#i actually thought i posted those already

[ganondoodle]

I fully understand the pain you feel with TLOZ now. I mean, I understood it before, but after Arcane becoming League's canon, after watching the second season, I feel so broken and conflicted and like I spent time loving something just for it to amount to nothing.

reliving my totk nightmares just a few months after finally being able to cope with that

[revenge-of-the-shit]

No hi I'm back again because after sitting on it for a while it was like Arcane suddenly saw all those issues it presented and abruptly decided that it was time to turn a blind eye to it instead in favour of a greek-tragedy-cosmic-horror-doomed-soulmates storyline. Whether this is due to studio interference or due to the actual politics of the writers, I don't know, but at the end of the day Arcane disappointingly fails to break free of the neoliberal messaging that deeply pervades any media that even tries to be progressive. It presents all these very real systemic issues, then either forgets about it or slaps on a last-minute band-aid solution that only serves to brush it under the rug.

I will grant that a part of it is just the fact that they simply didn't have enough time. A lot of this could've been expanded on had we just had one more arc, or even just three four-episode acts instead. The quick pacing honestly did Arcane a disservice this time. They had huge ideas, many of which were great, but they simply did not have enough time.

Some things that I wish we saw more of:

Ekko's community building and the fruits of his effort (and to add on to this: let him see his tree again!!! wtf!!)

Jinx and Sevika (and Ekko!!!) really, truly leading a united Zaunite revolution for longer than like half an episode that forces literally anyone in Piltover to consider the consequences of their actions

On that same point: meaningful change that takes down systemic barriers - better public infrastructure for Zaun, better funding for health issues, examining injustices committed by enforcers - this was only barely addressed by Ekko ("you're destroying our vents and polluting our waters") and then like never talked about again

Putting Sevika on the council as the singular token Zaunite is so painful like I can tell you as someone who's been the only queer non-white voice in the room that it's not as progressive and cool as it might seem to be. It's painful and torturous and just reeks of tokenism. A good first step would be to have a council with an equal amount of members between Piltover and Zaun but that's not enough to just have that!!

Jayce and Caitlyn actually having like, even a moment, just to think about what they've done to hurt, to oppress others, in their pursuit of "justice". Making weapons you never said you would and gassing a city of civilians should be thought about more, actually

Like there could've been so much more to Jayce and Caitlyn to make their characters even more well written. At their core they truly want to do good, they care, they earnestly want to help, but they are also raised in privilege and I want to see them wrestle with the biases they've been soaked in more.

I already talked about Maddie and the enforcers in a different post but just... more nuance about enforcers and how even the nicest enforcer you know will happily gas civilians and stand by and watch unnecessary violence. Like. Loris was one of the "good enforcers" but he helped to gas civilians too. Did we forget that

Vi!!! Just. More of Vi. She got the short end of the stick this season. The writer's punching bag. I wish we got more time to actually explore her trauma and to just... give her a break. But also more time on her thinking on her own decision to go bluebelly.

[sokuly419]

Now that Arcane is done, I’ll share my thoughts as I did with the previous two acts. It won’t be as long probably, but it would feel weird to me to not do one for act 3/Arcane as a whole.

I have some mixed feelings on it like everyone else it seems. Really, I agree that so much more could have been done if they were given a third season. I think it would have been better.

Overall, I loved this act and I loved the whole show. Of course I have some issues with how it played out this time. It was all rushed and crammed. A third season would have done WONDERS. I see those complaints, and I acknowledge them. I also understand not seeing the conversations and growth that happened off screen. I agree that we were robbed of Vi’s arc and her trauma. We were robbed of a Cait and Vi actually rebuilding their relationship. Season 2 was flawed, yes. But I don’t know a show I’ve watched that isn’t. This includes She-Ra too.

They may have fumbled a bit, but I still personally enjoyed it. The lesbians won, there’s some open ends for the other locations they want to explore, and so much more.

Unfortunately I’m already seeing caitvi turn into the catradora wars. I’m not engaging in it. If you call caitvi toxic and not catradora I don’t know what to tell you. That’s my position on it. Y’all can be critical about it, that fine. We don’t have to agree, but I’m not dealing with the arguments and I’m sure not going to involve myself in them. Just like catradora, in my opinion, a lot of growth and redemption arcs took place off screen. It’s a major, major bummer. But these arguments are literally catradora all over again.

At this point, you want a redemption arc? Fanfic is the way to go. I’ve already read some amazing ones. Post canon and dealing with the trauma and losses, exploring Vi’s pit fighting phase, Cait’s redemption/realizations in those 7-8 odd months they were apart, the arguments of the things that happened, the AUs even. Soft fics, smut fics, it’s all there. I’m even writing some myself.

So like… take a collective breath, criticize all you want. But there’s no need to turn this into the catradora/She-Ra wars all over again with all the arguing. People genuinely enjoyed the show. I know I did. I’m sad it’s over but so, so glad it happened.

[socksracoon10]

Hii!! This is in response to you asking what charles and carlos both did in the vegas gp!

I'm just gonna be completely fully objective here, bc rlly they didn't do anything wrong.

What happened was, a series of radio msgs between the team and Carlos occurred, in which they told him they were going to stay on Plan A (one pit-stop I think) instead of Plan C (2 pit-stops). Carlos argued back, saying they should be pitting and how he wanted to pit right now/ next lap. They said no.

At this point, Lewis is pressuring Carlos, and Charles is behind Lewis. I'm pretty sure george had already pit his second time and was still leading. Max and lando had also pitted a second time.

Anyway, the team finally listen and tell Carlos to come into the pits. However, they mess up and weren't ready and then tell him to stay out. Obv, Carlos is mad now. No matter, they pit him in the next lap.

4 laps later (or 2 I can't exactly recall) they pit Charles. The team tells Carlos not to pressure Charles. The team tells Charles that Carlos won't overtake him. You see where this is heading, don't you.

Charles comes out PARALLEL to Carlos (I think the team thought he'd come out ahead). Carlos' tyres ate 4 laps old. They're heated up. They're faster. Charles has absolutely new, dead, cold tyres. Carlos doesn't pressure him. He simply drives around.

The real dram started after the race when we all saw Charles' radio😭 Honestly, this is just a team problem not a driver problem.

Alot of ppl are saying they would've gotten better results if carlos let Charles ahead— they really wouldn't have. There was no way the ferraris would've caught up to those mercs.

ANYWAYY, there's my most objective views. Maybe, I'm.missing a few things but I'm negl the race was honestly so boring to ACTUALLY watch, like now there's drama but literally nothing was happening apart from this😭

Thank you for this! Cuz this was what I saw during the race and what I thought happened!

I find it frustrating that people are blaming Carlos when it wasn’t Carlos’s fault at all, and I also find it frustrating that people think Charles’s meltdown was wrong. I keep saying this in every post but its clear as day that this was a ferrari problem not the drivers!

Mercedes was on a different level this weekend, they sure as hell were going to be 1-2, no doubt about that. And I get that Charles was trying to get p2 in the driver standings, but… 3-4 for constructors is literally phenomenal? I don’t see how Carlos isn’t a team player when this was the best outcome that could’ve happened. Besides his did better in qualifying anyway.

And I hate people mentioning old races like oh well Carlos moaned about this once… forget the past races, only focus on this one. Ugh, ferrari screwing over their drivers isn’t new but god, as someone who loves Carlos and Charles, I really hate seeing the fans tear each other apart.

Once again, thank you for the explanation!

