#that's a LOT of potential lives with their own memories to account for

[zestyderg]

I like the headcanon that vivosaurs retain at least some of their memories from their previous lives.

I wonder how this would apply to my hybrid vivosaurs, especially Ultima.

Do they have memories from just the skull? Like the megalo igua hybrid, which has an entirely megalo head. Would it just be the megalo's memories in there?

Ultima's bones are so mixed and matched that even the skull is made up of the parts of many different dinosaurs. Would she just have a jumbled mess of memories from all the creatures she's composed of? Would she not have any memories at all, thus being an entirely new being? Ultima was less revived and more created, so I guess that would make sense.

[artificialchaoscola]

This is another ramble that prob makes no sense lets gooooooooo

Do you guys ever think that the reason Shadow says shit like "I don't run." when faced with danger is that the last time he did that instead of fighting, he lost his sister? Like he'd rather just take his chances and potentially lose against a threat versus dealing with that trauma again? Certainly Shadow will think at random that maybe he should've done something differently that day. Maybe he should've stopped and fought while she ran, and it haunts him that he was afraid. She probably convinced him to run with her, to not fight, and maybe trust in her idealism haunts him.

I think a big part of Shadow's character is there being this huge tragedy regarding Maria and her desires for him, that her influence actually breaks him in a lot of ways because it doesn't allow him to live. That's why SA2 is such a tragic story to me. Here you have this -by all accounts - child, this experiment, unable to live life on the planet he always glimpsed at because he's trapped in his mourning + the corrupted memories Gerald implanted in him (btw you can also compare Shadow's lack of reaction to the world with Silver's admiration in 06 but that's an analysis for another time). He didn't think sooner that it was out of character of his sister to desire the annihilation of the planet because Shadow simply does what Maria wants. She was his world, the only thing he cared about. Earth was her dream, and her desires being fulfilled was his. Yet without her alive he doesn't see the point in anything except planet-wide death. He was so willing to do what she said he forgot who she was before her demise practically.

It's fucked up and sad, and I think that that's why having Maria's ghost haunt him so often should always show Shadow is on a path of self-destruction if he lets the bad memories get to him. Part of the beauty of Shadow's (the game) true ending is his coming to terms that all of those people in his life, Maria included, have influenced the person he is, but he can choose the person he becomes in the future. And I think part of that healing journey would be letting go of a lot of what Maria expected of him. Not all of it, of course, I love when they reference her and how she influences his considerations. I just hope that if Maria is the ONLY person he thinks of as an influence in any of the Sonic media, they always take the time to show that putting her above his own person is dangerous for his mental health.

[indigovigilance]

Every single minisode is Aziraphale's memory, and why that's [not?] important

There is extensive meta-analysis, my own included, that Before the Beginning is a doctored memory resulting from erasure of Angel!Crowley, and that the trace of him that is left in Aziraphale's memory is the Starmaker, so that this is what we see at the opening of S2. With this foundation of "some scenes are altered memories," we can critically examine the minisodes and see that, in fact, they are ALL Aziraphale's memories that are potentially subject to doctoring.

Evidence (and exploration) below the cut:

A Companion to Owls

The largest part (S2E2 22:10 to 44:00) Book of Job flashback is book-ended by Aziraphale leaning over the physical Book of Job in his bookshop. We enter the memory when Aziraphale enters it, we leave it when he leaves it. Pretty straightforward.

The Ressurrectionists

Similarly, in S2E3, we begin the first flashback to 1827 with Aziraphale's "dear diary" entry. We flash out each time to Aziraphale: in the car to Edinburgh, getting out of the car at the Ressurrectionist Pub, and with Aziraphale staring up at the statue of Gabriel while standing in the graveyard in Edinburgh, respectively for each of the three flashbacks. This all strongly indicates that we've been in his memory.

Nazi Zombie Flesheaters

I didn't even notice until I was doing research for this that basically the entire episode takes place in 1941. From the end of the main title at 5:00 to 37:50, we never come out of the 1941 story. But what is interesting is what bookends this minisode.

Before the main title, Shax has tricked her way into Aziraphale's car and alludes to a time when a rumor started about our ineffable husbands:

Sometime in the last 80 or 90 years I remember hearing that you and Crowley were an item. I didn't believe it then. Not really. Poor old Furfur.

And when we flash back to modern day, we first go to Hell with Shax proposing a full frontal assault on the bookshop, and then we get:

Aziraphale has arrived back in SOHO, and has spent the 8 hour drive reminiscing about what Shax alluded to.

But this part gets even weirder. Because the final line of the episode is:

You're really hosting the meeting? Absolutely! And I can guarantee you: it will be a night to remember!

What this means in context of the 3 memory sequence

This line has been taken by a lot of analysts as a reference to A Night to Remember by Walter Lord, a collection of first person accounts of passengers of the Titanic. Most notably, the thematic ties of this work to the cinematographic design of Good Omens are captured by this quote:

A key to Lord's method is his technique of adopting an unconventional approach to the chronology of the event, "[taking] an imaginative approach to time and space in which hours and minutes prove extremely malleable, the ship itself seems almost infinitely complex, and the disaster assumes order and unity from far away."

Which is an amazing connection, and probably true, in that it was a deliberate reference by the writers. "Malleability of time and space" describes well how this show is put together for us the viewer. But it also illustrates how Aziraphale experiences his relationship with Crowley; skipping over centuries at a time, while dwelling on and protracting intimate moments spent together, create a cohesive whole when viewed from a distance. That whole is their relationship. [Which is about to go down like an unsinkable ship.]

But absent the literary reference, we could even take this line for its literal meaning. Aziraphale is talking about forming new memories, after we have spent the last three episodes living in his memories of times with Crowley that were key to shaping their relationship. This isn't a S1E3-style series of allusions to a furtive, flirtatious, and organically blossoming intimacy; these are rough events where the two are shoved into moral quandaries and forced to make some really difficult decisions that bring them closer together and define "their side." These are core memories, and incredibly precious to Aziraphale. And now, after a few short days in which he has spent a lot of time ruminating on these intense memories, he is embarking upon the task of making another important memory, that is, dancing with Crowley.

Why We Care

Because memories can be altered, all of the information we get from these episodes is subject to a reliable narrator problem. As of the Gabriel trial, we know that memories can be doctored even when the person in question isn't present. Crowley knows that his memories have been removed or altered, and has put painful effort into retrieving them. Aziraphale may not realize that he has suffered the same fate. These memories that he holds so dear might not even be true.

Memory, Identity, and the Relevance of Fidelity

We would probably expect to get some "corrections" to these memories in S3, to see exactly what kind of manipulations our heroes suffered and what that reveals about the motivations of the perpetrators. That's how a paranormal mystery story with a memory manipulation element would normally proceed.

But it will be even more significant if we don't; it would speak to a philosophy-of-self that you are not the product of your objective past, but of what you remember, and so we don't get to know what actually happened because it doesn't matter to informing us about who Aziraphale is.

