#what if this is a consequence of that incident ?

[meanbossart]

Based on the latest art/the famous graveyard scene, or at least my version of it. CW: The usual durge-isms. Astarion's sense of humor.

The graveyard is appropriately silent - there isn’t a proverbial soul to be seen as you stroll through the headstones with lazy strides. You’re so often in a rush to get from one place to the next, how novel it is to meander.

You wonder if either of your souls could tick up the counter; Astarion, a corpse-walking, and yourself something else entirely.

His head, battered and bruised as the rest of your bodies scans through the names etched on their respective places of rest, uncharacteristically quiet ever since you left the Inn. You’re worried. It’s been a dreadful day, and now he’s brought you here - you speak. “Are we defacing any graves tonight?”

Astarion humors you with a stiff grin - no, he says, then he changes it to a maybe, and then he asks you to be patient. His eyes land on a simple stone, half-sunken into the dry ground and overtaken by weeds and vines - a small thing forgotten amidst drunkards and urchins in a dark corner of the dead’s park. He sighs, pushes up his sleeves and snaps the foliage away with his own hands, dusts off the shallow writing and rubs the grime off on his knees - standing back a few feet to look over at his handwork. You squint to read his full name off the rock.

“Ancunin?”

 “Astarion Ancunin.” He scoffs. “I haven’t seen this in… Well, in centuries. I was beginning to wonder if I had an em somewhere in there.”

His amusement dies down.

“I had to punch a hole in the coffin and claw my way through six feet of dirt.

“He must’ve had someone come and smooth out the ground- Cazador, I mean. He was waiting for me here, when I finally surfaced.”

The vampire's eyes have risen from his name. He looks past the rows of gravestones and into the brick walls that surround them, sight glazed over, face drained from feeling. His words, so victorious in choice, just bear a numb uncertainty. He is so tired. “From that day on I was his. Until now.”

You shake your head. “You were never his. Everything he had, he took by force.”

“Maybe. But he did take it. And I can’t get it back.” Astarion shoots you an assertive scowl. “There’s nothing left of the person I was anymore. Just a name on a rock. I need to figure out who I am now - and what I want.”

You struggle to reach out to him. For the thing which he mourns. His words, when they echo within your own, perforated skull, sound to you like a statement of freedom, a relief; you’ve also left behind the person you were, and there is nothing there worth lamenting.

Astarion is different. As vague as his recollection of the past may be, or as favorably as you believe things have turned out for the both of you, eventually - you can’t help but feel like he would still trade it for a do-over. You don’t have it in you to ask if he would be willing to do it even if it meant your absence.

You know the answer.

You try to make your peace with it.

This person that your lover longs for, you didn’t know them, and you didn’t love them. But you do now; and so, you find yourself wanting for nothing.

“What is it that you want right now?”

“You.”

He’s caught in his own lack of hesitation, sullen face brought back to life by a small look of bemusement, of surprise. “I want you. Not just now, I… You were by my side through all of it - the bloodlust as well as the misery. You’ve shown yourself to be patient. And caring.” His words are staggered by chortles. “You are so sweet to me. A shock, frankly, given the most recent discoveries. I often wonder if this was always part of your nature, or just a happy consequence of your… ah”

Astarion’s finger prods uncertain around his own curly head of hair, prompting laughter to rumble up your throat. “Incident.” 

“Perhaps.” You’ve never wondered such things and you never will. “You’re beginning to sound awfully sweet yourself, mister concussion.”

He groans in response, reaching the short distance over to the throbbing bruise on the top of his forehead, next to his temple. It was a close call today, perhaps the closest yet - or you only felt the ever more desperate given what was on the line this time. “Anyway, I should probably fix this.”

You watch as Astarion crouches down in the dirt. With a small dagger he had tucked away in his waistband, he gets to work scratching irregular lines into his neglected headstone.

Astarion Ancunin

His father’s pride, his mother’s starlight, his friend’s joy.

229 NR - 268 NR.

He makes an addition below the numbers.

468 NR.

“Is that the year?”

“Yes.”

He pauses, then proceeds a little less confidently.  “... At least… I think so?”

You both exchange clueless looks before breaking into an ugly cacophony of snorts, Astarion leans with his hand on his memorial and hangs his head down in feigned exasperation, shoulders jerking. You kneel, joining him on top of his undisturbed plot. The vampire shakes his head “It doesn’t matter. I’ve been dead to the world long enough - whatever year it is now, I plan on living it. And I’m not letting anything stand in the way of that.”

He puffs his chest and breathes a lone sight - no subsequent following and no former to speak of. His body sits back onto his shins, hands fall limp on top of his thighs “Not him, not the sun, not some giant brain, and certainly not…

“Come here.”

There was less than a foot between your bodies that the elf now closed. He cups your jaw between his thumb and his pointer-finger, you feel a gentle pressure on your neck as Astarion uses you to leverage himself over - your mouths lock, you feel a scabbed-over cut on his otherwise soft bottom lip, a hard lump that splits and leaks into your gums. You turn,, grab onto him tight - hot palms on the cold nape underneath the collar of his shirt and chest against chest, a sore nose-bridge buried into his gaunt cheek. Your faces break apart and he presses his brow to yours, a passionate kiss turns into a tight embrace. 

You take a long whiff of the crook of his neck “You’ve got me in a kind of way I can’t begin to make sense of.”

Astarion’s hand becomes entangled with the hair at the back of your skull. “I love you too.”

You feel it. The desperation and the future echo of his cracking ribs, the hot, vivid flashes of your digits prying apart bone and reaching into the cavity of his heart - you can’t be close enough to him. You can never step into his skin and he can never leap down your throat. An anxious feeling sinks into your gut as you realise that there is one thing that you still want; even in your waking hours of clarity, even in crystalline sanity, even in moments like these, ones that you hold sacred and wish to shield from depravity.

He murmurs into the side of your face. “Lets have sex. Right here.”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to beg?”

The playfulness in his tone is brief. He feels it in your tense shoulders and stiff back - you aren’t teasing him.

You only pull away enough so you can look at him, hands remain latched to his waist. “I’m still afraid of what I might do.”

“I understand.” He doesn’t seem disappointed, only sobered. “Well that puts a slight damper on my plans. No matter.”

“You can help yourself once you’ve tied me up for the night.”

“If I wanted to make love to a rabid mastiff I’d go find a new maniac to lord over me.”

“We could still just… Stay here a while. Together.”

You come off a little pleading. Astarion’s eyes squint when he smiles - “Yes, I… I think I’d like that.”

It’s a little clumsy, the way you sway apart and try to find your footing on the gravel, how your hands slide down each other’s elbows and then lock tightly at the fingers, refusing to let go, new amateur joints; as if men like yourselves who’ve more battles than many do in entire lifetimes couldn’t dream of standing up without the leverage - it’s ridiculous. You’re like little children bumbling to your feet, giggling, trying to catch each other staring as you dangle your locked hands over gravestones and step over rogue bouquets blown by wind.

Everything is fine, everything is well. Your future is certain as is your happily ever after - whatever it may imply. You peruse the cemetery, mocking the dead for the names their parents have given them, their uninspired eulogies and whether or not their dirt happened to smell of piss - you make up stories about the lives they lived and both the horrific or the banal circumstances in which they died. Astarion skips up the stairs to the coffin-maker’s abode, overlooking the scenery - he calls for you to come admire your kingdom, death prince. You laugh, and he laughs, and it all seems so awfully benign.

