#we literally all come on here to escape and create our own little worlds

[elliesflower]

okay literally i’m gonna need everyone to shut the fuck up for a second like ???? do some of y’all even hear the shit that comes out of y’all’s mouths?

the block button is right there.

the filter content button is in your settings.

it costs zero dollars to shut your fucking mouth and not be fucking disrespectful to people who have done literally nothing to you.

there is so much content on tumblr, the entire fucking internet even. not all of it is going to be your cup of tea, hell i’ve read things that have personally made me uncomfortable but does that mean i’m gonna hop into that poor persons inbox and tell them they’re worthless and they should go die? absolutely fucking not, because i can simply scroll away.

some of you need to get it through your thick skulls, be a decent fucking human being. it’s like y’all get off on being evil or something, jesus christ.

[thescentofrainonstone]

It's the voice. It's what He says YOU and only YOU directly into your ears.

Or "fanfics, audios and self esteem building"

Let me explain.

There's an addendum to be had on the matter of where we go for escapism, when it's stories or fanfics that then become books if that experience of disappointment in current life, frustration and longing is shared enough (like in the case of twilight and fifth shades).

I seem the only one vocally noticing when one writes a self insert is because of their need ultimately to feel special, chosen by the character for whatever reason is desirable to them (usually tall, dark, handsome, immortal or thereabout and wealthy but not ostentatiously because money exists as preventative from problems).

But what hit me recently, and admitedly late, relates to audio. And the baldur's gate 3 people who fell hook line and sinker for Astarion might probably back me up on this because from what I understand, as someone who hasn't played and doesn't even know the game but got still hit by the way the pale elf got into the zeitgeist (at least of nerdy people whl play d&d old fashionably around a table monthly) is that most of the heavy lifting and heart throbbing is due to the work of Astarion's voice actor Neil Newbon.

Now, audio is a peculiar thing, go check out GoneWildAudio on Reddit and see for yourself the quite literal mind🦆it can be to have someone, speaking in your ear, addressing YOU and then go convince your brain that is *not* an actual human referring, adoring, and talking to YOU.

First: audio recordings have been around a little over 150 years. So in a way you'd think we haven't evolved to understand the difference between a recording and someone there who really whispers in your own ear.

But then again, film shocked the first time they saw the locomotive but nowadays no one would dream what's in their TV is actually part of their surroundings. And to that I argue: audio has no frame. Nothing physically breaks the illusion like the screen and its separation from your actual surroundings.

Audio doesn't have that. Put on headphones, close your eyes and with a good quality equipment (or binaural) it's freaky what audio can give the impression to your brain that's going on.

Now personal vulnerability moment: years ago I went into a rabbit hole that led me to the work of a certain GWA Voice Artist. I was writing a paper and supposedly "researching and studying" like a good observer of the human condition when I suddenly found myself nothing short of addicted to sound in the form of their very unique specific voice. to the point I took it upon myself to try and understand what kind of ton of bricks hit a performer when they share something seemingly personal and vulnerable... Via audio. Which as said above, doesn't have a defined frame that separates it from how our brains differentiate everything else that affects any of our other senses in reality. Let's just say that I realised the experience of someone whose voice presented male is vastly different from someone like me whose voice was coded femme. And that's because cishet men don't know how to respectfully interact with the subject of their porn. At least that's what I saw in my brief but intense experience as a virtual sex worker, basically.

But beside the point: voice and sound create such a good illusion because of how many more human facets come through with timbre, every breath intake, every exhale, all those imperfection that communicate "human".

Now here's where it gets tricky: there is an agreement on the swoon-worthiness of words spoken to YOU about YOU in Your ear. How "unique, amazing, exceptional, beyond whatever he dared to imagine You are, how You affect his entire world and way to see at every human after you who doesn't hold a candle to your being". Which reflects in the popularity of audio and I suspect justifies the success of Astarion beyond the video game world like, to my knowledge, no character had breached before.

But.

What struck me is one specific effect Audio has on people, and I mean beyond the physical effect of the rightfully horniness. I refer to:

self-confidence.

Please consider this an invitation to confirm or deny, but after spending days, listening to a voice telling you how amazing, and special, and sexy you are, how crazy you drive him/her/them and how they only have eyes for you, don't you start to walk a little bit taller? Head a little bit higher? Hips a little bit swayer?

And this is to say: I don't think most people have the ability to do that for themselves, to write themselves into self inserts and yet being able to praise themselves like they clearly yearn to. And audio then becomes I guess like you're masturbating with someone else's hand voice?

Btw: again kudos to fanfic writers in the Astarion realm because at least they are a step ahead the last fandom I checked and if not praising their self insert enough (ever for me, but maybe I'm just a praise slut) they definitely spend more time in the pale elf's head than I ever witnessed in the last twenty or so years I've read (and occasionally written but I will forever deny under torture) Fanfiction

In this air, if you are looking to disconnect from reality with amazing heartfelt smut go check our @again-please and @fangswbenefits ❤️❤️❤️

[averagewriter-inthedark]

The Young Avengers 🦅 | Marvel Headcanon

Takes place during Phase 4 of the MCU

Link to my marvel Masterlist

Requested 📨 yes/no

Being a young former Black Widow and forming a team with Shuri, Kate, Elijah, Joaquin, and Kid Loki would look like:

To be honest you weren’t to fazed with the idea of forming a team with the younger crowd of up and coming superheroes. Sure you had been friends with Shuri since 2018 and met the others through Sam, Clint, and Thor, but the idea of creating a team like the Avengers never crossed your mind until Shuri proposed the idea. “Ain’t that Val lady forming her own team? Or Secretary Ross is, they’re calling them the Thunderbolts? Yelena was telling me about it—anyway, point is if there’s already a new team of heroes then why make our own?” “Calling them heroes is a little…far fetched if we’re being honest. They are more like the Dark Avengers—and no I was not trying to make a joke. You look at who she’s recruiting and it’s literally that. Think of us as their antithesis.”

It didn’t take much convincing after that with you literally going, “Fuck it. Let’s do it—might actually give me shit to do now that the world has gone to shit trying to get back to the way it was.” Within the hour you were pulling up to a hangar to meet the others. They all looked excited except Kid Loki. He looked rather annoyed being there—really it was Thor’s idea to have him join to keep him out of trouble. “It was either this or join him in his adventures across space. Frankly I’d rather stay in one place after escaping the Void.”

Considering you all are some of the most powerful and intelligent kids on the planet, there is bound to be some restrictions. Likely y’all would be staying at Avengers compound or create your own base camp but there would still be oversight. If Fury is not dealing with the Kree then he and Maria are who y’all report to. Other than them, the veteran Avengers tend to look after you guys—like Sam and Clint. “So since you’re now Captain America and you’re technically retired, does that make Torres the Falcon and Bishop Hawkeye?” “If that’s what they want to go by. You’re still called Black Widow aren’t ya?” “Touché”

So there you have it. Shuri: The Black Panther, Joaquin: the Flacon, You: the Black Widow, Kate: Hawkeye, Kid Loki, & Elijah: The Patriot.

As expected you’re a rambunctious group of heroes. Sometimes y’all find yourselves in trouble when you weren’t planning on it. Trouble just finds you guys 90% of the time. Agent Everett Ross has a whole supply of advil because keeping track of you all gives him a headache. “You’re job was to get it, get the intel, and get the hell out of there. What went wrong?” “Well…….as you can see um….yeah I have no explanation. Shuri you got anything?” “Nope. Torres, you?” “I can’t even remember what we were doing there.”

One time on a mission you guys actually ran into the Thunderbolts and it was quite the scene. First of all you and Yelena were like, “Hey sis! What are you doing here?” Meanwhile Bucky was scolding Elijah & Torres and Walker was getting annoyed with Kid Loki’s tricks. Kate just looked out of place while Shuri was trying to calm everyone down, “It seems there has been a misunderstanding. Unless….it was the plan for all of us to be here.” “What are you saying, Shuri?” “I believe our teams were set up, white wolf. Why else would both of us be called to the same place, for the same exact thing, on the same day?”

Having a genius like Shuri on your team meant you guys were equipped with some of the best technological advances than anyone else. Even the Thunderbolts were envious of y’all’s artillery. Not only did Joaquin get an upgrade on his falcon wings, but Kate got high tech trick arrows, Elijah a vibranium shield, kid Loki with a scepter and you got some additions to your Widow’s bite and suit. “Shit, I feel like I could take down even Thanos with these.” “Try not to show them off to much, Widow. Secretary Ross is still trying to get me to develop stuff for the Thunderbolts and i’ve given him the impression I’m not even advancing our weaponry. So..keep it on the down low.”

After some time as a team, you guys would recruit Kamala Khan, RiRi Williams and Cassie Lang as y’all’s Ms. Marvel, IronHeart & Stinger. Peter Parker would eventually join, bringing in his buddy Ned and America Chavez who were Masters of The Mystic Arts. The team grew so large y’all could actually split you guys up when multiple missions came in. With their initiation, Dr. Strange, Captain Marvel, and Scott Lang joined Sam, Clint, Fury, Ross, and Hill as ‘chaperones’.

“So what do we call ourselves?” “The Young Avengers.” “Isn’t that a derivative?” “Yeah, but it sounds less menacing than Dark Avengers or the Thunderbolts. I mean we are Avengers…just we’re young so it fits.” “True…”

[avatar-of-the-web]

This was going to be a response but Tumblr has the best timing with making me lose a post forever, so the context is TMA "Are there loving God's?" Gerry said, he doesn't believe so.

They appear to all be fear-based.

He specifies, “At least not that I've seen” [they are not anything else]

Smart boy, the information tugs at the edge of the subconscious where you can barely see it. You know it's wrong without the means to prove it.

You know they're beyond your imagination but you still yet cannot help being trapped in a world of fear; this was true before they literally consumed the world. They already had. So caught up in fear that it had practically swallowed it all to begin with. All Elias had really done was make it official, to cut everything else out of the picture.

So there was nothing left to balance, it slides on an incline downward; but this is an ecosystem and the balance is off. They can't feed forever if even they can die—this world was finite.

In a sense, ours isn't. Of course, the flesh disagrees and the clumsy host produces waste without thinking of solutions will disagree; “it's all finite to me” but this energy is never created nor destroyed only moved, only changed.

They'd be different sides of the same entity, not completely different entity's; they're ELDRITCH, or incredibly difficult, dense to comprehend; Different faces, same beast—a different man sees their own unique version of each god as unique as their relationship with it.

To a vast avatar, the vast is a loving god, She changed you for the better; Gave you what you Needed, though She may still ask for payment in an exchange. That's not unreasonable.

Of course how we draw the lines in the sand are circumstantial. One calls it the Eye because they believe this section of the beast is worth separating as its own; and for good reason. In every head, the witness of life observes and fed and fed and fed She changes too. Different forms of course; some continually feeding without consideration, some drink the sea to know to apply, some cannot help this obsession spurred by terror what will happen if I don't see it all? And more.

The Eye is a dominant entity for Her presence is nearly guaranteed. The Web us a dominant entity because it is or lays in the connection of everything.

