#you cannot give me treatment with the expectation that i will turn out a certain way that YOU want me to be

[drop-dead-dropout]

You know, one time I was talking to someone about how I've been to treatment centers, and they said, "wow! Did you receive any therapy there?"

Like really, what is that supposed to mean? Yeah, I "received" therapy. I received it in the same way the people on a plane "receive" the ground when they crash into it, or the way a politician "receives" a bomb in the mail.

(If you can't tell, I do not think my therapists were very helpful)

[domokunrainbowkinz]

my productivity at work has been tanking...anyways here are my recent reads:

how to survive as a maid in a horror game (manhwa)

the black mirror (18+) (manhwa)

the other world's books depend on the bean counter (manga/light novel)

I will become the villain's poison taster (manhwa/webnovel)

the villain's savior (manhwa)

turning the mad dog into a genteel lord (manhwa/webnovel)

cherry magic! thirty years of virginity can make you a wizard?! (manga)

how to survive as a maid in a horror game: honestly not sure how to feel about this one bc I was expecting more horror, but the ratio is more like 70% comedy, 30% horror. I do think horror and comedy can work well, but I almost wish this one went more hard in the horror direction. the tone is also a bit too light for my taste so I don't think I'm gonna continue this one.

the black mirror (18+): RAAAAAGH I WISH THIS HAD SIDE STORIES OR SOMETHING I NEED MORE!!!!! really scratched the horror itch for me, but I wish it was a bit longer or more fleshed out (its only 62 chapters so like i finished this one Fast). I really like how it slowly feeds you pieces of what happened in the past to let you connect the dots, it actually kept me on my toes!!! I also really liked how some of the panels were drawn and framed, and i also liked how it conveyed tension in certain scenes. I think this would really tickle someone with a mirror phobia, bc oh boyyyyyy it is CHOCK full of creepy mirror imagery. my only gripe is that I would've liked some more fleshing out of the MC and ML's backstory, they showed us enough to tie the story together, but I think if they gave it a little extra oomph it would've helped me be more invested in the characters. however I still thought this was a great read and I really enjoyed it!!! psychological thriller, supernatural horror, toxic4toxic couples who have nasty kinky sex my beloved....

the other world's books depend on the bean counter: I started reading this manga bc I saw a YouTube comment describing it as "a bl manga where an accountant gets isekaid into a fantasy land and he decides to still work as an accountant there bc he's so worn down by the Japanese work mentality" and like Boy they are not wrong, my guy does NOT know wtf a break is. you can tell that work has consumed his entire life bc he literally cannot think of anything else but work and everything he does is motivated by his desire to work and prove that he deserves to essentially exist in the world. he was accidentally summoned alongside a teenage girl, who's the prophesied holy maiden, and even though the kingdom is providing him with food, money and shelter no questions asked (as compensation for him being accidentally summoned), he still feels the need to provide labour in order to justify this treatment. and the thing is he refuses to do the bare minimum and runs himself into the ground for a place that essentially kidnapped him bc he literally doesn't know how else to function. and in addition to this, the actual worldbuilding itself is so interesting!!! bc he's an accountant, he carries out audits and budget proposals and whatnot, and through this pov you learn about the power structure, politics, and the system the kingdom is based on, idk I just found the dissection of the resource allocation and magic system so fascinating. all the characters are also so fun to read about (YES EVEN YUA EVERYONE IS SO MEAN TO HER!!! SHES A 16 YEAR OLD GIRL HOW ELSE DO YOU EXPECT HER TO ACT) and I also love the rship between the 2 leads bc the ML is like "good god you live like this????" and forces the MC to live a healthy lifestyle. there is also a very bullshit reason for why they need to sleep together that can only ever happen in bl and it was so stupid i was like "god i love bl (affectionate)". overall I really enjoyed this!! I also heard it's getting an anime adaptation and I WILL be on that shit once it comes out.

I will become the villain's poison taster: very fun and lighthearted read, it was giving villain x henchwoman in the beginning but it slowly grows into "oh he's down Stupid bad" and then by s2 he would blow up the entire world if anything happens to her. we love to see that in a man <3 the banter was so much fun to read and the 2 leads have such funny interactions. the FL is also extremely stupid and ditzy but in a way that's fun to read about. this story is also definitely for the villain enjoyers, since it's from the pov of the villains and the plot seems to be following the "white magic = black magic but the white mages pursue the black mages bc they're deemed 'impure' and 'evil'" which like yes pretty cliche but hey this is a "no thoughts head empty" read for me. I'm probably just going to stick with the manhwa since I love how the artist draws expressions in this, and also again bc it's a very turn-off-your-brain type of read.

the villain's savior: idk how else to describe this except that it was hypnotically heterosexual. this is very VERY much an "I CAN FIX HIM!!!!" type of story. I honestly don't know why I even continued reading it bc nothing about it stood out to me but the interactions between the 2 leads had some very tender and loving moments, and I guess that's why I continued??? I usually don't like these types of stories but the way this was written had me like "yeah...I can see the vision actually..." personally the only feelings I got from this were that it's definitely a manhwa that I read lol...this one was for sure a "no thoughts head empty only vibes and feelings" type of read

turning the mad dog into a genteel lord: THIS ONE IS SO FUNNY i love love LOVE the art in this one, ESEPCIALLY how the ML is drawn like i am being SERVICED. AND I LOVE IT. the way the jokes and humour are set up and portrayed is so good that I'm actually gonna wait for the manhwa chapters rather than reading ahead in the novel. I also love the characters as well, the FL is very likeable and the type of heroine I like to read about...I love how she's not naive to the world but also willingly keeps herself ignorant of issues that are essentially above her pay grade (even tho the plot Will Happen whether she wants to or not). she also is very realistic about her situation and imo is emotionally mature, it's so nice to read about someone who...you know...acts like an actual human being lol.... her rship with the ML is also very sweet, however it is a "taming a wild beast" type of story for those who may not enjoy it. i personally am eating this UP. the ML gives me cuteness aggression he's soooooooooooo babygirl. I'm also like 99% sure I've already guessed the ML's true identity since it's pree obvious but I am very curious to see where the plot takes them!! very fun read, I was smiling thru the whole thing

cherry magic! thirty years of virginity can make you a wizard?!: YO this was so cute??? I think this would he a perfect read for me whenever I'm in the mood for something light and fluffy, I don't think it's gonna be something I binge. this was also extremely funny, especially scenes where adachi is like "wow look at kurosawa he's so calm and cool and collected" and then he accidentally brushes up against him and kurosawa's thoughts are just "if adachi was my man I'd fold him into a dumpling and set him in a soup at the perfect temperature so he'd be nice and warm all the time" like my guy u r insane. and they are both so down bad for each other. I'm honestly not sure where the plot is going bc I'm now at the part where (SPOILERS) adachi loses his mind-reading powers (SPOILERS), but from what I've gathered it seems to be a very character-driven, slice of life story, which is why I dont feel the need to binge it. overall I can see why it was so popular it has 2 (TWO) live action dramas, and anime, AND an audio drama.

[p1ayer120]

#현주 an independent portrayal of  CHO HYUNJU , from 𝚜𝚚𝚞/𝚒𝚍 𝚐𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝟸.  semi-show canon and extremely hc based. mature themes, spoilers, and potential triggers will be present.  ( MINORS + PERSONALS DNI )   A  COMPREHENSIVE  STUDY  IN:  sought comfort, the monetary chase, fighting for what's right, choosing self, falling into the depths of a foreboding atmosphere ... /// perfected by 𝐸𝐸𝑅𝐼𝐸. 21+. they/she/ mixed korean. if you're a personal blog, i am immediately blocking.

affiliated w. @player456 ,

NOTE: this is a side-blog, apart of a hub of muses. follows back from mythsung. more important notes under the cut.

[ 001 ] : other themes to be present involve mentions of death, corpse reanimation, bugs, etc. THERE ARE CERTAIN MUSES DERIVING FROM HORROR SETTINGS : vampires, zombies/corpses, entities; including but not limited to japanese horror: ringu, and other potential medias i may explore. i will generally tag things with tw , cw , etc. personals and minors DNI, immediate block.

[ IMPORTANT ] : i'm going to keep my following pretty limited for my own preference. i'm mixed korean american, and as a pointer to new blogs, all i ask is you remain mindful and do your research. if i see a blog, esp writing characters like kang sae byeok and kang no eul ( both intermix with north korean backgrounds ) i again, am going to hope you're respectful and mindful about it. if you don't, i'll try to have a convo, otherwise i'm blocking.

WHILE THE ACTOR IS NOT TRANS, i am still using park sung hoon as a faceclaim. this was under fire, but i would also like to ask everyone to be mindful of the culture, how lgbtqia+ are treated and how exactly the treatment for anyone in that group goes in south korea. its dangerous, should they have asked actors who weren't out, and it's not against the writer or director for choosing someone who isn't trans. the story itself is the strongest i've seen, and i hope will bring more light to being open to these castings. read more here.

SECOND.

*please note: I am not opposed to writing against the characters portrayed by these face claims : I AM NOT COMFORTABLE with writing against these faceclaims because of the allegations.

face claims:

li jin-wook ( sweet home, squid game ) /apist who sued his victim for defamation while admitting she did not give consent : sources. sources. player 246, Gyeong seok. immediate block if you use the fc.

[  002  ]  :  i'm going to keep things low-key here , but basically BASIC RP ETTIQUITE IS EXPECTED. any form of hate, bigotry or nonsense will not be tolerated, at this point I feel it's pretty stark on what that entails. any form of racism, anti-semitic, ableism, aggressive posting / duplicate bashing, vaguing , petty callout posts. any gross behavior , please do not bring any of it to my blog. I will also often remove myself from things that make me uncomfortable and soft/block for my comfort. if i do unfollow i always softblock , this rarely every happens, but please do not approach me asking why.

[  003  ]  : the easiest way to write w me:   continue prompts i've answered , turning them into threads. or alternatively, I will reblog anything you answer as a thread if muse strikes. spam me with memes / prompts! i always say this but , there's no expiration date to anything i reblog. if you want to interact , sending memes is the easiest way. i like to keep a small following , focusing on a dash with those who i can see myself writing with, which means I won't always follow back. this is not meant to be taken as serious as it sounds, i just genuinely cannot write with everyone , i hope you understand. i can sometimes be slow with replies. if i owe, i truly don't mind being reminded.

[  005  ]  : shipping isn't necessary to write with me, however i'm always open to the idea of different ships, as well as platonic connections.  i can't ship instantly even if we're writing muses that have a connection. i'm heavily plot based and that includes shipping. i prefer to talk about our muses in depth before considering whether or not the chemistry is there, but this isn't a ship -driven blog.

[jeanjauthor]

One of my best friends from high school engaged in an international pen pal service. Many years later, she eventually married the Finnish man she had met through that letter exchange service (before the advent of the internet, but not too much before, lol). She now lives near Helsinki, but recently came back just this last month to visit many friends and remaining family members. (She can do the work-from-home thing which means she can work from just about anywhere so long as she has decent wifi.)

And she brought me Finnish chocolates (as she often does), which are less sweet than the kind you find in America, but quite good overall.

However, this time she brought a small bar as an experiment.

(The image is taken off of the Puhdistamo website.)

It's not a very big bar, about two fingers wide, a little bit more than finger-length long. But it was mint, and my friend knows I like mint.

Turns out, it does not taste like any chocolate I have ever had before. And the reason is in the "Raaklasuklaa" part of the name. Raw Chocolate*. (*Note, NOT a direct translation!)

What does that mean? Well...apparently...it's not fermented.

To clarify, chocolate goes through two (2) fermentation steps.

The first is when the pods are harvested, split open, and the seeds are scooped out and dumped into a pile with the pith (juicy bits) of the fruit, where they are lightly covered by leaves (iirc) and left to ferment in the open for a week or so.

Then they go to be cleaned, roasted, shelled, winnowed, ground, mixed with other stuff, special treatments of temperatures, etc...and then they get poured into bars that are then set aside for literal months to continue fermenting. This is the second round of fermenting.

I am not certain which step was skipped (it could be both for all I know), but this chocolate is not fermented.

Now, we mostly think of fermenting as being alcoholic (because drinks!), but it's not. Technically, pickles are fermented. Sauerkraut is fermented. This is a not-alcoholic-in-nature fermentation process that normal chocolate bars go through, to develop the rich, strong flavors that make chocolate so distinctive.

But in this Raakasuklaa bar...?

It's raw, not fermented.

The flavors are there, but they're very very subtle. The mint is much stronger. And like many things in Europe, it's not very sweet, so the mint is the highest riding note, but it's not overly sweet. (Kinda like spearmint gum, in fact.) Aside from the mint, it's mostly a texture that you notice. (Not an unpleasant one, just there's more texture than flavor...?)

I think this is a chocolate bar that those who cannot stand strong flavors would like.

Which makes me think of my fellow author Nalini Singh, and her Psy-Changeling universe, where the psy race underwent a century of emotionless existence in order to learn enough discipline to control their psychic powers. In order to ensure that cool logical attitude, they developed a lot of foods that were, well, bland. Because strong flavors provoke strong emotions.

This is a chocolate bar that would be consumed by the psy in Nalini's created world. it's a good bar that is remarkably mild Even if something is mild-mannered, that doesn't mean it's bad. It's simply something different.

If you are curious (and can get your hands on some), I say, why not give it a try?

(Just don't go into the experience expecting a strong flavor sensation.)

[loominggaia]

Now that you've given me permission to ask questions, I shall do so unrelentingly until I can't think of anything else. So, two things:

First off, you've mentioned Sygbarnes condition a few times, but how 'there' is she? Would you say that Sygbarne has High Matenince Autism? I personally have Low Matenince Autism (I've actually hyperfixated on Looming Gaia a little lol) and Sygbarne reminds me alot of how autistic individuals are treated irl, so I was wondering if she's a metaphor (is that the right word?) for that.

Second of all, I read that youre okay with fanart and stuff, but would you be all right with me needle felting a Poffle? It's basically like making a sculpture out of wool.

Go for it! I'm always hyped to answer LG questions, they only make the lore deeper!

Sygbarne's exact condition is never named, and honestly I imagine she doesn't even have a proper diagnosis, considering the doctors she's seen are all woo-warriors who pretend they can "cure" whatever it is with crystals and herbs and shit. I'm not autistic myself so I'm not sure if I can accurately say that's what she has, but I will say a few things for certain about her condition:

Her ability to speak and reason is about on par with a toddler. As far as awareness goes, she's only as aware of her situation as a 3-year-old would be. She lacks significant understanding of the world, but is also intelligent enough to know that something is wrong with the way people treat her, even if she can't figure out exactly what that is. She is not only treated like a lab rat by her doctors, but also incredibly sheltered. Her parents are the only source of affection she gets, and their visits are pretty infrequent. I imagine it must frustrate her a lot, and her constant wailing is probably her expressing that frustration.

She cannot be cured because she doesn't have a disease, this is just how she was born. Gultopp and Juvella sought the world's top doctors at first, but of course they all told them that Sygbarne's condition will not change and they just have to accept her as she is. Gultopp and Juvella did not like that answer and refused to accept it, so they instead turned to sketchy quacks who promised they could improve her condition.

These doctors are nothing more than scam artists preying on the royal family's desperation. Their treatments range from benign and pointless to downright harmful. They string the royal family along with lines like "Oh, it takes many treatments to start working" or "Hmm, she's a stubborn case! Looks like she needs another year of this therapy before we see improvement..."

And Gultopp and Juvella just go along with it, because they feel they have no other choice. If only they would get over themselves and their unrealistic expectations, they could give Sygbarne the happier, healthier life she deserves.

I don't think Sygbarne's situation is hopeless though. Her sister Blomi is very curious about the wailing she hears in the castle, and one day I think she'll crack this mystery and somehow help her sister.

(Because lord knows Hestal ain't gonna be the one to do it...Gultopp and Juvella express disappointment in Sygbarne for being a "useless" child, while completely ignoring how utterly useless their neurotypical, able-bodied son is in every way lmao...he's the one they should be ashamed of, not Sygbarne.)

I never had a specific condition in mind for Sygbarne because it was never really the point of her story, but maybe a real diagnosis would flesh out the lore and help the character feel more real. If you feel that high-maintenance autism is a good fit for her, then that is what her condition will be. I would like input from actual autistic people before I commit to this idea, just to make sure I get the details correct and don't upset anyone, so any feedback is very helpful and appreciated! All suggestions can be sent to the ask box.

As for the second question, oh my god I would FLIP if you made a needle felted poffle! That sounds so freakin cute, please go for it! Please share it when you're done, I would absolutely love to see it!!

