling eats at you all day and then keeps you up that night.

[Series of one-shots about Reader meeting, falling for, and dating Matt Murdock.]

Warnings: 18+ for this series; contains humor, fluff, romance, angst, smut (like...a lot of it later in the series), language, some violence

Word Count: 4.8k

a/n: Somehow light angst crept into this installment when I was writing it and it took me a few days to figure out why Reader was acting so strange on me and Matt, BUT I figured it out and left it in for some Sweet Matty at the end. Y'all know I love the shit out of him. So technically this is a light bit of angst with comfort at the end? Either way, I hope you enjoy Reader FINALY MOVING IN WITH MATT! Y'all that have been reading this series since back in February have been waiting months in real time just for this day to finally come!! Now it's finally here! And as always, feedback is always appreciated!

Tag List: @ninacotte @mattkinsella @stilldreaming666 @murdocksclient @madscamp02 @1988-fiend @lina-mar @pinkratts @schneeflocky @acharliecoxedfan @yarrystyleeza @theetherealbloom @danzer8705 @lionalsowrites @harperdoodle

The movers had already finished bringing all of your things up into Matt’s apartment–or rather, both of yours’ apartment as you’d often had to keep reminding yourself today–about twenty minutes ago. You knew Matt, Foggy, and Karen would be showing up from their half day at the office any minute, which was why you'd begun unpacking in the bedroom first. You didn’t particularly need your friends helping you put away your underwear and some of the other, more personal items which you had packed in your bedroom boxes. Though you certainly had a feeling Marci would only be all too happy to snoop when she showed up later after work.

Fortunately it hadn’t taken you long to put away your more private items before you’d moved on to hanging up more of your clothing in the left hand side of the closet where Matt had long ago made space for your things. On the far right neatly hung all of his suits with their braille tags on each of the hangers. Seeing more of your things hanging next to his still had you feeling inexplicably giddy, but ever since you’d left your apartment for the last time this morning and come to Matt’s, something else that you couldn’t quite place had slowly begun to take root in your mind. 

This whole situation felt surreal to you. You’d spent a long time wanting to be with Matt during your friendship after you had first met him. Through all of that time you never thought you would be good enough for him, never remotely the kind of woman who could possibly catch Matthew Murdock's attention. Not after you had seen all of the women he usually had been hit on by and those you’d seen him flirt with in return. And especially not with how charismatic, intelligent, and successful he was. You were just the awkward journalist that he’d always said made any situation highly amusing and uncomfortable in a matter of seconds. Yet here you were, hanging your skirts next to his dress slacks in the same closet. Your toothbrush sat next to his on the bathroom counter. And soon your coffee mugs and dishware would be mixed in along with his on the shelves in the kitchen. 

Because you were finally moving in with him. 

The full reality of the situation hadn’t completely hit you yet. Though you had a feeling it would later tonight, after all your friends had left and it was just you and Matt here afterwards, when all of your things were fully blended with his. Despite the excitement you felt at moving in with Matt, and with what that might mean for your relationship moving forward, there had been a nagging feeling in the back of your mind slowly growing louder as the day wore on. You knew you were going to be freaking out once the giddiness wore off and the reality settled in, but you’d tried to keep that pushed to the side as you unpacked. You didn’t have time to try to unpack that right now, too.

As you finished hanging one of your skirts on a hanger, you overheard the sound of the apartment door unlocking before it swung open. It was mere seconds before you heard Matt’s voice through the apartment.

“Sweetheart?” he called out.

Chewing your lip, your heart nervously sped up in your chest at the sound of his voice. You hung up the skirt you’d had in your hand in the closet before you turned and made your way out of the bedroom. As you maneuvered around the boxes, you could hear the loud scoff Foggy made all the way across the apartment. 

“Matt!” he complained. “You were supposed to shout ‘honey, I’m home’ when you came in!”

“Foggy, I told you I wasn't doing that,” Matt replied.

A small grin settled on your face as you listened to the three of them taking their shoes off in the entryway hall. You did your best to navigate through the messy living room where there were boxes piled everywhere as you listened to them. 

“Don’t ruin this for me, Matt!” Foggy snapped. “This is a big day for me!”

“For you?” Karen said with a laugh. “You’re not the one moving in!”

“No, but do you know how long I hoped for this day for Matt?” Foggy countered. “ Especially after learning about what he does in his free time outside of work? I never thought he’d find someone and settle down. I was afraid he’d be alone forever!”

“Thanks, Fog,” Matt said flatly.

Skirting around another stack of boxes, you heard Matt calling out your name. You laughed lightly as you overheard Karen and Foggy continuing the conversation Matt clearly wasn’t remotely interested in.

“I’m here, Matty,” you called back. “Just trying to make my way through the mess that has become your place.”

“Our place,” he immediately corrected.

“Right, yeah,” you agreed quickly. “That might take me a bit to get used to.”

You came to a stop beside the leather couch when Matt came into view at the end of the entryway hall. Grinning wide at the sight of him standing there smiling in your direction, you felt your cheeks heat. 

For some reason you felt unnecessarily nervous. You hadn’t seen Matt since yesterday morning, and because you’d spent most of this past week packing, you’d been unable to spend much time with him. You hadn’t seen him nearly as much this week as you often did, so now the sight of him was suddenly shaking loose all sorts of dormant butterflies in your stomach. Once again you were awkwardly gnawing on your bottom lip, unsure how to properly greet him in the moment–and then that was only making you further nervous.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Matt said, sliding his glasses off of his face.

Matt’s eyes lowered to your chest, a small smile playing across his lips. No doubt he was noticing the way your heart was nervously beating at the moment. You knew he always loved the way it reacted to him, but you also knew he was unaware of exactly why you were nervous this time. Granted, you weren’t entirely sure what was with your nerves, either, today.

“Hey, Matty,” you greeted back softly.

You continued to worry your bottom lip between your teeth, your hands fidgeting in front of yourself as you took in the sight of him. His suit coat was draped over one of his arms, leaving him in just his light blue dress shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up already. He looked good–like he always did–just standing there smiling at you with so much warmth and love on his face.

“For fuck’s sake– kiss her already!” Foggy shouted.

“Foggy,” Karen sharply reprimanded him.

Your cheeks only flamed further as Matt’s smile widened. Wordlessly he crossed the room, easily stepping around a box as he made his way towards you. Breath catching in your throat, you watched as he tossed his suit coat onto the back of his couch in a fluid motion before he was standing before you. Without pause his hands reached up and cradled your face in both of his palms, tilting your mouth up towards his before he dove in for a sweet, lingering kiss. When he pulled back away, smiling down at you with that absolutely breathtaking smile of his, you were left stunned and speechless.

“It was lonely here without you this week,” he whispered.

You swore your heart skipped a beat in your chest. “Well I’m–I’m here now, Matty,” you murmured.

“Great!” Foggy exclaimed, clapping his hands loudly together and causing Matt and you to jump apart. “Now let’s get started unpacking so we can get to the pizza and beer part of the day!”

______

Changing out of the jeans and tee-shirt you’d been wearing all day, you gradually got ready for bed in the bedroom. Down the hall, you could hear Matt brushing his teeth in the bathroom. You both were worn out from the excitement of the day, and you were just ready for sleep already. Between overseeing the movers, unpacking all of your things into Matt’s space, and socializing with your friends, you felt exhausted. And for some unexplainable reason there was still something that just felt off with you. There was still some nervous energy you could feel lingering inside of you that you couldn’t quite place. It had only grown stronger ever since your friends had left and Matt and you had straightened up the apartment a bit before bed.

It made no sense why you felt this way, either. It wasn’t as if you hadn’t stayed the night at Matt’s apartment countless times over the past few months now. You’d spent many nights brushing your teeth and changing your clothes getting ready for bed here, plugging your phone into the very same charger on the nightstand by your side of the bed at least a hundred times now. You knew Matt wanted you here–hell, he’d told you that at least ten times today already.

So why were you feeling that nervous, queasy feeling in your stomach? Why was the prospect of staying here tonight–and every night from here on out–giving you butterflies of a different kind all of the sudden? Why was there that nagging little voice in the back of your head still growing louder and louder despite your inability to decipher its meaning? It didn’t make sense.

“You alright?” 

Startling at Matt’s voice, you spun on the spot and found him standing in the doorway of the bedroom. His brows were drawn together on his forehead as he eyed you curiously. 

“Yeah,” you said with a nod, turning and grabbing the pair of cotton sleep shorts you had laid out on the side of the bed. “I’m just tired. It was a long day.”

“You want me to get the light for you?” he asked.

“Sure, thanks,” you replied.

As you pulled your shorts up your legs, you noticed how Matt hesitated in the doorway, just silently focused on you. It wasn’t until you grabbed your shirt from the bed next that Matt finally turned off the light before you heard him gradually making his way through the bedroom and over towards his side of the bed. 

You knew he’d already undressed before brushing his teeth, currently wearing nothing but his usual black boxers as he pulled the sheets back on his side of the bed. Normally that would elicit a reaction from your body, because knowing he was almost naked and you were about to be in bed with him, even when you were too tired for sex, made you feel something . Because he looked like one of those Greek gods chiseled from marble under his clothes and your body always unconsciously reacted to him. But tonight all you felt was that ball of nerves sitting in the pit of your stomach. It didn’t help that you figured he was probably picking up on something being off with you, too. 

