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bangchanbabygurl · 5 months

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Our Dark Fantasies Series

Genres: Enemies to lovers/Sunshine x Grumpy/Business Rival x Baby Doll/Business Man x Intern/Angsty/Dark Romance/Smut/Heavy KINKY SMUT

Warnings: Explicit language/mention of domestic violence/mention of violence/alcohol abuse/mention of death/stalker/mentions of blood/drug abuse/smut scenes/dark mature themes/triggering scenes/traumatic experiences/ mentions of cheating & twisted love triangles/mention of self-harm/mentions of eating disorders/mentions of SA/mentions of kinks(BDSM, etc).

OUR DARK FANTASIES is a four-book series based on fictional events that only ever occur in my mind; this is my first ever book series officially shared with readers who love dark romance and SEVENTEEN. None of the way SEVENTEEN members are portrayed are real; they are portrayed based on my standards of men and ideal type. They are not meant to harm their image at all, it is purely fictional. Each character is connected, on the Wattpad version of the books the reader has a name due to wanting Wattpad readers to understand the plot.

Book 1: IN THE EYES OF LOVE

Member: Scoups (CHOI SEUNGCHEOL)

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Summary: —» Getting out of a messy relationship was a big step in life for any woman; it was a fresh breath of freedom and peace. Working at a hospital as a Phlebotomist Technician was the main focus now, pushing yourself to achieve bigger goals financially and independence. Till your best friend, Chan…Christopher Bang was a man who was known for playing matchmaker within the friend group. You only hoped and made him promise he wouldn't use his tactics on you, but it was like telling a toddler not to eat sweets. You didn't want him to play matchmaker, knowing your crush on your brother’s work buddy was known to some of your friends. You lost patience upon discovering he was three steps ahead of you, wanting to play Cupid for you and his friend, who knows nothing besides marketing and numbers. You despise Choi Seungcheol for following Chan’s strange tactics and interfering with your friendship/crush with Jeon Wonwoo.

Book 2: POMEGRANATES AND TULIPS

Member: Wonwoo (JEON WONWOO)

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Summary: —» Moving to Seoul was an escapism to get away from the past, wanting nothing more than a fresh start for the new year. Perhaps moving out was a good idea after all; new friends and college studies going steady. But somehow, I'm still trapped in this utterance of loneliness and pain, wanting nothing besides relief. The need to let go of everything and focus on the present rather than the past. What if my habits are spiraling out of control?

Book 3: OUR GOLDEN HOURS (Coming soon)

Member: Mingyu (KM MINGYU)

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Spotify Playlist

Summary: Coming from old money may seem like a blessing, but don't let that fool you; there are dark secrets and lies that come with the blessing. Being the youngest doesn't help either; having to be aware of what you can and can’t do is exhausting. Rivals competing with the family business left and right, making everything spiral out of control. When Kim Mingyu, CEO of Kim’s Winery, becomes intrigued with his rival’s daughter, all the secrets and lies grow bigger, causing hell to be unleashed.

Book 4: BENEATH THE SHADOWS (Coming soon)

Member: The8 (XU MINGHAO)

Summary:

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saintsenara · 5 months

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I’m obsessed with your unhinged ship opinions! They’ve really gotten me thinking about interesting combinations which is such a fun activity for the subway

My submissions:

- Narcissa Malfoy/Petunia Dursley

- Voldemort/Molly Weasley

- Nagini/Crookshanks

- Walburga Black/Barty Crouch Sr.

ahhh, thank you so much @epigaea-repens - light of my life and producer of the finest piece of fan art i've ever seen - i'm genuinely delighted to discover that somebody other than me gets something out of doing these.

narcissa malfoy/petunia dursley

i'm oddly partial to a bit of draco/dudley - entirely because the idea of vernon trying to out-pompous lucius is funny to me, as is the fact that they'd clearly both think harry would care and harry's actual response would be 'who's draco?' - and i have to confess myself partial to this too.

narcissa's narrative mirror is molly weasley - both of these women share a certain fierceness [and, especially, a fierceness and strength one might not expect of them at first glance], but they also share a certain disconnection from the rest of their family, and an undercurrent of loneliness can be detected in their characterisation.

this is present in the way petunia is written too - the implication of canon is both that she's married "up" in terms of social class and that vernon is quite a bit older than her.

[and her fandom reception is a victim, i think, of the aging up of the adult cast of the films - petunia is, at most, twenty-four when lily dies. like her sister, she marries and has children young, even by the social standards of 1970s/1980s britain, and having to take on harry changes the trajectory of her life when it's only just started - i am absolutely wedded to the idea, for example, that harry being placed in her care means that she gives up a plan to have a second biological child.]

she is, of course, also confined in a prison which is directly of her own making - the bland domesticity of her perfect little house, all of which is an artifice constructed so she doesn't have to admit how deeply she once longed to be magic. narcissa experiences the same - i always read her as someone who leans heavily on the gendered conventions of the wizarding world as a way of coping with how utterly both of her sisters defied them, and as being someone who is very concerned with keeping up appearances [hence why her wildness and desperation when she goes to see snape in half-blood prince is so shocking]. i think you can imagine that she runs malfoy manor to have the same nothing-wrong-here vibe as number four privet drive, and i think you can do something very interesting indeed with the idea of two women who live behind masks being forced to drop them when they find each other.

lord voldemort/molly weasley

does, in fact, exist, in the form of a story i will recommend to everyone - come slowly, eden by paimpont - which, like all the best rare-pair fics, takes two implausible characters and creates a genuinely meaningful love story between them, through a lovely character study of molly and her ability to notice when people [and, especially, when people who are very much in want of a mother] are hungry.

nagini/crookshanks

i had to look up crookshanks' gender for this - which is a wild thing to say on a weekday afternoon - so that i could confirm... flopping. nagini's a lesbian, crookshanks misunderstood when she said she liked pussy.

it's fine in the end, though. nagini's got something happening with one of the malfoys' peahens, and crookshanks can go back either to the enemies-to-lovers thing he's got going on with mrs norris or to the soulmates thing he's got going on with sirius.

walburga black/barty crouch sr.

i am completely obsessed with this concept, i don't even think it can be considered a crack ship, and i would like to see it written immediately.

debilitating grief at the son you thought you knew disappearing - whether literally or metaphorically? delicious.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #unhinged and deranged ships #but only a bit

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exepelia-chan · 1 year

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Too long (Bakugou x reader smut Omegaverse)

Image belongs to: dolchesky on twitter

Warnings: Mating press, long distance relationship, talks of loneliness, (my neck my back my) anxiety attack, fear of being alone, breeding kink (not talked about but it is there), mentions of pups dirty names galore. Lots of aftercare.

TW: Past miscarriage (not Katsuki's) The "L" word talks of younger times

My works are usually toward mid skin tones but you guys know it's for everyone.

