#but it is just. a topic that requires so much brain and gets heavy and personal real quick sometimes

[thought--bubble]

In Need Of An Heir Pt 5

Aemond (Canon Era) X (Baratheon! Reader)

Warnings after the cut

In Need of an Heir Masterlist

Aemond (Canon Era) Masterlist

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Banners by @arcielee

Warnings:: Forced marriage. Some fluff 😍

'Is he.....smiling at me?' You think to yourself unable to hide the look of confusion on your face. 'He couldn't possibly be smiling right now'

He notes your look of confusion and drops the smile reverting back to his usual cold, stoic look. He straightens his back and looks at you, though it looks more like he is looking through you than at you.

The Septon recites the marriage rites, but you aren't listening. You are staring at Aemond trying to get a read on him. Why was he smiling? What is he planning?

They tie a ribbon around your hands his cold boney hand under yours, and your Baratheon cloak is removed and quickly replaced with a Targaryen cloak. A cloak that feels so heavy on your shoulders your tempted to shake the damn thing off.

Then Aemond leans in for the kiss, and you just freeze. He looks at you quizzically but closes the gap, placing a chase kiss to your lips. It's so quick that you hardly felt it, but that's all it took. You're now his wife. Bound to him by law and the gods.

You feel a slight pride within yourself. you know it was pointless to fight this but the fact that you didn't lean in for the kiss had you feeling like you at the very least fought till the last breath. You won't pretend this is something you want. You will do your duty as is required by your father, the realm and the society in which you exist but if you are to do it, you want everyone to know you aren't happy about it.

Everyone is smiling and clapping as you make your way out of the Sept hand still tied to his, and you can't help but laugh. This is absurd. They act as if this is a celebration when, in reality its a jail sentence. Your crime being that you were born a woman.

There is a carriage waiting for just you and Aemond. The very first time, the two of you will be truly alone. The idea is daunting, but alas, you have no choice. He unties the ribbon around your hand setting you free for a moment before he grasps your fingers to help you up the small stairs and into the carriage. As you sit down, a wave of anxiety and annoyance flows over you. He enters behind you and takes a seat across from you.

Once he sits and the door is closed, silence falls over the carriage as the two of you silently look at each other.

For Aemond, the silence is unbearable he found himself wracking his brain, desperate to come up with some topic for discussion. For you, however, the silence was fine. Preferred, actually. It may be your duty to house Baratheon to marry this man, but it certainly wasn't your duty to walk him through proper social etiquette. If he lacked that skill, that's a problem all his own.

"Did....did you enjoy the ceremony?" Aemond asks wearily. He has a cool stoic look, but the twitching of his hands tells a slightly different story.

"As much as one could given the circumstances" you decide to look out the small window of the carriage in order to avoid eye-contact with the prince.

he sighs and taps his finger on his thigh. He did not imagine it would be this difficult to engage you in conversation. He was under the assumption that you would be grateful for the attention from him. As a lot of highborn ladies have been over the years if he was to engage them. This attitude he was not prepared for.

"Do you like the necklace?" he keeps his eye trained on the sapphire sitting on your chest.

"Yes." you respond without looking away from the window.

Aemond briefly rubs his temples in frustration but remains silent for the remainder of the ride back up to the red keep.

When the carriage arrives Aemond swiftly exits the carriage standing next to the steps holding his hand out for you. You gently grasp his fingers as you make your way down the steps. when you go to release his hand his fingers wrap around yours gently pulling you to his side.

He doesn't make eye contact as he wraps your arm around his, your brain is screaming for you to rip your arm from him and demand he not touch you, but in the interest of not making a scene and embarrassing your house you allow him to lead you to the feast. not a word is spoken the entire walk but Aemond rubs the tips of your fingers that are wrapped around his arm in a kind of comforting gesture.

This again has you confused. What exactly is he trying to do here?

The two of you enter the feast as the guests of honor. You are the first to arrive. Aemond walks you to the head table. He is to sit to the right of the king. While his mother, the dowager queen, will sit to the right. Jaehaera will sit next to her, and current hand Criston Cole will sit next to Jaehaera. You, of course, will be seated on the other side of your husband.

Aemond gently guides you to your seat and pulls out the chair for you, and you sit promptly, a growing feeling of unease at the amount of kindness he is showing you.

He slowly sinks down into the chair next to you and looks straight ahead as guests start to fill the room.

"I wish not to frighten you, just as I wish not to make you unhappy"

You don't respond but turn your head to look at him.

He continues to look straight ahead as he speaks. "I have not been the perfect man, and I understand that if you had a choice in the matter, you would not be sitting here now." He finally turns and looks at you."I am willing to accept your guidance on how I could make this..... arrangement more pleasant for you"

You shift uncomfortably in your seat, pondering his words.

He continues, "My mother was most unhappy. I do not wish to be to you the burden my father was to her."

he looks forward as Aegon is carried into the room and stands up, taking your hand as you join him.

"I'll make you a list," you say, watching Aegon be brought closer and closer.

"A list?" Aemond questions turning to you and raising an eyebrow.

"A list of the things that will make this more pleasant"

"Hmmmm," he clicks his tongue as Aegon is placed. "Very well"

When the King is sat, he doesn't make any grand speech or say anything other than a quick congratulations with a joke about his brother in the bedchamber, much to Aemond's displeasure.

Since the wedding was so rushed, there weren't more than 25 guests. A few lords dancing with their wives and Royce dancing with all of their daughters and looking gleeful as he does.

"We should dance. At least once" Aemond suggests looking on at the dancing couples.

You hesitate briefly but ultimately decide to give him a little bit of an inch. It's not a full inch. Of course, this man is still not to be trusted, but he seems to want to try and you think that maybe you should too.

"I apologize already, I'm not much of a dancer." You laugh lightly but stand.

"Me either, but no one will laugh. Not out loud anyway. " he gives you a half lipped grin and takes your hand, leading you down to the floor where the other couples are dancing.

You know now that he was being humble as he gracefully glides with you in his arms. He doesn't miss a beat or step one foot out of place he stands a vision of regality.

The celebration comes to a close much too quickly for your liking because there is only one place left to go. Aemond dismisses all notions about any kind of bedding ceremony stating he would not have any eyes but his own upon his wife in an undressed state for which you were thankful.

He takes your arm and leads you from the celebration to what is now going to be your shared chambers. Luckily you would both still have chambers of your own to run to but in these chambers. You were to be husband and wife, in all sense of those titles.

Your feet feel like they are made of lead as you walk slower and slower toward the bedchamber. You had been warned that even the kindest of men could be greedy in the bedchamber and Aemond was certainly not the kindest of men.

He opens the door to the chambers and dismisses the two chamber maids that were waiting there to assist you in removing your wedding gown stating any help you needed you would get from him.

When they leave and he shuts the door behind him he sighs.

"Lets just start with some wine shall we?"

Part 6

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#ewan mitchell verse #aemond fanfiction #aemond targaryen #aemond x reader #aemond one eye #aemond targaryen x reader #hotd aemond #aemond #aemond the kinslayer #prince aemond #possessive aemond #prince aemond targaryen #aemond smut #aemond targaryen fanfiction #ewan nation #ewanverse #ewan mitchell #jess fics #my war criminal bf

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for wanting my parents to get me a nice PC?

no real fighting or anything happened, this is mostly so I can grapple with my own brain about it. I'll also avoid talking about general past parental abuse since that feels largely irrelevant/extraneous to the current question :P I (24ftm) am still living with my parents since the pandemic left me unemployed and I don't make enough money off my hobbies to actually go anywhere. I have been slowly starting to go back to college (after experiencing immense trauma from getting forced into college full time by the parents at 17) which my parents have been very receptive of, if not annoyed that I'm staunchly refusing to go back full time. I'm generally grateful that they've housed me as long as they have.

As a more mature adult now I do feel that I *can* return full time, or at least part time rather than my current one class a semester pattern, but there's one single problem with that— the classes i need to take to get the degree i want (technical design, which requires classes on 3D modeling and related) all require a more heavy duty computer than what I currently have, which is a dinky 4gb ram laptop I've had since at *least* 2017 that takes 20 minutes just to open a browser, and slow as molasses when I'm trying to use more than two applications at once. My parents agreed to pay for it using money from my college fund on a few conditions (such as cleaning out my bedroom to make space for it which I've been trying to do, but ADHD has made it embarrassingly difficult)

however, when I bring up the PC in any conversation, especially where i try to bring up that i need it for any classes i want to take in the future, my parents seem very upset. They accuse me of making that fact up since I've only been taking one class each semester, calling it unfair and accusing me of only wanting it to "goof off with my friends" (verbatim) and don't seem to understand the laptop *physically cannot handle* the programs that classes require, and I can hardly get a word in edgewise. It's been a nonstop feedback loop of saying I need a better PC for more classes, but getting told i cant get a better PC because i'm not taking more classes, subsequently not taking more classes because i don't have a better PC, rinse and repeat. I've been trying to explain, but they genuinely won't even listen to me.

I feel spiteful that my parents aren't understanding, and even more bitter when they've been buying thousand dollar TVs for themselves and whole new appliances for my older sibling (28mtf) who's moved out (she's the favorite sibling by a mile lol), so i know their hesitance isn't from a monetary standpoint (not to mention I said I'd be willing to pull from my own college fund for it). But I also feel guilty like I'm asking too much, or that I'm just making this problem up in my head, or that my parents are being generous in even offering/agreeing in the first place and I'm just being greedy. I have yet to fully confront them on it, but it's driving me insane with weird mixed emotions. so I just want to know if I'm being an entitled baby or if I really should be persistent on this topic.

