#like... i really don't think it's as implausible as it's made out to be

[luveline]

hi bae, just wondering if you could write something like roommate!marauders and reader with anxiety where everytime one of them goes out she gets really worried that’s somethings gonna happen to them and waits up for them and just feels like a burden when she calls to make sure they’re alright and just general anxiety things and them being so sweet about it

love u

love u too♡

cw death related anxiety

“Hey, Remus?” you ask tentatively. 

Your housemate lays across the sofa with his dinner half eaten on the coffee table and a book tented on his chest. He's ignoring both in favour of the television, a rerun of Family Fortunes turning the sofa cushions and his pale skin a light blue. 

He drags his blue-tinged gaze from the subtitles to your frowning. “What's wrong?” he asks. You're surprised he heard you over the sound of Sirius’ stereo echoing down the stairs. 

“Where did James say he was going?” 

“I think he said he'd be at the gym for an hour now he's not in work. Want me to call him?” 

“Why would you call him?” you ask, instead of saying yes, please, like you want to. 

“You're worrying again.” 

They know how you are. It doesn't mean they have to understand —it isn't logical to think James is hurt because he hasn't been home today yet, and none of them are required to humour you in your worry, but they always do. 

You feel sick as he takes his phone from his pocket. You've convinced yourself that James is dead, that his car curled around a bend too quickly on the drive in the rain, or that something happened at the gym, or that he never made it there at all, had a fit in the car park outside of work. Even as you think it, you know it's implausible, unlikely, just a repetitive negative anxiety worming its way into your head, but you can't make it stop. 

James doesn't answer the first time, which doesn't help, and then when he does answer the second time you're waiting for bad news. Remus smiles as he talks. “Hello? Jamie?”

James doesn't need speak phone to be heard. “Remus! I'm at the gym, what's happening?”

Remus wrinkles his nose. “What's happening? Since when do you say that?”

“What's up?” James corrects. “I'm on my way out of the gym, can you talk? You can keep me company while I drive.” 

Remus holds out the phone to you. 

“Remus?” James asks into the room. You take the phone before he can hang up, and decide to be honest, but the words get stuck like toffee between your teeth. “Hello?” 

“Hey,” you say, sending Remus a grateful look. He moves over to make room on settee for you, and his arm wraps familiarly around your shoulders as you settle in. He turns his attention back to his show. 

“Oh my god hey, angel. Remus okay?” 

“I was making him ring you, sorry. I thought… you know what I'm like. It's getting late and you aren't home, and I know I don't have the right to pester you about where you are.”

“Yeah you do,” James says, his voice louder, like his mouth is very close to the microphone. “Course you do. I'd worry too if you weren't home yet.” 

“I do this all the time, though.”

Just last week he and Sirius were out late and you'd panicked that they'd both been hurt. You stayed up until almost one in the morning waiting for them to get home from a music shop in the city, each minute after eleven like a shot of ice water in your veins. Sirius jumped when he saw you waiting in the living room, but then he'd given you a hug and rubbed at your shoulders roughly. You didn't wait up for us, did you? 

“It's worse lately, yeah?” James asks. You hum non-committal, and Remus gives you a squeeze in typical Remus fashion. You hadn't even realised he was listening, but his support makes this easier. “You're worrying about us more.”

“Yeah,” you say. “I don't know why. And it sucks because I know it's making me a lot to deal with.” 

“I would one thousand percent prefer it if you rang me then sat there worrying. That would make me feel better. And Remus and Sirius feel the same way, okay? We could all stand to ring each other a bit more anyways.” 

You rub your nose into your hand. “Sorry,” you mumble. 

“There's no need to be. I love you, ‘n I just want you to be happy. If a phone call can make that happen then why shouldn't you do it? And it's not like they're a big imposition, I like talking to you. We all do.”

James is home from the gym what could only be ten minutes later, and he leans over the back of the settee to kiss your forehead chasely. “Here we are, all safe and well.” 

“You haven't seen Sirius yet,” Remus points out.

“I can bloody well hear him. What is he listening to? Is that U2?” James shakes his head in disgust. “I can see why you were so worried I wasn't coming home. Let me go put a stop to that immediately.” 

#the marauders #marauders #poly marauders #poly!marauders #poly marauders x reader #poly!marauders x reader #remus lupin x reader #james potter x reader #remus lupin fanfiction #james potter fanfiction #remus lupin fic #james potter fic #the marauders x reader #the marauders x fem!reader #remus lupin #sirius black #james potter #sirius black x reader implied is

[with-my-murder-flute]

Gideon Nav and the motherless child

(A post I promised at Wiscon in May that I'd write, and am finally getting around to.)

Gideon does not come off as a severely abused and neglected child, and I think there's a reason for that.

Both she and Harrow have full on The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog-calibre childhoods. Harrow acts more like it, from her extremely low thresholds for sensory overstimulation to her entire social... everything. Those are all things kids raised in neglect are way more likely to deal with.

When I first read GtN I was in my habitual "Look self, not everyone works in your field, SFF authors give their characters these kinds of horrible childhoods all the time, nobody else cares about the realistic consequences of bringing a child up that way" mode. Like, it was nice that Muir seemed aware that the Ninth House's children generally would be more sickly and have higher fatality rates, but I also didn't want Gideon to be one speck less herself, so I could live with the slight implausibility.

And then we got Harrow the Ninth. We got the slow revelation of the Sleeper. The revenant. Wake's immense rage.

"I hated that damned sword for years. I don’t know why; it just felt strange—rancorous."

"Where the hell have you been hiding for nineteen years?” “Where—you—fucking—left—me. In my bones. Then a blade. In—that—fucking—hole.”

I immediately remembered: Gideon loved her sword so much she could frigging marry it.

Here's my theory: Gideon is Gideon in part because her mother has been haunting her for years.

Children need love if they're going to grow up. I don't mean that metaphorically. Babies that aren't held, rocked, touched, and soothed don't release the same mix of hormones that tell their bones it's time to move outwards. The steady attachment of baby to the adult who takes care of them is the central pillar around which children construct everything from control of their faculties to their senses of self. When babies are not cared for and able to attach to loving, reliable caretakers, they struggle in so many ways. I know this sounds really vague and ~vibes~-y, but I mean it in the sense of, "here is a curated reading list of scientific research on the topic, which I provide because I can't condense it while also shouting about Griddlehark on Tumblr"

So in GtN, Gideon just seemed like this ridiculously optimistic outcome for a severely maltreated child. She's optimistic and self-confident, brazen but moral, outgoing but centred. She's smart enough to hold her own against Harrow, to make complicated plans for the future, and to cope when her plans encounter hiccups. She knows that she wants to leave the Ninth House, and when she finally manages it, she doesn't panic or find some new miserable hole to shove herself into; she gleefully steps out and stretches her wings. And yet, her less-than-stellar relationships with people back home don't prevent her (in any way other than a little shyness) from forming new, varied, complicated connections with all the different people at Canaan House.

That's all... like, it is wildly optimistic to think that a child whose closest adult attachment figure from twelve months old was as distant and limited as Aiglamene would be like. That is winning the child development lottery.

That, or...

Maybe when she was seven, and her biggest emotional attachment (besides Harrow) was to the imaginary skeleton mother in her head, Aiglamene broke it to her that her mother wasn't out in rotation yet. Maybe Aiglamene led her to the niche where Wake's bones lay. Maybe when Aiglamene left, Gideon sat down there and said, Hello, mother. I love you.

Maybe it was then? Or maybe it was before? As a revenant, Wake's closest link to the living world was her own body, her own bones. But she also had thanergetic links with things like her murder weapon. Her murderer. The baby she'd died delivering to the Tomb. That made it possible before, certainly, but physical proximity counts for something, so maybe it was then, that Wake first tried possessing a living soul.

Wake whispering tiny inaudible suggestions into her daughter's ear like: Fuck this place. Fuck these bones. Light this place on fire. They don't own you. You don't owe them shit. Get up, get out, escape. Blow this place apart. Fight, defy them, make them pay, and remember that ten thousand years of history brought you here to stand against them. Here is what it's like to be a human being, to throw your shoulders back, to fight with people you trust, to gauge your enemies clearly, to know the power you punch with. And if there are no other standing orders: Live. Live. Live.

You cannot tell me Gideon's first act upon receiving a real sword, a soldier's sword, was not to take it down to her mother's niche and show it off. It was probably like offering her an open backpack to hop into.

Maybe all Wake's "mothering" was just her trying with singleminded rage to program instructions for detonation into her bomb. Even still: At least Gideon had a mum who wanted her to be as explosive as she was, and backed her up for every step of it.

Harrow didn't even get that much.

#the locked tomb #child abuse tw #child neglect tw #gideon nav #htn spoilers #commander wake

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

am i the assshole for softblocking a person (and… existing, apparently)?

so this requires a bit of a backstory. recently i realized that i hadn't seen a certain mutual (person A) on my dashboard for a bit. i decided to go check their blog directly. when looking for it, however, no results were returned. curious, i went to check on a reserve tumblr account i made when my main got nuked, and this person did not delete their blog, they blocked my main. that seemed weird, because i don't remember any negative interactions with them, but i can be hotheaded and say things i later regret, so it wasn't implausible i said something to upset them. i decide to check the blog of a different person (person B) who i know is friends with the aforementioned one, and that person has me blocked as well. "that's not a coincidence", i think, and after sitting on it for a bit i decide to ask a third person, who was friends with both of them, and whom i consider my friend as well, whether i have done something that might have upset them at any point. they tell me that no, there isn't anything like that they can recall. after explaining what prompted this, i received an explanation that frankly baffled me.

turns out, person B was quite distressed with things related to me. according to them, i was an incredibly cool person who everyone was friends with, but i blocked them for no apparent reason and everyone kept discussing just how cool i am, which led to them feeling invalidated and upset. i should clarify, that i did block one of person B's sideblogs on which they post fanfiction for the fandom we're both in, because i wasn't quite comfortable seeing the kind of stories they write and it showed up in character name search if i didn't block the blog. i did not permablock their main blog, but i did softblock it a couple times because again, i'm not completely comfortable with what they write and would rather avoid interactions with them after finding out. i did not have any particular feelings about them as a person, because we barely ever interacted. and while i would not say that i am lame or something like that, i am also not nearly as cool as person B felt. there is a non-zero amount of people who either have me blocked or don't follow me back, and i rarely post original content, most of my blog is just reblogs of memes or other people's creations. i am a perfectly ordinary tumblr user. but i caused them enough distress that they chose to leave a discord server they were in because they talked about me so much, and for some other personal reasons i'm not quite sure about.

recently, i joined the guild and the server this person was claiming was so fond of me -- partially to see for myself how much people really mentioned me, but also for unrelated reasons. being the nosy person i am, i ran my name through the search function on discord. there was a total of six messages mentioning me in that server. in a total of four conversations. so i have been individually brought up 4 times. which apparently equates to a three hour conversation about me, according to person B.

to clarify, i am not saying person B's feelings are unreasonable -- i do know what it's like to feel ignored or outshined by someone, but i don't think i have personally contributed significantly to them feeling this way, nor do i think they interpreted any of my actions correctly.

so, aita for curating my dash and being brought up in a discord server half a dozen times? i genuinely can't tell.