Two weeks. It's been two weeks since Katsuki came home. He was sexting you all day last Saturday; let's just say it ended in a very... WARM FaceTime session. *Bzzzt* *Bzzzt* you pick up your phone and see Katsuki's name 'big dick dynamite'. (He doesn't know the name yet) You answer the call and put the phone up your cheek, a little far from your sensitive ears. "Hi baby" you say joyfully to your fiancé. He's silent. "Hello?" you contemplate 'was this a butt dial?' you think to yourself. "Babe." his voice abruptly calls out from the other line. It's quite... you guess he's in his hotel room. "Yea? What's up" "Let's continue our conversation from yesterday.." 'Oh? Oh.. OH!' You think back to the words you and Katsuki had exchanged last night. A suggestion about what to do after your marriage. Specifically, who to MAKE on your honeymoon. "K. What about?" "Are you still scared?" You blink. Then you think. Then you breathe. "Katsuki... you know that I'll always be scared to fall into this pit- this experience with you.. But I'd never take back my word on this matter.. So yes, I am scared. But, I don't want to not do it. Because when it happens.. we'll be together. And besides... the only reason my embryo died is because of all the stress that I was under. But I won't be alone this time.." You hear your fiancé suck in a deep breath then, the phone hangs up, then the door slams open and closed. You look out of the door to your bedroom and see a large figure dashing towards you. All of a sudden you get tackled on the bed you and Katsuki shared. You look up and see ears... Fluffy ears, familiar ears? Then you look down to discover the flushed face of your husband to be. Ka-tsuki? You get engulfed in a deep burnt caramel scent. "Katsuki when did- what hap-?" You're smushed into the side of your lover. He licks, nibbles, and sniffs at your scent gland. He's grinding on you. There's almost no space between the two of you. He's panting and sighing. You feel his covered bulge pressed against your crotch. You're wondering when how it even got to this point, but you can't really think because you're surrounded by a sweet scent that you've longed for and spent countless nights thinking about. He backs away, his legs over the top of your waist. He's got tears in his eyes and a fat cock (hate that word) waiting to be free. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry". He mutters it repetitively. "I couldn't wait" he's going crazy slowly. "Baby.., it's ok it's gonna be fine. You didn't have to wait almost a full week to tell me you had a rut coming." You give him a kiss on the cheek. "Go ahead you've got this." He takes both his and your clothes off. "Y/n... I really love you.." he stuffs his head into your s/c chest. "I love you too 'Tsuki". He pulls your lower half towards him and folds your ankles as far as they can go, up and over your head. "I'm gonna go in now". He inserts his cock into your whateva tf you got. You sigh as tears well up in your eyes that are already screwed tight. "You ok?" he asks in the sweetest voice, and you know he's only like this with you just like the first night you had sex together he kisses all over your face like it's the first time he's done this. You nod and he begins to move. He gets faster every two thrusts and eventually sets a good pace but ramming into your g spot/ prostate. "Mmf- Katsuki!" you scratch at his sides and back. He doesn't stop, nor does he respond and that's how you know he's losing himself into the temptation of rut but you.. you don't really care. After minutes of ramming, creaking, and screaming you finally let out a "Katsuki I'm gonnaa-" He gives your thigh a reassuring squeeze as you squeeze and cry out. After a few more thrusts he ejaculates with the hottest groan you've ever heard. You're both panting, sweaty, and out of breath. "You know I love you and this whatever the fuck it's gonna be... OK?!" You smile and kiss his cheek. "Yes my little Pomeranian" he huffs as you fall asleep. "WAIT WHAT DID YOU-" He looks over and sees your sleeping figure. He gives you a kiss and pulls the sheets over the two

you. "say it back dumbass"...

#bakugo katuski x reader #bakugo smut #bakugou x reader #mha fluff #mha smut #bakugo fluff #katsuki bakugou x reader #mha bakugo smut

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thesunshinecourts · 2 months

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countdown to tsc: apr 6., 2024, 07:48 pdt

17. your bed after travelling // jean moreau thinks about belonging

They had an away game against UT Austin, which was more exhausting in flight time than as an actual form of competition.

It’s three hours to Austin from Los Angeles. (“Non-stop flight time is 2 hours, 55 minutes,” Sebastian says, pushing his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose because he thinks it makes him look cool. It makes Jean want to spit on him. It makes Jean think about Kevin at age thirteen, when he dubiously tested out reading glasses at the recommendation of one of the doctors at Evermore. That kind of makes Jean want to spit on Sebastian more, but he restrains himself. Kevin Day at the beginning of teenagehood is not a crime that anyone should have to answer for, save the man himself and maybe Riko. He can’t, though. He’s dead.

It still thrills Jean, that thought, explicit and direct and true. It had been a fantasy for years, the kind he could never share, and certainly not with Kevin, who had loved Riko as desperately as he had come to fear him. It had been a wish, once or twice, entrusted only into Renee’s steady hands, the kind phrased not as a request, but as an expression of guilt given to the only person to whom he could lay himself bare. It is a fact, a gun pointed by Neil and a trigger squeezed by Ichirou and a new type of shackle on Jean, still heavy, but lacking teeth.

No, Jeremy Knox’s Sunshine Court has no such skin-torn, blood-soaked, jagged edges, except those which Jean brings with him. It’s almost harder to bear.)

Three hours to Austin from Los Angeles, meaning six hours round trip.

Jean is used to playing for that long on the Ravens’ court: a much more punishing endeavour than any training plan Rhemann and his cohort of coaches at USC could come up with. Playing the game against UT is laughably easy for Jean, at least when it comes to stamina and skill. Patience is a different matter, but while the Trojans are no Ravens, they are an exceptional team. When Jean makes his meagre attempts at forbearance, he thinks to himself that he is lucky to not have been a Fox. He would likely have lost his voice, given the arguing necessary to whip them into a vaguely-tolerable shape.

Kevin had always been better at that. Jean is not a natural teacher. He taught Kevin French out of loneliness, and he taught Neil to survive out of necessity. Kevin would always have been more suited to the walking catastrophe that called itself the PSU Foxes Exy team.

Belonging is always easier, Jean thinks, when one has a foothold. Personality aside—and truly, Jean has never met a person more stubborn than Kevin, which is less a compliment and more an expulsion of grief—Kevin would always have been better-suited to the Foxes than Jean, for Kevin had a man who would never turn him away simply because of who his mother was, even without knowing Kevin was his son.

Jean does not envy Kevin his father. Jean prefers not to think of fathers at all.

So no, the game is not especially taxing. The Trojans have a strong roster, and are less inclined to allow personal pique to have a say in which players get substituted, and when. (This isn’t to say that there is no personal pique to be found amongst the Trojans; whilst Jean’s experiences with them thus far have proven—if exasperatingly—that the Day Spirit Award has been rightfully awarded all these years, he’s also discovered that Alvarez has stroppy tendencies when she’s tired, and Jeremy’s occasional remarks about the Ravens are cavalier not out of ignorance, but a quiet disdain for their conduct.

So it’s not that the Trojans are all foolish Golden Retrievers rolling over to show their bellies to the world; it’s mostly that none of them are Riko, and nor are they Foxes. They can afford to offer grace as they move through the world. Jean is not sure he can.)

The flights are infinitely worse, because without an Exy racquet in his hand and the court beneath his feet, there is no escape from Jean’s own head.

The flight to Austin is better, of the two. It’s still not ideal, but Jeremy and Laila sit Jean firmly between them and essentially force him into conversation. It’s mostly grudging, and almost entirely about the upcoming match—there is not a single player at UT who Jean finds compelling, but one of their assistant coaches is a former player who once suggested something rude about Thea, who responded by checking him so hard when he next had the ball that he sprawled to the ground and slid three metres across the court.

Jean enjoys this story. He thinks Laila and Jeremy did too, from the way Laila’s eyes gleamed and how Jeremy’s voice had a laugh in it when he said, not exactly a strategy in our playbook, but I daresay it would have been satisfying to watch.

The flight back to Los Angeles is worse.

The ache from the game is settling into his body now, muscle and flesh and bone. It’s not enough to draw him out of his own head.

One of UT’s dealers had pitched herself right at him, driving herself into his hip. That level of force wouldn’t usually have knocked him over, but there’s an old ache there from Riko’s fingers and favourite toys. Mostly Jean stays standing, but sometimes he gives in.

