#when you know so much about a subject that you have no idea what a normal starting point is

[cazort]

so this is an interesting post because although i hate when people put gum under tables, i think i can understand the mindset that people might be in when they do it. and i hope i can help others to understand it too. i bet if you reflect on this post you will realize you have things in common with these people.

it basically happens when people are chewing gum and they want to stop, but they don't have an easy place or way to throw it away. maybe they are not carrying a wrapper or any paper, there is no trash can in the room they are in, or they are not allowed to get up to go to the trash can (a frequent problem in some authoritarian school settings, incidentally) or they might even be too lazy to get up and go to the trash can, and/or to find a wrapper or paper to stick the gum in.

i know this sounds gross, but some people are not particularly averse to germs and have no qualms sticking the gum there temporarily; they may have the full intention of actually taking it back and putting it in their mouth again and chewing on it. and then they may forget.

they might be sticking it there temporarily with the intention of returning with a wrapper or paper and then later placing it in the trash, but again, they may forget.

also though, people may see sticking the gum there permanently as a less-harmful alternative than dropping the gum on the floor where someone is likely to step on it. stepping in gum is really gross, often much more inconvenient than merely touching hard gum stuck to the bottom of a table. part of the reason why is that gum on the ground is more likely to melt, such as if sun shines on it, and stepping in that can be really nasty. gum on the underside of a table is less likely to melt for the simple reason that direct sunlight is unlikely to shine on it.

lastly, and this is a huge factor, consider that there may be really deep, systemic factors that are operating that make the other person's whole cost/benefit/risk calculus and decision-making process radically different than our own.

consider:

people may have mental or developmental disorders that limit their reasoning ability. like all the logic in your head about why it is a bad idea or inconsiderate to others to stick gum to the bottom of the level, may be over their head.

people may have trauma about authority figures that leads them to not want to get up and go to a trash can (imagine if a person has trauma about getting up to go to the trash can as a kid, and getting yelled at or otherwise harshly punished)

people could be dealing with all sorts of severe stuff (mental illness, drug addiction/withdrawal, malnourishment, severe stress, an abusive home environment, sleep loss or deprivation) that you may have no clue about. the little item of what they do with their gum may be so tiny relative to the stuff they are dealing with that it isn't even on their radar. they may be trying as hard as they can to hold it together and avoid a much worse problem than sticking gum to the bottom of a table, and in a moment of weakness they stick the gum there as the path of least resistance.

consider that people who have all sorts of crazy stuff go wrong in their life on a day-to-day basis may see the imposition of accidentally touching a gross piece of gum on the bottom of the table, as a trivial inconvenience, not worth worrying about. so they may not even perceive it as an imposition on others. consider for example that some people have to deal with rats and roaches in their home, bullets coming through their walls when they sleep, being beaten or abused by family members, being harassed by police, being bullied or subjected to violence by peers, and all sorts of other stuff. if this is your world, seriously, what is a piece of gum? it's nothing.

do i like it? heck no.

would i rather live in a world where there is no gum stuck to the underside of tables? heck freaking yes.

but i don't really think there is a fundamental gap between myself and people who stick gum there.

i think the thought exercise you go through when considering this small annoyance, this minor instance of disgust, is useful because the same processes are helpful for understanding more severe impositions on people's convenience, or even health and safety. and we all know that we live in a world where there are more severe impositions we deal with, sometimes on a daily basis.

i want to be compassionate and understanding of others, especially people who are doing things i find harmful. i don't want to "other" these people, i want to understand them, because that opens the door to helping them and ultimately stopping the behavior.

maybe it's as simple as making sure there are trash cans in every room. maybe it's more complicated like helping people work through their trauma, or solving deep social ills in society. whatever it is, i want to do all these things. i want to live in a world where there is no gum on the bottom of tables, and i think that in this world, a lot of other problems would be solved too. it's all interrelated.

i cannot relate to people who put gum under tables i have nothing in common with people who put gum under tables i honestly find it hard to accept the humanity of people who put gum under tables

[cherryxbooo]

I've got you ... always

Summary: Working as a Mercedes engineer has always been challenging, but with men constantly looking down on you, it becomes unbearable. Lewis is quick to put a stop to it, and fight for justice.

Note: First of all, I want to thank all of you for the love you've shown me so far. I really appreciate it! 🤍 The reason I chose this storyline is to address the issue of sexism and misogyny in workplaces. Unfortunately, this still happens far too often, and with this fic, I hope to bring much-needed attention to this subject. Just know you're not alone 🫶

Reader x Lewis Hamilton

Warning: misogyny and sexism

It had been nearly six years since I first joined Mercedes as an engineer.

Six years of intense work, late nights, early mornings, and a relentless pursuit of perfection in the world of Formula 1.

It was my dream job, one I had worked tirelessly to achieve.

But those six years also marked the time I’d spent with Lewis, six years of love, laughter, and challenges with the man who had become my everything.

I could still remember the day we met as if it were yesterday.

A bit of backstory:

I was the newest member of the Mercedes team, fresh out of a competitive hiring process, and I was determined to make an impression.

The first time I stepped into the paddock, I felt like an imposter among the sea of seasoned professionals.

My hands clutched my tablet like a lifeline as I walked into a strategy meeting, trying to suppress the nervous flutter in my chest.

Lewis was already there, sitting at the far end of the room. He looked relaxed, dressed casually in his signature streetwear style, yet exuding an unmistakable aura of confidence.

As I took a seat near the back, his eyes flicked toward me.

I was sure he wouldn’t even notice me, why would he?

I was just another new face among dozens of team members.

But then, he smiled.

It wasn’t one of those polite, obligatory smiles.

It was warm and genuine, as if he could sense my nerves and wanted to reassure me.

That smile was like a silent message:

You belong here.

Over the next few weeks, our paths crossed more frequently.

At first, it was just in passing, a quick hello in the garage, a casual “How’s it going?” during lunch breaks.

But it didn’t take long for us to start talking. Really talking.

It was during a particularly chaotic race weekend in Silverstone that our friendship began to solidify.

A last-minute weather change had thrown everyone into a frenzy, and I found myself staying late in the garage to run some last-minute simulations.

The paddock was nearly empty when Lewis walked in, still in his racing suit, and caught me muttering to myself as I tried to make sense of the data.

“Long night?” he asked, leaning against the workbench with a lopsided grin.

“You have no idea,” I replied with a tired laugh, glancing up from my screen.

He stayed and talked with me for over an hour, even offering a few insights that helped me crack the issue I was stuck on.

By the time he left, I realized that the nervousness I’d felt around him was gone.

He wasn’t just Lewis Hamilton, seven-time world champion.

He was kind, funny, and incredibly easy to talk to.

From that moment on, our friendship grew effortlessly.

Whether it was over post-race debriefs, team dinners, or stolen moments between the chaos of race weekends, we found ourselves drawn to each other.

We bonded over a shared love for what we did, but also over our differences, his world of high-speed fame and my quieter, behind-the-scenes role.

It wasn’t long before I realized my feelings for him had shifted.

I hadn’t planned on falling for him, but Lewis had a way of breaking down walls without even trying.

He made me laugh when I was stressed, listened intently when I rambled about work, and made me feel seen in a way I hadn’t experienced before.

One evening, after a long day at the factory, he invited me out for dinner.

It wasn’t anything fancy, just a cozy little restaurant tucked away.

Over plates of pasta and glasses of wine, we talked about everything from our childhoods to our dreams for the future.

By the end of the night, when he walked me to my car, he hesitated for just a moment before leaning in to kiss me.

That was the beginning of us.

For a long time, we kept our relationship private. We both wanted to protect what we had, to keep it ours without the scrutiny of the public eye.

But as the months turned into years, it became harder to hide.

Fans started noticing the subtle signs, the way Lewis would glance at me during interviews, or how I always seemed to be nearby during race weekends.

When we finally decided to go public, it wasn’t a grand announcement or a carefully curated statement.

It was a simple photo posted on Lewis’s Instagram.

We were in Monaco, sitting on a terrace overlooking the harbor, the golden light of sunset washing over us.

I didn’t even know he’d taken the picture until he showed it to me later that night.

“Should I post it?” he asked, his voice tentative.

I hesitated, thinking of the attention it would bring, but then I looked at him, at the way his eyes softened as he waited for my answer.

“Yeah,” I said with a smile. “Let’s do it.”

The response back then was overwhelming.

Fans flooded the comments with messages of support, and the media couldn’t stop speculating about us.

But through it all, Lewis and I stayed grounded, reminding each other that our relationship wasn’t for anyone else.

It was for us.

One of the things that made our relationship so strong was our ability to communicate.

From the very beginning, we had promised to tell each other everything, our fears, our frustrations, our dreams.

No topic was off-limits.

Whether it was a rough qualifying session for him or a challenging project for me, we leaned on each other without hesitation.

At least, that’s how it used to be.

Lately, I hadn’t been able to keep my promise to Lewis, to tell him everything, to lean on him like I always had.

The reason? Mark, Alan, and Greg.

They were three senior engineers on the team, men who had been with Mercedes long before I joined.

Older, more experienced, and as I had quickly discovered, painfully set in their ways.

From the very beginning, they had made it clear that they didn’t think I belonged.

I still remember the first time I overheard them.

It was during my second week on the job, and I was running a simulation late at night.

They didn’t realize I was in the corner of the garage, headphones off, sorting through notes.

“Hiring for diversity quotas,” Mark had muttered, his voice dripping with disdain.

“Yeah, they want to tick a box, so they bring in the fresh-faced rookie,” Alan had added with a chuckle.

Greg, ever the opportunist, chimed in,

“Let’s see how long she lasts when the pressure’s on.”

"She's better off making us a sandwich."

Their words had stung, sharp and bitter, but I had swallowed my pride.

I told myself that proving them wrong would be the best revenge.

I worked harder than I ever had in my life, triple-checking my calculations, volunteering for extra tasks, staying long hours to ensure that my work was flawless.

And for a while, I thought it had paid off.

At first, the snide remarks tapered off.

They didn’t engage with me much, but at least they stopped openly questioning my abilities.

I had even started to think that maybe, just maybe, I had earned their respect.

But lately, the comments had returned, and they were worse than ever.

It started subtly, dismissive sighs during meetings when I spoke, or whispered conversations that stopped the moment I entered the room.

Childish right?

Then the snark escalated, cutting through my carefully built confidence like a knife.

“Did you even double-check this?”

Alan had sneered last week after a team briefing, gesturing at the simulation results I’d spent days perfecting.

Greg, never one to miss a chance to pile on, smirked as he added,

“Leave the big decisions to people who actually know what they’re doing.”