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

[raincamp]

7 - 22 - 23

not me writing "[ bad thing was happening ] until [therapist] saved me" in my journal as if she's some sort of fucking messiah

i would call her my Favorite Person except for the fact that it feels wrong to give that term to my therapist of all people

but im terrified of her leaving me. i genuinely feel like i need her in order to survive. if she did, ever, actually give her input on what she thought of me as a person, my own self worth would be dependent on her, but right now its only dependent on my perception of what she thinks of me, which isn't necessarily the same thing.

i hate the fact that my life revolves around her, as if im mentally ill or something idk

more rambles about therapy ahead,, if you weren't already expecting it

i cannot stop thinking about her, i replay our sessions in my head so much that it borders on obsession. i still get embarrassed at the stupid things i say, i get angry about things she does, i feel defensive about her poking me where i dont want to be poked (metaphorically). i ruminate on it for weeks to the point where it fills the gaps in time where my brain should be idling. i fall asleep to the memories of me sitting in her office. its partly why i decided to continue this blog.

i want to be clear that this is not a romantic or sexual transference, i don't think i would even go as far as to call it platonic transference. i dont see her as a mother figure or best friend.

i know what our relationship entails, and i am comfortable in the fact that it is just a therapeutic relationship. one sided. focused on my treatment. it gives me stability, and security, that i am certain about where we stand with each other, and where her boundaries are. because one of my worst fears is crossing someones boundaries on accident.

that doesn't stop me from being absolutely fucking terrified of her abandoning me. it doesn't stop me from splitting on her. it doesn't stop me from going to extremes just to get her attention.

when i realized that this was happening, that my BPD shit was showing up in my relationship with my therapist, it fucking terrified me. anytime that i realize im falling into favorite person territory with anybody it terrifies me. having a FP is painful and scary at times. it turns me into somebody i dont recognize.

what's funny though, when i finally had that conversation with her about it, when i told her i finally came to the realization of what i was doing, when i apologized for the shit i was putting her through, i had expected this to be news to her, because it was news to me.

but she told me that she knew the entire time. she knew even before i realized it myself. she told me about how each week her and her supervisor (also my group therapist) had been discussing how best to handle the behaviors that i was projecting on her that were interfering with my treatment. how she recognized when i was splitting on her in session even though i didn't even fucking know i was splitting on her in session.

she even gave me specific examples of how she would wait until the perfect moment to bring something up, or how she would change her tone just to avoid reinforcing my behavior. she even told me about a specific instance in which she had difficulty keeping an implicit boundary with me because she could tell that it was hurting me, and that all that she really wanted to do was comfort me.

and i was completely un-fucking-aware.

i felt so dumb. and i also felt angry. and i also felt immensely cared for.

i recognize how lucky i am to have such a good therapist, its so incredibly rare to find someone that is as competent at treating BPD as she is. i mean, i can't even handle my shit but somehow she's a fucking master at it. it honestly astounds me how she's this good and she's just in training. and shes only 5 years older than me. :')

i love her so fucking much.

and its surprising me that i even typed that out, considering that three hours ago i sent her a text telling her how angry i was at her and how i hated her.

borderline be borderlining ig

- andrew

[hermannsthumb]

Hello! My dumb autistic ass decided to go into ~autistic burnout~ right before finals so I missed an entire final and I'm looking forward to a month of intensive therapy to see if I can even go back to college. If you could write a winter prompt for our favorite dumb scientists I would be so friggin happy! Maybe 25 or 35?

25. i love snow days because it means that you trek across town to hang out with me and watch movies on the couch except this time you demand to know who i’m crushing on and i don’t know how to say you

from winter prompts here

filling this one a little (ie...four years....) late because it got lost in the depths of my inbox. imagining this set post-movie in the weird realm of 'are we dating???' because it's stupidly fun to write

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

They're well-practiced enough in their traditions at this point that Newton knows to hang his coat on the door hooks rather than simply flinging it into the ether (only to complain when he cannot find it later), but the same cannot be said, unfortunately, of his treatment of his boots, which are filthy on the best of days and positively caked with snow now, and which are currently tracking all manner of puddles and mud across Hermann's poor front hallway. Fortunately Hermann is well-practiced enough in this as well to know to seize Newton by the back of his t-shirt before he can make it remotely in the direction of the small sitting room—and, of course, to keep a stash of old hand towels in the hall closet for faster mopping-up. "I bought a shoe rack," Hermann gripes, as Newton grins at him sheepishly, "specifically for you. Your very own shoe rack, Newton."

Newton ducks over to tug at his sodden bootlaces, and melted snow drips from his hair and pools on the scuffed hardwood floor. Hermann grits his teeth. "Sorry, sorry, I know," Newton says. He gets one boot off and tosses it in the direction of the shoe rack, which, Hermann will give Newton credit, is more than he expected of his friend. "I forgot. I was excited. Oooops. You wanna toss dinner in the microwave or something while I clean this up? It's definitely, like, frozen by now."

Hermann delicately picks up the bag of takeaway (one of Newton's myriad of tote bags, and likewise dripping melted snow everywhere) that Newton hung on the doorknob and nods. It was Newton's turn to pick the restaurant this time, which means it is likely Taco Bell and whatever bottle of wine he could dig up from his small kitchen pantry. Hermann cannot imagine the food will reheat well. "I hope your walk wasn't too unpleasant," he says. He peeks into the bag as he navigates around Newton and into his kitchen and is pleasantly surprised to find that Newton has actually stopped off at a rather nice noodle place they've frequented together before. It's one of Hermann's favorites. He smiles to himself, only because he's certain that Newton will not be able to see it, and puts the cardboard takeout container directly in the microwave.

"Nah," Newton calls. "I mean, it totally was, but it was worth it."

His sock-cushioned footsteps echo into place behind Hermann just as their dinner finishes, and he begins making himself at home in the kitchen, pulling out plates and cutlery from Hermann's cupboards and laying everything out on the counter. "Worth it," he repeats, and then continues pointedly, "but, uh, kinda unnecessary. And more expensive. Twice as expensive, literally. You know I have an extra bedroom, dude."

Hermann divides the food into two portions between the plates in silence. "Yes, so do I," he says, mildly. "The second one made for a marvelous office. You ought to try that."

Newton sighs. "Right," he says. "Where's your corkscrew?"

The only couch Hermann has in his sitting room is second-hand, left by the previous renters who undoubtedly did not feel up to the task of fitting it back through the somewhat narrow front door. It's a loveseat, which at the time Hermann did not mind, and indeed felt rather nostalgic about: it reminded him of the old, ragged one he and Newton had carted into the k-science laboratory over a decade ago and the nights they'd spent dozing at each other's sides (all pretenses of animosity gone) when the work became simply too much to bear. Anyway, it wasn't as if he was expecting to host a revolving door of guests. Only Newton. Unfortunately it also means he's got nowhere to hide when Newton is cross with him about something, and the lingering air of tension between them shrinks from the whole of Hermann's kitchen to a mere two inches as they crowd in next to each other, avoiding eye contact and hugging the overstuffed arms as tightly as they can. "You could buy another chair, you know," Newton finally says. "Now that we're actually getting, like, paid. Enough for two more chairs. Three more chairs."

"What would I do with three chairs?" Hermann says.

"Sit in them?" Newton says. "I don't know, what do people normally do with chairs?"

"I like this one just fine," Hermann says. "Besides, you're the only one I ever have round. Seems a bit pointless. And a waste of space, really."

Newton glances at him curiously, then reaches for the remote control far too casually for Hermann's liking. He flips through a few streaming services and cable channels before settling on a bland-looking romantic comedy and turning the volume down so low it's practically inaudible. "Sooooo," he says. "I'm guessing that your date last week didn't go well, then?"

Hermann stifles a small groan. Date is not precisely the word he would have chosen, though he supposes for all intents and purposes he had, in fact, gone on a date last week. He had been attracted to the man, a fellow he'd met at a bar when he and Newton had gone out for drinks to celebrate the end of the semester earlier that December, and who had been bold enough to ask for Hermann's mobile number in front of both his own friends and Newton, which Hermann had thought was rather dashing at the time. They had met up last Friday. It was evening, as Hermann thought most proper dates were. They had eaten dinner. He had said all sorts of complimentary things to Hermann and had accepted Hermann's invitation back to his flat for tea (the first excuse that came to Hermann's mind) without any hesitation. It all went a bit downhill when they began kissing and that sort of business, and Hermann came to the terrible realization that he had only given out his mobile number for the express purpose of making Newton jealous. "Er," Hermann says. "N-not precisely. He was a perfect gentleman, it was—my fault, I suppose."

("I'm very sorry," he said, "but I've been in love with my colleague for quite some time, and I don't think I'm being very fair to you.")

There's a flash of something like relief behind Newton's eyes, and he smiles far too smugly for Hermann's liking. At least he doesn't push for more details. "Awww," he says. "Sorry."

"Oh, be quiet," Hermann snorts.

"You're out of his league anyway," Newton says. He flings an arm around Hermann's shoulders and tucks Hermann in against him. On the television screen, the two romantic leads make eyes at each other in the snow. "Any other hot dates lined up? What about that guy in the chem department, with the motorcycle? The one we met at that stupid barbecue? You totally thought he was sexy. I could scope out the situation. Wingman you. Was it the motorcycle that did it for you, or...?"

Hermann clears his throat. "He's our colleague," he says, and feels himself blush at the grin Newton sends his way. "It would be—vastly inappropriate."

Newton rubs absently at Hermann's shoulder, as if working out a knot that Hermann himself was unaware of. It feels damned good, actually, Hermann doesn't mind it in the slightest. "No one else, then?"

Of course there is, you fool, Hermann thinks. Newton must know; Newton simply must know. His body is warm, and he smells nice, like his deodorant. Hermann would like very much to rest his head upon Newton's shoulder and fall asleep. Or, perhaps—if Newton was amenable—if Hermann could but gather up the courage— He wonders what kissing Newton would feel like, what his lips would feel like. He often wonders things like this. He wonders what would have happened if he had accepted Newton's offer of the spare bedroom in his—their, really, Hermann supposes it would have become—flat in the first place rather than pitching a fit and insisting on letting his own, or what would happen if he would simply admit to himself the spare bedroom in his own flat was subconsciously intended for Newton all along as well. Perhaps—after some time—they might fall into new routines, and they wouldn't need separate rooms at all, and Hermann might—well, it's silly to think about things that might never be.

He does not fear Newton's rejection, but rather the opposite. (Hermann made a career out of predicting disaster, after all, and it's very hard to shut that part of his brain off.) The fallout of it all if everything inevitably goes wrong. He can handle his tragic, unrequited romance, but requited... Newton is his oldest and dearest friend. And, er, rival, he supposes. He's not sure what he would do without him. "No," he says. "Or—yes, I suppose. There is. Only I'm not sure if it would work out."

"Welllll," Newton says, dragging out the word far too slowly, and he nudges the side of Hermann's head with his hand until Hermann (unable to help himself, or his smile) relents and rests it on Newton's shoulder. Newton threads the fingers of his other hand with Hermann's. "If you ever change your mind, Hermann, I'm sure he would be interested. Whenever you're ready. Just say the word."

"I'll bear that in mind," Hermann says.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 306: the beginning of the WHAT

Previously on BnHA: Nana and the Gang were all, “hey Deku, we can read your thoughts and feelings so we should already know the answer to this, but for some reason we want to quiz you on whether or not you’d be down to kill Shigaraki Tomura.” Deku was all, “um okay, well tbh, probably not seeing as Saving People has been my entire thing since literally the start of the series.” The Vestiges were all, “yes that makes perfect sense and again we already knew that, but well, good for you buddy and I’m glad we had this talk. Anyway I guess we should ask these two cryptic fuckers in the corner to finally turn around now before we run out of -- ” and then the chapter ended. Because OF COURSE IT DID.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, WOULDN’T IT BE SO MUCH BETTER IF I GAVE YOU A CONFUSING CHAPTER WHERE EVERYONE FINALLY LEARNS ABOUT OFA, AND GOES BACK TO THE DORMS, AND THEN THE CHAPTER ENDS WITH DEPRESSED NOMAD DEKU STANDING ON A PRECIPICE WITH GRAN TORINO’S TATTERED CAPE FLOWING IN THE WIND.” Everyone is all, “???????????” Horikoshi is all, “also the parents are moving to the U.A. campus, and Jeanist’s neck is two and a half feet long, for everyone that was wondering.” Everyone is all, “WHERE ARE KACCHAN AND TODOROKI AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHO ARE THE SECOND AND THIRD USERS”, and Horikoshi is all, “:)” and fades away into nothingness like the fucking fae he is. Like a fucking imp who’s kept his end of the cursed bargain. What, the, fuck.

okay guys, so after the longest Thursday of my fucking life, during which I was secretly hoping that my spoiler containment net would be somehow be breached, inadvertently exposing me to theta spoiler radiation, so that I could be all “oh no... spoilers... there’s nothing I can do... I have no choice but to look” (which sadly did not happen), it is finally Friday and the chapter is finally out. so I’ve got my clown kit at the ready and other self-deprecating memes on standby, and I’m ready to go. and I should note that I’m also ready for Horikoshi to pull some absolute bullshit and be like, “oh you know what, we haven’t checked in with Rat Principal in a while have we” and spend the entire chapter on nonsense like that. I’M READY FOR FUCKING ANYTHING so bring it

(ETA: it would be nice if this man wouldn’t call my bluff every now and again.)

oh, right, we were due a color page! wow look at this

isn’t this supposed to be the future?? what’s with all of these staticky CRT TVs

anyway, so! is this the first time we’ve seen Tomura’s stylish finger prosthetic glove thingy in color?? because I didn’t expect it to be red. also, at some point you just have to give in and change your pants into cutoffs or something, Tomura. start a new trend of stylish villain capris

meanwhile Deku is dressed like he’s going on a journey into the desert to find a mystical oasis. actually this cape looks a lot like Gran Torino’s. I have to go back and see if Gran’s is all raggedy like this

(ETA: it wasn’t before but APPARENTLY IT IS NOW. I also forgot that Horikoshi had showed it sitting on a side table in the hospital a few chapters ago.)

lastly, AFO looks like someone’s thumb after they���ve been washing dishes for twenty minutes. you are just the ugliest dude in history, and as always, fuck you

HAHAHA SOB I KNEW IT

oh, Twowy McTwoface is finally starting to turn around? better CUT BACK TO DEKU’S HOSPITAL ROOM THEN. wouldn’t want to accidentally ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS or SOLVE ANY MYSTERIES, god forbid

well, whatever. whatever!! anyway so now someone’s knocking at the door. I say “someone” but we all know it’s Hawks

yep

they were actually standing outside the door for a while hoping they’d overhear another juicy plot conversation, but no such luck this time

lmaooo Jeanist wtf

acting all embarrassed, but you’re really just as curious as Hawks is. making him do all the dirty work for you huh

ARE YOU SERIOUS THIS IS AN INJUSTICE

so like two seconds after Katsuki gets dragged away you open the door for the rest of them!! well, fine!! I really want it to be a more private/personal moment between the two of them anyway so let the other kids check in on Deku first then

and in the meantime, time to see Hawks put the thumbscrews to All Might’s resolve lol

I wonder how much of it Hawks has already put together in the last five minutes. One for All is something connected to All for One that Tomura seems to want. Tomura was apparently targeting Deku. that’s more than enough to make a few deductions right there. I wonder how much Hawks knows about Deku’s quirk. he did watch the sports festival, and he ran into the kids interning under Endeavor that one time

okay well maybe he hasn’t put the rest of it together just yet, but Hawks is making a pretty reasonable pitch here to All Might

also this is a pretty spectacular view. is this a hospital or a hotel??

AHLKJLKJLKJ ARE YOU SERIOUSLY GOING TO TELL THEM

OH MY GOD HE IS?!?!

JUST LIKE WE ALL EXPECTED, THE NEXT TWO PEOPLE TO LEARN THE TRUTH ABOUT OFA ARE GOING TO BE HAWKS, AND BEST FUCKING JEANIST

-- LFKLKKLDK ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS. ARE YOU --

( •̀_•́ )

[sitting cross-legged on the ground pulling up little clumps of grass and letting them fall from my fingers one by one] yeah. sure. okay. fine. sure

-- OKAY, NO. NUH-UH. NO

everybody better hold tight cuz I’m about to pick up this whole chapter and yeet it into the ocean like a fucking frisbee lol

HORIKOSHI I DON’T CARE ABOUT THESE PEOPLE SITTING HERE WATCHING TV WTF

-- OH

well okay then. proceed. though lord help me if they’re about to reveal the secret of OFA to the whole fucking world skdkj

oh snap

well, there it is. pretty much what I expected, but it’s good to actually get to see this moment with him taking responsibility

though at the same time, thank you Horikoshi for not forcing us to sit through the rest of that

their fucking faces omg. okay but seriously, what nation doesn’t secretly love a good scandal

the Endeavor Pamphlets, part two. thank you for giving the country something to opine about on twitter in these trying times, Enji

so now they’re asking about Hawks and Jeanist but I cannot even focus on anything all of a sudden because what?!

is Jeanist even a real actual human being you guys?! are we sure he’s not three kids sitting on each other’s shoulders?? are you related to that one guy with the really long neck from the Jedi Council?? are you Orochimaru, bro??

so now Hawks is apologizing for the murder of Twice, and for hiding the connection with his dad

the fact that he has to give this serious formal apology and beg forgiveness for the shameful crime of Having An Abusive Father is really something else, though. just. it’s realistic, but I still hate it

moving on now to the one thing he actually does owe the public an explanation for

not to go all “Hawks did nothing wrong” on you guys yet again, but seriously. 100% facts. fandom can (and no doubt will) debate this until the end of time, but if Twice had gotten away they wouldn’t be having this press conference right now because there wouldn’t be any heroes left to give one. anyways though, I’ve already said more than enough about that in previous posts

so now some severe-looking lady with the weirdest fingers I’ve ever seen is saying that her mother was injured during Machia’s rampage

and she’s basically all “a fuck lot of good ‘I’m sorry’ does us all about now.” true true

wow she’s really getting fired up

and now Enji is basically saying that he understands that an apology isn’t enough, and what they really need now are solutions. okay, well! SO THEN WHAT IS THE PLAN THEN

hmmfsdgh

this eloquent PEZ dispenser makes a good point you guys

wait, hold up

CERTAIN citizens?? um excuse me, what??

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh shit

holy shit. well, this will go over well

okay! so this tells me a number of things, though

basically the minute that Hawks learned about One for All, he realized that anyone connected to Deku (e.g. Inko) would be a target for AFO. AFO wants OFA, meaning AFO wants Deku, and one of the easiest ways to get to Deku would be to target his family

Hawks therefore realized that Inko needed to be placed into protective custody

but the fact that ALL of the hero course students’ families (and is it only the U.A. hero course, or all of the hero course students across the country?) are being given protection tells me that Hawks and co. don’t want to single Deku out as being important. so then it looks like they’re not going to tell everyone about OFA (or at least not the public. which, good). so rather than drawing suspicion by saying “we’ve got to protect everyone connected with this one kid”, they’re making it seem like all the U.A. kids’ families are getting this treatment

but since the heroes are now spread so thin, they can’t just send a protective detail to each and every family, so they’re bringing all of the families to the same place instead to better keep an eye on them

so that’s all well and good, and a very smart move. except that idk how all of this is going to go over with the general public, all of whom are probably feeling unsafe at the moment, and who will probably see this as preferential treatment -- basically just the heroes looking after their own and leaving everyone else to fend for themselves

(ETA: okay so @hanashimas​’ translation clarifies that U.A. is offering their services as an evacuation shelter for everyone who wants it, not just the families of the U.A. students. that’s much more appropriate so I withdraw my previous “wtf” reaction lol.)

anyway though here’s Mitsuki and Inko

can we take this as confirmation that the two of them really are friends? that’s one piece of fanon that I’ve always hoped was true, so I’m gonna go ahead and say it’s confirmed

(ETA: also this means that Hagakure’s parents (or maybe “parents” in quotation marks) will supposedly be moving in as well. sure am curious as to how that’s going to go.)

now someone in the press crowd is asking whether U.A. can provide adequate security, which is honestly the LAST thing I expected these people would be outraged about lol. shows what I know I guess

(ETA: again though, this makes sense if the “certain civilians” thing was just a translation error.)

