#in that i get vague forms etc but nothing concrete

[lunacias]

these are the silt verses, and I name our disciples thus

[rs-hawk]

I don't think i can explain to you the near-boundless giddy excitement I got form seeing EJ on that creeptober list of yours. (If it's not obvious, he might just be my favourite, snort) Looking forward to all of em tho ~!!

He’s GREAT. I used to have so many head cannons about him since so little is actually known. This story is actually based off my hc about his origin. I hope you enjoy!

Creeptober: Day Three

Eyeless Jack’s Obsession

Yandere! Eyeless Jack x AFAB Reader

CW: horror themes, stalking, blood, pain, death (not of reader), hypnosis, breeding, etc

Eyeless Jack was once an ordinary spirit. He lived his afterlife the way most spirits do. Bored and alone. However, that all changed when you bought the mansion in which he resided.

You moved in without ever seeing the place in person, which you soon regretted. The entire place gave you a creepy vibe that made the pit of your stomach twist into knots. At all times it felt like something was watching you. Stalking you. Filling every room with its presence.

And he was. Jack was following you no matter where you went in the house. It was like you were a drug and he was an addict. Being around you made him feel almost alive again. And the more alive he felt, the more he could interact with the physical world.

Soon he was moving things. Taking things from you. You noticed but kept trying to brush it off. You hoped thought that you were going a little crazy. After all, you worked a remote job and lived in this big creepy house all by yourself. You were supposed to fix it up and sell it for your aunt, who hadn’t lived here in decades, but it was hard. Even with the money she gave you, you struggled to make up the remainder.

Eventually though, you did, and construction started. You still lived in the loft like area that was once an attic while the crews worked downstairs. Unfortunately for the construction workers you hired, Eyeless Jack wasn’t as enthused with the intrusion into your space as you were.

On the very first day, a ladder fell over, nearly killing one of the roofers. He was fine, but he refused to return as he said he was pushed. The next time a ladder fell, a few days later, someone did die.

You heard the screaming and the sound of a body hitting the concrete. It took you a few minutes to rush downstairs. Terror filling your body. Did someone really just die on your aunt’s property? Holy fuck. How would you be able to keep living here? That poor man and his family.

While you were panicked, Jack was ecstatic. He hoped now you would send all these other people away so it could just be the two of you again. All he wanted was to be able to have you all to himself again. As he watched you panic, and the other workers calling the cops or trying to scrape their dead friend’s body off the concrete, he realized that he had blood on his hands.

For a few moments, he just stared at it. Vague memories of being alive and kicking blood from a cut on his finger drifted through his mind, but nothing solid. It was too long ago. Too hard to remember. Yet, his tongue darted out to flick across his palm.

The blood in his mouth solidified some of the memories, and made him feel almost alive. In a frenzy, he licked the blood from both of his hands, the coppery and metallic taste filling his mouth. His eyes glazed over and all he could think of was getting more blood. How much could he touch then? Could he touch you?

The next few days were a blur for you as you worked with the company and your home owners insurance to work out the logistics of the worker’s accident. Everyone saw that he just fell. The ladder was properly secured. No one was messing with it. He was acting responsibly. He wasn’t impaired or intoxicated. It was a freak accident.

But you knew. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you knew. It was because of that disturbing presence in the house.

You decided that you wanted the renovations done as quickly as possible, so after getting some of your money back from the previous company, you hired another. And another. And another. Every time, someone died. It was horrifying. One man came to your house just to survey the land and came across a missing roofer. He looked like he had been ripped open with a man’s bear hands, and, to both your and the surveyer’s horror, all of his organs were missing.

That night you called your aunt and told her that you were done. In the morning, you were leaving. She didn’t even try to protest after you told her everything that had happened. Jack, having over heard your conversation, was furious. He couldn’t lose you.

Over the past few months, he had undergone a transformation. Every bit of human flesh he consumed made him more solidified. More tangible. More alive. However, his face has become mutated and disturbing. Where his eyes once were, were just empty chasms, dripping black blood. His skin turned to a disturbing shade of ashy gray. So, to prevent your terror as much as he could, he carved a mask out of a piece what used to be a blue shelf. Now there was no reason for you to rebuff his affection.

When he made his way up to your room, you were on your laptop. In seconds, he tossed it from your lap, and your phone was pushed off the bed. He was on his knees on the foot of the bed, leaning over you, caging you in with his arms.

A scream welled up in your throat as the black holes bore into your eyes, but a muttering voice soothed the fear away. Your brain turned fuzzy. It was like you couldn’t think for yourself. He tilted his head, which you mimicked.

“A pretty puppet,” he purred, stroking the side of your face with one of his hands.

You couldn’t think of anything. It was like his eyes had drawn every thought or ounce of individualism from your skull. When he told you to take off your clothes, you did. When he told you to lay down, you did. You couldn’t see his mouth, and his voice seemed to come from everywhere, but you knew that it was him talking.

“Make sure your pussy is good and wet for me,” he instructed, and you obliged.

You began to finger yourself, using your other hand to play with your clit. The soft whimpers and moans that escaped your lips had him gritting his teeth behind his mask. He wanted to take you so badly, but he also wanted it to be perfect for you. His little morsel. He wanted to be apart of you. For you to be apart of him. Forever.

Once your juices began to drip onto your sheets, he finally cooed at you to stop. You did. Despite the frustration and throbbing of your pussy. He was still caging you in with his arms, his form nearly engulfing you. After a moment of watching you squirm, your neglected cunt clenching around nothing, he eased back. Unzipping his pants, and pulling down his boxers, his hard and throbbing cock was shown to you.

Once his hypnotic gaze was broken, your mind began to flood back to you, and the sight of something so massive made you try to scamper back on the bed. However, your loving Eyeless Jack realized that his hold had been broken and grabbed your face, forcing your gazes to lock. Once again, anything in your mind seemed to melt away.

“Spread your legs,” he instructed. And you did.

He slowly slid inside of you, watching your face intensely as it contorted in pain and pleasure. He stretched you out to the point that you felt like you’d burst. Your walls were still throbbing with need, forcing you to clench around him. Clearly to his immense pleasure.

“There we go. Mine. So good for me,” he moaned as he finally sank his cock deep inside of you, his eyes flickering away from your face for just a moment to see how your stomach extended from his cock.

When his gaze returned to you, he saw tears in the corner of your eyes. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to me, won’t you?” he promised, cupping your cheek almost tenderly again. You nodded obediently.

He was only slow for a few thrusts before losing what little of his kind remained. It was clear he wanted to care about your pleasure, but the decades of death and isolation left him desperate for the comfort and warmth your pussy brought him. The tip of his cock slammed against your cervix repeatedly, making you wince. He muttered out apologies, but never stopped. Never slowed down.

His cock ripped you slightly, blood beading along your tender lips. He muttered out another apology about how he’d make it up to you, and all you could do was whisper out an “okay”. It took hours for him to finish, and when he did, he slammed himself deeply inside of you, his cum pumping directly into your womb.

“There we are. Now I’ll always be apart of you,” he smiled, pulling up his mask to press a kiss to your forehead before disappearing.

As your mind came back to you, you winced at the pain, but wondered with a twisted hunger if he would come back for you.

Like this story? Support me on Ko-fi ☕️ ❤️

[xshimaeraxx]

DISCLAIMER: I HAVE NOT PROPERLY READ THE LIL LUCIFER AU. I AM WORKING PURELY OFF OF WHAT CC HAS SHOWN US AND WHAT I’VE LEARNED AB GABRIEL’S CHARACTER WHILE DIGGING THRU BRIGHTGOAT’S VARIOUS BLOG(S) & SKIMMING LL. U’VE BEEN WARNED.

i feel like we dont acknowledge just how menacing the character of gabriel truly is. for all us purely cc viewers, we know next to nothing about him other then he’s one: quite obviously the Archangel Gabriel (also mugs you IDIOT how can you not see that PLEASE /silly), two: weirdly fixated on mugman & mugman alone (we have not seen him interact meaningfully with ANY OTHER MAIN CAST CHARACTER in cc other then mugman except for once when he introduced himself to cups), and three: he does not mean mugsy well.

now, ik some of y’all’re gonna argue with me on that last point, but i feel like it’s pretty clear?? he baited mugs with the encohian, he has this menacing/condescending look on his face a good 40-50% of the time (ALL WHILE AROUND MUGS, MAY I ADD) and i think it’s quite obvious he’s behind the statue(?) disappearing in the recent comics.

and remember, we don’t even know WHY he turned up in the first place. the obvious/easy answer is that he/the archangels/only-God-knows-who (quite literally) noticed that mugsy was getting too close to “going rogue” when it came to wanting immortality, but the thing is, that just seems too easy.

