#absolutely life-altering

[nighttimenothings]

there are very few people for whom i would kneel for. and for you, i would. i would kneel. reverent. your name on my lips like some kind of salvation. how ever so sweet you are, my love my love my love. all bright eyes, soft curves and shy smile.

would you lie back for me, eager and wanting for me to take care of you? would you be good for me?

how shall we begin, my dearest love? shall i inch closer, hands skimming your thighs? my shoulders keep your legs spread; this is as much for you as it is for me. i'll give you everything you want so long as you let me take my time with you.

would that be amenable? could i kiss you here? what about here? i'll leave a trail of kisses up your thigh, slow and anticipatory, so as to rile you up. i've got to make sure you're ready for me, hm? all the while, my hands will make a home of your hips, my thumbs rubbing slow circles.

oh, my love. look at you. you're beautiful. the way you rock your hips desperately, the way your hand reaches for mine, the way your skin begins to dampen. but how would you sound? how every so pretty will you sound when i put my mouth on you?

easy, now. i always take such good care of you, don't i? when i finally lean in, i can already smell you, how ready you are for me. gorgeous. so puffy and wet—for me. how is it that i, of all people, am allowed?

you spoil me, my darling. and so, when i lean in, tongue easily tracing around your entrance, collecting, exploring, i can't help but sigh. it's messy and carnal and human. there's nothing more transcendent. slick stains my chin, your inner thighs, and it's perfect. you are perfect.

my girl. my girl. my girl. look how well you take me. so incredibly good for me. your moans and whines—music. sweat-sticky and flushed, you're a vision. a goddess, and i've found myself at your alter. you slide a hand into my hair, pulling me closer. anything for you. i press closer, tongue sliding deeper, nose nudge-nudging at your clit.

the world narrows, your thighs tremble and i hold your hips still. easy, easy, easy. there now, it's okay. let go. i'll be there when you fall. go on, pretty girl. it's okay. i've got you.

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[hughmanbean]

Crimes Against Existence

The High Queen Phantom has expressed concerns about the state of law within the Mortal Realms.

Walker, sensing a chance to redeem himself in her eyes, volunteers to go out and report the state of the lands to the Queen. She seems pensive, but agrees. Under strict conditions that Walker must NOT detain nor arrest any mortals that would not have been taken into custody or otherwise punished by mortal authorities in the same situation.

She hands him an addendum to his book the Duke has written up for him to use as reference while he operates in the Mortal Realms.

He reluctantly agrees and makes his way to a mortal settlement with that he can sense has strong criminal influence.

He follows the trail to one of most crime-infested cities on Earth: Gotham. His guards clean out an old office, and he sits himself down into a desk.

He turns on the TV and tunes into a random channel. A man who seems like he'd fit with the Far Frozen is locked in combat with a skilled mortal in some sort of outfit. After a bit of research, Walker learns these are the rogues and vigilantes.

Well, this explained quite a few of the High Queen's problems. Though she doesn't know of them just yet.

Now, how do we rectify that?

[hannahcrazyhawk]

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

[backpackingspace]

Wait going off the idea that Athena keeps things from her favorite people:

What does diomedes give her?

[unganseylike]

i know nothing about daredevil other than the netflix version i watched at some point but i just saw a gifset of charlie cox covered in blood and it made me wonder if anyone has considered the potential applications for declan, because daredevil is a catholic vigilante with a respectable suit-wearing day job that knows how to beat the shit out of people (partially due to his dead boxer father) and is kinda slutty

[whatarewedoingdude]

[goodluckclove]

A Literary Hot Take I Fear Posting

A childhood friend who I've known since the second grade just texted me yesterday to ask why I was reading Atlas Shrugged in the eighth grade. I was 12 years old just casually reading Ayn Rand. He pegged this at the time as odd, but it took him another 15 years to ask me about it.

Such whiplash. Statue of limitations doesn't apply to books, I guess. I responded first by saying how I was already reading Kafka and Kerouac, so it's really not a crazy leap in terms of reading materials. I then went on to insist that Atlas Shrugged is a pretty fucking wild ride, an insane capitalistic melodrama written by the creator of a philosophy that sounds sort of, partially cool when only on paper and not applied at all. Atlas Shrugged is way more entertaining than The Fountainhead, as it was written once Objectivism was fully formed and Rand was comfortable giving a majority of her attention to just one of the most bonkers stories I've ever read.

Before I get into this if you are someone fully unfamiliar with Ayn Rand, one of her major controversies relates to repeated SA references in her writing. It's not the only thing I talk about but I kind of have to mention it so like tread careful.

There's a death ray in Atlas Shrugged. Literal death ray. It's mentioned in one chapter and I'm pretty sure it's dropped completely after that. There's a secret society of industrialists and creators who live in a mountain and hide their existence via invisibility force field. There is one point where it turns into a manifesto during John Galt's sixty page speech, but also around that time there's like a literal action movie recon mission with guns and explosives and a helicopter.

Listen. Listen to me. I do not think Ayn Rand is a great person. Her philosophy was helpful to me back when I had only read just the grimmest shit imaginable, but on its own it falls apart immediately. The average Ayn Rand hero is an industrialist and CEO who is also perfectly capable of manual labor in their industry and partakes in it whenever needed. This is fun to imagine but also not a thing I don't think actually exists.

If you really truly despise Ayn Rand (some people do hate her to a degree I always found a little off), I can't say you don't have your reasons. I do have a feeling that a fair amount of the people that really hate her, as well as really love her, probably never finished one of her 1000-page tombs. Which is fine. Her philosophy is so extreme, even if it was created as a product of her formative years in the Soviet Union, that it's bound to trigger strong emotions immediately. Plus Rand's view on gender was just - just so deeply strange. Misogynist, but - like - incoherently misogynist? Super odd.