LMAO DAMMIT ENJI

YOU CAN’T JUST ALWAYS PULL THE “JUST WATCH ME” TRICK AND EXPECT IT TO SHUT DOWN THE CONVERSATION EVERY DAMN TIME YOU ASSHOLE

-- OH MY GOD RED ALERT

TIME TO ANALYZE THIS BECAUSE OMG

WASH CAN’T BELIEVE HIS FAMILY GROUP CHAT IS STILL SENDING HIM FUCKING MEMES AT A TIME LIKE THIS. HE DOESN’T GIVE A FUCK IF THE DABI DANCE IS TRENDING ON TIKTOK, MOM!!

FOR A MINUTE I THOUGHT MT. LADY WAS HOLDING MIDNIGHT’S TORN-UP MASK, AND BY THE TIME I REALIZED THAT’S ACTUALLY HER MASK AND NOT MIDNIGHT’S, I HAD ALREADY CONSTRUCTED AN ELABORATE HEADCANON IN WHICH MT. LADY AND MIDNIGHT WERE SECRETLY DATING BUT HADN’T COME OUT TO ANYONE YET, AND THEN TRAGEDY STRUCK, AND NOW MT. LADY IS GETTING READY TO SET OUT TO SEEK VENGEANCE. AND WELL, NOW THAT THIS HEADCANON EXISTS IN THE WORLD, I’M NOT SURE IF I’M READY TO GET RID OF IT

MIRKO HAS GOTTEN HERSELF A PROSTHETIC (ROBOT??!) ARM, NOTHING ELSE THAT’S HAPPENING IN THIS CHAPTER IS EVEN SLIGHTLY IMPORTANT!!! HELLO!!!!!

AIZAWA WITH THE EYEPATCH GOOD LORD. THE WORLD ISN’T READY. HE LOOKS LIKE HE HASN’T SLEPT IN NINETY-EIGHT YEARS, BUT SOMEHOW HE MAKES IT INTO THE HOTTEST THING EVER AS PER USUAL

WHO THE FUCK IS THIS FUCKING GUY. ARE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW HIM? IS THIS KAMUI?? WAS THAT THING WHICH I ALWAYS ASSUMED WAS HIS HAIR ACTUALLY A HELMET OR SOMETHING WHAT

LOL AND MEANWHILE

you tell me, Dabi! weren’t you the one who said that wouldn’t be enough to kill him? what even is your endgame here. I’m starting to worry about the villain brain cell supply you guys. I feel like Compress took most of them with him when he left

OH??

“when asked about One for All, Endeavor fucking lied through his teeth.” well, well, well

SLKDFJLSKGDJLKLKGJL THE DORMS

( ⁰ ⌂ ⁰ )

SLDKJFLKJWLKJLK

WLKDJSLKJFWKELKSDJLKHGLK

HDSMFLKGKL:GDSELK

OCHAKO’S HAND IS SHAKING OH MY GOD

THERE’S YOUR KAMINARI, EVERYONE!!

RHA’S SCANLATION TEAM REALLY THREW DEKU’S HANDWRITING UNDER THE BUS HERE HUH

HE TOLD EVERYONE!?

WHY THE FUCK IS HE WRITING IT AS A LETTER

(ETA: 9. also if he really wrote every kid in his class then that means the U.A. traitor -- or Hagakure as we like to call her around these parts -- also knows about OFA, and knows that Deku has run the fuck off and isn’t at U.A. anymore. so that’s just great!)

OH HELL NO

the hell does that mean, you must leave. leave to go where. son you are not up and leaving to go power up and lead us all into a timeskip. and I swear to GOD, if you left Kacchan too...!!

MY GOD I CAN’T PROPERLY ABSORB ALL OF THESE OCHAKO FEELS RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I’M TOO TERRIFIED TO SCROLL TO THE LAST FUCKING PAGE, FUCK

I JUST GOTTA DO IT. I JUST GOTTA SUCK IT UP AND DO IT. FUCK

FUCK

WHAT. THE. FUCK

y’all I’m not even gonna waste your time with more keysmashing, JUST ASSUME THAT I AM DOING IT NONSTOP, FOREVER. and let’s just jump RIGHT IN HERE

okay so here I thought that All Might and co. had taken him away somewhere to train, but that is CLEARLY not what’s going on here. this kid is standing here in his Apocalypse Aesthetic hero costume which has CLEARLY seen better days, with Gran Torino’s cloak (GUESS THAT EXPLAINS THAT, THEN?? SO DID GRAN FUCKING DIE EXCUSE ME WTF), and a fucking backpack. this little green idiot has RUN AWAY FROM HOME. this is the absolute LAST THING ON EARTH I ever expected to happen so PARDON ME WHILE I SCREAM CONFUSEDLY INTO THE VOID

he does not look okay. you guys he doesn’t look okay at ALL. he has NEVER looked like this. this isn’t just a “I’m sad because I’m leaving all my friends behind” kind of look on his face, or even just a “Gran Torino died maybe and I’m still having emotions over it” look. this is an EXHAUSTED, dead look in his eyes. something terrible has happened

WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR ARMS DEKU. THE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING DOWN WITH YOUR ARMS GODDAMMIT

love how this random building is just straight up collapsing, like that’s just a normal thing that happens every day now. lovely

APRIL MEANS IT’S NOW FULL ON SCHEDULED ALL-MIGHT-DYING-HOURS, BUT LET’S COMPLETELY IGNORE THAT THOUGH BECAUSE FUCK THAT NOISE

“THE SECOND USER? WHO KNOWS? CERTAINLY NOT ME” HORIKOSHI I SWEAR TO GOD

“BAKUGOU? NEVER HEARD OF HIM!” HORIKOSHI PLEASE

WHERE. IS. KACCHAN

did he go with Deku?? did he get a chance to talk to him before he left?? did he get his own private letter which he read and then promptly blew up in a fit of panicked rage?? is he going to go after him?? DOES HORIKOSHI KNOW WHAT HE’S DOING TO ME RIGHT NOW?? OF COURSE HE DOES, DON’T BOTHER ANSWERING THAT

omg. though actually the fact that we’ve already jumped a few weeks forward makes me hopeful that there won’t actually be another timeskip, or at least not much of one. I’m sure that’ll be the big debate of the week, but I don’t think we can jump too far forward here. for starters because of that All Might prophecy I mentioned. and also because TomurAFO isn’t just going to wait around for months. and also because I’m 100% sure that Deku’s running-away backpack is just filled ENTIRELY WITH NOTEBOOKS and this asshole cannot possibly survive more than 3 days on his own. UNLESS SOMEONE COMES TO HELP HIM THAT IS. OR SOMEONES, EVEN. OMG. omg omg omg. fuck this chapter lmao

[a-room-of-my-own]

A while before the latest hoo-ha about Judith Butler, I had just been reading her again. Though she claims her critics have not read her, this simply isn’t the case. I read Gender Trouble when it first came out and it was important at the time . That time was long,long ago. She was just one of the many ‘post-structuralist’ thinkers I was into. I would trip off to see  Luce Irigaray or Derrida whenever they appeared.

I got an interview  with Baudrillard and tried to sell it to The Guardian but they  didn’t know who he was so its fair to say I was fairly immersed in that world of theory.  For a while, I had a part time lecturing job so I had to keep on top of it. Though Butler’s idea of gender as performance was not new , it was interesting.  RuPaul said it so much more clearly in a  quote nicked from  someone else “Honey ,we are born naked, the rest is drag”

What I was looking for again , I guess is not any clarity – her writing is famously and deliberately difficult-  but whether there was ever any sense of the material body. She wrote herself in 2004 “I confess however I am not a very good materialist. Every time I try to write about the body, the writing ends up being about language” . 

Butler from on high ,cannot really think about the body at all which is why they (Butler’s chosen pronoun) are now the high priestess of a particular kind of trans ideology.  The men who worship Butler are not versed in high theory. The fox botherer had a “brain swoon” at some very ordinary things Butler said. Mr Right Side of history nodded along in an interview. Clearly neither of these men are versed in any of this philosophy and would be better off sticking to tax law and the decline of the Labour Party. Butler is simply a totem for them.

Butler said in the Guardian interview for instance  “Gender is an assignment that does not just happen once: it is ongoing. We are assigned a sex at birth and then a slew of expectations follow which continue to “assign” gender to us.”

So yeah? That’s a fairly basic view of the social construction of gender though I take issue with the assigned at birth thing ,which I will come back to and why I started reading her again in the first place.

This phrase “Assigned sex at birth” is now common parlance but simply does not make sense  to me. I am living with someone who is pregnant. I have given birth three times and been a birthing  partner. I know where babies come from. There is a deep disconnect here between language and reality which no amount of academic jargon can obliterate. 

Babies  come from bodies. Not any bodies but bodies that have a uterus. They grew inside a woman’s body until they  get pushed out or dragged out into the world. 

The facts of life that we are now to be liberated from in the form of denial. Only one sex can have babies but we must now somehow not say that. The pregnant “people” of Texas will now be forced into giving birth to children they don’t want because they are simply “host bodies”. The language of patriarchal supremacy and that of some of the trans ideologues is remarkably close, as is their biological ignorance.

There is no foetal heatbeat at six weeks for instance. When a baby is born , doctors and midwives do not randomly assign a sex, they observe it and they do it though genitalia. 

There is a question over a tiny percentage of babies ,less that one percent with DSDs but even then they are sexed with doctors having  difficult conversations with parents about what may happen later.

Somehow, though when I read the way in which this is now all discussed it is clear to me that the people talking have never been pregnant, never had a foetal scan, never been near a birth , never miscarried, do not understand that even with a still birth babies are still sexed and often named. 

If you want to know the sex of your baby you can pay privately and know at 7 weeks ((*49-56 days from the first day of the mother’s last menstrual cycle). A 12 week scan will show it. That is why so many female foetuses are aborted . I have reported on this. 

Talking to paediatricians about this is interesting because they do indeed have to think through these things that we are being told are not real eg. that sex is just a by-product of colonialism for instance.  Sometimes pre-conception , geneticists will be looking at chromosomes because certain diseases are more likely in men or women. Males have a higher risk of haemophilia for instance.  

One doctor told me “When babies are premature, the survival advantage of females over males is well known throughout neonatology. This is sometimes something we talk about with parents when there is threatened premature labour around 23 weeks' gestation and options to discuss about resuscitation and medical interventions. In fertility treatment (or counselling around fertility in the context of medical treatments) it is pretty inherent to know whether we need to plan around sperm, or ova + pregnancy.”

She also said that if she involved in a birth that “assigning” isn’t the word she world use. “Observed genitals a highly reliable observation, just like measuring weight or head circumference which is also done at this time. “ Another doctor said that anyone involved with a trans man giving birth  would be doing the best for the patient in front  of them. 

Sex then is biological fact. A female baby will have all the eggs she will ever have when she is first born which is kind of amazing. It is not bio-essentialist to say that our sexed bodies are different nor is it transphobic to recognise it.

Except of course in my old newspaper ,The Guardian who are now so hamstrung by their  own ideology they have got their knickers in such a twist they can barely walk.  They completely misreported the WiSpa incident , basically ignored the Sonia  Appleby  judgement at the Tavistock. Appleby was a whistle blower ,a respected professional concerned with safe guarding. She won her case. The cherry on the cake this week was an interview with Butler, themselves (?) in which they went on about Terfs being fascists and needing to extend the category of women.

Does anyone EVER stop to think that most gender critical women are of the left, supporters of gay rights, often lesbian and that this is not America? We are not in bed with the far right. This is bollocks. Just another way to dismiss us.  

As we watch Afghanistan and Texas ,to say Butler’s words were tone deaf is to say the least. But they didn’t even have the guts to keep the most offensive stuff in the piece and overnight edited it out without really explaining why : the bits where Butler described gender critical people as fascist. Perhaps because the person their “reporters” had  defended against  transphobia at WiSpa turned out to be a known sex offender,  perhaps because someone pointed out that Butler was throwing around the word fascist rather like Rik Mayall used to do in the Young Ones. 

All of this is rather desperate and readers deserve better. When I left that newspaper I said that I thought and expected editors to stand up for their writers in public. Instead they go into some catatonic paralysis. I may have not liked this interview but it should never have been cut. Stand by what you publish or your credibility is shot.

But this is about more than Judith Butler and their refusal to support women . Butler is not really any kind of feminist at all. What this is about is the large edifice of trans ideology  crumbling when any real analysis is applied. Yes, I have read Shon Faye’s book and there are some interesting points in it and I totally agree that the lives of trans people should be easier and health care better . I have never said anything but that.

What Faye does in the book is say that there can be no trans liberation under capitalism so there will be a bit of a wait I suspect. 

Yet surely it is the other way round and what we are seeing is that trans ideology (not trans people – I am making a distinction here ) represent the apex of capitalism .

For it means that the individual decides their own gendered essence and then spends a fortune on surgery and a lifetime on medication to achieve the appearance of it. Of course lots of people spend a lifetime  on medication but not out of choice.  Marx understood very well that the abolition of our system of production would free up women.

Now it is all about freeing up men. Who say they are women. Quelle surprise.  

 Nussbaum’s famous take down of Butler is premised exactly on the sense of individual versus collective struggle “ The great tragedy in the new feminist theory in America is the loss of a sense of public commitment. In this sense, Butler’s self-involved feminism is extremely American, and it is not surprising that it has caught on here, where successful middle-class people prefer to focus on cultivating the self rather than thinking in a way that helps the material condition of others. “

Such thinking now dominates academia. There is simply an unquestioning  rehearsal of something most of know not to be true thus Amia Srinivasan writes in The Right to Sex  “At birth, bodies are sorted as ‘male’ or ‘female’, though many bodies must be mutilated to fit one category or the other, and many bodies will later protest against the decision that was made. This originary division determines what social purpose a body will be assigned.”

What does ‘sorted’ mean here? A tiny number of intersex babies are born. A tiny number of people are trans and decide to change their bodies. The feminist demand to challenge gender norms without mutilating any one’s body no longer matters. What matters now is this retrograde return  to some gendered soul. This is not something any decent Marxist would have any truck with . Of course one may change over a lifetime and of course gender is never ‘settled.’ We are complex people who inhabit bodies that often don’t work or appear as we want them to.

But not only is there a denial of basic Marxism going on here , what becomes ever more apparent is  that there is a denial of motherhood. Butler said “Yet gender is also what is made along the way – we can take over the power of assignment, make it into self-assignment, which can include sex reassignment at a legal and medical level.”

Self-assignment is key . One may birth oneself. No longer of woman born but self -made. This is a theoretical leap but it also one that has profound implications for women as a sex class. We are really then, just the  host bodies to a new breed of people who self-assign.

Maybe that is the future although look around the word and there isn’t a lot of self-assignment going on. There are simply women shot and beaten in the street, choked to death or having  their rights taken  away. There is no identifying out of this , there is no fluidity here . This is not discourse. It is brutality and do we not have some responsibility to other women to confront male violence ?

Instead the hatred is aided and abetted by so called philosophers describing  other women as Terfs. It is utterly depressing.

The sexed body. The pregnant body. The dying body. The body is in trouble when we can’t talk about it . I thought of Margaret Mary O’Hara’s  beautiful and  strange lyrics and what they might mean. I await my child’s return from the hospital as hers is a difficult pregnancy and thank god they are on the case. The sex of the child she carries does not matter to me at all .

It simply exists. Not in language but within a body. 

Why is that so difficult to acknowledge? 

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Frailty, thy name is woman! {2}

Warnings: noncon sexual acts and rape, masturbation, mentions of miscarriage, depression, and suicide.

This is dark!doctor!Steve Rogers and soft!Peter Parker and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You have an illness that can’t be seen or named. Doctor Rogers is your last chance at a cure as your loving husband tries to rediscover the woman he married.

Inspired by this ask

Note: It took me a while to find the energy to post this, I’m sorry. It’s been hard since I lost my job to wanna do anything but you guys are so sweet and I appreciate that. It’s set in the 1900s so keep that in mind! I hope you all like the last half.

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

You slept better with the effects of the medicine but your energy continued to wane. You went for a walk on the two mornings after your second meeting with Dr. Rogers but returned with only the strength to reach your bed. Your chores once more lacked and you forgot to write out your thoughts.

And Peter. Your husband tried so hard to be patient, to be understanding, and yet that cloud of disappointment hung over you. You wanted to be better for him so why was it so hard?

As the date of your next appointment approached, you were little better than you were before the first. You had ceased following the physician’s instructions and instead found yourself hopeless and hazy. Your tears stained the pillow beside your head and tainted your tongue.

“You will be late,” Peter sat beside you on the bed as he held a steaming cup of tea, “please, you’re doing so well.”

You blinked and said nothing. You were doing so well but just as before, it all fell apart. You couldn’t figure out why it always ended up like this. You couldn’t figure out your own mind and why you couldn’t just be what every other woman was.

“Doctor Rogers can help you. He’s been helping you, dear,” Peter cooed as he rubbed your arm, “and I love you, I’ll always love you, even through all this.”

You frowned and covered your face. He heaved and the porcelain cup clinked on the night table. The bed shifted as he bent forward and held his head in his hands.

“I’m out of ideas, dear,” he said, “I don’t know what else I can do.”

You rolled over and hid from him. You sobbed into the pillow. You didn’t know either.

“I have to go to the laboratory. I cannot be late again,” he stood and you listened to his light footsteps, “I will inform the doctor you are unable to attend. Perhaps we might reschedule.”

You stayed silent and he touched your shoulder. He bent and kissed the crown of your head. 

“I’m not giving up,” he swore, “I won’t.”

He left, reluctantly, and your body shook without restraint. You cried into the pillow case as you were racked with a pain so deep you weren’t certain it could ever be drawn out. The sense of helplessness was suffocating. It was as if no matter how hard you fought, it would never be enough, you would never be enough.