1: Mortals who want immortality/fear death enough to do something… rash are, i’d bet, practically a dime a dozen, ESPECIALLY in the isles where immortal beings (devil, all the other lords of hell, the calix animi, etc. etc.) are, if not exactly the norm, then at least vaguely known of; so i doubt that ANY of the archangels’d “waste” one minute on some random mortal or another going insane with their want for immortality (like mugman seems to be on the path of.)

2: now, one COULD make the point that due to the fact that cuphead & mugman are both a: the last descendants of the Calix Animi, and b: people who’ve been revived over 100 times makes them “special cases” in the eyes of the Heavens Above - but that begs the question of why didn’t the archangels/heaven/God stop the Calix Animi from reviving people? revival is a form of immortality, after all, even if an unreliable one, and if them wanting to STOP mortals from accessing immortality was the reason Gabe approached mugs, then the whole Calix Animi would likely not have ever even existed. so it’s that’s not the reason

3: pointing a big fat thumb back at my earlier point of “why did Gabriel even become AWARE of Mugsy’s immortality problem in the first place”, i propose this: something happened. something Big. something that we did not see. cc’s pulled the missing scene trick before, after all, with the Mortal Blues comic strip, and so i propose that cc is pulling that trick AGAIN and that Mugman did Something Big to trigger getting an archangel’s (potentially multiple) attention(s) on him. what the hell did Mugman do, i don’t actually know, and nor do i have any concrete guesses, but i’m betting he did something, and that THAT something is what got Gabriel to approach him.

anyways, all this to say is I Do Not Like Nor Trust Gabriel (and neither should you), and am very scared indeed for what Camodiel has planned for my bbg mugsy :cri:

[ay0nha]

Some Unholy War | Theseus Scamander (IV)

SUMMARY: Theseus was always talented in thinking clearly. Logically. He wanted you to be wrong, but your instincts pushed you to keep moving. It was the only way to stay one step ahead of Sinclair. It contrasted Theseus’ plan to stay put within the walls of the Ministry. You contrasted his very being. 

PAIRING: Theseus Scamander x f!reader  

WORD COUNT: 1.1K

WARNINGS: canon-typical things, flashback of sorts, mutual pining, semi enemies-to- lovers, always a protective Theseus, SLOW burn, etc.

A/N: HELLO. Again, this took me longer than I would have liked. So, rather than rushing it, I’m going to break it up into two parts...I’m going to take a lil break to get my head together, but I’m v excited in how this second part is going to go!!! So, stay tuned...As always, thank you, @kalllistos​​​​. Comments are always welcomed. Enjoy.

PART I, PART II, PART III

Effort was a comical notion.

Magic required it at times, just as breathing did. The effort now felt good, worth it. The icy air that reached the ends of your lungs stung. Yet, each breath was quieter, the effort only coming in the form of physical mechanics of pushing a warm breath back out that the air around you marked.

“Are you mad?” Theseus’ exclamation hadn’t taken any exertion. The pent-up anger almost made you flinch. Theseus yelled after you as you continued forward. He never begged you to stop; he told you. Sometimes you’d listen just to display your wit.

You were quiet, entering the idyllic fog, hoping it would swallow you whole.

“Keep up….” Your voice was airy, the instruction more for yourself. The memory was faded, your mind trying to hold onto it as it threatened to slip between your fingers.

It started in Theseus’ office—a muddled memory overlapping with the friction of everything around you. It was more a feeling, something foggy and unrestrained that called you forward. It felt a bit like apparating, where your body didn’t quite belong for the moments it took to find your footing again.

You scolded yourself for not seeing it clearly; that was the thing about divination.

Although studied meticulously, its real trait was its vitality.  It shifted and molded. Evolved.  It made even more concrete things seem like rubber, rejecting electricity with an uncanny ability to mold into shapes unknown. It was the type of thing that could be so exciting to happen just to become something so vague that it no longer held value to it.

Theseus’ words were drowned out as your ears produced a ringing. All you could hear was your shaky breaths, and all you could see was a faint familiarity with your surroundings. Even your stumbling steps backward felt practiced.

Your breath became labored as the hazy recollection returned. Even through the blur, you saw how the tips of his ears and nose burned red with frustration. It was a trait of his that remained as he rose so many inches he towered over you, and his hair curled the longer her let it grow.

The years did nothing to change it.

“This is it….” Your fingers fumbled with a curl at the nape of his neck. His hair was long, longer than he usually kept it. Time had gotten the better of him. How could you be so blind?

Theseus’ tirade wavered. He was supposed to be angry. He was supposed to do so many things, but your touch felt like an enchantment. It reminded him of how dangerous you could be.

The walnut of Theseus’ wand was always stiff, but it cast its spells briskly and powerfully. Ollivander told him it wasn’t rare to be drawn to the material, but it scarcely paired with dragon heartstring. Because of the extreme dominance of this wood, the core was stoic and gentle and had done Theseus well from the moment he received it. Yet, pressed against your chest to stall your next step, it felt that even the wand knew it was a misguided action.

“Don’t be foolish, Theseus.” You spat at the gesture. His wand only pressed into your chest as if trying to will away his emotions. “Don’t you recognize where we are?”

He shook his head. If he looked beside him, he knew he would crumble.

You tried to reason, “We couldn’t stay there. The Ministry—

“We’re going back.” Although his voice was steady, emotion wavered in his eyes. “I won’t fall into your trap. You can’t just—

“It’s too late.” You pushed forward, the wood digging into your clavicle with drive. “I’m ruined anyways.” The invariability of the words reflected your decision.  “By your hand or his.”

Theseus was always talented in thinking clearly. Logically. He wanted you to be wrong, but your instincts pushed you to keep moving. It was the only way to stay one step ahead of Sinclair. It contrasted Theseus’ plan to stay within the Ministry's walls.

You contrasted his very being.

“Why did you bring me here?” Anger drifted from Theseus’ voice, and the space it abandoned was soon tenanted by something else—a kind of endearment, muslin light.

Theseus first brought you there for a quiet you didn’t know you needed. It was ambient full of croaking creatures and twigs snapping from the pressure of unknown forces. It was a blissful oasis that lured you into its dark depths.

The environment was damp, still reflecting the country’s dreariness. It was hidden, though. A broken-off path Theseus—well, Newt—had stumbled upon in childhood. It was a good hiding place to play, to sneak, and for you to abuse.

“I didn’t see it coming.” It felt strange to admit your best-hidden secret. “Any of it.” Your eyes remained on Theseus, willing trust to transfer. “But I just couldn’t—I knew deep down, I couldn’t lose everything.”

One time, you came to read Theseus’ palm under the full moon—a silly excuse to feel the weight of his hand in yours. The times following grew, the touches still shy with adolescence but bolder in a discovery of emotion.

The memory was a shared favorite, an inside joke of sorts to make the other feel warmth in your fingers that spread to the center of your chest. You hadn’t meant to bastardize it, but its safety was all you could rely on.

“But this, I saw this.” You would continue until Theseus understood. You had told him of your vision all those years ago. It was your only justifiable proof. “This needs to happen.”

Recognition flashed across his features.

Theseus dropped his wand with a tight breath. Looking to the sky, he became lost in turmoil. Once his gaze hit the dirt beneath his feet, it did nothing to aid him. You watched his fingers pull through the hair at the back of his head as if unraveling an answer.

You spoke when his hand fit over his mouth in frustration. “You promised me.”

“We were teenagers.” He snapped, denying the truth. “What did I know about prophecies?”

“Enough to believe me.” You felt young again, begging Theseus to revert with you. You wanted to hear his reassurances, his bold-faced vows to remain by your side despite the trouble you found.

That holiday, you told him everything—your plans to run away, the images that flashed in your dreams of the future, and how he centered them all as an essential turning point.  It spilled out of you, and you couldn’t stop. At the time, the swampy place was at the core unbeknownst.

If Theseus had known, he may not have regretted the promise to always be there for you. No questions asked. It sounded embarrassingly naive. You could still hear how desperately he wanted you to believe him. Even then, you knew it would lead to something like this.

Even then, just as now, you diminished how well Theseus knew you. “What aren’t you telling me?”

