#young children have the capacity to be terrible people

[morealias]

""lying is wrong" what evangelical nonsense is this???"

It's not evangelical. It's parental and societal. If you cannot be trusted to speak truthfully, you cannot be trusted to speak truthfully.

Children (in general) do not have the capacity for complex moral codes. Something is either wrong, or it is right for young children. As children grow up they will encounter instances where adults lie, hopefully they'll have a discussion with their parents that leads a more nuanced moral code, a greater understanding of where flexibility of speech and being truthful intersects.

I posit that it is never "good" to lie. It can be morally neutral in totality of the act. Deceiving someone can serve the Greater Good - "but whose greater good?" is always the question to ask here.

Lying is never a 'good' thing, however, if it serves a good purpose, a necessary purpose (survival), do not hesitate. To anyone saying "But that's good!" No, lying is never good. Ask yourself, which is better, to live in a world where you never have to lie, or to live in one where you must? If that doesn't show you that lying is not "good" but rather is necessary to avoid worse outcomes, then I cannot help you.

"sometimes it accomplishes a goal"

If you are lying it should always be in service of a goal. If you're lying just to lie… that is wrong.

If you're lying when it's meaningless to test your ability to lie, that is in service of a goal, "testing to see if I can lie".

"sometimes the truth is nobody's business, or is tricky to articulate, or you don't know what the truth is but are expected to have an answer regardless."

Then just say that. "It's none of your business", "that's hard to put into words/it's complicated, give me [TIME UNITS] to figure out how best/simply to say it", "I don't know, but I can find out for you".

If you don't feel safe speaking the actual truth, then of course lie.

"However, it is also still a useful social tool, and of course it’s part of the tool kit that you used to create stories. If you can’t lie, how can you write or tell a good story?"

I put forth that storytelling* is not lying. You are not decieving someone else, you are sharing a fiction. Maybe this is some small autistic line I refuse to cross or some weird ethical flexibility that serves me, but it's my line and my flexibility. Maybe it's even my lie. * By which I mean you and your audience understand your just 'telling a story". There may be truth in it, but the story is a story, facts are changed, obscured, elements of the story are whole cloth, if not all of it. This is the understanding between storyteller and audience. If the audience isn't made aware of this†, at least at someone point, it is lying and likely dangerous.

† See 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Yes the public was made aware of the broadcast just being a story, and thankfully no one lost thier life over it, but the radio station apologized for good reason. The panic was also not anywhere near as widespread or as terrible as the news media reporting on it made it out to be, or as CBS or ORson Wells played it up to enhance their legend.

A lesson for modern times about how the news sensationalizes things eh?

"Which is kind of a dark art."

Manipulating people into believing something that "never happened", something that is not true, is not "kind of a dark art", it is completely dark. Even if it's for the Greater Good.

"lying is wrong" what evangelical nonsense is this???

[star-anise]

Warnings: Doomerism, climate grief, child death

The thing about having studied history and the psychology of trauma so much is that I can't pretend to myself that the world used to be better at sometime in the past.

Don't get me wrong; things are absolutely terrible right now and need to change, quickly.

But also, they're better than they've ever been for us as a species. It is literally mindblowing how much worse life was for us historically.

Have you seen one of those charts of the human population over time? Have you thought about what it actually means?

Because here's what I see: Humans have always loved things like living to old age, like having sex, like raising babies. Those are things we have always wanted to do. It's not like pre-industrial humans were giant pandas like, "Nah, rather not reproduce as a species. No thanks," and suddenly the Victorians discovered horniness.

Instead, for most of human history, we have died. At terrifically young ages. The few who made it to adulthood could make babies as much as they liked, and then overwhelmingly watched pregnancies miscarry, births end in tragedy, or babies die. Their own lives were constantly at the mercy of a world that could kill them without a second thought. To be human meant to live in a world full of a million little tragedies, all the goddamn time.

And then what happened was: The babies stopped dying. The effects of a lot of things from higher agricultural yields to public health efforts to mass communications made us the master over the diseases and maladies that once had us by the throat.

When we look ahead at catastrophe and terrors, yes, they're bad. But they'd have to be extremely bad indeed to measure up to the number of people who wouldn't even be alive in any other century.

And even the obvious bogeyman then, overpopulation—did you notice what's already happened? On that chart, there's the green measure of total population, but the thin purple line is the rate of population growth. Please notice that it peaked in 1968. It is, in fact, projected as entirely possible that within a century it could go lower than it was twelve thousand years ago, at the end of the last big ice age.

The moment babies started to live longer, people went, "That is too many babies. An absolutely unsustainable number of babies. People are crying out for help because taking care of that many children is completely overwhelming. We need to be able to fix this problem," and they invented birth control and fought to get it legalized. It hit the market in the late 1950s and in less than a decade, it had caught on like wildfire.

To me, this is the absolute opposite of an argument for passivity and political inaction. It's not that everything's going to be okay so why even try. It's that as it turns out, the human capacity to grow and thrive and make the world better is absolutely reality-defying. I don't have faith that all of our problems will be solved, but I do have faith that those problems are all the subject of passionate obsession of millions of people.

And apparently we have a really strong track record at that kind of thing already.

[pawberri]

The key problem with "proship vs anti" discourse is that the most extreme versions of each side, the ones who actually bother to identify with these labels, accepted each others worst takes as arguments they had to debate. "Fiction =/= reality" is, in practice, an absurdly reductionist, anti-intellectual, thought-terminating-cliche that dictates we can learn nothing about a person via art and that their fiction reflects no political or moral messaging worthy of critique. In response to this, the "puriteens" who are too young to possibly hope to articulate their discomfort, to untangle their position from what is often real trauma experienced online, simply argue "yes, fiction influences and reflects reality in a 1 to 1 capacity." They, and people who want to use the groundwork they laid to make bad-faith callouts, make bad arguments about how the action of engaging in problematic fiction is on equal ground to real life abuse, or is a clear indicator of interest in real life abuse. Both of these arguments are terrible, but each side seems to radicalize the other further and further into their own brands of anti-intellectual reactionary belief. "Proshippers" become libertarian absolutists about free speech and view all transgression as righteous and alternative and therefore leftist. They gain a reactionary nostalgia for the past, desiring a time when people didn't seem to care about the implications of art. "Antis" become authoritarian and hypervigilant for signs of moral decay, at their worst, willing to align themselves with government bodies that offer carceral solutions to the debate. They are willing to use harassment as a tool of punishment, which then leads to false accusations and a fear of openness that puts people at risk of being triggered via obfuscation. (That said, proshippers also take part in plenty of harassment.)

I will say that I believe both of these movements are equally sensitive to co-opting by right-wing forces. We see the authoritarian tendencies of anti culture in harassment campaigns and even the way Republican law makers co-opt "grooming." The proship/fic crowd has such extreme nostalgia for the past that I often see people align themselves with the cultures of 4chan or other happily right-wing websites. They so heavily reject the idea that a drawn sexual depiction of a child could reflect any desire that they are disinterested in analyzing what the motivation behind the depiction is. i.e If we track the history of lolicon in Japan we do find that is, yes, countercultural, but that counter culture is right wing, very misogynistic, and defensive of patriarchial Japanese culture as it is and was including its culture around rape and abuse. Plenty of fictional content works as radicalization material, and radicalization material needs to be ambiguous. There is a valid reason to be hesitant to trust people who consume this content, even if I do not believe most of them will ever be dangerous towards children. The mere presence of sexuality is not enough to make a movement left wing. This kind of thing can again be seen in right-wing libertarian movements in the US. (And even leftist movements can be bigoted and even "pro-pedophilia" or otherwise disinterested in social reform around abuse.)

Is all content with elements of age-play this way? No. But to me, that is why kink media deserves to be treated as art and analyzed, critiqued, treated seriously. It doesn't have to do anything to anyone to be worthy of a moral critique. Said moral critique just doesn't warrant harassment and cruelty and reactionary exaggerations of the person consuming said content.

Anyway, what's my point in saying all this? I don't know. I'm just begging you to tag your God damn content with specific tags instead of random and nebulous shit like "dead dove" or "dark content", and also begging you to stop harassing people who do tag their content so I don't have to guess what "dead dove" and "dark content" mean. No one will erase incest kink fics or people who feel sickened by the idea of them off this earth because we aren't god, but we could at least all be responsible about tagging, flagging, and age-gating our stuff.

[sans-enjoyer]

Inanimate Insanity Episode 16 Spoilers!!!!

its been like, two days since episode 16, and people are already arguing about Mephone's age. He is a child, and this didnt come out of nowhere guys, he's always BEEN a child:

^post from 2018!! 5 YEARS ago!

^Brian reposting art (amazing art btw<3) where Mephone is described as a CHILD and drawing in a childish way.

^Brian saying that Mephone is so young he doesn't even know how to SPELL.

Now; heres some stuff ive been hearing in argument against him being a child.

"Cobs is infantilizing him." I agree with this to a certain extent, he is acting like Mephone is a child who cant comprehend anything like an abusive parent. but thats where it stops. Children can ALSO be infantlized! But aside from that, Cobs even says; "I forgot how young you are!" Parents don't say that to their adult children, because it makes no sense unless Mephone is a child.

Secondly, why would Brian and Justin be doing the same thing? They say he's young!

"He has an adult voice." Robots don't hit puberty! This means nothing. Unless youre saying that the creators implied hes an adult because hes voiced by an adult, well i'll have to refer you to the images above.

"He hosts an entire show." Arguably not very well, also again, he's a robot, and also, theyre on an island! its not like you need a permit to film on a random island in god knows where. Any child can "host" a show if they have enough determination, general knowledge of how they work, and equipment, and would you know it Mephone has all three! He knows how they work because he watched them in meeple, and he can generate any equipment he needs.

"He's a robot, he doesn't have an age." True..? sort of...? But the thing is, being legally defined as a child is based off your mental capacity. Children arent as mentally/emotionally intelligent as grown adults, because they don't have the life experience nor the capacity to be. Mephone barely has ANY life experience, he grew up in Meeple, and then started the show immediately after leaving. And obviously, in Inanimate Insanity (and all object shows), robots are almost always sentient beings, unlike real life.