[world0fmadness]

LOVE, THROUGH PEN AND PAPER

okay so i really wrote this as kind of a test piece to test the waters on if you guys like this and maybe i will make more about how the reader met others hehe! also i very much wrote this with the idea that the reader is not originally from norway, hopefully that is not an annoyance to anyone!

can you guys tell that bård is my absolute favourite metal man to write for? <3

♡ you and bård met through being pen pals in the early 90s!

୨୧ most likely, you had ordered a copy of his little black metal fanzine after hearing about it through another pen pal you were speaking to and he had almost immediately taken note of the country that was definitely not norway in your address…

♡ now that he looks back on it, it was probably a pretty major breach of privacy and possibly even incriminating but his interest was far too peaked after he saw your name, which he thought was an absolutely beautiful name, and a country he had never been to so he wrote a little letter to go along with the magazine when he posted it off to reach you

୨୧ but the letter only made you as interested in him as he was in you despite the two of you basically being complete strangers! his letter to you was downright adorable, it was filled with cute broken english and misspellings that made a small smile paint your face as you read through it, it was full of general questions about your home county and how exactly you heard about his little fanzine! not to mention the mixed in questions about you too, questions about what bands you like and what your life is like! his letter was obviously filled with curiosity about you and who would you be to not write a letter back to him after he ended his own with the most adorable little thank you for buying his fanzine?

♡ when bård received your very first letter back to him, he was so strangely ecstatic about it! he already had quite a few pen pals but you… you and your letter felt so different to him, it felt so much more special and he could never quite put his finger on why until he began to send more letters to you and receive more letters from you! after just about three short months of talking to each other through pen and paper, after talking to each other about music and so many deeper topics about yourselves, after eventually beginning to send pictures of yourselves to each other, bård finally realised just what about you and your letters felt so special to him…

୨୧ he was totally into you! oh gosh, of course he was! everything made sense when it clicked in his head that he had a more intimate liking towards you, all those times that he would sit around feeling so impatient and almost lost whilst waiting for your next letter to arrive, all of those times he would check his post every single morning for your next letter, all of those times he felt so free and open when writing to you about himself, all of those times he would feel his face heat up whenever he read your compliments towards him and his band! there were just so many things that suddenly made so much sense when it all pieced together in his head that he really liked you, he liked everything about you!

♡ of course this new and sudden realisation scared bård a whole lot because did he really even want to confess his feelings towards you? did he really want to risk losing you as a wonderful friend because you do not feel the same and the waters are made murky after his confession of wanting to be something more? but he does it, he sends you a long letter confessing everything after almost an hour of walking in circles around his small bedroom with his hands grasping at his long brown hair and his mind lost in paranoia before he just decides to sit down and write a letter confessing everything he feels towards you! with shaky hands and a worried mind, the letter turns out slightly messy with chicken scrawl handwriting but he knows you will still understand it all, you always seem to understand him! he actually gets his mother to post this letter to you for him, he knows damn well that he would probably pull out just before posting it and he knows his worry would probably get the best of him so he asks her to post it for him

୨୧ the waiting days after sending the letter to you are downright horrible for bård, he can barely focus on anything as he awaits your letter back to him and not even playing his drums take his mind away from you… he can barely get to sleep at night as he fears the possibility that he will never receive a letter back from you because of his confession! the restless nights and fearful days become evident in his face as his eyes grow tired and his pale face becomes exhausted! but then, after a excruciatingly slow week of waiting and hoping, he receives a letter through the door and immediately runs to snatch it up from the carpet before rushing upstairs to his bedroom to read it in private…

♡ bård almost yells in excitement and pure happiness when he reads through your letter with shaky hands and sees the words about how you feel the exact same towards him, he can just barely even attempt to hold in a relieved scream as his worried mind is finally put to rest by your loving words on the paper! his body is completely overrun with energy and an almost childlike glee as he fully realised that this is it, he has you now! he has all he ever wanted now! you felt so perfect for him, from the first time he ever read your name on that delivery address and felt a strange tingle in his heart to now as he reads through your letter about feeling that very same love for him! he feels so at peace and so content as he reads your confession letter over and over again, savouring your sweet words in his head before putting it aside to excitedly begin writing his next one to you

୨୧ you can hardly believe your eyes when you read his next letter back to you about how fearful he was to admit his feelings for you, your eyes widening in confusion as you read his written words about how terrified he was… how on earth would it have ever been possible for you to have not felt the same for him? he was so sweet, so passionate and so handsome… i would have been impossible for you to have not felt the very same love for him that he felt for you…

♡ eventually, in early january of the next year after the two of you had even began talking for the first time through letters, you decided to fly out to norway as a kind of late christmas gift for him! you did not even ask him to meet you at the airport as the closest one to his home was still quite a bit away but he did anyways, of course he did! how could he not? he wanted, needed to be there the second you stepped foot in the very same country he was in, he needed to be with you the second it was possible and he sure was! literally the minute you were in his sight after exiting the terminal, he was rushing to take you into his arms for the very first time! excitement mixed with nervousness taking over his body as he held you in a tight hug while you laughed quietly into his shoulder about how constricting his skinny arms were around you before settling your hands on his blushing cheeks and leaning up to place a deep kiss to his lips, the first of many! he was so nervous, he had never kissed anyone like you before, none of his prior kisses were real like this one, you felt so real! after that day, it was hard for him to ever let you go at all, every minute of your days in norway were spent being in his arms as the two of you talked about anything and everything you could think of! this first time actually meeting only proved to bård just how perfect you truly were for him and he never wanted you to leave his arms <3

[suddencolds]

a personal milestone 🥳 + author's note

i finally made it 😭 (there is probably another 10k sitting in my drafts, but i have always tracked word count for this project as a sum of already-published installments)

also a (somewhat long) journal entry below:

—

This has been the main project in my life for almost two years, now (I started writing on 1.26.2023). It's my first proper attempt at a novel, and it's one of my first times ever posting original work anywhere 😭

It's hard to say how I feel now, perhaps because I feel too much.

Where to go from here? I considered dropping the series entirely before I hit the milestone because I was very tired. In a way, I felt like I had said everything I wanted to say. But I think I also love this series a lot more than I can properly verbalize.

To be completely honest, writing this series was so lonely. To work for so long on something that I could not show to nearly anyone irl (not family, not close friends, not peers, not strangers I met who I talked to about art); to spend hundreds of hours on something that I could only ever post to a small subset of people... all of that was very lonely. I'm sure other creatives have felt this way too.

And at the same time, hearing what people on snzblr thought became probably the most potent source of happiness in my life (is that pathetic? Maybe so.) I don't think this project was self-sustaining at all; I think to some extent, I wrote it because I wanted to hear people tell me that they liked it. I realize this is a terrible and unsustainable reason to create art, but that's the truth.

On some level, though, I kept writing because I loved Y+V. They've been at the forefront at my life for almost two years now 😭 I spent a long time teaching myself how to write them, and a lot of the themes & choices in the series are quite personal. Embarrassingly, I still want to talk about Y+V all the time.

When I posted to ask if I could send my unfinished/unpolished WIPs, some people reached out to offer to read them... and then I never sent anything over to anyone. I think a part of me could not get it through my head that people would be willing to read something completely unpolished, because... well, frankly, a lot of my drafts are just pretty unreadable; I typically only post things that I have already cleaned up. More importantly, I felt like sending my drafts to people—even people who had given me explicit permission to send them!—was selfish and troublesome.

On some level, I also felt the same about asking others to brainstorm with me: I felt like I was asking them a favor which I did not know how to pay back. Perhaps this is just another way in which I have been cruel/uncharitable to myself, but I never imagined people enjoying receiving my drafts. I could never convince myself that for those people, giving feedback/discussing ideas might not actually be a chore. I was always scared to make writing less of a lonely process because I could only think about how easy it would be for me to ask too much.