We section these things to better understand them. The total of it all— it's too overwhelming to process all at once.

But it comes down to this.

You make a relationship with your slice of The Gods.

“In exchange for being my vessel, here is a prize; but you must be calibrated. Not just anybody can be a vessel for # you must fulfill the needs, be capable of performing My actions of thinking My thoughts.

You are My Vessel the embodiment of Me and you must Become to Be.”

Gerry is biased by WHAT HE COULD SEE, the patterns that trapped him, and what he could see was ultimately dictated by the people that insisted on controlling his life; so when he escaped he could only make how he viewed the world his own, so he saved people from fear instead of creating it.

He fought limitation though limitation still lay as it were, he could only go so far but even so

If that's not love, I don't know what is.

So he did not See it for he could not understand it but he could Feel it still; it drove his actions though he separated them.

He only knew these things could hurt people because he Saw what they could do. He only saved them because he Knew. Otherwise, there is no reason to Fear.

Of course, doubt and denial and misunderstanding, misaligning information leads to blindness; one could ask "how could god do that?" thinking of a god as something akin to a man making decisions; but they're far more complex than that.

The human brain does not dictate every little thing the stomach does, and goes through, though it certainly influences decisions we typically don't understand every single thing going on and don't control every single muscle and behaviour inside. A god on a greater scale—as a given consciousness could be a god to it's cells whom practice their devotion by serving their own respective purposes for the greater good of the whole and the individual—this is no different.

In our complicated dimension we have more of a choice.

We get to be privvy, get to know, get to share that know, if we so choose, if we find ourselves capable.

But I can only choose how I'd choose as I am with my life and my knowledge.

I become what I can reach.

And I believe there is every side to them, and an infinite number of ways to slice them. They are only reduced to Fears in a world of Fear.

I make no predication to the angle the podcast will take; but I see the seeds of reality that bloomed to creative ideas in TMA. And I see what cannot be avoided; I see what is being depicted.

In it's full complexity, from the eye of the beholder, from the centre of fear is our vantage point as the audience as it is the writers.

The Witness of Life, The Eye, The Evil Eye. All the same. Whatever angle it takes.

So we will See.

[tobiasdrake]

Deeper into Mesa Island, we go.

Uhhh.... Can we help you?

Should we be stopping this? I feel like we should be stopping this.

And they're gone.

Great. They expect me to do all the work of springing the deadly trap on myself. Typical.

This is the Elder Mist all over again. Fucking lazy-ass ambushers.

Fine, I did your yardwork and raised your lunar sigil. Let's go, up and at 'em. Come bite my face off. I don't have all night.

There we go, that's more like it. Consider this hedge pruned! See, the problem with making me set up my own ambush is that it gives me time to prepare for it.

In any case, that happened. Remind me next time we see Dickface Minstrel that I owe them a flute shoved down their throat.

And I pay my debts. Just ask the Numerology Cult.

Oh, I guess it's flashback time. Sure, why not. It's a bit of a hike to Peach's Castle, so now's as good a time as any to reminisce.

Oh, shit. Is this....

It is. This is the Strife cleansing. This is when Momo died. Along with many of her colleagues.

Oh, that confidence. >.< Oh, Moraine. Time will not be kind to you.

Another reminder that Erlina is stronger than Brugaves. She took to the magic more naturally than he did.

No, you don't. Not this battle, you don't.

People keep mentioning the twins. I don't think they're anyone we know. Probably died in the Strife battle.

They have to be important, though. The way they keep coming up implies that the plot wants us to be aware of them.

The sole survivor. I think this is where everything fell apart for our timeline. If Solstice Warriors are Resh'an's pieces and Dwellers are Aeophorul's pieces, then the near-total annihilation of all Solstice Warriors in exchange for a single Dweller, no matter how strong, was a cataclysmic loss for our team.

All that was left of the entire order was one traumatized Lunar warrior and two kids who didn't even really want to be here. This was where the ball began to roll downhill.

The friction was there from the beginning. Erlina never liked Moraine. I can't blame her. I hated his guts too. Sole survivor with PTSD Moraine is not well-suited to teaching the new generations, but he's literally the only option there is.

We didn't survive the Strife battle. We only thought we did. But the Dweller had mortally wounded the order. A wound whose lethality would only become clear twenty years later.

Shades of our own childhood plan to go sail the world with Garl instead. Every kid can feel how suffocating Mooncradle truly is.

I said before that Moraine is not very good at indoctrinating children into the order's belief system. Erlina and Bugraves turned full-on traitor, while Zale and I were out of Moraine's sight for five seconds before we recruited our non-Solstice bro that he explicitly forbid us from recruiting. Nobody cares about what Moraine thinks.

I stand by that remark now, but it's accented with a heavy dose of tragedy. He was never qualified to be a teacher. But who else was there?

Unfortunately, Evermist Island is a fucking prison colony of a place, so it's not exactly easy to escape from. These two had to become Solstice Warriors because there were no other options available. In Mooncradle, you're either born to become a Solstice Warrior or born to serve Solstice Warriors.

That's it. Solstice kids and non-Solstice kids alike, your path is set in stone from birth. Because this isn't a village; It's a factory for mass-producing Resh'an's chess pieces as efficiently as possible.

...oh, the vials that created Mooncradle were TIA's potions. I just got that. Yeah, he probably is the Great Eagle. Or controls it. Or something.

Aww, it's me! I'm so precious. I am the cutest baby that's ever been dropped off by the Great Eagle, and I will bite the shins of anyone who disagrees.

Confirmation that I am, in fact, the older sibling. Chew on that, little brother.

[canary0]

June 29th - Dracula 2023

Today is the day of my last letter. Time is up.

The Count went down the wall again like a lizard wearing my clothing. A disturbing image, like seeing into the future if I don’t escape. I wish I’d had a gun or something on that I could shoot him right off the wall. Honestly, though, I’m not sure it would even affect him. I didn’t wait for him to come back – after the hypnotism incident the other day, I didn’t want to risk it.

I went back tot he library and read until I fell asleep, instead. I swear, this is the most reading not for work I’ve done in years. Normally that wouldn’t be a bad thing, but it’s just a reminder of how isolated from the world I am. I want nothing more than to take out my phone and check up on everyone’s lives. I think I dreamt about them for a little bit before the Count awoke me, expression grim as a coffin nail.

He said, “To-morrow, my friend, we must part. You return to your beautiful England, I to some work which may have such an end that we may never meet. Your letter home has been dispatched; to-morrow I shall not be here, but all shall be ready for your journey. In the morning come the Szgany, who have some labours of their own here, and also come some Slovaks. When they have gone, my carriage shall come for you, and shall bear you to the Borgo Pass to meet the bus from Bukovina to Bistrita. But I am in hopes that I shall see more of you at Castle Dracula.” Was that the movers I’d seen outside? Either way, the events of the last few days and our interactions absolutely screamed that that was nonsense. Hope springs eternal, though, so I decided to test his sincerity. What an insult to the term.

“Why can’t I leave tonight?” I asked, blunt and to the point.

“Because, dear sir, my coachman and horses are away on a mission."

“Hiking would be good for my health, and I’d like to get home as soon as possible,” I returned evenly. I at least knew the general direction because of the GPS before it was destroyed.

His smile in response was the softest, smoothest expression I’d ever seen, with an edge of evil to it. The whole effect sent a chill down my spine as he spoke. “And your baggage?”

“It’s not that important.” Half of it was missing or destroyed during the course of my stay in this nightmare anyway.

The Count stood up and put on a show of courtesy that would have made him a shoo-in for an Oscar. “You English have a saying which is close to my heart, for its spirit is that which rules our boyars: 'Welcome the coming; speed the parting guest.' Come with me, my dear young friend. Not an hour shall you wait in my house against your will, though sad am I at your going, and that you so suddenly desire it. Come!" With that, we were on our way down to the door with the lamp. Halfway down the stairs he stopped, looked up, and said, “Hark!”

Practically right outside the doors the howling of wolves rose in time with the movement of his hand. Seeing how he commanded them before, I don’t doubt is the exact case. As if he hadn’t just down that, he went down and threw open the bolts and the door itself. The door, it seemed, wasn’t at all locked. Perhaps it was too heavy for me, or perhaps it’s some other effect of his. I don’t know what to believe about what he can do anymore.

The howling and growling of the wolves became louder and angrier, and they leapt at the door, all fangs and claws. I knew that just leaving then would be a certain death sentence. Some part of me felt sorry for the wolves – this is certainly not how they naturally behave, so they were just victims under his control. Like myself, the movers, everyone in his orbit except maybe those weird sisters.

The door kept opening, with only the Count between them and me… literally and figuratively, since he commanded them to come at me as much as he created a barrier between myself and them. I had tried to end the game early, and so it would be valid to end my life with it. Knowing that, I finally shouted, “Shut the door! I’ll wait until morning, it’s fine!” I clenched my fists and looked down as tears stung my eyes.

We returned to the library in silence – his triumphant, I’m sure, though he went ahead of me so I couldn’t see his face. Eventually I returned to my own room. He kissed his hand toward me like someone blowing me a kiss, and that was the last I saw of him. He stared intently with those red eyes as his did, as triumphant as I’d imagined before. He was enjoying this entirely too much. The final act of his little play.

I didn’t know if I could sleep, but I was at least determined to lie down. I needed rest. But I heard whispering at the door. Whispering I knew well.

“Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! To-night is mine. To-morrow night is yours!" There was a soft laugh – the women from before – and I threw open the door. There they were, licking their lips. At my appearance, they laughed and ran away.

I slammed the door shut, but was left only with emptiness and horror. Tomorrow is the end. I knew that, in a way, after what he said. There was naturally a purpose in keeping me here.

Tonight is his, though, and I have something to fear in the mean time. Whatever he plans to do, I’ll likely be left alive for them in whatever state I’m in.

My eyes went to where I had hung the crucifix from the bed frame. Somehow it was gone. Where, I don’t know.

So I am here. Waiting in silence. All I have is my diary that I should hide before he gets here, and the lamp to comfort me.

Tonight is his, whatever that means. And tomorrow, one way or the other, it ends.

(A/N: It always struck me as weird that Jonathan wasn't freaking out about more stuff in that scene. So... yeah.

I honestly had a lot of fun adapting this section.

Also, hey, check me out getting a post out in a reasonable time frame!)

[cdyssey]

Ninth Doctor Era Rewatch Rankings:

1. “Father’s Day” → I think script wise, #2 on my list might be a little bit higher, but when it comes to the emotional impact that Series One episodes had on me, there can be no other entry at the top. It has to be “Father’s Day,” through and through—a story about intimate, personal grief and the utter importance that even an “ordinary” man has on an entire world. I love this story for plainly talking about how a person’s life is elevated after their death; Jackie built up Pete to be a perfect man for her young, fatherless child, someone to be absolutely proud of. And I equally love this story for briefly deconstructing that fantasy by showing us the rocky reality of Jackie and Pete’s marriage and some of his less-than-admirable traits, and yet, still coming to a similar conclusion at the end of the day. Yes, Pete wasn’t perfect—far from it, in fact—but he was still someone to be proud of. He was human, and he was good. He loved his family. He died to save them—save the entire world. It’s all so beautiful and poignantly done. Billie and Shaun Dingwell put in wrenching performances. I cry every single time.