"He's much more mature than a child, especially one that couldn't spell." Debatable! First of all, he thinks things like 'going to jail for one day' and 'the calm down corner' are terrible punishments, like children. If you tell a child to go sit on the stairs for 5 minutes and frame it as a punishment, they will take it as serious as anything else. Secondly, he literally decided to make a random species of bat.. things? fight to the death because they ate his four month old ice cream. No mature person would do that... Thirdly, abused children ACT more mature than others because they HAVE to be. Abused children are not ALLOWED to act like children. They have to be mature for themselves because who else is going to be? Who else is going to take care of you when your parent doesn't? But that doesn't mean they arent still a child.

So now we tread into questionable territory. Is it okay to deny the idea that he is a child at all costs, just so you can ship him or sexualize him? There is really no other reason why you would deny that he is a child.

Now obviously; lets not harass anyone who has drawn ship art of him or sexualized him in the past. This stuff was not commonly known, most people thought he was an adult. But if you look deeper, he isn't.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk, if anyone reads this far (￣^￣)ゞI know I usually only post art, but this is an important topic to me as i am very hyperfixated on Mephone4 i swear i can't control it guys!!

Feel free to make any counter points, im open to discussion, but i am also very set on this opinion. Have a good day everyone!!☆

[ceesimz]

hand-me-downs

a blurb set after GKTTSL and Part Two, though this makes sense without having to read them :)

Very brief warning! There's a hospital trip in here, some mentions of blood and dislocations (😵‍💫) but nothing terrible, enjoy :)

One of the greatest joys in Alexia’s newfound life as a parent was sharing her passions with her children and seeing them become almost as obsessed as she was. With Anaís, her six year old daughter, the two played and discussed football for nearly all hours of the day, seven days a week. Her relationship with her first child resembled the relationship she had with her father too, something she did not take for granted and most definitely did not tear up at quite frequently. She relished in Anaís’ appreciation for the sport, because she knew it might not last forever, no matter how much she desperately wanted it to. 

Wth Oriol, he was a very affectionate, quiet, and caring young boy whose favourite thing in the whole world was being with his family, in any capacity. It was very rare for a toddler to be that way, but he had a lot of separation anxiety that meant having his family with him was the thing that brought him the most happiness. Along with dinosaurs, cars, story books and drawing, of course. The one surefire way to get him to sleep was taking him for a drive around the block, and he loved watching the world go by out the car window rather than whatever weird dancing fruits his parents played for him on their phones. He was introverted around most people, but with his loved ones and his family’s friends, he came out of his shell and it was one of the best sights in the world.

Alexia, who now only played for her beloved Barcelona after retiring from the national team, was happier than ever. Her children were growing into beautiful little humans, inside and out, and she had a woman at her side whom she adored more and more everyday, especially since you became the most incredible mother. Everyday, the now naturally brunette woke up with love bursting from her heart and a smile on her face, because there was no longer anything missing from her life. She truly had it all. 

The day her daughter asked to join a proper football club instantly shot up the ranks of the best days of her life so far. She remembers the moment so clearly; laying in Anaís’ bed the night of her sixth birthday with the girl in her arms as they read a bedtime story together, a book named You Choose that you saw in a thrift shop and decided to buy for your daughter’s birthday. Alexia loved the idea of it when you showed it to her – the premise of it was to show young children that they could do absolutely anything they wanted with their life. Upon the first time of reading it, when Anaís got to the page titled ‘Is there a job you’d like to do?’ she pointed out the small drawing of a boy playing football. She pointed to it with determination, and stated that she didn’t want to be like him, but she wanted to be like her Mami. There were tears immediately present in Alexia’s eyes, to which she nodded, and before she could respond to her daughter, the little girl asked to join a club.

To nobody’s surprise, Alexia argued that she could easily get a place for Anaís in the Barça academy. But that wasn’t what you wanted, and parenting went both ways. Just because it was Alexia’s world that Anaís was entering, didn’t mean you couldn’t have a say in it either. There were a handful of frosty conversations, one in particular that featured a lot of colourful language, tears, and a night of going to bed angry at each other, but after some more talking that was handled in an adult way, you both came to a decision. And Alexia, in the end, was more than happy with it. She did a lot of grovelling, because she quickly realised it was definitely the better option. Anaís would join the local girls’ team at first, so she could get a feel for it, and in a few years’ time if she wanted to join the academy, there was a place for her there already.

Fortunately, you were able to be much more flexible with your job, which meant you could choose to work in the office or at home depending on what situation you were in. If your children were on a school break, you could work from home and still spend the day with them, even if it was with your laptop in front of you. If Alexia was away and they were missing her, you could still be there for them too. And Alexia pulled her weight too of course, it was far from one-sided; sending you to the spa whilst she took them for days out, treating you all to family holidays, she did as much as she could and more. Things had just fallen into place perfectly, and none of you would have it any other way. 

That all meant you could quite easily take Anaís to training and to her games, whilst Alexia had to move heaven and earth to ensure she never missed more than one session at once. So far, there had only been one where she had missed two sessions in a row, a practice and a game in which Anaís had scored in, and the anger her daughter harboured at the fact the only other person she cared about impressing wasn’t there… well, it was enough for Alexia to never miss it again if she was in the city. Knowing her daughter was angry at her was one of the most gut-wrenching things she had ever experienced.

And that’s why, mere minutes before Anaís’ game kicked off one Saturday morning in February, you laughed with Oriol sat in your lap at the sight of Alexia running across the field, still in her training kit, to make sure she was there in time. She looked way too under-dressed in the freezing weather, that point backed up by the redness to the tip of her nose and her cheeks, but she didn’t care because she was here and that was all that mattered. 

Just before she reached you, Anaís spotted her from her team huddle and waved emphatically at her number one fan, who instantly reciprocated the excitement before blowing a kiss and gesturing for her to listen. The young girl nodded, her face turning serious (and it looked just like Alexia’s game face) whilst Alexia made her way over to you and your son. In her hand was a cup of coffee, which she handed to you when she sat down.

“Hola amor, hola hijo.” Alexia kissed your cheek and then Oriol’s, quickly adjusting the woolly hat he wore before sighing and turning to the game.

“You didn’t get one for yourself?” You wondered, happily taking a sip of your drink as it helped to warm you up from the inside out. Oriol fidgeted a little, trying to move from your lap into his Mami’s. Alexia smiled down at him and transferred him over, standing him on her knees and hugging him tightly. He giggled into her ear and squeezed her back as best he could. 

“No, just for you. I dropped mine in the car park.” Alexia huffed, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as Oriol sat back down on her lap, his beady hazel eyes looking around desperately for his big sister.

“Ahí!” Oriol pointed at her with a grin, to which you and Alexia both smiled at.

“Sí, Oriol, well done.” You kissed his forehead and he preened under the attention. You turned to Alexia then, offering your cup to her. “Have it, Ale. It will help warm you up.”

“I’m not col-”

“Yes you are. You’re shivering already, just take the drink. I have a blanket for Oreo here too if you need it.” You pushed the drink into her hands, which she instantly wrapped around the small cup, relieved to feel some heat back into her fingers, but shook her head at the blanket. She didn’t exactly feel like being spotted in public with a dinosaur covered blanket around her shoulders. 

“I got it for you though.” She frowned, only for you to roll your eyes dramatically and kiss it away quickly. You raised an eyebrow at her, which she knew meant don’t argue back anymore. She couldn’t really fight that one, it was her favourite coffee after all.

The whistle blew then as the game kicked off. Alexia shouted some words of encouragement for Anaís and her teammates, but you had to stifle your laughter at the disapproving look on Oriol’s face at the noise. She grimaced at his unimpressed face and ducked down to kiss his cheek, whilst you smiled and shuffled closer to your wife and rested your head on her shoulder.

It turned out to be a pretty fierce game, considering it only featured children no older than eight years old, but Alexia half expected it. The opposing team was all boys, and even despite the progress that had been made in society’s view on football with all genders, some people still had a sour taste in their mouth at the thought of girls playing a 'man's sport'. That was evident in some of the calls from the parents of the other team, as well as how rough they played too. 

You were sat there, wracked with nerves at the physicality on display in a game with such young teams, especially since Anaís wasn’t quite the tallest yet and was only six. Some of the boys nearly towered over her, at least a head or two taller, and whoever organised the match-up was most certainly on Alexia’s hitlist. The brunette was tense the whole game, hardly staying in her seat for longer than a few minutes at once. Oriol had moved back to your lap not long after the game kicked off, understandably. There were multiple points where you could hardly bring yourself to watch, and it felt like a matter of time before someone got injured.

Anaís played as a winger, she was very quick and like all kids her age, loved nothing more than scoring goals. That to them was much more important than any other aspect of football, and even though Alexia had tried explaining to her that it wasn’t the only key thing, you had to remind the captain that she was just a child after all. It would be some years before Anaís fully grasped the whole idea of the sport, so for now, it was all about scoring and nothing else. Fortunately for her, she was very good at it. 

In the other team’s opinion, she was too good, because by half time, Anaís had scored one goal and assisted another to make it 2-0. Alexia was prouder than ever, as always, and she boasted and beamed to you throughout the short break about all the brilliant plays Anaís had made. 

However, it seemed that the boys’ team weren’t happy at all. More specifically, their parents and coaches weren’t happy. If the first half was rough, the second half was bordering on dangerous. And for a reason you nor Alexia will ever understand, Anaís was the target of it all. 

Her team got another goal, increasing the score to 3-0, and it was then that the other team finally lost it. 

With the ball at her feet as she dribbled with outstanding control, Anaís ran as fast as she could down the left side of the pitch, past where you were sat watching. Her attack was cut short when one of the boys from the other team went in with a two-foot tackle, taking her to the ground instantly. 