🩺

You languished as you had. The hours passed as the sunlight shifted on the walls and sent lines through the windows. You sat up and drank the cold tea and stared at the curling metal of the bed frame. You could hear birds outside and smell the pollen of new flowers but it only made the knot in your chest tighten.

Then a knock came, distant but firm. You tilted your head, numb and lost as it came again. You looked down at yourself, the wrinkled front of your sleeping gown and the brown stain from the tea dribbled from the brim of the cup. It sounded again and you winced.

It didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. You got up slowly and stumbled around the room. You went through to the front room and neared the door as another rap shook it. A figure stood on the other side of the frosted glass. You touched the latch and trembled as you thought of turning it.

“It’s Doctor Rogers,” a voice called through the door, “will you let me in, ma’am?”

You closed your eyes and slumped. You shook your head and carefully turned the lock. You tried to stand straight and opened the door. Dr. Rogers’ smile fell as he saw you. His fingers clutched the handle of his leather bag and he pushed his shoulders up.

“May I come in?” he asked.

“Why are you here, doctor?”

“Well, you did not come to the office,” he said bluntly, “it did give me concern.”

“I have a headache,” you lied, “did my husband not make another appointment?”

“A headache?” he wondered doubtfully, “you might try mint or willow bark for the ailment but I do not think it effective on a conjured malady.”

“Doctor,” you fluttered your lashes guiltily.

“You might assuage my doubts and my concerns if you let me attend to you,” he said, “just to be certain you aren’t in dire condition.”

You looked down and stepped back. “Come in, doctor,” you murmured, “I apologize I did not come--”

“And what have you done these last weeks?” he ignored your apology, “have you been taking exercise? How have you been eating? Have you attended any of your chores?”

Your silence was an admission but he did not show the disappointment he expected. Instead his face softened with empathy as he set his bag down on a round table beside the upholstered chair and opened it.

“You have not even dressed yourself, I can guess at how you fare,” he said, “so I think we might take a different approach to your treatment. We should build to your independent healing although I do expect you to still attempt to adhere to my prescriptions.”

“Doctor?”

“Many contemporary physicians and psychologist suggest that hypnosis might be beneficial to those with your affliction,” he brought out his pocket watch and looked to you, “if you would lay on your back,” he pointed to the sofa.

“Hypnosis?” you drew your brows together, “I don’t think, well, I don’t know much about it.”

“It is nothing, it is like sleep. I think it will help with your nerves,” he looked at the watch, “you trust me? I am a doctor and I would not do anything but to help you. Why, I came all this way just to see that you were well.”

You felt a pang and realised how inconvenient your negligence was. You went to the couch and did as he said. He pulled the chair to the edge and sat. He held up the watch and let it dangle.

“All you have to do is focus on this,” he tapped the golden front, “and count and breath in time with it.” He began to swing it back and forth as your head was propped up against the arm of the couch, “think of nothing but the watch.”

Your lips parted and you grimaced.

“I know how it seems but haven’t you ever wanted to just not think? Perhaps that is the issue, that you never stop,” he said, “so, humour me.”

He kept on and you followed the watch with your eyes, back and forth, breathing in and out, one, two, three, four, five… Soon your vision blurred and your head felt light and then all your worries were gone. You laid there, blank and bleary, but free.

His voice was distant and the click of the watch as he set it down was almost indiscernible. “That’s it, you just relax,” you felt a tickle over your knees. 

You didn’t move, you realised you couldn’t, and that the tickle was your sleeping gown. The fabric was drawn above your knees and a warmth glided up your calf. You were moved down so that you laid entirely flat, your leg slipped over the side of the couch.

“You must stay relaxed and breathe,” Dr. Rogers said as you felt his hand creep higher on your leg, “isn’t it nice?”

He pushed between your thighs and turned his hand. His flesh was hot against yours.

“We must relieve the tension,” he purred and slid his fingers along your cunt. Your eyes rolled back and you purred at the riling sensation. He poked between your folds and you felt a flush spread across your body, “just breathe.”

He rubbed along your opening and over your bud. His motion was steady as he swirled his fingertips and you felt yourself growing slick. You could think of nothing but your breath, but the burning in your core as he stoked it. You gasped and your heart beat faster as he played with your clit. It never felt so good.

He pressed a finger to your opening again and slowly dipped inside. He drew in and out several times and added another, bending both as he kept his thumb to your bud. He rocked his hand and your entire body with it. Your voice was loud and yet it was beyond your control.

“Let it go, let it all go,” he cooed, “come on.”

You moaned and it grew to shrill cry as a strike of lightning shot through you. Your body contorted as your core bloomed and fire swept through your veins. He guided you through the paralysing pleasure and stilled his hand only as the ripples faded.

Slowly he drew his hand from your cunt and sat back. He hummed and your skirt was pulled back down your legs. He took a deep breath and snapped his fingers. Your eyes shot open and suddenly the room was clear again.

You sat up, startled, as if awaking from a dream. He caught your shoulder and eased you back against the arm.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

You opened your mouth to answer but didn’t know what to say. You couldn’t explain how you felt.

“What I just did, you can do, you should do, at least once a day,” he leaned back and rubbed the wool of his trousers, “it is perfectly scientific. There’s have been a slew of recent studies which find that the female orgasm can be very impactful for woman who suffer so.”

“But, isn’t it--”

“What is wrong about it? It is human nature and if God made humans with that nature, it cannot be so bad. You have not spent seed without fruition, you have only used what creation gifted you,” he said, “but consider how you feel right now. You feel better, am I correct?”

You stared at him and bit your lip. You did feel lighter, you felt more awake, and you felt peaceful.

“Yes,” you whispered, “I suppose I do.”

“Great,” he clapped his hands and stood. He took the watch and returned it to his bag, “should I remain a time? We might talk?”

“No, no, you should go,” you stood unsteadily, “you have other patients and I’ve kept you so long.”

“It was not so long,” he said as he closed his bag, “but if you would that I go, I will.”

You nodded and saw him to the door with a frantic farewell. You locked it behind and turned to lean against it. Your heart was racing again. You thought of Peter, of his dismay that morning, of all those times you’d been unable to hold him.

🩺

You were hesitant at first and you resisted the doctor’s suggestion. Several days passed but the writing, the tea, the walking, none of it helped and you were so inconsistent, it was as if you hadn’t changed at all.

Then one morning, Peter left, again after a hopeless plea for you to get up, and you laid under your shroud of self-loathing and longing. You thought of it for a while, debated it in your head, and as you felt beneath your sleeping gown, the guilt nipped at your neck.

You tried to recall what Dr. Rogers did and tried to mimic him. As you played with your bud, your fingers were soon guided instead by the delightful stirring in your core. You shuddered as you slickened and you kept on twirling and twirling. Your breaths grew harried and you gulped as your voice spilled forth in weak moans.

Your toes curled as your hand moved faster and you came in a tangle of linen and wool. You pressed your hand flat to your pelvis and went limp over the mattress. You were floating, flying, and you felt as if you might do anything.

After a moment, you sat up and glanced around. You wiped your wet fingers on your nightgown as you stood and made the bed carefully. Then you went to the armoire and pulled an outfit from its depths. You dressed one piece at a time and looked at yourself in the mirror. That was something.

The hours before Peter’s return had you anxious but not deflated. You felt lost in the kitchen as you prepared the evening meal and when your husband returned, he smiled and searched as if in disbelief.

“Dear,” he kissed your cheek and you latched onto him to kiss his lips instead.

“Peter,” you said breathily, “I’m so sorry.”

His cheek twitched and he caressed your cheek, “don’t be.”

“I don’t know if I’m better but… I’m trying,” you said.

“I know,” he wrapped his arms around you and drew you close. His eyes flitted down to the bodice of your dress, “I am such a fool, I didn’t even say how wonderful you look.”

You laughed softly and cradled his face between your hands, “Truly?”

“How could you ever marry me? You’re so beautiful.”

“Shhh,” you hushed him, “I wouldn’t any other.”

🩺

The tentative touching became a ritual. You were both pleasantly surprised and confused by the effects. You never would have thought of the act, you never would have attempted it after years of being forbidden from it. You felt even your marital bed was restrained by the laws of propriety.

But as you toyed with yourself, you wanted more. You wanted your husband again, just as you had on your wedding night. So you waited again with dinner cooking in the oven and greeted him in a dress you hadn’t worn since before you married.

After he ate, you tidied up and read a newspaper in the upholstered chair. For a moment you stared at him and felt a twinge. Dr. Rogers had sat there and he had… you had let another man… but he was a physician and it was only treatment. At least, he made it seem so.

You went to the bedchamber and undressed. It was a tedious process and by the time you wore nothing but your chemise, you were ready to snap the laces of your bodice. You set aside all your layers and checked your reflection. Did he still want you like that?

You peeked outside the door and called to him. He looked over his shoulder and folded his paper as he stood.

“What is it, dear?” he neared and stopped short as you stepped out from behind the door frame, “oh.”

“Husband,” you stepped closer and bit his lip.

“Are you certain?” he asked as he touched your chemise.

“Certain. I love you,” you said.

“Sweetheart,” he crashed his lips into yours and snaked his hands around your body.

He ran his hands down to your bottom and scooped you up. You cried out as you parted from his lips and he carried you backward into the room. He dropped you on the mattress and tore off vest. You got to your knees and reached to unbutton his shirt. You helped him undress eagerly, adding your chemise to the pile as he climbed up after you.

He rolled you onto your back as he leaned over you and kissed you again. His hand ventured over your chest and he felt your breasts with a purr. You grabbed his hand and guided it lower, pushing his fingers between your legs. He hummed into your mouth and let you lead his fingers, taking the motion on his own as you opened up to him.

You clung to him and brushed your hand against his cock. He groaned and teased you more eagerly. Your thighs clamped around his hand and you came as your body jittered against his.

“Sweetheart,” he breathed as he slowed his fingers, “are you alright?”

“I’m wonderful,” you gripped his cock and stroked him, “I want you.”

He moved between your legs and bent over you. He felt along your folds and spread you as he found your entrance. He pushed inside you slowly and you leaned your head back with a sigh. He sheathed himself entirely and stopped as he bent to kiss your neck.

“I love you,” he uttered as he tilted his hips.

“I love you, too,” you grasped his biceps, wiry but thick, as he rocked into you.

He nuzzled along your throat and jaw and nibbled at your lip as he sped up. He growled as writhed against you, hungry and desperate. You clung to him and moved your hips in time with his. You wanted all of him.

Your bud rubbed against his pelvis and you urged him on with breathy pleas. You hooked your legs around his as you chased another ascent and came as your nails sank into his shoulders. He kept his motion and lifted himself to look you in the eye. He watched your dazed delight as he began to tremble.

“Oh, oh, oh,” he stammered and closed his eyes as he hung his head. He gave several short thrusts before he collapsed and rested atop you out of breath.

“Peter,” you played with his hair as he tickled along your side.

“You can’t,” he said, “you can’t love me as much as I love you.”

🩺

For the first time, as you sat in the waiting room, you didn’t feel nervous. You were anxious to speak to the doctor but you didn’t dread it. Those last weeks had seen so much change, they could have been years. When your name was called, you stood and crossed to the nurse. You were shown to the room and you sat on the couch.

Dr. Rogers entered shortly and greeted you with his usual manner. He stopped however before he sat and considered you. He squinted and smirked.

“You’re well?” he asked.

“I think so,” you said with a smile.

“Things have… changed,” his lips straightened and he sat slowly.

“Some,” you said, “and I can’t thank you enough.”

“You’ve followed my advice?”

“Yes, I’ve been doing more around the house and even writing here and there. I went for a walk--”

“You’ve been touching yourself regularly?” he asked abruptly.

You blanched and gave a nervous chuckle. You didn’t expect him to be so forward.

“Well, yes, I have a little,” you admitted, “as you bid.”

“Mhmm,” he poked his cheek with his tongue, “and it’s helped?”

“It’s not the only thing but--”

“Does it feel as good when you do it alone?” he interrupted.

You shook your head and blinked at him. You were confused. His methods were different than any other doctor you’d seen but his questions, that look, it was off.

“What do you-- I don’t understand,” you pouted, “I… it was part of the hypnosis. You were showing me what to do.”

He shifted on the stool and sighed. He tapped his heel on the floor. His gaze was discerning and crippling. You couldn’t read his expression but it wasn’t his usual smile.

“I asked you if it felt better when I did it,” he intoned tersely.

You were quiet. You looked at the door and swallowed. You stood and he did too.

“We’re not done. We’ve barely begun and you’re being evasive. Should I be concerned?”

“I don’t… understand. You’re angry with me?” you asked.

“I’m asking you questions that you won’t answer. As your doctor, I need to know these things,” he insisted, “now sit down.”

You lowered yourself slowly and stared at him. He strode over to the sofa and sat beside you.

“Did it feel better?” he asked.

You had tried to forget that afternoon, even as it forced itself into your mind whenever you let your hand wander. You were afraid to mention it aloud. Afraid to admit that you felt guilty for it.

“I… I suppose it did,” you said quietly.

“Mmm, and your husband, how are you getting along with him?”

“Well, I think, we have been… closer.”

“You’ve engaged intimately?”

“Uh, yes, he is my husband so yes,” you sputtered.

“But you hadn’t before,” he prodded.

“It was different before,” you said, “I am doing everything you’ve said.”

“I didn’t tell you to fuck him,” he snarled.

“I am married to him,” you scoffed, “what did I do wrong?”

“You’re not ready. I am your doctor, you need to consult with me,” he glared at you as your eyes settled on your lap.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t realise.”

“If your treatment is to be effective, you must follow my advisory,” he huffed, “how many times?”

“How many-- not more than five?”

“You’re uncertain?”

“I don’t keep count, doctor, I… I’m very confused.”

He pushed his head back and tilted it side to side as he cracked his neck. He jutted out his jaw and blew out air.

“When you came to me, you were broken,” he sneered, “but now you think you know better than me. Remind me again of your credentials.”

“I didn’t…” you stood and he caught your arm, “Doctor, I do not think this is appropriate and I cannot understand your anger.”

“Why have you come to me?”

“Pardon?”

“Why have you come to me?” he repeated.

“I, um, to get better. To treat my sickness, as you have and I am so grateful--”

“This is your fourth visit and you think yourself healed?” he snorted as he rose and loomed over you. He faced you as his nostrils flared, “you came to me so that I might help you conceive a child after you failed so many times.”

“I--” your voice caught in your throat and your eyes burned, “Doctor, that is unkind.”

“In my professional opinion, you are not the reason for your miscarriages,” he pulled you to him and gruffly cradled your head in his large hand, “my examination did show you more than capable of birthing a healthy child.”

“Please, what are you--”

“I think it is the seed that is bad,” He swung you around so your middle hit the examination table, “it is a theory but we can test it.”

“Doctor,” you tried to push yourself away from the table and he caught the back of your neck, “ahh, please--”

“Be quiet,” he hissed, “you make another noise and I’ll have to say you’re hysteric. A woman like you won’t last in the sanitarium.”

You whimpered and hung your head as you slapped your hands on the table. He squeezed your neck and leaned in.

“Don’t move,” he warned, “this is for your own good, for your health. You want a baby, don’t you?”

You sniffed and your vision blurred from your tears. He released you and his hands trailed down your corset and to your skirts. He lifted them and reached beneath to tear down your bloomers. The action jolted you and he stood, untangling them from your ankles with his foot. He kicked your boots apart and pressed himself to your back as he bunched up the layers of your skirts.

He pushed until you bent over the table, leaning on your elbows as his hot breath encircled you. He felt along your bare ass and tickled the top of your thigh. He pinched you and buried his face in your neck. He growled as he held your skirts in place with one hand and unbuckled his belt. You sobbed and his demand that you shut up was muffled against your collar.

He opened the front of his pants and slipped out his hard member. You winced as you felt the tip brush against your bottom and he shuddered. He bent his knees and guided himself down to your folds. He forced you to arch your back as he searched for your entrance and lined himself up.

He pushed until his tip stretched you and you clawed the white sheet across the table. He slid in another inch and you whined. He slapped his hand over your mouth, his other planted beside yours on the table and bucked. He impaled himself completely, thrusting you onto your toes.

He pulled back and rutted again, hard and impatient. Your hips slammed into the edge of the table with each tilt and you cried into his hand as he forced you lower over the sheet. He pinned your shoulder with his other as he turned your head, your cheek against the linen as he rocked into you.

He let out thick breaths, withholding grunts as he sped up. He pounded into you and the noise of your flesh filled the small room. You closed your eyes and his fingers crawled down along your back. He bent over you as he reached beneath you and found your bud among the layers.

He rubbed you until your sobs were wild moans. He kept them stifled against his palm and hammered against you. You were close to coming as your walls clenched around him and added to the pressure of his fingertips.

“This is what you want,” he whispered in your ear, “hmm, that’s all you need, a child. You will be a wonderful mother…” his voice fizzled and he barely swallowed a grunt, “so sweet, so sweet.”

He snarled and rammed harder than before. Your body quaked as you succumbed to the ripples flowing from your core and you leaked pleasure around his cock. You mewled into his hand and he pressed his lips to your cheek.

“This is the baby you wanted,” he growled and jerked sharply.

He spasmed in a series of hectic thrusts and slowed. He exhaled and removed his hand from your mouth, wiping it on the sheet as he pushed himself up. He slipped out of you and groaned at the sensation. You felt his cum spill out as he dropped your skirts and left you against the table, his belt clinking loudly in the silence.

“I’ll have you scheduled for another home visit,” he went to his desk and inked his pen as you rose, “and you will track your cycle so that we might be sure. Timing,” he tapped his fingers as he finished scribbling notes and stood straight to face you, “is essential.”

You bent to gather your bloomers and he came close. You cowered and he snatched the cotton from your grasp. He put them to his face and inhaled.

“You smell as sweet as you feel,” he turned and bent to shove your undergarments in his bag, “I will make certain your next appointment isn’t so far away.”

[littlemisspascal]

Death and an Angel part 14.5

Death!Din x Cupid F!Reader

Summary:  And it’s unbelievable, truly, that he’s found someone who makes him feel as though he’s flying and falling simultaneously. 