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

[thesapphireprincess]

Let’s talk about doing the damn thing

By doing the damn thing I mean actually working toward your goals with physical action

What is it that you want in your life? What do you truly want that will make you happy? I’ll tell you what I want. I want to be able to come home without a single worry about my necessities in life but it is more than that. I want to be able to walk into any store and not worry about the price tag, a life of abundance. I want to be able to wake up to an alarm by choice, I want the alarm to go off because I want to wake up at a certain time not because I have to be at this job at a certain time in order to keep a roof over my head. This is what I want. I want to be my own boss and run my own business, this is what I want. What is it that you want?

It’s always been my dream to be my own boss and run my own company since I was 9 years old. I am now 23 and I got a little lost through out the years, nothing too heavy just being surrounded by the wrong people. I always wondered why when I would cut off every toxic person in my life I would suddenly be focused on my future but then another test would come and I would fail that test and be lost again and unhappy. Friend groups are not for me. Friend groups are usually toxic and full of so much unnecessary drama. I always felt left out in friend groups. I think I’m meant to be solo until I am so stuck on my path that it would take a literal meteor to knock me off. I prefer to have friends but not a friend group. At the moment I don’t have any friends because as you can probably guess I cut them all off. While I’ve been in Texas I haven’t made any solid friends. The people I’ve met haven’t been too consistent but ig that is for the best. I am not meant to have friends right now. I would like to have a few friends but I want true friends not fake ones. If I was meant to have friends right now I would simply have them, am I right?

Let’s get into the main topic of this post “doing the damn thing”. Just recently I’ve come into myself in a way that I’ve never before. Being content with who I am and where I am. I didn’t say comfortable I said content. Even though I am content with myself I’m still looking for ways to improve and grow in every way possible in order to reach my goals. There are things that I need to do and that I am working on in order to create my dream life. I hope this makes sense. Ik what I need to do to be successful and I need to do more than that. I need to push myself harder not like a working mule because never that. I mean I can feel that I am being lazy in certain areas that I shouldn’t be lazy in. It’s a slight adjustment and it’s not going to burn me. Pushing myself to work towards my goals is so important to me. I want to stick to a schedule, be organized and realistic with myself. I want a balance of work, rest and fun. I’ve been dabbling too much in the rest part so it’s not balanced. I will fix this in time. I have figured out a good schedule and now I just have to try it out.

I want to be able to date the kind of men I want to date. I want to be taken out to really nice places with men who are well dressed, handsome, wealthy, generous, smart, and kind. A gentleman. I have the image of the kind of men I want to date and eventually be with but in return I have to become a women of means. Turning myself into who I’ve always imagined myself to be is something I want. I want to be seen as a woman not a girl. Becoming her requires not only beauty but brains and trust me I have the beauty thing down. I am working on the other half, the brains. Me becoming my Dream version has nothing to do with a man btw but I definitely don’t want to be single forever. I want to be in a healthy relationship and I’m not going to pretend that I’m perfectly ok with being alone for the rest of my life or being 40 with no husband or kids. If that’s what you want that’s fine but that’s not what I want. When I am 40 I want to have a husband or 40 with a husband and kids no in betweens. I want to get married in my mid or late 20’s and then maybe have kids in my early 30’s. I deserve love and I deserve to be with the man of my dreams. Hello like attracts like. I’m done dating men who aren’t what I truly want. I want a Bruce Wayne archetype minus the mommy and daddy issues. I mean the look: dark hair, handsome, young and wealthy. A Mentally healthy and wealthy man. I want someone kind and adventurous with the means to give me and show me true romance. I want someone who can give me a life worth truly living. I want the career, the husband, the lifestyle and family of my dreams. So I will become the woman of me dreams. I’m only 23 and a lot can happen in a year especially with hard work. I refuse to be stagnant in life, I refuse to waste my youth doing nothing and I refuse to waste all the opportunities life has to offer when you choice to knock on the door of your dreams. With all of this being said, stop being stagnant. Stop wasting your time and do the damn thing.

#level up #self improvement #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #hypergamy #upscale dating #black women in femininity #black women in leisure #black women in luxury #spoiled girlfriend #spoiled wife

[ash5monster01]

Goes On Chapter Eleven

Pairing: Charlie Dalton x OC!FemReader

Warnings: 18+, depression, mentions of suicide, heavy topics, eventual smut, slow burn romance, fluff, gender themes/stereotypes.

Summary: Against his best efforts Charlie has to start at a new preparatory school after the tragic events that took place at Welton. The very events that led to the loss of his best friend and getting expelled in the first place. He has no plans to make friends let alone get close to anyone ever again. That is until he meets Evelyn and her interesting group of friends. No matter how hard he tries to push them away he finds it to be impossible. So he caves and in the end learns that life can still be enjoyable even if it feels like everyone is against you.

word count: 2.8k

Ten ←→ Twelve

Masterlist

Ridge Academy, NY

2/20/60

When Evelyn wakes up the next morning the smile on her face is still wide. She had never really known what this feeling would be like. That feeling you get when you like someone and they just so happen to like you back. It made you feel brand new, refreshed, hopeful. Which may explain why getting up so early on a Saturday hadn’t bothered her like it normally would. Instead she turns off her alarm on the first ring and makes her way to the showers with that beaming grin.

It’s not long until she’s dressed in a simple floral dress, thankful they weren’t required school uniforms on the weekend. When she adds a little more makeup than normal she excuses it as feeling experimental but honestly she just wanted Charlie to look at her with those eyes that he always does. The eyes that make her squirm in her seat while she feels every nerve ending go off in her body. In fact she’s glad him finally kissing her last night didn’t entirely short circuit her brain.

“You’re forgetting something” Violet grins behind her in the reflection of the mirror and Evelyn furrows her eyebrows as she looks back at her.

“What?” she questions, eyebrows pulled together tightly. She inspects her face quickly, worried she had messed something up or missed and Violet just laughs.

“If you’re gonna put all that effort into your makeup you might as well cover up that neck” Violet says, hand reaching to tip her neck up and reveal the dark red mark right above her throat. Evelyn gasps in an instant, eyes now trained on the spot that is very visibly now that she’s paying attention. Her stomach drops at the idea of other students seeing it as they roam the halls today.

“Shit” she mutters, hands fumbling through the makeup on her desk in search of anything that could possibly cover it up. Violet quickly sets a hand on her own, stopping the girl from stressing too much.

“Calm down and let me help” Violet tells her, grabbing her own chair and pulling it next to hers. Evelyn tries to calm as the girl gets to work, hands grabbing the makeup and focusing her attention to the mark.

“How do you know what to do?” Evelyn asks after a beat, her heart rate now at a normal and soft thump. Violet just giggles at the question as she glances up from her neck and into her eyes.

“When Marty and I first got together he would always leave marks on accident, I got pretty good at covering them up and now I just make sure he leaves them where others can’t see” she says, suggestion in her tone and eyebrows raised which makes Evelyn laugh loudly at the notion.

“It was my first real kiss” Evelyn whispers, recalling the two other times she had barely pecked a boy and felt nothing but regret in her stomach. Instead she kissed a boy hard and good and in return the butterflies hadn’t left her stomach yet.

“He’s good for you and I’m pretty sure you’re good for him too. Hell, he would barely talk to us when he started, and now I can’t get rid of the guy” Violet teases and Evelyn laughs again, admiring the black hair that cascades down her friends back as she works on fixing her neck up.

“I’m just so nervous, I don’t really know what this means for us. I wasn’t even really planning on kissing him but he just showed up at the door and I couldn’t help myself” Evelyn says, softly shaking her head and using the brunette curls falling forward to hide her face. Violet just smiles, leaning back as she checks over her work.

“It means he likes you, and you like him. Don’t let the pressure of others and their expectations ruin what you guys already got. Just cherish it and the rest will happen on its own” she tells her, recalling all the times people had judged her and Marty for getting together so young. At least they had stayed together the whole time, a testament that each of those people were wrong.

“And if he doesn’t want to date me?” Evelyn voices her worries and Violet just gives her a soft smile, knowing how long her best friend waited to feel this way about someone, to stop feeling broken because she couldn’t have crushes like other girls.

“He does, but if not he’s an idiot and I’ll kill him” Violet deadpans and Evelyn is laughing again, heart easing due to her best friends words and the she’s wrapping the raven haired girl into a hug.

“Thanks V” she tells her honestly and Violet hugs right back, enjoying the time alone they have together within this dorm. “Now, how does my neck look?” Evelyn asks pulling back and lifting her chin for Violet to investigate.

“As good as it’s gonna get” she tells her, knowing no makeup in the world was ever that successful at covering any mark left by a silly lovestruck boy. Evelyn turns to the mirror to find it much better than before but the shadow of it still there. Accepting her fate she stands and joins the girl.

“Let’s get breakfast then” she tells her and the girls are off in search of their friends and Saturday morning pancakes which was the only good reason for getting up so early on a Saturday around here. Plus Evelyn wanted to get a head start on planning the spring sport fundraisers before she had a meeting that more than likely only Charlie would show up too.