“That will be king for you soon.”

“Oh, gods - get away from me.”

He knows you aren’t serious. This world has brought you too much joy for you to end it. There hasn’t ever been a moment where you were tempted to do your fathers bidding.

But there’s been moments where you questioned what other choices you had.

Not tonight, however.

Astarion rolls his eyes and takes the hand you reach out to him with. You are yanked towards the paved terrace up the stairs, and you pull him into yourself in a lazy sway by the balustrades. “We will figure something out” You say.

“As always,” Astarion confirms with an emphatic nod of the head, but his gaze is low - he stares at your moving feet. Hand-in-hand and hand-on-hip he’s picked up on what you’re doing; “It’s - left forward, right back, close left, close right, right?”

“That is only if you’re leading.”

“Well then, I guess I’m leading.”

“Be my guest.” 

He places a hand on your waist, you put yours on his deltoid, your boots bump into each other on occasion as you both waltz over uneven stone tiles, first with careful attention until you’ve caught yourselves in a sound-less rhythm. When you raise your eyes you find your partner-in-dance staring on with a rivalling smirk.

“So, you remember how to ballroom dance, yet haven’t got a clue about your own name?”

You ask if that disappoints him, Astarion assures you to the contrary. You both rehearse a dance for an event you will never be going to, and you enjoy every second of it.

[fandommothfreak]

I think Duke should be immortal in the "cannot die" sense and Jason should be immortal in the "cannot stay dead" sense and that they should keep this a secret from everyone including each other. And then they should both get caught in a situation that Absolutely Should Kill Them Instantly, miraculously not die, and then be like:

Like Jason shields Duke from some massive explosion or something, and Duke is horrified because he thinks Jason just pointlessly sacrificed himself for someone who would've been fine anyway - only for Jason to very casually come back from the dead, look at a completely unscathed Duke Thomas, and go, "Hey, what the fuck."

And Duke should look at a freshly revived Jason Todd and be like, "Me what the fuck? No you what the fuck."

And they end up both agreeing to not say a word about this to the rest of the Bats. Which poses issues. Because here you have a pair of unhinged vigilante siblings that do not fear death, that additionally now know they don't have to fear each other's deaths either, both unwilling to give anything less than everything they have to do what they think is right (and/or what they really, really want to).

So. Some things that happen in consequence:

Duke throws Jason off a fifty-story building in pursuit of some shoplifting rich asshole that was caught on camera insulting Duke's favorite metal band and being a classist fuck about it. This does, incidentally, re-traumatize Nightwing, who was ten feet away and not prepared to see his little brother yeeted off the side of a building, no grapple in sight - but it also traumatizes the shoplifter when Jason lands right in front of him, grotesquely knits himself back together, and rises from the ground in a distinctly horrifying fashion just to beat the shit out of him. So Duke takes the win.

Jason shoots Duke in the head to get him to stop shining light in his eyes in the middle of a gunfight. He does stop, but only because Batman shows up out of nowhere, and now Duke gets to pretend to be grievously injured while Batman yells at Jason about "self-control" and "maturity" and "putting teammates at risk." Meanwhile Duke is playing up this horrible concussion that he doesn't even have. Jason is seething. (Duke gets checked out at Leslie's. They convince her to lie for them by appealing to her inner petty bitch.)

Jason gets his payback a few months later by poisoning himself at an undercover op and subsequently forcing Duke to drag his dead body around a mob-owned nightclub for like half an hour trying to convince seasoned criminals that this brick shithouse of a man sprawled awkwardly across his back is just... really wasted. Totally not a corpse.

Both Jason and Duke get caught in many, many, many explosions after that initial reveal, and it's always terrifying for the rest of the Bats. It gets to a point where Batman refuses to partner Duke and Jason together for literally anything, because they always act fucking insane. Big metal vehicle moving hundreds of miles an hour towards an unsuspecting civilian? That's okay! Jason will just throw Duke in front if it. Unknown, volatile substance potentially being used by a notorious serial killer to murder his victims? No lab testing required! Duke will just pour a whole pint of the stuff on Jason's bare arm to see how it reacts. Bomb that can't be disarmed? Why wait for backup when these two psychopaths can just grab the thing and jump into the harbor? Like, genuinely. The stress. Bruce is one particularly traumatic incident away from actually considering therapy.

[askssgenerations]

[ASKS ARE OPEN]

I’ll do my best to answer all of the questions! But please note I might pick and choose depending on what’s best for the story!! Don’t worry if I haven’t done yours yet, I’ll circle back to try and hit everything eventually!

—————

[START HERE]

Welcome to S.S. Generations! Where 2 weeks after the events of the Eclipse Cannon, Sonic and Shadow fall into a new dimension called “White Space”. They also meet their counterparts from various dimensions. Follow them as they all search for a way out!

However, those who’ve been to White Space before are questioning why it’s so empty. It’s almost entirely blank, with no past, present, or future events to ground them. How are they going to get out if there’s no memories to go off of?

—————

Meet The Cast!

Sonic’s Version

Cont. ⤵️

Frontiers -> Cyber

- Doesn’t have a Shadow counter-part

- Pretty quiet and keeps to himself, which is pretty weird for a Sonic(?)

- Has strange cyber-related powers, possibly related to his glitchy appearance

- Seems to be in pain, but waves off any concern

Sonic X Shadow Generations

Modern -> Guide

- Calls himself everyone’s guide through White Space

- Still petty about having his birthday party interrupted, teases his Shadow to do stuff for him because he’s still the ‘birthday boy’

- Very laid back due to the peacefulness compared to the last time he was in White Space

Classic -> Mini-Me/Classic

- mostly follows around his older counterpart!

- doesn’t talk but is very content to zip around and show his feelings through body language

Movie -> Socks

- Once realizing everyone was giving themselves code names, he immediately went for Blue Justice. Or Speed, to reference his greatest strengths and one of the greatest movies ever made.

- Unfortunately, both ideas were shot down and he was dubbed Socks due to his lack of shoes compared to well, literally everyone else

- Constantly sprouting off some random pop culture reference

- Is very, very glad to see his Shadow alive

Boom -> Blur

- Names himself after one of his brother’s old code names for him

- Very snarky compared to the others, and is the least concerned with getting home

- Noticeably on the worst terms with his Shadow

Prime -> Paradox/Prism

- Tried to get matching nicknames with his Shadow but was rejected

- Very upbeat!

- Unlike the others, he thinks that he’s the ‘real’ Sonic and everyone else is a shatterverse version of him

—————

Shadow’s Version

SatBK -> Sir Lancelot/Knight

- Tends to be quiet to observe the others

- Notices Cyber’s deteriorating condition the fastest

Sonic x Shadow Generations -> Prince

- In one of his petty squabbles over Sonic’s birthday boy status, he lets it slip that Black Doom is his father

- After explaining that BD is their worlds equivalent of Space Satan, Socks tells him he’s basically like a Prince (dark romance style)

- The name sticks, which makes his and Guide’s squabbles much more annoying

Movie -> Eclispe

- Socks had more names for Shadow than himself

- But all other options, like Hello/Emo Kitty, Akira, Tokyo Drift, National Treasure, etc. were vetoed

- Shadow settles on Eclipse, to remind himself of his past decisions and their consequences

Boom -> Grumpy

- asshole

- Calls himself ‘Ultimate’ but dubbed Grumpy by the majority

- Very very quick to throw down with Blur, in all ways possible

Prime -> Shards/Shatterverse

- Has the same mindset as Paradox/Prism with 10x the paranoia

- Incredibly weary of their counterparts, especially after the incident with Nine

- Stays nearby Paradox/Prism at all times and is searching the hardest for a way to escape

—————

Thanks for reading!! Potentially more characters to come but that’s the cast as of right now! Any asks/suggestions are welcomed!!