Rating: T

Word Count: 3,701

Warnings: angst, dialogue heavy, language, angst, Violence, plot plot plot, did I mention angst? Cuz it’s here

Author Note: Texas weather is no laughing matter and never have I hated snow more than these last few days. This is definitely more of a transition segment so I wrote shorter snippets as a result, but there is some serious plot development nevertheless. The response to last chapter was so amazing I can’t thank everyone enough for all the love and support 💖💖💖

Links to Part 1 and Part 14 and Part 15

Cross-posted on AO3.

Photo Inspiration:

Ahsoka hijacks the Razor Crest as soon as Din teleports her aboard the ship. She pushes Din out of the cockpit, refusing to let him so much as glimpse the coordinates of the destination she inputs into the nav computer. The Oracle hadn’t been kidding when she said she didn’t trust him going alone to rescue his soulmate.

Bo-Katan hadn’t been phased by Ahsoka’s arrival, adapting to her presence with the same ease as a duck to water. However, Din couldn’t help noticing the moment her mask of cool indifference slipped when Ahsoka asked the reaper to stay in the cockpit with her, claiming they had important matters to discuss. 

Din climbs down the ladder into the hull, recognizing that the conversation about to ensue is not one he needs to be involved in. Fingers twitching restlessly, he commits himself to checking each of the weapons in his armory, sharpening his vibroblades and loading a set of whistling birds into his vambrace. He’d made a promise to Ahsoka against killing Moff Gideon, but he’d made no vow against scarring the Seraph beyond recognition.

When Din’s finished with him, Gideon will be a warning to the rest of the galaxy what happens if you steal from Death. 

He stills at the thrum of satisfaction that runs through his body at the thought of pressing Gideon’s eyeballs out with his thumbs. The darkness within him has grown stronger since he killed Hess and it’s becoming an increasingly harder challenge denying its craving for bloodshed. If not for Ahsoka’s intervention, he would have reaped Xi’an’s soul, breaking another sacred rule. He should feel grateful, but the darkness expresses annoyance instead, upset to have been denied its kill. 

There is a thought that has been plaguing the back of his mind, shackled in the same corner as his other doubts and regrets. He once had iron control over his powers and emotions, but now he’s holding onto his human façade by a mere thread. So slowly he hadn’t even been aware it was happening, his darkness has usurped his morality. 

He’s meant to be a neutral entity, but when he looks at his reflection in the fresher mirror all he sees is a weapon. 

Obsidian orbs have replaced brown eyes. Flawless tan skin has become dissected by lines of ink that once were blue veins. 

Darkness is corrupting him from the inside out, making him a slave to the power he once mastered.

And he doesn’t have a fucking clue how to stop it. 

~~

Bo-Katan joins him in the hull an hour later. She doesn’t say anything , just leans against the wall across from him, and Din continues cleaning the barrel of his amban rifle as if he doesn’t see her. 

The silence isn’t tense or uncomfortable, but he feels her gaze trying to penetrate his helmet. He knows the reaper well-enough to tell there is a question on her mind, but her hesitance to voice it unsettles him. Bo-Katan rarely holds her tongue around him, preferring blunt honesty over sugarcoating, which means whatever is on her mind must be serious. 

He bites back a sigh when she starts restlessly shifting in place and pauses his task. “Ahsoka told you,” he says at last.

“That Moff Gideon fucked with our lives?” Bo-Katan snorts humorlessly. “Yeah, she showed me everything.”

“I’m sorry about your sister.”

“Me too. But it’s...good not being in the dark anymore. I needed to hear the truth,” she replies stoically, but the pointless adjustment of her headband betrays her internal strife. There is a moment of pause before she looks at him again. “I heard about your promise,” she says, and it’s not really a question, except that it is.

Din’s fingers tighten around the rifle. “Did she make you swear the same one?”

“No.” Bo-Katan shakes her head. “No, she didn’t.”

He’s not surprised by the answer. He actually thinks he should have expected it, considering the universe has always held him to a stricter standard than other entities. 

“Ahsoka made it clear to me that this is something between you, Gideon, and your angel alone. I cannot interfere just like you cannot kill him.”

There is bitter resignation in her tone. He recognizes it because he felt the same when he made his promise to Ahsoka. No one likes being told no when they want something. But this—knowing with absolute certainty Gideon is the one responsible for hurting their loved ones and being told you can’t do anything to avenge them? This is the kind of pain that will linger for years to come as an ache in their bones and a scar over their hearts.

It isn’t fair. But Din’s lived long enough to know the universe never intended life to be that way.

“Can I ask you a favor?” Bo-Katan asks, pulling him out of his thoughts.

He blinks at her, realizing this is the question she’d been withholding since she came down the ladder. Never has she asked him a request before. “What is it?”

“You must separate Gideon from the Darksaber,” she answers, expression one of absolute seriousness. “The Armorer warned my people if the Lightsaber was ever mishandled, it would turn against the wielder by transforming into the Darksaber. Instead of empowering you, it deceives you. Fills your head with delusions until you lose your grip on reality entirely.”

“And you want to spare Gideon’s sanity?” Din asks slowly.

“Of course not. The son of a bitch deserves to be punished for his crimes. Even if I did want to,” her lips curl into a snarl at the thought, “there’s no way of undoing the damage done to his mind. What I want is for the weapon to be returned to the Armorer. She’s the only one who can properly dispose of it.”

“Right,” he agrees quietly. Anything that comes out of the Armorer’s forge is built to last the length of eternity. He could toss the Darksaber into the center of a sun and it’d remain whole and unaffected, waiting to twist the mind of the next wielder. Nodding his head, he assures her, “I’ll take care of it, even if I have to cut off his hands.”

“Good.”

~~

Din paces the length of the hull, each thud of his boots making contact with the metal floor blends with the low hum of the engines. Usually he’d ignore the creaks and groans of his home, but the metallic symphony is the only thing capable of drowning out the thoughts in his head urging him to storm the cockpit and retake control from Ahsoka.

“Pacing isn’t going to make us arrive any quicker,” Bo-Katan tells him, not even bothering to open her eyes as she lounges atop one of his storage crates. “Ahsoka said it will be another hour at least.”

He has a retort ready on his tongue when a voice calls out his name from somewhere beyond the Razor Crest.

“Din!”

Din freezes in place as unexpected, heart-wrenching hope slices through his chest. He knows that voice. It’s his favorite in all the galaxy.

“Death?” Bo-Katan asks, concerned by his stillness. “What’s wrong?”

He tentatively reaches out towards the bond, giving it the slightest of tugs. When he feels the distant flicker of a reaction on the other end from his angel he nearly forgets how to breathe.

“The bond,” he murmurs, voice thick with awe and relief. “I can feel it again.”

Longing fills his chest where the hollowness used to reside now that the invisible block separating them is gone. It wraps around his heart, squeezing so tightly he nearly falls to his knees. Din pulls at the bond again on impulse, possessed by the all-consuming need to see her, to have her at his side where she’ll be safe.

The bond protests the harsh treatment, too weak to physically bring them together across the vast distance separating them. He snarls a curse under his breath, hating being helpless to protect her. It’s unfair, he finds himself thinking for a second time. Unfair how it hurts more now being able to feel her presence compared to when he couldn’t at all.

A paper airplane flickers into existence on the horizon of his mind, flying straight into his hand when he reaches out for it. I can’t leave this place. Not yet, the note says. The words themselves are unsettling, but it’s the strength of the emotions she’s attached that has him reeling with shock. For one crazy, electrifying moment he thinks he’s passed onto the afterlife. 

Another note arrives. I miss you, Din. I want to see you so much it hurts. And it’s unbelievable, truly, that he’s found someone who makes him feel as though he’s flying and falling simultaneously. 

As he sends a message of his own, never has he been more certain that if anyone can put an end to the darkness inside of him��it’s her.

~~

“The Moff is an expert when it comes to defensive warding,” Ahsoka says as the three of them stand looking up at a canyon wall that extends in either direction as far as their eyes can see. “But even he can’t hide from my sight.”

Din scuffs at the salt-covered ground with his boot, still coming to terms with the fact all this time Gideon’s been hiding out on Crait of all planets. As much as he wants to believe Ahsoka’s right, his powers can’t detect even the barest hint of the Seraph’s presence.  

Bo-Katan’s eyebrows arch with skepticism. “You’re sure this is the right place? It’s kind of remote.”

“Perfect for building an army,” Ahsoka replies without missing a beat.

Din exchanges a look with his reaper, realizing this is the first time either of them are hearing about this. 

“Gideon has an army?” he asks. “Who—”

“Mercenaries,” she interrupts, turning around to face them. Her blue eyes are distant and cloudy, entranced by a vision. “When I break the warding, all but one will meet the end of their mortal lives attempting to overpower us.”

“All but one? I don’t think so.” Bo-Katan rests her hands deliberately on her blaster pistols. “Anyone who works for Gideon is an enemy in my book.”

“Migs Mayfeld is not to be harmed.” There is steel in Ahsoka’s voice as she blinks back into the present moment.

Din nudges Bo-Katan with his arm when it looks like she wants to continue arguing. The reaper huffs a quiet breath of annoyance, but eventually jerks her head in the tiniest nod of compliance. 

Ahsoka grabs her twin sabers from her belt and ignites their blue blades. She handles her weapons with deadly grace, altering her appearance from peaceful Oracle to fierce and cunning warrior. Turning back to the canyon wall, her gaze trails over the red-brown rocks only to pause and narrow at seemingly random points.

Bo-Katan tries and fails to follow her line of vision. “What are you—”

The Oracle leaps into the air with surprising agility, lashing out with her sabers against the rock. Blinding light bursts forth from the point of collision followed by a flickering glimpse of a gigantic metal door. 

“—looking at,” Bo-Katan finishes quietly, watching Ahsoka swing herself higher to attack another portion of the canyon wall where the next segment of warding is hidden. 

There is something undeniably satisfying about seeing the door materialize as the wardings cloaking it are destroyed. Every precise strike of Ahsoka’s sabers brings Din one step closer to reuniting with his soulmate.

As if spurred by the mere thought of her, fear ripples across the bond like a gust of icy wind, stopping his heart cold. His angel is terrified. Din reaches out as far as the bond will allow in its fragile state, trying to get her attention by pulling at it and shouting her name, but none of his attempts breach the storm of panic. 

“She needs me,” he mutters to himself, stepping forward with clenched fists. His vision narrows until all he can see is the door in front of him, an obstacle that must be dealt with. “She needs my help.”

“Wait,” Bo-Katan calls out, but her voice sounds as if it’s coming from thousands of miles away. “Ahsoka isn’t finished with the warding yet!”

If he were capable of rational thought in that moment, he would have heeded her warning. As it is, he summons his power into the palm of his hand, the darkness inside of him crowing in wicked delight. He winds his arm back, preparing to slam his fist against the door, only for a whipcord to wrap around his wrist with an audible zip. 

He’s pulled backwards onto the ground, breath knocked from his lungs as he lands with a heavy thud. Bo-Katan appears not a second later and pins him in place by straddling his waist. The darkness is demanding he push her aside, knowing with absolute certainty the reaper is no match against him, and it takes all his strength to wrestle the urge under control. 

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” She glares at him, eyes resembling green flames eager to incinerate him.

“I—” he rasps, breathing heavily. His hand starts trembling, a burning itch under his skin. “I can feel her fear. She needs me.”

Bo-Katan blows out a long, frustrated breath. “Well, shit.” She jostles him then, forcing his head to momentarily clear as his helmet smacks the ground. “Look, soulmates are soulmates for a reason, right? I heard it’s like being two halves of the same whole. So if your soulmate is anything like you, she’s not going to give up without a fight. You have to trust she can take care of herself right now. That she’ll be fine.”

Din bristles. Trust is not the issue here. There is no one he trusts more than his angel—not Bo-Katan, not Ahsoka, not even Kuiil. The issue is he’s being asked to deny the instinct to shield her from danger which is woven into every cell of his being.

“She’ll be fine.” The words come out sounding sharp around the edges, cutting his tongue like shrapnel. “Everything will be fine.”

Bo-Katan disconnects the whipcord and rises to full height, apparently satisfied by his agreement. Din pushes himself onto his feet at a slower pace, his hand still shaking as if it's electric. He looks down at it, noticing for the first time the flesh is gone, replaced entirely by shadow. His expression tightens as he observes the change, realizing the black tendrils are slowly creeping up towards his wrist. 

An alarm rings out, reverberating off the canyon walls like an explosion. Din’s gaze snaps up just as Ahsoka lands on the ground in a defensive crouch. Now that it's been fully unveiled, the door bears a striking resemblance to ones he’s seen at military fortresses across the galaxy, ridiculously massive to intimidate enemies and impenetrable from outside attacks. It makes sense, he thinks with a scoff, someone as power-hungry as Gideon claiming an abandoned base as their lair. Without the wardings, Din is able to detect the massive number of souls gathering on the other side, resembling vermin crawling over one another in their haste to arm themselves. 

He searches for his angel’s soul, even just a glimpse of her bright light, only for his powers to instead encounter a massive cloud of dark, negatively-charged energy within a distant corner of the underground tunnel system. It fills an entire room, prohibiting him from sensing if anyone is inside. There is something strangely familiar about the energy, like he’s encountered its essence before, but he can’t recall the specifics of when or where. 

“It’s time.” 

Ahsoka’s voice reels his focus back to his physical surroundings. He notices the way her grip on her sabers tightens in anticipation and out of the corner of his eye Bo-Katan withdraws her blasters from their holsters.

The bottom of the door begins to raise with an earsplitting groan, but the mercenaries only wait the minimum amount of time it takes to pass under without hitting their heads to start charging forward. 

Every mortal has a beginning and an end just like everything else in the galaxy. These mercenaries are no exceptions, having long sealed their fates when they agreed to accept Gideon’s payment. So when Din’s shadowy hand phases through a man’s chest and tears his heart out of its cavity, staining the white salt under their feet crimson as blood bursts from the vacant hole, Din tells himself he’s simply fulfilling destiny. 

He repeats it when he discharges an assault of whistling birds, each one puncturing the throats of each target they encounter with a shrill warcry. And also when he rips a devaronian’s horn out of his head, a fragment of skull and bits of brain matter still gruesomely attached. 

Again and again, with each permanently silenced voice and every shattered fragile bone, destiny is fulfilled. 

~~

Din would be lying if he said he’s never wondered what it would be like to die. To pass on from this world into a new realm for him to explore. He’s imagined the idyllic afterlife mortals have written poems and novels about, describing it as a blissful safe haven where sorrow and tragedy have no definition because they do not exist. He’s familiar with their opinions of damnation’s appearance, too, as an infernal place of fire and brimstone and screaming.

They were wrong about that.

Damnation is not a distant hell. It is found in an underground lair on Crait. 

Instead of flames and sulfur, a Cupid’s blood is split and a soulmate bond is snapped in half. 

Instead of screaming, a madman laughs.

“I’ve waited so long for this moment,” Gideon says through his chuckles, hauling himself onto his feet. His voice is an abrasive rasp, as if he’s shredded his vocal cords by screaming. “I’ve had to be patient, wait to find your weakness so I could catch your attention. It’s a shame, really, she had to be the one you fell for. She was quite the little spitfire.”

Din stares at his soulmate’s motionless body, frozen in place. Please, he pulls at his severed half of the bond, resolutely ignoring how cold it feels. Open your eyes, angel. Don’t leave me. Please.

There is no response. Just heartbreaking silence.

“I sense your anger, your hurt, and grief. Those are mortal emotions.” The Seraph grimaces in disgust, then lets out a low hiss when he agitates the wounds on his face. “By living amongst their kind you’ve forgotten your true potential. You are not their equal, Death. You are their superior. Immortals are meant to be better than them. To rule over every aspect of their pitiful lives.”

“I don’t want to rule anyone,” Din says, dragging his eyes away from his angel to glare at Gideon. Both his hands begin to shake as his mind plunges into a gaping abyss of remorse and despair. “I just want a life with her.”

“Even dead, she continues to blind you.”

Din snarls viciously in response. His control is pushed closer to the brink, holding on by mere fingertips, and darkness engulfs the entire room as a result. 

The glow of the Darksaber persists, reflecting off his beskar and Gideon’s armor. It reminds him of moonlight, and he thinks for all that Bo-Katan warned him about the weapon’s sinful qualities, she did not mention its beauty. Even Ahsoka’s vision had failed to truly capture its radiance, just as a holovid can never compete with a face-to-face conversation. 

His powers are drawn to the Darksaber. The energy it emits matches the one encountered earlier when searching the tunnels for his angel’s aura. This close, there is no ignoring its familiarity, not when his brain feels seconds away from exploding. 

“I used to believe love conquers all,” Gideon prattles on, seemingly oblivious to Din’s torment. “I chose it as the Cupid motto because I thought there was nothing mortals cared more about than the health and happiness of their loved ones. Only after our fateful encounter did the Lightsaber reveal to me the truth.”

Lightsaber? Din’s head jerks up to stare at him, biting back a wince when the throbbing in the back of his mind intensifies at the movement. Does Gideon not realize the weapon has transformed? 

By connecting Ahsoka’s claim that Gideon didn’t fully understand the consequence of corrupting the Lightsaber with Bo-Katan’s explanation that the Darksaber deceives its wielder, the answer is an obvious one: he doesn’t.

Gideon mistakes Din’s confusion for interest and his lips slowly curl into a smile. “Mors aeterna. It means—”

“Death is eternal.” The translation slips unbiddenly from Din’s lips before he even realizes his mouth has opened.

“There is no one more feared or respected than you. But for what reason? What have you done to earn your reputation?” Gideon demands, spit flying as his anger flares. “You are no more than the universe’s favorite puppet. Mindlessly obedient to its every demand.” 

Hearing the truth always hurts, but hearing it from Gideon is especially torturous. Din’s creed to the universe has dictated his actions the entirety of his existence. He never fought against its orders, never thought of his own desires as more important than what it wanted.

Until he matched with his soulmate. She changed his priorities and shifted the center of his entire world by revealing to him even Death could experience love. 

There had been no hesitation when he broke his creed for her.

And he doesn’t hesitate breaking Ahsoka’s promise now.

“I just murdered your soulmate right in front of you and you do nothing. Did you ever love her at all?”

“I do.”

Din summons every trace of power and darkness he possesses and combines them together within his core—a volatile, pulsating mass of pure chaos. His beskar armor starts to crack and chip away, unable to withstand the increasing pressure. 

