#i really want to do a study of the second sphere

[3-inch-sam]

i get it now

[riiviir]

hey guys so I just started reading Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott and OMG AHSBNSBSBSNSNBSHZHSHDBFHGGHFHGRJ2KSHSBSNSK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I LOVE THINKING ABOUT THE RELATIVITY BETWEEN DIMENSIONS!!!!!!

[bl00dyfaiiry]

Yandere Circus clown x F!reader

Tags: HEAVY non con, abduction, obsession, Reader is 18+, begging, fingering, isolating, clowns, violence, toxic behavior, hide n seek.

People have fears. Heights, spiders, worms—you name it, sometimes I'm wondering if I'm really that childish to be scared at literally a person with costume and makeup, but whenever I hear those giggling, honking and those clowny noise, I can't help but feel shiver in my spine and that paranoia eating me like a quick sand.

It's a sunny day outside, my family decided to go to the new circus that just opened in our town. My family knows it—that ever since I'm a child I have that constant fear of clowns yet they ignored my protest about not wanting to go, too eager to help me fight my fears.

The tent is a bright red color, the smell of popcorn and cotton candy wafting through the air, mixing with the distant sounds of carnival music and the occasional roar of a wild animal. My heart is racing as we walk through the crowd, the anticipation of the horrors that may await me behind every corner is almost unbearable.

The moment we enter the circus, a clown named Sphere approaches us with a smile so wide and eyes so bright that it seems like a mask painted on his face. His hair is a wild mess of colors, and his outfit is a patchwork of patterns that make me feel dizzy just looking at it. He extends a hand with a balloon in it, "Welcome to the show!" he says, his voice a forced cheerfulness that makes my skin crawl.

My family exchanges glances, but then my little brother, Timmy, runs over to him, eyes sparkling with excitement. "Can I have a balloon?" he asks, and Sphere laughs, a sound that is both jovial and eerie. He ties the balloon around Timmy's wrist, the plastic stretching and creaking. I can't help but feel a sense of dread as I watch them interact.

As we walk deeper into the circus, the lights dim and the music gets louder, the smells becoming a cacophony of animal scents, grease, and the faint metallic tang of fear. The clowns perform their acts with a disturbing level of precision, their smiles never wavering as they juggle, tumble, and ride bicycles. I keep my eyes on the ground, trying to avoid any accidental contact with their piercing gazes.

But no matter where I look, Sphere seems to be there. His eyes are always on me, tracking my movements with an intensity that makes my palms sweat. He laughs a little too loudly at his own jokes, his teeth sharp and unnaturally white against the stark red of his mouth. I feel his stare like a physical weight, and I can't shake the feeling that he's watching me, studying me.

During the intermission, I manage to slip away from my family to the bathroom, desperately needing a moment of solace. As I wash my hands, the water cold against my skin, I hear the telltale sound of a balloon squeaking against the floor. I turn to see Sphere leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, his smile still plastered on his face. "You seem to be enjoying the show," he says, his voice a whisper that sends chills down my spine.

I force a smile, trying to keep my voice steady. "It's... interesting," I reply, hoping he doesn't notice the tremble in my voice. His eyes narrow slightly, and for a second, the cheerful mask slips, revealing something darker beneath.

"Just interesting?" he asks, taking a step closer. The way he says it is almost a challenge, and I can see the glimmer of something sinister in his gaze. I take a step back, my hand reaching for the bathroom door handle. "I would have thought you'd enjoy it more, Y/N."

My heart skips a beat at the sound of my name on his lips. "How do you know my name?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. He laughs, a sound that's more of a chilling cackle than a cheerful giggle. "Oh, I know all about you," he says, leaning in so close that I can feel his hot breath on my face. "Every little detail that makes you who you are."

Suddenly, his hand snatches mine, pulling me towards a hidden corner behind the bathroom stalls. The plastic of the balloon still tied to my wrist scrapes against the wall, leaving a trail of paint on the metal. Panic sets in as I realize I'm trapped, my heart pounding in my chest.

"Sphere, let go!" I try to sound firm, but fear laces every syllable. He just smiles wider, his grip tightening. "You're so much more fun when you're scared, Y/N," he murmurs, his voice a chilling caress against my ear.

He starts to pull me through the twisting back corridors of the circus tent, the fabric walls billowing around us with every step. The music and laughter from the main show seem distant now, replaced by the thud of my racing heart and the scraping of my shoes against the floor. I try to resist, to pull away, but his strength is surprising, like a coiled spring beneath the floppy exterior.

As we weave through the shadows, the clowns' dressing room comes into view. The neon lights flicker, casting jagged shadows across the garish makeup and costumes hanging from hooks. The smell of greasepaint and sweat fills the air, thick and suffocating. "Where are you taking me?" I demand, but Sphere just giggles in response, the sound sending a shiver down my spine.

He stops abruptly, spinning me around to face him. His smile widens, the makeup around his mouth cracking as he leans in close, his breath hot and sweet with a hint of something rotten. "Just a little game, Y/N," he whispers, his eyes gleaming with an unsettling light. "You see, I've noticed how much you've been avoiding me today. It's making me feel a bit... neglected."

My stomach turns as I realize the full extent of his obsession. "Look, I'm sorry," I stammer, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. "I just don't like clowns, that's all."

But Sphere seems unfazed by my protests. "Oh, but I like you," he says, his grip on my hand tightening to the point of pain. "A lot." His smile twists into something that's more of a snarl than a smile. "And when I like something, I don't let it go so easily."

Before I can react, he yanks me into the dressing room and locks the door behind us with a final, echoing click. The room is a cluttered mess of oversized shoes, colorful wigs, and garish outfits. The walls are plastered with newspaper clippings and photos of past performances, all with Sphere's face at the center, his grin growing wider and more disturbing in each one.

He releases my hand and starts to circle me, his eyes never leaving mine. The floorboards creak under his weight as he steps closer, his movements deliberate and predatory. "You know, Y/N," he says, his voice low and dangerous, "I think you're playing hard to get."

I swallow hard, my eyes darting around the room for any escape route. The walls seem to close in around me, the clown paraphernalia watching with a silent, malevolent glee. "I'm not playing games," I reply, trying to sound firm despite the tremor in my voice.

Sphere stops his pacing, tilting his head to the side as if considering my words. "No?" He asks, his smile never faltering. "Well, then, let's make it interesting." In a flash, he snatches a rubber chicken from a nearby chair and tosses it into the air, catching it with ease. His eyes gleam with a sick excitement that sends a bolt of terror through my veins.

With a swift pivot on his oversized shoe, he lunges at me, the chicken held out like a weapon. I scream and stumble backward, tripping over a pile of oversized shoes. As I fall, my hand knocks over a rack of props, sending a cascade of plastic horns and confetti into the air. The sudden burst of noise and color only seems to fuel his manic energy. He starts to chase me around the small, cramped space, the rubber chicken slapping against his palm with a wet, meaty sound.

My heart thunders in my chest, the walls closing in with every step he takes. The room is a maze of clothing racks and trunks, each corner a potential dead end. I can feel his eyes on me, the unblinking stare of a predator. I dodge behind a rack of sequined outfits, hoping the fabric will shield me from his view, but his laughter echoes through the room, telling me he's closer than I think.

The rubber chicken hits the floor with a wet smack, bouncing away as he reaches for me. His fingers graze my arm, leaving trails of cold greasepaint. The chuckling turns to a full-blown cackle as he pulls me out into the open. "Why so shy?" he coos, his grin now a twisted, malicious thing. "Don't you want to play with me?"

I stumble backward, my feet entangled in a mess of fabric and props. His eyes gleam with a madness that sends ice down my spine. The cheerful exterior has crumbled away to reveal a creature of obsession and darkness. His pupils are dilated, and the makeup around his eyes has started to run, creating a grotesque contrast against the stark white of his face.

He removed his wig, revealing a mop of wavy short white hair, and his true face emerged from beneath the layers of makeup. Despite the madness dancing in his eyes, there was something eerily attractive about him. The sharp angles of his cheekbones and the curve of his smile made him look like a fallen angel. But the way his eyes burned into me, the hunger in his gaze, was anything but heavenly.

"I know what you're thinking," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "You're wondering why I'm doing this." He stepped closer, his breath hot and sour. "It's simple, really. You see, I noticed you talking to that acrobat earlier." His smile grew colder, his eyes darker. "I don't like it when people I care about talk to other people."

The words hit me like a punch to the gut. "What? I don't even know you," I protested weakly, trying to scuttle away from him.

But Sphere was already lost in his own delusion. "You think I didn't see?" he spat, his eyes wild with rage. He grabbed a handful of my shirt and yanked me closer, his grip like a vice. "You think you can just flirt with him while I'm here, watching you?" His knuckles turned white with the effort of holding back his anger, and the room grew colder with his fury.

"I wasn't flirting!" I insisted, the panic rising in my voice. The clown's smile grew more twisted, his eyes narrowing into slits. "Liar," he hissed, and then, without warning, he slapped me hard across the face. The shock of the impact sent stars dancing in my vision, and I tasted blood on my tongue.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I stared at him, trying to understand what had happened. The pain was a stark reminder of the reality of my situation. "I'm sorry," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I didn't mean to make you feel that way."

Sphere's grip on my shirt loosened, his expression flickering with confusion. He took a step back, his smile fading into something more human. "What did you say?" His voice was softer now, less menacing.

I swallowed the metallic taste of fear and repeated, "I said I'm sorry." The words felt foreign in my mouth, but I knew I had to play along if I wanted to survive. "I didn't mean to make you feel that way."

Sphere's eyes searched mine, the rage slowly draining from his expression, replaced by a flicker of doubt. He let go of my shirt, his hand hovering in the air as if he wasn't quite sure where to put it. "You... you're not lying?" he asked, his voice unsure.

I shook my head, keeping my eyes on his, my voice steady despite the tremble in my chest. "I swear. I wasn't flirting. I was just asking for directions to the concession stand."

Sphere's expression softened slightly, his grip on the rubber chicken loosening. He took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling with the effort of controlling his emotions. "Directions?" he repeated, his voice a whisper.

I nodded, taking a cautious step towards him. "Yes," I said, my voice shaking. "I just wanted to get some popcorn for Timmy. That's all."

Sphere's gaze searched my face, looking for any sign of deceit. His eyes narrowed, but the doubt remained. "Why would you do that?" he asked, his voice a mix of confusion and hurt. "Why would you ignore me?"

I took another step closer, placing my trembling hand on his arm. "I didn't ignore you," I whispered, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. "I just didn't know you liked me that way." His expression softened, and I felt a flicker of hope. Maybe, just maybe, I could get through to him.

He leaned in, his breath hot against my cheek. "But I do like you, Y/N," he murmured, his voice thick with longing. "I've liked you since the first time I saw you." His hand slid from my arm to my waist, his touch sending a shiver through my body. "I want to make you happy."

I knew I had to tread carefully. "I know," I said, trying to keep my voice soft and soothing. "And I appreciate it, Sphere. But I don't think this is the right way."

He looked at me, his eyes searching, and for a moment, I thought I saw a glimmer of sanity behind the madness. His hand on my waist tightened, but his gaze remained on my face, as if trying to read my thoughts. "What's the right way?" he asked, his voice a low rumble.

I took a deep breath, my heart racing. "Maybe we could talk," I suggested, trying to keep my voice calm and even. "Get to know each other without the... the games." His eyes searched mine, his smile slipping away as he considered my words.

Sphere nodded slowly, his hand moving from my waist to the small of my back, his touch sending a shiver down my spine. He leaned closer, his breath warm against my ear. "You're right," he murmured. "Let's talk." He guided me over to a chair in the corner of the room, the plush velvet upholstery a stark contrast to the cold steel frame.

