#story: let me live (let me die)

[novelconcepts]

It really frees up so much mental real estate when you start thinking of sex as just: a thing people sometimes do. Some people are super into it! Some aren't! It's for fun! It's for intimacy! It's the deepest connection some people will ever feel and totally meaningless to others! It's hot! It's boring! It helps some people sleep! It exists as an exciting construct solely in fantasy for others! What it isn't is some complicated moral ground that needs to be fought against at every turn. It's just A Thing. Which means people who have a lot of it, or none of it, or whatever in between are all worth the same. Which means stories that have a lot of it, or none of it, or whatever in between are worth the same, too. Smut isn't less valuable than "clean" stories. People who have a high "body count" aren't less valuable than those who have never had sex at all. It's just A Thing. Making peace with sex as just A Thing that is natural to consentingly have or not have, want or not want, really is a great adjustment to your brainspace.

[s0fter-sin]

ghost stares at the ceiling, chest heaving in a harsh pant; sweat ice on his clammy flesh and soaked into the sheet he restlessly kicks away.

ears still ringing, his fingertips blindly drift down to trail along his vivisection scar. he half-expects blood to smear in their wake. his own line of solomon, who ordered him split in twain; half of him given to a grieving mother and half left with the grieving to be.

just for both his broken halves to be rejected.

what did it make him that his mother grieved him more than she loved him? that she begged to be relieved of him more adamantly than she begged to receive him? why did his worth spill out with his drawn blood? why was his pain lesser than hers?

his hand flexes, digging into the raised scar like it’ll part beneath his fingertips to plunge into his mangled insides. no one knows the cruelty of reforming the halved; his name, his being, not nearly as important as his body when he was stripped from himself. no one knows the pain of healing and understanding losing pieces of yourself means losing your value along with them.

how many more pieces did he have to lose before he was halved once more? before his very presence incurred grief so strong it was better to be rid of him than cradle his bloodied remains?

did the infant fight himself? did he age always at odds with himself; his halves never truly whole? he hopes he wasn’t, that he was spared the loss of self; the fear that one may be welcomed over the other.

who will he lose when the inevitable comes? when he’s ripped apart again? simon? or ghost? is it better to be cursed with choice just like his mother or live with an aftermath chosen for him? does it matter if in the end, he convinces himself there was nothing of him left to lose?

his head lolls to the side and the wild buck of his chest slows. he watches johnny beside him, his face lax with the rare peace of sleep; his cheek squished against the pillow, his lips pursed as long breaths escape him.

johnny. soap. never torn asunder but two all the same.

he carefully reaches out and ghosts his fingers along the jagged scar on his chin. even in sleep, he presses into his bloodied touch. he’s never fled his half-flesh, never shies away from his gore as it spills unbidden from his cleaved torso. he holds on where his mother let him go; cups his stomach to hold his insides in place and never minds the blood that drips through his fingers.

simon will never let him become his own solomon and cannibalise himself. he will never let him question which half of him has more value; which pieces he can afford to lose before he’s cast aside.

ghost’s soap. simon’s johnny. his.

whole, in any incarnation.

[wonder-worker]

I've been thinking about the tragedy of Elizabeth Woodville living to see the end of her family name.

I don't mean her family with her husband, which lived on through her daughter and grandson. I mean her own.

Her sisters died, one by one, many of them after 1485. When Elizabeth died, only Katherine was left, and she would die before the turn of the century as well.

All her brothers died, too. Lewis died in childhood. John was executed. Anthony was murdered. Lionel died suddenly in the peak of Richard's reign, unable to see his niece become queen. Edward perished at war. Richard died in grieving peace. For all the violence and judgement the family endured, it was "an accident of biology" that ended their line: none of the brothers left heirs, and the Woodville name was extinguished. We know the family was aware of this. We know they mourned it, too:

“Buy a bell to be a tenor at Grafton to the bells now there, for a remembrance of the last of my blood.”

Elizabeth lived through the deposition and death of her young sons, and lived to see the end of her own family name. It must have been such a haunting loss, on both sides.

[codenamesazanka]

Shigaraki/Tenko wanting to destroy the false sense of peace All Might and Heroes created

.⬇️.

Shigaraki/Tenko wanting to destroy everything that lead to the existence of that house, which he conceptualizes as the embodiment of rejection and injustice in the world. Be a Hero for the Villains.