Then Mark's voice was heard,

"Yeah, go do the laundry or something, whatever you women are good in."

It was always wrapped in the guise of banter, thinly veiled behind forced smiles and casual tones.

But I wasn’t naïve.

There was a sharpness to their words, a deliberate attempt to undermine me that cut deeper each time.

Even Mark, the one who usually played the “neutral” party, had started joining in.

During a debrief on a race strategy I’d helped design, he had scoffed and muttered,

“Well, I guess every team needs its token young genius.”

It was relentless.

Every day, there was something, a comment, a glance, a dismissive laugh that made my blood boil.

But I kept it all to myself.

I told myself that it wasn’t worth causing a scene, especially now.

Lewis had enough on his plate.

His move to Ferrari had been the talk of the motorsport world, and while he was excited for the new challenge, the transition was anything but easy.

here were endless negotiations, media commitments, and the emotional weight of leaving the team that had been his family for over a decade.

I couldn’t bring this to him, not now.

Not when he was already stretched thin.

So, I stayed quiet.

I bit my tongue when Alan questioned my calculations, ignored Greg’s condescending remarks, and pretended not to hear Mark’s muttered jokes.

Each time, I told myself it was just words, that I could handle it.

But deep down, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could.

Lewis was busy.

I kept telling myself that over and over, like a mantra.

Between announcing his move to Ferrari, dealing with the media frenzy, juggling sponsorship demands, and the seemingly endless meetings, he had so much on his plate.

The last thing he needed was me adding my problems to the mix.

But today was different.

The garage was buzzing with activity as we prepped for the upcoming race weekend.

The sound of drills, clinking tools, and the hum of engines filled the air, a symphony of chaos I had grown to love over the years.

I was stationed at my usual spot, hunched over a set of data sheets, meticulously double-checking the aerodynamics report for any inconsistencies.

I was deep in concentration, my pen scratching against the paper, when their voices drifted over.

Mark’s gruff tone was unmistakable.

“What’s the point of her even being here? Probably just a pretty face for the team photos.”

I froze, my hand pausing mid-note.

My heart sank, but I willed myself to stay calm, telling myself to ignore it like always.

Alan, never one to pass up an opportunity, snorted.

“Yeah, but even that’s debatable.”

Their laughter was casual, almost conversational, but the sting of their words hit me like a whip.

Then Greg joined in, his tone dripping with mockery.

“She’s only here because she’s shagging the driver or maybe even the boss. Imagine thinking she got this job on her own merit.”

Mark laughed before adding,

"Maybe we can all ask her for a turn as well, if it's that easy to shag the boss, we might have a chance too."

"At the end of the day, that's all they're good at. Women don't belong in the motorsport world."

The room was filled with their laughter.

That was it.

My pen slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the table as my hands began to shake.

I stared at the numbers on the page, but they were a blur, overshadowed by the burning heat of humiliation rising in my chest.

For years, I had endured their passive-aggressive comments, their dismissive attitudes, their constant undermining of my capabilities.

I had told myself it didn’t matter, that their opinions didn’t define me.

But hearing them reduce everything I had worked for, the late nights, the sweat, the tears, the sacrifices, to nothing more than being Lewis Hamilton’s girlfriend?

It was too much.

I clenched my fists under the table, my nails digging into my palms as I tried to hold it together.

But their laughter, light and cruel, echoed in my ears, shredding the last of my composure.

I pushed back my chair abruptly, the screech of metal against the concrete floor silencing the room for a brief moment.

My vision blurred with unshed tears as I grabbed my tablet and notes, clutching them to my chest like armor.

I didn’t dare look at them, I couldn’t.

My breath hitched, and my chest felt tight, like the walls were closing in.

I needed to get out. Now.

Without a word, I turned and stormed out of the garage, my footsteps heavy and uneven.

I didn’t care where I was going; I just needed space, air, something to stop the lump in my throat from turning into a sob.

As I walked away, their laughter faded into the background, but the words lingered, etched into my mind like a scar.

I didn’t know where I was going.

My feet carried me blindly, weaving through the maze of garages and team trailers until I found myself at the paddock’s edge.

It was quieter here, away from the relentless hum of activity, the chatter of crew members, and the ever-present cameras.

I sank onto a bench beneath the shade of a tree, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath.

Burying my face in my hands, I let out a shaky sigh.

My mind replayed their words like a broken record, each snide comment cutting deeper than the last.

"What’s the point of her being here?"

"Probably just a pretty face for the team photos."

"She’s only here because she’s shagging the driver."

The worst part was that they’d managed to plant a seed of doubt.

I had worked so hard to get here, put in countless hours, and sacrificed so much to prove myself in this male-dominated field.

And yet, in this moment, I felt like a fraud, like I didn’t belong.

“Y/n?”

The sound of Lewis’s voice cut through the fog in my mind.

I looked up sharply, my breath catching when I saw him standing a few feet away, his brow furrowed in concern.

He must have followed me.

My stomach twisted in a mix of guilt and relief.

The last thing I wanted was for him to see me like this, vulnerable, crumbling under the weight of my emotions.

“What’s wrong my love?” he asked, stepping closer and crouching down in front of me.

His warm, dark eyes searched mine, his hands gently resting on my knees.

The concern etched into his face made my heart ache.

“Nothing,” I lied, quickly wiping at my face.

Lewis raised an eyebrow, his expression soft but skeptical.

“Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out.”

I hesitated, my resolve cracking under his steady gaze.

His presence was grounding, but I didn’t want to pull him into my mess.

“It’s nothing, really,” I tried again, forcing a weak smile.

“I just… I’m tired.”

“Y/n.”

His voice was low and firm, but there was a tenderness to it that made my throat tighten.

“Please. Talk to me.”

That was all it took.

The dam broke, and the words spilled out in a rush.

I told him everything, the comments, the dismissive attitudes, the years of enduring their quiet but cutting condescension.

My voice wavered as I explained how it had worsened recently, how their snide remarks had crossed the line into outright insults.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper.

“You’ve been under so much pressure with everything, Ferrari, the media, the season. I didn’t want to be another problem for you to deal with.”

Lewis listened intently, his face unreadable as I spoke.

But the slight tightening of his jaw and the way his hands gripped mine told me he was anything but indifferent.

When I finished, there was a long silence.

I stared down at my hands, afraid to meet his eyes.

“They’ve been doing this for years?”

he finally asked, his voice low and tightly controlled.

I nodded, biting my lip. “It wasn’t always this bad, but yeah.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t want to add to your stress,” I said softly.

“You’ve been dealing with so much already.”

Lewis let out a slow, measured breath, his grip on my hands tightening.

“Y/n, nothing, and I mean nothing, is more important to me than you.”

His voice softened, but there was a fierce protectiveness beneath his words.

“You should’ve told me. They don’t get to treat you like this. Ever. No woman deserves this kind of treatment.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Lewis was already standing.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, his expression dark with determination.

“Lewis, what are you doing?” I asked, standing as well.

He glanced at me, his jaw set.

“I’m making sure this doesn’t happen again.”

I reached out, touching his arm.

“Lewis, please—”

“Y/n.” He turned to face me fully, his eyes locking onto mine.

“You’ve put up with this for far too long. I’m not letting it slide, and neither should you. This is your workplace, your passion. You shouldn’t have to deal with people who try to tear you down.”

His words hit me hard, a mix of anger and love wrapped in every syllable.

I nodded slowly, my throat tight with emotion.

“Good,” he said, his voice softening as he pulled me into a hug.

His arms wrapped around me tightly, and for a moment, I let myself melt into his warmth.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured into my hair. “Always.”

By mid-afternoon, the entire paddock was filled with noice.

Meetings with Toto were rarely casual, and the tension in the air was palpable.

I stayed out of sight, nerves twisting in my stomach.

When Lewis had assured me earlier that he wouldn’t let this go, I’d believed him.

But seeing the immediate repercussions unfold was a different kind of catharsis.

The walk to Toto’s office felt longer than it should have, every step heavy with anticipation.

Lewis had his hand firmly on the small of my back, guiding me through the bustling paddock.

His touch was grounding, but my nerves still prickled under my skin.

“Relax,” he said softly, leaning closer.

“We’re handling this together.”

I nodded, though my stomach was a tangled mess of knots.

The last thing I wanted was to cause drama, but after years of enduring Mark, Alan, and Greg’s behavior, I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

When we arrived at Toto’s office, Lewis didn’t bother knocking lightly.

He rapped his knuckles on the door with purpose.

“Come in,” came the familiar voice from inside.

Toto was seated behind his desk, a stack of papers neatly arranged to one side.

His brows lifted in mild surprise when he saw the two of us enter together, but he quickly gestured for us to take a seat.

“This seems serious,” Toto remarked, his sharp eyes flicking between us.

"What’s going on?”

Lewis glanced at me, silently asking if I wanted to start.

I hesitated, my fingers twisting in my lap.

Noticing my reluctance, Lewis leaned forward.

“It’s about some of the team dynamics,” he began, his voice calm but tinged with an unmistakable edge.

“Specifically, the way Mark, Alan, and Greg have been treating Y/n.”

Toto’s expression shifted, his posture straightening.

“Go on.”

I took a deep breath, summoning the courage to speak.

“For years now, they’ve made comments, snide remarks about my qualifications, my presence here. It started when I joined, but I brushed it off because I was new, and I thought I had to prove myself. But lately…”

My voice wavered, and I swallowed hard to steady it.

“Lately, it’s escalated. They’ve been openly dismissive of my work, undermining me during meetings, and even questioning my position on the team. Today, they went too far.”

Toto’s jaw tightened, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk.

“What happened today?”

Lewis’s hand found mine, giving it a reassuring squeeze as I recounted the incident.

“They implied I’m only here because I’m dating Lewis and that I used my body to get my position,”

I said quietly, the words tasting bitter in my mouth.

“And that I didn’t earn my role.”

Toto exhaled sharply, his expression darkening.

“That’s not all,” Lewis added, his tone hardening.

“This has been going on for years, Toto. Years. Y/n didn’t tell me sooner because she didn’t want to cause problems, but that’s no excuse. Those three have created a toxic environment, and it stops now.”

Toto’s gaze shifted to me, his stern demeanor softening slightly.

“Why didn’t you come to me earlier, Y/L/N? This isn’t the kind of behavior we tolerate here.”

I shrugged, feeling small under his scrutiny.

“I didn’t want to be seen as a troublemaker. They’ve been here longer than I have, and I didn’t think anyone would take my word over theirs. Plus, I didn’t want to add more stress to an already intense environment.”