He sat down, pulling me onto his lap, his arms wrapping around me like a vice. "Why are you so scared of me, Y/N?" His voice was a mix of innocence and something darker, a hint of the madness still lurking beneath the surface. "I just want to make you smile."

My heart raced as his hand began to trace circles on my back, the fabric of my shirt growing damp with my sweat. His breath was warm against my neck, sending goosebumps down my spine. "I know you're scared," he whispered, "but you don't have to be. I'll take care of you." His words were a seductive promise, a dangerous lure that I knew I couldn't trust.

Sphere leaned in closer, his nose brushing against my ear as his hand slid up my side, the fabric of his costume brushing against my bare skin. "You're so beautiful," he murmured, his voice a sweet, deadly caress. "Don't you want to be with someone who sees that?" I could feel his breath hitch as his hand moved up to cup my face, tilting it so that I was forced to look into his eyes.

My heart hammered in my chest as his thumb traced the line of my jaw, his eyes searching mine for any sign of consent. His touch was both terrifying and oddly comforting, the warmth of his skin grounding me in the chaos of the moment. But the fear remained, a cold knot in my stomach that grew tighter with every beat of my heart. "Please," I whispered, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. "Let's just talk."

Sphere's smile grew a little wider, his eyes never leaving mine as his hand slid down to my waist, his fingers digging in slightly. "We are talking," he murmured, his breath warm and tickling against my neck. His other hand reached up to tug gently on a lock of my hair. "Don't you want to feel what it's like to be truly alive?"

I could feel the heat of his body against me, the firmness of his thighs beneath my legs. His fingers began to trace patterns on my skin, moving higher, closer to my chest. "You're so tense," he said, his voice a purr. "Let me help you relax." His hand moved up to my shoulder, his thumb brushing against the bare skin of my neck.

My breath hitched as his other hand slid down to my thigh, his fingertips skimming over the fabric of my shorts. "Sphere," I whispered, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. "Please don't." But his grip only tightened, his eyes never leaving mine. He leaned in closer, his breath warm and sweet, a stark contrast to the cold fear coiling in my stomach.

"You're so soft," he murmured, his hand moving higher, dangerously close to the hem of my shorts. His thumb traced the sensitive skin just below my ear, sending shivers down my spine. I couldn't help but lean into his touch, even as the voice in the back of my mind screamed for me to run.

"Relax," he whispered, his breath hot against my neck. "Let me show you how much fun we can have together." His hand slid further up my thigh, the fabric of his costume brushing against my skin, making me shiver. I tried to push away the feeling of revulsion, focusing instead on the warmth of his touch, the gentle way he was speaking to me.

"Sphere, I-" I began, but his mouth was suddenly on mine, cutting off my protests with a kiss that was surprisingly gentle. His tongue slid against my lips, coaxing them open. I couldn't help but respond, my body betraying me as I leaned into the kiss, his flavor a mix of candy and something darker, something that made my stomach twist.

His hands moved with a possessive hunger, one sliding up to cup the back of my head, the other continuing its slow, torturous journey up my thigh. I moaned into the kiss, the sound muffled by his mouth. He took this as an invitation, his hand moving higher, his touch growing bolder, more demanding.

The fabric of my shorts was no barrier to his seeking fingers, and before I could fully process what was happening, he had slid them underneath, his palm cupping my intimate flesh. I gasped, my body responding despite my mind's frantic protests. His grip tightened, his thumb beginning to stroke in a slow, deliberate rhythm that made my vision swim.

Sphere's other hand tangled in my hair, pulling my head back to expose my neck. He kissed along the sensitive skin, his teeth nipping gently, sending waves of pleasure and fear crashing through me. His touch was a storm of sensations, a mix of pain and pleasure that made me feel alive and terrified all at once.

His hand continued to move under my shorts, his fingers teasing and exploring with a possessive hunger that made me whimper. I tried to push his hand away, my body responding despite my mind's screaming protests. But he was too strong, too determined.

With a sudden jerk, he yanked the fabric aside, exposing me completely to his gaze. His eyes widened with excitement, and his touch grew rougher, more insistent. "You're so wet for me," he murmured, his voice thick with lust. "Do you like it when I do this?"

I whimpered, torn between the horror of the situation and the unwanted arousal his touch elicited. I tried to push his hand away, but his grip was unyielding. "Sphere, stop," I managed to say, my voice shaking. But he was beyond listening, beyond reason.

His thumb pressed harder against my clit, sending jolts of pleasure through me that I despised feeling. "You like it," he murmured, his voice a mix of satisfaction and triumph. "You can't hide from me, Y/N." His free hand reached up to grab a fistful of my hair, tilting my head back even further. He kissed me again, his teeth sinking into my bottom lip, drawing a gasp from me that he took full advantage of, deepening the kiss, his tongue invading my mouth.

The sound of his clown shoes squeaking against the floor filled the room, a twisted soundtrack to the horror playing out before me. His hand worked faster now, his fingers sliding inside me with an ease that made me feel sick. I tried to pull away, but his grip on my hair tightened, keeping me in place.

"You're mine," he murmured against my neck, his breath hot and ragged. "Mine to do with as I please." His words were a cold slap in the face, bringing the reality of my situation crashing down on me like a ton of bricks.

I struggled against him, my fear turning to anger and desperation. "No," I gritted out, pushing against his chest. "Let go of me."

But Sphere was lost in his own twisted fantasy. His hand moved faster, his breath coming in short, panting bursts against my neck. "You're so tight," he whispered, his voice a dark caress. "So warm, so wet."

I squirmed in his lap, trying to break free of his iron grip. His fingers moved in a relentless rhythm, each stroke sending a bolt of unwanted pleasure through my body. "Please," I whimpered, the word barely escaping the vice of his mouth.

Sphere's eyes searched mine, his smile never wavering. He leaned back, his gaze raking over me with a possessive hunger that made me feel like a toy in his hands. "Say it," he murmured, his thumb still stroking my sensitive flesh. "Tell me you want this."

I bit my lip, the fear and arousal warring within me. His touch was wrong, but my body responded regardless, betraying me with every shiver and gasp. "I-I don't know," I managed to say, my voice trembling.

Sphere's smile grew a little softer, his eyes searching mine for any sign of willingness. "Shh," he murmured, his thumb circling my clit with a gentle pressure that made my eyes roll back in my head. "Just tell me you want this, Y/N. Just say it." His voice was a seductive whisper, his eyes filled with a desperate need for my validation.

I swallowed hard, the fear giving way to a strange mix of emotions. His touch was wrong, but the pleasure was undeniable, a siren's song that I didn't want to resist. His hand moved in a slow, steady rhythm, coaxing a response from my body that I couldn't suppress. "I... I don't know," I whispered again, my voice barely audible.

Sphere leaned in closer, his breath hot against my ear. "Say it," he urged, his voice a soft growl. "Say you want me." His thumb pressed down harder, and I couldn't help the whimper that escaped my lips. My body tensed, my breathing shallow and fast.

I stared into his eyes, the madness in them now a frenzied need for my acceptance. His hand moved in a slow, hypnotic rhythm, each stroke sending waves of conflicting emotions crashing through me. I didn't know if I wanted this, but I knew I didn't want to fight anymore. His grip on my hair loosened, his hand moving to cup my cheek instead, his thumb stroking my skin with a gentle tenderness that was at odds with the harshness of his earlier touch.

"Say it," he murmured, his breath hot and sweet, his eyes searching my face for any sign of submission. "Tell me you want me." His voice was a whisper of hope, a plea wrapped in the guise of a demand. The room spun around me, the clown's twisted world becoming my own, the line between fear and desire blurring into a haze of confusion.

My breath hitched as his thumb continued its torturous dance, the pleasure building in a crescendo that I couldn't ignore. "I..." I began, my voice barely more than a whisper. "I don't know what I want." Sphere's smile grew a fraction wider, his eyes lighting up with a dark triumph.

He leaned in closer, his nose brushing against my cheek as his hand slid down to cup my chin. "Tell me you want this," he urged, his voice a seductive purr. "Let me make you happy." His hand moved from my chin to the back of my neck, his grip firm but not painful. His thumb brushed against my bottom lip, a silent request for entrance.

And with a tremble of defeat, I parted my lips, giving him the response he craved. "I... I want you," I whispered, the words barely more than a breath. His smile grew wider, his eyes alight with a dark victory. Without a moment's hesitation, he claimed my mouth in a bruising kiss, his tongue plunging deep. His hand slid from my neck to my chest, his fingers deftly unhooking my bra.

The cool air of the dressing room hit my bare skin as he yanked the garment away, leaving me exposed to his hungry gaze. He pulled back, his eyes roaming over my breasts with a greed that sent a shiver down my spine. "So beautiful," he murmured, his voice a hoarse whisper. His hand slid up to cup one, his thumb flicking over the sensitive nipple.

Before I could process the sensation, Sphere was standing, lifting me with him, his hands never leaving my body. He laid me down on the chair, his eyes never leaving mine, the madness in them now mixed with something primal, something untamed. His costume was a mess of colors and fabric around us, a stark contrast to the cold, calculating look in his eyes.

He knelt between my legs, pushing them apart with a force that was surprisingly gentle, given his earlier aggression. His hand slid from my neck to my chest, cupping my breast in a firm grip that sent a jolt of pleasure through me despite the situation. His thumb circled my nipple, teasing it to a hard peak, while his other hand slid back down to my thigh, his fingers tracing the wetness that coated my skin.

Sphere's eyes never left mine, his smile a twisted mockery of the cheerful facade he had worn earlier. He leaned down, his mouth closing around my nipple, his tongue flicking and teasing the sensitive flesh. I couldn't help the moan that escaped me, my body responding to his touch despite the fear that still held me captive. His teeth grazed the sensitive skin, a hint of pain that only served to heighten the pleasure.

His hand slid down to my center, his fingers pushing aside the fabric of my shorts and underwear. I felt his thumb slide over my clit, the pressure building, the anticipation of what was to come making me squirm. He looked up at me, his eyes wild with need, his smile a twisted mockery of the gentle lover he had once pretended to be. "You're mine now," he murmured, his voice a mix of triumph and insanity.

And then he was over me, his clown costume a blur of colors and the smell of greasepaint and sweat. He shoved my shorts and underwear down to my ankles, leaving me bare and vulnerable. His own costume was pushed aside, revealing his arousal, long and thick, standing at attention as he positioned himself between my legs. The room spun around me, the clown's laughter echoing in my ears as I stared up at him, my heart racing with a mix of fear and a twisted excitement that I didn't want to acknowledge.

With a single, brutal thrust, he filled me, his cock stretching me in a way that brought tears to my eyes. I bit back a scream, my nails digging into the chair's velvet armrests. His eyes never left mine, his smile never wavering as he began to move, his hips a blur as he fucked me with a ferocity that was both terrifying and exhilarating. The pain was a stark reminder of the reality of the situation, but the pleasure that followed was like nothing I had ever felt before.

Sphere's movements grew more erratic, his breathing ragged as he claimed my body with an intensity that was almost animalistic. I could feel every inch of him, his girth stretching me to the point of pain, his length hitting deep within me in a way that had me crying out with each thrust. His eyes searched mine, the madness in them now a wild, primal hunger that seemed to devour everything in its path.

The pain grew with every stroke, each thrust hitting a spot that had me seeing stars. My cries grew louder, my body shaking with the effort of holding on to my sanity. I could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks, my nails digging deep into the chair's armrests. And yet, amidst the pain, there was a twisted pleasure that grew with every beat of my racing heart.