Aziraphale's love for Crowley springs from what he remembers about their shared past; it doesn't necessarily matter that the memories aren't true, because the love is.

~~~

I realize that I kinda buried the lead, so if you reblog, please tag appropriately? I'm taking suggestions.

If you want to read more on this topic, this meta by @ineffable-suffering is a good place to go.

[onestepbackwards]

In the self-aware AU what would the characters react to the player having a little sibling.

Hearing the player give a tutorial and run around in their own save file. Letting their sibling be the one to catch their own Pokémon, customize Akari or Rei to their wishes, take photos with Pokémon and speak their opinions about the cast.

This may derail from the other headcannons with the characters becoming self-aware overtime. Unsure if this fits.

What about the sibling liking the game so much they decide to play the game on their own account. However, every character is still just as self-aware having memories of the original players save file, and the new one.

Even possibly having the ability to roam around the game, but they are still forced into a cutscene after a certain threshold is made.

Volo being invested in knowing the “True God’s, and Little God” entire ancestry and lives outside the game, as the player isn’t watching.

Telling the child what he is forced to do to them, begging for forgiveness, and doing his genuine best to both befriend the child despite such strings. Establishing enough trust to ask them about their days at school, and things about their “holy” family.

Now even questioning who’s the one pulling these canon strings? Arceus? It would only make him hate the creature even more.

Questioning the intentions behind their sentience, who had started it and why?

Two stories happening on a screen just which is better staying in script entirely to fulfill their purpose of entertainment, or leap into the unknown with the possibility of never seeing either players again.

Then there’s Ingo who can see the red flags, and would inform the player. At first he would be trying to give the child battle advice, and to trust their instincts if something is wrong.

I wonder whether he’d be in the wants to fulfill purpose of play and look after the child but at an expense of never being played again…. I’d think he would make the sacrifice if it meant the player and their family would be safe in the end.

Ohh, the moment they all realize it’s your sibling, it becomes a trial to make the best impression for them.

Volo, like you said, would no doubt try and get close. He’s be one of the firsts to openly break the code to talk with your sibling, warning them he’s being forced to betray them in game later, and to please forgive him.

If your siblings agrees, then Volo will take it as a blessing, and make his move, trying to figure more about you and your family. He’ll be the best friend your sibling could ask for, even if its just to learn more about you.

Akari and Rei, whoever your sibling didn’t pick for their playthrough, also help out your sibling, wanting to genuinely be friends. Though they don’t appear as often as Volo does. Maybe they’ll have the courage to reveal themselves to you too?

Ingo is the most wary about doing this, unsure how you would react. But he does end up stepping in if Volo or even the others get too close or comfortable. Being the most familiar with the code, if he can’t get then to back off peacefully, he isn’t above teleporting then elsewhere.

Ingo wants to be friends, he genuinely does! And he sees s much potential in your sibling!

But he doesn’t want to risk things too much. If you find out, and get upset, it could mean the literal end of their world. And he recognizes what Volo is doing is especially manipulative. He doesn’t want your sibling getting upset or to be used just to get to you.

It doesn’t deter Volo though.

Meanwhile, you hear a lot about the characters in game. Your sibling happily goes on about his journey so far, and he seems to have an attachment to Volo.

You don’t think much of it, until they mention Volo asked about you.

Its something you shrug off, but it does make you wonder if your sibling may be playing pretend with Volo.

You decide it’s best to keep an eye out. Especially if they haven’t been betrayed yet. If your sibling is this attached, you don’t want them getting too upset later on.

Though the stuff your sibling keeps bringing up is a bit weird. Yes, you will be keeping a close eye on them indeed.

[corishadowfang]

Questions for 15 Friends Tag Game

Tagged by @siarven--thanks for the tag!

Rules: Answer the questions, then tag 15 people.

ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?

Uh...not really but also kind of for my legal name? It was the name of a character in a soap opera my mom watched, and she liked it enough to use it for me.

My chosen name...also kind of falls under the same umbrella, but for different reasons, and, uh...comes with a story. So like--I was really into fantasy stories when I was a kid/teen (I say like I'm not still into them now), and I loved making up "fantasy" names, which...basically just meant shoving a bunch of letters together until I got something I thought sounded cool. One of those names was "Coriora." For whatever reason, I fell in love with this name, and it's shortened version, "Cori," and I used it for everything. Pokemon nicknames, random characters, a self-insert OC...

And my cat. Who I adopted a few months before I made my email and FF.net account. Which is when I officially started using the name "CoriShadowfang" as my primary username online. Teenage me didn't even have the thought in her mind that she could possibly identify with the name "Cori" enough to adopt it as her own, nor did she think of the potential consequences of sharing a name with her cat.

...On the plus side, it's funny to call my cat "Cori Sr.," and watch how people try to process that.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?

Uh...I think Friday night? I'm pretty sure it was about something I was planning for a story, aha. (I cry VERY easy, haha, and the thing that spurs it does not necessarily have to be sad.)

DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

Do pets count...?

WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED?

I was signed up for baseball, basketball, and soccer when I was a kid, though of those, soccer was the only one I actually liked. I ended up running cross country and track in high school (though after that ended up running only for fun, since, uh...the competitive part of that wasn't very enjoyable for me, aha). In college I did fencing, which I loved and often miss a lot, but there...really aren't many places that offer fencing around where I live. I did do some long sword for a while a couple of years ago; transition to that from fencing was an interesting experience, since the fencing muscle memory...did not go away. ("What do you mean I have to hold this with two hands?? ...What do you mean I can't just stab them?!") That ended up being pretty expensive, though, so I only got to take lessons for a few months. It was still fun, though!

DO YOU USE SARCASM?

Depends on the situation! I use it a lot less online, because I'm worried about coming across as, like...rude or mean. When I do use it, it's often toned down a lot. Offline, it depends on who I'm around, and how they react to it. (Or if I'm just...getting really frustrated. Then it tends to come out more.)

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?

Uh, that's...a good question. Online, it's definitely their interests, and...I guess it's kind of also the same offline? If I'm given the opportunity, haha. Like--if I see you're wearing a Pokemon pin or reading a fantasy book or something, I'm immediately going to be focused on that, haha.

WHAT’S YOUR EYE COLOUR?

Mostly blue; the bottom of my right eye has a patch of green in it.

SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?

Happy endings! I never got into scary movies very much, aha.

ANY TALENTS?

Uh...I guess writing probably counts? I'm also a pretty good distance runner.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN?

The middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania.

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?

Writing, haha; I joke that it's all I do, but uh...it really is most of what I do. Besides that, I like drawing, reading, playing video games, and hiking. I guess playing card games/board games might also count? But uh, I do that a lot with my friends and family.

DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS?

Yes! Cori Sr. is still around, haha, and I also recently adopted a puppy named Luna. Obligatory pet photos:

HOW TALL ARE YOU?

5'4''

FAVOURITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL?

Probably unsurprisingly, lit/creative writing, haha. I also really liked most science classes, too; learning about nature was one of my favorite things in school, and any sort of labs where we could go outside and actually study plants/animals were amazing.

DREAM JOB?

If money weren't a concern, and I could just do anything I wanted for the rest of my life without worrying about how to pay the bills...I would love to just write stories full time. Writing really is one of the things I'm the most passionate about, and I'd love to be able to pour my all into it without worrying about getting too burnt out or needing to take on extra jobs to make ends meet. Maybe one day...

I will tag...wait I need 15 of you...uhhh @starlightwayfinder, @cq-studios, @recusant-s-sigil, @scalacaelumx, @hallowed-nebulae, @serenedash, @thetwilightroadtonightfall, @rosie-kairi, @fin-al-mix, @kicktwine, @zmwrites, @talesabound, @gotchaocha, @bookwormally, and @lightwithinthedarknessu, if any of you want to do this! Absolutely no pressure, though! (And feel free to skip/leave out any you might feel uncomfortable answering/don't feel like answering.)

[onebizarrekai]

Hello, you used to do these things for ds characters a long time ago, like:

B A S I C S

full name:

gender:

sexuality:

pronouns:

And other-

Could you do this for Error or Cross(or both) please? I need it for my friend and his project-

sorry it's been like 100 years since I got this but anyway I feel like those characters have become so inconsistent it's tricky to narrow them down. if you ask modern me their names are ellie [last name missing] and victoria crow respectively, both are she/her, and none of the characters have articulated sexualities anymore besides Not Straight for imaginative ease. or if you're asked me from 4 years ago they're just error and cross and they probably are still trapped in the undertale dark ages of men who wish they were fashion disaster enough to fit in jojo's bizarre adventure.

do you mean like you want the WHOLE thing? like the whole whole thing? I just searched back and found the text base. dreamswap has plot holes and changed so much around its later era in it that it's difficult to articulate the details, but I can TRY.

ds ellie (to differentiate from the fatal flaws universe) was raised in an ambiguous institution (in other words, an orphanage) and has no mentioned relationship to her parents nor where she lives, barring the implication that she lives in an underground city. ds vick was born… somewhere in the spectrum of the multiverse, in a chunk of real estate owned by the ds version of big bad xgaster and it wasn't established who her familial relations were in this version. half the characters in ds are also conveniently unemployed and this includes the entire meme squad. ellie and vick's phobias have yet to be articulated because it was never that important to the plot. in other, less jokey words, I would say phobias are much more severe and neurological than bad memories or unpleasant situations. I don't really wanna say that ellie has a phobia of human connection or that vick is has a phobia of defeat or something. they have bad things that remind them of bad things and may even be debilitating, but I haven't had a chance to articulate them in writing or even figure out entirely how to do that or how they might relate to any given story. I never decided whether they had any irrational fears either. same thing for the next inquiry; what their guilty pleasures might be. all I can come up with is that vick likes fighting, and it's not always the wholesome kind.

morality alignment. uhhhh. it's complicated. people are complicated. the whole next list of character traits that split everyone into one half of the chart or the other feel like they're not accounting for any hypothetical specifics. like, I could say ellie is agreeable, but she's capable of doing things that make her disagreeable to many others. vick could be disagreeable to the people she picks fights with but she's capable of being agreeable to others. either one of them could be more optimistic depending on the circumstances. vick's carefree attitude could be read as optimism or nihilism. some of them are more cut and dry (for example, I'm sure both of them are anxious messes, which is common for their age), but I feel like saying it doesn't really say as much as just reading the material that exists of the characters… and said material is already only semi-reliable at best.