When Jean had lived in Abby’s spare bedroom, there had been a revolving cast of visitors, though there was more frequency than variety. Renee had visited most, then Wymack. If Jean counts the times he shut his door and refused to let Kevin into his room and Kevin stayed in the kitchen asking Abby questions in a quiet voice that was never quite quiet enough, then Kevin probably takes third place. Otherwise, Jean thinks it would be Aaron.

This was less about Jean, and more about the lesson he could provide in Abby’s hands. Jean didn’t care. His whole life had been made of debt and pain and prodding. Cool fingers re-dressing his wounds—all steady hands and clinical efficiency and blunt responses—was almost a balm in the face of it.

Besides, there was something comforting in his lack of expectation. Jean has no idea what most people want from a doctor. He’s heard grumblings about bedside manner and seen some memes through the Twitter timeline Xavier and Alvarez inflicted upon him, but he found his greatest relief in the way Aaron inspected all his wounds without flinching.

Sometimes Kevin would come quietly into the room, and Aaron would roll his eyes at him, and then look to Jean, as if waiting. Jean did not mind so much if Kevin came in with someone else, like Renee or Aaron or Thea. (Well, he had minded very much the time he came in with Thea, but that was due more to the lack of warning. Thea herself had been someone Jean found himself missing.) He liked it more when Kevin came in with Aaron, which was less to do with their behaviour—Aaron was more likely to tell Kevin to shut up or fuck off, but Renee’s quiet presence was equally effective at keeping him in check—and more to do with the fact that Jean preferred to speak to Renee alone, because she was the person he could trust most in the world.

Once upon a time, that had been Kevin, but then Kevin left Evermore, and left Jean, and the first time Jean heard from him in months was when a terrified Kevin called him to beg Jean to tell him that the rumours were false, that Edgar Allan was not coming south.

The rumours had been true, and Jean Moreau has never been a liar, not even for Kevin.

Jean thinks about this as he thinks about the thudding ache at his hip, where Aaron’s fingers once re-dressed a wound, where Kevin had placed a cool compress years before, where Jean’s younger sister had once drawn a rose when they were five and seven, because a rose had been the only thing she had known how to draw.

He supposes it still might be. He wouldn’t know.

Jeremy shifts in the seat beside him, and Jean cracks open an eyelid to glare at him. He hadn’t even realised he’d shut his eyes, but no matter. He cracks open an eyelid, glaring, and finds Jeremy making a half-apologetic, half-beleaguered expression back at him. It’s an astounding combination, one he would have considered impossible prior to the Trojans, but sometimes Jean wonders if it’s less that Jeremy is particularly talented at facial expressiveness and more that no Raven ever had cause to teach Jean what apology looked like in the lines of a furrowed brow and downturned lips.

“Sorry,” Jeremy whispers, as if the facial expression wasn’t enough. “Were you napping?”

Jeremy has known Jean for several months now, so Jean feels as if this is a foolish question. He makes a derisive noise. Something flickers in his chest when Jeremy shakes his head, looking rueful and amused and sleepy-soft all at once.

Jean ignores it, obviously.

“Right, right, Mr No Naps,” Jeremy says. Jean has suffered many indignities since his arrival in Los Angeles, but being dubbed something that a six year old child would name an especially belligerent cat is a new low.

“We’re not that far now,” Jeremy says, glancing up at the flight map in interest. Jean looks over. He’s right. Twenty minutes or so. “Which means there’s no point in sleeping…” Jeremy continues, almost cajolingly. That gleam from Laila’s eyes earlier seems to have jumped to Jeremy’s as he looks at Jean.

Jean sighs, surrenders. He seems to be doing this a lot lately. Riko never managed to break down that last final inch, that holdout within Jean that refused to lose his accent or stop speaking French to Kevin or any of the tiny rebellions that Neil dismissed but Jean needed in order to have any pieces of himself left for Renee to save that day.

Riko tore every concession from Jean’s bare throat, but the Trojans seem just as adept as getting what they want out of Jean with teeth bared in smiles instead of snarls.

“You should have knocked over that backliner,” Jean says. “He’s a lunk. He would have taken seconds to get up. You could have scored in that time.”

Jeremy, because he is terrible, laughs. “You have such a way with words, Jean,” he says, but he sounds amused. Almost infectiously so. “I ought to be able to score without knocking anyone down,” Jeremy points out.

“Yes,” Jean agrees immediately, “but until that’s the case, you should drop them.”

There is probably something seriously wrong with Jeremy Knox, Jean thinks, watching him laugh. He seems as delighted as ever by Jean’s honesty. He won’t abide unfair barbed statements to his team, but he always seems game to field Jean’s criticisms himself.

It’s only right, Jean thinks. They’re Kevin’s favourite team, and they took Jean in when the backlash would be far greater than whatever meagre thanks they managed to get out of Kevin. Of course there’s something wrong with them.

They pass the rest of the flight in much the same manner, until the descent swoops a little steeper than expected and Jeremy squeezes his eyes shut and grips one hand over his arm rest and the other over Jean’s forearm. Laila wakes up during this, blinking sleepily at Jeremy, before saying, “Oh, babe, your cuticles look awful,” which makes Jean look incredulously at her and Jeremy laugh.

Sleepy chatter gets them through disembarking the plane, and baggage claim, and onto the bus, winding all the way back to campus, traffic egregious even at this hour. Alvarez tows an exhausted Laila by the elbows with an excruciatingly fond expression, Sebastian almost snaps his sunglasses underfoot when they slip off his nose before Derek says, “Dude,” while Emma throws up an arm to stop him in his tracks, and Jeremy half-stumbles into the door before he gets his key in the lock and opens up their room.

Tomorrow, at some point after breakfast and coffee prepared with entirely too much creamer by an overzealous Cox, Jean will marvel at that thought. At the ease with which it sprung to his mind: their room, meaning Jeremy’s and Jean’s, meaning Jean’s, meaning that which belongs.

In the morning, he will think about what it has meant to be Jean Moreau: his first home lost to him through a transaction, where he was an object and not a person, a thing to barter and not a boy with a bed and a family and his own mind; Evermore, his second place to exist, where his bed was so often a landscape of his own destruction; and that bed that he slept in when staying with Abby, crisp and clean and safe and entirely, undeniably unknown to him.

Kevin asked Jean once, when they were younger, to tell him about his home. Jean had looked at him and asked in the blankest possible tone, what home? A home is a space you’re meant to belong, Jean had meant, and there was no place like that for him. There was Riko and his chains, and everyone told Jean that was his place, but he would never call that home.

In the morning, Jean will think about this, and what it means to have a space that belongs to you – to be a boy who owns something for once, instead of just being owned –

In the morning, Jean will think about this, but for now, he kicks off his shoes, peels off his socks, and falls onto his bed, a place he trusts enough to sink into a dreamless sleep, long enough to start to soothe his tired bones.

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ambiguousthoughtsinsilence · 6 months

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my year of boygenius

Why do we listen to music? Is it just melodic noise that provides background to our daily existence or is it a space where we look for meaning, purpose and beauty? This is a false question, as music can be all of these things, but it is so much more. For many people, the beauty of music gives their life meaning, whether listening or creating it. Most of us will have fond memories of listening to the radio in the car or discovering an album that transported us to a seemingly magical place, expanding our understanding of what music could be and do (e.g. Jeff Buckley’s Grace for me).