2. “The Empty Child” / “The Doctor Dances” → Oh, these episodes will forever fuck me up in the best of ways. I STILL remember being in middle school when I first watched them and being terrified of the masked people and their insistent refrain. But this episode is so much more than the terror, or really, it’s about the terror. The terror of war. The terror of not having a future. The terror of intimacy. The terror of never being able to heal from what has been done to you—or perhaps even, from what you yourself did. The Doctor sees his own trauma echoed back at him all over these episodes—in brave, selfless Nancy, in the bombs that are slow-cooking London, in Rose’s desire to know him at a new level. And it’d be so easy to offer the conclusion that there’s no escaping the terror; there’s no healing from a critical wound; there’s no hope at the end of a long day. After all, in Nine’s adventures that we’ve seen so far, nothing has exactly contradicted that. Someone has always died despite his best efforts. But, oh, man, in this fucking episode, just this once, everybody lives, and it’s a triumph that is absolutely the defining moment of Nine for me. As he laughs in that sea of golden lights, we see the exact moment that he finds his inner joy again. We see him begin to heal. Fucking fantastic.

3. “Dalek” → Genuinely my favorite Dalek episode of all time. Christopher Eccleston’s stellar fucking acting alone sells the horror of the species—what they are and what they have done, what even a single one can accomplish if it’s let loose in the world. And as we witness the carnage, both within our terrified Doctor and in that facility full of bodies, we also immediately see the idea of a pure Dalek turned on its head through Rose, whose influence turns a literal hate machine into something else. Something entirely new. God, “Dalek” is just a brilliant episode all around, one that interrogates the effects of war in so many ways. War only creates lonely, broken creatures. Like the Doctor. Like the Dalek. The corrective is purposefully choosing not to perpetuate that violence, so it doesn’t change you into becoming something that you can’t stand to look in the mirror.

4. “The End of the World” → Okay, I don’t have the deepest things to say here, except that it’s just an iconic fucking episode of television ALAKDJAKKS. LIKE, on one hand, you have moments of just outrageous camp—“Toxic” and Cassandra the “bitchy trampoline”—but in the same space, you have existential musings about how even though the world will one day be gone, the connections that we thread with our loved ones will always be meaningful and profound. Brilliant and funny and touching. A second episode that’s already firing on all cylinders.

5. “Aliens of London” / “World War III” → Didn’t think that these two would be so high on the list, but god, if the opening of “Aliens” and the close of “WWIII” didn’t absolutely spear right through me on this rewatch. I think these episodes do the best job (in Series One, at least) of showing exactly what the personal consequences of time-traveling can be. It’s something Jackie and Mickey had to agonizingly experience when Rose was gone from them an entire year. And it was something that Rose and the Doctor have to grapple with as well upon their return and in the subsequent battle with the Slitheen. The Doctor gets it better than Rose (understandably so). He can never guarantee her safety, and that’s a fact that perpetually haunts his entire companionship with her.

6. “Bad Wolf” / “The Parting of Ways” → URGHSHDHDJDHS, I like RTD finales because they’re balls off the walls crazy, but also, it drives me crazy that the series-long lead-up to his big twists tends to be minimal. I think I would have enjoyed the Bad Wolf ex-machina far better if we could have gotten consistent references (beyond unremarked upon appearances of the phrase) to it throughout the series. I’m also never the biggest fan of when legions of Daleks are the big enemy™️ because I’m still in awe of how perfect the episode “Dalek” is in showing how just one Dalek is a considerable foe. When they’re innumerable, the threat just sort of dulls to me. BUT for all this, there is so, so, so much to love about the finale episodes. I love the game show pastiches in “Bad Wolf.” Nine sending Rose away and her theme playing over his goodbye message is a top tier moment for me. And his regeneration is just pitch perfect. Nine was my first Doctor, and he’ll always be so special to me.

7. “Rose” → God, the iconic pilot. Really, just a pitch perfect introduction to the world of Doctor Who through the eyes of someone who is inexorably pulled into the Doctor’s mad, dangerous, and fantastic orbit. “Rose” does what a good pilot is supposed to do. Get us involved with the characters and make us want to know more. And Christopher Eccleston really sets the tone of this specific series in the climax of the episode, hinting at the devastation of the Time War and his utter guilt at playing a part in it.

8. “Boomtown” → SEE, OKAY, here’s the thing. “Boomtown” has all of the elements of the things that I typically love in an episode of a TV show. It’s got camp. It’s got banter. It’s got deep philosophical examinations of the characters and their moral motivations. And I REALLY loved Annette Badland’s performance of Margaret… but I think my ultimate qualm with “Boomtown” always ends up being that you can see the seams of the finale set-up just a little too clearly. I wish the Bad Wolf climax had been introduced more gradually throughout the series. And some of the dialogue here was just a wee bit too on the nose.

9. “The Unquiet Dead” → Honestly, there really wasn’t a bad episode in Series 1 for me. Just ones that were a bit more interesting than others. I still liked this episode. The guy who played Charles Dickens was incredibly convincing, and I loved the bittersweetness of the Gwyneth storyline. Her bonding moment with Rose was so lovely and human.

10. “The Long Game” → Simon Pegg was great as the antagonist is this one. The worldbuilding was fun, too—it was cool that the Satellite V plot came back in the finale! I think I just disliked Adam that much djsjfjjsjs. Watching his subplot gave me secondhand embarrassment—though that was definitely the intent.

[artisticbunny]

Hello Bun! I have magically manifested within your inbox to ask you about…

Your OCs!

One of my anon subordinates (totally not me telling my friends about you no way) previously asked about your number of them, but I want to know who they are!! >:3c Any like, story or interaction or certain universe or specific aesthetics? Feel free to infodump Bun I’m all ears!!

(Sorry if this seems a little too pushy I just saw your reblog and was like ‘why don’t I be a good lad and prance on over eh?’ So here we are! :3 I hope you don’t mind!)

AAAAA HI MOOG!!! THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THIS EXCUSE ILY DJDBDHE

IM SO EXCITED TO INFODUMP ABOUT MY CHARACTERS I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!!

I ACTUALLY HAVE THE FIRST CHAPTER OF THEIR STORY UPLOADED TO AO3 AND IM WORKING ON THE SECOND!!!

Buckle in cuz this is gonna be a long post lol

I’m not gonna reveal everything cuz there have to be some tricks up my sleeves, but I’m gonna be talking about major plot stuff that isn’t in the first chapter so, uh, spoiler warning also X3

OK!!!! SO MY MAIN CHARACTER BROOK IS BABEY AND I LOVE HER!!!! ABUSE TW THO CUZ BOY HOWDY THIS BABY TRAUMATIZED.

Basically the start of the story happens as she’s running away and escaping from her abusive household, this story takes place in a fantasy world so it’s more of a tower than a house but yk.

Her “mother” is this kind of just,,, awful person that basically just was using Brook as free labor. Like, she found Brook as a toddler literally abandoned by this little brook river thing and called her “Brook Child” because she couldn’t be assed to give her a proper name. There isn’t any actual physical hitting or anything to the abuse but god, if there isn’t just a buttload of neglect and verbal/psychological abuse going on. It’s not uncommon for Brook to have been locked in the basement for days on end without food because she did something wrong.

Brook physically is super scrawny because of this, like you can easily see her bones. She has CONSTANT, DEEP dark circles under her eyes that will probably never go away, and is often fatigued. She has a long scar going down one side of her face (her left, our right), caused by an incident with setting up chicken wire. Between her not knowing how to really deal with that kind of wound at the time and the fact that she’s constantly malnourished, it left a pretty noticeable scar

ALSO FUN FACT BROOK IS AROACE CUZ YIPPEE REPRESENTATION!!!!

After she runs away her plan is to get a few supplies so she can go live on her own because the only real experience she has with other people is her “mother” and just really wants to not be around people who she thinks are going to hurt her… uuunfortunately for her she ends up being peer pressured by a merchant into buying an enchanted dagger that uses up basically ALL OF HER MONEY SHE SAVED UP.

Said dagger comes with a prophecy and is, surprise! Sentient! Yeah so now basically she’s forced to go on this quest now! No living alone in the woods in peace for her! She ends up naming the dagger Willow because of a beautiful willow tree engraving at its base and for the fact that it’s handle is modeled after a winding tree trunk (with THOUSANDS of engraved TINY little symbols and glyphs and spells and the like that looks a lot like tree bark!)

Willow uses she/it pronouns because yes! The engravings that are so tiny you can barely see and make them out is what makes Willow sentient! It’s VERY complex spellwork and may have taken even over a lifetime to create! She is very well crafted :)

She is also VERY blunt. Willow doesn’t understand the complexities of like… softening the blow of its words, so it doesn’t even really try lol. Basically it’s like “ah yeah, you are my wielder so you ARE the one from the prophecy, there’s not any getting out of it, let’s go!”

Willow’s one purpose is to complete the prophecy and is ultimately loyal to Brook till the end because of this. Unfortunately, Willow will sometimes bend the rules Brook set for the greater good of completing the quest. (During their first meeting Brook set the ground rules of no killing, and no hurting people unless absolutely necessary.)

During like, the first few hours after she leaves the trade town she fled to to go get this quest over with she gets jumped by this like 7 foot dude in black armor. This is Quincy.

I love him because there are… a lot of complexities with him lol

Without getting into huge spoiler territories, basically, where he comes from, the prophecy is told differently to the point of where Brook is made out to be the villain of the story. He is trying to protect his family and his home. When scouting her out, he is surprised to see that she’s basically just a kid, but decides to go through with the attack anyways as an attempt to stop the prophecy from being fulfilled.

Brook doesn’t know about this rendition of the prophecy.

So basically he attacks Brook, and Brook tries to reason with him to the absolute best of her ability. Quincy, however, is not open to conversation at that point. With willow’s guidance, she ends up killing him.

She is stunned by this. She watches as he bleeds out on the ground and turns to Willow.

She’s like “we agreed on no killing, this guy looks pretty dead to me!!!” (She’s obviously more panicked than this in the actual story lol)

Willow is like “ok ok fine hold me near him give me a second.”

A fun fact about Willow is that she can act as a channel for magic, and use her wielder’s supply. So when Willow uses a spell, the spell treats Brook as the caster even though Willow is effectively the one to have cast the spell.

This is important because, well, Willow uses NECROMANCY. A FORBIDDEN SPELL. ONE THAT IS FORBIDDEN FOR A GOOD REASON.

In this world, when someone is brought back through the use of necromancy they get revived, yes. BUT THEY ALSO BECOME TRAPPED INSIDE THEIR OWN BODIES AS THEYRE PUPPETED AROUND BY THE CASTER. This tactic was used a LOT in wars before it was outlawed btw, just some world building dont mind me :)

Yeah so basically when under the effects of Necromancy you just have to watch as your body has to follow whatever orders the caster gives you, whether you like it or not. Because it’s the spellcaster’s life force that’s inside of you.