basically, I have this image in my head of the complex potential of each ds character, but none of them have really grown into it. you get what I mean? there's a lot of character details that aren't very clear simply because the characters were created, but not wholly written. not wholly developed. I'm not saying I have contempt for them or something, or wish I had done more. they just have something they COULD be one day. more complete versions of themselves. versions of them that I started out imagining back in 2018, but the directions I was going in with what I was making resulted in those versions of them not being fully realized. a character can only go so far with bouts of lore and minimal continuity.

I dunno if any of that even matters. it's probably more useful for me to just give yes or no answers, but I just kinda felt like talking about ds and its characters and how they've aged. maybe they'll end up in some medium one day that focuses more on who they could be rather than just their backstories and they'll be more fleshed out then.

[vitaminseetarot]

This reading is intended for @differentangeldreamland, whose account I haven't been able to locate. I hope you can find this and I apologize for the really long wait in getting this reading out to you!

Your card is Water:Waterfall:Star. Your water element pours down from the sky as if through a portal from another realm. It delivers a healing rain to renew the ocean's cycle. As the water falls, it carries messages from ethereal sources for the world to absorb. There are two currents where freshwater and seawater, inspiration and memory, both blend their energies together. The Soul card strangely reminds me of how salmons migrate back and forth depending on their maturity. They hatch from the river, live at sea, and eventually return back to their origins to restart the cycle. You have been spending a lot of time pondering life's mysteries on your own and as such carry a lot of intrapersonal awareness by blending these two aspects of water. Inspiration breathes a steady stream of life and clarity while memory serves as a treasure trove of wisdom and an understanding of deep connections. Combined, these two have the potential to activate strong psychic gifts in you. I'm thinking both channeling from otherwordly sources, while also being able to resonate with people around you. You have guides who are overseeing your psychic awareness, and they want to congratulate you for all the hard work you've put into discovering yourself. It's not always easy to go inward for answers whether lightwork or shadowwork is involved. Perhaps you've become used to seeing spirituality and using psychic gifts as something that requires a lot of personal alone time. While alone time is essential for healing and honing skills, your guides also want to acknowledge your kinship with other people. There are others out there who are more like you than you may think and would love for you to offer your insight and perspectives. You deserve to be among compassionate people who fully get you, have hope that they are out there and that life is moving you in a positive direction. You've put in so much inner work, spiritually. You are being rewarded for your efforts through valuable connections. It's time to fully fill your own cup again and have fun. Spending time with those who understand you and your outlook on life will refresh your mind.

3 - Water:Waterfall:Star, IX Soul [Hermit], Power

[bumblingbabooshka]

Random question but if hypothetically T’pel were like a doctor or something similar, wouldn’t Tuvok also have that knowledge and experience and stuff? Cuz like they “share a mind” and junk?

It's interesting~!! I wonder about that too - based on how the Vulcan marriage vow that Tuvok & T'Pel exchange is worded: ("For you I consecrate all that I am / From you I receive all that I am / Two bodies, one mind") it seems the Vulcan ideal would be just that - two people in absolute harmony.

I don't think this is an immediate thing - we see, for example, that T'Pol & Koss don't get along despite entering into a marriage bond. But we do see that Vulcans are able to pass on certain traits and interests through a sustained meld. (which I assume a marriage bond would be similar to)

Like Tuvok says here, the meld is able to 'introduce' one person to the other person's interests but from this phrasing it doesn't appear that Suder has gained any actual hmm... knowledge? From it? He states that Suder's ability to grow the presented plant is "A unique talent". The phrasing 'introduced you to my interest in x' is also interesting to me. Like, did Suder find himself being interested in floriculture because of the meld with Tuvok OR did he just learn that Tuvok liked it and chose to pursue it because of that? I'm leaning towards the latter - it makes me picture that new Vulcan couples probably try a lot of each other's hobbies and that's very cute to think about. My personal headcanon is that a marriage bond allows for passive knowledge and fleeting general emotions/thoughts to pass between people, but specifics have to be delved into. Having access to an entire other life is probably a LOT of information you could potentially have access to and I'm certain it also requires trust from the person whose memory you're accessing, like we see in 'Flashback.' Ex: You may be able to sense that your partner is upset but to find out why you have to have their trust and permission to delve into their mind. I'd imagine this is also useful with young children who can't fully verbalize their emotions. So, thinking about your question: If Tuvok were in some sort of medical emergency and tapped into T'Pel's mind he'd be able (since they've been together so long and trust one another deeply) to access her memories regarding medicine. However, since he didn't actually study medicine I think it'd require him to methodically go through and learn everything along with 'her' which would take time and is of course only her perspective on what she learned and so would not be very useful. Ex: You can look at someone's answers but if there's no work shown you won't know how they got there. T'Pel would, I imagine, have to be with Tuvok in the memory to explain her thought process in depth. Also, because it's her own memory/perspective it's entirely possible she may have been distracted or focusing on something else at the time etc. I suppose it'd depend on what exactly he would need to know. It'd be easier to discern 'what does x look like' than 'how do I do x surgery?' I also think that T'Pel's memories would slowly fade from his own memory the longer they go without sharing a mind - especially those he doesn't access frequently. Or more accurately, most of them become his memory of her memories which warps them and makes them unreliable. How often T'Pel herself accesses certain memories would also have to be taken into account. Ex: If T'Pel hasn't thought about something in a very long time it's unlikely to be clear enough to glean any information from it though it's technically accessible. So I personally don't think it'd be an instant or easy thing. Like - he would have to seek out and take to heart that knowledge but even if he did do all of that he still wouldn't have the actual tactile experience of living it. Theory is always different from practice. I do think that Vulcan couples would probably go through each others' memories as a method of bonding. Also that during arguments they sometimes use a meld to literally see one another's POV. Through this kind of 'double memory' they grow further intwined with one another until one partner becomes part of the other - they go forth sharing a life and mind while also of course having their own privacies and perspectives.

[im-akira]

Joel Miller x F!Reader | 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐒 | 🌿

Chapter 6 : Memories | Chapter 7 | Summary

Series Summary : Joel Miller is no longer the same man after losing his entire family, except his little brother. A few months later, after saving Ellie from the Fireflies. He now lives in a community of survivors with Ellie and her younger brother, Tommy.

He has only one goal, to ensure his own survival and that of those he loves. Until the day he crossed paths with a young woman and her son in the community. The young woman’s face was particularly familiar.

Are you and Joel strangers or are you a lot more than that ?

Warnings : Mature content angst, smut, romance, blood, violence...

Do not : Claim, Repost, Copy, or Translate my stories anywhere else.

Notes : Reference to certain scenes of the series and the game. If some things bother you, inconsistent in my story, do not hesitate to tell me this will allow me to improve ! 😊

I apologize in advance but English is not my mother tongue. 💙

~*.♪。★*・゜・＊♪*.♪。★*・゜・＊♪*.♪°~

- « James ? » Ellie was returning from a morning patrol. Dina and Jessy and others had accompanied him during his shift. A rather pleasant awakening for the young teenager. James, for his part, was doing his best to help residents in Jackson during the weeks following the party. Many adults had left town to go out and deal with the potential danger outside the walls. A horde had been spotted a few miles from town.

Y/N stayed with Maria to help her prepare for some activities. With many parents absent today, James volunteered to change the minds of Jackson’s children. This choice had particularly surprised him himself, but he wanted it, it was not an opposite to pass the time.

The day then began with a snowball fight in the park. James wanted to start with a more fun activity for the kids from the start, attacking something more theoretical would have been more of a failure than anything else. It will come later in the day, James like the children had the right to enjoy the good weather.

- « Do you have a minute ? » She asked, raising her voice to get James's attention. Ellie leans on the fence of the park where James and the other children were.

- James had heard Ellie's voice, he picks up the snow on the ground to form a snowball, enough to defend against the children. Before he even got up to prepare his attack, he received three snowballs in the chest. « Give me a minute and I'm all yours. I just have to send a message to some people. »

Ellie stared wordlessly at the attitude James portrayed with the children in the park. He didn't know them, he had no connection with them, and yet he was there and paid a lot of attention, with a smile on his face. It's as if James has been doing this all his life, being in contact with children didn't seem like a complicated task for him.

The truth is, every child reminds James of his sister's zest for life.

- Once James has settled the account of the children that he had thrown the snowballs at him, he will come forward in the direction of Ellie. Of course, even if he had his back to the children, he certainly wasn't going to let his guard down. « So Ellie, what did you have to ask me ? »

- « I- » Before she can answer the question, she gets a snowball in the face. Quickly, she pulls the sleeve of her jacket against her face to get rid of the snow and the cold against her face. « Hé ! I am not playing ! »

- « What is this mess ?! » James quickly turns to the group of children. He didn't even pay attention to the words he just said out of anger. Either way, it was too late to go back on his words.

- « Cause you're a chicken ? Ha ha ! » The children laugh together at the situation.

- « I hate that kid… » Ellie was mumbling words that only James could hear.

- « Revenge would be well deserved, wouldn't it ? »

- Ellie jumps over the fence to join James and prepare for the battle ahead. « You better run really fast ! »

- « On the attack ! »

For more than ten minutes, James, Ellie and the children had a big snowball fight. Neither side emerges victorious, until James delivers the final blow to one of the children who thought he was too well hidden to see. Bad luck for him, James had already observed the area and the potential hiding places.

- « Hé ! It's not fair ! » The child protests his defeat against the adults.

- « Each in turn, right ? »

- « Go ahead and catch it ! »

- « What the- » The children come out of their hiding places one by one and quickly throw themselves on James, throwing him on the ground. Through the move, James fell straight onto his back, luckily for him no injuries were reported. The snow had cushioned the fall « Let go of me, little monsters ! This is cheating ! »

- Ellie smiled at the scene unfolding before her eyes. She could have helped him, but instead she turns on James and joins the attack with the kids. Throwing herself on him, she tries to block him with the other children. « You're in trouble, James ! »