This is probably the most honest I've been about this particular subject 😭 I am not good at gauging what constitutes 'too much.' I feel like I can get carried away when someone expresses interest, so I try to preemptively position myself as someone who does not impinge on others... I think that even outside of this series, I have defaulted to this pattern of trying to give and trying not to ask. In that particular sense, I am perhaps to blame for my own loneliness.

Anyways! Recently, I've gone back to (tentatively) writing after months of not writing. I'm not sure if I will post another installment here (maybe if the drafts are 'good enough', I will?), but it's nice to write without worrying so much that what I am writing needs to be publishable/presentable.

If you have ever left tags/comments on my work, and you are reading this, I am grateful beyond words to you for keeping me company + for making me feel like what I was spending so much time on was a little more meaningful :') I always go back to reread them when I'm in need of encouragement. Thank you sincerely for the happiness. ❤️

[magicalbuttertarts]

Damian Priest x f/Reader (18+) (AU)

WWE Masterlist

Just like all my other stories, this has not been proofread, but please enjoy.

Warnings: unprotected sex. P in v sex. Anal sex. Cum oral (m & f receiving) use of dildo. Creampie. Marriage.

WC: 2335

Gifs & photos do not belong to me: 1st gif: @fireflyeditzz

©️magicalbuttertarts 2024: do not repost or translate my work. This is the only place I post my work.

Idea came because @floofysashimi shared the title photo.

"Okay, okay, that is enough practice for today." Our drummer & backup singer, Rhea called out as I sighed, hanging my head as I gripped my guitar a bit too tight for my liking.

"We still have a few hours left until we should call it quits." The electronic keyboard player, Dominik said as he wrapped his arms around our other backup singer, Liv's waist, pulling her against his side.

Our Bass player, Finn was only walking off with some groupies.

"We will be back here tomorrow for the music video." I called out, already regretting doing this music video.

I didn't want too, but our manger insisted that our band Judgement Day, should.

"You good Damian?" Rhea asked me as she walked up to me.

She is the only one who knows me better than I know myself.

People thought we were together, but we are actually just really good friends. Her husband is a good guy, and will randomly travel with us on the road.

"Just don't think those three give a fuck about this anymore. Finn is always late and wondering where his next lay will come from, and don't get me started on Dominik and Liv."

"Okay, calm down there big fella. Let's go out and have some fun. Maybe a few hours at the club will ease your stress." Rhea suggested.

"Buddy meeting us?" Knowing she only goes out when he is in town.

"Yeah, got us in the VIP section at XS Las Vegas."

"Fine. I'll go. Just to see what the fuss is about with it. I have heard about it."

The music was loud, the woman were all over me like usual, but I know what they are after. Just one night with me to brag to all of their friends about spending the night with Damian Priest, lead singer of Judgement Day.

Rhea and Buddy were all over one another, as were Dominik and Liv.

The four of them were making me almost nauseated, so I decided to leave tbe VIP section and head outside to grab some fresh air.

But as I did that, I walked right into someone, my arms wrapping around them to keep from falling.

Their hands are laying on my chest and I was about to ask if they were okay as I looked down and for once in my life, no words came to me as I looked down at the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

I saw them mouth, "Are you okay?" And all I could do was nod my head yes.

I leaned down to whisper in their ear, "Can I buy you a drink?" They nodded their head yes, and the two of us walked back to the bar for me to replace the drink I spilled.

◆

I brought her back to the VIP section, and the only thing I caught was her name before we started to make out.

I pulled her into my lap, not caring for once if people were taking photos of me, as I wanted everyone to know that I have the most beautiful woman in my arms, kissing me as she grinded her body on top of me.

"Come back to my hotel room." I muttered against the kiss, making her whine my name before agreeing.

The two of us left my band members behind, her hand in mine as walked us out of the club and to the Uber that is waiting outside for us.

◆

I woke up the morning, with her gone, with only a few things to remind me of her.

Her lipstick stained against my skin.

The indents of where she dug her nails into my skin.

I licked my lips, groaning at the faint taste of her pussy still lingering on my lips, as I ate her out until she pushed me away, begging for me to fuck her.

Her gasps and moans echoing in mind as I started the shower.

I looked over my body, looking over all the little marks she left on me, and then my eyes were focused on my cock.

Her bouncing in my lap flashed before my eyes and I groaned at the thought of how tight her fucking pussy was. How it felt like it was trying to strangle my cock.

Then I noticed the red stain on my cock, remembering how she applied her lipstick once more just before she sucked me off.

Her eyes closed as she took me down her throat and then how her eyes teared up as I fucked her face until I came, groaning her name as I felt her swallow it all.

When I pulled back from her mouth, she smiled at me, opening her mouth to prove that it was all gone.

All I could do was moan as I picked her up to throw her on the bed, crawling between her thighs and fucking her into the mattress until her body wash shaking and my cum leaking out of her abused pussy.

The alarm on my phone brought me back down to earth, making me swear under my breath as I hopped into the shower, washing away our night together.

◆

"Places everyone. We will film just the band, and then the model will come after." The director called out from his seat.

"Not even the makeup crew could get rid of that hickey on your chest huh?" Rhea teased me as she walked past me.

"I see someone had a good time." Finn said next to me, lifting his sunglasses and wincing at the lights, before placing them back on.

"Okay, yes, I had a good time. Not let's get this done and over with." I said, loudly.

"You gonna see her again?" Liv asked me, as she stood next to Dominik.

"Most likely not. Only caught her first name."

"Once again, please people. Good good. Dim the lights. Good, good, action."

Time to get this day started.

◆

"Okay, bring out the girls." I gringed when the director called them that.

I could hear the sound of their heels and boots walking this way, and I was talking to Finn about what we are going to do next, when I heard the Director call for us to take our places once more.

I was assigned one model who would I would jump off the stage for and pretend to dance with as the music played around us.

"Damian, you see her, the one right in the middle, you were jump down and walk to her, okay."

I looked over at who he was pointing at, and I almost chocked on my spit.

It was her.

The woman from last night.

Her and I made eye contact, and her eyes got real wide as she saw me standing there, looking at her.

"She is gorgeous. Your manager picked good." The Director whistled, but stopped when he saw me turn my gaze to him.

He cleared his throat and told us to start.

I stood in my spot, watching her, to make sure she didn't disappear like she did this morning.

◆

The music was playing as I mouthed the words to the song I wrote.

It is time for me to jump off the stage and walk towards her, the other people fading into the background as the room went dark, except for her and I.

She pretended to walk away, but I pulled her back towards me, her hands landing on my chest just like yesterday when we met.

I placed my hand under her chin for her to look at me, as my other arm pulled her flush against my body.

Her perfume making me groan to myself before I kissed her, which wasn't in the script for the video, but the director kept rolling until the music faded away, the two of us still making out with everyone around us.

"I think we got it. All done for the day everyone. Good job."

People clapped around us, as I pulled my lips away from her, her eyes were half-closed as she looked up at me.

"Damian? We will meet up with you later." Rhea called out, pulling Dominik and Finn with her, with Liv most likely giggling.

"Come back with me again, or if you are hungry, we can go out to eat." I asked her once more.

"Damian, it was fun for one night, but it wouldn't work between us." She said.

"Why not?"

"You travel and I do as well. We wouldn't see eachother."

"Then come back for one last night together. I can't get you out of my head." I was honest with her.

"One more night, Damian."

◆

As I sat on our private plane, I looked out the window as I watched the video I recorded of us, the sounds of our love making going directly to my ears through my headphones.