(I have a WHOLE magic system thought out btw, magic is part of living being’s life force. Without it you basically starve. It’s like air and food and water, you NEED it to live, which is why Brook going on a quest to save it is such a big deal)

Obviously Willow is like “here, he should fight with us now :)” and brooks just there like “…” =n= because she knows something is off but she can’t put her finger on it yet but this guy is acting REALLY weird now.

Even being cooped up her hole life as she was, KNOWS THIS SPELL IS FORBIDDEN. So when she finds out it was used, she is rightly upset. She doesn’t know the FULL extent of the spell, she doesn’t know if he’s still THERE or if it’s just his corpse or WHAT, but she feels horrible about the situation and tries to give him as much kindness and freedom as she possibly can. Quincy cannot speak, but is later able to communicate better as he’s given more and more agency. (Given the right circumstances, he MAY be able to regain speech in the future ;) )

Over the course of this situation he kinda goes from absolutely despising Brook, to like “ok… this really is just a kid, I kinda feel really bad now” to “oh my god wait this kid is actually really sweet” to “this is my kid now”

He basically adopts Brook towards the end lol

Brook doesn’t really realize this is happening until about mid-way through the story when she goes to get firewood and says if anyone else in the group wants to they can come with her and he goes with her and she realizes she was addressing the whole group and that they can come if they WANT to. And then she just looks up at him and is like… “did you WANT to come with me?” And he just nods at her and she almost cries lol

I just love them, your honor. Quincy = dad of the year (iiif you get past the bit where he tried to kill Brook but yk lol)

OK NEXT WE HAVE SAM AND JOE!!! MY BOYS!!! THEY ARE BOYFRIENDS!!!!! THEY LOVE EACHOTHER!!!! RELATIONSHIP GOALS!!!

Sam is a wizard and Joe is a werewolf, they’re trying to find Joe’s tether (what will let him stay sane when transformed) they met with Joe in a dumpster and Sam trying to throw out that week’s trash from his apprenticeship <3

Joe comes from a loving family of werewolves and was born as one, his biggest fear is hurting his loved ones, which is why he was so desperate to find his tether. It’s also why he was rooting through wizard’s trashcans when Sam found him lol

They made a deal that Joe would stay out of trashcans (because of the dangerous chemicals and broken glass and stuff) if Sam would help him find his tether.

Sam didn’t actually like his apprenticeship. He was forced into it by his parents because he was “talented” and showed signs of developing into a talented wizard. He once loved performing magic, but being an apprentice stripped it of all of its fun. He neglected his work, causing him to fall behind, he is now self conscious and does not like it when people watch him cast spells.

Sam and Joe bonded over researching to find Joe’s tether and eventually fell in love. They both ran away not long after on a search for any more information they didn’t already have.

Also Joe is afraid of sheep :)

(“I don’t like it when they stare at you with those beady little eyes-“)

Kat is a ghost. She doesn’t remember her past, but she does remember waking up in the middle of the woods one day and never being able to find a way out. She had been alone for god knows how long before someone passed through (that being Brook, Willow, Quincy, Sam, And Joe) so obviously, she had to play a prank on them. GOLDEN opportunity for some entertainment.

Kat has claustrophobia (and because it’s never being revealed in the book I’ll reveal it here: she was buried alive. Framed for a crime she didn’t commit by someone in her adventuring group. The group’s agreed on punishment was for her to be buried alive and abandoned.) often getting flashbacks of suffocating, of cool dirt sticking to her face, muffling her screams and pleas for help.

Kat is very laid back and likes to make light of heavier situations with humor. She is a LOT smarter than she lets on, and has a very strong sense of moral justice. She also has a talent of apperating knives from her ghostly fog. She is very skilled at knife throwing.

Terra (Full name Terra Delah Etang) is a siren originating from Ckorplek, an underwater city found in the mesa reefs. She was a mighty warrior (arguably the strongest and most skilled with her voice) tasked with protecting her people’s most prized possession during an invasion. She dragged herself across the red sand, lake hopping for days before settling in a far off small pond-sized salt water body of water with a small island in the center. She would stay there for years protecting the item with her life. Unfortunately, Brook needs that item for her quest and Terra isn’t exactly willing to give it up.

Yeah they basically kidnap and gag her so she can’t make them kill themselves with her voice lol

They’re not just gonna leave her to die but they’re ALSO not gonna risk their lives letting her go free.

She is a reluctant party member, but as long as she’s with her people’s treasure and she’s able to make sure it’s safe, she isn’t super like… against it? Also they’re her only ticket back to her pond since they are basically wheeling her around in a red wagon full of water lol she still kinda hates them tho

Terra is super hotheaded and isn’t that forgiving of a person so it takes a while before she opens up lol

(She’s kind of like the boblin the goblin of the group in a way if you think about it lol)

Corey is half dead.

During his life, he took care of his mother and younger sister by going on quests and bringing back money. He would often ally with other adventurers to do this, and had a habit of only taking what his family needed of the rewards.

One day, on a quest to Dread Caverns- a cave system known for making your worst fears come to life- as they neared the center, where their prize was, he was betrayed.

Busted up in the fight, and with his head cracked open, he fell to the ground, left for dead, as the team he allied with ran off without him.

Fortunately for him, he landed on a healing potion he kept strapped to himself. Just in case. In the moments just after his heart stopped beating but just before his brain activity died, the glass pierced his skin, and the potion flowed into his body.

Because of this one in a billion timing, Corey was able to survive, subsisting mostly off of the world’s magic. He no longer has a heartbeat, and his left arm and leg no longer work, but he was alive, and stuck in dread caverns for about three years before Brook found him.

Corey has killed before in self defense. During his time In Dread Caverns many would come with the goal of killing him in mind, as rumors would spread of him being the reason the caverns were so dangerous.

Next is a reoccurring antagonist: Zeki.

They use She/They pronouns ;)

Zeki first appears after Dread Caverns in the story and is a well known infamous robber. She is known for kidnapping a member of her target group, and hypnotizing them to give her information and or infiltrate the group in order to easily incapacitate them. She smells of metal and is always followed by the sound of ticking clocks. She has multiple pocket watches hidden on her person at all times.

Zeki was originally the daughter of a prestigious family. They were expected to be perfect every second of every day, and were forced to learn parlor tricks to entertain guests. She would often sneak off into the middle of the night in order to destress and indulge in their true passion, whittling wood into beautiful sculptures. This went on for a long time before they were found out. All of her work was burned and destroyed, and she was cast out of the family with just the clothes on her back, and her grandfather’s pocket watch.

She almost starved before out of pure desperation they attempted one of the parlor tricks they learned. Light hypnosis. She managed to convince a passer by to give her some of their bread, and that was the beginning of their new life. Zeki would get more and more powerful every time they practiced.

Hypnosis only ever lasts from 3-5 days, but varies between that from person to person. Even after recovery, a person may relapse.

FINALLY!!! MY BOI!!!! CORVUS!!!

My lil plague doctor guy!!! I love him!!!

He never takes off his mask, he just doesn’t feel comfortable with it. The only reason he would take it off ever would be to clean it (even then, he makes sure nobody is around) or during a medical emergency.

Corvus is an actual, trained doctor! Which is part of the reason that Zeki decided to keep him as a part of their hypnotized entourage.

He is a sweet and caring guy, and just wants what’s best for everyone! No dark backstory for him other than being a part of Zeki’s crew for a bit, he’s just a lil guy! :3

I’m so sorry this is so long and I’m also sorry about the decrease in writing quality as it goes on lol this took me hours to type out XD

THANK YOU FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY TO INFODUMP IF YOU HAVE ANY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS ABOUT ANYTHING LET ME KNOW ID BE HAPPY TO ANSWER!!!!

[kyogre-blue]

And here's the second half: lore, Shambhala, and Nemesis:

Blue Sea Moon, the 7th month...

The Agarthans were unable to drop nukes on Garreg Mach. They tried before, but their nuke got redirected onto Aillel, the lava valley. This is because the Holy Tomb is not just a grave but also a "sacred vessel for a power that repels evil." Sothis built it herself to protect her children from "the evil light."

The dragons gathered in Zanado because it's close to the Holy Tomb.

Additionally, using the nuke was what let Hubert figure out Shambhala's location. Since they presumably didn't want Edelgard to know that, they likely held off on this trump card until our advancement forced their hand.

It's only thanks to the Death Knight warning us that we escaped.

They might be holding off on sending any more in order to avoid giving us any further chances to trace them. We're not on Hubbie's level, so they are correct to guess we couldn't track them from the one instance.

Rhea is coming with us... she wants to "learn the truth" about the Agarthans, which is... interesting.

Ignatz points out that Solon called us beasts and himself the Savior. Who was he saving?

Dedue left off screen :(

Edelgard was the last heir of her family. She said whoever takes the throne next should take it by virtue of merit and not blood, and totally meant it.

The military minister surrendered, but Cornelia ran off. Bye, we don't know who you are.

Yup, Shambhala is across the Airmid river, so it's in Imperial territory. For what it's worth, the nuke drop on it shows a forest, and it seems to not be that deep down, even.

It's also just... a giant tron city. There are mecha (Titanus) and also magictech turrets (Viskam?). The turrets are apparently "incomplete."

Thales is willing to let Shambhala be destroyed as long as they get their vengeance, presumably by killing Rhea?

This missions is actually really complicated, and I lost a bunch of units. Speaking of this, I wish there was a mode between casual and classic, something that puts a penalty on a unit you lost but doesn't outright remove them. Casual is a little... TOO casual.

Thales went down to an accidental crit from Leonie. I was just trying to soften him up from outside his little bunker, and yet... Oh well.

Claude finally makes the connection that the children of the goddess are dragons (shock) and that Rhea is the Immaculate One (we literally saw her transform five years ago).

Rhea tanked 3 nukes, but let 3 through. We're all fine tho. Interesting that the nukes seem to launch from elsewhere.

"With the destruction of Shambhala, the ambitions of the Agarthans are over." Cool. I guess Cornelia can't do much on her own or something.

btw, I like how Nemesis's coffin had chains around it.

Rhea says she's the last of the goddess's children.

She explains how Sothis came from far away long ago. She used her blood to create her children and they shared knowledge with humans to create an advanced civilization. But the humans turned away from her and began to wage wars. Eventually they began to consider themselves as gods and challenged Sothis herself. The world was scorched and most humans were wiped out. The Agarthans are the survivors of that time who retreated underground.

Sothis took a long time to restore the world, and then fell into slumber at the Holy Tomb. Her children settled nearby in Zanado. Until Nemesis murdered all of them.

Rhea called herself Seiros and wandered the land looking for revenge. She gathered the "remaining children" and they killed Nemesis at Tailtean Plains.

Suddenly, cities in the east report that they're being attacked by an unknown force. This is affecting the East Gronder Thoroughfare in the old Hrym territory. Then they cross the Great Bridge of Myrddin. Holst tried to fight them and got injured.