- « Ellie ! What are you doing ? You weren't supposed to be on my side ? » James laughed at his own words. Even if he had several children on him, that wouldn't stop him from getting rid of them very quickly. But surprisingly, his body told him to stay in this position and enjoy.

Seeing smiles and hearing laughter from Ellie and the other children could only bring happiness to James. He would never have thought of the fact that this activity ends like this.

On Joel's side...

Joel was walking around town, taking a short break after helping his brother with some houses that were being built right in the middle of town. He didn't really have a place in particular to land, just enjoying the fresh air was more than enough.

This atmosphere, so special and at the same time familiar, reminds him of the good old days.

Joel's attention shifted to a hubbub that was heard in the distance, it wasn't very far from where he was. He then decided to walk towards this famous noise, and there he did not expect to see the scene that was happening before his eyes.

Was he dreaming ? Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him ? But at first glance, this scene was very real.

Ellie and James play with other children. It was... Joel didn't have the words to describe what he was feeling, but one thing was certain, he was reassured to see it. It was the first time in months that he had seen a smile on Ellie's face. He also discovered another side of his son, happy to be with children.

His breathing was heavy, his lips quivering on their own, leaving him unable to say a word. His body would fall soon if Joel didn't leave the stage. But he just stood there, watching the scene without a word.

Then something else appeared, a memory.

It was when James was still a little baby. Sarah was old enough to take care of her little brother. It was on the most tiring nights that Y/N and Joel were completely exhausted. They gave so much that week that none of them had the courage to stand up.

But Sarah was there to help them, she doesn't mind doing her big sister role at all. She could take advantage of this time to share it with her little brother.

As for the young couple, Joel slept soundly, unlike Y/N who was quite restless that night. The young mother was particularly surprised to hear nothing, no crisis, nothing, silence. Usually, James would have started crying by now.

She then got up from her position in the bed, and looked at the crib. To make sure what she was seeing, she left the bed and moved forward. Y/N thought her heart was going to stop, James was gone, her baby was gone.

- The young mother will then throw herself on the bed and shake Joel to try to wake him up fairly quickly. « Joel, honey, please wake up... »

- « Mmh... » Joel just moved through the sheets, but nothing more, he was still in the arms of sleep. Then, when Y/N put a lot more pressure on his arms, Joel almost woke up with a big jump. « What is t- » Before he finishes his words, his wife puts her hand to his lips, to make him understand not to speak loudly.

Even through the darkness of the room, worry and fear could be seen on his face.

- « James is no longer in his crib… I.. I think someone entered the house, there is noise in the living room. » Y/N held her husband’s arm firmly and her eyes were one with his. His whole body was ready to decompose if Joel wasn’t standing by his side.

- « Hé hé, breathe, it's alright, baby. I'm here. We're going to take it easy and see what's going on in our house. Okay ? » Joel speaks in a low voice, in a very calm and soft tone to calm the atmosphere in the room. His thumb caresses the top of his hand gently. Joel was just as scared as his wife, but he had to keep it to himself to reassure her that everything was fine. « Let's go but in silence, Mmh ? »

Y/N nods slowly at Joel's words and gets up from the bed to gently place his feet on the bedroom floor. Joel will do the same and walk very lightly to the exit. Y/N was right behind him, holding his hand tightly.

Once out, Joel quickly takes a look at Sarah's room, the door was open and it looks like the room is empty. His breathing increased, but despite that, he couldn't pull back to understand what was really going on with him. He could feel Y/N's trembling hand in his. He treads cautiously and tries to remain as discreet as possible.

The further they go, the easier it is to hear the noise in the living room. Sarah's voice was there, but no baby crying. It's once they've reached halfway up the stairs that the two adults are almost speechless at the scene that's happening in their living room.

Sarah had James on her lap, she had also retrieved her father's guitar to try and get James to play the instrument.

- Y/N gently releases Joel's hand and walks past him to finish down the stairs. Then standing in the center of the living room, looking in the direction of her daughter and her son. « Sarah, honey, what are you doing so late with your brother ? »

- Sarah had not noticed her parents at the time. That’s when she saw that she had lost James' attention. He raised his hands to something and at the same time tried to get out words that were not really understandable. Sarah looks up and sees her parents in the living room. « Mom ? Dad ? »

- Joel was standing right next to Y/N, with his arms resting against his broad chest. « Did you hear your mother's question ?» He wasn't mad at his daughter, it was the exact opposite. Seeing them together with his guitar could only make him happy and proud.

- « James started crying a few times and as I couldn’t hear any movement on your side, I got up to see what was going on. You were both asleep. » James puts his intention on the musical instrument, his little fingers run clumsily on the strings, bringing out a false sound. « I pulled him out of his crib and couldn’t calm him down, so I tried something with him. »

- Sarah's gaze was on her brother, she looked at him with a great look at the gestures he made on the guitar. It was far from perfect, but he was having fun and that was the main thing. « When I had nights where I had a lot of nightmares, dad had the idea of ​​playing the guitar for me to try to relax me and scare away the bad thoughts. It worked. So I thought I should try with James. »

Joel and Y/N looked at each other, Joel smiled, then removed his arms from his chest and directed them towards his children. The young mother looks at him and tries to figure out what he was going to do now. He gently runs his hand through Sarah's and then James's hair.

- Joel sat down on the sofa, right next to Sarah and James. The little angel looked up at his father, Sarah looked up too. « Give me the guitar, honey. »

Y/N also came forward to join his little family on the couch. She had settled on the other side of the sofa, right next to her children. Sarah lands wordlessly with her brother in her arms against her mother's chest. Faced with this gesture, the young mother puts her arms around her children and draws them towards her. His chin is now just above Sarah's head.

Joel immortalized this moment in his memory. He will never thank God enough for giving him this chance, this family here. Once properly settled and facing his family, Joel began to put his fingers on the guitar strings.

James was watching carefully what his father was doing, his mouth hanging open, his body shaking slightly. One of his small hands held his mother's finger, and next to it was firmly held by his sister's arms.

- « Hey, sweet little angel. Daddy's here, he won't leave. Watch him play, one day you'll be as good as him. » Y/N comes and rubs James' belly with little rounds, saying that the guitar has had an effect. Sarah was smiling at her brother's behavior and was happy to see him react this way.

The guitar healed them both.

And then Joel started to sing and play his fingers on the strings, a soft sound could be heard.

Welcome to the end of being alone inside your mind,

Tethered to another and you're worried all the time,

You always knew the melody but you never heard it rhyme,

She's fair and she is quiet, Lord, she doesn't look like me,

She made me love the morning, she's a holiday at sea.

She filled my life with color, cancelled plans and trashed my car,

But none of that is ever who we are,

Outside of my windows are the mountains and the snow,

You were not an accident where no one thought it through,

The world has stood against us, made us mean to fight for you,

And when we chose your name we knew that you'd fight the power, too.

You're nothing short of magical and beautiful to me.

Ooooh...Ooooh...

- James was the first to react when the song ended. Joel placed his guitar against the other armchair in the living room and then moved forward to meet up properly with his family on the couch. Faced with his son's agitation, he grabbed James from Sarah's arms to land him on his lap. Sarah watched her father's gesture, but before she said anything, he gently cut her off. « That way, no jealousy. »

The little family exchanged many looks, but no words, everything was done in silence, through laughter and smiles. Y/Ncould read in the light of Joel's eyes who thanked her from the bottom of his heart for giving him this opportunity, thisfamily, this chance.

In a family, we are tied together by invisible threads that bind us even when we cut them. Despite all the difficulties, distance, age and vagaries of life, the love between family members does not become dull and hard.

And of course, no family is perfect. We fight, we bicker, we mess around. Sometimes we even stop talking to each other, but in the end, the family is always the family. Love will always be there.

Despite anything that may be put in his way between Ellie or her family, Joel will fight until the end, even if it means giving up his life. He wouldn't let anyone hurt them.

- « Everything okay Ellie ? »

Ellie and James had landed on one of the park benches, the kids still playing on their own as they took a short break from the battle.

- Ellie had been playing with her knife for a while now. She had lost herself in thought and had almost forgotten that James was right next to her. « Yes.. No, I forgot what I wanted to ask you. »

- « Oh, it's good, it will come back one day. » James could see in Ellie's eyes that something was bothering her. Complicated to know exactly what. Does this have anything to do with the discussion she had with Joel at the abandoned store ? Or maybe something to do with the girl where she spent the rest of the night with her, dancing.

- « His children remind you of someone, don’t they ? »

- « What makes you say that ? »

- « In general, nobody likes taking care of children. My intuition tells me that you are doing this for a particular reason. »

James didn't respond directly, his gaze once again lost on the children in the park. She was right on one point, James was doing it partly because it reminded him of the good times of joy he was able to share with his sister when he was younger. He wasn't ashamed to talk about it, and Ellie was no longer a stranger to him, even if they didn't spend their day together, James knew he could count on sincerity but also that there wouldn't be any judgment on the part of the young adolescent.

- « Her name was Sarah, she was my older sister and like many people here I lost her when the world fell into chaos. » (see gif above) James looked away, not sure where to look. The tears did not flow, at least this time.

- Once all of James' words reached Ellie's ear, she could feel a pang of regret in her stomach. She blamed herself for asking him, her curiosity could sometimes lead her to do awkward things. « I'm sorry, James. I did not want- »

- « No, it's fine. I would have told you if I didn't want to talk about it. »

James didn't want to admit it, but as the weeks passed, Ellie grew and progressed. The more he saw a certain part of Sarah in her. He wanted to protect her from this world, as if she were his little sister. He wanted to forgive himself for his past mistakes.

Ellie was more than capable of facing and fighting the dangers. He still didn’t know the path she had taken with Joel. But if she got here, she wasn’t just anyone.

- « I’ll be here this time. » ~*.♪。★*・゜・＊♪*.♪。★*・゜・＊♪*.♪°~ If you want to be marked on my future stories, let me know in the comments. Thank you again for reading ! 😊

[scratchandplaster]

Birdie why do you think Ben ran away?

Shepherd what do you plan on doing with Lukas?

[Masterlist] | Ask game

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

"I think he missed his brother," Birdie mused.

The group Sam joined today was busy preparing fruit slices, mostly apricots, apples and figs, as a midday snack. They were mixing pumpkin butter with a scoop of fresh honey into a paste, meaning if Sam took one fact away from their stay here, it was that these people loved their dips.

"If that's all, why didn't he stay in contact with you guys?"

"He probably had a little rebel phase," she laughed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, "and wanted to prove himself out in the world."

