#swandive

[pluralsword]

people know our brain is terminal for Transformers and Steamworlds but they don't know we're also terminal for the discussion and imagining of "trans geographies" as portrayed in the comic Swandive released in the speculative fiction graphic novel Aspara Engine by Bishakh Som centered on South Asian transfemininity. Please go read it. It's so beautiful.

if you want to after you read it try to do it yourself with some more structure if it helps we highly recommend the cooperative narrative game Ex Novo where you (and possibly other people) generate a polity together with the help of some rules for phases and turns, and you can then use what you created for other stories if you want. That said the simply taking turns imagining and drawing and discussing as presented in Swandive works just fine we did things like that in our youth with friends prior to acquiring a trans lens. Thus also no surprise that we've dreamed of running Ex Novo with some friends for years.

With everything going on, we think we will at least run it with ourselves this weekend, as a reflection, a ritual of transformation, a galvanization of drive and hope, sometime in the last three days of June this year. We have managed to come so far in finding our way in life again that we are more ready to face the numbers of whatever good and bad the future holds than we have been for a while, but even at our worst a relentlessness and attempts to hold on to pluralistic wisdom and grow it carried us forward.

Carry Pride in your souls onwards past June. For us, it never ends. It is the stuff of life, in a long line of celebration of sapient variation and iteration within and reflected by a much larger world of varied life, and a truly vast universe with more than any one person will ever know. There is a liberation and solidarity to find in that, that we are irreducible, that people across variation can come together for collective autonomy, for celebration, for love, for empathy, for community, for curiosity, for friendship. we love and appreciate you all. no matter how bad things get, no reactionary hierarchy can ever hope to get rid of variation unless they destroy life itself, and they can likely never do so across the entire cosmos, and certainly never the memories of us that metaethical love and aesthetics inherently have by definition

[annabelle--cane]

podcast characters love having total disregard for their own safety and they find it sooo much fun to regularly take unnecessary risks that pose massive threats to their lives. this has been voted podcast protagonists' #1 favorite hobby for the tenth year running.

[clairedelune-13]

Not me making excuses for Solas fucking me over.

Companions: You hurt Inky/Rook!

Me: He had his reasons.

[gwynlain]

Credits: @kloartz (@mayreadsbook27 & @bookishembers)

[thefoxysnake]

throws tree at you sadly

Fucking dies

[candycatstuffs]

The fuck do you mean theyre making another season of Phineas and Ferb.

[ebbpettier]

the most important aspect of my trixie the pixie fanon characterization is that she is, MOST of the time, so close to being right. she is deeply intelligent and perceptive, she can match penny blow for blow in an argument and her critical thinking skills are a finely-hewn edge the likes of which you could use to slice through a mountain like butter

and if she ever used those critical thinking skills. well then maybe something would get fucking done around here. alas.

[filthforfriends]

Me @ me at 5:30 am (haven’t slept yet) after writing quite possibly the most erotic thing I’ve ever come up with

[piniatafullofblood]

why are you going into fandom looking for reality. ‘oh i don’t like this ship bc it’s toxic’ or ‘oh i don’t think anyone who does x should be in a relationship’ have you ever heard of entertainment?? why are you not searching for entertainment in fandom spaces? it’s not real. they can’t experience it. fandom is for enjoying yourself, not applying real world relationship standards to things and expecting that to be fun. that’s not fun. you don’t play minecraft and then freak out when everything is blocks. if you wanted reality drama you could scroll through aita but you chose to log onto ao3 instead.

[vigilskept]

made it home to an inbox already full of beautiful chaya/loghain prompts. we’re so back :D

[mafufuu]

can someone get me like. itll be ok or like fuck it we ball above all

[tangotekkit]

so i figured martyn died like immediately after entering the end cuz of the chat messages but i didnt think he literally just

walked off the edge of the starting platform

[rottensdoll]

nda with @swandivers cw: (lightly) implied sexual content... it's next to nothing but u know!