​Note: this will probably have shipping!! be warned if that’s not your cup of tea!

[f1ghtsoftly]

All The Women’s News You Missed This Week

2/3/25-2/10/25

The world braces for the end of USAID funding, which will have particularly devastating consequences for women and LGBT people. Gov. Hochul, of New York, moves to protect doctors who prescribe abortion pills out of state. Rugby director fired in Fiji over homophobic comments about female players. Trump bans transgender women from female sports, NCAA changes policy in response. A Saudi graduate student is released after being jailed for tweets supporting Women’s Rights. In a horrific incident of male violence, prisoners in the Congo broke free from jail to commit mass atrocities against their female inmates.  

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Action Steps: 

PETITION: Decriminalise Abortion  (UK) 

CONTACT: Congressman Robert B. Aderholt (AL-04) introduced the Protect Funding for Women’s Health Care Act in the House of Representatives Wednesday.  

You can contact Robert here and share your thoughts, especially if you live in Alabama’s 4th District (northwest AL.) 

BOYCOTT:  We cannot cheer on Afghanistan’s cricket team when Afghan women are being silenced (UK) 

Reproductive Rights: 

WATCH: New York Gov. Hochul signs bill shielding doctors who prescribe abortion pills 

Rape crisis centers see funding delays amid Trump administration spending upheaval

Trump Reinforces the Hyde Amendment, Making Reproductive Rights More Precarious  

Lawmakers debate new constitutional amendment banning abortion in Missouri 

Women’s Rights: 

How USAID freeze could be the most catastrophic for women and girls 

Christian Nationalist Wesley Todd Doesn't Want Pregnant Women Serving In Office : "That's Stupid"

Taliban raids and suspends Afghanistan’s only nationwide women’s radio station

 Cuny graduate school rolls back pregnant students’ protections after Trump letter

NASA Ordered to Remove Anything About ‘Women in Leadership’ From Its Websites: Report

LGBTQ: 

Impact of Executive Order Pausing U.S. Foreign Aid on LGBTQI+ People

Trump signs order banning transgender women from female sports

NCAA changes transgender athletes policy after Trump ban

Uganda’s LGBTQ community faces anxiety and uncertainty after U.S. aid freeze

Fiji rugby director fired for women's team 'gay problem' remarks

Rejected elsewhere, these LGBTQ Jews find love and acceptance in the Connecticut woods

The transgender care fight targets more adults as Georgia and other states weigh laws

Argentina’s president bans gender-affirming care for people under age 18

Women in the News: 

WATCH: Protesters torch ex-Bangladesh PM's home 

Doctor accused of criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine is convicted and given over 5 years in prison

I will not stop working, Anna Wintour tells King

 Rebuilding my home in Gaza as Trump wants me to leave

Seven women among Seanad Éireann nominees

Search of house for missing woman ends

Philippines feud escalates as lawmakers vote to impeach vice-president 

Male Violence: 

More than 100 women raped and burned alive in DR Congo jailbreak, UN says

Woman's deepfake betrayal by close friend: 'Every moment turned into porn'

Black women face high domestic violence rates, but stigma keeps many silent, support groups say

In Bangladesh, Islamists Are Stepping up Actions Against Women

New allegations Diddy sexually assaulted minor in nightclub

When is Sean 'Diddy' Combs' trial and what is he charged with?

Sexual violence against children in Haiti rises by 1,000%, UN says

Man furious over dating app rejection breaks into Pennsylvania home steals woman’s pug and kills it in a rage 

Anglican Church in South Africa admits failures in handling of sexual abuse claims

Celebrity butt-lift injector who left women with sepsis exposed by BBC 

Mumsnet targeted with child sexual abuse images

'His hands were everywhere' - women accuse surviving Fayed brother of sexual assault 

Play-fight claim dad jailed for murdering daughter

Five sentenced to death in Nigeria over 'witchcraft' murder

Neil Gaiman's ex-wife denies trafficking allegations

Women Getting Justice??

MoJ apologises for prisoner early release letter

Senator opens inquiry into US Center for SafeSport’s hiring of investigator charged with sex crimes

Southport families 'try to find light in the dark'

Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni lawyers spar during first court hearing 

S Africa church apologises over exposing children to risk from abuser

Historic book of town's witch trials to be displayed 

Arts and Culture: 

Why was Taylor Swift booed at the Super Bowl?

Memoir by former prime minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, to come out in November

Serena Williams crip walks at surprise Super Bowl appearance 

Movie Review: ‘Kinda Pregnant’ is kinda good

Christie Brinkley has a memoir out in April. Yes, it’s called ‘Uptown Girl’

‘Wicked’ star Cynthia Erivo is feted as Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year

Anora star Mikey Madison: Oscar talk is 'overwhelming and amazing'

Apple Cider Vinegar: How Instagram wellness guru Belle Gibson faked cancer – and caused a scandal

'She thought of herself as the Queen of America': Why Mary Todd Lincoln became the US's most vilified First Lady

EMMY to represent Ireland at Eurovision

Women Fighting Back: 

Who is Luisa González? The leftist politician who is again vying for Ecuador’s presidency

 ‘Woman, life, freedom’: the Syrian feminists who forged a new world in a land of war

Don’t Want To “Bury My Child”: Mass Support For Mom Who Burst Into School To Threaten Bully

Meta veteran who spent 15 years at the firm is suing it over a ‘toxic pattern’ of silencing women: ‘I can show what happens when we want more masculine workplaces.’

Saudi authorities free doctoral student initially sentenced to 34 years for tweets, activists say

A mother pleads for Britain’s help in freeing son from Egyptian prison, one day of hunger at a time

Feminist Wins: 

South Africa mourns pioneering female nuclear scientist

Time limit for child sex abuse claims to be removed (UK) 

Feel Good Stories: 

WATCH: Stranded astronaut calls extended stay 'opportunity' to share space life 

'Music is the secret to reaching 105' 

Opinion: 

Why Even a Few Women At The Top Feels Like ‘Too Many'

Sorry, Lily Collins, but when people outsource childbirth, their motives really count

Why I Stopped Using They/Them Pronouns After 13 Years

As always, this is global and domestic news from a US perspective covering feminist issues and women in the news more generally. As of right now, I do not cover Women’s Sports. Published each Monday.

[lesbianherald]

oh your jayce analysis was !!!!!! ty for sharing! could I ask for your thoughts on his character and the class conflict in s2.1 when he decides to make hextech weapons again? like after the bridge scene and meljayvik talking about weapons, at the very end of s1, jayce gives viktor, a zaunite, his chair, the symbol of his position and authority as a councilor of piltover, and had asked him to announce the brokered peace. ands I loved that development !! but jayce chooses to weaponize hextech after the attack at the memorial (tho maybe cait convinced him) and he still doesn't seem to get it imo? like he's still very naive and ignorant (and slightly biased), he canttt understand the consequences of putting hextech-powered weapons in the hands of pilt enforcers (even if it's only caits group). and then and then vik sees his weapon prints and the rift between them is back even stronger than ever and I think that's why he leaves jayce?