The closer the pair got to the dining hall the more nervous Evelyn became. She wasn’t used to being nervous like this but for the first time in her life she was going to face a boy she liked and not only liked but had kissed just last night. Her cheeks were already burning red just thinking about it and Violet just shook her head as the two walked through the lunch line and headed for their table that held all of their friends.

“Morning” Marty beamed as the two girls joined them. Evelyn felt her heart drop as she realized Charlie wasn’t there. Nate saw the disappointed look in her eyes and felt jealousy twist in his gut as she moved to sit beside him.

“Heard you got caught sneaking to Marty’s room last night” Laurie teases, eyes twinkling with amusement as she looks at Nate who had told them about how him and Charlie had spotted the girl.

“Better the boys than Mr. Holly” Violet said with a shrug, taking a bite of pancake and grinning around the fork.

“Seems like everyone had a bit of fun last night” Laurie grins, eyes landing on Evelyn. The thing about Laurie is she notices everything, observes everyone and everything around her. The evident disappointment, red cheeks, and half visible hickey on the girls neck were all immediately noticed by the blonde girl. Her awareness is what made her the queen of drama at Ridge.

“What?” Evelyn gapes, getting more nervous as everyone at the table begins to stare at her. Laurie just smiles, leaning against Marty to reach for the girl across the table, manicured nails turning her chin upwards and as the bruise is revealed to everyone Marty snorts, coughing around his food.

“Holy shit, Ev’s got a hickey” he says and the girl quickly shushes him, pulling away from the blonde girl who settles back into her seat across from her. Nate’s stomach drops, the sight of the small bruise pointing out Charlie did much more than kiss the girl. His girl even. Yet he had to save face, he had told himself he would get over this. He just didn’t think it would be this hard.

“Stop, it’s nothing. Especially since he couldn’t bother to show up this morning” Evelyn grumbles, eyes dropping to her plate so they can’t see her utter disappointment and Nate suddenly feels guilty. He wakes up Charlie every Saturday but today he didn’t because he was jealous.

“Evelyn I’m sure it’s not you” Violet starts but the group is cut off as the chestnut haired boy clambers into the seat beside the girl, hair a disarray and black t-shirt wrinkled against his skin. The very shirt he slept in and didn’t bother to change since he was in such a rush.

“Shit, what time is it?” He asks quickly, shoving his tray onto the table and the group laughs while Evelyn beams a bright smile at the boy beside her. As Charlie glances amongst the table he spots Evelyn’s soft smile and returns one back.

“It’s nine, there’s still a half hour of breakfast” she tells him and he smiles at how gorgeous she looks. He loved weekends when he could see the girl in her regular clothes. It gave him a better image of what life would be like with her outside of this school. That is if he got to keep her.

“Hi” he tells her, a little breathless and eyes shining into her own like they always did. The very look Evelyn had been hoping for as she got ready this morning. Then much to Evelyn and everyone else’s surprise Charlie leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her cheek before turning to his food.

“You forget to set your alarm?” Marty asks, laughing lightly at the boys disheveled appearance. Charlie sends him a glare before glancing over Evelyn’s head to look at Nate.

“Nate usually wakes me but I guess this morning he forgot” and with everyone’s eyes on him Nate not only feels guilty for giving Evelyn doubts about Charlie but guilty because he knows everyone at this very table knew he had done it on purpose.

“My bad man, I just forgot” he says and doesn’t even convince himself before turning back to his own plate of food that he had barely touched due to the fact his stomach was in knots all morning

“So, this is like officially a thing?” Laurie asked, pointing between both Charlie and Evelyn. Instead of responding Evelyn thinks about what Violet had said and looks to Charlie to see if there is any regret written on his face.

“I guess so” Charlie just tells her before flashing Evelyn a smile and continuing to eat his food. Evelyn can’t help the wide smile that crosses her face as she drops her head to look at her food. The rest of the table share knowing looks but this time no one offers Nate a remorseful smile because his own jealousy would be the thing to ruin his friendship with Evelyn, not telling her his feelings.

After finishing breakfast and being harassed for the hickey on Evelyn’s neck the group is quick to move on to the rest of their day. Retreating to study halls, clubs, sports, and group projects. Charlie promises Evelyn he’ll meet her soon for planning committee, needing a shower and change of clothes before he went about the rest of his day. That’s how he finds himself walking back to his dorm with Nate by his side.

“Look man, I know you’re upset but that was a dick move” Charlie tells him as he pushes through the dorm door and Nate drops his head.

“I know” he mutters, watching as Charlie collects his towel and a change of clothes so he can head to the showers. Nate had been too busy letting his emotions control him he nearly forgot he finally had a friend, the kind he always wanted.

“I know this whole thing isn’t ideal, I’d hate it if I were in your shoes too. You have to remember we’re friends though and you were the one who decided to let her go” Charlie tells him, tossing the towel over his shoulder. Nate groans, hating himself even more for deciding to let her go.

“I know man, I don’t know what to tell you though. It’s not like I just fell out of love with her over night okay. I need time to process and when things happen like you biting her neck I struggle” Nate tells him, sitting on his bed and running his hands through his hair. H hated that he never committed and he knew he was being a child but this was just how it was now.

“Nate, I’m not a fucking vampire. Also I obviously know that but if you love her you have to let her be happy and I like to think I make her happy. Plus she makes me really fucking happy, for the first time in months, even when I thought I never would be again. So please, be a friend” Charlie pleads and Nate is reminded of the truth that Charlie had shared with him not so long ago. A sentiment that he was just a guy trying to figure things out and his intentions weren’t to be mean.

“Okay” Nate agrees even though agreeing officially confirmed he would never leave the friend zone no matter how badly he wanted to. Charlie nods once he realizes Nate has agreed and then starts for the door.

“I’ll see you later” he tells him before going off and getting the shower he should’ve had this morning.

It’s not long until he’s finally refreshed and on his way to meet Evelyn. The excitement of seeing her alone has him nearly buzzing as he laps the hallways in search of the girl. Coming upon the study room used for planning committee he shoves through the door without a second thought. He watches as the girl looks up from her alphabetized and color coded planning binder and offers him a grin.

“Clean now, are you?” She teases and he rolls his eyes before moving to the chair beside her.

“Fresh as a daisy, want to smell?” He asks her, moving to nudge his face near her own and she giggles as his slightly damp hair brushes against her cheek.

“I trust you” she squeals, shoving him away and he grins, searching her features and taking all of her in now in the daylight.

“I can’t stop thinking about last night” he tells her and Evelyn blushes lightly, eyes glancing away under his stare and Charlie just smiles, hand reaching to tuck some hair behind her ear.

“We have to plan the fundraiser” she tells him, hands still gripping the binder that Charlie swears is her lifeline but he just chuckles and ducks in close, lips capturing her own. The hum of contentment that leaves her mouth tells him that she actually doesn’t mind one bit.

“We can plan later, I want to make up for all the time I haven’t been able to kiss you” he mutters against her lips and the words wrap around Evelyn’s heart and she wishes to tie it with a bow and keep them there forever.

“Such a sap” she mutters back before reaching to run her fingers through his damp hair. Charlie smiles against her lips, kissing her deeply due to the action. When his lips start to trail down to her neck again she’s too lost in his touch.

“For the first time I’m so glad no one ever shows up to meetings for my club” Evelyn says, a little breathless and lips swollen from him. Charlie laughs, hot breath fanning across her neck and Evelyn laughs from the ticklish feeling and pulls away.

“Hey, get back here” Charlie pouts, arms snaking around her waist and Evelyn shakes her head as he pulls her flush against him.

“No, no more hickeys. I don’t want to get caught again” she tells him and Charlie laughs, hugging her close and Evelyn hugs right back.

“Sorry, I just can’t get enough of you” he tells her and Evelyn smiles, pressing a soft kiss to his nose and admiring his chocolate eyes.

“Yeah, same” she tells him with a grin and Charlie kisses the corner of it, thankful to finally have her all to himself. Not hold back every time he wants to kiss her for being so damn adorable.

“In that case, do you want to join me on a date tonight?” He asks and Evelyn blushes, thinking of how she was never one of those girls who was able to go to the small cafe on campus and go on dates. The small restaurant a hot spot for Saturday night dates with the heart throb boys.

“I’d like that” she tells him and Charlie smiles and presses his lips to hers again.

