i know this hurts, it was meant to

if you've ever watched a movie with your film buff friend and chatted about it afterwards, that friend might have pulled hours more of conversation out of the same 90 minutes of screentime, and wondered how the fuck they did that - it's not raw intelligence, it's a skill that's been honed. And I learned a lot about film from talking to friends who knew about film, and reading critique by film scholars

literature works exactly the same. so if you want to get more out of your reading, there are things you can do to train that. Find a book or short story you think you've got a pretty good grasp on, preferably from a widely read & respected author like Ursula K Le Guin or Ray Bradbury (if you're new at this don't swing for the Toni Morrison or the Samuel Beckett yet unless you feel very comfortable with the complexity of the text - the point is to develop a complicated new skill on good foundations). Then go to JSTOR, create a free account, and look up criticism on the story you've chosen. Find something that looks readable to you and at least somewhat interesting. Read that article, and look at what that writer got out of the same story you've read that you didn't get. Do you see the critic's points? Did they teach you something about the text? Go reread that story and see if the criticism has changed how you read it. Are you seeing more? Are you thinking about the implications of a line that you hadn't noticed before? Does the story feel richer now?

does gender never matter in omegaverse? because in most of the conversation i see around the genre (and i acknowledge that the written reality might be different), it seems that the alpha/beta/omega system is the in-universe replacement for the male-female binary and other gendered dynamics. like, gender is present but it's not that important, was my understanding.

“And now?”

Whumpee and Caretaker working long-term deep undercover in a power-imbalance dynamic:

* Slave and Owner

* Servant and Noble

* Drug Runner and Crime Lord

* Living Weapon and Handler

The longer they stay in role, the blurrier the lines become.

Maybe you have whumpee struggling to separate Caretaker from the role, even when it's just them two:

- Flinching when Caretaker moves

- Using rank/title/honorifics even in private

- Waiting for permission before acting

- Defaulting to submissive body language

Maybe Caretaker's behaviour is starting to change too:

- Waiting expectantly for whumpee to serve them even when in private

- No longer apologising for the things they have to do to keep cover

- Using violence/verbal abuse in role with increasing frequency.

- Accidentally using the degrading names for whumpee in normal conversation

“she was going to medical school, just finishing up her undergrad, how many days did you have left?”

“…17” whumpee would reply, clenching her jaw, looking away, unable to hide her disdain for him

Two weeks ago I fell off a horse (or rather, fot thrown off with force) and slammed into the arena wall with my back and right shoulder. What looked very dramatic at first and had me struggling to breathe for a hot minute including a ride in the ambulance to the ER ended up "only" being bad bruising. No broken bones, no internal bleeding. Just a bruised shoulder, ribs, and back.

I was released home the same day after my x-rays came back clear with pain meds.

And let me tell you, I was almost incapacitated by "just" bruises. I barely managed to get around by myself at home. Could barely stand for more than a few minutes bc my back hurt so much. Had to force myself to breathe properly. Had shit lying around on the ground for days bc I couldn't bend down to pick it up.

Getting out of bed in the morning still hurts. Imagine sitting on the toilet and thinking "fuck how am I gonna clean myself up".

It's been two weeks and I'm now finally starting to feel somewhat normal again. I expect to feel some pain for at least two more weeks.

So, uh, if your character gets knocked down good, like, in a fight, they can be totally helpless even without any serious injuries.

Whumper brushed Whumpee’s hair back, tilted their chin up so they could look them in the eye.