Sphere's rhythm grew erratic, his movements more frenzied as he approached his peak. His eyes remained locked on mine, the madness in them swirling like a vortex, threatening to pull me under. And then, with a final, powerful thrust, he came inside me, his eyes rolling back in his head as he released a guttural growl. The sensation sent me over the edge as well, my body spasming around his, my own climax ripping through me like a tornado, leaving me gasping for air.

As the aftershocks of pleasure subsided, the pain grew more pronounced, the reality of what had just happened crashing down on me like a ton of bricks. I tried to push him off, my voice a hoarse whisper of protest, but he was too heavy, his weight pinning me to the chair.

Sphere's eyes rolled back in his head, a low moan escaping his lips as he collapsed against me, his chest heaving with the effort of his climax. For a brief moment, the madness receded, and I saw a glimpse of something almost human, something vulnerable. But it was gone as quickly as it had come, replaced by a cold, calculating stare that sent a shiver down my spine.

He leaned in closer, his mouth hovering just above mine. "You're mine," he murmured, his voice thick with satisfaction. "Mine to do with as I please." His hand slid up to my neck, his thumb pressing against my pulse, a silent reminder of his power over me. I tried to push him away, my strength drained from the intensity of what had just transpired, but his grip was unyielding.

With a sudden, brutal force, he pushed his hand over my mouth, stifling my screams as he climbed off the chair. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, a sinister grin playing at his lips as he moved to tie it around my eyes. The fabric was cold and rough against my skin, the darkness enveloping me like a second layer of fear.

"Sleep, Y/N"

My vision turns black, the handkerchief tight around my eyes, the fabric scratchy against my skin. I can feel Sphere's breath against my neck, his grip on my wrists tightening as he secures them behind my back. My heart races, the reality of what's happening setting in, my fear turning into a cold, hard knot in my stomach.

He stands me up, his hand guiding me to the center of the room. The floor feels cold and unforgiving beneath my bare feet, a stark contrast to the warmth of the chair. His voice is a low murmur in my ear, the words lost in the cacophony of my panic-filled thoughts.

Sphere's hand moves from my waist to the back of my neck, his grip firm and unyielding. I feel his other hand lift, the air around me charged with the anticipation of impact. And then, with a swift, brutal motion, he slams the palm of his hand against the side of my head, the sound echoing through the room like a gunshot.

------------

A/N: part two? ʕ⁠´⁠•⁠ ⁠ᴥ⁠•̥⁠`⁠ʔ

[apas-95]

The last post you re logged about arrestability and the Palestine Action network is something I've been thinking about a lot, and I feel really stuck on. It feels like any movement in the imperial core that wants to take actual direct action is going to find itself targeted by feds, but the ways that you can protect against that severely preclude it's ability to grow and find new recruits. Like, activism in the labor sphere can do more direct things because it doesn't have to be illegal, but I cant imagine that that will stay the case once a political labor party that's actually shutting things down. How does one make a mass movement that takes direct action but is able to prevent itself from getting shut down? I don't know, do you have any thoughts on this?

It's been done a hundred times before in the face of the same pressures, so the first order of business should be studying and learning from the experiences of successful labour movements.

Putting that aside, the key things are, in whatever words, militancy and deniability. By militancy, I mean the organisational understanding that you are in direct conflict with the bourgeois state (at a higher or lower intensity) and that your immediate priority should be making yourself immune to attack, followed only afterwards by taking offensive action. Militancy, then, means the recognition that the ultimate aim of the movement is the complete material domination and destruction of institutions that currently field armies and police networks. From the very first step, from the organisational nucleus, it needs to be understood that you are engaging in a pitched battle from within the enemies camp - which leads to the second key item, deniability.

Deniability, here, largely means compartmentalisation. Essentially every successful revolutionary movement has had a separation between the aboveground, legal struggle, and the underground, illegal struggle. To a certain degree, this is a genuinely covert or clandestine effort - undisclosed armed groups known only to a select few in the parent organisation, attributed funding through the laundering of the parent organisation. It is both essential that any armed cell is dependent entirely on the wide, integrated mass workers movement and that this cell is not actually widely known; hence, the parent organisation. If the cell were undisclosed but not integrated to a mass political organisation, it would not have revolutionary character, and be indistinguishable in practice from a common organised crime or terrorist group. It's ability to carry out correct actions would be incidental, and not self-correcting. If the cell had mass character but was not undisclosed, it would present a target to the bourgeois state and be destroyed. The strategy of asymmetric warfare is to strike at the enemy's undefended targets and to refuse to provide any defended targets for the enemy - this applies organisationally, too.

What needs to be stated, here, is that, given the connection to the mass movement, everything needs to be done only when the situation is correct. The size of a workers organisation necessary to support and supply even a single armed cell with laundered funding, safehouses, and information is extremely large, and will not be possible until a significant level of organisational base has been built and developed. Even once it is possible to support an armed cell, the political situation will very likely only warrant fairly low-intensity actions, like industrial sabotage. Again, though, the principal task of the militant - and the irregular fighter, the guerrilla in particular - is the preservation of one's own forces, over and above the destruction of the enemy. In real practice, there is no overabundance of caution, only hesitation - and the way to consistently and repeatedly carry out simple acts of industrial sabotage is by having three people work with the support of thirty-thousand. There can and must be a continuum of support, of different levels of action, between simply 'protest-organiser who pays dues to the aboveground labour organisation', to 'union salt who is a source of information on a worksite', to 'directly involved in organising and carrying out illegal acts'. The key metric for correct connection between the underground and aboveground sides of the movement is: if the actions of the underground were revealed, the mass base of the aboveground should be in support of it. The purpose of underground organising is not to go ahead of the people and start shooting cops (until the struggle has escalated to that intensity, and people are demanding that type of protection), it is to avoid providing a target for the bourgeois state.

At the higher levels of struggle, the existence of the underground becomes an open secret, which, with proper growth, coincides with the underground reaching a size and strength that it can begin to take up the mantle of the mass movement itself, and effectively transform itself into the parent organisation of the aboveground legal struggle. Until then, the model is that of a large political party leading a mass movement in every type of legal and semi-legal action under the sun (in strikes, civil unrest, and parliamentary campaigns), fiercely supporting those who do break the law (through legal and bail support, public campaigns, and protection), while the types of illegal actions the movement needs are carried out covertly.

TL;DR: Build a mass movement, or all you'll get are ecoterrorists and activists in prison.

[abbyfmc]

Yandere Story Idea #30:

"The traitor /fake friend".

Yanderes must have had some friends before meeting their senpai. I like to think of those kinds of "friends" who envy everything you have, to the point of doing anything to take it away from you (yes, like those friends who steal your partner). Let's say your partner has an envious friend, who is so in love with you that he will do ANYTHING to have you.

So this is the basic story I came up with: Two boys (who I'll call Anderson and William) have been friends since the end of high school (A/N: or as long as you decide), being classified as the "inseparable duo". Anderson came from a financially well-off family, to the point of inheriting the family fortune and businesses along with his brother Axel; while William came from a lower-middle class family with parents who weren't exactly the best.

William was overshadowed by Anderson in everything; in his studies, at work, in the family, economic and social spheres; however, Anderson did not do it on purpose. He always tried to be good to William, since he always defended him from the mockery he suffered for being considered poor.

Anderson was very good and kind to everyone, whether family or not. Unlike many rich and upper class people, Anderson could never look at middle or lower class people as inferior; on the contrary, he treated them as normal people.

William always felt envious of Anderson and secretly hated him for, according to him, "stealing a lot of things from him," when Anderson even gave him work and NEVER stole anything from him.

That's why William set out to steal EVERYTHING from him.

That is, until you met both men. You were a lawyer (or any other profession of your choice) that Anderson and William stumbled upon.

William fell in love with you at first sight, but you never really got interested in him, since you were really interested in Anderson. Anderson also slowly fell in love with you, and over time you became friends, best friends, then boyfriend and girlfriend, and finally married. Needless to say, Anderson was an excellent man to you.

You politely and cordially rejected every flirtation William made, but he refused to lose you to the possibility of Anderson "stealing" you.

This is where William starts to transform into the Yandere fake friend.

Yandere fake friend went crazy when you and his best friend first became a couple.

Yandere fake friend heard how happy you and his best friend were and he couldn't stand it. He would pretend while he was with you or in public, but in private he would curse Anderson for everything.

Yandere fake friend wanted you to look at him at least once the same way he did, but he didn't want to accept the reality that you deeply loved your husband. He hated seeing the fact that you talked nice to him, hugged him, kissed him, or gave him a child.

Yes, the yandere fake friend hated your child so much because is Anderson's child and not his.

However, William wouldn't take off his mask just yet. First, he'll try to take advantage of all the opportunities Anderson has given him to meet people and climb the ranks; second, he'll pretend to be a nice guy to your son; and third, he'll make his best friend believe that he would never hurt him, and that he could trust him.

Then, the yandere fake friend will try to create conflict between you and your husband, with the aim of separating you and making you disappointed in him.

Now, Here I have a couple of scenarios in mind:

You get divorced:

1. The yandere fake friend saw how his plan was successful after finding out about your divorce. You could say he was jumping for joy in his house. 2. The only bad thing would be that your son is between the two of you, but he would deal with him later. 3. Whatever the rumor or reason for your divorce (caused by William), William will make sure that no evidence reaches your hands. 4. Now, the yandere fake friend will try to manipulate you with comfort, support, and brainwashing. He will control situations in such a way that if Anderson sees you in these situations with him, he will become even more disappointed in you. 5. Or maybe the yandere fake friend kills Anderson and somehow manipulates Axel into helping him get a good place in his business. 6. The yandere fake friend will try to seduce you and if he succeeds, he will want and do anything to marry you (and maybe want to have another child). 7. If he fails, he will kidnap you and your child. 8. It is likely that if you fall for his manipulation, marry him and so on, William would make your son a puppet to keep him quiet, since he knows that your son is not stupid at all despite his young age; and that the little boy is suspicious of him. 9. Did I mention that William would secretly despise your son? You don't get divorced:

William will be very angry and will fly into a rage.

He would proceed to plan B, which is to murder his best friend. He would plan an "accident", then take advantage of your pain shamelessly to get closer to you.

Then the yandere fake friend would pretend to be hurt to try and manipulate you.

Since there are no witnesses (according to William), the yandere fake friend was able to continue lying to try to take Anderson's place.

If you fall for his game and fall in love, he'll do the same thing I said before. If not, he'll kidnap you and your child.

When your child is old enough, he will send him to study far away with the excuse of letting him know other places to expand his mind and knowledge, but in reality he just wants to get rid of him.

He only does this because he knows that your son is a hindrance simply because he is the son of your enemy.

If he had a child with you, he will treat it like a treasure.

William would also treat you like a precious diamond.

William will also try every possible way to ensure that Axel doesn't suspect anything of what happened and that he doesn't get close to you, his son (let's call him Dereck) or yours either so that he doesn't investigate what really happened.

If there happens to be a witness, William will extort him, give him money or kill him so that you will never find out the truth or be separated from him.