(typingr this out on my work break with 2 min left sorry if this doesn't make sense. anyway don't think I've seen anyone really go into depth on him choosing hex weaponry again, so idk if my fellow jayviks just don't want to address it or if I'm misinterpreting altogether)

No no i love this.

I actually, controversially, think Jayce making weapons works really well in act 1. He just gets attacked with a fucking chainsaw. He witnesses so much horror and carnage. He's still very much baby at this point. Like he's still relatively sheltered. I think this rattled him a lot. It's clear he does not want to. But I think he's traumatized and I think the incident makes him regress. And I think little regressions like this are actually really important in character development? Unfortunately becacause its season 2 that doesn't actually go anywhere or mean anything.

What I do not like is how little that's acknowledged in his fight with Viktor. You're telling me Viktor briefly glancing at some blueprints is enough? Please ! But I'm not one of those people that feels Jayce's regression there was completely unearned. I've seen a lot about how he should have gotten way more covered in blood during the chainsaw attack and the scene should have been more gruesome overall. I agree and I think that would really help pinpoint and explain his trauma. I wonder what happened there. It seems very unlike fortiche to spare us the gory details.

What I personally despise is the way that hextech weaponry is used in the finale with this sort of obscene amount of nonchalance that makes it seem like it was never an issue in the first place and essentially narratively tells the audience that hextech weaponry was the answer all along. That I hate and I don't see talked about enough.

Also thank you !!!!

[movrning-fxlsifier]

ㅤ ✦ JUST LIKE A FAMILY SHOULD

ㅤ ✦ GOKURAKUGAI YOMI

cw for full series: mutation, body disfiguration, body mutilation, manipulation, murder, implications of murder, implications of non-consensual approaches, kidnapping, physical restraining, violence, blood, detailed gore, cannibalism, vomit, nausea, manipulative tendencies, obsessive behavior, stalking, micromanagement, mentions of suicide. please do not read if the content stated here disturbs you. thank you.

notes: as the first order of this blog, i did try to go out with the most detail as possible. note, this has spoilers from gokurakugai, so it is advised that you read all chapters published of the manga before reading this, as some references to the manga will be made. also, this work will have a continuation, so as to avoid having to repeat myself constantly, all of the warnings for this series were stated above. yomi is personally a favorite character of mine in gokurakugai, so, seeing as there isn't a lot of content for him, this is my take on yandere yomi. keep in mind that this is a series; once the reader's fate is sealed, this will be continued in a separate post...

extra: the reader goes by they/them. they will be referred to by those pronouns, not she/her or he/him. re-blogs and follows are appreciated!

A string of missing people is the first sign that something's off in Gokurakugai. No, disappearances like these aren't abnormal — you've lived long enough in this district to know that for the past weeks, situations like these have been happening. Of course, you don't ever know what happens to the culprits, but it's not your task to weasel yourself into problems that may well carry more consequences than it's worth dipping oneself into.

You tell yourself that it'll pass— a sliver of hope, perhaps. After all, criminality will always be around, and all people can do is sit back and watch while those in power handle the evil that grows and lurks beneath their heels. However, with all your hope, you find that these disappearances only grow more concerning in nature.

At first, it was whispers of a small boy that went missing, and then a tale about how two women had been taken away for purposes of display and the black market. Now, it was rumors of a serial murderer being around if not a set of oddly rhythmic, patterned cases of suicide—one right after the other, as if almost intended—a group suicide.

You walk under the burning sun and from the corner of your eye you see a sign— Gokurakugai Troubleshooting Agency— and for a moment, you have half a mind to open the door and waltz inside to pour out your problems— well, not your problems, but the district's problems. Surely, they'll be willing to help. And yet, something in your mind drives you to hesitate, so your lips purse into a thin line, and you continue on your way.

You don't know why you hesitated, why you stopped—but something etched in the back of your head whispered you to move on. And so you did. You willed yourself to lift your eyes off the ground, and you let out a puff of hot air. With hands gripping your sleeves, seeking some form of reassurance, you moved along.

These incidents would only continue, and you'd have to move on.

You find much later that your supposed indifference and unwillingness to act was a mistake—one that perhaps initially you could've avoided, had you dared to enter the premises of the Gokurakugai Troubleshooting Agency. Alas, you had not, and you had ended up going down a completely different route.

You found yourself heading towards a particular cemetery—not a frequent visiting place of yours, but you went there every now and then. Rumors swirled around that place—corpses found littered around, draped over pieces of cobblestone that had edges of it painted a mahogany hue.

Some organ tissues could still be seen—half-decomposed, half beating alive, as if something had gnawed it open and its insides gutted out, reaped and eaten, consumed by some voracious thing. These words were a tad bit unsettling, but granted, you had never once faced a situation that could lead to such disasters. While it might have boded ill for you, you had left the pit in your stomach called fear outside the moment you'd walked through the front door of your apartment's ground floor.

You found yourself kicking away a rolling stone as your shoes stepped on dead leaves and pavement. Cold wind caressed your skin, making the hairs at the back of your neck stand—almost as if your body was prepared for another presence to be lurking nearby. To calm yourself, you absentmindedly reached for your elbows and arms, gently squeezing and rubbing, like a mother would do to her child when they cry during the night.

You swallowed an empty lump and it bobbed down your throat, your gaze flitting from side to side—unfocused—perhaps there really was something lurking there. Whatever threat wished to be perceived by you never came by, because all that greeted you when you walked closer to the gravestones was an undead silence.

It was not a silence that you could label as a natural silence, no—this was a thick, heavy silence that threatened to overwhelm you—it was not normal. You knew then, something was watching you. Whatever was watching you did not want to make itself known. It wished to remain isolated still, and until it wanted otherwise, things would stay that way.

You discarded it as an animal lurking around, maybe some creature of nature that was lost and had its eye on you, as other animals would if anything else invaded its territory—you just never took into account or possibility that the thing watching you was no thing at all, but a person.

Come a few weeks, and the sensation you felt at that cemetery does not ebb away. In fact, it grows worse. You do not know where this feeling came from, because it is unnatural. You feel as though your stomach is twisted into knots, and the sheer oddness of this whole situation is that no matter where you look at, you see no one. If someone was trailing you, you could not see it. Perhaps that was the most unnerving part of it all.

Your nights grew weary—newspapers dropped with news of mutilated bodies, teeth marks imprinted into the corpses of civilians and half-torn flesh of thighs and legs. The cases got more horrific. Headless bodies and missing limbs, even children started to disappear along with adults, and the sensation of there being eyes on you never once ceased.

You lurch and nearly succumb to your nausea.

What more could you do? Your alternatives were thinning. You could try and run this issue by the Troubleshooting Agency a few blocks away, yes, but would they care? Most people chalk up these problems to mere paranoia or a lack of sleep, but you swear that your hours of rest thin by the minute. You can't afford to let the rest of your life worsen in quality all because of some stalker.

The next morning you throw up. The sensation gets worse, like the walls are closing in on you and you can't breathe. Your vision almost seems clouded as you make your way out of the apartment's ground floor and you head to a subway station, the shadows of the sector leading underground swallowing you whole as your fingers twitch, absentmindedly reaching for the collar of your shirt, tugging on it slightly for some sign of reassurance.