"Just like that Damian. Fuck." She cried out as I rutted into her from behind, my cock buried in her pussy as I pushed her head into the mattress, her head turned towards the camera.

Her screaming out my name as she came, her pussy fluttering around my cock as she pulled an orgasm from my body.

I watched myself reach for my phone to zoom on her pussy, which was leaking my cum.

I watched another video of me between her spread thighs, her hand gripping my head as her other hand held the camera to record me eating her out.

Soft whines of my name I could hear as I ate her out, my eyes focused on her face, that I could not see on the camera.

Her body arched as she came, moaning loudly as ate her out and fingered her. I pulled my mouth away, and I could see my chin coated in her juices.

I licked my lips imaging the taste of her was still there.

Video after video played, and I had to go to the washroom to jerk off.

I watched my favourite video of all as I jerked myself off.

My phone was facing the bed as she rode me, her back arched and my hands on her hips as I helped her bounce in my lap.

As she came, she collapsed against my chest, her ass still bouncing in my lap as she used my cock to get off.

Then she got off of me and wrapped her lips around my cock just as I shouted out her name, my cum filling her mouth once more.

Her eyes were focused on my phone as she swallowed, kissing the tip as she moved her head away.

With grunt of her name, I came, not caring if anyone heard me. Wishing she was here, and not me jerking off on some private plane.

◆

I invited her to our concerts, and she showed up whe she could.

Her backstage, watching me the whole entire time.

Us going back to whatever hotel I am staying at.

Until I was able to convince her to go out on a date with me.

Which brought the paparazzi, which I should have known would happen.

It was all over the internet and even in magazines the next day.

'The Rockstar and The Model. Will it last?' Seemed to be main question, which had me fuming.

"Come on Damian, who cares what they think. Come back to bed or I will have to start with out you." She teased from the bed.

"You wouldn't dare." I put down my phone just as she flung back the blankets, and I could see she had a dildo in her hand.

But not just any dildo, but the one I had made just for her, the exact copy of my cock.

"Go on baby, fuck yourself with it."

My hand wrapped around my cock as I watched her insert it in her pussy, her whining my name.

"That's it baby. Keep it there and turn around, hands and knees. I want to stuff you full." She did exactly what I asked as I stood.

Grabbing the lube from my bag and quickly lathering my cock with it, her spreading her ass as I got closer.

I groaned at the sight as I have already fucked her there today.

I slid into her ass, inch by agonising inch until I bottomed out.

"How do you feel baby?" I asked her as I kissed her between her shoulder blades.

"Full. So full Damian."

"Good." Was all I said before I started to thrust in and out of her ass.

◆

Been four months of us dating and five months of us non-stop fucking.

We were once again in Vegas, and I was driving around with her next to me.

"You wanna get married?" I asked her, knowing she is the one for me.

"What? Right now?" She asked me, turning her body to look at me.

"Yeah, we pick a church and we get married."

"So romantic Damian." She teased. "But of course I will marry you."

We were married 45 minutes later, us driving off to the secluded cabin I rented, but I first had to pull off to the side of this empty, dirt road as I held her back of her head, as my hips thrust up into her mouth as she moaned around my cock.

"My wife is taking my cock so well down her throat. Like she was meant for me." I groaned as she was licking up and down my cock as I fucked her face.

My loud groan was her only warning as I came down her throat, the two of us moaning as she made qucik work to swallow.

I was breathing heavy as I let go of her hair and she sat up.

I smashed my mouth against hers, moaning at the fact that I can taste my cum on her lips.

"I love you my darling wife."

"I love you too, my sweet husband."

Tag list: @lghockey @nicoleveno14 @legit9thlunaticwarrior @hooks-martin @madhatterbri @wwenhlimagines @melissahausen @tahiri-veyla @terrortwinunicorn

[eowynstwin]

So, Ikea and Bunny. I need to talk about them too, though no one has explicitly asked about them.

The truth is, I am still so fucking angry at those two. There is not a kind thought in me for either of them. Either my worst suspicions are true, and they conducted the whole affair from behind the scenes, or they were willfully stupid enough to swallow Myka’s story for the sake of their own blog engagement. Because I sure never heard of either of them before this happened.

Those two were needlessly and joyfully cruel to me. They languished in attacking my character, my maturity, my intelligence, the way I phrased things, or that I did not say what they thought I ought to. They called me a sociopath. Ad verbatim they said my brain "doesn't fucking work right."*

I have been VERY open for a while now about being autistic. I certainly already had it in my blog description by the time they came after me.

They went on to accuse me of poor reading comprehension, bullying, and abuse. They accused me of setting my followers on Myka. When I referenced one separate occasion in which I had a public disagreement with another blogger earlier this year, they spun that reference out into a HISTORY of influencing my followers to go after others I didn't like. (There was no request for clarification on my part before they took that and ran with it.)

Bunny even went as far as to explain what Myka's original post meant, the way a third grade teacher might, to prove her point about my lack of reading comprehension.** Bunny, just call me a fucking retard and be done with it.

Then, as people began to point out that they were in fact doing the same thing they accused me of doing, they had the audacity to remind everyone not to harass me. So it's okay when you forget about that, girlies, but guillotine for me because I forgot?

When the truth finally came out, they backpedaled REAL quick. I even got some apologies in my inbox.

Genuinely. From the bottom of my heart. Absolutely fuck the both of you. I didn't have you blocked until I left. In fact, the both of you FOLLOWED ME. You never ONCE tried to talk to me first anyway. You two saw your chance to tear me to pieces and you fucking took it.

Disclaimer, because I know these two people by now: this is no call to action for anyone to go after them. I doubt you could anyway, since all of their blogs have been inactive since June. (the-original-honeybun is crashtestbunny's main.)

But these two did permanent damage to my reputation within this fandom. Even if they were to delete every single post they made about me, there would still be versions of them circulating. Their blogs are still fucking UP, ostensibly for accountability, but exactly how accountable are they if they haven't actually been there to take it?

*Specifically Ikea. Scroll her blog if you need proof. The post is still up. **Also still up on her blog, crashtestbunny.

[madonnamadeofasphalt]

EA & Bioware honestly did an incredible job at killing any enthusiasm I had for a new Dragon Age. Fucking hell, man, I've played the first two games so much I could probably go through them with closed eyes and still pick all the right dialogue options to get My Exact Personally Canonized Plot. And the only reason I didn't do the same thing with DA:I is because it was made after EA completely gave up on optimizing their shit so the fucking thing takes up like a billion terabytes of disc space and takes 10 hours to download and install. I honestly think it's the best-written cRPG franchise to ever have a budget that doesn't involve a list of Kickstarter backers or getting an eccentric Estonian billionaire fixated on the project. And the gameplay is also there, I don't really care about that part.

Then they proceeded to fire all the talent that made me love those first three games, and scratch and restart the production twice, and be suspiciously cagey with any details or gameplay footage for a fucking decade, so my hype consistently went down and down. And yet I still managed to hold out some hope that somehow, by some miracle, it wouldn't fucking suck.

I kept that hope until the trailer dropped. You know the one. The one where we see a bearded Varric. This, I think, was the exact moment when I lost any desire to play fucking Veilguard.

Like, first of all, Varric being there at all is already an issue. Leave the man alone. His presence was already kinda forced in DA:I. And after DA:I and Tresspasser, his story couldn't be more finished if he got killed, eaten, shitted out, condemned to hell, redeemed by divine sacrifice, bathed for eternity in the everlasting light. There is no point to Varric anymore. Whatever arc they've given him in Veilguard, and I don't even give a shit enough to read the spoilers before writing this post, it has no business existing. Fuck you. The only reason he's there is because he's a recognizable IP, and when you're a certain kind of soulless corporate moron, you think there's nothing more important than putting a recognizable IP in whatever new bullshit you're trying to peddle. Maybe if you didn't fire every decent writer in your trash fucking company, you'd have someone to tell you about the importance of Ending The Fucking Story When The Story Fucking Ends.