The children of the goddess can't match Sothis's power, or the power in her blood, which Nemesis possess. But this seems to imply that the Agarthans got hold of his body after he was killed?

Because it's hard to imagine they could recreate him from scratch otherwise.

We finally spell out that the Elites took the blood of dragons by force and made weapons out of their bodies.

Rhea explains that she placed Sothis's heart (crest stone) into Byleth, and that's why Byleth can use the "full power" of the Sword of the Creator.

Which is like.... did they make an artificial crest stone for the artificial Nemesis's artificial relic? These dudes got real good at counterfeiting, which makes me wonder why they kept needing to kill people and grave rob.

I forgot to check where this swamp even is. Also, disappointed that the "Agartha loyalists" aren't bone white like their leaders.

Claude literally gives a friendship speech. Tbh he also had the best damage against Nemesis and critted too. Lone combat might have been too much, but maybe if I used all those stat boosters I was sitting on... Oh well.

51:12 playtime

I also forgot to check what was the last month. I just wanted to get through it as quickly as possible lol

Oh, right. I proposed to Flayn. Byleth tells her the truth, and she asks if you're a dude or a female goddess. Why is that a concern, Flayn... This is disappointingly unromantic. I wish I could have banged your dad or your aunt, don't hold it against me.

Battle data wasn't very interesting. Most of the later chapters were finished in single digit turns. The black tower took the longest at 21 turns. I had to walk all that way...

Claude's endcard with Hilda mentions that he went home to be king, but tbh I don't even remember when, if ever, he explained that part of his background.

THE END

[writing-for-life]

I would like to know this as well. I don't expect anything, and I am thankful for every little comment/kudos/bookmark I get. I have a very small community around my fic that makes me happy, and the discussions are gold. But I also see how many people actually read, and of course I sometimes wonder what they think, and why they don't engage. Maybe they just genuinely think it's shit (or simply not the biggest ship), but that's a lot of people coming back to something that's shit ;)

Maybe we could, just for one moment, also contemplate that telling the writers not to get discouraged if they don't get any feedback, while meant well, can also be problematic. It is basically saying that we have to put our own feelings behind those of the people we "serve". They are allowed to be shy, not engage, feel whatever they feel. And yes, they are. But so are we, and while no one should be guilt-tripped into engagement, people also shouldn't feel shame about *wanting* engagement. It should be normalised that we feel this way, but we don't have to glorify a culture where no one gives a shit about each other anymore. Yes, most of us will create anyway, and we are well aware that we might just reach that one person, and it means the world to them, but this is past the point.

Art always had, and always will have, a social component (and fandom, even more so). Social connection is at the very root of it. Because art heals, art subverts, and art changes us. If we strip that away, we might as well not do it at all.

So many people engage with THIS post, also to state why they don't comment. And thousands, I mean THOUSANDS, have commented on Tumblr and Twitter when AO3 was down. They were desperate. They said their fanfics are their comfort. They could write a whole essay on the importance of fan-fiction, and why their writers are so important to them and their mental health. Maybe these people are already the ones who comment, but the ones commenting here that they are shy or don't have the energy definitely aren't.

So if you are engaging with this post, the effort is literally the same as leaving kudos or writing a comment on your favourite fic.

Just know that it makes us writers so happy if you just leave the tiniest, short comment. It doesn't have to be a massive essay, a well-thought out review, a deep contemplation. I don't know why some people think that's the case?

You don't have to be scared to engage with us. We are probably as shy, or as tired or down (writing can be escapism for a lot of people) as you. We don't expect anything from you, but a heartfelt comment, even something as simple as "thank you" if you've enjoyed it, means so much to us. And yes it does motivate us to keep going (even if we do so anyway), so it's a win/win?

If you're a creator and you needed to hear this today:

You have no idea how many people lurk on your work. No idea how many times people go back to revisit your work. How big they smile when they simply think about your work. How fast their heart beats, how excited they get when they see that you posted something.

People are shy with their feedback. Sometimes it’s because they’re simply shy. Other times it’s because they assume you already know how great and talented you are. Could be both.

My point is, even if you barely have any likes or reblogs, don’t get discouraged. You have a lot of silent fans, but they are still your fans. Keep on creating. Because there is always someone out there who will love what you have made.

[thetruthbehindtheemotions]

Death

Who am I? Well, I am the most complex secret of humanity. The most feared being. The most tragic. The cause of countless unanswered questions, tears, laments, and sufferings. But also the only certainty you have in your life journey... nice to meet you, I am Death.

I keep some secrets, just as destiny keeps everything. One of my biggest secrets is also one of my greatest bitterness. Why am I not loved?

I, like every other eternal being, will stay here until everything ends. Not even Hope will escape me on some fateful day. I will be the last to finish. I am the one who will close the show of Life after applauding it standing ovation. Some see in me a way to end their own suffering and torture. Their final venture against my youngest son, Despair. But things cannot be that way. You should not hate me, curse me, and certainly not fear me, just as you should not take your own lives simply because you can no longer tolerate Despair. He was born out of a need of yours, just like me, just like Life and all other things. Life is too fragile for the burden it carries. A stake, a knife, a gun, a rope... Things created by man are capable of taking away what you hold most valuable, what allows you to be in all physical and literal forms. Taking someone's life, or even one's own life, is very simple in practice, sometimes it even brings relief.

Because that's exactly what death does, it takes away the pain, ends the problems, and puts an end to all the agony that seems to have no end. But for those who remain, death is an endless pain that can never be repaired or replaced. It is a black hole, something irreversible.

It is so sad to see how life has been trivialized. Drugs, thieves, murderers, man-made plagues, hunger, prejudices, diseases infecting the world and claiming more than I would like them to claim. It was so much easier when these evils - not as great as they are today - did not exist. It was really much easier. Don't you understand that when you die, you will fall into the river of eternal oblivion? And that river is called time, where its waters are red, murky, and impossible to swim in. They sink you and drown you, they make you nothing but memories that only I will remember one day. But you know what really annoys me? It's that Destiny knows who will die and who will live even before they are born. Isn't that unfair? Yes, it is, both for me and for Life. But there is nothing we can do, we were created specifically for this. While one generates life, the other takes it away. However, that doesn't make our task any less painful. But I'm not here to talk about my pain, much less about Life's pain. I'm here to reveal a little more of my essence, so unknown to you mere mortals. And you want to know something? Here's a piece of advice for you. Don't come into my arms looking for all the answers because I won't give you all of them, I will only show you the path you will have to follow to conquer them. Hold on to your dreams and try to fulfill them in some way. Don't let yourself be carried away by the destruction that the world has become, much less get lost in its despair, but I won't deceive you by saying that it will be easy because it won't be. This is called living, and living is difficult, especially if you do what you love. So don't stop at the first obstacle on the way, don't immerse yourself in the delirium of chaos when you can live beautifully and simply. Live each moment as if it were the last because it really can be!

It may seem surreal how time passes so quickly, how people constantly enter and leave your lives. It's all so delicate, resembling that little flower called dandelion. It only takes a random puff, in any direction, and everything falls apart. That's why you should never miss the opportunity to tell those you love how much they mean to you because in a single second everything can change, and then it's too late. Sad? Yes, but it's reality. It's what I am.

I always catch you off guard. One moment you're with someone, playing, talking, making plans for the future, and seconds, minutes, or even hours later you find yourself on top of a coffin lamenting the departure of someone who meant so much to you, and on another occasion, you are the body inside the coffin. Flowers, candles, cotton stuffed in the nose, and the body pressed against a piece of wood to turn into dust months later. Just dust buried in dust. It's torturous to think of death this way because it is always seen as the end of everything, as the great villain who is always ready to snatch away what you hold dear. But perhaps there is more to it than meets the eye.

Death, in its essence, is a natural part of the cycle of life. It is the inevitable conclusion to the journey that begins with birth. Death, in a way, gives meaning to life. It reminds us of the preciousness and fragility of our existence. It pushes us to cherish the moments we have, to love deeply, and to pursue our dreams passionately.

While death may bring grief and sorrow, it also has the power to inspire and transform. It reminds us to live fully, to appreciate the beauty around us, and to make a positive impact on the world while we can. Death teaches us the value of time and encourages us to make the most of every fleeting moment.

In the face of death, we often ponder the mysteries of life and the universe. We seek answers to profound questions about the meaning of our existence, the nature of consciousness, and what lies beyond the threshold of this reality. Death invites contemplation and introspection, urging us to explore the depths of our souls and discover our true selves.

While death may seem like an end, it can also be seen as a transition. Many cultures and belief systems hold the notion of an afterlife, where the soul continues its journey beyond the physical realm. Whether it is a heavenly paradise, reincarnation, or merging with a universal consciousness, the concept of an afterlife offers solace and hope in the face of mortality.

Ultimately, death remains a mystery that eludes our complete understanding. It is a reminder of the vastness of existence and the limits of human knowledge. It humbles us, reminding us of our place in the grand tapestry of the cosmos.

So, while death may bring fear and sorrow, it is also an integral part of the human experience. It is a teacher, urging us to live with purpose, to love fiercely, and to embrace the beauty of life. In the end, it is up to us to make our lives meaningful and leave a lasting legacy that transcends our mortal existence.

*************************

Morte

Quem sou eu? Oras, eu sou o segredo mais complexo da humanidade. O ser mais temido. O mais trágico. O causador de inúmeras perguntas sem respostas, de muitas lágrimas, lamentos e sofrimentos. Mas também a única certeza que você tem em sua jornada de vida...prazer, eu sou a Morte.

Eu guardo alguns segredos, assim como o destino guarda tudo. Um dos meus maiores segredos é também uma de minhas maiores amarguras. Porque não me amam?

Eu, assim como todo e qualquer perpétuo, vou ficar aqui até que tudo termine, nem mesmo a Esperança escapará de mim em algum fatídico dia. Eu serei a última a terminar. Sou eu quem fechará o show da Vida depois de aplaudi-la de pé. Alguns poucos veem em mim uma saida para acabar com o próprio sofrimento e tortura. Sua última empreitada contra o meu filho mais novo, o Desespero. Mas as coisas não podem ser assim. Vocês não devem me odiar, me xingar, e muito menos me temer, assim como não devem tirar suas próprias vidas somente por não tolerarem mais o Desespero. Ele nasceu por uma necessidade de vocês, assim como eu, assim como a Vida e todas as outras coisas. A vida é algo frágil demais para o peso que possui. Uma estaca, uma faca, uma arma, uma corda... Coisas criadas pelo próprio homem são capazes de tirar aquilo que vocês possuem de mais valioso, o que vos permite ser, de todas as formas físicas e literais. Tirar a vida de alguém, ou até mesmo a própria vida é algo muito simples na prática, às vezes, gera até alivio.

Porque é exatamente isso o que a morte faz, ela tira as dores, acaba com os problemas e finaliza toda a agonia que parece não ter mais fim. Mas para aqueles que ficam, a morte é uma dor inacabável, que nunca poderá ser reparada ou substituída. É um buraco negro, algo irreversivel.