Toto shook his head, his voice firm but understanding.

“You should never have to tolerate that. Not here, not anywhere. The Mercedes team prides itself on being a family. What you’ve described is unacceptable, and I take full responsibility for not noticing it sooner.”

Lewis leaned back in his chair, his jaw still tight.

“What’s the plan, Toto? Because I’m not letting this slide.”

Toto nodded, already making notes on a pad in front of him.

“First, I’ll be speaking to Mark, Alan, and Greg individually. They’ll be given the chance to explain themselves, not that there’s much room for justification here. If their behavior aligns with what you’ve described, they won’t be part of this team by the end of the day.”

A weight lifted off my chest at his words, but the tension in the room remained palpable.

“I want to be there,” Lewis said firmly.

Toto raised an eyebrow.

“Lewis—”

“No,” Lewis interrupted.

“This is personal. They didn’t just disrespect Y/n, they disrespected the team, the values we stand for, and me by extension. I need to make it clear that this behavior won’t be tolerated. From anyone.”

Toto regarded him for a moment before nodding.

“Fine. But let me handle the disciplinary side. You can say your piece, but I’ll deliver the consequences.”

Lewis nodded, satisfied.

“That works for me.”

Toto turned back to me, his expression softening once more.

“Y/n, I’m sorry you’ve had to endure this. If there’s anything else you need, support, time off, anything, let me know. I’ll make sure you feel safe and valued here.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, my voice thick with emotion.

Lewis stood, pulling me up with him.

“We appreciate it, Toto. Let us know when the meeting is.”

“You’ll hear from me shortly,”

Toto promised, standing to shake Lewis’s hand before giving me a reassuring nod.

As we left the office, I felt a sense of relief wash over me.

For the first time in years, I didn’t feel alone in this fight.

Lewis wrapped an arm around my shoulders as we walked down the corridor.

“We’ve got this,” he said softly, his voice full of conviction.

I leaned into him, a small smile tugging at my lips.

“Yeah, we do.”

Toto wasn’t one to waste time.

Within the hour, Mark, Alan, and Greg were called into his office one by one.

The first to arrive was Mark.

When he stepped in, he wore his usual smug expression, likely thinking this was just another routine meeting.

But Toto’s steely gaze and the presence of Lewis, standing tall with his arms crossed by the window, quickly shattered that notion.

“Have a seat, Mark,”

Toto said curtly, gesturing to the chair across from his desk.

Mark sat, shifting uncomfortably as he glanced between Toto and Lewis.

“What’s this about?”

Toto wasted no time.

“It’s about your behavior toward Y/L/N,” he said, his voice sharp and unwavering.

“I’ve been informed of your repeated condescension, disrespect, and comments that have no place in this team, or any professional setting.”

Mark blinked, caught off guard.

“What? That’s not true. I—”

“Don’t bother lying,” Lewis cut in, his voice cold and firm.

He stepped closer, his dark eyes fixed on Mark.

“We’ve both heard enough from Y/n and other team members. You’ve been targeting her for years, haven’t you? Questioning her qualifications, making snide remarks about her role here, and today, outright implying she only got her position because of me.”

Mark’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

“I… Look, it was just banter. No harm meant.”

“Banter?” Toto echoed, his tone dripping with disbelief.

“You call undermining one of the most talented engineers on this team banter? You call questioning her abilities and belittling her contributions banter?”

Mark leaned forward, desperation creeping into his voice.

“Toto, I didn’t mean anything by it! I was just—”

“Enough,” Toto interrupted, his voice cutting through the room like a blade.

“I won’t tolerate excuses. You’ve created a hostile environment for one of your colleagues, and that is unacceptable. You’ve not only disrespected Y/L/N but also the principles this team stands for. I don’t care how long you’ve been here, Mark. Your behavior is grounds for immediate dismissal.”

Mark paled, his smugness vanishing entirely.

“Dismissal? Wait, Toto, please. I’ve been with this team for years. You can’t just—”

“I can, and I will,” Toto said, his voice resolute.

“Pack your things. Security will escort you out by the end of the day.”

Mark turned to Lewis, desperation in his eyes.

“Lewis, you can’t agree with this. We’re teammates, for God’s sake!”

Lewis’s expression didn’t waver.

“You stopped being my teammate the moment you disrespected Y/n. Pack your things, Mark.”

Mark’s shoulders slumped, and he left the office in silence.

Next was Alan.

He walked in with a similar air of confidence, though it quickly dissipated when he noticed the tense atmosphere.

“Toto,” Alan began, sitting down and glancing uneasily at Lewis.

“What’s going on?”

Toto leaned forward, his hands clasped on the desk.

“What’s going on, Alan, is that your behavior toward Y/L/N has come to light. Years of dismissive comments, snide remarks, and today, a blatant attack on her credibility. Care to explain yourself?”

Alan frowned, leaning back in his chair.

“Look, I might’ve been a little hard on her, but it’s nothing personal. She’s young and still learning. I thought she could use a bit of tough love.”

Lewis scoffed from his spot by the window.

“Tough love? Is that what you call undermining her at every turn and insulting her in front of the team?”

Alan shifted uncomfortably.

“She’s good at her job, I’ll give her that. But come on, Lewis, you can’t deny people have wondered if her connection to you played a part in her being hired. It’s not like I said anything everyone wasn’t already thinking.”

Lewis took a step forward, his fists clenching at his sides.

“The only reason anyone would think that is because people like you spread that garbage around."

"Y/n earned her place on this team through her hard work and talent, not because of me."

We didn't even know each other when she joined. And even if, she didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, the way you’ve treated her is disgusting.”

Toto’s expression darkened further.

“Alan, you’ve been with Mercedes long enough to know we value respect and inclusivity above all else. What you’ve done isn’t just a breach of trust, it’s a breach of the very foundation of this team. Your actions have consequences. You’re fired, effective immediately.”

Alan stood abruptly, his face red with anger.

“You’re seriously going to throw away years of experience over a few jokes?”

“Yes,” Toto said bluntly.

“And I suggest you leave now before you embarrass yourself further.”

Alan glared at both of them before storming out, muttering under his breath.

Finally, it was Greg’s turn.

Unlike the others, Greg walked in looking visibly nervous.

He barely met Toto’s eyes as he sat down, fidgeting with his hands.

“Greg,” Toto began, his voice steady but firm.

“You know why you’re here.”

Greg nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah… yeah, I figured.”

“Then you know the kind of behavior we’re addressing,” Toto continued.

“You’ve contributed to a toxic work environment for Y/L/N and others. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Greg hesitated, glancing at Lewis, who was staring at him with barely concealed anger.

“I—I don’t have an excuse. I guess… I thought it was harmless, but it clearly wasn’t. I crossed a line, and I’m sorry.”

Toto’s brow furrowed.

“You thought it was harmless? You’ve made Y/n feel unwelcome and disrespected in her own workplace. That’s not harmless, it’s damaging. Apologizing now doesn’t erase what you’ve done.”

“I know,” Greg said quickly, his voice trembling.

“I know I messed up, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make it right.”

“It’s too late for that,” Lewis interjected, his voice low but full of authority.

“You had years to change your behavior, and you didn’t. You don’t get to stay on this team after what you’ve done.”

Toto nodded in agreement.

“Greg, I appreciate that you’re taking responsibility, but the damage has been done. You’re no longer part of this team. Security will escort you out shortly.”

Greg’s shoulders sagged, and he nodded, standing to leave.

“My deepest apologies,” he said quietly before walking out.

By the end of the day, the three men were gone, and the Mercedes team felt lighter.

Word of the firings spread quickly, and several team members quietly expressed their relief and support for you.

Back in the garage, Lewis pulled me into a quiet corner.

“It’s done,” he said softly, brushing a strand of hair from my face.

I nodded, a weight lifting off my chest.

“Thank you, Lew. For standing by me.”

“Always sweetheart,” he said, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

“No one messes with my girl.”

To all the women facing sexism at work, school, home or online: You are strong, capable, and deserving of respect. Don’t let anyone diminish your worth. Your voice matters, and you are making a difference just by being you. Keep pushing forward.

The end

[h-sleepingirl]

You Are A Wizard, So Pour Over The Tomes

Hypnosis is magic. It is not just “the closest we can get to magic.” Trance practices in all kinds of forms have served as the basis for mysticism across cultures and human history -- thousands of years. It is not new. It is not western. It did not start with Franz Mesmer or James Braid or Milton Erickson or Wiseguy.

Modern hypnosis stems from a rich human history of fascination and spiritual veneration of the mind’s power. We are practitioners of a comparably new discipline where we can literally change the way that other people experience the world. Their innermost selves are as leverage to us -- putty to us, when we know what we are doing. We can transform others freely. We can give pleasure or pain. We can facilitate experiences that seem to defy reality.

People talk a big game about respecting that power. What they usually mean by that is respecting EACH OTHER. That’s crucial, obviously -- not manipulating, not harming, being a good person.

But what about respecting the discipline itself?

It’s tempting to see what we do as disconnected from the “historical” and “outdated” methods of hypnosis. But we are a part of that history. We are likely hilariously wrong about a lot of things related to trance, hypnosis, the human mind -- what will hypnosis and psychology look like in 100 years? And even as we innovate, we are always building on the techniques and ideas that came before us -- in ways we are often not even aware of. We reinvent; we use ideas from the past unknowingly.

We have a right -- and a responsibility -- to OWN our magic. I am not here to gatekeep and say that this magic is not yours. It IS yours; it’s unequivocally yours. But as a whole we could do more to respect it.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And hypnosis is not even a technology that we UNDERSTAND. The only real reason we DON’T see ourselves as wizards is because there is a huge motivation to legitimize hypnosis as a scientific discipline -- and non-rationalist perspectives are looked down upon in our culture. I’m not anti-science (maybe a little -- tongue in cheek) but I do think that labeling hypnosis as “just psychology” is dishonest about how much we actually objectively know about it -- and does a disservice to the phenomenon itself.

I’m not saying hypnosis is literally metaphysical. But I am saying we practice something very powerful without knowing its nature. There are secrets we have tried to suss out about this magic through history that we have written down -- past and present. We actually have tomes of knowledge, records of past experiments and modern inventors.

In the last couple of years, I’ve started teaching/facilitating “text studies” -- classes where we sit down with an excerpt from a hypnosis book and parse through it as a collaborative group. I desperately want to show people that there is value in just critically reading the resources available to us. The clinical texts -- especially older ones -- are hard to read, like they are almost in a different language. But it is amazing the insights we have come to by tackling them together.