But that's not even the core of the problem. Beard? they gave Varric a Beard? Varric I fucking hate everything that's even tangentially connected to dwarven culture with a passion which is why I've made a point to shave my beard all my life to spite anyone who gives a fuck about it Tethras? beard? you gave him a beard? He changed so much offscreen in the goddamn timeskip between these two games that he got a motherfucking berd? fucshhfdbeard? feadsgfsvarricafgfdh BEARD? yyousftoiuslyhhabevarricasgsfucningbeardandthivkimgosabedineditit?beard????

PS. (edit after finding out spoilers) I've gone to TV Tropes to read up on Varric's role in DATV after writing this (just in case I'm wrong and dumb, and there's actually a deeply compelling narrative reason for his presence), and, well, this shit is cheaper than I thought. And more importantly, just as I thought, there appears to be no justification for the beard beyond "adding a beard is a cliche way to show that a bunch of time has passed, and we didn't care enough to think this shit through". I'm fucking tired, man.

PPS. (edit after reading the rest of big spoilers) This is so much worse than I could even begin to suspect. This is worse than the final season of Game of Thrones. This is the final season of Game of Thrones if they straight-up fired GRRM, burned his notes and hired a showrunner who's only read a one-page summary of the first six seasons. This is fucking depressing, man. I'm genuinely fucking sad. So many subplots that were started over the course of these three games, that were clearly going somewhere, scrapped in favour of a simplistic good vs. evil story that would get rejected by fucking CD-Projekt in 2007 for being too basic. All because the artists who poured their hearts and souls into this bullshit franchise got thrown out like trash by its "owners". Morrigan's kid, the Well of Sorrows, all the implied complexities of Tevinter politics, the Crows, the Old Gods, Andraste. All went to shit. Death to capitalism.

[bleue-flora]

Now that we have more info and access, let's talk about Quackity's tools shall we...

On day one, Quackity brings a pair of unenchanted shears and Sam gives him WARDENS WILL and WARDENS HAMMER as well as some item frames (which as an aside I’ve always thought is such an unhinged inclusion…).

Thus completing the trifecta of torture tools that we see in the montage later [clip]. :]

But we also know that it doesn’t end there, because in the other 2 visits we get to see he actually doesn’t even use Sam weapons (besides WARDENS TORMENT), so we know there are other undefined tools, which is why it’s so exciting to now be able to see inside chests and inventories because now we can analyze and speculate to kinda determine what those tools might have been and their enchantments (and perhaps the implications of their enchantments)…

So, for starters, in that same montage it also shows Quackity grabbing tools from a room and throwing them on the floor [seen below], which ends up being what looks like 3 neitherite axes, 3 netherite swords, and 1 pair of shears, likely implying that multiple weapons of the same type were also used (further supported by the fact that we see him use both WARDENS HAMMER and a netherite axe with low durability). Tragically, this storage room stocked with netherite weapons doesn’t exist on the map [post] :( so instead I’m gonna determine what I think are the most likely candidates from the chests in the prison, Las Nevdas, Quackity’s inventory and Sam’s inventory.

Now I’m gonna assume that 1 of the 3 axes thrown on the ground and 1 of the 3 swords are WARDENS HAMMER and WARDENS WILL, because there are not enough reasonable or qualifying sword or axe options in the locations we have to look at (this of course all based on the assumption that they aren’t in this storage room on the other map they filmed it on or didn’t have Mending and broke).

The second axe dropped I’m gonna say is the one with low durability seen in both the streams where he tries to get Dream to write the letter and the one with Techno later, which matches the one in Quackity’s ender chest with Efficiency V and mending. This axe is pretty interesting for the fact that is does not have sharpness on it, perhaps that is because that does too much damage. It’s low durability makes a lot of sense based on the lack of Unbreaking, and the Mending actually confirms what I had already theorized based off of the bottles of enchanting in his inventory when he visits rivals duo, which certainly has some implications about how much he used this axe to the point he needed to mend it mid session…

After the 2 axes, we see a sword and again I’m gonna just say this is WARDENS WILL. The last axe I’m gonna say is most likely the one in Quackity’s inventory with Efficiency V, Fortune III, Mending, Sharpness V, Unbreaking III. This one have much more durability, perhaps because of the Unbreaking or because we don’t see it in the visits we get, maybe because it has Sharpness V he doesn’t use it as much.

The second sword I’m gonna say is also one from his inventory called SPIDER MASTER 2000 with Bane of Arthropods V, Fire Aspect, Unbreaking III, and Mending. Based on the name and Arthropods, this sword was likely made for the purpose of farming xp in the spider farm, but I’d say it’s not unreasonable to think Quackity used it for other things too. Makes me wonder if that enchantment has any strange effect on a person. And don’t even get me started on the Fire Aspect. :]

The third sword I’m gonna say is this one in a chest in the prison with Knockback II, Looting III, Mending, Sharpness V, Sweeping Edge III, and Unbreaking III, for 2 reasons 1) the chest it is in includes building items such as Quartz and Smooth Stone [highlighted in yellow] which are not present in the prison but are in multiple areas of Las Nevadas and 2) It has full durability, but has Mending to explain that unlike the other nethrite swords in the prison (minus the Guard Sword, which I doubt he let Q use) and Sam’s inventory, all with high durability. Perhaps we could make up some reason like perhaps using the Sweeping Edge or Knockback to explain the full durability and why it’s in a chest in the prison. Perhaps it is Sam’s sword but Quackity was miss using it or the enchantments on it made it too dangerous or something, so Sam made him heal it and return it. Maybe that’s why he stops giving Quackity his Warden weapons too… who knows.

Then we see a pair of unenchanted shears, which we see him with in his first visit and the one with rivals duo. Give that shears durability doesn’t last long in general and that these are unenchanted, it’s probably reasonable to say that he perhaps broke and brought multiple pairs of unenchanted shears so to pin down the specific pair isn’t great, but we do see a pair in a hidden chest under the Needle in Las Nevadas (like irl wise it’s not like they did 80 scenes of torture this is could technically be the pair from the rivals duo stream (and maybe even the first visit)). Especially since it also has a pair of iron pants and an enchanted diamond sword like we see in his inventory during that stream. An enchanted diamond sword also appears in the letter visit and I’m gonna say they are both this sword with Sharpness I. It has higher durability than the one seen in the rivals visit, but perhaps he healed it with a diamond or something. This diamond sword is pretty interesting in the fact that it isn’t netherite like the ones shown in the montage, so it also than does less damage, even more so due to the minimum enchantments. Perhaps that’s what makes it such a good option for torture as it doesn’t do too much damage and kill Dream on accident.

During the rivals duo visit, we also see Warden’s torment which to my suprise only has Unbreaking III not Mending. We also see an unenchanted diamond pickaxe. Now we could say he only brought the pickaxe with the purpose of getting his revenge or we could take it as a sign that he used pickaxes too outside of just shears, swords and axes. After all, WARDENS WILL BREAKER is the name of Sam’s pickaxe, so surely it was used when trying to break Dream’s will (and if that then perhaps the netherite pickaxe in Quackity’s inventory as well).

Furthermore, when Quackity runs into George outside the prison, we see him carrying an enchanted diamond pickaxe likely the same one in his inventory with Fortune II and Unbreaking III, which I’d say can be reasonably assumed to have been used inside the prison (perhaps just for convenience sake). Especially because, also in his inventory at the time is a stack of seeds, which appears in the chest with the enchanted diamond sword and shears which we already determined were likely used.