Your heart dropped at the sight as you froze in place, consumed with worry for your daughter. Alexia was on her feet and going over almost as soon as it happened, but Anaís was already back up and shouting at the boy who tackled her. That sight was a little relieving; she didn’t seem physically hurt after the tackle, just angry. Alexia went to the referee immediately, who stood between Anaís and the boy, and to no one’s shock, the brunette started arguing with the older man. You stayed off to the side, keeping Oriol calm in your arms who was a little upset by what had happened, whilst talking with Anaís’ team coach. 

It was only when Alexia ended her rant at the referee that she noticed the quiver to her daughter’s lip. And the way she discreetly cradled her elbow close to her. The second Alexia caught wind that Anaís might be hurt, all the anger dissolved immediately as she crouched down in front of the six year old. Now that she had a good look at her, she saw the pain in her eyes and the blood seeping through her kit sock.

“Anaís, what hurts? Tell me, princesa, I need you to tell me.” Alexia said desperately, mentally kicking herself for not checking in sooner.

“My shoulder. And my ankle.” Anaís mumbled, her eyes filling with tears but doing her best to fight back all the overwhelming emotions she felt in that moment. 

“Okay, okay. Will you let me carry you to Mama? Let's check you out, hm?” Alexia waited for the little girl to nod, which she did, before scooping her up into her arms whilst being mindful of her shoulder. She jogged carefully off the pitch towards you, her eyes conveying to you the concern she felt in just one glance. “Amor, she's in pain. She got hurt.”

“Sit her down.” You followed the pair of them to where you and Alexia were sitting earlier, watching with worry as tears rolled down Anaís' cheeks. Alexia crouched on the floor in front of her whilst you sat beside her, and that's when you spotted the blood soaking her sock. “Anaís, can we take your boot off?” 

She nodded rather robotically, staying completely silent as she held her left arm close to her body still. The tears were falling, but she still made no noise. Her eyes seemed distant too, and all these were signs pointing towards her being in shock.

You kept your eye on her face closely as Alexia gently took off her boot as well as her sock, only to find quite a gash on the inside of her leg above her ankle. It was bleeding quite a bit and would most likely need stitches, meaning a trip to hospital. Alexia nudged you to urge you to look at it quickly, before the footballer bunched up Anaís’ sock and pressed it against the wound to try and suppress the bleeding. 

“That boy was wearing metal studs. Increíble!” Alexia scoffed and shook her head. Then she took a deep breath to force down her anger, and turned back to her daughter. “Anaís? What about your shoulder?”

The brunette girl didn’t reply, like she hadn’t heard what Alexia said. That caught your attention in an instant.

“Ale, I think she’s in shock.” You told her, voice dripping with concern.

Alexia recognised your anxiety and knew she had to take charge of this situation. She needed to be strong for her family – when all was hopefully settled later, she could off-load her stresses then. For now, all three of her loved ones needed her to be a steady figure in all this worry.

“She’s okay, don’t worry.” She quickly squeezed your knee in comfort, before the same hand cupped Anaís’ cheek to try and bring her back to earth. “Hey chiqui, can you hear me? I need you to talk to me for a moment so we can make you feel better. Please.”

At her mother’s words, Anaís blinked slowly and met Alexia’s worried stare. She nodded twice, a few cries leaving her that she couldn’t quite hold back. Her mind was in overdrive, feeling totally panicked and scared. There was a lot of pain in her shoulder, she felt it pop after falling and again when she pushed herself off of the floor, and it wasn’t until about a minute after her fall that it really started hurting. And when the pain arrived, it arrived hard. She hadn’t felt anything like it, and it seemed like it was only getting stronger. 

“Hurts, Mami. So bad.” She broke out into full-blown sobs then, which only caused her shoulder to throb more in absolute agony. Never, in her nearly seven years of life, had you or Alexia heard her cry so extremely. There were tears of your own brewing at the sight and sound, and Oriol was getting more worked up at it all too.

“I will fix it, mi amor, Mami will fix it.” Alexia hastily took off her quarter zip jumper and somehow tied it carefully around Anaís in a make-shift sling. Her heart broke at the especially loud cry Anaís let out when the captain moved her arm into the right position, but she knew it was a necessary evil and that’s what she focused on in that moment to ensure her confident demeanour didn’t crumble on the spot. 

“Hospital?” You asked quietly, swallowing the lump in your throat when Alexia nodded. 

With the adults and other children watching on, Alexia picked Anaís up and headed off in the direction of the car park. Yourself and Oriol followed along behind with your bag on your back, glad that your wife had driven in her car that day since you and your children had walked. Though it came too late for your standards, you slipped into auto-pilot parent mode then, allowing you and Alexia to work together like a well-oiled machine so you could care for your children. It was decided that you would sit in the back with them so you could comfort them both, despite being squished in between two car seats.

Oriol calmed down quite a bit during the car ride, to your relief though not to your surprise, whilst Anaís sniffled the whole way there with tears still falling steadily. Alexia drove quickly but safely there, and though it wasn’t convenient for all four of you to go, there was no way you weren’t going to be there for your daughter, and your son definitely wouldn’t have wanted to leave you three after the chaos that had occurred. 

That meant you were seated in the waiting room with Alexia to your right and Anaís curled into your chest, her legs in Alexia’s lap whilst Oriol entertained himself with the toys in the kids’ area. The cut to the six year old’s ankle had been stitched up already, only needing three, and now you were all waiting for an x-ray to her shoulder. It had been near enough confirmed that she had dislocated her shoulder, but she had somehow put it back in place herself when she got back up off the ground. Alexia turned a sickly pale colour at the sound of it, to which you knew you would tease her about some point in the future, though the main thing now was that Anaís was a lot calmer after being given some strong painkillers, thankfully.

Her head was tucked under your chin as you ran a hand soothingly up and down your back, yourself exhausted by the day’s stress, even if it had only just turned midday. Alexia had an arm around your shoulders, having pulled you in slightly to lean against her, and her index finger drew comforting circles around Anaís’ knee. The little girl soon caught on to her Mami’s actions, smiling shyly at the woman she idolised which brought a similar smile to the older woman’s face. It turned into a game then, Alexia drawing or writing words on her daughter’s skin as the younger Putellas tried to decipher what had been traced. You watched on in admiration whilst keeping an eye on Oriol, who was lost in his own imagination as he played with some of the cars they had there. 

“Mama, Mami, did you see my goal today?” Anaís wondered out of the blue.

“We did, nena, it was so good. We are so proud of you for it, you played really well.” Alexia answered immediately, smiling brightly at her daughter. 

“Well, that boy said girls can’t play football. But I scored, and he didn’t.” Anaís shrugged her good shoulder, and her words changed Alexia’s smile into a smug smirk.

“That’s my girl.” Alexia held her hand out for a high-five that Anaís accepted with a grin of her own. “Girls can play football. Girls are better at football than boys. Like you are.”

“I know.” Anaís hummed, making you and Alexia laugh. She definitely was her mother’s daughter.

“I thought after you retired that I would get a break from that dangerous sport.” You huffed teasingly, Alexia shaking her head at you and turning to kiss your cheek.

“That will never happen, amor. Nunca.” She said, watching as Oriol came wandering over, seemingly bored of entertaining himself. Alexia picked him up and sat him on her lap, smothering his face in kisses that ignited his adorable little giggle. You watched with love in your eyes as he tried to push his Mami’s face away, only to turn the tables and start covering her face in wet kisses. “At least you get a break from it with this príncipe, no? Because this one is going to get lost in his stories, he will write and draw and write and draw forever, one day we will lose him to a library.” 

“And you wonder where your daughter gets her dramatics from.” You shook your head at her antics, but really, Alexia was doing an incredible job at distracting everyone and keeping them happy. Deep down, you were a little ashamed at how you had acted earlier, and those thoughts were eating you up inside. There wasn’t much you could do about them right now apart from ruminate on them and spiral further into the doubts. 

“Mama? High five?” Oriol wondered, and at that moment, it hit you, what a special little human you were raising. His heart was small but filled to the brim with love and care, and you hoped that it was down to what he saw and experienced in his day to day life. 

“Thank you, Oreo.” You replied, gently hitting his hand just to see his smile afterwards. A smile that was extraordinarily similar to your wife’s, a feature in both your children that you adored endlessly.

“Cookies?” His ears pricked up at his own nickname, which just so happened to be a result of his love for the biscuits he just asked for. Anaís had started it, something you and Alexia overheard as the two children ate lunch together at their tiny table one time, and it had stuck since then.

“Yes, I have oreos for you, tesoro.”

Anaís’ name was called after that, and you decided to go with her into the room whilst Alexia waited outside with Oriol. It was far from a nice experience; the doctor maneuvered her arm into a couple uncomfortable positions which brought the tears back, and it broke your heart to have to wait in the booth as she cried out in pain. The second you were allowed to, you went straight to her and comforted her, like you should have done when she first went down earlier. 

They decided that there was fortunately no further damage to her bones or any surrounding ligaments, meaning she was free to go with instructions to rest, ice it, take some painkillers, and use the sling for around a week to help it heal. Your little family made its way home after that, driving home in comfortable silence since everyone needed to decompress after the ordeal of the day. Oriol’s eyes were drooping shut by the time you arrived home, so you cradled him in your arms as you made your way to the sofa inside, where everyone dropped down together. Some family time was much needed.

It was exactly what was needed, as Oriol quickly fell asleep on top of you as did Anaís in between you and your wife. Now that you had a moment near enough alone with Alexia, you could feel her eyes on you. At this point in your relationship, having known you for so many years now, she could read you easily. It didn’t help that she pretty much knew how your brain worked too, and though she had anxieties of her own about the day, she knew that you would be eating yourself up about it all. Even if she did think you didn’t deserve to treat yourself that way.

Luckily, this was a situation that Alexia was familiar with, in terms of football and injuries. They were unfortunately inevitable, and today was probably Anaís’ first proper introduction into that side of the tough sport. A small silver lining of the day, though it might be more of a selfish thought, was that Anaís hadn’t seemed to have lost any interest in football, which was something Alexia was worried about since her daughter’s first training session. 