[notenoughdragons]

i just got to the big backstory dump (aka the ~dread wolf's~ regrets/memories) in veilguard and. uh.

obvious caveat, i'm not done yet with the game, but anyways

h o w is this so neat (solas Was a spirit! origin of first elves! reason for the war with the titans! concrete blight origin!) and yet ALSO THE MESSIEST FUCKING SHIT

i canNOT imagine they had this whole blighted-gods-will-break-the-prison thing planned during trespasser/da:i like. the disconnect??? yes, solas obvs knows SOMETHING about the blight in da:i, but EVERYTHING he says is about the veil, about the mistake he made and what it cost the elves/spirits

LIKE CAN WE BE CLEAR HERE!!! "the blighted evanuris are going to break out of their prison so i need to put them in a different one" is an UTTERLY different argument to "i (ACCIDENTALLY, APPARENTLY) made the veil Too Big and it fucked up everything so i need to fix it"

like even ignoring all the ways this doesn't gel with trespasser/tevinter nights/etc, and how apparently nothing the inq did wrt solas mattered EVEN A LITTLE BIT it's fine i'm fine i just have to play cognitive dissonance any time either of them opens their fucking mouth

this is fucking messy as hell in veilguard alone??

how does this not come up in ANY of the arguments prior to this. like solas Tells Rook that he wanted to transfer the evanuris bc more secure prison and 'YOU COULD'VE SAID THAT' is? not? one of the dialogue options??

but also varric keeps harping how solas wants someone to sell him a better option, solas himself sounds bitter as fuck that no one actually managed that during the ritual convo

it's like 2 separate arguments trying to happen in tandem and NEITHER OF THEM actually works

like i legit don't know anymore what they're trying to do here? 1st they completely sidestep the core (emotional) conflict set up by da:i and trespasser (can you convince solas otherwise, and if not, How on earth do you stop him? => lol nevermind you can't, and stopping him is super easy actually), then they… bring it back in? kind of?? (varric, lace, inq, and now morrigan all making points re: maybe you can talk him around somehow/influence his fate) With A Character Who Has 0 Emotional Connection To Him, it's fiiiine but then also the whole blighted-evanuris-will-break-free angle is. There. and it's just, what are we actually arguing about now???

also i'm just gonna say it. absolutely not a fan of the implication that the veil in its current form was Fully an accident. like can we stop absolving this man of responsibility (the veil was an accident! mythal made him do all of it!) and at the same time heaping more blame on him in the weirdest fucking ways (still the veil! the blight! dwarves not dreaming!)

i Liked that the veil was smth he created knowingly, bc it was the least horrible, but still Horrible option, and he still underestimated how bad it would be. that's good drama! good tragedy! you thought you could live with the consequences but you can't! and bc you Knowingly and Deliberately made that choice, now you are convinced to the nonexistent marrow of your bones that you specifically HAVE to undo it!

instead it's like. welp the evanuris are gonna break out soon so i gotta put them in a different, Better prison (which is somehow real easy this time around????), and i Might As Well pull down the veil too and get that mistake sorted out

fucking christ.

AND WE'RE STILL NOT TALKING ABOUT THE FACT THAT SOLAS CAN CLEANSE THE GODDAMN BLIGHT

also they nerfed mythal. both in the backstory character-wise, and narratively in the present, bc welp! she's just here to drop some vague lore and info! and then they fucking pulled a mystra on the fragment of her that you Do actually get to meet. where is my horrific dragon all-mother goddess

(not even joking, they should've just gotten flemeth's va for her, this one has like. 0 presence in comparison.)

like. stay with me here. yes i know the point is that the evanuris weren't Actually gods. but also they're 1. literally a diff type of being than modern people. 2. for someone to be seen AS A GOD, even falsely, in a world that is as infused with magic and buckwild shit that we know ancient arlathan to be? i'm expecting more than the most milquetoast glowing elf lady you've ever seen

dumping the sentinel designs from da:i was a Mistake, and okay Now i can climb off my soapbox, tyvm everyone

[glitchyred]

I think ARGs are a really fun storytelling format that works really well sometimes but I also think it's rarely utilized well. I think a lot of ARG creators get really caught up in trying to be mysterious and unpredictable and end up creating an incoherent narrative. There's cases where that in-and-of-itself is done well, like if a story is Intentionally supposed to be very vague and up for interpretation, but it's clear some of these projects are supposed to tell a complete and concrete story and just like. Do not succeed. Because in the process of hiding everything in coded messages, vague terms and riddles a bunch gets lost in translation and you wind up with a lot of Nothing. ARGs are a format that discourage transparency between creator and consumer so you risk ruining the Vibe and breaking immersion if you're too blatant about correcting or clarifying something

I think games/movies with ""ARG elements"" for lack of a better term fall victim to this the most. Probably the most popular example is FNAF. Because of how FNAF's story is told I don't think we'll ever get a concrete answer on what the story Is from its creators. We're supposed to figure it out ourselves but so much is hidden in codes and symbolism and Easter eggs and references that it's borderline impossible to tell what the story Is. It's impossible to tell when things are retconned or are just references for the sake of being references etc when it's kind of the point that it's creator Won't Tell Us. It would be fine if FNAF's plot was up for interpretation but we've been told multiple times that it isn't, there is a "correct version" of the plot that will still likely go unrewarded should anyone figure it out

So like I enjoy narrative ARGs or stories with ARG elements for what they are. It's a really unique and fun form of viewer engagement that you can't really encourage any other way. But I think way too many people get into them trying to tell one wholly coherent story which isn't really something the medium lends itself to very well - it can be done, but I think there's only a few stand-out examples of it succeeding. It just works better when the story intentionally doesn't have an answer for everything, because otherwise you risk putting your fanbase through an endless goose chase you can barely aid them on

[thedeafprophet]

17 for your gang -- I'd love to also know which of them you think have it worst overall

17. What is the worst thing you have put your OC through story-wise?

Oh... see now this is an interesting one. Because like. Josephine and Alex I feel have more specific 'worst things' (and also more the games fault then mine), vs Jamie and Rory is more like, a general theme of bad things rather then concrete moments

Alex

His backstory is pretty filled with bad moments (his mom dying in childbirth, the house fire, overall abuse and neglect) but honestly I still think the actual game events of Light Fingers qualify as the worst thing I put him through story wise.

The whole 'absolute horror of the orphanage', 'being burried alive', 'dealing with a stalker', etc. etc. kinda trumps any childhood trauma. Y'know. so i can't say I am to blame for the worst things Alex has been through story wise. But I sure did choose to put him through it

Josephine

Josie gets a combo ambition related and backstory related. Nemesis pretty much sets that up.

Nothing could triumph over the abosloute horror of Josie loosing her older brother when she was 10, not long after loosing her parents to illness.

Coming home that day to that scene will forever haunt her. She wasnt able to move past it. And she never will.

Jamie

Jamie's 'worst thing' is a bit more ambigious, but honestly is probably their struggle with mental health and addiction/alcholoism. Which of course, is spurred on by their experiences with abandonment, bullying, general isolation, attachment issues, and, unknown to them, untreated adhd.

They struggle pretty heavily with dark thoughts and often self sabotage in situations. In culminates overall to being their greatest struggle, a battle they dont always know they are fighting.

Aurora

Rory, again, is a bit more vague rather then a specific moment. Rory's struggles form around societal expectations for women and her own complicated feelings towards gender and sexuality.

Her life was a constant struggle of trying to fit in a role she could never match, being an adopted child of a wealthy couple who couldnt have kids themself. The inherent struggles of having a mother is a prime thing for Rory, combined with needing to fit a mold of feminitiy she didnt match, and expectations for marriage and having children

For her story, this rejection of expectation is a prominent aspect of her story.

----

I dont like to compare 'who has it worse' in things. A fundmental theme with my ocs is the various ways different people will react and be shaped by trauma, and how theres no one way things will go. Everyone is different. We are shaped by our pasts, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.

....But obvs Nemesis and LFs are a bit heavier in terms of plot.

I think Josie and Alex are fairly tied, in different aspects. But Jamie is also probably one who's really struggled with things too so hmmm.