Growing up in a relatively small town by the Baltic Sea, one of my favourite activities was to go to the seaside in winter, when it was stripped of human presence, sit down on the staircase of a lifeguard’s lookout and listen to the songs on my iPod. Years before that I had a silver cassette player and a CD player that I always carried with me, along with a CD wallet. Music has always been a comforting presence in my life. But even in this rich history, there are certain albums and artists that have had such a transformative impact on my life that they have become part of who I am. There are not many albums that fall into this category, but this year one of them did appear.

In March, 2023 the record had come out, the first full LP from boygenius. As I listened to it for the first time, I knew it was going to embed itself in my brain as I was going to play it again and again and again. I became obsessed with the record and the three women responsible for creating it - Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers.

It was like being a teenage girl again, eagerly watching interviews, trying to find out ways in which to watch their Coachella performances and following a fan account that reposted every live video and tour photo imaginable. People always talk about separating art from the artist, but the songs on the record felt so grounded and rooted in familiarity, like they were made by people that felt real and compassionate and vulnerable. In interviews they would talk about books and artists they admired and how they valued each other, and for someone, who has long felt that romantic love should not be valued more than friendship, it felt almost revolutionary to hear that as a foundation of an indie ‘supergroup’s’ ethos.

In August I had a chance to attend Oyafestivalen with my best friend Tina, who had very kindly gifted me a ticket. boygenius were due to play in the early hours of the evening. This was my first time seeing them live.

‘I want to hear your story / And be a part of it’ / boygenius- without you, without them

Making meaningful connections with other people is probably one of the, if not the most, important things you can do with your life. As I stood on a lawn in Oslo and kept bawling my eyes out, I couldn’t help, but end up in existential ponderings about love, loneliness and human connection and the fact that my closest friend was sharing the gig with me. We live thousands of km apart, but I love her loads and appreciate that she’s a part of my life.

‘And it feels good/ To be known so well/ I can’t hide from you / Like I hide from myself’ / boygenius- true blue

After the concert ended, I sat down by a tree to regain my composure, tear streaked cheeks and red eyes, an emotional outpouring and connection that meant so much to me. A few weeks later, I saw them headlining at Gunnersbury Park, this time sharing it with Tina again and my other friend Peter. This experience was less rooted in existential ponderings and more just an overwhelming sense of joy. It was a scorchingly hot day and multiple people fainted, however everyone around helped to get those people taken care of as quickly as possible.

Queer care and joy was ever present in this audience, people had arrived with wonderfully crafted items of clothing or little references to boygenius lyrics on them. Tina and I handed out pink carnations to the younger girls behind us. There is something strange about loving a band, whose audience seems much younger than you are, but maybe the best kind of music manages to reach something within us that is shared, regardless of age.

As the fireworks went up into the dark night sky, I felt so much joy. This time their music had reached the part of me that felt an immense gratitude for being alive and being able to experience such happiness with more than 20’000 people. This performance felt even more explosive and raw, but also funny and deeply meaningful. It seemed that all of us were treating ourselves to some self-belief.

‘will you be a nihilist with me / if nothing matters, man that’s a relief / Solomon had a point when he wrote Ecclesiastes/ if nothing can be known, then stupidity is holy / if the bore becomes a void, we’ll treat ourselves to some self-belief’ / boygenius - Satanist

The last time I saw them live was thanks to Peter, in a small and intimate acoustic set in Kingston. It was another very special experience as the songs had become embedded in my brain and hearing them acoustically felt quite different from the previous shows with a full backing band, here were the three people who were responsible for all those captivating melodies. They embody a vulnerable compassion and a reliance on friendship that feels authentic, and it is wonderful to see creativity blossom from a place of deep love and appreciation for each other.

The record is an album I have grown to love deeply, because it seems to fit whatever mental state I am in. Without You, Without Them for when I want to remind myself of the love I feel for my friends, Cool About It as a reminder that all of have had to play it cool, when someone has hurt us deeply, Not Strong Enough and Anti-Curse for when my mental health lies somewhere in the bottom of the bin. Whatever I am going through, I can find comfort in knowing that the record is there to give me solace and company, whether I am staring at the ceiling or going on a walk around North London.

#boygenius #personal #personal essay #music #album #albumoftheyear

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frayedcircus · 8 months

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Whatcha thinking about rn?

i like horror, but you know what i like more than horror? what happens after the horror. what happens to the ones who survive.

an experience like that leaves you pretty messed up, especially if the events were in some way supernatural. like what are you gonna do when a demon kills all your friends? the cops show up and find you covered in blood, surrounded by bodies and you’re gonna tell them it was a demon? a monster? a ghost? there is no way they’ll believe you. and if they don’t think it was you, you’ll probably get institutionalized for telling people what really happened.

but if you choose to lie, keep the magical business a secret, you’re left with this horrible truth rotting a hole into your mind. you can reason away the events, try to forget it, but something like that will never really fully leave you. maybe you manage to block out at least the ghost parts, but those memories, that fear, will always be lingering in your subconscious. you will always, in the back of your mind, know.

and you’re suck with this. alone. everyone else who would fully believe you is dead. anyone you tell might apprehensively listen to your story, but they can’t fully believe you. how could they? they weren’t there. they didn’t see it all. but you did. only you did. you’re alone in this truth, no one to tell, no one to talk to who would really listen.

it’s a special kind of loneliness, the isolation that comes with such a burning secret.

(tma the lonely tma the lonely???? i could talk a lot most abt how this ties in specifically with the lonely from the magnus archives)

the horrors you experienced cast a shadow over your whole life, your whole future. what’s the point of anything if there are demons and monsters and horrible evil things beyond mortal human powers? college certainly seems insignificant in the face of an eternally hungry evil.

it’s interesting to see how traces of these themes show up in media that isn’t horror as well. children’s media where the teen main character discovers another world? so often in those stories, keeping this discovery a secret from their family and the rest of the world is a major point of distress. We see them bonding with people in this new world, but when they inevitably have to return to their own dimension, of course it’s so much harder for them to connect with their peers or participate in normal activities. befriending jessica seems a lot less significant now that you’ll never be able to share with her this place that is so important to you. history class or ballet lessons dont seem so useful when you’re learning to cast spells with your new fairy friends.

in more recent media(i’m thinking of two specific cartoons that i won’t name bc spoilers), the main characters share a lot more with their family and friends, and they’re mainly very supportive and loving which i find really nice. it helps the main character feel grounded in their own world and less isolated.

anyway back to horror movies, so many of them cut off right after the “final girl” is saved, which i think is a real shame. i knowww i know the main plot is over and the after stuff isn’t really necessary but MAN is it interesting. show me the survivor going back to school and not being able to find words for what happened when someone asks. show me them debating how much to tell their family and friends. show me them trying to return to normal and ignore how everything feels hollow. show me them struggling and healing and falling apart. pls and ty.