"what did i tell you?" she asks, a 'tsk' falling languidly from her lips. she's sat in jihan's lap, lips ghosting over his before she's angling her head away from him, an icy expression painting her features. "don't kiss me like that."

she lifts herself off his lap, slipping a button-down over her body as she reaches for the cigarettes on the nightstand. chaea doesn't smoke often. she's careful not to overdo it, a measure she takes to preserve her voice—but there are days where she finds herself reaching for them more often than not. days like today, when she's missing him.

her relationship with junpyo is complicated. it's ugly. a violent push-and-pull that sends chaea reeling more often than not, but she can't let him go. he's apart of her now. but things between haven't been good for a long, long time. using someone else to drown out the ache he leaves behind has become routine for chaea—and lately, that someone has been jihan.

chaea likes this arrangement with jihan. he has just as much to lose as she does, and he knows it. she's not worried about him running his mouth, and she finds him fun to toy with: likes getting him riled up, making him think she'll be the one to share their dirty little secret, and maybe she will be. it's not like chaea has kept this affair a secret from her boyfriend, and she's not exactly concerned about the things people would say about her if their affair was ever made public. after all, she's never been one to shy away from scandal.

she catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she lights the cigarette. the red that painted her lips is now smudged, and several scarlet marks decorate the length of her neck. she turns to face him, her expression a mix of amusement and annoyance. what she doesn't like is when jihan acts out of line. no long kisses, no hickeys, no scratches, no pet names, no talking—chaea thinks these are easy rules to follow.

she stands in front of him now, lit cigarette dangling between her lips. she sinks down onto his lap again, a cloud of smoke spilling past her lips when she smiles down at him. it's an icy smile, punctuated by the hand that rests against the base of his throat; threatening.

"you're forgetting the rules," she tilts her head, applies a bit of pressure with her hand. she smiles at him again. "are you sure you want to keep this up?"

[fallenegos]

an unwelcomed intruder. midas building on some random day. for @swandivers

the lights were on. that was the only reason jieun tried the door. with how exhausted she was, it's not surprising she didn't think through every possibility of why a room's lights were on. she just simply thought someone forgot to turn them off. it happens sometimes, and she’s always been the type to turn them off when she notices. and maybe part of it was that she wanted an empty room before heading back to the dorms. one that's quiet enough to sit in and feel like nothing for a while.

but just jieun's luck, the door creaks when it opens. and the room's not empty like she had thought. jihan is there.

the thought to turn around hits her immediately. she could easily just pivot, walk back into the hallway, and pretend she wasn't even in the building. but it's too late. the creak wasn’t loud, but it was enough. if he heard it- scratch that. if he even might have heard it, she’s stuck. she’s not about to look like she snuck in and fled at the sight of him. so she stays. still, at the edge of the frame. letting the door fall halfway shut behind her, but not all the way.

"sorry, didn't know this room was occupied," she says flatly, walking the line between apology and indifference. "thought someone left the lights on." she doesn't move closer. doesn't sit. she just leans slightly into the doorframe. her eyes flick towards the glow of the monitor. but she doesn’t try to make out what's on it. not her business. not her place. or maybe it could be, but she doesn't ask.

maybe if it were anyone else, she would've said sorry and somewhat meant it. jihan's... different. just different in how he's treated her. or didn't treat her, more like. he was just another cold set of eyes when they first crossed paths. another person in the building who didn’t think much of her. and that was fine. jieun doesn't beg for approval. never has, never will. she's used to being overlooked and dismissed simply because of her family name. but even so then, his indifference stood out. not because it hurt, but because it was the type of dismissiveness that makes someone feel invisible without ever outwardly being cruel. and despite jihan making somewhat of an effort as of lately, jieun still doesn’t really know where she stands with jihan. nor would she even dare to ask.

"am i intruding? should i leave?” she asks, finally. because to jieun, the only thing worse than standing here awkwardly is doing that somewhere she's not wanted. "i was just looking for somewhere quiet for a bit. i can find somewhere else if you'd prefer to have the room to yourself."

[thefoxysnake]

Eats you

Fucking dies