He thinks of his angel’s smiling face, the sound of her laughter, how bright her soul shines, and he thinks all those things are gone now. Not even a chance to say goodbye.

“More than anything.”

And Death lets go.

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[sk1fanfiction]

the many faces of tom riddle, part 4

-attachment, orphanages, and yet more child psych: time to add yet another voice to the void-

FULL DISCLAIMER THAT THIS IS JUST MY OPINION OF A CHARACTER WHO DOESN’T HAVE THE STRONGEST CANON CHARACTERIZATION, AND THUS ALL THIS IS BASED ON MY CONCEPTUALIZATION.

I'm going to be super biased, because my favorite portrayal of Tom Riddle is actually Hero Fiennes-Tiffin as eleven-year-old Tom Riddle, in HBP and I get to chat about child psych in this one, sooo here we go.

First of all, I’m just so impressed that a kid could bring that much depth to such a complex character.

This is the portrayal, I feel, that brings us closest to Tom’s character. Yes, Coulson’s brought us pretty close, but by fifth year, the mask was on.

We don't really get to see Tom looking afraid very often, but it's fear that rules his life, so it's really poignant in our first (chronologically) introduction, he looks absolutely terrified.

The void being the fandom's loud opinions on a certain headmaster. I wouldn't call myself pro-Dumbledore, but I'm certainly not anti-Dumbledore, either. (Agnostic-Dumbledore??)

Since I'm not of the anti-Dumbledore persuasion, I decided to poke around in the tags and see what the arguments were, so I don't make comments out of ignorance.

Most of the tag seems to be more directed towards his treatment of Harry and Sirius, but a few people mentioned that Dumbledore should have treated Tom with ‘exceptional kindness’ and tried to ‘rehabilitate’ him.

As I said in Parts 2 and 3, I am 100% in favor of helping a traumatized kid learn to cope, and I don’t think Tom Riddle was solidly on the Path to Evil (TM) at birth, or even at eleven. Not even at fifteen.

Could unconditional love and kindness have helped Tom Riddle enough for the rise of Lord Voldemort to never happen? Possibly, but...

Yes, I'm about to drag up that Carl Jung quote, again.

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

The problem with this is that if you’re going to blame Dumbledore for this, you also have to blame every other adult in Tom’s life: his headmaster, Dippet, his Head of House, Slughorn, his ‘caretakers’ at the orphanage, Mrs. Cole and Martha, and possibly more. In fact, if we're going to blame any adult, let's blame Merope for r*ping and abusing Tom Riddle Senior, and having a kid she wasn't intending to take care of.

Furthermore, you cannot possibly hold anyone but Tom accountable for the murders he committed. (I should not have to sit here and explain why cold-blooded murder is wrong.) And if you like Tom Riddle's character, insinuating that his actions are completely at the whim of others is just a bit condescending towards him. He's not an automaton or a marionette, he's a very intelligent human being with a functioning brain, and at sixteen is fully capable of moral reasoning and critical analysis.

I've heard the theories about Dumbledore setting the Potters up to die, and I'm not going to discuss their validity right now; but he didn't put a wand in Tom's hand and force him to kill anyone. Tom did it all of his own accord.

And while yes, I have enormous sympathy for what happened to Tom as a child, at some point, he decided to murder Myrtle Warren, and that is where I lose my sympathy. Experiencing trauma does not give you the right to inflict harm on others. Yes, Tom was failed, but then, he spectacularly failed himself.

We also have no idea how Dumbledore treated Tom as a student.

In the movies, it’s Dumbledore who tells Tom he has to go back to the orphanage, but in the books, it’s Dippet. We know that Slughorn spent a lot of time around Tom at Slug Club and such, yet I don’t really see people clamoring for his head.

I regard the sentiment that Dumbledore turned Tom Riddle into Lord Voldemort with a lot of skepticism.

But let's hear from the character himself -- his impression of eleven-year-old Tom Riddle.

“Did I know that I had just met the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time?” said Dumbledore. “No, I had no idea that he was to grow up to be what he is. However, I was certainly intrigued by him. I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others’ sake as much as his."

Now, assuming that Dumbledore's telling the truth, I'm not seeing something glaringly wrong with this. No, he hasn't pigeonholed Tom as evil, yes, I'd be intrigued, too, and it's a very good idea to keep an eye on Tom, for his own sake.

“At Hogwarts,” Dumbledore went on, “we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have — inadvertently, I am sure — been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school."

Again, it seems like he's at least somewhat sympathetic towards Tom, and is willing to at least give him a chance.

More evidence (again, assuming Dumbledore is a reliable narrator):

Harry: “Didn’t you tell them [the other professors], sir, what he’d been like when you met him at the orphanage?” Dumbledore: “No, I did not. Though he had shown no hint of remorse, it was possible that he felt sorry for how he had behaved before and was resolved to turn over a fresh leaf. I chose to give him that chance.”

Now, I think Dumbledore is pretty awful with kids, but I don't think that's malicious. Yeah, it's a flaw, but perfect people don't exist, and perfect characters are dead boring. I am not saying that he definitely handled Tom's case well, I'm just saying that there's little evidence that Dumbledore, however shaken and scandalized, wrote him off as 'evil snake boy.'

It's also worth taking into account that it's 1938, and the attitudes towards mental health back then.

Why is Tom looking at Dumbledore like that, anyway? Why is he so scared? What has he possibly been threatened with or heard whispers of?

"'Professor'?" repeated Riddle. He looked wary. "Is that like 'doctor'? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?"

"I don't believe you," said Riddle. "She wants me looked at, doesn't she? Tell the truth!"

"You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course -- well, I'm not going, see? That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!

Tom keeps insisting he's not mad until Dumbledore finally manages to calm him down.

I'm really upset this wasn't in the movie, because it's important context. Instead we got these throwaway cutscenes of some knick-knacks relating to the Cave he's got lying around, but I just would have preferred to see him freaking out like he does in the book.

There was extreme stigma and prejudice towards mental illness.

'Lunatic asylums,' as they were called in Tom's time, were terrible places. In the 1930s and 40s, he could look forward to being 'treated' with induced convulsions, via metrazol, insulin, electroshock, and malaria injections. And if he stuck around long enough, he could even look forward to a lobotomy!

So, if you think Dumbledore was judgmental towards Tom, imagine how flat-out prejudiced whatever doctors or 'experts' Mrs. Cole might have gotten in to 'look at him' must have been!

Moving on to the next few shots, he is sitting down and hunched over as if expecting punishment or at least some kind of bad news, Dumbledore is mostly out of the frame. He’s trapped visually, by Dumbledore on one side, and a wall on the other, because he’s still very much afraid. uncomfortable, as he tells Dumbledore a secret that he fears could get him committed to an asylum (which were fucking horrible places, as I said).

It brings to the scene that miserable sense of isolation and loneliness to that has defined Tom’s entire life up to that point (and, partially due to his own bad choices, continues to define it).

And, when Dumbledore accepts it, his posture changes. he becomes more confident and more at ease, as he describes the... utilities of his magical abilities. 

"All sorts," breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."

Riddle lifted his head. His face was transfigured: There was a wild happiness upon it, yet for some reason it did not make him better looking; on the contrary, his finely carved features seemed somehow rougher, his expression almost bestial.

I do think Harry, our narrator, is being a tad bit judgmental here. Magic is probably the only thing that brings Tom happiness in his grey, lonely world, and when I was Tom's age and being bullied, if I had magic powers, you'd better believe that I'd (a) be bloody ecstatic about it (b) use them. And, like Tom, I can't honestly say that I can't imagine getting a bit carried-away with it. Unfortunately, we can't all be as inherently good and kindhearted as Harry.

Reading HBP again, as a 'mature' person, it almost seems like the reader is being prompted to see Tom as evil just because he's got 'weird' facial expressions.

So... uh...

Nope, let's judge Tom on his actions, not looks of 'wild happiness.'

To his great surprise, however, Dumbledore drew his wand from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at the shabby wardrobe in the corner, and gave the wand a casual flick. The wardrobe burst into flames. Riddle jumped to his feet; Harry could hardly blame him for howling in shock and rage; all his worldly possessions must be in there. But even as Riddle rounded on Dumbledore, the flames vanished, leaving the wardrobe completely undamaged.

Okay, one thing I dislike is Tom's lack of emotional affect when Dumbledore burned the wardrobe, in the books, he jumped up and started screaming, instead of looking passively (in shock, perhaps?) at the fire. Incidentally, I can't really tell if he's impressed or in shock, to be honest. I think they really tried to make Tom 'creepier' in the movie.

This is one of the incidents where Dumbledore's inability to deal with children crops up.

I think he was trying to teach Tom that magic can be dangerous, and he wouldn't like it to be used against him, but burning the wardrobe that contains everything he owns was a terrible move on Dumbledore's part. Tom already has very limited trust in other people, and now, he's not going to trust Dumbledore at all -- now, he's put Tom on the defensive/offensive for the rest of their interaction, and perhaps for the rest of their teacher-student relationship.

Riddle stared from the wardrobe to Dumbledore; then, his expression greedy, he pointed at the wand. "Where can I get one of them?"

"Where do you buy spellbooks?" interrupted Riddle, who had taken the heavy money bag without thanking Dumbledore, and was now examining a fat gold Galleon.

But I'm not surprised Tom is 'greedy.' He's grown up in an environment where if he wants something, whether that's affection, food, money, toys, he's got to take it. There's no one looking after his needs specifically. I'm not surprised that he's a thief and a hoarder, and I don't think that counts as a moral failing necessarily, and more of a maladaptive way of seeking comfort. It would be bizarre if he came out of Wool's Orphanage a complete saint.

Additionally, I think given that the Gaunt family has a history of 'mental instability,' Tom is a sensitive child, and the trauma of growing up institutionalized and possibly being treated badly due to his magical abilities or personality disorder deeply affected him.

And there are points where it seems that Dumbledore is quick to judge Tom.

"He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control."

"Yes, indeed; a rare ability, and one supposedly connected with the Dark Arts, although as we know, there are Parselmouths among the great and the good too. In fact, his ability to speak to serpents did not make me nearly as uneasy as his obvious instincts for cruelty, secrecy, and domination."

"I trust that you also noticed that Tom Riddle was already highly self-sufficient, secretive, and, apparently, friendless?..."

And while this is all empirically true, these are (a) a product of Tom's harsh environment, and (b) do not necessarily make him evil. But the point remains that child psych didn't exist as a field of its own, and psychology as a proper science was in its infancy, so I'd be shocked if Dumbledore was insightful about Tom's situation.

But I've gone a ton of paragraphs without citing anything, so I've got to rectify that.

Let's talk about Harry Harlow's monkey experiments in the 1950-70s.

If you're not a fan of animal research, since I know some people are uncomfortable with it, feel free to scroll past.

Here's the TL;DR: Children need to be hugged and shown affection too, not just fed and clothed, please don't leave babies to 'cry out' and ignore their needs because it's backwards and fucking inhumane. HUG AND COMFORT AND CODDLE CHILDREN AND SPOIL THEM WITH AFFECTION!

I will put more red writing when the section is over.

This is still an interesting experiment to have in mind while we explore the whole 'no one taught Tom Riddle how to love' thing and whether or not it's actually a good argument.

Andddd let's go all the way back to the initial 1958 experiment, featured in Harlow's paper, the Nature of Love. (If you're familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, him and Harlow actually collaborated for a time).

To give you an idea of our starting point, until Harlow's experiment, which happened twenty years after Dumbledore meets Tom for the first time, no one in science had really been interested in studying love and affection.

"Psychologists, at least psychologists who write textbooks, not only show no interest in the origin and development of love or affection, but they seem to be unaware of its very existence."

I'm going to link some videos of Harry Harlow showing the actual experiment, which animal rights activists would probably consider 'horrifying.' It's nothing gory or anything, but if you are particularly soft-hearted (and I do not mean that as an insult), be warned. It's mostly just baby monkeys being very upset and Harlow discussing it in a callous manner. Yes, today it would be considered unethical, but it's still incredibly important work and if you think you can handle it, I would recommend watching at least the first one to get an idea of how dramatic this effect is.

Dependency when frightened

The full experiment

The TL;DW:

This experiment was conducted with rhesus macaques; they're still used in psychology/neuroscience research when you want very human-like subjects, because they are very intelligent (unnervingly so, actually). I'd say that adult ones remind me of a three-year old child.

Harlow separated newborn monkeys from their mothers, and cared for their physical needs. They had ample nutrition, bedding, warmth, et cetera. However, the researchers noticed that the monkeys:

(a) were absolutely miserable. And not just that, but although all their physical needs were taken care of, they weren't surviving well past the first few days of life. (This has also been documented in human babies, and it's called failure to thrive and I'll talk about it a bit later).

(b) showed a strong attachment to the gauze pads used to cover the floor, and decided to investigate.

So, they decided to provide a surrogate 'mother.' Two, actually. Mother #1 was basically a heated fuzzy doll that was nice for the monkeys to cuddle with. Mother #2 was the same, but not fuzzy and made of wire. Both provided milk. The result? The monkeys spent all their time cuddling and feeding from the fuzzy 'mother.' Perhaps not surprising.

What Harlow decided next, is that one of the hallmarks being attached to your caregiver is seeking hugs and reassurance from them when frightened. So, when the monkeys were presented with something scary, they'd go straight to the cloth mother and ignore the wire one. Not only that, but when placed in an unfamiliar environment, if the cloth mother was present, the monkeys would be much calmer.

In a follow-up experiment, Harlow decided to see if there was some sort of sensitive period by introducing both 'mothers' to monkeys who had been raised in isolation for 250 days. Guess what?

The initial reaction of the monkeys to the alterations was one of extreme disturbance. All the infants screamed violently and made repeated attempts to escape the cage whenever the door was opened. They kept a maximum distance from the mother surrogates and exhibited a considerable amount of rocking and crouching behavior, indicative of emotionality.

Yikes. So, at first Harlow thought that they'd passed some kind of sensitive period for socialization. But after a day or two they calmed down and started chilling out with the cloth mother like the other monkeys did. But here's a weird thing:

That the control monkeys develop affection or love for the cloth mother when she is introduced into the cage at 250 days of age cannot be questioned. There is every reason to believe, however, that this interval of delay depresses the intensity of the affectional response below that of the infant monkeys that were surrogate-mothered from birth onward

All these things... attachment, affection, love, seeking comfort ... are mostly learned behaviours.

Over.

Orphanages, institutionalized childcare, and why affection is a need, not an extra.

His face is lit the exact same was as Coulson’s was in COS (half-light, half-dark), and I said I was going to talk about this in Part 3. I think perhaps it's intended to make Fiennes-Tiffin look more evil or menacing, but I'm going to quite deliberately misinterpret it.

Now, for some context, Dumbledore has just (kind of) burned his wardrobe, ratted out his stealing habit, and (in the books only, they really took a pair of scissors to this scene) told him he needs to go apologize and return everything and Dumbledore will know if he doesn't, and, well, Tom's not exactly a happy bugger about it.

But interestingly, in the books, this is when we start to see Tom's 'persona,' aka his mask, start to come into play. Whereas before, he was screaming, howling, and generally freaking out, here, he starts to hide his emotions -- in essence, obscure his true self under a shadow. So this scene is really the reverse of Coulson's in COS.

And perhaps I'm reading wayyy too much into this, but I can't help but notice that Coulson's hair is parted opposite to Fiennes-Tiffin's, and the opposite sides of their faces are shadowed, too.

Riddle threw Dumbledore a long, clear, calculating look. "Yes, I suppose so, sir," he said finally, in an expressionless voice.

Riddle did not look remotely abashed; he was still staring coldly and appraisingly at Dumbledore. At last he said in a colorless voice, "Yes, sir."

Here's an article from The Atlantic on Romanian orphanages in the 1980s, when the dictator, Ceausescu, basically forced people to have as many children as possible and funnel them into institutionalized 'childcare', and it's absolutely heartbreaking.

There's not a whole lot of information out there on British orphanages in the 30s' and 40s', but given that people back then thought you just had to keep children on a strict schedule and feed them, it wouldn't have a whole lot better.

The only thing I've found is this, and it's not super promising.

The most important study informing the criteria for contemporary nosologies, was a study by Barbara Tizard and her colleagues of young children being raised in residential nurseries in London (Tizard, 1977). These nurseries had lower child to caregiver ratios than many previous studies of institutionalized children. Also, the children were raised in mixed aged groups and had adequate books and toys available. Nevertheless, caregivers were explicitly discouraged from forming attachments to the children in their care.

Here's a fairly recent paper that I think gives a good summary: Link

Here, they describe the responses to the Strange Situation test (which tests a child's attachment to their caregiver).

We found that 100% of the community sample received a score of “5,” indicating fully formed attachments, whereas only 3% of the infants living in institutions demonstrated fully formed attachments. The remaining 97% showed absent, incomplete, or odd and abnormal attachment behaviors.

Bowlby and Ainsworth, who did the initial study, thought that children would always attach to their caregivers, regardless of neglect or abuse. But some infants don't attach (discussed along with RAD in Part 2).

Here's a really good review paper on attachment disorders in currently or formerly institutionalized children : Link

Core features of RAD in young children include the absence of focused attachment behaviors directed towards a preferred caregiver, failure to seek and respond to comforting when distressed, reduced social and emotional reciprocity, and disturbances of emotion regulation, including reduced positive affect and unexplained fearfulness or irritability.

Which all sounds a lot like Tom in this scene. The paper also discusses neurological effects, like atypical EEG power distribution (aka brain waves), which can correlate with 'indiscriminate' behavior and poor inhibitory control; which makes sense for a kid who, oh, I don't know, hung another kid's rabbit because they were angry.

Furthermore...

...those children with more prolonged institutional rearing showed reduced amygdala discrimination and more indiscriminate behavior.

This again, makes a ton of sense for Tom's psychological profile, because the amygdala (which is part of the limbic system, which regulates emotions) plays a major role in fear, anger, anxiety, and aggression, especially with respect to learning, motivation and memory.

So, I agree completely that Tom needed a lot of help, especially given the fact that he spent eleven years in an orphanage (longer than the Bucharest study I was referring to), and Dumbledore wasn't exactly understanding of his situation, and probably didn't realise what a dramatic effect the orphanage had on Tom, and given the way he talks to Tom, probably treated him as if he were a kid who grew up in a healthy environment.