Ending #1: William gets away with it and never pays for his crimes. He gets rid of Axel and your son with Anderson (Anderson. Jr.) and passes it off as accidents, leaving him with you and only you. 12.1- If you find out the truth about his crimes against Anderson, Axel, Anderson Jr and other witnesses; the manipulations towards his own son Dereck; the hatred against Jr and all the lies, William couldn't believe what you are claiming from him with pain and resentment for all those deaths and tragedies. When he saw the pain, anger and sadness you felt for those people, his heart broke as he desperately tried to manipulate you that it was an accident, but you didn't believe anything and finally you yelled at him: -"Anderson gave you everything! He advocated for you many times, helped you with money and in your studies, he faithfully supported you when you needed it and gave you many job opportunities, HE CONSIDERED YOU AS A BROTHER! And I foolishly fell into your game…"- And with that, William began to show his true colors. 12.2- If you even think of trying to escape or call the police, William will not accept it and will probably keep you kidnapped. If you continue to love Anderson and advocate for him, William will not tolerate his resentment or envy and will kill you because he cannot accept that you, the love of his life, loved his best friend more than him. 12.3- Poor Dereck, upon learning of all the crimes and manipulations his father has said and done, would be so devastated that he would leave that house hating William or he would take his own life rather than continue being his son.

Ending #2: 13.1- The beginning is similar, except that Jr and Axel team up to investigate what really happened to Anderson. 13.2- While William is brainwashing you, Anderson.Jr and Axel are trying to gather evidence, until they finally find a witness. 13.3- It turns out that this witness had not confessed anything because William had him under surveillance and threatened, which is why he could not speak in all these years, with a weight on his conscience. 13.4- Anderson. Jr and Axel managed to convince him that nothing would happen to him, so the witness talked about how he saw William tamper with Anderson's car (the same car that Anderson crashed and died in). 13.5- Obviously both Axel and Anderson Jr. were devastated. 13.6- They both decided to tell you about it and finally open your eyes. Needless to say, you were very disappointed and started to hate William. 13.7- When they got all the evidence, the yandere false friend was arrested, especially for the crime of murdering Anderson. 13.8- Dereck managed to confront him before and after much discussion, William confessed his hatred for Anderson because he "stole" everything he could not have, ignoring the help and consideration that Anderson had for him; the deep hatred for Junior, Axel and the murder of Anderson. However, William tried to manipulate him and did not realize that he was recorded by Dereck himself. 13.9- You felt pretty bad, but not for him but for your children, for Axel and for yourself. You hated yourself for falling for his manipulation, but you hated him even more for everything he did against someone who had nothing but attention for him.

-The End.

Yes, i made an entire story in my head.

[therobotmonster]

"Doctor Martin, why are you an atheist?"

Director Maria Kleinheart wasn't the sort of person who asked indirect or idle questions. She was in every way a Kleinheart, the spitting image of her grandmother. Only she wasn't staring out from a yellowed ad in a back issue of Popular Science or Woman's Day, she was staring from across desk made of polished slate.

Emil Martin didn't respond immediately. That sort of question usually came with an invitation to services or a badgering about Pascal's wager. That didn't fit what he knew about the director, though that wasn't much. An intense religious conversion would explain the rumors around her distance from the rest of her family.

"Director, is this a personal or work related question?" Emil finally asked.

"Work." She replied.

"Is that appropriate?"

"Yes. This is about security clearances."

That made even less sense. Emil decided to risk a lecture on his eternal soul and answered truthfully. "Pretty standard, insufficient evidence."

"Would you rather it be true?" She asked. "Would it be comforting to know you existed for a purpose, that someone was in charge of your existence, caring for you?"

"Not really." Emil replied. "I'm rather Hitchenisan in that regard."

"Good enough. Follow me."

-

"BE NOT AFRAID."

The words seemed to come out of the air itself. The thing was at the center of the large, expansive lab that had once been a missile silo. It was a sphere, surrounded by two rings of brass-like metal. The rings were lined with hemispherical semi-translucent white glass or crystal protrusions. The inner ring spun slowly, as did the central core, though only the faintest irregularities in its glowing blue-white corona revealed that motion.

The outer ring was held in place with steel chains, each link six inches in diameter. Two chains locked the ring to the floor, while a third latched the top to the ceiling. The cuffs the chains connected to seemed to have been welded shut around it.

"BE NOT AFRAID." It 'spoke' again. Its voice was clear and musical, but wrong and artificial at the same time. It sounded like familiar voices; his mother and father, his cousins, his old school pals, his boyfriends, even Director Kleinheart, each synthesized poorly via an AI speech simulator, all speaking in perfect time.

Every time it spoke, Emil smelled his grandfather's sweet cornbread fresh from the oven.

"That looks like an angel." He finally gasped.

"Looks like." Director Kleinheart smiled. He wasn't sure she could do that. "I knew we picked the right man."

"This is why you were asking about my beliefs?"

"Yes Doctor Martin. You see, freedom of religion is an extension of the principle of innocence until proven guilty. Once one faith is shown to be correct, all others are revealed as wrong."

"And you wanted to make sure I, what, wasn't guilty of being wrong?"

"No, the mistaken are innocent of everything except the actions they directly take." Kleinheart continued. "It's the ones who would take this to mean they were right that are fifth columnists to an unaccountable alien power."

"Oh." Emil replied. He didn't know quite what else to say.

"I want you on our team that's studying it. We need to know how it works, what it's made of, what those things its made of can be used for, you know the drill."

"BE NOT AFRAID." Again came the smell of cornbread.

"Are the restraints necessary?" Emil asked. "It is telling us we don't need to be afraid of it."

"Oh, we thought that too at first." The director said. "But we've already learned quite a bit about our little intruder here, even a bit of its 'source code' for lack of a better analogue. That message isn't meant for us."

"What is it then?"

"Can't you guess, Doctor?"

Dr. Emil Martin shrugged. "I have no idea."

"It isn't giving us a warning."

Director Kleinheart smiled for the second time in Emil's memory and spoke again.

"It's repeating its orders."

[aranarumei]

what would separate hirano and kagiura?

so. about that preview of the adult au… I’m sure everyone’s wrecked right now. and I. have some thoughts.

so like, for the adult au to exist at all, harusono sensei has to contrive a situation for both hirano & kagiura to not get their romantic drama in high school, and the same applies for sasaki & miyano. it’d be easy to say that these couples are separated just because they need to be, but i think it’s worth giving them a look. under the cut because i'm being thorough.

for sasaki & miyano, it’s simply that they never meet past their first meeting. hirano doesn’t tell sasaki what miyano's class is, and that’s that. kinda mundane, isn’t it? like… cmon, you’d expect sasaki to try a little harder.

except. well. if there’s any word that defines the sasaki of middle school and most of his first year of high school, I’d say it was apathy. I think sasaki's got a very strange relationship with the idea of force—he uses too much of it on his sister once and subsequently avoids using any kind of physical strength to an extreme degree. he doesn’t break up that fight in the beginning by brawling, and when those kids retaliate he doesn’t hit back (ch 1, 2, and 4 of sasaki and miyano show these scenes, but it's ch 2 of sasaki and miyano: first years that explicitly confirms that sasaki threw no punches) and in a friendly arm wrestling competition he uses basically none of his strength at all (2020 sosenkyo extras). he’s careful in how he speaks to miyano and he feels bad for asking him to quit the crossdressing competition (ch 23, sasaki and miyano). he’s really patient about getting his answer.

in its best form, I think sasaki & miyano's relationship is about Care—miyano is so into his interests and so bright about them, and i think that overwhelming sincerity attracts sasaki, and i think it's a large motivating force in making him a more active person. so in a certain way it makes sense that the way they "miss" each other, in this au, is something that amplifies a negative trait/feeling that exists in the original.

for hirano and kagiura, they don't room together for the next year, and then... they drift apart. but here's what interests me. in the adult au, kagiura gets 61st on his exams. you know what he gets in canon? 60th! that's a difference of one place—the difference is so very clearly not the grades itself, it's internal. @raihanstrapinch suggested that this is perhaps an AU where kagiura took the "one day off" mentioned in ch 19 (you can find the post here) and I think this makes sense for a one place difference! (that one place being the possible cutoff for being able to be roommates again is tragic, though)

interesting is that kagiura says that he doesn't want to look back and regret taking that day off, because then he'll never forgive himself. I think this is exactly what motivates kagiura and hirano drifting apart: shame.

in ch 18 of hirano and kagiura, the topic of "equality" in a relationship gets discussed. kagiura wants to have a relationship between equals, and so that's why they start doing stuff like taking turns waking each other up, and it's why hirano gets kagiura to teach him some basketball. this isn't a new topic, since kagiura's been wanting hirano to be needy with him for a few chapters now, and it's one that gets extended on into ch 24, where hirano makes clear that his 10 seconds is distinct from kagi. reciprocation... it's beautiful.

point is, a lot of hirano and kagiura deals with what hirano and kagiura can do for each other. that's because it's central in establishing their continual understanding of each other. hirano is learning to fall in love with kagi, little by little. they're figuring out their relationship. of special importance is how both hirano and kagiura influence each other in the spheres of basketball and studying.

basketball is obvious: in ch 1 and ch 2, hirano takes care of kagiura so that he'll recover quickly from his cold, and he also helps him handle his loss. it's in ch 17 where we really see the full scope of how it applies to both of them, though: kagiura takes his 10 seconds and gets recharged for practice, and then hirano thinks that he really wants to study right now. despite their differences, hirano and kagiura sharing space with each other makes both of them better at their goals. it's a direct repudiation of the ideas that are floated in ch 11 and ch 13: that kagiura came to the dorm to focus on his club activities, while hirano came to the dorm to focus on his studies. their focuses, then, should naturally be pulled in opposite directions. they might just end up distracting each other.

something that's fascinating about the preview of the adult au is that, after waking up, kagiura demeans himself by saying he essentially has no self-discipline / control. here it's in the context of getting basically blackout drunk, but I think it also reflects how he might've felt back then, getting that grade. he didn't have the self-discipline to balance both studying and basketball well enough, in his own opinion, and since he feels like he didn't try his very best at it ("one day off"), I think he might have concluded, personally, that it might be best to pull back. it's not the first time that kagiura's drawn back, after all: he was like this when he started reacting too much to hirano's touch, and he's still like that because he keeps carefully calculating out his 10 seconds. as hirano says in ch 23, he looks annoyingly miserable when he's like this. he worries so much about crossing the line, about not being as good as hirano thinks he is... to me it's perfectly reasonable that there's a world where kagiura retreats.

in their character descriptions for the adult au, it's noted that hirano is mostly taken up by studying and doesn't socialize much, while kagiura doesn't really talk to anyone outside of basketball-related matters. i think this really shows off that idea of the adult au kind of expanding on a theme that gets introduced in the original, but in a negative direction: instead of balancing and positively influencing each other like they do in canon, here hirano and kagiura have retreated solely into their own focuses.

i think hirano is genuinely rooting for kagiura's success in basketball. he's always so impressed by his passion for the sport, so I think here, along with kagiura's self-inflicted withdrawal, he'd probably rationalize to himself that kagiura's working hard on basketball, and it's... good for him that he's doing so. honestly he seems kind of slow on the uptake with emotions in general so even if he did circle around to thinking about reconnecting, he might've already graduated and it would've felt too weird for him. i also think that, to sort of mirror kagiura's own hard work with basketball, he'd also work hard on his studies. in some strange way, they're still powering each other forward.

[keirawantstocry]

Hi, jay, can I request morning crew being witches(I just really like witches) (I miss both them and witchcraft SMP)

them using different spheres of magic and having hard time combining them, also bitching about each other choices

Kissing you on the mouth /p ofc you can 

Okay ive spent the last few minutes scouring the witchcraft smp wiki to see what vibes you’re most likely looking for and i will now make an attempt :) 

there is some shenanigans altho im not sure how close this is to what you were thinking considering theres so many ways to address witchcraft but i hope you enjoy anyway <3

-

It was no surprise to anyone that Tubbo was a nature witch, it was something everyone had expected. And to a certain degree they understood that he was going to use those powers to do some weird building shit. But holy hell. 