“Good, then maybe after I’ll sneak into your room again”

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[system-of-a-feather]

Okay so like, we started talking to an old friend again that we haven't talked to in like over a year, almost a year and a half honestly and it naturally has me having to go through the "aight what have you missed in the Feathers Saga" and thinking about it made me go "ok its a good chance to make a list of Total Ws in life and recovery to celebrate a year and a half of progress" cause god damn theres been a lot

Lets GO. 1.5 Year "we got this bread" positivity post to just go "God DAMN we are doing GOOD" (not an exhaustive list though cause that requires me to remember and go through every event over a year and a half and I may be at functional multiplicity but my memory is still garbage)

Trauma, DID, and Recovery Achievements:

Identified and got a system consensus that our oldest sister is a piece of shit and basically our life long "handler" and HARD cut her off out of our life

Rebuilt really good relationship (neutral but pleasant to supportive and reliable) with our other direct family members who don't try to force us to interact with her

Identified that we are probably considered polyfragmented and very quickly accepted it cause quite frankly we don't really care

Got most parts to acknowledge that we aren't faking being Asian (I know but that was a long one I swear to god)

Basically entirely got over our 6 year long difficulty driving cars SO much to the point we have multiple parts ARGUING who gets to drive and actively WANTING to drive

Largely let go of a lot of the anger and hurt directed at our parents for their role in our childhood trauma

Largely helped our main CSA trauma holder basically fully go into PTSD remission to the point hes now an uber helpful tertiary host and arguably one of our most comfortable parts talking about CSA related topics

Cleared stabilization phase of recovery and achieved functional multiplicity as confirmed by our DID specialist at the time

Fused like so many parts ngl. I don't know if Riku 1.0 and XIV 1.0 fused with their respective parts to be Riku 2.0 and XIV 2.0 around then cause it was about the time we stopped talking but there was that, the whole Data subsystem and shit, integrating Chunn into the system and helping him renavigate that crap, Lin fusing with an inner world part and shit - lots of that XD

Became a (Zen-leaning) Buddhist which plays a decent role in how we approach our mental health and cultural identity

Finally went from "undiagnosable autistic" to "Yeah you are autistic" because functional multiplicity enabled a more clear diagnosis

LOTS of gender dysphoria shit and gender shit that is too much work to break into main bullet points

Gained massive insight into how we intend to approach our reclaiming of sexuality

Learned to literally meditate and just enjoy existing

Realized we reaaaaaalllllly have a low threshold for dealing with people who we don't actively and strongly enjoy being around

Career and Direction Wise:

Graduated our undergrad - woot woot

Got a job supporting special ed - enjoyed it made good connections but also noted that god no dealing with people so much is not our cup of tea

Got a BETTER job at a reputable university to support research on aging memory with mice that has really good benefits - really like this job but also its not our cup of tea because we don't really enjoy the monotony

Came to the decision that research wise we really would rather deal with people on the "less" than the "more" end, scratching off a lot of human-focused research interests at least for the time being and greatly narrowing our previously wide scope down to the more animal heavy side

Sitting on old topics we researched and found interest in, realized the one thing our brain kept going back to was metrics of studying animal mental states and that we really probably would enjoy that as a nice balance between our interest and what we have the personal ability to engage in sustainably

Decided we are in fact going back to our PhD now that we have decided that 1) working life as a gear in a machine is cool and relaxing and shit, but it lowkey makes us depressed with how stagnant it is and we need more going on in our work life to keep us happy so "ok we tried that, we don't like it, back to the plan" 2) we have a pretty good idea of what we want to study at least for the beginning of a PhD career that could go in different directions organically

Scheduling currently a Zoom meeting with a professor we are interested in to informally discuss graduate studies

Independence, Hobbies and Other Shit:

We live on our own, sustain our life on our own and live with our fiance who - despite being currently unable to work due to disabilities - we are able to support and sustain (also bless zen Buddhism making it easy to be happy and enjoy life on a lower income)

Made some really nice mutuals - you know who you are - yall are good company love yall

Between the parts that are co-hosting, we have so many hobbies and interests its ridiculous; but we added electric guitar, ukelele, and recently a drum pad to our musical repertoire; gardening and plant care (which we suck at which is fine) added to the hobby

Became painful morning people as a result to our job and kinda realized we prefer it sorry for being that guy

Lost the ability to do the peacock call due to T dropping our voice range like a BITCH but in returned gained Raven calls and duck / goose noises

Also learned to do finch calls

Rescued two lovebirds when we moved to an apartment with our fiance - they are lesbians and very confused about it

Adopted a cat my fiance's mom was fostering from a kitten cause shes a shoulder cat (bird) and also now because of XIV she is also a dog who plays fetch and loves belly rubs (she also has extra toes)

Consistently continued doing art, developing the story world, encouraging my writing partner to get into art, aggressively shaking all my friends to art with me

Got Lin to be obsessed with art with me as well

Kept up a 230 day duolingo streak juggling like 6 or 7 different languages (the last like 120~ days or so have been a lot more 'just keeping it up' and me just doing one lesson of Japanese a day since its the one I know the best but it HAS been kept up)

Transitioning:

Started T and stayed taking T

Got a hysterectomy GOOD BYE PCOS

Am charted for seeing a surgeon to discuss bottom surgery this month

Am charted for seeing consult for top surgery at Some Point when the insurance stuff goes through

Have long since forgone our Dead Name in almost every area and got comfortable with our Chosen Name

Considering participating in Transmasculine No Shave November out of Transpride

#alter: riku #recovery #healing #progress #recovery progress #system update #transitioning #ptsd #c-ptsd

[team-council-two]

what do you think of the headcanon that Heavy is fluent in English, and simply fakes being bad at it so people leave him be ? would that explain to you the inconsistent, odd language patterns he has ? would you have additional ideas of purposefully bad English he would use ?

To be honest, I'm not a fan of this idea, mostly because of the way I and a lot of people I know personally experience language-based bias.

I like to think my written English is fluent, and my spoken English is alright enough to qualify me as a language teacher, but I still very much do have an accent. Aside from that, I currently live and study in a place where people are fluent in a language I speak with difficulty, often making grammar mistakes and misusing or mispronouncing words. Kind of how Heavy does.

And the last thing any fluent speaker does when noticing it is leave me alone.

You see, when your language skills aren't that of a native speaker, there are automatically two walls of disadvantage in front of you. One of them is natural, the other one - imposed by society. The first one is easy to explain. You don't process the information you hear as quickly, you can't think of a suitable reply on time, you miss on a lot of conversations. You can't joke properly because jokes require their own, comedic timing, usually faster than your brain can work. You can't discuss a lot of topics you're passionate about because you lack the terminology. All of these things are deeply frustrating and infuriating, and something I personally wish was featured more often in Heavy-centered fanfiction, next to the funny misunderstandings and light-hearted quirks. But that's not what the ask is about, so I digress.

The imposed disadvantage is more nuanced and more unfair. When you speak a little slower than everyone else, use simpler words, and make grammar mistakes even a child wouldn't make, people start thinking you're... well, dumb. And from there on it can go several different ways, none of them - pleasant. Case one - they don't figure you're a foreigner, and just think you're stupider than them, so you get the respective treatment. People start speaking obnoxiously slowly to you, talking over you, poking fun at your language quirks, listening to how you say something over what you're actually saying. Case two - they do figure you're a foreigner, and it's miles worse in my experience, because not only do they base their perception of you on their internally pre-existing stereotypes and notions, they'll also base their perception of your home on your behavior. So you become sort of like a harbinger of all of Russia. Everybody's very excited to talk about that one Russian friend they have who drinks like a sailor and lives in Moscow, and whether or not you know him by any chance. Oh, and you still get the "dumb" treatment, just with other issues on top.

And you're probably reading this thinking "that's bullshit, I don't do that", and it's good if you don't, but there's also something I like to call a White Savior Complex: Extended Cut. It's when a good native-speaking samaritan decides to be your all-time language teacher, and I swear they're sometimes even worse because they think themselves so noble and awesome for helping you that they don't hesitate talking down both to you and about you, like hey, this is my friend Misha, his language skills are terrible so I'll be speaking in his stead 99% of the time, isn't that wonderful!

That's the kind of experience no person would subject themselves to willingly. The only reason I don't try to get rid of my accent is because it's a somewhat rare cultural mash-up that I want to preserve, but I swear most of the time it would make my life so much easier if people treated me the way they treat native speakers.

Now, that, of course, is not a universal experience, and you may have it differently, but that's my opinion. I don't think Heavy would pretend to be non-fluent on purpose, unless it's some kind of ruse, like Medic's "German tourist" gig for organ-harvesting.

Do his mistakes sound artificial to me? Not really. When trying to purposefully make mistakes, as I do when I write Heavy, I mostly think in terms of my native language anyway. Mistakes made on purpose and mistakes made accidentally tend to be the same if the person making them is basing them on their native language.

Hope this answers your question. Let me know if you need any further clarification, and have fun writing!

#Heavy Language Post #tf2 #tf2 heavy #the council has spoken

[phoneybeatlemania]

What made you so interested in Lennon and Janov thing?

Anon, I love you for asking this!! :)) 

What I initially wanted to make a post on was simply whether Arthur Janov gave John Lennon gay-conversion therapy (which I ofc did make a post on, here). It was originally going to be just that singular post on the subject, which I wanted to make because I had new contributions to offer to the discussion.

But while I was researching that project, I began reading up on who Arthur Janov was, and what primal scream therapy actually is, and although its a bit of a task finding sources directly related to John Lennon, I found that theres actually a lot of literature dedicated to critiquing Primal Therapies and Arthur Janov specifically (as well the centre for Feeling Therapy, which I will probably discuss in my third essay).

So although I didn’t intend to acquire the amount of knowledge on PST as I have now, it just became very clear to me during my research that theres still a lot to be talked about in terms of Arthur Janov’s influence on John Lennon, and so my interest in the subject has just spiralled from there. Its almost like John is a case study in why the therapy just doesn’t work, and is generally harmful to its patients [and ik that sounds a little cold and detached, but I don’t think it will come off that way in part 2 and 3 of the series, since Im still ofc very sympathetic towards John. Like it just makes me Sad that he never got the type of therapy (and therapist) he really needed and deserved :/]

I don’t want to reveal too much here on what the next additions to the series will be on, just because the Evil Egomaniac in my brain doesn’t want people to 'steal' my ideas before I get a chance to talk about them—although if anyone would like to know just shoot me a dm and Ill tell you the gist of my plans for the future additions! 