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

i think you're onto something with the romance novels world and plot points needing to mirror the kind of outlandishness of the love story. bc the main characters are already inherently acting absurd just by falling madly in love in a month or whatever and then if you add in the contrivances of romance tropes, it starts to feel like whiplash trying to pretend the characters live in any sort of grounded "normal" world. Like when the author adds in a family conflict subplot where the MC is like in absolute shambles because her mom said something slightly passive aggressive at lunch. that reads as more jarring to me than like conflict being something ridiculous that her mom doesn't want her being a marine biologist bc they come from a long line of fishmongers. Give me absurd drama to match the over the top dialogue and character emotions, I knew it would be unrealistic it's a romance novel! I guess this applies more to romcoms, but the same would apply I think to an analogous serious scenario. Or at least that's my take on it

okay so having just finished genuinely the most boring romance novel I have ever read in my LIFE I'm going to expand on this a little so thank you for sending an ask that gives me such a great platform to do that

I personally generally prefer a romance that just gets fucking silly with it, like really outlandish. A Lady for the Duke (Alexis Hall) is obviously the dream, being a whole swoony historical trans-affirming fantasy, but contemporary fake relationship stories can also be fun in their sheer ridiculousness, like Love, Hate, and Clickbait (Liz Bowery), which I actually liked, and Unfortunately Yours (Tessa Bailey), which I did not like but was very funny. and let's not forget queen Helen Hoang's Bride Test, which has a premise that dances perilously close to human trafficking but all works out in the end!!!

BUT HAVING SAID THAT. I don't think that something needs to be totally implausible to be a good romance. two of my very favorites romance novels anywhere ever are Helen Hoang's Heart Principle (no one should be surprised Hoang is on her twice I adore her) and Akwaeke Emezi's You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty. both of these books are very grounded in reality but with very uncommon situations to heighten emotions and add urgency; in Hoang's case it's a character's adult autism diagnosis + death of a parent and in Emezi's case it's a very sudden and #problematic attraction coming out of absolutely nowhere. the stakes are very real, mostly centering around being true to yourself v disappointing your family, but the circumstances are still wild enough to make you say "god DAMN" and keep turning pages. hell, I'll even be extremely generous and include Mistakes Were Made (Meryl Wilsner) which is kind of a flop but does have the intriguing premise of "what if you were fucking a milf but her kid was YOUR BEST FRIEND and it was a secret?"

those are like the two sweet spots TO ME, and this book I just read (which was Thank You for Sharing by Rachel Runya Katz, I feel so bad putting it on blast but I know people are going to ask) really solidified it for me because TYFS didn't fall into either of those categories. I'm going to say something absolutely insane, which is that multiple times while I was reading it I found myself wishing that the book was fanfic, because on its own it just... didn't bring a lot to the table? it falls into the grounded category but doesn't really bring any of those heightened stakes to the story, it's just 330 pages of people in their late twenties complaining about dating and their office jobs. if I wanted that I could just ask my group chat! there's nothing particularly particularly gripping about watching made up strangers do it!

but then I was like oh hang on... if this was two fictional characters who are usually fighting with swords or throwing cars at each other or something this would be so gripping. it's literally the coffee shop AU principle, right? like seeing people in a very mundane setting having an office job and going to a bar is very shrimpteresting when they're normally defusing space bombs. I was explaining this to my housemates and I couldn't think of a straight couple to apply it to (the book is m/f) so I said Naruto and Sasuke, which is crazy because I've never seen a single episode of Naruto, but like. idk Naruto being a museum curator who has to work with Sasuke, a marketing specialist who he had beef with a summer camp 14 years ago, sounds kind of compelling, right? definitely more than just two people I don't know.

there's a post on here that I think about a lot that talks about why advertising a story with tropes doesn't work for original fiction as well as it does for fan fic because knowing the tropes is more helpful when you already have a sense of investment in the characters and their personalities, and I think this is related to that! I think sometimes you NEED to have a wider sense of scope for the characters for them to be interesting in a very mundane setting!

ANYWAY. much to consider, etc.

#bookblr

[myechoecho]

Moon in the Day, ep 14

Honestly, I really loved how they ended this. There are some minor questions that I have but nothing too important.

I suspected we'd get a bit of a flashback before dealing with So Ri Bu and it was the sweetest scene of them in the morning. We also get a bit of an extended scene from where they bought the rings. Do Ha, was expecting his father to find them. Hoping he wouldn't but suspecting he would.

In many ways, I think that the fight between Ri Bu and Do Ha is seeing which is stronger - Do Ha's love for Yeong Hwa and need to protect her vs Ri Bu's resentment and revenge now that they both have physical form.

Of course, Ri Bu tells Yeong Hwa that Do Ha will disappear if they break the curse. He also seems to be trying to convince Do Ha to let him kill Yeong Hwa or else they will be separated forever. Which shows again how much he does not understand Do Ha. If it means Yeong Hwa will be safe, and he never has to watch one of her reincarnations die, he will be at peace leaving her.

I was pleased with the tree branch stabbing death, though I'm not quite sure how that destroys him since he is a spirit but maybe Do Ha had to kill the physical body. Plus it could also be because he was already weak or maybe it was past midnight. Doesn't really matter because finally he is gone.

Their goodbye was heartbreaking - both of them. Just after destroying Ri Bu and under the tree (in a parallel to their Silla times). His love and devotion for her really knows no bounds.

Joon Oh coming back was a bit interesting. I hesitate to say it's implausible given the whole 1500 year curse, ghost and evil spirit aspect of the show. What I've come around to is that is the universe's (or maybe Do Ha's) way of saying thank you for the use of your body. The man was pretty dead and had terminal cancer, but he was given a second chance. I do like how he wasn't instantly cured but still had to go through chemo.

I also like that he had echos of Do Ha, similar to how Do Ha had some of his memories. But he was never the reincarnation of Do Ha despite being his doppleganger. Do Ha being Joon Oh seems to have matured him (plus going through chemo) because I cannot see pre Do Ha Joon Oh handling the box of trinkets or meeting Yeong Hwa that way.

I love that Joon Oh gave Yeong Hwa some closure and that they will both live their lives the best they can. The letter made me cry, but also reaffirms again that Do Ha was at peace with leaving her, though not happy about it. "But I couldn't put you in hell in which you can die at any moment. Because my only reason was to live was to protect you. Don't give up after losing me. You'll get to look back sometimes, but leave our farewell behind, and do your best to be devoted to today". As always, he wants her to live. And I think it helps that he knows he will be remembered.

I flat out adore that she had the dream of their end in Silla but makes a different choice. And he knows it's different and won't change anything just as she does. But she wants to make a different choice in her dreams so they can be together. Though they still meet a bad fate in this version of the dream.

I am beyond happy that we got a Bugasal/Sunny and Grim Reaper ending for them. It's not a coincidence that they meet in a historical setting and see the moon in the day. They are clearly connected, but without all the painful bloodshed.

This is one of my favourite shows of the year.

#moon in the day #kdrama

[marshmallowgoop]

Oh gosh. Oh man.

So, onesidedness is probably the main criticism of the Heiji and Shinichi friendship, and when potential romance is added to the mix, the prevailing thought—at least, in my experience—is that Heiji's affection would never be returned.

If Shinichi is interpreted as a character who experiences romantic attraction, it's an argument that doesn't sit well with me. "It feels a lot like, 'Well, of course the desirable protagonist could never romantically love the dark-skinned boy,'" I once expressed in the tags of a post. "And maybe that's unfair of me, but I can't deny that that's how I feel. Shinichi clearly has a lot of love for Heiji, and this OVA [9, 'The Stranger From 10 Years Later'] shows that he finds Heiji attractive. Like... I really don't think it's as implausible as it's made out to be."

But it's not that I don't understand the reasoning behind the hopeless, unrequited reading. There are implications of Shinichi's strong feelings for Heiji, bits and pieces that you can put together if you turn your head to the side and squint, but Heiji is loud with his love, unabashed, an open door. He speaks so fondly of Shinichi that Kazuha initially believes they're dating (Episode 118), and yet, any similar sentiments that Shinichi holds for Heiji are only quietly mentioned and barely tangible. There's a reason that Dr. Agasa calls Heiji to help Shinichi (Episodes 189, 277), a reason that the most constant adult presence in Shinichi's life believes no one else can reach him, a reason that Heiji is considered Shinichi's best friend, but on the surface, Shinichi brushes off Heiji's invitations to get together (Episodes 238, 381), states on more than one occasion that he's only accompanying Heiji because Heiji forced him to (Episodes 381, 479), and consistently has a sour look on his face whenever the two of them cross paths unexpectedly (Episodes 166, 189, 221, 381...).

I've always chalked up the attitude to Shinichi's inherent tsundere nature. He's embarrassed to show his affection for others, so he conceals it with annoyed faces and pouts and teasing (that I know is supposed to be fun but tends to come off as overly cold and meanspirited to someone as sensitive as me). Heiji isn't the only one on the receiving end of this kind of behavior from Shinichi—even Ran, Shinichi's childhood sweetheart, experiences it (Episodes 58, 927...).

So, I've never read Shinichi's grumpy behavior around Heiji as evidence that he doesn't love his friend or enjoy his company. There are plenty of examples of how that's clearly not true. Literally every Heiji case after the Reveal (Episodes 57-58), so far as I've seen, at least, depicts an excited, enthusiastic Shinichi who pointedly cherishes sharing deductions with the Detective of the West—even the cases that began with a cranky Cone!—and Conan is notably devastated whenever he's separated from Heiji or left to solve a puzzle on his own (Episodes 117, 118, 174, 224.).

It's not that Shinichi dislikes Heiji. He just doesn't shout his love to the heavens like Heiji does for him. Shinichi's love is whispered and soft, but that doesn't make it any less meaningful or real.

Still, I'm also fully willing to admit that the level of reciprocity I do interpret or could interpret in Heiji and Shinichi's relationship is simply an overanalysis—a desperate, futile attempt to justify why I'm fond of these two and their interactions despite the snotty attitude that Conan often directs towards his fellow detective.

But that's just the thing I only now realized: Conan's snotty attitude towards Heiji. When Shinichi is Shinichi, the nastiness he subjects Heiji to vanishes. The irritation that colors their dynamic fades away. There are broad smiles (Files 257, 653). There's an eagerness to work together. In "The Scarlet School Trip (Bright Red Arc)" (Episode 927), the partnership arguably takes precedence over the case, as Shinichi doesn't instantly race to solve it only to belatedly remember Heiji's presence, but instead immediately wakes Heiji so that they can unravel the mystery as a team.

Even the first time the two ever directly meet (Episodes 48-49), Shinichi treats Heiji kindly, explaining the flaws in Heiji's deduction without being insulting and devoting his time and energy to encouraging his so-called rival to be a better detective—all while he suffers horribly from the effects of the antidote wearing off.

So, this thought crawled into my head, built a nest, and refused to leave me alone: maybe the main source of Shinichi's grouchiness around Heiji is not his tsundere tendencies, but rather that he hates being Conan in Heiji's company.