You avoided her stare for as long as possible, but a conversation you didn’t want was one you couldn’t avoid. Alexia’s desire for clear communication and her caring nature was one of the things you fell in love with initially, after all. No amount of stalling by closing your eyes and stroking your son’s back could get you out of this one.

“Amor?” Alexia whispered as to not disturb the two sleeping figures beside her.

“I know.” You replied a moment later, taking a few more seconds of cuddling your son before carefully moving him onto the sofa, all whilst he soundly slept. You stood up and made your way to the kitchen, Alexia not far behind after placing forehead kisses on her children.

Your back was to Alexia as she came in, trying to delay the oncoming tears, but that attempt was pointless as the second your wife hugged you from behind, they came pouring out anyway. You tried to keep them silent, for the sake of the sleeping figures not too far away. That was another futile attempt.

“It’s okay to cry, cariño. It makes me sad too.” Alexia told you, frowning when you pulled away from her and turned with a shake of your head.

“But you were there for her. You were the only one out of us two that actually realised she was hurting, I wasn’t there for her then.” You rambled through shaky breaths, one hand clutching the counter tightly as you spoke. “And we should have done something sooner! About the game, it was dangerous and stupid, it shouldn’t have hap-”

“Shh.” Alexia cut off your rant gently, her hand taking yours from its tight hold against the marble, your knuckles nearly white, as the other wiped away your tears. “Don’t get stuck in the ‘what ifs’. This is what parenthood is, we can’t keep them safe all the time, no matter how much we want to.”

“I know.” You muttered reluctantly. “Doesn’t change the fact I wasn’t there for her. I just… panicked. I can’t do that, she needs me, us. She had you but I was stuck in my mind, I wanted to help but I… I froze, Ale. And that scares me.”

“You were there. You looked after our son, you helped him not get worked up, and you were there by her side. You recognised she was in shock, something that I missed, and told me so that I could bring her out of it. You were there in the car, in the hospital. You were there for her, amor, please don’t think you weren’t.” The next point Alexia was going to make was one she wasn’t particularly proud of. “She sees me acting strong when I shouldn’t, something you have always shouted at me for, and she tried to do the same. I didn’t know how badly she was hurting either. Instead, I was arguing with the referee, like it was a game I was playing in.”

You giggled at that admission, knowing it was absolutely true. Anaís had definitely gotten that trait off of Alexia, and no matter how much you loved your wife, you’d be damned if your daughter carried that with her for the rest of her life.

“That really isn’t the best of your hand-me-downs you could have given to her.” You teased, to which she laughed and nodded.

“I know. Sorry about that.” She responded with a grimace. You were both quiet for a moment, just taking the other in after the hectic day that it had been so far, before Alexia raised her arms and gestured for you to hug her, which you did. “It’s normal for you to get scared, especially at that moment. I did too. It was the scariest thing ever, and don’t call me dramatic for saying that.”

“I won’t.” You said. “It’s always going to be like this, isn’t it?”

“I think so, yes. There will always be injuries in football, and though I will be speaking to whoever let that game go ahead, it’s just how the sport goes. It won’t always be this bad. Look at my career, how many trophies, eh?”

You laughed into her shoulder and lightly pinched her where your hand rested on her back under her shirt. Within the short conversation, the majority of your anxieties had been laid to rest. The only thing you could do to erase the ones that remained was to curl up on the sofa with your wife and children and relax with them for the rest of the day. 

“I love you, Ale. Thank you.” You stated softly, hugging her just that bit tighter as you spoke. “If it’s always going to be this scary, then at least I have you, right?”

 “Always. Like I said before, at least Oriol evens out the stress a little bit, no? The worst injury he could get is probably a paper cut, so.” Alexia shrugged, smiling shortly after you laughed once more. “Now come on. Your children will always love you, no matter if you freeze or if you run off to shout at the referee, because you taught them how to love and they know to do it unconditionally. Please, do not let this one bad day make you doubt how good of a parent you are. Okay?”

“Okay.” You smiled shyly up at her. “I know you are upset by it too, Ale. You did an amazing job with her, really. I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there.”

“No sweat, mamacita.” You rolled your eyes at the nickname, before taking her hand and leading her back to the lounge. Back to your caring, compassionate, loving children, to cuddle with them and make sure they knew they never had to experience a day like today alone.

“I hate when you call me that.” 

“Well, don’t be sad and I won’t say stupid things just to see you smile.” 

—

had to throw my favourite childhood book in there, 'you choose' ;) also side note if there are any typos in this either affectionately let me know or ignore pleeeeeease i have stitches in my hand and it hurts to type and i rushed this a little 🙃

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Hey. This might be very stupid, but i hope you answer this.

Today I accidently got sucked into your blog, which is ironic since I'm a huge swiftie. (but I'm not here to hate on you, I swear)

The thing is for months I've been doubting where I stand on that. Like if i should call myself a swifte or not. when I was young, I used to worship the ground she walked on. but in the past year, I've slowly realised I've been very sheltered. like the problems people point out about her sometimes are actual real problems, but my brain just doesn't know how to respond to that as it has been taught taylor swift is a goddess and can do no wrong. Since your posts are tagged with #exswiftie, i figure you'd understand.

I am not from america, so I can understand then politics part of it all only to a certian extend. the other things, I just dont know what to say to that. The most i can reply is..."yes that is a bit of a problem". I feel don't feel like a swiftie at that moment.

I had fed my mind this narrative that people who hate taylor swift passionately are like untrustworthy or just a walking red flag, or just "don't get it". Now after reading your actual breakdowns I understand you have a rather educated opinion and perception of things. Which clearly rules out my narrative.

I don't know what I feel like I have to define where I stand on this, I just do. I know I genuinely enjoy her music a lot, even there are songs I don't want to hear more than once. I love the whole swiftie lore, digging deep on each lyrics finding out what they mean, finding clues easter eggs just losing my mind over surprise songs. Then i see this other side, which can't be defined with anything less than deeply toxic, which makes me question whether or not this thing i love so much is genuinely good or not.

Hello dear, apologies for the delay in reply :) I am happy to chat with you. I hope that you did not think I would ignore you.  

I was also a Swiftie for nearly 15 years. I got her debut record as a Christmas present in 2006 or 2007. Though I cannot remember which year it was, I loved her from the start. At 10 years old, I was immediately interested. My mother approved of me owning her music simply because she was inoffensive. She didn’t curse or talk about sex, in the beginning, so she was deemed appropriated for my childhood self.  She and I have since grown up. She is now a terribly pretentious bully- and, well, I grew up much too poor and much too hungry to turn into a bully like her. 

The problem- and something I think you’re very much aware of- is that Swift has built herself up in her fandom as perfect. She encourages fans to defend her every action- and rewards them for their efforts through “Swiftmas” or “Secret Sessions” or “hidden easter eggs that only the smartest- most dedicated fans will figure out.” It’s all methodically calculated to keep up an air of reciprocity between Swift, as the fearless leader, and her band of merry misfits- the fans.  

You are not dumb for falling into her rhetorical situation - she's set the marketing strategy up on purpose. It’s specifically created to attract attention- and, to make people feel good, or productive, by participating in her marketing strategy. She gives people an image of herself as a poor innocent victim of the media, or of any critique, and then rewards people for defending her. In Literary study, we call this “Pathos” as the rhetorical appeal to emotion through messaging- textual work of some kind. Rhetoric like this can be found in all sorts of media- commercials about starving children or beaten dogs, charity event banners aiming to persuade someone to donate. It’s all predicated on the appeal to our common emotion, or human capacity to empathize with each other. For, every time fans are rewarded by her attention- after defending her from a perceived enemy, or figuring out some hidden clue- they feel closer to the idol, they feel happy to have her attention. They get that emotional impact of believing they are helping Taylor Swift, or understanding her better on some more human, connected, level. It’s a game of risk and reward for her. Never mind that none of this altruistic- she gets paid through our attention on her- and if you are not directly lining her pockets with your cash money, she does not actually care about you. It’s the image of caring she projects that matters much more than the fact that she doesn’t actually care.

I’m sure you can think of many more examples wherein Swift has played this game of attention and reward with fans. It’s everywhere- her easter eggs are a great example. Sometimes her use of Pathos is benign- non malicious, therefore a non-issue. However, she often weaponizes this rhetoric in a way that is harmful.

This interplay she sets up, between herself and her fans, is made more intensive through her pathos- heavy approach to Rhetoric. To further illustrate, one of the ways people often explain Pathos is by saying that it represents our, as human beings, judgement affect. We see, or hear, the narrative Swift espouses and make judgements about it. If she says: The music critics are sexist towards me. We say: 1.) Sexism is morally wrong, 2.) Taylor Swift is facing sexism from Music critics, Therefore.) The music critics are sexist and morally wrong, because they are criticizing Taylor Swift.

So, all the critics are bad- and we don't need to listen to them. It's also a way Swift creates permissive attitudes towards attacking anyone who critique's her- because she can so easily label them all as sexist.

She uses this basic syllogism to justify leveraging her fans against all kinds of people- it's not just the critics. I just wanted to give a concrete example, and I will go more in depth on this subject in another post.  

She is playing with people’s emotions, while she is also self-victimizing,and leveraging her audience’s innate human rejection of, for instance, sexism as it offends our personal values. No one is saying that sexism isn't morally corrupt; however, Taylor Swift points to valid criticism and calls it sexism so that her audience will attack. People often have valid critique of Swift- She just doesn't want to face critique at all- ever. If people say her music is too self-centered- Swift says that is Sexism. If people say her music is boring- she calls it sexism. If people say her music is shallow and only centered are relationships- She calls it sexism. When, in reality, it's valid criticism that has nothing to do with her being a woman. Only ever writing songs about your own myopic, self-centered perception of interpersonal relationships is shallow. Her music is objectively boring, because it's derivative. Her music is completely self-centered- and she only admits to that when it benefits her, but when critics say it, she calls it sexism.