Im also planning to write a book on this someday, since despite there being so much literature written by psychologists dedicated to discrediting and debunking Arthur Janov’s primal therapy, there’s very little—if any—Beatle-related literature dedicated to the topic. Most biographers tend to only dedicate a few pages to it, either saying effectively: “the therapy was GREAT for him because it inspired him to make the Plastic Ono Band album!” [RUBBISH take] or “it was just a weird seventies fad” [a better take, but still not nearly as in depth as this topic deserves—PLUS they still tend to conclude the same point that: none of the harmful stuff matters because of one (1) album].

So theres definitely a gap in the Beatles book market there which needs filling—but I guess thats actually where a large part of the interest comes from: since its such an under-explored topic, it sets of the little investigative journalist in my head. It does require a lot of time for me to make these essays, but I kind of…….like that? Its obviously not a Fun topic since its pretty heavy (fr, the further into it you go The Worse It Gets), but I just love researching things and Piecing The Puzzle Together.

So tldr: basically just accidentally accumulated a lot of Shit on PST and Janov throughout my research and now I need to talk about it more + Im a research nerd so doing my Little Investigation is kind of a hobby (if thats not weird???) + I also just want to educate more people on the topic since its obviously quite difficult to talk about if you Don't Know A Lot about it

P.S. for people as obsessed with the subject as I am I will again be putting a bibliography at the end of the essay in case you want to read up more on the subject yourself! :)

#spoiler alert: IT JUST GETS WORSE #but it is actually very interesting #and if you have an interest in psychology I think youre gonna like the next additions! #arthur janov #pst #asks #anon #meta #a day in (my) life

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[ramblinganthropologist]

Writober 2023 13 and 14 - Castle and rise

Summary: The necromancers of Skyhold have something of a study circle to discuss ideas and problem solve together. Today's topic: old books and the best way to preserve a body.

---

The nice thing about Skyhold was that it was a castle high in the mountains: it was the perfect place for a mage to study with those of like specializations. The fact the library had private rooms was another boon but getting one could prove difficult given how many mages populated the home of the Inquisition.

Lucky for Aeronwen’s weekly study group… she was the head librarian and thus had a say on who got what. Was it fair, maybe not, but as she was the one running the place, she should get first dibs.  

“I wonder when Dorian and Paulo are going to get here?”

“Not sure, but it should be soon.”

Ian and Aeronwen busied about the room, organizing it, and putting books away from last week’s study. The papers and diagrams from their last bit of work were still laid out on the table, displaying the anatomy of a human man with points marked out in various colors of ink. The orange and violet colors belonged to Ian and Dorian, and they took up much of the free space. Still, there was some pink and green there, mostly in the margins.

She had to hope they would get somewhere with that…

At any rate, the room was soon put right and waiting for the last two members of Skyhold’s only necromancy study group. The books were in place on the shelf, the board was cleaned, and there was plenty of paper for testing out theorems or writing down notes. It was the perfect place to get some work done. All they needed were the other members of their group.

“I got some more of those cookies Paulo liked. He did a great job last week, wanted to reward the kid.” Ian held up a bag, still warm from the kitchen. “Hopefully Pavus doesn’t eat them all. Dude’s got one hell of a sweet tooth.”

Aeronwen giggled as she took them from him and set them on a small table off to the side – no crumbs in the books after all. “You can hardly talk, Ian, you ate a healthy amount too.”

Had his cheeks not been covered in black and white paint, no doubt he would have been bright red. “Yeah, well… ok, I got nothing. You got me dead to rights.”

Of course she did – she was a necromancer. Death was her bread and butter.

He at least offered a shameless grin as he rubbed the back of his head, causing Aeronwen to chuckle again as she shook her head. She couldn’t judge him – they were good cookies. She just hoped they lasted for the whole session.

Figuring out how to raise the dead required a lot of brain work. They needed the energy.

Footsteps drew the two’s attention to the door. Dorian appeared in the entry way, a heavy stack of books in his arms and a teenage boy at his side. Paulo had plenty of books too, almost enough to match the older mage’s stack. Both entered the room and laid their books at their regular spaces.

“Nice to see you two.” Aeronwen smiled as she put the mugs on the table. Today, she had mead for the adults she had brewed herself over the last couple weeks. Paulo wasn’t going to  get to taste her hard work unfortunately, as he was underage. But there was juice for him that should go well with the cookie. “Right, so are we going to pick up from last week’s work?”

Paulo nodded as he pulled out his writing supplies. “Did any new books come to the library that we could use?”

Ian nodded as he flopped into his seat, almost boneless. It was impressive for a necromancer honestly. “Yeah, me and Aery got some old stuff that looks like it came from the Imperium. No idea how it crossed the border, I’m going to guess somebody stole it.”

He picked up a book from the side and handed it to Dorian. “What do you think? Is it legit, or did they steal it?”

Not that it mattered – a book was a book. More importantly, there was no way in hell that Aeronwen was going to attempt to return it to the Tevinter Imperium. Not only was it far and expensive, but there was no way she was sharing. Those books were fascinating from what she had seen.

Biased, maybe? Absolutely – librarians hated giving away good books.

Dorian let out a thoughtful note as he thumbed through the book, eventually letting out a soft chuckle as he stopped at a page. “Oh, this was absolutely stolen. It has the mark of the Carastes Circle library.”

This caused Ian to let out a low whistle. “The fancy pants one?”

They were all fancy pants in Tevinter if Aeronwen remembered right. Unlike her own Circle experience, mages weren’t treated like accidents in the Imperium. Dorian often said their circles were more prestigious academies than mage prisons, so if this book came from there, then it was one the most valuable books in the library.

Thank the Harvester the scouts had found it before it had been wrecked by the rain or fire.

“It is one of the highest, yes.” Dorian’s tone was somewhat clipped as he flipped through the book. “I don’t remember seeing this one when I studied in Carastes. It looks old, perhaps it was taken before any of us were even born.”

He handed the book to Aeronwen. “Though, I leave that to our head librarian. You know books better than anyone, Aeronwen.”

That she did – it was one of her many Tranquil talents. Speaking of – she broke away to pour herself some mead and to give Paulo his juice. Once she had settled in with a mug of her own work, she flipped through the book.

Old pages – well used. That didn’t mean much if it came from an academy library, but the binding was old. If she remembered right, they had stopped using over an age ago because better methods had come across.

Add in the publisher mark from the Storm age… and yeah, it was old.

“It’s at least 300 years old if I’m judging it right.” She closed the book carefully. “Must’ve been taken when the Qunari invaded the Imperium.”

She was going to need to check for ancient vitaar smudges to make sure it wasn’t going to poison any readers that didn’t have horns…

“Well, good to know we’ve got a treasure on our hands.” Dorian got his own mead, blinking as he took a sip. “This isn’t the mead they brew at the Herald’s Rest…”

That made Aeronwen grin as she took a sip of her drink, letting the undertones of berries roll across her tongue. “No, it’s something I’ve been working on since we got here. It was finally ready for me to test on you guys.”

“Books and booze, Aery’s two special interests.” Ian chuckled, clearly pleased. “Sorry you can’t have any, Paulo, she’s a real wizard.”

The boy didn’t look too disappointed as he flipped through his notes. “I can wait. Can we get to the work now? I finished that theory work…”

Right, they were there to study. Because of his words, the adult mages in the room settled down to their materials. It was time to get to work… though where that would take them, they had no clue.

---

“Trevelyan, your theory is absurd. There’s no way it would work.”

“Pavus, I’ve pulled it off before, it works! Just because the Imperium says you can’t do it, doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”

Once again, Dorian and Ian were arguing.

Aeronwen shook her head as she turned away from the two arguing whether ground iron could be infused into bones to strengthen them. According to Dorian, the iron would cancel out the magic, while Ian swore he had done it once. Since she hadn’t been there to see it… she was staying out of that one.

But, given she was also from Ostwick… she had to stick by her cousin on this one. Loyalty and all that sense.

“Aeronwen, does this look right to you?”

Paulo drew her attention away from the argument and to the quiet side of the table. Her … well, she supposed he was technically her little brother since the adoption… was working on a theorem he had found in the book they had dug up.

“Huh, let me see…”

She started reading the same page, her brain going into overdrive to translate it into modern common. If she was reading it right, this was a way to summon multiple battle-hardened constructs with nothing more than a mass of jumbled bones and lyrium.

Quite useful for battle, especially if there were plenty of unclaimed corpses laying about due to, say, a war between rebel mages and Templars.

“I think this part needs to be fixed here to account for if there’s lyrium otherwise in the bones.” She marked it with her pen, green ink with the dark pink Paulo preferred. He said it matched his -theirs? – mom’s weapons. “But it looks solid otherwise. The only problem is finding a mass of bones…”

Paulo beamed and noted her corrections. “Yeah, that might be hard. Maybe in villages where they have a graveyard? The bones would all be grouped together so they wouldn’t have problems matching up.”

Aeronwen nodded. “That would make it easier, but it’s so hard to find cemeteries since Andrastians burn their dead.”

“And it’s not worth resurrecting ash, you wind up with rat things because animals got mixed in.” Ian stopped the argument momentarily to look over Paulo’s notes. “Hey, good work by the way! You really tore through that old writing like it was nothing.”

He ruffled the boy’s hair, grinning from ear to ear. As always, Paulo accepted the praise, practically glowing as he looked down at his notes. No doubt that would make him work even harder to finish the theorem.