It makes a heartbreaking amount of sense. Heiji is comfort to Shinichi, a reminder that, to quote Undertale, a game I've never actually played, "Despite everything, it's still you." But it's comfort that aches, a warmth as soothing as it is agonizing, because Conan is Shinichi but not, because as reaffirming as it might be to spend time with someone who always sees you as you are, who flounders and struggles and fails spectacularly at seeing you as anything else, there has to be pain in that, too, the pain that you aren't yourself anymore, you can't be, and you're trapped being something you're not, that you never wanted, that no amount of "Kudo"s can fix or undo.

More than that, Heiji represents everything Shinichi's lost. Conan can't be the teen detective that Heiji's freely able to be, with his name in the papers and his deductions widespread. Whenever the two are together, Heiji has to be sneaky or lie or conjure up excuses to keep them that way. Whenever Heiji calls, Conan has to hide or pretend he's talking to someone else. Whenever they speak, Heiji has to crouch to meet Conan's eyes—a gesture that's meant to signify their equality but simultaneously underlines how they're not equals, not as things are, not to the rest of the world.

While I can't say I'd ever excuse the undeserved annoyance that Shinichi pushes on Heiji, considering the behavior with this lens makes it a whole lot more sympathetic. It's humiliating for your friend to see you sitting on someone else's lap like a little kid when you're not one (Episode 166). It hurts that you can only talk candidly with your friend after he's manufactured a reason to send everyone else away (Episode 189). It stings that your friend has to orchestrate a plot so that you can attend the Detective Koshien when, had you been in your own body, you could have made the decision to go yourself (Episode 479).

It's not that Shinichi dislikes Heiji. He just dislikes the unfortunate necessity of being relegated to the child sidekick instead of the peer that he is. He just dislikes that he can't fully be the Kudo that Heiji thinks of him as.

If you consider "Conan's Dream Vacation," after all, it's one of Shinichi's greatest desires to be by Heiji's side, with Ran and Kazuha... but as himself.

Anyway. I already liked Heishin, but the idea that Shinichi's bouts of stinkface around Heiji are largely because Heiji reminds him of how desperately he wishes to return to himself does soften what I considered to be one of the friendship's most glaring flaws. And while the answer to the question of onesidedness here is of course up to interpretation, that Shinichi clearly has a lot of trust in Heiji (asking for advice in Episode 189!), and that Shinichi enjoys Heiji's company in cases and misses him when he's gone, and that he displays a palpable joy when working with Heiji as Shinichi (Episodes 522-523, 927-928), and that he dreams of being together in an official illustration, all demonstrate to me that there's a lot of love here.

The thought that Shinichi is upset that he can't be Shinichi for Heiji only adds to that feeling.

#detective conan #case closed #shinichi kudo #heiji hattori #heishin #ramblings #gifs i made #shut up goop #i was working on another post but then had this realization and it's destroyed me #this was only supposed to be a short little thing but then it turned into a whole essay ^^; #i know i know you've heard that one before lol #but the sad thing is that i accidentally lost about half of this when drafting on tumblr :'( #idk if this is better or worse than what i originally had buuut here it is nonetheless #always on my heishin propaganda nonsense

[justrandomthoughs]

Obsessed with Jace and a dragon like reader who’s feral for him. Him sneaking into her room and sleeping on her bed. She confronts him about it and he’s horrified. “How’d you know?” She just looks at him and goes “my room reeks like you. It smells like we’ve mated.”

Yan! Jacaerys x Dragon! Reader - Perv! Jace is found out

TW: Swearing (by me—sorry), Sexual content, Unhealthy behavior

HMMM YES,

I know it's so implausible in the story for, like, a viable dragon-human hybrid (but thats also another story, I've been listening to too many Alt Shwift X/Alt Shift X videos lol) but I fucking LOVE the premise. Grrr, ruff ruff. Absolutely rabid for it. Y'all know Targaryen's ride dragons, so I'm enjoying connecting the dots between that and dragon reader smut lol.

Oooo, so the well-known, community wide, factual about Jace is that he's a lil' fucking pervert (but he tries not to give in to his impulsive and continual desires). So, I see him smelling your used clothes, pillows, towels, etc. Also he'd be doing it in your room, just hoping that he can do it quickly and sneakily enough that you don't catch him.

He will be raging the guiltiest, most perverse, boner and he will be PALMING that MF so hard. He might try to use what he swiped to jerk himself off, but it would only be for a moment since he doesn't want to leave any 'real' (to humans) evidence. He'd probably have a little hand towel or something with him to clean up and he'd bring it back with him so he doesn't leave any hard tracks (Oh god I just realized I picture Jace as a closet pervert... Idk y'all how do we feel about that lol. I like it since I clearly am inclined by virtue of my writing, lol, but I want to hear opinionsss!!!).

If you were for sure going to be out of the Red Keep or Dragonstone, I think he'd, at least once, lie on your bed and maybe fantasizes about talking, waking up, cuddling, fucking you on it. He just love anything that has to do with you, so he fantasizes about it for a bit. Probably also jerks himself off, turned on by the 'closeness' of the act because he's in your room. It's just filled with the essence of you, and he's drunk off it.

Dudes, when you fucking confront him he feels that HOT-ASS WHITE DREAD. He tried being really careful but I think that the high of doing something so improper and taboo like invading your personal area—and even jerking off in there—clouded his best judgement/intelligence. If it wasn't for the carnal desire, and the irrationality that stems from it, fucking up his rationality I think he'd have been smart enough to realize before he indulged that you would be able to tell. He probably had a lot of morality debates with himself, lol, but that bad side caved his will in. It would plague his mind for weeks though before he acts.

I think he might fuck up and say "How do you know?". FUCKING DEAD GIVE AWAY BRO. Deceased, but could still see it, perhaps if you teased him a lot before you revealed what you know. His brain would be too overloaded/lacking blood—it's all in his dick lol—that his self-preservation is out the goddamn window.

I think he could also say "What do you mean?" trying to be as vague as possible on his end but still probing into how damning the evidence you have against him is. BTW. By the FUCKING way. He'd be so red in the face. Stutters abound, light fidgeting (noticeable to you because dragon-observant [it just works] and also you are keeping your cool unlike him lol.), and not maintaining prolonged eye contact. Frequently breaks it to look at his feet or hands.

When you brought up the fact the the air smells like y'all mated, bro would be SO god damn dead. First off, he loves the fact that you made a comment on the possibility/result of the two of you having sex. Saying that it smells like the two of you having coupled, it makes him wonder about what it would actually smell like. Secondly, the fact that you said mated instead of fucked, had sex, or made love, gives your statement extra connotation. (What is the purpose of mating—the production of another life form, creation of life. Unlike fucked, sex, made love, the word mating indicates a direct effort to produce offspring). I think his mind might try to grab at straws and think that since you had the word mating come to your mind before fucking, etc, means that you've thought about mating with him. Starting a family with him. Being mated for life to each other. Clearly he has done the same for you. But oh god I could talk about this for longer but this is getting a bit long lol

Mind you this is all within about 1-5 mins before Dragon! Reader shows Jacaerys what the FUCK is up. This time the dragon will be riding the Targaryen....... OOOOOFFFF.

I love asks/requests/thoughts. Send them in, a bitch will talk about it (me)

<3

#jacaerys x reader #jacaerys headcanon #jacaerys targaryen #jacaerys velaryon x reader #jacaerys velaryon #yandere jacaerys #yandere hotd #yandere jacaerys velaryon #hotd x reader

[doll-elvis]

What do you think about Cybill shepherd saying she taught Elvis how to eat pussy? Lol

NSFW: 18+ content

lord that woman gives me a headache I’m sorry- until I read hers I have truly never seen an autobiography in which the author seemed intent on making the reader dislike them 😭

at least she is self aware because she did indeed come off as self-absorbed and her book was insufferable to read ⬇️

(excerpt from “Cybill Disobedience” by Cybill Shepherd)

and her thinking that Elvis was stupid says much more about her than it does him 👀

she even said that in 1972 she considered Elvis to be “passé” (meaning out of date/ no longer “in”)… like are we talking about the same Elvis or ????

not to mention her saying that Elvis had “frat boy humor”, and was a “morbid cheese ball” because he liked to read spiritual books

And one situation that really showed what kind of person she was when, after he bought her a ring and set it on her nightstand, she took one look at it, deemed it to be "too hideous," left the ring in its’ box, and then left Elvis who was passed out from exhaustion after an performance, to fly back to her boyfriend...

Her book has the exact same tone as Albert Goldman's in that she clearly despised Elvis and wanted to make him look as bad as possible, such as implying that he was homophobic and made racial remarks such as saying that ‘white boys don’t eat p*ssy’, but all she accomplished was to make herself look bad

I’m sorry to ramble but I just cannot get over how horribly she talked about Elvis 😩

As for your question I feel like there are only two possibilities as to why she would say such a thing:

1. Elvis was humoring her which led Cybill to believe she really was the first woman he went down on

2. She’s straight up lying

(excerpt from “Cybill Disobedience” by Cybill Shepherd)

and my vote is with the latter… 20 year old Elvis never doing it before is understandable, however a nearly 40 year old Elvis never doing it before is in the realm of impossible, especially knowing that he liked to “give” rather than “receive”

(excerpt from “Don’t ask forever” by Joyce Bova)

and the excuse of “white boys” not doing it seems implausible as Elvis has never been quoted as saying anything even remotely similar

Based on a story told by Dewey Phillips to a reporter in 1967, I believe the first woman that Elvis actually went “down on” was Natalie Wood ⬇️

There is of course no way of knowing the validity of this story but it being told in 1967 certainly helps in my opinion

I'm sure Dewey still had contact with Elvis, therefore I don't believe he would tell a false story to such a highly-regarded reporter, especially one who was also interviewing people like Priscilla and Vester Presley for this specific article, knowing Elvis would most likely see it

In corroboration with Dewey’s story, we do know for sure that Natalie and Elvis were intimate as their physical relationship has been confirmed by several friends ⬇️

(excerpt from “Down at the end of the lonely street” by Pat Broeske and Peter Brown)

(story told by Lamar Fike in “Elvis and the Memphis Mafia” by Alanna Nash)

(excerpt from “Elvis: My best man” by George Klein)

A picture really is worth a thousand words… I’d be looking at him like that too girl 😩

Not to mention Alan Fortas, the Memphis mafia member who was entrusted with filming girls for Elvis, said this about how Elvis would “relieve” himself in the mid to late 60s🤭 ⬇️

“Sometimes, while either watching the girls in his bedroom or perusing the tapes I had made for him, he would get a most defiant erection, which he would relieve either by masturbation, or, if the girls were actually there, by going down on one his lucky guests or by dry humping one through his slacks or pajama bottoms”

(excerpt from “Elvis: From Memphis to Hollywood” by Alan Fortas)

and while Priscilla’s descriptions of their “love-making” in the 60s is extremely vague like “he fulfilled my every desire” and whatnot, I would assume that oral sex was the go-to as they did not have penetrative intercourse

so I definitely believe Elvis was “going down” long before Cybill came into the picture in 1972 🤧

and quite frankly, I’m glad that she flew back to her boyfriend because she honestly didn’t deserve Elvis or his generosity… I’m still not over her calling him a “morbid cheese ball”, take several seats Cybill

#thank you for the ask<3!! #an oral history: literally 💀 #natalie wood really was winning in 1956 #elvis presley #elvisaaronpresley #elvis #elvis history #elvis fans #elvis asks #70s #70s Elvis #cybill shepherd

[purble-turble]

Mk learning about love potions pre season 4 because red son tried using one on him. It didnt work because hes head over heels already, and its really a funny getting together story after the screaming and fighting is over with.