Sam hummed: "Doesn't seem like the type to rebel."

"You're absolutely right! But if I'm being honest, Lukas has a pretty strong influence over him. On his first day back, he acted like we would tear him to shreds for leaving, I-" Birdie shook her head as if to let her thoughts out, "I can't imagine what kind of horror scenario they convinced themselves of."

Sam never dared to acknowledge it, but given what kind of social structure Birdie and friends were trapped in, they had always been friendly and welcoming to even the one who strayed off their vision of life. Normally, at least during their research, Sam expected a good portion of shunning and shame. 

Lucky Ben.

"Perhaps he regretted his choice, but was too embarrassed to ask for our help. Just look at him, he flourishes a bit more with every day."

--------

The old man's eyes lit up when asked about his son.

"Oh, the only thing I want is to see if he's doing well! Since he left without a word, I live in constant worry, especially because Luke... Well, he is very vulnerable when it comes to everyday stressors. And before you say it: I know. I know he's an adult and can make his own choices in life, but I'm not sure if that also applies to the people around him." A beat of silence followed. "I only wish for him to live in a healthy environment with friends that can be trusted."

"That's it?" Somehow, Sam didn't buy it. To be fair, he had been very upfront with them about Ben and their role in his return. 

"That's it," Shepard assured, "and if he doesn't want contact, I will have to respect his decision. But maybe, just maybe, he feels prompted to visit once or twice. For his brother's sake, at least, so we can live with the knowledge that he is safe."

"Is Lukas like him?" Their head nodded over to Ben, trapped outside the cabin gathering and whittling new twigs for today's campfire bread.

"No, not at all." The man's smile dragged a certain sadness along. "That's the magic of raising children; witnessing how these little minds full of potential grow into their own person. It's a gamble, but every score is a win."

Whipping out a crumpled Polaroid picture from his wallet, Sam was greeted by a child waving at them from behind the stained foil - hair black as a crow was tucked under a horribly knitted beanie. The boy, visibly younger than the triplets, stood next to an RV that was parked in front of a spitting geyser.

"That's Luke's first time at Yellowstone," Shepard spoke rather wistfully, "he loved watching the fountains for hours. Read about it beforehand, so of course, I enjoyed a whole tour of the place for free and afterward..."

Sam had braced themself for a lot during their time among the residents, but a whimsy trip down memory lane wasn't accounted for. Nothing against free information, but they feared Shepard was about to pull out the ultimate time waster.

"Here, I'll show you!" From under his desk, Shepard presented a thick photo album wrapped in leather.

Too late.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

[mdhwrites]

Ten Years of Writing

February 2014, I made my fimfiction account. At the end of that month, I published my first fanfic. It has been ten years since that fateful decision that feels like it changed so much for me. I kind of want to go back through my memories, just talk about some of the highlights (going to save that for a different blog frankly. It is ten years of material and almost three hundred stories combined, potentially that many with the very few I've deleted over the years) and what that's meant to me but I know a lot of people might ask: What do you have to show for it?

Well, skill wise, I would probably argue that writing is the only trained skill I have and I am IMMENSELY proud of how far I came, especially while knowing that I haven't really had the same support to grow as for the past half decade that I did before then.

I have genuinely moved people and for some even convinced them to seek help they may not have otherwise by sharing my experiences in a more palatable format than simply writing them in a blog would. I have a lot of reasons for why I never will take down Crises Girlfriends from Ao3 and the comments are a big part of that. It's a reminder of the power of writing and creation, something that's easy to lose sight of amongst popularity and hopes of financial success.

On that front though? Amazon lets me check lifetime sales now and I've sold 793 books. It's not even just because of friends buying a glut of material because while I may have 19 books out, Sarafune Monster Preserve Vol. 1, my second ever book, written when I was barely 21, holds over two hundred of those copies. Daughters of Dusk Vol. 1 has half those numbers, though funny enough it does have have more reviews. Frankly, for an independent author who has always struggled to find his audience, those numbers make me genuinely very happy. Also, number five is Ruff Secrets at 33 copies, nineteen of which are physical which I DID NOT REALIZE and honestly makes me realize that that book has done better than I thought it did. Crises Girlfriends is admittedly the lowest one sales wise at 4 copies in almost a year of being out. That's just how it goes sometimes.

Buuuut even for the books without a bunch of sales, I can hold my head high because Ruff Secrets is also literally the only book of mine with a below 4 star rating, at least of the ones with ratings which is the majority of them. That's a feather I can pin in my cap. A testament that even back when I was twenty and published my first work, Diane and Kat: The Bound Bands, I was right to have the confidence I did as a storyteller. To believe my work was commercial quality.

I also still have people in my life I'd never want to be without because of my writing. Heck, I don't know where I'd be without one of them as I lived on their couch for almost two years while dealing with my declining health. Others have helped give me guidance while even more have made sure I never believe I'm alone and I've even been able to help them back. As one friend would say: I was once their Luna and changed what was supposed to be a suicide note into a story that made a lot of people on Fim open up with personifications of their own troubles. I don't know if I'd have found communities where I would make those sorts of connections if not for my writing.

It also still gives me what feels like a purpose to be here. A thing that is mine that I can comfort myself with, even while dealing with my broken brain. While I may be desperate for validation and want success, neither would stop me from continuing to write. My brain is too jumbled a mess of ideas for me to ever stop and it keeps those ideas locked down pretty tightly. Like hey, you know how I mentioned two series at the beginning? Yeah, well, I can still tell you my plans for them and could pick them back up someday. It's been four years since the last Daughters of Dusk book came out but I still want to eventually return to it since it only had two more books before it was done. I don't want to leave it permanently unresolved, even if I've never quite gotten the energy to finish it.

Which does bring me to being honest and admitting that the past ten years haven't all been positive. I've had to fight a growing resentment towards others success as my own jealousy festered. I've had to deal with crushing failure after crushing failure (my fifth best book of 19 makes up for a thirtieth of my sales. I have had a LOT of very quiet launch weeks) and the toll that's taken on me isn't unreasonable. I've multiple times had my brain break on the idea of publicly posting anything, leading to one offs being published and me being a wreck for the rest of the day as my brain begs for it to go as well as it perceives it should.

And yet I've still never stopped. Nor do I ever plan to. It may be a year and a half since my last finished project but I know I'll get through this. I mean, there has been a year during this where I literally wrote like two chapters the entire year. This past year and a half still say probably a couple novellas worth of words out of me, just never to one thing. I could still go back to plenty of those works and continue them. There's at least one I would really like to just because I commissioned the art for it way before I was done writing it which was admittedly a bit of a lesson.

I hope to keep learning, keep getting better and try to share some of the insights I've learned with all of you. So here is to ten years and to many more decades to come hopefully. See you next tale.

[schismusic]

WOLVES IN THE BALLROOM — Yellow Eyes, the LGBTQIA+ community, and the eldritch horrors of isolation

After biding my time for a really long time, these last few days I've been giving Immersion Trench Reverie a go. Yellow Eyes have, in a small capacity, appeared on this blog — possibly on the Redecorating post? — with their latest record, Master's Murmur, which is slightly different from the rest of their output. Basically imagine drawing out one of those intros/endings from their usual stuff, add the usual screaming vocals from Will Skarstad and twelve-string guitar and you're golden, except it works surprisingly well. Like most of you know, my relationship with metal is usually fairly rocky (haha), or at least it usually is, minus a couple of exceptions. Today we take a look at one of the exceptions.

A while back I attended my first kiki. For the uninitiated, a kiki is a ballroom event (in the LGBTQIA+ way, not in the eighteenth-century way) where people new to the discipline can begin showing — and potentially honing — their skills in a completely free manner. This last part, specifically, I did not know, and admittedly I didn't even know the kiki was supposed to be just a rehearsal space of sorts, and like most scenarios like that it brought back old memories of breakdancing and having a remotely positive body image, which made me (gasp!) want to dance. And so I did! I mean, it's not as simple as that, I just did some runway and even a couple seconds of sex siren because I am a showoff — and thank God there is no video evidence of that, I am really bad at being sexy — but still, I put myself in front of what might have been some two hundred people and did my thing, potentially getting some people hyped in the process. Crazy shit, right?

I realize there is some inherent irony in mentioning gay people in a post about black metal*. But it's also the most recent situation that allows me to discuss a certain element of discomfort, and the ability to overcome it. The reason why the kids over at KikiBolo were able to make me dance has to do with generating a good, safe, welcoming environment that still has the elements of performance and an edge to it. Their own rights are a political playground (to call it a "battleground" would imply that politics and politicians, at large, care about people instead of simply using issues as propaganda bullet points and electioneering buzzwords, but this simply isn't the case in Italy anymore — assuming it ever was anywhere, which is debatable), their own existence is more or less directly endangered every step of the way, and yet they dance and fight and live alongside one another to see another day, every day. This shiny surface — the dancefloor, the realness, the being extra and the celebratory openness and transparence of presentation displayed by all of these performers and attendants — has profound roots in incomprehensible discomfort, alterity, danger, inhospitality: eldritch beasts looming behind every corner that simply have to be taken into account when discussing all forms of resistance, whether strictly artistic or not, in situations like these.

Yellow Eyes' main songwriting duo is brothers Will and Sam Skarstad, with contributions from bassist Alex DeMaria. Drummer Mike Rekevics completes the lineup. As it turns out the Skarstad brothers were the children of violinmaker Brian, from whom Will took up the mantle running Skarstad Violins to this very day, and a composer who was routinely exposing her children to all varieties of musical traditions. Incidentally, Will's girlfriend (as of this 2016 Vice interview; in another piece, from 2017 and once again on Vice, she's referred to as "[his] wife Natasha") is from Siberia, and Immersion Trench Reverie admittedly takes a lot of inspiration from the Siberian landscape. The formative metal experience of the duo was with bands like Opeth, which led to this signature style that not many in black metal seem to adhere to: the two guitars interlock and weave into and out of each other repeatedly, forming a violent assault that still somehow manages to retain a very twisted, wistful melodicism. The harmonic richness of the matter never seems to go into auditory overload, incredibly, which might be one of the most surprising aspects of the whole ordeal, and the band display a keen sense of atmosphere throughout. To be fair, this is not uncommon to black metal bands in general; it's just that Yellow Eyes seem very conscious in some application of that idea, not just in their famed intro and outro sequences often sampling field recordings the band made themselves or even non-Western forms of music of all sorts (most notably Russian Orthodox chants and bells of all sorts) but in the songs' structural cores and tout-court arrangements as well.