Ask Game From Here

[needabetternamelater]

"A vague goal that is decades if not more than a century away does not have all its next moves planned out for you." Prison abolition is a very concrete goal. Second, you just said it was more plausible in the 70s and 80s. "No one has a decent answer for you because it don't exist. " Probably should have figured one out prior to calling for prison abolition. "In the same way that no revolution has its planned marginal tax code figured out I, personally, cannot give you a well planned idea of what we do with murderers and rapists now or in 50 to 100 years. " You have already proposed to abolish the current solution so you'll need to do better than that. "Neither you nor I have the solution to crime nor all the relevant facts regarding percentages of violent offenders whose cases are genuine who has made efforts at rehabilitation etc. etc." uhh...prison's the answer. Duh. "Choosing to do nothing until someone has a white paper that satisfies you is not viable, so it is gradual reform that reduces the need for prisons in other ways until finally all you're left with is the people who are seemingly too dangerous to be otherwise managed." Yes, and those were the people under discussion?

" Frankly, your last line there is exactly what I'm describing. "nordic style prisons" also don't work fully but are a much preferable and more functional solution to the issues that prisons currently imperfectly solve. " Except we can all scroll up and you called to abolish prisons. "Get us down to Danish prison numbers and then we'll see where we are once we've got some breathing room." Again, you called for zero. " However, we cannot just decide we're going to make all the prisons in the US into really nice little apartments like the one for anders brevik. the entire population of the countries doing the nice, upscale prisons is 27 million total. the population of the united states is more than 331 million. the US prison population is close to ten percent of the entire population of Greenland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland combined. " JFC. We're discussing the few hundred murderers and rapists that you claimed were easier to deal with. Why are you deflecting onto everyone else? "The reason the nordic system of anything works is that there are very few people living there and, most crucially, so importantly, is that most of those nations have a sovereign wealth fund based off the exploitation of their natural resources, specifically oil and gas drilling. This is much the same in Canada. The money to do the meager social programs comes from corporate extractive industries that are then also unleashed upon poorer nations in Africa and S. America. In essence, a form of resource colonialism. " It doesn't matter if it's as 3 x espensive per prisoner if you only have 0.25 x the original number of prisoners though. "And even then, the money to support the cushy prisons, nice healthcare systems, all the nice and good things of the nordic model and to an extent the canadian system, it isn't enough. We see this more with canada due to their larger population of 38 million. the money doesn't go very far when you are a nation that consists of more than a handful of major cities and scattered villages of northmen. Now, this would be somewhat less the case for Canada and for the assorted scandanavians if they reigned in more of their extractive industries profits, but I'm sure you know why that is unlikely to happen." No, I don't see why it's unlikely for this to happen when you actuallly address my actual point and not a thing you like more though.

who’s left- Mariame/Prison Abolition

by Flynn Nicholls

[thoughtsonhurtandcomfort]

Notes: In theory this is the start of a story I’ve been carving out in my mind for a little while. I have a lot in my head but how much of it will make it into writing is up in the air and I’m going to try not to pressure myself about it. If it happens, it happens. :) This is a little rough around the edges but it’s what I’ve got, first time writing in...a couple months probably?

Oh also, while this is going to have references to things like heaven, hell, god(s), the devil, angels, demons, etc, it’s all intended as generic fictionalized versions of these things (a la Supernatural, Good Omens, etc.) . I’m borrowing what I want and making up the rest. I’m definitely not trying to invoke or get into specifics about religion or whatever.

Some picrews of ‘phina here, here, and here

Content warnings: lady whumpee, angel whumpee, fallen angel, vague religious undertones, captivity, attempted? torture, shot with an arrow

"God is dead and the Devil, too. Demons spill out onto the earth, some wreaking havoc, others seeking freedom. Human civilization falls and those who remain do what they must to survive. Meanwhile, the angels lock themselves away in heaven, indifferent to the suffering below.”

----

Seraphina has hardly ever peered down on the world, let alone hovered this low above its surface. In her lifetime - a handful of centuries compared to other angels’ millenia - she never had reason to, her duties keeping her relegated to the safe, incorporeal existence that is the celestial realm.

It is the first time Seraphina has seen her own physical form. Or, at least, a glimpse of it - bare feet beneath her and hands held up before her face.

So...human.

Seraphina feels over the shape of her body, its hills and valleys, the softness of unmarred skin. She lifts a strand of hair to feel its silkiness and take in its color; she reaches out her arms and runs her fingers across the immaculate feathers of her wings. Loosely draped fabric billows around her in the wind.

She smiles.

She could change this form if she wanted to, but she decides she likes it. Besides, there’s no need. Seraphina is only taking a look, and will be back to her truest form soon enough.

Or so she believes. If she knew what would come next, perhaps she never would have left.

—-

Though the chains are wrapped tight around her arms, legs, and wings, they don’t hurt. Try as the humans might, nothing hurts, and Seraphina isn’t afraid.

Still, she occasionally shifts and twists in the bonds, seeking freedom. She should be able to break them with a mere thought. Effortlessly. But it seems that the humans have not only found a way to trap an angel, but to bind one.

So bound she is, her back to the concrete wall of a building that toppled decades ago. It’s one of many like it, while around the remains of the past a makeshift settlement of small wooden buildings and tents has cropped up.

She isn’t used to hearing sound, only communicating through thought and will. And still she hasn’t heard her own voice, only spat insults and curses and the arguing of human voices.

“This isn’t working.”

“Then we keep trying. Look at it, it has a body. Something will work.”

“Yeah, except we’ve been at it for hours and nothing has worked. Even the chains aren’t leaving a mark.”

“Then we. Keep. Trying. Look how close we are. If it can be caught, it can be hurt. And if it can be hurt, it can be killed!”

Seraphina is more curious than afraid as she takes in the small group of humans with a calm, unblinking stare. If these are an average example of humankind, she isn’t impressed. They’re crude, dirty, and uninteresting.

Also, they keep trying to hit her with things.

Blunt wood beams and metal bars, knives and swords, a chain flicked like a whip. Rocks flung and arrows fired. All with brute force intended to cause harm, and all deflected off of the shimmering boundary of grace around her form. Nothing can pierce it. Soon enough they’ll grow bored of trying and set her free, she’s sure of it.

After a few more tries they do frustratedly give up, but only for the time being. The chains remain firmly in place.

Time passes quickly for Seraphina. She takes in the bustle of the humans as they go about their day. Most won’t come close. They cast her glances that range from fearful to disgusted. Some hurl hateful words but these bounce off her as easily as the rocks they throw.

Day passes into night. Seraphina takes in the shifting of clouds, a sunset that glows an eerie pink, and then the sprinkling of scars across a blue-black sky. The moon is no more than a sliver.

Seraphina doesn’t tire or hunger. She doesn’t grow cold from the night air or sore from long hours spent like this. Her desire to return home is more an instinctive pull to where she belongs than any sort of discomfort or yearning.

But in the morning there is the subtlest change. Seraphina only even notices it in contrast with the serene nothingness she has felt until now.

It’s the chains. She can feel their press around her just the slightest bit. For once she doesn’t feel completely weightless. But she doesn’t know what the feeling means and it allows her the peace of not worrying - even though a day has passed and she hasn’t been freed. Even though no one has come for her. And even though, again, the small group of humans who brought her here approach with their weapons.

Another onslaught. Several more hours pass. One by one the humans give up again, until only one remains. He’s a young human who seems more interested in shirking his other chores than in whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish, so he nobly volunteers to stick around. He pulls out a quiver of arrows and goes about sharpening the arrowheads one by one.

The subtle heaviness Seraphina is experiencing continues to grow as the time passes. Worry begins to creep in, an unsettling flutter deep inside Seraphina that she has never felt before and cannot name. And when her grace begins to flicker uncertainly around her the unpleasant feeling only grows.

“I need to practice my aim,” the young man says aloud to himself. He stands, slings the quiver over his shoulder, picks a bow, then turns to face her. “Might as well make you useful.”

He nocks an arrow and aims it at the bound angel.

The first shot hits the stone just inches from Seraphina’s face with a sharp crack that startles her - another all new sensation.

She locks her eyes on the man, willing him to continue missing though it makes no sense. Human weapons can’t harm her, why should it matter?

His next few shots glance off her like a breeze, like every other attempt the humans have made. This time, though, the barrier flickers with every hit. Seraphina notices her own breaths for the first time. She didn’t even know angels could breathe.

An arrow deflects off of her ankle and although it still doesn’t pierce the barrier, Seraphina feels it. The slightest tap, yet startling and new enough to make her leg twitch in response. From afar the human notices the reaction and suddenly there is renewed interest in his eyes.