The idea of Red Son using a love potion is extremely funny to me because he clearly has such a huge problem with his own self-worth. So to him, using a love potion to get the person he has feelings for to love him back might seem like the only way he'll ever really get what he wants... however, that doesn't mean it's a good idea or that it'll work out like he thinks.

In this scenario, let's say Red Son doses MK with a love potion, then waits expectantly for MK to come to him... but it seems like nothing has changed. (It hasn't, MK was already super in love with him and the potion didn't affect him.) So, Red Son wonders if perhaps he has to make the first move, so he just goes up to MK and asks if he'll go on a date with him. The excitement with with MK screams YES!!! kind of confirms to Red Son that, ah yes, his love potion did work.

They date for a little while and Red can't believe how deliriously happy MK makes him. They spend every possible moment together and it's everything Red Son could possibly have wanted in a relationship... except there's this nagging feeling in the back of his mind telling him that this isn't real.

MK doesn't actually love him. He's only behaving this way because Red Son gave him a magic potion... if he wasn't influenced by that spell then surely he would have rejected Red Son's advances outright. The thought that the love of his life doesn't really love him is eating him up inside and making him miserable. The more he grows to love MK the more guilty he feels about manipulating him in this way. MK deserves better, he's the warm sunshine that lights up Red's world and he doesn't deserve to be tied to such a wicked villain like Red Son who apparently cares so little for him that he'd change the very chemistry of his brain.

The inner turmoil is too much for Red Son to bear, and it's definitely noticeable because one night when MK asks him what's wrong because he's clearly upset, he confesses everything.

At first MK is stunned and believes Red Son that his feelings were actually just the influence of magic. He's having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that all the positive feelings he has about Red Son are apparently fake, and yeah it definitely makes him really angry. As they argue, something comes to light that throws this whole love potion starting their relationship thing into a bit of a questionable territory... MK reveals that he's had budding feelings for Red Son all the way back during their team up to defeat Spider Queen. He assumes that Red Son means that that is when he first gave him the love potion (I mean he did create a potion back during that adventure so it's not totally implausible) but when Red hears this it kind of shocks him and he insists that he only gave MK the potion like a day or two before he asked him out. MK insists back that his feelings for Red definitely did not change suddenly around that time and he already had a crush on Red by that time. There's a bit of confusion here where MK and Red are not entirely sure what that means.. MK thinks maybe Red is lying and Red thinks maybe the love potion has affected MK's memory of his own emotions going as far back as New Years.

They don't find a solution to this right away, they are both way too stupid and too emotional to realize in that moment what has really occurred. Red Son leaves and goes back to sulk in his parents' palace (miserably) believing he's ruined his relationship to the only person who's ever made him feel happy and loved, and MK decides to do his own research with his friends' help to figure out this love potion stuff. It's when they do a bit of digging on how the potion actually works that the possibility that the love potion did nothing to MK comes up. Turns out that if he loved Red Son already then the potion can't make him love Red Son because he already does! This is a huge relief to MK because he really didn't want his feelings to be fake, he really enjoyed being with Red! He goes to find the fire demon and share the good news.

For his own part, Red Son has just been moping in his room for a week, suffering in his own misery and fear that he'll never be as happy as he was during that short time he was with MK because he is not worthy of real love.. and one evening MK comes bursting through his window shouting that he figured out that he really DOES love Red Son and what they had wasn't actually fake and they can be together again! ...it takes some convincing for Red Son to believe him, and he probably also whips up an antidote that he forces MK to drink to assuage his doubts that this isn't just the love potion still talking.

In the end they do manage to stay together, despite the rocky start. It isn't without consequences, though. Sometimes Red's self-worth rears its ugly head and makes him question whether MK actually loves him and this isn't all just him deluding himself into thinking the potion didn't work... when that happens MK just kisses him a whole bunch all over his face and then tells him to stop being so fucking stupid :P

#ask #spicynoodleshipping #dark spicynoodles #kinda #love potion #anonymous

[youhideastar]

Fit for Purpose Deleted Scenes I: Alternate Version, First Half

Hi all! I have a lot of deleted scenes for Fit for Purpose - I mean A LOT, 10,000 words of deleted scenes, and that's in part because there's a whole other version of the story that I wrote and then mostly trashed: a three-chapter version where the first chapter looks like what Fit For Purpose looks like now, alternating present day and flashbacks; the second chapter retells canon (i.e., goes through WWX's story sequentially in flashback); and the third chapter picks up again in the present day with no flashbacks. I did this because (a) I was really worried readers would find it implausible that this universe's WWX would leave Yunmeng Jiang to defend the Wens and I wanted to show how that would go down and (b) there were some really cool flashback scenes that shed light on the worldbuilding or the characters' relationships that I loved but that didn't fit in the love story that Fit for Purpose was supposed to be all along.

Basically, there were two versions of this story fighting each other--one the love story, one the backstory--and the love story needed to win, and did. Ultimately, I imposed discipline on the story by creating a rule that every flashback had to be about (1) LWJ or (2) sex/romance. I then broke that rule several times 😂, but even trying to abide by the rule helped keep the story focused.

So the first set of deleted scenes I'm going to share is the first half of that alternate version middle chapter: retelling the drama's plot, but in this universe. It's just the first half for now (second half forthcoming) because I don't think you want to read a 5,000-word post 😂 and I'm going to try to keep my commentary on the scenes to a minimum so as not to make this post longer. Other deleted scenes posts are linked in the masterpost. I hope you enjoy!

The flashback chapter began with the Cloud Recesses arc. A pared-down version of this section made it into the posted fic.

When Wei Wuxian is seventeen, Yunmeng Jiang sends a delegation to Cloud Recesses for a year of study.

It gets off to a rough start when Jiejie’s betrothed—her betrothed!—kicks them out of their inn, and Wei Wuxian leaves behind their invitation. But it improves almost immediately when he finds himself dueling on moonlit rooftops and tackling cultivation mysteries with Gusu Lan Sect’s own head disciple: Lan Wangji, the sect’s alpha heir and one of the famed Twin Jades of Gusu Lan.

Lan Wangji is an impressive swordsman, and his cultivation knowledge is both deep and broad. He’s a challenge, a rival – something Wei Wuxian has never had. It’s exhilarating. The Second Jade of Gusu Lan is talented and beautiful, razor-sharp and bright-shining…

But.

But. He’s also such a fucking stick-in-the-mud. It’s not enough that he never has any fun – he doesn’t want anyone else having fun, either. Not even harmless, normal fun like fishing, or drinking, or fighting!

Wei Wuxian turns the problem over in his mind, and concludes that this is a boy who really, really needs to do some ‘practicing for the wedding night.’

Now yes, technically, what alphas and omegas do with Wei Wuxian is against the rules—sex is supposed to be reserved for your mate, and only your mate—and the upright, uptight Lan-er-gongzi is obsessed with his rules. But really. It would be a public service for Wei Wuxian to get that rigid fuddy-duddy well and truly laid, and that’s exactly what he intends to do.

He begins his campaign in the library.

Then you have the library and getting-LWJ-drunk scenes, which made it into the posted fic. Then this:

Anyway, after that, Wei Wuxian tones it down a little. He still tries to make Lan Zhan understand that he’s available – “many benefits to being my friend,” and all that. Still wants to make sure Lan Zhan knows he can come to Wei Wuxian for that, when he needs it. If he needs it. (Still hopes he will, because he stands by his opinion that Lan Zhan could use a tumble, for his own good.)

But he’s not sure anymore that Lan Zhan does need it. Lan Zhan is… weird. He’s prudish and judgmental and obsessed with rules and wound way too tight—Wei Wuxian still isn’t over the part where he turned himself in for drinking even though it was against his will—but Wei Wuxian is starting think that might just be… him. That’s Lan Zhan. And Wei Wuxian…

Well, he likes it. He likes Lan Zhan.

He likes his mean glares, and the way he ruffles like a startled cat when Wei Wuxian provokes him, and how fucking good he is at everything, how he can keep up with Wei Wuxian, and even push him, in a way that Wei Wuxian has never gotten to have and didn’t even realize he was missing. And he likes that Lan Zhan expects a lot of himself. That he holds himself to his sect’s annoying rules, even though he’s a rich, highborn alpha and could probably just coast on his birth and his brother’s reputation.

So. The embarrassing truth is, Wei Wuxian kind of likes Lan Zhan the way he is. Does he think Lan Zhan would be a lot happier if he were getting laid? Absolutely yes, and he’s not giving up on making that happen. But he doesn’t think he needs to fix Lan Zhan by getting him laid. Lan Zhan’s not broken. He’s just weird. And weird, Wei Wuxian decides, is okay.

Weird is, maybe, kind of great. At least when it’s Lan Zhan.

*

The thing with Lan Zhan, though, is that he kind of… makes Wei Wuxian forget. Forget what he’s supposed to be doing, forget what he’s supposed to be. Wei Wuxian’s life has been all about Yunmeng Jiang for so long that having something else—someone else—important in his life makes him—

No. That’s not fair. It’s not Lan Zhan’s fault. Whatever it is, this flaw in Wei Wuxian, this arrogance… it was there from the beginning. In his bones.

*

It starts in Cold Pond Cave: standing side-by-side with Lan Zhan before the great Lan Yi, joined at the wrist by Lan Zhan’s ribbon in a way that would be scandalous, if Wei Wuxian weren’t a beta. If it actually meant anything.

Lan Zhan swears to find and seal the Yin Iron, and Wei Wuxian, standing beside him, bound to him, promises the same.

It doesn’t feel wrong.

It feels amazing. Swearing his allegiance to a goal, a responsibility, a quest – a shared responsibility, him and Lan Zhan, spurred on by chivalry and the common good. It feels like the only thing he can do, when so much is on the line. When the whole cultivation world needs this, needs him.

And then he makes the same mistake at Qixi, side-by-side with Lan Zhan again, watching their shared lantern rise into the sky. He makes a vow.

Not to serve Yunmeng Jiang Sect. Not to protect Jiang Cheng and Jiejie. Not to do what Jiang-shushu saved his life to do, what Yu-furen charged him with, all those years ago.

No.

He vows to curb the wicked, and protect the weak; to always stand with justice, and keep a clear conscience. And he can tell Lan Zhan is with him – that Lan Zhan is committed to the same ideal.

That feels good, too. It feels right.

Only later will he look back at that kid in the cave, that kid on the cliff, and feel a terrible tightness in his chest. Only then will he see where he went wrong – forgetting himself, forgetting his place, his purpose.

That life of chivalry, that fight for justice—that’s not what he’s for. That’s for alphas and omegas. His purpose was determined for him at the moment of his birth.

But stubbornly—selfishly—he had wanted more.

*

Because of that, A-Yuan will live.

*

Because of that, Jiejie will die.

*

He doesn’t know any of that yet. That Qixi night, the biggest threat to Jiejie, as far as he’s concerned, is her stupid betrothed.

Jin Zixuan snarls, “I said, I don’t want to hear about that girl,” and Wei Wuxian decks him.

It’s his duty: he’s known his whole life that he might be called on to die for Jiejie someday, so getting in a little fistfight for her is nothing.