In reading a Metal Injection interview done around the release of Rare Field Ceiling, the Skarstad brothers mention Arvo Pärt as a point of reference for their arrangements, and in a very ass-backwards way, it actually makes a lot of sense. We've already mentioned bells (aka tintinnabula, just to be clear for everyone), but pastoral aesthetics sometimes pop out in the mix as well: acoustic guitars and organ drones, sure, like in the very ending to Ice in the Spring, but also tremolo-picked guitar parts rigged to ring out into each other and provoke interesting acoustic phenomena that give the impression of bagpipes, launeddas even. The thrashing impact of the drums, more often than not simpler than you would expect in a black metal band, and spectacularly intelligible yet unintrusive bass guitar round the compositions off. The effect is actually much closer to a deviant, dark, perhaps inverted Pärt-like tintinnabula arrangement than you would expect given a general description of the band's sound. But, realistically, no one really gives a shit about harmonic analysis of a black metal band. What got me hooked on the band was precisely the cold and loneliness radiating from even their busiest moments.

A while back, must have been last October going off the top of my head, Yellow Eyes announced they would release a new record in this current year; as an appetizer, they released an EP titled Master's Murmur. A full-band electric version of the title track has been played by the band live in their latest live appearances. But that's not even the point, really. Master's Murmur plays like a placidly twisted amalgam of all the sensitivities the band have displayed over their last three records, but takes an approach that would leave most somewhat surprised: the aggressive vocals are essentially left unaltered, and so is the odd black metal all-out assault (as testified by the electric version of the title track the band have been playing lately), but at the same time the record is on average much more oriented to acoustic guitars, especially twelve-stringed, and the signature guitar interplay slows down, becomes more granular and understandable. This leads to absolutely stunning results like the intro to Tremble Blue Morning, where the extended instrumentation gives out a sense of sun rays breaking through thick layers of grey clouds. Or even the stunning sense of wonder radiating from that sudden guitar harmony in Garden Trick, closing off the record with an unexpected pang.

This is it, I think. This has got to be it. For the longest time I thought of my body as an obstacle to some sort of "purer" form of existence. Something out of a Star Trek episode, almost, one of the more psychedelic ones so to speak. It's a weird feeling, I wouldn't necessarily call it body dysmorphia, it's more the idea that existing on the physical plane is an immense shame to me and everyone else involved. I don't usually delve too much into lyrics for some reason — I guess I was always attracted, first and foremost, to music that makes the most of its timbral properties, the way sounds trickle and flow or hammer and stab or compel to physical movement… — and yet at the same time I can still feel that sense of reality bending, individual perception failing, deep longing if not mourning that the songs seem to recount. Forms of asceticism find their way into these Brooklynites' sound. They find a way to speak to the most isolated.

Back to the kiki metaphor: in preparation for this article I've been doing some research concerning ballroom culture, which of course led me to the Pose series. Major props to the actors for that and set designers for this, but it's hard to look at some of these characters' faces and not be immediately overwrought with despair for the frankly horrifying state their world — and the world at large, if we have to consider records like Deceit, Holy Money or even Prince's 1999's outlook — is in. The AIDS epidemic, a matter so big it has profound yet painfully tangible repercussions on the LGBTQIA+ community to this day, was only a drop in an ocean of day-to-day uncertainty that ranged from, potentially, simply having enough money to put some dinner on the table to international superpowers playing a DEFCON game of chicken with one another. Unsurprisingly, forty years later, we are not that far off from that point: apartheid states receive almost-worldwide support by virtue of monetary interests; racism and homophobia roam the streets of mass information just as much as outright war propaganda trying, more or less openly, to tell us about how "inevitable" a conflict is (not so surprising, ultimately, to realize how no one in the news broadcasting business has ever read Asimov); the climate of the planet still suffers from what inconsiderate consumption of resources happened between the 1970s and the 1990s — and as most of you might have gathered by now, Exxon knew all along: so fuck right off with your individual carbon footprint bullshit. And yet these people dance and fight and live alongside one another to see another day, every day.

Looking back at the earliest black metal bands we see a lot of punk inspiration (Tom G. Warrior of Celtic Frost even going as far as to mention Discharge as a main source of inspiration), or how some of the most renowned names in the genre hail from notoriously problematic geopolitical areas (consider for instance Sarcófago, from Brazil, or Rotting Christ, from Greece — a country which, might I remind you, was less than fifteen years out of a military dictatorship at the time of the band's inception). Black metal is, at heart, a music of discontent, fast and loud, played on instruments being taken to (and beyond) all reasonable limits by people who are often by their own admission not professional musicians, nor do they ever plan to be. A friend of mine liked to joke that "blackened" punk simply didn't work because black metal already is a subgenre of punk, and upsetting the delicate balance simply fucks everything up. Very clearly, Yellow Eyes are able to, if not feel, at least conjure that element of despair and inadequacy in a bold, stark, powerful manner. Theirs is a flirtation with the borders of mania, a dance on a frozen quagmire of madness that lets so much method, and care, and beauty shine through for those willing to spend the time getting acquainted with it, combing every hair of it to find the live flesh under it.

*It should be brought to the reader's attention that the LGBTQIA+ community still holds the very concept of metal quite dear to its heart — regardless of the unfortunate situations that take place in some of the worst circles in the genre. This, necessarily, brought its own wave of metal artists tied more or less directly to the community, and I would love to delve deeper into the topic, but I've been going on for god knows how many characters at this point. That's gonna have to be a different post, I think.

[thebestpartofwakingup]

Weird bad one piece mid 2000s au that goes form 6teen to NITW vibes and the time skip is the Ussop leaving for college and coming back to visit/earned his AA and is waiting to hear back from transfer programs.

Roger is like a small town legend — kind of guy who drove a tractor around town and blasted swedish pop music and might have grown his own pot and hangs around gas stations. Big deal when he was finally arrested and immediately kills himself

Hid some box of something somewhere in the woods, rumored to have a bunch of seedy bank accounts and illegal shit like baby chimpanzee bones

Rumored to have been one of the original investors in the slowly dying mall also rumored to have some crazy dirt on the local police and mall founder

Franky is some kooky school teacher overly invested in his field at a school everyone has given up on. Trying to get taken seriously and published in academia but really loves the kids.

Robin is a drifter-turned-local still not fully trusted by those old enough to remember when she first showed up and was really suspicious (in like a post runaway teen way). She used to be assistant manager at the Lacoste at the mall. She quit after the manager got arrested for assaulting a minor and tax fraud.

Chopper is both a normal but very smart little boy AND the name of a deer that follows Luffy around because he keeps feeding it.

Nami moves out of her dead mom–now–sister’s house the next town over and bums around with her manager Arlong until he is fired and she steals enough money for her own trailer

Zoro is some foster teen about to age out of the system whose been shuffled around enough that the system has basically lost track of him and his papers completely. “Ran away” from his last foster family to move in with two of his friends/brothers from the agency to rent an apartment. At least one of them is old enough to live alone but he never adopted Zoro or anything. Is haunted by the memory of his foster sister (daughter of his foster-father) who died while he was living in that home in a freak accident. Stayed there for a few more years until he was invited to move out.

Eventually his papers get tracked down and gets placed with one lady for a few weeks before she lets Zoro in on how he can get one of his older friends to do the paperwork to get him out. Hes like legally Robin’s responsibility for a couple months before he ages out of the system. He also gets really into owning a truck/van he fixed uo with his brothers.

Ussop legally has a father who ditched town before he was born but nobody wants him to inherit the house from his dead girlfriend so all the locals pitch in to hide the fact Ussop lives alone from officials. Stays with friends and neighbors a lot until he’s a little older and starts worrying more about potential squatters trying to take over the house. Also has a rich girlfriend whose family offers to hire someone to look over the house if he goes to college after graduating high school. Studies naval engineering and has a boat gifted to him by his girlfriend that’s kept at her family’s dock.

Sanji like Zoro is from out of town but moved in with his adoptive father and local restauranteur years ago. Shady past and rumors about why the adoption was so fast and how his father met him.

Luffy is a drop out who bounces around friends’ places. Has an older brother who left town in a car and is now super into this weird non profit. Has another brother (guy Ace brought home one day) who left to join the peace corps supposedly with Luffy’s father. His brother has an outstanding arson charge and arrest warrant fhat the non profit shields him from

Shanks used to smoke pot with Luffy when he was in high school but is now really into NFTs and crypto. He has a former roommate who manages Spencer’s Gifts at the mall.

[menphinaswhitemage]

Arc 4: Budding Conjurers/Lambs of Slaughter - Log Excerpts

Evenings in the Shroud have become a lot quieter as of late thanks to the abrupt and violent end of the majority of the Lambs of Dalamud. Walking through the woods alone was perhaps not the smartest choice on account of recent events, but it was the choice Audrey found herself taking after work this evening. Still downtrodden from being stripped of her soulstone she meandered down the path. The way I am now…if the others were to suddenly need me I would only hold them back. My spells are weaker, I just feel…handicapped. Even if it were to be enough it feels to foreign to cast without it. The Hyur shakes her head to try and rid herself of these thoughts. No! I am of use. I can try and find a new soulstone, or adapt with what I am. All of the other healers I know aren’t white mages and they protect everyone just as well as I. I’m more than that…I am.

Just as Audrey starts to hold her head higher does a voice startle her from her thoughts, “And here I thought I would find it impossible to have a private conversation with you.”

Audrey gasps, stopping dead in her tracks as she turns to look behind her, “Who-” 

“Who else?” Lucien interrupts, striding towards her, “After our meeting- reunion?- Whatever you want to call it, I was curious. Those friends of yours hardly allowed us to have a proper conversation without interruption.” As he approaches Audrey moves a hand to grab her staff. Her movements halt as they lock eyes, he’s made no move himself to cast a spell. Still he holds a neutral, almost friendly gaze as he approaches. “You know how powerful the memories in this stone are. Yet you hold yourself back from its full potential..why?” He shakes his head as he is barely a yalm away, “You know a fight against me would not end anyway other than how I wish it to be. Let us be civil.”