É tão triste ver como a vida foi banalizada. Drogas, assaltantes, assassinos, pragas criadas pelo homem, fome, preconceitos, doenças impregnando o mundo e ceifando mais do que eu gostaria que ceifassem. Era tudo tão mais fácil quando esses males - não tão grandes quanto hoje em dia - não existiam. Era realmente muito mais fácil. Será que vocês não entendem que, quando morrerem, cairão no rio do eterno esquecimento? E esse rio se chama tempo, onde suas águas são vermelhas, turvas e impossíveis de se nadar. Elas te afundam e te afogam, te tornam apenas memórias das quais um dia somente eu me recordarei. Mas sabe o que me deixa realmente irritada? É que o Destino sabe quem morrerá e quem viverá antes mesmo de elas nascerem. Isso não é injusto? É, é sim, tanto comigo quanto com a Vida. Mas não há nada que possamos fazer, fomos criadas especificamente para isso. Enquanto uma gera a vida, a outra a tira. Entretanto, isso não faz nossa tarefa ser menos dolorosa. Mas não estou aqui para falar das minhas dores e muito menos as da Vida. Estou aqui para revelar um pouco mais da minha essência tão desconhecida por vocês meros mortais. E querem saber de uma coisa? Aqui vai um conselho a vocês. Não venham para os meus braços a procura de todas as respostas, pois eu não lhes darei todas elas, apenas lhes mostrarei o caminho que terão que seguir para conquistá-las. Agarrem-se aos seus sonhos e tentem de algum modo realizá-los. Não se deixem levar pela destruição em que o mundo acabou se tornando, muito menos se percam no desespero do mesmo, mas também não irei enganá-los dizendo que será fácil, pois não será. Isso se chama viver, e viver é difícil, principalmente se você faz aquilo que gosta. Por isso não parem perante a primeira pedra no caminho, não mergulhem no delírio do caos quando podem viver de forma bela e simples. Vivam cada momento como se fosse o último, pois ele pode realmente ser!

Pode parecer surreal a forma como o tempo passa tão rápido, em como pessoas entravam e saem constantemente de suas vidas. É tudo tão delicado, semelhando-se a aquela florzinha do mato chamada de dente-de-leão. Basta um soprinho à toa, em qualquer direção, e tudo se desmancha. Por isso vocês nunca devem perder a oportunidade de dizer para aqueles que amam o quanto significam para vocês, pois em um único segundo tudo pode mudar, e então ser tarde demais. Triste? Sim, mas é a realidade. É o que eu sou.

Estou sempre vos pegando desprevenidos. Uma hora você está com a pessoa, brincando, conversando, fazendo planos para o futuro e segundos, minutos, ou até mesmo horas depois você se encontra em cima de um caixão lamentando pela partida daquele que tanto significou para você, já em outra ocasião, você é o próprio corpo dentro do caixão. Flores, velas, algodões enfiados no nariz e o corpo sendo pressionado em um pedaço de madeira para meses depois virar pó. Apenas pó enterrado no pó. É torturante pensar na morte desse jeito, porque ela é enxergada sempre como sendo o fim de tudo, como a grande vilã que esta sempre disposta a acabar com a vida. Mas a verdade não é essa. É importante que vocês saibam que, diferente do que muitos pensam, a Vida e eu não somos opostas, quem dirá rivais, na verdade somos irmãs, amigas, quase que a mesma coisa. Andamos por aí de mãos dadas, uma completando a outra. Enquanto ela é o início de tudo, eu sou o fim, ou quase isso. Na verdade eu sou aquela que dará inicio a um novo começo, o começo da eternidade. Não a um final, não a uma linha de chegada, a apenas um caminho diferente. A Morte— no caso eu - nada mais é do que o prólogo de uma vida sem dores, sem medos, sem destruição, sem ódio, sem crueldade. Eu sou a porta para o tão sonhado paraíso. Por isso vocês devem aproveitar ao máximo cada segundo, minuto e hora de seus meros dias.

Sorriam! Vivam! Amem! Sonhem! Delirem! Desfrutem! Desesperem-se! Desejem! Destinem-se! E em um dia inevitável, mas não menos fatídico, morram com a alegria de saber que seus momentos cairão juntos a ti no rio do esquecimento. Alegrem-se ao saber que irão deixar alguém para trás que os amem; que se preocupam e que irão querer vê-los novamente algum dia. Então, quando chegar a sua imprescindível hora de partir, não tenham medo, apenas me acolham como uma velha amiga.

"A morte é apenas o ponto final da primeira frase do primeiro livro de uma enorme biblioteca."

[renatedagmarmilada]

a rocket for a satelite

This tale is about guilt and evil!

Anna of Human Research St Barths would have got a rocket if their deeds of past and present had been discovered then they even put me on a satellite to the Big Apple a little housewife caring for her family setting off the alarms at Santa Monika!

Aggressive, intrusive and all the other evil ‘ives

Interruptions into lives, over tv, music and the rest Interventions into lives, over tv, music and the rest Intervening into lives, over tv, music and the rest Interjections into lives, over tv, music and the rest even causing deaths! and not even intermittently Internationally now called globally, into lives, over tv, music and the rest Interpolating lies into lives, over tv, music and the rest Interposing reality with their crazed virtual reality Interpreting with their nasty, evil minds all things pure and impure allowing no interventions by the good and helpful Interweaving their rubbish with our solid good

destroying the fabric of so many lives destroying so many lives!

caught red handed beaming looped all over the place everyone viewed so the blacking began none of us knew with Royal Prerogative to boot sadistic as never before war by the most powerful against a tiny family living quiet lives and the population at large.

“Give me all you’ve got,” said Steven from Kaspar and Kissinger lying even to them! Anna is sadistic enough the quacks corrupt enough our girls sadistic enough our health workers evil enough for the ‘phase-out’ to work to turn life into a living hell for this one tiny family (called British style pressure we didn’t know) who aren’t even aware can’t even imagine such crap from a professional body, supposedly and only just grasping how evil Brits can be after two decades (an Arab business man escaped to Dublin they did some of this to him too and others)

Use this little family for all illegal physical experiments totally outlawed in the States.

Ring round the worst practitioners ask them to come and practice using our whole system globally using the family totally everyone use them!

cripple,  maime, manslaughter, raise havoc isolate, alienate, rob, cheat and all the rest all at once, gang bang, go!

Involving Ministries the lovers of Anna will destroy life’s fabric and their careful little savings leaving them nothing after we’ve done. (the family still don’t know while she tries to think what have we done wrong?)

Using their professional status every company on the isle to cheat, syphon and allow robbery by all the students and lab workers closing all loopholes some old codger at the Lords allowed cheating on the little family give prison sentences and massive fines low and no marks for academic work then give the work to one of ours and they wonder why the country runs wild nothing ever returned or sorted not even nostalgia and paintings robbed by protected pilfering or the post not allowed!

Just a mum, kids, and scared grandparents stateless refugees of before kids born over here, british father don’t know where to flee in this closed off bordered world The liberation wasn’t worse allow no recompense

All for compensation which the jewish Health Minister feared would be a job of millions the family knew nothing about!

Now you understand Burnt ground and guilt effects and that old saying lie once lie thrice… That evil crew got away with it all made themselves rich with it and trained semi literates to cruelty with the States blessings. any one who helped them has been sent on the ladder up by them regardless of talent or suitability even copying all academic and creative works for all the lab, (jews copying our jewish memories from little Slovakia as their own! ugh…) quacks families and friends new artists they have created none with any talent all at the top and a few famous they’ve used these Stars for safety told them odd tales about me and mine (‘I wish you to rob my work, I am a retarded person who has gone to University’ eh?) now have to silence me and shun so their shame should never be known!

Thank God for American poetry sites which still allow free speech.

[atalana]

dear god though this is a mess if you were already a six of crows fan

like i wanna be excited about these moments but just. everything about the writing comes across as "let's cram the entirety of crooked kingdom into the first half of s2 so we can get that out of the way and then the crows can be our convenient puppets for our made up story. don't worry about anything that we don't have time for we don't need it"

and like why even tell it, at that point? they've said they're doing this as a soc prequel so they can tell the crows' story properly later when there's time to devote to it

but what's left? you've done all the big moments, and just taken out every little moment that made the big moments worth something

i believe that the actors all care about doing justice to their book characters in the best way they can, but the writing resembles a high school play of crooked kingdom directed by someone who read the book once three years ago

like, something i love about leigh bardugo's writing for six of crows specifically (and why i love that series a lot more than shadow and bone), is that both books are each a perfect puzzle. every single bit of information learned, every tool at kaz's disposal, every person he meets, even the things that previously worked against them, they will end up as a crucial piece of the final solution.

like the books really use everything, my favourite part of reading them is when you see a piece get pulled in that you totally forgot was even a thing, but kaz didn't. either ironically or fittingly given his background, kaz will risk every single asset he has, down to the last penny or a tiny rumor someone told him about someone else, to make sure he and his crew make it out alive and with everything they're owed. even his own trauma (and nina's) becomes a vital puzzle piece in the original plague plan

(and for much more complicated reasons than just shutting down pekka's businesses or preventing access to fifth harbor - the fake plague does all those things but it also creates the circumstances necessary to get kuwei out alive and free in the middle of an auction where quite literally the entire world wants to buy him)

on both a meta level and an in universe one, every detail is important (something kaz stresses when matthias fails to tell him about the tree in the white island, which then becomes vital to their escape plan)

not even just with kaz, like. jesper saving himself from the kherguud, can only happen because he has the wyvil in his pocket, because he picked it up half a book earlier when it was left on the table and he needed something to fiddle with because he couldn't look his dad in the eye. everything will be used. chekov's goddamn firework show, and it's so satisfying to read

this is the exact opposite. it's like the writers aren't even aware of what pieces are up in the air most of the time. i was losing track of what the crows were even after at several moments. they know some of these pieces should go in here somewhere, but they're doing a jigsaw blindfolded. this isn't an artfully crafted narrative. this is like 6 pieces stacked up in a tower bc they got bored of trying to solve it

and like maybe i'd enjoy it if i hadn't read the books? but every time a book moment has come up in episodes 3 and 4 all i've been able to feel is just sinking disappointment in the massive holes all over it

me watching sab season 2, just mentally repeating to myself: it's not an adaptation it's high budget fanfiction, it's not an adaptation it's high budget fanfiction

[jasper-pagan-witch]

As far as pcp goes, how would you go about creating and worshipping your own deity, if thats possible?

Hello hello!

As requested, I am tagging @alter-altars and @janhasnoplan in this answer. For convenience, I'm breaking this down into three headers - Don't Get Caught In A Cult, DIY Gods, and Religions From A Writing Perspective.

Don't Get Caught In A Cult

Cults are fucking terrible. And the worst part is, the more immune you THINK you are to them, the more likely you'll be to fall for their tricks.

The New Age to Alt-Right pipeline is a big example of this in metaphysical spaces, but many people have also drawn parallels between Jehovah's Witnesses, the Amish, or Mormons and cults - not because the model is wrong, but because groups that are cults often get away with it in many parts of the United States.