Lan Qiren agrees. “Fighting is forbidden,” he says, explaining to Jin Guangshan why Wei Wuxian is not being punished for blacking the eye of his son and heir, “but of course a beta must defend his sister.”

It’s probably the first time he’s ever agreed with Wei Wuxian about anything. But then, who could better understand a beta’s obligations?

Jiang Fengmian is summoned, too, because of the insult to his daughter. When his meeting with Lan Qiren is over, he hugs Wei Wuxian and tells him, “I’m proud of you, A-Xian.” Holding Wei Wuxian by the shoulders, gaze warm and direct, he adds, “A-Li is lucky to have a brother like you.”

I really liked showing how the JZX fight reaction would have been totally different in this universe; that was one of the things I hated to lose.

Here are a couple other versions of the Lan Yi cave scene - it was so pivotal to explaining why WWX would ultimately choose justice over his family that I knew I needed to get it right.

It’s a good thing, Wei Wuxian reflects later, that Lan Zhan got dragged into Cold Pond Cave with him, and not one of the alpha or omega disciples. Lan Zhan would never have wrapped his ribbon around them—it would have been tantamount to an engagement.

Then, in retrospect, he fucks up.

It doesn’t feel like fucking up at the time. It feels like the only thing he can do: the problem of the Yin Iron is his problem, because it should have been his mother’s problem, because it was her shizun’s problem. When he swears to help contain the Yin Iron, and prevent it from being misused, it feels right.

He won’t realize until later that this is where it all started to go wrong.

That a beta who belongs to Yunmeng Jiang has no business making promises to anyone else.

If Yu-furen had been in that cave, he’d never have made it out alive.

*

In Cold Pond Cave, Lan Yi gives him a charge – a mission.

It feels strangely familiar.

He remembers Yu-furen telling him, “You protect your jie and a-Cheng. You live for them. Die for them.”

It doesn’t occur to him until later that those missions might conflict.

It’s only later that he looks back at that kid in the cave and wants to shake him, wants to slap him—

He sold something that day. Something that wasn’t his to sell.

His allegiance, after all, was already spoken for.

It was spoken for when he was seven years old.

This next scene is just a sketch. I would have fleshed it out more if I'd posted this.

He really wants to go with Lan Zhan to find the Yin Iron. JFM notices, gives him permission. After all, didn’t he defend his sister so well?

But, in fact, you should take A-Cheng with you!

And Wei Wuxian is thrilled. He is! Even better, to take A-Cheng on the quest, too. How could he possibly be disappointed?

When they catch up with Lan Zhan, he pretends he’s not happy to see them, but Wei Wuxian isn’t fooled. They travel through Tanzhou, and then to Yueyang, where the innkeeper has a spooky story for them about the home of the Chang Clan.

Well. Of course they have to go.

*

When they get to the Yueyang Chang compound, Wei Wuxian is immediately on edge. Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng are calm, though.

“There’s no one here,” A-Cheng says, impatient. “We’d smell it if there were.”

Wei Wuxian can’t shake it, though. He keeps hearing little sounds that shouldn’t be there, seeing flickers in the corner of his eye.

“Who has the sense of scent here? Me or you?” A-Cheng bites, irritated as usual.

And that’s when Xue Yang appears with a fistful of purple powder and almost leaves all three of them permanently blind.

Then we'd pick up with the Xue Yang and Wen Indoctrination scenes that make it into the posted fic. There's also a Xuanwu Cave scene in the posted fic; here's a previous version of that, emphasizing WWX already starting to choose LWJ over his family, while the final version treats him staying in the cave as an act of sacrifice for his family:

In the Xuanwu Cave, Jiang Cheng motions him over, hisses his name.

WWX hesitates.

He knows his duty. His place. It’s by his didi’s side.

Lan Zhan looks up at him, bloodied. His brow is creased with pain.

“Go,” Wei Wuxian tells Jiang Cheng. “Send someone back for us!” Hopefully by that time, Jiang Cheng will be safe back in Lotus Pier.

It’s not a question of starvation this time. No one will rescue WWX – he’s served his purpose, in getting Jiang Cheng out. Any further use isn’t worth the danger and effort of the rescue. And with the Gusu Lan still in hiding, it seems unlikely anyone will come for LWJ. They have only themselves.

Then there's the Yunmeng Shuangjie scene in the posted fic.

And then…

Then there are arrows, and a kite—and the long, bloody price of Wei Wuxian’s clear conscience begins to come due.

*

For a moment, it seems like he can pay that price himself. With a whipping—and then, when that’s not enough, with his right hand. He would pay it willingly, joyfully, to keep Lotus Pier and Yunmeng Jiang Sect safe.

But it’s not enough.

His entire purpose in life was to protect the Jiang sect and family. And now…

Lotus Pier is overrun, then lost.

A few lucky disciples are scattered; the rest, slaughtered.

Yu-furen and Jiang-shushu are dead.

Jiejie is pale with fever.

A-Cheng is destroyed by grief; is missing; is mutilated. Nothing lives behind his eyes except a slithering kind of self-loathing.

It is Wei Wuxian’s fault, all of it. He knows this.

Yu-furen tells him so; Jiang-shushu, too. A-Cheng, with his hands around Wei Wuxian’s neck. Even Jiejie doesn’t argue when he confesses that he’s the one to blame. The knowledge of his own culpability rots in his heart: noxious, lightless, and thick.

When he finds the technique for the golden core transfer, all he feels is relief that goes all the way down to his marrow. Finally—finally, he can begin to atone. Finally, he can start to make it right.

These events are also super pivotal, so I took several cracks at the fall of Lotus Pier. The problem with this next one is that it surfaces the idea of WWX being LWJ's mate - not good! That idea is supposed to be unthinkable (literally, WWX can't think it even though it is obviously the most plausible explanation for LWJ's behavior), and having YZY make this accusation here would undermine that. It's also just a freaking long speech for YZY to make. People don't make speeches like this in real life; I try to use them very sparingly.

The whip marks again, from Zidian as always, as Wang Lingjiao looks on. Wei Wuxian doesn’t fight. If by his death or mutilation, he can spare Yunmeng Jiang, then of course that is his duty.

But it’s not enough.

When Yu-furen shoves them into the boat, she snarls at him. “I hate you, you ungrateful boy! You had one purpose in this world, one, and you couldn’t do it – too eager to play omega for that Lan Wangji. You’ll never be his mate! This is the only family you’ll ever have, and you tried to destroy it, you hateful, hateful, unfilial boy.” She sucks in a breath. “This is your last chance. Protect A-Cheng and A-Li. Don’t you dare keep anything for yourself that could go to them. Not even your own life. Now go.”

So then I reworked it to take that part out, and work JFM in.

When Yu-furen shoves them into the boat, she tells him what a failure he is; screams it, with tears in her eyes.

“I hate you, you ungrateful boy! You had one purpose in this world, one, and you couldn’t do it.” She sucks in a breath. “This is your last chance. Protect A-Cheng and A-Li. Don’t you dare keep anything for yourself that could go to them. Not even your own life. Now go.”

Jiang-shushu is kinder. But the message is the same.

“Promise me you’ll always watch over A-Li and A-Cheng, A-Xian.”

And then, they’re both gone.

Okay, we pick back up with the aftermath of the golden core transfer:

It works. It hurts like nothing he’s ever felt before, but that doesn’t matter, because it works. Wen Qing asks him to stay with her until he’s fully healed, but A-Cheng and Jiejie need him. That comes first.

And so, empty, grey, and bleeding, he finds his way to the Yiling Tea House to meet with A-Cheng.

There, he finds an ambush.

Wen Chao laughs as his lackeys land their kicks in Wei Wuxian’s ribs, then turns away as if Wei Wuxian is beneath his notice. “A beta with no family is a dog without a master. Throw it in the Burial Mounds with the rest of the trash.”

*

Then he’s in the Burial Mounds.

In this want, he can knit together the strands of himself that had pulled apart. Revenge, for Lotus Pier and Jiang Sect, for Jiang Cheng’s core and Jiejie’s broken sobs, for Jiang-shushu and Yu-furen’s lives and the disrespect of their bodies after death. And revenge as another word for justice; revenge on the strong, for the weak; on the wicked, for the innocent.

He is revenge. And in that understanding, he walks out of the Burial Mounds. But not out of the dark.

The posted fic has a Burial Mounds flashback, too, but it's more... atmospheric, I guess? And it focuses on WWX being a tool for others to use, not on this theme of WWX trying to reconcile the ultimately irreconcilable values of justice and family.

The same is true of this next bit: there's an analogous bit in the posted fic, but it's the "why won't Lan Zhan just use him and shut up, like everyone else?" bit, focusing on LWJ's refusal to make use of WWX, instead of focusing on the conflict between what Lan Zhan wants from WWX and what WWX's siblings want, like this does:

When he comes back from the Burial Mounds, it’s so hard. Lan Zhan keeps saying, “Come back to Gusu with me,” keeps wanting to help. But WWX has learned his lesson. He cannot abandon JYL and JC to go to Gusu. He has to win this campaign, for them. So they can be safe. So they can return to Lotus Pier.

He can’t rest until that happens.

And all he wants, all he wants, is to rest.

That's all for now! Part II of the alternate version will be posted tomorrow-ish, and then assorted other collections of deleted scenes that are more traditionally deleted-scene-y, if you know what I mean. Feel free to ask if you have questions about any of this, I don't know that I explained everything super well!

ETA: second half of this is now here! Other deleted scenes posts are linked in the masterpost.

#the untamed #my writing #deleted scenes #fit for purpose #wangxian #cql fic

[stevieharringtonwifeguy]

queen of the underworld: transfem stevie gets bred by kas!eddie while theyre both stuck in the upside down.

tags: monsterfucking, oviposition, breeding, implausible resilience of the human body

warning for slight dubcon bc stevie has no idea whats going on in the beginning and monster!eddie cant speak or be normal, but once she catches up she is. Ready And Willing.

also on ao3 here

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

Stevie hoists Dustin above her head, pulling on the last of her adrenaline to propel him through the gate in the ceiling of the trailer. The gate is closing rapidly now, the link between the dimensions decaying quickly following Vecna’s death. Stevie took her role as babysitter seriously, making sure everyone else was through the gate first, but now, with everyone else on the right side up, she’s now realising that without anyone’s help and the rope cut, she’s going to really struggle getting through herself.

She frantically looks around the trailer, looking for something to stand on for the extra boost as her friends desperately call her name through the portal. The demobats had done a number on the room, wrecking tables and chairs and anything else Stevie could have used to reach the gate. Her eyes fall on the couch, turned over against the wall on the opposite side of the trailer. It's heavy, and after a moment of pushing she's only moved it about a foot closer to the hole in the ceiling. 

She looks back at her friends through the gate, which has now shrunk to the width of her shoulders. She's not gonna make it. 

“Stay there, guys!” She yells. Nancy’s already trying to climb on a coffee table, and Robin is holding Dustin back with tears in her eyes. “Don't come back for me, okay? Keep it closed.”

“What??? No, we're not leaving you-”

“Dustin!” Stevie shouts, interrupting the sobbing boy. The gate is about the size of her head now. “It's okay. I love you, kid.”