Drawing the sheets back, you climbed into the bed beside Matt. Nervously you rolled onto your side to face him, soon feeling his warm hands landing on your hips over the fabric of your clothes. Grabbing you tenderly, Matt pulled you in towards his body and until you were resting with your head on his chest. He gradually settled underneath you, one arm wrapped under your waist while the other draped over the top of it. Timidly your own hand reached out as you lightly slid it across his toned, warm chest. 

“Mmm, finally,” Matt contentedly hummed out. “I spent all week missing falling asleep with you, but now I’ll always have you here with me.”

For some reason his words only caused the nerves to twist in your stomach just a bit more. You hummed out an affirmative noise in response, unable to trust your voice as you smiled softly in the dark. Internally you were trying to understand what the hell was going on with you. You’d been so excited this morning at the prospect of finally moving in with him. Excited that this move meant Matt and you were so much closer to bigger things in your relationship–like a possible engagement. 

So what the hell was with this strange, nervous feeling?

You startled when you felt Matt’s fingers gently brushing some of your hair from your face, having been too deep in your thoughts to have noticed he’d moved. You knew he’d caught that little surprised jump instantly when his fingers paused along your temple.

"Are you sure you're alright, sweetheart?" Matt asked carefully. "You've seemed unusually nervous today. Your body still seems a bit tense."

“I uhm,” you began, your index finger lightly tracing a pattern along Matt’s bare chest, “I’m just a little nervous. You know me.”

You laughed briefly, trying to make light of the situation so he would drop it. You knew how excited Matt was for you to finally be here and how long he’d been waiting for this moment. And it certainly wasn’t like you hadn’t felt the same, but you didn’t want to ruin your first night here with these weird nerves you couldn’t begin to explain. Knowing Matt, he’d feel bad and think he’d done something wrong, or that your anxious feeling was somehow because you didn’t want this or him–which was not the case. You’d never been more sure of anyone before. You knew you loved Matt.

“Okay,” he said slowly, his fingers sliding down from where they’d lingered along your temple to lovingly stroke your cheek. “But if you want to talk, you know I’m always here. You can tell me anything, sweetheart.”

You forced the smile onto your face again as you gazed up at him from your place along his chest, the rough pads of his fingers still tracing your cheekbone gently. He was so good to you and that only made you feel worse about hiding something from him, no matter how stupid it seemed. 

“I’m just tired,” you told him. “It was a long day dealing with everything with the move. I’m sure I’ll be my normal, slightly less nervous self in the morning.”

“I’ll love you however you are in the morning,” he murmured, leaning forward to kiss your forehead. “Because I love you .”

A more genuine smile slipped onto your lips, your eyes closing. “I love you, too, Matty,” you whispered back.

Silence settled in the bedroom as you felt Matt’s body relax beneath you. No doubt he was exhausted from having worked late last night, helping you unpack your things today, and then trying to relearn where some things now were in the space that had been just his for so long. You knew he’d had a long day, too.

With your eyes closed, you tried to let yourself relax and drift off to sleep. You did your best to focus on the usual faint sounds of the city a few floors below the apartment in conjunction with the steady breaths you could just barely hear coming from Matt. Despite how toned and firm Matt’s body was, you’d always found lying with your head on his chest far more comfortable than using a pillow. You weren’t sure if it was really because Matt was that comfortable or if you just loved that level of closeness and intimacy with him, though for some reason tonight you were finding yourself unable to just fall asleep. 

Without a clock, you weren’t sure how long you’d laid there awake, curled up alongside Matt trying and failing to sleep. Though it had to have been awhile because you’d long since noticed Matt had fallen asleep, the steady and rhythmic rise and fall of his chest easily cluing you in. Yet still you just couldn’t shake that nervous feeling swirling uncomfortably inside of you. The longer you tried to force sleep to come, the more awake you steadily felt yourself becoming. 

Eyes flying back open, you laid there for a moment in the dark as they tried to adjust to the near blackness in the bedroom. Gradually your head rose and fell along with each of Matt’s even breaths, but you only found yourself growing more restless next to his peaceful form. Lifting your head slowly from him, you very carefully tried to disentangle yourself from the hold he had on you without waking him. Which truthfully was a near impossible feat to accomplish– except for when he’d recently fallen into a deep sleep. Like right now.

Moving slowly, you slid towards the edge of the bed, carefully pulling the sheets from yourself  before you climbed off of the mattress. A chill ran through you at the loss of Matt’s body heat, the cold air of the apartment in comparison drawing goosebumps along your bare arms. You pulled the sheets back up on the bed and turned, quietly making your way towards the bedroom door. Cautiously you slid it open, not fully closing it all the way behind yourself afterwards before you turned and focused on the space before you. 

Now that you were out of bed, you weren’t entirely sure what to do. As you stood there trying to figure it out, your arms wrapping around your chest, you watched the light from the billboard just outside the large windows wash the space in a glow of blues and greens. After a moment you figured you could get yourself a glass of water and that might help you relax.

Making your way through the living room towards the kitchen, you came to a stop just in front of the shelf filled with cups. Both your glass cups and Matt’s were perfectly lined up side by side. On the shelf beside it, your plates and bowls were stacked neatly on top of the few that Matt already had. For a minute you just found yourself staring at them, realizing how full Matt’s normally sparse shelves looked. Glancing back over your shoulder, you spotted your television stand now situated across from Matt’s leather couch, your television sitting on top of it. The two armchairs that had always been opposite the coffee table were both now to the left of the couch, still giving Matt plenty of room to navigate from the entry hall to the living room, and from the living room to the stairs that led to the roof access. It looked different though, despite the familiar light from the billboard swathing the furniture in a myriad of colors. 

As you stood there staring at the furniture, that nauseating, nervous feeling finally fully uncoiled inside of yourself. You suddenly understood what had been gnawing at you all day. 

It felt almost familiar here. It wasn’t quite Matt’s place that you’d grown accustomed to over the year the two of you had been together, but at the same time it still was the apartment you’d spent so much time at. But it just felt different. It certainly wasn’t your apartment and it wasn’t exactly his, either. It was something else entirely. And that was what had been nagging at you all day–the unfamiliarity of this space.

For some reason the longer you stared at the television and everything that looked different and changed, the more you felt the increasing sting of tears in your eyes. Why you were suddenly getting emotional was beyond you, though. Reaching up, you wiped a hand at your eyes, trying to force the tears back. Somehow that only had them watering more.

And that was precisely when you heard the bedroom door slide open all the way and you jumped in the kitchen at the sound. Your focus shifted from the television to Matt standing at the edge of the bedroom, clad in only his dark boxers. There was a small frown on his face as he focused on you, his head slightly tilted to the side.

“Sweetheart?” he called out. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

You nodded immediately, trying to smile despite the tears still welling up. “Yeah, Matty, I’m fine,” you answered.

His shoulders dropped at your words and you wondered if that had registered as a lie to his ears. Matt immediately began shuffling his way towards you through the living room, his bare feet gently padding along the floor as he moved. You saw his brows faintly pull together and noticed the frown was still on his face as he made his way towards you. His focus never left you as he maneuvered around the rearranged space, though. 

“Are you crying?” he asked softly, entering the kitchen.

“No, I–”

You stopped at the same time Matt came to stand just in front of you. A look of concern was etched on his face as he reached a hand up, his fingers gently grabbing onto your chin and tilting your face up towards him. His eyes worriedly scanned around your face, searching for answers as he quietly said your name.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I–I just–” you broke off, shaking your head as he still held your chin. “It just feels…different here. Not the same,” you finally admitted. 

“Is that what’s been bothering you all day today?” he asked.

Pressing your lips together, you nodded. Matt’s expression softened as he continued to gaze back at you, his thumb brushing along your chin.

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” he asked.

“Because I didn’t want to upset you. And I didn’t know what I was feeling,” you confessed. “Not until I couldn’t sleep and I came out here and saw your furniture all rearranged and a television in your living room. And–”  you waved a hand at the shelves beside you, “– actual dishware on your kitchen shelves. And there’s a fruit bowl with actual fruit on your counter. I mean there’s–there’s actually food in the fridge here, not just beer and eggs,” you continued on, the words tumbling out of you. “All of my clothes are in your closet or your dresser now. There’s tampons in your bathroom, Matt!” you exclaimed, the little amused chuckle he made barely registering in your ears as the words continued to nervously spill out of you. “I have dirty clothes in your laundry bin and my skincare products in your medicine cabinet and a vibrator in the nighstand–”

“What’s that now?” Matt asked, quick to cut you off as his brows rose, a cheeky little smile pulling at his lips. “What’s in the nightstand?”

You shot Matt a pointed look, one hand lightly swatting at his bare chest. The cheeky smile grew into a grin as he released your chin, both of his hands landing on your hips as he took a step closer towards you, closing the bit of space there had been.

“It feels different to me, too,” Matt admitted. “Things aren’t where I’m used to them being. And your scent is vastly stronger now with all of your things here. Not to mention there’s now a light buzz from the television–”

“I’m sorry,” you immediately blurted.

He continued to grin, shaking his head. “Don’t apologize, I can tune it out. I don’t expect you to never relax and watch your shows again, sweetheart. Or to not keep tampons in the bathroom or food in the fridge. But do you know why it feels different?” he asked you.

“Because all of my shit is here cluttering up your space now?” you joked.