There's an unusual amount of people walking past you, and the hallways become crowded, the distant beeping of the subway and white noise filling your ears. It caused an ache in your head. Before the doors to the subway opened, you caught sight of an unusual figure. Pools of red—vibrant scarlet irises—meet your own eyes in a way you cannot describe. Inhuman.

For a moment, you stop walking, but the doors open—people flood in and you lose sight of him. For that moment, you forget the sensation of being watched. You feel like your breath isn't going to be your last today—but soon enough, the feeling returns, and a pit draws in your stomach—a sensation that threatens to eat you whole. Something in you is sure of it. That man is the person watching you.

You have half a mind to run after him, to try and find him to see where he went—another part of you urges you to stay rooted down to the floor. Your limbs feel as though they cannot move, and for the first time in a long time you feel as though you are consumed by helplessness. It's a feeling you hate, but you cannot shake it out of you no matter how hard you try and drain it out of your bones.

You forget entering the subway.

You head back home, feeling sick. Whoever that man is, you had to find out. In all the years you had spent living in this district, you had never once seen this man before. You could only faintly recall his appearance, even if it had been a shocking look that he donned—irises a deep red that almost mirrored blood, and short, white locks of hair. He was tall, that was for sure, so having managed to disappear within a crowd of people seemed distinctly off to you.

But whoever he was, he had to have a name. Problem was? The chances of you encountering him again within Gokurakugai was miniscule. You'd have better chances convincing a blind man the sky was blue. So began your task of searching for your stalker. You figured if there was one way to draw his attention, it would be by going back to all the places where you had felt the feeling of being watched the most.

So back to the cemetery you went.

Was it a good choice? Probably not. Did your mind conjure this up as a logical response? No. Did you follow through with it anyway, disregarding all matters of self-preservation and the gnawing fear that ate away at you in the back of your mind? Entirely.

Your privacy had already been stripped as is, so fearing the fact that someone was watching you was now illogical. Now, your fear was directed to the man who was watching you. It didn't take long for you to find your way back to the abandoned cemetery—the place was deserted as ever (not that you expected it to be otherwise).

However, something was off the moment you stepped into the vicinity of the graveyard—a sharp scent of iron. Your nose crinkled slightly, hand going up to cover your nostrils and mouth—fuck, it smelled horrid. In your squeamish disgust, you took steps forward while still covering your face. You stopped the moment you saw a chunk of torn flesh. Mutilated. It wasn't human flesh, you were sure enough of that.

It looked strange, something inhuman. The flesh was too pale, too sturdy. A thin, white sheen covered its outermost layer, punctured by something similar to jaws. This—whatever this thing was—mutilated creature was not something normal, nor was the thing that attempted to eat it. You tried to walk past the fleshy thing—the pink rims of the decomposing segment looked like utter filth, something repugnant—and soon enough you reached the center of the graveyard.

Again, the thick silence returned. From within the thick silence woven, a crunch of leaves was heard. The snapping branches and dead cry of birds left unheard were enough to draw your attention. However, what greeted you this time was no person, no man, but a faceless thing of hell that you could describe no more differently than a demon. Rows of sharpened teeth and a blank expression—you were on your feet running at a mere glance of it.

You knew it would chase, that was the nature of a predator—fuck, this was a horrible idea—you cursed yourself mentally for thinking that this was a good way to draw out your supposed "stalker", assuming your conclusion was correct and that man was indeed your stalker. The air left your lungs when a hand yanked you back into a separate passage.

You had the urge to stomp on the individual's foot until you turned your head just enough to meet the same, scarlet irises from before. Then the color drained from your face. Same man. White locks, pale skin, and blood-colored eyes. Up close, he was much taller than you had made him out to be back at the subway station. Fuck, who was this man?

On instinct, you rip yourself away from his arms. The sudden lack of touch feels odd, and you feel cold. Your brows furrow into a frown, a bead of sweat running down your nape. Before you know it, you speak— "You." The word comes out like venom spit out from the mouth, a hiss that does not distinguish anger and fear. Your heart pounds.

"You're defensive—"

"You're my stalker," you interrupt. You see the corner of his lips twitch up into the hint of a smile. Your body feels tense. The thing is probably still out there searching for you, and this.. this man is the only reason you're probably alive at the moment.

"You've been following me."

The man only tilts his head slightly at the accusation, as if it weren't a bold comment you'd thrown his way. His eyes, at the very least, didn't show a hint of remorse. They held nothing at all. They were just red, so intensely red. He smiled a small smile. An amused expression.

"Point taken," he answered back— but the way his voice rumbled in his throat, the way he glanced at you? It looked as if he saw this as nothing more than a joke, like your feelings of rotting fear had meant nothing to him. "But you've yet to do anything about it."

Was that a challenge?

His eyes held a hint of mirth in them, and you felt mocked. In a way, you were being mocked by him— what little he had spoken had been spoken sardonically, and while there was no denial in his words, that didn't mean it had to be reassuring.

You stiffened up at his last sentence, though, because you noted that he was right. You hadn't done anything about the fact that he was following you. You had the choice to pay a visit to the Gokurakugai Troubleshooting Agency. You didn't. You had the choice to confide in a close friend that lived nearby, tell them about your situation. You didn't. You had the choice to at least try and say something, anything at all. You didn't. Anything and everything you could've done, you didn't do.

The man smiled. He sauntered over to where you stood, figure looming over yours, arms relaxing underneath the burning rays of the sun. "You had all the time in the world," he initiated, left hand going into his pocket. "All the time in the world to tell someone about your situation."

His eyes fixed on yours. You took a step back, a queasy feeling stilling in your stomach.

"And at the end of the day, you thought it would be prudent to draw the attention of a maga to try and draw out your pursuer," he drawled, a lazy lilt to his voice, as if prolonging the conversation. "You must lack the natural human instinct of self-preservation if you chose to disregard the rumors swirling that deathbed."

"So you would have cared if I died—" "I would have not."

Your words die in your mouth. You look into his eyes. They stare back at you. Unflinching. He's not lying. Something about the way he spoke the words made your blood run cold. Why would he go through the trouble of following me if he didn't care for my life at all..?

He glances aside before meeting your gaze again, the unyieldingness of his stance in this conversation unnerving you furthermore.

"I believe you misunderstand my intentions, [name]."

The way he speaks your name makes you flinch. "I didn't give you my—"

"What kind of stalker doesn't learn the name of the person they pursue?" he counters, taking a step back as he leans against the wall, shadows casting from above covering his visage. "You were careless in trying to avoid capture."

"Well, forgive me for not responding appropriately," you shot back— "I've never had to deal with a stalker of all things in this district." Your lips tug into a thin line. For a moment, there is silence until the man clicks his tongue.

"You lack basic sense of survival," he chided, arms crossed lazily. He doesn't seem interested in your reasoning— rather, he seems to have discarded it entirely as irrational. "Something so simple that should have been ingrained into you the moment you were born."

A pause. "And yet it isn't." He faces you. "Peculiar, don't you think?"

"What are you getting at?" you demanded. The back-and-forth jabbing from him to you was eating away at both your nervousness and your patience. You really don't think you can last much longer unless he gets straight to the point.