Please don’t think badly of yourself. I am not here to hate on you either- I was you. I am not here to hate on anyone at all- I just want to share how my own knowledge, and expertise, of rhetorical appeals and literary analysis can expose Taylor Swift. Swift relies on this rhetorical technique to thrive, she obfuscates the truth, schemes, and manipulates people into thinking her music is the best thing on Earth- or thinking that she is literally a Saint. Clearly- nothing on Earth is that perfect- So why does she need her fan base to consider her a genius, and a saint, so badly?

Personally, I have no problem admitting I have flaws. I think most sane people can admit to their flaws. It’s not a bad thing to have flaws. So why does Taylor Swift react to all criticism like it’s the worst thing on Earth. Why does she have a whole song about calling critics “mean/ and a liar/ and pathetic/ and alone in life” (“Mean” 2010). She has the nerve to call that song an “anti-bullying” song; yet, is it so clearly bullying that random critic who wrote a bad review about her concert one time in 2009? She really hated that guy- and all he was doing was his job. She called him a drunken loser for just doing his job. 

She's written so many songs about how all her critics are just stupid, morally corrupt, or sexist: "The Man" (2019), "Mean" (2010), "But Daddy I love Him" (2024), "New Romantics" (2014), "Shake it Off" (2014), "I know Places" (2014), "Anti-Hero" (2023), "Paris" (2023), "Blank Space" (2014), "I did something Bad" (2018), "Dancing with our hands tied" (2018). There are more songs wherein she carries this theme of "everyone is out to get me, and they all hate me for no good reason" but I think I've listed enough.

The general message is all over "Evermore" and "Folklore" too every time she calls the general public "Clowns" or "masqueraders"

It's just everywhere- her subtle devaluation of legitimate criticism. Trying to chalk it all up to the critics being simply dumb, sexist, or malicious in some way. Perhaps some people are mean- true- but to generalize every criticism as evil? That's just her actually playing a victim card. There's no way every single critic, or person who doesn't like her, is evil, bad, or malicious in some way. Okay?

I’m tired of her claiming to be an amazing person and an amazing poet- when she is just not either of those things. She’s not a kind person- it's all over her music in the ways she maliciously hurts people for fun. She’s not an amazing poet either. I have a few college degrees- and one pass through her work, with a serious intention of literary analysis, I discover that her writing is plain, banal, and derivative. 

She wants everyone to compare her to Emily Dickinson, Dylan Thomas, and Shakespeare. So, I’m doing what she wants and taking her work seriously enough to critique it. Except that, in critique, I find out why it’s all poorly written- and why it’s just a bunch of thinly veiled conservative iterations of the same boring message over and over. All she ever says in her music is “poor me” and “I hate” (insert person- Kim K., Kanye, Matty, Joe, Jake, John, Scooter, Scott, Harry, Calvin, the media at large, anyone who critiques her, and men in the music industry as a whole). She has the longest list of enemies I think I’ve ever seen- and the funny thing is that all these people avoid her at all costs. None of these people talk about her- yet she is still singing, writing songs, and getting her fans to post memes about how awful they are years, even decades, later.  

It all gets a bit tiresome? No? Personally, I don’t wish to live a life full of such self-pity and hatred- so why should I listen to it in music form? Ya know?  

In my posts, I am attempting to find the truth. I don’t want to “hate” on anyone or anything- but I am going to seek truth in her work.  

I will be posting more about how she devoids Shakespeare of his social reformist efforts. I’m going to post more about how she twists the meaning of every literary reference she’s ever made. I am not kidding, she has misrepresented, and misinterpreted every single literary reference in her entire discography. It’s astounding how hard Swift tries to sound thoughtful- without actually being thoughtful. I will be posting about how she only ever name-drops to either tear other people down or self-depreciate herself in effort to seek pity. I will be talking more about her use of rhetorical appeals to both attract an audience, keep their attention through risk-reward trade-off, and manipulate them into fighting her battles for her. I will be talking about how she upholds a bunch of harmful stereotypes in her music. She often alludes, or blatantly includes allusion to colonialist attitudes. She’s used the LGBT community for profit without making any real activist efforts. She’s leveraged feminism like a weapon against other women- yet never actually has feminist themes in her music. She’s just so painfully hollow- upon closer inspection.  

I don’t hate her as a person. I think she’s unethical, sure, but that doesn’t mean I hate her, want her to die, or anything extreme at all. I would never wish harm to another human being. In fact, after seeing a lot of the harmful stuff in her music, especially about her kind of fucked up views on relationships, I sincerely hope she gets some professional help and finds some peace in this world. When I critique Taylor Swift it’s about her work and her brand- It's not about her personhood.  

I just think that no one Earth is above reproach, or critique, and we must all be held accountable for our own actions. She’s the one that puts her work out there for people- It's therefore completely appropriate for me to discuss her work. 

Edit: Oh and I want to add- I wish you luck in figuring out what you really think about Taylor Swift. If you ever need to talk or vent more- my inbox is always open. :) With peace and love- bye bye

[dangermousie]

Best kdrama you have probably never heard of - Someday (2006)

"I can't breathe because my heart is filled with thoughts of you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you."

Answering the ask about my perfect kdramas made me think of and want to make a pusher post for the most underrated drama on that list Someday, starring Bae Doona, Lee Jin Wook, Kim Min Joon and Oh Yoon Ah.

When she was 17, Hana (Bae Doona), a Korean brought up in Japan by her grandmother, won a prestigious award and was launched on a career as a popular manga artist in Japan. The same day Hana was launched on her path to popularity and fame, Seokman (Lee Jin Wook) was having the worst day of his life -- he and his family were involved in a car crash, leaving him the only survivor. Fast forward three years or so and the paths of Hana, now a well-known mangaka who is facing a creative drought, and Seokman, now a sort of a missing-persons detective, are about to collide.

This is both an old drama (2006) and also one released on OCN back when it was just starting, so even back when I originally watched it 15 years ago, it was not well known. It's such a pity - this one is on my Top 10 kdramas list of all time for a reason. There are so many reasons as to why this deserves to be better known - it has a delicious off-beat vibe and in some ways it reminds me on an old school jdrama with its realistic feel and its meditation on life; but it retains old school kdrama strengths of romance and suffering and gorgeous cinematography. Its love story, which made me cry and cry and then grin like a lunatic and hug my pillows - it's so unexpected and sneaks up on you and then grabs and refuses to let go. Its stories of alienation and connections and families lost and found and made. Its laid-back charm which lures you in until you, all relaxed, are whacked with the darkness at the core, and are left gasping for breath (full disclosure - this drama made me cry more than once.)

It is also a chance for you to see some wonderful performances. The always sublime Bae Doona is well...sublime, as the quirky Hana who has locked her capacity for warmth and caring far away due to childhood loss - when the story starts she is almost an alien dropped among those weird humans - curious, exploratory, and oh-so-different. One of the biggest pleasures of the drama is to watch her learn to become fully human - to feel compassion, to feel love. Lee Jin Wook is one of my huge kdrama crushes and he doesn't disappoint, playing his character with so much sweetness that you get lulled into a false sense of security and don't realize just how much damage and despair Seokman has inside, until you are confronted with it, and then go "of course - it all makes sense now." His chemistry with Bae Doona is just so pitch-perfect - their whole relationship is so full of discovery and hope and tentativeness for both of them. You can't help but root for these two very damaged people to work it out and heal each other. She has no emotions but he has no hope or self-worth - and the biggest pleasure for me was to watch both of them recover what they lack. The drama Someday reminds me of most is my favorite twdrama, Mars - the two horribly damaged protagonists with vastly different coping mechanisms make each other better. It goes dark sometimes, terribly dark, but ultimately it's the story of new beginnings and of hope.

Kim Min Joon and Oh Yoon Ah are not secondary characters in this - every member of the quartet (and they are not really a love quartet in the usual sense) is equally important. If Hana and Seokman are horribly wounded children, both KMJ and OYA play grown-ups. If you are expecting a typical older kdrama evil secondary girl, you are in for a disappointment. OYA's Hae Young is the sanest, best person in the quartet, and the one most in touch with her feelings, which include her unrequited love for her best friend Jin Pyo (KMJ). And speaking of Kim Min Joon - he plays perhaps the most controversial character in this - a psychiatrist who gloms onto Hana as a representation of his fanboy fantasies, not a real woman (he does not get to know the real Hana the way Seokman does) and who is the one most in control and delights in manipulation. But I ended up liking him nonetheless - in a way, he was caught in a bubble as much as Hana was, only this bubble was of his own willful making.

My favorite scene? Because I am a sadist, it's the sequence leading to Seokman's suicide attempt (it's either that or he gets done in, due to the debts) - his counting how many minutes he has left and getting his math wrong, his visiting the hospital and tying up all the loose ends, his scene on the river bank with Hana, his suicide attempt itself, when he walks off limping and muttering "stupid stupid stupid" not able to think of anything but that he failed.

This drama is SO GOOD and SO UNDERRATED and really should be watched.

[cosmicjoke]

How do you personally feel about Yut-Lung? Do you sympathize with him? Dislike him?

Ohh, I hate him, and I don't understand the sympathy given to him at all. He's literally the reason Ash died. Because he manipulated Lao into believing Ash would kill Sing, which is why Lao ended up stabbing Ash in the end. And all because Yut-Lung was jealous and envious of Ash's relationship with Eiji. I know Yut-Lung had a shitty life, but his life wasn't any worse than Ash's, and yet he blamed Ash for his own inability to find real love and connection, as if Ash had anything to do with it. And he resented Ash for going through the same, horrific shit he did, but still having the capacity to love and be loved. So he did all he could to take that away from Ash, to destroy it, simply because he couldn't have the same. Let's not forget he also had the families of his brother's murdered, just to consolidate his power, including young children. People who had never done anything to him and posed no threat to him. So, yeah, Yut-Lung gets no sympathy from me, I'm afraid. He's the reason Ash died, he's a terrible person, and the abuse he suffered as a child doesn't change that fact.