He silently shook his head, suddenly walking you backwards and guiding you with the hands he had on your hips. Your brows drew together as he led you a handful of steps back until you eventually bumped into the counter behind you. Before you knew what was happening, Matt’s hands had lifted you up and set you on the countertop behind you, that smile on his face never wavering as the billboard washed him in red. His hands slid your bare knees apart as he slotted himself between your legs, your faces almost eye level now as he focused along your mouth.

“Because it isn’t my place and it isn’t your place,” he whispered. “It’s our place. And it might feel a little different,” he continued, his hands making their way to behind your back as he clasped them together, his eyes still focused on you. “And maybe it’s a little overwhelming right now, too.” 

He leaned forward, lowering his face to press a kiss to your shoulder. Your eyelids dropped closed, a small smile playing along your lips at the sweet gesture. Arms raising up, you encircled them around Matt’s neck and held him to you.

“But this place is what we make it now,” he finished softly. “You and me. Because it’s ours . Like I’ve been saying all this time.”

Eyelids fluttering open, you saw Matt’s face was mere inches from yours now. A tender expression was etched along his features as he stared back at you, slowly lowering his forehead to yours. Leaning in towards him, you connected your mouth to his for a kiss that was full of emotion. His mouth moved so gentle and slow against yours, the feel of him reassuring and calming. You could feel all of your nerves slowly dissipating and leaving your body the longer he kissed you. Relaxing even further into him, your arms tightened around his neck as he deepened the kiss. 

The two of you stayed like that in the kitchen for a few minutes, entirely lost in the moment, before Matt gradually broke away. His nose lightly bumped against yours, a smile tugging his lips upwards. Biting your own lip, you couldn’t fight back the smile that was slowly spreading across your mouth in return.

“You know, I told you I bought mint ice cream in the event you needed some comfort tonight,” he reminded you. 

You rolled your eyes. “Matt, it’s late,” you pointed out. Removing your forehead from his, you glanced at the time on the oven behind him. “It’s almost three in the morning.”

“So?” he asked.

He unwound his arms from around your waist, in turn causing you to remove your arms from around his neck. He took a couple of steps to the right, opening the silverware drawer and pulling out two spoons. As he closed the drawer he glanced up at you, a small smirk pulling at his lips as he raised a dark brow at you. He held out one of the spoons.

“You want some?” he asked. “Or are you going to make me eat toothpaste flavored ice cream at almost three in the morning all by myself?”

Warmth flooded your chest as you stared back at Matt standing there, a spoon in each hand. The simple fact that he’d gotten you your favorite dessert–the one you’d told him about way back on your first date–to hopefully help you feel comfortable here only filled you with so much love and gratitude for him. Reaching out, you accepted the spoon from his outstretched hand, your heart hammering loudly in your ears. The smirk grew on Matt’s face before he turned, about to make his way to the freezer to grab the ice cream. Without a single thought, you leaned forward and reached out, latching onto his arm before he had taken two steps. Matt stopped in his tracks, glancing curiously over his shoulder at you with furrowed brows. 

Quickly you tugged him to your place on the countertop, Matt willingly allowing you to pull him back towards you. Without hesitation your hand reached up and grabbed his stubbled cheek, drawing him close before your lips abruptly crashed back onto his. Clearly taken by surprise, it took Matt a brief second before his mouth responded to yours. The moment his lips began to react, you could feel him easily matching the intensity and enthusiasm that you were displaying. You did your best to pour everything you felt for him into that kiss, hoping he understood exactly what you were trying to say in that moment. 

When you finally pulled away from him, breathless and with swollen lips, you smiled back at Matt’s grinning face. Just to make sure he fully understood the message, you held his face firmly in your hand, your eyes locked on his when you spoke.

“I love you, Matthew Michael Murdock,” you told him. “And I want you to know you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

His smile widened into something bright, lighting up his entire face along with the red light from the billboard across the street. You could see the glisten of unshed tears in his eyes as he gazed back at you with so much affection written plain across his face. There was only the briefest of moments after your declaration before Matt abruptly closed the distance between you both again, capturing your lips with his in a passionate kiss that had you forgetting about absolutely everything except you and Matt in that very moment.

[starryalpacasstuff]

LITBC: Jaehee, and why she matters so much to me

Ok, I don't have a lot of time, so this is going to be messy, apologies in advance

When you're queer and living in a country that is generally homophobic, the default expectation one has is for people to be homophobic, hence Young's shock when Jaehee doesn't seem surprised or disgusted when she finds him kissing a guy. The two of them bond quickly due to their mutual status as social piranhas, and I can't stop thinking about why Jaehee matters so much. To be honest, Jaehee is everything one could want from a straight friend in a conservative country. Not only is she completely fine with Young being gay, I want to stress how important it is that Young can talk to her about his flings and one night stands openly. In asian society, it's typical for queerness to be something that people know about but never acknowledge, and for openly discussing it to be taboo. I've had experiences where friends that know I'm queer simply don't acknowledge the fact, choosing to act as though I'd never come out to them. That's the standard for 'acceptance' in asian society; tolerance. People don't stop associating with you, they simply act as though your queerness doesn't exist (and get visibility uncomfortable when you bring it up). That's why Jaehee is so important. Jaehee talks with Young about sex, his flings, and sizes up his dates from behind a coffee shop counter. She doesn't treat Young's queerness as something she has to tolerate and ignore.

It's not to say that Jaehee is the perfect ally. She still doesn't fully understand Young's queerness, and she outs him to her fiance, saying that he's basically a girl because he likes men (there's a whole host of issues to unpack with that, but as much as i'd like to, I don't have the time). But it remains a fact of the matter that Jaehee is incredibly progressive by asian standards, for the simple reason that she doesn't treat queerness as a hush-hush topic. And, I think, that's part of the reason that Jaehee outing him to her fiancé hurt Young so much. Young says it himself, his anger and feeling of betrayal was funny if he thought about it, because he'd never really cared about being outed before. He says it himself, the only explanation that he has is, "Because she was Jaehee". He says that he wasn't used to feeling betrayed because he expected so little of others. But his situation with Jaehee was different because Jaehee was different, and unlike the others, he'd come to expect her to understand him, to stand with him no matter what. Because Jaehee wasn't like the others, so Jaehee shouldn't have done what others would have. It hurt him when he realized that Jaehee was choosing to fit fit into society's expectation of her over him.

But that's something I can relate to so much; expecting people to understand you, especially those you hold close, until reality hits. Mistaking tolerance for acceptance, acceptance for understanding. I mentioned that the default expectation for I have when meeting people is that they will be homophobic, and I learned that through finding out, over and over again, that people I held close to me simply did not accept me, or understand me. And even if you do your best to not care about it, once you've figured it out, the crack in the relationship only widens with time, because you simply can't bring yourself to think of the person the same way as before. And that's what happened with Young and Jaehee. Because Jaehee accepted Young, he expected her to stand with him no matter what. But she didn't, and that's what hurt him. Jaehee accepted Young, yes. But she also chose to fit in with society's expectations over him, which ultimately caused the two to drift apart.

To me, Jaehee is a bittersweet character. She's loud and unapologetic, and she accepts Young in a way that seems almost too good to be true; because it sort of is. Because she also represents how people in asian societies have a long way to go before they understand queerness, and how queer people lose friendships because of it, which is something I know painfully well.

[thicctails]

><((((º>‿︵‿︵‿︵Undercurrent‿︵‿︵‿︵<º))))><

A Merformers x Reader Fanfiction

Chapter 1 ° Shoreline

The worn leather of your car's steering wheel was almost uncomfortably warm beneath your touch, the heat of the sun causing beads of sweat to roll down your neck and dampen your shirt. You wiped at your brow, eyes squinting as you tried to see through the bright glare.

You, in your infinite wisdom, had packed your sunglasses up with all of your other belongings instead of keeping them with you for the week-long drive to your new home. In your defense, you'd been so eager to leave after you'd gotten the confirmation call that you'd basically just grabbed everything and chucked into into your old beat up pickup truck.

Sandwind was a tiny, coastal town that was miles and miles away from any other settlement, it's population in the low hundreds and mostly consisting of elderly folk who wanted somewhere warm to live out their golden years. It was an insignificant blip on a map.

Which is to say that it was perfect for you.

People fucking sucked. If they weren't ignoring you, and they often were, they were either being complete douchebags or trying to get into your pants. Usually both. It didn't matter that you had excelled both academically and in the workplace, you were still seen as just an object or tool by almost everyone. If you were seen at all, that was.

Even when you finally managed to break into your field, veterinary care for aquatic creatures, you'd found yourself struggling to find opportunities to move up the ladder. Your colleagues were uninterested in you, and your old boss had been too interested, which had led to you jumping ship and starting again under someone new. It had hurt like hell to do that; to abandon all the hard work you'd done just because some old creep couldn't keep his hands off you, but it had a silver lining.

Marissa Faireborn was a godsend. She saw your potential, saw how hard you worked and the quality of care you provided to the wildlife that were brought to you, and after a few years of being employed by her, she'd given you the opportunity of a lifetime. A chance to start your own wildlife care clinic, under the condition that you move immediately, handle your own housing situation, and work with a military research team that were currently set up on an island not too far away from the mainland.

You weren't exactly sure what they were researching, but you'd figured that you could ask when you met up with the head researcher in a few days.