He’s right, Audrey thinks. I have no choice but to listen and hope he means no harm…for now.

“What is it you want, Lucien? I thought you wanted me dead- that I had betrayed the laws of our home too severely.” Her mind is racing as she fights the urge to look away.

“Why do you think,” he hums, “that we can both attune to the same soulstone? Is it perhaps that our wills, our desires, are that similar? Would you not want justice dealt to those that commit crimes in the city you love? Have I not only done what the city's own justice system would do when they eventually- if ever- managed to jail these criminals?”

It was a thought Audrey had been trying to suppress all this time. Were they? It’s true that to manage to wield any soulstone that you have to have similar beliefs of the past wielder. She saw him use her stone with ease. “I would want justice. But I don’t believe the rules we had to uphold when I was a young girl are the same rules the Elementals want us to follow.”

Lucien stares at Audrey as if to look for something intangible to the naked eye. “...As much as these words pierce my very soul to consider…perhaps you are right. I had heard the reports, Roswen told me as much herself of your commune with the Elementals at the turn of this New Year. Until Amdapor I figured it was nonsense, but I had to see for myself. Those others cut short my inspection which is why I present myself here tonight. I can sense it lingering between your own aether…an Elemental.”

“It’s true,” Audrey starts, “I had come across an Elemental threatening to be consumed by corruption and let it take shelter in my own body. Does that not mean anything to you? Would they not have killed me upon entering if I had betrayed their beliefs?”

“Perhaps. And yet hearing the actions of those you allow to walk under these branches confuses me greatly. Letting a voidsent live, letting someone who ran around using magic as they please- is that not exactly the sort of danger forbidden from the Shroud? I’ve gotten reports on the people you let sit into your “classes.” All of them hold barely an onze of respect for our laws. Scoff at them as if they would not look at us with scorn if we went into their house and did as we please.``

“You’ve seen their aether on me, yet you still doubt my worth?”

“It’s conflicting to be certain. Which is why I propose one final meeting. If your actions are truly blessed by the Elementals I will give you a chance to prove it. Find me in Amdapor. Bring your outsiders if you must, I will use the might of our ancestral city to judge you. If you should win, surely that is the wood’s will.” With his proposal he straightens his posture, hearing movement from the path. “It seems your friends have worried themselves with your tardiness.”

[afraidofchange]

Before I go, however, I'm going to throw some headcanons about my V so far. (I am working towards finishing the story so no spoilers, pls!)

Valerie "V" Vasquez, originally born Oct. 12, 2053 to a single mother in Charter Hill, Westbrook, she grew up always wanting to make it 'big' for her mom, who was a live-in maid for a rich family. V grew up seeing what she could have in life if she worked for it, and so she set her sights high on achieving her goals as a teen and into adulthood, opting for the corporate path to success with Arasaka.

V knew she was into other girls from a young age; she was always more masculine in her mannerisms, and often played sports on competitive teams as a kid. She had lots of crushes and in high school was known to be a bit of a player. She identifies as butch, and often prefers women who lean more feminine or neutral in their gender presentation.

Being in the corpo life brought undue stress to V, forcing her to glam up a little bit to fit in with her colleagues. She often put part of her paycheck to helping pay her mom pay her own bills, even though she very much had a roof over her head until the day she passed unexpectedly, when V was just barely 20 years old.

She hated the work, but loved the money; often, she'd go to Japantown on weekends and have many an alcoholic and drug-ridden bender with her friends, fighting to go back to work come Monday. She never really had a steady girlfriend in that time either - too focused on work to care about a potential long-term partner.

After the Frankfurt leak that left her account empty, and starting life over, V struggled with depression and anxiety, but was still far less stressed than when she worked for the corporation. Her friendship with Jackie also helped big time.

After her first death, she opted to really start over. Losing Jackie was like losing the brother she never had, and she's become very close with Mama Welles, often reminded of her own mother. She shaved her head, and started over. Again.

She speaks fluent English, Spanish, and conversational Japanese.

She has many tattoos and plans to get more - including a memorial piece to Jackie.

Nibbles is her pride and joy.

She hooked up with Meredith Stout, and learned that yes, it was possible for her to be that submissive for that kind of woman.

She had the unfortunate crush on Panam that once she was turned down, it went away. She likes Judy a lot, too. Though, she really enjoys Claire's company more and more.

She prefers using Jackie's pistol, fixed with a silencer. She specializes in critical headshots. Stealthy, clean, effective. Her cybermods are mostly strength/ability based more than hacking.

[prismatoxic]

this is going to be a very long and very personal post, but i've been thinking about it for a while. it's about my old FP i mention sometimes.

it's almost 4k words long, so. be prepared for that.

i got this question on retrospring a few days after paris blew up on me.

it is a very innocuous message. probably from a friend, maybe from a stranger; i won't know unless they tell me. it's the last question i ever answered on retrospring, though i have gotten harassment since that i did not answer, forcing me to shut off anonymous messages.

the exact timestamp is Sunday, May 29th. the last time paris messaged me was Tuesday, May 24th. i had to go into our old server to find that date. i don't have a good memory, but i also hate to look at anything from their old account. so, the message on retrospring: a seemingly insignificant event, but dated so close to the breakdown that is serves as a much more accessible reminder of how long it's been.

"about 1 year ago" is the immediately visible timestamp on the message.

2 years ago, paris was my best friend.

though, thinking about it, maybe that isn't true. it isn't what i called them. mikee is my best friend. i have never wanted to dethrone them from that spot. that term is special to me. (see, now, why my earlier post mocked myself wanting to be everyone's best friend? i won't even use the title for more than 2 people.)

no, i called paris my "queerplatonic partner" or my "platonic soulmate". qpp, usually. in hindsight it is so blatantly clear that i was obsessed, that i was attached in such an unhealthy way; i did not recognize myself as having BPD at the time. so, in the end, paris was not my qpp, nor any manner of soulmate. they were my "FP", or Favorite Person: a BPD term i would say is akin to "hyperfixation", but on someone you personally know.

i don't want to openly pass judgement on paris here, because that's not why i'm writing this. they're long gone and goading people to be as upset as i am serves no purpose. however, i will say this: they encouraged my behavior. my obsession. i believed, in a sense, that the pedestal i had put them on was in some way parallel to the one they had me on.

there was no pedestal under me, though.

paris and i met sometime in September of 2020. potentially on the 15th, as that is when i created our roleplay server. it was in a proship fandom server for a website i used to moderate. (i don't know if that site is ever going to manage to get finished, now, but i still have hope.) having just gotten very into souyo, i was hunting for roleplay partners, and said as much in some channel or another. paris, at the time, was playing P4G for the very first time. we got to talking. i made our roleplay server, and for two years, we would only ever talk therein.

today, there are 77 threads in that server for different roleplay plots. some are very long; others, very short. i was (and am) unable to focus on any one thing for any real length of time, but paris was accommodating. they were happy to do new plots as i came up with them, and they pitched their own from time to time. most of them are souyo; a handful are for our bancho triplet au; there are some akeshus, and one or two banpegos. we came up with a lot of ideas. a lot of aus. sometimes we'd redo an idea; sometimes we'd branch off from something we'd done before.

we roleplayed every day. i knew their schedule and they knew mine. our responses were quick and snappy, and if we couldn't keep up, we'd talk about it. we talked A LOT. very rarely on the phone or VC, usually in text. they do not live in the US, but we exchanged numbers anyway. we talked so much and so often that it drowned a lot of my other relationships out; i can be very single-minded in my obsessions. i almost lost several people.

i almost lost the love of my life.

in the summer of 2021, paris was taking a trip to the united states to get vaccinated for Covid, and they made plans to stop and see multiple people. in between other plans, they made just enough time to see me for 3 days. they were seeing their older friends for much longer, but i didn't question it, i didn't worry. i was so sure that i was so special to paris. i trusted them so much that the fact that they refused to allow me to interact with their core friend group just bounced right off of me.

in retrospect? ouch.

the visit was fine. paris finally convinced me that i was allowed to be disabled, that i was allowed to rely on support like the electric carts at stores and stuff. they had clashed with devot in the past, but the two of them got along fine for the visit. i was so thrilled; my two most important people, getting along? what could be better? the three of us had lunch and went to ikea. then i hung out at paris's hotel the other two days.

even when they were visiting their other friends, we were talking near-constantly. at some point, my obsession reached a very unfortunate peak, and i decided that if i was that obsessed, clearly i was in love with them. they were (and are, presumably) polyamorous, and i thought maybe i was too.

this isn't a part i want to talk about very much, because it's humiliating and painful. i tried to negotiate an open relationship with devot, and as a result, i almost lost him entirely. it was a very hard time for us, and it made me realize that i loved him way more than i could ever love someone else, even paris. if pursuing paris meant i would lose devot, then i simply wouldn't pursue paris. it wasn't until later that i would truly recognize that it was never romantic love; it was obsession, a need to be a bigger aspect of their life than i was.

paris knew my intentions and knew my ultimate decision. however that made them feel, i can't say. i don't know.

you see, towards the tail end of their trip, they suffered a familial tragedy and their return home was delayed. (or maybe they did make it home, but not for very long? my memory is fuzzy and i absolutely do not want to comb through our server to find it.) their family was in the US and that's where they needed to be for a while. i don't want to go into more detail than that; it was a very personal time for them. we did not talk a lot during it. they said, "i can't carry you right now".

maybe that was a clue as to how they viewed our relationship. i don't know. i assured them i wasn't asking for that, that i could carry them, but all the same they needed their space and i gave it to them. i had permission to send messages with the understanding that there would be no response, so i did.

in lamenting my mental state during all this, jesse (you may recall him being a best friend) suggested to me that maybe i possibly, perhaps, had BPD. he explained it to me and may have also directed me to some sources. it was eye-opening. it forced me to confront my actions and alter my behavior in ways i never realized i needed to do. in terms of paris, however, it came too little, too late.

this part of the story i have told before; i mean, i've told it all before, but i think i was more descriptive at this point. as paris recovered from the tragedy and began returning to normal life, they did so increasingly without me.

conversations in our server were short and uneventful. they were not up to roleplay, which i understood; i searched for other ways for us to connect.

they abandoned their persona 4 twitter and made a new one. they claimed persona 4 had become a trigger. i don't know why, and they never explained. it seemed that the biggest connection we had was now in the past, but i was so deeply, wholeheartedly invested in our relationship that i didn't let it get me down... too much.