These old texts are not pure truths -- there is a lot we’ve improved on over time. But we can learn a lot by learning what hypnosis was like historically. The entire discipline of hypnosis is extremely susceptible to change -- it is defined SO MUCH by how we view it culturally. I just recently was amazed at re-reading some Erickson where he talks about making his subjects daydream autonomously -- as a primary mode and result of inducing hypnosis. Contrast that with today, where if someone’s mind wanders for even a moment, they feel like they’ve failed. There’s something really important here -- a technique from 50 years ago that tells us something we’ve lost in modern practice.

And there are countless examples of this, of people losing and reinventing methods over and over. As I’ve watched our kinky niche grow over just the past 13 years, I’ve watched ideas phase in, out, and in again -- there is both growth and regression of our collective body of knowledge. That’s the nature of things, especially when we operate partially disconnected from the resources that are available to us.

We CAN be connected to the rich human history of trying to unravel the secrets about our minds, and about this thing that gives us enormous transformative powers -- powers that we take for granted.

You are a wizard -- so pour over the tomes.

Read a book. Read an article. Set aside some time and view yourself with the respect of being someone who can study and suss out a magical text. Take notes, look up words and concepts you don’t know. Or just absorb what you can on a first pass and go back later. Read a chapter or just master a single page. Romanticize the aesthetic of sitting with the scent of paper, or as the technomancer with words appearing on a screen.

Read. Own this art. And bring that respect of this art to the people you share it with. I promise you can do things with hypnosis that you have never thought possible.

------------------

This is a little motivational piece (for you and me!) as I gear up to teach "Analyzing Erickson" at Charmed. It's something I feel really passionately about, and I wanted to share it.

Permanently linked/free on Patreon.

[cheemscakecat]

I high-key think the reason Shifty even wanted the journal so bad and tied Fiddleford up is that he overheard talk about freezing him.

Maybe Ford wasn’t there and it was Mcgucket muttering about it to himself, not thinking Shifty was sapient and understood words.

Imagine living in the same room as the cryogenic chambers, not knowing what they are, and then finding out its freezes living things and you’re the lab rat? The scientist that looks at you like you’re gross and doesn’t like being around you very much said so himself.

And you’ve seen that the nice scientist won’t show you his face, or his journal, or let you go outside. The scientists haven’t put anything in the big tubes in your room, there’s no other test subjects. Maybe the mean scientist is right, maybe they are going to put you in the tube and freeze you!

What’s going to happen to you if they do? You don’t know if the freeze would kill you, you don’t know if it’s meant to keep you alive or not. So you panic.

[Like imagine living in here. Depressing.]

Shifty didn’t stuff Mcgucket into a cabinet and mimic him to be evil, he did it so he could get the journal and find out what the scientist’s true intentions were. Maybe he hoped it wasn’t true, because Stanford was so nice to him. He knew the book held the answers, Ford was writing and reading it in front of him. About him.

Fiddleford was obviously traumatized, but Stanford didn’t mention any injuries. Shifty probably did take his big scary form for the first time when catching Mcgucket, but I don’t think he was actually physically attacked.

The shapeshifter probably would have panicked and tried to escape the bunker if he did read the journal pages, not try to hurt Ford and Fiddleford. It sounds like he was more anxious and scared than anything.

“His throat really did sound awful, but I told him to simply use the cough drops in the first aid cabinet. He grew increasingly insistent that only the journal had the answer.”

”The ‘impostor’ F had been waiting impatiently, shaking involuntarily in his chair. I noticed that his ‘hands’ were so strong they had bent the steel in the armrests.”

”He darted off for the journal, and the instant he stepped inside the cryogenics tube, I slammed the red button, trapping him in. HE SCREAMED and took on a form I’d never seen. He pounded on the glass and froze before my eyes.”

I wouldn’t say Ford abused Shifty, but he and Fiddleford saw the poor kid as an animal and not a sapient alien. They didn’t understand that they were traumatizing a child. They had a right not to want the shapeshifter to mimic them, and to be cautious about it.

Shifty wasn’t in the wrong or “nuts”, he was a kid that panicked and did something reckless because he found out he was being used as a test subject. He didn’t understand why Mcgucket was repulsed by him and his powers, he didn’t understand why humans would be so quick to assume the worst about a shapeshifter.

That being said, Stanford went all over the multiverse, meeting aliens and ending up in worlds where humans aren’t the dominant species. His ideas about sapience have changed over 30 years, regardless of whether or not he ever met more of Shifty’s species.

I think he’d come back to the bunker next summer, because between Stan’s memory loss and Bill’s cursed book, there wasn’t time to try and patch things up with Shifty.

As for Fiddleford, I think his trauma would be an obstacle when it comes to the shapeshifter, but it wouldn’t be impossible for him to understand Shifty better. He lived around other anomalies for 30 years, and got more used to them.

Maybe Shifty unthawed a bit during Weirdmaggedon, when Mcgucket was in the bunker. I think unthawing would be a painful and slow process, and that Fiddleford would be able to see that. Perhaps he decided to speed up the unthawing process instead of repairing the freezing mechanisms. Maybe he was also the one to remind Stanford about Shifty the next year.

People who say Ford abused the shapeshifter, what.

I just read those pages. Fiddleford immediately wanted to freeze him, but Ford wrote, “I've grown attached to the creature.” He wasn't like OH ☝️ I must TORTURE this thing POST HASTE! He found a weird creature while digging and hand fed it some beans. The shapeshifter didn't show signs of being dangerous (besides "watch your fingers")

Ford named him Shifty and did experiments, which involved seeing what forms he could take by showing him a book of animals, and he upgraded his kennel when he grew. Ford considered him a pet, but noted that Fiddleford being raised as a farmhand made him unsentimental toward what he saw as “livestock.”

Ford continued to take care of him until Shifty went nuts and tied Fiddleford up to take his place and steal journal 3. Even as Ford froze the shapeshifter for their safety, he wrote that he felt remorseful for having to freeze his former pet, but even worse that he'd been fooled - and that Fiddleford had paid the price

[zuppizup]

Rayllum, 10 babies and Xadian family planning

I’m trying to post the next chapter of Dark Alternative, but AO3 is very wonky, so you’re going to be subjected to my rambling thoughts on my new WIP for Work in Progress Wednesday.

So, over my vacation, I’ve been plagued by post-season 7 fanfic ideas. Short fics, obviously. No more than three chapters, as usual.

What’s got me intrigued right now, is how the continent of Xadia, or at least, a select group of people, will manage with living with the knowledge that Aaravos, in some form, is coming back in seven years. How would that affect politics and society, as well as the individual characters and the choices they make knowing that?

The regular folks would struggle to miss that whole eternal darkness and dead creatures thing that happened, but what do they know about exactly what went down?

And what do they know about what’s to come?

You know me, I’m a Rayllum person, so pretty much any fic of mine is a Rayllum fic, and this current idea is focused on how this particular threat affects the next stage of their lives.

Without a doubt, when we last saw Rayllum they were totally committed to each other and are fully ride or die… but how would that devotion relate to their future, in particular, the subject of children?

Now, I’m an angster in my deep dark heart, so while I’m sure many people could conceive of a fic where Rayllum are secure in their ability to defeat Aaravos come round two, that ain’t where my brain was ever going to go.

Rayllum are in love and clearly want a future together. Callum was openly planning a quaint little one in the Silvergrove before they were rudely interrupted by the whole end of the world dealio.

So, where does that leave them now (in my angsty reality anyway)?

In their youth, they both leaned into their more paranoid natures (Rayla leaving without Callum in TTM and Callum getting physical with Soren in season 4), and while they’ve both grown and matured since then, would such a threat as the world ending be enough to bring that paranoia right on back?

Which leaves me with my current fic planning conundrum.

Assuming Rayllum decided to forego the whole having kids thing until Aaravos is imprisoned again, how likely is it that they could plan when to have a family.

I’ve seen people say that the world of The Dragon Prince is in a medieval setting, and so people had children younger then, which, aside from not being the entire story, doesn’t feel like it really applies to a world with magic and dragons, a world that lacks the sexism and gender roles that are also associated with medieval times or other more grounded works set then.

Additionally, looking at canon, I think it could be reasonably argued that some form of birth control is readily available in the setting. In fact, I think it’s likely multiple forms of birth control exist in the world of The Dragon Prince.

From humans to elves, we don’t see large families normally associated with the inability to plan a family via the use of effective birth control. The “largest” family we see are the Sunfire monarchs, with three children. Viren and Lissa had two children only. Sarai may well have had more children had she lived, but Rayla’s parents spent multiple years at the Storm Spire and she remained an only child.

I can’t imagine there’s much in the way of entertainment at the Storm Spire either. Sure, they could abstain or get creative, but oof, hasn’t enough been asked of them?

Even looking at prior generations, we do not see large families. Given the closeness in ages of the siblings we know of, it also seems unlikely to me that children were lost in childbirth or to childhood illnesses.

To me, it seems far more likely that family planning is active in Xadia and would be a tool Callum and Rayla could exercise.

Clearly, no birth control is infallible (or I guess it can be, magic and all) and I assume Miyana’s twins were unplanned.

Personally, I head canon Rayla herself was an oopsie baby in order to further explain the complications of her parents being called away to join the Dragon Guard.

Where am I going with this? I don’t even know anymore.

I suppose, to me, it’s not a foregone conclusion that in seven years Rayllum would have a kid (or indeed multiple). The setting of the world doesn’t imply that it’s particularly difficult to prevent pregnancy. In fact, the small families imply to me that family planning is a cultural norm among elves and humans.

Faced with the imminent threat of Aaravos’ return, would Rayllum plan to start a family? Certainly, people put off having children for far lesser reasons.

We also don’t know how using dark magic, even in that limited capacity, has affected Callum and the potential for him to get possessed again. It was clearly enough to physically mark him, but does that go deeper?

Would imprisoning Aaravos once again result in an inevitable possession?

Not great when Dad gets taken over and abandons the family.

Or worse, Mum has to take him out.

Angsty though!

As usual, I’ll be doing my own thing in my fics, but I’m interested to see where Arc 3 goes with this (optimistically assuming we get it). There are a lot of factors at play to explain why we might see a lot of the characters in a state of stasis. Seven years isn’t that long when you’re facing the world ending, after all. Particularly when you’re likely to play a very active part in trying to stop that returning apocalypse.

So, which way to go? I see the angst potential in both.

On one hand, you’ve got the pain and desperation of protecting your kid from a returned Aaravos, or perhaps worse, a possessed Dad.

But on the other, you’ve got two people who likely want to take the next steps in their lives, but feel the pressure of a ticking bomb haunting them and potentially preventing them from moving forward.