He would definitely need more than just cookies next week.

“Mom speaking so many languages helped.” He looked over at the argument Dorian and Ian were having. “Also, couldn’t you just counteract the anti-magic of the iron by bonding it to itself to form a plate on top of the bone?”

That made the most stereotypical necromancer in the room laugh out loud as he pumped his fist. “See? Paulo gets where I’m going! High five, buddy, I’ve been trying to get that through his head for a half hour.”

The two adopted brothers high-fived as Dorian groaned and Aeronwen chuckled. She then turned back down to her work, one she was still scratching at. Technically, her specialization lay in controlling flesh constructs rather than just bones. Bones were no problem, but it was when there was meat left that she really shined.

Problem was… she thought it was nasty. And they tended to rot and then smelled really bad. Unlike most necromancers, she didn’t have a strong stomach, so her work was based on making it as palatable as possible.

Some may argue there was nothing palatable about raising the dead… but damn it, she was going to try.

“Still trying to work on keeping the meat on the bone, Aeronwen?” Dorian sounded a little ruffled, but at least he was focused on work instead of his bruised ego. “You look rather frustrated.”

Aeronwen nodded with a sigh as she flipped a page. “Embalming them wouldn’t work because the chemicals involve neutralize magic. I ran some tests last month but it just turned it into a real mess I couldn’t control. I wound up having to bury it because the sisters refused to burn the body.”

Who knew Andrastians were so up in arms about burning embalmed bodies? Maybe it was the source? She hadn’t exactly mentioned the body belonged to a Templar that had tried to kill her in the field, but still.

Then again… they didn’t take burning well when embalmed, so maybe it was for the best.

“Would soaking the body with lyrium help?” Dorian shook his head before Ian could jump in. “No, that would take too much lyrium and we need it for the field mages.”

Yep – there was her problem. Maybe lyrium would work, but there just wasn’t enough to test it without wasting the precious liquid. So she had quickly scratched that one off her list in favor of other ideas.

“I considered mummification, but that’s out too. It takes too long and we don’t have the supplies or techniques from Nevarra.” She sighed. “Besides, those bodies are so stiff and you have to keep up with the bandages. The healers need them more than we do.”

Natural mummification was a crap shoot in the mountains too – it was too wet for that. At best it would freeze, but that would make it weak to fire magic. Red Templars has plenty of fire, so that was out.

Maybe she just had to put up with the smell…

“What if you tried smoking the body?” Paulo sounded hopeful. “I mean… ok maybe I said that weird, but smoking meat preserves it…”

Aeronwen tapped the end of her pen to her chin as she considered it. “It might look a little weird to outsiders, so we would probably have to do it somewhere nobody could come by to see a body over a fire and worry about cannibals… but maybe.”

The question was finding a body… and also finding a spot in the snowy mountains to attempt it. It wasn’t exactly an inside project to say the least…

“It would take a couple days to prepare the body, but if it was fresh it’s worth a shot.” Ian leaned back in his chair. “We just need to make sure no animals come by and try to eat it while we’re working.”

They could probably do that with a few wards…

Before they could put up any other ideas, someone at the edge of the room cleared their throat. All four turned towards the door, where Cassandra was standing. She looked uncomfortable, no doubt having heard their plans.

Non-necros had even weaker stomachs than Aeronwen.

“Can we help you, Cass?” Ian’s tone was flat as he continued leaning back in his chair. “You don’t exactly look like you want to share any Nevarran techniques for mummifying bodies to help us out.”

The Seeker grimaced at that – someone didn’t like moving dead bodies. “The Inquisitor has requested Dorian’s presence in the field…”

She spat the words out – someone also didn’t like being downgraded to a messenger It was well known that the man wasn’t exactly fond of Templars and Templar-adjacent, so maybe he had done it on purpose.

Then again, Kaaras Adaar was a very polite man so… it was a tossup.

“Looks like I’m going to have to cut my portion of this study short.” Dorian sighed as he finished his mug of mead and laid it aside. He also took a cookie – he probably thought he was discrete – as he headed towards the exit and his field mission with the Inquisitor. “Do keep notes on how the body preservation works, I’m curious if it won’t snap the tendons and make movement difficult.”

Yeah… she was going to have to account for that. Maybe tie things up before hand or replace them with something?

At any rate, the study was going to continue. The three remaining mages had a new puzzle on their hands and a lot to plan for their eventual test… like where the hell they were going to find a body.

Maybe Dorian could be nice and bring one back?  It was for the pursuit of the art after all…

#writober 2023 #ramblinganthropologist's writing #Aeronwen Trevelyan #Ian Trevelyan #and introducing Paulo who is their adopted little brother #they were adopted by Hissra and Josephine #Also Dorian is there grabbing cookies

[xhangkyuns]

hehehe hi! it's your turn!! 😝 7, 11, 18, 24, 39, 43, 77

uh oh besties it’s the consequences of my own actions!

7. Post a snippet from a wip.

When Vegas gently releases his wrists, Pete has a brief moment of thinking that he fucked it all up, but then there is a hand on his cheek, soft and strong and comforting all at once. It remains gentle, running along his jaw, his pulse point, before settling securely around his throat.

His other hand slides under Pete’s shirt, finding the warm skin of his waist. He doesn’t push or pull, just rests there, steady and gentle but not quite enough. Closer, Pete thinks, pull me closer.

11. Do you write scenes in order, or do you jump around?

feeling very called out rn! you know how i write fics and the answer is very very messily! i have adhd so i always jump around — i’ll be writing one thing, then think of something completely unrelated and have to get it down before i forget. in some (read: all) rough drafts, i’ll have a million bits and pieces of unfinished sentences floating around. even while writing this it’s very out of order. the issue with this, though, is that i’ll write a future scene, then be unsure how to connect them — or i’ll end up going in a different direction altogether :’)

i’ve been making an effort to stop worrying about what i’m writing and just let the thoughts flow, which definitely makes a difference in terms of how much i jump around scenes.

18. Do you enjoy research? Which fic of yours required the most research?

oop was it bad that my first thought was about my long ass unfinished doctor who fic from years ago? i love that fandom but there’s just so much lore.

i do enjoy researching to an extent; it really depends on how interested i am in the topic. i guess that’s also the adhd huh. i think sometimes research feels too much like a uni assignment for me, but at the same time i can be a perfectionist about accuracy so 🤷‍♀️

24. How do you choose whose POV to write in?

i guess it really depends on whose mind i want to explore. but sometimes i don’t think i even consciously choose whose pov i’ll write, instead the character climbs into my brain and takes the reins. i’m kinda a sucker for a single pov unreliable narrator, but that’s a flaw i’m working on jhfgshj

39. What’s your most self-indulgent wip?

hmm. maybe not the most self indulgent, but my most personal wip rn is (what will hopefully be) a series delving into vegas’ mindset post-canon — heavy on the healing from trauma. it’ll be about as painful and therapeutic as you’re thinking.

i also have some unhinged vegaspete smut in the works, and am planning a longer chay-centric post-canon macauchay fic, with a lot of found family and learning to stand up for himself. so those are pretty damn self indulgent too.

43. Is there a trope or idea that you’d really like to write but haven’t yet?

uhhh everything? jhgshds well i have a long list of fic ideas that i’d like to tackle eventually. a few ~classic tropes~ on there include a soulmate au, sugar daddy au, and some cheeky magical realism. would also love to write a time loop fic and and good old whump too.

77. Why do you enjoy writing fanfiction?

i get to put my favourite characters??? in any situation ever? ??? no but.. i guess at the moment i love exploring all the different possibilities we never got to see in canon. i love getting into characters’ heads and learning about them and myself in the process. and sometimes i just love writing my favourite characters fuck nasty.

hehe thank you for the ask im love you 💓

#will anybody read this? it remains a mystery #wtf do i tag guys #answered #writing #that’ll do #i put this off for like two days but i had a lot of fun answering so thank u <3 #yahargulian

[bodywint]

Curren$y the game spotify

Curren$y the game spotify full#

We spend long hours in the gym and sometimes the right song will help keep me in the right mindset. Music plays a very important role during my training sessions. How does music play a role in your workouts? When I’m about to compete, I trust that I’m exactly where I need to be and that I’ve done the hard work to get myself there. I’ve worked hard on both elements throughout my career. There is so much physical preparation that goes into CrossFit competition, but the work is mental too. I embrace a feeling of focus and calm just before I walk out onto the competition floor. How do you get in the right mindset before you compete? You’ve talked about how preparing for the competition isn’t just physical but also mental. I am so ready to be back on the competition floor in front of an in-person crowd and show everyone how hard I’ve worked. Qualifying for the CrossFit Games is no guarantee, and the training is extremely demanding. It’s extremely exciting and a bit of a relief to finally make it to this point in the season. How does it feel to finally arrive at the event? You spend so much time training for the CrossFit Games. She’s logged long hours of daily training to get her body and mind prepared for the grueling tasks she will face in Madison.Īhead of the Games, For the Record caught up with Brooke to learn what it’s like to compete and what music helps her train her best. īrooke, who has qualified for and competed in the Games since 2015, knows that the road to the competition requires unrelenting hard work and dedication. Those who are competing have to be prepared for anything in order to earn the title of “Fittest on Earth.”įor this year’s Games, Spotify Advertising is partnering with global training brand NOBULL and athlete Brooke Wells for specialty audio and video ads, as well as a sponsorship of Spotify’s most popular workout playlist: Beast Mode. The event tests athletes in a variety of unannounced fitness tasks, from long-distance swims to handstand walking to rope climbs.