So, those are all the things we can more reasonably conclude with some reasonings and conclusions definitely stronger than others. Even further though if we wanted to really start to theorize, there is an also an argument to be made (that I’ve actually highlighted before [posts - <> <>]) that if he uses pickaxes why not also shovels? And hoes? And maybe even one of Sam tridents, perhaps WARDENS MERCY with Channeling [post]? [potential weapons used highlighted in red] I don’t know, it’s really mostly all theoretical but fun to think about anyways, I mean we do have Quackity’s comment in the letter visit, “I’ll show you which one I’ll use this time around.” [clip] and Dream’s comment to Foolish, “Sam, you know, let him in the prison, let him bring in tools—and shears, and they tried to torture the revive book out of me…” [clip] which does somewhat support the reasoning for more variety of tools. After all, why doesn’t Dream say weapons and shears? Seems to me like you’d use tools to include the shears, cuz swords and axes are just weapons. (We can obviously explain this away for many reason but that’s besides the point). Plus I mean based off of what Dream said in Daedalus as noted we tend to like to reasonably assume a knife and chair was involved (further supported by ccSam if we chose to believe his unhinged comments lol XD), and that certainly opens the door for other things…

[artisticxlly]

Some (actually a lot) of my thoughts on Kagehina; the theme of soulmates

Disclaimer: I am still somewhat new to posting in this fandom. Someone might've posted these same exact takes already (I'm not well-versed in Kagehina analyses). This is just my pure brainrot (also unfiltered, so this doesn't have a ton of structure, just a collection of thoughts)!

As I'm getting more into this ship, there are a lot of things that make me emotional about them.

A thing some people point out when it comes to these two is that Kageyama's backstory is shown extremely late in the manga as a 'protagonist' (or at the least a very essential character). You can argue whether or not it's done well, but for me this is perfect to demonstrate a full-circle moment, as not only did Kageyama find this person that Kazuyo promised would find him, you as the reader only get to realise that now as well.

And adding onto that, in my opinion it also contrasts nicely with Hinata, as his backstory is shown from day one, it is one of the first things explored in the manga. It starts and ends with them, so to say.

About their backstories: As someone who is very much invested in Kageyama's whole arc of 'king of the court', here is a speculation of how he actually got to that point.

Maybe this is a bit obvious, but losing someone like Kazuyo is devastating. And at the time, Kageyama would struggle with making new friends. He always stands out in those flashback panels as someone who carries a passion for volleyball like no one else (at least for his childhood) e.g., he gets made fun of for not owning any video games.

At its core, that intense interest in volleyball is what connected him and his grandfather so deeply.

It makes sense for Kageyama to desperately dig his nails into that remainder of Kazuyo, to train more and more, chasing that feeling of connection to someone he was actively grieving.

And another point would be this famous panel:

"If you get really good". And Kageyama takes his word for it, because really, his grandfather would be one of the people he trusts more than anything. And he practices until exhaustion, until he can't, because he wants to have a relationship (no matter the nature) like that again, wants a deep connection that he gains through his passion for the sport. He wants someome to find him.

I think Kageyama would reach a point where the amount of time he invests into training would be both physically and mentally unhealthy.

And perhaps, that's what also leads to him having no compassion for the people who don't share the same fire as him on the court (which is honestly a bit of a common theme for Haikyuu and its characters). He'd probably doubt a person who is like what Kazuyo described exists.

And then Kageyama and Hinata meet for the first time one the court.

The first time you read the chapter, without knowing Kageyama's backstory, it's moreso framed that he is insensitive, a bit of a jerk too. You could even go as far as to interpret the line as "what have you been doing until now?!" as Kageyama thinking that Hinata should've just practised harder, especially when he later goes on to say that Hinata should get "better" if he truly wants to stay on the court for as long as possible.

When you reread the chapter after going through the whole manga though, these lines make a lot more sense, and - depending on your perspective - are a peek into just how taken Kageyama is when faced with someone who has an equal drive as him on the court.

"what have you been doing until now?!" turns into "why havent I met you sooner?" and "get better" turns into "get better (than me), so we can find each other again" (As Kazuyo promised Kageyama).

And actually, Kazuyo's promise doesn't become fully realised until they're both on the court again, now in different teams.

That's why the flashback to that line is used then, not when Hinata and Kageyama first bond together in Karasuno. Not when they make it to nationals. No, when they're in different teams, after you see Hinata go through a whole lot of development away from Kageyama, then the promise is finally fullfilled. You could argue back and forth which one of them ended up being "someone better" but the point is that they found each other again because of it. Doesn't even really matter that they're on different sides of the court.

That's their arc, at least if you focus on Kageyama's backstory.

In general though, they are characters that continue to parallel each other, over and over. The amount of which is honestly almost absurd.

One of the biggest ones is just how much time they invest into practicing. The manga makes it a point with both of them that the people around them don't have the same energy as them and get tired out while those two continue (like maniacs /hj).

I mean, they even like the gym for the same reason, they're fond of the smell (which makes me mushy I won't lie, these goddamn weirdos /aff).

Another one is that they both want to play as long as possible. During the first chapter of the manga, this whole theme drags through the whole chapter, as they both talk about competing to get to stay on the court longer than anyone else.

A last one, that I just find funny, is that their numbers are ALWAYS one apart and sometimes even the same as in previous teams, EXCEPT for their third year in high school.

Junior high 3rd year: 2 and 1

High school 1st year: 9 and 10

High school 3rd year: 2 and 5

Adlers/Msby: 20 and 21

National team (2021): 9 and 10

Ali Roma/Asas São Paulo: 20 and 21

Like it's not funny, how much these two share even before knowing each other. And yet, despite all the similarities, they don't immediately get along in the way you'd think. There is this weird tension where they meet, they immediately get into an argument, too. But there is nuance to it. Izumi points it out actually, that Kageyama took Hinata seriously. The rest of the people there didn't think much of Hinata and his team, and yet Kageyama seemed to have this 'innate' sense that Hinata wasn't someone you should underestimate.

And they fight again, when trying to get into Karasuno, when they're in Karasuno, etc. etc. But it's never them genuinely disliking each other, it's just bickering at most. And as you read along you grow very fond of that aspect of them.

Maybe it is an overused word, but I don't think you could make it any clearer that those two are written to be soulmates.

Anyways, those are my thoughts! I'm obviously not normal about them, but I hope someone else can agree with these takes ^^

[trashisstillhere]

Now while I currently do really need and want to work on the things I want to draw, I’ll just give yall the currently uncolored, official ref of the New Ninja!

I mostly did this cuz I thought it was about time they got an actual ref. I mean, I have drawn them many times before yet never made an actual drawing of their full body. So I did it now! And since they’re officially one of my Rc9gn ocs, I kept the ‘UnNinja’ version of them that I drew for ask (it was about what NN looks like without the ninja suit on) long ago which was at first ‘unofficial’ since I basically said you could imagine them in any way all of you wanted but now, that’s how they’ll REALLY look like!

They don’t have any official colors yet, that is one of the parts that will take quite awhile..

Like I did with Serenity, here’s some info about them! (Mostly for the ones who may not be aware of New Ninja and all the posts I did about them before along with a few more stuff I haven’t really either told or shown before about them before I had completely stopped drawing them I guess(??).)