Either way, bring on the pain.

[kittenintheden]

headcanon, subjectivity, and convincing the reader

hi! I got a wild hair to write a little essay today. here's that little essay. it's about fic writing and how our subjectivity about the source material becomes a conversation with the reader. LEZGO.

quick primer on common terms:

canon: objective, indisputable truth about the property based on what is portrayed on the page/screen. it is canon in BG3 that Astarion is a vampire spawn, it is canon that Wyll is the only son of Grand Duke Ravengard, it is canon that Lae'zel is a githyanki originating from Creché Ki'liir, etc.

headcanon: an individual's subjective interpretation of events and characters in the property based on context clues, hints, personal experience, vibes, etc.

fanon: a more widely accepted community headcanon that is not objectively supported by the property but is generally accepted as a popular interpretation of the source material.

word of god: interpretations considered truth by the creators of the property that may or may not be included in the source material itself. this includes devnotes, responses to fan questions, behind the scenes material, etc. there's much argument to be had about whether or not this is considered canon if it's not also represented in the source material itself.

okay? okay! now let's talk about transformative works (fanfiction and fanwork).

the first rule of transformative work is that there are no rules. okay? okay! to get that out of the way. which is why this is a post about subjective interpretation.

(obligatory blah blah blah obviously having basic writing skill and knowledge is helpful for communicating your ideas to the reader, we all know this)

but what makes a transformative work GOOD? what makes a reader pick up a fic, devour it, and then go "holy shit I can absolutely see how these characters in this scenario make sense. I BELIEVE in this story and this author's interpretation."?

that's where things get complicated. let's do a cut bc this is about to get lengthy!

when we become fans of a property, it's because we are the readers/viewers having a conversation with the source material. something about it caught us and spoke to us, then drove us to create more art based on it and using it as a framework. that's important.

as readers/viewers, we will always have our own subjective interpretation of the work. that interpretation is informed by the work's canon, but it's also informed by our personal experiences, feelings, and knowledge. that's where headcanons and subjectivity come in. it's why some people feel a character is "annoying" while others find them sympathetic.

(there is a MUCH BROADER conversation to be had about how social pressures and oppression also factor into this subject, but that's not my intended goal with THIS essay, so I will acknowledge the fact that a person's internalized biases also inform their perception of the material and move on).

so, we all develop our own personal headcanons about a work. it's inevitable. sometimes those headcanons are based in canon, sometimes they're based on our own experience. where they come from doesn't matter -- they are yours and they belong to you, and they will inform whatever work you create.

now comes the part where we begin a conversation with the reader.

when you're writing fic, one of your many jobs is helping the reader to understand your perspective. this is very challenging! you're essentially creating a written argument for why the characters and elements in your story are unfolding the way that they do, but you're doing so via the vehicle of creative writing. you're depending on narrative structure, dialogue, characterization, setting, plot, tropes, themes, metaphors, etc. to make your "argument."

if you've ever heard people say a character "felt flat" or that an action didn't make sense or that a fic subject is OOC (out of character), that comes from the writer failing to provide a convincing enough argument for the story they're trying to tell. (note: I use the word "fail," but I don't mean it in the sense that the project was a failure. art is never time wasted. but as with most things, it may take time to get to a place where we have the skills to tell the story we want to tell.)

so: how the hell do we work on an issue like that?

a few ways.

first and foremost, at its core, a transformative work should be in conversation with the canon of its source material. that DOES NOT MEAN that canon should be treated as a Bible and ultimate authority (people rewrite canon well all the time), but it does mean a writer needs to consider what worked about the canon to be able to apply it to their own interpretation.

if you found a character compelling in the original property, you need to understand what exactly it was about that character that made them so compelling. it isn't just how they physically look or their signature catchphrase. what about the source material drew you to them, made you empathize, turned you on, etc.?

if a particular relationship made you absolutely feral, WHAT IS IT about that dynamic that caught and kept your attention? what makes them WORK?

THAT is what the conversation with the source material is about. it's about understanding why you were moved in the first place. it's distilling the subjects down to their essence so you can put them in a different scenario without losing the core of who they are.

now you need to understand where your HEADCANON comes from.

(you will notice a running theme here that in order to properly tell a story, you have to understand the story yourself!)

our own subjective interpretation of a work is informed by the knowledge we have (I have a degree in reading and analyzing and writing creatively, it's something I literally went to school for), our personal experiences (Astarion speaks to people with a history of sexual abuse and trauma, imagine that), and emotions that rise organically when we interact with the source material, either unexpectedly (whoa I did NOT expect that to turn me on) or with understanding (animal death always makes me cry because it's upsetting to see something that doesn't understand what's happening go through that and/or I remember when I lost my own animal companion).

so! you have a headcanon that Shadowheart and Nocturne were lovers. this isn't something verified by canon, but it is a scenario that makes sense given the information we have -- they were very close, they have a secret place together surrounded by the flowers Shadowheart calls her favorite, they know intimate details about one another's lives, and their history of standing up for one another and caring about each other is clear.

how do you convince a reader that this is a viable scenario?

first, converse with the canon. all the framework is there for a potential romantic relationship. their respective personalities work together. now, determine why you enjoy this headcanon. is it the intimacy, the loyalty, the kindness? is it the hints from canon that they were important to one another? is it that they have chemistry you find interesting and appealing?

this is the argument you must make to the reader. this scenario is plausible because of canon, character, and context. now you need to build on it and add your own perspective in order to convince the reader to see it as you do.

this particular example is a pretty easy thoroughline, but the same principle can be applied to more varied scenarios. modern AU? okay, how would that change the way these characters interact with the world without losing what makes them, them? pirate AU? okay, which characters would make the most sense to fit certain roles in that scenario given their existing personalities?

there's a common refrain in my writing circles that goes: "do what you want forever." we tend to use it in a flip way to mean that this is play and creativity and you can literally do whatever you want, but the deeper message is, "you can make anything believable with the right approach."

and the "right" approach is about maintaining a conversation between yourself, the source material, your headcanons, and the story you're trying to tell. it's about bringing all those things together in a way that will convince a reader to believe it.

it's a balance, and it's one that isn't universal. no matter what we do, subjectivity means that some people will not agree with our interpretation. that's okay. not every story is for every person. what matters is that you're writing YOUR story for the readers who want to engage with it.

so, at the end of the day: do what you want forever, and do it well :)

[sitp-recs]

Hi. I hope you are well. I was wondering if you knew any drarry fics which feature a pregnant Draco with the father of the baby not being Harry's

Hi anon! I haven’t read a lot of mpreg but here are some fics that came to mind:

To know the pain of too much tenderness by @cibeewastaken (T, 6k)

Harry is in love with Draco, and Draco sometimes goes on dates with other people, but it’s not like Harry could be bothered by it when he never told Draco about his feeling, right? Right. So Harry isn’t that bothered by Draco’s dates, what bothers him is when one of those dates knocks Draco up and doesn’t want the baby.

Be My Anchor by @maraudersaffair (E, 11k)

When Harry stumbles upon Draco's battered body in Knockturn Alley, he decides to take him home and help him recover. Draco confesses that he's pregnant and no one will help him. He isn't worried about his own survival, only the survival of his unborn baby. Now Harry will stop at nothing to take care of both of them.

Solve Us Like a Mystery by tryslora (T, 12k)

When Harry stops in at the bookstore where Draco works, they find a surprising shared interest in mysteries. Draco doesn't expect to see Harry again, and he definitely doesn't expect to become the subject of unexpected investigation that may endanger the life of his unborn child, and at the same time, may bring him the kind of happiness he never thought he'd have after the war.

A Garden In Us by flightinflame (T, 15k)

Harry works hard as a Healer - it isn't as though he has much else to focus on. He specialises in caring for children who have been affected by dark magic, including Pansy Parkinson's son. He doesn't expect her to send Draco his way. But Draco needs a healer, and Harry needs a friend.

The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune by secretsalex (E, 20k)

If Astoria refuses to carry their child, Draco will—which is how he finds himself alone, pregnant, and a patient of Healer Potter’s.

My heart was far too glad by @maesterchill (E, 22k)

Draco Malfoy is single, heavily pregnant and on his way to his first antenatal class. High time he bumped into Harry Potter, wouldn’t you say, who as it happens is in an awfully similar condition.

Little Love by @ladderofyears (M, 33k)

Of all the bad ideas that Draco Malfoy had ever had, moving in with Harry Potter was the worst of them. They didn't get on. Harry was judgemental, messy, and a prude who looked on disapprovingly whenever Draco returned home after spending the night with his boyfriend Seb. But, after a broken condom leaves Draco pregnant, he realises everything in his life has to change. The first thing: his relationship with Harry. After that, everything starts to get better.

[catras-breakup-song]

it’s already annoying enough that they still, in 2025, 4.5 years after the fifth season ended, run blogs almost solely dedicated to hating on a cartoon since they can’t find a better hobby, but what really bothers me at this point is how they have to make their superiority complex everyone else’s problem and go out of their way to bully & harass stans over their posts under the guise of “debunking arguments” (which, even if that is true, debates aren’t always inherently invited and dragging someone into them by assuming “existence of post = open discussion” when they aren’t interested may violate a boundary), usually indirectly so that we don’t know and won’t respond to it.

glimmadora shippers (who are catradora antis, nothing wrong with just liking the ship itself!) are definitely the most frequently guilty, thinking of 1-2 blog usernames in particular here, and they largely overlap with the first group in your list — many of them tend to also be lumity fans (again, so am i, i have the owl house showrunner’s art of them as my main blog’s icon; that alone is not the issue) and compare it to catradora because if it’s not perfect fluff then it’s apparently not acceptable to portray in (animated) media. it’s rather ironic because they are so loud about being against toxic behavior + obsession with people minding their own business, but have no problem actively engaging with these things online in order to make sure others know they hold the wrong opinion over pixels + lines on a screen.

the ones that have really surprised me though, are hordak & shadow weaver stans. it’s a cheap excuse to accuse them of ableism* & misogyny & lesbophobia (and trust me, i also hate pointing fingers at baseless bigotry when it doesn’t apply tot the situation), yet abusive characters in this show are clearly fine to enjoy just as long as they’re not catra, which therefore implies… exactly those ideas. they hide behind a façade of caring about ableism via entrapta’s writing** and the end scene of 4x01 when catra holds hordak’s crystal over his head to bribe him, but either they’re very biased and cherrypick who deserves protection from discriminatory beliefs based on a subjective “perfect victim” status in the fandom, or they’re simply weaponizing those criticism arguments in order to silence opposing voices among the discourse regarding catra’s redemption arc getting more attention, since she’s a main character, than the cardboard cutout big-bad villain, who wasn’t supposed to have anywhere near as much development or sympathy given from the beginning. i roll my eyes when they complain about how season five catered to her so much, especially instead of hordak, because the show has literally always been primarily about catradora and the best friends squad by extension; hordak was nothing more than a tool for the narrative. that means you got what you came for, so you can either stay mad or leave ─ i highly suggest the latter for everyone else's sake.