“Actually what the fuck is this,” Fit proclaimed, his hands on his hips as he studied Tubbo’s new creation. There were plants twirling up around dirt in the shape of what seemed to be machinery? It was massive, expanding across nearly a mile of land. 

“Well, I’m not sure what I’m going to call it yet but it’s a lot like a Create machine-” 

Pac and Fit groaned in unison. “You are your Create machines,” Pac said through a laugh. “Seriously what is it?” 

“They’re cool!” Tubbo exclaimed. “What do you want from me! What are you two doing with your magic??” 

“Uh, nothing?” Fit said while Tubbo gaped at him. 

“Please do not tell me that you have the power and ability to control electricity and you aren’t using it to build a single machine or anything.” 

Fit stared at him. The seconds ticked by as they just stared at each other. 

“Holy shit,” Tubbo said quietly. “You are so fucking boring.” 

“Hey!”

Pac laughed loudly. “I mean, Fitch, he kind of has a point.” 

Fit whirled on him. “Oh yeah sure okay, what have you done with your healing magic?” 

Pac’s eyebrows dipped down in confusion. “I’m healing people, what are you talking about? There’s nothing else to do!” 

“Actually, I’m sure you could probably find a way to harness that power and put it into a Create-” 

“Noooo,” Pac howled, dropping down to the ground and slapping his hands over his face. “Not with the Create mod again. Tubbo please. Bom deus!” 

It was Fit’s turn to laugh. “Not so funny now huh? When he’s on your ass about your magic?” 

“Shut up, Fitchie,” Pac muttered into his hands. “Shut up.” 

[purplesaline]

Ran a DnD game for the first time in forever last night. I've only done it a few times before, and never with 5e so a steep learning curve on my part. Everyone had a blast though and I'm really proud of myself for adapting the campaign to better engage the players.

There was a frog race as part of the first encounter and the book had a single roll determine whether someone's frog won or lost, which I found boring. I had a bunch of resin frogs in various costumes already so I painted one for each player and instead of a single roll I made a "course" four squares long. A successful roll moved the frog forward one space, a failed roll kept them stationary, a natural 20 moved them 2 spaces forward, and a failure by more than 5 moved them back one space. I had 7 players so four spaces was plenty long but if you have fewer players and want to try this you can make the course longer.

It was quite exciting! And there was tension! 3 frogs crossed at the same time so the winning pot was split between three players.

We're playing Strixhaven, Curriculum of Chaos, and part of the encounters is class exams. Which, again, the adventure has a single roll for the multiple choice portion and a second roll for the essay portion. Meh.

So I wrote a multiple choice exam. 6 questions long. The players can either choose an answer if they think they know it (and I gave them a chance to study for it over the supper break, and oh you should have seen them! They were studying like it was a real life test. 3 adults and 4 kids under 16. It was so cute), or they can roll a skill check for the question. I read out each question and they wrote down their answers then went over the correct answers and if they got 3 or more right they passed the multiple choice section.

For the essay portion I just had them do the single roll, but a couple who failed the roll asked if they could turn in an actual short essay instead and I said absolutely! If they want to do that I'll give them a passing grade for that portion. Going forward I'm letting them know their next exam topic ahead of time so they can study and write a short essay between games if they want to do that.

They really enjoyed doing the exam encounter! There was a good mix of choosing answers and rolling when they weren't sure. Some people wound up studying stuff that didn't show up on the test at all and missed all the stuff that did, so they did a lot of rolling (the die rolls act like info they would have learned in class so the characters would have known more than the players)

Next session there's a game where the characters can shoot spheres from a magic object into buckets, whoever gets the most in a minute wins. I'm going to have the players toss nerf rival ammo into buckets instead of just doing a die roll.

I also made a physical Bag of Tricks with coloured pompoms so instead of rolling a die to see what animal they pull out they just pull a coloured pompom out and the different colours will be associated with different creatures.

Just little ways to make the game more immersive. I'm not good at doing voices or engaging roleplay (way too self-conscious and one day I'll get over that but I've had other priorities lol), so I wanted to come up with other ways to immerse folks in the world and keep them engaged. Everyone had a blast so I definitely nailed it for this audience at least!

[draculasstrawhat]

Cos I reblogged the accent post, I sort of want to write a bit about British accents and class based on my (admittedly brief) study of linguistics, and a sort of lifelong interest in the matter, if anyone fancies it.

It goes in to a bit of a rant, but hopefully explains why we’re such pedants about why a “British” accent being considered stick-up-the-arse posh is a misunderstanding, and why we might be a bit touchy about the bo’ul of wor’uh thing.

So, first up: accents in the UK are very much a class marker. I know that’s true everywhere, but it is really pronounced here. Because of our linguistic history, we’ve historically had enormous regional variation in accents for such a small landmass, as well as a second accent spoken by landowners regardless of geographical location. Historically, therefore, your social class could be discerned by where you were on the scale of ‘regional accent’ to ‘posh person accent’.

To an extent, this applies/applied to Scottish and Welsh accents, too. Really posh Scottish people do not have, or have a very slight Scottish accent. This is not an accident, nor something people were unaware of - I was reading a book from the 1930s recently where someone was discussing her child’s education and bemoaning his accent, saying “a touch of Perthshire is charming,” but that he’d been spending too much time with shepherds and gamekeepers, and was being essentially ‘too Scottish’.

So, because the vast majority of the Very Posh and Very Wealthy were educated at about three schools, two universities, and inhabited once social sphere, they all spoke - and were taught to speak - in the same way. The name for this accent, as I’m sure a lot of you know, is “Received Pronunciation,” or RP, and we all know what it sounds like, right?

Or do we?

What Maggie Smith (and most of the other actors there) are speaking *is* RP, but it’s not a particularly thick RP accent. Smith - because she’s a great actor and knows what she’s about - is speaking thicker RP than the others, and that’s doing the work of letting you know she’s posher and more old fashioned than anyone else she’s talking to - but still, her vowels are mostly soft and broad, her consonants clearly articulated. It is stage RP, schoolroom RP - but not from an Eton/Harrow/Westminster schoolroom. It’s the sort of accent you were taught at grammar schools, or small private schools to rid you of your regional accent.

Now, of course, if you speak like that in any normal place in in the UK, people *are* going to assume you’re posh. But it is upper middle class posh, working in the Professions posh, rather than “owns half of Buckinghamshire” posh. It’s designed for clarity - which is what people think RP is all about. But it isn’t.

RP is a shibboleth. It’s actually not a particularly clear accent, and it is designed to mark the people who know it apart from those who do not.

Here is a much thicker RP accent: https://youtu.be/mBRP-o6Q85s

(apologies for the national anthem at the start)

If you see, the vowels are a lot higher and tighter, the consonants less clearly pronounced. But it’s still fairly intelligible - Liz is public speaking here and the majority of her audience will not be RP speakers, so she’s speaking slowly and clearly, and she still wishes to be accessible and comprehensible. If you want to hear a seriously thick RP accent, it’s worth looking up some early 20th century radio broadcasts.

The difference is in the emphasis given to vowels over consonants, as well as how much you move your lips. I’m not good at writing IPA as I’ve only done a bit of linguistics, but to give an example - if you wanted to say “I am speaking clearly,” stage RP might pronounce the word “clearly” as KLEER-lee, two distinct syllables, with a clear but simple vowel sound. A sort of mid level RP might say something more like KLE-ahr-lee, giving more vocalisation to the a and the r, making it almost three syllables, although one without emphasis. Really thick RP almost pronounces it as klAR-le, with almost even emphasis between the syllables, and the stress on the ar, rather than the kl.

But although plenty of people still use it, that very thick RP accent has become almost invisible over the course of the 20th century, as part of (if I put my paranoid socialist hat on) a campaign to render invisible the hereditary privilege and enormous wealth disparity which affects pretty much every aspect of British life. Which is to say, the very small number of people who can speak with and identify each other by a thick RP accent still literally own most of the country.

Even if I’m to be a little less red, the fact is during the 20th century, it became expedient for the accepted voice of radio and television to become less that of landowners and hereditary authority, and more like that of the middle classes. Even ‘The Queen’s English’ changed, as the Queen and several politicians took elocution lessons to sound “warmer and more approachable.” At the same time, Britain had a period of unprecedented social mobility in the post-War period and - much like the American conception of “temporarily embarrassed millionaires” - there gradually emerged this cultural idea that everyone was, or perhaps could be, “middle class.”

Even as this was starting to happen, and markers of “middle class respectability” spread (especially in the South East of England) the countercultural movements of the 60s and 70s rejected this very move and identified itself with everything their parents found ‘low’ or ‘shocking’. One of the markers of this was that middle class boys from the Home Counties adopted a kind of ‘mockney’ accent, which along with the success of a handful actually working class artists meant that having a vaguely working-class, vaguely South-Eastern accent became a sign of counter cultural validity and authenticity. (All of this is, ofc, a vast oversimplification - but it’s a general trend.)

From here we have the rise of the Estuary accent. Estuary English is a vague conglomeration of RP and the accents found around the Thames Estuary. It’s neither Essex, nor London, nor Kent, but a broad mingling of the three. It is easily learned and adopted, and - as a composite accent - has none of the shibboleths of real cockney, or Essex, or RP. To speak cynically, it is an accent uniquely suited to code switching. If you have access to RP, then estuary is an accent where you can ‘choose’ how thickly you speak it, or whether you intersperse it with another accent. (An example my mum always points out, although this is a bit pre-Estuary, is in Mother’s Little Helper, Mick Jagger pronounces all his “th” as “v” - but doesn’t use a single glottle stop.)

Beyond the “clear, warm, and authoritative” idea of a mild RP accent, estuary offered a “relatable” and, more importantly, “authentic” feel. Its use as a political tool further closed the gap between people’s perception of their class (and promoted the idea of the UK as a ‘classless society, which, lol) and their actual circumstances. The wildest example of this is perhaps Victoria Beckham describing being driven to school on a Rolls Royce while claiming her family was “very working class.”

Now, Estuary English has a really complicated place in the UK especially in the way it has homogenised regional accents, but one good thing about it is that it normalises and even valorises patterns of speech that have been historically mocked, excluded, and treated as markers of poverty, criminality, and stupidity. Double negatives, the glottal stop, using a hard “ff” for “v” sounds, and a “v” for “th”, and where someone the ‘drops’ and vocalises ‘h’. I said earlier that RP was a shibboleth, and these were some of the most commonly observed tells that someone didn’t belong. Given that the vast majority of social power in England rested in the same area that the estuary accent drew its sources from, it bears a lot of similarities to the accent of the working classes in those areas - the ones most often mocked, parodied, or disparaged by those in power.

And the thing is, people still have those accents - or they have adopted the similar estuary in place of those accents - but unlike BBC talk show hosts, or politicians trying to convince you they’re a “man of the people,” these people *cannot* code switch. They have no access to RP, and their accent - despite being mainstreamed and in some ways privileged - is still used a shorthand for vulgarity and stupidity. It remains a punchline, a joke. They are still constrained by it - they can’t put it aside or mitigate it in formal situations, they can’t leverage RP to their advantage when it suits, and thereby use their actual accent as proof of “authenticity”. For them, the shibboleths remain - just (like thick RP) hidden now.

I don’t want to call it cultural appropriation, because that’s not quite the right term, but there is something very cruel in that way that - in one of the most classist and economically unequal countries in Europe - an accent which apes several working class accents has become enormously culturally privileged, but only when it is NOT used by somebody working class. And although that isn’t apparent to the casual observer - not even the people being totally shafted here - there is, I think, this broad cultural sense that we’ve been had. That we’ve been played for fools on some level it’s really difficult to quantify.