"What I'm getting at is that you're incapable of self-defense and survival on your own," he answers blatantly. His arms unfold, one falling limp to his side while the other rests, hand on his hip. "If I hadn't dragged you back there, I doubt you'd be breathing at this moment. You'd sag like a corpse onto the floor."

He glances aside. For a moment, you think you can hear a distant rumble with a snarl—or perhaps it's just the paranoia from the past days still clawing at your mind. "[name]," he calls, and your attention is snapped back to him.

"The thing you so loathe is called a maga," he straightens up his posture while he explains. "And as it stands, it's looking for you."

"Why would it be looking for me?" you interrupted— earning the hint of a faint, hardened glare from the other.

"It's looking for you because it feeds on human flesh—that's how it survives."

Oh shit.

As if on cue, you hear a shrill growl, some guttural groan that sounds like a starved beast. The man in front of you remains unflinching—unbothered.

"You have two choices," he drawls, stepping away from the wall, eyes locking onto yours. "You can come with me, and you'll live. Or..."

You see from the corner of your eye a group of limbs tethered to a chunk of pale flesh— the same creature that you heard earlier has found you. "... You can try your chances with that thing."

Looking at it now, it looks far more horrid than you thought of it before—gaping mouth, saliva leaking from the mouth, with sharp rows of teeth that don't quite seem to end—it seems like something out of a horror movie, and the notion is a cruel joke to you.

"You can't just—" you cut yourself off, head turning sharply to meet his gaze. "Why would I go with my stalker willingly?!"

"Your other option is death."

And that has you frozen, because you know he's right.

ㅤ ✦ JUST LIKE A FAMILY SHOULD ㅤ PT. 1 FINISHED

[kaiaden]

I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more I hate than running into a die-hard Llorumi fan on Tik Tok.

TW: Shipping discourse and talk of abusive relationships

I ran into a llorumi fan on Tik Tok today and it was the most mind numbing experience of my entire liffeeee

They were defending their ship as if their life depended on it, saying that it’s ‘canon’ and that Lloykita (Lloyd x Akita) was worse because they ended up leaving each other for their respective realms. Like? Wtf? Then they started talking about how Harumi is better now and that Crystallized is canon and she apologized and realized that she was wrong and Lloyd forgave her

This pisses me off because Crystallized was completely weak in its writing and Harumi had no real consequences for her actions, just ‘i’m super sorry for tearing an entire city apart and partook in destroying it again’ and then Lloyd is just like ‘yeah, I believe you even though you’ve lied and manipulated me in the past with complete ease’ not saying she was lying or manipulating, but I wish we (Lloyd) was more skeptical because of her past actions.

Redemption should be a thing, but quoting one of my fav YouTubers, redemption shouldn’t be blind acceptance, and the seriousness of someone’s actions should come into play before we even begin to forgive, much less redeem

I also hate it because it’s basically just a victimizer x a victim. Lloyd is a VICTIM OF MANIPULATION. He was left chewed up and spat out after what Harumi did, compare him in seasons 9 and 10 and even season 11 to him in season 7, he was so different because he hadn’t faced a person like Harumi before. Harumi actively sought to break Lloyd down to unfixable pieces because of an incident he had no control over, that none of the ninjas had control over. She literally held him in the air to watch as his friends, his brothers, and his uncle get murdered brutally in front of him just to make him feel as empty as her. (Albeit, they didn’t die but he didn’t know that until later on) And that was AFTER she brought his dad back, manipulated Garmadon into attempting to MURDERING HIS OWN SON, and then BROADCASTED IT LIVE

Yeah guys, perfect couple of the year, look at how cute they are, oh he’s okay, he forgave her

Sorry for the rant, if you enjoy Llorumi, it ain’t my cup of tea in the slightest, but as long as your not one of the problematic ones ig

[personastrologyhub]

How O.J. Simpson’s Astrology Exposed His Darkest Secrets - Pluto Chart

The Astrology of Power, Violence, and Karma: O.J. Simpson’s Dark Fate - How the Stars Foretold His Rise, Fall, and Ultimate Fate.

Get in loser., I'm taking you on a drive into the world of Psychological Astrology, where we don’t just read charts; we go deep and decode the soul. 

So, lately, I’ve been deep in the world of Persona Charts—and when I say deep, I mean 3 AM deep. You know, those moments when you really should be sleeping because you got an early start, your eyes are burning a bit, and there’s a migraine creeping in but you keep going because you’re obsessed? 

If this is you right now, this is your sign to GO to sleep.

—and now, the only reason you’re finally going to bed is because your laptop died… and the charger is all the way across the room. 

But let me tell you—what I found in O.J. Simpson’s charts? Unbelievable. 

Unbelievably juicy - pun very much intended. 

From the Trial of the Century to his fall from grace, his prison sentence, and even his death in 2024, his life unfolded exactly as his astrology predicted.

This isn’t just another chart reading. It’s a case study in fate, free will, and Pluto’s unforgiving hand.

And this? This is just a glimpse of what’s coming in my new book on Persona Charts coming 02.21.25 x

Let’s begin.

The Rise: A King in the Making

With Leo dominating his Pluto persona chart, O.J. Simpson wasn’t just born to be seen—he was born to be worshipped. 

Leo energy is built for fame, but Pluto-Saturn ensures it comes at a price.

Pluto describes power (by force/at any cost) in Leo → An obsession with being seen as the best.

From his Sun-Pluto-Saturn conjunction, his very identity (Sun), control and obsession with power (Pluto) were woven into one unbreakable thread. 

He didn’t just want fame—he demanded it. And for years, the universe gave him everything.

🏆 Football legend. 🎬 Hollywood star. 💰 A multimillionaire who had it all.

But here’s the thing about Pluto: Power is never owned—it is only borrowed.

And Pluto always collects its debts.

The Shadow: Suppressed Rage & The Cracks in the Mask - Pluto Persona

In astrology, Pluto is the great destroyer—ruling over power, control, and karmic reckoning. And when it sits conjunct Saturn and the Sun (ego), as it did in O.J. Simpson’s Pluto Persona chart, it creates a walking time bomb—a life where the weight of past actions always comes due. Like author Jeanne Avery describes in the book, Astrological Aspects: Your Inner Dialogues ......

"its like squeezing out that power through gritted teeth and clenched fists" that's how this conjunction plays out.

But here’s the thing about Saturn’s lessons—they take a while.

O.J. didn’t face Pluto’s full judgment in his younger days. Instead, he reaped it late in life (Capricorn themes of delayed consequences), sentenced to prison at age 61, and ultimately succumbing to Prostate Cancer in 2024.

And if you follow the breadcrumb trail the stars left behind, you’ll notice something chilling—Saturn doesn’t just rule karma. It also rules serious, life-ending diseases.

 This chart shows us, that it's not just about fame and power—it showed us his delayed reckoning and an inescapable fate.

Mars Conjunct Uranus in the 12th House → A Ticking Time Bomb

Mars: Aggression, violence, injury, impulsive action, injury/stabbing Uranus: Sudden, unexpected upheaval and rebellion. The 12th House: hidden enemies, unexplained phenomena, subconscious repression, and secrecy. How we choose to fight our inner demons.

I mean, WOW.

This aspect alone points to a lifetime of buried anger and repressed impulses—pushed so deep that when they finally surfaced, they did so violently, erratically, that it was shocking with devastating consequences.