In case you are still unconvinced that hugging is that important, there's a famous 1944 study conducted on 40 newborn human infants to see what would happen if their physical needs (fed, bathed, diapers changed) were provided for with no affection. The study had to be stopped because half the babies died after four months. Affection leads to the production of hormones and boosts the immune system, which increases survival, and that is why we hug children and babies should not be in orphanages. They are supposed to be hugged, all the time. I can't find the citation right now, I'll add it later if I find it.

But I think it's vastly unrealistic to say that Dumbledore, who grew up during the Victorian Era, would have any grasp of this and I don't think he was actively malicious towards Tom.

Was Tom Riddle failed by institutional childcare? Absolutely.

Were the adults in his life oblivious to his situation? Probably.

Do the shitty things that happened to Tom excuse the murders he committed, and are they anyone's fault but his own? No. At the end of the day, Tom made all the wrong choices.

And, for what it's worth, I think (film) Dumbledore (although he expresses the same sentiment in more words in the books) wishes he could go back in time and have helped Tom.

"Draco. Years ago, I knew a boy, who made all the wrong choices. Please, let me help you."

[handemiyyy]

Nothing is black and white. Not even the things we judge to be the simplest such as a “are you a night owl or an early bird?” question. For every answer, for every action, behind it lies a very complex reason for why you picked a determined answer. In life, it’s the same. Things are multicolored, multifaceted and depending of a handful of factors combined that will impulse someone to take a certain action or opt for a certain answer. It really has put me into a lot of thinking when I found out the plot regarding Sen Çal Kapımı’s season 2, and seeing so many people start to take sides of such complex and delicate situation made me wonder that maybe people were not seeing the full picture, maybe they were seeing a plain image instead of the 3D situation presented to them.

If you know the characters’ story, you understand both Eda and Serkan’s actions are totally characteristic of them and correct in their own way. I’ll assume if you’re reading this you have knowledge of that, so I shall skip to the present situation and plot: Eda and Serkan broke up and stayed 5 years apart, but this turn in their love story has a bittersweet exception. Their child, Kiraz. Which Serkan does not know of.

EDA

Eda was asked to leave. After standing by his side through his cancer and thinking she’d finally live the life she dreamed with the love of her life, he broke up with her. They fought a lot, he let it explicit he’d never have a family, he closed himself to the world, to Eda, he resetted back to the robot-mode workaholic burying himself in projects that he forgot life. The life he had with Eda. His behavior affected her as well, that closed off too, and although they were together, they kept distancing from each other every day a little more. Until they saw that there was no point in that relationship. Eda shows that after 5 years his words and cold behaviour towards her still hurts her deeply, even making the analogy that she’s “just a toy” for him (ep 2 in the conversation scene with Burak). From her perspective, he decided to throw their years and relationship in the trash because he was the heartless insensitive man he was when they first met. Imagine you invest so much of yourself to someone just for this person to turn to you and tell you he doesn’t want to hear from you, or have you near. You’d be hurt. Especially after all you’ve been put through to be by his side and live your love freely. It was beyond plausible for her to leave and not look back (okay, Aydan?) and whoever had close insight of their relationship and how it deteriorated would agree with that. There’s only so much a person can handle. It was time Eda put herself first, especially when she was carrying a baby that Serkan supposedly wouldn’t want. She feared rejection, not just for her but for their baby, an innocent unborn child, a consequence of their love that was not the same anymore. He had said in her face that he didn’t want children, so she acted out of protectiveness for herself and her child. She couldn’t bare him rejecting the child. Maybe he would have changed his mind when she told him that she was pregnant, but she couldn’t have known that. Serkan turned into someone that was unrecognizable, even for Eda. He wasn’t just the cold workaholic we’ve seen in the beginning of the dizi, he was a cold-traumatized workaholic. So she escorted herself out of that relationship and did not think twice to come back around and tell him about the pregnancy when she found out in Italy. It was basically the logic that if he didn’t want her, why would he want her baby?

SERKAN

Serkan had to endure so much. After all the little things that consumed their relationship, after the plane crash, memory loss, he found out he had cancer. There is no way a person would stay the same after going through such awful disease. Serkan’s fear spoke louder than anything else, because he’s always been the kind of person to stay miserable and let her go so she doesn’t deal with the burden of being with him. Serkan’s hypochondria spoke louder telling him he was cured but not safe from cancer, and he couldn’t bare going through or putting Eda through that again. Even worse, leave her widowed. Probably the reason he kept postponing their wedding. During treatment he was still vulnerable, having Eda’s support all the way, trying to stay sane with all the mood changes and occasional insensitive behaviour towards her and everybody else. It cannot be put in words by a person that fortunately never had to go through or witness a person with cancer, but all of his “inconsistency” is more than justified. He never did it on purpose, it was the collateral effects of his disease, psychologically and physically speaking. After beating cancer, things seemed to have a bright future until it hadn’t. Serkan’s self sabotage knocked him down again, making him reset back to his old ways, except this time he had much more baggage and traumas than before. He shut everybody out, even the only person that he let in, and drowned in work, obsessed with “becoming immortal” through his projects. He forgot life, he forgot the love of his life. Not because he wanted to, but because his unconscious wanted to protect himself, and her. What if cancer came back? He knew very much of diseases as a person so worried about his health, he knew there were chances that it would come back. He’s gone through it once and barely survived, he’s seen the state he’s put him and Eda’s relationship through, he felt like a burden more than ever before. He didn’t want to hold her back, he didn’t want to have her stuck with him, taking care of his ill self that wasn’t even sure would make through the cancer treatment. He always felt unworthy of her, imagine now. He didn’t want children, because he feared they’d become fatherless. He didn’t want to set a wedding date, because he feared he’d leave his wife a widow. Or not make her happy. And he knew they weren’t happy. Because once he digged back down on his workaholic hole, he didn’t come back up again. It was stronger than him, he kept pushing her away and burying himself deeper. And she closed off just like him, so they both closed off in their own lonely cocoon and started to slowly become strangers again. Until one day he asked her to leave, and she didn’t see a reason to stay.

—

He told her to leave, he told her to stay far away from him because he wanted to protect her, and most selfishly, himself from more potential pain, suffering and heartbreak. He thought it’d be the less hurtful way (just like the plot of the secret about Eda’s parents accident), except he just made it worse for her. It doesn’t mean he’s a monster, a heartless human or an ungrateful bastard as many people are portraying him to be. It makes him human, it makes him a human with fears and insecurities, too aware of his own mortality and how it would affect the people that were dearest to him. Because when you’re sick, not only you go through stuff, the people around you, the people that loves and cares for you also goes through it all with you, to the point it can affect them personally too. He never came around and explained his reasons, because when he closed off his feelings were shut off. He bottled it all up and never said a thing, leaving Eda thinking the absolute worst of him and that still reflects in her hesitance about him 5 years later with an apparent normal Serkan back in her life. Serkan, now fully recovered and back to being himself, finds Eda again and everything he’s been trying to keep hidden, all the suppressed feelings and unfinished business he’s had with her, came back banging. He can’t let her go, he said it himself at that night talk. He can’t because he still needs to say a lot to her, to apologize to her even though it was NOT his fault. NEVER his fault. Nor hers, for leaving.

Serkan beat cancer years ago, but he never went looking for her. We’ve seen enough of their story and Serkan’s fears to know that he’s always felt that he wasn’t enough for her and that he’s brought to her life only pain, so it’s totally understandable why he never reached to her when he was sane again. He wanted her to be happy and free and she would only be able to do that if she was far away from him. And of course, Eda being hurt wouldn’t want to come back, wouldn’t want to keep in touch with him, so she cut ties entirely. She was on her right to not come to him when she found out about the pregnancy, because she knew he still wasn’t him. He was barely fighting for himself, living for himself, caring for himself, how would he do that for a child? But then he comes back… now what? Eda wants to run away from him, afraid he’d hurt her the way he did before. But he’s not that post-cancer Serkan, he still has the scars and the trauma but you can clearly see that he’s back to being the old Robot Bolat. He’s still closed off, but the initial scare and fear of abandonment disappeared with the passing years of him being healthy again. He sees Eda and he wants to be around her again, because he never truly wanted to part ways with her. Eda hides a secret, a secret she’s not right nor wrong to hide, she just figured it was best. And even in the first moments of him being around, it’s understandable that she wanted to hide the fact she has a child to him, as it may be a huge shock and turn of events. She doesn’t trust him, more precisely his reaction, and she’s unsure of what to expect. She needs him to give her a proof that he’s not the same unstable Serkan she witnessed before she left. She needs him to open up, he needs to open up to her. That is just it, the reason none of them could ever move forward, apart of their ever growing and intense love for each other. They still have a lot that was not talked, that was not finished, they didn’t solve their issues, therefore they didn’t heal.

Tell me how can you blame a mother for choosing her child over any possible heartbreak? How can you blame a woman for walking away after being so emotionally drained and not being able to put up with an exhausting relationship for BOTH of them? How can you blame her for not wanting to live that life with him when he wasn’t putting any effort on their relationship or on his fiancée? How could she guess what he was feeling, what he wanted to say, what were the reasons for his behavior if he closed off and never spoke a word?

Tell me how can you blame a traumatized man with so many complexities for closing off and pushing everybody away in order to not hurt them? How can you blame an hypochondriac man for wanting his beloved to be free from any strings attached to him and his disease because he can’t bare the fact he could possibly die and leave her suffering? How can you blame a human being that has gone through such a traumatic disease and invasive treatment as cancer that affects the whole being, physically and mentally, and transforms them into someone vulnerable and afraid? How can you blame this man for acting the way he did when he’s only done that because of all the fears he’s been accumulating since his childhood, his psychological traumas. How can it be his fault?

Serkan would die for Eda if it didn’t mean she would suffer for his loss.

Eda would be unhappy for eternity if it meant she could stay by Serkan’s side.

They would do anything for each other, and at one way or another, they did. Until their relationship deteriorated and they couldn’t keep going on, because they were losing themselves in an endless looping of traumas and pain. They were together but together they couldn’t do the healing, they were so exhausted they couldn’t heal each other nor themselves, it became unhealthy for them. But beware, it WAS NOT any of them’s fault, it qas just how they were living their lives. Their post-traumatic lives.

Sometimes there’s no right or wrong, there are just different point of views of a certain situation that’s so hard to grasp and so difficult to understand unless you’re personally living it. But trying to put yourself in their shoes also would do.

So please, yeter with the Eda AND SERKAN slander. Both were in their own right.

[theyanderespecialist]

Body For Rent? (One Shot) Don X Mark OC (Your Boyfriend) (Yandere)

[Hello My Sexy Readers and welcome back to another one shot this another Your boyfriend one, with Mark as a sissy paying for rent with Romance? Who knows how this will end anyways I hope you all enjoy!]

(Mark's POV)

Don is over and I was on the phone with Lucy begging her to come back with her part of the rent. She said she would when she got to it. I knew that means never. Oh I wanted to smash my phone! But that would cost me more money so instead I look at Don. He was fixing a light bulb and how could I tell him not only could Lucy not pay her half but neither could I? My grandma had to have surgery and helping pay for the after car I had no extra money not to mention the dinner won't give me any extra hours and I already have to jobs. God what do I do?!?

But it's probably best to just tell him. So I take a deep breath as I walk over.

"U-Uh..Don..?"

"Yeah kid?"

"....uh I..I need to talk to you it's important.."

"I'm all ears." He said as he was still fixing the bulb.

"Well...Lucy hasn't paid her half of the rent for like six months, and I'm running out of money..I'm short about 100 dollars..I'm wondering, should I give you some of my jewelry or furniture so that it's not a total loss or do I move out? I can be packed next week.."

He looked down at me and stepped off the ladder. "Mark I cannot take anything from you. I care to much to do that but I can't throw you out either. You said I am a dilf right? Well do you really want to fuck me? Like giving a chance would you?" He asks

I blinked. I don't understand why he was asking that..he said he wouldn't bring up that embarrassing moment again..

"U-Uh..I don't know why you're asking..." I said softly as I looked down. "B-But..I-I mean yeah I-I would..you're a sweet guy.."

He falter a bit. Then took a deep breath. "It is hard getting back in the dating game and a man grows lonely. Would you like to stay at my place tonight?" He asks and I stare. "I will wave your rent for the month."

I stared at him was he asking if I would have sex as rent payment!? Then I thought of my grandmother I could take next weekend off and go see her with the money I have.

"Yes okay." I say and he nodded picking up the latter.

Oh shit what did I get myself into?

-Time Skip-

I sat down as I expected to come in and get fucked..but I was instead treated to a lovely dinner.

"Sorry I uh- I normally only cooked when my kids were hungry and everything, I'm not a house husband." He gave an awkward laugh.

Then after he did dishes we went to the bedroom he helps me into bed then climbs in as well turn off the lights and- spooned me? I looked at him and he almost fell asleep instantly? I grab a pillow and hit him.

"I'm awake!" He says half asleep.

"You fell asleep on me..." I whisper.

"Well that is the point how else are we supposed to sleep together." He says

Then it hit me he did not want sex... but why?

I looked away .was..I not attractive? Was I too feminine? Did he just not want sex?

(Timeskip)

Over the last two weeks I've phased out of wearing my feminine clothes, and wore masculine clothes as Don looked over at.me.

"Okay Mark, whats with the change in style?" He asked as I stood up.."well why won't you have sex with me Don?! You haven't done anything that shows you're even romantically attracted much less sexually attracted to me!" I snapped as I go to the room. I really liked don. These last two weeks confirmed it but it hurt...knowing he wasn't into me like that.

He probably saw me as some stupid kid..

I hear a knock on my door. "I am not having sex with you because your not an object! You are a person a beautiful sexy person! And I want you to want to be with me! Not use your rent as an excuse to be with you! Damnit I am in love with you Mar!" I hear him say through the door

I stopped at that. I was shocked..beyond shocked. I walked over to the door as I opened it.

"....you're not messing with me?" I asked. "No! God damn it kid, you think this is the first time.you been late on rent, if I didn't care I'd et you and that fucking dead beat figure it out on your own on the street--" I cut him off as I jumped at him as he has to catch me as I kiss his face before hesitating and kissing his lips.

He gasped but then smiled and kissed me. He walked me into my room and closes and locks my bedroom door. Then pulls away as we both pant.

"Your mind now~" He says possessively and throws me on the bed stripping his belt and tying my hands to the bed. Ass in air and him ripping down my jeans.

)Marie Has unleashed the beast XD)

I did not get time to think as he spread my cheeks spits on my anus and starts to eat my ass it. I gasped and moaned and leaned into him taking more of his tongue~ Oh god I never done this before and lord it is gooood~~~

(Don's POV)

(Don has the green light XD)

I looked down at Mark as he was seemingly already in heaven, like this was his first time getting such treatment.

I didn't think Mark had wanted me in that way but now that I know, now that I'm certain- I'm going to have him as mine. He would make a wonderful new wife and stepmom to my boys.

I shove my tongue on the way in and start tongue fucking his cute boy pussy I think the kids would call it

(hah the boy pussy I mean he isn't wrong)

(XD)

I could see him grabbing and releasing the pillow as his cock twitched, I already knew these sheets would have to be cleaned, but knowing we were the ones to mess them up so much~

I think his ass is ready and I look at him, "Front or back?" I ask.

"huh?" He asks.

"Do you want to be on your front or back?" I ask. "I want our first time special."

"I don't..."

"Just which is your favorite?"

"I-- uh that's the thing Mr.Williams uh...I've never had sex..you took my first kiss.."

I smile and kiss him flipping him onto his back and line up and kiss his chest.

"I love you.." I muttered as I remove that stupid shirt.

"I loved the way you dressed..because you liked it."

(Thank you, it's more so he loves seeing mark comfortable. I'm normally uncomfortable in men clothing unless I'm feeling more masculine, so that's why mark is like that. It's not a trans fetish, I could care less about your gender. I just have issues with my body. And those are my issues and so they are on mark as well.)

(Yes cause my co author is gender fluid and mark is her if she was a man and cross dresses for comfort not to sexalize the transgenders or anything like that)

"Really?" He asks.

"Yes you always seemed more happy and comfortable in female clothes, what ever makes you happy makes me happy"

(like I fuck in crossdressing cause I'm comfortable.)

He looked at me as he then gave a smiled.

"Aw isn't that sweet. Mr.Williams loves me." He said as I look at him. Was he mocking.me?

(Yeah! Power to my co author!)

She smiles and plays with my hand. "Have I been a bad tennat Mr. Williams? If I have you better fuck the bad out of me~"

I blush she is role playing.

And like I said before. I wasn't interested in fucking her to give her a place to stay....

Bit role play, that's a whole different story.

"You've been real bad, but I'll let it slide-Just be a good girl for me~" I purr as she smirked and was about to say something...until I thrust into her as her voice got caught in her throat, turning into more of a desperate whimper.

I smirked and and started to thrust in and out of her feeling her clench on my cock.

"No so tight~" I moan. "You need to relax baby~"

She let out a moan as she was already drooling. "I-I'm trying! I-I'm as relaxed as I can be!~" she cried out as her legs wrapped around my hips.

"Oh your just that tight you naughty thing~" I say with smirked.

She moaned as she thrust back onto my cock.

"I don't hear you complaining~" she moaned out as I could.hear the wet slap of our skin.

I was not I loved him and I could not wait to stretch his pussy out then to let it tighten again~ I love him so much. I pull him back into a kiss, not even caring that they slipped out of my belt and were running his nails across my back. I loved it and could tell she was close as I start to hit her gspot and she cums hard on my cock moaning loudly. I came inside of her as well as I collapse on her as she smiled. "I love you.."

I smile and kiss her deeply. I love her so so much and she is mine.

[practicalmagicintuitions]

“The fates lead the willing and drag the unwilling”

I was thinking about that last MT podcast HC had when he mentioned stoicism and a book I have but I haven’t read yet. So I decided to deep dive in a little bit because I studied philosophy at the university at a very basic level but I always wanted to know more, so this seems a good occasion. I am also interested in what HC could see in this philosophy school. I think we all know at this point he is interested in things that interest his people, not necessarily him or he is dropping ideas, new things fast. So one part of this will be a summary of stoicism because I feel many people have misconceptions or don’t know what is this just saying this is sh*t even don’t have the slightest idea about it. The other part will be a little HC armchair analysis by me throughout this topic. And I also decided to read the book he mentioned - Viktor E. Frankl Man's Search for Meaning - and maybe I will walk through it or give you a summary if you interested. 