.⬇️.

AFO basically literally created that house

.⬇️.

Shigaraki/Tenko helps defeat AFO

.⬇️.

Deku telling him 'you already destroyed it' is... apparently Shigaraki/Tenko having finally gotten rid of the true cause of (his) rejection and injustice? main antagonist's big problem that represents an overarching major issue of the story/in-universe society... solved? (main antagonist's big problem that represents an overarching major issue of the story/in-universe society not actually being the problem he thought it was but now also solved?)

.⬇️.

No longer a need for there to be a Hero for the Villains, Shigaraki/Tenko dies.

.⬇️.

Heroes not to be blamed in the first place. also fuck everyone else and all other 'actual' outcasts I guess.

[moeblob]

A succubus and a demon! (The succubi don't have names but the demon is Kronos and the succubus is one of his bosses in Hell and he's not /fond/ of the succubi for many reasons but they all adore picking on him)

Also because I love them and like to point it out, the succubi act more as pleasure dealers in the sense of they offer up whatever a human wants most in exchange for their soul. It's rarely of a sexual nature since it's what they want MOST in life. And most people's ambitions are outside of a bedroom. (happy pride, asexuals are able to get affected by a succubus now without discrimination)

[forcedhesitation]

why should it just be steve who has all the torturous purgatory realm fun?

[nyan-bynary]

I'm gonna have to wait out a few weeks to be able to complain about jjk's ending bc rn half the ppl are bashing everyone who expected more as ppl who just wanted gojo back

[elecman108]

I agree with you about Capcom bringing Nash back for SF6! I even made a post in my Threads account about him if Bison comes back, then there is a chance he might return! Please Capcom! Bring my boy back in the series! You been neglecting him for far too long!

I could go on about how I think they could bring Nash back in SF6 for AGES. The sheer fact that F.A.N.G. lived and is in SF6 (Fang Fei/Foo, A.K.I.'s master) makes me think that Nash probably survived his bout with Bison in some degree and could come back but there's so many ways they can go about it they could make it really insane if they wanted to.

They could have the Secret Society/Illuminati revive him again to use as an agent to gain ground against Shadaloo and potentially leverage Gill/the Society into higher threat standing (villain).

They could tie Darkstalkers semi-into Street Fighter and say that the Nash we would see is him after escaping the Makai and give him some more wacky magic-like powers (and give Darkstalkers fans like myself some more crumbs to survive on for a while lol).

They could lean into the Nash/Shadow setup from Marvel vs. Capcom and say that Shadaloo had/has him and the Nash we get to see is totally brainwashed into servitude by Bison or has escaped his brainwashing but like Cammy has no memories of his past. Or hell, just bring 'Shadow' back and it's just Nash but under a different name with different goals in mind!

But those are just my ideas after all.

Capcom needs to give us Nash STAT. I need to see my boy again!

(Also as an aside I love your art <3 )

[quixot1sm]

[fischiee]

at the end of the day church and tex are pygmalion and galatea and we just have to accept that. like the story of the sculptor who fell in love with his own art

bc she really is just his own creation that he loves and wants to love him back and wants to be whole but she’s.. not. she’ll never be anything outside of him, she’d never exist if it weren’t for his imagination (since she isn’t truly allison she is his concocted version of her) and because of that she can’t be human

he loves her as some fucked of version of loving himself (he loves who he was when he was with her and loves that he created her and that she is wholly his)

the difference is that alpha is no god, no aphrodite, and he cannot create life, he can only fragment himself which is why they do not get the happy ending of pygmalion and galatea, they instead are doomed to repeat and echo the agonies of the people they mimic

[probablygayattorneys]

…This is a joke, right? Someone tell me this is a joke. If this isn’t a joke, someone needs to hold my DS while I start throwing hands.

[franeridan]

ace's death might be the biggest thing fans regularly retcon in op fanworks and that's probably because ace is one of the most loved characters in the whole series but i was thinking that a huge part of why people can't just accept that it was a necessary evil and move on is that ace died without ever knowing sabo was alive and sabo got his memories back only after it was too late to do anything about them re: ace. by people I mean me. I find that unacceptable.