The research team had been stationed at the property previously, and Marissa had used her influence to gain the authority to purchase the building after they'd relocated. You'd been given a grant to fund your work, but you'd had to arrange for everything to be bought and set up yourself.

It had been difficult, especially since your now ex partner had thrown you out of your shared apartment after a particularly nasty argument over your job, which had snowballed into a screaming match when he'd let slip that he'd been sleeping with one of your coworkers, forcing you to temporarily move back in with your family, something as unpleasant as stepping into a snakepit.

Needless to say, once you knew that you were good to go, you'd leapt into your old shitbox truck and hit the gas pedal with the speed of a thousand coked-up cheetahs.

Now, free of all the comments about your looks or your weight or any other thing your parents loved to pick at, you found that a smile had begun to tug at the corners of your mouth. You were out. You were finally out. And you were never going back.

By the time you'd finished unpacking, the sun had lowered from its place in the middle of the sky, now skimming the horizon line as the first shades of pink and orange hues began to appear. The warmth of your skin told you that you had likely gotten a sunburn from hauling boxes back and forth between your truck and the dusty little shack that was your new living space, but that was a small price to pay for the feeling of immense satisfaction and excitement that was currently thrumming through you.

The facility was amazing. The central building consisted of a walk in area at the entrance with a desk and some filling cabinets, a stocked cold storage room for various medications, a regular storage room, a large room in the back with several decently sized aquariums and metal tables, a kitchen/food pantry, washrooms that included showers, and a fenced outdoor area with two large inground pools and one smaller above ground pool.

All of the necessary equipment that you had ordered months ago had been delivered recently, and the mail carrier had even been nice enough to not just dump the packages at the small mailbox located outside the main facility, taking the time to make sure that they were neatly stacked beneath the shelter overhang of the main entrance.

Now, it was up to you to set everything up.

You started with the medicine and various medical supplies that didn't need to be kept cold, dragging box after box into the storage room and organizing the different pill bottles and tools.

You'd purchased a label gun before the move, and were now labelling anything and everything that you could get your grubby little paws on. In the beginning, you'd been completely professional and responsible with your labels, but by the time you'd gotten around to setting up various water pumps, heaters, and monitoring machines hours later, you'd started to act a little bit silly.

There was now a stethoscope named Steve in a drawer, a mug named Bartholomew sat empty next to your much beloved coffee machine, Randy. Sarah the clipboard was held in your hands, helpless to stop you from gluing a pair of googly eyes onto the top of her as you giggled quietly.

Okay, mayyyybe it was time to turn in for the night. This was odd behavior, even for you.

Setting Sarah down on the desk (which sported a little label that said 'Desk') you yawned and cracked your knuckles. You hadn't gotten around to installing a clock yet, so you reached into one of your pant pockets and retrieved your phone. Clicking the power button, you gaped at the time the device displayed.

"It's 2 AM?!" you squeaked, wondering how it had gotten so late without you noticing. You quickly pocketed your phone once more and made a beeline for the door. You were no stranger to staying up late, often times pulling an all-nighter to study or read fanfiction, but you had to actually act like a somewhat put together human being tomorrow, so that wasn't really an option tonight.

You stepped out into the night air, the smell of salt hitting you immediately. The once clear sky had become cloudy, and the very distant rumble of thunder met your ears. A storm was coming, and you had no intention of getting caught out in it.

Skittering across the sand like a seagull honing in on a French Fry in a Walmart parking lot, you quickly dashed towards your shitty little cottage, praying to God that if there were any spiders in here, that you didn't see them until tomorrow. You snagged your phone charger, set an alarm for Stupid o'clock In The Morning, plugged in your phone and crashed onto your shitty, half inflated blowup mattress. Silently agonizing over the back pain you knew would be coming tomorrow, you let your eyes slip shut as sleep claimed you.

[spacexfucker]

I had people in an autistic group on fb try to claim that their need for quiet (in public) superceded other disabled people's right to exist in public (if those people couldn't be quiet. Bc of things like stimming or meltdowns or tics). Most of the people in that group all agreed that "if you can't be respectful, you shouldn't be there". They tried to claim that bc intrusive sound can hurt them, people who cannot be quiet should be forced to stay home.

This is why I hate a lot of autistic spaces. Because they are full of people with opinions like this. People that believe that their comfort matters more than someone else's right to take public transport or be at the library or be at the park.

Because there's a lot of autistic people who believe that if you're too autistic or autistic in a "bad" way, that you should be isolated.

And when I tried to explain that autistic people like my daughter cannot control her stimming or the level of her voice in a meltdown, I had people telling me that I should keep her at home. That she's should have to be isolated so that other people wouldn't have to deal with the uncomfortable sounds.

When I said it was their responsibility to find ways to cope in public spaces, they said it was mine to "control (my) daughter". Many people said that I "just needed to work with her on this". And when I explained that even if it was something that could be addressed and something she could control, she still deserved to be in public in the meantime, they disagreed.

I'm autistic. But I'm low support. My daughter is high support. Before she was born, I thought autistic spaces were safe. It was nice finding people like me. But now that I'm older and have a high support kid, I'm realizing that a lot of those spaces aren't safe. And that they're filled with low support people who haven't unlearned any abelism except the kind that effects them specifically. That those spaces are bad at best for high support autistic people and straight up dangerous at worst.

There IS a difference between people diagnosed young and late diagnosed people. And the internalized abelism late diagnosed people have and their desire to be accepted as autistic very frequently hurts the most vulnerable of us. High support autistic people who depend on caretakers and alternative communications should absolutely not be isolated. And it causes harm to even imply they should be.

How you feel in public places around other people and how they sound or look is something you have to personally navigate, not something you can shame others into isolation for.

Those same people on other posts would talk about how disabled people used to not get to be in public and then turn around and say this shit with zero reflection.

They would wax on and on about how you shouldn't force someone to stop stimming and how we needed to make stimming accepted but would turn around and say that "well, if it's too loud or too much for others, you should get them to stop". Zero sense of irony.

Autism is not only your experience. It is not just masking and freeing yourself from it. It is not only quirky but reasonable behavior. It's not just being awkward in social situations. So many late diagnosed and low support autistic people still retain large amounts of abelism. You cannot just unpack it for yourself. You have to unpack it for us all.

[s1r3ns-c4ll]

Hey siren, so just finished your Poppy fic and I loved it so if it's not too much trouble.

Could you do one with Poppy again where her parents order their crew members capture her on sight and deliver her to them.

Summary : she went on a poacher camp alone and ended up.... ya know

And so FEM mc goes and saves her I need some hurt/comfort in my life.

If any of this makes you uncomfortable at any point feel free to delete this req. Although I did read your guidelines for the request I apologize if you said something about this topic and it slipped my mind

Anyway thank you and have a nice day :)

Find Her (Poppy Sweeting x F!Reader)

Hi! Thank you so much for being my first request! And sorry it took a while! I had a bit of writer's block, but I think this turned out pretty good! Hope you like it! Paring: Poppy x F!Reader Warnings: Implied kidnapping, canon-typical violence. Reader went off in this one. Summary: Poppy had been gone for hours at this point, and you were worried. Natty came with news on the topic, and you were going to find her, no matter what. Word count: 1725 words

This was not how this adventure was supposed to go.

I mean, this wasn’t the first time she’s gone out and saved a few beasts from poachers. Poppy was small, yes, but she could handle her own perfectly fine. 

And she was! She unlocked the cages, setting free a group of mooncalves and a young hippogriff. The Hufflepuff watched as the beasts made their escape and watched as they passed the trees into the forest. 

Poppy began to step backwards, getting ready to head back to Hogwarts, but was interrupted by the swirling of colors that surrounded her, revealing a number of poachers. Very dangerous, very powerful poachers.

Oh no..

“Aye, mate… Ain’t it our lucky day?” She could hear the grin on the poacher’s face, hell, she could see the smile behind their masks. Poppy readied her wand and shoved down any anxiety she felt. She could unpack all of that later.

“It really is! An’ here we thought it couldn’t get any better. The bosses are gonna love this..”

“Time to bring their daughter home.”

Poppy faltered.

Oh.. Oh no.

~~~

You were worried.

And angry, and anxious, and so much more. 

It made you feel bad for the possible worry you’ve put your girlfriend through. Because here you are now, playing the role of ‘worried girlfriend’ and you’re about a half a second away from getting on to Highwing and soaring through the skies to find her (and you still might do that either way.)

You found yourself pacing through the Transfiguration courtyard. Imelda and Sebastian stood across from you while Ominis sat by the fountain. Each of them attempted.. In their own ways, to console you.

“I’m sure she’s alright.”

“Imelda, it’s been hours!” You threw your hands up before you ran them through your hair, mussing

“Sweeting’s capable. Even if she’s got herself into a poor situation, she'll be strong enough to survive until we get there, and you save her like her knight in shining armor.” She shrugged. Imelda’s nonchalance both calmed you, but also exasperated you to no end.

Sebastian raised a brow at Imelda. “You sing fairly high praises there, Melly, I thought you didn’t like her.”

“I don’t. I just know when people are impressive. And don’t call me Melly, you oaf!”

“Right..” You managed a chuckle hearing the banter, and the two slytherin smirked triumphantly. The moment didn’t last, though. The relief left just as soon as it came as you watched Natty run over to you and the others, a look of concern on her face.

“My friends! I have news!” The Ugandan looked to you, and that anxiety you had felt before rose considerably

“I hid behind the cover of the trees, and heard a group of poachers talking about a girl they had taken to their base, east of Hogwarts.. They mentioned their leaders being happy with the- Wait-!”

You didn’t need to hear the rest of her sentence, not wanting to waste time that could be used to get to Poppy. Wordlessly, You pulled out the Nab-sack Deek gave you and released Highwing in the middle of the courtyard. You got on her back with practised ease, and she flew up into the skies under your command, guiding her east to where Natty mentioned, ignoring the protests of your companions. You needed to save your girlfriend, after all.