You may not be trying to start a cult for your DIY divinity, but it's important to be aware of the warning signs. People much smarter than I (or at least have the PhDs for it) have written many things about how to identify and escape cults, which brings us to:

Important Links

Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control on the Freedom Of Mind Resource Center

Mind Control - The BITE Model on the ex-cult Resource Center

The BITE Model of Cult Mind Control Explained by Joseph Sherwood on A Little Bit Human

How to Recognise a Cult; How to Avoid Cults That May Try to Convert You; and How to Leave a Cult on WikiHow

What To Do When You Realize You Accidentally Joined A Cult ​by Carrie Saum on Ravishly

How To Help A Loved One Who Joined A Cult by Stephanie Gomulka on Oxygen: True Crime

@pondering-the-kaiju's entire pinned post

DIY Gods

People have been making up gods for their needs for as long as we've had gods. Aradia (the creation of Charles Leland, fuck that dude) has one book as her source. Cernunnos appears on maybe one cauldron. People make up Greek gods all the time because there were just so many of those guys, what's one more? (Good examples of this are Mesperyian and, arguably, Makaria.) And, of course, we can't get through this without mentioning Robert Graves (fuck Robert Graves) creating the White Goddess as his wife's self-insert.

So yes, creating your own god is possible and has precedent. You could even argue that every god was created by someone at some point, because that's just how humans work. We see an idea (often because we're introduced to it by someone else), we go "Oh, that's neat!", and then we take the bits that work for us and we add new stuff that helps flesh out the divine in question. It's how Aphrodite evolved from Astarte, it's how Dionysus got developed and changed over time, and it's how we have the two Wiccan divines.

I recommend studying other religions and how they came to be, because that will also help you learn about how the gods in question came to be. Who moved where? What gods got brought along and turned into other gods? I particularly recommend looking at the Romans and how they went "Wow, everyone worships our gods but with different names! Neat!"

Important Links

Literally anything by Overly Sarcastic Productions that goes into detail about the origin of various deities (which is mostly on Red's end) - namely these ones about Aphrodite, Dionysus, Hades and Persephone and Demeter, Hermes, and Loki

Anything broadly about deity work and religion, frankly, because in the course of developing your divine figure, you'll have to come up with their offerings and portfolio and what they may help you with

Wolf Of Antimony Occultism - aka @wolfofantimonyoccultism here on Tumblr, they're creating their own religion that's really cool to see

Religions From A Writing Perspective

At heart, I am a worldbuilder. I build worlds. That's what I DO. My Kephea project is a great example of this, though I have others as well. In particular, I love building magic systems and religions.

I will accept any chance to talk about my Kephea project, but this is about building a religion. Generally speaking, religions like to talk about the following three things:

How did the world come to be?

How should we act towards one another?

What happens when we die?

Not every religion (real-world or in media) talks about all of these. Hell, some don't touch on any of them. Here's a fictional example of a religion that has some things to say: the Church of Avacyn (the plane of Innistrad in Magic: The Gathering):

Doesn't discuss how the world came to be.

Says that humans should help and protect each other from the monsters of Innistrad, which include vampires, werewolves, zombies, geists, and even other humans. Later says that humans are inherently sinful during the height of Avacyn's madness and they should be slain to save them from themselves. One archangel and her flight took that second part personally and caused a schism in the church.

Promises a Blessed Sleep that won't be bothered by undeath in either zombie or geist form. This isn't going well now that the archangel and her flight who oversees it are destroyed.

It's important to sit and think about how your religion addresses or doesn't address these questions. Is it more of a henotheistic approach, where any number of gods exist but you only worship some? Is it a monotheistic approach, where there's only a single deity? Is it a polytheistic approach, where there are many deities with a strong connecting thread? Is it an entirely different approach, like archetypes (the Mother, the Child, the Himbo), natural forces (the sun and moon, the forest, the potty pond), or something else? That's up to you.

A lot of my links here will be about polytheistic religions, because those are the ones I build the most. Yes, I have a lot of these links, because this is one of my special interests.

Important Links

On Worldbuilding: Religions [ polytheistic l Avatar TLA l Game of Thrones l Cthulhu ] by Hello Future Me/Timothy Hickson on YouTube (a written version of this video is also Part 12 in his book, On Writing And Worldbuilding volume 1)

So You Want To / Create a Mythopoeia; Fantasy Pantheon; and Stock Gods on TV Tropes

Creating a Religion Guide part 1, part 2, and part 3 on Roll For Fantasy

Common Misconceptions About Old Mythologies & Religions; Basic Tips To Create More Believable Sci-Fi & Fantasy Religions & Belief Systems; How To Create Fictional Structured Religions; and Things That Show Up In Christianity-Inspired Fiction That Aren't In The Bible on Springhole

List of religious ideas in fantasy fiction on Wikipedia

8 Tips for Creating a Pantheon for Your Novel by Jill Williamson on Go Teen Writers

How to Create God Characters for Your Fantasy World by Kathy Edens on ProWritingAid

In Summary

I didn't actually give advice, did I? I just kind of dumped a lot of my resources here. Oh well, hopefully you all get something useful out of this!

~Jasper

[vaspider]

'only tenet of TERFism is transmisogyny' EXCUSE ME NO ITS ALL TRANS PEOPLE. They don't want any trans person to exist. What the hell.

Some people just gotta center their own suffering always, even when they're hurting other people by doing so. I've seen this a lot in younger queer folx of all stripes, this need to be the one that hurts the most, you know?

There's a reason the phrase Oppression Olympics exists, and it's because it's a common behavior or phenomenon in oppressed communities. I see it in the disability community, too.

What I think is important to understand when we talk about how trans people suffer under transphobia is that different groups are targeted differently. I'm not the first person to say this, of course.

Now, like, this is very rough sketchy stuff, and each person's individual experiences will vary, but in my general experience, the rough breakdown of the way in which transphobia lands on trans people kind of breaks down like this:

Binary trans women tend to suffer under a lens of hypervisibility. Everything they do is seen, analyzed, and torn apart. Their struggles are generally the ones centered in the arguments of allies, "allies," and transphobes. Even when trans women are the focus of helpful attention, that hypervisibility can cause exhaustion, because they need to perform perform perform, and be perfect, all the time. It's hard for trans women to just be without feeling like they're on camera, all the time. A lot of the time, they are on camera, because trans women's bodily autonomy and right to privacy are just never respected by transphobes (and often by supposed "allies" who feel free to ask the most invasive questions and get upset when trans women won't answer them), and even if they're not literally on camera, they're supposed to perform as the best examples of transfemininity, because if they don't, then they become the next 'look at this bad trans, all trans are this bad trans' example that TERFs point at and use as a broad brush to paint all trans women. If they're not perfect all the time and have a day where they snap at someone while someone is recording, or make a mistake, or anything, it has a horrible tendency to go viral. You can think of at least three instances right now off the top of your head, right? Right.

Binary trans men tend to suffer from hyperinvisibility. This comes from inside and outside the community -- a lot of trans men talk about being told they can't lead in community because they've 'got male privilege,' that their struggles are discarded, that they're talked over and unable to discuss the things they face, which means they don't get the support they need. Now, there are TERFs and transphobes who absolutely do focus their attention on trans men to the exclusion of or to the deprioritization of the oppression of trans women -- that's where we get Tavistock and Irreversible Damage and Fourth Wave Now and all the other bullshit which focuses on the idea that trans men are "transing the gay away," specifically "transing our butch lesbians" and "stealing butches." But again, generally speaking, trans men face harmful levels of invisibility where trans women face harmful levels of visibility. That's why transmascs in general have issues like lack of understanding even by supposedly trans-competent doctors as to how HRT affects our bodies, why trans men (and transmascs in general) report things like transphobes attacking them with transmisogynistic comments and assuming that every trans person online is a trans woman, etc.

Non-binary (here used as an umbrella term for all identities outside of binary man/woman, to include agender, genderfluid, non-binary, and infinite other identities) AFAB people tend to suffer from a different, very specific form of hypervisibility, unless they start to appear too masculine, and then they slip into hyperinvisibility. This is where we get things like "women and non-binary people" that codes all non-binary people as "AFAB people I can sort of squint and view as women," and people who fall into this category tend to get a lot of attention, a lot of derision from all sides of the spectrum. This is the "blue-haired tenderqueer" sneering that we get from both within and without the queer community, where there's an assumption that these people are just cosplaying an identity, that they're not really trans, etc. Having been in the visibility category and slipped into the invisibility category within the last, oh, year or so, and having two binary trans women in my family to compare notes with, the experiences are unnervingly similar. The difference between the experience that those women have had and the experience that I have had is that according to transphobes, I'm a traitor to my womanhood and performing femininity wrong and taking on a fake identity to escape female oppression because I'm not strong enough to bear up under it, but too cowardly to become a trans man, or... something, whereas they're taking on a fake identity to sneak into women's spaces because they're perverts.

Non-binary (umbrella identity etc) AMAB people tend to suffer from their own very specific form of hyperinvisibility, unless they start to present "too feminine", and then they slip into the hypervisibility which affects binary trans women, but with a little different fuckery in which everyone just assumes they're a trans woman, and therefore they get misgendered by everyone across the spectrum of queer/non-queer/etc. Non-binary AMAB people are generally treated like they don't exist, and when they are spoken about, are often discussed in the context of 'they should just admit they're trans women or gay men,' or if they present 'too feminine,' are subjected to the same sort of horrific attention that trans women get.

Again, a lot of this is very simplistic, and doesn't add in a lot of other complicating factors like race, disability, class, etc. Trans men of color, for example, can run into a different sort of hypervisibility because as they move further through their transition, they begin to be seen in the world as a man of color. It's not really mine to speak on beyond that, but I don't want to neglect saying 'this is really really simplistic and there's more to it than that' over and over.

I really hate breaking it down this simply because it feels like creating another binary (our society does like a binary!) for non-binary people, but like, I can't really talk about my shared experiences with other trans people without putting some framework around it. Someday, I'll be able to do that without categories. Wouldn't that be awesome?

I think we do our entire community a huge disservice when we talk about transphobia as if it's a single snake trying to take bites out of only one part of the community, and not a many-headed hydra, able to attack us from multiple different directions. I also think that focusing on one form of oppression keeps us from forming meaningful solidary and coalitions; the more divided we are, the easier it is for the people who literally want us all to stop existing to pick us off one by one. We see this all across the queer community and it's only ramping up as the attacks on our community escalate from without; people tend to turn on the ones closest to them when they get really scared, and to blame the person standing next to them for the pain they're suffering. It's the "close enough to hit" phenomenon, and it's why we see ridiculous things like "bi women make cis men think that lesbians can be won over," rather than acknowledging that bi women aren't the ones causing that: cis men are the ones causing that. The bi women in that case are close enough to hit. Transmascs are close enough to hit. Trans women are close enough to blame for the problems of transmascs, which makes it possible for TERFs to lure transmascs in and attempt to detransition them, subjecting them to gaslighting and manipulation and then using them as sock puppets.