People know about Ayn Rand's thinly-veiled rape kink. It's a lot, especially in The Fountainhead. It's also executed strangely. There is a clear argument that it fits within the motifs of the characters and the story as a whole. There is a repeated reference of things being broken, of beauty and the desire to hold onto beauty - either to hide it, destroy it, or destroy and rebuild it. It comes up a lot with multiple characters and arcs. In that way a rape works as an extension of the themes already established, but the fact that it's a meet-cute start of a romance that we're supposed to support as a reader is uh - oof! Weird for me!

Also she proudly called herself a "male chauvinist" which - I don't know, Ayn! I think that's an inside thought, my friend!

Once again - I'm not an Objectivist. If anything in terms of philosophy I'm still between Existentialism and Absurdism. Rand's whole thing (Which I must stress is more magic system than applicable ideology in terms of realism) is not doing great things for society because it is based on a foundation that is already not real. I found some sort of shy appreciation for fragments of her beliefs that struck me as novel as someone in a deeply abusive environment. I will always have a strong sentimental connection to The Fountainhead, even though it's riddled with faults, because I read it the first time after my mom's suicide attempt. It helped to have something idealistic and heroic to cling to, even if the power fantasy is only grounded in the real world in the sense that architects are a job some people can get.

However, I stand by the belief that in an alternate reality Ayn Rand would've produced the best soap opera of all time. Pretty much all her batshit plot developments would work perfectly in a soap opera setting. People wouldn't bat an eye, I swear to god.

[androgynouspenguinexpert]

bout time i posted the og bc in the immortal words of yahtzee croshaw shit's about to get FUCKY!

also i like him :)

[final-boy-todd-simmons]

Been seeing a lot of debate on Tik Tok about these two interacting so I’m curious to see what other people think lol

[reallifehumansunshine]

pov: you are sixteen and you’re kissing your best friend who is way out of your league (they are both thinking this)

[phoenixcatch7]

If there's one thing I like more than time travel it's crossover reincarnation, so.

Botk link reincarnated as Damian Wayne.

An incredible weapon master of all types, but especially prodigious with a sword - he was beating knights at the age of 4 and with his memories as intact as they get for him I can see that goalpost moving even further (probably with traps and tricks, a 3yo doesn't exactly have great bodily control).

He's an excellent survivalist, agile, strong, durable, cunning and creative. He can move like a feather in the breeze, strike from behind with ease. His first kill, an animal, did not stir him as it did the other children. With his poise, grace, skills, obedience, he ought to be ra'as' finest assassin in the making, a jewel in the crown of the league.

Except he never speaks a word. Half his targets escape unscathed. He skates by true punishment on the merit of his skills and achievements in other missions. Testing has shown it is not a physical deformity that prevents his speech, but not even talia has been able to coaxe a word from him past his second birthday.

It is a defect ra'as is growing more and more frustrated by, as each attempt to fix these two final flaws ends in resounding failure. Less extreme solutions are running dry.

Talia fears those solutions. Her child does too, she knows. For them, there is a possible solution, more extreme than anything ra'as would tolerate.

She sends him out of the league. To his father.

To Gotham.

[umbral-archives]

i don't know if you've answered this before, but why does murdoc choose to call reader "fawn?" it's very cute but knowing him there's definitely some sort of Evil Bitch Lore™ behind it in his lil head

I have answered this but some of the lore changed/I've better character insight on Fawn and Murdock so I'll link the old post and give a bit more info.

For one thing, take any lore I list for Fawn's background with a grain of salt as I'm wishy-washy with everything from Murdock's killing motives to his first name (Murdock is a middle name) and his eye color to Fawn's occupation and how they meet. As an example, previous post has Fawn being adopted, yet more recently I've rolled it back to bio-mother and stepfather. Fawn's bio-dad has a pivotal role in the story as he has from the beginning. Everything related to 'Fawn' as a nickname in that post remains true to my canon, but what I've changed is as thus: The night Fawn and Murdock meet, Fawn freezes up when faced with the threat of a murderer- ironically not the first one they face that night but they don't know this. In Murdock's mind, Fawn very much reminds him of the baby animal in question, and he mockingly refers to them as such. The intent is to remove a witness, glean information from them because he saw them interacting with the other murder, his longtime target- only for something about them, some old deja-vu to stay his hand, letting them escape... ... but they don't leave his mind.

[coochiequeens]

I'd rather be called a "TERF" than someone who supports people getting life changing surgery by doctors who can't even be bothered to give their patients through post op directions.

The doctor gave too little information about post op care? Can anyone think of any other surgery where friends or "allies" are expected to encourage someone to get a surgery performed by such a doctor? With any other type of surgery a good friend would be expected to find some way to get their friend out and do research to find a better doctor.

Instead it looks like they chose the lesser of two evils and still got bad results

[floofyfluff]

we're in this phase III trial of this thing that is soooooooo cool and i want to talk about it sooooo bad but 1. no. 2. no one will understand me if i do. 3. no.

but its so wild to watch disease processes go from totally untreatable to like. one time novel solution. in half of a lifetime. like from "not only do we not know why this is happening or how to stop it but i can tell you that you're just going to go blind," to "well if you come in and get this done every x weeks actually you will preserve most of your vision" to "actually maybe we can just do this one procedure and the thing that robbed 25% of your family of the ability to read by age 75 will simply not be a problem for you"

[hybbat]

You know a world where your ability to carry something is determined by quantity rather than size or weight is very easy to accept in a video game, because of mechanical convenience, but would probably be so strange in a story in any other medium, and I think a few more books and shows could stand to get a little funkier with the fundamentals of their reality like that.