[saintsenara]

16 33 50 for tom/voldemort

work has been terrible, i crave angst 😈

then you shall have it, anon.

[character ask game here]

16. what is their deepest darkest secret, which they won’t even admit to themselves?

that he’s profoundly, profoundly lonely.

in half-blood prince, dumbledore presents voldemort’s friendlessness as - in essence - an active choice. he tells us that voldemort loathed the other children in his orphanage, that he saw his "devoted" school-friends as mere tools for his wrongdoing, and that he has no interest in his death eaters beyond their service to his aims.

this, i’m afraid to say, is classic dumbledore-chatting-shit-on-the-basis-of-his-own-self-loathing. dumbledore may have virtually no true friends by choice, but voldemort would clearly love some. the issue, as always, is that he’s constrained by his cataclysmic childhood trauma.

it’s clear that - much like harry! whose trauma is treated very differently by the narrative! - voldemort has enormous trust issues, caused by the fact that he grew up without any safe adult role models. this will have had a huge impact on his ability to make friends, since he undoubtedly has no understanding of affection which is honest, unconditional, or reciprocal - much like harry! who takes seven books to get it through his head that ron and hermione aren’t lying when they say they’re with him no matter what!

but - unlike harry, whose capacity for forgiveness is astonishing - voldemort’s trust issues evidently also come with a whole tranche of resentment. his profound dislike of liars and hypocrites - no matter how ironic this might be - must arise from this childhood feeling that he can’t actually trust anyone.

but he would obviously like to. the canonical voldemort is clearly desperate to be understood - he needs virtually no prompting to start spilling his deepest secrets to harry on more than one occasion, the same is true of his first meeting with dumbledore - and, crucially, to be understood as he is. dumbledore’s poor handling of how excited he is to discover he’s magical [which i’ve written about in more detail here] upsets him and sends him back behind the mask of the cold and confident tom riddle he’s clearly been working on since he was very young; his pleasure at discovering - through ginny - that harry is also an orphaned parselmouth is so significant that he gives up on his plan to murder as many muggleborns as possible and focuses exclusively on meeting his new bff; his need to make harry understand that his father - as he sees it - abandoned him and he’s furious about it occupies a sizeable portion of their interactions in chamber of secrets and goblet of fire.

but he can’t get there. he can’t be vulnerable enough to admit to this; he hasn’t been paid enough attention in his life to know how to have a relationship where he doesn’t dominate; he would rather be feared than loved, because fear is an emotion he can control.

and it backfires on him. he hints - although he couches it in the camp performance of his graveyard speech - in goblet of fire at just how devastated he was to end up in a tree in albania in 1981 and have nobody [except the love of his life - not that he’s ever told her that - bellatrix] try to come and find him. his obviously cooled relationship with the death eaters who pretended not to have supported him during his exile from order of the phoenix onwards masks the pain he feels at their abandonment of him and all the long-buried feelings that brings up about the other people in his life [especially his mother] who, in his view, have abandoned him too. it doesn’t occur to him that this is his own fault - making people feel no emotion for you other than terror isn’t a great way to get them to be your ride-or-die - because he thinks it’s the way of the world; what good are friends? he doesn’t have any and he has no need of them anyway. 

or so he tells himself. right up until the moment he lands with a splat on the floor of the orphanage - having been killed by harry seconds earlier - and discovers that nobody has come to meet him.

33. what's something guaranteed to make them cry?

lord voldemort never cries, as we know [and if there’s a more devastating example of the casual cruelty of the institutionalisation of children than dumbledore and mrs cole treating the fact that, as a baby, tom riddle had learned that crying was futile as nothing more than a bit of odd gossip, i’ve never seen it].

but learning his mother’s real name - something which all the evidence of canon is that he doesn’t know - and getting to see her face would probably do it. maybe dumbledore could have tightened up and let him have a little look at bob ogden’s trip to little hangleton.

50. what's a memory they’ve blocked out?

literally fucking everything about his childhood.

above all, if you’d like something with a sinister implication to think about, whatever it was that happened to him which gave him his extreme canonical fear of doctors.

[sluttypatrickstar]

after reading verity i have been vacuuming up colleen hoover drama. i have been injecting rant reviews into my veins. i absorb articles critiquing her work by osmosis.

there's something that's been bothering me about the whole issue though, and that's the way that various critiques respond to hoover's target audience. i'm not sure who her initial target audience was, but the people reading her books are largely teenage girls and young women thanks to the explosion in popularity of her work on booktok. some articles have accused critique of hoover's work as undermining the intelligence of young women and their capacity to distinguish between real life and fiction.

but here's the thing, for me – when something is repeated to you often enough in an uncritical manner, it starts to creep in. and maybe you don't even KNOW it's wrong in the first place – maybe the younger readers of her books don't recognise abusive behaviours as abusive at all. it takes time for us to learn what is and isn't okay.

so for me, i don't think that these books are negatively affecting young women because they're stupid. i don't think they ARE stupid. but you are not immune to the messages you are sent over and over and over by media and by society. and, as far as i can tell, in most of hoover's books, abusive behaviour and terrible men are portrayed as romantic gentlemen. women can "change them". women are worn down by these men and eventually they marry and predictably pop out some children. these are marketed as romance novels, not dark romance (where you'd be reading with a more critical lens!), and fall into well-trodden stories of falling in love and marrying and having babies. there's no indication that the thoughts and actions of these men are actually quite fucked up and that the women deserve better.

i think these books are damaging because this kind of messaging adds up and portrays this kind of behaviour as okay and as romantic. i mean fuck! who HASN'T had their idea of romance and the world warped by shitty media portrayals? especially for me as an autistic person, i tried to emulate the behaviour i saw and read about because i thought that was how real life worked! it was one of my only frames of reference for learning how the world and how society worked as i was growing up! and i imagine in a lot of ways this is probably similar for other people too. our expectations and understandings are set by the media we encounter.

i've gone on an unhinged rant now and i don't know where i was going haha. i just wanted to try and explain that, for me, i think we can critique the effects that media is going to have on its readers and that does not necessarily imply that we think those readers are stupid. i just think it's worth thinking about what kind of messages we're sending and repeating, uncritically, to younger audiences. (and heck, maybe even older audiences. not everyone's out here to read with a critical eye, especially in an easy and cosy genre like romance!!;)

tl;dr U Are Not Immune To Colleen Hoover

[bobbinalong]

Your “Steph keeps the kid” au is incredible! Do you have ideas about the relationships between little Allie and the batfamily? Does she call them Aunts and Uncles? What about Young Justice? Are they the uncles and aunts as well? Sorry I am having a lot of emotions.

I'm so happy people are liking that AU, honestly. I've been meaning to draw some more of it, so I think that I will be doing tomorrow. As for your questions: I hadn't invested too much thought in it, but this is a perfect excuse to do that. So! We're doing this from youngest to oldest. (This is gonna be way too long.)

Damian, when he comes along, is faced with a rambunctious three-year-old who wants to be his very best friend. He's not used to other children, he's not used to the idea of a big family, he just pushed her step-dad off a dinosaur. She does not care. And he gets used to that eventually. I don't think she'd ever necessarily call him uncle (they're only like seven years apart), but they are close. Having another kid around does him some good.

Sorta skipping Duke because I haven't read enough of his comics, BUT I know he's cool with Cassandra and Damian, who are both more than cool with Steph and Allie, so they'd hang out eventually. He's a bit of a daredevil, I know that much, and a bit of a nerd, and I think Allie would like him. If he wants to be Uncle Duke (it's not like Bruce ever officially adopted him, his mom's still around, but he IS part of the Batfam), he'd absolutely get to be.

Young Justice don't find out for a while. Mostly because they don't even know exactly who Robin is. I think they'd just ... as a collective be very surprised by their sixteen-year-old teammate having a (step)child, but they took Anita having to raise her re-incarnated infant parents so well, I frankly don't think anything would throw them for long. They're some of Tim's best friends, they'll grow into being this kid's aunts and uncles. (Bart's her favourite.) (Because he's mine.)

Cass absolutely adores this kid. They first meet when Cass breaks into Steph's room (the only time Steph ever gets the jump on her), and she's not letting go. Steph brings her around the clock tower sometimes. Practicing to read is easier when you do it for a curious little girl. The baby doesn't expect long conversations. Cass has no experience with babies but she knows exactly what not to do, so what can go wrong, right? And she absolutely insists on being Aunt Cass.

I'm skipping Jason because frankly, I don't know enough about him to talk about him in any capacity. I know even less about him than Duke.

Dick is Tim's big brother. He almost fell off a roof when Tim told him his girlfriend was pregnant. He is not ready for his baby bro to have a baby of any kind, step or otherwise. But Tim's a good kid and Steph seems to be one, too, even if Bruce doesn't always seem to think so, and they're gonna need all the help they can get, and he's not immediately gonna take off his mask, but fuck it, he's Uncle Nightwing now. And Uncle Dick eventually.

Babs is ... not too keen on a baby in the clocktower at first. Or on Steph, even, when she's vigilanty-ing. But Tim's her bud and it's not like he's gonna change his mind on any of this, and Steph's stubborn as hell, too, and at least Cassandra is practicing her letters when Allie's around, so. O well. She comes around to her eventually. And probably doesn't want to be Aunt Barbara at first but ends up being exactly that, anyway.

Bruce is. Tricky? He's very hot and cold on Steph. He doesn't want Tim to reveal his identity to her until he does (and then does it himself), so he's not happy when Tim takes that step without consulting him in this AU. Allie's also born during No Man's Land, so at that time, he has bigger fish to fry. Jack and Dana are still around, too, so he's not yet Tim's (adoptive) father. He's not terribly involved in Allie's life, I think. And he still dies soon after Damian comes along and I'm not yet sure if I'm resurrecting him. So. I think they're getting closer before he dies, but no Grandpa Bruce in this AU, unfortunately.