~~~

“That idiot! She left us in the dust!”

“I’m as annoyed as you are, Imelda, but you best follow her while she’s still within sight.” Ominis stood up and turned his head to where he assumed the other three were, who were still slightly shocked at the speed you had taken off.

“Did you three not hear me? Get your brooms and go!”

Natty was the first to shake out of their surprise, and ran to follow Ominis’ words. Imelda followed closely, but not without having to run back and grab Sebastian by the cloak as well.

“I’m surrounded by idiots, I swear..”

~~~

Poppy was scared.

She hated to admit it, but she was. Her parents stood a few feet away from her. They bickered quietly. About what, she wasn’t sure. Her main focus at that moment was to keep her panic down. You were coming to get her. She knew you were. You were her strong, brave, and immensely wonderful girlfriend. You’ll find her.

Her nerves calmed at the thought of you. That’s right. It’s you. You saved hogsmeade from a troll. You saved Highwing along with Natty from Falbarton Castle.

It’ll be okay..

Crashes and hurried screams made her jump from her thoughts. Yells of protest, magic flying through the air filled the background noise. Her parents started grabbing multiple things and stuffed them into bags as she looked around hastily- until she could faintly make out a voice.

“Where is she!?”

Poppy smiled. 

You found her.

~~~

Explosions, crashing, screaming.. Chaos filled your ears as you and your friends burst into the base, caution thrown into the wind in lieu of your rage. You casted confringo on an unsuspecting poacher, and magically threw an explosive barrel at two others. They were going to pay for taking your girlfriend, and you could care less about the carnage you were going to cause. 

Or at least- the carnage you wanted to cause. Sebastian pulled you back by the shoulder, and you looked at him with a scowl.

“What the hell, Sallow-”

“Let us take care of these poachers, you go find Poppy!”

“But-”

“Go!” Imelda shoved you to the side, and shot a magical blast at an animagus that was aiming at you.

You stumbled, looking at the other three before nodding to them and running off.