the thing about the decline of our relationship is that it was not all at once. it was an accumulation of things, increasingly large signs that they were done with me. the persona 4 abandonment was one of those signs. another, how they were publicly interacting with their older friends, but no longer with me. yet another; they got into no man's sky, but when i finally got my hands on a copy to play with them, they stopped playing. or maybe they just stopped posting about it.

they did not post in our server unless i prompted them first. they did speak in our server with our mutual friend priam, but... just to talk to priam. ask them for advice on the french language, mostly, for a novel they had started to write. anything i said was quickly glossed over (not by priam, though; priam and i are still friends and i love him dearly).

this went on for 7 months.

i know that figure because just before i purged my vent twitter, i went back to the very first post i'd made about the situation. i posted a lot about it... almost every day. i also cried almost every day. i was trying to take it in stride, at least publicly, but in private i was falling apart. paris, who used to like every post on my vent twitter to let me know they were reading them, had stopped doing so. they also never asked me about any of the posts, which they used to do. at some point i figured they had most likely muted my account.

it doesn't feel like it was 7 months. it feels like it was much shorter. how could i have been in so much emotional pain for 7 whole months? i know i was hiding it from everyone as best i could, i didn't even tell my therapist; how could i have done so for so long? but my vent twitter proved the timeline. 7 months.

devot's not blind, of course. he knew something was up. i very rarely told him anything about paris, a point of contention between us. i knew he didn't like them. i didn't want to make it worse. however, i am nothing if not a paper-thin pane of glass when it comes to the phrase, "are you okay?", and eventually i had to tell him why i was so depressed.

he didn't know how to help. the only thing he could do was provide me with the matches; i had to burn the bridge myself.

he told me, early on in my relationship with paris, that they had told him something. (i didn't know they'd spoken outside of my personal server at all.) they told him that my obsession with them wouldn't last, that eventually i would find another interest and move on.

it was a gut-punch. our relationship meant everything to me, but they only saw me as an obsessed little fanboy, at least at the time. and it felt ironic, because they had moved on from me, not the other way around.

paris was (and presumably is) very serious about the privacy of 1 on 1 conversations. they never ever divulged things that happened between them and someone else that seemed in any way "personal." they expected this of others, as well; they told devot what they said in confidence. of course, his loyalties lie with me and absolutely not with them, so he told me anyway.

now, let's step back, for a moment. i want to try and paint a picture of what it was like being in my shoes.

i trusted paris. everything they had ever said to me was taken at face-value and believed. they had proven to me (or so i thought) that they always spoke their mind, were honest, and cared about me very deeply. i trusted them to tell me if something was wrong. in those 7 months, i asked them directly if anything was bad between us. they assured me we were fine. all the while, i knew they were hanging out with their older (real?) friends and generally ignoring me. i knew they had come to loathe the media that brought us together. i knew that they didn't want to play games with me, even their supposed favorite game.

i knew that they were shutting me out.

but paris never communicated this. they were visibly moving on without me, but i trusted them so much that i willfully turned a blind eye to it, waiting for the day they'd be "ready" to talk to me again. then devot told me about what they'd said, and finally, i started to split.

splitting is another BPD term, though it has its uses in general psychology as well. it is primarily a defense mechanism, mostly against The Big BPD Fear, abandonment. splitting is to see a situation and black and white and take a side. there was no longer nuance to the situation; there was paris is my friend, or paris is my enemy.

i was reluctant to let it happen. i resisted it. splitting and my natural empathy are extremely at odds with one another; i tried to convince my brain that paris was still my friend, that there were reasons for all of this. these were conscious thoughts, but the split was not a conscious choice.

i resented paris. either they apologized to me, and fixed things, or they didn't and that was that, it was over. very new to the concept that these were unproductive thoughts, i didn't know how to combat them.

i made a tweet on my vent twitter.

as i said earlier, i had come to assume that paris had simply muted my vent twitter; they had gone through so much, clearly they couldn't carry me, as they said... so i made a vague tweet that wasn't really vague, assuming they probably wouldn't see it anyway.

to paraphrase, as the tweet no longer exists: "you said once that i would get bored of you and move on, but you're the one who moved on from me"

they had not muted my twitter, they were just ignoring it. i know this because they finally messaged me first, and it was about that tweet.

the first volley of messages, sent in our roleplay server, was very clipped but mostly civil. they were disappointed in me for resorting to such a low tactic as to post a passive aggressive tweet instead of coming to them about my concerns.

(i had been having no luck getting them to talk to me; our last exchange in that server was nearly a month prior and lasted about 6 messages. perhaps you can imagine why i didn't think taking my concerns to them would work.)

i was not present when they sent these messages, and didn't get to say anything before they left the server. i did return to my computer not long after, however, and realized, with equal parts regret and relief, that it was over.

then they dm'd me, something they had not done since we very first started talking.

the dms were vicious. they had only gotten angrier after sending the first wave of messages and wanted me to know. devot had betrayed them by telling me what they said, and i betrayed them by repeating it on my vent.

i watched each message roll in, one after the other, numb. i considered replying. i never did.

they called me selfish. hungry for attention. everything was always about me. they said all that happened was they stopped initiating contact, and i had the nerve to claim it was abandonment? in the server, they said they expected me to tell them if i had an issue with them. in the dms, they professed to feelings they had never told me they had towards me.

they said they didn't know what they were even trying to accomplish, that i wouldn't even care. the messages stopped.

their twitter was abandoned; in time, their discord was as well. they never blocked me, simply... vanished. their friend list was wiped clean, their icon blacked out. i think it only didn't happen immediately because they needed to retract their presence from everything they modded and collaborated on. why not delete the discord? i don't know. i'll never know.

it's still there, black icon, no friends, no profile. our exchanges are intact. every other account i ever knew them to have is abandoned as well. if i had to guess, they don't go by "paris" anymore. they told me they had changed before, that "paris" was the longest-running identity they had. they loved being "paris". i'm sorry i ruined it, genuinely.

so, May 24th, 2022. a Tuesday; devot would have been off work. i don't remember if i cried. i think i was just sort of bitterly relieved. i think i said "good riddance" on my vent, after blocking their accounts.

that's the thing about defense mechanisms, i guess. they can work. yet, as time passed, the full weight of it all came bearing down on me. not just the end, but every part before it: the grief of it all, of losing paris, piece by piece until there was nothing left. them claiming that the "only thing" they had done was stop engaging with me first was laughable, but maybe to them, that really was the truth. i said it before: it was an accumulation of things. straws on the camel's back, you know how it goes.

it was never just about the roleplaying, or even the conversations. i tried so hard, for so long, to find something else we could do. i trusted them when they said we were fine. i trusted them when they told me they loved me. i trusted them in every way i could trust a person.

paris said once that they didn't believe in empathy. they said it was essentially "mind reading", that there was no way to know how another person was feeling, so how could you know you felt the same? hyper-empathetic, i stayed quiet. they were smarter than me, and more worldly than me; they probably knew better.

"about 1 year ago," says retrospring. i remember when it said only days. when it said a month. when it said 7 months. (that might be when i made my last post on the subject.)

shortly before that day, i finally told my therapist what was happening. it was my very last appointment with him; i'd been seeing him for 4 years. he was moving onto a private practice and could no longer take my insurance.

i said it had all began about a year after paris and i met, and he posited a theory: perhaps it was the honeymoon phase. those tend to last about a year, he said. maybe they had simply gotten bored. he did not say it unkindly (he was very good at his job, and i trusted him very much), but it did strike a chord in me. i thought maybe it was too simple an explanation, though, and after all, we were qpps. how could they just get bored?

i don't think we were qpps at that point. (arguably, we never were, but as a label we shared, i think they had agreed on it at least for a while.)

the explosion a scant few days later did not feel like boredom, it felt like vitriol. like resentment. it felt like they had wanted to say those things for a long time. but it had been 7 months since the possible end of this "honeymoon phase," so maybe. i guess i'll never know.

i have become very bad at keeping up with roleplay. even if it's the same short style, or even if they let me switch between ideas constantly. even if it's souyo. even if they're my friend. even if i'm having a great time. at some point, the mental block rises up, and even though i'm not thinking about paris, i know that's where it came from. devot is the only one largely immune to this effect; we still roleplay constantly, though i do at times fall into slumps even so.

i keep trying; i love to roleplay. it's my favorite hobby. but every time i try, it stops dead by my own hand. even if i'm actively trying to prevent it.

...but otherwise, i think i'm doing better.

my approach to relationships is different. i know what i'm capable of, if i get carried away. i'm careful, and i try to keep track of my emotions about a person. i also trust people a lot less, and fear abandonment a lot more, but i'm aware of it and trying to do something about it.

devot and i are doing much better; he doesn't have to compete with anyone anymore. i have a lot more time and emotional energy for him. i love him very much, and i'm so grateful he stuck with me. i'd be nowhere without him.

the roleplay server i made for myself and paris sits at the very bottom of my server list, tucked into a folder with the server we shared with priam. i don't want to lose the memories, but i never even look at them, so it probably doesn't matter either way. maybe someday i'll use some of those old ideas. i already did, with one; one of our roleplays was the basis for my oc nate, who i made well after paris was gone.

i do not ever want to see or speak to paris again. luckily, the feeling is most certainly mutual.

tomorrow, in about 12 hours, i will be speaking to my new therapist. he is the second i have had since the one i had for 4 years, and the first since then that i actually think i mesh well with. i think i'll tell him all of this. hell, i might even read the post to him. we'll see.

is there a point to all of this? kind of. mostly it's for me, a retrospective of what happened. it's also just informative for the people closest to me who i have likely not told everything in this much detail. if you read it and get something out of it, that's great.

it's been "about 1 year," according to retrospring. i think i like that metric better than the exact timestamps of paris's final messages to me that discord gives. the era of "tox and paris" burned bright and burned hard, and died out very quickly. it's probably for the best. i am healing, and i don't know if i'd have ever gotten better if they kept me around. there is a long way to go, but... i have hope, honestly. i think i'll be okay.