Alfred seems to be very protective of Tim. He's angry with both Bruce and Steph when Bruce tell her who Tim his. (Which doesn't happen here, but. Just as a baseline.) I think he wouldn't be too excited about Steph at first. He's an old man. Maybe a little old-fashioned, too. But I think once he's sure that Tim is safe and happy and that this is what he wants, he'd get right to making cucumber sandwiches for Steph, too. His boys are just always his first priority.

And ... that's the main fam, right? I think. I hope. All the people I can say anything about in any case. This isn't the absolute happiest of AUs, but it is happy-ish. And it does end in relative harmony.

Thank for the ask. Hope I answered it properly. Feel always free to send more, if you read all that, haha.

[littleruinedprince]

One of my least favorite things about being a grown up is how other adults just stop making an effort to be nice to you.

One of the most soul crushing experiences I've ever had was going to the ER for a painful medical emergency and watching my nurse treat a little boy with an incredible degree of care and tenderness, only for her to then treat me with blatant disgust and cruelty. Don't get me wrong, I think children deserve all of the kindness the world has to offer, and I also don't expect strangers to baby me in any capacity, but it was horrifying how quickly she went from being kind and engaged to rude and indifferent. She literally refused to speak to me at all, roughly grabbing my body without stopping to explain what she was going to do next. She wouldn't even grace me with a simple "hello."

Most people, if they have any heart at all, will put in the work to be nice to children. Of course, I had pretty much nothing but terrible nurses and doctors as a child, but so many medical professionals go above and beyond to make sure their young patients feel safe and comfortable. Well, all of that goes out the window the second you turn 18! Suddenly you're treated like an unwanted nuisance, like all of your problems are solely your fault. You're expected to just get over it if you're scared or anxious, or if whatever torturous proceedure your doctor orders will cause you great pain. Like, I'm sorry, I guess my pain receptors missed the memo that they were supposed to shut off after I reached the legal age of majority!

And it's not just visits to the doctor, it's literally every aspect of life. People are less willing to accommodate you if you're disabled. Family members stop putting in effort for birthdays and holidays, and aren't as supportive when you need them the most. If you're poor and can barely afford to eat, people will tell you that hardship builds character and that you just need to work harder. Everyone is just generally less friendly and more willing to accept your suffering as just a fact of life. I didn't stop needing help when I grew up. I never stopped wanting the care and attention I never recieved. My disabilities never stopped affecting me, in fact, they worsened because I was forced to work in unbearable conditions just to survive.

This is not me saying that bio-kids don't deserve extra special treatment, because they definitely do! I'm not even saying that adults should be treated exactly the same way as children. However, I think that adults deserve grace and kindness too, especially in situations where they're defenseless and vulnerable. People need to understand that while it can be emotionally taxing to be considerate of everyone they meet, it's ultimately very important to show people of all ages tenderness and compassion. Everyone is special.

You never know who might really need a kind word at the doctor's office, or a special birthday.

[teamdilf]

Break and skin for Ceci and Tully, I’m already bracing

break: What would cause your OC to break down completely? What do they look like when that happens? Has anyone ever seen them at their lowest?

Tullia - She broke down completely after Tarquin died, and it involved a lot of crying and screaming at Sparatus' home on the Citadel, where she was staying after evacuating off Palaven. For a time, she lost the will to live, and when Cerberus tried to take over the Citadel, she defended Sparatus' staff at the house, and was actually disappointed the house and panic room weren't breached, because she wanted to fight and she wanted to die on her feet.

This really scares her - she's always been a fighter and she's never, ever given up, but she perceives herself as being on the verge of giving up. She throws herself into charity work, calling and haranguing everyone she can think of for donations to help the turian refugees, but what really starts her on the road to healing is recognizing that she still wants a life with Adrien, even if she's furious with him for his role in their son's death, and rescuing Marcus and Nero on the Citadel.

Cecilia - Cecilia is a tougher one. I think her biggest breakdown comes in response to Castis' insistence that they'll find a treatment for her and that she'll respond to it. In her mind, his unending optimism was a naive coping strategy, and she needs for him to get in his head that she is going to die, and that there are things that need to be done while she still has the capacity to make her own decisions. That came in the form of a shouting match.

Now, had she lost one of her children, I think that would have been a very ugly breakdown indeed. Castis and Solana hide the fact that Garrus has left his job and gone off to who knows where specifically so that Cecilia won't worry - and so they don't have to tell her the news repeatedly and break her heart every single time. "He's busy with work" is how they protect a very ill Cecilia from the terrible worry they're feeling.

skin: How comfortable is your OC in their skin? Do they grapple with anything that lives inside them—a beast, a curse, a failure, a monster? How do they face the smallest, weakest, most horrible version of themself? Are they able to acknowledge it at all?

Tullia - The part of Tullia that she's most ashamed of is the way she told Adrien he wasn't so different from his father after all, after learning about Tarquin's death. For the most part, she's very comfortable with the person she is; she's confident and secure, but when she was at her very worst, weaponized Adrien's greatest fear and hurt him in a way few others ever could. She has to live with that, and for the rest of her life, tries to make sure he knows what a good dad he is, and that he's more than the worst mistake he ever made.

Cecilia - Cecilia has an anxiety disorder and is prone to panic attacks. After her diagnosis during her early days of basic training, I think she was probably pretty hard on herself, because it became clear that she would never live up to the "turian ideal". The thing is, her family, her friends, and her immediate superiors understood! She discovered an important part of herself - and the reason why she'd always felt so deeply scared from the time she was a young child. She has a medical condition, received an accommodation, and was discharged to serve the Hierarchy in another way - no big deal!

Still, she's not that ideal, and there were people who didn't understand. Castis taking the revelation so casually, despite being in the military himself at the time, was a real relief for her. She learns coping strategies over the years - she's neurotic about money so she handles the family's finances. She worries about Castis on the Citadel, so he makes every effort to text her goodnight every single night - and is very good at warning her if he would be unable to for some reason. I think she does need a bit of help to learn what accommodations she needs, and that it is fine to have different needs from the other people around her.

[5unrider]

jaysi as a character is just so …

the perpetual masking and suppressing that he has to do on a daily basis in order to be accepted in any capacity. the way that he, as someone who is disabled and whose disability is very clear and impossible for others to 'avoid' or 'forget about' (and subsequently he is less palatable for the vast majority of people), has to constantly put up with the disgust of strangers and peers alike, and if not disgust, then pity. he will always be treated either as a freak, or as someone (something) to be babied and coddled and taken care of, someone (something) that is fragile and will break.

like. kassan brought jaysi to the jedi order - after he had found out about his force sensitivity - as a means of keeping him safe from the horrors of balmorra, the same horrors that had already done irreparable damage to him. and it worked, for a time, and jaysi was safer, and he was determined to prove himself as a jedi, to use this power he's been given to help people and to do good … but he finds out quickly that the jedi are far less accepting of him than the people back home. on balmorra, on his home world, he wasn't considered some disfigured freak of nature, he wasn't just his disability; there were so many other people like him, people who knew and understood what living like that was like, what surviving was like, and there's never been any avoiding the sympathy or pity, but it was different from them. with the jedi … the younglings and the padawans are just children, cruel and lacking understanding, incapable of hiding their revulsion and aversion towards him - and the knights and the masters seem to grieve him while he's still alive, and there are an extreme few who would even consider taking on an apprentice as damaged and incapable as him, and he has heard, more than once, that he was only taken as a pity case, a boy with no more hope of being a jedi than one lacking in the force.

and he just … he can't be weak. he can't let it hurt him, and he can't be brought down by it, because letting the words and looks and feelings of every single person around him wound him and rot him will just prove them right. jaysi is smart, and he's clever, and he's cunning, and he's quick - the force thrums hot and wild in his veins, static-shock dancing between his fingers and around his heart; a storm barely contained, young and hungry and desperate: he knows what his strengths are, he knows how useful he can be, the good that he can do (even if no one else knows it), and he can't let himself be reduced to the jedi's charity case. so he fights, and he trains, and he pushes himself when he probably shouldn't, and he tries and tries and tries to be good.

but at the same time. it does suck. being disabled and having chronic pain and a number of other illnesses sucks. and it's awful, and some days are agonizing and terrible and he wishes he was dead, or that he was 'normal', and he's not wrong for that, but he also feels like he can't feel that way. jaysi accepts himself and his situation, knows there isn't any changing it and he can be strong and talented despite his shortcomings and what he has been through, but gods above, living is difficult and he gets so frustrated and angry and he has no idea what to do with either of those things. the fact that everyone around him is perpetually walking on eggshells around him only makes things worse - a constant reminder of what's wrong with him, that he can't do anything on his own because he'll hurt himself or he'll mess it up or something.

it's all about the agony of being physically and mentally disabled, and knowing you are different and there is something 'wrong' with you and you will never know what it's like to be 'normal', and everyone around you always reminding you of that, whether they mean to or not, and the never ending frustration of never just being seeing as a person and not as your disability / disabilities -

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: I'm a 32 years old, poc, male ISTP. Due to the second mentioned factor and living in a closed, rural community, I was a victim to a lot of discrimination in my childhood. Both being hurt, scared and bit of a meathead at that time of my life, I turned to a shadier sides of the town (where people 'accepted' me more). I'll admit it was stupid in itself to even step a foot in that business, but I'll admit I really only stood around and try to look like a doberman (being 6ft and all).

Until, things got out of hand, and in my early adulthood, I actually got tangled in court and went into prison. While I eventually got out, I was feeling so terrible that I didn't return home and decided to stay in the city. Looking back at it, I can't really tell if it was a decision made on whim or something I wanted long time. Cause after while, months going to total years, my contact with my home place eventually lessened till I just completely severed all relationship there.