-New Ninja is…well a new ninja chosen to be Norrisville’s new protector in the future right after Randy, their story is supposed to take place (kinda) in a few years after all the events in season 1 and 2 in the show. (All the canon characters are like kinda older at this time, the other teens like 17-18 I think? Idk, I haven’t fully decided yet but basically they’re supposed to not quite be in 9th grade anymore I guess (except New Ninja of course). Randy is actually still a ninja here, still has his mask and everything even though he soon isn’t gonna quite be the main one anymore. However the Nomicon let him keep his mask for now, especially now that he’s currently helping the new Ninja. Plus he absolutely refuses to let Nomicon stop him from doing so, he refuses to just sit back and watch another random kid struggle out there as the new ninja.

-New Ninja’s real name is ?????????… yeah…. They don’t have a official name yet either, no last name, nothing. that part will also take too damn long to figure out and work on so for now, just call them ‘New Ninja’ or NN for short.

-they go by any pronouns! And by any I mean ANY. I know I wrote they/them there on the ref and I mostly use those for them right now too but still, I said before they can still be called by anything and I ain’t changing it. So go ahead, use any other pronouns for this kid if ya like. But I will still keep using they/them for them. (I totally didn’t just make them gender natural who is okay with any other pronouns cuz i had no clue what gender or whatever to make them identify as. Pfft- totally not-)

-as the new Ninja for Norrisville, you’d probably expect them to either be excited to be the new hero and/or take it seriously like a pro….but they’re not, they’re the complete opposite. Instead of them being giddy about this like Randy pretty much was, they’re scared for their life. This new job of theirs has not only already changed their whole life but put so much pressure on the poor kid, they already had struggles in their normal life and now they have gotten even MORE.

-New Ninja isn’t really confident, brave, social, just nothing like the out going kids out there. They’re insecure, a coward and pretty anti social. They get stressed and overwhelmed easily when they’re the center of attention, they often have bad thoughts when they think they’re not doing good enough and worry too much about not being ‘perfect’ enough. This is exactly how they were at first, before and after becoming the next chosen one. But now with Randy being there for them as support, they’re slowly starting to work on themselves to overcome their fears. Will it easily get rid of all of their problems? No. But will it help a lot? Yes!

-Randy calls New Ninja ‘Kid’ quite a lot, it was mostly just a little nickname for them at first during his time trying to help them that just came out but now he can’t help but keep calling them that every time they are together, even acting like a brother/father figure to them! New Ninja is an only child so they never knew how it felt to have any siblings of any kind. (Found family trope my beloved)

-New Ninja gets easily flustered by all sorts of praise such as compliments, affections, etc. they aren’t really used to have so much love and support from other people, not even used to have many fans yet (even though they know that the ninja always had fans for years to begin with-). Now with Randy pretty much doing this, the kid feels like some random kid being embarrassed by their parent or something.

-New Ninja hasn’t ever really gotten to have any sort of fun times and memories during their life, they don’t even know how to play video games at Greg’s Gamehole! Poor kid. But thankfully with Randy’s and Howard’s (yes, even him,) help, they’re learning.

-and uh yeah, they do know Howard too. At first they didn’t, to them he was this random guy that Randy seemed to talk a lot to so much and couldn’t help but be curious by their relationship. After some little investigation and all that crap, they’re more aware of the chubby guy now. How? That’s another part I still haven’t worked on yet.

-because of Randy pretty much being their mentor, New Ninja can’t help but mostly cling onto them. They often feel helpless without him, always asking him for help. They do learn to not always ask him for help later on during their development, yet there are times where the kid still can’t help but feel safer around him. Not just because he is the one who gives him tons of help with ninja stuff, but also cuz they really trust him and may or may not start to feel attached to him.

And that’s pretty much all I’m gonna say for now! Because if I wrote even more, it would take WAY too damn long and this would never get to be posted here. So yeah. Sorry if there will end up being some misspelled words or grammar mistakes, I’m too lazy to read all this again to check for them.

Will a colored version of this ref be done soon? Who tf knows!

[obsesssedblerd]

ok hear me out: Given what I've already said, I feel like I have to at least submit a defense for why I still think Satoru is redeemable lol. First, I imagine reader already knew he was arrogant before they got together. And I can see a justification for his frustration and why he would lash out, he is under a lot of pressure, people do ask him to do a lot (gojo's daily schedule that gege shared?? crazy), and I'm sure he does feel like he can't take a break w/o someone needing him for something, which is annoying!! And yes he is the strongest and is capable, but that's a mindset thing and everyone has lashed out at someone that felt safe, because you assume they are not going to leave -- it's just unfortunate for him that his consequences ended up being so dire. I just also think those are the only kind of consequences that he would learn from. He doesn't ever really think anything is his fault, and if reader and students hadn't almost died, I don't think he would have really ever change his behavior, just continued on an "apologize for the behaviour instead of work on improvement" path. So obviously the consequences needed to be serious, however their jobs are dangerous and they could technically always die on a mission, so I would also argue that its sort of not.. that serious...? (DONT COME FOR ME PLS) I'm not eloquent enough to explain what I mean by that properly, so that's just gonna have to be enough.

I think that reader would absolutely need space bc who wouldn't?? I certainly wouldn't be able o look at him without resenting him for a while. But without other longstanding relationship issues, I can see a world where I would personally come to accept it? If Satoru expressed genuine remorse (and ideally took some time to think about what his issues are stemming from instead of taking it out on reader...), accepted that space was required, and showed he was more present/attentive with the people who actually rely on him, I would miss him!!! and probably would rationalize "well, technically I could always die". Now, those are a lot of hypotheticals and assumptions that we don't know, I just wanted to provide an example of how/why I think it could still work.

I truly think that depending on a persons priorities, a lot of things can be worked through/forgiven, but of course that is person to person and not everyone is going to feel or think the same way, no matter what the outcome may not be what everyone wants and that's just how it is no one's wrong for wanting one or the other.

omg I'm so sorry for the essay, this could all be completely irrelevant anyone, since you're gonna make what you're gonna make, I just felt like I needed to express its not completely delulu to forgive any of them. I'm just a happy ending kind of person at heart I fully and openly admit I am a sympathizer tho, so there are plenty who would read this and think that's not good enough to forgive lol

some parts of this post were a part of my thought process when writing pt four (and five tbh) 🩷

[toasthaste]

ok here are some In Stars and Time thoughts: (wow! that's a lot of thoughts actually! long post warning! also warning for like every possible spoiler, don't read this if you haven't engaged with the game to your satisfaction)

I'm obsessed with the fact that the loop that ends up being the final one is the one where EVERYTHING goes wrong. I spent the whole game subconsciously building up my Perfect Final Loop in my mind, how I'd get every item to make sure I didn't miss an opportunity to use em, do all the friendquests and such... I didn't even realize I'd been building up that ideal scenario until after credits rolled! Really really cool. The timeline where Siffrin does the worst stuff he does in any loop is the one that stays. And it's still a happy ending! it's a better ending because of that! His friends saw him at his worst and still loved him! He didn't have to do everything perfect to keep them around actually! Something about that feels so right, to me.

I keep using "ludonarrative resonance" to describe this game and yeah ok I'm huffing my own farts here whipping that out but whatever, it's REAL. The player and Siffrin are on the EXACT same emotional journey as each other, we're getting tired of seeing the exact same lines over and over again right alongside them, we're taking shortcuts because we've seen it all before and just want to grab key open door grab crest etc etc make the progress go. We're starting to find these previously-charming characters grating because we've just seem them repeat the SAME lines over and over and over and OVER again until they start feeling like caricatures of themselves who we can barely feel any real compassion for any more.... It's just so.... clean, it's so perfect, to me. It helps that Siffrin is also one of the more relatable characters I've encountered in, like, media. I don't usually relate to fictional characters much, but, man, the emotional constipation, the building scorn, the depression, the Being Weird About Touch... I mentioned in another post that it's really just Siffrin and Murderbot who I've ever found viscerally relatable, of all the characters ever in media. So like, it's a pretty rare position. (I do not relate to the pun-love though. I'm funny I'm good at goofs but bad puns are extremely tedious to me. Which perhaps goes to show how well-realized Siffrin is, given that I'm able to look the other way....)