i’ve been collecting receipts of the latter group that you can check through all the various reblogs (it’s not a neat consecutive thread unfortunately, sorry) in the notes here, just because it’s difficult for me to believe those takes are actually real if i can’t prove it to even just myself, lol lmao.

another thing i’d like to mention is that i’ve seen antis mention biphobia coming from she-ra stans a few times now, and as a bisexual activist who is unapologetic about calling that crap out without any respect for the perpetrator, the funny thing is… this is pretty much the only fandom where it hasn’t occurred that much in my experience, let alone to such an unbearable level — mind you, i’ve been here since june 2020 (not on this account, but wherever SPOP existed on the internet). it’s always been much more prevalent in arcane spaces, hell even the owl house with three prominent bisexual characters and only one canon lesbian is filled with far too much erasure & policing regarding our identity. also no one ever cares about bringing up bisexuals unless it’s to hate on us somehow, so i always find a sudden uptick in concern from monos that can be essentially read as a “gotcha” or otherwise supporting detail rather than its own thoughtful discussion to be deceitful and i tend to be quite wary of it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

*ableism in this case comes from catra’s heavy BPD-coding, which i can speak on as i also have it — or at least share most of its symptoms consistently, which has been overall agreed upon by my psychiatrist.

**that’s not to say how entrapta being autistic was handled, especially in 5x02, isn’t problematic, especially considering i’m autistic too and that has rightfully made our community uncomfortable, generally speaking. i just don’t trust authentic critique with genuine love for the character or even basic respect for this piece of media as a whole to come from that crowd specifically.

i'm losing my mind how are there STILL ACTIVE CATRA HATE BLOGS it's been FOUR YEARS how are you still this mad about a female abuse victim!!!!!! how do you STILL not get it!!!!!!!!!!

I have been in enough fandoms to understand that some of the people who stick around the longest are those who act the most scarred after watching the media. It's like stockholme syndrome. Or it's like hating the thing is what gives them drive in the world.

I have also been on the other side of this. I remained a Homestuck blog for a whole four years after the ending made me depressed about Terezi Pyrope, even lasting an additional year and a half after the dogshit epilogues released, through to the demise of Hiveswap and Homestuck^2, before I realised enough was enough and let Adventure Time give me sanctuary again.

But Homestuck had its Gamzee fans who hated the comic and fandom, Adventure Time had its Lemongrab fans who hated the show and fandom, and it seems She-ra has its fair share of antis.

The She-ra antis consist of the following groups, from my observation:

Former fans who got obsessed with some other show and have to bash She-ra because it ain't cool anymore. Usually Owl House fans but can be from anywhere. Their hate is universally connected to propping something else up, and is never done in isolation.

Hordak fans who hate Catra and maybe every other character and crew member and the show. There are a lot of the reverse, Catra fans who hate Hordak, which is part of why this group is so persistent, as a "counter" to this Hordak hate. However, the Catra fans who are Hordak antis MOSTLY do not hate the show (they are just... out of touch with it and generally have bad takes). I've seen one or two extreme cases of Catra apologists accusing Adora, Scorpia, and even Entrapta of abuse, but they were completely alone in their feelings. The Hordak fans who hate Catra tend to also hate Glimmer, Mermista, Adora, Bow, and say that the show is ableist or whatever, but they do not actually harbor much love for Entrapta. Her victimisation is an excuse for their behaviour and they have no understanding of her chaotic character. Do not interact.

Glimmadora fans (the ones who purely seem to exist to make 'Spop Is Abusive' posts). Why the fuck Glimmadora fans hate the show so much, I do not understand. But these are probably the most In-Your-Face of these three groups. While the Hordak fans mentioned above have a lot of similarity to Homestuck Gamzee fans or Adventure Time Lemongrab fans in the weird way they'll hate on the show for doing their blorbo wrong, Glimmadora fans don't have that evidence because they don't really care about Glimmer or Adora. They have absolutely nothing to say about the show, other than that it is Bad. My theory on these Glimmadora fans is that they really liked the Glimmer and Adora ship on a superficial level, and then the show decided to have its Deeper Themes and give Catra and Adora a messy, complicated relationship. There was a lot happening after season 3 where people went "CATRADORA IS REALLY ABUSIVE AND CATRA IS HORRIBLE AND YOU SHOULDNT SHIP HER WITH ANYONE". This period was SO fucking harmful to the fandom that it never recovered, so much work was lost and deleted from AO3. People would say "Glimmadora is a much better ship anyway". But then when season 4 rolled around and, uhh, Glimmer was acting like a little shit all season (for good reason but she really fucked things up with Adora), and Glimmadora crumbled into ash? Well the Glimmadora truthists felt like the show was working against them and that Season 5 was a grand conspiracy to make the Abusive ship Catradora canon!!! The funniest part of this is I sympathise a lot with these feelings. I used to be a Glimmadora truther myself when I watched the show in fall 2021. I was like, "wow, look how nice this ship is. And they go with catradora in the end?? Fucking HOW???". But then seasons 4 and 5 happened and.... yeah, I was disappointed with how Glimmer and Adora's friendship ended up, but I was ENAMORED by the messiness of Catra's character and how raw her and Adora felt about each other even in spite of all the bullshit. I never made excuses about the show being abuse apologising. I analysed it purely in how believable the relationships were and what the intentions of the characters are.

Of these groups, the ones responsible for the most actual SPOP Anti blogs are undoubtedly the Glimmadoras. The only time I've seen something similar, so many antis appearing, was because of Steven Universe ship wars. You have NO IDEA how petty people feel about Lapidot, Amedot, all the dots, all the amethysts. A crew member was chased off the internet over it, or left the internet over the show's own decisions, depending on whether you believe the """screenshots""" that were taken of Zuke's ""private blog""".

[gh7stly]

EPILOGUE — poly 141 x immortal gn!reader

<not proofread or anything, been sitting in my draft for the longest time! i hope someone'll enjoy>

The blood that painted your body itches, you noticed. It irked you, really, so the idea of spending one more hour on the same clothes you had on when you left for this mission was a torture by itself. As the helicopter shook one last time while landing, you immediately started making your way to the community bathroom, ignoring every greetings of other soldiers, previous mission partners and privates in the way. Muppets. 

“I thought the military taught basic etiquette, soldier. Been looking forward to making it home?” A voice not so strange called after you, slowly turning around as if scared to scare it away, Kate Laswell enters your vision. “Happy?”

You make a false discontent face. “Last time I saw your face I had 7 less lives in my hand, happiness is not the right feeling…. More like a bad omen?”

“I’m glad You're here and alive, then. You even taken a bath yet? There's subjects to be taken care of and I need you available as soon as possible, and, yes, I'm making the proposal again”, you take notice of how she avoided the responsibility and somehow proved your “bad omen” point, Kate's proposal didn't mean good things to come. “This is not the place to talk about it, Spook, but it is the right time. We need y-”

You bark out a laugh. “Fuck no, Laswell”, patting her on the shoulder, you turn around and start walking. “Coronel is not agreeing, plus, I have no interest in your suicide inhibitions against the US. Give up!”

“Spook. The time is running out. You know why you'd be the most important thin-”

“Thing?” 

Laswell makes a disapproving sound from getting interrupted again. Aware of the sudden seriousness of the moment, she grabs your arm to go further into the corridor away from the crowds and recruits.

“You are not a 14 year old girl, Spook. You are a soldier, a soldier responding to one of the biggest special forces in the world, and you have the ability of doing what I could only wish to do”, she stopped walking abruptly and stared down into your soul, this discussion is your least favorite one to have. “You can fuck up. Has this not internalized into you yet? Dead boys are sent to their mamas everyday for a tiny mistake but you have the ability of throwing it all into the air and walking away unharmed, so why not use who you are for the better cause? We need you”

Her words punctuated your gut, your frustrations boiled up deep in your stomach and revealed itself by the shaking in your hands; they've gotten worse recently, you've come to notice. There wasn't much to do about it except put them into fists and dig your nails deep into the palm of your hand until it made you grounded enough to find your voice, stuck in the back of your throat. This subject, this proposal and its implications had enough force to make you crumble easily, Laswell of course knew nothing about it – just that you were stubborn and kept refusing. 

“I am here because you asked me to make you useful, because you wanted to help. I know you're a human, Spook, but you're in the military and not a playground. What you want is not what you're getting sometimes, not because you don't matter, but because you are a useful trick we could have up our sleeve. So I'm going to ask you again, are you going to fucking help or not?

Staying in silence, you bit your tongue to stop from getting an insubordination letter. Part of you, the human part you guessed, felt talked down still. Did you ask for this life? Who made you this way? Wanting to help didn't mean killing yourself on purpose on missions, didn't mean getting used by superiors like an unbreakable toy. You're here because you wanted to be a hero, but right now, you're afraid of having more blood on yourself than the villains.

The other part, the freak one as you called, knew that that's exactly what you were. A puppet. From the moment you joined the military, it was better to devoid yourself from feelings, needs, or any basic thought. You liked it, even. Getting pushed to the limits of morality, treated like a piece of a big chess match. A cold air passed through you both until you finally had swallowed enough ego to speak.

“Let me at least change clothes and then you can go through your little plan." That was the closest thing to a yes you could've gotten before puking bile, but it was enough for her.

“Thank you, Spook. 1700 sharp” nodding, you let out a sigh you weren't aware of holding.

“You're a bad omen, Laswell. After today, I hope it'll be a long time until we meet again.” Even with the harsh words, a project of a smile showed in your face. Kate Laswell was probably the closest thing to a mom you'll ever have in your life. “I agree.”

[morlock-holmes]

So I've seen you reference works by Duchamp and Worhol and the like before, saying that 20th century art history has already had the conversation about what should be considered art and that critics of AI art are ignoring all that history. But what's the case that these works actually should be taken seriously as art? If I say that I think Warhol's soup cans and Duchamp's Fountain are just juvenile pranks at best and not worth paying attention to, what am I missing out on?

I know that I could find answers to this elsewhere, but I'm interesting in your take on it.

I don't know if it's worth taking them seriously as art, exactly, so much as you have to take them seriously as moments in art history.