The strange sucking sound of the closing portal cuts off Dustin's scream of anguish. And then it's quiet, except for the sound of rolling thunder in the distance. 

Stevie sits on the floor and sobs. 

She's not sure how long she stays there, curled up crying on the floor of the Munsons’ trailer as she comes to terms with being stuck in the Upside Down, but eventually she straightens herself out. Picks up her bat and braves the outdoors. 

Eddie’s body is still on the ground outside. 

They'd tried to carry him back, at first, before they realised the gates were closing and they were out of time. He's lying there, eyes closed, guitar tucked under his arm where Dustin had placed it like you would a bouquet of flowers at a funeral. Whoever said people look peaceful in death was full of shit. Eddie looks like he was eaten by bats and died in pain, his features still kind of scrunched up like being dead hurts just as much as dying did. 

Stevie should bury him, she thinks. He deserves that much. 

She looks around, but can't find a shovel. The ground is weird and hard, anyway, and with her injuries she probably couldn't dig much of a grave without tearing something. Instead, she finds a bunch of rocks, and piles them on top of his body, like a very shoddily made tomb. She places his guitar gently on top, and works a stick into the ground as a headstone. She'd considered tying two together to make a cross, but figured it didn't really fit his aesthetic. If nothing else, she knew Eddie loved his aesthetic. 

She sits with him for a moment. Doesn't say a prayer, knows even if there was a god to hear it he wouldn't be listening to prayers from this place. But she sits, and she thinks about Eddie, about a boy who by all rights should have been terrifying, and instead was one of the warmest people she'd ever met. She hopes he gets some peace now. 

And then she wanders off into the Upside Down. 

She manages to last two weeks before it all goes to shit. 

At least, Stevie thinks it's been two weeks. It's hard to measure time here, where there's no sun or moon and none of the clocks in the empty houses actually work. She doesn't seem to need to eat or drink, although she does still sleep, seemingly more out of habit than anything else. Sleep comes fitfully, her ears constantly straining to hear if the chitters of this dimension's creatures are coming closer, but it seems as good a way to measure the time as any. 

She's surprised by how… calm the Upside Down feels now. She remembers Nancy saying something about how Vecna came from their dimension and used the hive mind for his own purposes. Now, with him dead, the place seems to be settling back into some kind of natural order. The demobats don't attack if they're on their own- they recognise that she's bigger than them, and wouldn't be worth the effort it would take to eat her. Possibly they remember how she ripped one of their siblings in half with her bare hands. She's still pretty proud of that one. The demodogs aren't a threat either. While they do travel in packs and are more likely to attack, they can't deal with doors very well. All she has to do to avoid them is get indoors. It's almost funny to hear them whining and scrabbling at the door like a dog put in time out. And by funny, she means terrifying. 

The real problem is the demogorgons. She hasn't seen many, but they're big, strong, and smart, a dangerous combination. They are weak to fire, but the lighter in her pocket is running dangerously low on fuel, and the wood from the twisted trees that grow here doesn't burn well. Her best bet with the demogorgons is running. Running like hell. 

Which is what she's doing now. 

She'd cut her hand boarding up a broken window in the house she's staying in (not hers, she's not opening that can of worms), and not five seconds later, the demogorgon had appeared, drawn to the scent of her blood like a shark. 

She races through the woods, not chancing a look behind her because she's seen too many horror movies to risk a cliché trip. There are less vines now that Vecna’s dead, but she avoids stepping on them anyway, unsure if the creatures are still connected to them and unwilling to risk drawing more attention if they are. She can hear the demogorgon closing in on her. Its shrieks are getting closer, and after one particularly close growl she thinks she can feel the barest hint of claws brushing against her back. 

And then, the flap of wings, another shriek, followed by the unmistakable sound of flesh tearing. 

Almost against her will, she turns, desperate to know what happened to her pursuer even as her mind screams at her to keep running. Something is crouched over the now motionless corpse of the demogorgon, tearing at it with claws and teeth. It seems humanoid, but huge, over seven feet tall with giant bat-like wings that obscure most of its ashy grey body. Multiple tails wrap around the demogorgon’s body, holding it in place as the creature uses its hands to rip it apart. 

Stevie whimpers, backing up on instinct. And then, like all the girls in horror movies Stevie swore she'd never be, she trips and falls on her ass. 

The new creature whips its head towards her instantly. Its face is humanoid, too, head covered in a riot of black curls, and with big, round eyes that literally glow red, like two stoplights sitting in its head. And beyond that, when she really looks, it's… familiar. 

“Eddie?” she squeaks, a little breathlessly. 

The creature- Eddie- looks at her for a moment, head tilting with some emotion Stevie can't place- and then it pounces, scooping her into its arms and flying off into the stormy sky. 

Eddie brings Stevie into some kind of cave system. As soon as they're no longer so high in the sky she'd die if he dropped her, she starts fighting, pushing at his arms and wriggling desperately. He merely tightens his grip, growls a warning that has Stevie going limp in his arms. 

He carries her deeper into the caves, taking so many turns so quickly she knows she doesn't have a hope of finding her way out of here on her own. And that's if he doesn't, like, eat her. This seems like a lot of effort to go through if he was just going to eat her though, and there had been something like recognition in his eyes when she'd said his name, so Stevie just closes her eyes and hopes for the best. 

She opens them again when she's placed gently onto something soft. She's in a cavern now, the room lit by the gentle yellow glow of strange flowers blooming from the cave walls, and she sits in a strange collection of various fabrics. It looks like… a nest? She recognises a few of the items it's made of- the curtains from her room in the Harrington house, a few pieces of clothing that seem to belong to both her and Eddie, all pilfered from the Upside Down versions of their homes and arranged carefully in a circle, pillows padding the walls of the nest. It's… strangely cosy, as much as it is confusing. 

“Wh- Eddie?” she asks, eyes lifting once more to the strange being in front of her. It's definitely Eddie, still has his tattoos, although they've warped and stretched from his massive growth spurt. There are patches of lighter skin on his face, chest, and stomach, and she recognises them as scars left over from his death. It's oddly comforting to see something that links him so clearly to the body Stevie had buried weeks ago, even though so much has changed. His wings, the black tipped fingers that taper into claws, the long fangs, all pale in significance to the intense stare he gives her, so like the one he'd had when he told her she was ‘metal’ for having the strength to transition in small town Indiana. 

Eddie rumbles a growl at her, low but still somehow nonthreatening, like distant thunder on a warm summer night. When he advances toward her, however, she instinctively rears back. Eddie whines plaintively, and she forces herself to remain still as he… scents her? He rubs his cheeks against hers, buries his nose in her hair and neck as he purrs like a seven-foot tall housecat.

“Eddie,” she chuckles breathlessly, burying her hands in his mane of hair and sort of petting his head. He seems to enjoy it, though, if the way he keens and purrs even harder is any indication. “What are you d- oh!”

Stevie’s words are cut off with a gasp as Eddie licks her, starting at the base of her throat and dragging all the way up her cheek to her temple. She jumps, trying to lean away, but Eddie merely circles a long arm around her waist and pulls her in even closer with a growl, continuing to lick up and down her neck. His tongue doesn’t feel normal, thicker, pointed, and strangely slimy in a way that seems to leave a light film against her skin. It’s long too, able to reach from her collarbone to her temple all at once.

Stevie shudders, pushing gently at Eddie’s shoulders and opening her mouth to say… something. She’s not sure if it would be a complaint or a request for more, but she’s sure she would have figured it out if Eddie hadn’t taken her parted lips as an invitation. He slides his massive tongue into her mouth, curling it deliciously around her own. She practically melts as it fills her mouth, and she can feel Eddie's rumble in return, travelling from her tongue down her throat and settling low in her stomach. 

Eddie’s hands travel to Stevie’s neckline, claws slicing her shirt to shreds as Stevie gasps as best she can around the thick tongue in her mouth. 

“Mmph-” Stevie fights a bit against Eddie’s hands, only succeeding in scratching herself up as he disassembles her bra. His claws travel lightly down her torso, teasing with a light, rumbling growl, before tearing into her jeans. He cuts through the thicker fabric like butter, taking her underwear with it, and Stevie can’t help but whimper in a combination of fear and lust.

Eddie’s tongue withdraws from her mouth, leaving her panting from the loss. He quickly slides down her body, leaving little kitten licks over each scratch his claws had left, before he reaches her dick and just. Stares for a moment. His head tilts and he voices a little trill that reads as something like confusion.

Eddie had known about her before, obviously, but it’s possible there’s not enough left of him in there to really understand. He seems to take it in stride though, lifting and parting her legs, inspecting everything she has to offer, before rumbling another purr and swiftly wrapping his beautiful tongue around her dick.

Stevie melts as Eddie tongues at her cock. It’s nothing a human could do, tongue wrapping around her like a tentacle and milking. She’s never experienced anything like it, and it’s making her lose her mind. Eddie’s hands find her hips, holding her still as she helplessly tries to thrust into his warm mouth. His claws dig in, leaving little pinpricks of blood blooming along her hip bones, and she keens at the sensation.

Eddie moves his head down further, wrapping his lips around just the head of her cock, his tongue sliding even further down her shaft, circling one of her balls before teasing at her hole. 

All it takes to make her cum is a second of light suction around her head and the feeling of the tip of Eddie’s tongue entering her ass. Eddie sucks it all down, retracting his tongue and collecting her release in his mouth. He pulls back, and- oh god. 

He spits her cum into his hand and then brings it down between his own legs, massaging it into a slit Stevie hadn't noticed before. Soon, with a rumbling growl, something begins to emerge from the slit. It's a dark red, pointed at the top, and it seems to just keep going. Stevie is both excited and terrified to have that in her. It looks like it would go up to her bellybutton. Fuck, there are ridges down the underside, that thing's going to tear her up.

Eddie grabs her around the waist (and yeah, the fact that one of his hands fits almost the entire circumference of her waist is definitely doing it for her) and himself around the dick, lining himself up with her hole and attempting to push in. He’s not getting far, and Stevie whimpers, hands desperately batting at his shoulders in an attempt to get his attention. 

“Wait! Wait Eddie please you're too big- I need prep, you'll hurt me-” she begs, tears forming in her eyes as the head of Eddie’s cock catches threateningly against her rim. 

Thankfully, Eddie pauses, head tilting with something like confusion as he seems to consider her words. Stevie almost sobs in relief as he releases her waist, pulls his giant cock away from her hole. And then she sobs with pleasure as he kneels between her spread legs once again and begins to circle her hole with his slimy tongue.

The pointed tip of it goes in easily, its path eased by the strange, slick spit his mouth produces. And then it burrows deeper, getting thicker and thicker with each centimeter that enters her. It’s still definitely a stretch, but it burns so good as he fucks her with his monster tongue, the wet squelching noises echoing off of the cavern walls along with her debauched moans and pants. Stevie goes limp in ecstasy every time it brushes against her prostate, slick but delightfully rough in both texture and movement. She comes again when he curls it inside of her, doubling back on himself in a way that has her screaming with both pleasure and delightful, delirious pain.

She loses track of how long he fucks her like that, limbs loose and mind hazy, until he finally deems her ready for his cock and retreats, letting out a soothing chitter when she mewls at the gaping loss.

And then he’s grabbing her waist again, lifting up her limp body like a ragdoll and lining himself up.

She still screams when he enters her.