We have been told that class and accent no longer matter - but every day in our lives, they transparently *do*. So anyone hearing my “middle class vowels” will assume I’m posh, and have endless contacts and support - despite the fact I lived a lot of my adult life below the poverty line - but in any situation where being perceived as posh would get me contacts and support, it’s immediately apparent I’m not part of the Old School Tie, because I don’t talk quite right.

Or how a poor kid with an Essex accent will be told they couldn’t *possibly* be discriminated against because of their class, because that’s how all the presenters on Radio 1 talk, meanwhile whole comedy sketches are still written about how ‘ugly’ and ‘stupid’ the Essex accent sounds.

Or how an accent that is somehow globally understood to be one of power and privilege (be it RP or estuary) and can therefore be ‘punched up’ against is - at home - only ever used to punch down on us. How people who want to ‘do well’ have had regional accents beaten out of them (in some cases literally) and were granted conditional acceptance for it, while the same people who’ve owned the country since the Middle Ages got to slum it down with us, without surrendering any of their money or privilege.

It’s… complicated, okay?

[edited for typos, for there were many.]

[ruhua-langblr]

Hi, you seem to have a decent grasp on Language Learning Resources™, so maybe you could help me.

I currently have a 2600+ day streak for Duolingo Spanish, which I initially picked up because I took classes in school and wanted to see if I remembered any. I'm well aware of the limitations on the app, and at this point it's just because I like to see the number go up. I've only ever been a casual student but I would like to progress eventually. The problem is I have trouble finding a method between gamified app, and full-blown, academic, novel -and- textbook self study. Do you know of good ways to move past Duolingo lessons without biting off more than you can chew?

Thanks for any input you have

Hi!

I feel like that "number goes up" connection is the main reason a lot of people don't want to move on from Duo and similar apps! I hope to do a post that goes into all of this more in depth, so consider this a shortened version~

My personal philosophy is that you shouldn't have to chose between just gamified apps and academic study—ideally you need it to be engaging enough to keep up for when you have less motivation, but with an academic rigor! I'm gonna drop some general resources/resource types and try to give them all a shot! Don't think of replacing Duo with a singular app or activity, but a collection of resources that you can switch between.

Anki: SSR vocab learning. Lots of customization and habit tracking features available so consider this a good "number goes up" replacement (and if you really love looking at data it's much more thorough!). With Spanish as your TL (target language), you'll have plenty of pre-made decks available. You can have specific decks, sentence mine, or have a huge 5,000 most frequent words deck. Anki isn't my favorite method personally, but people get SUPER into it and it works for them—also you'll hear this everywhere anyway.

Language Transfer: I wish my TL was one of the ones they have! If you're coming from Duo then you've probably been lacking a good method to really train your listening skills. 100% free, and I've heard great things about their Spanish course as well. All the files are available to be downloaded to listen to offline. Great to put on when you're getting ready in the morning, for bed, or during a commute.

LingQ/Youtube/Podcast Comprehensible Input: "[TL] Comprehensible Input" in the Youtube search will get you pretty far. There are podcasts like this as well, but it's nice to have a visual stimuli as well! This is pretty much the epitome of a ~natural language acquisition~ style. Immersion and immersion at an appropriate level is what works best. If you've even dipped your toes into the language acquisition sphere, you'll know Steve Kaufmann. LingQ is his app that's based on these principles.

Textbooks: Duo assumes that you can just pick up grammar from pattern recognition and that can work, but upper-level nuanced grammar or grammar patterns that are vastly different from your native language are hard to intuit. Find a good, dedicated grammar textbook and use that as what you will learn the details of grammar from. All that audio stuff will teach you what sounds right, this will teach you why/how it's right. (Buy a used textbook, visit your library, or check out my pinned post...)

+More: There's so MANY ways to learn a language. I'm focusing on specific methods that would fit in naturally with your existing habits (solo, digital, habit-forming), but there's tons more out there that you can do: journaling, discord servers, italki, chatting apps, graded readers, etc.

To start pick one that you feel the most drawn to and then a second that compliments where it might be lacking. Make a goal that you feel is reachable, and build from there.

Best of luck!

[idealspawn]

hey..... i must say. this has been the best week of my life. and im filled with utter joy. ive had like a.. rebirth? every once in a while i feel like im born again. the transition is really emotional but they are moreso growing pains than destructive pains. im suddenly surrounded by so many great people and possibilities and i finally feel like life is rewarding me, treating me the way i should be treated. in a way im reluctant to owe it to "faith" and see myself as a passive subject rather than an active agent in this but in a way i think i am powerless in some factors regarding this change. next month its my debut in like a culture (?) newspaper! at least they said they are very interested in my analysis but i havent heard back yet about the second version i sent them. i wrote my favourite poem ive ever written. and ive seen so many movies recently that have served as this transitional border. like as this extremely active sphere of both "death" but also birth. like metaphorically. ive been so vulnerable and i love it. ive cried my eyes out like i havent in such a long time and done like... meta analyses about my underlying beliefs to bring change and new energy into my life. you see.. i get really stuck on like.. nominal labels. at first they describe me but it tends to go unnoticed when it no longer fits or serves me and im only living a certain way just because of this nominal structure. but all these nominal structures are made for us. not that we are made to fit them. ive re-evaluated things now.. also out of nowhere people have been reaching out to me. maybe it truly does show up in my energy when im more open. like that it attracts other open, honest, vulnerable people. ive met so many new people and truly felt seen. this is a big thing for me. for the longest time ive struggled to enjoy time with people because ive struggled to find people who i share some kinds of values. i like diverse people but for example people who are open to explore communication on an emotional and relational level rather than only informational. thats important to me. ive been more confident in sharing my opinions too:) and participating in class and in life. going to places where i know id feel a bit uncomfortable and end up surprised. going to places alone is massive for me. it opens me up to new people and experiences because i simply dont have a choice to close myself off with friends im already close with. a woman came to talk to me after a lecture. she said she had been watching how i take notes in class (i write really fast.. i tend to transcribe literally everything the professor says). she said she has studied palaeography and asked to see my notes to analyse my handwriting :) she said its very unusual for people to still write in cursive if they write with the pen very much pointed upwards, however i manage to do so :D. it really made me want to also just reach out to people... like whenever and for whatever reason. and ive noticed people actually like talking to you when youre authentic and awkward. ive restricted my communication with people SO MUCH only due to the fact that i feel like i might not be insanely flawless in my self-expression. the nature too. the season is such that i see birth and death all around me. and its very refreshing. i like seeing change and being reminded of it constantly. it feels liberating. its a season that many people dislike in my country but im in love. i love people. i love physical touch. i love eye contact. i love emotions. i love ideas. i love agency in breaking boundaries. i love feeling seen and important and useful. i love authenticity and vulnerability.

[koraesrambles]

GREAT READING ADVENTURE PART 1 (CW: pictures from the Sandman comics may be disturbing to some)

I started with the Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. A legend in comic spheres, and one that I'd been wanting to read for a while.

I found 10 volumes at my local library and have made my way through two of them so far. First off, as a horror book DAMN. DAAAAAAAAAAAAMN these books do not pull punches. They come at you like a gut punch and just keep going. I like to describe myself as someone who enjoys "horror lite" I love monsters, I love angst and crazy situations and some messed up stuff, but I'm kind of a baby about it. Things like Supernatural, Gravity Falls (It's kid friendly, but there's blood!), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that's my jam (wow, that list makes me feel about 5 years old, but whatever! I like what I like!). The Sandman Is Not That.

The Writing

Don't get me wrong, it is beautiful in every way, but it's also a lot for a wussy like myself. I'm enthralled, captivated, unable to look away, but there have been multiple times where I've needed to close my eyes for a second and remind myself that this is a comic book, and the world isn't necessarily this dark all the time. I'm pretty triggered by children in danger/getting hurt/dying and these books don't shy away from that. But they're also just . . . so beautiful.

The writing is annoyingly amazing. I expected nothing less, it is Neil Gaiman, but sometimes as a writer you look at other people's writing and just sit back in awe. I wish I could write something like this. Or, if not exactly like this, something as beautiful and poignant as this. The story flows so beautifully. Every scene perfectly blending in with the next. Every word feels like it has a point, which makes you want to pay attention to everything to make sure you're not missing anything.

Writing is my main background, but comic writing is so different from prose. This is what I struggled with the most while drafting up OUTCAST ODYSSEY, how do I get everything across that I need to when I can't just write it all out? How do I pace it when telling a story with pictures vs words feels so different? But Neil does this so well. It felt lyrical, and I could see his influence on every single page. The art was done by someone else, but the ideas, the imagry, the way the story flows from one idea to the next, is all a result of absolutely phenomenal writing.

It reminded me to trust readers to read between the lines. It's difficult to find the line between "subtlty" and "confusing" and I am often guilty of feeling like I need to spell things out to my readers so that they won't miss anything, but more often then not that just slows down the plot and makes the whole experience clunky. You don't want to go too far in the other direction either, but Neil knew who his audience was and trusted them to at least give things a second glance. I was worried at the beginning that I'd be too dumb to figure out what he was hinting at, but he was able to patiently feed me the information without me getting frustrated or lost.

It's a skill that comes with experience and practice, but I feel like this story really really shines at it. I found myself studying the way he handled exposition and wanting to emulate it in my own work.

The Art

The art is also stunning. It's not "cute" art. It's not something that I would want to hang up in my house or look at for hours. It's amazing from a skill standpoint (which is easy for me to tell just due to my own extremely obvious shortcomings) but it's not concerned with everyone looking like hollywood movie stars.

Which . . . I mean, that's definitely a feature, not a bug. This story is not supposed to be cute, and a cutsy art style would absolutely ruin the atmosphere. It is rough and full of sharp points. it doesn't shy away from nudity or gore. The characters are not attractive, these are not anime stars, but they are compelling, and distinct enough that I was able to easily tell who everyone is, which is more often then not extremely difficult for me (i think I may be a bit face-blind).

The art adds to the horror of everything. Even when things are supposed to be calm, or sexy, or whatever, there's an edge of panic and unease to it. Part of that is the reader knowing that there's more going on behind the scenes then the character knows, but it's also the style. The heavy black shadows, the hard lines, the emphasis on some details while the obscuring of others, it all combines to perfectly compliment the writing. It's not a pleasure to look at, but that's absolutely the point. It's also extremely difficult to look away FROM. How can something simultaneously look jarring, eerie, and unpolished, while also whispering "Yes. This is beautiful art. Look at it. Bask in it."?

I'm a newbie artist. It's way beyond my skillset to even begin to figure out how they were able to accomplish this. But someday I hope I figure out the secret.

The art perfectly compliments the writing, and the two work together to tell the story. I remember feeling a little annoyed on the artists' behalf that the Sandman is always known as "Neil Gaiman's" when the art side of comics is so incredibly important. The art sets the tone and compliments the words. It helps with reading between the lines and helping us know how seriously we should be taking the words.

Characters

All of the characters are great! Except the ones I already knew. I'm not saying they were bad, just bland compared to everyone else. Constantine, the Justice League, every cameo that came up and I was excited for felt . . . not quite out of place, but not quite seamless either. I was most excited for Constantine, and he was fine, but I probably have enjoyed him more in every other comic I've ever seen him in. I know they were all included just to try and sell the first few issues of a new story, and I respect that (the amount of comics that I've read just because my favorite character showed up for a few panels is . . *cough* embarrassing), but I was kind of bummed by how little conflict they added to the story.