I wrote about Fountain here, and I'm a little bit proud of that explanation.

The major thing that happened in the 20th Century is the long process of destroying the idea of "good taste", and of any distinction between "High art" and "low art".

The reason I bring up Pollack, Duchamp and Warhol is that all of them very famously raised the question of "What constitutes worthwhile art?"

A urinal? Splatters of paint on canvas? Paintings of a commercial design you didn't create?

Part of the reason they seem dubious and silly is that they essentially won the battles they were waging so incredibly decisively that it's almost impossible to imagine a world where they didn't.

When Duchamp put a urinal in an art exhibition the idea of doing it was so scandalous and absurd that even a group of avant garde artists thought it was a step too far. Today, if you saw a toilet in a gallery show you'd yawn and say, "Of course".

There is an essay I can't seem to find, (I had thought it was by Umberto Eco but I was apparently wrong) which had an image which stuck with me where the author said that the popularity of Warhol's soup cans gave him the somewhat daft temptation to put an actual can of Campbell's tomato soup up on a shelf as an objet d'art. Somehow, the attention paid to Warhol seems to imbue this ordinary object with a sense of artistry and importance.

Did you know that in 1965 Marvel Comics briefly rebranded as Marvel Pop Art Productions?

Attacks on AI specifically are all waged in an arena where the idea of "High" and "Low" art has been thoroughly demolished, where you can lionize, without any felt sense of irony or shame, the human talent that goes into drawing vampires on Magic: The Gathering cards.

And the reason I put it in a dismissive way like that is that 50 years ago, or 100 years ago, this was not the primary way that the culture conceptualized art. The further back you go, the stricter the distinction between "Art" and "Commerce" gets.

Prior to Warhol and Pop Art, comic books, for example, were generally understood as disposable nonsense designed to distract children; while some adults did, in fact, enjoy and think about them as valuable expressions of human artistry, this was not the dominant paradigm, thinking about them this way marked you out as in some way a member of the counterculture.

Writing an essay about the merits of Jack Kirby as a capital A Artist is no longer an avant garde act of countercultural defiance, it's just... Ordinary. The way one thinks of art.

This is because of adult comic book fans and comic book creators working from the bottom of culture and because of the popularity of people like Warhol and Lichtenstein at the top of culture, eating away at the barrier between high and low culture from both sides.

I don't even like Lichtenstein, I think his pastiches of other people's works are generally less interesting and arresting than it would be to just take the panels he was aping and blow them up.

But he's still important to the general story.

A conception of human artistry where the main important thing is the expression of a human talent, regardless of subject matter, is not some obvious constant of human thought; such a conception would be foreign to most human societies.

The reason it doesn't seem foreign today is in large part due to all the people I keep mentioning.

And so there is something that bothers me about internalizing and agreeing with many of the challenges they posed to traditional notions of taste while simultaneously ignoring and dismissing them as not worth thinking about.

The 20th century attacks on traditional artistic conceptions were so total that they also included strong attacks on traditional ideas of "Authorship" and "Intention" as components of art.

I don't know if this is really making sense. Basically, if you actually want to dismiss the last century of art history, you have to have some sense of "High" and "Low" art, and acknowledge that AI at the moment really only poses a threat to "Low" art which, quite frankly, a person of good taste shouldn't care so much about anyway.

"High" Art was already ruined before you were born, and any intrusion of AI into that space is pretty much just carrying coals to Newcastle at this point.

Or, if you want to take "Low" art seriously, then... I mean... Take it seriously. Taking "low" art seriously means grappling with the people who made it possible to take it seriously, and that means also grappling with their assaults on authorship and intentionality.

There's something that bothers me about taking the world Andy Warhol helped build as just obviously good while acting like there's no point in paying attention to anything he did.

[modmad]

hey so, was SKIP! ever on American TV? and if so, how?????? cuz I am 100% sure that I watched SKIP! on the TV when I was younger, like, an actual child kinda younger. it was like PBS or something showing student animations I guess?? and I was so enamored with it, I was desperately upset that I had no idea where I'd be able to find it again because I didn't know what it was called. and then later on I just happened to read tpoh (cuz i love webcomics) and there it was. right beside everything else. do you have any idea how crazy that is. It was like finding a long lost friend! Anyway that was years ago but I just wanted you to know that, since I don't think I've told you before but I've been following you for years.

Also your doodleduck comics are REALLY GOOD and are my single entry point into that kind of older-ducktales stuff. (also this is kind of random but I think your comic about gladstone and white guilt is one of the better works of art I've seen on that subject matter which I find very impressive)(source: I am black lol) OH AND HOW COULD I FORGET!! The princess and the jester is, like, phenomenally well made both visually and with its writing. It literally gives me CHILLS to read it. Frankly everything you make is so gorgeous, I kind of want to be like you. In the back of my mind when I'm like "what kind of artist do I wanna be?" your little checkered blog icon always pops up eventually haha. ok bye!!

;A;

damn this whole message means a lot to me, and yes! for a short time VFS was airing on a tv channel, I forget which but that was very cool and they gave me 500 dollar bucks which was a huge windfall for impoverished student mod :D :D :D it means so much to me that you like my work and found me again, and that particular duck comic was so scary for me to make but I've had so many wonderfully supportive messages from people like yourself that I'm really glad I stuck to my guns and listened to it. that was another 'seized from beyond by something bigger than myself' story moment... I'm glad it paid off and I hope I can continue to make things that scare me shitless but do some good in the world.

[nonbinary-vents]

Rant incoming because I have THOUGHTS about this subject and I can barely restrain myself haha

I would disagree with that idea of it being on goyim, personally. Cause like when I think of ashkenormativity I think more of how my mum was embarrassed for speaking her mother tongue out in public in 70/80s Tel Aviv, how my grandma and her sisters were told by their Ashkenazi neighbours when they were little that them sitting on the floor to eat made them ‘barbarians’ so they cried and begged my great grandad to buy a table for them, how I always see people conflating Sephardi, Mizrachi, and literally every other Jewish diaspora branch as being one interchangeable thing, how there’s been not nearly as much effort to preserve non-Yiddish languages and non-Ashkenazi traditions pre shoah/expulsions in the wider Jewish community, etc. (sorry it got a bit long). So yeah, all very focussed on other Jews and Jewish society.

To me it’s a lot less about how Goyim see Ashkenazim as being the default, cause Ashkenazim are such a large majority of Jews outside of Israel and I don’t expect Goyim to know that much about Jews unless they’re involved with us in one way or another. It’s more about about the neglect that non-Ashkenazi subcultures get, and the historical revisionism that non-Christian-European host areas get (especially Jewish history in the Islamic world) to always be less intense and way more tolerable than in Christian Europe. Especially outside of Israel (there’s still issues in Israel because of decades of making the ‘modern strong Jew’ image very Ashkenazi, and the ideas that naturalising into Israeli identity meant dropping your traditions if you weren’t Ashkenazi, but I think it’s wayyyy better now than what my parents grew up with), I get the distinct feeling that a lot Ashkenazi Jews do feel that non-Ashkenazi stuff is lesser in a way. Not in terms of being worse, just idk really how to describe it— I guess maybe like it’s lesser Judaism? Basically just that Ashkenazi culture, history, language, etc. are all the default of Jews and everything else is a deviation, so then less care is put into preserving non-Ashkenazi traditions.

So very much more about neglect and centralisation than it is either racism or something about goyim. Sorry for ranting, I just cannot help myself on this subject it seems lol.

As a secular Israeli jew I find it kinda weird when Americans use the phrase "ashkenormativity" because like. Idk about you but over here we just call it racism and it only really appears as something your kibbutznik grandma does after she's had one too many on seder pesach.

[cannibalisation]

hii its 🐙anon!! ive come to make another request if thats okay :3

sirius black with a s/o whos hands are always cold? this is during winter time and no matter how warm the room is their hands are always so pale and cold

tysm if u write this have a great day!

studies

sirius black/gn!reader

thank u so much for ur request, i apologise that it’s taken a while, and that it’s not very long, and kinda not really what the req asked for.. but this is what i came up with 🫶🏻 (550 words)

caution. nothing idt, just really fluffy, kinda whimsy!reader(?) luna lovegood/helaena targaryen personality vibes (that’s what i was going for atleast lol)

LIBRARIES often call for a capacity for solitude. There is a warmth in silence, a beauty unmatched by all. The library in Hogwarts was no different, but you’d speculate the addition of magic helps restore it to a proper scene.

Often, you find yourself there on an early Saturday morning, as that’s when it’s mostly empty, spare a few first-years. Most of the students are busy with sleeping in or spending the day at Hogsmeade, so you don’t have to worry about anyone interrupting your studies.

Today, though, you are accompanied by a resolute presence.

Sirius Black had come up to you after Potions yesterday (or read: was shoved by his friends), asking if you’d be able to help him out with subject revision for the upcoming exams.

You agreed, of course; the way he was stumbling over his own feet and blushing red in the face made you pity the usually sly marauder. He must be really nervous about exam season, you thought; you’d feel terrible if he were to fail, especially when you could easily help him out.

Sirius seemed to be taken aback by the response; he must’ve assumed you would say no. His friends, James and Peter, laughed covertly as they watched Sirius stutter. Remus had stood off to the side like always, a knowing expression on his scarred face.

That brings you to now, studying in the school library with Sirius Black on a Saturday morning.

His silver eyes are trained on his parchments, a tremor in his hand as he glides the ink-filled pen nib across the page. It was the History of Magic he needed help with most. Fortunately, that was the subject you excelled in.

The histories were something you held close, even closer than your owl. During the after-class period of the day, you would most likely be found with an ancient volume of some classic tale in your grasp.

On the odd occasion, Professor Slughorn gave you recommendations of novels to read; he was always very grateful to see that students still held an appreciation for the older tools of education.

A faint, repetitive noise pulls you from your sweet memories; Sirius has halted his writing and is now drumming his quill against the oak table. There is a furrow in his brow, from where you can see. He must be stuck on something. You tilt your head to gauge what exactly it is. That idea falls short as his hair seems to block where he had finished writing.

Without thinking, you graze your hand against his curls, attempting to push them past his ear to see his paper. His hair is soft under your touch, something akin to a fresh-washed coat of a pup.

Sirius flinches back at your touch, dropping his quill as he does so. He looks at you with a shocked expression, and all you can do is mirror it. The flush from yesterday returns to his pale cheeks, and you're more than tempted to cup his face to relish in the heat.

He gives you an accusatory squint, like you’ve just done something irreversible to him. In response, you tilt your head, waiting for the inevitable reaction. How odd.