I think they could have stood to make Loop's Whole Deal a bit more obvious. I had no clue what their fucking deal was at any point. I totally missed the interaction that lets you learn about The Incident and thus get more Loop info at the end, and... it's valid to have different endings in a game of course, but... I felt like I really missed out tbh! And I had no way of knowing I had to keep interacting with the silver coin.... idk. It felt a bit like a gotcha I suppose. And Loop's deal is really cool! Holy hell! I'm doing a quick replay of the game to see more convos with them with this context, and to get the ending with them, and like--!!! There's so much here! Loop tellins Sif to use the royal We, they even tell Siffrin, like-- Loop asks Siffrin why he doesn't just tell his friends about the loops, maybe they can help, why keep it a secret? Meanwhile... Loop!Siffrin is stuck in their own helpless timefuckery world and refusing to let Siffrin know about it! The Siffrin from the Start Again timeline never learned those lessons, they're still trying to help someone else while refusing to ask for help themselves, refusing to even let on that there's a problem! And getting more and more emotionally fucked up about it! Man it's good. I guess it does make a replay more rewarding, not knowing this until the end, the first time, but so much of the game is already a replay that, idk, it does feel weird to replay it. I've already done so many repetitions y'all.... But I guess that's pretty meta, also...

Oh I'm under the impression this is not terribly uncommon but I absolutely did get got by the ?diary? that had the story of the person making a duplicate of themselves so they had someone to talk to. Like I fully thought that was describing the King and Siffrin, I spent a long time under the mistaken impression that Siffrin was a copy of the King in some capacity. Oops.... I might try to gently lead Beloved Roomie away from this interpretation when she plays it. Planning on being pretty hands-off overall but this is one area where I feel it might be justified to violate the prime directive.... But we'll see!

I wish I liked the music more..... This is a game that I think really begs for some real heartwrenching tunes to enhance all of the everything but instead none of it does it for me at all. I think that's a real shame, it's by far my biggest complaint. I'm not asking for Undertale-tier, but, at least something I'd want to put on my playlist for the emotional resonance, y'know?

THEY ACTUALLY KILLED THE KID !!!! LIKE!!!! I guess I have some biases I might should think about but I was not expecting a game that begins with so many explicit pronouns introductions (rather than just giving us context clues) and that has no real cursing to be willing to kill the kid, even impermanently? Let alone so gruesomely? I think I was expecting a much greater level of.... idk, tweeness, fanglessness, than we actually got. In spite of being a fan of insertdisc5's comics for YEARS and years! And like! Damn! Props to them!

God. God. So, like. All the ending fakeouts were fucking great. I genuinely thought the All Friendship Quests ending might be the Real One, I was prepared to be disappointed because it felt too soon and just not.... quite.... right? But I did think that was probably where it was heading! But it wasn't! I got got and it's so heartwrenching and also so satisfying, the mood whiplash from loop to loop is fucking sublime.

And-- AND! The real ending! So like. Some of the stuff I missed was just me not pursuing specific content correctly. But some of it is genuinely just, like, stuff that has no actual purpose besides flavor. Flavor, and.... The locked passphrase door in Dormont. The four-pointed leaf you can get (but not in the final loop!), the bell chime, etc etc. You can't actually really do anything with any of this stuff. But you don't know that! It feels like there's still all these loose ends! And!!! Those loose ends do their job SO WELL! The dev knows Gamer Instincts, knows people are gonna have that mental tally of boxes-yet-to-be-checked. Left some forever unchecked on purpose, which-- At the end, the real end, when Siffrin is about to talk to the Head Housemaiden and find out, for real, if this is the final loop or if it's all going to happen again, again, again. He's scared. He's traumatized! He's thought he Had It so many times! SO many times!!! Hope is terrifying! Hope is a poison! And the game has left these loose threads, and at least for me I really was not sure it was going to work. Like it seemed likely but the same metaknowledge of story structure that made me think it was likely also told me "but wait, there's all these loose threads, and the only way for them to trick us again WOULD BE to make the ending SO elaborate and epilogue-y....." I was nervous right along with Siffrin! I was uncertain! Fucking fantastic work, using my own gamer's instincts against me. Thrilled about it.

All the characters are so well realized. They all have specific relationships with each other, not just with Siffrin (Important!!!!! Huge complaint I had with BG3, they didn't put their whole pussies into this!!!!). And, and, I love how they all have different feelings about the time loops. I love that Mirabelle doesn't want "spoilers," and meanwhile Bonnie doesn't mind them and thinks of their alt-selves as like... them-but-not-them in a very cool way.

There's something about-- the way the game starts as a regular degular videogame and then graaaadually becomes, essentially, a visual novel as the actual gameplay becomes trivialized. Which itself is like, really really cool with the themes! And also, just.... I never would have picked up a straight up visual novel, I just, don't get into them, I'd rather read a book, but! I was already invested! It got its hooks into me when there was gameplay mixing things up and those hooks weren't about to let go just because the gameplay didn't super matter any more!

Straight up when we first see Red I didn't at all process that it was a Color in a game with No Colors, Canonically. They had to spell it out for me. It didn't occur to me to be surprised. I'm just too used to colors existing I guess idk. I think I wish the colors thing had gone somewhere a bit more...? I'm GUESSING it mostly originated as just a cute little explanation for why the game is all grayscale and then fit in with enough stuff to be given elevated importance (?) But it felt... hm. Underdeveloped, maybe. I think I really want more stories in this.... "Setting" and "Universe" and "Series" are not quite the right words but hopefully you get the idea. I want more so there can be one that develops that more. Not that leaving stones unturned is, like, illegal ofc. I just find the idea very compelling....

What is it with time loop stories and themes of loss that cannot be outsmarted. Man. I wondered, for so long, if Siffrin's country was going to be restored in people's minds, if that was one of the main big Plot Things we'd see. And it just didn't! Their memory is going to keep being bad, they're going to keep having all these huge tragic gaps and it's just. What can you do. At some point you have to either be permanently paralyzed by the horrific injustice you've suffered-- or you have to try to live a life. And. Man. I don't think I've actually ever encountered a story that was so much about that exact specific form of loss, the loss of one's culture, history, language! All of it. Gone from everywhere. It made me think of the obvious things and just. Man. What a howling void. The contrast with Odile's deal made it a lot more effective too I think. More of an expanded meditation upon these themes than just one toe dipping in, I guess? Hm.

Odile's battle profile pic when she's at low health is so fucking hot this cartoon character is so hot goddammit.

Game good. You're only reading this if you've already played it, I hope, so I can't use this space to recommend it in a meaningful way but. Heck. Game good.

[httpiastri]

jackie!!!!! i should be sleeping i start classes tomorrow but the oscar smut was so good i almost spontaneously combusted 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 ur so good at writing love u bad !!! i hope ur day goes well not sure what time it is where u are 💘💘💘-💪

darling 😭 aren’t you the sweetest 🥺 thank you so much! that means a lot to me!! i’m very glad you enjoyed it, i love u tons 💗💗 how’s first day of classes? are you enjoying it? is it exciting? pls have some oscar arms as motivation to get you through the day 😚😚

[inkskinned]

the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.

sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.

you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.

it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.

but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.

they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.

they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.

barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.

and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't admit you were sexually assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.

but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.

they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!

this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.