He gathers his arrows and starts again, firing one after the other in rapid succession. Seraphina trembles, at a loss for what to do. She cannot move, she has no power, each hit she can feel a little more than the last, each seems to come faster and faster and - - -

Blinding agony erupts all at once from a point low on her stomach, just above her right hip. It engulfs her, consumes her like a fire that must be from hell itself because never, not once has she ever felt anything like this oh heaven make it stop make it stop make it - 

Seraphina throws her head sharply back against the wall. She lifts her pain-stricken face to the sky.

The first time she hears her own voice, it is a scream.

[cyaneyesullivan]

listening to WAP and having thoughts...

i took my interest off petekey for a while to focus on other stuff, but everytime i listen to Fall Out Boy, the wonder and amazement spark back immediately... i’m still completely blown away (among other things) by how much Pete must’ve liked (loved) Mikey to keep up with it for so long -- or how much he feels in general. and even if the songs aren’t about Mikey (i have discussed this briefly), it doesn’t change the fact that Pete is absolutely tormented by his own emotions. it’s kind of fascinating.

with that being said, i’m in the mood to list off all the suspicious lyrics ever written by Pete that makes me go “damn, Mikey really did a disgusting number on him” or like, “poor Pete man”

disclaimer: again, these lyrics, let alone songs, might not be about Mikey, but i choose to believe so. i have to satisfy my fixation and bedazzlement on the fact that petekey highkey happened in the summer of 05. 

i’m only including my favorite songs or i’ll be here all night.

italic = my favorite lines

in no particular order:

Bishops Knife Trick (a LOT to unpack in this one): - And I’m living out of time, eternal heatstroke - Spiritual revolt from the waist down - To the places that we never should have left - I’ve got a feeling inside that I can’t domesticate, it doesn’t want to live in a cage, a feeling that I can’t housebreak - And I’m yours, ‘til the earth starts to crumble and the heavens roll away - I’m struggling to exist with you, and without you - I’m sifting through the sand, sand, sand, sand, looking for pieces of broken hourglass - Trying to get it all back, put it back together, as if the time had never passed - I know I should walk away, know I should walk away - But I just want to let you break my brain - And I can’t seem to get a grip - No, no matter how I live with it

Heaven’s Gate (some interesting elements here that describe Pete’s all-consuming yet destructive love) - If there were any more left of me, I’d give it to you (this one is just a personal favorite, not particularly related to Mikey) - Go out in the world, start over again and again, as many times as you can - ‘Cause everything else is a substitute for your love - I’ve got dreams of my own, but I want to make yours come true (another personal favorite lol) - You’re the one habit I just can’t kick

The Last Of The Real Ones (i adore this song but it leaves a lot of space for vague interpretation, so I’ll just list off my favorite lyrics that give me goosebumps when I think they’re meant for Mikey) - You are the sun and I am just the planets, spinning around you - You were too good to be true, gold plated, but what’s inside you? - I know this whole damn city thinks it needs you but not as much as I do, as much as I do - I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me - That ultra-kind of love you never walk away from - I am a collapsing star with tunnel vision, but only for you - My head is stripped just like a screw that’s been tightened too many times, when I think of you - Just tell me, tell me, tell me I, I am the only one, even if it’s not true, even if it’s not true

Just One Yesterday (oh my lord, this one lmao -- honestly the whole song has this odd vibe that it’s a pointed jab at Mikey) - Anything you say can and will be held against, so only say my name - I’d trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday (any notion that suggests Pete is obsessed with the past is a win) - I want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way - I don’t have the right name or the right looks, but I have twice the heart (i just feel like maybe he’s implying he’s not a girl and that does not please no-homo Mikey) - If I spilled my guts, the world would never look at you the same way (lol) - And now I’m here to give you all my love - So I can watch your face as I take it all away

Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet (my ultimate favorite of FOB. unbeatable. i had to put it here if only to honor it) --> i talked about it before -- there are no obvious marks of petekey here, but i made a post on it in the past

Immortals (lolol) - I am the sand in the bottom half of the hourglass (hourglass, time, past, bottom half, Pete is still waiting for Mikey, blabla) - I try to picture me without you but I can’t - ‘Cause we could be immortals, immortals, just not for long, for long - And live with me forever now, pull the black out curtains down (blocking public exposure?) - I’m still comparing your past to my future - It might your wound but, they’re my sutures (Pete’s heartbreak = big inspiration that keeps him writing lyrics therefore having a career?)

Centuries (obviously) - Some legends are told, some turn to dust or to gold - But you will remember me, remember me for centuries (they must have done super crazy shit back in 05) - And just one mistake, is all it will take, we’ll go down in history (presumably, their story must be so nuts it will end up in a massive gossip explosion) - Mummified my teenage dreams (his songs lol) - No it’s nothing wrong with me, the kids are all wrong, the story’s all off, heavy metal broke my heart - Bruises on your thighs like my fingerprints - Cause I-I am the opposite of amnesia (notable, since there is concrete evidence of their ‘lovestruck summer’ in the form of a million of his lyrics) - You look so pretty but you’re gone so soon - We’ve been here forever, and here’s the frozen proof (again, his lyrics, photographs, dramas, tweets etc)

Irresistible (honestly, the whole song lmao) - Mon cheri (i’m only putting this one down because, little story: i didn’t know about petekey when i first listened to this song, and i’m french, and when i heard this for the first time i was like, wtf, people keep wanting to use french words and end up using them wrong. well, oops. maybe the use this time wasn’t as faulty as i thought)

HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T - I neve really feel a thing, I was kind of too froze - You were the only one, that even kind of came close - I took too many hits off this memory (memory = joint? lmao) - Another day goes by (without Mikey?) - So hold me tight, or don’t (basically, settle or fade) - Oh no, no, no this isn’t how our story ends - I got too high again when I realized I can’t not be with you or be just your friend - I love you to death but I just can’t, I just can’t pretend, we were lovers first - Confidants but never friends, were we ever friends? (interesting point since they never really had a lasting friendship. it’s a well known fact they helped each other with their own monsters (so, confidants), but after the whole summer fiasco, their friendship was at best on and off, and even then, there’s a lot of mourning on Pete’s end. poor guy) - ‘Cause I’m past the limits, the distance between us, it sharpens me like a knife

Jet Pack Blues - I’m the last one that you’ll ever remember - And I’m trying to find my peace of mind - She’s in a long black coat tonight (someone, in a significant night, has been in a long black coat too) - Did you ever love her? Do you know? Or did you never want to be alone? (notable, Pete is questioning whether or not his ‘love’ could stem from loneliness, because this shit happens way too often than should be) - Don’t you remember how we used to split a drink? It never matted what it was - I think our hands were just that close, the sweetness never lasted, no Novocaine (i like this one in particular because it just seems to suggest that Pete will never be finished with this, and will haunt Mikey forever, either to get revenge for being left behind or relive that one unforgettable summer) - I will always land on you like a sucker punch (omg lmao) - I am your worst, I am your worst nightmare - If you knew, knew what the bluebirds sing at you, you would never sing along - Because they took our love and they filled it up, filled it up with novocaine and now I’m just numb - I don’t feel a thing for you (sure) - I’m just a problem that doesn’t wanna be solved - I feel like a photo that’s been overexposed (i wonder if it’s because of all the junk he posted on livejournal) that concludes it! of course, there are so many more obvious songs, like Fourth of July and Bang the Doldrums, but i don’t love those songs, so i didn’t include them. and side note, the lyrics hit that much harder when Patrick is the damn singer and makes everything hurt. but i’ll rant about that in another post, maybe.

(it doesn’t really matter who sees this or doesn’t -- i just wanted to put this out somewhere. petekey will forever be so interesting. the impact Mikey (or whoever Pete wrote about) had on Pete is just unbelievable to me.)

end.

[funkymbtifiction]

hey! a few questions regarding S vs N after a few of your asks:

1. i notice a lot of emphasis on sensors (and especially Se) doing things but what sorts of things do sensors do all day compared to intuitives? i imagine most people regardless of type must be busy doing things all day just because as an adult there’s so much to do (cooking, shopping, cleaning, working, laundry etc) all the mundane stuff that generally won’t get done unless you do it, whether you want to/can do it well or not. do intuitives just neglect these things in favor of thinking/dreaming? or when referring to doing things is it more about your spare time?

2. are the day to day tasks of life i was thinking of above more related to S vs N or instinctual variant? will an sp type intuitive will still attend to all those practical concrete matters of life? if so, how do you tell the difference between an sp type intuitive and a sensor?