You had to find her.

~~~

“Poppy-!? Poppy!!” You ran frantically through the poacher base, the distant sounds of fighting between your friends and the poachers long forgotten in preference of searching for your girlfriend. 

Where is she..? Come on.. Have to find her, have to find her have to-

“Let me go!” There we go.

You ran, practically launching yourself in the direction of the familiar voice. You slammed the door open and the sight left you seething. Your girlfriend, your Poppy was bound by the wrists, trying to pull away from two poachers attempting to pull her through a back exit. One tall in stature, and just a few inches taller than Poppy herself.

Oh hell no.

The poachers didn’t quite register that you were there, by the doorway, and you took your chance. Completely foregoing magic use, you strode right up to them and swung. Your fist collided with the mask of the taller one, knocking it off his face and sending his head back. You didn’t spare a second to take a look at his face, and brought your hands together to slam them down, taking the poacher to the ground. He laid on the floor, and not wanting to take the chance (and also wanting to take out your frustrations) you kicked him, sending him into dreamland. 

With your focus on the man, the shorter one cast depulso on you, and your shoulder crashed into the wall. You inhaled through your teeth, pain shot through your shoulder for a second, and you could faintly hear the worried cry of your name from Poppy. You recovered quickly, though, looking more pissed than hurt. You took out your wand and used your ancient magic, slamming the other poacher into the ground multiple times. Overkill? Maybe, but you were mad and you could worry about it later.

Now that you had the chance to look at the poachers you took down, you began to notice little details.. The same shade of brown hair, the softer face shapes..

So they were the parents she talked about.

You take a moment to calm your breath, shaking the thoughts from your mind, chest heaving from how much force you put into those hits and the anger that was bubbling inside of you. Once your breath steadied, you immediately turned your attention to Poppy, and hurried to untie her bindings.

Maybe it was the relief of you finally being there in front of you, or the fear that she had been pushing down, or maybe a bit of both and more, but words just started falling from her lips, frantic apologies and explanations.

“I’m so sorry, everything was going fine- I- I just- released a few beasts from a small camp. That was all it was supposed to be- I never thought they’d- Never thought I’d see them again- that they’d try to do something like this-” Her vision started getting slightly blurry, and you tossed her bindings to the side.

“Shh.. Shh, it’s alright love, don’t apologise.. You have no reason to be sorry.. I’m just glad you’re alright and that I’m here with you now.” You pull the shorter girl closer, letting her fall into you. You cradled the back of her head with one hand, the other rubbing circles on her back as tears began to stain your uniform. You pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and continued to whisper quiet reassurances into her hair.

You both stay like that for a while, long enough for the battling happening outside of the room to quiet down, until the fight your companions were having had finished.

“Let me carry you. It sounds like the others finished the last of the poachers at this base, and Highwing is worried about you.” You adjusted, moving your arm behind Poppy’s knees and lifted her up. Usually, she’d protest, embarrassed at the attention, but she only curled into you more. You felt he arms tighten slightly around your shoulders

“Thank you…”

“Why are you thanking me? I’d come for you no matter the distance, you know that..”

“And before meeting you, the only one who’d go to those lengths was Highwing herself. But now? Now there’s you.. Your friends-”

“Our friends.”

You heard a small chuckle. There she is.

“Our friends. Either way.. I have more people in my corner, and in no small thanks to you.”

“Then you’re welcome, love..” You pressed one last kiss into her head and began walking out of the room and down into the main area of the base, where Highwing and the other three stood, waiting for you.

[crispycreambacon]

The Journey to Break Free • An Analysis of Malevolent's Themes

This is more like a ramble, but analysis sounds more professional y'know y'know-

Major Spoiler Warning for Episode 19

-

Episode 19 may be my favourite episode at least for Season 2 – bear in mind that as I type this, I haven't gone past Episode 19. Regardless, it is definitely a highlight of this podcast for me. It unpacked a lot about Arthur and John, and it explored many interesting themes. The strength of kindess and letting yourself be vulnerable, the reality that healing and becoming a better person isn't always a clean journey, the significance of the connections we make and the memories we carry from them...

The first one is subversive in how despite Arthur losing some of his morality in order to survive, he still retains some of it and uses it ro his advantage. It may be baffling to see Arthur still wanting to trust others and treat them kindly, as seen with Arthur wanting to offer water to the cana, because this world can turn on you so quickly. However, that may be the point. The fact that Arthur can still find it in himself to care about the beings in this world is a true testament to his resilience. The Dreamlands is unrelentlessly cruel and tests you, trying to mold you to become the monsters that roam this realm, and I think that is why Arthur won't succumb to this world's terrors like so many before him did.

It ties into the tone of the podcast and how it shifts. Arthur may need to be cruel at times, but that doesn't mean he needs to be a monster. Likewise, Malevolent may be a bleak story, but it is not one which needs to overly indulges in tragedy and darkness. Even within the episode itself, there are moments where Arthur and John laugh. There's an entire section in which Arthur interacts with a buopoth, and it's the most adorable thing ever. These moments provide a balance that help emphasize the impact of intense moments even more than if the entire story had just been trudged in grimdark.

(Putting the rest under a "Read More" section as to not make this post too long to scroll through)

As for the second theme, I particularly appreciate it as people who try to heal, typically victims of trauma, are often villanized for not being perfect, nice or behaving. Anyone who doesn't fit the mold of being sad and helpless via lashing out or express anger about their trauma get dogpiled with insults and accusations from those who refuse to understand them. Those who only want to imagine a narrative that recovery is always pretty and always going up with no relapses whatsoever. That narrative formed because society crafted it and enforced it with media tackling trauma victims in a shallow way at best. Because it's uncomfortable for society to face the truth that trauma is ugly, and those that went through it won't come out unscathed like people want them to.

The theme of names being significant is an uncommon but meaningful one. John Doe is a name to give the King in Yellow a new identity, a way to rebuild himself. Lilly is a name that meant a lot to John as the only form of human connection he had while Arthur was comatose and the catalyst to John becoming a better person. Faroe is a name that Arthur keeps recalling because he can't let go of his daughter and the trauma that came with it.

Even the name of the episode is important. I think "the Prison" truly is an apt title for this episode. Not only because this involves Arthur and John escaping the pit they're trapped it, but it's also a metaphor for Arthur's situation. His body is a prison for John that both want him to get out of, yet Arthur is the real prisoner as he loses control over everything from his body to his life. He is trapped in the past because he can never let go of Fareo. He can never forgive himself for causing her death through his neglect no matter how unintentional it was.

And he gave in at the end. He gave in to the past and went to the city to search for Faroe even though the cana instructed them to avoid the city. Even though so many signs point to it being yet another trap. Even though the chances of Fareo being there were next to none.

Yet John didn't protest. It really shows how much John has grown to emphathize with humanity. How he has grown from someone who is selfish and uses others to his whims, discarding them when they no longer serve him purpose to someone who may not fully understand humanity but can genuinely appreciate and care about it. He may not understand why Arthur still clings onto Faroe, but he understands Arthur deserves closure, so even if this may be a trap, he lets him walk in. We, the audience, may not fully understand either, but we understand this is a necessary step for Arthur even if it may be one that leads to his doom.

[wellspokenrambler]

Rambler @ PAX East 2024

Hi folks! I just got back from PAX East over the weekend and, while I didn't really take part in the Expo Hall besides a couple of stalls, I did go to a decent number of panels - and thought it was worth writing up my thoughts on each of them. The only thing I love more than playing video games is hearing people talk about video games!

(I didn't take notes while I was there so this will be certainly more of a "vibes"-based assessment and why each one appealed to me personally, so apologies if you came here looking for a more objective description of each panel! I'll put links to the VOD of each panel where available)

Panels and thoughts below the read-more (it's long as heck! get ready):

Metroid: A Community Retrospective and Look Toward the Future

Having only played Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Metroid: Dread in my time, I wouldn't call myself a hardcore fan - but they are both games I've really enjoyed, and Samus Aran's pivotal positioning as a female character in video gaming history is always fascinating to me, so I had to check this one out.

It's so surreal to see the ways that a community like this had to adapt to long "dry spells" without any official new material for their fandom, and the joy that follows when something like Dread comes along to reaffirm their love for it. I don't know that I learned anything new from this panel myself, but it was still heartening to hear the panellists' clear passion for the games, and it does make me want to dip my toes into other Metroids (at the very least, the other two Prime games!)

Unlocking the Positive Potential of Gaming for Kids and Teens

I hadn't originally planned to go to this one, but met two of the panellists (Dr. David Bickham and Sam Schamm, MA) while eating brunch by the food trucks, and hearing them briefly discuss the subject matter fascinated me enough that I decided to pop along to it.

This was a deeply insightful panel on the ways that gaming can meaningfully help young people and foster their learning, agency, critical thinking, and other useful life skills - as well as thoughts on how to help them through the risks associated with gaming such as toxic multiplayer communities or, for want of a better word, the addictive potential of gaming. Having previously worked in a job which involved helping teenagers make informed decisions about their futures myself, it meant a lot to me to see serious academic thought being given to the subject given how prevalent gaming is as part of a child's social life these days. Excellent panel!

Mental Health and Gaming - Creating a Safe Space for Yourself and Others

While a difficult topic, I am nevertheless glad that I went to this panel as it covered the way that streamers and other "community figures" can navigate the creation of a safe space in the form of their community while also maintaining effective boundaries within that space. Of particular interest to me was reframing some of the language that often gets used in this context e.g. "trauma-dumping" and unpacking our own biases when dealing with uncomfortable situations.

If I had any minor criticisms of the panel, it would be that some of the suggestions occasionally felt like they veered a little too far into the side of... I guess trying to fix the lives of strangers? Now, in the interests of fairness I shall state my own biases that lead to this feeling, because it is not that I do not care about what happens to people: it is precisely because I've had to manage my own proclivity towards hyper-empathy in the past that I tend to take a step back from my emotions on that regard these days. Caring is good, but caring to the point of self-destruction helps no-one, and that to me feeds into what the panel was saying about boundary maintenance.

My own community is a small handful of regulars and a couple of hundred followers so this has not been something I need to worry about yet, but the panel has hopefully given me some tools with which to manage those situations if they ever arise, and for that I am thankful.

How Our Favorite Characters Have Real World Impacts on Us: A Look into Fictional Characters and ParaSocial Relationships

FASCINATING panel. I originally went to this because of my memories of being in the Gorillaz fandom and the weird and wonderful (and sometimes ugly) ways people interacted with the idea of the fictional band members in that space... But the conversation proved to cover a broad spectrum both of what constitutes a parasocial relationship AND what constitutes a fictional character; the panellists made the case that the personas of content creators and streamers themselves counted as fictional characters, and I think they are absolutely bang-on with that.

From my end as a Z-list Player of Games Online, even I am presenting a more polished version of myself there than I would have in the rest of my life - it's not "not me", but it's certainly not all of me, and that is enough to make "Well-Spoken Rambler" a somewhat distinct entity from the person who portrays them.