He’s as gentle as he probably can be, and she’s probably looser and slicker than she’s ever managed herself, but that huge, strangely shaped cock still seems to split her wide open. He only has the flared head in, but he just keeps going, each ridge catching delightfully on her stretched and abused hole. Stevie’s beyond words now, babbling broken sounds and breathy moans as Eddie continues to slide inside, panting roughly with what must be the extreme restraint he’s showing in not just using her like a fleshlight.

It takes forever for him to bottom out, and when he does, Stevie swears she can feel him in her throat. He chitters again, and when he purrs it vibrates up his cock and into her core in a way that seems to shake more overstimulated tears from her eyes. He brings a clawed hand up to her stomach, presses on the bottom of her ribcage, and when Stevie finds the strength to move her head from where it’s lolled back against the bottom of the nest, she sees that he’s pressing on himself, on the tip of the giant bulge straining out from her stomach. Her poor, tired cock gives another valiant twitch at the sight.

Eddie seems to take her surprised moan as permission to move.

He starts slow at first, but soon seems to be too caught up in his own pleasure to worry about her comfort as he begins to fuck her hard and fast, growling animalistically as he does. He doesn’t even bother moving his hips much, just wraps two hands tight around her waist until they overlap and moves her up and down his cock. She’s never felt so weak, so used in her life, powerless to do anything other than hang limply off his dick while tears stream down her face and high, breathy moans tear themselves from her throat. Anything recognisable as Eddie in him seems gone now, replaced by something animal, something monster as he snarls down at her, red lamplight eyes fixed on the point where their bodies meet.

It’s a few minutes of being torn apart by his size and the terrible, amazing ridges on his dick when something changes. He presses her into the nest, folding her in half and laying his entire giant body against hers as his thrusts change from hard and brutal slams of hip against hip to something slower, more grinding, but so much deeper. And then something else changes too. Stevie’s weak body still jumps in surprise as Eddie’s cock swells enormously, first at the base by her entrance, and then seemingly travelling up the length of his cock until it settles deep in her abdomen. And then it happens again.

Eggs. Eddie’s laying eggs in her.

At this point, Stevie’s too tired and cockdrunk to really question it at this point. She simply lies there, letting herself be torn open over and over as the eggs pass through Eddie’s cock and implant themselves inside of her. Each one is accompanied by a rush of sticky, viscous fluid that fills her so completely it spills out even with Eddie’s monster cock plugging her up. Her stomach is definitely distended now, and she whines to see the bulge peeking out beneath the small swell of her breasts. She looks pregnant. Well, she guesses she is now.

With quadruplets. Eddie gets four eggs in her before he finishes with a keen, panting and looking down at her with such pride and affection on his face that Stevie would definitely start crying if she wasn’t already.

Eddie gently shifts them onto their sides, still fully seated within her but turning so they’re both lying down facing each other. He purrs contentedly as he pushes her hair back from her sweaty forehead, licks the tears from her face until she’s giggling, and then just rests his forehead against hers as he gazes lovingly down at her stomach, stroking gently.

“Baby,” he says. It comes out croaky and a little garbled, like his throat isn’t made for speech, but despite this he still sounds so much like Eddie, like the sweet and kind of weird guy that Stevie had started to fall for all those weeks ago, that it brings another tear to her eye.

She smiles, places her hand gently over his, over the bulge in her stomach where their eggs are resting. “Yeah,” she says, a little breathlessly, because she truly can’t believe that she has somehow ended up trapped in a hell dimension carrying a monster’s eggs, and even more than that, she can’t believe how happy she is about it. “We’re gonna have babies.”

And as Eddie’s face lights up, radiating a kind of warmth and happiness that Stevie can’t remember ever seeing on a person back in the Right Side Up, she realises: This is home. Right here, curled up with Eddie in their nest.

“Mine,” he murmurs, placing a gentle kiss on Stevie’s forehead. And Stevie can’t think of anyone else’s she’d rather be.

#chapter 2 with pregnancy and monster babies potentially in the works. gotta see what the spoon situation is #steddie #transfem steve harrington #steve harrington #eddie munson #vampire eddie munson #my fics

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

lots of reactions suggesting that it makes no sense for nobody at this vampire hunting party to notice that one of their own is getting eaten by a vampire, and, like, it is fun to dunk on them for imbibing of horror plot idiot juice. but personally i feel like this novel has been so much - like, SOOOOOO much - about being a white british dude at the end of the nineteenth century and looking around at all this economic success and cultural achievement and especially about all this science and technology, looking at all the ways the world has been made knowable and controllable, feeling very much knowing and in control, and yet having this unkillable (undead?) fear lurking somewhere out of sight, somewhere so dark and distant it can't be expressed through realism, it maybe (probably) is not being expressed here consciously: what if we're wrong? what if our accumulated knowledge has only blinded us to the inescapable truth that there will always be things we cannot know? what if there remain after all this things we have no power to explain? what if, to quote the novel, the old centuries have power of their own which mere "modernity" cannot kill? and another way to phrase all this is: what if all that time we thought we were so smart, we were really just arrogant - dangerously, perhaps fatally arrogant? so the mina turn feels to me feels right in the context of thinking about this as a novel about a specific kind of cultural arrogance, and feels interesting in the sense that - okay, even seward has admitted there are vampires now. but having gotten all that into the open, we now have a group of people (a group of white europeans, four of whom are men) who have decided to be the heroes of this story, and who are so committed to that role that it literally doesn't occur to them - even having already lived it! - that they might be the victims. they should know better, but that's kind of why they don't. they do know more, so they think they know better, and that's the trap: the seduction of knowledge, the way you can fool yourself into thinking that you've learned all there is to learn, that knowledge itself will somehow talismanically keep you safe. which is obvious magical thinking when you see it in someone else, but how many of us spent months in 2020 scrolling through articles and twitter threads about fomites and airborne transmission and mask efficiency and local positivity rates, even when we were already minimizing risk as much as our lives would allow us? they've learned about vampires, but not about humility, the facts but not the lesson. i don't find that implausible; i find it very human, and for that reason, quite scary. the horror comes not from the inhuman element posing a threat, but from the ways we in our very certainty, our inability to imagine a future in which we have definitively lost, leave ourselves terrifyingly vulnerable even as we're convinced that everything will be fine - i could be talking about dracula, about pandemics, about climate change, about...........

#dracula daily

[apatheticlexicographer]

ok so picture this:

s5 starts. will is, obviously, getting a lot of focus, and even more of the story is told through his perspective. he might try to patch up m!leven's relationship a little, but there are more pressing concerns. mike is avoidant whenever he tries to talk about it, just like he was during their talk in the cabin at the end of s4.

eventually will brings it up to el, thinking she might be more receptive, but she just stares at him blankly. "me and mike? will, what are you talking about? we broke up weeks ago, i thought mike told you?"

when mike said she had talked to him a little back in the cabin, this was what he meant. they split before s4 even ended. admitting to will that they had broken up for good would be opening so many cans of worms at once, though, so he did what he does best: repress it and avoid it.

would it be kinda weird to have them break up offscreen??? you'd think so, but considering the show's track record it really isn't that implausible.

lucas and max broke up in the gap between s3 and s4, and while it was implied she dumped him in solidarity with el back in s3, i don't remember her saying it explicitly to his face. steve and nancy never had a formal "breaking up" conversation either, or at least not one that we saw. joyce and lonnie divorced before the start of the show, and she never broke up with bob. even whatever happened between vickie and her boyfriend happened offscreen!!!

the only explicit onscreen breakup we've had was between m!leven in s3, and that was portrayed in a way that made it clear that it wasn't serious or permanent.

similarly, we haven't seen officially stated "getting together" scenes. first kisses and confessions, yes, but the closest we've had to a "will you be my boyfriend/girlfriend" was when mike asked el to the snowball in s1. this wasn't entirely played for laughs, but it was definitely shown as something lighthearted and naiive. hell, el didn't even know what he was talking about!!! not exactly the peak of romance...

if the only stated breakup was something temporary and childish, what does that say about the only stated get-together???

in general, the writers seem to prefer changing the status quo of relationships between seasons, and then expanding on the change within the season, rather than showing the shift onscreen. people meet, part ways, grow closer, grow apart- the dynamics don't stay stable in the interrim, and some of the most important things are only explored as their aftermath.

it might seem a bit extreme to have something as important as the show's flagship ship fall apart offscreen, but it would make a huge twist for the audience. it would also explain the need for the 2 days later timeskip- having them just break up offscreen would be pushing it, but this way it would technically have happened during a timeskip.

honestly, i started writing this mostly as a what if situation, but the more i think about it the more i think i might be right.

(it would also make an amazing setup for Big Byler Fight. mike finds out el didn't commission the painting and will finds out mike hid the breakup from him. now they both have a reason to be pissed. boom.)

#byler #anti m!leven #stranger things analysis #stranger things meta #stranger things theory #byler theory

[max1461]

I think the fundamental weakness in the rationalist worldview is that it seems to take intelligence, above all else, to be the central motive force of history. What material conditions are for Marx, intelligence is for the rationalists. It shows up in Yudkowsky's writing on AI in particularly exaggerated form: he treats AI superintelligence as essentially magic, capable of circumventing any and all physical and material obstacles to achieving the system's goals. Many people have pointed out that there may be serious physical limitations on nanotechnology that make many of his proposed AI apocalypse scenarios implausible. But these potential limitations are handwaved away, because the AI is really really smart, you see, so surely it could find a way around them. A sufficiently intelligent AI could supposedly even find its way around even more fundamental information and epistemic limits. Within three frames of a video of an apple falling, an AI superintelligence would already have general relativity as one of its primary hypotheses! Good thing, as one commenter pointed out, it wasn't shown a video of a red balloon floating up instead.

Of course, there's a steelman here—that with sufficient intelligence, these putative limitations might be circumvented, and since we can't rule out the possibility, it's worthwhile to research AI safety anyway (even if the particulars of this or that proposed apocalypse sound implausible). And I'm pretty sympathetic to this steelman, which is part of the reason that I ultimately do think AI safety research is worthwhile. But this is not the way Yudkowsky typically frames things. Rather, he frames the issue of AI safety with a seeming certitude that, given sufficient intelligence, the world can simply be bent to one's will. All problems can be overcome by just being a really really super duper smarty pants.

I see why this sort of worldview, both the exaggerated mythologization of intelligence-as-superpower and the more toned-down conception of intelligence as historical prime-mover, would be appealing to... well, lets face it, a bunch of nerds who grew up priding themselves primarily on their intelligence. But ultimately, I just don't think it's correct, even as a heuristic.

It's not just in writings about AI where this shows up. It's also pervasive in rationalist discourse about the human social world, and this is where I think it's most misguided. There's a cadre of rationalist and rat-adj reactionaries who are famous around these parts for invariably, incessantly taking every political discussion back to IQ, because they hold a worldview in which everything is downstream of who's smart and exactly how smart they are. I've also found Scott Alexander to be pretty regularly guilty of this. Look at the way he talks about intelligence here, in his review of Joseph Henrich's The Secret of Our Success (this is admittedly not the best example, but it's the one I could find, so it will have to do).