Curren$y the game spotify full#

You too can take a deep dive into Kojima's brain when the first episode launches on September 8.Ĭatch up with our full list of Gamescom announcements from Opening Night Live and check our Gamescom schedule to find out when to watch everything else.On Jhundreds of athletes from around the world will meet in Madison, Wisconsin, to compete in the 15th annual CrossFit Games. Here's the show's Spotify page (opens in new tab), which currently hosts a short preview where a robotic voice breathlessly intones about Kojima's genius before the man himself gives the insight that he uses his ideas when creating stuff. The blurb says the show will feature "talk show–style discussions on a wide range of his favorite topics, including games, movies, books, art, philosophy, and the social landscape." Guests will "both local and global leaders as well as top creators from a variety of backgrounds such as business, technology, and entertainment." Yes, Kojima can sometimes seem close to disappearing up his own fundament, but he's also an individual of rare perception and creativity. Over this time he has also consistently contributed to various outlets with essays, book and film reviews, and seems to like keeping his hand in as an observer of the culture as well as a shaper of it. In all seriousness, Kojima is undeniably one of the pre-eminent creative forces in the games industry, and has now been so for multiple decades. Spotify does, though: the press material accompanying the announcement is heavy on use of the word "genius" and also includes the unfortunate phrasing that this podcast will "take a deep dive into his brain." You never really know, which is half the fun. As with much of Kojima's work, the title and image could be self-aggrandising irony, or they could be dead serious.

#Curren$y the game spotify

[mr-bananamilkshake]

On the topic of neutrality during conflict:

In times of direct or indirect conflict (arguing with a friend or witnessing family members fight), objectivity is a difficult but vital tool to use in navigating that conflict. While it may earn you temporary ire from one side or the other, understanding the points of view of both parties is pivotal to either finding an ultimate solution to the conflict, or giving you and/or others closure in the end of a conflict. In other words, it informs the best path forward out of the conflict, regardless of how easy that path may be.

On the topic of choosing sides, I often feel that choosing a side in a conflict is somewhat frowned upon, at least initially. However, after navigating the situation objectively and gathering sufficient knowledge of it as a whole, "choosing a side" may ultimately be the best course of action. What's important is that the side that's chosen is not decided upon without sufficient knowledge to support the logic in making that conclusion. You need to gather enough evidence and give all angles of the conflict a reasonable amount of thought, especially in high-octane, sometimes animos conflicts. Once this has been accomplished, choosing a side to support makes sense, considering the amount of logic and reasoning that was conducted to arrive at that decision. Of course, every conflict is somewhat unique, and some will require much more deliberation and fact-finding than others - for example, navigating a divorce where one or both parents act savagely to the other may require a lot more thought and care than assisting a friend through a breakup, or vice versa (depending on your circumstances). On top of that, your objectivity may help others be objective, or at least bring other points of view or facts to the table that may not have been considered by others, depending on who has chosen what side at what point during the conflict.

Also, it's incredibly important to keep your own well-being and boundaries in mind throughout this process - navigating high-octane conflicts where the stakes are high (or any conflict if you're a people pleaser like me) can impose a heavy mental load. Your own health and wellbeing comes first, so if giving attention to all or any side of a conflict requires too much, take the time you need to recover before making any more efforts to navigate the situation further. Setting boundaries about what you want to talk about or if you want radio silence from others involved in the conflict may also be a good idea. Decisions are meant to be made with a clear mind.

So, what I'm trying to say is, we shouldn't feel guilty (either by internal or external pressure) for choosing who we support, if anyone, in a conflict so long as we give both (all) sides sufficient objective consideration. That doesn't mean the ultimate decision that we make will feel great, but we can find some confidence in the logic/reason we used to get to that decision.

This was just meant to be generalized advice to myself, but if you stumble onto this and it resonates with you, that's cool too. Welcome to my semi-logical brain cell - please don't squish him.

#ShowerThoughts #NoteToSelf #InternalThoughts #SelfAdvice

[wordrate48]

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#career coach singapore #career coaching singapore #singapore career coach

[albatris]

y'know what i SHOULD go on more writing / writeblr rants abt psychosis

#i WANT to be vocal abt psychotic rep and my thoughts on ableism n particularly the more subtle ways #psychotic disorders r thrown under the bus sometimes but..... spoons #and. words..... hard #like i have asks sitting in my inbox abt psychotic rep that i never posted bc i was just like #either too tired or too worked up to word stuff coherently or was just overwhelmed w where to even begin #but i Want to talk about it #but i wish i didnt need to feel like i need to #like it should be normalised as a thing. like. just Good Psychotic Rep. how to treat psychosis w respect and realism #but its SO hard to find good resources for that kind of thing n writeblr as a whole has. not always been fantastic w their #willingness to engage in discussions abt psychosis and ableism bc Hoo Boy Does It Step On Some Toes Sometimes #but anyway. grumble grumble. rage rage #I'm always delighted to receive questions from ppl willing to learn like it genuinely warms my heart #if u message me n personally to chat abt it n not anon I'll always endeavor to Get Back To You no matter how long #(anons sometimes get answered sometimes dont tragically) #but it is just. a topic that requires so much brain and gets heavy and personal real quick sometimes #and spoons. oh the spoons. god grant me the spoons #but anyway yeah idk even where id start tbh #i want to Post but. eeeeeeeeegh. u understand #anyway im hungry im gonna go get something to eat and stop grumbling and raging lol

[missmentelle]

Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things

If you’ve been paying attention for the last couple of years, you might have noticed that the world has a bit of a misinformation problem. 

The problem isn’t just with the recent election conspiracies, either. The last couple of years has brought us the rise (and occasionally fall) of misinformation-based movements like:

Sandy Hook conspiracies

Gamergate

Pizzagate

The MRA/incel/MGTOW movements

anti-vaxxers

flat-earthers

the birther movement

the Illuminati 

climate change denial

Spygate

Holocaust denial 

COVID-19 denial 

5G panic 

QAnon 

But why do people believe this stuff?

It would be easy - too easy - to say that people fall for this stuff because they’re stupid. We all want to believe that smart people like us are immune from being taken in by deranged conspiracies. But it’s just not that simple. People from all walks of life are going down these rabbit holes - people with degrees and professional careers and rich lives have fallen for these theories, leaving their loved ones baffled. Decades-long relationships have splintered this year, as the number of people flocking to these conspiracies out of nowhere reaches a fever pitch. 

So why do smart people start believing some incredibly stupid things? It’s because:

Our brains are built to identify patterns. 

Our brains fucking love puzzles and patterns. This is a well-known phenomenon called apophenia, and at one point, it was probably helpful for our survival - the prehistoric human who noticed patterns in things like animal migration, plant life cycles and the movement of the stars was probably a lot more likely to survive than the human who couldn’t figure out how to use natural clues to navigate or find food. 

The problem, though, is that we can’t really turn this off. Even when we’re presented with completely random data, we’ll see patterns. We see patterns in everything, even when there’s no pattern there. This is why people see Jesus in a burnt piece of toast or get superstitious about hockey playoffs or insist on always playing at a certain slot machine - our brains look for patterns in the constant barrage of random information in our daily lives, and insist that those patterns are really there, even when they’re completely imagined. 

A lot of conspiracy theories have their roots in people making connections between things that aren’t really connected. The belief that “vaccines cause autism” was bolstered by the fact that the first recognizable symptoms of autism happen to appear at roughly the same time that children receive one of their rounds of childhood immunizations - the two things are completely unconnected, but our brains have a hard time letting go of the pattern they see there. Likewise, many people were quick to latch on to the fact that early maps of COVID infections were extremely similar to maps of 5G coverage -  the fact that there’s a reasonable explanation for this (major cities are more likely to have both high COVID cases AND 5G networks) doesn’t change the fact that our brains just really, really want to see a connection there. 

Our brains love proportionality. 

Specifically, our brains like effects to be directly proportional to their causes - in other words, we like it when big events have big causes, and small causes only lead to small events. It’s uncomfortable for us when the reverse is true. And so anytime we feel like a “big” event (celebrity death, global pandemic, your precious child is diagnosed with autism) has a small or unsatisfying cause (car accident, pandemics just sort of happen every few decades, people just get autism sometimes), we sometimes feel the need to start looking around for the bigger, more sinister, “true” cause of that event. 

Consider, for instance, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot four times by a Turkish member of a known Italian paramilitary secret society who’d recently escaped from prison - on the surface, it seems like the sort of thing conspiracy theorists salivate over, seeing how it was an actual multinational conspiracy. But they never had much interest in the assassination attempt. Why? Because the Pope didn’t die. He recovered from his injuries and went right back to Pope-ing. The event didn’t have a serious outcome, and so people are content with the idea that one extremist carried it out. The death of Princess Diana, however, has been fertile ground for conspiracy theories; even though a woman dying in a car accident is less weird than a man being shot four times by a paid political assassin, her death has attracted more conspiracy theories because it had a bigger outcome. A princess dying in a car accident doesn’t feel big enough. It’s unsatisfying. We want such a monumentous moment in history to have a bigger, more interesting cause. 

These theories prey on pre-existing fear and anger. 