3. is it possible to be a sensor and get what needs to be done done during the day due to the fact they have to but find it draining and overstimulating and be exhausted from so many tasks and then not have much leftover energy to be “doing” in your spare time? and just wish to spend your free/relaxation time in silence doing nothing and being in your head?

4. are activities like video games, watching movies, listening to music, studying mbti more intuitive or sensory? they seem like they could go either way to me. does it depend on what you’re paying attention to? for instance a sensor focusing on the experience of a movie and an intuitive analyzing the meaning/characters/etc? or a se type feeling immersed in music vs a ne type feeling inspired? a sensor learning mbti for some kind of practical application vs an intuitive not necessarily having a purpose beyond their interest? something like that?

5. i’ve heard of high se types, esp se and fi, thinking how they feel in the moment is how they will feel forever. can the same be said of ne types at all? just as ne types can be impulsive can they also get caught up in the momentary feelings like that?

1. Intuitives stay busy as well, but any sensory activity is an add-on to their real desire for abstract thinking or theories. Sure, they do laundry -- but what they really want to be doing (and actively pursue in their life) is talking about the human soul, or the psyche, or forming a theory about human consciousness, or reading a book on psychology, or theorizing on how things are going to evolve, or what the future might hold with an anticipatory attitude, etc. The abstract/intangible world is what interests them more than reality -- ideas pregnant with POTENTIAL.

2. I tell the difference by asking if they are big picture thinkers or not. Big picture thinkers see the overall rather than the details; they tend to abstract away from specifics into vague generalities or branch out into another topic that veers the conversation off what's being discussed into more "interesting" (to them) territory. For example, you are talking about how your dog just died, and the intuitive starts talking about death as a concept and its affect on us. It's no longer about your dead dog, it's about a conceptual realm -- death as an existing force in your life, or what death means, or how we give Death a personality in fiction. N's can't help deviating from "what's real" into "what's real on another plane of existence." This is why they seem either weird, out of touch, irrational, or "head in the clouds" to sensing types (or, alternatively, the sensing type envies them and wishes they could think more that way). Big picture thinkers are also neglectful of details--like "is this even POSSIBLE?" or "what would need to happen BEFORE my idea could be realistic?" Sensors are attuned to what's real, what's possible, and the sequence of things, what needs to happen to make this other thing possible. They know you can't just leap from A to Q and ignore all the letters in-between.

3. Yes. That is also 9ish. To find life tiring and overwhelming. And introversion in general. I know a 9 INFP who finds life exhausting and just wants to spend all her spare time reading books.

4. They can be either one, yes. The purpose and focus of interest matters.

5. NFPs can get caught up in their feelings, yes. Any type can.

[orange-orchard-system]

I was gonna put this in the tags but I want to walk through my thought process "out loud"

So, I voted 10-20%, mainly because I'm the type of person to guess low if I'm asked to guess on something, as I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than disappointed. That said, I wouldn't be too surprised if the answer was somewhat higher. If we managed to find a foolproof way to calculate this percentage and it turned out to be one of the higher options on this poll, then yes, I'd be surprised, but I wouldn't be completely blindsided if it ended up being just a few options higher than what I chose.

The thing is that "plural in some way" is pretty vague. There are a lot of things that fall into a gray area between explicitly plural and plural-adjacent, and you could argue any which way for those here – hell, maybe some people are including plural-adjacent folk when they vote. Some examples would be imaginary friends, which can fall anywhere on this spectrum, or a lot of religious and spiritual beliefs that could be considered plural. But putting that aside and considering a stricter definition of "plural in some way", I definitely feel like a lot more people are plural than we tend to estimate.

It's a bit of a paradox – there are a lot of problems that impede the recognition of plurality (pluralphobia, lack of awareness of the term, etc.), yet at the same time, if we just take a few steps back, we can see examples of it – or something like it – in many different places. The idea is nothing new – it's the recognition of it as an actual, real-life phenomenon; a collection of all these different concepts people have named and explored separately that come together into something "new" that real people are really experiencing.

More than simple recognition of plurality (and plural-adjacency) in its most base form, though, I feel like what we'd need to get an accurate estimate is awareness of just how vast and varied people's experiences with plurality can be. I've said this recently, but it really astounds me sometimes just how often I end up teaching others about plural vocabulary or concepts when I'm just spit-balling about my life. I talk about fragments? People learn they might have fragments. I talk about being polyfragmented? People learn they might be polyfragmented. I talk about practicing our switching or communication skills? People learn that these are skills you can practice and get better at. I talk about our system origins? People learn that these are ways systems can form, and hey, maybe they have those same origins. I talk about anything related to systems at all on a regular basis? Sooner or later, I get people asking if their experiences sound like plural ones, if they might be a system, too.

We've been here for a while, but in terms of information – both inside and outside the community – we're kind of a baby community. I don't expect books about writing marginalized groups to mention us. I don't expect my sociology class to mention us. I don't even expect the mental health professionals I see to know what "multiple system" means, let alone "plurality". I have a strong suspicion that all these estimates that people are giving to this poll are strongly colored by the fact we don't have any good estimates [PT: we don't have any good estimates / end PT] for this sort of thing, and the majority of us are very aware that. We have, at best, an estimate for one single section of the community (DID) that is itself colored by misdiagnosis and the bias of professionals not believing it's even a real thing at all. We just don't have the data, the theories, or even the simple recognition and awareness needed to get concrete numbers that are anything more than "Well, no one really knows about plurality, let alone accepts it, so it's probably not that common, right?" shots in the dark.

What percentage of the population is plural? I think it's much too early to get an accurate guess about that sort of thing. But based on how quickly the plural community is moving, I'm very excited to see what kinds of estimates we'll be getting in a few more years, once recognition and awareness have started picking up steam – especially once these questions are asked on a wider basis.

I hope this makes sense; I'm spit-balling once more. Like I said, I mainly just wanted to work out my thoughts, and maybe I'll add on later, but I needed to dump my brain's collection of thoughts on all this before this rotted in my drafts folder until after the poll was closed.

[deliriumsdelight7]

Hi, 4,8 and 28 for the fic writers questions

Thank you for the ask!

4.) How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

SO. DAMN. MANY. I have like 20 for the Rumbelle fandom. All the HellCheer ones I have I'm either already writing, or I've already shared. I've got vague ideas of things to maybe try - mermaids, wings, soul mates, etc. - but nothing remotely concrete.

8.) Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

*grooooooan* I hate when people ask questions like this, because I'm generally NOT proud of my work. I'm just not. But... here's a snippet that I kind of like - less for what IS said, than what ISN'T said. Not yet.

“If I don’t break up with you, Mom and Dad are cutting me off,” she said. “They’ll kick me out of the house and they won’t pay for my college anymore.”

“Shit,” he muttered. His mind raced to come up with a solution, discarding idea after idea. “Okay,” he finally said, “okay. We can get through this. I could work doubles at the plant. And if that doesn’t cut it, I could always see if Rick could use another dealer - “

“No!” Chrissy yelped. He gaped at her, watching in detached fascination as her face went beet red. When she spoke again, her voice was calm. “No, Eddie. You promised me: no more dealing drugs. That doesn’t change just because you don’t make enough money to support us.”

Eddie flinched back at that. You don’t make enough. The words were said coolly, without accusation, like she was stating the obvious. Water is wet. The sky is blue. You don’t make enough to support us. But with the pain those words sent lancing through his heart, she may as well have spat them in his face.

“So… what are you saying?” he rasped.

“I think you know what I’m saying,” she said quietly. “We both know you can’t provide me with the life I need. The life I deserve.”

He shook his head in denial. “Yeah, but you always said that didn’t matter to you,” he protested.

“Well… that was before,” she replied with a helpless shrug.

28.) Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

Okay, the first two are from the Rumbelle fandom, while the third is from the HellCheer fandom.

@emospritelet knows how to create absolutely soul-destroying angst. They know how to stretch the tension of a situation to its absolute limits until you're ready to claw your face off from sheer impatience. Their smut is also some of the sexiest I've ever read.

@bad-faery writes these incredible emotional journeys that delve into the full emotional and psychological implications of the original premise. They have a talent for not just resolving the conflict that forms the premise, but also addressing the natural fallout and aftermath after the initial "danger" has passed. They know how to take broken, hurting people and make them whole again.