[kiddokori]

baru cormorant is crazy because the first book feels like the culmination of an entire series worth of actions and consequences and leaves you absolutely dismayed just for there to be two whole other books. and things only get worse

[mossterunderthebed]

Y'know what honestly frustrates me about the JJK fandom?

When people make stuff that's like JJK 0 Gojo and Getou talking or whatever, and it's like Getou being totally deadpan about all the horrible things he's doing/going to do/believes in *insert various types of wholesale murder here* and Gojo just laughs along, treating it like it's a joke and Getou's so cute and funny.

Like, no.

Gojo did NOT indulge Getou's philosophy. That was The Whole Point.

What do you think the whole encounter on the street in front of a random KFC was about? That's why there was such a deep divide between them. That's why Gojo was furious and disbelieving. That's why they didn't see or talk to each other for TEN YEARS even thought they were best friends.

Because Getou killed people, chose to kill people, and chose to keep killing people. Because he dehumanized an entire, MASSIVE group of people who were good, bad, kind, cruel, and everything in between, men, women, children, everyone, simply because of something they couldn't help and didn't even know about. Because he took advantage of those that Gojo had decided and felt duty-bound- even though he didn't like it much- to protect.

(And all that came BEFORE Geotu ever stepped into the picture. Yeah, Gojo whines about having to protect the weak and admittedly thinks it's a drag, but he still does it. He was raised with the ideal that he should do it.

That wasn't a Getou thing. Getou believing in that as a teenager did change the way Gojo saw it, but it wasn't New. He already was raised that way, believed that way, and intended to live that way, or why go to Jujutsu High at all? Even if he found it annoying, he was still always going to become a sorcerer, not only because it was kind of his only option- which is it's own kind of horrible- but because he was a sorcerer, down to his bones.

He had that madness in him, and maybe it was nurtured, but that doesn't change the fact that it was there. He wanted to be a sorcerer, loved fighting and killing curses, whether it had anything to do with helping others or not.)

I know it's just fanart and fandom, and look, I myself really like art of Gojo and Getou in their good days. They were kids and they were happy. While I don't ship them, they were best friends, and their own kind of soulmates, I've never not believed that, it's too forking obvious. Gege practically shoves it down our throats and literally designed them to balance each other and be Messed Up Forever when they split. Every official art we see of the two of them practically has them as each other's reflections. I know, okay? I can't not know.

I just get really frustrated when Gojo's disregarded like that. He is his own person with his own beliefs who's made his own choices. They both are. And maybe it's dumb to get up in arms about a story that's not even real, but Gojo's a really imperfect person who struggles and suffers, and at the end of the day? He tries his best.

Even with all the power in the world, he's still only human. He can still only do so much. He's expected to be more than he is a lot of the time, and still he really tries. He wants to make the world better. He wants to make life better for the next generation. He has, in a way, given up on himself, but he's still going, because he knows his place in the world is still one that needs filling.

That's a narrative that means a lot to me. It's disheartening when it's misinterpreted because of the fun, silly, giggly side of his personality, or the reckless, careless, cocky side, both of which are wonderfully, excruciatingly human.

That's all.

[notsosecret-transgirl]

I think I gotta stop catching up with politics. Every time I do it’s just so depressing. Can’t imagine how bad things are about to get. On the other hand though, I’ve got my cat in my lap, my lovely fiancée, and I’m almost done with my first semester of college. Weird how during monumental historic things, my life goes on. Covid, Palestine, Ukraine, the rise of fascism here and abroad, the slow death of my rights. All of it. But I’m still here. I guess all I can do is what I can, even if that’s just survive.

Mostly I’m just fucking angry. I’m a person. I’m living my life, and I’m not hurting anyone. They kick us down to gain power, and if it comes to them or us, I’ll do what I have to. I want to marry my fiancée. I want kids. I want my healthcare. I want to just be a normal woman you know? A normal mom. I want my kids to have a good life and I’m working towards that. And they don’t want that for me or any of us. It’s infuriating and terrifying. Idk. For now I’m just trying to get through. Idk what’s going to happen, but I’m going to survive and do my best to help the people around me and accept help from others. We have us. And that’s a powerful thing.

[ourladyoftheflytrap]

I did not realize the boy and the heron was the new ghibli film, I thought that short story where that boy leaves his disabled younger brother to die in a thunderstorm just went viral for no reason at all