The inclusion of internet personalities into their definition ALSO meant, however, that at the Q&A I got to name-drop one of my favourite journal articles that I've read this year: The one-and-a-half sided parasocial relationship: The curious case of live streaming. This article holds deeply interesting connotations to me because of what it implies about the "half" of the one-and-a-half... which is that of course, behind the fiction of a "creator" is the person who creates, and that person is just as capable of developing fictionalised ideas of the people in their community (though with a more removed and likely self-aware perspective on it). The panellists had heard of the article and mentioned it was on their to-read list, but agreed it tied in well with the themes of the panel!

(... And yet the reason I was able to re-find the article so quickly is because I had linked it to a creator in a Patreon Direct Message a couple months ago because I thought it would be interesting to them... The irony is not lost on me. More on that later.)

Debate Club with Mari and PeeGTV

This was just a fun old time! I wasn't familiar with Mari or PG before watching this panel, but they have such a fun rapport here that I want to try and watch them more regularly now that I know of them. Jenna Stoeber acted as a firm but fair adjudicator of the panel - and I am definitely not just saying that because she is a recent convert to the Rambler channel and was pleasant and kind when we bumped into each other on the expo floor. She did a great job letting both sides of the debate (Millennial horror vs Gen Z horror) shine. If you listen closely around the 34 minute mark, you may hear a familiar little British voice raise a point about how you can't judge a horror by its synopsis!

Thinking Differently Together: Neurodivergence & Gaming

Folks... I am so so glad that there is a much greater emphasis on self-advocacy these days than there used to be. Look! Look at all those ND creators talking about their experiences and being listened to!! Look how it has a VOD so I can just link it and you can all see it too!!! Conversations like this one in a major event like PAX are a hopeful sign to me that progress is being fought for and won.

Only minor critiques for this one are:

could have used some discussion about more than just the usual ADHD/autism bracket that is discussed when it comes to neurodiversity (but then I think that about most ND discussions)

would personally have liked some chat about accessibility concerns while creating/streaming and neurodivergent (e.g. personally had to tweak my lighting because it was overstimulating me while I streamed)

Otherwise great panel!

Bridging the Gender Gap (13+)

Another great panel for encouraging diversity in the games industry - I appreciated the intersectionality of this one as well as the honest discussions about the ways in which things still need to be made *considerably* better throughout all corners of gaming. The panel also discusses actionable steps which could be taken to improve on these issues.

Surprised at myself for not having much to say about this one! I just think the panellists did a really good and succinct job at talking about the subject.

A Hunter's Dream: Bloodborne and Transness

I enjoyed this panel a whole lot - Having watched a playthrough of Bloodborne last year, hearing two trans women discussing the different trans allegories and interpretation of the characters and themes and lore of the game felt absolutely correct, even if it wasn't "canon".

If one was being pedantic one could call this the least polished of the panels I went to, but I honestly don't think that matters tremendously because both panellists were so utterly sincere about what they were covering that it carried the panel. You could easily tell just how much the subject matter meant to the two and it in turn meant a lot to me that they were willing to share it with a bunch of strangers as we were.

And then...

Um, Actually: The Panel

Hoooooo boy.

So remember earlier when I mentioned the irony of using Patreon DMs to grab an article about nonstandard parasocial interactions?

[ID: a meme image of Morpheus from the Matrix saying "What if I told you the guy I sent that article to is at a PAX East panel"]

So of course the panel for the Dropout show Um, Actually was being hosted by its two new presenters, Ify Nwadiwe and Brian David Gilbert:

Ify had been a wonderful host so far, and I really enjoy his work in general (especially his stint recently on Very Important People), so I was looking forward to meeting him.

...And then there's Brian, who has been streaming on Twitch for just under the past four years and who in that time has been subject to hundreds of my fun facts, insightful commentaries, and helpful actions (which he very much appreciated). That, alongside regularly taking part in Patreon livestreams, has led to a strange situation where I would not consider us friends, but we... don't not know each other? but we also don't know each other? Which is why the "one-and-a-half-sided" description in that article and the panel about parasocialness appealed to me (and why I sent the article to him too).

So of course when this panel got announced I wasn't gonna miss it. I really enjoyed what I've seen of Ify's hosting and Brian's fact-finding so far, and I wasn't gonna miss the chance to see the two chat about it - nor to potentially meet the guy who helped me raise £500 for ASAN last year.

But, turns out I wasn't the only one enthused by the panel, because it was Absolutely Rammed, like, an hour and a half before the panel started. I got lucky in that I managed to end up somewhere in the middle of the pack and got into the panel at all, but good grief did it remind me how I don't do well in crowds (even well-managed crowds, thank you PAX Enforcers xx).

It caused me to reflect a lot on the perceived casualness with which I interacted with Brian on Twitch versus the material reality of the level of interest from a LOT of people which he manages. It's the kind of thing which makes me wish to never become famous, because I don't know that I'd have it in me to manage that level of attention from everyone - even the very occasional instance of people recognising me online FROM Brian's streams and acting like it's a big deal always throws me off a bit (this has happened to me several times, I'm not even kidding!)

But then of course the Enforcers got us all in neatly and sweetly, and the panel was a delight! It was fun to hear Ify and Brian (and Jenna!!) talk about working on the show and the kinds of things they enjoyed putting in and what to expect next - such as another new season after the current one, as it deserves.

There was also a live session of Um, Actually questions which was at the time enjoyable, but since then numerous allegations of cheating and defamation have come to light against one of the participants, Gabe Hicks, and it is disheartening that something as grievous as this could have been going on that very weekend. I hope that justice and reparations can be made for the people affected by this, and I am going to move on out of courtesy to those involved.

After the panel, a meet-and-greet line formed for both Ify and Brian outside of the theatre and I was able to join it - it also felt important to me that I follow the proper procedures and not assume any privileges, since I know full well how that kind of thing can read and wanted to put my best foot forward, so to speak.

The play-by-play of our eventual meeting is as follows:

I greeted Ify first on purpose to let him know that he was doing a great job as the new Um, Actually host and I liked him in VIP

I then went to greet Brian, but at that point he had very blatantly already cottoned onto who I was and seemed very enthusiastic that I was there. I didn't feel any sense of star-struckedness, it was more like that sense of when you talk to someone online and then meet them in person - surreal, but not stressful.

Jenna took that moment to gently interrupt so she could rendezvous with the two men before the line ended - seemingly because of our vague familiarity and prior assumption of goodwill on our parts

I made sure to pass along some greetings from a few Discord servers formed around Brian's Twitch streams I was in, which Brian appreciated, and gave him a small gift which I brought with me - a small bottle of vivid iridescent nail polish (Ciaté London's "Forbidden Fruit", sadly out of production now), since nail painting and structural colour is somewhat of a shared interest of ours

Brian made sure to specifically compliment me on my shirt, to which I admitted the reason I wore it was because I knew Brian was the only person there who would appreciate it fully: it was from a game of Tee KO we played on Patreon at the end of 2022, which Brian won using a VERY existential t-shirt illustrated by myself:

(sidenote, after repeated success with these silly skeletons in subsequent games of Tee KO, I am very close to just selling my own legally-distinct skeleton shirt if I ever have a merch page)

Finally, I asked if we three could cap off the meeting with a video'd selfie, to which they graciously obliged me:

Having filmed what can only be described as a Cannes-worthy masterpiece, I said my goodbyes to them and made my way to the next panel...

The PAX Panel Show

...Which was just in the same theatre as the last panel, and with Jenna hosting and Brian on the panel. What a glorious event! I am so sad this one didn't get recorded - a truly deranged set of questions, including Portmantoad (guessing which video games have had their names spliced together based on the description of the resulting fusion), Ornstein and Sullivan (guessing whether a named character was from a Fromsoft game or from an opera), and a whole bunch of real-world questions about farming?? Joke's on all these city-slicker panellists, I grew up on a smallholding! So I was... actually no better at those farm questions than them. I can't tell you about industrial farming practices, but I can tell you how to hold a chicken! (gently, like a big hamburger).

After the panel, I approached Jenna one last time at the con and suggested that, given the inherent strangeness of our interactions (wherein we have become Twitch mutuals but still at best distant acquaintances) it would be funny if we took a selfie but made out like she was "the fan". She saw the funny side of it:

[ID: a tweet by Well-Spoken Rambler @wellspokentweet reading "Always a pleasure to meet a fan, @the_jenna", below which is a selfie featuring Well-Spoken Rambler and Jenna Stoeber. A reply from Jenna beneath this reads "HONORED TO MEET YOU, BIG FAN <3" in all-caps.]

Play What You Don't Know with DesiQuest

This was my last panel of PAX, and a bit of a last-minute wildcard! After relaying the above events to my good friend Hamish, he told me that his friend Omar would be doing a panel the following day, and that I should go and see it. And I am very glad I did!

It was really heartening to learn that a podcast like DesiQuest exists - a D&D actual play featuring an all-South-Asian cast and touching on the disparate cultures and themes that connect with them and their audience. As someone who is of Sri Lankan descent but without the cultural upbringing, it's something that appeals to me personally as another way to try and reconnect with that heritage. Definitely catching up on this one over the week!

I also got to say hi to Omar from Hamish, and it was a nice bonding moment cut short by my having to BOOK IT to a water taxi and conclude my time in Boston for good.

...

Phew!

Well, thanks for reading all of that if you did! It was a weekend that was at once fun, interesting, and thought-provoking. I still don't consider myself someone who seeks out big events, but being much more free and able to take part in those kinds of things now is super refreshing and I hope at some point (though not in the immediate future, boy was that expensive) I will be able to go again! Or at least do other events like that. Possibly something a bit quieter, but conventions don't usually run in flavours of "quiet", haha. Perhaps next time I'll bring business cards to recklessly self-promote better with.

See you around!

-Rambler

[coffeewithcutcaffeine]

I hope you don't mind me dropping this on your ask (also i want to hear your thoughts on it hehe) but i've been thinking A LOT about how vlad would think about the whole stefan and maria voichița marriage. like bruh my buddy have beef with my brother ... and said buddy then he overthrow my bro (and maybeeeee killed him?? nobody's really know) .... and then keeping his family captive .... and then marry my bro's daughter ..... who is my niece ...... ????? there's just so much to unpack asdfghjsjsjsjussh

Dearest Anon! Thank you so, so much for this Ask — I love that you brought it up because I have also been thinking about it on several occasions! ❤️️ This was indeed a very… interesting turn of events skdjdskdsks so let’s unpack the whole family affair! I will do my best to express my thoughts both on how things happened (based on what we know) and how I reimagine them within Voievod (I have a hopeless weakness for messy family dynamics so this is very fun to work on).

Just to give a bit of context to those who might not know this part of Romania’s history, we know that Fănel Vodă was not fond of his cousin Radu… at all. He invaded Wallachia on several occasions during Radu’s reign (he even burned the Voivodal Palace in Bucharest, reconstructed by Vlad in 1459, pretty much to the ground) and helped dethrone him four times in response to Radu’s vassalage to the Ottomans. A very prominent clash came in 1471 when Radu met Ștefan in a battle near Soci — just like his big brother, Radu also fought Ștefan because of Chilia, though for different reasons. The last confrontation took place in 1475 when Radu lost his throne for good.

Radu’s first reign ended in November 1473, eleven years after he became the voivode (by the way, eleven years on the Wallachian throne is quite an accomplishment in those days, so it might indicate that Radu was not as hopeless as some people claim him to be). Here is where the family drama starts. At that time, Radu resided in the palace of Bucharest and, in November, he pretty much ran away in the middle of the night to avoid being captured by Ștefan’s men. That would be quite okay — but he left his wife and daughter behind, in the hands of the Moldavian voivode. Therefore, Ștefan took Radu’s wife and daughter as “hostages” and eventually married the daughter, Maria Voichița, in 1478. Ștefan was well into his forties at that time; Maria was a 21-year-old young woman.