And finally, I don't think they have a Tumblr, but broomstickkink knows how to write a feral, babbling, horny Eddie that makes me go absolutely unhinged. They also managed to make me fall in love with a body swap fic, which is impressive because I generally can't stand body swaps.

[cno-inbminor]

ipsum exitio (PREVIEW)

a/n: i wanted to give you all little snippets from this long fic i’m working on -- currently sitting at ~21k and there’s still a decent amount to unfold and unravel. hope you all look forward to this! and a huge, ginormous thank you to @a-kaashi for helping beta this!!

estimated release: in ~2-3 weeks

plot: self-destruction is in the calm before the storm, in the eye of a hurricane. but when the forces are right, the winds are rapid enough, the catalysts send you hurling, you find yourself leaving a monstrous and disastrous path in your wake.

characters: ushijima wakatoshi, semi eita, iwaizumi hajime, and male oc w/fem!reader possessing vagina/uterus/uterine-system (other oc’s also included)

genre/warnings: (+18) slice of life, angst, descriptions and moments of high anxiety, explicit smut (w/slight degradation, size kink, spanking, etc.), virginity loss, mentions of alcohol, talks about virginity and sex toys, slow burn, pining, implied bisexual reader, (more might come up later)

-

A breeze flows in through the open window of your apartment, softly caressing your face as you lean against the sill on your elbows. You drink in the view of Tokyo at night like a fine wine sliding down your throat, attuning to all your senses. With tear ducts dry and dust caked along the rims of your eyes, they shut in defeat, the semblance of a white flag splayed on the back of your eyelids. Cars honk in the distance and your legs struggle to support your weight. The scent of sulfur from the earlier downpour teases at your nostrils, causing your nose to scrunch a bit as you openly take in the scenery before you again.

A nearby billboard flashes bright, mechanically cycling through advertisements and never resting. The LED lights paint a picture that you are all too acquainted with, even more so with the man in the frame. Your body is plunged into a lake of bitter nostalgia as your heart wrenches painfully. Instead of fighting against the resistance of the water and gravity, you succumb to the anchor dragging you down, knowing that eventually, the waves will recede, and you will return to shore again.

Inhale. Count. Exhale.

Breathe.

-

11 years ago

Perhaps you had become a burden to Wakatoshi. You had turned into the thorn in his side, something he no longer wanted to tolerate and keep in his life. Perhaps it was expected, you bitterly thought while shrugging off his jacket. The bite of the cold night teethed and gnawed at your skin, but the pain is almost welcomed now. He took the fabric without a word, only feeling slightly guilty at the sight of stray tears gradually streaking down your cheeks.

“Okay,” you sniffled, arms wrapped around yourself again for some vague sense of protection. “That’s fine, I get it. You have Nationals and the Youth team as well – it’s mainly best for you to end this.”

“(Y/n) –”

“It’s really okay, Wakatoshi. I appreciate you being straightforward with me. I’ll see you at practice,” you quickly interjected and turned to trek back towards the dorm, sending a quick but lifeless wave behind you. The shards of whatever was left of your soul trailed behind you like scattered stars on the concrete. Even when your roommate and friend brought your disheveled figure into her arms, they did little to ward off the parasitic spectres in your mind.

-

7 years ago

A bio was set, photos strategically ordered, and you were tossed into the world of online dating.

“This is a really bad idea,” you groaned ten minutes later as Sayuri swiped through the profiles showing up in your pool. “I haven’t even slept with anyone before.”

“Oh honey, I bet half of these men only ever got their dick wet once and came in two minutes flat. They think they’re impressing someone but they’re only fooling themselves,” Sayuri scoffed and then grimaced at a man’s daringly shirtless mirror selfie. “This poor guy needs to eat more; I can see his ribcage! You don’t need someone who doesn’t appreciate food.”

“What if he’s got an eating disorder?” You seriously speculated, heart going out to the possibility of that.

“Well now you make me feel bad after swiping left on him and – oh hey! You got a match!”

“What? Who the hell did you swipe right on?!” You screeched; chin craned to get a good look at the person on your phone.

-

4.5 years ago

With a duffel bag slung on his shoulder, phone in hand, dark skinny jeans, a casual pale blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up , his reflexes were quick enough to recognize the human bundle of joy sprinting towards him. Eita’s best memories of you were in your Shiratorizawa uniform, so seeing you in casual streetwear threw him for a loop at first.

The earnest beam on your face could warm the iciest of glaciers, and he easily lost against the facial muscles fighting to form into his own smile. As you deftly dodged the other people in your route to him, his arms seemed to naturally fall open in a gesture that welcomed your inevitable embrace. Eita was pretty sure you squealed before jumping onto him, but his focus had to redirect to his arms so they didn’t drop you.

“Semi Semi!” You happily cried out into his ear over the hustle and bustle, arms tight around his neck as he held you close. He gave you a brief, affectionate squeeze before setting you down, causing your arms to fall. But his hands held onto your shoulders, giving you a quick once-over and making his assessment. He always had a soft spot for you back in high school, knowing that it wasn’t easy managing a team of teenage boys who were ridiculously hungry and driven for a common goal. When news got around the team that you and Ushijima had broken up, he always kept an extra eye out for you and worried that you’d continue to work yourself to the bone in university.

...

Just one, he berated himself. Just one.

His nose ghosted over the skin from your jaw to your collarbone, catching the faint scent of what he assumed to be a mix of your body wash and natural scent. His senses found it comforting, grounding, and reminded him just how precious you were to him. You weren’t just a random girl at the bar he thought would be temporarily nice to make out with – you were (y/n), the girl who had watched over him and encouraged him during some of his most difficult times with a sport that was once his life, the manager who cared for him and his teammates to be nothing but their best, the person who the boys would unwittingly go to war for if anyone were to bring you trouble.

So he made that known, kissing the joint between your neck and shoulder, and reveled in the breathy gasp that escaped your throat. Little by little, he applied more pressure, preparing you for what he was about to do. His lips softly sucked on the skin, just enough so his teeth could graze it and nibble. Your hands were now fully entangled in the strands of his air, and as they tightened, Eita became more forceful and meaningful. You were entering a faint haze of ecstasy as he worked that one spot, determined to break the capillaries beneath your unmarked flesh and let the inevitable bruising bloom. He knew how beautiful you would look when he was done, and if he had your permission to, what a sight you would be with more littered on the rest of your body.

-

Present

“(Y/n), I know you’re in there,” a deep male’s voice permeates through the wood, though muffled and scratchy. “Please, let me talk to you. I’m sorry, I—” He pauses, a groan of frustration escaping his throat. Your vision refuses to refocus, bleary as you weakly take in your view of Tokyo again. Without a doubt, the man must be ruffling his hair frustratingly, distressed and discouraged.

“I shouldn’t have said that. Please let me in and apologize properly – I owe you that much.”

You owe me nothing, silly. It’s my fault.  

Eyes the shade of the complement to a martini in the billboard observe you, and you wonder: if seen in person, would they have stared with pity?

It’s time to stop running away.

So with sluggish steps, you make your way to the only barrier barring you from your fate. The two deadbolts slide back and click in place, echoing louder than ever. Your hand trembles in its path to the doorknob, faintly grasping the chilling metal and turning it until the latch pulls back far enough to let the door open.

And there they were, the eyes that held the key to your undoing, that had watched you crumble and fall, that had looked after you in more ways than you could imagine, peering straight into yours. You know them well, perhaps too well, and your knees nearly buckle at their intensity. It takes every part of your being to stop yourself from slamming the door closed, to hide away and escape destiny.

Because it seems that irises in the shades of olive will be the banes of your existence.

[bookcoversalt]

A+ youtube video! I feel like this is a dumb question, but what other sources, exercises, etc would you suggest for a writer wanting to get better at, like, everything you do in that video? I feel like I'm just not intelligent when it comes to writing and reading. I slap down whatever seems fun and I'm sure it makes for a bland story full of stupid plot holes and everything you talked about, so how does one get better at dissecting this stuff and...writing/reading intelligently?

Thank you so much!! There’s a tendency to consider analytical people just “smart”, as if the observations they make come naturally to them. But that super isn’t true: being thoughtful and critical about media, like drawing or writing or playing a sport or learning an instrument, is a skill that you pick up by absorbing reference, learning the language of the art form, and then practicing replicating it through your own perspective.