In traditional astrology, Mars-Uranus connections are associated with impulsive violence, sudden injuries, and even stabbing incidents. The eerie synchronicity of it all?

His inner chaos eventually became his external reality.

But Uranus, the great disruptor, doesn’t let anything stay buried forever. When change/loss came—the unraveling of his marriage, his public image shattering, his personal world collapsing—his greatest fear manifested: losing control. And that’s the exact moment when the Mars-Uranus conjunction unleashed itself.

And the result; Jailed at 61.

But it doesn’t end there, I did spot a few other synchronicity. Coincidence ? or is the stars revealing it all. 

🚨 Neptune (illusions) in 4th House of family/home, in the sign of Libra sign of (relationship/marriage partner) in the 8° = which has symbolism of Scorpio and the 8th house and in degree theory which means To kill, to be killed, revenge/one who kills, maniac, bully, or a dangerous person.

🚨 Neptune - Square Ascendant – The ability to deceive others, and even himself. Neptune also symbolises (to run away/to hide the trace/illusion)  

🚨 Venus-Pluto Aspects – Power struggles/ Love turned into obsession, relationships built on control.

For decades, before the trial, O.J. played the perfect role: America’s sweetheart, a hero to millions. But the deeper the shadow, the harder it hits when it emerges. 

Lets look at The Night of June 12, 1994

The Death of his ex wife, Nicole Brown Simpson.

When Pluto transited his 12th House, the universe sent its final warning:

Face your demons, or they will destroy you.

That night, could it be that his darkest impulses took over?

⚔️ Mars was conjunct his natal Pluto. ⚔️ Saturn was forcing him to face his choices. ⚔️ His need for control had reached its peak.

The result? One of the most infamous Trial in history.

And just like that, the man who had it all became the man who lost everything.

⚖️ 

Pluto always wins.

📖 This is just a taste of what’s inside my upcoming book on Psychological Astrology.

Inside, I take you deeper into: ✅ The astrological clues that pointed to his fate. ✅ The dark secrets hidden in his Mars and Moon and Pluto Persona Charts. I do a deep dive where I compare and contrast how to interpret personas. ✅ How midpoints, karmic cycles, and Pluto’s revenge shaped his entire life.

Want to know why O.J. Simpson was destined to rise and fall?

📩 Subscribe, comment, or share to be the first to get a copy!

Because in the end…

No one escapes their shadow. 🔮

[mikami1992]

Exactly… The whole engagement/marriage thing is a misunderstanding on Luffy's part… As for the kidnapping/improvised trip, that's where Luffy ends up outside of East Blue and consequently meets Law when he was investigating Doflamingo's organization.

And with Luffy being kidnapped at that age… Luffy rather let himself be kidnapped just like the incident with Nami and Buggy… I wouldn't be surprised if they were slavers who through trickery exposed him with sea stone… Of course that would only stop Luffy for a while before he gets used to it and starts to cause chaos, but by that time he'd already been taken out of East Blue and it would be here in the middle of the mutiny caused by our favorite sunny boy when Law arrives… Possibly they're already in a base located on some uninhabited island at the entrance of the grand line;

At the end of the incident (and after or during the feast banquet demanded by Luffy), the other hostages find a Den Den Mushi and call the Marines to rescue them from there, and this is the signal for Law to leave (of course he leaves after asking them not to say anything about him to the Marines and stealing all the available information about the organization and Doflamingo), and of course the Heart Pirates don't notice their unexpected stowaway… the next trip will end with Luffy eating an ice cream on the next island and with the one-sided idea that he got engaged/married to Law…

And if Luffy loved the submarine, the bear and being fed well… plus Law's crew loves how he annoys their captain…

As for the family… half would easily be on the assassination team and the other half on the condolences team (the latter are the ones who realize that the guy probably doesn't know what he got himself into with Luffy)

and about realizing who the fiancé/husband is… the funniest thing is that they don't realize who he is until Sabaody… and by this time Luffy's family already sold the idea to the Mugiwaras that someone tricked their captain into a fraudulent engagement/marriage when he was young… so these have already joined the previous teams…

also Law finding out that he is engaged to Luffy at the moment of seeing him punch a Celestial Dragon… the poor surgeon won't know what to do if he should accept this engagement or clear everything up…

also imagine Luffy's family realizing that Luffy's fiancé/husband is a doctor and grandson of Fleet Admiral Sengoku….

@diminuel y @thesaurus-with-no-words

What do you think about this crazy idea?…

Half a year before setting sail…

Luffy gets lost, his whole family is crazy looking for him…

after several days (a week or more) they find him on another island… calmly eating ice cream… and talking about a fiancé/husband…

he never says his name, only a nickname or "My fiancé/husband"… everyone is crazy, who is stealing the family's baby?

*squints* depends on who the guy is and how the whole fiancé/ husband thing came to be...!

Was Luffy taken from his home? Left it himself (I assume he's allowed to do a bit of sailing around the island to get a bit of experience and collect things he needs)

I need more information >w<

[macaiv]

Source: The Washington Post

[qoldenskies]

Yes, ever since I've found your Tumblr, I've pretty much stopped making comments on ao3 since it's kind of easier to get my thoughts out on here. But I'll most likely have something special to say in the last chapter. Anyway.

I'm glad we got to unpack the whole "Splinter screwed up" thing this chapter. And I'm starting to notice that no matter what Donnie is going through, as soon as he sees anyone in any pain, he puts aside everything to comfort them. Yeah, usually it isn't for good reasons. But because of Mikey, he gained the courage to walk with Raph all the way over to Mikey's room, let him hug him, stayed in his vicinity despite him literally yelling and crying right in his face, and even brought up the curse and an old memory of Splinter and how he was in the wrong (yeah Donnie they were in the wrong!!) but he forgave him-

Like, even if this interaction isn't perfect, I still think there was some noticeable improvement! He even giggled despite himself! My baby even brought Raph back to the lab and rebuilt Sheldon and told him how Raph wasn't the same and wanted him to know that he was safe.

Like, oh my god, qolden. As soon as the scene came up where Mikey and April were painting in the laundry room, I literally smiled so wide because yesYES. That is exactly what they would do. It's perfect. Make it a safe space! Paint murals in there! Put fairy lights on the walls! Put carpet in there! Make it a safe haven! Because I think there will be unavoidable times when he returns to the laundry room during an episode. So, I don't know, maybe if they decorated it and made it less of a sensory nightmare, that it could actually become somewhat of a peaceful place for Donnie for whenever he believes he might need one.

it was established very early on in CL that while donnie's facade was (obviously) bs, he did actually struggle quite a bit with being emotionally unavailable-- he criticizes and works on himself in private and denies it later. he seems unsure of how to properly apologize. being shouted at or accepting he's in the wrong in front of people is a struggle-- leo's "you could at least pretend to care" (something he says a variation of a few times in CL) is direct criticism of this trait because of course he would find that frustrating while cursed. when it came down to it before, leo was very patient with him because he understood how to communicate on donnie's level. even if he wasn't always able to put up with him he knew how to give him time.

but also in CL its made very apparent donnie was trying to work on it, and they exploited and took advantage of what was currently an open wound in that regard. witch town was a huge blow to his perception and ego, and april's understanding and straightforward push for him to communicate kind of turned his perception of all of it on its head. things like his fight with shelldon, too-- they stuck with him, and that left him open to being hurt. donnie is low empathy and he feels like he's imitating their behavior in order to be more open quite often, which means it was so easy to convince him he was being disingenuous.

now in the fallout of everything, donnie will still struggle to understand and comprehend other people's feelings, but he's desperate to stop them from being upset. usually he would just kind of excuse himself when things got too emotional because the energy was oppressive and he would be frustrated with himself, especially if they reacted poorly to any faux-empathy he tried to provide. (and he did care! he hated seeing them upset! he just didn't know how to make it better!)

all of the fawning and people-pleasing is really bad now basically, which means he will be extremely tolerant and consoling when they're upset, even to his own detriment (it makes him actively uncomfortable and sometimes even afraid, but he's overcorrected himself and is desperately trying to prioritize other people). it wasn't put in the foreground of the scene with mikey but he was genuinely frustrated because he does feel responsible for mikey being so hurt, just because people being upset on his behalf and sticking up for him is ,,, uncomfortable. he went for months without that, and even when he's working past blaming himself he's terrified of others blaming them, too. one of his most confident moments in cw was him shutting off shelldon's weapons when he tried to turn them on raph, and there's a reason for that.