Constantine immediately agrees to help Morpheus (which, okay, he can see how powerful Morpheus is and doesn't want to get on his bad side, totally in character. But I like Constantine best when he's being a bit of a dickhead), when I was really expecting a bit of tension or at least antagonism between them. We briefly see Etrigan but he is so quickly outshined by Lucifer that I nearly forgot about him, Scarecrow shows up but I didn't really feel like he added much besides a familiar face, we see Scott Free (who I know very little about) and J'onn (whose reaction to Dream was probably the most interesting) but all they do is immediately tell Morpheus where he needs to go. Why were they so quick to be okay with this obviously terrifying powerful force just grabbing stuff? I guess I understand why J'onn was okay with it, since he knew who Morpheus was, but it still felt weird that there wasn't even a single moment of hesitation or resistance. They basically served as a plot GPS.

Again, there's nothing wrong with any of them, they just didn't feel as vibrant as all of the other characters we were introduced to. Even the woman who gave Dr. Destiny/Dr Dee a ride was more vivid and felt more real and purposeful than the cameos did. At least to me.

The original characters (or at least everyone I didn't recognize. Was Dr. Dee a Gaiman original or had he shown up previously? Cuz he was very much A tier villain for me,) were all amazing and vivid and lively. I cared about them way faster than I normally do, especially at the very beginning of a story. The cameos felt exactly like what they were: Cameos to sell the book.

Final Thoughts

This book is, objectively, better than anything I will ever create. And that's not even a diss on myself, it's just objective fact on the quality of this piece. I learned a lot looking through it, trying to figure out what Gaiman did that worked vs didn't. The lyricism vs crassness of the writing, the way the art complimented the dialogue, how the panels flowed and where it was easy for me to follow vs where I got a little confused. It's a beautiful book and I can absolutely see why it's a graphic novel must read. I'm planning on reading the rest of the series, but I can only read one volume a day, because the horror of it all absolutely follows me after I close the last page.

[markiafc]

notes on mlc

some personal thoughts about buddhism and mlc :D in some ways, its a further elaboration of the ideas mentioned in this post. @ananeiah @seventh-fantasy

1.

amongst the 3 main chinese philosophies, buddhism is the closest to my heart and personal life. confucianism comes second as i was exposed to it only in accompaniment to buddhism (studied 弟子规 standards for being a good student and child pretty intensely and its had a lot of presence throughout my life + a more modest focus on 三字经 three character classic). and lastly, i'm the furthest away from daoism. i know little about its texts and theories though most of my relatives are daoist; buddhism is on the scanter side in my family. there's a lot more to chinese philosophy than just these 3 schools, but a lot can still be gleaned from this limited scope.

2.

namely: there is a cultural obsession with organizing society. it extends to other parts of asia as well, but chineseness does have a fixation with inventing structure, with dictating every facet of human life, with creating meticulous and intricate systems that resemble million-cog machines; all the little parts (living, breathing people) must perform what they were designed for, and the whole can then function perfectly. a lot of this lies in confucianism. it devises specific social roles and rituals, it calls for conformity and uniformity, it teaches you exactly how to live. confucianist texts (and chinese governing bodies) tell you what your childhood must entail, what your teenage years must be like, what qualifies as adulthood. what marriage is. what a family is and how to conduct yourself within it. here are the exactly defined spheres that make up your entire life like building blocks. there are details, situations that may arise and the correct way to respond, and there are steps. for every person, regardless of age, gender, race, class, etc. there is a guide to follow and stages to accomplish. this is a system for our benefit. we must abide. don't we all want to be good people and live a good life?

3.

it stands to reason that there is an old and enduring conflict within chinese thought. buddhism, daoism, and other chinese ideologies exist to combat this rigidity, this extensive manual to living human life. they assert that surely there is something beyond. surely there is something more meaningful to our time on earth than propriety, tradition, discipline, etc. does this really establish goodness and generate fulfillment? what are the ingredients to human happiness, really? this interplay lies at the center of these 3 major chinese philosophies. (among a multitude of other things, of course, a highly diverse and ancient culture can't be boiled down.)

4.

sometimes chinese stories explore that unyielding and severe, at times cruel, social order. it is the entire world as far as the eye can see. and these stories draw from buddhism (or other beliefs like daoism, mohism, etc.) to portray a way out. to find freedom from that choking machine. how do we escape institution and systems? from a mahayana buddhist perspective, that question is the same as: how do we be happy? and these are the chinese stories that truly, viscerally gut me to the core because i feel it deeply. it feels true and real and earnest. mlc is one of those stories to me.

5.

briefly, this is on a basic level what chinese buddhism is in spirit:

everything in our mortal world is because of 因缘 cause/effect. every event, every emotion, every phenomenon is a result of something else. and this newly-produced result will then go on to become a cause of its own, inciting other effects. it is a chain reaction.

significantly, it is also a cycle. in the chinese eye, in the buddhist eye, all is conceptualized as a process. everything is broken down into step after step, and understood as such. animals have a reproductive cycle, the chicken and the egg. rain exists via the water cycle. and the human being is the most complex creature of all. we are a result of many, many cycles working in tandem all at once. inside our bodies and our minds, the chain reaction is at play, renewal and cessation and renewal and cessation.

this means that everything is always changing, on a level we can perceive and also in imperceptible ways. everything is subject to change, especially ourselves. this, too, indicates everything is a byproduct of something else. everything has a recipe behind it, everything is a batch of different components, baked together to create the cohesive final product. we look at it and see sponge cake, with frosting and edible decorations. we dub it "cake", and forgo the reality that it is egg, flour, sugar, and so on. we place emphasis on the labelled idea of a "cake". so long as we think inside this framework, an instinct that comes naturally to all human beings, nothing is as it appears.

such impermanence & the human urge to depend on such methods of conceptualization creates suffering.

therefore, never be tricked by form and appearance. always look past the veneer, the whole it seems to be. a cloud is labelled a cloud but it is merely a step in the water cycle, water changing forms. matter is a combination of atoms. and our anger, sadness, discomfort is always more than the simple emotion. look closer. buddhism urges you to dissect it. analyze, question, break down. everything in this world is an effect, it is a construct. it comes from something, somewhere. and then remember, everything is subject to change. even society, especially society.

buddhism repeats over and over again. many things feel true but they are not. it feels true that women are inferior to men, but this reality does not stand up to close inspection. why do we think this? reflect on ourselves, what exactly did we intake that resulted in this final conclusion? what ingredients created and perpetuate this form we label misogyny? analyze, and then change it.

buddhism is a cultivation of the self, an endeavour to re-train the mind to think in new, better ways. it teaches how to recognize falsehoods that pass as unshakeable, irrefutable beliefs. how to remove ourselves from it. and how to master our minds towards better mental processes. this is enlightenment. in buddhism, it can mean so many different things. but the concept is most popularly synonymous with 智慧 intelligence, exactly because buddhism prizes the refined mind. one that is no longer stuck believing in falsehoods and illusions.

how do we be happy? we cultivate a different way of thinking from the mainstream, from traditional society. become unstuck from your old self who is entrenched in our world, along with the fraught beliefs it instills into every single person. nirvana is a state of mind. and happiness is freedom, which necessitates departure.

6.

llh re-evaluates his identity and his life, that is his arc. he pinpoints the beliefs he used to hold, that he was so sure mattered. the idea of heteronormativity and the patriarchy seemed so important to him at the time, it was all there was. but then he comes to realize he was wrong, it was all false. he interrogated himself and those ideals deeply, and spent years cultivating a new way of thinking. he also removed himself physically and emotionally from the world lxy inhabited. by becoming llh, he becomes undefinable. everyone else struggles to comprehend him, they are not equipped with the tools to digest the concept of llh.

(the fact is "lxy" was always there. he was just invisible to others because they simply could not properly process what they were encountering. this happens over and over with fdb and the baichuan folks. it is not his physical appearance, in fact he still looks about the same. he is rendered unrecognizable by the gulf between beliefs. by an inability to perceive what they are actually seeing.)

llh escapes but it is not far enough. society catches up to him again, llh becomes parseable to the world all over again. he is once again defined, and defining himself, through the mainstream concepts. uncle, master, guardian. a friend, an enemy. an ex-lover turned friend, a love rival, etc. his identity is contingent on existing in society. and as a participant in society, he attempts to construct his identity through a combination of labels. he allows himself to be perceived, for it to matter how others view and understand him. to let the way they think inform how he thinks too. the way he lives and goes about his life is wrapped up in new versions of old institutions. labels and concepts all over again.

the different combination of ingredients creates the illusion of a different final product, a different person. and to some, that may be the wisdom and change they need to be happy. not everyone needs buddhism to be happy. but llh makes an effort, experiments, looks closer and closer at himself. and he decides it is not enough for llh, so he transforms. he takes all his time and experience, and devotes it towards a new outlook on the world.

the cycle repeats, and every buddhist can only hope that this time the new round would end differently. its impossible to know but it is always worth trying. because this is the road to happiness; this complete and utter egress. the buddhist ideal of becoming a mystery. to become untouchable by that restrictive society and its standards. invisible once again. impossible to fathom because you are not beholden to definite labels. form and a consolidated, concrete, and organized identity is how the others process the world. but you are not what you seem. you are more than what you appear. your form does not reflect what or who you are.

so how do we be happy? it's simple, we say goodbye.

[cursedwithwords]

HP Next Gen Headcanons: Scorpius

Full Name: Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy

House: Slytherin

Wand: yew and unicorn hair

Patronus: black swan

Boggart: Delphi and/or Harry (separating him from Albus; more specifically being abandoned/alone)

Profession: healer (specializes in curses)

Sexuality: bisexual

Image(picrew):

Bonus: has his mother's eyes. Decides to study healing and curses because of his mother's blood malediction and because he wanted to remove his father’s dark mark to entirely free him of his traumatic past (it takes a very long time but he does eventually develop a counter curse that effectively removes it). Unlike Albus he was interested in Quidditch and tried out his second year but was quickly rejected. Albus was angrier about it than Scorpius. Raised on the fine arts as many purebloods are but is pretty useless when it comes to more basic home-ec like cooking and cleaning. His mother got him into gardening and herbology, which helped him bond with Hugo in particular because he was also interested in it. They get on outrageously well but Rose does not approve of their friendship. Has a close relationship with Lily, who absolutely loves him, as well as with Teddy who used to babysit him when he was super young. The first time he sees Albus is actually when Teddy shows him a photo of himself with the Potter kids (always thought he had super pretty eyes). Suffers from lingering effects of the cruciatus curse that Delphi used against him, like phantom pains, stiff hands and difficulty breathing when it gets too cold. Has ptsd from the incident and consistently has nightmares about losing Albus. Initially thought Harry was literally the coolest SOB in the universe until he started school, and by the end of fourth year actually became really frightened of him ("please don't take albus from me" that kind of thing). He really likes Ginny but is super shy and nervous around her.

Extras:

Wand Wood — yew

"Yew wands are among the rarer kinds, and their ideal matches are likewise unusual and occasionally notorious. The wand of yew is reputed to endow its possessor with the power of life and death, which might, of course, be said of all wands; and yet yew retains a particularly dark and fearsome reputation in the spheres of duelling and all curses. However, it is untrue to say (as those unlearned in wandlore often do) that those who use yew wands are more likely to be attracted to the Dark Arts than another. The witch or wizard best suited to a yew wand might equally prove a fierce protector of others. Wands hewn from these most long-lived trees have been found in the possession of heroes quite as often as of villains. Where wizards have been buried with wands of yew, the wand generally sprouts into a tree, guarding the dead owner’s grave. What is certain, in my experience, is that the yew wand never chooses either a mediocre or a timid owner."