(also like two hours ago i saw a guy with the LONGEST pair of wireless earbuds i’ve ever seen and i’m still reeling from how strange they looked)

#TLDR: grrrrrrrrrrrrrr ggrrrrr foaming at the mouth exploding shaking running in circles #MAYBE this is abt the magnus archives #but also maybe this is just bc i watched a horror movie recently #or maybe it was all those scary story readings i’ve been listening to #or maybe it’s just october!#how am i supposed to tag this #rambles #horror #tma #tma lonely #horror movies #the lonely #asks

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dramionefanfiction · 9 months

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148th batch of suggested Dramione fanfictions:

Sour Grapes by Lilian_Silver (Rated MA) Draco Malfoy isn’t hiding, he’s simply taking a… vacation of sorts. Holed up at the Black Family Vineyards in the South of France, with only Zabini for occasional company, Draco is extending the amount of time between his early release from Azkaban and his re-entry to Wizarding Society in Britain. An unexpected visitor to the Vineyards, however, provides not only the chance to bring his loneliness to an end, but also the possibility of love, forgiveness, and an unexpected romp among the grapes. Written and recommended by Liliansilverstuff Categories: Post-Hogwarts, EWE Type: Multi-Chapter, Completed (Was a WIP at time of submission) Why should people read it: People should read because it’s well written, funny, adorable, and fun… and we’ll get to some smut eventually after I torture you all with the slow burn I have come to love and hate in equal measure from other fics! :D I am new to the fan fiction world but I have spent the last few weeks completely immersed in Dramione fics and when I finally decided to write my own (this is my first stab at any fiction) I discovered that I have a knack for it. Everyone I’ve shared it with in my life has been surprised that even if they don’t love HP they love this fic. I am completely obsessed with writing this, it is consuming all of my days and I will continue to be updating on a regular basis. So far it has been almost daily, and I don’t expect that to slow down to any less than once a week, if I can even keep myself at bay for that long. I want more people reading it now because the interactions I’m having in the comments are really feeding my imagination and I love that my readers are having an experience of being a part of my process! I want more people involved in it! I notice that my writing gets better with every chapter and that’s largely due to a sense of purpose I’m getting from hearing from readers, so please bring it on and let’s co-create an amazing fic together!

#dramione #dhr #fanfiction #suggested #submission #sour grapes

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haresvoid · 8 months

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An excerpt from a currently unnamed, incomplete work by Omeluum;

It is a general belief that illithids are incapable of positive emotions that most other mortal races share. The closest that can be experienced is the euphoria after the consumption of a brain, or sadistic satisfaction after successful control upon another. Love and friendship are considered concepts incapable for an illithid to feel, and unnecessary towards a final goal of 'perfect order'; or the Grand Design.

However, if that were so then objects such as a resonance stone would not be necessary. A device we are instructed to give all emotions of companionship and desire to, to satiate emotional needs. We may not develop relationships or friendships with our kin, but it is not of the lack of ability. I believe that such things are seen as useless to keep a colony productive and the goals of the illithid empire when dissatisfaction and discontentment intentionally fostered from "unachieved goals" is more efficient and simpler.

Neither are we solitary creatures; beyond the hive minds and the colonies exists some vague experience of individuality, although different than the true thing. While some competitiveness can be seen between those of my kin, there has also been discovered those that feel incomplete without controlling another. This can be displayed as the belief that domination is our birthright, but from this it has been found there are those that display some sense of loneliness if they are without a thrall. Perhaps it is rather a subconscious need for company, twisted into the belief system that has been taught? I can only make assumption off of study and personal experience.

There are emotions I do find myself struggling to understand in a way I see others do with ease. One that comes to mind is love- however, from what I can understand it is but a heightened form of companionship. A desire not to be close to one with control or manipulation, but to stand beside as an equal. To share experiences, and minds. I cannot say for certain that my explanation on this matter is perfect, but should it be then I am of the belief it is another emotion we are capable of feeling as well- but alas, I can only speak from personal experience.

#THE SCHOLAR. drabbles #THE SCHOLAR. ic #( hi anyways what if i started... writing lil journal entries for ome #on its own experiences #was a lil self indulgent at the end oop anyways )

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ken-dom · 8 months

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you don't have to write about it but i canNOT stop thinking about ken leaving barbieland post-movie and meeting his human.. and it turns out his own feelings of loneliness were coming from them. him meeting this person who means so much to him and finding out they're feeling the same horrible things he used to. GOD the hurt/comfort, the hugs & reassurances.. i would die /pos

Imagine him feeling alone his entire life only to find someone else with all the same thoughts, fears and needs as him. Discovering that his misguided hopes that came crashing down were shared by someone else who felt equally as lost and hopeless.

They wrap their arms around one another and suddenly there’s this connection, a powerful bond that forms easily, without the need for any further explanation. Tears well in his eyes as he experiences real human emotion, a kind of overwhelming feeling he's never known before. But it feels so good. It feels like acceptance, support, encouragement, understanding, and if it weren't exactly what he'd needed to feel it would almost be too much.

Ken realises once and for all that he doesn’t necessarily need a Barbie to be a Ken. He really can be Just Ken instead of And Ken, and he’s strong enough to figure out who that is.

Imagine if they enjoyed horses and beach too!

Now, would he fall in love or make a best friend, or both?

This would make a gorgeous multichapter fic full of fluff 🩷

#ken imagines #ken-dom answers

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quote-tournament · 10 months

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What makes a quote good to you? Are some quotes not as appealing to you as they are to others?

“In quoting others, we cite ourselves.”

-Julio Cortazar

“Minds of people need a good revolution and great quotations are good revolutionists!”

-Mehmet Murat Ildan

Quotes about quotes, meta

I wasn't sure if this was for the ask game so I'm also going to actually answer under the cut

To me, good quotes are quotes that are impactful outside of their context. I've seen some of yous in the notes going "well you didn't give the context, of course this quote is losing" and I understand the sentiment, but a quote within a story isn't a quote, it's a line.

Let's take the Revue Starlight quote for example:

"For heros, there are trials. For saints, there are temptations. For me, there is you."

It is a beautiful quote, I am easily seduced by anaphoras and gradations, so I really like it. But it doesn't have the same meaning it does within the context of the story, we don't know the characters, we don't understand the tension between them. We only get a glimpse of it. What this quote means to a Revue Starlight fan is wildly different from what it means to someone discovering it in a white box.

What makes a quote impactful then?

I think there are two things:

• How much it resonates with the reader

A quote might have no impact on me but change someone else's life, because we don't have the same experiences. That's why I wasn't very selective with the submission form, if someone submitted a quote, then it meant something to them, even if that something was just a funny moment.

Earlier, someone said about the Chonny Jash quote "those are words I want to spit at my mother" (I am paraphrasing), that is a good example of a contextless quote resonating with someone's personal experience.

• How much can be conveyed in as little words as possible

You might have noticed how the longer quotes tend to lose when faced with one liners. That's because the amount of words drown out the force its meaning. By the time you have finished reading, you don't remember how you were feeling after the first sentence. There are breathtaking paragraphs that makes terrible quotes for that reason. Especially if the paragraph contained more than one idea. The more ideas you have in a single quote, the less impactful each of them are.

All of that brings us to a quote that seemed to be very well liked, although it didn't appeal to me much

"Calm. Kindness. Kinship. Love. I've given up all chances at inner peace. I've made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there's only one conclusion: I'm damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they've set me on a path from which there's no escape. I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I looked down, there was no longer any ground beneath my feet.

What is my sacrifice? I'm condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else's future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see. And the ego that started this fight will never have a mirror or an audience or the light of gratitude. So what do I sacrifice? Everything!”

-Luthen Rael, Andor (2022)

It is a beautifully written monologue that must be a catalyst within the story, but it makes for a quote that doesn't work for me.

A part of it is that I don't know the story, I don't know where the anger comes from or what the sacrifice is. I don't know that character at all and that makes it hard to understand his struggles.

It is also a bit long, there are different ideas: what he has lost, his saviour complex, his self destruction, and his loneliness. That is a lot to grasp for a single quote.

And most importantly, this anger doesn't match my personal anger, it doesn't resonates with me.