TERFs do focus a lot on transmisogyny. They focus a lot on transmisandry, too. Debating which one is more prevalent and 'worse' not only misses the point, because transmascs and transfems face very different and totally rotten attention from cis society as a whole, including cis queers. We need to like, not do that anymore: we need to give each other the space to talk about our unique circumstances, but we also need to work harder on looking at each other through a lens of solidarity and trying to see that our struggles are different but not unrelated, and that if we keep downing on each other like this, we're not going to get anywhere except in a much more difficult situation as the people who don't want any of us to exist keep picking us off.

[nitewrighter]

for the teen Titans ficlet thing, I don’t suppose you could do “there was only one bed” for robin and starfire?

*slams fist down on table* STARFIRE IS THE BIG SPOON.

----

"I think you are overacting," Starfire said, her arms folded across her garish tye-dyed nightshirt.

"Overreacting," Robin corrected, adjusting the waistband on his sweats as he stepped out of the bathroom, "And--I'm not. I've slept in lean-tos in the Alaskan hinterland and in literal trees in the Virunga mountains. I can handle a hotel floor."

Starfire scoffed. "You are being ridiculous! It is a bed! There is room for two! Plenty of my people sleep in Tesh'li!"

"Er..." Robin gave her a blank look and Starfire seemed to realize that that word hadn't translated over.

"Uhm..." Starfire's brow furrowed for a few seconds as she struggled for the closest english equivalent, "Tesh'li are like... clusters? P-piles? It is very common for families."

"...Tamaraneans sleep in piles?" Robin's brow crinkled at the mental image.

" Tesh'li. 'Piles' implies gravity is a strong factor in the composition of bodies," said Starfire.

"...right, floating..." Robin said quietly.

"The whole team had a big Tesh'li in that cave when we had that mission in Markovia!" Starfire said, clearly frustrated, "Beast Boy turned into a grizzly bear and Cyborg turned off his cooling systems to share body heat! You and Raven even shared your capes! Why is this worse? Am I worse?"

"It's not worse--I mean obviously you're not worse-- it's just---when it's just two people--" Robin drew in a tense breath through his teeth before slumping his shoulders, defeated. "It's like... an earth... thing."

"I am aware that earth has many things," said Starfire, clearly not satisfied with this answer.

Robin sighed.

"Oh!" Starfire perked up, "It is one of your earth intimacy hangups! Because large portions of your population spent several centuries convincing yourselves that your natural instinct to be close and reproduce were affronts to your creator deities! And that still lingers in your cultural practices!"

"Uh..." Robin didn't really have a response to that.

"I have been reading the Earth histories," said Starfire, a little smugly.

"That's great," said Robin, meekly.

“Well it is not like any of ‘the funny business’ will be happening,” said Starfire, using the finger quotes around the words ‘funny business.’ Robin really regretted letting Beast Boy teach her how to make air quotes with her fingers and that she had only been getting better at figuring out when to use them. “But I will respect your cultural practice and let you sleep on the floor, even though that is dumb and a little gross and you will wake up with the aching back.”

"You sure are a diplomat, huh?" said Robin, drily.

“Mm-hmm!” Starfire nodded.

This was supposed to be a victory in the argument for Robin--since Starfire was recognizing the boundaries he was laying out, but who was he laying them out for if she didn’t care about them? Himself? Alfred had made a point of bringing him up to be ‘proper’ and ‘gentlemanly’ (perhaps to make up for some shortcomings with Bruce) but Robin’s own childhood in the Circus was closer to what Starfire was describing--the performers spent so much time traveling and setting up and breaking down the circus that they had to catch sleep when they could, sleeping in piles, often with little regard for gender or age. He remembered sleeping splayed across his parents’ laps when he was small, or with his cheek smushed against Samson the Strongman’s bicep, or even in the pile of poodles, borzois, and border collies that made up the act of ‘Rivka’s Fabulous Tumbling Dogs.’ Sometimes he would even wake up with white greasepaint smudged in his hair from sleeping on one of the clowns’ shoulders. But now here he was, feeling like a bit of an idiot as Starfire pulled some sheets off the bed and the extra pillow and handed them over to him, before plopping down cross-legged on the bed herself and turning on the hotel room TV. 

“Did you want to watch something?” Starfire glanced at him.

“I’m fine with whatever you want to watch,” Robin shrugged.

Robin took the uncomfortable wooden chair next to the too-small hotel table where their mostly-eaten one-half pepperoni one half pineapple-anchovy pizza sat. Starfire quickly flicked through the channels until reaching a public access channel where a reindeer bellowed on the screen.

“The noble caribou,” the narrator spoke, “A proud fixture of the tundras of the north that have roamed these grass-covered polar deserts for thousands of years.”

Robin gave a glance over to Starfire who was lying on her stomach on the bed and kicking her feet back and forth, her chin in her hands like any preppy teenaged earth girl watching her favorite low-budget cringeworthy high school drama starring 29-year-olds.

“But this is not a story of the caribou, no we will focus on a friend who has been here even longer,” the camera panned down to a caribou gnawing some knotty, netted-looking substance from the ground, “That industrious, unsung hero: The lichen. This is... Life of Lichen.” 

“What happened to ‘World of Fungus?’” Robin tilted his head.

“You remembered?” Starfire perked up.

“I mean it’s your favorite,” Robin shrugged, “Or I guess this is your new favorite?”

“Life of Lichen is the sequel!” Starfire said excitedly, “Technically it is the third sequel. The first was ‘Our Friend the Algae,’ the second was, ‘World of Fungus’ and now it is ‘Life of Lichen!’ Because you need both algae and fungus to create it,” She paused a bit, “I can... change it if you prefer something else though.”

“Nah I kind of like it. It’s calming,” said Robin, “I used to only research stuff for like... missions and investigations... it’s nice to just... be interested in things.” He craned in his seat a little to see better.

“There is room,” said Starfire, scooting herself over, “You can see better here.”

Robin paused for a few seconds, then got up and took a seat on the bed, propping some pillows up against the headboard for himself to lean against. 

“While lichen bears superficial similarity to moss, there are many differences, the first starting with composition. Mosses, of course, are plants, while lichens are composite organisms, there are over 20,000 known species...” The documentary narrator continued talking as the camera panned across a rainbow of lichens on the side of a rock and Robin found his eyelids drooping, 

He could have sworn he only rested his eyes for a few minutes when he suddenly startled awake. Most of the hotel room lights were off, save for the bedside lamp, the credits were running on the TV and the previews were next week’s episode were promising to delve into the exciting world of lichens growing on trees, as opposed to this episode which mainly featured lichens growing on rocks.

“Starfire?” Robin said, his voice hoarse with sleepiness.

“Mm?” Starfire was already turning around and fluffing up her pillow, the faint green glow of her eyes creating a low spooky light in the room.

“The floor’s kinda gross,” said Robin.

“The floor is indeed gross,” said Starfire.

“Is it cool if--”

“It is very cool,” said Starfire. She reached and got the pillow he had on the floor next to the bed and passed it over to him.

“Alright,” Robin got under the sheets. Maybe he would have found more energy to be flustered about the action if he hadn’t been lulled by an hour of a husky British accent talking about lichens. Starfire seemed to be respecting his ‘earth intimacy hangups’ and slept on her side with her back to him.

“G’night,” said Robin.

“Sleep well,” Starfire’s voice was half muffled into her pillow as he turned off the bedside lamp.

It didn’t take too long for Starfire’s breathing to go slow and rhythmic, but Robin was still staring at the ceiling. 

God, I made that weird, he thought, Why did I have to make such a big deal about sleeping on the floor? I mean I literally was repeatedly saying it’s not a big deal and it wasn’t but now it’s a whole thing. What if she thinks I don’t like her? What if she knows I like her but she’s really pushing the alien thing so we don’t have to address it? No that’s awful, she wouldn’t do that--earth means too much to her to do that. That was shitty of me to think. ‘Earth Intimacy hangups.’ I don’t have earth intimacy hangups. I should probably let her know that it’s probably not cool to tell people they have ‘earth intimacy hangups’ right to their face. I’m cool with it though. Because I don’t make big deals of things. I mean it wouldn’t be a big deal to sleep on the floor. Oh god I’m obsessing over this. 

He turned on his side so that he was facing her back in the bed. He stared at her, watching her shoulders slowly shift with her breath. He tried to match the pace of his breath to hers. 

Tesh’li, huh? he thought, and he felt his eyelids get heavy. He imagined a distant world with high-ceilinged palaces, and a family sleeping in a pile on a heap of luxurious cushions and circular futons, one of their two daughters hovering upside-down just above them. His eyelids slowly slid shut, Doesn’t sound so bad...

He woke up at 2 in the morning drowning in hair.

Starfire was hovering about a half foot off the bed, half the blankets hanging off of her, still in that same ‘lying on her side’ position, though now angled so that the majority of her hair was piled directly on Robin’s face. Robin sputtered quietly, pushing hair out of his eyes and mouth and flinching hard as he realized Starfire was floating.

“Star-pft-fire?” he whispered hoarsely, still pushing hair from his face.

“Robinnn... Kan’ah peq lor-faon eshdarm...” Starfire murmured in Tamaranean.

“...What?” Robin said blankly before she dropped back down onto the bed with a bounce and a loud creak of mattress springs, still dead asleep. A cat-like snore escaped her as she readjusted herself in the blankets. Robin breathed in a steadying breath, coming to terms with what he had just seen and how it was all perfectly normal what with Starfire being an alien. Then he repeated that last mental sentence back to himself and wondered how long ago this work had claimed his sanity like it had claimed Bruce’s. He didn’t have long to dwell on that thought, however, as Starfire turned over in her sleep, wrapped her arms around him, and pulled him close, her alien strength moving him with the same ease as she might grab a stuffed animal.

“Star?” Robin whispered again as her arm snaked over his chest. He felt her body pressing into him from behind. His face was burning. 

“Hmm... Wurul tai horqarr, Silkie...” she mumbled, squeezing Robin close.

“Er.. Star--I’m not--Ggk!” Robin winced a little at the tight squeeze, wondering for a few seconds if he was going to get a broken rib,  but then Starfire seemed to nuzzle her cheek against his hair and her grip relaxed with a slight sigh.

Her hair was still enveloping him in a river of orange. She was warm--warmer than any human he could remember, and being in her arms felt like that almost- too-warm that’s perfect for dozing off while reading on summer afternoons. She smelled like ozone, and Lapsang-Souchong tea, and fresh-cut citrus. He wondered how he smelled to her. If he smelled like a memory of another planet. He listened to her breathing for a few minutes longer, as the warmth of her sank into him. He felt the exhaustion he always felt like he was barely outrunning catch up to him again, but here he was willing to let it overtake him.

Maybe I should wake her up? I mean... alien strength... don’t want to get crushed if she has a weird dream or something. Probably the smart thing to do, he thought.

“Zontar-ha peq lor-yuur’vyn...”  Starfire murmured in her sleep and readjusted herself against him again, her body curving around him. 

Eh. There are worse ways to go, he thought as he closed his eyes.