[viric-dreams]

Jones was born in the year of the Fall, and grew up in a world in which the British Empire's hold on the world was suddenly not a foregone conclusion. How this would impact him would not become apparent until his teens, when he was radilcalised during his time spent in England. He became heavily involved in the pan-Celtic movement into and throughout his university years. Despite his age, he quickly became a known face amongst friends and foes alike. Jones had a knack for words and for people, and could just as easily rally a crowd with a passionate speech as negotiate across a table from adversaries. He was becoming a political problem.

It was during a speech in 1883 that things had gone wrong. He's not sure himself what had lit that fuse, that had set the rally alight, whether the first blow had come from the police or the crowd. But suddenly there was chaos, and the constables were upon them. One of his comrades was pulled to the ground beside him, the constable swinging at her with a nightstick. Jones grabbed at the man, several stone heavier, tried in vain to pull him off of her. A swing of that nightstick connecting with the side of his face is what he got for his trouble. Half blinded by blood, adrenaline rushing through his veins, he pulled back his fist and threw a punch.

He doesn't remember much after that.

His memories of the next few weeks are hazy, a procession of lawyers, sympathetic faces, furious family. He was being charged for murder. The officer he'd hit had died two days later. One punch thrown at the wrong angle. The prosecution was out for blood. They were determined to make an example of him, get him out of the way, it's all politics, the union leader had told him. He should be ashamed, he's ruined the family's good name, their mother cannot talk about him without bursting into tears, his brother told him. He can get through this, it shouldn't be too long, and she'll be waiting for him on the other side, his girlfriend had told him.

The ship bound for Italy, and eventually, the Cumaean Canal was the list time he'd seen the sun. He was twenty-two.

[discordiansamba]

shura and rin's training sessions together are a natural evolution from their roughhousing sessions as kids. rin's play style absolutely took a turn towards the more physical post-lycanthropy, and shura was more than happy to wrassle with him to his heart's content.

(especially seeing as yukio could not)

everyone knows that shura views shiro and yuri as her parents, but she adamantly refuses to refer to them as such.

(until. well. until.)

shura voice: if you touch my baby brothers, i'll fucking kill you.

i'm not revealing the spoiler that happens during the shimane arc. I'm not. I really want to but I won't do it. just know that something big happens in that arc that i'm a little giddy about.

local lycanthrope considered The Boss by all the dogs in the area.

it's very important to me that when rin fully transforms into a wolf, the actual transformation is viscerally unpleasant to watch. and hear. it's an unnatural process. definite body horror going on there.

(in general, rin has an incredibly high tolerance for pain, so he doesn't even feel it.)

rin's wolf form looks indistinguishable from an actual wolf.

werewolves, on the other hand, are very much the bipedal vaguely humanoid type that people think of from monster movies. the result of a wolf transformed and stretched out into humanoid form is very unnatural to look at!

consequently, rin does not transform in front of people. but he especially avoids transforming in front of yukio.

(also you know. the whole 'being naked when he turns back into human form' thing. rin crouching in the bushes covering his face with his hands. he can never get married now.)

shima, after the wall breaks down after the Bathhouse Incident: wait wait! why are you only attacking me?!

izumo: i mean, we see rin naked all the time.

(this kills the rin. izumo. izumo please. don't make me sound like some kind of weirdo.)

rin can't talk in wolf form. if he needs to communicate, he ends up scratching words into the dirt instead.

local lycanthrope is a top tier tracker. there's very few ways with which one can actually fool his nose.

(one of them is wearing lots and lots of cologne. this is how todo hides himself in plain sight for years.)

the exwires asking rin what their scents are like. he mulls it over for awhile, trying to translate it into something they'd understand.

rin: shiemi kind of smells like dirt?

shiemi: i do? thanks!

local lycanthrope gets his brain short-circuited the first time he sees his childhood friend after only talking on the phone for years. what the hell. when did she get so cute?!

shiro, watching this happen: lol. lmao.

callout post for werewolf AU rin: he was afraid of the vacuum cleaner as a child.

callout post for kuro: he's still afraid of the vacuum cleaner.

(shiro watching as his son and his familiar watch yuri vacuum warily from the couch, their ears pressed down against their heads. hang on where's his camera. he needs to record this. for posterity.)

[enzomancer]

Happy late bi visibility day, here is a potato quality wip of my Curse of Strahd pc Lorenzo, (dhampir necromancer) he is bi and now he is visible, some day I’ll finish his ref sheet

(not pictured: mouth full of pointed teeth, patches of ash-grey scales, sinister compulsions)

[whispers-into-the-void]

idt it's normal for my calf to abruptly start feeling a vibrating sensation and have sharp pain at the sole of my feet but also i know it'll go in 5 minutes and it's never actually resulted in anything beyond that short term pain so i don't think I need to do anything about it

right?

[boy-pussyyy]

at 12/13 years old, i was introduced to the term "masterbation" for the first time in my life (I'm aroace so maybe that's why i didnt care/know about it before then) and it was from the mega church i went to.

all they taught us about it was that it was a sinful urge and that people spoke to our pastor from all over the world to "cure" them of it and one dude even wrote in a testimony to say he'd been praying to be "free" from that sin and was now "cured" from masterbation for x number of years.

i remember 12/13 year old me turning to my youth leader and asking what masterbation was cause the pastor wouldn't actually tell is what it was, just that it was bad. i dont remember what her expression was but she didn't exactly answer my question and i kept been confused for a few years before finding out on my own and thinking i was going to hell for sinning by accident.

kids who werent raised christian being like "lol baptising children is whack if they tried to do that to me i would start doing things to make it look like i was possessed" no you would not. you would bask in the pride and approval coming from the adults around you and you would quietly wait your turn because you were told from birth that sinning sends you to hell and baptism is The Promise that youre dedicating your life to jesus that youve had hyped up for years and watched other people be fawned over as they cry happy tears about it and you do NOT want to fuck up your One Big True Promise To Love Jesus Forever So You Don't Get Tortured For Eternity when you are literally 8 years old. im begging yall to remember its a thousand times easier to see the church's bullshit for what it is when you're not actively in the church. eight year old you is not thinking about trying to fight back against an oppressive religious group indoctrinating children because You Are The Children Being Indoctrinated. stop acting like you would've magically known better if it were you.