That's an exemple of a quote that doesn't appeal to me that much, but I can see why it would to others

#not a poll #ask #ask game #not really but I'm tagging it so i can find it #i had a lot to say #i didn't study literature to not go on rants about quotes tho

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aroaceconfessions · 2 years

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im feeling kinda bad rn, so imma just, vent in here a bit

so, last winter vacations i discovered i was aroace, and it has been one of the coolest things that has happened to me, because everything made so much sense, and i felt so, so happy to know that my experiences were not weird or unique to me, and now that i knew, i could change my life for the better.

I was so excited to share this with my friends, and to be able to explain on detail why this made me so happy, and how did i experienced life.

then i got scared, cuz some of my friends have done stuff that, in retrospective, was aphobic, and it hurt me then, but now knowing all this new stuff about myself, hurted more

so, i decided i was coming out just to a few, and i had it all planed

the first girl to who my came out wasn't as intended, but it was okay. She is my best friend, and during vacations she gets depressed, and that day she was feeling awful, she felt like she was going to suffer from the loneliness she felt on that moment all her life, because she has never had a good and genuine romantic relationship.

so i was talking to her, and trying to make her feel lovable, i said all the things i found cool about her, and how she was such and important person for me, and that i loved her a lot.

then she said something like "yea, but it's not romantic love :/" and, i wanted to make her feel like other kinds of love are important, and that romance isn't everything in life, that she could be happy even if she didn't have a romantic partner.

(all of this without making her feelings less, i also told her that she is a big deal, and that anybody would be lucky to date her, and that someone eventually was going to)

so i came out to her, in a "there's a lot of people that are full without romantic and sexual love, so you can be full too, and then when you get a romantic partner, you will be happy and with a plus, like putting glitter on a cool drawing!"

it went well, and im happy i came out to her

but the other times were not so great.

the other times i wanted it to be about how i felt, i wanted it to be kind of special to me (ofc not saying that i was disapointed that the first time wasnt about me, i just wanted at least one of the rest to be how i wanted it to be)

so i decided trying different stuff each time. like coming out with a joke, an sticker, i was going to fucking paint an As card of the asexual colors, i was going to wear a black and a white ring, i was going to do a lot of cool stuff

but i wanted to test the waters with another friend, to see if some of them even knew ace existed

and, uh, i picked her because she was openly pan, and she felt safe, and wow, she is the one that says the most accidental aphoboc stuff out of all my friends

but i'll get to that

first, i had a bunch lf conversations of me trying to get her to understand what i was saying, and i was so fucking obvious but she just, didn't get it??

I- okay, once we were talking (with the first person i came out to btw) about their past crushes and such, and she asked for mine, and i said "oh, i havent have one, i dont really get those feelings"

and it became a very awkard me-trying-to-explain-that-im-aroace and-she-didnt-understanding-me conversstion, and my other friend jus sat there watching (that last thing was okay tho, she was still kind of down)

so i let it be, and tried to come out to another friend

this one was with a joke, and it was both great and awful

It was something like

*she making a pan joke about how she plays for the other side*

*me making a joke about how i dont have a side*

she: *inmediate understanding that im ace*

And we didnt talk about it, of how i was aro as well, because another friend arrived and aaaaaaaaa

im so mad about it lol

The next one was a f u c k i n g a c c i d e n t

A friend i was so not coming out to made a comment about a classmate being ace, and i said, damn same OUT LOUD, WHEN I THOUGHT I DID THAT ON MY FUCKING MIND

only she and the first friend i came out to where there, but it was a "oh shit" moment, i fucked up so badly

she saw my oh sit face, and said that it was okay, that she was demiace

and then there's the weird stuff

i told ALL my friends how cool it was that on a bday party with middleschool friends, they all acted so normal about me nlt having crushes, like "ah yea, we know u havent ever had one :)", cuz it felt so nice

and i thought it was not going to click to them that i was aroace just because of that one random story i told them because

a) they were d e n s e, like the second girl i tried to come out to, i had already been making subtle jokes about my aroaceness, and NO ONE UNDERSTOOD, and i counted with that everytime i did a joke. i did them carefully, not wanting to out myself, but enjoying my recently discovered identity

b) i phrased it so carefully and casual, and we changed the topic so quick, and no one asked me anything or gave any sign of have just witnessed someone coming out to them

but like, a week later, they all knew?????

and they didnt said anything to me

they just

knew

and somethimes they'll just trow a joke about my aroaceness and i'll be like ???????

for example, there was this time they were talking about crushes and one of them said something like "jaja [my name] is inmune"

and ??????

hello????

how do u know that????

I'm 80% sure the friend i came out on accident outed me to all my friends

and that they talked about me behind me, asking the questions i had the right to answer, but instead they'll just, speculate or something

and it sucks, mostly because i didnt got to explain my boundaries, and they are so fucking open about it

at this rate, im surprised the entire school doesnt know!

and a bunch of sruff that msde me uncomfortable (aka: how i didnt get to talk to them about how much they hurted me when they pressured me to date this guy, how they'll bring their partners to hang outs even if the partner wasn't invited, how the ones with a partner would kiss infront of me, how i felt i was less important that the partners even if we had been friends for way longer than the time they knew the partner, stuff like that)

just, hasn't changed, because i never got to talk about it

and now i wish i just came out to the first friend, and i wish i could made them forget

specially since if i got a partner now (a qpp is what i want, but i would be okay dating an allo, just, i'd have to explain to them all the stuff i didn't get to explain to my friends) they'll fucking invalidate me, i can feel them judging me and thinking to themselves "oh, she was not for real, she has a relationship woth someone!"

aáaaaaaa it suckssss

i cant even say someone is pretty, cuz i have to watch my steps and avoid anything that might make them think im not aroace enough

im not even sure they understand how split attraction works, im so done

if u read all that, advice is appreciated :)

#aromantic #asexual #aroace #arospec #acespec #aspec #aroacespec #arose #coming out #aphobia #friends #friendship

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tlacehualli · 1 year

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Meta + physical pain

Meta + emotional/mental pain

physical pain

Sombra can take it on the chin pretty well. She was a street kid for a long time, and then she was in a gang for the rest of her teen years, and then she joined Talon. She's taken a lot of punches, especially when she was younger and hadn't quite gotten to the point of technological savvy to be able to avoid physical altercations altogether. Her defiance is something unusual in the grand scheme of things. She can't really throw a punch to save her life, but she will take one and tell you that you hit like her sister.

That being said, she absolutely hates physical pain. Even if she can take it, she would rather just not experience any discomfort at all. If she doesn't have to, if her own life or the life of someone she cares about isn't on the line, she will do her utmost to avoid it. Other than the ache that comes with her running (she does do a lot of running, since getting way from people requires it and getting shot or punched or whatever hurts a lot worse for a lot longer), of course. A necessary evil.

Does someone need her help lifting something? Absolutely the fuck not (unless it would be absolutely impossible but rare is the case where her little noodly IT expert arms are that useful). Does she have to go into a dangerous area where her safety by virtue of invisibility and translocation isn't guaranteed? Then, no. Unless there is a lot of money on the line. When she's come down with some sort of sickness that causes discomfort or body pains, she's an absolute terror and will make her misery everyone else's problem,even if it isn't a big deal. The type of person to lay on the couch like they're on their deathbed and making miserable whining noises even though it is the mildest of allergic reactions.

Other than just not enjoying physical discomfort, there is a reason for that, though. She's never loved it but after joining Talon and getting to know exactly what kind of person Moira is, Sombra's developed something of a neurosis about having to be in her care. Frankly, Moira is terrifying - what she's done to Widow, to Reaper, that could possibly be done to her without her consent is something that has caused more than a few nightmares. Avoiding physical damage that she can't take care of herself is high priority. The more something hurts, the more the likelihood of her ending up in Moira's 'care' increases.