To be fair, Henrich is in some sense writing against the idea that intelligence is a magical panacea, and Scott is recapitulating his argument. Henrich's view is that human success is due in significant part to cultural evolution rather than raw brain power, and in the broad strokes I share this view. Henrich thus spends a certain amount of time trying to demonstrate that raw brain power is not sufficient for survival, and Scott reproduces these arguments. But what gets me is that he reproduces them as if they are reasonably likely to be novel to us, as if we may genuinely need them in order to move on to the later discussion about cultural evolution, instead of presenting them for what they (in my view) actually are: fucking obvious.

Henrich walks the reader through many stories about European explorers marooned in unfamiliar environments.

[...]

These explorers had many advantages over our hominid ancestors. For one thing, their exploration parties were made up entirely of strong young men in their prime, with no need to support women, children, or the elderly. They were often selected for their education and intelligence. Many of them were from Victorian Britain, one of the most successful civilizations in history, full of geniuses like Darwin and Galton. Most of them had some past experience with wilderness craft and survival. But despite their big brains, when faced with the task our big brains supposedly evolved for – figuring out how to do hunting and gathering in a wilderness environment – they failed pathetically.

Nor is it surprising that they failed. Hunting and gathering is actually really hard. Here’s Henrich’s description of how the Inuit hunt seals:

[quotes from Henrich about how the Inuit hunt seals]

How do hunter-gatherers know how to do all this? We usually summarize it as “culture”. How did it form? Not through some smart Inuit or Fuegian person reasoning it out; if that had been it, smart European explorers should have been able to reason it out too.

He says "hunting and gathering is actually really hard", as if we need reminding that being a Really Smart Guy doesn't automatically confer you knowledge of all local flora and fauna and where to find them.

In the last paragraph, he claims that because Europe explorers (certified smartypants) couldn't figure something out in the several weeks before they starved to death, it is thereby obvious that local people could not have figured it out consciously either, even with multiple generations to beat their heads against the problem. Is Scott not familiar at all with the slow, incremental process by which modern scientific progress is made? To make clear me own biases on the object level issue: I think cultural evolution pretty clearly plays a big role in the development of human societies, likely the dominant one across history, though I think some level of conscious, intentional invention and experimentation pretty clearly plays a role too. I couldn't comment on the precise balance between the two. But even though Scott is ultimately arguing for a position I basically agree with, his reasoning here doesn't even look convincing. Unless, that is, you have tacitly accepted the notion that intelligence is magic, and that being a certified super smartypants frees you from all constraints of time, resources, and prior knowledge.

Sometimes I just want to shake these people and yell "some things are not basically about how smart you are! Some things are basically about other things!"

#navel gazing

[sarnai4]

The (Dis)Agreeable

I'm not sure if this is a hot take or not, but it goes against some of the things implied in the series (spoilers for RTTE). I don't think Oswald the Agreeable was a good father.

The show paints him as this peaceful, friendly man who never wanted wars and loved his kids. Sounds great, but I find contradicting evidence in the episodes.

There is something to be said about young Dagur's conduct with people. I get it that he's got probably a cocktail of mental illnesses, but that doesn't mean that he's incapable of acting in nonviolent ways. We see him do just that later. So, why was he not told as a kid, "No, don't try to drown your friends. That's mean and dangerous. Don't put people in cages and feed them cod heads." etc.? I feel like the first part at least was never told to him because he didn't act like him almost drowning Hiccup was in fact a scary experience for the younger Viking. Not saying that Oswald needed to watch his every move, but Dagur isn't a shy person. He's noticeable. If he's doing something (assuming his goal isn't to be sneaky, which it didn't seem to be with that drowning attempt), you're going to see/feel/hear him. Why not just sit him down and explain what's right and wrong? Dagur recalls being told to not do things like chase chickens and have axes, but I'm not sure if there's really a reason given behind it vs just knowing that his father didn't want him to do that.

And then there's Ansson. If you've read my previous post, you know I think he's at least 8 years older than Dagur. That makes me wonder where Oswald was during all that. This begins tying into another point. His relationship with Dagur must have been pretty bad if the other Berserkers actually thought Dagur killed him. Aside from the implausibility of Hiccup being able to, if he said he killed Stoick, people would be shocked because they know the two Vikings care about one another. No one seemed to bat an eye with this. "Dagur killed his old man? Yeah, figured that was just a matter of time." What were their interactions like if something so violent just made sense? To address a counterargument, maybe they just believed this because of Dagur being who he is. Fair, but here is the major issue: they never should have been able to think Dagur killed Oswald.

Where did Oswald go? We know he shipwrecked on Vanaheim, but where was he headed and why? Clearly, Dagur wasn't with him if he got lost out on sea. Dagur also didn't know where he was. No one else did either. Therefore, it implies that Oswald left home without telling anyone. I doubt this was to sign a treaty since that was stated that he'd bring Dagur along and I'm assuming the other Berserkers would know. So, why did Oswald suddenly leave without telling anyone where he was going? As both a father and chief, that's irresponsible. They have 50k soldiers, so who knows how many overall Vikings they have when you take into account kids, the elderly, and whoever just wasn't a soldier? Oswald left Dagur with all of these people. It's obvious that the boy wasn't ready. We saw how well that first year of being a chief went. At least, I'd expect him to tell someone, but no one knew. This sounds like he didn't just go out, he left. Oswald left and had no intention of coming back.

Then, you have "The Search for Oswald...and Chicken." There are a few things which are said here hat bother me. The letter itself was strange since Oswald mentioned Dagur protecting Heather even though she was a small child when she was lost and given the annual nature of the treaty visits, Oswald would have left long after she was missing. I think this is just a case of a plot hole that no one caught, but if we make it canonical, it's him fantasizing about his preferred life. He might have gone mad on that island. I can think of no other reason for him to write a letter about and to the daughter he'd no longer had on their home for years. Along that line of thinking, I doubt we can trust that his positive words to his son were genuine as opposed to being due to his false memories. Even in another part of the letter, it's sad because he mentions Dagur growing out of his "crazy, destructive" phase/stage. Dagur sort of gives a sheepish smile and it's played as a joke, but that's really sad. His son is mentally ill and he's just hoping he grows out of it like it's a papier-mache phase.

But what's the saddest part to me is Dagur's thoughts and beliefs regarding his father. After the corpse is found, Hiccup says, "He loved you" and Dagur responds, "I guess we'll never know." That is heartbreaking to me. Hiccup could have said, "He'd forgive you" or "He'd understand" and I would accept Dagur's words. That would be fine. With someone dead, you have no way of truly knowing if they'd understand why you did something or if they'd agree. That said, you should know that someone loves you. It's not something you should need to confirm when the person in question is a parent. I know this happens in real life, but a healthy parent-child bond should have both parties know, "Yeah, they love me. Even if we disagree, we love each other." Dagur makes it explicitly clear that he and Oswald don't have that type of relationship since he didn't know if Oswald loved him.

Therefore, between not being a teacher or protector in Dagur's childhood, having a relationship that feasibly could have ended in patricide, abandoning his son to lead tens of thousands of Vikings, believing his mental state was a temporary inconvenience, and not making letting it be known that he was loved, I believe that Oswald might have been agreeable, but he also was a bad father.

#HTTYD #RTTE #dob/rob #Dagur the Deranged #Oswald the Agreeable #Berserker family #Bad fathers #Maybe there's a reason Dagur turned out the way he did #Questions the characters never asked for some reason #Heather might have lucked out by not remembering Oswald

[llatimeria]

why are upstairs neighbors the way they are. i know this is long but can somebody please . please read this and give me a reality check

the last few people who rented the apartment above us were annoying too but it pales in comparison to whoever lives there now. Every single fucking day, usually in the evenings or late afternoons, they do ... Something. it could be sex or some kind of exercise or any other number of things. It's just a lot of THUD THUD THUD THUD THUDs on and off for half an hour to an hour and a half. Today it started at 8pm and lasted til 9 but the last time I made a note of the time it happened around 3pm as I was trying to do homework.

It feels like the whole ceiling shakes. I swear sometimes it fucks with the air pressure in my ears, which is really hard to notice until it's driving me insane, like a grain of sand in my sock. It's started to stress out our dog, which just makes her start barking (and she's clearly barking at the ceiling), but her barking is in itself overstimulating, which stresses us out more, which she picks up on, which just makes her bark more because she's baby and doesn't like it when her dads are anxious.

The thudding alone can be enough to overstimulate us, but combined with the barking and coincidental other neighbor noises that don't usually bother us, it's... Extremely draining. We're both neurodivergent people with PTSD. Loud, unpredictable noises don't really mix well with us. On more than one occasion my partner's had full blown anxiety attacks bc of the combination of sudden loud noises (a known trigger for them) and the overstimulation (another known trigger for them). We like. Actively can't keep living like this. lmao. I cannot stress enough how it is every day and never quite at the exact same time so we can emotionally prepare for it, and it's not like we should have to prepare to exist in our own living room anyways.

Anyways I just need to purge all of my anxieties and get a reality check about this. Help

We could just be stupid and unreasonable and should just grow up and get over it, and will be fully confronted with that if we do anything.

We might just open ourselves up to harassment (or becoming the butt of a lot of jokes) because we're the whiny neighbors who have nothing better to do than complain

Even if we are being reasonable, it doesn't really make a difference, because if our neighbors think that we're not, they could harass us anyways

They could make a noise complaint about our dog out of spite ("why are you mad at Them when it's Your dog that barks")

Maybe we're also extremely annoying neighbors and we'll look like huge assholes/idiots if we complain about anyone else (implausible, but again. Small dog)

What if we try to contact them and they interpret it as an attack on them. We think one of the people living above us is a very large, heavyset man we've seen around the apartment complex, and we don't want to put our feet in our mouths if he's literally just vibing (or worse, excercising to lose weight) and we just totally humiliate him by telling him his mere footsteps are overstimulating down here. I don't want anyone to feel BAD. (And we're also not totally sure the guy we've seen is actually the guy above us, we just know they showed up around the same time)

We did actually try bonking the ceiling with a broom a few days ago and they obviously heard it because they stopped for a second, laughed, and started doing whatever it is more loudly, but what if that was entirely a coincidence and they didn't notice at all

What if they interpret any message we send as a passive-aggressive attack rather than just trying to let them know how loud they're being

And what if we do actually come across as passive-aggressive towards people who aren't us and we just make everything worse by bungling our communication attempts. It wouldn't be on purpose, but again it doesn't matter because some people interpret everything as an attack regardless

They could generally just fuck with our lives and make us miserable forever with no recourse if we fuck this up, too. like. We LIVE right BENEATH them. They know where we live and probably the layout of our apartment, since it's probably identical to theirs. They could probably figure out which car is ours. They could report our dog barking, or just come up with any number of fake/minor complaints. They could stalk us, vandalize our shit, intentionally make more noise or make louder noises and intentionally try to overwhelm/trigger us, or any number of things. Even if they got in trouble for it, that doesn't really matter because I just don't want it to happen in the first place.

And, worse, what if we try to get them punished, but it turns out we really were the aggressors the entire time according to anyone normal, and we just get our entire lives deservedly wrecked instead

i don't know what to dooooo

#I just have a really hard time judging myself and my own intentions #I feel like I must've gotten positive and negative responses to complaints completely at random as a kid #bc I just. do not have this skill at all. #I always feel like I'm going to get laughed at for how petty my problems are