My mom was a really supportive person, albeit too strongheaded, and my absent dad altogether made me appreciate her all the more. She was a major factor why I felt so ashamed about my entire trial and temporary imprisonment. I won't say my childhood was the best, but I very deeply know she tried all her best to make it tolerable. The entire shady stuff I've been in, that at the time felt belonging, now had felt like I've had undone all her effort. [cont]

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I'm afraid I didn't receive the rest of your message, so please resend. Although I don't know what your question was, I can still make a few general points that may benefit you and other readers. You're not alone; a lot of people struggle because of a difficult childhood or have trouble reconciling past mistakes.

Throughout childhood and adolescence, your brain is designed to be very open to social influence because it helps you learn efficiently. Human children take a long time to mature compared to other animals, so they need to learn as quickly as possible. One reason humans evolved to be a cooperative and social species was to make it easier to pass crucial survival and cultural information from one generation to the next. The capacity to learn from collective memory and intelligence helped us evolve quickly as a species, but the downside was that negative cultural patterns could become more and more entrenched through each generation, making it difficult to change direction.

Social creatures learn from their social environment. No matter how great your parents are, they alone cannot shield you from all the negative influences of society at large, particularly when it comes to prejudice, discrimination, and hate. Even with maximal parental support, it is very difficult for one person, especially a child, to stand against an entire society that is designed to keep them down.

To learn optimally, kids need more than just parents. They also need good peers to rely on for emotional support, good teachers in school to model the right thinking and behavior, and good mentors from the community for learning how to be a productive member of society. Without enough moral support from the larger social environment, it is more difficult for kids to learn good decision-making skills. This is the meaning behind the common saying that it takes a village to raise a child. But when the village isn't passing down healthy cultural values, children are forced to work with disadvantages that prevent them from realizing their potential and flourishing in life.

Unfortunately, as a young child, your thinking isn't complex enough to understand just how toxic your social environment really is and why. Even if you have some moral instincts about how terrible the people around you are, you don't have any power to change anything, especially when sticking your neck out would risk severe blowback. When the social environment is putting great pressure on you to learn and internalize its toxic values AND your natural inclination as a child is to become a valued member of society, resistance doesn't really register as an option. Who wouldn't take the easier path and try to swim with the current?

Don't call yourself stupid when there were so many forces working against you. You shouldn't be blamed or blame yourself for the conditions of your upbringing that you had no control over. Accidents of birth shouldn't factor into your personal identity since you didn't have any say over them. However, in reality, people do define themselves by accidents of birth and they might waste too many years unconsciously seeking out the things that they felt deprived of in childhood. In this state of arrested development, of always longing for approval or belonging, they readily believe what people say, about who they are and who they should be. Eventually, they learn to be their own harshest critic and hold themselves up to toxic standards and expectations.

To really grow up is to become independent, to have the ability to mentally differentiate oneself from one's social environment enough to understand the importance of personal well-being. It's very hard to make something truly good out of yourself and your life when you don't know how to take care of your own well-being. As you enter young adulthood, the brain finally reaches maturation, and you gradually gain enough self-awareness to reflect and think more critically about yourself and your life. This opens up the possibility of choosing a future that is different than the one your childhood set up for you.

Who are you? Are you just your negative experiences? You will be, if you don't use your self-awareness to understand that how you define your identity is in your hands. You get to choose your beliefs and values and change them as necessary. You get to choose the people you let into your personal life. You get to choose how to respond to bad or difficult situations. You get to choose how to conduct yourself in your daily activities. You get to choose your next steps in life. All of these choices, over a lifetime, reflect who you really are. If at any point in time you don't like who you are, there is always the possibility of choosing a different path and becoming a better person.

You are well into adulthood and it sounds like you've been able to make some sense of your past and put negative events in the right perspective. However, even when people succeed in escaping their negative early childhood environment, it doesn't mean that there aren't some lingering questions and concerns always floating around in the back of the mind. For example:

How much of that environment still exists within you, and are you aware of the aspects that still influence you today?

Have you really made peace with everything that happened, or do you still harbor unresolved feelings and emotions that come out when you're stressed/unhappy?

Have you truly changed and bettered yourself, or would you still lose your way upon reentering a similarly toxic environment?

Was it all bad, or were there some good aspects of the past that you didn't appreciate and/or threw away unfairly and should try to reclaim?

Do you really have a better way of making decisions today, or are you still driven by past influences to either seek approval or enact rebellion over and over again in every new situation, always a victim of larger generational and/or cultural forces?

You mention having unresolved feelings of regret about your mom and how your decisions might have impacted her. When you realize the gravity of the hurt you've caused someone, the best you can do is try to make amends by expressing to them how genuinely sorry you are and empathizing with their suffering. You can also try to make up for mistakes by finding some way to compensate for hurt or damages caused to them, with their consent and agreement. Whether they can forgive you and resolve their feelings about the past is their business and not for you to control. In some cases, if the person you're trying to make amends with is no longer around or refuses to have contact with you, you have to find a way to forgive yourself.

Forgiving yourself involves addressing those lingering questions and concerns honestly. Are you truly sorry and repentant for your past mistakes? Have you understood why you made those poor decisions, learned the right lessons from them, and now live your life in a way that honors rather than repeats your past? Have you done something to make up for the mistakes you made, for example, through acts of service and devotion? Even when you can't obtain forgiveness from other people, you can come to forgive yourself by taking your negative past and transforming it into something positive, something that expresses the positive aspects of you and contributes something positive to the world around you. In this way, you take the lead to define who you are, rather than letting the past define you.

Maybe the guilt/regret never goes away completely, but maybe it shouldn't, because it has a job to do. Every part of you serves a purpose and should be properly understood and loved. The guilt/regret could serve as a reminder to choose carefully when you're at your low points and at risk of repeating past mistakes. Perhaps the guilt/regret is really your mom's voice in disguise and you were only able to hear it once you faced up to the past bravely. If that's the case, fully embracing the guilt/regret would be a good way to keep her love close to your heart, like a caring companion guiding you to live your life well.

[ofstarlght]

⚔ ⸻ ( davika hoorne → cis woman → she/her ) / / * seems like ANIKA BLOODROSE , crossed the city limits into rome : you know , the twenty-eight / unknown year old HIGH WARLOCK OF ROME , who is reputed to be CHARMING and CUNNING , but is avoided when they are MANIPULATIVE and MISLEADING . rumor has it that has been heard saying ❝ EVERY BATTLE IS WON BEFORE IT IS FOUGHT. ❞ . that would explain why they want control of the mortal instruments .

𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐬

full name . anika bloodrose

nickname(s) . ani

age . centuries, appears 28

sexuality . pansexual

place of birth . [ redacted ]

occupation . high warlock of rome

species . warlock

loyalty . herself, her species

height . 5'9"

tattoos . [ redacted ]

piercings . 2x lobes, left helix + tragus + rook, right daith + orbital conch. others [ redacted ]

𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬

( tw : murder, kidnapping )

an  enigma,  anika  bloodrose  strives  to  be  the  most  mysterious  person  in  existence.  she  gives  away  nothing,  and  none  even  know  where  she  is  from.  

she  was  born  to  a  single  woman,  in  a  time  where  that  was  a  positive  scandal.  anika  was  torn  away  from  the  human  who  birthed  her  and  raised  by  a  warlock  that  aspired  to  have  children.  the  woman  pushed  anika  to  terrible  lengths,  pulled  her  power  out  in  blood,  sweat  and  tears.  long  nights,  little  sleep,  and  rougher  conditions  than  many,  but  ut  all  worked.  anika  proved  to  have  the  power  that  could  be  felt  in  the  air  when  she  neared,  she  was  a  product  of  a  prince  of  hell,  after  all.

but  there  was  no  love  between  she  and  the  woman  who  stole  her,  and  when  anika  was  a  few  centuries  old  she  killed  her  mentor.  while  the  elder  had  granted  her  abilities  beyond  most  warlocks,  anika’s  capacity  to  hold  a  grudge  and  execute  her  revenge  is  unparalleled.  and  just  like  that,  she  became  the  high  warlock  of  rome  at  a  rather  young  age  for  a  warlock,  but  none  would  challenge  the  girl  either.  she  kept  her  mentor’s  surname  as  well,  a  move  of  power  and  spite.

anika  has  served  rome  for  centuries.  she’s  watched  it  rise,  she’s  watched  it  fall,  and  she’s  witnessed  great  battles  and  great  wars.  she’s  incredibly  old,  but  she’ll  never  tell  that  to  many.  in  truth,  she  won’t  admit  to  any  of  her  story.  it’s  all  rumors  and  speculation.  it  amuses  her,  what  people  come  up  with  to  explain  what  someone  is  or  where  they  came  from.

she’s  a  very  reserved  person,  but  knows  how  to  charm  her  way  into  anything  she  needs.  her  manipulative  skills  are  every  bit  something  to  fear  alongside  her  power. 

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

on main : adoptive child.

dalliances  :  she  has  had  long  term  relationships,  she’s  had  short  flings.  these  are  anything  in  between,  nothing  exclusive,  and  every  bit  just  for  pleasure.  anika  doesn’t  really  have  time  to  fall  in  love  again,  nor  does  she  want  to.  she  sees  multiple  people  at  once  and  has  no  care  to  what  others  think  about  that.

clients  :  people  who  come  to  her  for  her  skills.  she’s  expensive,  but  not  heartless.  can  be  swayed  by  a  good  story,  especially  soft  with  single  mothers  or  children.

staff  :  people  who  work  for  her  in  some  way  or  another.  think  spies,  assistants,  personal  shoppers,  chefs.  she  pays  very  well  and  takes  good  care  of  her  people.  she’s  grateful  for  their  service  to  her  and  shows  it.

𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬

✦  𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐤𝐚  𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐞  *⁎  ,  ✦  𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐤𝐚  ⁑  threads  *⁎

✦  𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐤𝐚  𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐞  *⁎  ,  ✦  𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐤𝐚  ⁑  inspo  *⁎

✦  𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐤𝐚  𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐞  *⁎  ,  ✦  𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐤𝐚  ⁑  dev.  *⁎

✦  𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐤𝐚  𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐞  *⁎  ,  ✦  𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐤𝐚  ⁑  image  *⁎