It's not like she can just go to any old hospital, being wanted by the law and having very distinct bodily modifications, after all.

emotional pain

Whoever said that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger lied.

It's just been a lot. She was orphaned at a very young age and that was awful. Not unusual in the grand scheme of things, especially in Mexico with La Medianoche, but the Omnic Crisis caused a lot of pain and death and loneliness all over the world. It's a particular agony that a lot of people share, and it's something she still carries with her - even though she's much older now, and she's grown around it and made connections with people since. There's just no replacing that, really. You build on top of it.

The events leading up to her leaving Los Muertos and having to isolate herself from her community are another old wound she continues to carry. After all, it's the fact that she discovered The Conspiracy - and worse, that it discovered her - that caused such an abrupt shift in what her path in life was supposed to be after she'd come to build something for herself in her youth. Not only was the rest of her family dead, but now she had to die too, after a fashion. Her identity, the last real connection she had with them, where they were from. It isn't really gone, she still is that person - she just can't acknowledge it in any public way. She's been on the run for over a decade and being isolated from your own history, your own culture, like that - it remains painful.

Moira's betrayal came about half a decade after that, and like everything else, it weighs on her. Moira was someone she really looked up to at first when she'd joined Talon. Another woman, and intelligent, and seemingly willing to engage with her, to push her. To find out that she was just being used in the end honestly broke something in her - especially with the cruelty with which she went about it. It wasn't difficult for Moira to ascertain how sick Sombra felt for her part in Widow's creation. The guilt's been eating away at her for years and part of her wonders if that was the point maybe. Being with Talon isn't exactly ideal for her, the resources are nice and she'd been desperate to keep away from The Conspiracy, but she could be elsewhere. Maybe. Other than the fact that her guilt ties her to them. She just can't imagine leaving the Widow there alone without her.

It's tough getting a therapist when you're wanted by multiple governments; kind of comes part and parcel with being a terrorist. Inspiring terror and all that. Her crimes don't really include murder but she's caused enough financial damage, spread enough secrets, dug up too much sensitive information, for it to be really feasible for her to just go tell someone everything. So her coping mechanism is kind of shit - she'll just get drunk once in a while and explode emotionally and then she's fine again. For a while. It's better now than when she was younger though - she'd been something of a pharmacy.

#hc #asks #chronal-anomaly #sombra pain and moira #WHY is that a thing #jesus christ

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thirteendaysintaunton · 1 year

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a love letter to fire emblem & what the series has meant to me as a whole

I'm an Awakening baby. My first experience with the series was FE13 and I went in completely blind after finding the game under the Christmas tree one year. I haven't looked back since.

I can remember starting the game the day I unwrapped it and not wanting to put it down at all when it was time to head to my family's holiday party. The form of storytelling and the world building all drew me in and I loved the gameplay, but it was ultimately the characters that made me fall for the series as a whole. The supports were so fun. To me, there was no better feeling than finishing a chapter and seeing a ton of !'s on the support menu. I still feel that way when I play all the games.

There's no one in the Awakening cast that I hate, I genuinely adored the entire roster. Like I said, I went in blind. I didn't know marriage was a thing at first, so my Robin accidentally got roped into a marriage with Chrom. The kids popping up was a genuine surprise but I loved it. I spent over 300 hours in that game trying to match the most optimal pairs to get the most over powered galeforce kids imaginable.

With that said, I also found the marriage mechanics in Awakening to be bit lacking. I was 13 and only just growing into myself. I wanted Lissa & Maribelle to kiss and Sumia & Cordelia to get together. I made a Male Robin just so I could marry the female characters.

So you can imagine how I felt when I discovered the Gay Awakening Hack by UnassumingVenusaur.

There was something so special about finding a community of people who felt just like you, were just like you, in the sense that we were a group of queer/LGBTQ+ kids all trying to make videogames a more inclusive space for people like us. That community that UV built was so impactful on me as a teenager. It took some of the loneliness away.

I was there when Fates was just releasing. I followed the fan translations to the point where I sometimes still refer to the Fates characters with their Japanese names (I mean really? Azura over Aqua? come on now). I was so excited we were going to get gay options in Fire Emblem that I picked up the game when it released, before I went on spring break and my family took a little roadtrip for a vacation.

Only to find out that they had prevented the same sex couples from having kids like everyone else.

The Gay Fates Hack came up quick in development on UV's blog. They added more options, more pairings, and fixed the kid mechanic so that all couples would have a family. Once again, there was something very validating? normalizing? about just watching the Gay Fates/Awakening hacks gain so much support.

Fast forward to college. I didn't know a lot of people in real life that were into Fire Emblem. If you subtract the first person I dated and the one measly conversation we had about it, then I hadn't met another fan in person. But one of my closest friends in college turned out to be a huge fan of the series. Neither of us had ever found another FE fan out in the wild. We stayed friends for all of college and we're still friends to this day. And we dragged a bunch of our other friends down the rabbit hole with us.

When covid hit, I found myself alone on campus when all of my friends elected to stay at home/online for classes during the semester. No one tells you this, but college is typically a very lonely time in your life. Especially when there's a pandemic.

My roommates didn't even return to campus. I had the apartment largely to myself and no friends to share it with. But something that I did have? I had just gotten Three Houses for Christmas. That same friend I mentioned earlier had been playing it for a while now and we essentially had parallel playthroughs of Crimson Flower going on at the same time. They couldn't be with me on campus but I still felt connected with my friend. We talked about the game nonstop together, sent one another tea time guides and memes about our different runs. The pandemic was horribly lonely but Fire Emblem had offered me another sense of community to hold onto.

And when my friend got really sick and started treatment, we still had Fire Emblem in common. They couldn't come back to campus at all for our last few semesters. I graduated without my best friend with me but we never stopped talking or playing Fire Emblem together. And when I didn't know what to say or how to offer my support, I knew we could just talk about our silly little strategy anime game and judge the other person's taste in silly anime women.

Fire Emblem Engage is releasing this Friday and the amount of inclusion that it's said to include will be a new phase for Fire Emblem. A definite step in the right direction that previous games had only just begun to dip their toes into. And you can trust that me and my little group of friends will be talking about it together while we play from states apart.

I'm excited to see how this series will develop and grow alongside me and what other friendships I'll be able to form because of it. And, I guess I just wanted to say thank you for the good times, both in the past and in the future.

#fe journeys

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dogflowers23 · 1 year

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Author

(https://redroompoetry.org/poets/omar-musa/)

-Omar Musa is a Bornean-Australian author, visual artist and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia. He has released four poetry books (including Killernova), four hip-hop records, and received a standing ovation at TEDx Sydney at the Sydney Opera House.

His debut novel Here Come the Dogs was long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award and Miles Franklin Award and he was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Young Novelists of the Year in 2015. His one-man play, Since Ali Died, won Best Cabaret Show at the Sydney Theatre Awards in 2018. He has had several solo exhibitions of his woodcut prints.

Other Information

(https://www.timeout.com/sydney/music/how-hip-hop-poet-omar-bin-musa-discovered-a-garden-of-delights-through-his-cultural-heritage）

(https://thegarretpodcast.com/omar-musa/)

-Omar Musa is a Malaysian-Australian rapper and poet from Queanbeyan. In his writing and his music he confronts the dark realities of Australian history and culture. He does so in a way that both entertains and demands attention.