Because Vlad and Ștefan resumed their close cooperation in 1475, I actually think that Vlad must have known that his niece and sister-in-law were held at the Moldavian court. That must have been quite a bizarre and uncomfortable situation. However, because Ștefan’s second wife, Maria of Mangup, died in 1477 (a year after Vlad), he probably didn’t really think about the possibility of his cousin marrying his niece. We will never know, and thus, I will not make attempts at trying to “figure out” how Vlad felt about that. Maybe he didn’t care at all. Hard to tell.

What is very interesting to consider, however, is the fact that Ștefan really married his cousin’s daughter. This was very unusual in both Moldavian and Wallachian customs — I did doublecheck just in case, and all previous Wallachian and Moldavian voivodes were married to noblewomen from foreign countries. Therefore, it really couldn’t have been seen as a norm to marry your own family, even if a more distant one. Then we also know that Bogdan (Maria Voichița and Ștefan’s son) married Ruxandra (Mihnea’s daughter, therefore Vlad’s granddaughter), so it gets a little Sweet Home Alabama there.

Now, moving on to Voievod musings (with as few spoilers as possible)!

The news of Radu’s escape (and its consequences) gets even to Vlad in exile. Needless to say, he is… not impressed. More like, really really disappointed and angry. He has a lot of conflicting feelings and opinions on that matter and is angry both with Radu (for running away like a coward and practically sacrificing his family) and Ștefan (for always being such a schemer and having the audacity to take Vlad’s own flesh and blood as hostages — especially a mother with daughter). Eventually, the pragmatic, voivodal side of him wins. Personal opinions aside, Radu is a Dracula, and as a fellow Dracula himself, Vlad takes his brother’s side in this case. If he cannot sit on the throne himself, then he prefers another of the Drăculești to rule, which is always better than one of the Dănești or, God forbid, Ștefan meddling in the affairs of his country too much. And Ștefan was indeed meddling in those a heck of a lot.

When the two begin to work closely together and become allies again, the most Vlad can do is try to bargain with Ștefan. Once again, Vlad is pulled into many different directions but, before the matters reach their conclusion, he is killed. He will never know that Ștefan ends up marrying Maria Voichița — if he lived to see that, he would be absolutely perplexed and fuming. He has seen a lot of bizarre things happen, but this one would be a bit too bizarre to his liking. Just imagine him: So my little cousin, who I used to consider a great friend once and then stabbed me in the back in the worst moment possible, and who had endless beef with my baby brother and tried to get rid of him and kill him several times, and who took my baby brother’s wife and daughter as hostages… now marries my baby brother’s daughter… my niece… my cousin marries my niece… What the heck?!

We do know that Maria Voichița had quite an influence upon the policy of her husband, so if he still lived, Vlad would be definitely excited about that (after shaking off the initial shock and coming to terms with the weird arrangement). He would be a very, very proud uncle. His niece, of the Drăculești blood, having the Moldavian voivode wrapped around her little finger? Very pleasing, very satisfactory. (He would so take an opportunity to scheme and meddle a bit himself. It would be a wasted opportunity if he didn’t.)

[truculentbitch]

the adolescent part is so crucial because dream was essentially an adolescent too. like, there’s a bigger age difference between sapnap and george than there is tommy and dream. dream couldn’t even legally drink when they first met LMFAO. he was not this established adult with an adult life and an adult brain. and i think this emphasis on dream being the “adult” and tommy being the “child” is a conscious effort to render dream’s “wrongdoing” inarguable because without it, everyone would realize that this is simply the result of moralizing interpersonal conflicts and not actually a representation of dream as a person, even in the slightest. it’s sort of the perfect storm because the people who said these things have fostered a fan base who get off on the incessant victimization of them, and have clearly developed a complex as a result. and who can blame tommy honestly? what are you supposed to do when everyone is desperate for you to be a victim? and maybe one day we’ll unpack whether dream’s behavior or that behavior had a worse long-term effect on his psyche. i don’t think people would like the answer to that!

i'm unclear on the exact ages tbh and i'm ok with that bc i don't think it matters at all in this situation. it's so fucking disingenuous. are we not allowed to enforce boundaries with ppl younger than us?????

one of the things that dream got annoyed about early was tommy calling him 'big d' in a particular way that caused chat to connect big d = penis, which was the sole reason tommy kept on doing it. he was uncomfortable with tommy making a sexual joke about him and asked him to stop (tommy didn't btw until a certain point. after that, he started poking about how he couldn't call dream big d anymore 🙄). was this one of the red flags they talked about? bc i will be in my grave before i believe that those red flags were anything but dream not engaging in the same derogatory british humour that tommy and jack rely on.

this is simply the result of moralizing interpersonal conflicts

you've fucking got it, superstar 🧡

[wetcatspellcaster]

I am so curious to know the background on this! :D

“Now, sweetheart,” he commanded. “I think you should kiss me again. And if you can’t make it nice, at least make it interesting.”

So, he was leaving her to do all the work. Rosalie bit her lip, in uncertainty and in anger, as she examined him, puzzling out his motives. Was he trying to make her feel wretched, again? Forcing her to act, so she condemned herself?

She said she’d been to therapy - and she had, extensively - but there was always going to be that little pit of self doubt in her stomach, no matter what. Especially with Astarion.

It felt selfish, given how immensely she’d failed him, to turn over the other parts of their relationship like fossils for examination. But one of the cruellest parts, about never getting to see things through to end, was never knowing what they truly could’ve been - what he would’ve wanted with her, in time. She didn’t know what he liked, and what he’d pretended to like.

Hello lovely, thank you for sending the ask!

Read myself for filth, commentary one: The first two paragraphs is how a person who can't write E-rated fics tries to write D/S undertones without writing enough spice to ever actually earn those tags. Never sure if I'm successful, but my god I could be a Level 7 rogue for the amount I dance around things and evade them.

So this is one of the few times Rose gets close to a good insight check, I guess bc the DC is lower than average! Astarion was trying to humiliate her, force her to admit she wanted him, force her to act on her own initiative rather than be 'seduced', meaning that she is culpable and cannot deny that fact later on. Wouldn't make sense for him to be lying about that, in fact it serves him and his purpose to make it very, very obvious, bc that makes it all the more embarrassing for her at her end.

Astarion does love her/want her, etc (that's what he's rolling deception on lmao). But he does also want her to condemn herself, it's a game. He wants to prove he has power over her, to prove she was wrong for abandoning him, and he's also testing her. He is making her physically uncomfortable, yet she's seemingly unable to resist or leave, regardless. He is also testing to see if she falls for the trap he sets for everyone: of deciding whether she is attracted to him enough to ignore all her other morals and constraints, and will thus place herself wilfully in danger.

As to the final two paragraphs - this Tav has some absolutely rock bottom self esteem, even if in this AU timeline she's kind of too powerful for that to serve her anymore, honestly. But another thing about getting an Evil Ending with a break up is that her relationship with Astarion was: Act 1 seduction: 'I successfully romanced him, oh no it turns out it was all an act', Act 2 'I don't think we should have sex anymore, idk if we ever will again': 'oh no, everything I did before now was making him uncomfortable and I never realised', then Act 3: turbo charged sex demon tells you you're worthless. So I feel like it makes sense for her to have a lot of self doubt around sex or intimacy with Astarion, bc she doesn't have any real knowledge of what the man she knew would've wanted - they never got to unpack what parts were an act and which parts weren't, and they crucially never got their graveyard resolution scene.

She has no belief that she ever correctly understood what he wanted or needed and so yeah. She'd be scared of getting it wrong again. What if he was doing all this just to turn around and tell her that she was never what he wanted at all?

She is also just... very attracted to him :') that makes a lot of people self-conscious in these kind of situations lmao

And yeah, I think that that kind of petty, insignificant insecurity carries a lot of guilt as well. I do think she's talked about it in therapy. Your boyfriend lost his soul while you watched... why would you obsess over whether the physical intimacy was good or not? That's cringe, and way down the list of priorities. But it's also a very human insecurity and she's fallible, so unfortunately it is there.

Hope that this was in any way interesting! :)

DVD commentary ask

[dumpster-fire-deluxe]

The prompt is (thank you @asdeadasasquirrel): A conversation or a scene where Padme thinks she understands Palpatine better afterward but we know differently

Writing a character I've never written before + balancing the inner world of two characters who both have a very different perspective of the situation + incorporating dramatic irony (the reader knows something which the main character doesn't)?

The last time Padmé had been in Palpatine's apartment, it was as a refuge; when she was queen and her mentor a senator. Now, she was the senator, visiting the chancellor of the Galactic Republic.

“How have you been settling in?” Palpatine asked, reclining in his seat, two freshly brewed cups of caf on the side table between them.

“I’m almost done unpacking,” Padmé answered. “I’m waiting for a few more belongings to be shipped over, but I’ve already made myself at home.”

“That’s good to hear. I can tell you from experience that the transition from Naboo to Coruscant can be rather… jarring.”

“I do think I will miss the lakes.”

“What helped me back then, was frequenting some of the parks around here. Of course, it doesn’t compare to the sprawling nature you and I are used to, but it might help ease you into the city.”

“Thank you for the advice. I do think I’ll be taking you up on it.” She picked up her cup.

“Good.” Palpatine took a sip of his own caf. “How are you feeling now that you’ve officially taken on your new position as senator?”

“I'm excited to get to work. Though, I must admit that I'm a little nervous.”

“Understandable, yet unnecessary. There is not one person I would rather have representing our dear homeworld than you. I’m delighted to be working by your side.”

Padmé tried not to blush at the compliment. “I can only hope that I will serve our people as well as you did.”

“You have nothing to worry about. Someone as brave as you to run straight into a battle has enough strength to face a room filled with diplomats.”

“But what if they think I’m too young? I might be inexperienced compared to them.” It was a concern she hadn’t voiced to anyone else. But Palpatine had mentored her for so long. If anyone could advise her, it was him.

He didn’t speak at first and Padmé wondered if he was about to deliver an uncomfortable truth, a confirmation that she wasn’t ready after all. He’d be gentle about it, of course, but it would hurt nonetheless.

“Did I ever tell you about how I ended up in politics?”

Padmé thought about it. It was public knowledge that Palpatine was an orphan from a royal bloodline who had become a rising star in legislation following his family’s demise. It was an inspiring story, but one she didn’t know many details of. “I don’t think so, no.”

He took another sip and set his cup down. “I was seventeen years old when my whole life got turned on its head. At the time, I was at a youth legislative camp. I’m sure you’re familiar with those.”

“I am, yes.”

“My family went on a trip, but during their travel, disaster struck. Pirates. Not a single one of them was spared. When I heard the news, I was devastated.”

“I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

“Suddenly, I was thrust into a different life." He looked off into the distance, a pained expression on his face. "I was lost and had to rebuild myself from the broken pieces that were left behind. I carried so much anger. Eventually, I learned to pour that rage into something more... productive.”

“Politics?”

He looked back at her, the same determined expression in his eyes that she'd seen many times before. “Precisely. I was still in the legislative program and I noticed that the only thing that made me feel better was to make a difference; to improve society from its very core and give everyone the life they deserve. And it’s that drive that has gotten me to where I am now."

Padmé nodded. She knew that feeling all too well; it's what made her get up every morning.

Palpatine leaned forward and put his hand on her arm. "Your age doesn't matter. What matters, is your passion for what we do here. You have a burning desire to make the galaxy a better place. I have seen it since you were very young, and it’s why I’ve always believed in you. And it’s what will make you among the best politicians the Senate has ever seen.”

Padmé smiled, comforted by his words and the warm encouragement in his eyes. “Thank you. It means a lot to me.”

He sat back. "I am here for you if you ever need anything. Senator Amidala."

The last bit of doubt faded from her mind. She was ready to serve in the Senate. "I'm looking forward to working together."

Palpatine smiled. "So am I."