Bare with me, because this turned out to be long, but I had to get out his from my system.

Not soon after the pandemic and the lockdown started in 2020 Penguin Random House said the print sales of Marcus Antonius’s Meditations are up 28% for the first quarter of 2020 vs 2019, while print sales of Letters from a Stoic are up 42% for the same period. The ebook sales rose by 356% . This boom was because of the pandemic but the popularity of modern stoicism has been an upcoming thing for a while especially since people like Bill Gates or Warren Buffet allegedly used stoicism in their business and Thomas Kaplan is supporting a Stoicism Course at Brown University. But unfortunately, modern stoicism has become kind of a ready-made lifehack, a self-helping method, that’s why books like Ryan Holiday’s one could be published and becomes a success. This is where I see modern stoicism’s faults. 

Stoicism seems a good school to support or to follow in the pandemic because this is about we have to accept the things we have no control over. Probably that’s why the sales went up. This is about don’t letting uncontrollable things or events messing with your judgment and clarity. Fear, screams, panic, rages don’t help. And I think we can agree this is true. Aurelius wrote his Meditations in the middle of a battle when his men were dying not just because of the fights but because of a pox epidemic and top of that he was an Emperor. So to maintain his sanity he had become a stoic. He didn’t have an influence on the epidemic so he just accept it and didn’t spend his energy raging about it. 

Stoicism was founded by Zenon around 300 BC. And it was a thriving and popular school without huge wars or pandemics or anything. Back then it was not a reaction to something but a preparation for something. More directly prepare yourself the thing you cannot be prepared for. And probably this is the OG stoicism most valuable teaching that there are events in this world we simply cannot control. What we can control however how we react to those events. Are we remain calm or think this is a catastrophe. Let see a very basic example. We are mortals, we will die no matter what. This is a sure event we have no control over. What we can control that our view on this. Will we panic? Refuse to even talk about death or refuse to make a will because “OMG I will die then!!” Like spoiler alert, it will happen, will or no will. Or we understand our time is limited and try to enjoy it and not see smaller inconveniences are tragedies. I am sure we all know people who think if they spill themselves over with coffee or the handle of the grocery’s bag comes off it’s a pure tragedy and they are capable of thinking about this all day as something it is happening with them always an exclusively. 

Until this, I think it’s all good we can use this in our daily life. What is dangerous in the OG stoicism is that the stricter wing of it thought emotions as a whole or almost all of it cause confusion so you basically should eliminate emotions to have that clarity on life. That’s why Diogenes wrote that the wise is emotionless. And this is the main and very valid criticism again stoics, that with taking away the emotions they basically ripping of humans from something very unique valuable, important, because our emotions make us humans. And because living totally emotionless is kinda impossible this goal is not realistic, so it causes many frustrations ( oh my... even more emotions!) Because think about it, who are described as emotionless? Psychopaths. 

You have cases, events, when your emotions, even overflowing ones are right and acceptable and suppressing them, could be dangerous. Because realistic or not Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and the other stoics idea was not just watching the world and letting things happen, shrugging a shoulder and say nothing, no! Their philosophy and aim were to eliminate the bothering things which not let you think calmly. And since we are talking about philosophy the reality of this in practice is secondary. Critics also think ( and maybe the modern stoicism is going in this direction) that a hardcore stoics care only about themself and their egos while Seneca says friendships are important and in general most stoics accepted positive feelings (to a certain extent).

Stoicism comes back to life mostly in psychotherapy around 1900 by Paul Dubois ( before him there was another new wave of stoicism in the 16th century) and that’s where Victor E Frankle is connected to this topic. I haven’t read his book yet but I know his method is called logotherapy (logos= meaning) and this was born in the deepest existential crisis when his whole family was killed in a concentration camp and he felt he had remained only one personal freedom, the way how he reacts to the circumstances. Frankle invented his own method so he is not just planted some ancient in the modern world but he in fact thought Socrates and his philosophy is his inspiration. I won’t talk about this more until I read his book. 

* I wanted to listen to the whole podcast again, but I couldn’t so I just went to the part we care about now.

So they are talking about morning routines and he mention that one of his teachers in primary school said to him “Always expect the unexpected” This is pure stoicism and while I am not suggesting he is lying I noticed he likes to blend his current interest with his childhood memories like when he said at the WitcherCon how they had to build a fantasy castle in the school (or something) and this was such good preparation for him because he has a fantasy series now. Convenient right?

So he mentioned the teacher and a little later hinting that he is into stoicism lately. Question is, which comes first? The teacher with the stoic idea or the stoicism as a new interest somehow repainted his childhood memories? 

Then he again is talking about the stoic’s way of control. Or does he? 

“ focusing on the thing you can control and make yourself better to control them” 

This was never part of the OG philosophy because that is not about being a control freak. It is actually the opposite. If you cannot control something let it go, not force things to go on your way and if you failed then you let go. 

The next part it’s not about this topic but I have to mention it because I kinda overlooked it when I listed this at the first time.

He is asked about the fitness industry’s mistakes and he said

“I wouldn’t be the kinda person to point my finger at anyone and say there is a big mistake there…. I wouldn’t ever want to point to finger at anyone saying there is a mistake “

So… should I insert the FO post here? And I know the question and the answer was about fitness but he clearly has no problem pointing fingers at people. 

This leads to us again to the control topic. His FO post is creaming about controlling. “ You don’t like the way I am dating? You don’t like I have a covid romance? Then I will tell you what to do and how to behave because I need to have control over my fandom”

When the host asked him about overcoming obstacles he mention the book - Victor E. Frankl Man's Search for Meaning. (he also said it’s difficult to give advice…)

While he is talking about the book (and for me, it’s clear that the host doesn’t give a damn about this) so HC’s whole tone is changed. Just compare when he is talking about MT and training and so on, he is so irritating and unlistenable but here he is calmer, doesn’t use his voice so expressively, doesn’t emphasise that much in a sentence etc. This to me shows he is actually craving after something more, something deeper, something serious. Not just talking about his ties and blueberry smoothies. I don’t think is dumb (I think he has dumb choices thought) I think he could be more both as an actor both as an individual because when he was talking about the book I felt he has a true, genuine interest and it was a one-second opportunity to talk about something interesting not just fart powder.  

I feel his interest in stoicism is an attempt to validate why he is oppressing his feelings. I am sure he does this because he is uncomfortable with his feelings, past and present. For example, I think instead of the bullying his main trauma is being sent away from home to a boarding school and experiencing cold treatment from his mom (the infamous stop calling story). But he oppressing this because I guess all of his brothers he is looking up to loves their mom and he feels he needs to be a good son but questioning his mom means he is a bad one. So instead of admitting that he is hurt and damaged by it he is saying the bullying was his worst experience. 

This means to me he doesn’t understand stoicism, ancient or modern he just wants and moreover, he needs something he can hold and cling to, something that gave himself meaning. As a book’s title says: Man’s search for meaning. And I feel HC does this maybe a little bit desperately. Searching for the answers and this moment he thinks stoicism is the key to finding what he is looking for while in reality, the main problem is he doesn’t ask the right questions. And without them, he won’t find any answer. Or meaning. 

Title quote from Seneca

[robininthelabyrinth]

How will nmy react to a memory loss jgy how think himself a nie scet member ?

There were murmurs around him when he first started waking up.

“– last few times – appears he thinks that –”

“– need to avoid any disturbances –”

“ - perhaps pretend -”

“Absolutely not.”

That last one was Sect Leader Nie.

His voice was loud and piercing as always, a general accustomed to needing to make himself heard over the din of battle and never quite having adjusted to situations where it wasn’t needed, and Meng Yao found himself relaxing a little bit just at the sheer familiarity of it. Nie Mingjue was as reliable as the sunrise: once you were one of his people, he’d defend you to the death.

If he was here, Meng Yao was safe.

He went back to sleep.

The next time he woke up, the room was empty but for Sect Leader Nie, who was sitting at the desk doing paperwork. Probably paperwork that Meng Yao should be doing, but for the injury that must have led to all of this – he didn’t remember it at all, but short-term amnesia was a common side effect of certain injuries, and his head was wrapped in bandages.  

Still, he struggled to sit up. “Sect Leader Nie,” he called, and Sect Leader Nie’s shoulders tensed. “If you want my help –”

“You should be resting,” Sect Leader Nie said. He was staring at the wall in front of him instead of turning back to look at Meng Yao – a sign of guilt? Had he been involved in what happened? “Do not trouble yourself.”

“And let you mess up my filing system?” Meng Yao teased lightly, hoping to lighten the mood. “Don’t forget how long it took me to fix the accounts the way I like it –”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Meng Yao paused, then, abruptly concerned: Sect Leader Nie’s shoulders were curved inwards, as if expecting a blow – afraid of pain. Afraid of him?

Impossible.

And yet, at the same time – unmistakable.

“Why doesn’t it matter?” he asked, keeping his voice level. He always kept his voice level, no matter the circumstances; someone certainly had to, and it wasn’t going to be anyone surnamed Nie. “Are you expelling me from your service?”

It was a joke, of course. Nie Mingjue liked him, respected him, valued him – had made it clear a thousand ways that he would never listen to gossip or to slander, would never judge him by who his mother was, and Meng Yao couldn’t imagine what sort of dire mistake would be necessary to make Nie Mingjue refuse to stand by him, even against the world.

“You’re the one who will leave,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice cutting, but then the anger flowed out of his shoulders and he sighed, closing his eyes, as if he had mistakenly become angry over the wrong thing. “It is not that I didn’t know that your ambitions had always been with Lanling, not Qinghe.”

Bile and panic rose up Meng Yao’s throat, but what could he say?

It was true. He had come to Qinghe because he had heard that they respected talent there, regardless of birth; he had come because he had needed a place to rise to prominence, where he could become so respectable that even his father would be unable to ignore him.

Qinghe had always been a waystation, not a destination.

Or, if one wanted to look at it with less kindness – he had treated it as a stepping-stone.

Had Nie Mingjue discovered how Meng Yao had schemed to get his attention, his sympathy? The little tricks he’d played to get him to agree to take a chance on an unknown, all the ways he’d wormed his way into the man’s life so that it would be impossible to extract him without damage? Or was it something more recent, something hidden away in his lost memories – had his father asked him to betray some confidence of Nie Mingjue’s? Turn over some information, take some secret action…had he done it?

Was that why Nie Mingjue didn’t want to look at him?

“Sect Leader Nie…”

“I’m not supposed to talk to you about it,” Nie Mingjue said bluntly. “The doctors told me to play along, pretend not to…I told them trying to hide it from you was pointless, that you were too smart, that you’d figure it out – I assume you have by now?”

“I’ve lost my memory,” Meng Yao said. He was shivering, and it wasn’t cold. “I woke up and the doctors realized that I’d forgotten a great deal, so they wanted you not to cause me any disturbance…how much time have I lost?”

“The war is over,” Nie Mingjue said, and surely that should be cause for celebration? But Nie Mingjue’s voice was flat and neutral, as if some terrible thing had happened, and his fists were clenched in rage. “You have been recognized by the Jin sect, and now live in Lanling. I cannot speak to the quality of your life, or to your happiness, but you have at least achieved that much.”

It was not that Meng Yao thought he’d be happy in Lanling – it was that he hadn’t thought he’d be happy anywhere, and found to his surprise that Qinghe actually did make him happy. It wasn’t supposed to, nothing was supposed to; it was all supposed to be part of the plan, that was all, a means to an end.

He wasn’t supposed to become fond of Sect Leader Nie, who tried so hard and listened so earnestly; he wasn’t supposed to be friends with Nie Huaisang, a charming waste of space who ought to have been born as a roly-poly kitten instead.

He was supposed to be in Lanling, by his father’s side, and now it appeared he was – and yet the injury he suffered had driven his memories back to his time at Qinghe.

That said something, he thought.

He’d had head injuries before, memory issues, dating back to his childhood; his mother had hired a doctor for him over it, a real one and not some faker, and he’d explained that when injured, Meng Yao’s extraordinary mind would retreat to the place it felt safest, recreating the past out of all those perfectly preserved memories and sinking into it as if it were real. If this injury followed the pattern of the others, there was no need for any treatment beyond time – soon enough, he would start to remember, and reality would gradually reassert itself over fantasy.

In the past, no matter what, his memory would always return to those few months when he was eight years old, when his mother had met a possessive benefactor and they had lived free and easy under his care – it had ended horribly, of course, but at the time he didn’t know that.

This time, his memory had returned to his days in Qinghe.

And Nie Mingjue still wouldn’t look at him.

“What did I do?” he asked.

“You assume that you’ve done something?”

“You don’t want to look at me,” Meng Yao said. A moment of silence, with Nie Mingjue not giving in, stiff and quiet, so he added, quietly, “I warned you in the beginning that I was unworthy of the trust you placed in me.”

In the end, Nie Mingjue turned to look at him. He seemed tired, and his eyes were bloodshot in a way that did not speak well of his health.

“Tell me what I did,” Meng Yao said. “I want to know.”

Nie Mingjue exhaled. “You killed a captain,” he said dully. “Premeditated murder, and you excused it by saying that he had stolen your glory and bullied you; even if it was true, you never once said a word of it to me before, never sought some other means to resolve it. You then defected to the Wen sect, becoming a master torturer and Wen Ruohan’s right hand; you killed my men, tortured me, and then killed him to become a war hero. After that, you were accepted into the Jin sect, and Lan Xichen and I swore brotherhood with you.”

He paused, then, but that was not the end, or else he would not be so angry.

Meng Yao waited, his mind dancing over all the excuses, all the things he could say, belated justifications, things that would cast him in a good light, a better light – what Nie Mingjue had described was obviously a problem, but not an insoluble one, and his future self should have known that. He could still fix this.

But to fix it, he needed to know the full extent of his crimes first.

“My qi became disordered after the war,” Nie Mingjue finally said, continuing. “Lan Xichen proposed a treatment: a Lan melody known as the Song of Clarity. But he is busy, so you took on the responsibility of playing for me…”

No, Meng Yao thought. No.

But at once he knew where the story led, even before the telling of it was done. A story that started with premeditated murder, however his future self had justified it to himself, could only end with the same –

Why would he do something like that? Perhaps because Nie Mingjue turned away from him after the first murder, as he ought to have known he would – Nie Mingjue tried so hard, and thought everyone else did, too; the glimpse at what Meng Yao was really like, the creature of spite and bitterness and hatred, willing to kill the filthy way, hidden in the dark…it would have come as a shock to him.

And yet his former self had obviously salvaged it, somehow; Nie Mingjue had agreed to swear brotherhood with him, to make up with him, to treat him as an equal, and still he –

Surely no prize could be worth this.

“Do you know why I did it?” he asked quietly, staring down at his own clenched fists, hating iron for not being steel. His damaged mind was telling him that what he had had in Qinghe was dearer to him than his own mother, and he had nearly destroyed it with his own two hands.

“The Nie sect and the Jin sect are at a crossroads,” Nie Mingjue said, and at last, at last Meng Yao recognized the flatness of his tone and the lack of visible signs of fury as the signs of medicine, the sluggish pain relief that could help stymie an incipient qi deviation. The poisonous song he played must have come very near to working. “Jin Guangshan wants the title of Chief Cultivator; I think there should be none. Jin Guangshan protects Xue Yang even after he murdered an entire clan; I think he deserves to die – I asked you for his head, and you promised it to me…you never intended to deliver. There can be only one sect ascendant, and you are, as much as he hates it, your father’s heir.”

His heir. Had he done something to Jin Zixuan, then? Unsatisfied with only the name he had promised himself he would obtain, had he coveted the power, too, and sought to achieve it by any means possible?

If he had reached the point of being willing to murder Nie Mingjue, then surely he had done that, too.

“I bashed your head in,” Nie Mingjue said conversationally. “During the deviation that you provoked. Lan Xichen stopped me from actually killing you, and from dying myself, and then you awoke without any memory of what you’d done, calling yourself Meng Yao again as if you were still – as if you still –”

Someone had asked Nie Mingjue to come in here and pretend, Meng Yao realized, and with a start realized also that he was furious about it. Someone had told him to come in here and play pretend with his would-be murderer as if they were still friends.

It might even have been Lan Xichen who’d done it.

There were tears on Nie Mingjue’s cheeks. He did not wipe them away the way Nie Huaisang would have, trying to hide his pain; he only let them fall, his eyes sliding shut once more – he could not look at Meng Yao, and Meng Yao couldn’t blame him.

“I wish I could go back,” he said, and Nie Mingjue opened his eyes to look at him. “Before I made those decisions. I wish I was still Meng Yao, and could do things differently. Is it too late for that?”

With anyone else, he would know the answer already. With anyone else, he wouldn’t have asked.

With anyone else, his mind would still be back in those wonderful days of being eight and alone with his mother for the very first time and last time.

“How can I ever trust you again?” Nie Mingjue asked, shaking his head in denial. “You drove me into a qi deviation – you wanted to kill me, knowing it would leave Huaisang the position of sect leader, knowing how cruel a death it was –”

“Is it too late?”

This was not something that could be repaired easily, with words and a gentle smile. This would take action and sacrifice. But before he committed himself, he had to know if it were even possible.

If Nie Mingjue could still forgive him, even now –

If he was still one of Nie Mingjue’s people, to be defended until death.

Nie Mingjue abruptly stood up, unsteady on his feet, clearly still ill – if I am half the murderer that I appear to be in his stories, I will kill those doctors who prioritized my health, this farce, over his, and if Lan Xichen was involved I will make it clear to him what wrong he has done – and shook his head, but this time it was not a denial.

“I never know what to do with you,” he said, and it was not a no.

It was not a no.

Jin Guangyao smiled.

(At the trial, which happened eventually, Nie Mingjue spoke in his favor, and his would-be murderer was remanded into the custody of Qinghe for whatever punishment they saw fit. It didn’t last long, but it was an excellent alibi for his father’s untimely death, even though it did not solve all the questions that lingered in Nie Mingjue’s eyes. But that, too, was not an insoluble problem.)