-Musa’s literary work mostly focuses on the themes of migration and racism in Australia, violence, virility and loneliness.

- Born to a Bornean father and Irish-Australian mother in what he describes as a “very working-class” universe in southeastern NSW, Musa grew up surrounded by many contrasting ideas of what he should be in a world that offered him a lot of criticism but very few answers.

“My dad was from a shanty on the ocean, those stilt villages in Southeast Asia, and he was born in a logging camp into poverty. So I was actually the only cousin out of many, many cousins that grew up in the West, and so I think there was an expectation that I might go down a different path in life,” Musa reflects. “And maybe I held onto that myself for many years, because I had this feeling of responsibility, and guilt because I had grown up with such privilege.”

-Guided by his roots, Musa spent much of his early career as a poet, playwright, author and rapper referring to his experiences of racism and Islamophobia in Australia as fodder for his stories. He believes that the darker, more twisted moments of his life acted as the main engine behind his earlier work.

Reflection

-I sailed upriver on a ferry once, right to the heart of my homeland Borneo (an island shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei). On my journey, there were times I wanted to cry from joy at the beauty of nature — the ancient, primary rainforests and rare, vibrantly-coloured birds — but also many times I wanted to cry at the devastation caused by logging and mining. If humans can be the cause of so much destruction, it stands to reason that we can also be a part of the solution.

Nature inspires me with its resilience, whether it's a chilli seed I nurtured to a full grown plant on my windowsill during lockdown, or a coral reef slowly rebuilding itself from pollution and fish-bombing on the coast of Borneo (if given the time and space). There have been many times in my life when I looked to nature to teach me about regeneration and renewal. It doesn't mean one thing to me. Nature is generous, terrifying, tough, fragile, cruel, majestic and humbling. Even a seedling can make me feel very, very small.

I once found a rose bush in an empty lot. A friend had told me that the lot had once been a garden full of pink roses. But when I got there, the bush I found was dry, bare, abandoned and looked dead. I dug it up anyway, just in case — soaked its roots, planted it in my garden, watered it with love. It just bloomed with the brightest yellow roses.

Other Information

(https://thegarretpodcast.com/omar-musa/)

-I write because there's something within me that compels me to do so. I feel like I've got a lot of churning emotions and ideas, a frenzy of thoughts and a frenzy of feelings, and I have to get them out in some way. And a lot of those feelings are very negative ones. They're feelings of fear and aggression and frustration and pain.

Ted x talk

(a transcript of the last 120 seconds) (https://dialogcrm.com/blog/2013/05/omar-musa-captures-downtown-with-words/ )

“i’m talking about the unrecognized street tumblers

numberless underground kings and queens who taught us the power of our voices

of nonconformity that each lyric, each windmill, each scarred forty five and fan of paint from a nozzle

was a story aching to be told

unfolding before us the fractals of cosmos and starlight

a world all of a sudden unbearably bright

so linger now

linger with me

consider that somehow

somehow despite the broken bottles and tattered bigotry

we could still own that something

be that something

something airborne something gold shot (shod?)

beings arranged in a calligraphy of rhythm and rebellion

people with so much damm resilience

its impossible not to smile

so let it play that something

let it play weave your stories into shining nets

drag them behind zig-zagging decks souped up cars trains and trams

through streets and sunsets

trawl for the things you thought you’d lost because you, me, us

we are more than statistics

we are more than misfits

we are more than your dreams are unrealistic

this is the paint that drips from every brick

the spirit that soothes the weary limb

this is the new scripture of our lives spelled skyscraper high in capital letters

BOLD”

Idea explosion

From his reflection, Omar has two very different attitudes towards nature: Reverence and love for nature, and sadness at the destruction caused by human activity. We can therefore show these two attitudes through the change of color.

We are coming out of winter now， The phrase in a way alludes to the coming of hope, so that in the first half of the poem we can express it in bright colors. Light colors are also able to express the beauty of nature.

Silken snapdragons, swaying on stalk tower,

open their mouths. The tiny roars of colour

— sherbet, red velvet, purple wine — bees waltz

in haloes around them, sever the thread from earth

& float float to high heaven, leaven the bread of

story & song — we are coming out of winter now

Omar refers to nature as generous, terrifying, tough, fragile, cruel, majestic and humble, and we can express these words in 'haphazard' lines and use dark colors to highlight the destruction caused by human activity.

I sit on the steps, chewing fat, smoking time, watching

flowers push up, between empty bottles, chip packets &

coiled curses — struggling, finding a way, like ideas do, like we do.

I forgot I’d even planted them, in an hour of loss,

in a moment of need, in long, dark months when my

brain was jewelled in crystals & frost.

Such a stylistic transformation adds visual layers and allows for a more intense viewing experience. These tonal shifts also convey Omar complex moods.

“ On my journey, there were times I wanted to cry from joy at the beauty of nature — the ancient, primary rainforests and rare, vibrantly-coloured birds — but also many times I wanted to cry at the devastation caused by logging and mining.”

-Ke

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toast-tales · 1 year

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I’m curious, do you think a running thread between us who enjoy non-sexual vore could be loneliness? When I discovered vore as a kid, I couldn’t figure out why it made me feel so warm, but now that I’m older, I realize I was looking for companionship and friends, and vore at that time was the ultimate form of trust in a friendship.

Honestly, maybe? It's probably not the only thing - I wouldn't say I was super lonely as a small child, when vore fascinated me too - I did have a tendency to play by myself, but that's just because I played a lot of games and created a lot of scenarios with my imagination (the tree in the playground was a rocketship, etc) that just didn't include other people. Maybe that's why I didn't end up having a lot of friends, but 🤷‍♀️ I'm no expert in child psychology, certainly. Also, a lot of the vore I was into as a kid was unwilling/implied or near-fatal because, well, that's the kind of vore shown in children's movies, generally. Not a lot of soft, safe vore out in the mainstream media lol. I did have like, one dragon fantasy in my head where the dragon had an extra storage stomach, but that's it. So it's hard to say that was an exploration of trust for me, and more just "oooh mouth swallow stomach neato."

But I can say that the scenarios I thought of as I drifted off to sleep in my teens/young adult life definitely centered around more safe vore and how vore played into relationships. Sort of like - vore as a plot device. It wasn't ever me being eaten - always either an unnamed prey or one of my own poor characters from my "normal" story. And it was always focused on how the characters interacted with each other before/during/after the inevitable (and poorly shoehorned in) vore scenarios I'd create for them.

Content warning for talking briefly about sex, I guess?

And as for me now...yeah, to me, vore is a comfort thing. Even unwilling stuff, even fatal stuff - it's all about the character dynamics, for me. And I've started inserting myself into vore fantasies, strangely, and I think it is definitely a desire for closeness, for comfort, for intimacy without, you know, sex - because I have a bit of a problem when it comes to that. I tend to fall back into vore stuff when I'm at lower points in life (though I'm fine now! Actually doing pretty good, but I have been trying to connect more with others/combat loneliness for sure).

I also don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of the people on the non-fetish side of voreblr are asexual. I think vore can be a way to explore intimacy and closeness in a way that's somehow less...violating(?) than sex. And take it from an asexual in a relationship with an allo, it can get kind of lonely sometimes when you have issues experiencing that "connection."

So yeah, that was a bit more than I expected to answer, but I love talking with others on here about their experiences/relationship with vore and why we all like the things we do. Maybe I should have majored in psychology, lol. Either way, I hope you are able to get something good out of vore, and this community, and hopefully the stuff I share on here as well :)

#toast asks #apologies for no read below line #mobile formatting is the worst

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