What better wand for a healer who specializes in curses than one of yew powered by unicorn hair? Scorpius receives this wand from Olivander after his first wand (willow and unicorn hair) is broken by Delphini. While Scorpius is quite timid in the beginning, he gains a new confidence in himself after the incident. Still somewhat timid in nature, he is not a pushover when it comes to the well-being of others. The wand sensed this, as well as his ambition to cure curses, and became his perfect match. It is outrageously powerful in his capable hands, and it will work for Draco or Albus, but only if it absolutely has to (this wand absolutely picks favorites).

Patronus — black swan (very uncommon)

"Black swans are one of the most protective and loyal animals. Witches or wizards who cast a black swan Patronus are often very loving, empathetic, and caring towards their friends and family. A black swan Patronus will defeat the darkness of a Dementor with a light of love and kindness."

Like the swan, Scorpius is a very loving, empathetic, and caring person. He is protective and loyal and very kind. I give him the black swan rather than a white swan because it's so uncommon, and because I think Scorpius is an uncommon sort of person. At first glance, you may feel put out by a black swan because it isn't what you'd expect. A first impression of initial unease and fear. This goes for people's first impression of Scorpius as well because they label him before getting to know him.

[kalchips]

INTRODUCING.

(niko terho, 27, he/him, cis man) — hey, that’s KALLE 'KAL' LEHTO ! did you know they’ve been living in golden view for TWO YEARS ? i heard they’re an ASSISTANT PRO ATHLETIC TRAINER and often hang out at FRANGIPANE. people say they’re EASY GOING, but also INDULGENT. they live in apartment 14c and are currently NOT LOOKING for ONE roommate ROOMMATES WITH QUINN MCKENNA. they really remind me of… unruly curls bouncing with movement, early morning workouts to start the day, the sound of athletic tape coming off the roll, & singing in the shower. — ©

ABOUT.

tldr; kal was born to barbadian artist and finnish hockey player, grew up bouncing between the US and finland. he played hockey growing up and thought he was going pro until injuries playing college hockey got the best of him. instead, he got his masters' in sports medicine after finishing undergrad. he spent one year serving as assistant athletic trainer at university of michigan, before getting an assistant athletic trainer position with the san jose barracuda where he has now worked for three years.

— kalle lehto was globe trotting long before he was even born : conceived in bridgetown, barbados, spending much of the nine months in his mother's belly in the united states, before finally being born in rauma, finland. as for his parents : it'd been love at first sight between a talented barbadian mural artist adanna and a finnish hockey player arvo lehto, and the rest as they say, is history. they had kal rather young, but the young couple were more than up for the challenge.

— much of his childhood years where in finland, summers in barbados visiting family on his mother's side, looking for some stability in their lives as his father entered the nhl. somewhere around age 11, they moved more permanently to the united states, following his father whose career had stabilized at this point with the panthers.

— they spent a good few years in the outskirts of miami, before they moved north to boston when kal was 15, again following the trajectory of his father's path.

— kal took all this moving in stride, and maybe it was a little cool to grow up in and out of nhl dressing rooms. through this semi-tumultuous period of growing up, sports were the one thing that kept kal grounded outside of family. they helped him make friends, establish a place for him, and growing up playing pond hockey in finland, it brought many fond memories. and kal was good at it.

— he was recruited to play at the university of michigan, where he played, studied movement science at the school of kinesiology, and flirted with the idea of going pro one day just like his father. it wasn't so much of a pipe dream as a potential reality : drafted in the second round of his draft year, and recruited to UM. however, pro dreams ground to a halt in his junior and senior year, when injuries plagued and sidelined him, even despite the efforts of trainers and his own education. some things aren't meant to be and that's okay.

— the door was far from closed. kal ended up applying to the graduate sports med program at UM his senior year, keeping his options open and ultimately going that route. he knew if he were to go a trainer's route, that he wanted it to be in the hockey sphere and this afforded him the ability to do so. he received his nata certification not long after graduation.

— the summer after his graduate program, he was lucky enough to be given an assistant position with team finland at the ii.hf world championships ( maybe a little bit of nepotism was involved but we don't talk about it ). that summer, while he applied to a few positions, none were willing to hire and he ended up back in UM, filling a trainer role for the men's hockey team there.

— part way through the season, he heard through connections about a potential opening with the ahl san jose barrac.uda, and was always in conversations with management there before the opening was even posted. his initiative paid off, and by the time the next summer hit, he was given an assistant athletic trainer position with the san jose barrac.uda, as much a stepping stone to the nhl as it is for players.

PRESENT DAY.

— kal just wrapped up his third season with the san jose barrac.uda ( ahl affiliate to the san jose sh.arks ), serving as their assistant athletic trainer. however, he has only been living at mit heights and golden view for two years. however, he definitely visited mit heights frequently in his first year !! while summers are usually spent completely in finland, he's decided to stay in the states this time to attend some sports medicine conferences and seminars to continue his learning and network as well.

— living in mit heights may seem a little obtuse for someone working in san jose most of the time, but it's not a bad drive. 45 minutes to an hour and it has lovely coastal views — and ofc he drives a hybrid. he likes that peace ( and affordability ) of mit heights, and being a little removed from everything is nice too. he lived in san jose his first year with the barracuda and it was fine. but when quinn told him about mit heights and they made some haphazard plans to move in together, well kal never really looked back. this will be his first full summer in mit heights but he's really looking forward to it !!

— without the responsibility of the season to keep him busy this summer, kal has queued up a whole slew of things to do ( besides his conferences and seminars ), primarily : part time deck-handing on ferries and tour boats, and volunteering with youth hockey camps and summer hockey leagues.

— in the rest of his free time, he'll be dedicating a little more time to his usual hobbies : sketching, karaoke, rock climbing, hiking in the mit mountains, keeping his workout schedule, and trying every pastry at frangipane and pretty much every sweet in mit heights.

— always always always starts his day with a specific workout at the gym or a run ( he has a schedule based on the days ). it gets him in a good mood for the day and he likes to stay in good shape.

— kal likes to be out a lot. while he's come to enjoy time at home more now that he lives with quinn, he still gets restless and likes to be outside as much as possible. in finland during the long summer days, it's not uncommon for him to not step foot inside unless the sun is down.

— while kal likes routine, he's not afforded much of it during the season, or rather, he cycles through several different ones depending on what his responsibilities for the day are : a routine for game days, a routine for practices, a routine for player's days off but he still has to go in to prepare and organize things, a routine for off days... it's a good thing he's so organized. organized chaos for sure.

MISC.

— citizenship : united states & finland

— skills / hobbies : sketching, singing, playing the guitar, rock climbing, hiking, sailing, multi-lingual, cooking, hockey, soccer, chasing after dogs

— languages : fluent in finnish (first language), english (second language), and spanish (product of living in miami) ; able to muscle his way through bajan ; understands enough german and swedish to not be totally lost — languages are by far one of the things he entertains himself with on the long bus trips to games, by which he means he watches tv shows and movies in said target languages.

— for someone so easy-going, it comes as a surprise to some that kal is so organized. his trainer's kit and room is always impeccably neat and well-stocked. he was quickly put in charge of placing supply orders because he always had a good grasp of what was needed and when. his apartment is also clean and organized. he can't stand coming home to a messy apartment after roadtrips. his positive trait is he never leaves dishes in the sink.

— good at cooking and often does so for himself ( & quinn ). he makes a whole range of healthy and well-balanced meals with caribbean, asian, latino, and scandinavian influences. while he's not a dietician, he knows his way around nutrition well enough. protein heavy dishes tend to dominate his dinners for quinn and himself. when he has the time, he likes to make his own bread. spring rolls are his go-to snack. pickled herring is his second.

— kal doesn't do any formal dancing, but he is coordinated. he likes club dance floors and is never one to stay on the sidelines sipping a drink unless the company is good.

— can, will, and does slay at karaoke. he also has a tendency to sing in the shower and doesn't sound half bad. while he doesn't ever think he has interest in becoming a musician, he does play guitar as well. it's good for campfire nights.

— he does indeed like kale chips

PERSONALITY.

+ active, adventurous, athletic, calm, capable, easy-going, resourceful - boyish, indulgent, obsessive, escapist, avoidant, nosey, a worrier

— kal comes across incredibly boyish when people first meet him : from his easy-going demeanor to his smile to his unruly curls, it's probably the first word that comes to mind. it's true that kal tries to take life not so seriously : he likes to have fun and he's not shy in admitting that. indulgent in that if he wants something, he will have it : his college years were mixed with plenty of hookups and parties and nights out.

— active, adventures, athletic : they all go hand in hand. kal's not one to remain still for very long, loving his job as a trainer and not always knowing what the next day or week might bring. he likes being challenged, and that shows in his hobby of rock climbing too : loving figuring out the best run to take in a physical setting. he loves to try new things, and he'll do anything at least once even if it doesn't sound like a great time.

— but other times, he leans too much into being active and physical. another thing about kal is he's a worrier. he has a tendency to fawn though he does an admirable job at keeping this buried and professional when on the job. when it comes to those he cares for though, he can't help but be concerned, always ones to text and call and reach out first.

— but he's never been one just to assume that things would just be handed to him in the hockey world just because his father played and now works in it. he's always put everything into whatever he does, to the point of being obsessive over it. it surprises some how serious kal takes things underneath that infectious smiles and relaxed posture.

— he's good under pressure too : calm & capable even when things start going south. it's one of the things that made him a good defenseman when he played, and one of the things that will make him a fantastic athletic trainer in his career ahead. though he's been fortunate to not have faced any extremely serious injured players that have involved a stretcher or trips to the hospital, his skills remaining sharp when faced with the unexpected have come in clutch again and again.

— kal is resourceful too, never one to back away from something because he didn't have the right tools to do it. this means he's often one to try to fix broken things himself : with a mixed bag of results. he probably should leave the plumbing issues for an actual plumber. but they say a lack of tools breeds ingenuity and some of his college dorm experiences definitely reflect that. on the job, though he always tries to be well stocked, it means he's able to quickly read situations and figure out a solution with what he has. perhaps in another world, he would have made a fantastic paramedic.

— kal can't help but be curious about other people's business, maybe defining him as a bit nosey. he's not one to want to start drama, but boy does he love to hear about other people's drama and gossip. he's not overly aggressive in this, not one to pry forcefully, but he's always going to listen and ask some very well-placed questions.

— a problem solver what it comes to everything else, it all balances out when you take into account kal's escapist & avoidant tendencies. he doesn't like conflict, to the point where he's been taken advantage of because of it. he's not always the best at seeing when he's being used and it's lead to some less than ideal situations. as he's gotten older, he's definitely gotten better at being an advocate for himself, but it doesn't change that fact that he likes everyone to like him and able to rely on him — even if maybe he should take a step back and take care of himself first.

APPEARANCE.

— 5'11" ; tall by average metrics, short by hockey player metrics

— 192 lbs, a strong build — he likes to stay in very good shape.

— black, loosely curly hair, long enough for the curls to have definition and look unruly ; medium tone skin ; dark brown, friendly eyes ( reference )

— demeanor : good & strong but relaxed posture, quick to smile, welcoming, someone who would hold the door for you or pick up something you dropped, tries to make people feel comfortable in his presence, non-threatening despite his muscled stature

— modifications : pierced ears, though he doesn't wear earrings on the job ; no tattoos ; varies miscellaneous scars

— style : practical but fun, mostly whites and neutrals but doesn't shy away from colors or patterns when the opportunity arises. probably wears too many tank tops / muscle tees. loves a good sneaker, admittedly partial to converse in every color but white is classic. not much into fancier dress but cleans up very nice. has a few bespoke suits.

OOC.

hello everyone !! i'm ollie and i can't wait to get things started 💕 i haven't written anything out wanted connection-wise but please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any ideas. i will reach out as i read intros and am inspired. i'm also very open to going off chemistry and seeing what happens.