ABSORBING REFERENCE

My two biggest critical inspirations are Lindsay Ellis, a video essayist who covers film and culture, and Film Crit Hulk, a screenwriter and movie critic, and I’ve been consuming their work since I was 15. (I’m 25 now! that’s a wholeass decade.) I've picked up many, may other sources along the way: other video essayists, pop culture commentators, TV critics, spirited roasts of 50 shades of gray, actual “writing craft” books and blog articles, long goodreads reviews of books I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the flaws on, funny booktube reviews, even “anti” posts. I read “how the last season of game of thrones went the fuck off the rails” articles til my eyes bled, not because I cared about game of thrones, but because there was so much good, insightful reporting being done on How And Why A Story Fell Apart.

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE

Not all of this is good or useful. There’s a lot of bad faith or shallow criticism out there. The cinemasins clickbaity style of nitpicking “plot holes” or penalizing a work for the mere presence of tropes without regard for broader artistic intent and cultural context is particularly insidious and should die. The people who think twilight is stupid because it has sparkly vampires are missing the point. A LOT of people critique YA in particular from a place of bitterness or bias or misplaced expectations (and so did I, to some degree, for a long time. I’ve worked really hard to grow out of that, I hope). But the point is to seek out content in this vein-- not what I consumed necessarily (I would not wish that many GOT thinkpieces on anyone), but stuff that interests you. The more of this you mindfully consume and the more perspectives you collect and compare, the more context you’ll have for what’s being discussed and the more you'll naturally start to form your own opinions on it. You will learn, slowly, by osmosis, to pull what strikes a chord with you from the noise.

REPLICATING IT THROUGH YOUR OWN PERSPECTIVE

The cool and fun part is that to some extent, your brain will start doing this on its own. You’ll read a book and you'll just notice more. You’ll call plot twists faster, or be more cognizant of the pacing, or connect dots you might not have otherwise connected. You’ll see the logistic scaffolding in your own work more clearly and you’ll be more aware of choices you’re making subconsciously. You’ll recognize thematic hypocrisy or worldbuilding inconsistencies and have the language to name them.

And you’ll also have the tools to explore your less clear-cut, more emotional reactions to art. And this is the most important but “hardest” part of this: sitting with vague feelings and unformed thoughts trying to suss out what’s at the heart of them and why, using your hard-won critical “training” and your contextual knowledge.

I like to frame them as questions:

Why did the end of [book] feel disjointed? Why didn’t I connect with the main character in [book]? What really resonated with me about the plot of [book]? Why does [character] appeal to me more than [other character]? Why does [book]’s use of [theme] make me uncomfortable?

Sometimes it comes down to just preference or subjective taste, and that’s fine and good to know. But more often than not, you’re reacting to something concrete that can be identified: 

The ending of HOUSE OF SALT AND SORROWS feels disjointed because it comes out of nowhere and has nothing to do with our heroine’s efforts in the larger story. I didn’t connect with the main character in HEARTLESS because within the context of the worldbuilding, her choices didn’t make sense. What really resonated with me about the plot of UPROOTED is its thematic coherency. The Darkling appeals to me more than Mal because the villain romance power fantasy aspect of the series is better fleshed out and ultimately more rewarding to read than the love story of two flawed teenagers. ACOWAR’s use of trauma and recovery makes me uncomfortable because it ceases to be a sincere element of anyone’s arc or characterization and becomes yet another tool to make Rhys look like the best and coolest and wokest fae boyfriend.

Pulled from an old Captain Awkward article, this is something I have in a sticky note on my desktop as sort of a criticism guide: 

One of the things we try to do is to push past “I liked it”/”I didn’t like it” as reactions to work. What is it? What is it trying to be? Is it good at being that thing? Was that a good thing to try to be in the first place? Did the artist have a specific agenda? How did it play with audiences at the time? Does it play the same way now? What stereotypes does it reinforce/undermine?

Even if it’s only for your own personal growth rather than intended for an audience, I recommend putting burgeoning critical thoughts or questions you’re trying to “work through” down in writing somewhere: goodreads reviews! tweets! blog posts! spamming your group chat! Even just a private word document. The synthesis of thoughts into written content forces you to identify and choose a specific articulation of your idea(s). If it’s in a pubic or semipublic forum, you’ll also be able to see which of your ideas resonate with other people, and that can (isn’t always, but CAN) be useful information as far as having an external barometer for when you’re onto something.

And then..... you do that a bunch of times in different ways for many years, with a lot of different books and movies and games and whatever else. Like any other skill, you will get better the more you do it. (Again: I have been doing this for ten years now, and it still took me three months to write that video script. Forming nuanced, informed opinions and then articulating them coherently is hard.)

As kind of a footnote tip, seek out peers who have the same goals and feelings, and try to connect with them! Lots of my current internet friends found me back when I was posting on my personal blog about problems i had with THE SELECTION or RED QUEEN and we bonded over having similar opinions and being in similar places in our writing/ reading/ careers. These people now beta read my scripts and posts and help me brainstorm or refine ideas. I strongly believe that creatives (and critics) do their best work and grow the most within a network of support and feedback.

But also, in regards to creative writing in particular, i want to be clear that having fun is the most important thing. I absolutely think creators need analytical skills to improve their craft, but without the enjoyment of doing the thing at the core of it, there is no craft at all. If you have to choose between the "smart” thing and the fun thing, choose the fun thing. Tbh, if you’re worried your work is bland, analysis probably isn’t the solution--  figuring out how to have more fun is the solution. And letting yourself lean into the stuff that’s wild and awesome and so incredibly you that it sets you on fire to write is a skill of its own :)

[weiszklee]

I don't really get how you could read @evilsoup write

I find a lot of the online discourse around race to be complete dogshit, even if it’s coming from people that I notionally share some ideological influences with (CLR James, WEB Dubois, etc). I think that a lot of theorising about racism is driven by the need to generate edgy/novel takes to advance academic careers, which is then fed into the nuance-destroying machine we call social media.

and conclude that he must be agreeing with the screenshotted passage. Just because it doesn't actually call for genocide doesn't make it a useful contribution. I'd go so far as to say that people being able to misread it as a call for genocide is a pretty big indication that it's needlessly divisive.

But hey, let me actually take your questions seriously. First of all though, "White" and "Black" and "Asian" and "Hispanic" are not ethnicities, like, the word "ethnicity" is pretty vague sadly, but it's not so vague that it would include those. These are races (which you correctly understand to be imposed on people against their will), and as such they should, every last one of them, be made meaningless eventually. "Black" as a racial identity is pretty useful in the fight against racism though, so I can understand people's reluctance to let go of it just yet, while black people are still treated like garbage in so many contexts.

Why are you looking for an ethnic identity? Like, even if you have nothing more specific than "White" to fall back on, you can still participate in the work to hollow out the meaning of "White" without having an identity crisis. You can just say that your culture is US-American (or wherever else you're from) and that's ... fine. Like, nationalism will not save you, but "US-American" is distinct enough that it can work as a neutral description of one's culture.

Race, ethnicity, culture, nationality, ... those are not synonyms, they are just vague categories with some overlap, which leads to a lot of confusion. You have to make a conscious effort to not get confused by them. And none of them have to be particularly important for your self-conception. I'd say being a nerd is much more central to my identity than any of these four categories. I think I'd be fine without the social construct of whiteness, because I'm not very invested in it to begin with.

How can people who have been labeled “White” divest from Whiteness?

What do you want from those people who have been labeled as “White”? In concrete terms, applicable to the working single mother, mentally ill homeless man, and restaurant worker as much as the senator, CEO, and tenured professor, please.

Now these are actually interesting questions! Different antiracists will anwer them differently, but you might have overlooked that @evilsoup actually did provide an answer: Find common ground with people across racial lines in the united struggle against oppression and exploitation.

You don't get to accuse people of not answering your question just because you don't like their answer. The association of socialism with tyrannical dictatorship is an unfortunate quirk of history I'd say. The Russian revolution was very chaotic, and once the tyrannical dictatorship emerged, that model got imported to all other communities which wanted to try socialism, and people found it tempting because it secured them material support from the Soviet Union and independence from Western imperialism. Everyone who tried a less tyrannical form of socialism without help from the Soviet Union got mercilessly crushed. Both the US and the Soviet Union worked overtime to make sure that tyrannical dictatorship was the only form of socialism on people's mind.

Even if you aren't a socialist, you can still work together with likeminded people to improve everyone's situation. If you focus on material problems, you are bound to stop seeing the world through these stupid "culture war" glasses. Be warned that in doing so, you will meet some socialists though.

Just the run of the mill racial eliminationism from the Harvard set