Sirius licks at his top lip, wetting it with a subtle shine.

“Your hands—they’re really cold.”

[luck-of-the-drawings]

FOR A BEAT OF HEART, THE BREATH IS SHOT. AND WITHIN A BREATH, THE HEART IS CAUGHT. THE PIPES ARE BURSTING, UNDER GREAT STRESS, BOLTS TORN ASUNDER, MAKING A MESS. A FINAL COUGH, A FINAL RETCH, A GOREY SLOUGH, CLAIMED BY WRETCH.

[theanonymousninja247]

✨ Star Friends ✨

When I found out that @chessman-protocol boy Crit liked Astronomy, let’s just say I was beyond estatic and immediately planned this little comic. Here’s to my boy Vincent doing his best to make friends with folks who share similar interests 😅💙

Funny enough, I didn’t realize I put this in Vincent character’s until I looked at the whole thing, but Vincent very much shares the lack of stranger danger the way I did/ I do to this day. To quote one of my past managers I’m “abnormally friendly” or whatever

I can’t tell you how many times even as a small child (drove my parents nuts) that I saw a cool person with whatever connecting factor and I just straight up walked to them and was like “Ok cool. We’re friends now.” And nobody’s really stopped me? So apparently I have friends now. 😆

Vincent however is just a wholesome baby boy who doesn’t realize he’s actually an intimidating hunk of a turtle and randomly walking up to strangers and not saying anything can be taken the wrong way.

Like I said, he’s trying his best. He wasn’t exactly the most socialized if you can’t tell, but he does love dearly and is certainly a boone of a friend to have once you get past the inevitable social awkwardness. He’s loyal to put because he really doesn’t know better, and I adore him for that. Anyway, dunno if Crit knows any ASL or not, but either way Vincent is just excited to meet somebody else who likes space ✨🌌 💙

[neon-wool]

Short answer: Buy them yourself or ask your dad, either should be fine. Asking your mum to buy something for your dad’s house sounds more likely to cause drama in an already tense situation.

Long answer: Anon, it sounds like you’ve had a difficult upbringing, and I feel for you. Obviously I don’t know you, so take everything I'm about to write with a big pinch of salt... take anything that resonates and ignore the rest.

It sounds like you’ve formed some pretty intense anxiety around relationships that's affecting your daily life. For most people, buying posters for their room would be a very simple issue that requires almost no thought. They'd never think to ask permission for something they were paying for, and there would be no pressure to open up about liking the tv show in advance, just in case a parent's feelings were hurt. They'd talk about the show if they happened to feel like it, or not, without thinking much of it.

However for you it sounds like there's a strong fear of judgement from your dad if you admit to liking the show, but on the flipside you worry not telling him in advance could somehow hurt him, make him feel betrayed, or undermine your relationship. Most people wouldn't have these worries at all. Has he given you a reason to think he's that judgemental or fragile? Or is it possible you're catastrophising?

Looking at the level of intensity you’re applying to the situation, it seems to me this isn’t really about the tv show or the poster at all. Perhaps the strong emotions are about how you’d like to connect more with your dad and feel closer to him. There may also be some amount of underlying trauma from your upbringing, which sounds like it had some significant issues.

My advice is: be kind to yourself, and try to take the pressure off for now. Your dad is very unlikely to be hurt by you buying a poster. What’s important is finding ways to connect to your loved-ones and feel cared for, and exploring complicated emotions about your childhood. That takes time.

From what you wrote, it sounds like your dad does actually take an interest in your hobbies when you bring them up, and you generally do feel he’s quite supportive. That’s a good thing, and more than some people have with their parents. The main problem you have right now is that he doesn’t approach you first, and he doesn’t open up about himself much either. You also feel he has an outdated view of you and still sees you as a child.

Sometimes it takes active communication to shift your relationships forward in the direction you want them to go. Sometimes parents have their own issues, or just lack social skills, so they may not realise how their words and actions are affecting you. If you think his view of you is stuck in the past, and you want him to see you as who you are now, then you're going to need to have the courage to assert yourself as who you are now.

If talking to him about this show is causing a lot of anxiety I won't push you to do that immediately. But I would suggest you look again at that fear. You said in the past he's been supportive when you talked about your interests, and you know the idea of him thinking the show is too weird/violent is unlikely since he already enjoys that kind of show himself. Putting that together it's hard to see why you're so afraid of mentioning this to him, perhaps this fear is a result of the chronic overthinking you mentioned.

Let's play out the worst-case scenario: you tell him, and he says "oh that's a pretty violent show, it's not for me" or he just doesn't understand why you like it... why is that such a problem? It's ok for him to see that you are an adult with your own taste, which might not always match his. Doesn't sound like there's anything seriously problematic about the show. How would it feel to just sit with the fact that you like it, and he might not like it, and that's ok? Having different taste in tv shows isn't going to mean he stops liking you as a person.

If this whole subject causes you intense stress, and you have anxiety about the relationship being damaged by small things like this, I think that's something you need to take note of, and perhaps get some outside support for.

However if you feel able to, I’d recommend taking a deep breath and just telling him about the show, in a casual way, just for the sake of opening up. It sounds like the odds of him enjoying it too are pretty decent! And if he isn't into it, maybe you could be ok with that. I'd also recommend the idea (when you feel ready) of just telling him, in a positive way, that you enjoy talking to him about your interests, you want to learn more about his interests too, and you’d like to have a good friendship and get to know him more as you become an adult.

Eventually, if you feel closer to him over time, you might feel able to open up about the distance and ‘privacy’ your parents kept in childhood, and how this has affected you. There might be some difficult emotions to process there. Parents have their own baggage, and can be very stuck in their own perspective. If you continue building on the relationship and trust you have with him now, there might be more space for him to reflect on those issues in the future, in a way that would be healing for both of you.

Navigating family relationships can be very complicated. Sometimes you feel someone has hurt you, but it wasn’t intentional, so what do you do with that hurt? Do they even realise they hurt you? Perhaps they do love you and do make an effort, but is that enough? Could they have done more? Will they ever see or acknowledge or make amends for the hurt they caused? Perhaps you wish you could be closer, and perhaps you really wish they would be the one to reach out first, you really wish they would just ‘get it’ and grow of their own accord… but wishing won’t change the situation. Maybe you'll be the one who has to set things in motion and push for growth, even though you didn't cause the situation. Life is messy. Growth is messy. It can be hard to know exactly what you want, or how to achieve it. But there's time, it doesn't all need to happen straight away.

I can’t answer any of these questions, or even know if they're the right questions for you. Finding a healthy balance can be hard. It’s up to each individual to judge their own situation, their own sense of fairness and hurt, and how much effort is worth putting into a relationship. Of course, parents hold the responsibility of forming healthy relationships with their children as they grow up, not the other way round. Sometimes they really fail at that job. Other times it’s a complex mixture of good and bad. Even with genuine effort there are many things which hold people back, people have their own traumas, everyone has their own narrow perspective. You can have sympathy for your parents’ limitations, and be willing to work with them and have patience, but simultaneously accept that you've always deserved to feel loved and safe and supported, and maybe you didn't always get that. The sacrifices and effort shouldn’t all be on your side.

As you become an adult, you have more choices about how you interact with your parents, and more agency in how you handle the relationship. Again, without knowing your situation I can’t say for sure, but just from what you’ve written here… my advice would be to take it slow, and try not to over-analyse every little thing. Don't try to come up with all the answers straight away. Instead, step back and look at the big picture of your upbringing and parental relationships, both the good and the bad.

Maybe start writing a journal about it, just noting down any thoughts that come up and letting yourself vent. A well-hidden private journal is great because it gives you space to try out lots of random thoughts and ideas, and see what actually makes sense. You don’t have to judge what you write, or draw any conclusions. You can write whatever pops into your head, and then ask “is this really what I feel? Does this make sense to me?” Then you can re-read it months later, suddenly see something you didn’t before, and a new piece clicks into place.

Good luck anon, I hope you find a way forward over time, and I hope you enjoy the posters!

This is not a yes/no poll but I don’t know who else to consult.

My parents and I are not close. I'm closer with my dad, but he doesn't know about any of my interests due to the way me and my sister were taught about 'privacy' growing up. I am not close with my mum at all and I only talk to her when I have to.

When me and my sister were growing up, we were not told any of our parents' interests/hobbies, and were always told not to look at what people were doing. I think this is what led us to both be so hidden(?) from our parents, and is why this problem exists in the first place.

My dad doesn’t really buy anything for me, nor does he try to learn about my interests (but he will listen when he does learn about them. He likes that I like stuff, he just doesn’t actively seek that information out). My mum is the one who will buy me things, but it’s gotten to the point where she is just buying me junk for the sake of trying to keep a relationship with me and then holding that fact over my head (I have told her to stop, she hasn’t).

I want to buy a few posters for my favourite show for my bedroom at my dads house (my parents are divorced). I currently do not have a credit/debit card as I lost it a few months ago, however I am going to go get a new one on the 18th of this month, but I would preferably like to place the order before school starts again (for reference, all these options are online orders).

I have a few options on how to acquire the posters, and I’m not sure how to go about it.

Ask my mum to buy them for me.

She will buy me things I don’t want related to this show for the next 10 years, even after I inevitably lose interest in it. She’ll also be extremely upset that I’m putting them up at my dad’s house, and not hers. However I don’t care about her opinion on my interests as much.

Ask my dad to buy them for me.

I do not want to do this one, purely because of the completely irrational fear I have that he’ll think the show is weird, or violent (again, completely irrational. He is the biggest nerd you’ll meet, he’s probably even watched the show before and enjoyed it. It’ll just be awkward and I’m an overthinker). His opinion means a lot to me, and although he’s supportive of me in every sense, I think he still views me as a little kid (I’m 18), hence why I’m worried to tell him about my interests. I do want him to know about my interests in the long term though, and I want to be able to tell him things about me and not be scared about it, but I’m not sure if diving headfirst into this is the right way to go about it (for my own sake).

Wait until the 18th and buy them myself.

This one would be fine, but I’m a little worried that my dad will be confused when they show up for me. He would also have to find out about the posters/my interests in a surprise! Kind of way, which is a little awkward and it might hurt his feelings that he wasn’t asked. This will also be after school starts again, which I would prefer to get them before then. However I think this is the option that’ll give me the least anxiety in the short-term, but probably more as I wait for them to arrive.

I have consulted my sister and she is no help whatsoever.

Thank you for reading this behemoth of an ask, and thank you for any advice you might have (and I understand if this is not submitted to the public as it's not a yes/no question).