Are you a terrified new parent who wants the best for their child and feels anxious about having them injected with a substance you don’t totally understand? Congrats, you’re a prime target for the anti-vaccine movement. Are you a young white male who doesn’t like seeing more and more games aimed at women and minorities, and is worried that “your” gaming culture is being stolen from you? You might have been very interested in something called Gamergate. Are you a right-wing white person who worries that “your” country and way of life is being stolen by immigrants, non-Christians and coastal liberals? You’re going to love the “all left-wingers are Satantic pedo baby-eaters” messaging of QAnon. 

Misinformation and conspiracy theories are often aimed strategically at the anxieties and fears that people are already experiencing. No one likes being told that their fears are insane or irrational; it’s not hard to see why people gravitate towards communities that say “yes, you were right all along, and everyone who told you that you were nuts to be worried about this is just a dumb sheep. We believe you, and we have evidence that you were right along, right here.” Fear is a powerful motivator, and you can make people believe and do some pretty extreme things if you just keep telling them “yes, that thing you’re afraid of is true, but also it’s way worse than you could have ever imagined.”

Real information is often complicated, hard to understand, and inherently unsatisfying. 

The information that comes from the scientific community is often very frustrating for a layperson; we want science to have hard-and-fast answers, but it doesn’t. The closest you get to a straight answer is often “it depends” or “we don’t know, but we think X might be likely”. Understanding the results of a scientific study with any confidence requires knowing about sampling practices, error types, effect sizes, confidence intervals and publishing biases. Even asking a simple question like “is X bad for my child” will usually get you a complicated, uncertain answer - in most cases, it really just depends. Not understanding complex topics makes people afraid - it makes it hard to trust that they’re being given the right information, and that they’re making the right choices. 

Conspiracy theories and misinformation, on the other hand, are often simple, and they are certain. Vaccines bad. Natural things good. 5G bad. Organic food good. The reason girls won’t date you isn’t a complex combination of your social skills, hygiene, appearance, projected values, personal circumstances, degree of extroversion, luck and life phase - girls won’t date you because feminism is bad, and if we got rid of feminism you’d have a girlfriend. The reason Donald Trump was an unpopular president wasn’t a complex combination of his public bigotry, lack of decorum, lack of qualifications, open incompetence, nepotism, corruption, loss of soft power, refusal to uphold the basic responsibilities of his position or his constant lying - they hated him because he was fighting a secret sex cult and they’re all in it. 

Instead of making you feel stupid because you’re overwhelmed with complex information, expert opinions and uncertain advice, conspiracy theories make you feel smart - smarter, in fact, than everyone who doesn’t believe in them. And that’s a powerful thing for people living in a credential-heavy world. 

Many conspiracy theories are unfalsifiable. 

It is very difficult to prove a negative. If I tell you, for instance, that there’s no such thing as a purple swan, it would be very difficult for me to actually prove that to you - I could spend the rest of my life photographing swans and looking for swans and talking to people who know a lot about swans, and yet the slim possibility would still exist that there was a purple swan out there somewhere that I just hadn’t found yet. That’s why, in most circumstances, the burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim - if you tell me that purple swans exist, we should continue to assume that they don’t until you actually produce a purple swan. 

Conspiracy theories, however, are built so that it’s nearly impossible to “prove” them wrong. Is there any proof that the world’s top-ranking politicians and celebrities are all in a giant child sex trafficking cult? No. But can you prove that they aren’t in a child sex-trafficking cult? No, not really. Even if I, again, spent the rest of my life investigating celebrities and following celebrities and talking to people who know celebrities, I still couldn’t definitely prove that this cult doesn’t exist - there’s always a chance that the specific celebrities I’ve investigated just aren’t in the cult (but other ones are!) or that they’re hiding evidence of the cult even better than we think. Lack of evidence for a conspiracy theory is always treated as more evidence for the theory - we can’t find anything because this goes even higher up than we think! They’re even more sophisticated at hiding this than we thought! People deeply entrenched in these theories don’t even realize that they are stuck in a circular loop where everything seems to prove their theory right - they just see a mountain of “evidence” for their side. 

Our brains are very attached to information that we “learned” by ourselves.

Learning accurate information is not a particularly interactive or exciting experience. An expert or reliable source just presents the information to you in its entirety, you read or watch the information, and that’s the end of it. You can look for more information or look for clarification of something, but it’s a one-way street - the information is just laid out for you, you take what you need, end of story. 

Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, almost never show their hand all at once. They drop little breadcrumbs of information that slowly lead you where they want you to go. This is why conspiracy theorists are forever telling you to “do your research” - they know that if they tell you everything at once, you won’t believe them. Instead, they want you to indoctrinate yourself slowly over time, by taking the little hints they give you and running off to find or invent evidence that matches that clue. If I tell you that celebrities often wear symbols that identify them as part of a cult and that you should “do your research” about it, you can absolutely find evidence that substantiates my claim - there are literally millions of photos of celebrities out there, and anyone who looks hard enough is guaranteed to find common shapes, poses and themes that might just mean something (they don’t - eyes and triangles are incredibly common design elements, and if I took enough pictures of you, I could also “prove” that you also clearly display symbols that signal you’re in the cult). 

The fact that you “found” the evidence on your own, however, makes it more meaningful to you. We trust ourselves, and we trust that the patterns we uncover by ourselves are true. It doesn’t feel like you’re being fed misinformation - it feels like you’ve discovered an important truth that “they” didn’t want you to find, and you’ll hang onto that for dear life. 

Older people have not learned to be media-literate in a digital world. 

Fifty years ago, not just anyone could access popular media. All of this stuff had a huge barrier to entry - if you wanted to be on TV or be in the papers or have a radio show, you had to be a professional affiliated with a major media brand. Consumers didn’t have easy access to niche communities or alternative information - your sources of information were basically your local paper, the nightly news, and your morning radio show, and they all more or less agreed on the same set of facts. For decades, if it looked official and it appeared in print, you could probably trust that it was true. 

Of course, we live in a very different world today - today, any asshole can accumulate an audience of millions, even if they have no credentials and nothing they say is actually true (like “The Food Babe”, a blogger with no credentials in medicine, nutrition, health sciences, biology or chemistry who peddles health misinformation to the 3 million people who visit her blog every month). It’s very tough for older people (and some younger people) to get their heads around the fact that it’s very easy to create an “official-looking” news source, and that they can’t necessarily trust everything they find on the internet. When you combine that with a tendency toward “clickbait headlines” that often misrepresent the information in the article, you have a generation struggling to determine who they can trust in a media landscape that doesn’t at all resemble the media landscape they once knew. 

These beliefs become a part of someone’s identity. 

A person doesn’t tell you that they believe in anti-vaxx information - they tell you that they ARE an anti-vaxxer. Likewise, people will tell you that they ARE a flat-earther, a birther, or a Gamergater. By design, these beliefs are not meant to be something you have a casual relationship with, like your opinion of pizza toppings or how much you trust local weather forecasts - they are meant to form a core part of your identity. 

And once something becomes a core part of your identity, trying to make you stop believing it becomes almost impossible. Once we’ve formed an initial impression of something, facts just don’t change our minds. If you identify as an antivaxxer and I present evidence that disproves your beliefs, in your mind, I’m not correcting inaccurate information - I am launching a very personal attack against a core part of who you are. In fact, the more evidence I present, the more you will burrow down into your antivaxx beliefs, more confident than ever that you are right. Admitting that you are wrong about something that is important to you is painful, and your brain would prefer to simply deflect conflicting information rather than subject you to that pain.

We can see this at work with something called the confirmation bias. Simply put, once we believe something, our brains hold on to all evidence that that belief is true, and ignore evidence that it’s false. If I show you 100 articles that disprove your pet theory and 3 articles that confirm it, you’ll cling to those 3 articles and forget about the rest. Even if I show you nothing but articles that disprove your theory, you’ll likely go through them and pick out any ambiguous or conflicting information as evidence for “your side”, even if the conclusion of the article shows that you are wrong - our brains simply care about feeling right more than they care about what is actually true.  

There is a strong community aspect to these theories. 

There is no one quite as supportive or as understanding as a conspiracy theorist - provided, of course, that you believe in the same conspiracy theories that they do. People who start looking into these conspiracy theories are told that they aren’t crazy, and that their fears are totally valid. They’re told that the people in their lives who doubted them were just brainwashed sheep, but that they’ve finally found a community of people who get where they’re coming from. Whenever they report back to the group with the “evidence” they’ve found or the new elaborations on the conspiracy theory that they’ve been thinking of (“what if it’s even worse than we thought??”), they are given praise for their valuable contributions. These conspiracy groups often become important parts of people’s social networks - they can spend hours every day talking with like-minded people from these communities and sharing their ideas. 

Of course, the flipside of this is that anyone who starts to doubt or move away from the conspiracy immediately loses that community and social support. People who have broken away from antivaxx and QAnon often say that the hardest part of leaving was losing the community and friendships they’d built - not necessarily giving up on the theory itself. Many people are rejected by their real-life friends and family once they start to get entrenched in conspiracy theories; the friendships they build online in the course of researching these theories often become the only social supports they have left, and losing those supports means having no one to turn to at all. This is by design - the threat of losing your community has kept people trapped in abusive religious sects and cults for as long as those things have existed. 

#missmentelle #askmissmentelle #conspiracy theories #cults #psychology #science #neuroscience